In The Falling Light by John L. Campbell Read Free Book Online

casually as a man
sweeping toast crumbs off a table.
    A cracking of branches made him look right
again, towards the front yard oak, and he saw his capsized pickup
was still firmly wedged against it. Something else had floated up
onto it and become stuck. Something wide and silver. Construction
site material? It was hard to tell through the gray curtain of
rain. After a full minute of staring he realized what it was.
    Arlene saw it at the same moment and knew
immediately. “My God, is that a boat?”
    A wave rocked the silver object, turning it
slightly and showing it to be the aluminum hull of a capsized
fishing boat, the black prop of an outboard motor jutting out of
the water. A red stripe ran down one side, and big, upside-down
reflective letters read LEESVILLE FIRE RESCUE.
    Arlene gripped her husband’s knee in a
fierce clench. “Ray Hammond.”
    Dell stared at the inverted hull. Ray
Hammond was chief of the Leesville Volunteer Fire Department, and
the crew leader of the town’s swift water rescue team.
    “What happened?”
    Dell shook his head. “Nothing good.”
People’s lives in small towns are hopelessly intertwined, everyone
knowing everyone’s business and all the little details of their
lives. But that was also what made that sort of life so wonderful.
Ray, his crew, their families were not strangers, and to the
McCall’s, were extensions of their own family. The sight of that
empty boat shook them, because they both knew it hadn’t floated off
a trailer somewhere. Ray and his boys would have been aboard, out
in the thick of the nightmare as soon as the water started rising,
doing their duty and trying to help their friends in the
community.
    But Dell was thinking more about the
boat.
    He judged the distance, about twenty yards
directly in front of the house, fast moving water in between. Water
filled with debris that could sweep him away, providing the current
didn’t do it first. He could get a head start on it by going off
the far end of the roof, buying maybe fifty feet of upstream
advantage. Then swim like hell.
    A tangle of barbed wire and fence posts
rushed past.
    Arlene was a better swimmer, no doubt about
that, but she wouldn’t have the strength to turn the boat upright
once she made it. He wondered if he would. Dell was not an
impressive swimmer, but twenty years of ranching had kept him fit.
It would have to be enough. The current would fight against the
boat, and despite his strength it might take it away before the job
was finished. Even if he flipped it and held on, could he get the
motor started? It was underwater now. Would it crank? He realized
there was a time not so long ago when his biggest problem was
lambing, a month-long season of labor and midwiving. He had always
thought his life depended upon its success. Funny how quickly
things changed.
    Dell noticed Arlene was staring at him, and
turned to look at her. She raised her voice over the wind. “How am
I going to handle three children up here if you drown, Dell
McCall?”
    “What choice do I have?”
    “You can stay alive. You can stay here with
your family and hope for rescue.”
    He pointed at the boat. “Ray and his crew
were the only rescue we were going to get. Bailey was right, they
can’t send up helicopters in this, and the water’s going to be up
here in two hours, probably less. No one is coming.”
    His wife pushed wet hair aside and stared at
him, but it fell right back into her eyes. Then a gust hit them,
making them both hunch, the force of it ripping away more shingles
and creating whitecaps on the water’s surface, howling across the
rooftop, adding spray to the downpour.
    He kissed her long and hard, then turned on
the peak and started scooting towards the opposite end of the
house. Bailey and Ricky saw him going, and cries of “Daddy!” came
to him from behind, distant in the wind as he fixed his eyes on the
edge ahead of him. Though it seemed longer, it took only minutes
before he had crossed the