The Elephant Mountains (13 page)

“You don't know that,” Richard said. “Those interstates are underwater.”

“I know it's rising,” Drexel said.

Richard told them he was serving a life sentence for killing his wife.

“I didn't mean to,” Richard said. “I put my hands on her, and then she was lying there. It didn't seem real at all. You know what I mean?”

Drexel was serving a long sentence for armed robbery.

“Might as well be life,” Drexel said. “No parole. I'll be ninety years old when I get out.” He paused and looked up at the sky as if he were pondering something.

“What's that Mississippi song?” he said. “Let's see. It's about Parchman Prison. ‘I'm gonna be here for the rest of my life/And all I did was shoot my wife.'” They all laughed. “But that's about Richard, not me. I didn't shoot nobody. I had a pistol, but I wasn't planning on using it. The jury didn't believe me. That da said I was a killer. But what about all those other banks I robbed? I didn't hurt a single person. Just scared 'em.”

“I ain't from Mississippi,” Richard said.

“Well, that song's about you anyway,” Drexel said.

Stephen was surprised by how matter-of-fact they were about their crimes.

They were looking for someone to surrender to. They had volunteered to help the Corps of Engineers. When the levee they were working on had failed, they became separated from the engineers and had used the boat to save themselves.

“This is an army bridge erection boat,” Richard said. “That chute was no problem for it.”

“We've been going around looking for folks to save,” Drexel said. “But I don't imagine there's nobody left to save. Just the dead floating about.”

“I like the dead to stay put,” Richard said. “In the ground, where they belong.”

“We're hoping maybe the governor will give us a pardon for bringing the boat back,” Drexel said.

“They'll say we stole it,” Richard said.

He turned to Stephen.

“You can put that shotgun down,” Richard said. “I ain't got any more killing in me. Drexel won't be making anymore illegal withdrawals. Just tell the police we saved you.”

“There's no pardon in showing up with a boat full of dead folks,” Drexel said.

Stephen hoped they were telling him the truth. He planned to keep the Saiga close by and to make sure that either he or Angela was awake at all times.

“Take us to Baton Rouge,” Angela said.

“Not possible,” Richard said. “This water's rising. We'll go to Natchez.”

The prisoners began to discuss the best way to get to Natchez. They finally decided to find the levee and follow it north to high ground.

That night, the boat anchored in the calm waters of a swamp, Stephen got the radio out of the dry bag and dialed in a few stations. They learned the Mississippi was still rising and more levees were breaking.

The prisoners discussed the breeches in the levees. Richard thought that would relieve the pressure on the levees from the rising river as more water spread out into the fields. Drexel held the opposite opinion.

“See about the mystery station?” Angela asked.

So Stephen dialed it up, and to his surprise it came in loud and clear.

“
This is the Swamp Hog
,” the voice said.

The prisoners started to laugh.

Richard explained that the Swamp Hog was the name of a prison disk jockey. The prison had a small radio station. Drexel wondered how the signal was going this far.

“Besides, that station is underwater now,” Richard said.

“He's found himself another transmitter,” Drexel said.

“I wonder where that is?” Richard said.

“Someplace dry,” Drexel said.

“Maybe on high ground in Mississippi,” Stephen said.

“Duck Hill,” Drexel said. “I used to live near there. It's got that hill that's mostly rock right beside the railroad tracks.”

“There ain't no transmitter on the top of Duck Hill,” Richard said.

“I'm not sure that's what they call that hill,” Drexel said. “Maybe Snake Hill. There're lots of snakes on it.”

“He don't know what he's talking about,” Richard said.

It turned out that the Swamp Hog was known to be a little crazy.

“I wouldn't believe nothing that crazy man says,” Richard said.

Drexel agreed.

“He uses words he don't know the meaning of ever since that lady from the university taught him to write poetry.”

The Swamp Hog was going on about how there was nothing left of New Orleans but the tops of the buildings (he called it the French Quarter Archipelago) when static broke in, and they lost his signal.

Drexel picked up the radio.

“Hey, Swamp Hog,” he said. “Where you broadcasting from? Hey, you listening to me?”

When they went to sleep, Stephen did not bother to set watches with Angela. But he did sleep with the Saiga and make sure a round was in the chamber.

ELEVEN

T
hey worked their way through the flooded fields and swamps. The boat handled the swift currents from levee breaks with no problem. Stephen wondered if they would by chance pass by Mr. Parker's house on the mound, but they never saw it, although they passed over many immense flooded fields.

Richard and Drexel were worried about running low on diesel fuel. They had only two drums left.

“That high ground is only a day away,” Richard said.

“What does he know?” Drexel said. “We could be a week from Natchez.”

“Why, I could get us to St. Louis in a week,” Richard said.

“On two drums?” Drexel said. “You can't get us nowhere on that.”

So the banter between the two went on. Stephen could tell that Angela was getting just as tired of it as he was.

The afternoon of the third day they came out of a swamp and into a flooded field. In the center of the field was a nineteenth-century riverboat, complete with smokestacks, paddlewheel and plenty of gingerbread on the pilothouse. It had tilted slightly to one side.

“Come to rest on a mud bank,” Richard said.

Richard put the engines in neutral as they all looked at the incongruous scene.

“One of them gambling boats,” Richard said.

Richard suspected it could have been moored at Natchez or Vicksburg and been torn loose by the rising river.

“I wouldn't have thought one of them fake things could float long enough to get way down here,” Drexel said.

“Looks real to me,” Angela said.

“It probably don't even have engines in it,” Richard said. “No smoke has ever come out of them smokestacks.”

“Then how did it get down the river?” Stephen said.

“You're right,” Drexel said. “It should've been smashed into little pieces against that flooded timber.”

“God having some fun,” Richard said.

“He has a plan,” Angela said.

Stephen wanted to point out that it seemed to him that God's plan included plenty of dead people. He almost came out and said that luck, both good and bad, was the same as God.

They decided to spend the night on the riverboat.

“I'll sleep in a bed,” Richard said.

Then Drexel started to talk about playing the slots. Richard pointed out he had no money and the machines had no power.

Drexel tossed a rope over a railing and climbed up the side. Everyone went up the rope. They carefully moored the bridge boat to the riverboat with both bow and stern lines.

“What's going to happen if the water rises?” Stephen asked.

“Why should it rise tonight?” Drexel said.

“If it does, it'll just be easier to get back in the boat,” Richard said.

Stephen remembered how the wreckage of the helicopter had vanished overnight.

“We've seen it come up fast,” Angela said.

But the prisoners were no longer listening. They had wandered off to the big room where the gambling machines were in place. Stephen and Angela followed them. There was rotting food in the serving trays at the buffet in the dining room. Richard and Drexel each helped themselves to a bottle of whiskey from the bar. Then they all had a dinner of army combat rations. Stephen wanted to suggest they stand watches. He did not wish to wake in the morning and find the bridge boat gone.

When it began to grow dark, they all selected a bedroom. Stephen and Angela took bedrooms next to each other.

“Those men are drunk,” Angela said.

“They'll go to sleep,” Stephen said. “Besides they're looking for a pardon from the governor.”

“I don't want to sleep alone.”

They decided she would sleep in his room. It was hot in the room. The bed sat at a slight angle.

“That window needs to be opened,” she said.

“I'd rather be hot than have mosquitoes,” he said.

“Being hot is worse.”

She went to the window and searched for a way to open it, only to discover it was the kind you could not open.

Stephen broke a chair and used the leg to smash the glass in the window. He tried to make as much of it as possible fall on the outside.

“We're up high,” she said. “Maybe they won't bother us up here.”

“In a few minutes you'll see that you're wrong,” he said.

Before they went to sleep, he pushed a sofa against the door. He lay down on one side of the bed and she on the other. He put the Saiga between them. He closed his eyes. To his surprise there were no mosquitoes.

“You have the shotgun close?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “We'll hear someone at the door. They're unarmed. They won't try to come in here.”

He slept but was awakened not by mosquitoes but by a thunderstorm passing over them. The boat shook as the thunder boomed. He looked across the bed. She was sitting up.

“Do you hear someone at the door?” she asked.

“It's just the thunder,” he said.

She crawled across the bed to him and hit her knee on the Saiga.

“Oh,” she said. “You do have it close.”

“Careful, there's a round in the chamber,” he said.

She picked up the gun. The lightning flashed, and he saw she was pointing it at the door.

“They wouldn't have a chance,” he said.

“You think so?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I could do it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I don't know.”

“You could if you had to.”

“Have you noticed there're no mosquitoes?”

So far she was right about that.

“It's early,” he said. “They'll be here.”

She put the gun on the bed behind her and lay down beside him.

“Holly thinks we're lovers,” she said.

“What did you tell her?” he said.

“That we're not. Not yet.”

She sat up and bent over him and kissed him. She tasted of the Tabasco sauce they had all put on their rations to make them palatable.

She slipped out of her clothes.

“You're going to make love with your clothes on?” she asked. “If that's your style, I'll just have to find somebody else.”

She laughed and then he did. He slipped off his clothes.

“Have you ever been with a girl?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

He had considered lying but decided that she would know somehow, and that would make him look even more foolish.

“What about Jesus?” she asked.

“What about him?” he said.

“I don't know if I could sleep with a boy who doesn't believe in Jesus.”

He imagined she thought that his father was in Hell and that was exactly where he was going.

“My father didn't,” he said.

“I'm not asking you about your father,” she said. “Jesus has been watching out for us. You heard what Richard said about this boat. That it's a miracle it got down the river and into this field.”

“He didn't say anything about a miracle.”

“Not exactly, but what he said amounts to the same thing. Anyway, I've been praying ever since we met. We're still alive. That's a kind of miracle too.”

“I guess you could call it that.”

He discovered it was easy for him to be evasive about religion. Besides, it was unfair her holding that over him.

“Just say you do,” she said.

“I don't not believe in Jesus,” he said.

“What does that mean?” she said.

“That I'm not opposed to the idea of him.”

“That makes me so happy.”

She reached out and put her hand on him.

“Well, it doesn't look like you're nervous,” she said.

She pulled him toward her and guided him into her. All his fantasies and dreams of sex were brushed away by the reality of being connected in this way to another person. He was eager to move in her but at the same time not completely sure how he should go about it.

“You remember where that shotgun is?” she said.

“Right beside us,” he said.

“I'll listen out.”

She began to move. He was relieved to let her set the rhythm. Then a mosquito buzzed in his ear. It was followed by another. He slapped at them.

“Can't fly this high?” he said.

She laughed.

“They're biting me too. Be quiet and concentrate.”

The storm had moved off to the east, and the thunder gradually diminished. In the lightning flashes, he saw she had her head thrown back and her lips parted. The shotgun lay beside them. He wondered if she were actually listening for footsteps in the hallway.

Even as the mosquitoes swarmed about him, he was able to ignore their attacks. He came in a great rush. He looked down at her, and a lightning flash revealed she was smiling.

He rolled off her and lay on his back. They lay side by side for a long time until the sweat had dried on their bodies. Then they pulled the sheets over them against the attacks of the mosquitoes. The thunder was out of earshot now, the lightning reduced to a faint flicker on the horizon. She got up. He reached out and put his hand on her leg.