Rivers: A Novel (27 page)

He lifted the pistol and touched its nose to the bottom of his chin. He held in a breath. The water was all around them and the wind was all around them and hell seemed to be closing in and if there was a darker place on the face of the earth he didn’t know where it could be.

“Jesus Christ,” Kris said with a start and then she let out a quick shout of pain.

Cohen jerked at the sound of her voice and he lowered the pistol and put it back inside his coat. She yelled out again and Evan hopped down off the counter and moved to her and she was grabbing at her sides again. Cohen stepped around the shelves and came to her and said, “Same shit?”

“Oh yeah. Oh yeah,” she said. Her breaths were quick and had little moans in between.

The others sat up and they all formed a circle around her. Oh God, oh God, she kept saying. She rocked back and forth, took deep breaths. Oh God, oh God.

Mariposa stood behind her and put her hands on Kris’s shoulders. She rocked and moaned, rocked and moaned. They stood there and watched because there was nothing else they could do. And then the baby woke up and started crying.

“Shit,” Cohen said.

Nadine talked to the infant and put her lips on his forehead. “Damn, he’s hot as fire,” she said.

“Ooooooh, hell,” Kris said and Mariposa told her to hold on. Hold on.

Cohen reached over and touched the baby’s face. “Goshdamn,” he said.

“Yeah,” Nadine said. “Goshdamn. He’s smoking.”

The baby wailed and Kris grunted and said Oh God and squeezed Mariposa’s hands. Brisco made a sound like he might start crying and Cohen went to reach over and touch his shoulder but they all jumped at the loud thwack from the back of the store.

“What the fuck!” Cohen yelled.

Evan stood at the metal door with part of a busted shelf. “I wanna see what’s in here,” he yelled back.

“Leave it alone,” Cohen said.

“Quit messing around, Evan,” Mariposa said.

He drew back the shelf and whacked the door again.

“Oh God, oh God,” Kris said.

“Quit that shit!” Nadine yelled over the crying baby.

Evan drew back and whacked the door again and this time Cohen walked over to him, kicking at whatever was in his way, and he tried to yank the piece of shelf from Evan but Evan didn’t let go.

“I wanna see what’s in there,” he said defiantly.

“Why the hell you gotta see what’s in there right this damn second?”

“I just wanna see.”

“You might not.”

Kris yelled out and Cohen let go of the shelf piece and turned to look in her direction.

Thwack!

Cohen grabbed Evan by the collar of his coat and yanked him back. He shined the flashlight on the padlock and pulled out the pistol and fired. The lock busted and he fired again and the doorframe exploded.

“There,” he told Evan and the gunshots sent Brisco crying and Nadine and Mariposa were both yelling something and the baby screamed and Kris gripped her sides and said Oh God oh God.

“Here,” Cohen said and he shoved the flashlight into Evan. “Go see for yourself, you little shit.”

Evan took the light and told Brisco to calm down but the boy didn’t listen. Cohen stood there and waited to see if he would open the door. Evan shined the light on the busted lock and frame, then he stepped over to the door. He pushed, but it wouldn’t open. He pushed a little harder, and the top of the door opened but the bottom was stuck.

“Listen,” Cohen said.

“What?” Evan asked.

They stood still a moment.

“You hear something?”

Evan waited. Shook his head.

“Nothing,” Cohen said.

Evan put his foot on the bottom of the door and pushed and when he did, whatever was on the other side gave way and the door fell open. Almost instantly, Evan started hopping up and down and then Cohen did the same and Evan shined the light down into the room and hundreds of rats came pouring out of the storage room that had been filled with boxes of pasta and peanuts and bags of potatoes and whatever else might be good in a bind. The rats quickly filled the store and Evan and Cohen were jumping around and slipping and sliding and the rats skidded across the wet floor and went up and over the shelves and along the walls and everywhere. The women were up and screaming, even Kris whose pain had been momentarily overwhelmed by rat terror. Mariposa
helped her up and then she lifted Brisco onto the counter and it was screams and leaps and rats rats rats. Evan busted his ass and went down and the rats climbed up and down his body. He came up swinging and twisting and shook them off and Cohen slapped at the rats up and down his legs and then he screamed for everybody to get the hell outta there. Nadine and the baby were the first ones out and Mariposa held Kris and helped her out. Brisco was jumping up and down on the counter and screaming and Cohen snatched him and went for the door and Evan nearly knocked them both down as he flailed like a runaway scarecrow toward the exit.

Outside, Nadine held the baby tucked like a football in one arm and she held Kris with the other and she was fighting the wind to get into the truck. The last of the aluminum awning on the storefront snapped free and crashed across the windshield as they were ducking in the door. Mariposa stepped in a deep puddle and went down with a yell. She rolled in the water and grabbed at her ankle and Evan ran to her and helped her up and over to the other truck. The rain beat and beat and Cohen carried Brisco on his hip and managed to get the driver’s door open and he tossed Brisco in.

When the four were inside, Cohen said, “I got to go see about her. Evan, drive this one.” Mariposa moaned and held her ankle and Evan climbed across her and Brisco to get to the steering wheel. Cohen was out and over to the other truck and when he got in, Kris was leaned over grasping at her sides and the baby screamed and Nadine had the look of the bewildered.

Cohen cranked the truck and turned on the lights and the rats were wild in the doorway and across the storefront but none of them went out the doorway and into the rain.

“Can you sit up?” Cohen asked Kris but she said oh shit and the baby screamed.

The storm beat like a thousand drums and the truck moved with the wind.

“Fucking-ass rats!” Nadine yelled.

“Oh shit,” Kris groaned.

“Where the hell’s a pacifier?” Cohen said.

Nadine reached around on the seat and floorboard but couldn’t find one and then Kris said, “My pocket.” Nadine felt in Kris’s coat pocket and pulled one out and touched it to the baby’s lips. He took it in his mouth and sucked and Nadine thanked God. But Kris didn’t as she was too consumed with the feeling that something was going to pop out of her from somewhere. One of the doors of the ice machine whipped open and broke off and disappeared across the gravel lot that was quickly becoming a gravel pond.

“Goshdamn,” Nadine said in a high, anxious voice. She was touching the baby’s face and head. “He’s hellfire hot. We gotta do something.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Cohen said, but he didn’t know what.

The other truck honked and Mariposa was waving to them. The truck then moved in reverse and Cohen backed up and followed Evan out of the parking lot and back onto the road.

“He don’t know where he’s going,” Nadine said.

“I can’t help it,” Cohen said. “You want me to let them ride off?”

“Son of a bitch,” Kris said with her teeth clenched. She huffed and puffed and then said help me up. Nadine held out her arm and Kris grabbed on to it and got upright. She slumped down in the seat and squeezed her stomach. “Oh hell no,” she said.

“Cross your legs,” Nadine said.

“What the hell?”

“Hell, I don’t know,” Nadine yelled.

They were back out on the skinny back road and it was almost impossible to see. Evan drove out front at a crawl and moved on until the road declined and at the bottom was a wash. Flooded as far as the headlights could show. Cohen saw the red taillights and stopped, then began to back up. Water and dirt and mud rushed along the road and the tires spun some but caught enough to make it in reverse to the store.

They turned around, and Cohen got out in front this time. So dark and so much rain everywhere. In the next few slow miles, Kris’s pain subsided and the baby sucked the pacifier and fell asleep and Nadine
was oddly quiet as they crept along the back roads. The houses were separated by miles of countryside and Cohen several times went up a long driveway only to find that there wasn’t a house anymore. Or there was half a house and he couldn’t trust it to ride out a storm. After several more tries and another hour, they were all surprised when they followed a winding driveway and came upon a two-story farmhouse still standing.

EVAN PULLED UP BESIDE COHEN
and they sat for several minutes with the four headlights on it. It had once been white but was weathered and the paint was peeling and half its shutters had blown away and some windows were gone. They watched for some minutes more to see if there was any light or any movement but it sat quiet, its tall rectangular windows like big black eyes staring back at them. Cohen waved at Evan and they drove up closer to the house and parked around on the backside where a porch stretched the house length. The right side of the porch had sagged to the ground and parts of its roof were missing and water dripped or poured all through the porch. The back door was closed and a refrigerator lay on its side next to the door.

Cohen waved at Evan to hold on, and then he backed up the truck and shined his headlights on the house and they watched again. Looked for shadows or anything. Still nothing.

Cohen killed the truck, got out, and hurried around to the passenger door to help Nadine and the baby out first and then Kris. They went carefully up the porch steps and opened the back door. Cohen called out, “Anybody in here? Anybody? We’re just looking for somewhere for the night. That’s all.”

“Ain’t nobody here,” Nadine said and pushed through. She walked in the house as if it were hers and Kris followed her. Mariposa and Evan and Brisco trailed Cohen through the doorway.

Cohen pulled a flashlight from his coat pocket and he shined it around the room. They stood in a big kitchen with tall cabinets and
wide-plank hardwood floors that were bowed from the wet and humidity.

Together they moved through the bottom floor of the house. Four great big empty rooms with the same wooden floors throughout. Two fireplaces surrounded by handcrafted mantels that had to be a hundred years old. Water stains down the walls and on the ceilings, and branches and leaves scattered across the floor that had blown in the missing windows. The stairway separated the bottom rooms and they went up carefully, wary of rotted steps. Upstairs were four more rooms and more water stains and drip spots on the floors and only one room with its windows remaining. The wind and rain pushed in all the windows not covered with plywood and with a big gust the house moved some and they collectively held their breath. There was no furniture anywhere. A bathroom separated the rooms on the east side and there was a claw-foot tub and two pedestal sinks. Cohen shined the flashlight on the tub and he stopped. Held the light on the curved neck of the faucet.

“What is it?” Evan whispered.

“Why are you whispering? It ain’t more rats, is it?” Nadine asked.

“Hold on,” Cohen said. He held the light on the tub and walked over to it. When he got there, he reached down and touched his fingertips to the end of the faucet and it was wet. Then he shined the light down to the drain and he touched it and it was also wet. He then turned the handle for the cold water and there was a delay, and a groan, and then water sputtered out of the faucet, copper-colored and filled with little specks of something. It kept on sputtering and spitting but Cohen left it running and soon the line had cleared and a stream of water ran from the faucet.

Cohen stood back and smiled and said, “I’ll be damned.”

“I got it. I got it first,” Nadine was yelling as she turned and gave the baby to Kris. She ran out of the room and back down the stairs and then they heard her running through the house, yelling, “We got a tub and water. We got a tub and water, a tub and water.” Kris and the baby and Mariposa and Brisco followed her back down the stairs.

“Hadn’t seen one of those in a while,” Evan said. “Gotta say I wouldn’t mind a bath myself.”

“Gonna be a cold one,” Cohen said.

“No colder than these birdbaths we been taking since forever.”

“That’s true.”

Evan walked around the tub, moved around the dark room. “Sorry about that back there,” he said.

Cohen shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I was curious.”

“No shit.”

“I didn’t think it’d be a thousand rats.”

Cohen moved across the room and shined the flashlight out of the window. He thought about the look on the boy’s face after they had gotten away from the men in the parking lot. He turned back to Evan and said, “I hate I had to ask you to shoot.”

Evan didn’t answer.

“You all right?”

He nodded. “I’m all right.”

“Just so you know, Evan, there is one thing in this world I won’t worry about,” Cohen said. “And that one thing is you.”

Evan was about to speak again but the footsteps of the others were on the stairs and into the upstairs hallway and they came in the bathroom with lanterns and bars of soap and towels and clothes. Mariposa came in behind them, holding the baby.

“Get out, get on out,” Nadine said and she and Kris ushered the men out of the room.

“Come on, Mariposa,” Kris said. “Let’s get the baby first.”

“Where’s Brisco?” Evan asked.

“He said he didn’t want a bath,” Mariposa said.

Cohen said, “Go ahead and run the water but don’t get undressed. I got an idea.”

He and Evan headed downstairs and outside to the trucks. Evan held the flashlight while Cohen raised the tarp covering the truck bed and stuck his head under. He found the propane burner for the stove
and he went back into the house and up to the bathroom. He took the legs off the stove and the tub sat just high enough to slide the stovetop underneath. Cohen took a lighter from his pocket and lit the stove and the blue flames wrapped the bottom of the tub. “That’ll help knock off the chill,” he said.