It rained all day, never a lashing, harsh rain, but a steady rain that filled every bucket and tub and sinkhole. The yard looked like a garden growing necks and blossoms of splash. The road looked like a creek, and the creek was running wild and red and wide as a river. Floodwater appears angry because it's dirty and goes where you don't expect to see water. All the ice on the mountain had melted far up as I could see. "The barn is leaking," Hank said when he come in from milking.

"No wonder," I said.

And when I started to make supper, lighting a fire in the stove and grinding up some of the chestnuts by gathered by Hank and Carolyn to make chestnut bread, I heard a plop in the corner of the kitchen. I took the lamp and looked and seen a puddle on the floor. I raised the lamp and seen a nipple of water stretching from a wet spot on the ceiling. Wasn't nothing to do but put a dishpan under the drip and mop up the mess on the floor. Before I got the chestnut bread mixed and in the oven, I heard another drip and got a bucket and put under that. And while I was getting the bread and grits and applesauce and sidemeat on the table, I seen the wet streaks coming down the wall behind the stove. It was leaking around the flue. It looked like the whole house was going to melt.

"Not supposed to come a flood on Christmas," Hank said when we set down to eat. "Nobody ever heard of a flood on Christmas."

"That's because we've always lived on mountaintops before," I said. And even as I said it I thought how narrow the Gap Creek valley was and how steep the ridges on both sides. We was below all the water that was falling on the mountains. All the rain on the mountains had to gather down into the slender valley.


"It just means we never had to worry about floods because we lived on the ridge," I said.

I don't reckon Hank had thought about floods in Gap Creek until then. We had moved there in early fall when it was dry. The little creek had behaved itself, staying in the bed of rocks that run like rough cobblestones between the fields and woods, twisty as a playful kitten. I could see by the look on his face how he thought for the first time of the narrowness of the valley and how close the house was to the creek.

"We are a good ways back from the creek," I said.

"Not far enough," Hank said.

I had hoped we would be feeling some Christmas cheer, but instead a wet, gray gloom had descended over us.

"If the creek rises we could climb up the mountain tomorrow and visit Mama and my sisters," I said.

"If the creek rises we won't be able to get out of the house without a boat," Hank said. He said it like he was talking about the end of the world. He said it like Ma Richards would have said it, like there was no hope anywhere.

"This house has been here a long time," I said. "It must have seen a lot of floods and not washed away yet."

But Hank didn't answer. He buried his face between his hands.

"Do you think we might ought to go on up the mountain tonight?" I said.

"We can't leave the horse and cow here," Hank said.

"We can take the horse," I said. "And we can leave the cow if we have to."

"I don't think anything but a fish could travel in this rain," Hank said.

When I went out to the back porch to get water to wash the dishes, it was raining hard as ever. In the dark you couldn't see nothing but lamplight shining on falling drops. It was like the air was sheets and curtains of falling water. Rain was coming down in ropes and clots and tattered rags of water. It felt like the sky was falling and the weight of the rain was pushing everything down to the ground, down the hill, down the valley.

After I finished the dishes and went to set in the living room, we listened to the rain drumming on the roof. The rain was harder and faster now. It sounded like an army marching over our heads, and it sounded like millstones rubbing each other. I heard a drip and seen water splash right on the hearth. It was leaking around the chimney. Hank got the ash bucket to put under the drip. "This house is going to fall apart like cardboard," he said.

"It is not," I said, trying to sound like the rain was a little thing. But looking out from the back porch into the steady rain had unnerved me too. In the dark it was like some force was coming out of the sky to drown us in the mud and flood. Whoever thought of an evil force coming from the sky? But it was like the air was threatening to smother us and crush us.

To work against the gloom I got up and lit the candle on top of the Christmas tree. The tree stood in the corner pointing up toward where all the rain was coming from. I thought of a description I had heard of the host of fallen angels being throwed out of heaven. The air was full of black angels falling in the dark, thick as snowflakes. Crowflakes, I thought. But the lighted candle pointed upward.

"We ought to sing some Christmas carols," I said. I thought if we sung it would make us feel better. Hank always loved to sing. It would make me feel better to hear his fine baritone voice.

"I can't remember any Christmas carols," Hank said.

"I don't believe that," I said. "You know all the Christmas carols." I started humming "Silent Night" and then begun singing it. But Hank didn't join in. I sung the first verse and stopped.

"We should have an organ," I said.

"We couldn't even afford a mouth harp," Hank said.

"I wish you had kept your banjo," I said.

"Ma made me give it up when I got saved," Hank said.

"You'll have to get another one," I said.

Hank looked toward the front door and fear come on his face.

"What is it?" I said.

He pointed to the door and I seen a tongue of black water reaching over the threshold. It was the shape of a bib spreading on the floor.

"It's just water from the porch," I said.

"That is the creek coming into the house," Hank said.

"Put something under the door," I said. I run to get an old blanket from the bedroom and stuffed it along the bottom of the door, the way you would stop a draft. Water soaked through the blanket quick.

"Won't do no good," Hank said.

"What will?" I said. We couldn't open the door, for that would only let in more rain. Rain must be blowing right across the porch, I thought. But all I heard was steady rain on the roof.

"Nothing," Hank said. I looked at him, and listened. And then I heard the lips sound, the kissing sound and sucking that rising water makes when it touches a building or rock wall.

"You mean that's creek water?" I said. Gap Creek had rose out of its banks and crossed the road. In the dark it had reached into the yard and licked against the porch, then swirled up onto the boards of the porch and was now pouring under the door. Hank looked so worried I felt sorry for him. I tried to think of something to stop the water from coming into the house. I grabbed a lamp and run to look at the back door, for I thought it was lower than the front. But I had only took one step into the kitchen when my foot hit something thick. There was splash and I seen water already standing on the kitchen floor.

I lowered the lamp to look at the water and seen pieces of kindling floating around under the table. And there was cans and bottles floating, and a cardboard box with some pinecones. Even as I looked I could see the water rising, washing in little tides across my feet. I turned to run back to the living room where Hank stood by the fireplace, leaning against the mantel.

"There's water already in the kitchen," I said.

"It'll put out the fire in a minute," he hollered.

Sure enough, water seeping under the front door had spread across the living room to the hearth. When it rose another inch it would be in the fireplace and the fire would go out in smoke and steam. I tried to think of some way to protect the fire, to build a wall around the hearth. There wasn't no way.

© 2000 Robert Morgan