*
Jason watched Nick after he’d come back from talking to his daughter, and he saw Nick’s face glow with love and delight. In the evenings, he’d call his father and try to tell him that things on the boat were okay: that Nick wasn’t some deranged stranger who’d try to get everyone killed, that Captain Joe wasn’t the captain of the Titanic about to massacre them all.
He’d leave the radio vibrating with anger, and then he’d see Nick musing over a cup of coffee, his face still radiating love.
Then Jason would hate everybody, and find a place on the boat where he could be alone.
“You want to learn how to use that scope of yours?” Captain Joe asked after one evening’s episode of Doctor Who.
Captain Joe took the recording out of the player, archived it carefully with the others.
“You know astronomy?” Jason asked.
The telescope had been stowed under Jason’s bunk since he’d been on the towboat. Sometimes, when he saw it, the anger boiled up in him and he thought about throwing it over the side. But somehow the scope hadn’t ever seemed worth the effort.
“What I learned,” Captain Joe said, “was celestial navigation. Useless on the river, but I didn’t know I was going to be spending my whole career being a truck driver on the Mississippi, I thought maybe I’d go to salt water one of these days. I never left the river, but once I got into the habit, I kept lookin’ up, y’know what I mean?”
Captain Joe switched off Beluthahatchie’s floodlights and took Jason and Nick aft of the stacks, where the boat’s remaining lights wouldn’t blind them. There he set up Jason’s telescope and pointed it upward at the brilliant swash of stars overhead. This was the best viewing, the captain declared, that he’d ever seen: the quake had wiped out light pollution for miles around, and the factories and automobiles that produced other forms of pollution were wrecked or unused.
“Here, podnah. Look at this.”
Jason put his eye to the scope. It took a moment for his eye to adjust to the faint light that had crossed millions of miles of space to reach him, and then awe filled him as the great globular cluster M13 in Hercules grew brighter in the Astroscan: a huge ball of stars, so closely packed together that they looked as if they had merged, with fine trails of stars sailing in all directions from the core.
“A million stars or more, M13,” Captain Joe said. “All concentrated in a ball.”
A million stars, Jason’s mind echoed. In Los Angeles, a valley flooded with the light of a million streetlamps, he could go weeks without ever seeing so much as a single star. And now he was a looking at a million of them, all packed into the little eyepiece of Astroscan. He had no idea the universe held such bounty.
“How far away is it?” he asked.
“Globular clusters are all on the perimeter of our galaxy. Say maybe twenty-five thousand light-years.”
“So the light from those million stars took twenty-five thousand years to get here,” Nick mused from over Jason’s shoulder.
A million stars, Jason thought again. All in my eye at once.
Captain Joe showed them other globular clusters: M81, M82, M51. The Blackeye Galaxy, M64, beautifully defined spiral arms, all made of stars, spinning out from a blazing center, and curling across its center a long dark cloud, like a streak of chocolate swirled into whipped cream.
“Billions of stars there, podnah,” Captain Joe said. “Maybe even a trillion. That’s one with twelve zeroes after it.”
“And people?” Jason asked.
“Mos’ likely. Or maybe not people exactly, but intelligent life. Seems silly to think we’re the only ones, not when there’s so much potential for life in the universe, and so much room. A supernova will throw out everything you need for life— I’ll show you a supernova in a few minutes, here.”
Jason wondered what his mother would have said if she’d looked through the telescope at the Blackeye Galaxy. She probably knew people who talked to the Blackeye Galaxy, who conversed with the people there like neighbors chatting across the back fence.
And all the aliens, according to his mother, believed just what his mother believed. Races throughout the universe embraced peace, drumming, reincarnation, astrology, pyramid power, and Atlantis. It was only the folks on earth who remained mostly unconvinced.
Surely in all those billions of stars, Jason thought, there was somebody who would disagree with his mother.
Captain Joe shifted the telescope, peered busily through the eyepiece. Then he laughed, clapped his hands together with a bang. “There we are!” he said. “I was wondering if I could catch the detail with this little scope, but we in luck tonight! Take a look at this, podnah.”
At first Jason saw only a small fuzzy blotch, but as his eye adjusted to the lens he saw that the blotch was hollow, a ghostly smoke-ring hovering in the darkness.
“That’s the Ring Nebula!” Captain Joe proclaimed. “I told you I’d show you a supernova, and there it is!”
“I thought a supernova would be brighter,” Jason said, his eye glued to the strange apparition.
“That’s supernova remnants, that cloud, not the supernova itself. What supernovas do is manufacture all the heavier elements, see— iron, oxygen, carbon— and they blast ’em all into space in a huge explosion. Our sun is made up of old supernovas, and so is earth and the other planets. We are made of old supernovas. All living things. If it weren’t for those big stars blowing up, no life would exist.”
“They blow up?” Jason said.
“Yeah. Give Nick a look, then lemme show you another one.”
Jason stepped back from the telescope. A chill threaded remorselessly through his soul. The problem with his mother’s philosophy, he thought, wasn’t that people, or even aliens, disagreed with her; it was that the whole universe disagreed. She had thought of the universe as being no more complex than her own backyard, and no less welcoming; but she was wrong. Stars blew up regardless of whether people built pyramids; earthquakes shook the earth whether or not they chanted and burnt incense; bodies rolled lifeless along the chill bottom of the Mississippi whether they practiced astrology or not. Existence was filled with wonder and terror and incomprehensible violence, from his mother’s backyard to the Blackeye Galaxy. Human comprehension was limited, and human life terribly fragile.
The stars burned overhead, arching across the destroyed landscape. Jason stared up at them in fascination and horror.
Captain Joe showed Jason the Veil Nebula next, but Jason’s pleasure in the sight, the gorgeous phosphorescent threads that floated in the darkness, was tempered by the knowledge that this was the remnant of another supernova, something else that had torn itself to shreds at the behest of Nature.
He could feel a pressure in his mind. His internal scale was growing, pressing against the inside of his skull. He felt as if his thoughts were racing outward at the speed of light, trying to catch up with the universe. A trillion stars…
It was a matter of scale, Jason felt. He did not know how to relate what he’d seen, the universe of stars and galaxies and immeasurable distances, to the rest of his life, to Nick and the Beluthahatchie and the torn landscape, the sagging bridges and the bodies floating down the river, a raft for crows.
All things were mortal, he thought. That was what everything had in common.
Everything was mortal, and even a star could die.
*
Jason didn’t see why he needed to go to Aunt Stacy’s. It was just another pointless scheme of his father’s to stick him out of the way where his father wouldn’t have to think about him.
He helped Nick stock the speedboat with supplies for the trip to Toussaint. Canned food, lots of fresh water. Ice and fresh food in the bass boat’s cooler. Blankets, clothes, rain gear, a pair of proper oars for the bass boat, a pair of flashlights, tools, insect repellent. Much of it went into the lockers of the bass boat, which Nick planned to tow behind him— “like a tender,” as Captain Joe said. Anticipation glittered in Nick’s eyes as he planned the trip to his family. Jason tried to stay cheerful about it for Nick’s sake, but all he could think about was that Nick would soon be with his family, and that Jason would never be with his family— his whole family— ever again.
Nick was going to leave in the morning. The only adult who had ever talked to him as if he was a human being, not a little marching moron to be given orders, or tried to pay for his neglect with presents that he didn’t even pick himself.
Jason felt a sudden yearning to be on the river again, to hide somehow on the speedboat and not come out until they arrived at Toussaint, at the place where there was a family waiting. But it was pointless to think about stowing away on a twenty-foot boat. It wasn’t as if he wouldn’t be seen.
He went to bed that night with fantasies of escape spinning through his mind. He thought about flying up into the night sky, free in Captain Joe’s world of stars, the universe to choose from.
Jason woke to a knock on the door of the cabin he shared with Nick. “Better get up, podnah.” Captain Joe’s voice. “The river’s risin’ fast. We’re gonna float off this sandbar, and we’ve got to get you onto the water before we head upriver.”
“It’s still dark,” Jason said.
“River makes up its mind to do something, we gotta do it,” Joe called.
Jason and Nick dressed in the dark. Beluthahatchie’s big diesels vibrated up through the deck. Jason reached under his bunk and grabbed his telescope by its strap. Outside the towboat sat in a pool of white light, crewmen bustling, winches tightening the anchor lines that had been trailed aft. The speedboat and the bass boat had been moored to the side out of the way, ready to be boarded.
“Godspeed, then, podnah,” Joe said, and stuck out his hand. Nick shook it.
“Thanks, Captain. Thanks for everything.”
Jason held out his hand. The words take me with you were on the tip of his tongue. “Good luck,” he said.
“Thanks.” Nick took the hand, then put the other around Jason’s shoulders, gave him a brief, fierce hug. “You take care, Jason.” He released Jason, looked at the telescope. “You going to watch me with your ’scope?” he said.
“Sure.”
“I don’t know if you’ll see much. I won’t be carrying a light.”
Nick turned to the boat, then hesitated. He turned to Captain Joe. “Can I call my girl?” he said. “Tell her I’m on my way?”
Joe glanced over the side at the rising river, then nodded. “Make it quick,” he said, and then he and Nick hurried forward to the pilothouse and the radio.
There was a sudden loud clatter as a winch hauled on an anchor line. Jason jumped. His heart hammered. Light glittered on the river’s wavelets.
Below him the speed boat tugged on its line, eager to be off. Retired and Gone Fishin’ bobbed behind on its towline.
The river was terror. The river was liberation. The river was Edge Living, and his fate.
Jason walked aft a few feet, then went over the side and dropped soundlessly into the bass boat. He crawled under the forepeak. The space was narrow, with only an inch or two to spare. It was damp and it smelled bad. Water chuckled against the boat’s chine.
Dad is going to be really pissed, Jason thought, and closed his eyes.
*
Paxton looked down at the dead body in the bar ditch. “God damn it, Jedthus,” he said.
“Didn’t meant to kill him,” Jedthus said. “There ain’t more’n three inches of water down there.”
“Nigger asked for it,” said Jedthus’s new partner, a Klan boy named Leckie who hailed from Washington Parish, and whom Omar had made a special deputy.
Jedthus gave Omar a defiant look. “He was talkin’ smack, Omar, and that’s the truth.”
Omar walked around the car that Jedthus and Leckie had pulled over for reckless driving, looked with his flashlight at the license plate. New Orleans, he saw. The car was a late-1970s Mercury with a battered paint job and torn upholstery.
Leckie turned his flashlight on the body. “We was just sittin’ on him and whalin’ on him with our flashlights,” he said. “Guess he must’ve drowned in the ditch without our knowing it.”
Fury howled in Omar’s veins. “Turn off that light!”
Leckie stared at him in surprise, then obeyed. There was a moment of silence filled only by the night songs of insects.
Omar stalked again around the car, looked up and down the two-lane road. The Bayou Bridge was visible, a shadow on the night’s darkness, a quarter-mile away.
These boys were going to put him in goddam prison, he thought. Killed some stranger passing through, then panicked and called him to ask what to do next. They’d made him an accessory! His whole career, his whole life, could end right here.
What a fucking joke. He took off his cap, ran his hands through his hair. At least it happened late at night, on a stretch of road where there was almost no traffic at this hour.
“We could say he resisted arrest,” Jedthus said. “We could say he attacked us.”
“So you drowned him?” Omar said. “In a ditch? In self-defense? Oh yeah, they’ll believe that, all right.”
Jedthus blinked, turned away. Omar closed his eyes and tried to think.
“Okay,” he said. “This never happened. None of us ever saw this car. None of us ever saw this boy. Okay?”
“Sure, Omar,” Jedthus said.
“Now what you two do,” Omar said, “is put this boy in the trunk of his car. And you take the car down the bayou, where nobody can see, and you shove the car in. Okay?”
“Yes, sir,” said Leckie, and looked back at the Bayou Bridge.
“And I mean far down the bayou,” Omar said. “Not just down to the bridge. Take the car someplace where nobody ever goes fishing. Where no teenagers go to screw. Where nobody’s been in a hundred years. I don’t care if you have to cut a road to get there.”
Jedthus looked nervously at Leckie. “Yeah, Omar. We’ll do that.”
“Because if you screw this up,” said Omar, “you two are going to spend the rest of your lives in prison being raped by big-dick niggers. You understand me?”
Leckie’s eyes were wide. “Yes, sir,” he mumbled.
“Now get moving,” Omar said. “And police the damn area afterward. I don’t want anyone tomorrow to find a thing belonging to this boy.” He began moving toward his car. “I’m heading home to finish watching the Tonight Show.”
Omar heard splashing sounds as Jedthus and Leckie waded into the ditch to pat down the dead man, find his keys, and open his trunk. He opened the door to his car, prepared to step in, and then saw headlights glaring on the other side of the Bayou Bridge.
“Careful!” he called. “Car coming!”
Leckie and Jedthus straightened and stood self-consciously by the ditch, like guilty children. Omar cursed, slammed his door, walked toward the other two. Checked the sight lines, made sure the body wasn’t visible from the road. Headlights glared in his eyes.
The car rolled past. A Buick, Omar saw, a white family with children. Everyone but the driver asleep.
As soon as the driver was past, Leckie and Jedthus bent again to their work. Omar heard Jedthus curse under his breath.
“No fuckin’ keys,” Leckie said.
Another set of headlights were coming. Frustration boiled in Omar’s veins. “Have you tried the ignition?” he demanded.
Jedthus cursed, splashed in the ditch. He wrenched open the door and triggered a buzzing alarm. Omar’s nerves jumped at the sound. Jedthus yanked keys from the ignition and the alarm stopped.
“Wait for the car to go by,” Omar warned.
The car was a big white Chevy Suburban packed with someone’s possessions, with more tied on top. Part of a couch hung out the back end.
“What the hell is going on?” Jedthus said. ”This is a week night. What are all these people doing out here?“
”Another car,“ Omar said. Jedthus banged his fist on the trunk of the dead man’s Mercury.
The car was a little red Honda hatchback with a black woman driving, a kid in the passenger seat, and more belongings piled in the back.
And behind the Honda were two more cars.
The cars just kept coming, eighteen or twenty of them, all packed with people or possessions. Omar went to his car and sat in the driver’s seat, drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, and tried to think.
One of the cars slowed to a stop, and Omar saw the driver rolling down the window. Omar winced, withdrew farther into the car.
“Excuse me, officer,” the stranger said. He was a little white man, elderly, with a frosted mustache.
“Yes?” Omar said.
“Is there a motel anywhere ahead?”
“Not in this parish, sir,” Omar said. The man rolled up his window and went on.
Finally there was a break in the traffic, and Omar helped the other two pick up the corpse and drop it into the trunk. Jedthus was breathing hard as he slammed the trunk lid down, and Leckie looked pale and frightened, as if he was about to run off into the night.
“What is going on?” Jedthus demanded.
“They’re evacuating,” Omar said. “You heard that everyone on the river’s got to leave.”
Jedthus looked bewildered. “Why are they coming here?” he demanded. “We don’t have anything for refugees here. And they’re driving farther into the earthquake zone.”
“This highway’s a hurricane evacuation route. These people have just been following the signs.”
Jedthus stared. “Jee-zus,” he said.
“More cars coming,” Leckie said.
“Dang it,” Jedthus said.
Omar put his hand on Jedthus’s shoulder. “Listen,” he said. “Stay cool. Just do what I said, and take this car way down the bayou. And no one will ever know.”
Jedthus looked at Omar and nodded. Omar went back to his car and started the engine.
When he looked in the rearview mirror, he saw another line of cars coming.