Page 20 of Hurricane Irene

“Nope,” smirked Dalton holding up the chains. “Got ‘em.”

Frank took the satellite phone and dialed the emergency contact number for Pelican Insurance. He got a voicemail, telling him no one was in the office at this time and that all claims should be submitted online. He rolled his eyes and waited for the signal to leave a message.

“Just wanted to let y’all know your offices on the lake are gone. Nothing left all. If you have any questions, please leave a message with Gray Wolf LEGACY. We’ll be happy to return your fucking call.”

CHAPTER TEN

Everyone was shocked to wake to sunshine and clear skies. They knew it was short-lived but at least for today, there was a ray of hope for all of them to see.

For the most part, Belle Fleur had survived the hurricane relatively unscathed. There were some fallen branches, the gardens took a beating, but overall, everything survived. The fire station and shops at the front of the property were the same.

Building precautions had been taken when the shops were constructed and sandbags and windows boarded prevented too much damage. The same could not be said for the outlying areas.

Homes were devastated, some wiped from their foundations, not even a bolt to remind the owners of where their lives had once been. Memories of lives lived, lifetimes explored, and history gone.

Buildings, furniture, appliances, they could all be replaced but the lost photographs, kindergarten handprint photos, pictures of sitting on Santa or the Easter Bunny’s lap, gone. Christening gowns, baby’s first outfit, wedding gowns, graduation gowns. Gone.

It was all gone and could never be replaced. The people in their community understood that but the heart didn’t care. It still broke. It still grieved. It still held hope that something might show up.

When the team began to gather supplies for their search, Luca, Oliver, and Theo walked toward them.

“Morning, fellas. You on duty today at the fire station?” asked Luke.

“No, sir. We wanted to come and get you. We need to take you to see something. We haven’t touched anything. We didn’t contact anyone yet. We thought you would want to see it,” said Theo.

“Well, that’s not scary at all,” frowned Eric staring at the men.

“I wish I could explain it, sir, but I don’t think there is an explanation,” said Luca. “We were off yesterday and heard y’all were out searching the area. We decided to use our boat and search as well.”

“That was kind of you,” said Hex. “Where did y’all search?”

“We went through the bayou toward The Well. It’s gone. All of it. Not even a pier or beam left in its place,” said Oliver.

“Damn,” muttered Nine staring at Gaspar. “That place held a helluva lot of memories for us.”

“We’ll rebuild it,” said Gaspar. “We need to. For Grip.” Grip had given his life at The Well in an attempt to save Montana. It was the only place the team would ever go to blow off steam. It had to come back.

“Yes, sir. You wanna follow us or should we take you there ourselves to see what we found?” asked Oliver.

“Come with us,” said Luke. “Team 2 and 4, follow. We might need the whole team for this.”

The two aluminum skiffs entered the bayou single file, their outboard motors throttled so low they sounded less like engines than insects worrying at the heavy afternoon. Cam stood at the console of the lead boat with one hand on the wheel and the other raised against the flat white glare.

Three days had passed since the hurricane came ashore, yet the country still looked caught inside it. Water stood where pasture had been. The tree line had been combed backward, every cypress limb pointing north. Half a roof lay folded over the reeds like a sheet of rusted tin, and a child’s red wagon floated upside down beside it, turning slowly in the oily current.

Fifty yards behind, the second skiff copied every turn. Its bow rose and settled in the first boat’s wake, nudging aside pine needles, shingles, and splintered fence pickets. Carl worked its tiller with both hands. He had run this water since boyhood, but the familiar bends had been stripped of their signs.

The old green camp with the leaning porch was gone. So was the bait shed at Bayou Chêne. Even the live oaks that used to mark the narrow cut had been wrenched open at the roots, leaving raw walls of red clay above the flood. The bayou had become a road with all its names erased.

There were nineteen men between the boats. They had brought rope, bolt cutters, a chainsaw, blankets sealed in plastic, and more fuel than they expected to need. Everything had been tied down twice. Nothing had been said about body bags, though a black roll of them lay beneath a tarp in Remy’s boat. No one looked at that tarp. No one asked why it had been brought.

The air smelled layered and wrong. Beneath the warm green odor of marsh grass was gasoline, wet insulation, sewage, and the sweet rot of things drowned before their time. Mosquitoes hung in clouds under the branches. Every few minutes the boats passed a dead animal carried up from some field: a calf pale and swollen among the lilies, chickens tangled together in wire, a dog lodged against a porch railing drifting without its porch.

The men saw them and looked away. Their faces had the fixed, exhausted stillness of people who had already witnessed too much and understood there was more ahead.

Cam eased the lead skiff around a refrigerator lying on its side. The white door opened and closed with the current, a slow mechanical mouth. Beyond it, a telephone pole angled beneath the surface; only the black tips of its insulators showed. He swung wide, then cut the motor altogether when a ridge moved under the brown water ahead. The boat glided forward on momentum.

A submerged stump scraped the hull with a long metallic groan, and every man stiffened. The sound traveled through their boots. For a moment no one breathed until the stern cleared and the bayou received them again.