Bill Cheng - Southern Cross the Dog

I ain’t got nobody in no Winona.

Skinny sucked something out of his teeth. He fit his hat back on his head and took his lantern from its hook.

You can’t stay here, Skinny said. He looked out back toward the night. I’m just telling you ’cause I known you a long ways back and I know your people’s been through hard times.

Ellis looked back at the house.

Skinny, he said.

It’s just a place, Ellis. Wood and nails. A house ain’t like a person. You got to look after yours.

Ellis put his lips together into a knot and nodded slow.

IN THE RAIN THE MEN crowded the river edge. They’d worked through the night, sandbags at their shoulders, the numbness set heavy in their chests and arms. They sunk waist deep into the soft mud, hefting their bodies forward and up. When the lantern went, they stopped in their places and listened to each other breathe. Rain flickered white in the darkness. Somewhere beyond them was the river. It groaned and roiled, eating the banks, crisping against the rocks. After a moment, someone cut the wet from the wick and relit the lantern.

The men shifted under a cake of rain and mud and sweat. Come dawn a wound of light bellied through the clouds. In the light, they could see what they couldn’t before. Piece by piece, the embankment was falling away into the current, their sandbags shooting up downriver.

There was a pop, and a jet of gray water gushed through the embankment. Shouts rose up and a wave of men raced toward the break. They shored it up with their bodies, crying more men, more men. The air cracked and the ground trembled. The water ripped through them like paper, sending them into the air, into the mud. The river burst forward and the levee crumbled under it, tearing through the camp, through forest, rising up in a great yellow wall, driving close, fast, screaming like a train, its roar sucking up the sky, a voice crowning open like the Almighty, through Fitler and Cary and Nitta Yuma, acre by acre, through cornfields and cotton rows; through plantation houses and dogtrots, wood and brick and mortar, through the depots and churches and rail yards, through forest and valley, snapping boulders through the air. Houses rose up, bobbed, then smashed together like eggshells. Homes bled out their insides — bureaus, bathtubs, drawers, gramophones — before folding into themselves. The people scrambled up on their roofs, up trees, clinging to one another. The water blew them from their perches, swept them into the drift, smashed them against the debris. They bubbled up swollen and drowned, rag-dolling in the current, moving deeper and deeper inland, toward Issaquena.

WHEN THE FLOODWATERS CAME, ELLIS lay sprawled in his chair, smothered down in sleep. In his dream he could hear his boy call for him — Daddy, Daddy — up through the depths, his voice crashing, warm at first then a jolt of panic. Each call came brighter, sharper — Daddy, please Daddy — hoisting him up through miles of dreaming. His eyes opened into the bright noise of the world. The floorboards were dark and swollen at his feet. Water bubbled up through the planks. Daddy. Wake up, Daddy, he heard, and he saw Little Robert beside him tugging hard on his flannel shirt.

I’m awake, Ellis said, his voice hoarse. He rose unsteadily to his feet. They watched a rocking chair slide on its legs. The water was climbing. The boy threw himself around his father’s waist and out of habit Ellis touched the back of the boy’s neck.

Go get your mama, he said.

Ellis wrapped up what food he could in newspaper and crammed their clothes into carpetbags and satchels. Quick now, he called to his son. Robert was waiting with his mother, holding her hand. She was dressed in her powder-blue church dress with a straw sun hat fit over her head.

Ellis moved toward her.

Etta, he began, but then he heard the house crack under his feet. Come on, let’s go.

He unlatched the front door and the water sluiced through, soaking his lower half. Ellis grunted, pushed through the doorway, and out onto the porch.

Beyond the steps, the floodwaters prickled moodily over the surrounding country. The dogwoods were stunted, their fluffed heads bowed over the water. Toward town, houses had broken free from their foundations and were bobbing in place.

Daddy.

He turned and the boy’s eyes started to glass. He sent Robert inside for a rope and made a yoke around his waist, tying one end to his wife and the other to his son.

Stay close together, he told them.

Ellis went in first. He lowered himself slowly off the porch, into the rush of water. He bit down on his yell and tried to shake the ice from his head. A piano floated by and he swung to the side and let it pass. He balanced his bundle on his head and looked up at his wife and son.

Just like a bath. That’s all it is, he said.

He motioned for Robert to come down next. Then Etta. Her dress flowered up around her, and she held her hat down against her head. Oh, she said. They shivered and hugged themselves, the slack of the rope floating up between them.

They waded against the current toward the telegraph poles in the distance, to Rolling Fork. Every now and then Ellis would cry out left, left, right, right and he could feel the tug against his waist, the knot biting into his hip as they dodged the flotsam. Pebbles churned in the yellow soup, hitting his legs and ribs and stomach.

Midday, the rain stopped and the sun broke through into the clean sky. The waters washed against them in thick moody rolls. Around them, people lay on their roofs, blankets spread out under them. The air buzzed with their crying. One man called out to them in a high ragged voice. Ellis watched him over his shoulder, jumping up and down and swinging his arms.

Boy! You there!

Robert looked over.

Don’t pay him no attention, Ellis said.

Hey! Where you going?

There was a crack and a crown of water splashed up some feet away from Robert.

I’m talking to you!

Another crack, and Robert winced. He kept his head down and they trudged forward.

THEY’D GONE FOR HOURS THROUGH the numbing waters, their heads drooped and the space behind their eyes, deep and sonorous. Ellis felt the walls of his skull tensing. The waters stretched forever, smothering the roads and fields and district lines. Roof shingles drifted in the distance. He only dimly knew where he was, sighting out the tips of landmarks that peaked above the waterline. Robert was guiding his mama along, taking wide strides through the muck. He could hardly keep his eyes open. Ellis squeezed the bridge of his nose. The cave of his head yawned vast with air. He willed his legs forward but they refused.

Ellis shut his eyes. He did not know how much longer they could go on. He could make out a noise in the distance. It was a song, coming through warm and brown. He opened his eyes and across the water he saw a boat skimming between the rooftops, and the man in it, pulling his oars back and singing toward the sky.

I’m only going over Jordan, I’m only going over home, the man sang. I’m going there to see my Father, going there no more to roam.

Hello, Ellis called out.

The man let the oars hang loose in the water.

Hello! the man answered.

The man paddled toward them, pulling up the water in white lashes. He was youngish — handsome with a thin sprinkling of hair on his sharp chin. How do you do? the man said. He extended out his hand. Name of Stuckey.

Ellis lifted his own hand up from the water, wiped it on his shirt, and shook it. I’m Ellis Chatham and here’s my family. We been crossing over from Issaquena County.