*
Nick heard Arlette’s voice over the sound of hammering. Some of the family, she had explained, were up on the roof, replacing the shingles that had spilled during the big quake. “We’re trying to get the house in shape,” she said, “because we don’t want it to fall apart if we have to leave.”
Sudden anxiety clawed at Nick’s heart. “You’ll be leaving Toussaint?” he asked. “When?”
“That depends on the bayou. Looks like it’s getting set to rise. And I’ve never seen it run so fast.”
He had wasted too much time, Nick thought as he rubbed the nearly healed wound on his left arm. He should have taken the speedboat to Toussaint after the first night on the Beluthahatchie. But it had been comfortable on the boat, and safe, and he’d been able to talk to Arlette every day. And every time he thought about getting back on the river again, a bloated body would float by.
He and Jason had been on board five days. He’d talked to Arlette twice a day.
And he’d tried to get in touch with Viondi’s family, but there was no answer at Viondi’s number, or his plumbing business, or at the numbers of Viondi’s sons that Nick’d been given by directory assistance. He wondered if the whole family had been wiped out.
Finally, after several days, he’d got an answering machine at Viondi’s business. He hated to pass on the news by machine, but he had little choice: he identified himself and told the machine that Viondi was dead, and that he’d try to call later.
When he called the next day, he didn’t even get the machine.
“The phone exchange is sandbagged,” Arlette said. “And we’ve got pumps running. But if the bayou gets much higher, we could lose the phones. Half the people here are living in the second floors of their homes already. So Gros-Papa is getting everyone organized to leave by boat. He and Gilly and Aunt Penelope are going to stay and look after things.”
Nick bit his lip. “How are you going to get out? The river’s a mess.”
“We’re not going to follow the river. We’re going to follow the road. In our boats, it shouldn’t matter if the roads are torn up or the bridges are out.”
“Honey. The roads might be blocked. A lot of trees and power lines have fallen down.”
“We can float around obstructions, Gros-Papa says. But we’ll have chainsaws just in case. And plenty of food.” Her voice turned reassuring. “We’ll be okay, Daddy. We know where we’re going.”
Should have gone there, Nick thought. Should have been there for her. And for Manon.
“Besides,” she added, “we’ve got to leave. Did you hear the President’s address? We’re getting our water from the bayou— we can’t keep on drinking it, not with the fertilizer plant upstream.”
The President should be doing something, Nick thought. Something besides making speeches.
“I’m coming to you, baby,” Nick decided. “You just hang in there for another couple days, and I’ll be there.”
“I want to wait for you, Daddy.” She hesitated, then spoke. “But it’s the bayou that has to wait.”
With Captain Joe’s assistance, Nick plotted his river journey in the chartroom just below Beluthahatchie’s pilothouse. Down the Mississippi, up the White River to Lopez Bayou, and up Lopez Bayou to Toussaint Bayou.
“But it’s not goin’ to look like this, podnah,” Captain Joe said. “Everything on the map is nice an’ neat, but you can look right out this window here and see how neat this river is.” He looked down at the map and tapped the Arkansas Delta with a big knuckle. “This is all goin’ to be under water. It will be hard to find the channel. Some of the navigation markers are goin’ to be missing, others will have moved. The White River may have shifted its mouth— already done it once— and you maybe won’t be able to tell one from the other. There ain’t no towns on that stretch at all. Your marks are gonna be these three lights— Clay Wilson, Smith Point, and Henrico Bar. If the lights are there at all— they could all three have been wrecked.”
He shook his head. “If you get to the light at Montgomery Point, you’ve gone too far. This Napoleon light here—” tapping again with his knuckle “—that’s on a town that the river took over a hundred years ago. Napoleon, Arkansas. You used to be able to see parts of it at low water, but now maybe even the light ain’t there.” Captain Joe looked at Nick and tugged on his grizzled mustache. “This river just went through a big change, podnah. Maybe Napoleon’s above water again. Maybe some other town’s under. This map will prob’ly just get you lost. All’s you can hope to do is stay in the river and out of the batture.”
“The what?”
Joe gave a laugh. “Batture’s an ol’ Louisiana word, podnah. Means the floodplain, between the levee and the river.”
Nick looked down at the map, felt his jaw clench. “Can you give me some paper?” he asked. “I’d like to make some notes.”
“Hell, podnah, take the maps.” With a grand gesture, he tore three maps out of the spiral-bound Army Corps of Engineers map set. He opened more long, flat drawers in his map chest, withdrew more maps. “I can give you maps of the White and the Arkansas, too,” he said, “but they ain’t up to date. We ain’t gone up there in years.”
Nick looked at the captain. “Thank you,” he said.
Captain Joe grinned, clapped Nick on the shoulder. “You just say hey to your little girl from me,” he said, “and to her Gros-Papa, too.”