Chapter 1

I finally got tired of working. I had vacation. Had no goals at all – maybe laze around a bit, hey, thought about going fishing, but at this time of the year, that’s either an early morning or late evening deal for me. I mean, the summer sun on the Gulf Coast is brutal, especially if it not only beats down on your head from the sky, but it reflects off the water at you.

That was the plan when I left work on Friday. Weather was crap. Rained all day, not that nice sprinkly rain, but spates of downpours, prompting the local weather service to announce flash flood warnings. I know my area. I’ve lived here all my life. That’s one thing in my favor. Other thing in my favor is that I’m driving a pickup truck, so a foot of water’s not a problem if I can stay on the road.

So I went home. My home. Mine alone. Been that way for half of the ten years I’ve owned it. The first half? It was me and my wife, before the wife remembered how wonderful life was with her high school sweetheart. She absconded ... I waited, was hoping for a reconciliation, but one of the big attractors he had that I didn’t was he liked to drink. So did she, but we only drank together and never to obliteration.

Obliteration is what she wanted, obliteration was what she got. They left a nightclub at one in the morning and drove off the road into a drainage canal. A passerby reported the taillights sticking out above the surface at four. I was tasked with identifying the body.

I would’ve probably felt more remorse if the table next to her in the mortuary didn’t hold her boyfriend.

That saved me the financial hit. Her funeral was a lot less expensive than the division of property a divorce would’ve cost me.

Still – wife. Mourn. Even when I didn’t realize I was mourning.

Now I’m recovered. I’m watching the rain and the news and I see that the eastern part of the state was taking a beating, floods like they haven’t seen in a millennium.

Saturday I went grocery shopping, did some housework, checked out the aluminum flat-bottomed boat on its trailer beside the house.

The boat ain’t fancy, it’s functional. It’s ugly drab green, not shiny metal-flake. It’s angular aluminum, not curvy, sexy fiberglass, and the motor’s a mere fifty horsepower. I fish out of it on local rivers and lakes, and I even use it for oystering if I’m ambitious. It’s rigged with a depth finder and a trolling motor, little battery-powered thing that allows me to ease along a bank without a lot of noise, or hold my position in a bit of wind or current. Nice boat.

I’m sitting in the house half-watching a movie when the phone (cellphone) rings. I glance at the caller ID. Carl Simmons. Guy I work with. We’ve fished a time or two.

“Hey, Carl. What’s up?”

“You following that flooding crap?”

“On and off. Looks bad.”

“Worse than bad, Buddy. Thousands of people stranded. The National Guard and the state and local services can’t get to ‘em all. Bunch of us are thinking about convoying over in the morning with our boats and seeing if we can help out.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. You in?”

“Was going fishing tomorrow, but all this rain, the lake’s gonna be shit, probably. I’m in. Lemme go tank up everything and get some supplies.”

“Do that. We’re gonna meet in the company parking lot at about five-thirty.”

“I’ll be there.”

And of such things is life made.

I met three others at the company parking lot, as we’d planned. My boat was loaded with bottled water and a first aid kit and a tool box and some blankets. The others were similarly equipped. These are guys who’re used to hunting and fishing in their off time and stomping hill and vale at work on the pipeline that provides our checks. Even the one desk jockey here is a former pipeliner. There’s not a pair of skinny jeans or a man bun among us.

Three hours later we’re talking with a deputy sheriff of one of the affected parishes. This is Louisiana. We have parishes instead of counties. “Go down this road a mile and a half. There’s another unit there. He’ll point you to the water where you can launch and he’ll watch yer rigs while you’re workin’. ‘Preciate the help.”

An hour later I’m in the water. The parking lot we left behind already had almost a dozen boat trailers in it, so when we get in the water, all the close-in victims have been recovered. No problem. There are plenty to go around.

An hour later, I’m back at the landing with a family: husband, wife, two kids, a big black Labrador who just can’t figure out why we’re all not happier about all this water. A Baptist church’s Boy Scout troop has a tent set up and they’re passing out cold drinks and hot dogs right now.

“Come back later. We’re makin’ a jambalaya,” one lady says, chopping onions as we speak.

I grab a Coke and head back out. This ain’t the twenty-five miles an hour I do when I’m buzzing to the far corners of the lake. I’m almost idling, almost dead slow. One, my wake would only add another injury to homes already in water up to the tops of the windows. Two, there’s EVERYTHING floating in that water. Last thing I need is to punch a hole in my boat or tear the motor up.

I head deeper into the wooded streets, listening, looking. There’s a little cul de sac. At the end is a duplex apartment. Water’s up to the eaves. Four people on the roof, waving.

This one’s mine. I ease up the street, nosing my boat up to the eaves of the house.

“Can you folks get in?” I ask.

“Toss me that rope,” the man says. “I’ll hold you against the roof.”

“Be careful,” I said. The mom and about an eight year old boy climbed in. Then I looked up. There SHE was. I didn’t know that she was properly ‘SHE’, but hey, it’s early in the day. “You next,” I said to her. She stepped across the gunwale confidently, moved back from the side. “Now you,” I told the guy. “Just toss that line in, then step. I’ll hold us in there.” I gave the motor a little throttle, pushing against the roof. He stepped in.

“Welcome to the Cajun Navy,” I said. “I’m Buddy Fontenot.” (I’m Cajun, and that’s pronounced “fahn-tuh-NO” in case you’re not from around here.) “Grab a drink if you want. There’s food at the landing. If you’re cold ... blankets.”

““We’re the Ellises,” the guy said. “I’m Johnny. My wife Cary. And Johnny junior. John-john.”

“Wisht we could’ve met under better circumstances.” I looked at the girl. She was a bit haggard-looking, short blonde hair, pulled behind her ears. Eyes like somebody’d captured bits of sky for color. Maybe five foot six. Maybe a hundred twenty or so. Who knows. She was wet and her jeans fit her, well, like a pair of wet jeans. The cotton blouse was damp, clinging to a rather unspectacular set of breasts, if big breasts are your thing. Ex-wife was proud of hers. I was ‘meh’.

“I’m Mimi Clemons.” She sat her backpack down.

“Mimi? Seriously? Is that with ‘e’s’ or ‘I’s’ or what?” I asked. I was hoping a little levity and banter would cut the sting of a harsh situation.

“M-I-M-I, thank you.” Got a flash of those eyes, plus a ‘what are you pulling?’ look.

“Just checking. Y’all sit down. Don’t want you falling back in at this stage of the game.”

I’d just backed away from the roof when John-john started yelling “Jarvis! Mom! There’s Jarvis!”

I’m thinking ‘Jarvis’ is another human. John-john’s pointing at a tree occupied by a tuxedo cat.

“Will he come if we get there?” I asked.

“He’s a cat,” the dad said. “I’m giving you a fifty-fifty.”

I eased the boat in among branches, put the motor in neutral, started pulling us inward towards the trunk by the expedient of tugging on the branches. “Watch your faces, folks,” I said.

Jarvis eyed us suspiciously. I said a little prayer. I don’t know if prayers work for cats. Good time to try. “John-john, call ‘im.”

“C’mere, Jarvis,” the kid intoned. “C’mon!”

Jarvis was calculating the profitability of this new situation as opposed to his tree. He went into a crouch. I prayed that wasn’t a ‘let me get further up the tree’ crouch.

“C’mon, Jarvis,” Cary said. Her voice was something I’d come to if I were a cat. Mimi joined her. Okay, Mimi’s voice. Had that certain timbre to it. I’d show up if I had to wade through a briar patch in my skivvies.

Apparently the cat thought the same. He jumped. John-john caught him, plopped back down on the seat of the boat, and Jarvis stayed put. We backed out of the tree and into the street.

Half an hour later I was nosing us up against the elevated highway. Half a dozen people reached down to help my passengers out. One lady took Jarvis. I looked at Mimi. She returned the look. “You need crew, right?”

“Uh...”

“You do. Let’s go.”

“Yes, cap’n.” Okay, there’s something behind the flash in those eyes. And yes, help is welcome, especially when I see she’s not the ‘squealing princess’ type.

Two more sorties, nine people.

“Why don’t you join ‘em, Mimi?”

“What for? A trip to a shelter? Sit on my butt and feel sorry for myself? Nothing to do but get all morose? Do you mind me being here?”

“Not even. Just don’t want you to think that...”

“That what?”

“That ... Hell, I dunno. Just ... I dunno. Happy to have you.”

I’d seen her smile with every rescue, calming children, holding the hand of an elderly man, trying to corral four puppies that came with one family. Now I saw her smile and there was just me.

We were idling along, further from the road, poking into streets, looking, when the motor labored and stopped. I put it into neutral, hit the starter. It started. Put it into gear. Stopped.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

I tilted the motor, raising the propeller out of the water. “We’ve collected a bit of stray rope.”

“You can fix it, right?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m gonna go over the side. Let me fix my knife up.” I pulled some light nylon line out of the tool box, made a lanyard, then attached the knife to one end, looping the other around my wrist.

“I’ll hand you whatever you need,” she said.

I splashed over the side, started cutting away as much of the offensive cordage as possible. Finally, I swam back to the side of the boat. “There’s a red wrench in that compartment under the boat seat.”

She raised the seat cushion. “This one?”

“Yeah. Untie my knife and tie that wrench on the lanyard.” I figured she’d muff the knot. Wrong. She had it secured with a clove hitch with a half-hitch stopper.

“What are you doing?”

“Pulling the prop. The crap’s between it and the housing.”

“Here,” she said. “Tie this around a blade of the prop. Don’t want you dropping it.”

I did drop the wrench once. Retrieved it, made sure I didn’t drop the prop nut, handing it to Mimi. I wrestled with the prop, finally got it off the shaft, then worked the last of the line out of the way. The reassembly was pretty straightforward. Time to get back in the boat.