Road to Nowhere (40 page)

And the rains were coming down, and the waters were coming up.

The truck full of sandbags parked at the end of the bridge. “We’ll start down there, just past the post office.” Steve said. Gregory Peck in command. “Right by that oak. Then across Main Street and back behind that first empty building, and then along the riverbank. I’ll show you.” They turned the other way. “And then cut back across Main Street at the green building, and up to that hill.” The important part was to get the line started in the right places.

“What about Gabe’s repair shop?” Gordon Hite asked. “We’ll leave him outside the sandbags.”

“We can’t go that far,” Steve said. “We don’t have enough bags or sand or people.”

“Doesn’t seem to me it’s that much farther,” Gordon said. “Now, let’s start back there, past the garage.”

The idiot was doing it again. If the sheriff couldn’t stop them from trying, he’d make sure they did it wrong. And Joe was nowhere to be seen.

“Do you think I don’t want to? But it won’t work,” Steve said. “See how the road dips, there? The sandbags will have to be twice as high for that whole distance.”

“It looks high enough to me. We can’t go cutting the town in half and leaving Gabe’s and those other buildings to get flooded.”

That did it.

“Forget it, Gordon!” Had he ever in his life called a person
Gordon
? “You’re not going to wreck this. Now, either do what I say or get out of here.” To Randy. “Take the football guys down to the post office and start there with this load of bags, and I’ll be back to check.”

A second truck had turned onto Main Street.

“The rest of you, come with me down the other way.”

“Bunch of useless know-it-alls.” Gordon was not leading, following, or getting out of the way. Steve had to walk around him.

The phone on Patsy’s desk was ringing. “This is Joe Esterhouse.”

“Joe, it’s Marty Brannin.”

“Thank you for calling back, Marty.”

“I don’t deserve that. Joe, I’m sorry. I haven’t been able to get any help for you at all. The whole state is getting pounded right now.”

“I understand.”

“Emergency Services doesn’t have a candle to spare. You talked to them?”

“Mr. Angus McDonald, here in Asheville.”

“He’s the one. If he can’t help, nobody can.”

“That’s too bad, Marty. You know what this will mean.”

“I know. We’ll get you some loans, I promise that.”

“Don’t know that anyone will want them.”

“There’s just not much to do at the last minute.”

“Never was much we could any time. Thank you for trying.”

“I’m sorry.”

Joe walked out to the hallway, to a window, rain beating against it.

Randy took a minute to walk over to the bridge. There was still some light through the clouds, enough at least to see that the river was as dark and swirling as the clouds overhead, muddy brown with branches and leaves, and it didn’t seem much pleased with the pylons from the bridge, or with its own banks for that matter. The water seemed more solid than the land, maybe because it was stronger, and it had a purpose, just to get by.

The wind was harder than before. It seemed to have a purpose, too, and it had about as much water in it as the river, and at least as many leaves and debris, which out on the bridge here, left Randy feeling like he was under fire.

And the town was under siege. The river was an attacking army and they were trying to fight it off, building a wall. Thinking about it that way, and looking at the determined river, Randy wasn’t very sure they’d win.

The bag was coarse burlap, feeling like tree bark, and Eliza held it as Zach shoveled sand. He was so fast. Heap after heap flying in, and the limp bag filling and taking shape. Then a man named Grady lofted it onto his back and it was away, and the next begun.

The factory was bright and frightful! Great machines and a hard blue floor and gray metal boxes and pipes adhered to the white walls, and all much too large. Fifty men and women were working, taking turns shoveling and holding and carrying, as if they were one great beast.

Roland Coates had greeted her, and for his sake she had walked the paths through the building, and he was proud to show it to her. And he had brought her to Byron—Louise’s husband. Roland and Byron, they were very much alike.

“Pleased to meet you,” Byron had said, and stared at her with narrowed eyes and frowning brow. But then a young man had come and Byron had left her to greet him.

And now, she concentrated on the bag and sand and Zach’s shovel.

It was troubling. She was in this hard, bright place, and it was uncomfortable. Her purpose for being there with these other people was to contend with the river and the wind and rain, which were better left to themselves.

Preventing a river! It was contention with the Warrior himself. But she was making a choice, for these people. What would come of it?

That wind howling like a wild animal and more water than the skies could ever have held. Louise stood at the door. She could barely see the men working in the headlights of the cars.

“Artis,” she said, “can we get more coffee? These pitchers are empty.”

“I’m making it.”

They still had tables of food, and more coming in, and plenty getting eaten, and six Baptist ladies were making as big a hubbub as the hurricane was.

Gordon Hite stumbled in, just as the whole room went black.

“There it goes,” he said. “Lucky it held on as long as it did.”

“Light the lanterns!” Louise commanded. And soon the salon was bright, but not near what it had been. And it was so dark outside now.

Gordon was looking down back at his wife. “Artis! Everett Colony wants a plate of sandwiches or something down at the Episcopal church.” He turned to Louise. “Everett’s at the church treating people.”

“Is anyone hurt?”

“Fred Clairmont slipped and broke his arm, and there’s been a sprained ankle or two. Just hope nobody ends up in the river.”

Seven inches. In thirty minutes the water was up seven inches. Just three feet below the sandbags.

Steve did the calculations again for the hundredth time.

Five hundred forty yards. Every row was 650! Absolute best case, they could do eight courses of bags. Two yards high. The wall would be six feet high, maximum.

The first row was eight feet above the average high-water mark. Eight feet plus six feet. The top of the sandbags would be fourteen feet above flood stage.

Maybe it would be. Everybody must be getting tired. The first row of bags had been fifteen truckloads, one load every five minutes. Now the trucks were ten minutes apart, just finishing the second row. He had no idea what was happening up at the factory. Hopefully Louise’s husband had enough people and shovels.

First row, eighty minutes. Second row, two hours. Eighteen inches of wall in over three hours, and slowing down.

The water was up seven inches in thirty minutes. Not slowing down. It would reach the sandbags in three hours.

Calculate.

Constant rate of water rising, constant rate of wall rising . . . the water would crest the wall in four hours. Midnight. And it wasn’t a constant rate of water rising, and it wasn’t a constant rate of the wall rising, either.

Somehow, through the hurricane, his cell phone was ringing.

“This is Steve.”

“Steve Carter? I’m Charlie Ryder. I’m checking. Oh that road—”

Steve hurled the phone into the river.

Randy had to sit down. His arms felt like lead and he could hardly lift them, and the rain was pelting down to soak through anything. It was soaking through everything he had on. It’d be hard to say what was worse, the rain or the wind. He could just see Kyle and his team in the headlights down the next block.

He caught a glimpse of his wristwatch in a moving light. Almost eleven! Had it been that long? How much longer could they go?

But the water kept coming and coming, faster and higher, way up over the bank and the first rows of sandbags.

An empty truck roared off back toward the furniture factory. There wasn’t another one yet and everyone at the line had to stop again.

Randy got himself up. “Gordon?”

“Yeah?”

“I think we need people to be ready if that water comes over.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking.”

“Might be another hour,” Randy said, “but we’re not keeping up, and it’ll come fast.”

“We’ll keep an eye on it.”

A couple of men headed down toward Louise’s, but Randy had to sit down again, even in the wind and rain. They weren’t close to keeping up, and he knew what it meant. Somewhere there’d be the first stream over the top, and then more, and the breach would open up, and it would all come pouring in.

He remembered the last time, even thirty years later it was still fresh in his mind, the brown water racing down the street, every business in the town with that torrent running through, waist deep or higher.

Not one of them was going to get over that. Not this time.

It was the end.

Pretty foolish, crying like a baby when the rain’s already pouring down and the wind’s screaming louder than anything.

They’d close the town. Just empty buildings filled with mud up and down Main Street, and a road over the mountain, and soon why even live in town anyway? Why look at it all run-down and dead?

There wasn’t a way to stop the water. Wardsville had put up its best against the river, and the river was the easy winner. They’d be the hard losers.

Finally another truck pulled in, and all he could see was the arms and hands reaching in and pulling bags off. The only light was headlight beams jutting through the rain. And across the river there more headlights coming up.

A hard wall of wind hit him, filled with water, and he staggered back a little. Then he got his bearings to look back over the river.

It was hard to see. It looked like a line of lights. It would have to be reflections on the wet road, because it looked like headlights and more headlights stretching back down Marker Highway.

Randy got himself up and went staggering toward the bridge as fast as he could through inches of water and pounds of weariness. The river wasn’t up to the bridge deck yet, and it wouldn’t be before Main Street was already flooded.

But there were men at the other side. He started running toward them.

He couldn’t even think, really. What was he even doing? Three men were at the edge of the river looking at the bridge.

“The bridge is fine,” he called, not even knowing what he meant. “It’s fine. You can come over it.” Somehow he knew they needed to. “It’ll hold. You can make it. We can make it.”

He still didn’t even know what it meant, but they were here to help. He knew it.

And one of the men turned back to the first trucks. “Move it!” the man yelled. “Move ’em, move ’em, move ’em! Get ’em over!” The first truck was roaring louder than the rain, blowing past them, then the next, and more. They were big trucks. “Move it!” Someone had a light stick and he was waving trucks past, and someone at the other end of the bridge was sending the trucks in either direction along Main Street.

“Thank you so much,” Randy was saying to the one man who’d sent the trucks across the bridge. “Thank you so much.”

“Who’s in charge?”

“Steve Carter is in charge as much as anybody, and you’ll find Sheriff Hite over there,” Randy said. “You’ll be best off just getting sandbags from the furniture factory and laying them out.”

“We brought our own bags,” the man said, and Randy finally realized that they were army trucks. He looked back at the town and a big spotlight glared on and the street was filled with its fire and the whole town was crawling with men, and it was like his eyes had been opened to see things he hadn’t been able to before.

They weren’t going to lose. He could see it all now.

Two hundred bags left, and that was it. Now what? Steve was standing in the loading dock at the factory, looking at the little pile of bags.

Now what? Nothing! No bags.

What else could they use? Nothing. Logs? Bricks? Cinderblocks?

Cinderella?

Pumpkins? Mice? He needed a fairy godmother.

“Mr. Carter?”

What? A guy in a big army surplus coat.

“I’m Steve Carter.”

“Corporal Ramos, sir. Could you come with me?”

Gordon was having him arrested. “What’s happening”

“If you could come, sir. Captain Bednarek can explain.”

Who were these people? Where had this Hummer come from?

And maybe the coat wasn’t surplus.

They pulled out into Hemlock River and through the rapids toward downtown.

What were the lights? Somebody had the power back on Main Street?

Trucks. Big trucks, and lots of people. Lots of people pulling sandbags off big trucks. It was a whole battalion of National Guard! A brigade, at least. Or a couple companies.

“Where’s Bednarek?” the driver screamed out his window.

The man pointed.

They pulled up by the command center—three men standing on the corner at Main Street and the bridge.

“Mr. Carter? You’re the engineer in charge?”

Huh? Uh . . . “Yes.”

“Could you look over the line, sir and see if it’s acceptable? Corporal Ramos will go with you.”

“Yeah! Let’s go. Um . . . I’m just wondering who sent you? We heard there was no help available.”

Even in the dark, Steve could see the man’s expression. “Somebody pulled some really big strings.”

The telephone rang. Nobody else was in the courthouse. He picked up the handset.

“This is Joe Esterhouse.”

“Mr. Esterhouse. Please wait for the governor.”

He waited.

“Joe?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tommy Johnson.”

“Evening, sir.”

“I’m calling back to check on you. Did your help get there?”

“Yes, sir, they did. About a half hour ago.”

“Did they make it in time?”

“It looks like they did, sir.”

“Good. I’m glad you called when you did.”

Joe still had the pink notepaper from March in his hand. “You gave me your telephone number, so I thought I’d use it.”

“That’s why I gave it to you.”