Beginning (7 page)

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.

This was just the beginning. Continue the story of Cohen, Aggie, and the fight for survival below The Line with the novel RIVERS by Michael Farris Smith.

Rivers

Photograph by Chris Jenkins

Michael Farris Smith has been awarded the Transatlantic Review Award, Brick Streets Press Short Story Award, Mississippi Arts Commission Literary Arts Fellowship, and the Alabama Arts Council Fellowship Award for Literature. He is a graduate of Mississippi State and the Center for Writers at Southern Miss. He lives in Columbus, Mississippi, with his wife and two daughters.
Rivers
is his first novel.

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 by Michael Farris Smith

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First Simon451 ebook edition November 2014

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ISBN 978-1-5011-0254-7