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“’Round three AM.”
“What’s going on?”
Nate Timmons burst onto the porch, panic in his eyes. “The levee broke up at Mounds Landing! The Mississippi’s coming to drown us all. We got to get to high ground right away!”
One of Nate’s friends raced along the dirt path in front of the houses giving a warning: “Pack up! Time to get to the levee! Get to the boats!”
“We got to get to the levee,” Nate said.
Henry tied his shoes. “You ever been through a flood?”
“No,” Memphis said.
Bill grunted. “He ain’t from the South. You and me, we know.”
“Boys! Take the family pictures down and put ’em on the boat. Be careful with ’em now!” Bessie Timmons ordered, the babbling baby perched on one hip. The boys scooped up the framed photographs of their grandparents and ran toward their adopted uncle Remy’s waiting shantyboat.
“Mama! I can’t find Buddy,” Tobias cried. “I called and called but he won’t come.”
“We can’t wait for no dog,” Nate warned.
“We can’t leave without him, Daddy,” Moses pleaded.
“Buddy, Buddy!” Tobias yelled and burst into tears. “Buddy…”
“He’ll be all right, boys. He’s a smart dog. He’ll swim to high ground. But we got to go.”
Fat tears rolled down the boys’ faces. They wiped them away angrily. Memphis’s heart ached for them. How often had Isaiah cried like that?
“Hey. Hey, you boys want to hear a story? I know a good one. A real good one,” Memphis said. “But it’s a story I can only tell
on the boat.”
“Why?” Moses asked.
“’Cause that’s the kind of story it is. Come on.”
“I hear she’s coming t’rough!” Remy called from his shantyboat. He was a stout man with black hair and twinkling blue eyes. “Allons!” Remy had built his boat by hand, Bessie had told them, with whatever scrap he could find—discarded timber, tin, chicken wire. It was a little floating house on a barge in the middle of Greenville’s rapidly flooding streets. Rain hit the tin roof, making an awful racket. While Remy, Bill, and Nate steered the boat toward the high ground of the levee and Henry helped keep Bessie Timmons comfortable while she nursed her baby girl, Memphis spun a story to keep Tobias and Moses from missing their dog too much—and to keep them from realizing the danger.
“You like spooky stories?” Memphis asked.
“Yes,” the boys said and sat forward. Memphis cast a wary eye toward the fast current eddying at street corners, buffeting the boat. He hoped Remy and Nate were as experienced as they seemed. Church bells clanged out a warning. People flocked into the streets, which were taking on water. Several were trying to save what they could, throwing everything into pillowcases they balanced on their backs. People were desperate for boats. A neighbor waved frantically. “It’s my momma. She cain’t walk too far,” the man explained, and Nate and Henry pulled them both aboard.
There was a sudden crack, followed by a large roar, like a wounded giant going down hard.
“Water’s coming!” Remy yelled.
Memphis and Henry felt true fear then, watching as the full force of the Mississippi rumbled into Greenville fast as a freight train. The river crashed against telephone poles, snapping wires and knocking them into the raging water. Hundred-year-old trees buckled and fainted like tired debutantes. Now the water was electrified and weaponized with debris.
“Remy, you steer straight!” Bessie called, clutching her baby in one arm and gathering her two boys with the other and holding fast. She kept herself tight but Memphis could sense just how scared she was, how scared they all were. The shantyboat hit a current and spun around.
“Hold on! Hold on!” Nate called, gripping the side of the boat.
They could hear the livestock screaming as the water rose up and swept them away. A mule cried out, front legs pedaling against an unbeatable tide. It went under and was lost to the churning flood. Desperate citizens climbed up onto their roofs to escape the wrath. Some of Greenville’s elite, the ones who’d chosen to stay behind, had abandoned their fancy houses and plantations and sought shelter downtown in banks and the top floors of hotels.
The levee, when they made it, teemed with people streaming in from the flood. Carrying little more than the clothes on their backs, they trudged up the muddy embankment. Others arrived in boats carrying what little of their possessions they’d managed to salvage. Nate helped his wife down from the boat. She looked forlornly at the narrow eight-foot-wide earthen dam heaped for miles with refugees and what had been saved from the flood. Memphis, Bill, and Henry dragged pillowcases filled with the Timmonses’ few precious memories from home and dropped them gently onto the cold, wet ground.
As dawn broke, they could see the damage. The devastation was shocking. It was as if they were adrift in a new sea, cut off from civilization. In the camp, babies cried, and some adults wept softly. Others stared, mute.
