Driftwood (Spears)/Chapter 6

O Sibley Carruth and Jimmy Veraine it seemed the most natural thing in the world to swing their big launch about and drive across a submerged field of some kind, skirting around wandering floating islands and running up to the edge of a cabin roof, along the ridge of which were a man, a woman, and two small boys. A dog with a great head and shoulders, small hips, and hardly any tail walked down the split boards to greet them with friendly growls as the bow of their boat grated on the building.

The shock of the contact made the cabin shiver, and the four humans hurriedly slid down to the boat. As they stepped aboard, the building seemed to rise up out of the depths and then it rolled over, flattening out like a cardboard shack.

"Shu-u-u!" the man cried. "Theh she goes!"

Their weight had kept the shanty down.

"We ’lowed hit wouldn’t git much higher, so we didn’t git to go, but lived theh in the rafters; but come yesterday, an’ seemed like the water raised right up," the man said. "Come two feet in less’n half a day. She raised all the evening, stiddy, and come dark, last night, we had to climb out on the roof."

"Any others near here?" Sibley asked.

"Right theh, through those woods, if you can make it, about two miles, theh’s the Cronleys. They wouldn’t go, nuther, they said. Likely they’ll be glad to go, now!"

So the launch steered in the direction pointed out, following a channel through the branches, stopping when the man was in doubt about the course, till he could get his bearings. He recognized a big cottonwood, and a strip of tupelo gum and cypress trees in a lowland, and then they found a gap through cane whose little fish-pole tops were two or three feet above the surface on each side of the submerged wagon road, in which the water was ten feet deep.

"This’d make good cotton land," the man said. "It’s a good ridge, along here for a mile. Flood hadn’t been over hit for a long time till this tide; but this overflow’d cover anything, ’count o’ the levees breakin’."

The Cronleys’ house was gone. The clearing was surrounded on all sides by trees, and when the rescuers emerged from the roadway, a glad yell echoed over the waters. They turned down the slight current that swept slowly from north to south through the woods and over the clearings, except where some eddy worked, and found the family clinging to tree branches.

"Hyuh we be!" a man yelled, and the boys ran their launch down to him, his wife, and his three children,—two girls and a boy.

Against the tree in which they were perched was the half-submerged board shanty.

"Didn’t I tell you I built that shanty stout!" Cronley cried to his rescued neighbor. "Look at it! The boards ain’t loosened a bit! I truss-framed that shanty, so ’f a flood did come an’ it floated away, we could pull it back. Say, Mister! ’low you could spare time to tow that house up theh to that shade-tree? If I could anchor hit theh, come low water hit’d be right by those foundation piles, an’ hit wouldn’t be any trouble at all to h’ist it back onto hits place. Trouble was, I didn’t guy-line hit, or that shanty’d never floated away. How’s your house, Druse?"

"She flattened right out when we got off, but I expect I’ll save the sides and roof. She was floating down to the lower edge o’ my farm, and she’ll lodge there. I see you got most o’ your furniture out into the trees."

"Yes, I’m forehanded thataway. Soon’s we see the overflow was a reg’lar one, we rafted most o’ the stuff down and h’isted ’em into the big trees. Our kitchen stove’s there by the upside o’ that shade-tree, too!"

With a rope run through the up-stairs window and fastened to a stick ten feet long and six inches in diameter, Sibley headed the launch up the current and towed the little house back to the shade-tree beside which was its foundation, consisting of poles driven into the ground and now over eleven feet under the surface. The owner made the rope fast to a branch of the shade-tree.

"I’m leavin’ slack," the man said, "so when the water falls it won’t break the rope, or pull anything apart."

From there the rescuers went to another neighbor, Blawall, down the current to the south.

"I don’t b’lieve he’ll need to come," Cronley declared. "He’s forehandeder than any body, almost. He had some cypress logs into his yard, there—old and dry, and on skids, so they wouldn’t water-log from the ground. When he knowed the flood was comin’ he just made a raft out o’ those logs, and soon’s it floated, he run fence wire up to his shade-trees, and eased the raft under his garret window. Then all he had to do, if anything happened, was to climb out the window, or jump off the roof, and they’d be all right. Theh! I told you so!"

Blawall had been obliged to move out on his raft, as Cronley had anticipated. He had a tent on one end, which Cronley hadn’t known about, and there was a big dirt-box in front of the tent, on which a fire was burning. Over the fire was an iron kettle, stewing. Two mules were on the other end of the raft, standing on the logs and poles that leveled up the surface. They were eating brush, and flapping their long ears. A dugout canoe was just coming to the raft, and in the canoe was a sixteen-year-old youth with two wild turkeys which he had killed.

"Howdy!" Blawall greeted them, coming out of the tent.

"We come to git you," Cronley said.

"No, I don’t need to be got," the man said. "We’re all right. I hate to leave home, ’count o’ shiftless fellers comin’ around. They see anything handy, and they mout take it—window lights or somethin’. We took out all the glass and hung it, safe in the garret, theh. I declare, I believe I’d better build a two-story house; I been layin’ off to do it, for I’m dog-goned if I’m goin’ to move out every time the water rises thisaway! Then I could just move upstairs. How much higher is she goin’?—did you hear?"

"They think about four feet more, on the river," Sib replied.

"Sho! Then we’re likely to git some more here! It’s those plaguy levees above Cairo that’s to blame for this. If they’d been high and wide enough, instead o’ little private no-’count banks, we’d had less’n we got now. Why, we mout of been on the first floor yet, or maybe only in the garret. Now look’t us!"

"I ain’t no faith in levees!" Cronley snorted. "If they was high as the moon, they’d undermine and crevasse, and then the water’d all come at once, a wave ten feet high, an’ everybody been rolled over into their houses."

"Generally they saves us bad overflows," Blawall declared. "I wonder has any one been over to that new-married couple by Tupelo Bayou."

"We’ll go thataway, if these young gentlemen’ll go."

"Certainly!" Sib said. "Which way?"

"I’d better take you," Blawall remarked, thoughtfully. "A stranger in hyah, if he don’t know the lay o’ the land, mout git twisted, less’n he knowed the sets o’ the currents, and kinds o’ trees. If you know what kind o’ land the trees grow on, you can tell where the trees are—whether it’s hills or ridges or hollows. Cypress, ’course, grows on low land. Tupelo-gum grows in awful low, mucky ground. But you take cane, now, and it’s on the backs o’ high ridges—two or three feet or maybe ten feet higher than other bottoms. If you know trees, it’s mighty nice to he’p find your way around, tellin’ where you are thataway."

When the launch arrived at the place, the house of the newly married couple was nowhere in sight. Blawall and Cronley felt round in the water with long poles, about where they thought the foundations ought to be, but they couldn’t find them. Neither could they find any wreckage from the house caught in the trees in the half-acre clearing. The couple were gone.

"You don’t reckon anything happened to ’em, do you?" Cronley asked the other swamp people. No one answered. The launch ran down the bayou to another house, and this one contained a happy family.

The building was of huge logs, and it had been built on a ridge. As the rescuers drew near it, they saw that the flood had not yet reached the level of the balcony floor, which was at least six inches lower than the floor of the big room inside. Smoke poured out of the chimney, and children swarmed over the roof, and out at the windows. Three or four rough board skiffs and several log canoes swung by lines down the slight current.

"He must be built on an Indian mound," Sibley suggested.

"Mound nothin’!" Blawall exclaimed. "That man’s rich, and he’s got a two-story house, onto a good cane ridge. When the water comes in downstairs, he just moves upstairs, same’s you see him now. And if it raises four feet where I am, it won’t go more’n six-seven inches higher here. That’s on account o’ the strong set to the current down here. Where the water runs faster, it won’t get so high. But this house is in an eddy, and over there’s Little River, and on that side is Bayou Crane, and he’s got three hundred acres o’ good cotton land here, as good’s ever you see. But only his family’s to home. He’s savin’ cattle over west o’ here prob’ly."

The rescue party cut up through the woods, among the tree trunks, and returned Blawall to his raft. Then they worked eastward toward the Mississippi, and picked up another family, who felt obliged to abandon their home, but not without taking a crate of chickens and two dogs with them.

It was nearly dark when the launch brought its passengers to the New Madrid highland, where hundreds of refugees had already gathered, and were being cared for by the community. Rain had turned the low eminence into muddy thoroughfares and mire, but it was above sea-level, and would be safe even if the water went four or five feet higher. Only two feet or so of water on the highlands would do no harm; one could wade from house to house, or to the stores, or anywhere. And it would really be easier to get around if one could go in skiffs or small launches, or canoes.

The people who were having the hard time were those who were fighting the flood at the levees. If a levee broke, the water would pour through and the swift rush of the torrent would cut out the softened ground; swirls would dig deep blue holes, and probably great sand and gravel bars would wash over land worth a hundred dollars or more an acre, and ruin it—by the hundreds of acres.

Having landed their refugees, Sibley and Jimmy ran around to the river front, and went up into the bayou, where they found their cabin boat. As they entered it Jep laughed, and the baby, sitting at the table playing with a handful of blocks, jumped up and down and begged to be taken.

"Fine!" Jep replied. "In five minutes I’ll have supper on for you. We’ve eaten!"

Sibley and Jimmy were sitting at the table, eating their supper when there was a hail from a skiff alongside:

"Aboard there, boys!"

"Yes, sir!" Sibley replied, opening the bow door.

"The levee below Hickman has broken, and we’ve got to get over into those bottoms; you know what they are! The wind washed waves over the top, and they couldn’t save it. It’s sixty feet wide, now."

"Why, yes. You want us to go?"

"You’ve a good boat, boys!"

"We’ll go. But first we’d better fill up with gasolene."

"It’ll be mean, getting across through the drift, but lives depend on it—and you can’t get over too soon!"

The man came aboard the shanty-boat. He was Tabron, of the River Commission. He sat down and drank a cup of coffee. His face was thin and drawn. There were black shadows under his eyes, and his eyelids were red.

"We’ve been going night and day," he said. "I see you landed a load of refugees to-night. Where from?"

"Out in the bayous, and toward Little River. They’re pretty well looked after over there."

"Yes; the overflow came up slowly. But it’s different around the head of Reelfoot. I don’t know where you’ll get across. There’s no water coming across Slough Neck. You’ll probably have to go down to Tiptonville, and haul across into Reelfoot Lake, and go up that way."

"Couldn’t I go up the levee, and go around through the crevasse?"

"You could. It’s an open field where there are no trees, but there’s an awful current down there, now, and houses right in the way. We don’t know whether they’ll stand against the flow at all. The worse the current, the more need of you boys!"

"We can go up the New Madrid eddy and through by Winchester Chute, and then work down across the drift. We ought to get over by the time we get to the lower Neck landing," Sibley said.

"That’s the best way. But look out! Got lights?"

"There’s a small search-light on our launch, and I’ll try that. If we had an oil lantern or two, it’d help. We have the required lights on the boat."

"Life-preservers?"

"I didn’t look. It’s a salvaged boat—"

"There’s two lockers full of ’em," Jimmy answered.

"Stop at the fish-dock for your gasolene. I’ll tell them you’re coming down, and that you will go across."

"We’re going right down," Sib said, and as it was raining again, he put on his rain-coat and gave Jimmy an oilskin jacket.

The man and the two boys went out into the night and at the floating fish-dock the launch tank was filled and two five-gallon cans of gasolene and two gallons of engine oil were given to the boys.

"Good luck, boys!" some one shouted, and there was a cheer as the motor-boat backed away from the fish-dock, and, turning sharply, headed up-stream in the reverse current of the miles long New Madrid eddy.

The town lights were soon but a blur in the falling mist, and the launch ran on its errand into the darkness. It must cross the drift, and it must go down through that raging crevasse.

"Better get into the bow, with me, Jimmy," Sibley said. "We’ll need four eyes to see the drift!"

Suddenly they heard a loud cry.

"Hurry, boys!" some one shouted. "We’re shaking."

Sibley gave more gasolene to the motor, and headed between an open gap in a row of posts. Beyond the posts the search-light showed a house, partly submerged.

"Look out!" Jimmy exclaimed. "Maybe hit’s a wire fence!"

They heard a crash, and Sibley cried out with relief: "A board fence! Hear it break?"

They plowed through the fence to the house. As they bumped into the back porch a man handed over two children and his wife, and then himself stepped over the bow. They heard boards splitting and the uptilted search-light showed the front end of the house to be settling.

"The foundation posts up front are washed out!" the man exclaimed. "Back out—’fore she comes down on us!"

There was no room for turning in the little yard, and Sibley eased the boat stern first into the current toward the fence, having run down to the steering-wheel in the engine-pit to control the boat. There was a great crash, and the homesteaders cried: "Here she comes!"

But Sibley did not look at the house that was caving in. Somehow, by steering right, he backed the boat between two posts and as she smashed into the fence stopped the motor to save the propeller. The boat backed clear through, and Sibley stepped on the balance wheel, to turn it over. It turned freely, and he switched on the spark, to start the boat under power.

"Our propeller’s all right yet!" he exclaimed, and looked over the bow along the search-light beam.

The house had settled down, the sides spreading out, and the roof falling flat upon the water. It was all coming down the current out of the crevasse, but a turn of the wheel took the launch across the current, out of the way. They went off to the left of the crevasse and into the dead water against the bank.

"You sure did us a good turn to-night, boys!" the homesteader cried, as he lifted his family over the side and up the levee.

"I’m sorry about the house," Sib replied.

"That’s all right. We carried flood insurance, and I’ve brought the papers in my pocket!"

"Hi-i!" shouted the men who had come to help the refugees up the levee to the top, but there was no time for congratulations. Sibley Carruth and Jimmy Veraine had their work cut out for them that night!

Off across the flood waters they could see yellow lights flickering in all directions. People were waving lanterns, and when the boys tried to go out to them, they sometimes found their way barred by fences, by stumps in new fields, or by drift that was picked up by the water coming through the widening break and carried down the swift current. But they made their way through. Where the current was rushing there was danger to the homesteaders and the launch went to such places first. The boys ran up the current to the buildings, or laid their boat alongside them. When they had a load, they returned to the levee, the only high land near by, landed the refugees, and returned for another load.

Before daybreak a launch from Hickman appeared, coming to help, and two or three brave men in skiffs rode down through the break. It was wider now and as the bottoms were deeply overflowed, there was only a small pitch compared with that first plunge through the gap, which Sibley and Jimmy had made just in time to save the family in greatest danger.

The crevasse opened rapidly, and before it stopped caving it would be more than a mile wide. The flood filled the Reelfoot Bottoms, raised Reelfoot Lake far out of its natural shores, and spread over thousands of acres of cotton and timber land, but the rescuers had come in time, and those in imminent danger were carried up to the levee, or out to the high land toward Slough Neck and Tiptonville.

All night long, and all the following day, without rest, and with only a snatch of corn pone or cold bread to eat, and a cup of hot coffee, given them on the levee, to drink, Sibley and Jimmy worked. What if they were tired? What if they were sleepy? Lives depended on their keeping at work, and the rescuing depending on their staying awake.

It was almost midnight when they ran into the levee with a load, and asked, "Where next?"

"You can’t do any more to-night, boys. There are people over in the clearings, but they’re out of the send of the current. To-morrow’ll be time enough for them!"

"Sure?"

"Sure’s you’re born!"

"Well, we’d better—"

"Swing off to that tree out there, so you won’t rub or pound," a man suggested.

They floated out from the levee, and made fast to the tree by a bowline. They spread the tarpaulin over the boat, on its hoops, to keep the rain out. They rolled up in their coats, and the heat of the engine, which had pounded faithfully all day and all night and all day again, kept them warm.

They slumped down, relaxed, with no more than a splash of a dream, before they were in the deep sleep of the utterly exhausted.