Michael Smith - Rivers

Some of them carried ax handles or bedposts and those who were armed finished off the shards of windows or busted out the windows that remained. Doors were knocked open and the crowds filed into the buildings and up onto the second and third floors and they threw chairs and tables out of the upper windows and they smashed and they took what they wanted and they fought one another and everyone seemed to have given up except Big Jim, who sat with his shotgun and fired over their heads if they took as much as a step toward the café.

But then he changed his mind. He called for Evan, and Evan and Brisco came out of the storage room. “Get on over here,” Big Jim said and waved them to stand behind him.

A man with a bleeding forehead peeked around the café door and Big Jim fired and the man splashed down onto the sidewalk and scurried away.

“I’m done,” Big Jim said. “They can have it. I got a safe back there in the storage room and I’m going to it then I’m the hell outta here. You two can come along if you ain’t got nothing better.”

Evan looked out of the windows at the craziness. He looked down at Brisco. “I’m supposed to be waiting on them to get back,” he said.

“Get back from where?”

“Down there. They went back down late last night.”

“Holy shit,” Big Jim said. “If they ain’t floating somewhere they might get back but how long you supposed to wait?”

“Twenty-four hours.”

Big Jim huffed. “I ain’t waiting that long. I don’t have enough shells.”

“I got some upstairs,” Evan said. “Some rifles, too.”

“I don’t plan on being here at dark. I’ve had it. This place has been waiting to sink into the ground for a while and it just might before night. It’d be God’s own grace if it did.”

Evan sat in a chair and put his head down. Brisco sat beside him. Evan rubbed at his eyes and tried to believe that Cohen was alive and coming back for them. He lifted his head and said, “Where you going?”

Big Jim shrugged. “I’ll know when I get there.”

“What if we leave and they come back looking for me and him?”

“It won’t take but about a minute to look around and figure you made a run for it.”

Evan dropped his head again. “Shit,” he said.

“Shit,” Brisco said.

“Your call,” said Big Jim and he fired again out the window just for the hell of it. “I’m running upstairs and getting shoes and then I’m in and out of the safe and then I’m gone. You got a minute to think on it.”

He handed the shotgun to Evan and Evan took it by the barrel and then Big Jim lumbered up the stairs. Brisco reached out for the shotgun but Evan moved it away and said, “I told you not to touch these things.”

“You’re touching it.”

“It’s different, Brisco.”

“It ain’t fair,” Brisco said and he folded his arms.

Evan leaned back in the chair. Stared at the yellowed ceiling. You’re right, he thought. It ain’t fair.

He was hungry. He knew that Brisco was hungry. At least there was food in the café and that was the beginning and end of his pros-and-cons list. There was no way to know anything but he had to decide. Out in the middle of the square, out in the rain and the wind, three men chased another man who had a bag of some sort tucked under his arm. They surrounded him and he wouldn’t give it up and then they were on him, splashing and yelling and hitting and kicking and the man went down. The bag was jerked away from him but the hitting and kicking didn’t stop until he was motionless in the water. All around the square they swarmed in and out of buildings like starving rodents.

Evan leaned the shotgun against the wall and then he looked at Brisco, wishing that his little brother could tell him what to do.

COHEN WOKE FIRST TO A roll of thunder. He wiped his face and looked out at the drowning land. He figured they had been out for an hour, maybe two. But he didn’t know for sure. He touched Mariposa’s shoulder and shook her some. She woke and pushed herself up on the seat. She looked around like she was confused, but then it seemed to come back to her and she rubbed her eyes and moved her hair away from her face.

“We have to go,” Cohen said.

He cranked the truck. He carefully backed up and went forward several times to get turned around without moving off the narrow road. As he put the truck in drive and moved along the road, Mariposa said, “What about the money?”

He tapped the brakes and stopped. “What do you mean?”

She sniffed. Ran her shirtsleeve across her nose. Without looking at him, she said, “You know what I mean.”

He put the truck in park and took his foot from the brake. They stared out in front.

“Is it far?” she asked.

“I don’t think. But I don’t know how to get to it any other way than what we already did all last night.”

“You think Evan and Brisco are okay?”

Cohen shrugged. “Don’t see how they could be.”

Mariposa shifted in the seat. Pressed her hands on her knees. “Maybe we give it one try and then go,” she said. “The wind and rain let up some.”

“I don’t know which way to go. I ain’t even sure I know which way to get out of here and back to them.”

Mariposa looked at him. “I know. I don’t know what I’m talking about but it sounded like there’s a whole lot of it. Is there?”

Cohen nodded. Smacked his lips. “Yep. A whole lot. It’d go a long way.”

“So?”

“So what if we get to looking around down here and something happens? What about the boys?”

“I know,” she said.

“It was a bad, bad one. Bad like they warned it was gonna be. Didn’t think it could get worse but it damn sure felt like it and I’d bet them two Charlie put at the door weren’t real good company.”

“I know.”

“So we can’t take any more chances. Right?”

She wiped at her face again and said, “I know. You’re right.”

They sat for a moment, waited for the other to say something that would kill the thoughts of the money. The thoughts of how far the money could take them. The thoughts of the absence of worry that the money could provide. Mariposa lay her head back on the seat and wanted to say, All I want is an end to this, some kind of promise that we won’t keep spinning around in the storms and the filth and the chaos. She hadn’t thought of money hardly ever in her life but now it seemed to stand in front of her and scream, You need me, drowning out the voices of Evan and Brisco.

Cohen put the truck in drive and said, “One loop back around. I got one idea and that’s it.”

“Cohen,” she said.

“What?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. Just hurry.”

He backtracked several miles to a crossroads. Half an oak blocked the road to the east and water blew across the asphalt. He turned left and the road seemed to shrink, the wild growth bunched along the roadside and trees pushed over but not uprooted, and the truck was able to slide underneath them, the branches screeching across the hood and top and doors. He manipulated the clustered road for ten slow miles and then he arrived at the left turn he had been anticipating.

“I think there’s another bridge down this way. Bigger than that other one.”

“Where was it last night?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Didn’t he say anything when we were right about here?”

“He said crazy shit all night. I quit listening.”

Cohen turned left and the road was lined by pastures. In several low places the water had risen across the road but nothing to keep them from continuing. In a few miles, there was a four-way stop, the signs all twisted and leaning in different directions. Cohen continued straight. They passed through a small community. A gas station and a few hollow houses and a one-room brick building that had VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT stenciled on the side in white paint. Another couple of miles and they came to the bridge that Cohen was looking for.