Rivers Read online

Let them be, he thought.

  Then the boy said, “I don’t guess you’d take us over the water.”

  “If I take you over the water, I’ll have to keep on taking you.”

  “No you won’t. Swear it.”

  “Don’t beg him,” the girl said.

  “I ain’t begging. I’m asking. What the hell.”

  Cohen raised the sawed-off shotgun and showed it to them. “You see this?”

  They nodded.

  “You understand?”

  “Yes sir,” the boy said. The girl didn’t answer.

  “What about you, snakebite?” Cohen asked. “You understand?”

  “I get it.”

  “Across the water,” he said. “Across the water and then you get out.”

  “That’s fine,” said the boy. “That’s all I’m asking. We just got to get to Louisiana.”

  “Stop saying that,” Cohen said. “Don’t know who you been talking to. That water over there you’re wanting to get across is about half as deep as the same water all of Louisiana is under. Now wait right there.”

  He climbed down out of the Jeep and rearranged the gas cans and plastic bags and cases of water so that one of them could sit in back. He then took the boxes of shells and the chain-saw blades out of the bag and slid them way up under the driver’s seat. When he was done, he waved them over and the girl limped alongside the boy without his help. Cohen pointed at the boy and told him to sit up front and put her in the backseat. The boy helped her up over the side of the Jeep and she shifted around in the seat to unwind the coat and then he got in the passenger seat. When Cohen was happy with the way they were sitting, he climbed behind the wheel. He now had to shift gears with the same hand that held the shotgun and he didn’t like the loose grip but the decision had been made and they moved on.

  He turned his head and told the girl to get them some water and she tore the plastic wrapping off the bottles and handed one up to the boy. They drank like thirsty animals and had each killed a bottle before they got to the water’s edge. Cohen told her to take a couple out and put them in the pockets of that coat and she did.

  The Jeep crept through the pondlike water. He had to watch the road ahead and maintain a grip on the shotgun and keep an eye on them. The boy reached down and took the bag of jerky off the floorboard and asked if he could have some and Cohen told him to take it. The boy handed a few strips to the girl and they chewed and chewed as the Jeep made small waves across the flooded land. Halfway across, the boy turned and seemed to say something to the girl and Cohen told him to face the front and don’t look back there no more. He then told the girl to keep her eyes ahead, too. The gearshift shook some in the steady low gear and knocked against the barrel of the gun and he had to squeeze his thumb and forefinger tightly to keep from dropping it. They moved on, the deepest part behind them, and they were beginning to climb when the boy turned and looked at the girl again and Cohen slammed on the brakes and the jerk caused the water to splash into the floor of the Jeep. He stuck the shotgun under the boy’s chin.

  “You hear me?” he said. “You hear me now? Do you goddamn hear me?”

  The boy’s chin was toward the sky. Without moving his mouth, he said, “Yeah.”

  “Face forward or get out.”

  “Yeah.”

  Cohen lowered the shotgun and shifted into first gear and moved on.

  “I was just checking on her,” the boy said.

  “Don’t say nothing else,” Cohen said.

  “You know she got snakebit.”

  “I said hush.”

  “I swear to God she got snakebit.”

  “I said shut the fuck up.”

  “She can’t halfway walk,” the boy said and he turned again to the girl and this time the girl came forward and Cohen felt the cord around his neck and his head snapped back and the shotgun fired off and blasted out the windshield. He dropped the gun and tried to get his fingers between the cord and his neck and the boy punched him in the face and he fought with one hand and tried to pull at one of the girl’s hands with the other and his air was running out in a hurry. His eyes bulged and the girl’s hair fell over his face as she choked him with everything she had and the boy kept punching at him, hitting her as much as him. Cohen tried to twist and get around the seat but the boy held him down and the blood turned his face red and in desperation he let go of her wrist that he was trying to pry away from his throat and he snatched her by the hair and snatched him by the hair and yanked as fiercely as he could before he was choked to death. The girl screamed and came forward enough to ease the pressure from the rope cord that had been yanked out of a lawn mower and the boy clawed at Cohen’s arm to get free. As he got his air he got strong again and they saw they couldn’t handle him. The girl jumped out of the backseat and into the water, the cord still tight around Cohen’s neck, and it brought him down headfirst and he splashed into the water. She yelled at the boy to get the gun, get the gun, and the boy picked up the shotgun and was holding it on Cohen as she let go of the cord and hurried back away from him. She climbed into the back of the Jeep and they waited for him to come up. He’d hit his head on the asphalt bottom on the way down and his body was lifeless in the dark water. They watched. The boy with the gun on him and the girl breathing heavy from the fight.

  “You think he’s dead?” the boy said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Go poke him.”

  “I ain’t going to poke him.”

  Suddenly Cohen shot up, gasping for air and falling back again. He fought to get to his feet and he flailed his arms like a child learning to swim and then he was on his feet but staggering, a red line around his neck and red down his face and he choked for air and spit out the dirty water. The boy gripped the shotgun tightly and the girl moved behind him and she was yelling shoot him. Shoot him shoot him now.

  Cohen got straight up and he wiped at his eyes and held his arms out in submission.

  “What you waiting on?” she said and she elbowed the boy in the back of his shoulder.

  He cocked back both hammers and pulled the trigger and there was a click. He pulled it again and there was another click. “Holy shit,” he said and he sat down quickly behind the wheel and cranked the Jeep and Cohen rushed at them, the girl yelling and the boy fighting the gearshift but he got it in first just as Cohen was diving for him and Cohen’s shoulder banged against the crossbar as the Jeep jerked forward. He fell limp into the water and floated there, dizzy and gagging and left in the wake as the Jeep moved on ahead, up out of the water and onto the highway, the girl’s wet black hair flapping in the wind as she stood in the seat with her back to the road, watching Cohen as they drove away.

  He raised out of the water, his right arm drooping, and he didn’t have to look to know that his shoulder was separated. He stood still to get his breath and he grimaced with the pain of his shoulder and water and blood ran down his face and neck, his forehead gashed from the headfirst fall. When he was breathing steady, he began walking out of the thigh-high water, his right side lagging. It was a heavy walk and the line around his throat burned and he wanted to wait until he was out of the water to try and pop his shoulder back in but he couldn’t wait. He felt his shoulder socket to figure out where it was supposed to go and then he took a deep breath and with his left hand he lifted his right arm and shoved and it didn’t go and he screamed and went down to his knees. Oh goddamn, oh goddamn, he said and then without getting up and in anger he lifted and shoved the arm again and there was a pop and a fiery pain but it was in.

  He screamed out again and let his face fall into the water and then he raised up and spewed the water out of his mouth. He stood up and began walking again and it took a few minutes but he came out of the water and he sat down on the asphalt between the wet tracks from the Jeep. He was cold and wet and the blood from his forehead wouldn’t stop and the pain ran from his shoulder and down through his back and the red line around his neck was raised. He pushed his hair back from his
face and found the gash with his fingertips. Floating out in the water was his sock hat and he got up and walked back out and got it and pressed it against the gash. Then he walked out of the water again, looked back behind him at the gathered clouds and the pops of lightning. Still far away but coming. Out in front of him the sun was nearly down and a red sky stretched the width of the skyline. It was cold but would get colder when the sun fell and he was too far from home.

  He looked around. Nothing but land and water in every direction. But he couldn’t stay there so he started along the highway, dripping and bleeding and hurting, the clouds moving in his direction.

  3

  ALMOST DARK AND THUNDER NOW with the lightning back off to the east. The wind had picked up and he shivered in the wet clothes and the falling temperature. He tried to remember as he walked. Tried to remember anything along the road that was still standing. Even halfway. Anything that he could get into for the night, before whatever was in those clouds got to him. But nothing was left save a small church down one of these side gravel roads and he’d have to guess which one as they all looked the same. Maybe the church was still there. He couldn’t be sure but it was the only option. As he walked, he was repeatedly startled by the movements in the brush off the side of the road—rabbits and possums and he hoped that was all. A doe walked out into the road ahead of him, stopped and stared, then went on. Dark now and the sky littered with stars in the low western horizon and he tried to hurry but the fatigue and the pain were wearing on him and he shook with chills and he felt the beginnings of a fever. He came to another gravel road on his right and he looked down it. Some trees remained along the roadside and he thought hard. Knew the church was a mile or two walk down whichever road. There was thunder and he looked back over his shoulder and the lightning danced in the clouds and he didn’t have time to think about it anymore.

  The road was mud and it gave under his feet and he slipped over and over again as he half-ran. He hoped that the road wouldn’t be washed away up ahead, sinking mud and giant potholes, and it wasn’t. He hurried on, the wind stronger now and hanging limbs beginning to fall away and the lightning bright behind him and helping to light his way in split-second bursts. He had no idea how far he had gone and it seemed that he had gone far enough but there was still no church and still nothing else and he tripped and fell and tried to land on his good shoulder. Up quickly and wiping mud from his chin and the lightning flashed again and this time he saw up ahead the small brick church. The thunder crashed and felt like it was right on top of him and he took off running, his knees buckling as he hit the puddles and nearly falling but keeping on, and the lightning hit and he saw the front doors of the church missing and then he heard footsteps beside him and he was startled but then there were more and more footsteps surrounding him and he raced into the church doors and collapsed in the aisle as the baseball-sized hail pounded the earth.

  It beat against the roof and it beat into the church where pieces of roof were missing above the choir loft and the baptismal. He rolled under a pew, his shoulder throbbing as the hail attacked the earth and what was left of the church, the sound of a hundred hardworking men and their sledgehammers. The lightning snapped and the crack of snapping wood and the scurrying of four-legged creatures sharing the church with him. He rolled over onto his stomach and crossed his good arm and put his head down and his other arm lay limp at his side. More thunder and more lightning and more hail as he lay shivering.

  He folded his arms and squeezed, breathing in short bursts and wary of what might be in there with him. The hail beat beat beat against the church and he heard limbs cracking and breaking and thuds to the ground outside. He leaned back, anticipating any moment that the ceiling would give with the hailstorm, but the frequency of thuds became less and less until they stopped and then there was a strange dead calm.

  He climbed out from under the pew and sat. Something moved toward the front of the church, the clatter of paws across wooden pews, and then several more to follow and Cohen sat on the edge of the pew as if he might have to make a run for it but then whatever it was moved again and it didn’t seem big enough to worry about.

  Everything seemed to pause. There was no more hail. No wind. No rain. All was still, dark, quiet, like an empty theater.

  He knew what that meant.

  He waited and then a soft rain began to fall. He listened to the trickles of rain coming down into the church and he was reminded of the sound of the spring creek that he played in as a boy. The creek buried in the shade of the trees and the spring-fed water ice-cold and the chatter of his chin as he played in the clear, crisp water. The same chatter of his chin now as he sat there cold and wounded. The rain fell and the thunder echoed and he looked across the shades of black in the broken sanctuary and saw her. Something hazy and gray but he saw her only the way that he saw her now, in undefined, ghostlike images, the clarity of her face and figure beginning to fade some even though she was all he had in his isolation. He watched her move, coming down from the pulpit, moving along the aisle toward him, standing there and waiting for him to say something.

  He reached out his hand.

  He was shaking and he took heavy breaths to try and stop it but he could not. She hovered there in front of him as if waiting for something and he closed his eyes and it was then that she became more clear as she was lying there with her head in his lap and his hand on her pregnant stomach. On the asphalt of Highway 49, underneath an eighteen-wheeler, surrounded by the screams of those who were running for it as they had all seen them coming, the handful of tornadoes breaking free from the still black clouds, like snakes slithering down from the sky, moving toward the hundreds, maybe thousands of gridlocked cars that were only trying to do what they had been told to do. Get the hell out of here. Don’t pack anything. Don’t stop. Get your family and get in your car and get the hell out of here and that was what they had done. Like they had all done so many times in the last years but this time there had been no head start. No window. Only get in and get out. And the tornadoes splintered out of the sky and weaved toward them and then exploded through the bodies and the cars and trucks, metal and flesh being lifted and catapulted.

  As Cohen and Elisa had run between the rows of cars, she had gone down and when he had bent to help her up, a piece of something shiny was sticking out of the back of her head and her eyes were like the eyes of someone who had seen something from another world. Elisa, Elisa, he said, but she didn’t answer and her body was limp and he lifted and carried her and he slipped underneath the eighteen-wheeler and she lay with her head in his lap and the blood puddling underneath their bodies and her eyes open through it all and his hand on her belly that was as big as a volleyball and there was nothing that he could do but scream out against the chaos of the world. Cohen on his knees and her head across them and the rig swaying with the power of the earth and nothing to do but hold her and watch her go with her eyes never closing. Her lost, wandering eyes. As if the dead didn’t understand anything more than the living. The life going out of her and Cohen’s face on her stomach, talking to the baby, telling the baby things he couldn’t remember now, talking to her so that she could hear him and know she was not alone with this terrible thing coming for her. His bloody hands on Elisa’s belly, his mouth against it, his child within, his voice begging the child to somehow know she was loved. The rig swaying but holding and the tornadoes breaking away and tearing off in other directions and the sky blue-gray and nothing to do. Nothing to do.

  He opened his eyes and the clarity dissipated and there was only her hazy image out before him and then it was gone like a drift of smoke. And he tried to remember, like he always did, if he had even said goodbye to Elisa.

  His lips were dry and he licked them and he was so thirsty but he would have to wait. He adjusted himself on the hard wooden pew and shook and tried to figure how far a walk he had ahead of him back to his place but his thoughts would not settle and for the moment he wasn’t even certain of the directio
n. The rain fell and the wind picked up and something nasty was coming on now. He lay down across the pew. His chills staggered his breathing and his thoughts twisted in knots and he thought he might be better off if he took off the wet clothes but he didn’t move and then he heard the voice of the black-haired girl.

  Shoot him. Shoot him now.

  The rain began to crash and the wind roared like an approaching war. It roared and the little church cracked and swayed and held on, the wind whipping around inside, and outside the trees bent and some gave way and he knew it was only the beginning.

  He rolled off the pew, underneath again. The vision of Elisa and the child had awakened his mind. She’d be three years old now. No, four. No, three. And Elisa would be how many? He subtracted the five years between them and she would be thirty-four and he made himself stop thinking about it all and then he began to think about the house and how foolish he must have looked with the long flatbed trailer, loaded with enough lumber for several tries, driving down toward the coast while everyone else drove in the other direction. Look at that idiot, he imagined them saying. What the hell does he plan on building? Don’t he know what’s going on? Don’t he know it’s over down here? Even if he gets something up it won’t belong to him no more. Soon as that Line is drawn, we’re all done.

  He imagined their conversations. Looks like they were right, he thought. Ain’t no way to get anything built. Not enough time in between them. And now the rain that never stopped. But that hadn’t kept him from trying to finish the child’s room, because he and Elisa had set out to build a child’s room, and he had the foundation to build the child’s room before she and Elisa went away, and fuck all the storms and fuck the Line and fuck the government and their bullshit offer for my house and my land and I’m building this room for this child no matter how many times I gotta build and rebuild and no matter how long it takes. He realized how ridiculous it all looked but there wasn’t anyone around to look anymore and he wasn’t going anywhere until it was done, but for the first time, lying under this pew, with this shoulder, with this whelp around his neck, with his Jeep taken away, with this church cracking and swaying, with the water soaked into his bones, with this goddamn rain that wouldn’t stop, he wondered if there would ever be a child’s room. Wondered if the lumber would ever dry out. Wondered if he would one day be an old man, no longer beaten by the weather but beaten by time.