Isaac's Storm - Erik Larson [87]
Joseph: “Our little group now numbered five. We remained close together, climbing and crawling from one piece of wreckage to another, with each of the latter in turn sinking under our weight. At one time it seemed as though we were indeed lost. A weather-battered hulk that had once been a house came bearing down upon us, one side upreared at an angle of about forty-five degrees, at a height from six to eight feet higher than our drift. I was conscious of being direly frightened, but I retained sufficient presence of mind to leap as the monster reached us, and to get a grip with my hands on the highest edge of the wreck. My weight was enough to drag it perceptibly lower in the water, and I called my brother, who added his weight to my own.”
Isaac: “Sometimes the blows of debris were so strong that we would be knocked several feet into the surging waters, when we would fight our way back to the children and continue the struggle to survive.”
Joseph: “At one point, two other castaways, a man and a woman, joined us on the wreckage that, at that time, was serving us as a lifeboat. The strangers remained with us for some little time, until the man crawled up to where I sat, pulled the two children away, and tried to shelter himself behind my body. I pushed him indignantly away and drew the children back. He repeated the unspeakable performance. This time I drew out a knife that I carried, and threatened him with it.”
THEY DRIFTED FOR hours aboard a large raft of wreckage, first traveling well out to sea, then, when the wind shifted to come from the southeast and south, back into the city. For the first time they heard cries for help, these coming from a large two-story house directly in their path. Their raft bulldozed the house into the sea. The cries stopped.
A rocket of timber struck Isaac and knocked him down, but only dazed him. Joseph saw a small girl struggling in the sea and assumed that somehow Esther had fallen from Isaac’s grasp. He plucked her from the water and gathered her close to the other girls. Allie May, the eldest, cried out, “Papa! Papa! Uncle Joe is neglecting Rosemary and me for this strange child!”
Stunned, Joseph took a close look at the girl. It was not Esther at all. He looked over his shoulder and saw Isaac bent over his baby, shielding her from the flying debris. This girl was a stranger.
Their raft ran aground at 28th and Avenue P, four blocks from where they once had lived. They saw a house with a light in the window, and climbed inside. Safe—although one daughter had injuries that Joseph considered life-threatening.
A miracle had occurred, Isaac knew. Nothing else could explain why he and his three daughters were still alive. Yet the enormity of what he did lose now came home to him. His children wept for their mother, but soon, out of sheer exhaustion, they fell asleep. Isaac lay awake for a time, hoping his wife somehow had survived, but knowing heart-deep that she had not.
She had been very close, as it happens. Later it would seem to Isaac as if she had been watching over her family during the entire voyage, guiding them in their passage through the night until they were safely back home.
AND THERE WAS this: In the midst of the Clines’ voyage, a beautiful retriever climbed aboard their raft. It was Joseph’s dog. Somehow in the storm it had sensed them and swum after them. The dog was delighted to see Joseph and Isaac and the children, but sensed too that someone was missing. He went one by one to each of them, as if marking a checklist. One scent was absent. The dog raced to the edge of the raft and peered into the water. Joseph called him back. The dog stood scrabbling at the edge, obviously torn by conflicting needs. But it was clear where his passion lay. The dog ignored Joseph and prepared to jump. Joseph lunged for him, but the dog entered the sea, and soon he too was gone.
PART V
Strange News
TELEGRAM
Houston, Texas
11:25 P.M.
Sept. 9,