They made a skidway of saplings and used a block and tackle he found in the garage to pull the skiff up onto the bridge boat. Then he told Angela the plan he had made during his last watch. They would cross the river in the bridge boat, go through a levee break on the west bank, and run the bridge boat on a westward course as far as the fuel lasted or until they were in the vicinity of high ground. Then they would abandon it for the skiff.
“Why the other side of the river?” she asked.
“I want to go to the Rockies,” he said.
“You’ve been paying too much attention to the Swamp Hog.”
“There’re no hurricanes in the Rocky Mountains.”
“It doesn’t matter to me. I just want to get to high ground. And what about going to Baton Rouge to find your mother?”
“There’s not enough fuel to do it in the bridge boat.
We’ll never make it in the skiff.”
“You can find her later.”
“I will.”
He was pleased she had shown good sense about their options.
They ran the boat across the field and then through a swamp and through a levee break. This one had a strong current, but the bridge boat had no problem overcoming it.
After they crossed the river, they hugged the slack water next to the bank for several miles, looking for a break in the levee or a place where it had been overtopped. They ended up in a flooded field. It was easy to set a course due west into the afternoon sun. By evening they were making their way through a swamp and running low on diesel. They moored the boat to a tree and spent the night.
In the morning they abandoned the bridge boat for the skiff. It was going to be much easier maneuvering the skiff through the swamp, and he calculated that they had only a few minutes of fuel left anyway. After the time they had spent on the bridge boat, the skiff seemed impossibly small and fragile. It would never survive passage through a levee break. In the swamps he sculled it through the labyrinth of cypresses. In the flooded fields they took turns with the oars.
“How far do you think we’ll have to go?” she asked.
“Ten miles, fifteen miles before we hit high ground,” he said.
“But you’re just guessing?”
“I’m guessing.”
Since they had crossed the river, they had not seen a dead body. They had come upon a few dead animals, both wild and domestic. There had been one place where it looked like the entire population of a chicken house had drowned, the brown water covered with a mass of white-feathered swollen carcasses. The smell was bad.
They spent a night in the skiff and in the morning pressed on. They were running low on water. The weather was extremely hot and humid, but at least it was not raining. The flat, still expanse of brown water lay under a perfectly blue sky. They heard no noises that indicated other humans were about, no motors or gunshots or voices. No planes flew over.
In the middle of the afternoon, after they emerged from a swamp, he saw a pine-covered ridge ahead. Their hands were now blistered from rowing. He scanned the ridge with the field glasses but saw no sign of anyone.
“No one will bother us,” he said. “We don’t look dangerous.”
Then he saw a highway sign. It had the name of a town on it and the mileage. Only a few feet of water was over the road, and they followed it toward the ridge that now rose above them to the west.
Late in the afternoon the road began to emerge from the water as the land rose. They came upon a car that rested across the road, upside down. There were no bodies in it, no possessions. The interior was filled with mud.
Now there was barely enough water to float the skiff. It kept grounding out on the asphalt. So they got out of the boat and towed it. It was difficult walking because the road beneath their feet was slick with mud.
Then the road emerged from the water. They could see where it ascended the side of the ridge perhaps a quarter of a mile away. They left the skiff behind. Angela carried the dry bag with what little water and food they had left. He slung the Saiga over his shoulder. At any moment he expected one or both of them to fall, the victim of some hidden rifleman.
But when they reached the place on the road where the flood had not risen, it became clear that there had never been an army outpost here. In fact, it looked like no one had ever stopped a car or truck at this point on the highway.
They walked to the top of the hill. Off to the west was ridge after ridge of pines. Behind them the flooded land stretched off toward the river. The wind soughed in the pines as they stood in a spot of shade, the acrid scent of the trees spilling over them, a welcome change from the stink of mud. Even in the shade it was hot.
“Are you really thinking about going to the Rockies?” she asked.
“You heard the Swamp Hog,” he said. “There’re elephants in those mountains now.”
She laughed. “You’re talking crazy like him,” she said.
“You’ll see,” he said. “There’ll be elephants in those mountains one day.”
And perhaps love too. Perhaps she would stay with him there, ignore the difference in their ages. He imagined riding an elephant with her through the streets of a little town, the animal’s ponderous body swaying beneath them, the buildings strung with colored lights and everywhere soft music—guitars and flutes.
“I’ll locate my mother,” he said. “Let her know where we are.”
“You can’t locate her,” she said.
“I know it’s going to be hard.”
“It’s not that. She’s dead.”
He stopped and looked at her. This was not something she would joke about.
“You can’t know that,” he said. “Did Jesus tell you?”
She began to cry, and he immediately regretted he had spoken so harshly. He put his arms around her and told her he was sorry. She calmed down and wiped her face with her T-shirt.
“I saw her,” she said. “When I went to look in the other rooms in Mr. Parker’s house. She was lying there with a dead man. He was dressed in camouflage. I guess he was one of her security guards. I recognized her from that picture I saw at your father’s house.”
He sat down on the side of the road and she beside him.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he said.
“You had too much on your mind,” she said. “Too many things you had to do right so we could stay alive.”
“I could’ve buried her.”
“Somebody will.”
“Maybe.”
“Did you say any words over her?”
He was immediately sorry he had asked her the question. He hoped she would not start talking about Jesus.
“No.”
He considered what it would take to make the journey back to the house. It was not a journey he was seriously thinking of making. At least she would not become one of the nameless floating dead. She would be spared that. For some reason he thought of the wasps busy among the rotting fruit.
He sat there with her beside him, her arm about him, and wept softly. He had the sensation of vertigo as if he had slipped over a precipice and was falling to his death. He laid his head in her lap, and she stroked his hair.
“I wonder what she was doing there,” he said.
“Maybe looking for you,” she said.
He liked the idea of his mother looking for him. He wondered if his father would have believed that was her motive for being there.
“Anna just can’t pay attention to anyone but herself,” his father had once said.
That was when she was talking about sending him away to school. But she could have changed, especially after having been separated from him for the summer, perhaps acting on some scrap of information her mercenaries had discovered about his location. He wondered why he did not hold his father’s absence against him. After all, his mother had raised him. What was worse: her indifference or his absence? It was hard for him to decide.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“About my parents.”
She paused as if she was having a hard time considering what to say.
“No telling what’s up ahead,” she said.
“We can’t go the other way,” he said.
He sat up and wiped his eyes. He imagined them walking along the road. He did not expect them to come out of that walk alive. To walk over the crest of a hill and see the red-haired man standing there would come almost as a relief. If that happened, he would not hesitate this time, would show no mercy. That they were free of the violent life they had experienced on the flooded land was not something he was ready to accept. But he said nothing of this to Angela.
Despite the death of his mother and father, despite the deaths of Mr. Parker and Holly and Fred, the prisoners, the towboat crew and all the unknown floating dead, he felt a sense of excitement. They were on high ground. The mountains lay to the west.
They took up their gear and started down the road. He slung the Saiga. As they crested ridge top after ridge top, they saw only more pines.
“I’m not stopping until I see an elephant,” Angela said.
Then she ran ahead of him, laughing, while he, the heavy shotgun banging against his back, ran after her.