Page 12 of Hurricane Irene

“That’s not all,” smiled Keith. “The children are all fluent in ASL now and they’re all at collegiate levels of learning, especially in math and science.”

“I’ll be damned,” smirked Tailor. “More geniuses.”

“It seems we attract them like beautiful women,” smirked Eric. “I, for one, am thrilled. Maybe it’s Mama Irene coming through in me, but it makes me happy to see that we have generations of children to carry on here at Belle Fleur.”

“Speaking of,” said Luke walking toward them. As he walked up, the children retreated and the soft sounds of music could be heard throughout the hall. People seemed to settle in their cots, closing their eyes to the mesmerizing music. “Cam and I went to check on the animals and the ponds. They’re all intact and fine. Doug and Bodhi went out to G.R.I.P. Not even a damn leak out there. Everything of ours held.”

“We are so fucking lucky,” said Eric shaking his head.

“So far,” nodded Luke. “We have a long way to go. But definitely for now.”

“Everyone get some sleep,” said Gaspar. “Tomorrow will be a long, difficult day.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

At 0700 hours the bayou looked as if it had forgotten how to breathe. The water lay black beneath bruised clouds, broad in places, pinched and crooked in others, carrying shingles, porch rails, drowned branches, a yellow child’s ball, and the swollen carcass of somebody’s chicken coop.

Hurricane Irene had passed two nights before, but she had left her handwriting everywhere. Along the Gray Wolf LEGACY staging bank, seven shallow-draft boats sat nose-out in the mud while men loaded fuel, bottled water, trauma kits, chain saws, rope, axes, tarps, and enough bad coffee to strip paint.

Another rain system was due in three days. They had nine hours of useful light and a list of remote residents who had not checked in. There were others that weren’t even on the list. Men and women who chose to live off the grid. They would be harder to find.

Luke stood on the hood of a battered truck with a laminated map in one hand and a grease pencil in the other. The communications systems and satellites were still sketchy, so they were relying on good old-fashioned paper maps.

The map had been corrected so many times it looked diseased. Wind worried its corners.

“Markers are gone,” he said. “Banks moved. Cuts that were deep last week may be roofs today. Nobody runs blind. Nobody runs fast. We check every address, every camp, every boat tied where a house used to be. If you find survivors, stabilize and call it. If the radios fail, flare colors are green for found and moving, red for immediate help, white for—”

“Ghosts?” Eric asked.

“White for position. Ghosts file their own paperwork,” smirked Luke. A branch cracked somewhere in the flooded timber. Nobody turned toward it. Luke folded the map. “Try not to become paperwork.”

Although the average person wouldn’t understand it, the way that the team dealt with the stress, pressure and horror of the situation was humor. The darker and more ridiculous the better. They understood it. They forgave it. It didn’t matter if others did or not.

Team 1 took the north reach: Luke, Cam, Eric, Hex, and Ben. Team 2 drew the drowned parish line: Hunter, Carl, Adam, Joseph, and Nathan. Team 3 would work the cypress maze: Kiel, Liffey, Fitch, Duncan, and Robbie. Team 4 had the refinery cut and the old trappers’ camps: Bodhi, Remy, Cade, Magnus, and Wade. Team 5—Jalen, Chief, Milo, JT, Chase, Will, and Benji—would sweep the west basin. Team 6—Irish, Hoot, Bone, HG, Garrett, Bogey, and Jean—had the long southern loop. Team 7—Nine, Gaspar, Ghost, Ian, Baptiste, and Luc—would take the outer channels where the radio signal weakened and the marsh widened toward open water.

The older men knew the back trails and old shacks better than anyone. If someone was alive out there, they’d find them.

At 0720 hours the outboards coughed awake. One after another the boats slid from the bank, gray hulls parting a skin of oil and pine needles. The air smelled of gasoline, wet earth, and the sweet rot of broken vegetation.

Clouds opened briefly in the east and light struck the floodwater like tarnished metal. Then the opening closed. Luke watched the last familiar road sign vanish behind the trees.

“Nine hours,” Cam said.

“Three days until more rain,” Luke answered. Eric pulled his hood tighter.

“Good. I was worried the schedule lacked urgency.”

The north reach had once been easy: green marker, dead cypress, split left at the bait shack. The green marker was gone, the cypress floated ten yards downstream, and the bait shack stood hip-deep in the bayou with a vending machine lodged against its roof. Hex leaned over the bow with a boat hook, feeling ahead. The pole struck something solid beneath the surface.

Cam throttled down. The boat kept drifting. Ben peered into the tea-colored water as a dark shape rolled beneath them and vanished.

“Road?”

“Could be,” Hex said. “Could be a refrigerator.” Eric considered that.

“Roads generally have fewer compressors.”

The hook caught, bent, then sprang free. They eased around the obstruction and heard a line of nails rake the aluminum hull from bow to stern, slow as fingernails testing a coffin lid.