Luck was with Jonah, for he found a little store at a crossroads only a few miles ahead. It was both a store and post office, and half a dozen men sat around a stove opposite the counter. Jonah took off his wet hat and bowed to them. Rain spilled off the brim.
“Don’t you get my floor wet, boy,” the man behind the counter said.
“No, sir,” Jonah said. “No, sir.”
Jonah told the storekeeper his master wanted three cans of sardines, a bag of crackers, a pound of cheese, and a jar of sausages.
“Your master must have sent you a long way,” the storekeeper said, looking at Jonah’s muddy pants and shoes.
“Them roads be awful bad,” Jonah said and bowed.
“That will be a dollar and thirteen cents,” the man behind the counter said. Jonah paid him and then spent another nickel on a box of matches, because the ones he had were wet. The storekeeper wrapped his purchases in brown paper and tied the package with a string. All the time he was in the store, Jonah felt the men by the stove watching him. No doubt they suspected he was a runaway. It was in his favor that he had money and a new coat. But the mud on his clothes and shoes showed he’d traveled a long way, and he was thoroughly soaked.
As Jonah stepped back into the rain, he was reminded of what a friend the storm was. The men by the stove, even if they were suspicious, wouldn’t bother to follow him in this weather, unless they knew for sure he was a runaway and there was a reward for his capture. The storm was a refuge for him. The storm was his friend. Weather this bad was a blessing for the hunted and condemned.
Jonah stopped at another barn a mile farther on to eat some cheese and crackers, sardines and sausages. A bull was penned in a stall in the barn, and while he ate, the bull snorted and slammed into the sides of the stall. Once he heard boards creak, but the slats of the stall didn’t give way. By the time he’d eaten it was almost dark. As Jonah lit the lantern he realized he’d forgotten to buy lantern oil at the store. It would only take a little to fill the well of the lantern, but he had no way to carry extra oil unless he bought a jar or a jug. Half the fuel had been used up the night before. He turned the wick down low to preserve what he had left.
As the road got dark and the rain did not let up, Jonah saw he lacked the strength he’d had the night before. His feet were sore and his knees stiff. The crackers and cheese and sardines made him feel numb and sleepy. The earlier sleep in the hay seemed to have taken strength away from him, not refreshed him. But it was also as if the rain had drained him of energy, bleached and leached out the strength in his blood. He lacked the confidence he’d had when he plunged into the storm way back in Roanoke.
FOR THREE NIGHTS JONAH followed the weak light of the lantern through heavy rain. The awful storm seemed to never slacken. One day he slept in an abandoned cabin, and another day he burrowed into a haystack at the edge of a field. He figured he’d gone about a hundred miles from Roanoke, but there was no way to tell. Jonah had no choice but to stumble along in the rain. Every step took him closer to the North and farther from the sheriff and his dogs. The road was nothing but standing water and mud and fallen limbs. Every stream had overflowed its banks. Finally he was able to buy more oil for the lantern at a little store in a hollow between mountains.
By the light of the weak lantern, Jonah crossed footlogs and shaky wooden bridges. He waded through glutted creeks and climbed across fallen trees. He passed a house where a dog barked at him from a shed but didn’t come out into the downpour. Fields looked like lakes, and yards were standing water wrinkled by wind and pecked by rain. Jonah walked until his willpower and strength gave way. He figured he had to go another fifteen or twenty miles before stopping. It was still dark, but he had to rest. Slow down there, boy, he said to himself. He looked for another barn, or another shed or cow stall. He was so tired he could sleep in a wet haystack or pile of corn tops. If he had a blanket he could make a tent in the woods. A cellar, smokehouse, or woodshed would serve. Even a chicken house if the chickens were gone. But all Jonah saw were trees and more trees, brambles and brush, vines and thickets. He was on a stretch of wild road. He couldn’t lie down and sleep in the woods, for the ground was too wet, and every limb streamed drops. Finally Jonah saw a little house off to the side of the road. He thought at first it was a chicken house, only about six feet by eight feet and made of boards. There was a door and one window, and inside he found a floor piled with broken chairs, a bench, and dusty planks. Jonah cleared a place on the bench and lay down. The floor was inches above the ground and the bench almost dry. There was no straw for a pillow or leaves to keep him warm, but Jonah didn’t care. He just needed to get off his painful feet and rest.
Jonah slept better on the hard bench than he had in the haystack the day before. He was so tired he didn’t dream, except for a brief dream where he seemed to be wrestling with wind and rain. A dog leapt at him out of the darkness, and the dog turned out to be owned by both Mr. Williams and Mr. Wells. They’d brought the dog all the way from Roanoke.
As Jonah slept, the little building he lay in loosened from its foundation in the rising water and drifted into the current of a nearby swollen creek. Jonah woke with water washing his cheek. At first it felt like tears dampening his temple and ear as he lay on his side on the rough plank bench. But the wetness was cold and didn’t go away. In his sleep he wondered if the rain was washing into the little shack, or if there was a leak in the roof. Maybe wind was pushing rain through the low door. And then he felt water on his elbow and on his side. Water soaked into his armpit and covered his thigh. When he pushed himself up from the bench the floor rocked and water sloshed against the wall and swirled around his feet. The floor was unsteady and sank a little when he moved. Jonah reached for the lantern, but it was not where he remembered setting it down. The floor tilted and boards floated loose around his feet. Jonah held to a wall and understood that he was now waterborne.
The drifting shack bumped into something and scraped against an obstacle. It turned and he grabbed the opposite wall. Bushes scraped the side of the building. Jonah could see neither the wall nor the window. It was dark as a cave, and the total dark made Jonah dizzy, and the rocking and shifting made him sick at his stomach. If he was floating out on a creek or river, there might be a waterfall ahead. There was no lightning, but rain whipped the walls and roof and gusts made the shack rock and turn.
Jonah was almost as scared as he’d been when Mr. Wells caught him in bed with Prissy. It was the sense of blindness that made him feel most helpless. He had nothing to hold on to and he had no way to escape. The building could sink or crash over a waterfall. He was wet and cold and sore and confused. It was hard to tell up from down, level from tilted, pitching forward from pitching backward. The water rose to his shins, swirled and whispered and mocked him.
The last of the crackers and sardines he’d eaten hurriedly hours before had not rested well in his belly. And the crackers and cheese may have been tainted with something on his hands or clothes after four days on the road. The rocking and dizziness and fear added to the unsettled feeling. While he clung to the wall, a thrust of sour and bitterness leapt into his throat. He tried to swallow, but it was too late. The charge of vomit pushed into his mouth and over his tongue and flew out between his teeth. He tasted the sardines and cheese now gone sour.
His supper in the rain was coming back to him, leaving him. He puked into the darkness and vomit ran down his chin and on his chest. The shack smelled of puke and dirty water and rotten wood. As he staggered in the darkness and held on, Jonah heaved again and again. He threw up as if he was expelling everything he’d eaten in his whole life. He strained so long, his eyes burned and wept stinging tears. Jonah heaved so deep, he felt his back was going to break, and his throat was raw. When the heaving stopped, he wished he had some clean water to wash his mouth with. His legs were so weak they trembled at the knees, and he was short of breath, as though he’d run five miles.
When Jonah wiped his chin and opened his eyes h
e saw gray light in the window of the shack. The rain had slackened and almost stopped. The house bumped against something and turned sideways. But all he could see through the door and window was grayness. The light was too faint to make out anything distinctly. Surely there would be more light soon and he could tell where he was, and look for a way to escape. Something nudged his leg, and he reached down and found the lantern floating with pieces of boards and leaves and trash. He picked up the lantern and water spilled out.
Though Jonah was dry inside and empty, spit sweetened his mouth a little. He spat and his mouth felt cleaner. The gray outside was getting lighter. He couldn’t make out anything distinct, but he saw something go by, a black tree or post. Things bumped and knocked on the walls of the shack. As his mouth and throat sweetened, Jonah felt the strength of his emptiness. His empty belly had a glow, a rightness, as if he’d gotten rid of a sick burden. He was empty and filled with light. Or maybe he felt that way because there was light in the little house now. He could see boards floating around his knees. Jonah looked out the window and saw something else go by. He studied the gray and found he was looking at fog. More surprising still, he was looking through fog, at trees and muddy trash. The fog that had seemed impenetrable before was full of ragged holes, and thinning. Jonah looked through the door and saw water rocking and swooping, and the riverbank beyond. He was drifting in a stream that spread far beyond its banks into fields. The shanty drifted catty-cornered to the current. He weighed one side down so it tilted deeper into the muddy water.
As the fog lifted slowly off the water, Jonah saw what a predicament he was in. The little house had washed out into a swollen stream and was drifting near the middle of a river. He was trapped, knee deep in muddy water, and he couldn’t see a way to get out except to plunge into the raging current. If it was possible to climb onto the roof of the shack, he might see what was ahead. He could look out for a log or branch of a tree he might grab onto. He could call to somebody as he passed a town or farm. Maybe somebody in a boat would come and rescue him. When Jonah stood at the door, he tilted the building so far he thought it might tip over. The little house rocked and sloshed. If he climbed onto the roof, he could get out of the dirty, smelly water.
As he studied the little building, Jonah saw that his only hope to escape was through the window. If he could put his feet on the window sill he might be able to hoist himself up to the roof. With the floor slick and so unsteady, it was hard to see how he could get purchase. If he went through the window headfirst he would only push himself out into the flood. Jonah backed up to the window and placed his hands through and felt for the lath outside above the opening. Gripping the slat with all his strength, he pulled himself up through the window, scraping his back on the sill. Only his coat prevented him from cutting his lower back. It took him several heaves to get his butt onto the window sill.
Jonah’s raised weight tilted the shack even more. He felt as if he was going to be dumped into the water as the building tipped on top of him. He sat in the window trying to decide what his next step must be. He had to get his feet on the sill to push himself up on the roof. But what was he going to hold to while he shifted his weight to get a foothold? The roof of the little house was rotting cedar shingles, slick and steep.
As the shack drifted and turned in the stampeding water, Jonah studied his chances. If he drowned in the flood, no one would ever know. His flesh would rot and he’d be eaten by fish. Mama would never know what had happened to him. Mrs. Williams would forget he’d ever been at the Williams Place. If only he had something to hold to, he could pull himself through and stand on the sill and throw himself onto the wet roof. The only possible thing to grip was the corner of the roof to his right. He grasped the eave in his right hand, and moving his left leg an inch at a time, he lifted his knee and slid it under the top of the window. Straining every tendon and muscle in his body, he held the corner of the roof and raised himself on his left foot, pushing on the corner of the window. He began to shake and totter, threatening to fall backward into the flood, but at the last instant made a final effort and heaved himself onto the leaning roof so his fingers caught on the comb, and then his elbows. Hanging by his elbows on the dipping roof, he lay still and looked around.
Trees lined the creek, but water swirled and sucked through the trees. He felt like a sailor clinging to an overturned wreck. The creek was crowded with trees and all kinds of debris, boards and pieces of buildings. And then he saw an oblong box with the lid broken off. It was a shape that made him shiver, a coffin, a new coffin, apparently.
Clinging to the ridge pole of the little roof, Jonah turned to stare at the long wooden box and thought he saw a nose in the end where the lid was broken. The coffin rocked in the current as if someone inside was shaking it. And then he saw another coffin, older and partly rotted and mostly sunken in the river. This box was closer than the first, and the lid completely gone. Current nudged the shack and the older coffin closer, but Jonah couldn’t bear to look inside, and he couldn’t prevent himself from looking. Muddy water filled the open box, and at first it seemed filled with mud and weathered sticks. Then he realized the sticks were bones, rib bones and arm bones. The box bumped a limb and a skull grinned at him through gray teeth.
Jonah turned away, but when he looked in the other direction he saw another box and another. The stream was full of caskets and burial boxes. The caskets were made of carved wood. The flood must have scoured a hillside and opened all the graves. Since coffins float like boats, they must have raised themselves once the ground was flooded. The current melted the dirt and drew the boxes out of the hillside. The dead had been raised, but not as they were supposed to be at the Second Coming, in shining glory. They’d been summoned forth by the storm and gathered into a convoy down the raging river. I’m traveling in company with the dead, Jonah thought. I’ve joined the deathly procession. Perhaps I, too, am already dead.
As the fog disappeared and the sun came over the ridge, Jonah saw living people along the edge of the swollen stream. Where roads ran down into the floodwater, people stood watching him pass by. Some in buggies and some on horseback studied the raging flood that stretched hundreds of yards across fields and forests. They studied the angry water as though watching a race. Landslides had torn away whole hillsides where wet soil had given way under its own weight. Red clay showed through like bloody wounds with tangles of roots and stumps, limbs and rocks. Roads seemed to continue on air where bridges had been swept away.
Jonah saw a body floating and at first thought it was a corpse from one of the coffins. But the clothes looked rough and the back full and strong. It was a man in overalls drifting facedown in the muddy tide. And a snake was riding on the dead man’s back.
As the sun got higher Jonah saw other snakes. He saw blacksnakes shimmying themselves through the water, and he saw snakes wrapped on limbs or clinging to trunks of floating trees. The snakes in the water were looking for a perch, a place to rest, a boat or raft to ride on. There were snakes on boards and snakes on coffins. The flood had scoured snakes out of dens and stripped them off perches on branches. The current looked stitched and threaded with serpents. Snakes laced themselves around floating brush and stretched on the roofs of floating chicken coops. Snakes hung from the rails of a bridge like ribbons tied there for decoration.
Since he had no paddle or pole, and no way to guide the small house under him, Jonah saw he had no choice but to drift with his awkward craft. The shack had kidnapped him from the shore and could set him down wherever it sank or came to rest. It bobbed along fast in the middle of the river, but if it drifted into an eddy or stuck in the mud he could get off. If he jumped off in midstream he would risk being bitten by snakes, and surely he would drown.
Ahead the river narrowed into a gorge between hills and he saw two boys on a bluff. They waved to him and he waved quickly and grabbed hold of the roof again. It took both hands to hold on, as the shack rocked and tilted every time he shifted his weight. The
boys shouted something to him, but he couldn’t tell what they said. At first it sounded as if they were asking him a question, and then it seemed they were shouting an order.
Something whistled near him, and at first he thought it was a bird. And then he heard a shot and knew it was a bullet that had twanged by. He looked at the boys on the bluff, and one was holding a stick, but the stick was pointed across the river. It was a rifle. The boy rested the rifle butt on the ground and began to reload it. Out in the middle of the stream, Jonah had no way to turn the little house away or drop out of sight. He hugged to the roof as flat as he could make himself and another bullet stung the air close by. Lying flat on the roof as it drifted in the gorge, Jonah was an exposed target and there was little he could do. He pressed himself to the roof and tried to make himself flat as paper. But there really was no way to shrink himself. He tried to squeeze tight, as if he could make himself disappear. Another bullet whined and thunked into the side of the floating house below his feet. The boys were either bad shots or were just trying to scare him. As Jonah flattened himself against the roof, it occurred to him what river he was on. In the atlas in Miss Linda’s parlor he’d seen two rivers north and east of Roanoke. First was the James going generally to the east, and next was the Shenandoah flowing to the northeast. It must be the Shenandoah, or a branch of the Shenandoah, he was on. The Shenandoah ran all the way to the Potomac.
Chasing the North Star Page 18
