Page 13 of Hurricane Irene

On the parish line, Hunter’s team found the first porch detached from its house. It drifted sideways among buttonbush, complete with two rocking chairs and a ceramic frog. Carl raised a hand in solemn greeting as they passed.

“Mayor,” he said.

Adam scanned the bank through binoculars. Joseph called addresses from a waterproof clipboard while Nathan watched the depth finder jump from six feet to eighteen inches and back again. The old channel had filled with storm-torn limbs. A new one had cut through a stand of willow where the map showed solid ground. Hunter chose the new water. There was no good route, only the route that had not yet tried to kill them.

By 0815 hours, Team 3 had entered the cypress maze. Kiel stood at the console, Liffey on the bow, Fitch reading bearings, Duncan clearing vines, and Robbie marking their route with orange survey tape.

Within twenty minutes they found one of their own ribbons floating beside the boat.

“Excellent,” Duncan said. “We’ve discovered where we’ve already died.”

“Or where the bayou wants us to think we died,” Robbie said. The joke landed badly because no one could prove it wrong.

The trees crowded close, their roots hidden under floodwater, their crowns knitted against the weak sky. Somewhere beyond them, sheet metal knocked three times, stopped, then knocked three times again. Nobody could tell if it was loose roofing, somebody signaling, or the storm practicing.

At 0840 hours, Team 4 reached the first occupied camp. It leaned around a pecan tree, one corner sunk, flood line staining the siding chest-high. An old man in orange suspenders stood on the porch roof holding a cast-iron skillet. Behind him were a woman, two beagles, and a green parrot in a travel cage.

“You took your time,” the man called. Bodhi looked at the skillet.

“That how you planned to signal?”

“No. That’s how I planned to greet looters.”

Remy climbed onto the roof while Cade steadied the boat. Magnus checked the woman for dehydration. Wade coaxed the beagles aboard. The parrot watched them and spoke with terrible clarity.

“Damn fool.”

“Which one?” Cade asked. The bird declined to specify.

The old couple refused evacuation until Bodhi showed them the forecast printout sealed in plastic. Three more days, then rain enough to lift the bayou again. The man’s jaw worked. He looked at the line on his house, at the water lapping beneath the porch roof, and finally at the woman beside him.

“Fine,” he said. “But the bird rides with you.” The parrot responded once again.

“Damn fool.”

Remy tied their small bateau to their own boat and marked the camp cleared. The cloud cover thickened as they started back toward a volunteer fire landing that no longer possessed either fire station or landing. Mike and the boys were manning the station, ever faithful.

Near 0930 hours, Team 5 found a skiff pinned beneath a fallen live oak. Its bow protruded from dark water and a length of blue rope ran from the stern into reeds.

Jalen killed the engine. Chief and Chase pulled the rope hand over hand until it tightened around a mailbox post. On the opposite bank, an elderly woman waved a red dish towel from the second-story window of a narrow house. Beside her stood a teenage boy with his forearm wrapped in a blood-soaked bath towel.

“Found two,” Jalen radioed. Static answered. He tried again, then fired a green flare through a gap in the branches. It climbed into the low clouds and made the whole bayou briefly poisonous green.

JT and Benji crossed by rope while Will held the boat against the current. The boy had cut himself breaking an attic vent after the stairwell filled. The bleeding had slowed, but the hand below the wound was pale and cold.

Milo splinted the arm once they had him aboard. The woman carried a grocery sack containing medicines, three cans of peaches, a Bible sealed in a freezer bag, and a framed photograph.

“That all?” Chief asked gently.

“That’s what matters,” she said. Behind them the green flare faded, and the darkness seemed to settle lower.

Team 6 made slower progress than anyone. The southern loop was a junkyard under water.

Irish piloted while Hoot and Bone probed ahead. HG watched the engine temperature. Garrett tracked their position by compass because the GPS showed them crossing dry land. Bogey and Jean cleared fishing line, wire, and vines from the prop every few minutes.

At 1011 hours, the bow rode up on something and stopped hard. Everyone lurched forward. Beneath them, metal boomed once, and a stream of bubbles broke the surface beside Hoot’s boot. Bone pushed down with the pole and heard a hollow clang.

“Car,” he said. Hoot looked over the side.