Crossing the Deadline (19 page)

CHAPTER FORTY

April 27, 1865, 3:08 a.m.

A second explosion rips at my ears. It's louder than twenty cannons on a battlefield all firing at once. It blows me, and most of the deck I was running across, into the coldest water I've felt since leaving the Alabama prison three weeks ago. It's hard to tell which way to swim, submerged in muddy water, struggling for my life.

So this is how it ends? I'm fifteen years old and this is how my life ends: at the bottom of the flooded Mississippi River?

Arms and legs thrash all around. Planks, churning water, legs kicking, barrels, fists punching . . . everyone . . . everywhere . . . EVERYTHING fighting for the surface . . . wherever that is. AIR . . . that's where life is. If I could only reach it.

But which way is up? How far is it? One thing is for sure: I can't hold my breath much longer.

Just fifteen years? That's all I get? I'm younger than Robert was when he died in the war.

I've made it through too many dangers to die like this, sinking toward the bottom of a muddy river swollen with two thousand soldiers, countless horses, and one murdered alligator. After all I've been through, it can't end like this. Not when I'm so close to home.

Something kicks my thigh. The strike, a glancing blow, has to be a mule or horse kicking for the surface like the rest of us.

A boot kicks my chest. What little air I've managed to hold in my lungs shoots out and bubbles past my cheeks and ears. The boat must be behind me. My body twists easily in the red-black muck. I push both hands up through the water as if trying to catch the escaped bubbles. A fast stroke brings them down to my side. Somebody's hair tangles through my fingers. I push him away, expecting a fight. Whoever it is will latch on like a burr if he can. He doesn't. There is no grabbing, no fists punching, no legs kicking. Whoever he is, he isn't trying to find the surface anymore. He's already gone.

An orange glow in the water—a distant, faint spark—like a campfire's last hour appears above me. The shape grows larger, and shadows move toward the light. I reach above me, cup the water, and pull hard down to my side . . . and do it again . . . and again. The light gets rounder and brighter, and, at the same time, sounds grow in my ears.

My body slips through the water and breaks the surface of the river. When I gasp for breath, my lungs take in as much water as air. I cough violently. Somebody puts an arm around my neck and pulls down. The best thing to do is to stay under until he lets go. Don't fight. Play dead. Finally, whoever it is releases their clutch.

Returning to the surface, I see the
Sultana
—or what's left of it—swallowed in flames, making the sky glow like a sunrise. Orange and yellow light dance against a frantic hand nearby. I snatch at the hand and pull a flailing body back up. It's Charles Evans, bugler from Company A.

“Help,” he says, and gasps between quick breaths. “Please! Please help.” He's so disoriented, I don't believe he knows who he's talking to.

A barrel floats by. The word “flour” is written on it in large white letters. I grab Charles's hand, but he pulls in a panic. We both go under. Holding him underwater forces
him to let go. I resurface in time to seize his hand as it sinks below the water, and pull him back up.

“Don't grab me!” I yell quickly.

His jaw chatters, but he manages a slight nod. “Okay,” he says, but not convincingly.

I pull at his hands in quick bursts like I'm moving a hot coffeepot from one side of the stove to the other. I'm trying to gain his trust and keep his head above water.

“Charles, you're going to take my hand. Don't fight or lunge at me. Just hold it.”

He grabs hold. With all my strength I'm able to raise his arm toward the black sky. This clears his head of the water. “See?”

“Yeah,” Charles says, and manages a quick smile. His smile disappears quicker than a shooting star.

“If you fight, I'm holding you under the water, and only one of us will come back up alive. Do you understand?”

“Okay,” he promises.

I struggle toward the flour barrel, but a trunk lid blocks my way. The top is light and moves easily with a swipe of my hand. I rest my fingers on the rim of the barrel for a second to regain some strength. Charles sees we've reached it and flails so unbridled, I have to let go. Somehow, he manages to clamp his fingers on the rim of the wood.

Within seconds the barrel is swarmed with several more pairs of hands. It sinks a bit in the water but buoys enough to support those grabbing its edge.

As the flow takes me away from the wreckage it's impossible not to look at the burning mass. A thin figure lies on the deck, near the railing of the boat. “Please somebody throw me in the river!” he screams. “The flames are getting closer!”

“Your leg is broken,” another man still on board shouts over the roar of the fire. “You won't be able to keep yourself afloat in the water.”

“You've got to do it. I'll die in the fire for sure!” he yells. “Don't let me burn alive.”

The second man cups both hands in front of his mouth and hesitates. Is he praying? Is he thinking? Finally, he rolls the soldier to the edge, shields his face from the approaching flames and shoves with the heel of his boot. The soldier enters the water, but the splash cannot be heard over the roar of the fire. I search, but his head doesn't resurface.

Brave men faced death on the battlefield without flinching. But in the icy April waters of the Mississippi there are no privates. No sergeants. No generals. There are only men doing anything for their own survival. Some beg for
life, others plead for a quick death. I don't recall such screaming and praying even in the heat of battle at Sulphur Branch Trestle.

“Gaston!” somebody yells out. “Grab hold.” A leather strap from a horse's rein smacks the water in front of me. I see the shape of a horse from the corner of my eye.

I turn to swim in the opposite direction and call back over my shoulder, “Get away! One kick and that thing will kill us for sure.”

“He can't kick, Gaston. Not anymore,” the voice assures me. “He's got no head. That second explosion blew him plum into the river. Grab the damn strap if you want to live, boy.”

It's Robert Talkington, a sergeant from Company A. He pulls the rein back and tosses it in my direction again. This time it lands across my right shoulder. My hands feel numb. Can I swim much longer in this icy water? Floating with Talkington, on a dead horse, is my best option at the moment, so I grab the rein.

Talkington pulls me to the carcass. “I'm getting cold,” I tell him.

“Wrap the reins around your wrist so you don't float away,” Talkington orders. “Don't worry. I've got the other end
secure. Here, lean up on the base of his neck and shoulders. He's dead but still warm.”

He's right. I nestle across the horse's shoulder, my head resting on its neck, and the horse's body warms mine. Wrapping the rein four times around my right wrist and twisting my left hand through what's left of his mane, I anchor myself to the corpse.

Talkington shakes his head, laughs, and says, “You know, trading a live horse for a dead one is the best bargain I ever made.”

Then, slowly, everything goes dark.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

April 27, 1865, 4:20 a.m.

“Gaston, wake up. Stay awake, pard.”

I wake from the splashing of water against my face. “What? Stop.”

“Better stay awake, pard. You almost slipped away once already.” It's Robert Talkington, and he's the one flicking water at me. He has a grip on my forearm with his other hand and shakes a finger in my face.

I lift my head slightly and see a bonfire floating on water. It's the
Sultana,
and it's illuminating the scene enough to reveal a river of human heads bobbing. Light from the flames dances on the faces near us. A crack like thunder causes every head to turn toward the sound. Men are hanging on to a round structure on the side of the boat. The form is now angled out like a tree branch jutting from the side of a tree.

“What's that?”

“That's the side wheel,” Talkington says. “It's about to go.”

The mighty wheel lurches sideways again but catches itself momentarily. The jerk knocks seven or eight men into the water. A few do manage to hang on to the wheel. Then there's another crack of thunder, and the entire mass of wood breaks free from the flames and crashes into the river.

“There goes the wheel,” Talkington says, “and anybody near it.”

I lift my head up farther. “Is that . . . the . . .
Sultana
?.”

Talkington laughs. “You were out longer than I thought,” he says. “Yeah, that's the
Sultana.
Or what's left of her. She's burning down quickly.”

“It exploded . . . the
Sultana . . .
There was an explosion,” I say.

“Correction, two explosions,” Talkington says.

My thoughts weave backward in slow motion through a thick fog of smoke and steam. I piece together the series of events in my mind. Robert Talkington had tossed a leather strap to me to save my life. With my help, somebody reached a barrel of flour. I fought under the water to reach the surface. I
t was the second explosion that tossed me into the river,
I say to myself.

“I saw awful things, Talkington,” I say.

“Everyone did,” he replies. “I saw a man put life belts on a woman and girl. I told him it was too low on the little one's waist. Others tried to tell him, too. But he would have none of it. He stared with this blank expression on his face, as if he were in another world.”

“Do you think the girl's okay?”

“I don't see how she can be with all the fighting in the water and the belt being too loose on her.”

The sounds of soft prayers mingled with singing drift into my ears. The mixture of voices and men splashing in the river float above the sounds of water lapping against debris.

“Talkington.”

“What?”

“I came within an ace of being right above that second explosion. Why am I here now and not dead?”

“Stop talking like that,” he says. “That's nonsense.”

“No, I should have died.”

Talkington laughs it off. “Well, there must be some reason you lived,” he says. “You got every right to be floating down this river alive, hanging on to a headless horse. Now you'll have a great story to tell your grandkids.”

“I can barely move,” I say. “All feeling is leaving my feet. The water is freezing.”

“Too long in confinement,” he says. “Your muscles are not all the way back yet.”

“My left leg hurts. A plank stabbed my thigh.”

“We'll get you out soon and tend to the wound. Hang in there, pard.”

A light rain begins pelting the river. A crate, buoyed enough to show the name Gastone on the side, floats by. Two pairs of fingers clutch a slat at the top, and a man is draped on the other side. I can't see who it is.

“Is the beast in the river?” Talkington calls out to him.

“Naw. He's burnt to a crisp by now.” It's William Lugenbeal.

“How long have we been in the water?” I ask.

“Not sure, an hour, maybe ninety minutes.”

That's hard to believe. I must have been passed out longer than I thought. It feels like time is standing still.

A pinging sound, like a hammer striking a train rail, drifts above the moans of men in the water. “Shhh . . . listen,” Talkington says, “Hear that?”

“Barely. What is it?”

“Don't know. It's coming from downriver.”

* * *

We drift another five minutes in silence. “It's the church bells from Memphis,” Talkington finally says. “They know what's happened.”

“Why do you think so?”

“Why else would bells be sounding now, Stephen? In the middle of the night? It's an alarm to send help.” He sounds confident.

“Talkington, I should have done something to save others.”

“Come on, pard. Stop talking like that. How could you do more? That was the biggest mess I've ever seen in my life. If the fire didn't get you, the steam did. If the steam didn't get you, the smoke did. If the smoke didn't get you, the fire did. I couldn't see where I was walking half the time. People running in every direction. Flames shooting from every cabin window.”

“I tried to help. I managed to get one fellow who couldn't swim on a flour barrel.”

“So there you go. You put a guy on a barrel, and yours truly put you on a headless horse. And here we are. Stop thinking about all that. We have more pressing issues to deal
with now. We're not out of the water yet, and I'm not letting anybody pull me off this beast.”

We drift, listening to moans and cries from strangers. A weak voice, too close to ignore calls out. “Help.” It sounds like he's speaking directly to us. “I can't . . . hold . . . on . . . much . . . longer,” he pleads. “Please . . . help.”

Although faint, I recognize the voice. “Caleb?” The glow from the burning ship is growing dimmer, but there's enough light to see it is indeed Caleb Rule. He's still holding on to the shutter, but barely.

“I'm . . . numb,” he says. “My fingers . . . slipping. Can't hold . . . on. . . .”

The shutter teeters back and forth in the water, tipping to one side and then the other. I let go of the horse's mane and swim toward Caleb.

“Gaston!” Talkington yells. “Come back!”

I ignore him. There's no feeling left in my feet, but my thighs still pump. Pain shoots up my left leg with each kick, but I have two good arms and one good leg. “I've got to help him.”

By the time I reach Caleb, he's slipped off the shutter. I dive below the surface and reach toward where his head disappeared. Groping wildly in the muddy water, my hand finds another. I pull it up.

Caleb sputters out a mouthful of water and coughs several times. I cup his chin in my hand and pull him back toward the horse. There's no fight left in him; he's no different than a log floating in the river. Talkington helps me to lift Caleb so his back rests on the horse's side. The carcass sinks a bit, but Caleb's face is totally out of water.

At about that exact moment everything in the water turns black. I look back to where the
Sultana
has been in time to see the final flickering flames disappear. Red-hot irons send hissing sounds into the air. Steam explodes to an immense height as the
Sultana
descends into the Mississippi River.

“She's gone,” Talkington says. “She's totally gone.”

“Talkington?”

“Yeah?”

“There's a new moon. It's going to be pitch-dark till dawn. It'll be after sunrise before anybody comes.”

“Don't say that. We heard the bells, and I can see lights in Memphis now,” he says. Streetlamps from Memphis appear as faint stars sitting on the horizon.

“That's miles away, Talkington. I don't know if I can hang on till dawn.”

We float, saying nothing, for another hour, maybe more.
At one point, we get caught in a whirlpool and spin in circles. From time to time we hear calls from weak voices. Some men use their last breaths to beg the Almighty for mercy.

Something grazes the side of my head, and I flick at it to knock it away. It rustles, and I realize that it's a tree branch. “Grab that limb, Talkington!” I yell, but it's too late. We've drifted past it.

By now dawn must be near. I can see the outline of branches passing overhead against a deep purple sky.

“We are in a grove of trees on the Arkansas side of the river,” I say. “The river is wide from flooding.”

The horse's hind quarter lodges on something, causing it to roll over in the water. “It's a tree. Grab a branch!” Talkington yells. I use every bit of strength I have to reach for a thick dark shadow while Talkington snatches Rule. We let the horse float away. We'll be safer sitting in a flooded tree in Arkansas than drifting down the middle of the Mississippi River. Realizing it might be the last thing I do, I summon all the energy left in my body to position myself in a fork and collapse against a sturdy tree trunk. The limb's about as round as my wrist and juts out inches above the water. There's ample room for the three of us to perch.

Talkington positions Caleb's rear onto the same branch
between us. Exhausted, I lean against the tree's thick trunk. The two of them recline against another branch. Except for our lower legs, we're out of the freezing water and able to relax a little.

I feel myself drifting to sleep, flies nipping at my neck and the bells of Memphis ringing in my ears.