Dark Water Rising (12 page)

The beach appeared torn and uneven, and we quickly realized that the wet sand we were walking on had once held homes. Pounding waves had eaten away at the island, pulling several hundred feet of shoreline into the gulf. I remembered Saint Mary’s Orphanage and the ten sisters who took care of more than ninety children there. I glanced behind me, hoping to see the two large dormitories that housed them all still standing beyond the dunes, but they were gone.

When we passed what was left of Fort Crockett, we found several dead soldiers from Battery O who must’ve been caught in the barracks when they fell. Private Billings laid them out, side by side, to wait for the burial parties that were sure to come. “If not for some all-wise providence that directed me to your house last night,” he told Mr. Vedder, “this would’ve been me.”

We carried the smaller kids on our shoulders while we picked our way over piles of splintered wood. Sometimes we sidestepped the deep, water-filled holes washed out by the storm, and sometimes we had no
choice but to wade through them, pushing aside dead chickens and dogs, broken toys and furniture.

I tried like everything to not look into the eyes of the dead, though I could feel them tugging at me. I didn’t want to think about what they’d suffered. I didn’t want to consider that Mama, Papa, and the kids might’ve met the same fate. It was too much misery to carry with me.

Instead, I fixed my attention on watching my step, and I was doing okay till we came upon a nun from Saint Mary’s Orphanage. She lay facedown, half-buried in the muddy beach, her torn black habit billowing above her in the wind like death’s own flag.

Mr. Mason dropped to his knees, digging with his hands to free her, and the rest of us men fell around him. We pulled the wet sand away and turned her over. Slender fingers gripped cording that had been tied around her waist, but the other end still lay buried. We dug harder and found a small child tethered to her. Then another. And another.

I heard gasps behind us, whispered prayers and muffled weeping. We laid them out, ten bodies strung together like pearls at the edge of the sea.

I tried to turn away, but I couldn’t seem to tear my eyes from the child closest to me. She was small, like Kate. I brushed damp sand from her cheeks and dark
lashes and fought hard to choke back the despair knotting in my throat and stinging at my eyes.

I finally turned to Josiah, who sat with his elbows on his knees, his gritty hands around his head, and I was gratefully lost for a moment in the sight of white sand glistening in his black hair. It didn’t seem possible that such simple beauty could exist side by side with the mind-numbing sorrow around us.

Mrs. Mason pulled her husband to his feet. “We’ll have to leave them,” she said.

Everyone nodded except for Captain Munn. He slowly turned, squinting at the wreckage, searching. There’d been no sign of his wife or her mother, and I could see the longing in his eyes, the questions, the ache of not knowing.

I moved closer. “We’ll help you watch for them,” I whispered.

He nodded, ducked his head, and continued picking his way down the debris-strewn beach.

I turned my back on the nun and her nine charges, set Francesca on my shoulders, and followed, wading through ankle-deep muddy water and big holes washed out by the current.

Death lay everywhere. I feared that hundreds, maybe thousands, of lives might’ve been taken by the storm. Flies swarmed, and buzzards circled high over horses and cows already swelling in the heat, over men and
women half-buried in mud or tangled in barbed wire and splintered timber. Many lay near naked, rocking back and forth in the surf, their clothing shredded, ripped from their bodies by all the debris. Some still grasped the hands of small children, but I knew better than to look into their eyes.

I walked on, my growing numbness a small but welcome barrier to the horror around us, and after a while, someone behind me said, “I wonder how the Edwardses came through.” Another said, “And the Wrens; they had five little ones, you know.”

No one answered.

“Do you think Captain Minor could’ve gotten out in time?” Mrs. Collum asked. “He lived so close to the beach, and he was all alone, with his family in Virginia for the summer.” And then, as if she already knew the answer, she added, “He felt so safe inside that concrete wall he built around his place.”

Mrs. Vedder, far ahead, waded into a hole and stepped onto a barrel half-concealed by muddy water. She sank up to her chin, floundered, and grasped at something floating nearby. The body of a small colored boy rolled under her arm, and the steadfast strength she’d shown throughout the storm gave way.

We hauled her sobbing from the murky water, and she collapsed at our feet, crying, “Charles, oh please, please pull him out.”

Mr. Vedder, his hands still bandaged, reached for the boy and managed to drag him from the hole before any of us could help.

Jacob backed away, a whole new look of despair on his face. “It’s Toby,” he whispered.

Allen nodded. “It’s him all right.”

I looked closer at the young boy, remembering the way his face had shone when Matt let him throw the fly ball back to Jacob. Had that really been only four days ago?

We stood there, staring. There was no light in Toby’s eyes now.

My hand went to the bulge inside my pocket. I hesitated, running my thumb over the stitching, thinking of Matt, but only for a moment. I pulled out the baseball and kneeled beside Toby.

Understanding flickered in Jacob’s and Allen’s faces, but Josiah’s eyes were full of questions. I pushed the ball into the boy’s stiff fingers and stepped back. When I glanced again at Josiah, I saw tears.

No one said a word. One by one, they stumbled on, and Josiah and I followed.

I kept a close watch on the ridge of debris off to our left, wondering where Thirty-fifth Street was. It had to be nearby; we’d been walking for hours. Josiah and I took a guess at the location, and, rather than traveling on to look for an easier path, we said our good-byes.

We thanked the Vedders, but I couldn’t muster enough words to express my true feelings. A nod, a wish for a loved one’s safety, was all I could manage. I stood for a moment, hesitant to leave the people who had become a lifeline to us, but it was they who finally turned and headed farther down the beach.

Josiah and I put the gulf behind us and pushed north toward the mountain that lay between us and our families. The closer we got, the larger it loomed, till we stood at the base of a ridge that rose near twenty feet high.

With the wind at our backs, we reached out, groping our way across the twisted wreckage. My feet rested on broken telephone poles and wagon wheels; my hands fell on clothing and veranda railings; and I wondered with each foot we climbed what might lay beneath this rubble. How many souls?

Josiah, with his long limbs, moved ahead and disappeared over the top. When I caught up with him, he was standing on the corner of a piano wedged tight in the debris. I stood beside him and tried to get my bearings.

The two-story-high ridge was at least a hundred feet across at the base and appeared to wrap around the entire heart of the city. The houses and buildings left standing on this side tilted crazily, and many lay tumbled topsy-turvy, kicked over like toy blocks. Farther north,
close to the bay, ships sat askew on land and in water, as if they’d been tossed into the air and left to fall. I looked toward Thirty-fifth Street, which I figured lay just west of us, but couldn’t make out much. I couldn’t tell if Uncle Nate’s house still stood or not.

“We needs to go,” Josiah said.

I turned for a last glance at the beach. From my twenty-foot perch I could see for miles, but I couldn’t fathom a guess at how many blocks had been swept clean away. There appeared to be nothing standing south of Avenue N. And beneath my feet, twisted into an endless ridge, lay everything—thousands of homes, including the four we’d been working on, the Midway, the giant bathhouses, even trolleys.

Turning my back on the impossible sight, I contemplated a path down, past the sharp slate and splintered wood. Wind whipped at the torn clothing around my feet and whistled around my ears, then I heard something else. My heart thumped. A voice?

Josiah must’ve heard it, too, because he stopped and turned to look at me.

The weak cry came again, but this time I made out the words. “Can you hear me?” it asked.

A girl’s voice. I looked beneath my feet, and the horror of what might be swelled inside me like another storm.

“She be under us,” Josiah whispered, dropping to his knees.

I kneeled beside him. “Where are you?” I called, then closed my eyes and listened closely.

“Here,” she said weakly. “I can see . . . your leg.”

Her breathy voice sounded parched and raspy. I searched the jagged dark openings around me, frantic for a glimpse of her, but couldn’t see far enough inside. I began tugging, jerking, ripping at twisted lumber, pulling out dead kittens and broken mirrors, tree limbs and table legs, sending it all tumbling down the ridge. Josiah worked beside me, adding his strength to mine, but large timbers lay twined so tight, finally nothing would budge. It would take dozens of saws to get through it. And time. Perhaps more time than she had.

I fell back, and Josiah did, too, his face streaked with tears and sweat. I hung my head, and for a moment, my whole body shook with sobs.

When I caught my breath, I felt the weight of Josiah’s hand on my shoulder. He put a finger to his lips. “Listen,” he whispered.

“Please, mister . . . don’t cry,” the girl pleaded. “I just want . . . to give you . . . my name.”

I leaned over the narrow crack, searching the dark for a movement, just one glimpse of her face. “We’ll get help,” I called.

“I don’t want to die . . . without someone . . . knowing my name.”

I shoved my hand into the crack, pushing, straining,
desperate to touch her. “We’ll find saws; we’ll get you out.”

“Please, mister . . . I’m Sarah . . . Sarah Louise Ellison.”

Her fragile voice ripped at my heart and tangled my breath. I didn’t want to just remember her name. I wanted her out.

“Tell her,” Josiah begged, his face twisted and tormented. “You has to tell her.”

Tears dripped onto my pants in perfect dark circles while I fought for breath enough to speak. “We’ll remember, Sarah Louise Ellison,” I said finally, sobs choking my words. “Both of us. We’ll remember.”

Josiah stood and reached for my arm, but I jerked away. My head fell onto my knees. I couldn’t leave her yet.

He let me be for a moment, and when he reached out again, I let him pull me to my feet. He placed a jagged piece of mirror above her prison so we could find her again and started down the ridge.

“We’ll remember, Sarah Louise Ellison!” I shouted, picking my way down. “And we’ll be back!”

15

Climbing down from the ridge seemed more difficult than going up. One blunder and we’d end up sliding across the broken slate and glass that stuck out everywhere. It was slow going, and before we were even halfway down, I heard another faint call, a man’s voice this time. I stopped and listened.

Josiah tugged at my arm. “We can’t hep ’im, Mister Seth. We needs saws, lots of ’em.”

I jerked free of his hand, angry at our mounting helplessness, then glared at him. “My name is
not
Mr. Seth. It’s just plain ol’ Seth.”

He stared at me, eyes weary, brimming with misery. “Not for me, it ain’t,” he said and continued down the ridge.

His words sucked the air right out of me, leaving me almost too weak to move, but I recognized the truth in them. The very people who went out of their way
to make sure I made something of myself, like Papa, Uncle Nate, even Mr. Farrell, were the same ones who kept Josiah right where he was.

What I’d asked of him was impossible.

I heard another weak call from deep in the debris, and it propelled me down. I searched the wreckage ahead for help, and not far from us, I saw a half dozen men loading bodies onto wagons.

“We need help!” I called, long before they could hear us well.

An older man with a gray beard turned to watch while we struggled across the muddy ruins toward him.