They finally found a passage. Once beyond the screen of trees bordering the creek, he saw they were in an enormous flooded field. The river was somewhere off to the west. He looked up at the sun and turned the airboat to the south and Baton Rouge. They ran for several hours. From time to time they came upon dead animals, both wild and domestic, but no humans.
Then up ahead he spotted a tree-covered mound of earth rising out of the submerged field. He had Angela stop the boat while he scanned it with the field glasses. A house was built on the truncated top of the mound. Off in an open space between some pecan trees a helicopter sat.
At any moment he expected to see someone launch a boat from the tiny island to have a look at them or even for the helicopter to venture out. He had Angela stop the airboat.
“The National Guard?” Angela asked.
“Looks like it to me,” he said.
The helicopter had military markings. But just because it was a military aircraft did not mean it was in the hands of the military. He expected by now someone on the island was looking at them with field glasses.
“What’s that hill?” Angela asked.
“Someone built a house on an Indian mound,” he said.
He got out of his seat and took up a position in the bow. He laid the Saiga on the bottom of the boat. He wanted to make it clear to the people on the mound that they had peaceful intentions. No doubt the inhabitants of the mound had food and water to protect.
“Take us in slow,” he said.
As they drew closer, he saw two johnboats drawn up on the grass and several people, both men and women standing there looking at them. Two of them waved, and he waved back. Down near the water’s edge, the grass was charred black in a band running both ways.
He turned to Angela and motioned for her to go slow.
“Anything happens, give it full throttle,” he said. “Run south.”
As they drew closer he scanned the people with his field glasses and saw that none of them was armed. They were all dressed in civilian clothes. He would have preferred to see them dressed in National Guard uniforms. Several of them carried long poles to which gigs were fixed. Perhaps they were living on frogs or were spearing fish in the shallow water.
They were only a hundred yards away now. He looked down at the Saiga and rehearsed in his mind how he was going to pick it up if anyone threatened them. He smiled at the people and waved at them. He turned his head and saw Angela doing the same.
Angela ran the bow of the airboat up onto the grass. There were two women, about his mother’s age, and three men. One of the women grabbed the bowline. He stepped out of the boat, followed by Angela, and then everyone was talking at once.
“Where did you children come from?” one of the women asked.
So he gave them a quick summary of their journey, how his father was dead and Angela’s parents were dead. He mentioned nothing about the men he killed or the murder of the family or of the couple on the barge. He hoped Angela would keep quiet about those matters too.
The people had been plucked off the levee by the National Guard helicopter. After developing engine trouble, it had been forced to land on the mound. The pilots had given their position but had been told not to expect rescue for a long time. Resources were needed elsewhere, and they were on dry ground.
The refugees were all from some small Mississippi town he had never heard of. One was a banker, another an insurance agent, and the third owned a funeral home. One of the women was married to the banker and the other to the insurance agent. The undertaker had lost his wife in the flood.
“Mr. Parker is beginning to think he made a big mistake staying,” the banker said.
Mr. Parker owned the mound and the house on it and the land for miles around. He was determined to ride out the flood just as his ancestors had ridden out previous floods and the Indians before them. The mound was already a large one when the first settlers cleared the land. It had been further enlarged over the years, first with slave labor and then with a bulldozer.
Stephen discovered that the poles and the frog gigs were for snakes. They were having a bad problem with snakes. Mr. Parker had somehow acquired a flamethrower. He made a circuit of the mound every night and killed snakes. The black band near the water was scorched grass.
“I didn’t imagine there were that many snakes in the whole world,” the other woman said.
“You had to shoot anybody with that combat shotgun?” the insurance agent asked.
They had moved off from the women and were standing in a group by the bow of the boat.
“No, sir,” Stephen said. “Just snakes.”
“You can’t blame us for asking,” the undertaker said. “Looks to me like you’re all set to go to war.”
“He’s got an AK-47,” the insurance agent said.
“It’s dangerous out there,” Angela said.
“I expect it is,” the banker said.
Stephen wondered if they were going to be interested in his supplies. Now he wished that he had carried the Saiga ashore. And again perhaps it would have been a good idea to let them know he had killed a few people. But it was too late to start telling stories like that. They would think he was making it all up. To them he was just a boy.
“Let’s go find Mr. Parker,” the undertaker said. “He’ll want to talk to them.”
“That helicopter is broke,” the insurance agent said. “I don’t care what those pilots say about trying to fix it. It’s not gonna happen. But it’s gonna be tough getting out of here in a johnboat. There’s some mean currents and snags out there.”
A man wearing knee-high snake-proof boots was approaching. He carried a pole with a gig on the end. He wore a pistol at his hip. Stephen guessed this was Mr. Parker.
Mr. Parker, like all of them, was dirty and tired-looking. He stopped before them and looked them over, digging the gig from time to time into the soft earth. Then he lifted one of the charred snakes, a big rattler, and tossed it into the water.
He introduced himself and shook both their hands. When Stephen said his name, the man looked at him closely.
“You live in New Orleans?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Stephen said.
“Over near Audubon Park?”
“Yes, sir,” Stephen said.
“Your mother is Anna Hudgins?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I know her. She’s been to dinner right here. She works with my brother.”
He went on to explain that his brother designed Mardi Gras costumes. His wife was one of Stephen’s mother’s friends. Mrs. Parker was in Baton Rouge.
Stephen told him how he had gone to spend the summer with his father.
“Where’s your father?” Mr. Parker asked.
“Dead,” Stephen said.
He gave a detailed account of his father’s death.
“You killed them with that combat shotgun?” the insurance agent asked.
“No, sir,” Stephen said. “Like I said, I was coming back from hunting ducks. It was a Browning.”
Then Mr. Parker asked him about his mother.
“She’s in New Orleans or maybe Baton Rouge,” Stephen said. He explained how she had hired security people to take care of the house and its furnishings.
“Yes, I expect there’s been plenty of looting in New Orleans,” Mr. Parker said. “Most folks have pretty well given up on that city. Don’t you worry about your mother. She’d hire the best.”
Then he asked Angela a few questions. She told him how Stephen had rescued her from the flooded town.
“You folks are mighty clean,” he said.
Stephen wondered what he was going to say. Angela looked at him.
“Why’s that?” Parker asked. “You must have been wandering around these swamps and flooded fields for days.”
So he told them about the barge. The moment he said the word barge, Mr. Parker interrupted him.
“Fred and Holly are still alive?” Mr. Parker said.
“Yes, sir, they are,” Angela said.
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t kill them just to get a hot shower,” Mr. Parker said.
He laughed at his own joke along with the others.
“I’ll like a hot shower,” one of the women said. “I want to get to a hotel someplace. A bath would be better than a shower. A long bath.”
Stephen wondered exactly how far a person had to go to find that hotel and that bathtub. He expected it would be a long way.
“Stephen, you and Angela come on up to the house,” Mr. Parker said. “I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping.”
“I’ll sleep on the boat,” Stephen said.
Angela decided she would sleep in the house. He watched her walk off with Mr. Parker.
He went back to the boat and retrieved the Saiga and the radio.
“Worried about snakes?” the insurance agent asked.
“That’s right,” Stephen said.
“That radio work?” the banker asked.
“Most of the time,” Stephen said.
He went up to the house and found that Angela would be sleeping on the screened porch that ran the length of the back of the house. It had begun to grow dark. They were cooking something in an enormous iron pot over a gas grill. It turned out to be a venison chili that Mr. Parker had made. There was corn and beans and squash from his garden.
The pilots and their crew chief appeared. They announced they thought they had repaired the helicopter. They would be able to fly out in the morning. The refugees were elated.
“We could go to Natchez,” the banker’s wife said.
“I don’t care where we go just as long as it’s dry,” the insurance agent said.
Stephen cranked the generator and turned on the radio. He found a station out of Baton Rouge. The announcer advised that relief was on the way just as long as another hurricane did not appear.
“What about that station you keep trying?” Angela said.
Stephen wished she had kept quiet about that. He wondered how he would feel if the station came in loud and clear and the Swamp Hog started making those wild statements. He spun the dial and set it on a place where he was sure he would find nothing but static.
“No, that’s not the place I mean,” Angela said.
She pushed him away and set the dial on the station. To his relief there was just static. Not a single word came out of the speaker.
“I wonder if you dreamed that station,” she said.
“You and my father would have gotten along fine,” he said. “That’s what he told me.”
They all ate and watched the sun set over the flooded fields. Mr. Parker hoped the water would go down, and he would be able to plant in a month or so. But he doubted that was going to happen. He expected there would be more hurricanes and more floods and more levee breaks, and pretty soon things would be back to when the Indians inhabited the land and the river spread out over its banks at least once or twice a year, doing whatever it wanted to do.
When it was completely dark, Steven took up the Saiga and the radio and started down to the boat. Mr. Parker offered to go with him. He carried the flamethrower. He wore a gas-powered headlamp.
“Nothing like going out and frying a few snakes after a good dinner,” he said.
He followed Mr. Parker down to the water. Halfway down the hill they began to encounter snakes. Mr. Parker left the harmless water snakes alone. He was looking for cottonmouths, rattlers, and copperheads. He held up his hand. Stephen saw a cottonmouth coiled up directly in their path, displaying the white lining of its mouth. Mr. Parker trained the flamethrower on it. He pulled the trigger and the flame leaped out at the snake with a whoosh, illuminating the night, and Stephen smelled a gasoline stink. He imagined he could hear the snake sizzling like a sausage on a grill. Mr. Parker played his light over the charred remains.
“The way it’s gotten so hot all the time, pretty soon I’ll be killing cobras and pythons,” he said. “They were starting to have a serious problem in Florida. Now that Florida’s gone, I expect they’ll eventually move up this way.”
He incinerated a few more cottonmouths and a big rattler on the way to the airboat. Stephen climbed on board.
“Worried about your boat?” Mr. Parker said.
“It’s been on my mind,” Stephen said.
“Well, I don’t blame you. But those folks’ll fly out on that helicopter in the morning.”
“That suits me just fine.”
“You know, I wouldn’t be ashamed to have my sons grow up like you.”
Stephen did not know what to say. He supposed the sons were in Baton Rouge with Mr. Parker’s wife.
“I’m not grown up,” he said.
“Oh, I think you’ve gone as far as it’s possible to go,”
Mr. Parker said.
Stephen wondered what he meant.
Mr. Parker played his light over the grass. It illuminated a couple of small gators, their eyes shining red in the light. There were plenty of snakes.
“Do you think my mother is all right?” Stephen asked.
“She’d hire good people,” Mr. Parker said. “If I had a couple of them here, I’d sleep like a baby.”
Stephen wondered if Mr. Parker knew about his mother’s young men and, if he did, what he thought about it.
“Do you see my mother often?” Stephen asked.
“Now and then,” Mr. Parker said. “Courtland would bring her out here for dinner. We had dinner in New Orleans a couple of times.”
Mr. Parker adjusted the harness on the flamethrower tank and settled it more comfortably on his shoulders.
“Josephine still works for your mother?” he asked.
“I guess,” Stephen said.
“She is one good-looking woman. I wonder if she’s gone back to Lake Charles or is sticking it out with your mother. I expect Lakes Charles is underwater too.”
“I don’t know.”
“No way you could know. Well, I guess I’ll take a stroll around the property.”
He settled the tank on his shoulders one last time and walked off along the bank. From time to time a stream of flame shot out.
Stephen set up the mosquito netting and then climbed under it, along with the Saiga and the radio. He gave the generator another good cranking and tried to find the mystery station. To his surprise the Swamp Hog’s voice came out of the speakers, riding the air over the flooded land.
“Hello, all of you in Memphis,” the voice was saying. “You’re on high ground. Stay there. Fish are swimming in New Orleans and Charleston. The land is shrinking, the temperature is rising. Beware of low ground. Hello, there in…”
Then the voice disappeared in a hiss and crackle of static.
“What about Baton Rouge?” Stephen asked. “What about my mother?”
He tried adjusting the dial, but the only reply was more static.
“Hello, hel…,” the voice said.
But then it was gone. He felt like tossing the radio into the water.
“Who are you?” he asked.
His only reply was static.
He turned off the radio and wrapped his arms around the Saiga and tried to sleep. Periodically he heard the whoosh of the flamethrower. He could not sleep. He tried to clear his mind of the voice on the radio.
Hello, Hello, Hello.
The voice went on and on in his head.
Finally he slept. But it seemed to him that he had barely closed his eyes when he was awakened by the whoosh of the flamethrower. Mr. Parker had made a circuit of the island and was approaching. The flame leaped out, like the breath of some fairy-tale dragon. Mr. Parker played the light over the airboat. Stephen gave up on sleep and sat up under the netting, awaiting his arrival.
The last blast from the flamethrower incinerated something just off the bow of the airboat. Stephen felt the heat of it. He took a deep breath as his lungs searched for oxygen the flame had consumed. Mr. Parker was laughing, a deep rich laugh.
“Boy, are you awake?” he shouted.
Stephen did not reply.
A stream of fire shot out again, this time over the water, followed by the same laughter.
“Wake up, Stephen, wake up!” he shouted.
As Mr. Parker played the light over the airboat, Stephen shielded his eyes against the glare with one hand.
“You be careful with that thing,” Stephen shouted.
“It’s a lullaby for you,” Mr. Parker said.
This time he was close enough he did not have to shout. But he came no closer and turned and walked back up the hill to the house, the flame now and then leaping out from the machine.