The Rift (58 page)

Jedthus looked nervously at Leckie. “Yeah, Omar. We’ll do that.”

“Because if you screw this up,” said Omar, “you two are going to spend the rest of your lives in prison being raped by big-dick niggers. You understand me?”

Leckie’s eyes were wide. “Yes, sir,” he mumbled.

“Now get moving,” Omar said. “And police the damn area afterward. I don’t want anyone tomorrow to find a thing belonging to this boy.” He began moving toward his car. “I’m heading home to finish watching the
Tonight Show
.”

Omar heard splashing sounds as Jedthus and Leckie waded into the ditch to pat down the dead man, find his keys, and open his trunk. He opened the door to his car, prepared to step in, and then saw headlights glaring on the other side of the Bayou Bridge.

“Careful!” he called. “Car coming!”

Leckie and Jedthus straightened and stood self-consciously by the ditch, like guilty children. Omar cursed, slammed his door, walked toward the other two. Checked the sight lines, made sure the body wasn’t visible from the road. Headlights glared in his eyes.

The car rolled past. A Buick, Omar saw, a white family with children. Everyone but the driver asleep.

As soon as the driver was past, Leckie and Jedthus bent again to their work. Omar heard Jedthus curse under his breath.

“No fuckin’ keys,” Leckie said.

Another set of headlights were coming. Frustration boiled in Omar’s veins. “Have you tried the
ignition
?”
he demanded.

Jedthus cursed, splashed in the ditch. He wrenched open the door and triggered a buzzing alarm. Omar’s nerves jumped at the sound. Jedthus yanked keys from the ignition and the alarm stopped.

“Wait for the car to go by,” Omar warned.

The car was a big white Chevy Suburban packed with someone’s possessions, with more tied on top. Part of a couch hung out the back end.

“What the hell is going on?” Jedthus said. ”This is a
week night.
What are all these people doing out here?“

”Another car,“ Omar said. Jedthus banged his fist on the trunk of the dead man’s Mercury.

The car was a little red Honda hatchback with a black woman driving, a kid in the passenger seat, and more belongings piled in the back.

And behind the Honda were two more cars.

The cars just kept coming, eighteen or twenty of them, all packed with people or possessions. Omar went to his car and sat in the driver’s seat, drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, and tried to think.

One of the cars slowed to a stop, and Omar saw the driver rolling down the window. Omar winced, withdrew farther into the car.

“Excuse me, officer,” the stranger said. He was a little white man, elderly, with a frosted mustache.

“Yes?” Omar said.

“Is there a motel anywhere ahead?”

“Not in this parish, sir,” Omar said. The man rolled up his window and went on.

Finally there was a break in the traffic, and Omar helped the other two pick up the corpse and drop it into the trunk. Jedthus was breathing hard as he slammed the trunk lid down, and Leckie looked pale and frightened, as if he was about to run off into the night.

“What is going
on
?”
Jedthus demanded.

“They’re evacuating,” Omar said. “You heard that everyone on the river’s got to leave.”

Jedthus looked bewildered. “Why are they coming
here
?”
he demanded. “We don’t have anything for refugees here. And they’re driving farther into the earthquake zone.”

“This highway’s a hurricane evacuation route. These people have just been following the signs.”

Jedthus stared. “Jee-zus,” he said.

“More cars coming,” Leckie said.

“Dang it,” Jedthus said.

Omar put his hand on Jedthus’s shoulder. “Listen,” he said. “Stay cool. Just do what I said, and take this car
way down the bayou.
And no one will ever know.”

Jedthus looked at Omar and nodded. Omar went back to his car and started the engine.

When he looked in the rearview mirror, he saw another line of cars coming.

*

Nick watched
Beluthahatchie
fall astern as he drifted down the river. He hadn’t started the outboard except for a brief burst to show that he
could
start it if he needed to. He didn’t want to speed downriver at night and risk running into an obstacle or losing his way, so he planned to drift easy till dawn, then make his way by whatever landmarks were still visible.

Beluthahatchie’s
turbines revved, the sound filling the still river. Winches clattered. It was tricky pulling the tow off the mud, Captain Joe had explained, because all fifteen barges were held together with just a single steel cable. If the cable parted, the entire tow would come apart, and the whipping steel cable could cut a man in half.

The river had risen four inches in just three hours, according to the captain, which should more than float the tow. Captain Joe hadn’t expected it— reports from upriver had indicated a much slower rise— but the towboat’s captain was going to take advantage of the flood while he could.

Nick looked ahead and felt anxiety claw lightly at his nerves. He hadn’t been able to reach Toussaint with his radio call. The water was rising there, too, Arlette had said, and was threatening to flood the telephone exchange. Perhaps all communication with Toussaint was out.

Captain Joe had said that he’d keep calling. All Nick could do was hope that he hadn’t delayed too long in getting on the river, that Arlette and her mother would still be in Toussaint when he arrived.

Nick jumped at the sound of the towboat’s horn blasting over the river. It sounded three times, the echoes dying away in the trees, and then
Beluthahatchie
began to move, its diesels whining as it backed away from the hidden sandbar. Then it paused while the stern anchors were taken up, the boat’s outline glowing in the darkness; its horn sounded again and it began to move forward.

Nick raised a hand and waved.

The towboat moved slowly and cautiously, but nevertheless, in a few short moments, it left Nick alone on the river.

*

“Omar?” Wilona asked sleepily. “Who is that?”

“I’ll find out, darling,” Omar said.

He reached for the pistol he kept on the nightstand as the knock on the front door persisted. It was four in the morning, and he had left Jedthus and Leckie with their corpse around midnight.

They’d probably screwed it up, he thought. He could hardly believe that they were stupid enough to come here asking for advice.

And if it wasn’t Jedthus knocking, it was someone else who had even less business knocking on his door. Black militants. Jew assassins. Even that crazy Micah Knox, wanting vengeance for the way Omar had treated him. Omar was famous now, which meant that people he had never met would want to kill him, just like they’d killed John Lennon.

Omar held his pistol ready as he slipped to the front window and twitched aside the curtains, saw the familiar face under the porch light. His heart leaped. He put his pistol on a side table, unlocked the door, and threw his arms around his son.

“David! What are you doing here?”

His boy grinned at him, patted him on the back. “Baton Rouge is being evacuated. My summer job’s gone, so I thought I might as well come home.”

Omar stepped back, grinned. “Why didn’t you call?”

“I tried. The phones were all jammed. So I just came.” David was a younger version of his father— tall, with broad shoulders, curling black hair, and movie-star features that got him a lot of girlfriends.

“David!” Wilona called from the bedroom. She rushed to embrace her son. Omar helped David carry his bags into the back room.

“The traffic was bumper-to-bumper almost all the way here,” David said. “It looked like the whole state was on the move.”

“They started driving through earlier tonight,” Omar said. “I don’t know why they’re heading this way.”

“I don’t think they know, either. They’re city people, you know? They’ll just keep driving till they see something familiar, like a Holiday Inn or a McDonald’s.”

“Can I get you something to eat?” Wilona asked.

David nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I haven’t had anything since lunch.”

“I’ve got some cold ham and potatoes. I could reheat it in the microwave.”

“Cold is fine, Mama.”

“Heating it’s no problem. You want some Co-Cola?” Retying her bathrobe, Wilona headed for the kitchen.

David and Omar looked at each other for a moment. Then David grinned. “I saw you on TV, Dad. You looked good.”

“Thanks.”

“There was a lot of talk on campus about you. You’d be surprised how many friends you have there.”

Omar nodded. “I’m glad to hear it.”
Campus.
He had a son who was on
campus.
No Paxton had ever been to college before.

Father and son, they were on the move.

They walked back to the front room and sat down. David looked around. “The house seems to have come through okay,” he said.

“Your mama put a lot of work into making it look that way,” Omar said. “But you’ll be eating off a plastic plate tonight. All the china fell out of the cabinet and smashed.”

David made a face. “I hope the insurance covers it.”

“No. The policy has an exemption for earthquakes and floods.”

“Bastards,” David said. “Jew bastards.”

“Here’s your Co-Cola.” Wilona, returning with a plastic party cup in her hand.

“Thank you, Mama.” Smiling. David turned back to Omar. “Is there any more work I can do around the house? Or should I see if I can find a paying job somewheres else?”

Omar considered. “The National Guard shipped too many of my deputies up north. I’ve been swearing in special deputies. And with all these refugees coming through, we’ll need more just to handle the traffic.”

David grinned. “Sounds great,” he said. “Kind of like working for the family firm.”

It would be good to have somebody intelligent working for him, Omar thought.

Not like Leckie and Jedthus, who were probably up to their hips in the bayou right now, finding a place to hide a corpse.

*

The current was sluggish, and
American Dream
turned slow circles around
Retired and Gone Fishin’
as it drifted. Nick let the boat do what it wanted, and only tried to keep it in the center of the channel, between the dimly sensed flood plain on either side. The night was dark, but the stars blazed overhead with an intensity Nick had never seen. He could see dozens of nebulae with the naked eye, little bright clouds between the stars, and he could never remember seeing so many before.

He wished he had Jason’s telescope aboard.

He felt a breath of wind on his skin, and then he heard a distant rushing sound ahead. He turned his head downstream, cupped hands to his ears. The sound
might
be wind through trees.

It might be rapids.

It might be a waterfall.

The wind freshened, fell, freshened again from another direction. The rushing sound grew louder. Nick strained his eyes for sign of white water.

Captain Joe hadn’t received any reports of rapids on this stretch. Boats had been going up and down the river and hadn’t reported white water here. It didn’t make any sense.

Stay alive for Arlette,
Nick thought. He dropped into the cockpit seat and started the engine. He turned the bow upstream and motored slowly for ten minutes. Then cut the motor and drifted again, till he felt the winds and heard the rushing. Then he did it again. And again.

Till dawn.

When the east turned pale he was surprised by the size and sluggishness of the river. The trees in what Captain Joe would call the batture sat deeper in the water than he’d seen them before. Debris floated aimlessly on the still water, turning small circles or pushed around by little predawn wind gusts. It was as if the river had almost ceased to flow, had become a lake three or four miles wide.

Almost. The water was moving south very slowly, taking the boat with it. Nick folded back the boat’s canvas top, then stood to peer ahead, scratched his bristly chin in thought. Something, he thought, was causing the river to rise, had floated
Beluthahatchie
off its bar. What could cause the river to rise four inches in just a matter of hours? Four inches over this huge expanse was a
lot
of water. Nick wondered if the Arkansas had changed its course, struck the Mississippi just south of here and backed up the water.

The sun blazed above the trees to the east, brightened the dark river with its touch. Nick could hear that roaring sound again. What was going on?

The southern horizon seemed indistinct, misty. Banks of fog?

Fear shivered up Nick’s spine. He wondered if the mist was rising off rapids.

“Hey, Nick. What’s happening?”

Nick turned and saw Jason sitting in the bass boat’s little cockpit. His hair was tousled, and there was a sleepy smile on the boy’s face.

Fury flashed like fire along Nick’s nerves. “
What are you doing here
?”
he roared.

Jason’s eyes widened in surprise at the strength of Nick’s anger, but when he replied his tone was deliberately casual. “Didn’t want to spend the summer with my aunt. I thought I’d go with you.”

“
God damn it
!”
Nick banged a fist on the gunwale. “
God damn it, you’re not my kid
!”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Jason said. He lifted his hands in appeal. “I won’t get in your way. I can be useful. You know that.”

Nick glared at him. “Now I’ve got to take you back to Captain Joe,” he said. He threw himself into the cockpit seat, pulled out the choke.

“Hey, wait! You’ll never catch the
Beluthahatchie.
You’ve been going down the river all night.”

Nick didn’t even bother to look at Jason as he shouted his answer. “No, I haven’t! I’ve been staying in the same place all damn night long! And if you had any damn brains, you’d know that!”

“No! Wait!”

Nick punched the starter, felt the big Evinrude catch. He gunned the engine to drown out Jason’s protests, then put it in gear. He spun the wheel, turned the speedboat upstream, and pushed the throttle forward. He felt the little tug that meant the tow rope to the bass boat had gone taut, and imagined rather than saw Jason being flung back in his seat as the bass boat accelerated on the end of its line.