Aunty Rose’s explanation of what happened didn’t help me close the divide between Grandpa and Daddy. Aunty Rose was right. What was said was said, and what was done was done.
Since we’d been back from Oklahoma, Grandpa had been nicer to Daddy, but the rift between them was still about as wide as the Mississippi, and I was getting worn out running back and forth across the bridge.
I tried to settle into school, and Daddy found regular work wiring houses a few miles north of Panther Fork. In early October, he asked me if I wanted to spend a Saturday helping start a job on a big farmhouse on the old toll road.
Saturday morning, as we drove west, we watched pillars of clouds building on the horizon.
“Looks like rain,” Daddy said. “Hope the man’s attic doesn’t leak.”
The lunch sack Nana had packed bounced between us on the truck seat. She’d tucked in leftover biscuits and bacon and two pieces of pumpkin pie. I’d added some of the fudge Aunty Rose and I had made the night before.
“Have you forgotten everything I showed you?” Daddy asked, turning in the drive at the two-story brick farmhouse.
“I could fish cable in my sleep,” I told him as I helped unload the blowtorch and lantern.
“Good,” he replied, putting his hand on my head. He stood watching me, a roll of Romex over one shoulder. “I think I’ve got a lead on a pretty good place for us to live.”
I swallowed, wishing Daddy wasn’t looking right into my face.
He took his hand off my head. “Well, you can think about it, Mae Bug.”
We worked until about four, coming out into the windy rain that we’d heard lashing the roof all day.
Once we packed our stuff and got on the road, I asked, “Remember that bathtub, Daddy? Wouldn’t a warm bath feel good right now?”
I was filthy, and my arm was skinned where I’d lost my footing and fallen against a rafter.
“That place I was telling you about has a nice bathroom,” Daddy said. Then he added, “Not that it should make any difference.”
“We may be able to just stand in the road and take a shower,” I said, pointing to the next thunderhead coming over.
Water stood between the rows of corn stubble in the fields. A web of lightning connected sky and earth for an instant and thunder rumbled.
Daddy watched the storm as we drove into it. “That’s got hail in it. See those orange streaks?”
Just then the trees alongside the road bent low and lightning danced around us. The first drops that fell against the windshield were rain. Then little pellets of ice followed, pounding the truck.
Daddy leaned forward, straining to see the road. Hail rolled toward the ditches, which were running full.
“Glad the farmers got their corn in.” Daddy yelled to be heard. “This would ruin their crops. Has Will got all his picked?”
“Except what was down in the bottom,” I yelled back.
About that time, the hail stopped. But rain kept pounding on the road faster than it could run off, and I felt water bucking the truck.
We were going right down the middle of the road, lights on, the windshield wipers whipping.
“The door is leaking,” I said, scooting over to the middle as the water sprayed my right shoulder.
Daddy didn’t spare it a glance. “We better hope we don’t meet anybody,” he said. “Or one of us is going to get washed out.”
We rumbled across the low wooden bridge over Panther Fork Creek. The creek boiled even with the bridge, making little eddies over the planks. Overhead, a railroad trestle crossed the road and the creek at an angle.
The mile to our turnoff seemed to take half a day.
“You sure we haven’t missed it, Daddy?” I said, gripping the dash, looking for landmarks.
“I’m not sure of anything,” he said, hunched over the steering wheel.
“There!” I said. “There’s Andersons’ barn.”
Daddy slowed and turned. The truck settled in the mud, fishtailing at first. But Daddy kept it out of the ditch.
We were almost home. In about half a mile, Grandpa’s barn loomed out of the storm on the right, and I took my first full breath in a long time. When we pulled into the drive, I leaned my head back in the seat.
“You’re a good driver, Daddy,” I said, feeling like I didn’t have a muscle left in my body. “I didn’t think we were going to make it.”
Daddy stopped the truck behind the house. The rain was letting up some.
“What’s a little rain to an old navy man?” he asked. But I saw his hands shaking as he switched off the motor.
Day had turned almost into night, partly because of the thick clouds, partly because it had taken us so long to get home.
I could see Nana against the lamplight inside, watching for us.
“Well, you ready to get wet?” Daddy said.
“Sure. You coming in?” Then I answered my own question. “You better come in.”
I could sense Daddy weighing waiting out a storm with Grandpa against trying to make it on down to Grandmother and Grandfather Clark’s without going in the ditch or washing out someplace.
Nana opened the door and made a megaphone with her hands. “Harold,” she called. “Come in.”
Daddy nodded at me, then we opened our doors and ran for it.
I could tell by the way Nana practically yanked us inside that something was wrong.
“Will hasn’t come up from the bottom ground,” she said.
Her cold fingers smoothed my wet hair off my forehead.
Aunty Rose came running from the sunroom. “You’ve got to go look for him, Harold,” she said, making hand motions like she was just waiting to turn my daddy around and push him out the door into the storm. “The radio says that west of here, they’ve had seven inches since—”
“Rose,” Nana said, closing her fingers around Aunty Rose’s wrist. “Hush.
“Maybe Will just got the tractor stuck, and he’s walking out,” Nana said to my daddy. “But I’d think he’d be here by now.”
“How far back is he?” Daddy asked. Rain ran down his face from his hair.
“About three-quarters of a mile,” Nana said. “Which way did you come in?”
“Along the old toll road,” Daddy said.
“Then you might have seen him. The bottom ground is just south of the bridge.”
Daddy and I glanced at each other, remembering what we had seen.
“Which side of the creek was he working on?” Daddy asked.
“Could be either. He planted on both sides.”
Daddy nodded again.
All I could think of was Grandpa wading Panther Fork Creek in the summer and fishing out a water moccasin to show me.
Nana drew me to her side. “You better get out of those wet clothes,” she said. “Rose, help Willa Mae find something dry.”
How could Grandpa get in real trouble? He’d lived on Panther Fork Creek all his life. He’d be walking in any time now, muddy and mad at getting the tractor stuck but wanting his supper.
“I think I can make it back up the road,” Daddy said. “There’s nobody’s ruts but my own. I’ll have a look for Will.”
“Rose,” Nana repeated, her voice stern and her hand firm on my shoulder this time as she guided me toward Aunty Rose, “take Willa Mae. She needs dry clothes.”
Aunty Rose clasped my hand and tugged me to the back of the house. I heard Nana say, “You better take a rope … never know … hurry…,” and Daddy said, “… shovel … extra lanterns.…”
Aunty Rose’s teeth were chattering. She nudged me through my bedroom door and started yanking open my drawers like she was mad at me.
A wave of fear washed over me. Could Grandpa really be in trouble?
“You go ahead and get my clothes out,” I said, turning to run back to the kitchen. “I need to tell Daddy something.”
I slipped out the kitchen door and through the darkness to the truck. Nana and Daddy were coming from the machine shed, each carrying a lantern. I got in the truck and hunkered down on the floor on my side, shutting the door behind me, not worrying that they would hear the noise in the pounding rain.
I curled up and hardly breathed when Daddy opened the door on his side. He turned out the lanterns and set them on the seat inches from my face. The smell of kerosene made my eyes water.
Daddy slammed his door and started the truck. I stayed where I was until he’d driven quite a ways up the road. Then I uncurled, saying, “Daddy, I don’t mean to scare you—”
He yelped and jumped so high, I was afraid he’d either tackle me or spin the truck around in the road before he settled back down and I could finish my sentence.
“—but I wanted to come with you to see about Grandpa.”
I guess the silence was just because Daddy couldn’t find his voice for a while. It didn’t last long. Before I could even get the lanterns set on the floor and myself in the seat, he lit into me.
“Did you tell Rose you were coming along?” he asked.
“No, I—”
“Don’t you know they’ll be worried? What will they think has happened to you?” Daddy shook his head in the darkness, and I could feel his judgment. “I better take you back. I’ll turn around up here at the road.”
“No, Daddy! Please.” I swallowed, sorry that I was causing worry. “Hurry. What if Grandpa is hurt?”
Daddy shook his head again, but at the corner, he went left toward the bridge instead of turning around, and my body went limp with relief.
The rain let up for a minute, but thunder pounded in from the west. Great, deep surges of light rolled across the countryside as if giants were looking for something tiny in the landscape.
“Will the lightning get us, Daddy?” I said, suddenly scared not only for Grandpa, but also for us.
“There’s nothing we can do about it,” Daddy said, his wide-eyed face illuminated in one of the washes of light. “Lightning is like the ocean. It does what it does. It’s big.”
Daddy hit the brakes and the rear end of the truck waved back and forth as he spun the wheel, trying to keep it under control. A flare of lightning lit the area in front of us. Where a road and a bridge should have been was a swirling mass of water spanned only by the railroad trestle overhead.
“The bridge is out!” Daddy said.
The truck came to a stop, rocked back and forth by eddies. Daddy shifted into reverse as another bursting bomb of lightning lit up the creek.
“Did you see that?” Daddy yelled to be heard over the thunder. “Look. Ten o’clock.”
He was backing up as fast he could go, hanging out his window, straining to see behind us in the darkness, trying to escape the fingers of water.
Where was ten o’clock? What had Daddy seen? I gripped the dashboard.
“There,” Daddy yelled, when he had finally gotten the truck away from the rising creek. He pointed ahead and off to his left. All I saw was pitch darkness beyond the weak beam of our headlights.
“I don’t see…,” I began. Then the rain eerily stopped its pounding for a minute and the sky lit up like day.
“There,” Daddy yelled again, cutting the motor and leaping out of the truck. “Across the water. It’s Will’s tractor.”
On the opposite side of the creek, I glimpsed what he was pointing to. I clapped my hands over my mouth to catch the scream.
In another burst of light I saw the red tractor clearly, flipped over, its front tires up in the air.
Daddy was scrambling to the roof of the truck. I heard the weight of his body overhead. I thought for a minute that he’d lost his nerve and was trying to get away from the rising water that had taken the bridge, then I realized he was getting a better look across the creek. I stepped out, going knee deep in water, hanging on to the door handle.
“Do you see Grandpa?” I cried.
“Wait for the lightning,” Daddy said.
Suddenly the lightning was our friend, and I begged it to come, prayed for it to help us.
By the time it surged, I was up on top of the cab too and thought I saw Grandpa pinned under the tractor.
I clutched Daddy’s sleeve as the world went black. “How are we going to get across the creek?”
“Only way is the trestle,” Daddy said.
“The railroad trestle won’t wash out, will it?” I asked, my voice choking.
Daddy scrambled off the roof of the cab, my question lost in a roll of thunder. He reached up for me.
Although the rain and wind were cold, Daddy’s body was warm. He lifted me to the ground as easily as if I was a baby.
“Get the lanterns,” Daddy said. “And the rope. I’ll get…,” and his words were cut off by the rain as he waded toward the back of the truck.
He came back with a shovel and his small gray metal toolbox.
Trying to run in the darkness, we sloshed through a flooded bean field. Mud sucked at my shoes, and I stumbled trying to keep up with Daddy.
At the foot of the steep bank that led up to the railroad tracks, Daddy tied one end of the rope around my waist, yanking the slipknot.
“When I get on the tracks, I’ll jerk three times on the rope. Then you climb up. I’ll be pulling you. You bring the toolbox.”
He closed my fingers over the handle.
As he scrambled up the bank, the lanterns over his left shoulder banged against each other. Now and then, the lightning, which was dying down, showed me what was happening. Once I saw Daddy clinging to a scrub bush, which pulled out of the ground, and I heard the sliding sound of his shoes scraping through mud.
“We’re coming, Grandpa,” I whispered. “Daddy’s coming.”
Finally a circle of lantern light glowed from the railroad trestle, then another, and I felt the three jerks on my waist.
My hands were slick with sweat and rain as I clung to the rough rope. Brambles grabbed my clothes and tore my skin, and I felt the cold rain washing warm blood down my thigh after Daddy pulled me through a sticker bush.
The lantern glow grew closer, and finally Daddy’s hand closed around my wrist and hoisted me onto the tracks.
We seemed to be standing right in the roiling clouds, and I couldn’t breathe. What would happen if a train came along?
Grandpa always said he’d whip me if he ever heard of me setting foot on the tracks. He said a person could get caught, and a train would come along and just slice them in two.
Daddy was coiling the rope and draping it over his shoulder. Wasn’t he afraid?
He picked up a lantern and the shovel in one hand and thrust the other lantern and toolbox at me.
My hands went out automatically and took them.
I followed Daddy, watching my footing as we stepped from tie to tie. I tried to go faster, tried to stay close, but my legs trembled so much, I was afraid I’d fall.
“What if a train comes along, Daddy?” I gasped, hoping he’d hear me and turn around.
He stopped, looking behind us, and I caught up with him. I put the lantern and toolbox in the same hand and grabbed his coat sleeve.
“It won’t take long to cross the creek,” he said, not answering my question. “We’re going out over the water now.”
Fighting dizziness, I looked down at the wide, swirling creek below us.
Daddy clasped my hand. “It’ll be kind of like walking a cross beam,” he said. “Think you can do it?”
I nodded, then realized he couldn’t see me in the darkness. “I think so,” I whispered.
“I’m going to call your grandfather,” Daddy said. “I’m going to call out to him just to let him know we’re coming.”
Daddy swung his lantern in front of him, and I did the same, copying his moves.
“Will!” Daddy yelled. “Will Shannon!”
I tried to sort out the sounds that came back to us. My lantern made a squeaking sound as it swung, and Daddy motioned me to quit. The creek rushed below us.
Please answer, Grandpa, I prayed. Please.
Daddy set down his lantern and cupped his hands to his mouth. “Will!” he shouted again. “Can you hear us?”
I listened so hard, I heard Daddy’s leather belt creaking as he took breaths.
Finally a weak “Yo” came back.
I started shaking, and Daddy hugged me to his side. Then he took my hand again and we moved out on the tracks, over the water forty feet below. I saw it swirling between the ties.
“Don’t look down,” Daddy said, his voice tight.
I clung to his hand and began counting my steps. I’d go ten steps. Then I’d see if I could work up the courage to go ten more. My knees shook so much, I doubted I could make my feet go where they needed to. But I just kept counting.
I went to ten, then twenty. When I got close to a hundred, Daddy said, “We’re almost there.”
“How come we brought your toolbox, Daddy?” I said, making myself talk to keep my mind off the last few steps.
“You never know what we’re going to find,” Daddy said. “We may need tools.”
As soon as we were over the water, he stopped.
“Will!” he called.
Grandpa’s weak “Yo” came back.
“We’re on your side of the creek now. Up on the tracks,” Daddy yelled, holding his hands to his mouth. “Can you see our lanterns?”
We swung them in front of us again.
After a long time, Grandpa called, “I see them.” His voice sounded weak.
“Watch our lanterns,” Daddy hollered. “When we’re even with you, call out.” Daddy’s voice sounded strong over the sound of the wind and water, but up close and underneath, I could hear him fighting to catch his breath.
We went along the tracks at a trot, things rattling in Daddy’s toolbox, my heart lighter and my feet more sure of themselves.
After a while, Daddy stopped.
“Are we even with you, Will?”
“Just about,” Grandpa said, his voice closer. “Another fifty feet.”
Going down the embankment was faster than going up. I skidded ahead of Daddy, digging my heels into the mud. The toolbox slipped from my hands and I winced at the sound of rattling metal rolling away into the blackness. Rocks scraped my hands and bottom, but it didn’t matter. I could fly if I had to, walk on water, lift the tractor off Grandpa single-handedly.
“Over here,” Grandpa said, his voice very close.
I could make out the bulk of the upside-down tractor. Up close, it even smelled dangerous, the reek of fuel oil floating on water.
“Here,” Grandpa said. “My foot’s caught, Harold. Who’s with you?”
“Willa Mae,” Daddy said, shining his lantern over Grandpa.
I stepped into the light so Grandpa could see me. Only the top part of him showed. The rest of his body was hidden under the mass of the tractor.
Grandpa’s face shone a sickly bluish white. He repeated my name in a puzzled voice as if he was thinking about who I might be. Then his head jerked with recognition. “Willa Mae,” he said, reaching out his left hand.
I set down my lantern and squatted beside him, clasping his hand between mine.
“How long you been here, Will?” Daddy asked, bending to look closely at Grandpa’s face.
“I don’t know,” Grandpa said, his voice slow. “A long time.”
He shut his eyes, almost like he was falling asleep, and his grasp on my hands loosened.
“Grandpa! Grandpa!” I shook his hand.
Grandpa opened his eyes, and I nearly fainted with relief. I squeezed his hand, rubbing it.
Daddy was moving his lantern around, sizing up the situation.
Grandpa’s eyes closed again, but he kept a grip on my hand. “I been watching the water come up, Willa Mae,” he said. “It was a sight.”
The rising creek was only about four feet away from Grandpa’s head. “I supposed the creek was going to get me. Still might, if your daddy can’t get me loose.”
I made a sound of denial deep in my throat as Daddy spoke from the darkness. “I’ll get you loose, Will.”
His voice soft, Daddy told me to find out if Grandpa was hurt anyplace except what was under the tractor.
I ran my hands over Grandpa’s icy head and face. Had Grandpa hit his head on a stone?
As I slipped my hands under his head, his eyes came open. “Look,” he said. “There’s the Big Dipper.”
Grandpa was seeing things. The sky was thick with clouds.
“Look, Willa Mae,” he insisted. He was coated in a slurry of mud from struggling to get loose, but his blue eyes glowed in his streaked face, focused for the first time. “Look up there.”
I looked just to indulge him. Sure enough, the clouds had parted, leaving a gap so we could see the Dipper.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, my voice singing. “I never did see anything so beautiful.”
I sat back on my heels. “Where are you hurt, Grandpa?” I asked. I hadn’t felt any wounds or broken places. “Can you move everything?”
“Everything but my left foot,” he said.
He rolled his head to stare at the water, and he shuddered. The rain had stopped, but the creek was still rising.
I concentrated on the hungry, gnawing edge of the creek, willing it back. If I wished hard enough, it would leave my grandpa alone.
“That smokestack saved you, Will,” Daddy said, starting to dig around Grandpa’s legs.
“It held the weight of the tractor off me.”
The smokestack, on the nose of the tractor, had hit sandstone when the tractor rolled over. It kept the heavy machine propped up just enough to spare Grandpa’s life.
In the silence of the wind dropping for a minute, I heard the creek still chewing and Daddy breathing hard as he threw out shovel after shovel full of mud. Grandpa waited in breathless silence, his eyes closed again, his hands twining between mine as if we were washing up for a meal.
“Try pulling your foot, Will,” Daddy said, standing back and leaning on the shovel handle. He pushed his wet hair out of his eyes with muddy fingers.
Grandpa’s hands tightened around mine and I felt his body go taut.
“Grandpa,” I said, straining with him. “Pull.”
I saw his left knee rise with the effort.
Daddy dug some more, panting. Was the water only about three feet away now?
“Try again,” Daddy ordered, panic bubbling in his voice.
Grandpa stared into the stars and shuddered with the effort of trying to pull his left leg out. “You pull on it, Willa Mae,” he said with a groan. “I think the rain washed my strength away.”
“Come on, Will,” Daddy said, throwing his shovel back and leaning his weight into the tractor.
“Tell me if it hurts you,” I said, trembling at the thought of somehow making things worse.
I straddled Grandpa, hooked my hands under his knee, and pulled back. I heard him suck air between his teeth. “Keep pulling,” he said.
Suddenly the tractor moved and a cry escaped from Daddy before he knocked me away and grabbed Grandpa under the shoulders and heaved, pulling him free.
Both men lay in the mud, entwined. The tractor tilted a little, then settled.
While Daddy followed the edges of the creek south to the Penningtons’ place, I stayed with Grandpa, talking to him, rubbing his hands, and curling my body around his to keep him warm. After a long time, I heard a tractor coming over the hill to get us.