Three Rivers (24 page)

Obi put his arms beneath the man's back and knees. He lifted carefully, but the man moaned in pain. He hoped he would never be so fragile. He never wanted Liam to see this kind of weakness in him. The man was limp and Obi was careful not to bump his legs or head as they climbed. It was dry upstairs, and the water let go of him like a great, sucking leech. Melody followed behind, holding the tank close enough to keep the oxygen flowing into the man's nostrils. “Almost there,” Obi said, though he wasn't sure where they were taking the man. “I'm Obi, by the way. I don't believe I introduced myself.”

“Bruce.” The man's voice was a bare croak.

“My mother knows your wife,” Obi said. “I'm sorry I scared you. When I came in and my son was gone, I panicked.”

Bruce grasped at his shirt and it took Obi a moment to realize he was patting Obi, a gesture of comfort and understanding.

In the hallway upstairs, the injured man slumped in a corner with his head in his hands. Bobby stood over him. He reached down and pinched him as they passed.

Melody pointed them into a bedroom with a handmade quilt on the bed. Obi was glad to see the quilt with its imperfect pattern and the stitching done in mismatched thread. It was good to know this home wasn't filled entirely with things bought from a store. Perhaps if this flood destroyed the earth, this family would be worth saving. He placed Bruce on the bed, gently lowered his head onto the pillow. “Is that okay?”

Bruce blinked at him, his eyes watery and dim. His chin quivered; his hands grasped the quilt. His mouth opened and shut, opened and shut, like he was speaking, but no sound came out. Melody set the tank down next to the bed. She was damp with sweat and soaked below the knees. Her legs were streaked with mud and maybe more. Obi looked at his pants, also covered in the stinking mess. He didn't mind dirt; he lived in dirt and he bathed in river water. He didn't mind animal waste; it was useful for tracking and for masking any scent that was too human, but man's waste disgusted him. It was a portent of illness, of disease and death. He wanted to strip down and discard his filthy pants and boots. He looked behind him at the muddy footprints he'd tracked into the room. “Liam,” he said. “Don't touch anything. Don't put your hands in your mouth.” The boy nodded and held his hands stiffly away from his body.

“I hate to ask,” he said to Melody. “But I think we should all get some fresh clothes, wash some of this filth off. Is there any clean water in the pipes?”

“I don't know.” Melody stared down at her father. His breath was ragged and uneven. “You can get some clothes from the closet in the bedroom across the hall. I don't think we have anything that will fit Liam, but I can check and see if my brother has some old stuff.”

“Thank you,” Obi said. “Can I do anything for you?”

Melody shook her head. Obi lifted Liam and carried him across the hall, passing by the three men without speaking. The injured man slumped in the hallway, but Bobby and Maurice seemed to be arguing. When they saw Obi, they slipped into another room and shut the door. In the room Obi entered, the bed and floor were strewn with newspaper clippings and photographs and dried flowers. Someone had been searching for something here. The closet doors stood open and he pulled out a few clean shirts. They were work shirts, denim and sturdy, though they didn't look as if any work had been done in them. He grabbed a pair of jeans, three sizes too large, and a pair of sneakers that just about fit. There was a bathroom off the hallway and he stepped inside. The faucet sputtered and released a weak brown stream. He undressed Liam, rubbed him as clean as he could with the dry towels and did the same for himself. He slipped on one of the clean shirts from the closet. It wasn't perfect, but it would do for now. He changed into the pair of blue jeans, cinched his belt. The shoes were fine, comfortable even. He wrapped Liam in a towel and carried him, the extra clothing, and a clean towel back into the room where Melody was standing over her father. “I found these,” he said. “Hope that's okay. Your brother is in the other room with the door shut. I didn't think I should bother him.”

Melody crossed the room and pulled open a drawer of the dresser against the wall. “There are T-shirts in here. They'll be too large for Liam, but at least they're clean.”

Obi handed Melody a towel and the extra shirts. “There's no clean water.” He turned away and examined the contents of the drawer she'd opened, and pulled out the smallest shirt he could find, a green cotton tee with white piping around the arms and neck. It was stamped with the letters
DSU
. He scrubbed Liam roughly with the dry towel. Liam giggled. He slipped the T-shirt over his head. It hung on him like a dress.

“Your mother is the woman who teaches my mother to believe in magic, isn't she?” Melody had pulled on one of the clean denim shirts when his back was turned. She used one of the towels to scrape the filth from her bare legs.

“You don't believe in magic?”

“I don't, though if you want to prove me wrong and work a miracle, please go right ahead.”

“I'm afraid I don't have my mother's gifts,” Obi said. “It isn't really magic, you know.”

“I met her once.”

Obi knew why Melody seemed familiar. She was older, but in her adult features he could discern the face of the child she had been, the pale skin, the muddy brown eyes, the nose like a plop of barely risen dough in the center of her face, the lips that disappeared into her mouth when she was anxious. “I was there,” he said. “I remember.”

Melody's face flushed. “Mama was embarrassed. She never took me back.”

“You were a child,” Obi said.

“I was ten years old.”

“A child. I was only about sixteen or so, myself. I wasn't supposed to be hanging around while my mother worked. She said my maleness was disruptive. It was okay when I was younger, but she said I was becoming so male the clients could smell me, and it made them uneasy.” Obi chuckled. He'd been angry with his mother that year, annoyed that she was pushing him away even as he longed to escape. “I was supposed to stay outside and gather the herbs and plants for her.”

“But you came in.”

“It was so hot that day. I liked being outside. I always have. But that day, there was no shade and no water. I felt like I was baking.”

“I remember the heat,” Melody said. “The sun was so bright. I got burned. My skin peeled for the next two weeks. I don't know what my mother was thinking, dragging me around like that.”

“I kept making excuses to come in. There was a fan in the house and I would stand in front of the fan and drink glass after glass of water. Mother kept telling me to go and I kept saying, ‘Just one more glass.'”

“Oh, God, I was so thirsty! They didn't give me anything to drink. I don't know how I had any pee left in me.”

Obi laughed. He liked Melody more and more. She was fleshy and soft and pretty in a natural way, not like Eileen, who hid her beauty behind too much makeup and expensive haircuts. “My mother is a seer. She comes from a long line of seers, and her mother taught her how to use herbs and plants to heal. That's not magic.”

“Then what is it?” Melody's father moaned and shifted in the bed. She pulled the quilt up over his legs, touched his forehead. “I think his fever is down.”

“It's medicine,” Obi said. “It's just not medicine cooked up in a lab somewhere.”

“We could use some of her medicine right now. I don't know what will happen if the waters keep rising or if Daddy runs out of oxygen. I don't know what to do. I guess your mother would know. That's what a seer is right? Someone who knows what to do?” Her voice sounded thick. She was emotional, but she didn't break down. “I never know the right thing to do.”

“Yes, you do,” Obi said. “You're doing just fine.”

“I've let my brother down.”

“You'll make it up to him.”

“What if it isn't enough?”

“Then you let it go.”

“That's no help at all.”

“I'm not my mother. I'm no seer.”

Melody walked across the room to the window. “I think the levees have failed. It's the only reason the water would be so high. It'll get worse before it gets better.”

“We were camping on the river.” Obi decided to trust Melody. If anything happened to him during this storm or in the future, he knew he could trust her with Liam. “There was a misunderstanding with some boys.”

“Is that what happened to your face? A misunderstanding?”

Obi touched the wound beneath his eye. “This? This was just an accident.”

“What happened on the river?”

Obi told her most of it. “Those boys were on something. They were crazed.” He told her about how the boy came at him with a knife and how he fought back, how anyone would fight back under the circumstances. He told her his knife slipped, that he hadn't meant to hurt the boy. He did not tell her he thought he'd killed the boy. He did not want this woman to think of him as a killer. That would not serve any of them.

“Accidents, misunderstandings, a failure to read the weather. You really aren't a seer. You'd think you might get some of your mother's gifts.”

“Not me,” Obi said. “I think Liam shows promise, though.”

Liam stood at the foot of the bed, looking at the old man.

“I'll do anything to protect my son,” Obi said. “You can understand that. I can't afford trouble with the law, with anyone. That's why I went for my rifle. I don't want to use it, but I will.”

“You'll be safe here,” Melody assured him. “At least as safe as the rest of us.”

Before Obi could thank her, the old man sat straight up in bed. He looked filled with strength. His hair stood out around his head, and color rushed into his face. Obi saw what he must have looked like in better times: a robust man, a strong man.

“Daddy.” Melody leaned in and Obi saw that she loved her father. Her eyes locked on his and she reached for his hands. “Daddy, what is it?”

“Genie,” the dying man said.

“No, Daddy, it's me. It's Melody.” Her voice was gentle, soft. Obi wished he could help her, but he knew he could not.

“Genie.” The man's voice was strong and clear, not a hint of weakness. “Genie, I'm dying.”

Obi watched the man's spirit leave his body and he knew the man's life had been filled with sorrow and darkness and terrible pain. Death was a relief, if only a temporary one. Obi whispered the words his mother had taught him to say in the presence of death. “Mother Earth, Father of Ancestors, He Who Lives Beyond the Heavens, make a new world for this man. No death, only a new world.”

 

Chapter Twenty-one

Geneva became a wild animal. Somewhere between the tree that took Atul and the sheriff's office, she gave up on being civilized and threw her full lot in with Mother Nature. Bruised and tossed around mercilessly by the rising waters, her skin was scraped raw, her clothes torn and useless. By the time she clawed her way up the concrete steps of the county building, she considered each new pain a triumph. Pain was just proof of life. That was true for as long as Geneva could remember.

She stumbled, barefoot and half-dressed, into the sheriff's office, where Boggs and Chandra sat. Her teeth clacked together violently. She couldn't stop shivering.

Boggs stood. “Dear God. Are you okay?”

“No.” She heaved up a vile stream of mustard-colored water. “I'm not okay.” She kept retching even when her body was empty. A faint bit of cinnamon stuck in the back of her throat, and that was worse than the bitter bile that filled her mouth.

“No, I reckon you are not.” Boggs brought her a dry wool blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders, handed her a stack of brown paper towels. She took the towels and scraped the wad across her tongue. She was shivering so hard she bit her own hand.

“Where's my father?” Chandra said. “Where is he?”

Geneva sat in a hard plastic chair, put her head between her knees. “I lost him.”

“What do you mean, you lost him? How could you lose him?” Chandra spat at Geneva, angry and full of contempt. Soon enough she'd figure out that grief was a more appropriate emotion.

Geneva lifted her head. The room spun. “The water was too high. He couldn't swim.”

“Now, just a minute.” Boggs brought her a paper cup filled with lukewarm water. “What are you saying?”

“I tried to save him, but the tree wouldn't let him go. He couldn't swim.” She kept saying he couldn't swim, though she knew damn well that swimming wouldn't have saved him. There was nothing logical about what she said. There was no reason left in the world.

“Where is my father?” Chandra lunged and slapped Geneva again and again across the face.

“Settle down.” Boggs pulled Chandra away. “You wanna tell me what happened?”

“He couldn't swim.” Geneva didn't know why they were having such a hard time understanding. “We wrecked the car and tried to walk. The water kept rising. He got stuck. There was a tree, a beautiful tree. The tree wanted Atul and it took him. If you want to blame someone, blame the tree. Blame the rain.” She couldn't say it any plainer.

“You are the rain.” Chandra said. “You are a flood of misery.”

“We have rescue boats out now,” Boggs said. “Where did you lose track of him? I'll radio for help.”

“I didn't lose track of him. He's gone.” She peered into the rain. “There are no boats out there.”

“There are,” Bogg said. “The Red Cross radioed in; they're evacuating the low-lying areas. They're evacuating damn near everything. Shelter's at the middle school. It's on a ridge. Trustees are out with sandbags.”

“It's too late for Atul.” She looked at Chandra. “Do you understand?” Chandra glared, her face tight and red. She would kill Geneva if given the chance. Geneva could see that. “Do you understand what I'm telling you, Chandra? Your father is gone.”