Horror ran through Jason’s veins as he thought of his breakfast bacon sizzling in a skillet over a blue propane flame.
He scrambled aft, the southeast gusts blowing the chemical smell past him. He cleared the gap between barges without breaking stride, then leaped from the barge onto the Michelle S. in one bound. He dodged around the superstructure and dived into the first door.
He heard the sizzling sound of bacon. Never had he found an ordinary, homely sound so terrifying. Jason dashed into the galley, past a surprised Nick, and turned off the stove burners. The blue flames fluttered and vanished with a whuff. Nick stared at Jason’s terrified expression.
“What is it? What’s going on?”
“We’re going to blow up!” Jason shouted.
“What—?”
Words exploded through Jason’s gasps for breath. “Barges leaking! Chemicals! That’s why the crew ran away!”
Horrified comprehension snapped into Nick’s eyes. “What chemicals?” he asked.
“Who cares?” Jason cried. “Just go outside and smell.” While Nick went out to investigate, Jason ran aft to where Retired and Gone Fishin’ sat on the mud aft of the towboat. He untied the line securing the bass boat to the stern, and flung it over the side. He lowered himself over the rail, felt the mud squelch to his ankles as he landed. Nearby birds broke for the sky, a fleeing black cloud. Jason slogged to the bows of the bass boat and yanked away the extension cord that was recharging the boat’s batteries. Acrid fumes drifted over him in waves. Nick appeared on the deck above. “Catch,” he said, and swung out a plastic garbage bag filled with emergency supplies.
Three more bags followed. Jason tossed each into the bass boat. Then Nick rolled over the towboat’s side, tried to lower himself to the mud on the rope, and lost his grip. He tumbled helplessly into the soft ooze. Jason jerked his head away as mud sprayed over him.
“Shit!” Nick pulled himself free of the sucking mud and staggered to his feet. Dragging the heavy aluminum boat over the mud flat was a nightmare. Getting traction in the soft mud was nearly impossible, and Nick and Jason often fell. Both were soon covered with ooze. Black birds swarmed around them and mocked them with their calls. Jason gasped for breath as sweat tracked mud over his face. His arms, legs, and back ached, and his brain reeled from chemical fumes. Finally the bass boat slid into the brown water. Jason and Nick flung themselves aboard. The boat spun lazily as the current caught it. Jason crawled forward to the bow, dropped the trolling motor over the side, and started it, heading directly across the current to get as far away from the towboat as he could. The wind blew fresh air over the boat, and Jason sucked it down gratefully.
Retired and Gone Fishin’ made its way down the river, drifted around a bend. Jason and Nick lay gasping on the fore and afterdecks. Michelle S. disappeared behind a screen of trees.
“God damn, God damn,” Nick repeated. “And we had clean clothes an’ shit.” Jason sat up, turned down the speed of the trolling motor, and tried to wipe mud from his face. Then a perfect sphere of fire rose from beyond the trees, and burst like a bubble over Michelle S. and its barges.
EIGHTEEN
At the Little Prairie, (a beautiful spot on the west side of the Mississippi river about 30 miles from New-Madrid), on the 16th of December last, about 2 o’clock, a.m., we felt a severe concussion of the earth, which we supposed to be occasioned by, a distant earthquake, and did not apprehend much damage. Between that time and day we felt several other slighter shocks; about sunrise another very severe one came on, attended with a perpendicular bouncing that caused the earth to open in many places—some eight and ten feet zvide, numbers of less width, and of considerable length—some parts have sunk much lower than others, where one of these large openings are, one side remains as high as before the shock and the other is sunk; some more, some less; but the deepest I saw was about twelve feet. The earth was, in the course of fifteen minutes after the shock in the morning, entirely inundated with water. The pressing of the earth, if the expression be allowable, caused the water to spout out of the pores of the earth, to the height of eight or ten feet! We supposed the whole country sinking, and knew not what to do for the best. The agitation of the earth was so great that it was with difficulty any could stand on their feet, some could not— The air was very strongly impregnated with a sulphurous smell. As if by instinct, we flew as soon as we could from the river, dreading most danger there—but after rambling about two or three hours, about two hundred gathered at Capt. Francis Lescuer’s, where we encamped, until we heard that the upper country was not damaged, when I left the camp (after staying there twelve days) to look for some other place, and was three days getting about thirty miles, from being obliged to travel around those chasms.
The black pillar of smoke that marked the burning Michelle S. slowly fell astern. The river was slow and lazy: having spread itself wide beyond its banks, it seemed intent on staying awhile. The surface was less crowded with debris than it had been the previous day: much of the wreckage and timber had caught in the cottonwood and willow tangle that grew in the flood plain between the levees and the river. But there was still enough flotsam in the water to be dangerous, and Jason and Nick kept a watchful eye. When he had scavenged food and other useful supplies from the towboat, Nick had equipped the bass boat with a pair of proper boat hooks, which made it much easier to fend off wreckage.
Jason’s breakfast consisted of some canned pineapple rings from Nick’s emergency cache. He tilted his head back, drank off the sweet syrup, and tossed the empty can over the side. The river received it with a dull splash.
The river was his fate, Jason thought as he watched the can pace the bass boat on its way downstream. He kept being thrown up on the shore, but then the river would take him again. He was beginning to develop a superstition about it.
Nick, he saw, sat on the stern deck, his hands dangling over his knees. The older man looked once again like a refugee, borrowed clothes soaked or splashed with mud, face and hair spattered, the newly acquired sandals ruined.
Edge Living, Jason thought. This was real Edge Living—no resources, no help from outside, and every second on the brink of extinction. There were people, he thought, out in the Third World he supposed, who lived their whole lives this way. What he had thought was Edge Living, the kind he’d celebrated on his posters, was a sick joke compared to the real thing.
Jason managed a grin. “So how’s our morale now, General?”
Nick looked up, gave a rueful laugh. “Don’t imagine it can get much lower,” he said. He looked at the emergency supplies, then began to stow the cans and jars in the boat’s cooler compartments.
“So what’s the plan?” Jason asked.
Nick shrugged. “Find a place that doesn’t blow up?” he offered, then sighed. “I wish I’d contacted my family when I had the chance,” he said. “They’re gonna be worried. They knew I was driving down to Toussaint.”
“You have a daughter, you said? In Arkansas someplace?”
“Yeah.” Nick’s hand went to his shirt pocket, then fell away. “She’s having a birthday tomorrow—today, I mean.” Discouragement lined his mud-streaked face. “Guess I won’t be there.”
“Is she at school, or what?”