Rivers

by Michael Farris Smith

  In a couple of hours, the black world weakened. Cohen got off her, got to his knees, and helped her do the same. They climbed to their feet holding on to one another.

  In the morning gray, they headed back toward the collapsed bridge. The flooded creek raged on and the truck cab had become dislodged from the tree sometime during the night. The trees thinned and disappeared and the wind blew at their backs and they walked methodically with hunched, depleted bodies and rain-soaked souls. Sometimes they stopped and knelt and then encouraged one another and then rose and walked again. They had been washed along in the cab much farther than it seemed and once or twice they wondered if they were going the right way. They had been flipped and tossed and turned and spun and it would have been easy to lose sense of direction. Cohen said, “Let’s give it another minute or two and if we don’t see the road and the other truck, we’ll turn around.”

  The storm had not passed on but had relented some. The rain had eased with the dawn and the winds had also given way and no longer threatened to push them to the ground. They helped one another along another quarter mile and then Cohen said, “There it is.” At first sight, Mariposa buckled and dropped to her knees. Cohen went down with her, telling her, “It’s right there. It’s right there.” She nodded and knew it was right there but it seemed to her that the sight of the truck was simply a prolonging of the end of things.

  “I can’t,” she said.

  He understood but it didn’t slow him. He stood and moved behind her and lifted her underneath her arms. Her rag-doll legs wouldn’t take her weight and Cohen yelled, “Come on, goddammit. We ain’t doing this shit right here.”

  He shook her and she planted her feet and twisted from his grasp.

  Cohen pointed and said, “Let’s go. You can cry in the truck.”

  “I ain’t crying in the truck.”

  “You’re not crying here, either.”

  “I know it,” she said and she stood taller and moved again, walking faster. Cohen followed and her energy rose as they splashed across the flooded fields with high knees, fueled by the disgust of having to keep on.

  When they made it to the truck, Cohen helped Mariposa in the passenger side and then he went around and got behind the wheel. They sat and slumped. The adrenaline gone. The hunger and thirst and weariness and disgust still there.

  Cohen looked at his hands. The skin was tender from so much water. Hers were the same. Mariposa stared blankly at the windshield, her arms dropped at her sides. Trails of water from their clothes and bodies ran across the bench seat of the truck, down their legs, and across the floorboard. It was as if they were melting. They sat and the water ran from them and their bodies seemed incapable of movement. Their minds incapable of thinking about anything other than rain and thunder and wind.

  They sat with the earliest, dullest light of day. Cohen moved first. He opened the truck door and stood outside and peeled off his jacket. He tossed it in the back of the truck and got in. Mariposa sat up and leaned forward and he helped her get her coat off and he dropped it on the floorboard. She fell over then and lay across the bench seat with her hands folded in prayer and her head resting on them. Cohen leaned on the door with his head against the window. They were both out within seconds.

  THE STORM HAD RAVAGED WHAT was left of the town. Storefronts were blown out and the awning had been torn from the square buildings and landed in trees and in upstairs windows. Water had stopped draining and was pooling shin-deep across the square and across the sidewalks, and trash and tree limbs and liquor bottles and clothes and dead animals and God knows what floated in the water. The water had crept into the buildings and covered floors and was slowly rising as the rain kept on.

  Evan and Brisco had spent the storm in the storage room of the café, sitting underneath a stainless-steel table with thick legs. Big Jim had sat along the back wall of the café, shotgun pointed where the windows used to be, waiting on them to come as soon as there was the slightest break.

  The slightest break came with daylight. A stiff wind and the heavy rain continued but it wasn’t the part of the storm that scared anyone. Heads began to poke out of windows and out from behind doorways and around the edges of alleys and what they discovered was access. Soon there were packs of them going into buildings and coming out with whatever they could carry. Furniture and picture frames and toilet seats and boxes they hadn’t even opened to see what was inside. The looting came with howls of victory, as if the discoveries were of priceless treasure that could dictate fate and not worthless remnants of a once normal life.

  Some of them carried ax handles or bedposts and those who were armed finished off the shards of windows or busted out the windows that remained. Doors were knocked open and the crowds filed into the buildings and up onto the second and third floors and they threw chairs and tables out of the upper windows and they smashed and they took what they wanted and they fought one another and everyone seemed to have given up except Big Jim, who sat with his shotgun and fired over their heads if they took as much as a step toward the café.

  But then he changed his mind. He called for Evan, and Evan and Brisco came out of the storage room. “Get on over here,” Big Jim said and waved them to stand behind him.

  A man with a bleeding forehead peeked around the café door and Big Jim fired and the man splashed down onto the sidewalk and scurried away.

  “I’m done,” Big Jim said. “They can have it. I got a safe back there in the storage room and I’m going to it then I’m the hell outta here. You two can come along if you ain’t got nothing better.”

  Evan looked out of the windows at the craziness. He looked down at Brisco. “I’m supposed to be waiting on them to get back,” he said.

  “Get back from where?”

  “Down there. They went back down late last night.”

  “Holy shit,” Big Jim said. “If they ain’t floating somewhere they might get back but how long you supposed to wait?”

  “Twenty-four hours.”

  Big Jim huffed. “I ain’t waiting that long. I don’t have enough shells.”

  “I got some upstairs,” Evan said. “Some rifles, too.”

  “I don’t plan on being here at dark. I’ve had it. This place has been waiting to sink into the ground for a while and it just might before night. It’d be God’s own grace if it did.”

  Evan sat in a chair and put his head down. Brisco sat beside him. Evan rubbed at his eyes and tried to believe that Cohen was alive and coming back for them. He lifted his head and said, “Where you going?”

  Big Jim shrugged. “I’ll know when I get there.”

  “What if we leave and they come back looking for me and him?”

  “It won’t take but about a minute to look around and figure you made a run for it.”

  Evan dropped his head again. “Shit,” he said.

  “Shit,” Brisco said.

  “Your call,” said Big Jim and he fired again out the window just for the hell of it. “I’m running upstairs and getting shoes and then I’m in and out of the safe and then I’m gone. You got a minute to think on it.”

  He handed the shotgun to Evan and Evan took it by the barrel and then Big Jim lumbered up the stairs. Brisco reached out for the shotgun but Evan moved it away and said, “I told you not to touch these things.”

  “You’re touching it.”

  “It’s different, Brisco.”

  “It ain’t fair,” Brisco said and he folded his arms.

  Evan leaned back in the chair. Stared at the yellowed ceiling. You’re right, he thought. It ain’t fair.

  He was hungry. He knew that Brisco was hungry. At least there was food in the café and that was the beginning and end of his pros-and-cons list. There was no way to know anything but he had to decide. Out in the middle of the square, out in the rain and the wind, three men chased another man who had a bag of some sort tucked under his arm. They surrounded him and he wouldn’t give it up and then they were on him, splashing and yelling and hittin
g and kicking and the man went down. The bag was jerked away from him but the hitting and kicking didn’t stop until he was motionless in the water. All around the square they swarmed in and out of buildings like starving rodents.

  Evan leaned the shotgun against the wall and then he looked at Brisco, wishing that his little brother could tell him what to do.

  COHEN WOKE FIRST TO A roll of thunder. He wiped his face and looked out at the drowning land. He figured they had been out for an hour, maybe two. But he didn’t know for sure. He touched Mariposa’s shoulder and shook her some. She woke and pushed herself up on the seat. She looked around like she was confused, but then it seemed to come back to her and she rubbed her eyes and moved her hair away from her face.

  “We have to go,” Cohen said.

  He cranked the truck. He carefully backed up and went forward several times to get turned around without moving off the narrow road. As he put the truck in drive and moved along the road, Mariposa said, “What about the money?”

  He tapped the brakes and stopped. “What do you mean?”

  She sniffed. Ran her shirtsleeve across her nose. Without looking at him, she said, “You know what I mean.”

  He put the truck in park and took his foot from the brake. They stared out in front.

  “Is it far?” she asked.

  “I don’t think. But I don’t know how to get to it any other way than what we already did all last night.”

  “You think Evan and Brisco are okay?”

  Cohen shrugged. “Don’t see how they could be.”

  Mariposa shifted in the seat. Pressed her hands on her knees. “Maybe we give it one try and then go,” she said. “The wind and rain let up some.”

  “I don’t know which way to go. I ain’t even sure I know which way to get out of here and back to them.”

  Mariposa looked at him. “I know. I don’t know what I’m talking about but it sounded like there’s a whole lot of it. Is there?”

  Cohen nodded. Smacked his lips. “Yep. A whole lot. It’d go a long way.”

  “So?”

  “So what if we get to looking around down here and something happens? What about the boys?”

  “I know,” she said.

  “It was a bad, bad one. Bad like they warned it was gonna be. Didn’t think it could get worse but it damn sure felt like it and I’d bet them two Charlie put at the door weren’t real good company.”

  “I know.”

  “So we can’t take any more chances. Right?”

  She wiped at her face again and said, “I know. You’re right.”

  They sat for a moment, waited for the other to say something that would kill the thoughts of the money. The thoughts of how far the money could take them. The thoughts of the absence of worry that the money could provide. Mariposa lay her head back on the seat and wanted to say, All I want is an end to this, some kind of promise that we won’t keep spinning around in the storms and the filth and the chaos. She hadn’t thought of money hardly ever in her life but now it seemed to stand in front of her and scream, You need me, drowning out the voices of Evan and Brisco.

  Cohen put the truck in drive and said, “One loop back around. I got one idea and that’s it.”

  “Cohen,” she said.

  “What?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing. Just hurry.”

  He backtracked several miles to a crossroads. Half an oak blocked the road to the east and water blew across the asphalt. He turned left and the road seemed to shrink, the wild growth bunched along the roadside and trees pushed over but not uprooted, and the truck was able to slide underneath them, the branches screeching across the hood and top and doors. He manipulated the clustered road for ten slow miles and then he arrived at the left turn he had been anticipating.

  “I think there’s another bridge down this way. Bigger than that other one.”

  “Where was it last night?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Didn’t he say anything when we were right about here?”

  “He said crazy shit all night. I quit listening.”

  Cohen turned left and the road was lined by pastures. In several low places the water had risen across the road but nothing to keep them from continuing. In a few miles, there was a four-way stop, the signs all twisted and leaning in different directions. Cohen continued straight. They passed through a small community. A gas station and a few hollow houses and a one-room brick building that had VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT stenciled on the side in white paint. Another couple of miles and they came to the bridge that Cohen was looking for.

  The bridge was there. But so was the flood that had washed them away last night. The push of the water had not broken the bridge or its rails but it was at least two feet over the road. Cohen drove the truck right up to the edge of the muddy, rushing water and stopped. On the other side of the bridge was a sign that read 49 JUNCTION AHEAD.

  “That’s it,” Mariposa said.

  “That’s it,” Cohen answered. He killed the ignition. He got out of the truck and took a gas can from the truck bed and emptied it into the truck. Then he walked around to the front and out into the water. Up on the land, the current wasn’t as strong so he tested it, walked closer to the bridge until the water rose knee-deep and pushed him and caused him to stretch out his arms to catch his balance. He was another six or seven steps from the bridge and the water surged confidently. Cohen backed out of the water and stood in the rain at the front of the truck. He stood with his hands on his hips and he looked up and down the small, strong river.

  He turned and walked back to the truck and got in and he found Mariposa bent over and crying. He reached for her but she shoved his hand away and rose and cried out, “Evan. Evan and Brisco. Jesus, Cohen.”

  They had both been wrong but she was right now and he hoped to God it wasn’t too late, that they hadn’t wasted too much time and that the boys weren’t being hurt. He hoped to God that the extra minutes and the extra miles wouldn’t cost them and he felt like one of them, like one of those who only searched for a moment’s weakness and took what mattered right then without the thought of another man. He felt like one of those he had been fighting against. Like one of those he hated. He hoped to God this didn’t cost them.

  He put the truck in reverse and spun around, then shifted into drive and they were moving as fast as they could move through the infinite storm. Mariposa kept calling out for Evan, telling him they were sorry. Telling him that they didn’t mean it. Telling him they were coming. Please hold on.

  48

  THE POWER OF THE STORM was evident as they tried to get back to ellisville. Newly fallen trees and freshly flooded roads kept them backtracking and twisting and winding. With each blocked pathway and wasted mile, their anxiety grew stronger. And so did the storm. What little relenting there had been was gone and now the back end came on with a recognizable power.

  They had been in the truck for almost three hours as they approached and drove toward the town square and the bedlam showed itself. Somehow black smoke wafted in the air amid the rain and wind. Road signs and big branches and other debris were scattered across the water-covered streets. Cohen drove the truck to the back of the café and the back door was open and through the doorway he and Mariposa saw people inside, fighting over boxes of hamburger buns and bags of potato chips and hitting at one another with giant spoons.

  “Oh my God,” Mariposa said.

  Cohen didn’t stop but stomped on the gas, splashing through the standing water, and at the end of the buildings he turned onto the square. They saw the missing awning and the broken windows and the busted doorways and the people running about without regard for the storm and the black smoke coming out of the top floor of a corner building. Cohen drove to the front of the café and slammed on the brakes and the café was filled with scavengers. The square was filled with scavengers. Several bodies lay in the water up and down the sidewalk.

  Cohen grabbed the door handle and Mariposa grabbed him and said, “Don’
t, Cohen.”

  “Hell, I have to. What the hell else are we gonna do?”

  “I don’t know,” she said and she was scared and he was scared and worse, he didn’t have a gun or a bat or even a big stick.

  “He can’t be up there. Can he?” Cohen said. He looked all around. Slammed his fists on the steering wheel and said goddammit goddammit. The rain beat like a thousand drums and amplified the desperation.

  From the sidewalk a cluster of men stopped what they were doing and stared at the truck. Then one of them pointed.

  “Cohen,” Mariposa said and the men began to run toward them and Cohen put the truck in reverse and spun around, hitting the curb he couldn’t see under the water on the opposite side of the street. The truck bounced and Mariposa and Cohen bounced. Her head smacked against the window and Cohen fumbled to get it into drive as they came quick and surrounded the vehicle. They realized Cohen didn’t have a gun or he would have used it by now. Ragged, limp clothes and ragged, limp faces and arms held out as if the truck were a crazed animal that needed to be calmed before being caged. Cohen reached over and opened the glove box though he knew nothing was there and then he did the same underneath the seat and Mariposa locked her door as if that would matter. Cohen got hold of a tire iron and he waved it at them ineffectually. But then a series of shots were fired from somewhere and one of the men grabbed the back of his leg and went down and the others turned and scattered.

  “Get down,” Cohen yelled but Mariposa was looking and spotted the gunman in the second-floor window above the café.

  “It’s Evan,” she yelled and pointed. Evan sat in the window with the barrel of the rifle aimed down at the street. The glass was gone from the window and he knelt on the floor with his elbows on the window ledge. Evan waved them toward the building as Brisco stood behind him with his hands on his brother’s shoulders.

  Evan leaned out and fired several more shots to ward off any others and Cohen put the truck in drive and jetted across the street. The crowd split as it bounced onto the sidewalk and its front end hit the storefront as it slid to a stop.