A Rain Of Birds, Page 2

was thinking it.

  Augustus stared at the receding water. This was not the ocean. The Snake River did not have those kinds of currents. The Snake always ran the same way. Folks could count on the Snake River. It never did fool things like run backwards the way Gran said the Mississippi done once. The Snake ran high; the Snake ran low, but the Snake never ran backwards. Augustus watched until the water had run right off the rocks and back around the bend, leaving fish flopping on the exposed muddy bottom. Frogs and snakes and all manner of critters took off from the suddenly empty river. Augustus saw the old man grey beard stranded in a puddle, much too large to breathe in such a small body of water. The cat had gobbled the baloney and the hook was jammed through its gaping mouth. "I got you. Just you stay there. Here I come."

  May called out. "Augustus, don't you go down in there. Augustus, you come back here."

  But Augustus was already scrambling down the rocks and squishing through the mud to retrieve his prize. Of all the fish stranded in the muck, grey beard was the biggest, shiniest prize of all. Augustus put his hands on the massive fish, but couldn't hoist him. Never in all his years fishing for the old man, had Augustus ever realized the cat was nearly as large as him and twice as heavy. Grey beard had no intention of being taken and flashed about with his tail and tried to take off the hand of the grubby boy who was trying to dislodge the hook. Augustus heard a sound like slow rolling thunder or a mighty freight train. He spoke his first thought out loud. "Tornado!"

  May called out, "Run!"

  Augustus left cat and pole and tore for the rocks. He could feel the river bottom vibrating beneath his feet. The thick mud sucked at the soles of his feet, slowing him down. The roar was growing louder, louder than the blood in his own ears. He hit the rocks and began to clamber up. The slippery mud caused him to fall back twice but at last he hoisted himself up atop the very boulder he had been standing on in the first place. He dared a glance back and saw a mountain of brown water bearing down upon him. Caught up in the muddy tidal wave was every farm, homestead, and beast between the quarry and this spot of the river. A chicken squawked and laid an egg before disappearing into the rolling mud. A tractor was racing ahead of the glop, but it was soon swallowed up. Augustus ran for the trees and was up in the branches before the wave reached the bend in the river. "Come on, girl, give me your hand." He reached down for May.

  May let Augustus lift her up onto a branch, just as the water overtook their position. There at the top of the wave, paddling for all they were worth, was a boatful of those Army Corpsmen. May waved. "Hey ya fellas, what you got in the boat?"

  The Army fellas were right put out. But one of the young ones in the back shouted out above all the roar of the river and the animals and vehicles caught up in it, "We got dynamite here. We gotta keep it dry."

  Just then the wave reached its highest point and came crashing down, sending water out of the banks in every direction. The little boat with all the Army fellas struck a rock and tipped up on its bow. The young fella lost his grip on the box as he got dumped into the river. The box flew open and all the sticks of dynamite scattered about.

  Grey beard jumped high up in the water, delighted with his freedom and the return of the river. He tossed his mighty head, throwing the pole right, and then left. The pole struck one of the Army fellas on the head. The Army fella grabbed one of those dynamite sticks and took to striking that old man cat. Now grey beard did not take to being beaten up with a stick of dynamite and figured it was enough like a night crawler for him. He opened up that big old mouth and swallowed it whole, nearly taking the Army fella's hand along with it.

  Now as the Snake River flowed back into its proper shape and took up its own path again, houses, trees, and cars were deposited on the bank. And all around, flopping and gaping, were hundreds of fish. May smiled at Augustus. "See? I told you."

  Augustus jumped down from the branch and nearly forgot to be a gentleman. "Here, I guess I'm supposed to help you down and all. Now I suppose you’re gonna say you saw that was gonna happen?"

  May only smiled and put up her umbrella as soon as he set her back on the ground.

  "Now you don't still think it's gonna rain?" Augustus exclaimed. "After all this?"

  May said, "I saw it."

  Augustus grabbed up an armful of fish and only stopped when he could not hold another. "Durn! Wish I had me a bucket or something. What am I gonna carry these all home in?"

  May shrugged. "I'd hurry, if I was you. The rain is getting ready to start."

  "I done told you, it aint gonna rain. That weren't no thunder. It was dynamite. Them Army fellas blew up something they shouldn't ought to have. That's what done blew up the Snake. But it's right again now. So we ought to make the best of it."

  That's right when Augustus heard a squawking and a cackling like nothing he had ever heard before. The sun completely went out, light a bulb when the chain's been pulled. Augustus just had time to look up, when it seemed the whole sky was coming down. A dark cloud, so thick and black the sky could not be seen, all full of movement, was heading toward the ground. Augustus put his arms over his head and ducked as the first ugly black bird struck. It caught one fish in its beak and was up in the air with its trophy in a flash. Then another and another struck and took off again. The air was a flapping whirlwind more dangerous than any windstorm that ever swept through. Augustus felt he was being beaten up with a thousand little bats as their wings struck him again and again. He ducked and dodged and just made it to hide in the shadow of the elm where May was using her umbrella as a shield. They huddled together until the birds had plucked the fields clean.

  "Ah, there goes all that beautiful catfish. Me and Gran could've eaten for a month on that."

  "It hasn't rained yet." May reminded him.

  Augustus decided not to tell her anymore that it was not going to. Instead, he said, "Wonder what happened to them Army fellas?"

  The birds had almost all flown away with the fish, letting the sun shine down again. But in one area, a small cadre of squawking, angry, birds was squabbling among themselves. One huge bird with wings as wide as a lineman's arms rose up, surrounded by other, slightly smaller birds. Grasped between them was one enormous fish. Augustus could not believe it. "Old man grey beard! Them birds has got my fish. I'll be baked for dinner if I'll let them dirty birds steal my cat!" Augustus started forward.

  But May put a hand on his arm. "It hasn't rained yet, Augustus."

  Augustus thought for a minute. "You aint been wrong yet." A low rumble rolled across the sky. A strange glow was visible in the distance, like the sky was on fire and dropping its ash on the trees below. The birds that had been sitting in the trees and eating their bounty, began to hop about restless like. "Thunder?"

  May smiled, "Rain always follows."

  The strange cloud was moving towards them at a tremendous rate. It glittered. Lightning played all through it. It roiled and boiled and poured, inky, all across the sky. "That aint no normal cloud and I don't want no part of any rain that comes of it."

  May's smile grew. "You can share my umbrella."

  Augustus figured that was a good idea. They huddled under the umbrella and stared at the glomming gloom. Suddenly, a lightning bolt as bright as ten suns shot across the sky, right above their heads. May jumped and Augustus put his arm around her. "Don't you worry. I'm sure you would have seen if it was gonna get you."

  A second bolt snapped off a branch high up in a tree and started a small fire. All the birds, startled and confused, took to the sky. They flapped and spun as if drunk. The strange cloud stirred the winds round and round, confounding the dirty birds. Everything dumped by the river was blown around by the wind. Augustus and May clung to the elm tree and to the umbrella and to each other. The largest of the birds were pumping their wings furiously and just making progress out of the danger zone. The hot winds whipped through the trees and drove stinging ash and grit into their eyes and upbraided their skin. But it was gone nearly as quick as it came, leav
ing everything covered in a fine, sparkly, grit.

  "It's sort of pretty." May mused.

  "But it still aint rained." Augustus reminded her.

  A bird, choked with ash and exhausted from the winds, crashed to the ground. Startled, Augustus and May jumped back toward the safety of the elm's spreading branches. All around, the birds began to drop out of the sky. Black birds, brown birds, fat birds, small birds, birds of every size and color fell all around. May and Augustus could do nothing but huddle under their umbrella and watch the rain of birds.

  That is the exact second that a bolt of lightning, the biggest so far, zigged across the clearing sky and struck that big old dirty bird that had stolen the old man right on its behind. The bird let out one single squawk and blew up, sending dirty feathers all around. All the other birds holding onto grey beard let go of a moment, buffeting by the wind from the explosion. Down, down, fell the fish. Without thinking, Augustus put out his hands and caught the cat. The lightning bolt had gone right through the bird and struck the fish, setting off the dynamite and cooking it a perfect crispy on the outside and tender white on the inside.

  That night Augustus, Gran, and his new girlfriend May, enjoyed the best catfish they had ever eaten. And May and Augustus told me this story themselves on