In The Falling Light Read Online Free PDF Page B

her
voice came back it was firm. “Go on, now.” Bailey nodded but stayed
put.
    “Once you’re set, you’re going to scooch
backwards all the way to the chimney, put your back hard against
it. You understand me?”
    Bailey nodded again, wiping a clump of hair
from her eyes. She was trembling. Dell wasn’t sure she would move
at first, thought she might freeze up, but then she started to her
feet. She held onto her brother as she edged past him, her sneakers
sliding over the wet shingles. Her legs were shaking and she began
to whimper, gripping Ricky’s shoulders hard while he in turn clung
to the roof.
    “Mama…”
    Her right foot shot away and she went down
with a scream, banging her chin, losing her grip on Ricky, and for
one terrible moment Dell saw her sliding, sliding, falling and
swept away. But one hand caught the roofline and the other snagged
on Ricky’s jeans.
    “Mama!”
    “Pull yourself up!”
    “I’m falling!”
    “You pull yourself up, Bailey McCall!”
    The girl’s sobs were torn away by the wind
as she obeyed her mother’s voice, clawing her way back to the
roofline and throwing a leg over, hugging her brother’s back and
burying her face in his wet shirt.
    “Now you get to scooching,” Arlene
commanded.
    Bailey shook her head, hiding her face.
    “Do it right now , girl!”
    She pulled her face out of hiding. “I hate
you!” she screamed, but did as she was told, easing her butt
backwards six inches at a time, holding the roofline with both
hands while Arlene cooed a steady stream of encouragement. “That’s
it, baby, you can do it, you’re doing fine, honey, keep going…”
Five endless minutes later she pressed her back against the bricks
of the chimney.
    “I’m sorry, Mama,” she cried, wiping at her
eyes.
    “It’s okay, baby, Mama knows. I’m so proud
of you.”
    Dell gave his daughter a smile, and she
managed a weak one in return. His wife’s voice cut through the wind
again. “Ricky, your turn, just like your sister.”
    The eleven-year-old needed no encouragement.
He scooted backwards with the fearless agility of boys and crossed
the distance in seconds, into Bailey’s waiting arms. Arlene was
murmuring to Dylan, keeping his face shielded from the biting rain
as the toddler shivered close against her and cried. Dell looked
away, at what had become of the world.
    The McCall ranch sat twelve miles outside
Leesville proper, the house and a cluster of outbuildings and trees
alone on the flats of Gonzales County, not another structure in
sight. It was sheep country, wide open and green, dotted in places
with clumps of Texas oaks. Now, however, they might as well have
been at sea, for eight feet of brown, turning water was moving
across the flats like an ocean in every direction, endless,
hammering at the gutters of their one story house. The white roof
of Arlene’s Durango could still be seen a quarter mile off as the
SUV was carried away, and the wheels of Dell’s Chevy poked just
above the surface where the overturned pickup had floated to rest
against the tree in what had been their front yard.
    The water around them was fast and
unforgiving.
    Just beyond the house were the rooftops of
the sheep shed and the second story of the barn. None of the
smaller buildings could be seen. They were already underwater.
    Arlene looked back into the wind and rain at
her husband. “Together?”
    He nodded, and they began to scoot forward
across the space separating them from their children, slowly,
carefully. Dylan was starting to squirm, and Arlene clamped him
tight against her while she used the other hand to stay balanced
and pull herself along. Dell kept close, prepared to grab them both
if she should tip over one side or the other, not thinking or
caring that he would most likely be pulled over with them if they
went.
    They stopped once, Dylan’s squalling
competing with the driving wind, and Arlene used both hands to rock
and soothe him. Then they were off again, the rough