Mississippi Rose | Book 1 | Into Darkness

by Lopez, Rob

  18

  Berthing the boat proved difficult in the high winds and Darla crashed repeatedly into the wooden dock, cracking its timbers and causing it to sway. All the time, she was pulling on the steam whistle cord. This was not the moment to try and patiently explain that she’d come to evacuate them all. She needed them to hurry. Jacques fought his way forward to lower the stage, and Darla maneuvered to keep it sliding back and forth across the top of the dock. Aguilar jumped on, exchanged a few words with Jacques, then came up to the pilothouse.

  “What’s going on?” she asked Darla.

  “We’re pulling you out. Where’s Zack?”

  “He’s up at the reactor room.”

  “Get him down here. Get everyone on board.”

  “Did Roberts order us out?”

  The boat slammed against the dock again.

  “I’m ordering you out,” said Darla. “I can’t stay here long so hurry up.”

  “If we leave, the reactors will go into meltdown.”

  “How long have the pumps been out?”

  Aguilar hesitated to answer.

  “Exactly,” said Darla. “You did your best, but it’s over. Get your people down here.”

  Aguilar hesitated some more, then left.

  The engineers and Zack made their way down to the boat, sliding and stumbling in the mud as the wind caused them to lose their footing. As soon as they were aboard, Darla reversed and then spun the boat around. The wind caught the broadside of the boat and keeled it over, Darla sliding across the floor as she hung onto the helm. For a moment it looked as though the Mississippi Rose was going to capsize and there were shouts coming up from the saloon as people and furniture slid to port. Darla called for Full Ahead and spun the wheel, getting the wind astern. Boosted by the hurricane, the steamer shot away from the bank, black smoke from the stacks swirling around the pilothouse. On the stretch up to the Gramercy Bridge, the wind helped push them against the heavy current. Darla took a straight line, aiming for the bridge, but they were approaching it too fast. At the last minute, Darla turned, the boat leaned and the wind pushed them toward the bridge supports. They crashed hard into the concrete with an impact that caused Darla to slip on the wet deck and fall down onto the broken glass. The helm spun as the rudder was flipped by the current. Still under full power, the Mississippi Rose tore its way along the concrete, cracking and snapping wooden panels on its paddlebox. Darla got up and pulled the helm back. The boat came out from under the bridge, still swaying. Blood dripped from Darla’s hands onto the helm. Steering the boat to hug the levee, Darla looked back. Against the black storm clouds a plume of dense white steam rose from the direction of the reactor, bent and scattered by the wind. Filled with radioactive droplets, it was being spread Darla’s way. Maintaining full power, she focused on the way ahead.

  The hurricane was moving northward, and although it was losing energy over the landmass, the edge of the spiral stayed firmly over the river. With the wind behind her one moment, then crosswinds the next, Darla fought the induced momentum to position the boat at the best angle, trying to keep out of trouble.

  She made it halfway back to Point Clair when it all became too much for the boat’s boilers.

  “She’s burst a seam,” called Manny from the engine room. “She’s losing pressure!”

  Darla was crabbing the boat around a bend when she felt the loss of momentum. She’d been running the starboard wheel at max speed to keep them from being blown into the bank, but gradually there was less and less power to give to the paddle wheels, and the wind drove them remorselessly off the channel and toward the shallows.

  Darla called for Full Astern, but the wheels were slowing. Steam billowed out from the rear of the boat. Manny ceased answering her calls, and she could hear the torrential hissing down the voice tube as the pressure escaped and turned the boiler room into a white-hot hell. The wheels finally stopped and the boat drifted, helpless in the grip of the storm.

  There was nothing Darla could do. The Mississippi Rose pitched and bucked, spun by the current and tossed by the wind. The bow came up, like a horse rearing its head, and the hull made contact with the submerged bank, grating and then coming to a shuddering halt as she ran aground. Darla slipped and fell on the deck again. The rain came in hard through the open window, washing her blood off the helm handles. Loose panels on the paddlebox flapped and ripped off, flying past the pilothouse, and Darla rolled over, crunching glass.

  Her beautiful boat had reached the end of the line.

  ***

  The saloon was a mess, with tables upended and chairs piled randomly. Manny was having his hand and arm bandaged by Jacques. The place stank of mildew, damp clothing and sweat. The rescued engineers, and Zack, stood around, tired and agitated.

  “We need to abandon the boat,” said Aguilar. “See if we can find some shelter inland.”

  Darla walked slowly through the carnage. “We’re not abandoning the boat,” she murmured.

  “You’re bleeding,” said Zack, seeing the droplets of blood falling from her lifeless fingers.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  “You stay there,” said Jacques. “I will come to you next.”

  “I said I’m fine.”

  She stopped in front of Manny. “How’s your arm?” she asked.

  Manny pulled a face. “Got a little steam burn. Nothing serious.”

  Jacques contradicted him. “It is serious,” he said.

  “We need to get ashore,” insisted Aguilar. “River’s still surging. We can get pushed off this bank and turned over.”

  The hull creaked as the boat leaned further.

  Darla gave Aguilar a hard look. “Nobody’s going anywhere,” she said. “Nobody.”

  Without waiting to explain her reasoning, she walked on into the boiler room. Water filled half the sloping deck. Condensation dripped off the ceiling and down the walls. The joint of the main steam pipe had burst wide open, the lips of the seam blown outward and ragged. The firebox door lay open, the flames having been hastily dowsed. Darla looked at it all for a while as the boat rocked with each gust.

  She returned to the saloon.

  “We’ll wait out the storm,” she said. “then refloat her. I need you all to stay here as ballast, to stop the boat riding farther up the bank.”

  Aguilar couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Is that all we are to you? Ballast?”

  “Right now? Yes. I risked my boat to come get you. Now you can help me.”

  Aguilar softened her stance. “Look, I know this boat means a lot to you, but you’ve got an injured man here. We need to find help and somewhere safer to be. Carl will come looking for us tomorrow, and maybe the other boat too. You won’t be able to float this boat on your own. We all owe you, and I’ll help you repair the boat, but now’s not the time. We need to leave.”

  Darla picked a piece of glass out of her palm.

  “Where are you going to go?” she said calmly. “Home? This is my home. This is home for a lot of us now, because … we can’t go back to New Orleans. If I lose this, I lose everything.”

  “I’m not suggesting we abandon her completely,” began Aguilar.

  Darla angrily shouted, “I’m not losing my baby.”

  Aguilar was taken aback. “I … that’s not what I meant …”

  Darla picked up a roll of bandages and began winding it roughly around her hand. “I’m not losing her,” she said, and walked out of the saloon. Entering the boiler room, she picked up a hammer and pliers, waded into the water and started hammering the burst lips of the pipe back down. A minute later, Manny walked in. With his good hand, he hauled the welding cylinders out. Soon after that, Zack arrived.

  “Anything I can do to help?” he asked.

  “Sure,” said Manny. “See that big sheet of metal over there? Drag it over. And in that tool box you’ll find a hacksaw. Bring them both to the work table.”

  Darla was silent for a while, then she asked, “Did the others
stay?”

  “They staying,” said Manny.

  “And Jacques?”

  “He’s cooking. I’m hungry. Ain’t you?”

  Darla chuckled, and she felt a release. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m very hungry.”

  “Then don’t worry. He’ll fix us up.” He paused. “We all will.”

  19

  The repairs to the pipes ran into the night, and still the storm blew. Aguilar and a couple of her crew braved the winds to secure the anchor in the shallows to prevent the boat being pulled back into the maelstrom. Once the repairs were complete, everyone hunkered down, rotating watches and catching up on sleep as the boat rocked and shuddered. By the morning the hurricane had moved on, leaving a strange calmness. With hardly a breath of wind, the river ran high and strong, entire trees floating by. Darla gathered everyone together for a briefing.

  “The river’s going to start dropping,” she said, “and we’ve got to get the boat off the bank before it drops too low. First thing we need to do is lighten the boat. We need to pump the water out, shovel all the coal out of the bilges and throw it overboard. All the furniture out of here as well. Anything we don’t need has to go. Jacques, I want you to take the anchor from the bow and attach it to the windlass at the stern. Then take the anchor out on the tender and dump it in deeper water about twenty yards out. Once the boat’s light enough, we’ll try kedging it out. I also need some volunteers to take shovels and rebars to shake the soil loose around the bow.”

  “What if there’s damage to the hull?” said Aguilar. “Not going to be any good floating it only to find it sinking again.”

  “Let’s see if we can float it first,” said Darla. “I’ll worry about the other problems later.”

  Manny heated the boiler while the others took the unpleasant job of digging the coal out of the bilges. When he had enough pressure in the boiler, he started the steam pump and then kept one eye on the gages and the other on the joints and seams to make sure there were no further leaks. Beautiful tables and chairs that Darla had taken years to amass sailed out of the saloon, and even the bar was ripped out and allowed to float off with the rest. Astern, Jacques loaded the anchor onto the tender and began rowing as Zack payed out the rope. When the weight of the heavy rope began pulling Jacques back and he couldn’t get any farther out, he tipped the anchor overboard.

  When the boat was as light as could be reasonably expected, Darla ordered everyone off except herself and Manny. The others were forced to stand in water up to their necks around the bow, holding shovels, rebars and oars.

  “Okay, Manny,” shouted Darla. “Give me Slow Astern.”

  Taking her position at the steam-driven windlass, Darla waited for the paddle wheels to begin rhythmically splashing the surface. Pulling the handle of the windlass, she opened up the torque until the dripping anchor rope was rigid. With everyone else pounding the silt around the bow, she waited for a sign that the boat was coming loose.

  Nothing happened.

  “Give me power on one paddle, then the other,” she shouted. “Alternate.”

  By applying leverage first in one direction, then the other, Darla hoped to wiggle the boat free of the sticky silt. She increased the torque on the windlass, trying to feel for the slightest of movements. The water around those pounding at the bow was completely brown, and some of them got their shoulders against the bow and attempted to push, but the boat wouldn’t budge.

  “Half Astern,” shouted Darla.

  The paddle wheels frothed up the murky waters and splashed those at the bow. Darla increased the torque, and got a moment of hope when the windlass wheeled in a bit of rope, but the boat didn’t move and she realized the anchor was being dragged through the mud.

  “Give it all you’ve got, Manny!”

  The boat shuddered in time to the pistons, and Darla was sure she felt a little movement. Applying max torque to the windlass, she grabbed the rope herself and pulled hard. A grating whine echoed up from inside the hull, and slowly the Mississippi Rose backed away from the shore.

  “Come on! Come on!”

  The bow slid off the sloping bank and dropped slightly, and suddenly the boat was free. Darla shut down the windlass and Manny stopped the paddle wheels. The current caught the boat and swung it around until it was downstream of the anchor. Aguilar began swimming and the others followed.

  But not Zack. He stared apprehensively at the short distance to the boat and took a deep breath.

  “Zack, just wait there,” called Darla hastily. The tender was still tied to the stern of the boat and she moved to untie it.

  Zack didn’t wait. Taking a step forward, he disappeared under the water and emerged spluttering and flailing his arms.

  Darla dived in and with a few powerful strokes reached his side, but he refused her help.

  “I can do this,” he gasped.

  His chin was barely above the water, and with his long hair flowing behind him he looked like a shaggy dog trying to get to a floating stick. His hands thrashed the water in an ineffective way and Darla backed off.

  “Lift your butt up and kick your legs,” she said.

  He couldn’t grasp this concept and continued in his awkward way, occasionally sinking below the surface before bobbing up again. But slowly, he got closer to the boat. Darla found it painful to watch, but the others, safe on board and dripping, began to cheer him on. Encouraged, he thrashed harder. Fortunately for his choice of technique, he didn’t really have far to go, and when he made it he got a round of applause. Darla lifted herself up after him.

  “I actually swam,” he said, stoked.

  “I wouldn’t call that swimming,” said Darla.

  Zack lay on his back, looking up at the scudding clouds.

  “I should thank you for coming back for me,” he said quietly.

  “You were only a few yards away,” said Darla. “It’s not like you were really going to drown.”

  “No, I meant coming down to the reactor. You risked your boat.”

  “Yeah, well,” said Darla, scratching her cheek. “Don’t sweat it. I needed someone to grouch at.”

  “I don’t doubt it. Still, thanks.”

  Darla looked at him. “Do you think I’m a bitch?” she asked.

  Zack met her gaze. “You want me to say no, don’t you? Or do you secretly want me to say yes? For someone who acts like you don’t give a crap, you’re very sensitive to what people think of you. I don’t want to contribute to your struggle. I’ve already fought that battle myself. Took me a long time to accept who and what I was. I’m happy now. I hope you can be too.”

  Darla opened and shut her mouth.

  “No, I’m not your therapist,” he said, anticipating her thoughts, “but you’ll figure it out.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” said Darla uncertainly.

  She walked away, still trying to figure out what he meant. Was it a compliment or a criticism?

  She entered the boiler room.

  “Turn off the pump,” she instructed Manny. “I need to see if we’ve damaged the hull.”

  Taking a candle, she opened a hatch down to the bilges and climbed in, stooping low and stepping over the bracing struts. There was water around her feet, and some loose coals. She located sprays of water coming in through cracks.

  She climbed back out. “Get that pump back on. We’ve got damage.”

  “Enough to worry about?” asked Manny.

  “Not sure, but I’ve got nothing to caulk it with. Keep a close eye on it and let me know if it gets worse.”

  “Will it hold?”

  “I restored this hull myself. It’ll hold.”

  Jacques hung up a couple of clothes lines on the Texas deck, and everyone who’d been in the water stripped down to their underwear. Darla, who had no dry clothing left, was forced to do the same, and the upper deck soon looked like it had lots of little sails trying to catch the wind. She was hanging her pants up when she saw a single boat coming down the river.

  It was the C
oast Guard response boat.

  “Crap,” said Darla.

  Of all the times for Carl to show up, it had to be now when she was wearing her least appealing underwear. Putting a brave face on it, she waited for his boat to come alongside. It puttered along slowly on its one working outboard.

  Carl leaned out of his pilothouse, staring at the half-naked bodies lined up on the deck of the Mississippi Rose.

  “Have you been having a pool party or something?” he said.

  “Sure,” said Darla. “Did you bring a bottle?”

  “We thought we’d lost you for sure. Heading into that hurricane was reckless.”

  Darla parsed his words, looking for signs of genuine concern.

  “Well,” she said, “gotta take a risk sometime. For the common good. Save lives. You know.”

  Carl stared at her, like he couldn’t figure her out. “What’s the situation with the reactor?”

  “It blew.”

  Carl gave an exasperated sigh. “That’s it, then. The evacuation’s over. God, I hope most of the people in New Orleans managed to get out.”

  Aguilar, watching the conversation with interest, chimed in. “It’ll be flooded now.”

  Carl shook his head. “Can this get any worse?” He rubbed his face, like he could somehow wipe away his worries. “Uh, okay. We need to figure out the next move. We should head back to Point Clair. Maybe Eleanor’s got some more ideas.”