The Not so Secret Agent Ch. 08

Chapter 8: Witches Don't Always Float

Arthur drove north on Highway 68 with both windows rolled down. The glue that he used on the ceiling panel came loose after only a week, so during the long drive home the tan fabric flapped vigorously against the top of his head. He smelled like Deep-Woods Off and sweat so even the hot humid fresh air was welcome. When Arthur was halfway home a NWS alert came over his radio; the mechanical voice warned that a funnel cloud was spotted five miles to the southwest and the town he was now entering was in the projected path.

St. James looked nearly empty though it was really loud with the tornado sirens activated. Arthur pulled off the road and parked by the gas pumps of a Shell station two miles south of I-44. Several people were taking cover inside; one frantic clerk opened the door when she saw him. "Hey!" she waved. "There's a damned tornado coming, get inside!"

"No thanks," Arthur stepped out of his old Dodge pickup and casually looked up at the darkening clouds. "Don't want to miss anything."

The woman made a disparaging remark about Arthur's head and Arthur walked to a traffic island where he had a good view. For a couple minutes nothing happened, except the sky took on a yellowish-green hue and the wind gusted.

Arthur turned to see a paper bag skid across the pavement and hit the front of the store. When he looked back up it was there. Clouds hundreds of feet across spun directly overhead. It was a beautiful bizarre thing: an inverted whirlpool of blue-gray swirls and wisps of delicate white clouds that orbited lower. The quickness of its appearance made Arthur wonder how fast these things can drop to the ground. Seconds later, sheets of heavy rain blew sideways into the parking lot; obscuring the view- the fascinating thing was gone.

The windy night had made Arthur daydream about that first experience with a tornado four years earlier. A warm humid southwest breeze had blown all throughout the night, by morning the wind blew at exactly the right speed to make the coils of razor wire vibrate in resonance. Arthur had been awake for several minutes when a young guard came to unchain him at five o'clock; the guard was probably four years younger than Arthur, but he had the uniform and the power. Having to kneel down to every nineteen-year old guard was just one of many indignities he had come to expect during his stay at the camp. The Major had apparently instructed her guards to watch him for insolent behavior. Kneeling wrong, standing wrong, and many other ridiculous reasons were used to justify a slap, a kick, or a few strikes of the switch.

"Get up on your knees criminal # 88588." Arthur did as he was told so the guard could unlock the chain from a convenient height.

The guard retrieved his key ring but he wanted to have some fun first. He grabbed a piece of chain half a meter from Arthur's neck and yanked forward. Arthur caught himself and got back into position just in time to be slapped across the face. It wasn't a very hard blow; the guard just wanted to humiliate the American criminal not make his own hand sting.

"Stupid dishonored criminal; are you trying to disrespect me?" The guard showed the back of his hand, threatening to strike again.

"No sir." Arthur knew that if he just stayed calm the guard would quickly grow bored with him; he was only pretending to be angry. Arthur waited obediently on his knees while the guard unlocked the chain.

"Good," the guard said. "A dishonored criminal like you has to learn his place. Go join your work crew."

By the time breakfast was over the rumble of thunder was constant to the west. The criminal work crews lined up near the gatehouse, but the guards made no move to chain them together or send them off to work. The winds died down as the storm approached and the light permeating the thick clouds overhead changed noticeably to a peculiar yellowish hue. From what Arthur had seen Danubia's weather was kind of dull compared to the central US, but this morning with the high humidity and warm air, conditions looked favorable for a storm. The guards nervously watched as the sky darkened. The work crews were sent back to their barracks after a close lightning strike.

The Danubian criminals gathered in several groups and Arthur stood alone by a window. They had been unfriendly even before the restrictions, perhaps they didn't like foreigners, or it could be something to do with his crime, though, Arthur thought, all of them must have also committed crimes. If he was unpopular before the restrictions, now he was radioactive, the other criminals didn't even look at him anymore.

A powerful gust slammed the front door shut, something landed on the roof with a bang, and the power to the barrack's two dangling light bulbs went out. Arthur observed the storm from the window by his cot. The town's storm drains and culverts were clearly overwhelmed by the heavy rainfall; the central street became a small river that carried trashcans, boxes, crates and all the other flotsam of the town's existence down slope to the east.

Another storm followed the first, with less wind but plenty of lightning strikes and torrential rain. The stream running down the central avenue covered the train tracks and lapped at the sidewalk. Townspeople worked in the pouring rain to keep floodwaters out of their stores; they stacked rows of sandbags a meter high against the storefronts.

Arthur was not the least bit sympathetic, though he tried to not let any of the Danubian criminals see him smile. When a guard slipped and comically tumbled down the stream with the other debris, he couldn't help but chuckle. "The Destroyer must be pretty pissed off today." Arthur remarked in English. There was a commotion near the back door as a rivulet of muddy water meandered across the barrack's concrete floor. What the Danubian criminals were so upset about was a mystery, Arthur certainly didn't care if the canvas cot that he wasn't allowed to sleep on anyway got wet or if his buckets floated around a bit.

A third hour of heavy rains fell. The storms were proving disastrous for Novo Sumi Ris but for Criminal # 88588 the flood was an interesting and deeply satisfying event. Floodwaters overtopped the sandbags and inundated the stores along the central street as the shop owners' feeble attempts to stop nature's power failed. Those townspeople who had stared at him and enjoyed his pain and humiliation during that long march back through town following the switchings; those people, Arthur coldly observed, were now having their own desperate struggles.

He stood in knee-deep water by the window and watched large pieces of lumber from broken up houses float up against the perimeter fence; in the distance a motorboat struggled upstream toward a flooded house. The rain slacked up just enough to see the attempted rescue a couple hundred meters up the main road. An old woman waved for help from the attic window of a small yellow house, her porch and most of the first floor was now underwater. "You're not looking so proud now, are you granny?" Arthur spoke in her general direction, while reveling in the chaos outside.

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Late that afternoon a miserable guard waded into the barracks and announced the news that the levies east of town were in danger of collapse. All the criminal work crews mobilized in a desperate effort to shore up the levy system. Over two hundred criminals gathered near the gatehouse to put on their boots and gloves; Arthur reached underwater and tightened up his boots' laces, wrapping them around his ankle twice and tying a firm knot. Though he wasn't the least bit interested in helping the townspeople who regarded him as little more than a slave, Arthur was eager to see the stream at its flooded best.

The warden stepped out on his porch and gave a speech that epitomized leadership: he would coordinate efforts from his office while his subordinates would go out in the storm and take charge of individual work crews.

The Ministry of Public Works had several four-wheel drive trucks that were kept at a garage set on higher ground. The guards loaded truckload after truckload of criminals into the beds and drove off toward the worksites spaced along the threatened levies. Arthur and fifteen other criminals loaded up and were driven along a rough dirt road that paralleled the stream. The truck stopped on a curve in the road about five meters above the flood-waters and one of the foremen that Arthur recognized stepped out of the passenger side and took charge.

The earthen levy was pathetically small compared to the raging stream it was expected to contain, three meters of unconsolidated sediment high and six wide. A fresh bundle of sand bags lay in the mud and the foreman was impatient to get them filled.

Arthur and the other fifteen criminals filled and stacked sandbags on top of a section of levy for the rest of the day and into the night. The rain slowed occasionally but it never stopped.

Arthur heaved another sand bag on his sore shoulder and waded toward the embankment. The foreman's hoarse voice demanded that he move faster. Arthur didn't speed up; like everyone else, he was simply too exhausted. The effort seemed futile anyway. Even after hours of work the floodwater lapped at the levy's top and multiple channels eroded though. The foreman would never admit it, but it was over, the whole section was about to breach. Arthur crawled up the levy's north slope and threw his sandbag on top of the pile; then he waded back through waist-deep water to repeat the same futile action. Looking around, he wondered how many of the Danubian criminals could swim.

Headlights illuminated torrential rain as Arthur heaved another soggy bag on his shoulder. The vehicle approached quickly; too quickly to make the curve on a flooded dirt road. Arthur dropped the bag and stepped to the side as one of the guard's off-road trucks slid off the road and made an impressive splash in the backed up waters behind the levy. The engine died when the water was up past the headlights.

An argument was already taking place as the driver's door sloshed open; the irate female voice coming from the passenger seat was one Arthur recognized instantly. He found the discarded sandbag in the muddy water and turned toward levy quickly.

"You... Criminal # 88588. Come here, now!" Major Drazetka threw the passenger door open and shined a flashlight in Arthur's eyes. She stepped out into water above her knees and grasped the bed to pull herself up to the muddy but still un-flooded ground. With a furious scowl on her face she pointed to the ground. Arthur realized with some disbelief that she was actually going to make him kneel down to her in the mud during a thunderstorm. He lowered the sandbag to the ground and reluctantly got into position in front of the Major, then a foot on the back of his head pressed his face further into the soft mud.

"When a guard gives you an order you will comply without hesitation!" She shouted. "Is that clear criminal # 88588?"

Arthur struggled to speak with his face half submerged. "Yes officer."

She pushed off with her foot and moved to his side. "You will obey! Do you think you can disrespect me because you're an American?" Arthur felt the impact of her switch several times across his buttocks and thighs, and then the Major rapidly laid down three burning stripes across his left side. There was no aiming or control to the beating, the Major was simply furious and taking her frustrations out on an unlucky target. "Disobedience will gain you nothing but pain! You and those American girls are property." Arthur felt four more wild strikes across his ribs and then she paused, breathing heavy. "You are nothing but a dishonored criminal, do you understand me?" She punctuated the last word with another swing of the switch. "Answer me!"

Arthur struggled to take a breath and answer the guard. "Yes... officer."

"Stay in position and wait, I had better not see you move!" Major Drazetka walked back toward the stranded truck and shouted a series of insults at her hapless driver.

The Major left her underling with the stranded vehicle while she dealt with the matter of the cargo. They were delivering bundles of empty sandbags to a crew working further down the creek, and with the truck sidelined she decided that a criminal could be put to use. With a flashlight in her right hand, Major Drazetka ordered Arthur to unload one of the twenty-kilogram bundles. After minutes spent kneeling he finally was able to stand again, he wiped the mud away from his eyes and then got the bundle of sandbags balanced on a shoulder.

The primitive dirt road that paralleled the stream ran precariously close to the bank, so Arthur had to be careful moving as fast as the Major demanded. She focused her flashlight mostly in front of her own feet; Arthur relied on the frequent flashes of lightning to find his way down the road. After a few minutes he shifted the load to his right shoulder, paused briefly and then continued forward but instead of stepping on the road his foot went into an unseen gully. He stumbled forward and the bundle slipped from his arms and rolled toward the bank.

Major Drazetka's flashlight beam found him almost immediately. The sounds of the storm obscured her shouted words but from the way she reached toward her belt her intentions were clear. Arthur scrambled in the direction that the package had tumbled. The Major ripped the switch out of her belt and charged forward, she was so furious that she didn't even bother to point her flashlight toward the ground. Lightning struck a tree just across the creek, Arthur looked back again, and the Major was gone. A beam of light shined up from the flooded stream. Arthur looked over the edge. "That bitch stepped off the fucking bank." The euphoria was brief. "Oh shit, no witnesses! If she drowns they'll think I killed her!"

Grappling muddy tree roots and brambles Arthur lowered himself three meters down to where the flashlight fell. He dropped with a splash onto a submerged rock ledge in knee-deep swift water and tugged the flashlight from a tangle of roots. Arthur searched the water downstream; twenty meters away there was a large willow hanging over on its side in the swift current, and in the middle of the tangled mass of half submerged branches an arm moved and a face was visible in the churning water. The tree twisted and surged in the swift current; the Major's head was sometimes above and sometimes below water level as her body moved with the tree limbs that trapped her.

Arthur realized there wasn't much time to make a rescue attempt. He jumped in and let the current carry him downstream toward the tree's thick roots that clung like gnarled fingers on to the vertical bank. The tree shuddered and jerked underfoot as Arthur climbed out on two of the willow's many trunks, four meters from the bank he got to where the Major was trapped. She was moving but the surge of the current kept her head underwater for several seconds at a time. Arthur put a foot on each of the larger trunks and reached down and grasped her arm; he pulled with all his strength but the force of the current was too much. Arthur realized that since most of her body was swept underneath the main mass of the tree there was no way he could pull her up. A decision had to be made. If she couldn't go up, Arthur reasoned, she would have to go down. The water looked fairly deep below the willow, and if the tree limbs weren't too crowded, a person might be able to pass underneath. However, if it was choked with submerged limbs the Major would drown, but Arthur was willing to take that risk.

Major Drazetka stubbornly held on to the tangle of tree limbs and wouldn't let go. Arthur attempted to pry her hands loose one at a time but with the limbs twisting, the water surging and the major struggling to drown him too he found it was hopeless. Then he had an idea, one of the larger trunks was about a meter and a half above where the major was stuck.

Unencumbered by any knowledge of standard water rescue techniques Arthur climbed up the trunk above the major, got to his feet and waited for the tree to surge upward again. As soon as the major's head resurfaced Arthur jumped and landed both feet on her shoulders, with the full force of his weight hitting her at once she plunged down under the water and was swept beneath the tree. Arthur climbed back on top and retrieved the flashlight. He was eager to see if he had just committed a rescue or a homicide; five meters away an arm surfaced. He dove in, grabbed hold of her and swam.

Fifty meters downstream Arthur managed to drag her into a side channel where the water was backed up and not so swift, he pushed her body on top of some tree roots and then he heard her cough. Rescue it was. Arthur hauled himself up through the vines and brambles that covered the steep bank, and then reached back and dragged the groaning, coughing Major behind him. They moved inches at a time until the slope lessened and Arthur was able to stand and grapple the Major over his shoulders and then carry her out near the road. Just as he reached the road, Arthur's foot slipped in the mud and they collapsed in a heap.

The flashlight was lost somewhere in the flooded stream but frequent lightning lit the scene well enough. Major Drazetka had half her shirt ripped off, her hat and left shoe were missing, and like Arthur she was coated in the sticky red clay from being dragged up the bank. She had some obvious injuries. There were several bleeding cuts and scrapes across her face and arms and the major clutched her shoulder and chest near the collarbone. He wondered if she knew how she got that particular injury. After a minute's rest Arthur got to his feet and looked down at the disheveled major who lay there in the mud retching, groaning, and coughing up water. "That's odd," he said in English. "I thought witches floated."

Minutes passed before the major recovered enough to struggle to her knees. Arthur thought this was his chance to gain something from the whole misadventure. He organized what he wanted to say in his mind and then, in his still rough Danubian he slowly and clearly addressed the guard.

"Major Drazetka, it must be an embarrassment to be rescued by a dishonored criminal. What will the other guards think? You walk right off the bank because you weren't paying attention, then you panicked and got trapped in tree limbs." Arthur tried mightily to water down the sarcastic tone. "Now you owe your life to me. But no one has to find out, do they? We could make a deal."

Major Drazetka spit out some of the blood that had collected from her torn upper lip and spoke in a hoarse voice: "And what would you want?"

"Drop the restrictions on me and the two American girls. Make sure we're treated like everyone else."

"A dishonored animal forcing me to... Aaghh" She was in obvious pain as she turned toward Arthur. "I should kill you for trying to manipulate me!" She struggled into a standing position, then gave Arthur a look of pure malice and spit out more blood at his feet. "Very well, spy. You have your deal and you had better keep it." She had another fierce bout of coughing while clasping her injured shoulder and chest. "If... If anyone ever hears of this I will bring that confession of yours before a judge and make you pay!"

Arthur felt a thrill, he had won; he forced the major to do what he wanted. It was also a relief; he wasn't sure what he was going to do if she had refused. Throw her back in? It would have been tempting. As it was, Arthur was content to watch Major Drazetka struggle along the muddy road; he followed a couple paces behind.

She wasn't doing so well; the major gasped with every step, limping as sharp gravels pressed the bottom of her bare left foot. A couple times she slipped and fell. It must have been agonizing as broken bones moved from the impact. She would stay on the ground a while, almost silent but Arthur could hear her quick breaths, hear the haughty major groan and cry from the pain. She never asked and Arthur never offered to help, instead he stayed back and watched her struggle, enjoying every minute.