Three Rivers (26 page)

The water downstairs rose to her hips; the smell was unbelievable. “Let's get out of here,” Melody said.

“Out,” Bobby said.

“Out,” Liam said.

They stepped out into the raging storm. Melody could barely make out a boat floating in the murky gray distance. The boat looked like a papier-m
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project gone wrong, nothing more than gluey wet newspaper floating in a bucket of paint.

The buzz of a motor cut through the rain. A man wearing a bright yellow poncho piloted another boat, sidled it right next to them, and shouted, “Let's go. Let's load up.”

Melody looked back and forth between the smaller boat, where she assumed her mother waited, and the larger boat being steered by this yellow-clad stranger. She stepped toward the yellow. “Thank God you're here.”

The man reached out an arm and hoisted Melody and Liam into the boat. “We have a shelter set up at the middle school. Blankets, dry clothes, food.”

Melody shivered. The denim shirt she wore, her father's shirt, grew waterlogged and heavy. She wrapped her arms tighter around Liam, knew he must be freezing in her old thin T-shirt.

The man's voice whipped around in the fierce wind. “Let's go.” He gestured to Bobby.

“Mama,” Bobby said. “I want to go with Mama.”

“We need to keep moving,” the man said. “There are other people who need help.”

“Bobby, get in the boat!” Melody yelled.

Chris staggered past Bobby and Maurice and climbed into the boat, banging down hard on his knees. He didn't seem fazed. He continued with his meaningless prayer. “Our Father, who art in heaven…” He prayed as he pulled himself onto one of the bench seats.

“He's been in an accident!” Melody said. “He needs a doctor.”

“There are doctors at the shelter. They'll have a look at him. He's walking, which makes him better off than some others I've seen.”

“I'm worried about his head.”

“Let's get moving, then. How many are in there?”

“Just the deputy,” she said. “And these men here.”

“And Daddy!” Liam pleaded. “Don't forget Daddy.”

Melody patted Liam on the back. She put her lips against the man's ear and said as quietly as she could while still making herself heard over the storm, “This boy's father is in there. There's some trouble. I don't know if he'll come.”

“We won't come back,” the man said.

Melody nodded. Boggs stepped out the front door and lifted his hand to the man in the boat.

“I got 'em!” the man shouted.

Boggs pushed Maurice and Bobby forward until they had no choice but to climb into the boat. “Take these two and get the two women from the sheriff's boat,” Boggs said. “I'm going back in after a man. We'll take the small boat.”

“I'll drop them at the shelter and head back out for another sweep.”

Boggs disappeared into the house. Melody hoped Obi would either escape or surrender peacefully, but she couldn't imagine him doing either. Bobby and Maurice settled into the boat, and everyone donned an orange life vest. The vests were familiar to Melody, the same kind Old Grandaddy kept in his fishing boat, four puffy sections with a hole in the center and a web of adjustable canvas straps. “I don't have a child size,” the man said. Melody loosened the straps on her jacket and slipped the vest over both Liam's head and her own. She pulled the straps tight enough to hold the child close. “Is that okay?”

“Don't let go,” Liam said.

The man in yellow fired up the motor and steered toward the smaller boat. It was a matter of traveling a few yards, but the rain was so heavy and the sky so dark they were right next to the boat before Melody saw the girl curled up in the bottom like a gasping fish.

“I'll be damned,” the man said.

“Mama!” Bobby yelled. “Where's my mama?”

The girl looked up at them. “Please help me.”

“Mama, Mama, Mama!”

The man lifted the girl into their boat. “I thought there were two of you.”

The girl didn't respond. He slipped a life vest over her shoulders and pushed her down onto the bench seat next to Melody and Liam. She was tiny, fragile, her skin the color of caramel, her short hair so black that it seemed blue.

Melody realized she desperately wanted to see her mother, not because she was angry, but because she was scared and sad and lost. She couldn't remember ever wanting her mother so much. “Where is Mama?”

The girl shivered and looked away.

“We have to move,” the man said. “We have to get to shelter.”

“But where could she be? There's nowhere to go.”

The man looked out over the roiling waters and steered the boat away as Bobby howled like a wounded animal. “No, no, no, no. Nononononononononono!” Rain slashed against Melody's skin, sharp as razor blades and cold. She hugged Liam tighter. The rain turned from stinging sheets to pounding drops as they made their way across the water. Storm sirens wailed, a mournful keening sound. The tornadoes would come next. Melody had been through storms like this before, though none quite so fast-moving and destructive. The tornadoes always came at some point. The man steered the boat with care. Melody saw other boats in the distance, other families being rescued, other people who were scared and wet and suddenly homeless.

Liam's heart pounded against her chest. His soaked hair tickled her cheek. The man in yellow steered through the mess. Trees that had survived for more than a hundred years lay in their path, causing the man to backtrack several times and find a new route. A multitude of water moccasins slithered across a downed tree branch. Electrical lines danced across the water, throwing sparks like fireworks. A sulfurous odor hung in the air, the smell of an Easter egg discovered on a hot May afternoon.

The girl next to Melody stared, mute and gaping. Chris grasped at the Lord's Prayer, mangled the words. Church spires and steeples rose up all around them as they traveled to higher ground. All the rescue boats were full of God-fearing, churchgoing, income-tithing people, and where was their reward? Where was their prosperity? The heavy hand of God settled over them, blocking out the light and destroying the crops. Pastors began preparing their sermons. They would reference Noah, of course, and talk about the importance of faith during times of hardship. People would find a way to rebuild their homes and plant new crops, but it wouldn't matter. God or Satan or Mother Nature would destroy it all again. Maybe next time there would be a drought or fire or hail. No amount of prayer would do anything to stop it, but neither would logic nor reason nor science.

Bobby leaned forward and touched her shoulder. He put his face next to hers and shouted above the roar of the boat motor. “Are you going to again leave me, again leave me, again leave me? Leave me again?”

She reached up and put her hand on top of his. “Don't worry. I'm right here.” Maybe Maurice was right about Bobby. Maybe he wasn't so damaged. Maybe his biggest problem was just that he lived in a place where he could never be himself.

“We'll start over.” She wasn't sure he heard her, but she said it again. It comforted her to say the words. “We'll all start over.”

“Start over, start over,” Liam sang.

Melody laughed. She thought about George Walter and his strange advice. George Walter was right. She had choices to make. She could change things for Bobby and for herself, but she couldn't do it by running away from home, from Mama, from her past.

She nuzzled Liam's neck with her nose, smelled his green scent and pointed ahead to show him where they were going. She hoped the deputy wouldn't hurt Obi. Liam needed his father, and Melody wanted to see Obi again.

The sturdy middle school sat high on a ridge, atop a man-made rise. It was a strong, ugly building, made of brick and concrete, a gray squatting beacon of safety. A line of sodden people trudged through the front doors. A helicopter hovered in the distance. The rain slowed perceptibly. The boat moved forward. Melody tightened her grip around Liam's waist and sang a soft song against his ear.

 

Chapter Twenty-three

Obi hid behind the bedroom door. The dead man was stretched out on the bed, but Obi could still feel his presence in the room. It wasn't a good feeling, but Obi didn't fear the dead. He was far more afraid of the man in the hallway, the man with the gun. Behind the door, his heart pounded so fiercely, it felt like his chest would blow open. He held his rifle steady, one hand on the barrel, one finger on the trigger. He would fire if it came to that.

His mind raced through all the events that led him to this moment. Bad decisions, bad choices, a long string of them stretched out for years and years. He never should have married Eileen, though without her, he would not have Liam. He could not regret the time he'd spent with Liam on the river. He surely did not regret taking Liam away from the fat, lazy life Eileen provided for him. When he thought it through, he only had one real, lasting regret: He regretted the incident with the boy in the woods. He regretted the hell out of that. If he could go back and just walk away, he would. Even now he felt the cold knife in his palm as it slipped into the boy's neck. It was like slicing through soft cheese.

The voices in the hallway rose and fell. He heard Melody tell the man to put away his weapon. He heard Bobby crying for his mother. Then the voices faded, and Obi knew he was alone in the house with the deputy. There were only two ways out of the room—the door, which led to the hallway and the man with the gun, and the window, through which he could see the sturdy branches of an oak tree, the same tree he'd considered climbing to get a better look into the house. The oak's branches looked strong, comfortable even. If he could hang on and resist the pull of the wind, he might make it. It wasn't a terrible plan. He could ride out the storm in the arms of the oak and then disappear into the land. Melody would care for Liam until he found them. He would find them.

The storm crashed against the house. The floor shifted beneath his feet. Footsteps approached. He raised the rifle to his shoulder and steadied it. He breathed in. He breathed out. Ten steps to the window. Ten steps. Ten steps. Ten steps. Oh, God. His feet felt rooted to the floor. The body on the bed released a noisy, gassy expulsion. The room filled with a putrid stench. Obi stepped forward on rubbery legs. His heart hammered in his chest. His palms were slick with sweat. Footsteps echoed through the hallway beyond the door. There was no time. The man with the gun would find him soon. He sprinted forward, toward the window and the strong oak tree beyond. He slung his rifle strap around his body to free his hands. The window was stuck tight. It didn't budge, no matter how hard he yanked it. He lifted the butt of his rifle to break the glass, but then realized all he had to do was turn the latch. The window slid open, and Obi hooked one leg over the windowsill. A gust of wind nearly knocked him back inside.

The man with the gun raced into the room, ordered him to stop. Obi was perched on the window like a crow. He would fly or drown, but he would not surrender. Rain poured past him into the house. He leaned toward the arms of the tree, cradling his rifle against his chest.

“I'll shoot!”

Obi wavered. He wasn't ready to die.

“Show me your hands.”

The man moved closer. Obi rocked on the window ledge—one-two-three—pushed off hard with the soles of his boots against the good solid brick of the house. He stretched his arms wide and reached for the largest branch. His left shoulder pitched forward with a painful sting, but he grabbed hold of the tree with his right arm. He shimmied forward on a thick, rough branch until he found the spot where the branch touched the trunk, and he settled down in the crook. He was below the window now, out of sight of the man with the gun. He touched his left shoulder. A wash of pink seeped through his shirt, diluted by the pouring rain.

“Are you crazy?”

Obi looked up. The man with the gun was leaning out the window, yelling down at him.

“You didn't kill me,” Obi said.

“I wasn't trying to!” the man shouted. “I just want to talk to you. I have a few questions.”

“I've got nothing to say,” Obi said. “Let me be.”

“I can't do that.”

Obi shifted, and the pain in his left shoulder grew diffuse. The bullet had lodged in a wedge of bone and would stay there until the day he died, a day that was still more than fifty years away, though Obi couldn't know that. The limb where he sat was nearly as wide as an overstuffed chair, and he had no fear of falling. He pulled his rifle up and aimed it through a smattering of branches. The man yanked his head back into the house. Obi waited. He would wait for the flood to end, for the waters to recede, and then he'd fetch Liam and do whatever he had to do to keep them both safe and free. They would take new names, dye their hair, move somewhere far away. As long as they were together, they would be at home.

“Come on back inside. You'll die out there.”

The man's face was barely visible behind the shaft of his rifle. Rain poured down and blurred Obi's vision. It was a disadvantage to be the one below, the one outside.

“I don't intend to hurt you,” the man said.

“You shot me!”

“I was trying to get you to stop. I wasn't aiming to kill.”

Obi pointed his rifle toward the sound of the man's voice. The longer he held the barrel up into the falling rain, the greater the chance it would let him down when he needed it. His back and neck ached. His shoulder throbbed. The man kept talking, trying to convince him to come back inside.

“We've got doctors at the shelter. Why don't you come with me? That wound is superficial at best.”

“You don't know that.” Obi lowered his rifle. The man leaned farther out the window into the pouring rain.

“I don't intend to hurt you. I just have some questions.”