by Joe Nobody
“That’s why I want to get my father out of there,” he replied sternly. “Charlie and I know every inch of that town. We grew up fishing and hunting on those bayous and channels. We’ll be fine.”
“Please let the authorities handle this. I can’t shake this terrible feeling about your going on this trip.”
“I have to go, Kara. I can’t leave my father alone in that mess. I’d feel the same way if it were your parents. It’s part of why I am who I am…. Family means everything to me.”
She didn’t mount any additional protest, choosing instead to withdraw from an argument she had no hope of winning. “Be careful. Call me as soon as you can, and remember that I love you,” her only parting words as she spun away from him in an attempt to conceal the single, hot tear streaming down her cheek.
Abe watched her return to the living room, wishing he could make her understand. Moments later, he was out the door, lugging his gear and wondering how they would make peace when he returned.
Zach hastily secured a bath towel around his waist, pat-dried his hair and headed toward the bedroom. In a single motion, he tossed some clothes into the open backpack on his bed and turned toward the kitchen. Better grab a bite here. Probably no jambalaya or red beans and rice on this trip, he mused. As he pulled open the refrigerator door, he scooted the tub of furry strawberries out of the way and examined the remnants of the leftover cold cuts. Quickly sniffing the meat to verify its lack of toxicity, he assembled a sandwich and swallowed it while he cleaned his sidearm. Packing a little emergency cash out of the gun safe rounded out his pre-travel preparations. He was on the road to Houston less than two hours after receiving the new assignment.
Seven hours later, he reported into the local ranger company’s headquarters. Road tired and truck-stiff, his attitude was further depleted by discovering what could only be described as absolute bedlam.
Officers, civilian employees, federal agents, and even the cleaning crew were running around as if their heads were on fire, and their asses were catching. The receptionist couldn’t find the local major or either of his subordinate captains. Sensing her overwhelming anxiety, Zach leaned over the counter and flashed a charming smile that the older woman could not resist. Double-checking her records, she informed the Texan that she had no advance notice of his arrival or orders for him to execute. No temporary housing was available, hurricane evacuees occupying every available hotel room for over 200 miles. It seemed Zach would never advance past the gatekeeper.
After an hour of waiting, asking, calling, and generally building a mountain of internal frustration, Zach finally recognized a familiar face.
Ranger Putnam had visited West Texas not a month before, enlisting the native company’s help to run down a suspected real estate scam artist who was hiding in a remote cabin in the Davis Mountains. The criminal had brought along two AK47s and 5,000 rounds of ammo for companionship.
Putnam looked up as he scrambled past, pausing for just a moment to shake Zach’s hand. “What brings you out to our neck of the woods, Ranger?”
When Zach explained his predicament, Putnam waved him past the reception area and into the inner workings of the Houston-based Company.
“Everybody’s down at the Astrodome,” Putnam explained. “One of the local Houston detectives recognized a convicted pedophile he’d put away just last year. The guy had been extradited to New Orleans and was standing trial in Louisiana for a molestation charge. All of a sudden, this pervert is sauntering off an evacuation bus – right here in our peaceful city. It set off the alarm bells.”
“Was it an isolated incident?”
“No, unfortunately not,” Putnam replied, shaking his head in disgust. “From what we’re hearing, most of the city and parish lock-ups over there were either intentionally emptied out or opened automatically when the power went down and the backups failed. We started running background checks on the new arrivals, and so far, we’ve found hundreds of people who should be guests of the state. The problem is we can only check the incoming that still possess identification. There’s a horde of those refugees who barely got out with the shirts on their backs - no ID, no papers, just their names and addresses. I don’t mean to sound cynical, but we both know how easy it would be to tell the smiling volunteer at the registration desk a story of lost ID. Even the dumbest crooks could lie their way through that checkpoint and onto our streets.”
Zach nodded, understanding the predicament. “So what can I do to help?”
Putnam’s face painted with an expression the younger ranger had grown to hate. It was a snide grin, always a harbinger of the new guy receiving bad news. “You, Ranger Bass, are slated to become a diplomat for the great State of Texas. Scuttlebutt has it that you’re going to New Orleans to deliver a message from the governor. ‘Stop sending us your felons, and give us the return address so we can ship back the ones who are already here.’”
“I wonder if the FBI is still hiring,” mumbled Zach.
Chapter 2 – Like Father, Like Son
Abe and Charlie’s drive through Louisiana was like a scene out of a disaster movie. The effects of the storm grew more evident as they approached the southern portion of the state – downed trees, standing water, and thousands upon thousands of cars streaming in the opposite direction.
They ventured off the main highway, choosing instead to travel surface roads as they zigzagged closer to New Orleans. Fifty miles north of Lake Pontchartrain, evidence of Katrina’s wrath began dictating the passing landscape.
The sparse foliage left standing was completely stripped of all greenery, leaving odd forests of utility poles. More than once, they had utilized the road clearance of Charlie’s massive truck, pushing their way through high water, flowing tributaries of mud, and downed power lines.
Even the remote, secondary traffic arteries were busy with refugees heading north. Every gas station’s lot was jammed with motorists waiting in line, praying the electricity would come on soon so they could pump fuel into their empty tanks.
When the rescuers finally did stop to refill the truck, Abe made sure Charlie pulled off the road in a relatively hidden spot, worried their cache of fuel cans lining the bed would make them a target. The faces they saw troubled them, portraits of desperation and despair in every car and window. He stood guard with the 30-06 while his brother emptied three five-gallon cans into the thirsty pickup’s fill.
Four times, they’d had to backtrack. One egress was due to a washed out bridge, another necessary when they encountered standing water whose murky depths had been too daunting for even the 4-wheel drive. The third, and most troubling, had been the police roadblock.
Abe didn’t recognize what type of cops they were, and it didn’t matter. Pulling up to the barricade of four patrol cars, Charlie had rolled down his window prepared to explain their intent. He never got the chance.
“Turn this truck around, right now. No one is allowed south of here.”
“But… but we’re on our way to…”
“I don’t give a fuck what you’re doing. I said get this truck out of here – right now. Do it! Do it now, or I’ll have both of your asses in handcuffs.”
Abe was glad his brother decided it wasn’t a good time to debate the police officer. Apparently, the screaming deputy was stressed and not in the mood for a conversation. Charlie replied with a quick, “Yes, sir,” and put the pickup in reverse.
“I think we should stop driving and start floating as soon as possible,” Charlie announced. “The cops don’t seem to want any tourists in the French Quarter right now.”
“You can’t blame them,” the older Hendricks replied. “Besides, these guys are just following orders. How about the old Gibson Fish Camp? That place is pretty remote, and we could put the boat in there and motor down to the city.”
Forty minutes later, they were winching Charlie’s johnboat off the trailer and into the coal black water of some unnamed bayou.
Charlie guided the small craft through the narr
ow waterway, the banks lined with the gnarled roots of ancient cypress and fields of waist-high cattails. As they progressed closer, debris began to clutter the surface, Katrina’s destruction evident even in this remote location.
Maneuvering the nimble vessel around a bobbing refrigerator, the carcass of a horse, deciduous tree limbs, and even the floating door of a car, the two brothers continued their trek south.
Dusk was claiming the day by the time they could identify the shadowy skyline of New Orleans in the distance. It was dark before they finally scrambled up the side of an earthen levee and gazed across a suburban landscape that seemed foreign and destitute.
Moonlight illuminated the indistinct, shadowy outlines of hundreds of homes. Not a single, incandescent flicker was visible for as far as the brothers’ elevated perch allowed a vantage. Many of the streets were filled with the glimmer of an amber lunar glow - a reflection on the standing water.
Charlie pointed to the south, indicating the section of the city where their father lived. “Looks like we might be in luck,” he whispered. “The flooding doesn’t seem so bad over there.”
Abe nodded, wondering if they’d made the treacherous journey without cause. “Let’s go see. Maybe the old man has cold beer in the fridge.”
After double-checking the boat was well tied and concealed by thick underbrush, the two men hefted their gear and set off on foot.
The angle made hiking halfway down the city side of the levee’s sloping surface difficult, but Abe wanted to avoid silhouetting themselves on the peak as well as escape the water at the bottom. The earth was soggy, both men adding a layer of boot-mud to their burden.
The pavement below gradually became drier, and after several blocks, they descended to the nearest sidewalk. Abe spotted high-water marks on several of the buildings they passed. A damp, moldy smell permeated the air, accented by the occasional whiff of raw sewage. The blackness of the night, absence of traffic, foul odor, and complete lack of human occupation provoked a sense of foreboding in both men. Their childhood neighborhood seemed dead and abandoned – a modern ghost town of immense proportions.
The men were less than four blocks away from their father’s home when shots rang out. Sensing instantly that the gunfire was a considerable distance away, both men reached quickly for their pistols. When the wavering sounds of human screaming reached their ears, Abe uncased his rifle and began ramming shells into the magazine.
Finally, they stood in front of Mr. Edward Hendricks’s humble abode. The two-story, quaint Victorian with a full-width front porch and white picket fence appeared undisturbed in the moonlight, the vision giving relief to both men.
“We’d better knock and yell,” Charlie noted. “The old man’s probably on edge and might take a shot at us.”
“Be my guest,” Abe smiled, motioning with a hand through the air.
Were it not for the nightmarish surroundings, Abe would have smirked at his brother’s cautious approach. Stalking slowly up the front walk and gingerly mounting the stairs leading to the porch, Charlie positioned his body to the side of the door before knocking.
After banging three times on the frame, Charlie’s voice rang out, “Dad? Dad? It’s Abe and me. We’ve come to make sure you’re okay.”
In the quiet, seemingly unoccupied neighborhood, the sound of his brother’s voice startled Abe. Compared to the noiseless background, the racket Charlie was making seemed like a riot. Abe began nervously scanning the area, checking to see if anyone had taken notice of their arrival.
In the otherwise still night, Charlie repeated his clamorous greeting, sending another jolt of hysteria through his brother.
Abe spied a sliver of a flashlight’s beam pass by one of the curtains, soon followed by a challenge from behind the door. “The hell you say,” bellowed the senior Hendricks’s grouchy voice. “My boys are up north. Now who the hell are you?”
A few minutes later, the three men were clustered on the veranda, hugs and relief all around. With emotion in his eyes, Mr. Hendricks’s only words were, “Am I glad to see both of you.”
Zach’s drive to New Orleans was a nerve racking, 16-hour adventure that exposed the Texan to the chilling cocktail of fear, paranoia, and near-anarchy that gripped Louisiana. He’d been forced to show his badge and credentials no less than six times. On half of those occasions, the letter of introduction from the governor of Texas had been required for passage. At one roadblock, an officer had gone so far as to call Austin to authenticate his documentation.
But it was more than overly cautious law enforcement. Deep-seated fear was as thick as the late summer humidity. The people were burdened with confusion and frustration – emotions that were quickly morphing into anger and rebellion.
He saw it in the faces of a group of National Guard troopers mulling around a truck stop, waiting for someone to order them somewhere... anywhere.
The deputies manning the countless blockades went about their duties with curt voices and faces colored with apprehension. It was if the entire region was experiencing a collective bout of anxiety.
His truck stop meal was spent listening to a neighboring table of drivers; all of them furious over FEMA’s lack of clarity regarding where they were supposed to deliver their cargos of water, blankets, and other emergency supplies. One man claimed to have been waiting for almost three days, another voicing his irritation over having been turned back from New Orleans twice.
As he drove, Zach thought back to Houston and his quip to Putnam. He had been recruited by the FBI. A Masters in Criminology, combined with an undergraduate degree in Forensic Chemistry, tended to open many doors. But what really set the young Texan apart, besides his GPA, was the fact that he’d financed part of his college education with a baseball scholarship. Brains and athletic talent were a winning combination for any wanna-be cop.
Despite the bureau’s energetic recruitment, Zach yearned to be… had always longed to be a Texas Ranger. The solitude of the Louisiana highway brought back a rush of memories – engrained visions from long ago.
Zach had been just old enough to see over the dash. Riding with his father in the ancient Ford pickup, the two had been on a rare errand to the feed store in Fort Stockton.
It wasn’t often the young Bass had the opportunity to visit the “big city,” the event worthy of his wide-eyed, curious gaze taking in every detail of the journey. He could still remember the Country and Western song playing on the rambling old truck’s AM radio. The cab smelled of hay and his father’s Old Spice aftershave.
“Looks like the law is on the job today,” his father had said, nodding toward the flashing lights of a police car ahead on the shoulder. The scene piqued Zach’s inquisitive nature, his spine stiffening as he leaned forward to take it all in. The boy couldn’t believe his luck, thrilled by the opportunity of watching a real Texas crime fighter in action.
Mr. Bass was more than aware of his son’s fascination with cops and robbers. The lad was constantly behind on his chores, often immersed so deeply in the fantasy world of play that his assigned tasks were forgotten. Occasionally, a sharp word was required to bring the boy back to the reality of a working West Texas ranch.
But it was a small transgression. Mr. Bass was proud of his son, watching him grow straight and tall, enjoying his easy laugh, and reassured by the lad’s honest conscience. Mrs. Bass had surely chosen well in naming their newborn son; he often observed. She had taken one look at the infant’s eyes and noted the resemblance to his great grandfather. Through the years, the namesake would demonstrate his predecessor’s resolve as well.
The original Zachariah Bass had traveled west and settled in a harsh land. Despite the struggles of the drought, the Great Depression, and finally the Dust Bowl, the Bass homestead had survived.
Hoping to allow his son plenty of time to view the roadside police officer, the elder Bass had slowed the pickup considerably more than necessary. It had been a life-altering decision.
“Why is the policeman on the
ground, daddy?” young Zach had asked. “It looks like he’s shooting at somebody.”
“Stay down!” the normally calm father had shouted, swerving the vehicle harshly to the side of the road.
Ignoring his dad’s warning, young Zach couldn’t help but peer over the cracked plastic of the dash. The officer was lying on his side, firing a pistol at some unseen antagonist. A pool of red grew under the downed lawman, puffs of dirt marking incoming bullets.
Zach’s father reached across the bench seat and shoved his son to the floor. “Stay down!” he repeated.
In a flash, the old pump shotgun was out of the Ford’s gun rack, the seasoned weapon occasionally employed in pursuit of hungry coyote or an errant prairie dog. Zach could remember the fear in his father’s eyes, his shaking hands struggling to load shells into the scattergun’s tube. And then he was gone, the pickup’s open door bringing the sound of multiple gunshots roaring into the cab.
Zach couldn’t stay on the floorboard. It was an impossible demand.
