Chapter Thirty-Eight - Lisa
We left in Cody’s truck, without saying much to Miss Josie. There was room for three of us in the cab, if we squeezed a little bit.
“How far is it to Possum Kingdom?” I asked when we stopped at the light in Avinger.
“About four hours or so. Not far past Fort Worth,” Cody said tightly. He was probably conflicted about having to visit the place, if I had to guess. Glad to strike a blow for justice, but dreading the memories he was sure to have to face. As far as I knew, he hadn’t been back there since he was six years old.
“I wonder why it’s called Possum Kingdom,” I said out loud.
“You got me, there,” Cody said.
“It’s because they used to trap possums out there in the canyons. For the fur, you know,” Marcus said.
“I didn’t know they ever made anything out of possum fur. Seems like it’d be all thin and stringy and gray and ugly,” I said.
“I don’t know about that part. Maybe it was for people who needed some cheap fur and they didn’t care if it was kinda ugly. I guess they could always dye it if they wanted to,” Marcus said.
“How do you know all that, anyway?” I asked.
“I remember reading about it somewhere,” he shrugged.
“You know, I thought about something just now,” I said, turning to Cody again.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“It said in that book that we have to make sure the Stone stays in the same place once we put it there. How can you make sure it’ll do that, at the bottom of a river? Won’t the current sweep it away?” I asked.
“Yeah, I already thought about that. We’ll have to stop and get some epoxy cement or something like that, and glue it into a hole in the rock,” he said.
We stopped at a hardware store in Mineral Wells to do that very thing, and bought two gallons of marine epoxy sealant and a small steel box to hold the crystal. Then, a little over thirty minutes later, we were there. Cody seemed ill at ease, and I could hardly blame him.
We approached the dam area slowly, passing by an ominous warning sign that told us the water was subject to sudden rise and we should wade or swim at our own risk. We parked near the picnic tables and got ready to begin.
The river was deserted; nothing unusual for a weekday in January, but that was all to the good. No snoopy eyes to see what we were up to. There was practically nothing but a trickle in the bottom of the stream bed, thin enough that we could have jumped across in places. That was because of the ongoing drought, which had shrunk the Brazos to almost nothing.
We all three climbed down the rocky bank onto the stream bed, glancing uneasily at the dam. The warning sign had said there would be a horn blast to warn people to get out, but we’d only have about two minutes before the water arrived. That’s precious little time. But the dam looked dry and tranquil, and there didn’t seem to be any immediate release planned.
“So where are we supposed to go?” Marcus asked.
“Downstream a little bit. As close as we can get to where she. . . “ Cody began, and then left it at that, waving vaguely downriver with his left arm. We headed that way, stumbling sometimes over the rough limestone boulders that filled the streambed. It hurt my leg now and then, but I was determined not to whine about it.
I had a gallon of epoxy to carry, and Marcus had the gallon of hardener. Cody had the crystal inside its metal casket, a hammer, a tube of super glue, a five-gallon plastic bucket, and a pack of sandpaper.
It seemed to take forever, but it couldn’t really have been very long before we arrived at a larger-than-normal boulder in a deeper-than-normal spot, and Cody stopped.
“This is the spot,” he said.
We gathered around the slab of limestone, which was full of pits and crevices, and Cody selected one of these which let him slip the box inside the rock almost elbow-deep. He opened the box and took the crystal out, lifted it up to the sky, and prayed silently. I was almost certain I saw his lips move in the shape of Layla Garza’s name, and then in a normal voice he spoke these words:
The Lord bless you and keep you,
The Lord make his face to shine upon you,
And be gracious unto you,
The Lord lift up his countenance unto you,
And give you peace.
Then he kissed the Guardian Stone and put it in the box we’d bought for it, and shut the lid before stuffing it as deep inside the crack as he could reach.
“All right, let’s seal it in,” he said. Marcus already had the lid of his jug open, and Cody took the other jar from me and pried it open with the claw of his hammer. Then he quickly poured both of them into the bucket and stirred them vigorously.
When they were thoroughly mixed, Cody poured the entire concoction into the hole till it was full to overflowing. Then there was a thirty minute wait for it to harden until he could use the sandpaper. The idea was to smooth and soften the edges of the epoxy to make it look more or less like any other part of the rock, just in case the water was ever low again and some nosy explorer got curious.
“Where’d you get those words you said?” I asked, and he shrugged.
“It’s the priestly blessing from Numbers. It’s what my Grandma Hannah said when she attached the Stone to me. I tried to do everything exactly the way she did,” he said.
“Do you think anybody’ll find the Stone?” I asked.
“I don’t see how they would. This place is almost always under water, unless it’s during a hundred-year drought like this. And even if it was exposed, I doubt anybody would take the trouble to bust up enough rock and putty to find it. It’s buried in there pretty deep. I just hope this works, and stops her from hurting anybody else,” he said.
There was no way I could reassure him about that part, of course, so I didn’t try. All I could do was squeeze his hand, and try not to notice the age in his eyes. After a while, the putty was hardened enough that he could start sanding it down. He did his best to make it even with the edge of the stone, to give the water as little of a crevice to work on as possible. We didn’t want it eroding away the stone and moving the box; at least not till Layla Garza had lived out her life and was gone. What might happen to the Stone after that was anybody’s guess.
He finished sanding and was ready to spread the superglue across the surface and coat it with dust to further camouflage it, and then we heard the sound we’d all been dreading ever since we first set foot on the riverbed. The horn at the dam sounded, faint and far behind us. Cody hurriedly finished spreading the glue with his fingers and threw sand on top, not caring if the job was perfect or if he got some on his hands. Marcus quickly started to pile the cans and trash into the bucket to take with us but Cody waved him down.
“Don’t worry about that! Just leave it here and the river’ll wash it away. Let’s go!” he cried. Marcus grabbed the bucket and threw it across the empty channel, where it hit a boulder and scattered trash everywhere. Then we ran.
There was no place close by where we could get out of the channel. When the water level was high, then no doubt the bank could have been reached by a swimmer. But as it was, there were steep limestone banks on both sides which were almost impossible to climb. We had no choice but to run downstream, hoping for a place where the slope of the bank was gentler.
We almost made it. Two minutes can seem like two years when you’re hobbling as fast as you can across loose rocks and boulders, praying to God you’ll outrun a flood which is hot on your heels. We almost made it to a place where the bank was low and shelving, but not quite, because the water caught us right before we got to the tree line. Seconds later, all three of us were slogging through ice-cold water which quickly rose over our heads and swept us into the woods. That slowed the current a bit, but in a way it was even more dangerous since there were more things to hit or get trapped in.
“Climb that tree!” Cody yelled, and then took his own advice. There was a
huge oak tree somewhat leaned over ahead of us, and when the water carried us beside it he grabbed hold of a low branch and pulled himself up. I was right behind him and he barely had time to turn around and grab my arm to help me up. Marcus managed it on his own, and together we climbed higher to be out of reach of the river. The water level was still rising fast and none of us knew when it might stop.
Finally we reached a point about twenty feet above the water, which was as far as we could climb. The trunk was broken off at that point, and the branches were too thin to hold us up. So there we sat amongst the leafless branches, huddled together and shivering in our soaked clothes but glad to be safe.
“Do you think it’ll make it this high?” I asked, through chattering teeth. If you want to know how I felt, imagine getting dunked in ice water and then going outside on a breezy winter day. Not fun at all. Cody can go swimming amongst the icebergs in Prudhoe Bay all he wants to, but I’m no Polar Bear, I promise you.
“I don’t think so. There’s the water line, over there on those bushes. I don’t think it’ll get this high. All we have to do is wait till they stop releasing water and then we can walk out,” Cody said. I hoped so; I’d never been so cold even in Alaska.
“How long do you think it’ll be?” Marcus asked.
“Who knows? Probably a few hours, at least. All we can do is wait,” Cody said.
So that’s what we did, and a miserable few hours it certainly was, too. The water stopped rising when it reached a point about three or four feet below the place where we sat. Too close for comfort, but not close enough to be dangerous. After a long, long time, I noticed the level was gradually dropping. It was almost like watching a loaf of bread bake in the oven; you couldn’t tell anything had changed unless you looked away for a while. But eventually it dropped to the point that it was no more than a sluggish flow.
“I think it’s probably safe to climb down now, if y’all don’t mind slogging through the water a little bit,” Cody finally said.
“Sure, let’s go,” I agreed immediately. I was ready to walk through ten rivers if it got me out of that dadgummed tree.
We carefully climbed down, and found that the water was still waist deep, and in some places more. We had to swim across a particularly deep backwater, but when all was said and done we reached the shore with nothing worse than a fresh freezing. We were on the wrong side of the river, but nobody felt like swimming again.
“We’ll have to walk down to the highway bridge and cross back over. It shouldn’t be that far,” Cody said.
It turned out to be less than half a mile, though that was far enough. The bridge itself was built of masonry arches, and I would have stopped to admire the prettiness of it if I hadn’t been so tired, and so cold, and if my feet hadn’t been so sore. My leg was hurting, too, but I hated to ask for help. We crossed the bridge, and then followed the road on the other side back up to where the truck was parked, just past the warning sign. I’ve never been so glad to see a heater in my life.
Cody didn’t say a word about getting the seats wet; all three of us climbed in and turned the heat up full blast, and by the time we got back to Mineral Wells all three of us were toasty warm again.
Nobody seemed to be in much of a mood to talk, and after a while I put my head down on Cody’s shoulder and closed my eyes. His clothes were still wet, but I didn’t care.
“Do y’all think we should stop and get some cheap dry clothes?” he asked presently, when he saw a dollar store up ahead.
“It’d be nice,” I admitted, and Marcus only shrugged. Cody pulled in to the parking lot, and soon enough we all had a cheap set of dry clothes, with the wet ones tossed in the truck bed. Cody covered the soaked seat with some bath towels, and after that I did fall asleep when we got back on the road. It had been a long day.