"Now, Momma," he said. "You know me better than that."
Chapter 24.
Missy lay down on the boxcar floor to wait for whatever else the night would bring. Her heart kept pumping blood around a body that did not belong to her. It felt like the wind had hollowed her out from the inside. Only an empty sh.e.l.l was left, a sh.e.l.l that still breathed but did not feel. She was glad of the numbness and hoped it would last. Being under the eye of a hurricane, she thought, was like lying down in the road, paralyzed, in front of a steamroller. No way to get out of its path. Nothing to do but brace yourself as best you could. And wait for whatever came next.
Around her, the others settled themselves on the hard floor in quiet apprehension. Franklin ripped off part of the door to make a splint for Ike"s broken leg. The boxcar was big and heavy enough to protect them, but it was still going to be a rough ride.
All she wanted was to sleep, maybe forever. Yes, she decided, that was it. Endless sleep. Maybe just let the wind take her. It began to hiss through the boxcar again. The curtain of rain drew itself across the door. It would be so easy to just get up and walk out. There was no reason to stay. Selma and Mama should have been there by now. Mama had never trusted water, not after Billy drowned. The thought of her, out there in it, scared and alone-and Henry was gone. Since he left, she had been tortured by dreams that he had returned, dreams so real that when she woke without him was like a knife in her heart.
And her arms ached for Nathan. She knew rationally that the store was the best, safest place for him, but she still yearned for his warm, sweet-smelling weight against her. She had cared for him every day of his life. The emptiness was almost too much to bear. Their house, their garden, the hens, everything they depended on...all gone. Her life...she wanted it back, just as it was yesterday, in every mundane detail. She wanted to sit on the porch next to Mama again amid the soft clucking of chickens, sh.e.l.ling peas and talking about the day until the mosquitoes got too bad. She wanted to see that look on Henry"s face again, that smile of surprised wonder, like he couldn"t believe his luck.
Gone. All gone.
A sharp stone of loss settled in her throat, so big that she found it hard to breathe. She closed her eyes and tried to empty her mind of everything. Really, she had little interest in what was to come. Yes, she had brought her people to the rail yard. But what had seemed like her big achievement was, she saw now, the same as an ant biting a cougar"s toe. The cougar would not even notice, and the ant still got stepped on. It made no difference whether she approached the night scared or calm or crazy, like Ike, who sat in a corner, muttering into his hands. Nothing she did made a difference.
A commotion at the door. She turned her back, tried to get comfortable and sink into nothingness, hands over her ears. But then a sound cut through the numbness. She heard it. His voice. This just another cruel dream.
"Missy," he said, and she opened her eyes to find Henry standing over her. A shower of silver raindrops fell from his face.
Unable to speak, she just stared. He lifted her off the floor. She clung to him like he was life itself, clenched handfuls of his shirt, unsure whether he was real. She buried her nose in his neck. He smelled awful. He never smelled bad in the dreams.
Through her tears, she asked, "You been rollin" in a pigsty?"
He kissed her, hard on her mouth, soft on her cheeks, her forehead, her hands. "Hmm, I cain"t say you smell much like roses neither."
"You here," she breathed. "You really here." She squeezed his arms, his shoulders, to convince herself he was really there and not just another figment of her sleeping brain.
"Had to. Couldn"t let my best girl have all this fun by herself, could I?" He hugged her to him. "I was a d.a.m.n fool to leave you," he whispered into her dirty, tangled hair. "You better get used to havin" me around, y"hear?"
She could not help it. Her entire body began to shake with the release of tension, like there was an earthquake inside her. He just held on and waited. When she was quiet, he looked around the boxcar.
"But hang on. Why ain"t you at the shelter? Where"s Selma? Where"s Mama?"
"We don"t know," said Missy, her voice choked with emotion. The rush of feeling, held back for the many long hours, swamped her senses. She had to force the words out. "Mama wasn"t at the store. Selma went to find her at Doc"s, but she ain"t come back... And, Henry, they took Nathan; they took him from me when they made us leave the store. They-"
"Made you leave the store?" he asked and looked around in disbelief at the tired, battered faces.
"That right," said Franklin. "Missy brought them all here. She got them here safe."
"What the h.e.l.l-" Henry began.
Shouting came from outside.
A young man with red hair and excited eyes appeared at the doorway. When he took off his John Deere cap to wipe his face, Missy recognized him. He had been Henry"s hostage when he ran away upstate. "Henry," the young man said. "You got to come quick. There"s loads of men still not on board. Ken"s going crazy."
Missy was confused. The young man seemed on good terms with Henry. How was that possible? In fact, it was more than that: the look on his face was the same as she"d seen on the faces of Henry"s men when they talked about him.
"What you want me to do?" he asked.
"Keep the men moving, Jimmy," said Henry, "and tell Ken I"m on my way."
"Okay, but don"t take too long; you know how he-" Jimmy broke off and peered through the rain in the direction of town. "What in Sam Hill is-that?"
Missy followed his gaze.
She could make out lots of pale shapes of different sizes in the gloom, moving at speed toward them. Cries of pain and fear reached her ears. As they drew closer, the shapes resolved themselves into bodies. Lots and lots of naked white people were running for their lives, clothes stripped away by the wind. They ran like the devil himself was right behind them. As the air pressure dropped still further, the few remaining structures simply exploded as they ran past.
A water cistern flew through the air and tore into the ma.s.s of running bodies. It flattened a man near the edge of the crowd, a man with a square of white on his face. He went down with a loud crunch that carried to Missy on the wind. A stout woman dropped to her knees by his side and screamed, "Ronnie, don"t leave me!" There was Cyril, recognizable by his metal hand, with a limp bundle in his arms. As they got closer, Missy began to recognize more and more faces. The group that raced toward them, naked and barefoot over the sharp coral and broken gla.s.s and cement, had less than an hour before been tucked up in the safety of the shelter. What on earth made them leave?
But before she could even open her mouth to ask the question, she saw the reason for their hurry. Behind them reared up a thundering wall of water, easily twenty feet tall, whose crest seemed to brush the clouds.
She heard Henry inhale. "Oh, sweet Jesus." He jumped down and raced toward the crowd. "Jimmy," he shouted over his shoulder. "Get in the boxcar and stay with Missy!"
"Not a chance!" said Jimmy and ran off after him.
The running bodies sped toward the protection of the boxcars, pursued by the ma.s.sive white-topped wave. Missy herded her people away from the door. "Get ready, y"all," she said. "Make room! C"mon, make room!"
Out in front of the approaching crowd was a woman with a baby in her arms. His familiar cries cut through all the noise and chaos swirling around Missy. She had jumped down and was running toward the woman before she even realized she was moving.
"Nathan!" she cried. "I"m coming!"
He heard her! His head turned, and his eyes searched for her face. Marilee Henderson staggered to a stop and shoved him into Missy"s waiting arms. Her body was so badly torn and bruised that there wasn"t more than an inch of unbroken skin left.
"Where"s Tim?" she asked, frantically looking around her. "He was right beside me! Has anyone seen him? I have to find him!" She turned to run back in the direction of the wave, which was devouring the ground between them in ferocious gulps. The others streamed past, their eyes empty of everything except the determination to keep running.
"No!" said Henry. "There"s no time; you-" He grasped her arm.
"Let me go!" she wailed, yanking herself free. "Tim! Tim, where are you? Mommy"s coming, Tim!" And she ran straight toward the wave.
"Missy, go!" said Henry. "Get back in the boxcar!" He scooped up a young girl who had sat down on the ground crying, her feet a ma.s.s of red. "Everyone!" he shouted. "This way! Follow me!"
Missy ran faster than she ever had in her life. The wind tore the clothes from her body but she did not care. Nathan felt completely weightless on her chest. Her legs pumped, powered by pure adrenaline. She could run all night. Her feet moved so fast that she was surprised she was still on the ground rather than swooping high into the night sky like an airplane. The wave thundered on behind her, close now. But she was faster. Henry was beside her, a limp little girl in his arms. Missy could hear him panting, but it may have been her own breath she heard.
Violet and Franklin were up ahead in the doorway, arms extended to catch her.
"Come on, Missy!" Violet cried.
Only a few more feet to go and they would be safe, all together. Almost there, almost there. With one more push, she would make it.
She heard Henry gasp, "Missy!"
And then she was gone.
Up on the embankment, Trent was using every last bit of his strength to get the men on board. His voice was raw from shouting, but still they milled around like they had all the time in the world. The stars were gone, smothered by thick cloud. He thought of what Missy had said, about the back side of the storm. The wind had risen again, which made it even harder to make himself heard. There still seemed to be a huge number of people on the tracks waiting to board, many of them badly injured. They had to move faster.
He approached the carriage and asked the man helping people to board, "Who"s in charge here?"
"You want Ken," he said. "Move on down!" he yelled to the men inside. "Keep going to the back!"
Just then, a scowling man in a conductor"s cap came through the door from the engineer"s compartment.
"I don"t like the look of this, Moses," he said to the man in the doorway. "Not one bit. We"ve been here too long already. Why aren"t they on board yet? We shoulda been gone fifteen minutes ago. Faster, Clarence," he said to another man. "You gotta make them move faster."
Clarence was helping a veteran into the carriage whose face was obscured by a flap of scalp. "You look like you been in a war, mister," said Clarence.
"You ain"t f.u.c.kin" kidding," said the man with a hand up to hold his scalp in place. "Worst carnage I seen in my life. Can"t wait to be somewhere else-anywhere will do."
"Where"s that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Roberts?" Ken yelled. "He"s supposed to help clean up this mess."
"Henry had some personal business," said Moses as he helped another man on board whose forearm was pierced through with white slivers of bone.
"Henry Roberts?" asked Trent. "That who you looking for?"
"Who are you?" asked Ken.
"Trent Watts, superintendent of this camp. Roberts is one of mine." Last Trent had heard, Roberts had skedaddled upstate, but there he was again, like a bad rash. Why in G.o.d"s name would he come back, to this? And then Trent thought of the sweet-faced woman who had brought her people, half drowned and battered, to the boxcar for shelter. She had warned him about the eye. Well, what do you know?
Trent shook Ken"s hand. "Don"t think I"ve ever been happier to see anyone in my life, Ken. Thank you, I-"
"Thank me when we get to Miami," growled Ken with an exasperated glance at the ma.s.s of men still to board. "Which ain"t gonna happen unless you speed up this shambles."
"Can you spare a man to help me?" asked Trent.
"I"ll go," said Clarence and jumped down into the crowd.
Ken said to Moses, "Let me know the second the last one"s on board. I"m going to get her ready to pull out." And he turned to leave the carriage.
Trent hollered with all the power left in his lungs, "Come on, you stubborn sons of b.i.t.c.hes. Get your a.s.ses on board this train or we"re gonna leave you behind! I"ve moved five hundred head of cattle quicker than this!"
But suddenly he realized no one was listening to him. Their attention had turned away, back toward the rail yard. There was a collective moan, which quickly rose to an awful, haunting cry. It sent a stab of dread right through Trent"s heart. He knew that noise, had heard it before: it was the sound men make when they realize they are about to die.
Suddenly the crowd rushed toward the train, in far greater numbers than could fit through the doors.
Trent heard a shout from Clarence. "Holy s.h.i.t, will you look at-"
The wave cut through the veterans still on the tracks like a blade through a field of barley. Dozens went down and were washed away in an instant.
Trent clamped his hands around the iron rail as the water hit. Eyes shut, head down, he held on and on, waiting for it to end. But it kept coming. It clawed the clothes from his body. It pulled at his arms to dislodge them, but still he held on, even when knocked sideways by chunks of debris and the bodies of men who could hold on no longer. His lungs clamored for air, but he kept his jaws shut. It felt like he was at the bottom of the sea, beneath tons and tons of water. It pummeled him harder. More bodies thumped against him. Hands brushed as they pa.s.sed, making one final grasp at life. And then they were gone. But the water kept coming.
His grip on the rail weakened. The pressure in his lungs could no longer be denied. The last of his strength left his hands, and he went to join his men.
The weight of water hit the train with such force that all the carriages tumbled off the tracks and down the embankment. The whole train went over like it was made of cardboard. Only the ma.s.sive locomotive remained upright. Jeb heard shouts of surprise and pain from within the cars as they toppled over and the explosive shattering of all the windows at once.
Inside the train, a river raged through from one side to the other. Carriages swung around in crazy arcs, flipping onto their roofs. Ken clung to an empty window frame, his legs flailing in the current. "Help!" he cried. "Someone help me!"
Moses battled the flow to reach him, but it flung him back each time. With a final surge of effort, he leaped for the window and grabbed Ken"s arm. He hung on there, head down against the torrent, and slowly pulled Ken back into the carriage.
Jeb tumbled over and over, slammed against the walls, the seats, curled into the smallest shape possible. So this is what it feels like to die-in a washing machine. Still the foamy water poured in, whipped up by the ferocious wind. He struggled to find some air in a world of black water, completely disoriented. There was no way to tell what was up and what was down. Again and again he was thrown against the walls, the roof, the floor.
Just as his will to fight ran out, so did the water. He found himself at the bottom of a panting, spluttering tangle of limbs. Only his face was above the water. "Hey!" he yelled. "Get off me!"
In a sudden rush, he was pulled free. He looked up into Lemuel"s familiar face. "Thanks, man," he gasped. The wind boomed around the carriage, making it hard even to hear himself. "Where"s Sonny?"
Lemuel put his mouth right next to Jeb"s ear. "Dunno. Last I saw, he was waiting to get on board. Jeb, what do we do now?"
Jeb tried to look out the window but rain sprayed right into his face. A coconut flew past his head. All was in darkness. It was impossible to tell where the wave had deposited them. They might be just a few feet from the embankment, or they might be in the sea. The wind wailed through the carriage like a demon.
"Cain"t see a d.a.m.ned thing out there." Jeb looked around. The men began to right themselves, check for injuries. It seemed completely miraculous that they were still alive, just badly bruised and half drowned. "We wait for the light," he said. "Just wait for the light."
"Amen to that," said Lemuel.
Chapter 25.
Henry retched up a mouthful of seawater. Even before he opened his eyes, he knew something was very wrong. Every limb registered sharp, stabbing pain, yet he instinctively held on to the source of the pain with all his strength. It was the only solid thing in the world of the wind. Its rasping roar filled his ears. It scoured his naked body, tried to wrench him free, but he hung on. Even the rain fell sharp as needles on his flesh.
He opened his eyes slightly. Nothing but cloud above and darkness below. He became aware of a great void beneath him and looked down. Something moved there, a gentle rise and fall, vague outlines all he could make out. It was water, he realized, flowing back to its rightful home, taking with it a solid mat of undulating corpses, trees, cars, and broken timbers.
His hands found the source of the pain. Big, sharp thorns were embedded in his legs, his torso, his back. And then he realized: his support, which he clutched with the ardor of a lover, was a spiny Key lime tree. The wave had deposited him there, perhaps twenty feet off the ground.
A gust rocked the tree. He gripped it tighter, jaw clenched against the pain. "Is anyone there?" he yelled. No answer. Farther up the tree, he could just discern the unmoving bulk of another body. Impossible to tell if it was a man or woman. It made no sound in answer to his call.
All was blasted and dark. No signs of life. Maybe I"m dead too. Maybe the pain was a mirage, an echo of his last moments alive, a memory somehow retained by his flesh. No, the pain was real. He could be certain of nothing else, but the pain was definitely real.
The wind pulled at his limbs, tried to tear him loose. It would be so easy to just let go, let the wind take him to join Missy. He wanted to be with her, wherever she was. She had been so close to the boxcar, just a few feet from safety. He was so sure she would make it. But then the wind had s.n.a.t.c.hed her and Nathan up, her legs still pumping as it carried her away. A chasm of loss opened up inside him and beckoned him in with the voice of the wind. Just let go, it hissed. Everything you care about is gone.
It would be so easy. Just let go.
A movement nearby. From the next tree came a soft moan. He called out, "Who"s that? It"s Henry here. Henry Roberts!" His voice broke with relief. He had started to wonder if he was the last living soul in the land of the dead.
"Henry?" It was Jimmy, weak but recognizable. "That you?"