Joe Lansdale - Edge of Dark Water

We was short on miracles that day, but we wasn’t short on water. The raft went over that drop-off and we sailed out in the air with a lot of force, like a dried cow patty being tossed. The raft came down on the water hard. I heard the hut groan. I heard the reverend’s body smack around inside of it. Logs creaked and heaved, and then we was swirling around and around, fast as if we was inside a rolling car tire. Once I looked out to see that Jinx was in the water, having been thrown free, and she still had the rudder handle in her hand where it had broken off. Next thing I knew the raft was going down and the water was rising up on the sides of it. I had somehow ended up on my belly, clutching at the lumber that was nailed to the logs.

The raft rose up, and for a second there I thought I was going to get my miracle, but it was just the way the water spun. It spurted the raft skyward, out of the whirlpool. But now it was heading into those pancake rocks. Actually, it was more like those rocks were coming to the raft; they clashed against one side, then the raft went the other way and caught the rocks on the other side. I clung to the raft best I could, and after a while I realized the hut was gone and half the raft was missing. I was clinging to a piece of it, and a piece was about all that was left.

The piece I was hanging on to slammed up against the rocks and it come apart, and a chunk of it went one way and a chunk went the other. I tried to go both ways, clinging to different sections as one part went east and one went west.

My arms wasn’t long enough, however, and pretty soon I wasn’t holding on to anything. I was in the water and I was going down and then back up. When I came up, I tried to gulp air, but the water took me down again.

Finally I decided that the Sabine was out to drown me, and that’s all there was to it. That point of view lasted about the time it takes to bat an eye, and then my inborn stubbornness took over.

Can’t say how it happened, but the next thing I knew I had a knee on the edge of the bank, and there was rocks poking me. I wilted there for a moment, then got to my feet and staggered along, off the bank and onto a run of green grass. I was on the opposite side of the bank than the one Skunk had been on, and that gave me a bit of relief, even if it didn’t really amount to all that much.

I didn’t stumble far before I fell down. I lay there for a moment, and eventually, after a long time, got up and tried to walk again. That lasted until I got to some shade trees. I tumbled down beneath them and lay still. I knew there was a lot of things at risk, including Mama, Reverend Joy, and my friends, but it felt like I didn’t have any bones in my legs and my head was stuffed with mud. I couldn’t think and I couldn’t move.

Reckon I lay there a long time, because the day got long and the sun got hotter and I passed out. Eventually, I opened my eyes, realizing I had passed out. It was some squirrels that got me focused, being in the trees above me, chattering like a couple of old biddies over a fence line. I managed to sit up and look around. From where I lay I could see the river, but I couldn’t see Mama or anybody else.

It took me about the time it takes a baby to be born and to learn to walk before I could get to my feet and go down to the shoreline for a look, fearing all the while what I might see. There was good reason for that worry, because what I did see made my heart sink like a lead boat.

It was the reverend.

The river was calmer beyond the falls and the rocks, and where it went off to the right there was a narrow split in some boulders and the river ran through it; the reverend was hung there between the boulders. He was lodged in tight as a pig in a jug. A big piece of the raft had broken off and stuck through his stomach. I scrambled along the bank and climbed over some smaller rocks, and swam out to the center, where he was. It was much easier than before. The rain was gone and the river was slower. There were plenty of rocks to climb on till I could get to one of the boulders.

When I got out to where he was jammed up, I inched along the top of the boulder until I was just above the reverend. I called out his name.

It was a long time in coming, but he finally said, “And now I’m called home.”

“Sounds like you’re still here,” I said, hoping that would cheer him up, but it was a silly thought. The raft piece was sticking out of his lower back and blood was leaking around the wooden ram in little driblets. It was stuck so tight I figured it was all that was holding him together.

I noodled around on the rocks until I could get down on another one that was lower, and could see the reverend’s face. It wasn’t a pretty sight. His skin was white, his lips were dark, and blood was bubbling out of his nose and mouth. He lifted his eyes, as he was too weak to lift his head, and said, “You are an angel.”

I knew then he was really bad off. “No. It’s me, Sue Ellen,” I said.

“I see now I’m forgiven, or you wouldn’t be here,” he said.

I started to correct him, tell him again who I was, but right then I knew there wasn’t any use, and it was best to let him think I was holding open the door to heaven so he could fall through.

He dropped his eyes. His chest, which had been heaving hard, quit moving. It was as if he got heavier. The big piece of wood sticking through him shifted and he eased down lower, his ankles going into the water. Then he was still again, hanging there like a big piece of fruit.

I didn’t like it none, but I left him where he was. I didn’t have the strength or the will to try and drag him loose, especially with that big piece of wood in him. There wasn’t anything else I could do for him. I wanted to find Mama and my friends, though I feared what it was I would come up on. I climbed back on top the boulder and looked out over the river. I could see there was a limb sticking out from a tree by the bank. The limb had been underwater a short time ago, but now the water was low again, and it was out. There was something hanging from it.

I swam back toward shore, started walking toward where that something was hanging. My heart was beating fast and I was having trouble breathing. When I got to the limb, I saw what was hanging was one of the bags me and Terry had taken from the reverend’s shed. I eased up against the trunk of the tree, then out on the limb, and got the bag. It was work, but I tugged it back to shore. I pulled the bow that tied it off at the top, and even wet it come loose easy. I looked inside. Everything in there was pretty much ruined, but there was one of the lard cans and the lid was still tight. I hadn’t lost my pocketknife, so I got it out of my sticky-wet pocket, opened it, and used it to prize up the can lid. The jar was unbroken and the padding inside was dry. It was full of May Lynn’s ashes.

I put things back how they was, and, carrying the bag with the can in it, went walking again. Then I saw Terry. He was standing up, leaning against a tree, reaching across with his right hand and holding his left elbow. The other bag was at his feet.

I ran over to him, and he let go of his arm and hugged me.

“I thought you had gone under,” he said.

“I thought you had,” I said.

“This bag washed up on shore,” he said, “and I rescued it and was leaning against this tree thinking everybody else was drowned. I hurt my arm a little, nothing bad, but a little. It doesn’t hurt near as much as my finger.”

He held up his hand. The bandage had washed off. His hand was swollen all the way from where the hatchet had cut off the tip of his finger to his wrist; it looked like a ham hock.

“It hurts,” he said, “and when I look at it, it hurts more. You okay?”

“I feel like I been beat with a bag full of hammers,” I said.