by Hale, Marian
“And Uncle Nate?”
“He telephoned earlier. He and Ben are trying to save what they can at the lumberyard, and then they’ll head home.”
I nodded, not wanting to tell her how bad the streets were already. They wouldn’t have an easy time of it. I left the towel and walked through to the veranda. Palms and oleanders leaned under the northerly assault, weighted down with water. Rain-darkened slate roofs stretched in every direction as far as I could see, but I figured I could still make it home if I hurried. I glanced down the street toward Ella Rose’s house. A light shone from the parlor window.
I told Aunt Julia I’d be right back and ran to check on the Covingtons. I knocked only once. The door opened quickly, and Ella Rose pulled me inside.
“I was watching out the window and saw you coming,” she said. “Daddy’s still not home, and I can’t get through to him on the telephone.”
“You’re here alone?”
She nodded, eyes dark with worry.
“No sense in waiting here all by yourself. You’d better come back with me.”
She scribbled a note for the foyer table and grabbed a hooded cape.
“Ready?” I asked.
With a nod, she slipped her hand in mine, and we splashed back through the knee-deep water to Uncle Nate’s.
Aunt Julia stood just inside the door, waiting with towels.
“Her father’s not home yet,” I said. “I brought her back to wait for him here.”
She saw the worry in Ella Rose’s face and led her to a chair. “Ben and Mr. Braeden are on their way home, too,” she said. “And do remember that Seth and Josiah came through the storm just fine, so we needn’t worry too much about those great big men of ours. Now let me get some dry things for you all.”
She turned, but I stopped her and held her hand in mine. “I have to go on home, Aunt Julia.”
She shook her head hard. “Your mama and papa would never forgive me if I let you go back out in that storm.”
“I have to know they’re okay,” I argued. “They might need me.”
She glanced toward the windows, then back at me. “Please, just wait until your Uncle Nate gets here. He’ll help you decide what’s best.”
“I’m sorry, Aunt Julia. I have to go now before the storm gets worse.” I handed her the damp towel and saw Josiah standing in the kitchen doorway.
“I’ll go with ’im, Miz Braeden,” he said.
An ache washed across Ezra’s face but quickly disappeared. “See here, Miz Braeden,” he soothed. “Don’t you worry none. Josiah’ll hep look after him.”
“I don’t know, Ezra.” Her fingers twisted in the tail of her apron. “I just don’t know.”
“Why, these here strapping boys’ll do jus’ fine. You’ll see.”
I gave Ezra a grateful glance, kissed Aunt Julia on the cheek, and turned to Ella Rose. “You’ll be okay here till your father gets in,” I reassured her.
A slight smile lifted the corners of her mouth, and until that moment, I hadn’t realized how much I needed to see it.
She reached for my hand. “Please be careful.”
I nodded, my heart a jumble of mixed longings. I let my hand slip from hers and followed Josiah to the door. “You’ll take good care of them, won’t you, Ezra?”
“Yessir,” he said. “I surely will.”
I turned to Aunt Julia. “I’ll see you all tomorrow, and that’s a promise.”
She bit her bottom lip and gave me an uncertain nod. With a last glance at Ella Rose, I stepped back into the rain.
Josiah and I headed west as fast as we could travel. We waded through knee-deep water at first, but before we were even halfway home, the overflow had risen to the top of my thighs. The wind bursts felt stronger, and the lulls between them shortened. Still, the streets were filled with people who’d been forced to leave their flooding homes. One man floated a bathtub full of children in front of him, trying to reach higher ground. Horses, belly-deep in the rushing brown water, skittered around snakes and snapping wires, dodging broken telephone poles, porches, and cisterns being swept down the streets.
I glanced at Josiah, grateful for his company but shamed that I’d allowed him to come with me. He no doubt needed to be with his grandfather every bit as much as I needed to be with my family. Still, he came.
At Forty-fourth and Avenue S, we came across a house sitting in the middle of the street, an old colonial with tall columns that’d washed off its foundation.
“Butcher Miller’s,” Josiah shouted over the storm.
A woman carrying a child tried to cross an alley nearby, but the water took them, swirling them away like chips of wood. We watched, hopelessly beyond their reach, while the two just up and disappeared. Josiah squirmed, looking as sick as I felt, but there was nothing we could’ve done to save them.
Rain hit my skin, stinging like needles shot from cannons, but something even worse had begun to happen. Slate shingles lifted from roofs and flew through the air like hatchets. Bricks, picked up by the increasingly wild wind, struck walls, smashed windows, and knocked people into the swiftly moving water to drown.
A man buckled in front of us and Josiah plunged in after him. I helped wrestle them up from the water, but the man’s head leaned at an impossible angle and blood gushed over his shoulder. Josiah stared at me, rain streaming down his face, eyes full of horror. The man’s neck had been nearly severed by flying slate.
I wrenched the dead man from Josiah’s arms, and the brown water snatched him up, swirled him into an eddy, then swept him away.
Still, Josiah couldn’t seem to move. Splintered lumber swept past us, and I grabbed it up. “Like this!” I shouted at him, showing him how to hold a wide board against the airborne assault. I shoved it into his hands, grabbed another for myself, and we plunged ahead, holding our boards like shields till I stepped into a hole washed out by the swirling current.
I flailed for footing while muddy water swept over my head and rushed into my mouth and nose. Feeling Josiah’s hand, I latched on to him, and he pulled me up, gasping and sputtering.
I gagged and coughed up foul-tasting saltwater, and when the wind gusted again, we had to duck the debris flying through the air and sweeping down the flooded streets. Josiah shoved his board in front of me, protecting my head and shoulders, then grabbed another for himself.
As soon as I caught my breath, we started out again, but by then, I wondered if we’d ever make it. I wondered, too, if I’d ever have a chance to make things right with Papa. I should’ve never been so angry with him. He only wanted me to have what he’d been denied. And Mama. She cooked and cleaned up after us without a single complaint, while I never bothered to hide my resentment over the way she leaned on me.
I remembered Matt, that glimpse I’d gotten of the generous man he was becoming, and the appreciation I’d seen on Lucas’s face. Even at ten, he already knew what was important in this life.
And Kate.
I closed my eyes against the driving rain. I smelled her sweet watermelon breath, felt her little hands around my neck, heard her baby voice saying, “I waited and waited.”
The memory caught in my throat, and I felt like I’d stepped into another deep hole.
Time seemed suspended, circling our struggle, watching for weakness. I glanced at Josiah, truly sorry I’d gotten him into this. My legs ached from fighting the current, my whole body felt bruised and battered, and I knew it had to be the same for him.
All around us people fell, struck down by flying slate, brick, or shutters. Others drowned, knocked off their feet and carried under by the broken roofs, galleries, or privies that swept down the street faster than a man could run. Water swirled around my hips, leaving me powerless to offer aid and weak with the thought that, at any moment, either one of us could disappear beneath the swift brown river and be gone.
Chapter
11
Josiah stumbled, and I hooked a drenched arm through his. He grabbed it, and we leaned into
each other, pushing hard through the wind and rising water. Slate and shattered lumber hit all around us. Submerged objects struck my legs, sharp and piercing one minute, fleshy and stomach-churning the next. Then, gratefully, I’d feel them slide away, caught up in the current again.
During a short lull, I stopped to get my bearings, squinting through the rain, and at last, hope pounded in my chest. “Look!” I shouted. “There!”
Josiah pulled hard at my arm, dragging me toward the house. We struggled past the fence, across the yard, and took the stairs up and out of the water. My legs felt like tree stumps, and when I closed the door behind us, my ears rang.
“Mama! Papa!” I yelled.
I stumbled from room to room but found no one—nothing till I saw a note tacked to my bedroom door. I tore it off and read Papa’s hurried scrawl out loud to Josiah.
Seth,
Gone to Nate’s. Hope to find you safe there. If not, trust you will seek sturdier shelter with Peeks or Vedders. God be with you.
Papa
I stared at the note, picturing Mama, Papa, and the kids with slate flying around their heads and debris washing down flooded streets toward them like freight trains.
Had I passed them out there and not realized it?
The woman swept away—I hadn’t seen her face.
The child—was the hair dark? Was it Kate?
I closed my eyes till the sick wave of fear eased. Still shaky, knees weak, I walked back through the house. Dinner sat on the table, uneaten. A cake and a pitcher of boiled custard waited on the stove. Matt’s baseball lay in the seat of a chair, and beside it, a small handful of wilted jasmine.
Kate’s funeral flowers.
I picked up the brown blossoms, stuffed them in one pocket, and poked the ball in the other. Then I noticed that my pants were torn and my leg oozed blood. I looked at Josiah, at all his scrapes and cuts. We’d had a rough time of it, but we’d made it.
“So they’s with Mister Braeden?” he asked.
“I hope so,” I said, staring at the note.
“So we needs to get to the Vedders’.”
I shook my head. “Aunt Julia said the Peeks have a real sturdy house. Might be better there.”
Josiah cocked his head and looked at me. “My bones is sayin’ Vedders.”
I gave him a surprised look, and he laughed at me, easylike, his eyes full of something warm I’d only sensed before. I felt it sifting through me, easing my aches and worry. “Okay,” I said finally, grinning at him. “The Vedders it is, then.”
We turned, headed for the door, when the window exploded. I ducked, covering my head while glass shot past Josiah, clear across the house. He caught a piece in his forehead, and blood streamed down his face and into his eyes. I pulled the three-inch sliver from his skin, ripped a kitchen towel lengthwise, and tied it around his head.
Wind whipped through the open window, pummeling the walls and ceilings till cracks raced around the plaster.
“Let’s get out of here before the roof goes!” I shouted.
He nodded, and we scrambled down the stairs, back into the water and howling wind.
We must’ve looked like drowned rats when the Vedders opened their door to us, but they were a sight, too, dressed in woolen bathing suits. Mrs. Vedder insisted we have some warm broth, and I gratefully accepted, collapsing into a ladder-back chair at the kitchen table. Josiah hesitated, his hands poked deep inside his wet pockets till Mr. Vedder pulled out a chair for him, too.
“Sit down, Josiah. At times like these we can’t stand on ceremony.”
Josiah nodded and mumbled, “Yessir. Thank you, sir.”
The house shuddered in the wind, and while we downed our bowls of broth, Mr. Vedder talked to us about the storm.
“This house isn’t as well-built as the Richard Peek house,” he said. “I figure if it starts to break up, we’ll make a human chain, and you boys can follow us down the fence line to the Peeks’.”
I nodded and glanced at Josiah, wondering if his bones had anything to say about that.
Five-year-old Katherine tugged at my shirt sleeve. “Where’s Kate?” she asked. “Didn’t she come with you?”
I shook my head. “She’s with her mama and papa.”
“Are they at home?”
“No, they’re all safe and sound at my uncle’s house,” I said, praying it was so.
“Well, I sure wish she was here. No one will play with me. Not Jacob or Allen, not even Lola. They all say I’m too little.”
She wandered off, and I turned my attention back to the storm.
The Vedder house had been tightly shuttered, but through a broken slat, I could see all the way to the swollen gulf. It was a staggering sight—home after home looking like tiny islands surrounded by angry sea, like they’d been built in the middle of an ocean. The ones closest to the gulf were gone, splintered and swept away or slammed against others, waiting for the next wave.
Farther out, a big gray wall of water, like an army of elephants, moved slow and sure toward the island. It was held somewhat at bay by the northeast wind, but I couldn’t help but wonder what it would mean to all of us if the wind shifted to the south.
I blinked the sick thought away and kept an eye on the water in the yard. It soon swamped the four-foot fence, and I knew it was just a matter of time before waves broke up the closest row of houses and sent them slamming into us.
The house began to fill with people, some whose homes had already come apart and some who feared theirs would soon follow. Mr. and Mrs. Mason came with their children, along with a number of soldiers from Fort Crockett, till there must’ve been fifty of us gathered in the front hall. Josiah and one of the soldiers, Private Orville Billings, helped Mr. Vedder remove closet doors, then we all helped nail them crossways to reinforce the windows and front entry.
The storm roared and buffeted the house. The women sat on the stairs, taking care not to show their fear to the children. Katherine, content at last to have playmates, sat under the staircase, sharing her new gray kitten with Francesca and Kearny, Jr.
Josiah and I had just settled on the floor near the kids when I felt a movement. My vision blurred, and a wave of queasiness hit me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small table slide a few feet across the floor. I stared at it, confused for a moment, then felt the whole house rise and rock like a ship at sea. Shocked cries sounded all around me. We were afloat!
Timbers groaned and cracked as the house washed off its six-foot foundation. Seconds later, we hit the ground with a jaw-shattering jolt. My ears popped, and water gushed into the house so fast I didn’t have time to get to my feet. I kicked and groped my way to the surface, grabbing for Josiah to make sure he would make it, too, but he was already up, fishing Kearny, Jr., from the murky water. I grappled for Francesca and handed her, dripping, to her panicky mother, who had been forced to flee farther up the stairs. Lola and Allen popped up, then Jacob, his bathing suit nearly ripped off him. Private Billings pulled Katherine out, sputtering and crying, “Papa! Papa!” Mr. Vedder took her on his back, but the water quickly rose again. I pulled her from him and set her on the stairs, only to hear her cry once more—this time for her kitten.
Mr. Vedder pulled the soaked and clawing fur ball from the water and tossed it on the stairs. Mrs. Mason, caught unawares, jumped, shrieking, “Rat!” and slung it back. There must’ve been a dozen of us men, all up to our necks in cold dark water, scrambling to save that shivering gray kitten once again.
Dark closed over us, and still the house shook with each violent burst of wind. Waves crashed through broken windows. Huge beams from the newly constructed barracks at Fort Crockett thudded against the walls. We helped Mr. Vedder renail the closet doors, loosened by the settling of the house, then stood with arms stretched through the cracks where the front door had once been, pushing away beams and timbers during each lull. Others stood near windows, doing the same, fighting to keep the house from being battered into kindling.
A sound
loud as a freight train roared over our heads. I heard a great cracking and splintering, and when it stopped, the house listed to the north and rain poured down the stairs. Mrs. Vedder checked and reported back.
“The roof over the two east bedrooms is gone,” she said with surprising calm.
She moved the women and children farther up the flooded stairs and finally into the bathroom. I stayed behind with Josiah, helping Mr. Vedder ward off the battering rams till the water rose so high we had to give up. Our arms were torn, full of splinters and glass, but none were hurt as bad as poor Mr. Vedder. We took him to the bathroom, where maybe fifteen people had gathered, mostly women and children.
Faces turned to us, and candlelight flickered in eyes that were empty of everything but fear. The smaller children lay in the big white tub, bundled in bedspreads, urged to sleep. Jacob, his ripped bathing suit discarded on the floor, didn’t look too happy about having to wear Lola’s petticoat.
I shut the door, leaving Mrs. Vedder to wrap her husband’s arms and hands with what was left of the clean toweling, and sat in the dark hall with Josiah and the rest of the men.
No one spoke. We shivered from the cold and rocked with each explosive blast of wind and water, but it was the eerie lulls that finally made me cover my ears.
In brief, crystal seconds, I heard the crunching of houses breaking apart, the terrified bawling of animals, the faraway cries of people praying and pleading for help. I thought of Mama, Papa, and the kids, which quickly brought me back to the woman I’d seen just hours ago, whisked down the flooded alley, clinging to her child.
A choking ache washed over me, filling my eyes and knotting in my throat.
Oh, heaven, please help them—and me as well. For in my selfishness, I continued to pray that the woman and child hadn’t been Mama and Kate.
Chapter
12
Floating furniture thudded against the first-floor ceiling right below me, and still the water rose. It sloshed around me while I sat in the dark hall, elbows propped on my knees, arms wrapped around my ears. I speculated, considering my position near the east bedrooms, what I would do if I heard that final great crack, that signal to all of us that the house was breaking apart. I’d likely be crushed under its weight, or maybe thrown right through the missing roof, immersed in muddy, pitch-black water, and tangled in debris to drown. There seemed to be no real hope for any of us.
