The Elephant Mountains (18 page)

Then the road emerged from the water. They could see where it ascended the side of the ridge perhaps a quarter of a mile away. They left the skiff behind. Angela carried the dry bag with what little water and food they had left. He slung the Saiga over his shoulder. At any moment he expected one or both of them to fall, the victim of some hidden rifleman.

But when they reached the place on the road where the flood had not risen, it became clear that there had never been an army outpost here. In fact, it looked like no one had ever stopped a car or truck at this point on the highway.

They walked to the top of the hill. Off to the west was ridge after ridge of pines. Behind them the flooded land stretched off toward the river. The wind soughed in the pines as they stood in a spot of shade, the acrid scent of the trees spilling over them, a welcome change from the stink of mud. Even in the shade it was hot.

“Are you really thinking about going to the Rockies?” she asked.

“You heard the Swamp Hog,” he said. “There're elephants in those mountains now.”

She laughed. “You're talking crazy like him,” she said.

“You'll see,” he said. “There'll be elephants in those mountains one day.”

And perhaps love too. Perhaps she would stay with him there, ignore the difference in their ages. He imagined riding an elephant with her through the streets of a little town, the animal's ponderous body swaying beneath them, the buildings strung with colored lights and everywhere soft music—guitars and flutes.

“I'll locate my mother,” he said. “Let her know where we are.”

“You can't locate her,” she said.

“I know it's going to be hard.”

“It's not that. She's dead.”

He stopped and looked at her. This was not something she would joke about.

“You can't know that,” he said. “Did Jesus tell you?”

She began to cry, and he immediately regretted he had spoken so harshly. He put his arms around her and told her he was sorry. She calmed down and wiped her face with her T-shirt.

“I saw her,” she said. “When I went to look in the other rooms in Mr. Parker's house. She was lying there with a dead man. He was dressed in camouflage. I guess he was one of her security guards. I recognized her from that picture I saw at your father's house.”

He sat down on the side of the road and she beside him.

“Why didn't you tell me?” he said.

“You had too much on your mind,” she said. “Too many things you had to do right so we could stay alive.”

“I could've buried her.”

“Somebody will.”

“Maybe.”

“Did you say any words over her?”

He was immediately sorry he had asked her the question. He hoped she would not start talking about Jesus.

“No.”

He considered what it would take to make the journey back to the house. It was not a journey he was seriously thinking of making. At least she would not become one of the nameless floating dead. She would be spared that. For some reason he thought of the wasps busy among the rotting fruit.

He sat there with her beside him, her arm about him, and wept softly. He had the sensation of vertigo as if he had slipped over a precipice and was falling to his death. He laid his head in her lap, and she stroked his hair.

“I wonder what she was doing there,” he said.

“Maybe looking for you,” she said.

He liked the idea of his mother looking for him. He wondered if his father would have believed that was her motive for being there.

“Anna just can't pay attention to anyone but herself,” his father had once said.

That was when she was talking about sending him away to school. But she could have changed, especially after having been separated from him for the summer, perhaps acting on some scrap of information her mercenaries had discovered about his location. He wondered why he did not hold his father's absence against him. After all, his mother had raised him. What was worse: her indifference or his absence? It was hard for him to decide.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

“About my parents.”

She paused as if she was having a hard time considering what to say.

“No telling what's up ahead,” she said.

“We can't go the other way,” he said.

He sat up and wiped his eyes. He imagined them walking along the road. He did not expect them to come out of that walk alive. To walk over the crest of a hill and see the red-haired man standing there would come almost as a relief. If that happened, he would not hesitate this time, would show no mercy. That they were free of the violent life they had experienced on the flooded land was not something he was ready to accept. But he said nothing of this to Angela.

Despite the death of his mother and father, despite the deaths of Mr. Parker and Holly and Fred, the prisoners, the towboat crew and all the unknown floating dead, he felt a sense of excitement. They were on high ground. The mountains lay to the west.

They took up their gear and started down the road. He slung the Saiga. As they crested ridge top after ridge top, they saw only more pines.

“I'm not stopping until I see an elephant,” Angela said.

Then she ran ahead of him, laughing, while he, the heavy shotgun banging against his back, ran after her.

SCOTT ELY received his MFA from the University of Arkansas and now teaches writing at Winthrop University in South Carolina. He has published five novels and four collections of short stories.
The Elephant Mountains
is his first novel for young adult readers. He lives in Rock Hill, South Carolina, with his wife, poet Susan Ludvigson, and several dogs.