The Rift (27 page)

He never could have turned the boat over on dry land. But the water had supported the boat’s weight, and taken most of his burden from him.

The bass boat had clearly seen better days. It had platforms fore and aft, so that fishermen could stand and cast. There had been a padded swivel chair on each platform, but these had been torn away. Right amidships there was a small cockpit, with two forward-facing seats and a small jumpseat between them. The small windscreen in front of the driver’s seat had been torn away, and the fore part was half-flooded with water.

Jason got into the boat, groped in the darkness for any equipment.

Nothing.

No engine, no paddles, no life vests, no fishing poles. No water, no food, no fuel. No way to bail out the water that filled the bottom of the boat. A steering wheel that wasn’t hooked up to anything, a throttle that flopped uselessly back and forth like a screen door in the wind.

He wondered how he was going to get to the wreckage of his home. That cotton field might be fifty miles wide for all this boat was going to help him.

Pole along, he supposed. Or use a stick as a paddle. Or hang his feet off the back of the boat and kick.

Still, Jason could see no point in staying on the mound. It wasn’t as if some rescue craft was going to parachute him an emergency outboard motor. If he stayed on the mound, who knew how long it would take for people to find him? The river would bring him to other people sooner or later.

He groped around on the flank of the mound for sticks suitable for paddles, and found several leafy branches that would do as well as anything else he was likely to find. He threw the branches into the boat, put his hands on the stern counter, and prepared to push off. Something solid banged him on the forehead.

He swiped at it and felt the hard plastic casing of his new telescope. He took the scope from where he’d hung it and, a bit self-consciously, hung it over his shoulder. Suddenly he felt like laughing. He looked down at the boat and imagined a crew of sailors waiting for his orders.

“We’ve got a
telescope,
men!” he said. “We’re ready for sea
now
!”

And with a laugh, he pushed the boat off from the mound and jumped into the stern as it surged away.

The river was sluggish and still.
Retired and Gone Fishin’
turned slow circles as Jason fumbled his way over the boat. He found a locker that was reasonably dry, and put the telescope in it. The dying fires of Cabells Mound reflected red off the water.

He sat on the edge of the boat and tried paddling with one of the branches, but that only turned the boat in circles, and the effort was exhausting. The boat was too wide for him to paddle on both sides to keep it straight, not unless he kept jumping from one side to the other, and that seemed pointless.

Jason tried hanging over the end of the boat and swishing the branch back and forth, hoping to propel himself along by lashing his tail like a sperm, but when he tried it nothing seemed to happen.

He looked at the bulk of the mound on his left, and it seemed farther away. He was slowly drifting south with the river, not north as he wished.

He threw the branch into the boat in disgust and heard it land in the water that splashed ankle-deep in the bottom. He was going to have to try kicking the boat northward.

He took off his sneakers and socks, then carefully lowered himself off the back of the boat. A shiver ran through him at the water’s chill. He hung onto the metal plate to which the outboard was usually bolted, and he began to kick. Water splashed as his heels broke the surface.

He kicked steadily for a few minutes, but from behind the boat he couldn’t tell if he was on the right course, so he stopped kicking and pulled his head above the gunwale to take a bearing on the red glow of Cabells Mound. He seemed to be aimed more or less in the right direction, so he dropped into the water once more and began to kick.

That was the way it went for a long time. Kick for several minutes, take a bearing while he panted for breath, kick some more. The glow seemed to be getting a little nearer.

The air rasped in and out of Jason’s lungs. His hands were numb on the metal plate. His head spun, and he felt the beginnings of a cramp threatening his left calf. He paused, hanging off the end of the boat, and tried to massage the cramp out of his calf with a half-paralyzed hand. He could feel his teeth chattering in the cold. There was an ache in his throat from his labored breathing.

A brief gust of wind flurried the surface of the water. The boat swung to the right, and Jason tried to kick to correct his course. He failed, and the boat swung farther.

He saw the Indian mound looming up close on his left. It shouldn’t be there, he realized. It should be farther astern.

A flame of panic lit in Jason’s heart. He pulled himself above the boat’s counter, tried to get a bearing. The fires of Cabells Mound seemed more distant. He looked frantically at the mound again, tried to get a bearing on it. The clouds above the mound were breaking up, with stars visible here and there, but the clouds were moving swiftly, and it was difficult to gauge motion relative to the water.

The boat swung to another gust. Jason’s pulse throbbed in his ears as he turned his head to view the mound. He fixed his gaze at a star just visible above the tree-topped mound, tried to see how fast it was moving relative to the mound ...

The star seemed to be flying in relation to the mound. Which meant that neither the star nor the mound were moving, it was
Jason
that was moving, Jason and his boat... The lazy current had picked up speed and intent, and was carrying him swiftly away from the wreckage of his home, away from any chance of rescuing his mother.

Jason gave a frantic yell and dropped back into the water, kicking furiously to get the boat back on its proper course. Heaving the boat’s slab side against the wind was difficult, and by the time he got the boat pointed in the right direction again he was already breathing hard, and he could feel the cramp building in his calf again.

He knew that he could not allow himself the luxury of weariness. He had to kick, and kick hard.

So he kicked, and from the first minute it was torture. His hands ached, his lungs were agony. Blackness filled his eyes. The cramp came in his leg and he clenched his teeth and ignored it, tried to keep kicking despite the muscles that turned hard as iron, that tried to tear his tendons from the bone. He didn’t dare stop. The pain filled him and he
became
the pain, and the pain was in his heart and his mind and his body, and it filled the world and the night, and he kept kicking, because it would be worse pain to stop.

He shook water from his eyes and blinked at the bulk of the mound— he could
see
it sliding past, could see he was losing ground to the current. Mad determination brought a scream to his throat, a cry of hoarse defiance. Fresh energy seemed to glow in his limbs. The pain was not gone, but somehow it didn’t matter now, he had managed to put himself somewhere else, to let the pain flow through him without touching him. He kept kicking, kept pushing the boat ahead of him, fighting the wind and the current, until he caught another glimpse of the mound again and saw that it was far away, far upriver, and he knew that all the effort had been in vain, that the current had him now and that the river was taking him away south, far from the fires of Cabells Mound, the floating wreckage that was his home, far from the muddy grave of his mother, who was, he knew, dead, a lifeless
thing
lying in the river mud like Mr. Regan, drowned or burned or broken, wreckage herself, flotsam, food for animals that swam or crawled in the muddy darkness ...

So he threw one arm over the boat’s stern and just hung there, legs dangling in the water, and let the pain claim him at last, the sobs tearing at his throat, as the boat turned slow pointless circles in the water that carried it to a destination that waited patiently somewhere to the south, concealed by the soft Mississippi darkness.

*

One gentleman, from whose learning I expected a more consistent account says that the convulsions are produced by this world and the moon coming in contact, and the frequent repetition of the shock is owing to their rebounding. The appearance of the moon yesterday evening has knocked his system as low as the quake has leveled my chimnies. Another person with a very serious face, told me, that when he was ousted from his bed, he was verily afraid, and thought the Day of judgment had arrived, until he reflected that the Day of Judgment would not come in the night.

Extract from a letter to a gentleman in Lexington, from his friend at New Madrid,

dated 16th December, 1811

The Reverend Noble Frankland rose from his knees. His clothes were soaked with rain, and his knees with mud, but he had not felt that this was any moment to cease raining prayers and praise back to heaven.

Despite the downpour, the air still smelled agreeably of brimstone.

He reentered the radio station, walked across the littered floor to the control room. Though power had been restored, the station was mostly dark. Very few lightbulbs had survived the quake. The dials on the control panel— the ones that hadn’t shattered, anyway— showed that he was still on the air. He fetched his old metal wheeled chair from across the room, dusted some broken glass off the green plastic seat, then sat before the microphone. His wet pants squished beneath him, and he gave a tug to one trouser leg. He put on his earphones, then spoke.

“Brothers and sisters,” he intoned, “the Last Days have begun. These are the days of lightning and brimstone and shakings of the earth, the prophecies of the Bible coming true. We praise you, Lord Jesus, for letting us see this day.” As he spoke his hands automatically worked the potentiometers. During the lengthy time he’d spent praying on his knees he’d had time enough to plan what he was going to say once he returned to the mike.

“If anyone in the Rails Bluff area can hear me, the
first
thing I want you to do is thank the Lord’s mercy for allowing you the opportunity to build His kingdom here on earth during the next seven years of Tribulation. And the
second
thing I want you to do is see to the safety of your family and your neighbors. And the
third
thing I want you to do,
if your
home is destroyed or damaged, or
if
you are afraid to be alone in this difficult time, or
if
you are in need of spiritual aid, I want you to come
here
— here, to the Rails Bluff Church of the End Times here on Highway 417. We will see that everyone is cared for and fed. We have enough supplies to support a large number of people, and we have the organization to make sure that everyone is cared for.

“If you don’t have transportation, or if you’re injured and can’t move, try to call emergency services. If you can’t get through, try to care for yourself as best as possible, and
we will find you.

“If anyone from the Family Values campaign can hear me, I want you to look after those children and return them to their families if you can. If that’s impossible, I want you to bring them here, to the Church of the End Times, where we will care for them till their parents can come for them.

“To any Christians in the Rails Bluff area— if you have no other duties,
come here now. We need you at the church
! We know how to organize you for survival here in the End Times— we have studied this problem for years!”

Frankland took a breath. “And now, let us all give thanks ...”

He spoke a lengthy prayer, and then he broadcast his message again, recording it this time. Then he set the message to infinite repeat. He listened to it once to make sure that it sounded all right, and then he took his earphones from his head.

It was only then that he heard the noise in the outside office. Someone had come into the station. He could see a large, shadowy form moving in the outer office.

Frankland’s mouth went dry. In a movement that seemed to take forever, he reached into the drawer next to his chair and put his fingers securely around the custom grip of his P38 semiautomatic pistol. He eased the wheeled chair back from the control panel, but the wheels crunched over broken glass, and swift, angry reproach flashed through his mind at the sound.

The intruder halted at the sound, then moved down the corridor. Glass and wreckage crunched under his feet. Trying to breath in utter silence, Frankland thumbed back the hammer on the pistol and slowly raised the weapon. The intruder loomed closer. The pistol seemed heavy as sin.

“Reverend?” Hilkiah’s voice. “You in there?”

Frankland let his breath sigh from his throat. His head swam with relief.

“Yes, Hilkiah. I’m here.”

The big man groped uncertainly toward the doorway. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” Frankland eased the hammer of the P38. “I’m just fine.”

“Praise the Lord you’re all right! I can’t see a damn— whups, sorry, Brother Frankland— a dang thing in here.”

Frankland put the pistol back in its drawer, rose from his chair, and shuffled through the rubble toward the door.

“Were you in town?” he asked. “What happened there?”

“Town’s wrecked,” he said. “The courthouse and the old Bijoux theater are the only buildings still standing, pretty much. A buncha houses caught on fire. Bet you we’ve got five, six hundred homeless people in this county, probably more.”

The Bijoux was an old opera house from the nineteenth century, later converted to cinema, but abandoned now for years. It had a strong iron frame, and Frankland had once considered buying it for the site of his church.

“God bless it!” Frankland said as he barked his shin on a fallen shelf. “How about my wife? Our kids?” meaning the Family Values picketers in front of Bear State Videoramics.

“A few cuts and bruises, but they’re okay. We were all knocked down when it started, but it was safer in the parking lot than inside the buildings, and we were away from the store fronts and the flying glass.” He gave a chuckle deep in his throat,
hugh hugh.
“You shoulda seen them cars jump! Like they was trying to fly to the moon!”