Phil spoke from behind what seemed like a wall, with me on the other side in a dark room. “I knew they’d be looking for us.”
“Wh----at, wh----at d----o you see?” My eyes had been closed for most of the trip upriver. I blinked several times to try to get them to focus. The small engine labored.
“I see Daddy and He-Gene on the dock with their binoculars. I think I see Ray Patton, too.”
“The G----eneral? Are we in New Orleans?”
“No, we’re back at the marina. I’ve never seen the place so crowded. Boats are stacked up everywhere waiting to haul out.”
“H----ave I b----een asleep?”
“More passed out than sleeping.” She squeezed my shoulders with her legs. “Hold on for just a few more minutes.”
Phil steered away from the shelter of the riverbank for a more direct route to the marina.
“Feel that?”
“No.” I didn’t shake my head for fear my mudpack would come off.
“The current has eased in the main channel. I can feel it in the throttle.” She took her hand on and off the rubber grip. “Old timers round here say the start of a storm surge will slow the current, even make the river run backward. We might be in for a good blow from Betsy.”
The marina was a football field away.
“Can you climb up on your seat?”
I gripped the urn to my chest. I managed to lift myself up on the seat with one hand.
Phil momentarily took her hand off the throttle and stretched both arms straight out. She waved them in large circles like she was a bird trying to take off. Captain Moreau signaled back from the dock by raising one hand above his head and making tight circles with it.
“What was that all about?”
“Just letting them know we’re going to need first aid. Uncle Gene keeps a kit in his boat.”
The Captain motioned for his daughter to pull in to the dock, where he hung on to a ladder with his feet in the river. Phil throttled back and cut the engine.
“What happened, Philomene?” the Captain said.
“Help me get Vic out of the boat first,” she said, letting me hear for the first time the concern in her voice.
I handed the urn to the Captain and reached for the ladder, but missed it on my first try. Phil steadied the boat against the pilings. I reached out again and the Captain grabbed my arm. My bandage fell down over one eye and the mudpack, which had dried into a solid cake of blood, dropped into the river.
The General kneeled on the dock and grabbed my other arm. “You didn’t get sliced up by a propeller, did you?”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t think it’s b----leeding anymore.”
The General pulled a white handkerchief from his back pocket, patted my head and showed a dark circle of fresh blood. He put the handkerchief back on my head and placed my hand on it.
“Keep pressure on it,” he said.
Phil leaned over the side of the boat to wash off the blood that covered her arms and hands.
“Are you hurt?” I heard Captain Moreau ask his daughter.
Phil shook her head. “It’s not my blood.”
The General guided me to a wooden bench built into the dock railing and helped me lie down. He pulled off his top shirt, wadded it, and made a pillow for me. He-Gene came running down the dock with a large first-aid kit.
“Uncle Gene was a hospital corpsman in the Navy,” Phil said. “You’re in good hands now.”
He-Gene pushed and probed the skin of my head that seemed to have a loose flap on it. He informed everyone that the cut ought to be sutured but had already started to close on its own.
“I’ll have to irrigate this,” He-Gene said. “You hold his head, Henri, and you get his arms, General.”
Before I could say that none of that would be necessary, He-Gene poured a liquid into my wound. I opened my mouth to scream, but the pain took away my air like the worst vocal block of all time. The only option was to do once again what I seemed to be getting good at. I closed my eyes.
* * *
The General sat at the end of the bench with his hand on my outstretched legs.
My first thought when I came back to my senses was that someone had been cleaning typewriters with my alcohol and cotton swabs.
I turned my head toward the river. “Where’s Phil?”
“Good. Glad you’re back with us, Son Vic.” The General patted my bare feet. “Phil and her father took the skiff over to the Rooster. You’ll see her again soon.”
The events of the day and the General’s presence weren’t coming together in my head yet.
“Are you supposed to be here?” I asked the General.
“Adrienne and I headed down to Venice when we heard that Betsy had changed course. We thought the Moreaus could use some help.”
The General helped me sit up. I felt as if I had on a football helmet that was too small and then realized that all of my head above my ears was wrapped in tight layers of gauze. I got a bad headache once when a line drive hit me above the left eye while I was on the pitcher’s mound, but that was a tiny baby compared to the one that hammered away at me now.
“He-Gene said Phil’s mudpack probably kept you from bleeding out, probably saved your life,” the General said. “Did you realize how deep the gash was?”
“No.” I still dared not shake my head. The sequence of the day remained fuzzy. I felt a new pain in my left upper arm and began to rub it.
“He-Gene gave you a tetanus shot, a vitamin K shot to help stop the bleeding, and a shot of morphine while you were out,” the General said. “You probably shouldn’t rub it.”
“Where’s my urn?” I put my arm on the back of the bench to stand.
“Relax. I’ve got it right here.” The General moved the urn around to the front of the bench where I could see it. “You need to rest some more and get your feet under you… and I need to go over with you what I know about the plan so far.”
He explained the plan in his newspaper way. Hurricane Betsy was on course to come ashore somewhere on the Louisiana coast in less than 24 hours. Venice was directly in its path if it kept the current track. The storm surge would come ahead of it. All shelters for a hundred miles above New Orleans would be full.
Captain Moreau agreed a good place to ride out the hurricane was on the General’s barge in New Orleans with new and stronger tethers that they would have time to put in place. There was plenty of room for everyone on the barge. Highway 23, the evacuation route, was already crowded. Buster at the marina had called for an ambulance for me, but was told that the state police had stopped all southbound traffic, even emergency vehicles. The best time to head north would be after dark, which would allow time to pack and secure the Moreau house.
The more the General talked, the more my head cleared and the more the events of the day sorted themselves.
“As soon as you feel like it, we’ll head over to the Captain’s house,” the General said.
“I’m ready now.”
“I don’t think so. I need to help He-Gene haul out his boat. When we’re done, I’ll come back and see how you feel.”
“I can walk now,” I protested.
“You have a long night ahead of you… and I don’t think you realize how bad that gash was. I want you to lay back down and don’t move.”
The General’s words came as an order, not a suggestion. I watched the clouds bang into one another and closed my eyes again. I wondered if I might hear my name again — Messenger — but all I heard was the confused river being pushed backward against itself.