Road to Nowhere (39 page)

Watch them close enough, and he could see them shifting. That was wind high up. It was different than summer twinkling from water in the air, the night before a storm. Autumn shifting was from cold fronts. But it was August, and there were no clouds north or west.

He took a breath, deep in through his nose, testing the quality of the air. Tobacco leaves, the neighbor’s cows, forest and mountain smells faint; and a catch to it. A bare sting back of his nostrils. That would mean thunderstorms, but not with winds high up.

At the ground the air was still and not humid. Sound carried. He could hear water in the stream, and a car far off, then an owl.

He stepped inside and blinked in the kitchen light.

“Rain?” Rose said.

“I don’t know. Everything’s contrary. I don’t know what’s coming.”

Back and forth, Eliza rocked her chair. The dark of the moonless night poured onto the porch, and behind her, into the cabin. She could feel it flowing past her. It was a night where candles and lanterns would only make islands, and the black would crust everything and not be dislodged.

All about in the stillness there was tumult of unstable leanings and balances overmatched. The Warrior spoke apprehension and of war impending.

September

September 1, Friday

Get started! Come on!

Bang!

Finally. Steve straightened his papers for the hundredth time. Of all days to wait for the clock before they could start the meeting.

Angus McDonald was there in the front row, and Gordon Hite was next to him. Not too many other chairs were filled.

“Come to order,” Joe said. “Go ahead, Patsy.”

At least Joe was being quick. Patsy read the names quick, too.

“Everyone’s present, Joe.”

“Thank you, Patsy. Jefferson County North Carolina Board of Supervisors is now in session. We are meeting under the emergency provisions of the county regulations, and I’m also serving notice that our meeting next Monday will be canceled. The emergency provisions allow us to do that without the usual two-week notification. The regulations require us to describe the emergency involved, and that is the current forecast by the state Department of Emergency Services that there is a likelihood of heavy rain and possible flooding in Jefferson County. Sheriff Gordon Hite is present, as well as representatives of the volunteer fire department and rescue squads, and the county manager. We will dispense with all other business tonight, and reschedule that for our next regular meeting on the first Monday in October.”

Good grief. The guy must have the entire state code memorized. Steve swallowed his impatience. A minute or two wasn’t going to make a big difference. What they really needed right now was calm.

Joe was looking around the room. “That takes care of that. Steve Carter will introduce our guest.”

“Thanks, Joe.”

Show time. Steve did his own looking around the room, mostly to get himself calm. “This is Mr. Angus McDonald of the North Carolina State Department of Emergency Services. Mr. McDonald and I have talked several times over the last couple days, and he’s here tonight to make recommendations and to tell us how the state can help us.”

“Thank you, Steve. It’s a pleasure to meet you all.”

Angus McDonald exuded confidence. Blue shirt, yellow tie, just the right amount of gray hair to be young and competent yet experienced and assuring. Right out of central casting.

“Even this afternoon when I was getting ready to come up here, I was still hoping it might not be bad.” He shook his head. “But the last forecast just an hour ago is looking real bad.” Deep sigh. “Wardsville is in line to get one heck of a flood.

“Grant is right on track to make landfall midnight Saturday night, at Savannah. We’ll be getting rain here by Saturday evening—tomorrow.

Right now we’re forecasting as much as ten inches of rain between Saturday evening and Monday afternoon. The Fort Ashe River will be out of its banks by late Saturday and cresting sometime Monday.”

“How high will it be?” Louise asked.

“That’s always hard to tell,” Angus said. “Ten to twenty feet.”

“How high is that?”

“The last flood was twelve and a half feet,” Steve said. “I measured some places on Main Street. The floor of your salon is eleven feet above normal high level.”

“Now, let’s wait a minute.” Randy was looking pretty glum. “You’re saying this is a forecast. It’s not really certain, is it?”

Angus shrugged. “The whole thing might miss completely.”

“It just might. I’ve seen those forecasts be pretty far off the mark.”

“You might get lucky,” Angus said.

“Or we might not,” Steve said. What was Randy’s problem? “I think we should be planning for the worst, here.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Randy said. “I’m not arguing. I’m just hoping. We’re talking about how many feet here and there, and it might not ever get up close to that.”

“We’re all hoping,” Louise said. “We remember the last time.”

Randy nodded. “That was a mess, and I don’t want any repetition.”

“We got it cleaned up,” she said. “We’ll do it again if we have to.”

“Well now, I’m not so sure about that. That’s why I’m hoping that this storm would maybe just leave us alone.” Randy did his own looking around. “That was a different time, that last flood. Wardsville was different then. There were plenty of people downtown and businesses in every building.

“And it was a lot of work cleaning up, and I remember because I was there. They closed the high school and put us all to work. The whole town worked.”

“But I’m not sure I see that happening nowadays. I’m not sure people would think downtown was worth the effort. Mr. McDonald, this town might not recover from another flood. That’s why I’m hoping it won’t be as bad as you’re talking about.”

Angus shrugged. “Sorry. I really am sorry, but I can’t help you there.” What was Randy thinking? That the guy could cancel a hurricane? “I just give my reports to the responsible officials, which would be all of you. Those issues are beyond me.”

“Mr. McDonald,” Steve, the responsible official, asked. “What kind of help can we expect from the state?”

“If the governor declares the county a disaster area, there are grants and interest-free loans for recovery projects.”

“I mean right now.” Steve turned to Randy. “I think we need to concentrate on getting ready for this flood.”

Angus was frowning. “This is going to be a regional disaster. Communities are supposed to have already prepared. When this thing hits, we’re going to be stretched thin.”

Randy was sunk in glumnity. “How do you get ready for a flood?”

“Sandbags,” Steve said. “The county has a sand pile out by the landfill, and about five thousand burlap bags.”

“Five thousand?” Randy said. “That’s the Great Wall of China.”

“Not quite. Most of Main Street is eight feet above the normal high-water level. I’ve worked out a perimeter around Main Street that’s 540 yards, and the bags are thirty inches long. That’s 650 bags for one row. Five thousand bags can build us a wall about six feet tall. Since the perimeter is eight feet above the normal high water level, that brings it up to fourteen feet.”

“How are we going to fill five thousand bags?”

Shake out of it, Randy!

“If we start first thing tomorrow morning, filling two hundred an hour, we’ll make it.”

“Two hundred sand bags in an hour?”

“Thirty people in a shift,” Steve said. “Can’t we get that?”

“Where will we fill them? Just out at the landfill?”

“We have to keep the sand dry. Could we bring it into the high school?”

“We can’t get trucks into the gym,” Randy said. “Do we have trucks?”

“We have one dump truck.” It was the first Joe had moved. “And there’s no shortage of pickup trucks in Jefferson County. Just need a backhoe to fill them.”

“Patsy.” Louise was alive now, too. “Call Byron. The furniture factory has loading docks. We could fill bags there. And they have plenty of people to fill them.”

“Will we have enough people to do everything?” That was Steve’s main question. “Can the state help us at all?”

Angus shook his head. “I’m afraid you’ll be on your own.”

“Now, Steve,” Randy said, “you’re saying there is a chance, though?”

“Yes, there’s a chance. I just don’t know how far the river will come up. We can beat it if it doesn’t come too far.”

“If it’s people we need, we’ll get the people.” Randy had finally given up on giving up. “We’ll start with the football team and work from there.”

“Here’s Byron,” Patsy said, holding up her cell phone.

“There’s a hundred strong men who work at the factory,” Louise said. “Let me talk to Byron and he’ll call Mr. Coates.”

Randy was sounding hopeful. “All of you out there,” he said to the audience, “start calling your friends. Have them call the Sheriff’s Department to find out where we need them. Steve, I suppose you should park yourself down there with Gordon.”

“Now, Randy,” the sheriff said. Steve felt a chill. Gordon Hite theoretically would be the person in charge. “This is a lot of effort we’re talking about here. On the one hand, we might not have a flood at all, and on the other hand, if it’s really as bad as the man says, I don’t think we’re going to stop it.”

“I understand what you’re saying,” Randy said, “and that’s true, but I think we really should make the effort.”

Gordon apparently did not. “And somebody might be putting all those numbers into their calculator, but how do we really know whether we have enough sand or bags?”

“Steve said he counted them,” Randy said.

“That’s a lot of bags to count,” Gordon said, “and if it is that many, I don’t think that sand pile is going to fill five thousand of them. Like I said, a person can do their figuring, but this isn’t a schoolwork problem to do with numbers and figuring. I don’t think we’ve got enough bags or sand. Anybody can look at that pile and know it isn’t enough to build a wall six feet high around the whole town.”

“Yes it is,” Steve said. Who was this oaf, to question an engineer? “We have five thousand bags, 250 bundles of twenty each, and we have 820 cubic yards of sand, which is twenty-five percent more than we need.” He was angry. “I measured the pile myself, and I calculated the volume.” He looked over to Joe and Randy. “We can do it, but only if we do it right.”

Joe knew what that meant.

“Gordon,” Joe said. “I think you’ll be plenty busy just managing your department. We’ll have Steve in charge of the sandbagging.”

Gordon scowled. “I think you’re wasting a lot of time and work.”

“That might be, but we’ll try it.”

“Of course we will,” Randy said. “Steve says there’s a chance, and that’s good enough for me to at least try. We have to try anyway, don’t we? How could we not try?”

“I’m not ready to give up yet,” Louise said. “Steve, Byron says for you to call Mr. Coates right after the meeting.”

It was like a movie. Steve was picturing Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, and maybe Jimmy Stewart. We can do it!

Pretty wild. In three months Steve had gone from bit player to leading man.

But there wasn’t time to think.

“It just depends how high the river comes up,” he said, half to himself.

Eliza answered. “It will come as high as it wishes.”

September 2, Saturday

It was raining.

Louise stood at the front door of the salon and watched the drops pittering and pattering on the sidewalk, and on the windows, and on the street. Not very hard yet, but the clouds looked like big gray cotton towels sopping wet just out of the washing machine. Twenty boys and girls from the high school were milling around by the drugstore, and a few other men were on the sidewalks, standing under awnings.

The river looked about normal.

She turned back into the shop. Two long tables from church were spread with chicken and hot dogs and five big coffee urns. Artis Hite and two other ladies were in the back making sandwiches. The rest of the church ladies had gone home to be out of the way, but they’d be taking turns through the night.

Louise was ready.

“Excuse me—can I get a haircut?” a man’s voice said.

She spun around. Right in the middle of a hurricane! What kind of ridiculous man would come into her salon . . .

Oh, for goodness’ sakes.

“Matt! Oh, Matt, look at you!” She wrapped herself around him in the biggest hug a short grandmother could give a tall grandson.

“I made it, Grandma.”

“Look at you! And of all the days for you to get here!”

“I just got home yesterday, and Mom told me what was happening up here. I came up to help.”

“Well, we can use it! Oh, I’m so glad you’re home safe and sound. What a treat to see you! I was worried every single day you were gone.”

“I’m okay, Grandma. I’m worrying about you. Is Grandpa around?”

“He’s up at the factory filling sandbags, and everybody down here’ll be laying them out.”

“I’ll go see him. I’m pretty good with sand.”

Jeanie seemed satisfied. “As long as the creek doesn’t carry the whole house away.”

“It won’t,” Eliza said. “There have been other rains.”

“This is a hurricane, Mother.”

“There have been other hurricanes.”

Zach was already in the car. Eliza pulled her shawl over her head against the rain and flew to join him, and Jeanie with her.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“To Wardsville. Turn at the stoplight and there will be a building.”

He started driving. “The high school?”

“No. But close to it.”

“It’s an old factory,” Jeanie said.

“There will be people there,” Eliza said.

“There better be,” Zach said. “I’m not filling sandbags by myself.”

Good gravy, it was raining. It was surely feeling like a hurricane.

“Now, you’ll be safe here,” he said to Sue Ann, and she nodded. “The basement will be the safest place.”

“Randy—it’s you and Kyle I’m worried about.”

“We’ll be fine.”

“Here comes the first truck.”

Steve was standing on the bridge with Randy and his son, Kyle, and a dozen county employees, and Gordon Hite. The Fort Ashe was still kind of placid, but it was already right at zero feet flood stage.