One More River (23 page)

He pounded his desk with a fist and his voice rose.

But I am not giving up. From now on, all hands are on sandbag detail. I will shore up the levees, and I will beat the tide that’s coming. I promise you, I will not be conquered by this goddamn river. Now get out of here both of you and get those lazy bastards to work.

When they left him, Carter and Bernard went directly to the levee. Bernard climbed up its walls, slipping in the earth twice, rolling back down, getting up again, climbing, climbing until he was high up at the flat. He looked upriver. He saw the crest. It wasn’t a wave, but a slow-moving wall of water, from his vantage point, a ribbon maybe two inches tall on the horizon. The sight struck a spear of ice-cold terror through his heart.

That day every worker on the plantation took up a shovel or held open a bag. There wasn’t any sand left anywhere. They shoveled wet Tennessee clay instead, one murderous shovelful after another. It took three men to carry a full bag up the levee. When night fell, not two dozen bags had made it to the flat.

The next dawn when Bernard woke up in the white man’s barracks, all the Italians were gone. So was the big man’s wife.

They needed more workers. Bernard the handsome and Carter drove into town to comb the docks for labor and returned with a truckful of Negroes. Once those were unloaded, Carter went back for three truckfuls more. Where they got them, no one knew. Bald Horace determined they got them from the jailhouse. The workforce was now comprised of a few dozen old hands and one hundred convicts. There were fifteen white men left on the farm. Each carried a rifle everywhere he went with instructions to shoot any able-bodied man trying to run off. They wore yellow slickers and hats to help identify them through the veil of constant, blinding rain. Two ran off themselves. To keep the rest on hand, Bernard the handsome showed them thirteen bags of gold coins, one for each, bags he kept in a strong box he carried around most days under his arm. When the rain was especially thick and the crest crept forward, he’d take one out of the box and shake it at men with rifle butts balanced against their yellow slickers at the hip, their white faces poking out of yellow bonnets.

Stay with me, he’d yell over the roar of the river, his forelock drooping over his eye, his beautiful lips glistening. Stay with me, and I will make you rich men. Leave me, and the river will still rise. Leave me, and you shall surely die.

After one such occasion, Bernard sought out Bald Horace, whose look of pain as he tried to dump yet another shovel of dirt into a bag put him firmly in mind of engravings he’d seen in one of the doctor’s books on the
Delilah’s Dream
all those years ago. It was not a medical book but one of poetry, poetry Bernard could hardly fathom, except for the engravings, which were startling, exquisite. The look Bald Horace had that day was precisely that of the picture labeled
PORTRAIT OF THE DAMNED
. The damned had the same hollowed cheeks, the same agonized grimace. It was as if the artist had known Bald Horace personally.

His heart melting with compassion for his dearest, his only friend, Bernard said, At least if we get out of this, we’ll be rich, we’ll have our bags of gold.

Bald Horace responded, I didn’t notice the mister including Negroes in that distribution.

Bernard blushed. Don’t worry, he said, I swear by the head of Aurora Mae that whatever I get from him I will share with you equally, and she, too, should she appear.

Every day the river got higher. It rose well beyond the flat of the levee, lapping at layers of sandbags, when the rains stopped. The first crest was still coming. It was a ways off yet and didn’t look to be the seven feet reported, even if one accounted for the distance, but three feet would swamp them. Everyone feared a crevasse erupting. Meanwhile, the river spit out geysers or twirled around everything from wagon wheels to hogs in its eddies and whirlpools like it was playing a game of ball ’n’ jacks. One of Ghost Tree’s laborers, a man conscripted from the town, fell in the river and got sucked down before any of them had a chance to throw him a line. He shot back out one hundred feet downriver, crashing to his death on the far bank. The only thing Bernard the handsome could do to keep his men on after that was to shoot his guns at random morning, noon, and night and have his armed men do the same. It kept the others more frightened of death in the next minute than death next week. He had tents pitched up at the flat, so men could work around the clock and he could keep them in his sights. They slept in bedrolls laid directly on the cold, wet ground. He never slept himself. He drank out of a leather sleeve he wore around his chest like a bandolier and paced up and down the levee barking orders no one could hear above the river’s screams. He shot off his pistols to get their attention as much as to intimidate them.

The sandbags ran out. Carter was sent into town to acquire more, but he returned within the hour to report that the main road was washed out from the rain. The earth had had so much, it couldn’t take any more. Run-off ditches overflowed. The mud was like tar. Nothing could get through it. He tried alternate routes, and they were in worse shape. He set out again, this time on horseback, and he was gone three hours. While he was gone, everyone at Ghost Tree felt a fresh surge of hope as each hour passed. Men who’d never had much affection before for the King of Prussia man slapped one another on the back and exclaimed, That Carter. He’s a right clever one. He’ll bring the goods on home, and we’ll be saved. But Carter came back on foot without his horse and in such a condition that no one dared ask what had happened.

The crest was two bends of the river away. It moved slowly enough to rouse the workers to the point of rebellion. Everyone knew when a crest moved that pokey it was because the water beneath raged. Without bags to fill, there was no work. Men sat on the levee staring upriver complaining about the goddamn Jew bastard who’d corralled them and kept them there. Bernard the ugly patrolled the levee with a tighter grip on his firearm when he listened to them talk so. He knew if they ever decided to rebel, he’d be floating downriver along with his name-twin.

We’re all dead men, they said. The boss goin’ to get us all killed. Someone chimed in, I’d rather take a goddamn Jew bullet to the gut than drown like a pig. Others cheered him and concurred. When Bernard the handsome paraded his domain with pistols raised, they cowered instead. Bernard the ugly couldn’t help himself. He was glad about that.

One morning, the men woke up in wet beds. The floors of the tents were puddled. The men of Ghost Tree rose as one and staggered like an army of drunken ants out to the levee’s edge to watch the Mississippi raise a great fist to them. Water spilled over the top of the sandbags. The crest was very close, within the day’s reach. The levee could spring a rip any moment. If they were lucky, it’d happen on the opposite bank. Otherwise, the water was sure to wash them away. There was nothing to do but stare, weep, or pray.

Bernard the handsome had other ideas. He called a meeting of his white men, leaving a skeleton crew to guard the labor. He spoke to them from the front veranda of the big house, using a megaphone so they could hear him.

I’ve studied a remedy they used over to Washington County in the flood of 1912, he said. It’ll save our side of the river, I am certain. What I want you to do is order those niggers to lay down. Lash them together if you have to. They’re the best goddamn thing next to sandbags we got. They’re probably better. Now get back there and get to it.

His men stood before him in shock. Carter was the first to speak. They’re not going to do it, Boss.

Then shoot them. A cadaver’s as good.

No one moved. There was a rumble of discontent.

Bernard the handsome roared displeasure. Do I have to show you how it’s done? Alright, I will.

He went to the back of his house to the outbuilding where the dependency was and returned dragging a mammoth black woman behind him. She was barefoot in a huge apron and dress made of odd swatches of material sewn haphazardly together. Her hair, pulled back by a piece of string, sprouted foot-long spikes in all directions behind her. The big man had her in a death grip by the wrist. Her free arm was up over her face protecting it from the rain that coursed over the roof of the veranda and splashed all around her. The sight of her stilled the men. No one had ever seen a woman that tall, that wide.

She’s like a corn-fed ox, Bernard thought, like John Bunyan’s Babe Blue. She must be six and a half feet tall and hundreds of pounds on the hoof. And because the mind comes up with its own considerations without regard to logic, especially in times of imminent disaster, he thought, she’s like the generator up at the house. How does he hide a thing that big?

Bernard the handsome saw the effect his cook had on the assembled and gave them a mad, drunken smile. This one will do to start, he said.

They made a most unwholesome parade. Bernard the handsome dragging that poor confused woman through the yards up to the levee, his raggedy contingent of rifle-toting men in yellow rubber behind him. They trekked up the wooden planks laid for that purpose to the flat where more than a hundred Negroes gathered, most on their knees praying to Jesus. The big man raised the hand of his cook high in the air as if she were a prizefighter. Her head was down, her clothes were plastered against her. Her free arm bent over her breasts in a futile gesture of protection. She might as well have been stark naked. Her posture made clear she was frightened to be on display in such conditions before a hundred men. The men themselves were as wild and mad-eyed as Bernard the handsome. Some of them stared at her and put their hands down their pants. Surely, she was some kind of offering. Surely, they were meant to feast on her before dying.

Lay down, woman. Bernard the handsome shouted. Lay down and marry the goddamn river.

Her head snapped up. She backed away from him. He smacked her head hard with the butt of his handgun. She fell down to one knee.

A voice cried out. Stop! Stop! and then, ’Rora! ’Rora Mae!

It was Bald Horace who recognized his sister beneath the enormous cloak of flesh she’d amassed over herself like a disguise. ’Rora! ’Rora Mae! he shouted, while Bernard opened his mind to see that Bald Horace was right. It was her. His love. His goddess. On the ground being beat by his name-twin. His heart swelled so, it felt it might break through his ribs. His rifle butt found its way to his shoulder. He took aim.

Let her go! Let her go! Let her go! he said, but Bernard the handsome could not hear him or did not want to.

He continued to beat Aurora Mae over the head, on the shoulders, on the back between her shoulder blades. When still she would not lie down, he yelled out, A cadaver is just as good! and shoved his handgun deep between her massive breasts. Before he could pull the trigger, there was what sounded like a crack of thunder, and he crumbled to the dirt with a large bloody hole trailing smoke at the center of his chest.

Bernard the ugly shot his name-twin twice more, a second time to the chest and once in the head. No one tried to stop him. Afterward, everyone, all 125 human beings assembled on the flat of the levee, took off running. Everyone but Bald Horace, Aurora Mae, and Bernard Levy. The two men helped Aurora Mae to her feet. The three stood clinging to one another over the body of Bernard the handsome. Bald Horace kicked him, and he didn’t move. He’s real dead, Bald Horace said. The other two shook their heads. Without speaking, they bent and rolled Bernard the handsome into the river, watched him bob and sink and reappear until he was no more.

They headed for the big house where pandemonium reigned. Convicts and free men, black and white, ransacked the place, tearing whatever looked precious off the walls, the sinks, the banisters. They tossed clothes through the air and threw any container that might hold jewelry onto the floor to break it. Someone upstairs yelled out, That man, that man there, he hit the jackpot!

There was the sound of a first-class scuffle, a banister cracked, and then the air rained gold coins from Bernard the handsome’s strong box. Men scrambled for them on their knees. Ignoring them, Aurora Mae led Bald Horace and Bernard to the pantry, where they filled their arms with canned goods, knives, whatever was cooked and whatever they could eat raw. They went to the attic, stopping first in a bedroom on the second floor to pick up blankets and pillows. They made a camp up there to ride out the crest. In the next hour, they were interrupted a couple of times by men bursting in to see what they could find, but when they saw Bernard the murderer, their liberator, they backed out bowing as if he were the king of Egypt. Then it was quiet. Even the roar of the river seemed subdued. The men were gone.

Aurora Mae wept in her brother’s arms. Bernard wanted to comfort her himself. He longed to hold however much of her he could grasp and never let go. He wanted to tell her he didn’t care if she’d got as ugly as him. He loved her, he’d always loved her, and if he’d been brave enough to declare himself in days gone by, maybe they’d have found a way to avoid all the tragedy that pursued them. He wanted to apologize for letting her down. He wanted to weep a little and be comforted by her, too. He wanted all of that, and he wanted to know exactly what had happened to her.

There was a horrible noise, a noise none of them had ever heard before and hoped never to hear again, a noise that crashed against the eardrums and ran its talons against that tender tissue drawing blood. They screamed and covered their ears with their hands. It was the sound of the levee dying. A crevasse broke through earth and rock to flood the Delta in mere moments. The currents conquered everything in their path, ripping ancient trees from their roots, swamping whatever man-made object lay ahead. But there was luck in the reunion of that strange little family from Missouri, of Woodwitch, her herdsman brother, and their devoted friend. The crevasse had broken on the opposite shore. The pressure on Ghost Tree’s side of the river was released.

They were saved.

Aurora Mae and Bald Horace fell to their knees. Thank you, sweet Jesus, they said, thank you.