by Joe Nobody
More than once since the hurricane, Corky had considered powering up the Morgan City Queen and sailing off into the sunrise. There had to be some place better to tie up - had to be a new home out there that wasn’t full of the misery, stench, and desperation that now held Galveston in their collective grips.
But he didn’t.
He couldn’t bring himself to abandon the people that had come to depend on him… on his men… on the bulk supplies carried in the hulls of his barges.
Even some of those had been causalities of the storm. Two of their precious boats had blown loose in the tempest and sunk, irreplaceable tanks of propane in one, thousands of pounds of wheat flour in the other.
The rumble of engine noise brought the Cajun out of his melancholy contemplation. Shielding his eyes from the sun, he spied the line of trucks approaching from the north. It was quite the collection. A fleeting thought flashed through his mind – What if they have ill intent? What if they are invaders?
“I’ll let them have the place without a fight,” he mused. “Maybe they can do better than we have.”
A block away, two pickup trucks rolled to a stop, armed men piling out of the back of each.
“Oh, shit,” Corky worried. “I was only joking. I didn’t really think anybody would invade.”
The next vehicle was a large, deluxe motor coach, the kind Corky had seen carrying famous country and western stars across the nation while on tour.
It too rolled to a stop, the bus-like door hissing open a few moments later.
Several people stepped down from the RV, one of the distant faces vaguely familiar. Corky smiled, remembering Terri from the day of the maelstrom, almost having forgotten her visit. She was traveling with an entourage.
Corky stepped forward to welcome the new arrivals. Terri noticed the captain, immediately moving to meet him halfway, raising her arm to wave a friendly greeting.
“Hello,” Corky said, extending his dirty palm after wiping it on his pants leg. “I wasn’t expecting honored guests. I’m afraid I’ve been a little busy lately,” he added, sweeping the surrounding area with his arm.
Terri laughed, her smile clear and bright. “We thought you might need some help. That, and we have a few hundred of your citizens that have been clamoring to return home.”
She pointed, just as one of the buses began unloading a stream of people. “They escaped on the train with us, right as the worst of the hurricane hit. It took us a while to gather up the resources to bring them back to the island.”
Corky watched as more and more people disembarked from the transports, several of them looking around at the surreal landscape with stunned expressions on their faces.
One of the nearby workers dropped his shovel, tentatively approaching the growing crowd of returning residents. “Kim? Kim, is that you? Oh, thank God… I thought we’d lost you,” the man said, running the last few steps to embrace a smiling woman.
Terri and her host stood and watched the joyful reunion for a minute, both of them relishing in the uplifting event. “That’s what it’s all about,” Corky observed. “That’s what keeps me climbing out of bed these days.”
“Well, maybe I can add a little more cheer to your mornings,” Terri said. “We’ve brought fuel, as many blankets and medical supplies as I could gather, and a few pieces of heavy equipment. We figured you could use some bulldozers to help with the cleanup.”
Emotion welled up inside the Cajun, his eyes turning wet with joy. “I didn’t think we’d get any help. No way. I had just about given up hope of anyone even realizing our plight.”
Terri hooked arms with the overjoyed man, the two strolling back toward the still-arriving Alliance caravan.
“We’ll have the Texas Star running in another week. The plan is to open additional lines and stations following that. With your seafood production, you should be able to trade for most of what you need. We are screening over 10,000 volunteers from Houston who want to relocate… move down here to help rebuild the island. Welcome to the Alliance of Texas.”
“Membership has its rewards,” Corky managed to tease.
“Come on, let me introduce you to my husband and son,” Terri beamed. “One of them is cute, the other quite charming. I’ll let you decide which is which.”
