AllFreeNovel
Share Us
With Henry on board, Moses and Tobias took a pirogue from its mooring, paddling back toward the town they’d had to abandon when the flood set in. The sky had grown ominous again, and Henry feared rain would pour down before they could get back. Moses steered the boat through Greenville’s mostly sunken streets. The flood had been a capricious god: some houses had taken on water up to the roofline; others had come out relatively unscathed. Likewise, there were streets passable by car, while some streets lay under a good five or six feet of flood. They passed a grocery store where the water reached to the bottom of a sign advertising ice-cold Coca-Cola for a nickel. Henry thought about how good that soda would feel sliding down his parched throat. At each corner, the boys called Buddy’s name and listened for his bark, their little shoulders sagging when there was no reply. To keep their minds off their dread, they scavenged for useful scrap—some timber or tin, maybe a lantern, if they got really lucky.
Henry watched snapped branches and twigs float by helplessly in the current. He was a lot like those sticks, he thought. He’d been drifting along in life, allowing himself to be pushed by tides, telling himself he was helpless against it all. That was a convenient lie. He might feel powerless at times, but he was not. This realization struck him with such great force it was almost as if a hand had reached into his chest and thumped a finger against his heart, making it beat with new urgency.
If they survived this journey, if they put a stop to the King of Crows, Henry meant to make something of his life. He meant to be someone worthy. No more of this frittering his time and talent away because he was scared to put himself out there, and that included with David. He didn’t know if he and David were a true match, but he would never know as long as he kept his guard up in order not to be hurt again. That’s what he always did, tell a joke or find someone else when things began to feel like something genuine. Well, he was tired of feeling haunted—by Louis, by his father’s disappointment, and his mother’s illness. He’d let himself fill up with ghosts of shame until there was no room for love. No more. No more.
A song was beginning to take shape in Henry’s head. It was a song with the silt and sway of the river in it. It was a love song to the country and its people; it was an elegy for the country and its people. It was a song for himself.
The boat pulled on, past houses where rich landowners lived, houses with grand front porches that were completely underwater now.
Tobias leaped up suddenly, rocking the boat. “There he is!”
“Hey now!” Henry yelped, pulled from his reverie.
“Land a’mighty, Toby! You wanna turn us over?” Moses fussed.
But Tobias was waving his arms. “Buddy! Buddy!”
A loud barking came from the porch of one of those grand houses where the water was only up to the porch steps. A bedraggled yellow hound dog paced back and forth on that porch, wagging its tail excitedly, making little rolling jumps.
“All right, Buddy. Here comes the cavalry,” Henry said. Thinking about David and seizing life had given him new strength. He grabbed Tobias’s abandoned paddle and steered them even with the porch. Buddy jumped into the water, splashing everyone.
“Thanks, Buddy,” Henry said, shaking the water from his sodden sleeves. Moses pulled the sopping dog into the boat. Buddy repaid both him and Tobias with vigorous face licks. Moses fed the hungry dog the half a sandwich, and Buddy gobbled it down greedily.
“All righty, then. We’ve singlehandedly saved Greenville’s muddiest dog. Let’s head back,” Henry said.
A mighty crack of thunder sounded.
“Not more rain! Come on, now!” Tobias grunted and slapped a hand to his forehead with the dramatic flair particular to children.
But Henry felt the same unease he did when a dream walk began to edge into nightmare. The strange clouds were bunching together in a familiar, threatening way. Blue-tinged lightning bit at their dark bellies.
“What’s that?” Moses asked, looking up.
Henry’s heart, which had only moments ago felt renewed, began to beat very fast.
“We need to get back,” he said and pushed the paddle against the side of the porch to turn the pirogue around.
Buddy backed up in the boat, growling low.
“Buddy, shush!” Moses said into the dog’s fur, but Buddy wouldn’t be calmed. He growled low in his throat and kept his eyes on whatever lay ahead in the foul water. Henry froze, paddle lifted, muscles tense. Alert. The boys, too, had stilled.
“You hear something?” Moses asked quietly.
“Yeah. Buddy’s growling,” Tobias said.
“Uh-uh. Something else.”
“Quit it, Mose!”
“No foolin’!”
The birds cried out to one another all at once, then fluttered up from their refuge in the trees and took off fast, huddled together in a protective swarm. There was another, louder peal of thunder. Henry lifted his eyes to the sky, which was breaking apart. Buddy barked furiously. He bared his teeth and pawed at the side of the boat. The water, ten feet deep and murky, could be hiding anything.
The muddy surface rippled.
Something was rising up from underneath.
“Boys,” Henry said firmly. “Get in the house. Now.”
