Us and Uncle Fraud

  Now I had to enter it, and I would never ever forgive Marcus for that. The flowers and bushes, like Mother's forsythia, were battered and smashed by the rain. The gravestones, still standing in the blanket of water, tilted crazily. Here and there, higher places were still exposed, but it seemed eerie, seeing those rounded hills like the naked shoulders of a floating corpse.

  "Marcus!" I yelled, standing ankle-deep in the path. But there was no answer, and I knew that if he was—as I expected—still down at the river's edge, he couldn't possibly hear me.

  I sloshed on, and the noise of the water under my feet and slicing down through the trees from the sky was now intensified by the rushing sound of the river. Ordinarily this was such a quiet place. But today, as I approached the oldest section of the cemetery, the area that bordered the river, it roared with the sound of water. My voice—though I continued calling Marcus's name—was lost, washed away by the violent raging turmoil I could hear ahead.

  Now, suddenly, I could see what once had been the wall that divided the river from the land. Crumbling, Father had said. But it hadn't crumbled ; it had heaved and smashed; it had been blasted by the fury of the flood, and I could see the huge rocks of the wall being lifted by the water's brown, surging force, pounded against each other and tossed like pebbles in the foaming waves. Behind the demolished wall, in the cemetery itself, the water was moving and the gravestones, too, were being uprooted and tumbled about like toys.

  And now, at last, I could see Marcus. His brilliant yellow slicker stood out against the brown and gray muddled, writhing mixture of land and water.

  "Damn you, Marcus!" I shouted, overwhelmed by anger as Tom had been. "Damn you, damn you!" I had fought my way through this storm to find him, and now I would face Mother's wrath, and Tom's and Father's, and here he was; he had forgotten his promise to meet me, and he was standing there like a ghoulish idiot, looking for bones.

  He hadn't seen me yet, and no wonder: The river was surging immediately in front of him, waves breaking and crashing over the rocks at the base of the demolished wall; the water was swirling right over his feet and up to his knees. The idiot! Why didn't he move back! But he wasn't even looking at the angry water. He was looking up and to the side, and I followed the direction of his eyes and saw that a large tree had been torn practically in half by the wind. A massive limb was twisting—I could hear the tortured sound of it—and was about to fall.

  "Marcus! You idiot! Get out of the way!" I screamed, more terrified now than angry; and I ran forward, scraping my knee on the edge of a toppled gravestone.

  He heard my voice at last and turned his face toward me. Now I could see his desperate expression. He was sobbing.

  "Louise! Help me!" he cried. I ran forward, dodging the debris that shot past me in the rushing water, which was now up to my knees. Above us, the tree limb groaned and shook.

  "Run, Marcus! Come on!"

  But he continued to stand there, immobile, sobbing. I was no more than three feet from him now, and it was difficult to stay upright in the rushing water.

  "My foot is caught!" He grabbed my extended hand, but he couldn't move. I reached with my other hand through the cold swirling water and felt the rock; but it was a boulder, one of the huge stones from the wall. The river immediately beyond us was tossing them around as if they were weightless; but I couldn't move this one a single inch to free my brother.

  We put our arms around each other, holding ourselves up together, and the water slapped now around my waist.

  I heard the crack as the tree limb broke and began to fall. I closed my eyes and clutched Marcus. Then I felt myself lifted by water, turned and raked by branches, strangled by mud and twigs. The water churned over me until I thought I could hold my breath no longer; then my face scraped against rough rock, I was flung to the ground, the water receded, and I opened my eyes.

  I was stunned, and dazed. But I was alive, and I was on the ground, lying in a few inches of water. I coughed, pushed myself painfully to a sitting position, and looked frantically for Marcus.

  He was there, still, his slicker still a bright identifying mark, but we were far apart now. The falling tree had separated us and had freed him from the boulder, but the wave that had caused the tree to fall had also carried him out into the river. Now he was clinging to the tangle of branches that had once been the top of the ancient elm, and around him the river was at work, tearing off the leaves and bark.

  The heavier end of the tree was still on the ground near me, partially submerged, but the force of the water was lifting it rhythmically and sucking away the earth beneath. I threw myself on it to hold it still, but the weight of my body was no match for the surge of water, and it continued to lift and pound as if I weren't there.

  "Climb in on the tree, Marcus!" I shouted, but the words were barely said when I felt the entire heavy trunk lift under me, flinging me aside. Dislodged from the ground, it moved on the water. Some of its branches now ripped loose and shot away, disappearing almost instantly in the river.

  I watched Marcus shift and move in the end of the broken tree. He inched closer toward the land, but he was still far away, and the massive trunk was floating now, beginning to move outward. I grabbed it, uselessly trying to hold it there with all my strength; but my strength was human, and the force of the flooding river was beyond anything human. The tree moved away from me as I watched helplessly, and my brother scrambled precariously in its tearing branches.

  "Move back where it's safe, Louise!" I heard suddenly from behind me. "I'll get him!"

  It was Tom. In a daze I turned and saw him throwing off his coat; his bike was on its side in the water where the cemetery path had been. He pushed past me roughly, waded between the boulders, and entered the river, guiding himself by holding the tree. He was moving in the same direction as the raging current, and it swept him quickly out toward Marcus. I watched as he grasped Marcus by the neck of his yellow slicker, pulled him into the water, and then, still holding the tree, started back, pulling Marcus behind him.

  But the tree had been moving slowly all the time. Now there was an expanse of surging water between the land and the ugly, ripped trunk. And the current was against Tom now. I could see him fighting it, moving inch by inch, holding Marcus tightly. The tree bobbed, and moved out another foot. My brothers were moving in—but not fast enough. They advanced a few inches; the tree shifted and moved out farther.

  Behind them, suddenly, I saw another huge, swirling wave approaching. I screamed, pointing, and Tom turned, saw the wall of brown water, and hugged Marcus to him. It was moving toward the land, the way the last one, the one that had caught Marcus and me, had; I watched as it captured my brothers, wrenched them loose from the drifting tree, and propelled them forward. It broke in front of me, bubbled around my feet, and deposited Marcus nearby. He raised himself to his hands and knees and vomited. I sobbed in relief.

  But when I looked around through my tears and the rain that still was coming down, I saw that Tom was not there. Only Marcus had been swept ashore. I searched the landscape for my older brother, and finally I found him. He had been sucked back by the reversal of the wave, and now he was out there, clinging to what remained of the tree. As Marcus and I watched in horror, the explosive current in the river caught the tree and Tom, turned them in a sweeping circle, and sent them swiftly out to the center of the widening, treacherous river; then, bobbing wildly, they disappeared around the bend to the south.

  13

  I turned and looked once more at Marcus, who was still on his knees in the shallow water, choking and retching. He was battered, bruised, and scared; but he was alive. And I was sure that Tom was not.

  I turned and ran, leaving Marcus there. It seemed as if I had been running through this rain all day. This time, as I ran splashing and sobbing through the cemetery, my feet were bare; somehow my boots and shoes had been wrested from my feet by the river. And my slicker was in shreds, the hat gone. I pushed my wet hair out of my eyes, wincing when I t
ouched my face. I pulled my hand away; it was covered with blood.

  I tried, as I ran, to remember which way to turn as I left the cemetery gate: Which way would be closest to a house where I could use the telephone and call for help?

  But close to the cemetery entrance, I saw a man kneeling on one of the small rises that was still free of the flood. I didn't care who he was, or that he seemed to be praying for a lost relative or friend. He was a man—an adult—and I was a child with one brother still in a battered heap by the devastated wall and the other lost in that ghastly, grabbing water. I ran, gasping, up the small hill to beg him to help me.

  He stood and backed off when he saw me. "Go away!" he said harshly.

  I realized how frightening I must seem, covered with mud and bleeding from the gash in my forehead, appearing out of nowhere in that godforsaken place inundated now with turbulent water and broken tombstones. But I recognized the man. It was Kenny Stratton's father.

  "It's me, Mr. Stratton," I cried, desperate. "It's Louise Cunningham—I'm Kenny's friend. Help me! My brother got sucked into the river!"

  He stared at me with panic in his eyes. "Where?" he asked.

  "Down there!" I pointed. "He's caught on a tree, and it headed down that way, toward the bridge!"

  "I'll call the police," he said. "Come with me!"

  He dropped a small object he was holding, and turned and ran toward the cemetery gate. Without thinking, I picked up the small, mud-coated thing and thrust it into the pocket of my slicker. His legs were much longer than mine; I followed him at a distance, then saw him bang on the door of a house and go inside.

  Panting, I reached the house and climbed the front steps just as he came back out. "The police already know," he said. "Someone spotted him from the bridge when he got caught on one of the supports. They're trying to get him out now."

  People came from inside the house and clustered around me. Someone wiped at my bloody face with a towel, but I pushed her away.

  "I have my car right here," Mr. Stratton told me. "I'll take you down to the bridge where he is."

  "Is Tom dead?" I asked.

  No one answered for a moment. "They don't know," Mr. Stratton said, finally, and put his arm around me.

  "You go on," I said. "I have to go back. My other brother's still down there."

  "Another brother?" asked the woman who had been trying to wipe my face. "Is he all right?"

  "He's puking," I said flatly, "and I want to take him home."

  They let me go. I looked back, as I reentered the cemetery, and saw that they had all gone with Mr. Stratton to the old car that was parked in the rain-filled street.

  This time I half-walked, half-ran, into the cemetery, following the same flooded path through the same eerie, desolate landscape. When I was partway to the river, I saw Marcus in his bright yellow slicker, or what remained of it, coming slowly toward me. He was limping. Like me, he was barefoot and bleeding and coated with mud; like me, he was crying.

  "Tom's caught in the bridge supports and they're trying to get him out," I said when I reached him.

  Marcus didn't answer. He stared at me with stunned eyes. His nose was bleeding, and the blood turned pink as it was diluted on his face by rain and tears. The pale pink drops fell from his chin.

  "Come on, Marcus. We have to go home and tell Mother."

  He still said nothing. He stared at me and wept silently. I was frightened by his silence; I wished he would scream or hit me. Instead, he simply stood there, dazed.

  Finally he looked down at his own hand, clenched to a fist around a piece of bent and twisted metal. He raised his hand, opened his fist, and handed the odd-shaped thing to me. It was what was left of Tom's glasses.

  Then he spoke. "His bike is there," he said.

  "I know. Father will get it. Come."

  But still he didn't move.

  Finally I shook him. "Marcus!" I said. "Marcus the Newbold! Let's go home."

  He followed me then. We stumbled toward home, and the rain continued to fall.

  The doctor came to the house and examined Marcus and me as we sat shuddering, silent and stunned. He cleaned our cuts, bandaged Marcus's ankle, and gave us both pills that made us sleep most of the day and night. In the morning I felt groggy and confused. Mother told me what had happened, but I shrank inside myself and wouldn't listen. I refused to look at the newspaper. On the front page there was a picture of men lifting my brother carefully to the bridge with ropes. I turned away from it, feeling sick, and stared dumbly at the wall.

  "Louise," Mother said in a firm voice, holding my shoulders, "read what it says. BOY SURVIVES FLOOD MISHAP. Tom isn't dead, Louise."

  I believed her, but it didn't seem to matter. Mother and Father had been at the hospital all night long. Tom was in a coma.

  The tree, with Tom clinging to it, had been swept down to the bridge in just seconds and had caught there. He had screamed for help and been heard. But the water washed over him in surges, slamming him again and again into the concrete and steel supports. By the time help reached him, he was battered and unconscious, half-drowned, with both arms and his skull fractured. Even the doctors were not sure if he would live.

  But Mother was sure. She said so with brisk authority: Tom would live. She made us all believe it.

  Father's sisters, Florence and Jeanette, arrived by train and took up residence in our house, caring for Stephanie while Mother and Father spent days at the hospital beside Tom's bed. My aunts saw to it that Marcus and I got dressed and off to school in the mornings after we were ready to go back. Marcus's badly sprained ankle healed ; our cuts and bruises healed ; we were the center of attention for a while at school. And, after a few days, the rain even stopped.

  But Tom didn't heal. His broken bones, the X rays showed, were beginning to knit together inside the heavy plaster casts. But he didn't wake up. After a week, even Mother's vibrant optimism became shaky, and sometimes I saw her stop whatever she was doing and stand silently, a look of infinite sadness on her face.

  Father, too, was changed. His usual attitude of gruff playfulness and good-natured rudeness evaporated. He was gentle toward Mother and tolerant of the intrusion of the two aunts, who were always in the way and creating complicated productions of the most simple household tasks.

  "Relax," he said to Aunt Florence, who came to him, worried and flustered, one evening when Mother was at the hospital. Stephanie's only clean pajamas had a broken elastic in the waist. "Use a safety pin," Father told her calmly. Marcus and I overheard and looked at each other in astonishment. In the old days—before the flood, as we referred to that time to each other—he would have exploded; he would have bellowed, "For the Lord's sake, Florence, put the child to bed naked! Do you think the world requires a piece of elastic to revolve? And stop that incessant hand-wringing or you'll drive me completely around the bend!"

  Another evening I went to the basement to borrow the ball of twine that I knew was on Father's workbench, and I found him there, all alone. Around him, strewn across the workbench and on the floor, were all the parts of Tom's bike. He was meticulously examining each piece, one by one; he was sanding and scraping bits of rust away and rubbing the pieces with oil. It was the kind of thing that Thomas himself would have done, but Father had always been too impatient for such intricate, time-consuming tasks. He hadn't heard me come down, and he didn't see me watching. For a long time I stood there in the shadow of the huge furnace, and watched as he held the smallest bolts almost lovingly in his large hands, smoothing and oiling them, fitting the pieces together so that the bicycle would be whole again.

  Some nights after supper he sat quietly in his big chair, ignoring the evening paper; and if we went to him, Marcus or Stephie or I, he would take us into his lap and stroke our hair in silence.

  After three weeks, Mother told Marcus and me that we could go to the hospital to see Tom. We were too young, and it was against the rules; but they would make an exception for us. We went with her in the afternoon,
after school, and we were frightened. In the hospital room, Marcus and I stood beside each other and looked apprehensively at the bandaged stranger in the bed.

  "Thomas," Mother said, leaning over him and speaking in her normal, everyday voice, "it's a beautiful day, and I saw a bright red cardinal in the yard this morning.

  "And today I've brought Marcus and Louise to see you," she added cheerfully.

  She nudged us forward. "Say hello to him," she said.

  "Hello, Tom," I whispered.

  "Hi," Marcus said.

  "Tell him what's going on in school," Mother suggested.

  Talking to someone whose eyes were closed and who didn't respond made me uncomfortable and scared. But I took a deep breath and said, "Today we played softball at recess and Charlie Clancy got picked off second base when he tried to steal third. And, let's see, ah, Nancy Brinkerhoff has chicken pox, but Mother says we all had it when we were little, so we can go down to her house after school and play with her." I poked Marcus, so that he would take over.

  "We had a spelling bee," Marcus said, "and I missed 'receive,' like I always do. What else? Oh yes, Kenny Stratton had to stay after school because he wrote a swear word inside his arithmetic book and the teacher saw it, and—"

  He looked at Mother. "I can't think of anything else," he said apologetically.

  At the end of our brief and miserable visit, Mother walked us to the elevator. She would stay until suppertime, and Marcus and I could go on home. We both tried to think of something cheerful to say.

  "I think his bandages are neat," Marcus said. "I always wished I could have a broken arm so that I could have a cast and people could sign their names on it."