Eventually Jason had come aground on the left bank of the river. He was beginning to get sunburned by then, and he’d covered his exposed skin with red mud. He’d found the pole—it was stuck in the crown of a broken levee, just standing there, he didn’t know why—and he’d used it to pole the boat along until he came to a break in the levee big enough to pole the boat through. Which he’d done, hoping he’d find civilization on the other side, but he’d found nothing but wilderness.
Nothing but wilderness, till he found Nick Ruford up a tree.
The stranger licked his lips. “This your boat?” he asked.
Jason shook his head. He didn’t offer any further explanation. He didn’t want to think about Mr. Regan right now. There were a lot of things he didn’t want to think about.
He pushed, felt the pole dig into the Mississippi ooze, pushed the boat ahead. Let the pole fall back into his hands, not grabbing at it.
“How about your parents?” Nick asked.
“Well,” Jason said, “my dad’s in China.” He felt defiance rising in him, looked down at his passenger. “My mother’s dead,” he said. He could feel his jaw muscles tighten. “She died last night.” The stranger held his gaze for a moment, then looked away. “Sorry,” he said.
“Not your fault.” Cold anger clenched at Jason’s stomach, and he looked up at the sky as he poled the boat forward.
“You know this area?” Jason asked. “Anyplace we can go?”
The stranger shook his head. “I’m from St. Louis. I was just passing through.”
“Well.” Jason shrugged. “Guess we might as well keep on.” Jason kept the boat’s bow pointed south. Insects whined.
The sun lifted toward its zenith, and moist heat smothered the world.
FIFTEEN
Between the first shock and daylight, we counted 27. As day broke we put off from the shore, at which instant we experienced another shock, nearly as violent as the first, by this the fright of the hands was so much increased, that they seemed deprived of strength and reason: I directed Morin to land on a sloping bank at the entrance of the Devil’s Race Ground, intending to wait there until the men should be refreshed with a good breakfast. While it was preparing, we had three shocks, so strong as to make it difficult for us to stand on our feet; at length recovered from our panic we proceeded; after this we felt shocks during 6 days, but none to compare with those on the memorable morning of the 16th. I made many and minute observations on this earthquake, which if ever we meet, I will communicate to you, &c.
The sun woke Charlie, and as he opened his eyes he realized how thirsty he was. He opened the car door and stepped out. His wounded leg was stiff and it ached. The air still reeked of smoke, and the world was lit only dimly by the bloated red sun that sat cloaked on the dark horizon. He needed to get to work, he thought. He needed to be at his desk the second the markets opened. Charlie limped to the house, crossed the listing portico, and then hesitated as he looked through the open door into the interior. He thought of Megan lying inside. He didn’t want to go in. But he needed something to drink, something to eat.
He needed to use a toilet.
He would stay out of the back hall, he decided. He’d just go to the kitchen and get some food, and then use the toilet off the living room, not the one in back.
As he stepped into the front hall, he felt reluctance dragging at his feet. He really didn’t want to go inside. The Moet bottle still sat in the front hall. The champagne bucket lay in a puddle of melted ice in the front room. Charlie’s shoes crunched on broken glass as he went to the telephone, picked up the receiver. Nothing. Still nothing.
He went to the kitchen. The quake had walked the refrigerator into the middle of the kitchen, and its door had been open all night. Some of the kitchen cabinets had fallen, and most of the glassware had jumped onto the floor or counters and shattered.
The cleaning lady was due tomorrow, he remembered. He’d have to leave her a big tip. Charlie found one intact highball glass and went to the sink for a drink. He opened the tap and a third of a glass of water dribbled out. He looked curiously at the tap, then drank the water. He walked to the open refrigerator, and found that it contained two single-serving-size containers of Dannon yogurt, a couple cans of diet drink that Megan had put there, and some duck a l’orange left over from Friday night. The container of milk and a cardboard container of orange juice had tipped over in the quake and poured their contents out onto the floor.
In the door racks he found a small bottle of cocktail onions, anchovies, some low-fat salad dressing, and a couple of green olives floating alone in their jar.
He went to the pantry, which he had converted into a wine rack. Several of the bottles had been pitched from the racks and broken, but most of them were intact.
He shouldn’t drink them, though, he thought. Not the reds. The quake would have shaken up the sediment.
He found a clean spoon and ate one of the containers of yogurt while standing in the kitchen and staring out the shattered window at his swimming pool. Now he knew why the neighbor girl wanted some of his water.
He’d have to remember to throw more chlorine into the pool, to keep it drinkable. He used the toilet, flushed it, and picked his way back to the front hall. He needed to get in his car and get to work. He imagined the legend he would create by walking into the office unshaven, in his shirt sleeves and his torn, bloody slacks. It would show everyone how determined he was, how determined to make money.
But how was he going to get to Tennessee Securities? The garage had collapsed on his car, and he didn’t have the keys to Megan’s BMW, Megan had them…
His mind skittered from the memory of Megan like a cat jumping away from a spray of water. He couldn’t call a cab, because the phones weren’t working. Maybe Charlie could get one of his neighbors to give him a lift.
He looked down by his feet and saw the bottle of Moet. He was still thirsty. He unwrapped the foil, removed the wire, eased the cork from the neck of the bottle.
He went outside and sat on the portico and drank the champagne from the bottle. I am still lord of the jungle, he thought. I guessed right. All I need to do is get to a terminal somewhere, and I can make millions.
He put the half-empty bottle down, and set out to find a car.
“Have you got a Web browser?” asked the man from NASA.
General Jessica Frazetta blinked in the dawn light. “A what?”
“Because the quickest thing we could do,” the man said, “is just put the pictures up on our Web site as soon as we get them. You’ll see them as fast as we do.”
Jessica sighed. “What’s the URL?” she asked.
In fact a Web browser was one of the things she possessed. One of her civilian employees had turned up, around midnight, with a laptop computer and an Iridium cellular modem. As soon as he arrived, his computer had been militarized for the duration of the emergency. Right now Pat was using it, trying to glean useful news off the Net.
Jessica jotted the Web address in her notebook. “Thanks,” she said.
“If you need any pictures in particular, let us know,” the NASA man said.
“All I can tell you right now is that we need pictures of the Mississippi region between Hannibal and Natchez,” Jessica said. “And major tributaries as well, particularly the Missouri, Ohio, and the Arkansas.”