“How did you all end up here?” Charlie asked. “And what happened to your leg, Lamar?”
“I very unwisely decided to be the last person off the island.” He laughed when Charlie and Moose gawked at him. “Maybe that wasn’t my intent, but I realized too late that might happen. Made the mistake of thinking I had a little extra time.”
Lamar was a large man—easily over six feet.
“I have a little fishing enterprise over on the docks, and no—I do not have FEMA insurance. Most small businessmen can’t afford it. My idea was to move as much material as possible into town and stash it in one of the motel parking lots. I even rented a room and filled it with equipment.” Lamar laughed at his own folly. “What I didn’t plan on was Orion speeding up. Hit land a full two hours earlier than expected.”
So that was what had happened. Charlie felt as though he hadn’t heard any real news in days.
“I sure hope Paula is okay.” Moose jumped up and began to pace. “I hope she didn’t try to drive back on to the island.”
“She’s fine, Moose.” Charlie saw that Kurt was about to ask a question. He shook his head once, quickly. Kurt had also worked on Moose’s car and, more importantly, on Paula’s. He’d even attended her funeral. “Authorities wouldn’t have let anyone back on the island.”
Moose considered that for a moment, and then he sat back down, leaning forward—his elbows on his knees, his head buried in his hands.
“Your shoulder seems to be dislocated, Charlie.” Dale helped Charlie into a dry T-shirt and camouflage jacket that he’d pulled from another supply box. Then he grabbed a pillow from one of the chairs and placed it between Charlie’s arm and his chest. Finally he took strips of a sheet, also from the box, and wrapped them around Charlie, binding his left arm to his upper body.
“You can’t pull it back into place?”
Dale grinned but shook his head. “I’ve seen that in the movies too, but I don’t know how to do it. This will keep you from making the injury any worse, and immobilizing it should help with the pain. I’m afraid all we have in the way of medication is a tube of antibiotic ointment and some aspirin.”
“I’ll take the aspirin then, but could you put some of that ointment on my dog’s foot?”
“Sure, and I’ll check to be sure there’s nothing in the wound.”
Kurt had pulled sweat pants from a box of clothing. He handed one pair to Charlie and another to Moose. He also found Moose a sweatshirt with a Corpus Christi slogan across the front. He pointed in the directions of the bathrooms. “Best change before you catch pneumonia.”
By the time they returned, Dale was nearly finished working on Quitz. She lay patiently as he wrapped a bandage around her paw. Lamar picked up his story where he’d stopped.
“When I was driving back with my second load, I realized the storm was coming in quicker than expected. So I skipped the hotel, and cut across town through my neighborhood—nothing much left there. I headed straight for the ferry, but even as I drove in that direction I knew I was too late.”
“Good thing you were,” Dale said. “Otherwise Angela, Sophia, and I would still be out there.”
“Our car broke down,” Angela explained. “Lamar was headed back toward the south—”
“Hoped to make the bridge,” Lamar said.
“But instead he stopped and picked us up.” Angela pushed her hair out of her face. Her dark eyes took in each of them, but settled on Lamar. “You saved our lives. There’s no doubt about that, and you risked your own doing it.”
“I never would have made it onto, let alone across, the bridge. By then, I could barely keep my truck on the road. If my making the biggest mistake of my life saved you folks, I suppose God used my stupidity for some good.”
“Are you sure your neighborhood is gone?” Charlie asked. “You live over by Alice, don’t you?”
“Alice Givens? She’s a couple blocks over from me, but yeah the same area. And yes, I’m sure it’s gone. If houses out here are being swept away, I can’t imagine anything surviving where I live… where I lived.”
“I cleaned the wound and applied ointment to her paw,” Dale said.
They all glanced down at the dog. She had a shiny black coat, a bandage halfway up one leg, and trusting eyes.
Dale stood, his hands on his hips, and looked around. “We got here and found Kurt moving supplies to the top floor.”
Kurt finally sat, and the chair groaned beneath his weight. Charlie hoped he didn’t have a heart attack while they were waiting out Orion. The big guy looked pale, and there was sweat beading on his forehead.
“My story’s short,” Kurt said. “Stupid. Just plain stupid. I thought I couldn’t leave my stuff. And you know where it is? In the bay. Everything I own is in the bay.”
“Sorry to hear that, Kurt.” Charlie glanced from face to face. They were a pitiful lot, the seven of them, but he was glad to have found other survivors. He was grateful to God Almighty that he wasn’t still floating in the water holding on to a boogie board.
He tried to think of what else to say, but his mind was blank, overwhelmed by all that had happened and what lay ahead. Suddenly rain began to crash into the building and the wind moaned as if it wanted to break free. The back side of Orion had arrived in a state of fury. There was nothing left to do but stay together and pray that they survived the night.
CHAPTER 16
Charlie stood at the window, watching the sun turn the sky first violet, then lavender, and finally a rosy pink. Sunlight bounced off the water, off the sea of debris, and off the destruction that had once been Port Aransas. It was a surreal beauty, and Charlie wasn’t immune to it. He once again thought of Madelyn reminding him that the world had moved on, which was easy enough to believe looking out of that third-floor window of the community center.
In the distance he saw smoke from several different fires. Images from his past, from Celia, collided with what he was seeing now. It had surprised him then that fire could exist in the midst of a flood, but now he knew it could and did. Some of the smoke he saw rising was across the bay in the direction of Corpus Christi. As he walked from the west side of the room to the north, he also saw evidence of fires on the Port Aransas side of the island.
He suspected emergency crews couldn’t get through the flooded streets, though they had no doubt begun crossing the bay at first light. What he was seeing had probably been burning for many hours. He’d read, after Celia, that the winds from hurricanes increased the fire danger. Once emergency personnel were able to make it to the site of a blaze, they still couldn’t access fire hydrants that were under water or buried in debris.
No, the fires didn’t surprise him, and they were only the first of the problems he saw. The water level had dropped but left in its wake pockets of water where there shouldn’t be and mountains of debris—everything from telephone poles to pieces of houses to parts of boats and docks. Roads were completely obstructed in every direction.
What Charlie was looking at was enough to make a grown man cry, but he felt oddly serene. They had survived. The devastation was widespread, but he realized in that moment that most things could be set right with enough time and money.
Structures could be rebuilt. Boats could be repurchased. Infrastructure could be restored.
It was what he couldn’t see that tore at Charlie’s heart—the lives lost, the memories carried away in the ocean’s tide, and folks injured who were waiting to be rescued.
Their small group had spent most of the night on the floor, sitting under the Ping-Pong table, with the chairs tilted to provide protection from debris. The water had not reached the third level where they sheltered, and the building had held. The first floor was certainly still under water, and the second floor had been severely damaged, if what Charlie had seen last night was any indication. On their level, several of the windows had blown out, and much of the floor was a wet mess of glass, water, and even pieces of rubble. He didn’t know if Orion had topped out as
a Category 5. Regardless, the architect of the community center deserved an award. And there were seven people and one dog who would gladly hand it to him or her.
“Rough night,” Moose said. His mental state seemed better in the morning light, and he hadn’t asked about Paula since waking. Perhaps his dementia was worse in the evenings. However, physically he sounded terrible. Sometime during the night he had developed a cough which had grown worse, and even in the warmth of the morning sun he shivered. “How’s the arm?”
Charlie tried to shrug and then winced. “I’ll survive.”
In truth, he suspected the injury was worse than a dislocation. He now had trouble using his hand, and when he’d attempted to look at his shoulder in the bathroom mirror he’d seen that it had turned a dark purple and was terribly swollen and felt hot to the touch.
“And Quitz’s paw?”
“Seems better. She’s hardly limping this morning.” Quitz sat beside Charlie, looking out the window. “I need to find her a place to relieve herself.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Moose assured him, before turning his head and coughing into his fist.
They stood there for several moments, watching the sun rise over their town.
“I always thought the rainbow was God’s promise of mercy to us, but perhaps it’s the sunrise.”
“His mercies are new every morning.” Moose scratched at the stubble on his cheek. “It seems strange to see sunshine and blue sky.”
Charlie sipped from the bottle of water he’d been nursing the last few hours. Their supplies were limited and might have to last them for some time to come. Based on what he was seeing out the window, it might take hours or even days before they were rescued.
“There are still quite a few of those strips of sheet in the supply box Kurt had put together. I suggest we go up on the roof to see if we can erect a flag of sorts.”
Charlie had been thinking the same thing. “Better leave at least half of them in case we come across anyone else who is hurt.”
When first looking out the window before the sky had significantly lightened, Charlie had thought maybe he’d seen people floating to the west of the building. Just as he was about to call out to Moose and Kurt and Dale, the light had shifted and doubt had crept in. Perhaps it had only been debris. He couldn’t tell.
However the moment had served to remind him of the possibility of other survivors. If there was any way they could reach them, the bedding might be needed for bandages. But Moose was correct. The first thing they needed to do was call for help, and the way to do that was from the roof.
“I snooped around in the art supply closet and found some cans of paint.” Charlie looked down at the box of supplies at his feet.
“Any brushes?”
“A couple. We don’t have enough of the red, but if we use everything here we may be able to make something big enough to be seen by air.”
“Good idea. Let’s see what we can do.”
Charlie picked up the container at his feet with his good arm, and Moose returned to the table to fetch the strips of sheets.
Angela was beginning to stir, but Sophia was still sound asleep in her mother’s lap. Dale was out—he’d had the last shift, watching in the darkness in case they needed to leave the building. He’d passed out as soon as Charlie had taken over his watch. Lamar was awake, and attempting to hobble around with his hurt leg still splinted. It was obvious, by the grimace on his face, that the pain was worse than it had been the night before.
“That leg probably started swelling,” Charlie said. “You need to try to keep it elevated.”
“I need to help us get out of here.”
“Nowhere to go, my friend. Not right now, unless you have a boat in your back pocket.” Charlie explained what he and Moose were going to do, and Lamar stood there, holding onto the back of the nearest chair and nodding his approval.
Then Charlie remembered what he might have seen earlier. “I have an idea of something you can do.”
Charlie set down the box of art supplies, grabbed one of the chairs, and carried it over to the westward facing window.
“I thought I saw someone out there this morning, but then I wasn’t so sure. Keep an eye out. If you see anyone, holler for Kurt or Dale.” As an afterthought he added, “We shouldn’t be gone long.”
Kurt was beginning to wake. The big guy looked marginally better than he had the night before, but Charlie didn’t want him exerting himself and going up onto the roof. If Kurt broke a leg or stressed his heart, they would be in much worse shape than they were. Charlie was beginning to think the man needed a good week in the hospital to set things right.
“See if you can find any more rags or anything we can use as flags and hang out the windows.”
“I could go downstairs—”
“I’d rather you wait until we get back. Many injuries happen after a hurricane because of all the debris. We need to operate off a buddy system. No one goes anywhere alone.”
“How about the bathroom?” Kurt asked sarcastically, though there was no bitterness behind the question. The situation they found themselves in—well, it was something that none of them could have imagined.
“Feel free to take care of that by yourself,” Moose said.
The night before they had found trash sacks and lined the toilets with them. The plumbing might not start working for weeks. This way, they could pull out the bag every few hours, tie it off, double bag the waste and set it in one of the large pails used for mopping. It should work for a few days and would keep the toilets from overflowing.
Moose and Charlie took the stairway to the roof, Quitz at their heels. They pushed through the door, careful to prop a trashcan in the opening to keep the door from closing. The last thing they needed was to get trapped on the roof. While Quitz trotted off to a corner and took care of her business, Charlie and Moose stepped out into bright sunshine and a cool October morning. Both men stood completely still, trying to comprehend what they were seeing.
“I knew it was bad… ”
“But not this bad.” Charlie walked toward the south side of the building, the side he hadn’t been able to see from their room. The south side of the island was less populated than other areas, but this…
“It’s all gone,” Charlie said.
“Washed clean, so to speak.”
“This must be ground zero where Orion came ashore.”
“We’re fortunate that we made it to this building, Charlie.” A coughing spell hit him, lasting more than a few moments. When Moose was done and trying to pull in a good breath he added, “Anywhere else, and I don’t think we’d be standing here today.”
Charlie nodded, but he didn’t speak. Suddenly his throat felt closed up, and his eyes had begun to sting. After Madelyn died, there had been days that he’d prayed for God to take him home. He couldn’t envision living without her. He didn’t want to imagine such a life. He convinced himself that he wouldn’t much mind leaving this old world behind. Looking out over what was left of Mustang Island, he realized he wasn’t ready to go yet. He was grateful for another day, thankful that he’d sheltered with these people, and looked forward to being united with others like Alice and the kids.
Charlie Everman understood, in the very depth of his soul, that God’s mercies were new each morning, and he was grateful.
CHAPTER 17
Becca was driving the tractor to town when she passed Joshua walking down the road.
She pulled to the side and waited for him to catch up with her.
“Want a ride?”
He took off his hat, patted down his hair, and then replaced the hat. “Ya. I suppose I do.”
Becca’s dad had left the pickup bed attached to the back of the tractor, which was pretty standard in their community. The truck beds provided a good place to put sacks of groceries or extra passengers. Joshua climbed into the back and sat down. It wasn’t very conducive to talking. Becca focused on driving instead. The last thing she needed to do
was stall the tractor in front of Joshua Kline. He would think she was nervous because he was riding back there, which she was, but she didn’t want him to know that.
When they stopped at the first light in town, she turned around in the seat to holler, “Somewhere you want me to take you?”
“Where are you going?”
“Dry goods store.”
“Good enough.”
She shrugged, turned back toward the front, and promptly popped the clutch as she attempted to move forward. The tractor lurched, coughed, and finally smoothed out. Her face flamed red. She was twenty years old, and still she had trouble with the old tractor. She’d been driving it since she was twelve, though never often and never far. Perhaps she needed someone to give her lessons.
She pulled into the parking area beside the dry goods store, set the brake, and forgot to let out the clutch. The tractor jerked forward before it died. Becca closed her eyes for a second, prayed that she would not see Joshua laughing at her, and then she gathered up her purse.
When she turned to climb down, Joshua was there, waiting to help her.
“Tractors can be more stubborn than horses,” he said.
“And harder to drive.”
“My dat would agree with you. He prefers a Percheron to a Ford or a John Deere.” He glanced at the front of the Bylers’ store, which still sported a “CLOSED” sign, and then looked back at Becca. “It’s a little early for shopping.”
“Oh, no. I’m not here to purchase anything. I agreed to help Rebecca with inventory. That’s why I came so early. I’ve been helping Mamm with canning, but she had nothing to do today, and Rebecca needs to order more stock for the holidays, so I said… ”
She stumbled to a stop and stared right and left and finally at a spot over Joshua’s shoulder. Why was she rambling so? And what was she supposed to do with her hands? They felt awkward hanging at her side, but when she crossed them over her front, she felt like a moody schoolgirl. Finally, she settled for clutching her purse with her right arm, and resting the left at her side.
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