Before the Great Burning, Solomon was a river guide.
Not just any river guide, either, he was the real deal if you wanted to meet the mighty Mississippi up close and personal. He knew every reptilian species that roamed its banks and swam its muddy waters, tenacious and intimidating with their impenetrable skin and thorn-like teeth.
But then the madness started, echoes of gunshots and bodies washing south from Memphis, tangling violently on the foundations of the old casinos, now leaning like skeletons into the middle of the river as she slowly washed them away. Columns of gray concreate and opened rooms first held the gamblers, then the looters, but stand empty now, its foundation too far gone to be anyone’s hideout.
Solomon glanced wearily toward the dark shoreline before pushing off, sure first that no shadows were changing. It was too close to the city for his comfort and those walls could be seen in the distance, right past the skeleton of the burned casino where folks once won real money. The paper stuff, though, not the stuff that meant anything.
The winds breathed their sighs of relief in that thick heat. For a moment, the cicadas stopped their trilling song, then back and forth they commenced, talking across the night, whirring like a spaceship.
The floods had left vast areas of the Mississippi Delta underwater, barely knee-high in some parts but a bit of land here or there to build a fire in the wet swamp. The alligators pushed upstream from sunken Florida and New Orleans, and joined their brothers and sisters already attracted to his spot, liking the way the cypress trees and moss made wet heat even wetter.
Kudzu overran the land as it reached right to the water’s edge, teasing Cyprus trees but mainly keeping its distance from the water. He passed other swamp-dwellers, nodding briefly with leathered skin like his, black and white alike, but no one stopped, just kept on the move and hunting. Back here, it didn’t matter what color your skin was, and that’s why boatmen came to risk the snakes of the swamps. The land was more frightening where color meant something, so much so that folks were killin’ each other over it.
Raising his spear, he pushed it into the brown waters and brought up an alligator gar, its macabre teeth gnashing wildly as it gasped for air. He watched it til it fought no more, then put it in the tub he’d brought for his catch. He turned then to go deeper into the thicket of it with a lantern lit, guiding deftly around the knobby Cypress knees, on a path that led him to his home. It was a little spot not flooded, and hidden deep between the cliff and the marsh, with a vast kudzu blanket above to keep out the weather and hide him.
The days bled into months and it could have been three. Maybe four, he lost track in the silence. In the heat of the burning sun, the mosquitos swarmed, but with enough mud on his skin, they didn’t bite. He’d discovered that trick long ago by happy accident, right when it was time to take to the river for safety.
The horned moon against muddy water lit up like a great god upon the wavering path and he was so mesmerized by it that he almost didn’t see the bent-over figure, standing by the water’s edge. His first inclination was to row the opposite direction, although the currents were pulling him closer to the shore.
Under the cover of darkness, he could barely make out the shape of a woman holding what looked to be a swaddled baby. Immediately, he let the currents have their way and pulled the oars in.
“Hello?”
His call echoed in the barren night but was returned with silence.
“Ma’am? I ain’t gonna hurt ya’”
She turned slightly as if to run, but stopped, and faced him again, as his boat hit the muddy banks, scratching of tree roots against the aluminum. Now he could see her face, taut as it was, and could see that she was indeed holding an infant, it’s small head visible over the top of the swaddle.
“Ma’am?”
“Can you take me across the river? I just need to get across.”
Her voice was quiet and fearful, dripping with sadness. He noticed the fresh blood around her ankle, still slick and oozing.
“I can. Name’s Solomon.”
He reached his arm to help her onto the boat.
“Amora. And this here’s Logan,” she said moving her bundled baby slightly to shift its weight. The baby must of have been sleeping, lying snuggled against his mother’s breast.
Amora. He wandered what it meant, and who named her, although names don’t mean nothing now. They stopped meaning anything after the Great Burning and it was just nameless faces avoiding each other unless they had business to attend.
He saw in the shadows that she was dark. Dark enough to risk him his life if last year they’d been in the same boat. But last year was gone, and they made quick work of it – the kids and the chaos in the streets. Before long, there was just burning.
It was no longer safe, black white or in between. When it all fell apart, and they began burning it all down, people’s animal nature returned.
In quickening strokes, he nudged the canoe on the bank, still mud-slicked from last night’s rain.
“You running from someone?”
“Yes.”
He wondered what brought her here, why she needed to cross, and what had happened to her inland. Right before he escaped to the swamp, he saw glimpses of the horrors to come. Hungry people doing anything for food, raiding homes, pulling up gardens, killing and taking whatever they wanted because there was no one to stop it. She has a child so there must have been a man, but he was nowhere around to protect her, and her fate was the choice between giving herself over to the traffickers or staying alone in the middle of chaos.
Solomon pushed the oars hard against the current to head toward the other side, while Amora stayed quiet.
“How old’s your baby?”
“I think around 2 months, lost track of time.”
Solomon nodded. “That’s easy to do nowadays. The little guy seems to sleep good, though.”
“Yes.”
When at last he’d fought the currents well enough to let them carry the boat toward the opposite shore, Solomon pulled in the oars and reached into his pack.
“You hungry? I’ve got some smoked fish here. It ain’t much, but, you’re welcome to have it. New Mommas need to keep up their strength.”
Amora grabbed the food from him and ate it, half-starved.
“How long has it been since you’ve eaten?” He knew the pangs of hunger.
“I don’t remember,” she said, shifting the sleeping baby now to lay on her lap.
The silence spilled across the night again, with only the sound of water lapping against the boat.
He hated the silence. He hadn’t seen another human in months and was relishing in the contact. Loneliness breeds insanity.
“So where are you and boy going when you get across?
Amora raised her eyes from the boat’s floor for the first time. They were blue crystals, shining in the half-moonlight.
“I don’t know.”
Solomon nodded. He’d heard the rumors that it was safer across the river but he’d never really checked it out for himself. He’d seen campfires along the riverbanks and knew that there must be others there. From what he’d seen in Memphis, he had no desire to leave the safety of the swamps.
“Do you want to hold him? You won’t wake him.”
Her question caught him by surprise. The last time Solomon held a baby was when his daughter was born. He shook the thought from his mind, though.
She was gone. They were all gone.
“Yes.”
Amora slowly shifted the child into his arms, carefully cradling the baby’s head with her muddy hand.
“Ah, let’s see here.” Solomon gently pulled the swaddling from around the baby’s face. For a moment, he held the child steady, knowing deeply what he dared not ever repeat.
“He’s….”
The man stopped, and cleared his throat.
“He’s beautiful…just like his momma’”
Her face softened its angles and her eyes filled with tears, as she violently pushed them away. “There was so much,” she murmured. “so much beauty and none of us saw any of it.”
He felt the weight of a dying world in her hands, rough but cradling the cold passenger.
In its nearness, the stench of rotting flesh filled his nostrils, and one by one he let in the symptoms of madness, mourning as much for her loss as for his. The brave, new world built around him as the old one drowned, its casinos and children rotting away until new waters can come.
“You’re nice. Men stopped being nice, once the lights went out.”
“Mama taught me so.”
“It’s hard, being a mama, preparing your kids for the darkness, telling them monsters aren’t real when they crawl through your windows at night, as real as it comes.
“Ain’t no monsters here,” he said.
“Ain’t no monsters here,” she repeated.
Mile-wide river. Water does not tear down a delta, instead, it builds it up.
But then the madness started, and the fires made it all ashes
And ever since, he’s been casually rowing a self-made dugout through the knotty knees of the swampland.
Water, in its ever-soft demands, builds as it destroys, sediment of ages pushed downstream on land that has known no blood.