fLoOd--Part Thirty-One

Just One of Those Things

tHiRtY-oNe

 Smith was sitting in the bottom of the boat with his brick cradled lovingly in his lap. His back was resting, not quite comfortably, against the edge of the seat he'd relinquished in trying to give the boy a little better covering. The boy was lying to his left cushioned on the Irishman. Smith reached out a hand and made sure the boy's blanket was tucked in on the sides. He was just drifting back into a state of semi-consciousness when a deep sound pulled him back into the here and now. He blinked his eyes a few times and when his vision became clear he found that the noise had aroused many of his fellow passengers from their private reveries. The anvil music had stopped and the musician, the man sitting not far from him in the bottom of the boat and Brown were all scanning the dark skies in search of the sound's source. The sound reverberated again and the man sitting nearby said with wonder, "It's a bell!" Smith turned around to find the man in the bow moving his head frantically, searching for the bell and trying to watch the speedy progress of the boat at the same time. The massive clouds seemed to be breaking up and dispersing and the full moon was emerging in all of its glory, now almost directly above them, giving a clarity to the scene which hitherto had been lacking. The bell tolled again. The man sitting nearby said "Three!" And the musician added a muted echo to the bell's call. The boy rolled himself off the Irishman with a muffled thump and then tried to sit up, entangled in the blanket. The Irishman mumbled, "Sunday best," moved onto his knees, made the sign of the cross and began whispering under his breath with his hands folded in front of him. The bell pealed. "Four." Musical echoes. And the boy, holding the blanket around his shoulders, leaned over the edge of the boat and dipped his other hand in the trail of foam as the boat dashed through the water. Smith, on turning his head, was rather amazed to see that the man holding the gun on him was maintaining his position on the seat with no apparent effort. As the scene brightened, the man looked more and more like a creation of stone or wood that was somehow fastened to the seat to keep it from falling off. Smith gingerly touched the man with one finger but as he did the bell tolled and he snatched his hand away. "Five." Echo. And the man in the bow jumped up off his knees and began howling. He held on to the boat hunched over and hopping from one foot to another, all the while keening an "owowow" on a high pitch. Smith wondered if something could be done for him. He looked at the others but the only one who responded was Brown who said, "Try hitting him with your brick." Smith looked at his brick, then back at Brown, and then at the man who was moaning. He merely clutched the precious item tighter and decided to ignore Brown. Bell. "Six." Echo. Smith wondered how long this could go on. The clouds were nearly all gone and in the light the boy shrugged off the blanket and put one leg over the side of the boat. He now had one foot in the water and was hanging on the sided of the boat as he sat astride it. Smith was expecting him to disappear in the spray at any moment. Bell. "Seven." Echo. The man sitting nearby, after the count, picked up the kite and, unfastening a shoelace from one of the shoes, attached the kite securely to the cane. He then passed the cane to Smith and gestured that he should give it to the boy. Smith shook his head, fearing for the boy's safety should he loosen one of his hands from its grip. Bell. "Eight." Echo. "Give it here," Brown said and practically snatched the strange amalgam from the man's hand. He moved along the seat to the space vacated by the Irishman and slammed the cane onto the boy's bare back.