FICTION

The Waters of Tribulation

by Richard A. Infante

PART II

In the first part of the story, published in the last issue of The Catholic Faith, Elmer, a seminarian, was deeply concerned about his sister. Abandoned by her husband, she is shouldering the burden of bringing up her two children alone. Elmer confided his problems to two of his friends at the seminary-John and Phil.

Ping-ping. The rain tapped on Elmer's window. Ping. He bolted upright out of bed and stared into the blackness of his unlit seminary room. He was coming out of a terrifying nightmare into a dreamy consciousness of dread and fear. He woke up gasping for air. He knew something was wrong, desperately wrong, but he could not gather his thoughts; his heart pounded in his deep chest. He felt a raw ache in his body that augured trouble. It was the same feeling he had that night his father died and he had driven two dreadful hours through the winter's cold only to get to the hospital too late to say good-bye. He shuffled to the window of his third-floor room and peered out into the watery blackness of the April night.

"Noel," he whispered against the relentless rain. "Oh, God, help her and the kids." He glanced at his digital clock, the numbers glowing green and menacing in the dark: 2:33 AM.

He turned on the desk light and quickly dialed his sister's phone number-nothing: her line was dead.

He dressed in a frenzy, banging drawers and throwing hangers around the room. He grabbed his coat and keys and hurried out the door. Halfway down the hall, he stopped at his friend's door and knocked on it several times.

"Who is it?" John's thick, angry voice barked at the door.

"John, I need help-please," Elmer pleaded. "Get Phil, hurry-it's Noel and the kids-I think the Patch is flooded out, please! I'll meet you at my car." John got out of bed but his head was slow and heavy from the beers. He went out into the dark hall but Elmer was already bounding down the stairs.

Outside, Elmer frantically rummaged through his trunk driven by that confusion of fraternal and paternal care that always welled up in him in regards to his little sister: flashlights, blankets -"No rope," he muttered under the shower of rain clanging on the car roofs.

"I got rope," John said as he came up beside him.

"Get it, please, John," Elmer said.

"What's going on?" Phil said as he joined his friends, his jacket yanked over his dull, aching head in a futile attempt to keep it dry.

"Elmer's worried about his sister and her kids down the Patch. He thinks they might be flooded out," John said. John continued to search in the back of his Jeep until he found the ropes he used for caving. "Got 'em, Elm, c'mon. We'll take the Jeep in case the road's washed out."

Elmer grabbed his flashlight and handed the blankets to Phil. As they pulled out of the seminary parking lot into the hostile night, Phil looked back at Leander Hall and saw a few lights flick on as they sped away. The floodlights of John's Jeep pushed some brightness through the thick shower of rain pounding off the road before them.

Elmer sat in the front seat, hunched over, muttering his dread: "Her phone's dead-please, no."

John put the radio on the weatherband station. Almost immediately, the voice confirmed their worst fears: ". . . hazardous flooding in many streams and rivers in Allegheny, Westmoreland, Washington, Greene and Fayette counties . . ." followed by the accompanying list of flooded streams which included the Patch Creek.

"Jesus, no, please," Elmer prayed under his breath.

"Maybe they've already been taken out," Phil said.

And for a moment, Elmer's broad face lit up with the possibility of a rescue that he had not foreseen. "Maybe."

"Hold on!" John slammed on the brakes but the Jeep splashed and slid in the muddy waters washing up over the swollen stream and across the road. By the time they stopped sliding, water covered half-way up the tires.

"We can't go any farther," John said with an exhalation of his tensed breath.

"There's another way into the Patch," Elmer said. "Past the old Tyler Hotel and down Crawford Road."

"You mean where that old stone tunnel is?" John said.

"Yeah, that's it," Elmer said. "C'mon, let's go."

John sent the Jeep splashing through the foot-high waters and back onto the main highway. They drove for a few minutes more in the torrent but to Elmer it seemed like hours. A silence settled on the young men as they began to realize what they were facing. The rain drummed mercilessly on the car.

"I hope the tunnel's not flooded," Phil said and then wished he hadn't, almost as if saying it might make it more likely.

"Slow down around the bend up here," Elmer said to John. "Park it on the rise."

The three of them jumped out of the Jeep with thick swirls of rope, blankets wrapped in plastic, and a couple flashlights and splashed down the road toward the tunnel. When they got close enough, Elmer gasped in horror. "God, no!" The black, swirling waters seemed to fill the mouth of the tunnel. The three of them stopped dead in the cold, rushing waters, ankle deep where they stood.

"We can't climb over it; it's too slick, too steep," John yelled against the raging rain and waters. For a moment, they stood silent and defeated, the threatening waters swirling all around them and encroaching on the frail, barren trees.

"Look again," Phil shouted as he squinted through the blur of rain and water, shadow and stone. "The water's only half-way up."

"We can make it," John said.

"There's a railing along the one side and the walkway's raised a foot or so above the road level," Elmer said with determination. "C'mon."

The three men splashed across the road to the hillside and used the thin trees along the shoulder to steady their steps through the cold creek waters.

"How long is it, Elm?" John asked and tied the rope around his waist.

"About fifty or sixty feet. It curves in the middle there," Elmer said. "That's the lowpoint, too. Be careful, John."

"Phil, tie this around the pole there and wait here until I come back," John said. "Gimme ten minutes."

With some deep, rapid breaths, John descended into the swirling, lightless cavern and in a few moments was belly deep in the watery chaos. He held the railing with both hands and labored with each step against the flooding current. A length of rope slipped from his shoulder with each unsteady step.

"Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner," he muttered. His prayer sounded small in the dark din of the turbulent tunnel. The rushing water was rising. He could barely hear Elmer's faint voice calling out his name with encouragement. The black water was at his shoulders when he reached the low bend in the tunnel; his breaths came quick and hard. He had to go under. He had been in dozens of watery caves before but they were shallow and he never had to go under and hope to come up on the other side.

"Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner," he prayed to choke down his terror. He drew one, last, deep breath, closed his eyes, and he was under, holding onto the rickity iron railing for all his worth. He could feel the strong current push at his legs so he crouched along the railing and pulled his way deeper into the abyss. He fought back the panic of death in that watery tomb and scrambled with all his strength along the railing. He tried to keep count of the seconds. "Our Father, who art in Heaven," he thought. "Help me."

After a few more seconds, he raised himself carefully and reached his hand up through the waters. Then the torturous moments were over and his head bobbed up above the swirling water line. He gulped the air. "Thank you," he said with his head and shoulders above the stream.

John continued to struggle against the tugging current until, at last, he was on the other side and the water was around his knees. He untied the rope from his waist, stretched and knotted it around the heavy iron post at the end of the railing. He stopped to catch his breath momentarily; he had to go back to get Elmer and Phil. He thought of the desperate young woman he saw on the porch yesterday and her children at the mercy of the flooded stream and, in a moment, descended back into the furious maelstrom.

When he came up again out of the lowpoint in the tunnel, John thought he heard Elmer's voice calling out his name, but the rush of water spilling through the tunnel drowned out any clear sounds. He clenched his hands on the railing and in a few moments he was clear to the chest and could hear his friends' voices echoing his name into the tunnel. He called back excitedly: "It's okay-we can make it! We can make it, Elmer!"

Elmer's strong hand reached out for John and pulled him the last few steps out of the tunnel.

"You okay?" Phil asked him.

"Yeah," John sucked the wet air down as quickly as he could.

"You have to go under-you got to crouch down-pull yourself along," John said between breaths. "You got to hold on tight-the current's pretty strong-cold, too."

"C'mon, let's go," Elmer said.

"Just a minute," John said. "It's not too high on the other side, maybe two, three feet. They should be okay in the house, Elm. Phil, tighten the line around the pole and fix the flashlight to your belt."

They waited a few minutes in the rain and flood waters until John was ready.

"Okay, let's go," John said with a nod. "Hold onto the railing and use the rope to steady yourself. Leave the blankets."

Without another word, the three of them entered the swirling black hole, staying close. When they got to the low point at the middle of the curved tunnel, the water splashed at their necks.

"It took me about twenty seconds to crawl along here under water," John explained. "Elmer, count a minute, fill your lungs, and c'mon through-we don't want to get caught down there together."

With a deep breath, John went under and disappeared in the murky blackness. Elmer counted to sixty, said a short prayer, and he was under, too. Phil hesitated a moment, distracted by some florescent graffiti scrawled on the tunnel wall in a kind of jagged, gang hieroglyphics. Under the dull beam of his flashlight, the only cryptic shapes or words he could recognize was something that looked like a bird pierced through by a sword or cross. Then he gulped air and followed his friends.

On the other side, John found Elmer's hand reaching up out of the current and he pulled him free. In another minute, the two of them were helping Phil up and out of the deeper water. He came up coughing. Then, the three of them worked their way along the rope and railing to the mouth of the tunnel where the water splashed at their thighs. Stopping to catch their breath and to survey the Patch in front of them, they were exhilarated with the possibilities of life.

"C'mon," Elmer said. "They're just over there a ways."

"Secure your line around that pole, Phil, and we can use it to get back," John said. "Watch your step as we make our way across-there's a lot of stuff floating in that mess."

Elmer took the secured rope from Phil, threw it on his shoulder and sloshed across the flooded Patch like some water buffalo on a charge. John and Phil were right behind him fording the flooded stream. A large tree limb bobbed menacingly by them in the black rushing water.

"No-el! No-el!" Elmer yelled into the rainy night. "No-el!" Her house was the fifth one from the tunnel. In a few minutes they saw the porch. Elmer held his flashlight up and started waving it at the house.

"No-el! No-el" he yelled above the droning, merciless waters. He thought he saw a candle light flickering in the second floor window. In another couple minutes, he was on the steps and tied the line around the porch post. The water was more than a foot deep on the first floor. As he shone the light into the front room, he saw his sister coming down the stairs with the little boy in her arms and the girl close beside her.

"Elmer! Elmer!" she cried out to him.

"It's okay. It's okay," he answered. "We're here."

He met her on the stairs and they hugged while the children clung to them with all their strength. "Jessica, you're safe, now," Elmer said and smoothed his rough hand over her little head. "Billy, you okay?"

"C'mon! C'mon! This is no time for a family reunion," Phil said when he came into the room and flashed his light on the four of them holding close at the foot of the stairs. "We got to go, now; the water's rising."

"How are we going to do this?" John said to Phil, looking toward the children and Noel.

"We'll put them on our backs," Phil said. "You kids ever ride horsey back?"

"Ah-hunh," little Billy said, his frightened eyes brightening for an instant.

"Okay, honey," Noel soothed her boy. "You ride horsey back with Uncle Elmer's friend here. C'mon dear, let go, now."

"His name's Phil, Billy," Elmer coaxed the boy.

The little boy reluctantly let his mother loose and clung round Phil's neck with all his strength. John moved near the landing where Elmer hoisted Jessica onto his back. "This is John, Jessie; he's my friend," Elmer said. "He'll take good care of you. Don't be afraid."

"Okay, sis', climb on," Elmer said. The brother and sister looked at each other for a moment and, in that glance, they were transported back more than a dozen years to the time after their father died when she would wait for her big brother to come home from the mine and he'd give her a ride on his back around the front yard, like their father had always done.

"Thank you, Elmer," she said through her tears and climbed onto his back. "Thank you for coming for us."

In a few moments, the three pairs of them were outside in the rain, the men holding onto the rope that stretched across the roiling water, the children and their mother holding onto the men with all their might. The three men were afraid to say what they all dreaded with the rapidly rising flood waters; there was no turning back.

"C'mon," John urged as he grabbed a flashlight and took the lead into the cold, muddy waters. "Walk slow and steady-don't go too fast; we're with the current now."

Though the rain had let up some, the waters were rising swiftly as they moved carefully along their life line. The extra weight on their backs helped the men secure their steps in the perilous, waist-high waters. The little boy was sobbing for his mother but Phil reassured him to keep a tight grip around his neck. They all sensed how close they were to death, even the little ones.

"We'll make it, Noel," Elmer whispered up to his sister as they strained through the turbulent water. "We'll make it."

When John neared the mouth of the tunnel, he got nauseous and almost fell with dread. The swelling waters nearly enveloped the opening of the tunnel. They could never get through there with the children.

"What's wrong?" Elmer yelled over the splashing flood. "Don't stop!"

"We can't make it," John said, wanting not to frighten the children though he could feel Jessica trembling on his back. "We can't make it."

The greasy odor of fear seemed to encircle all of them as they stopped, hopeless and terrified, before the flooded tunnel.

"No! God, no!" Elmer spat out his frustration.

"Is that all you can do?" Noel chided her brother. "Did you bring my babies out here to drown!" the young mother said to her brother in that sarcastic tone of voice his family used to berate Elmer and fix him in the failure they thought was his right by birth.

But he just stood there, not answering her taunt, in the middle of the turbulent waters swirling all around him. He hung his head in recognition of his folly, taking her venom into his heart and poisoning his limbs stiff and lifeless. And it seemed the weight of his whole, burdensome life was on him now, sinking him deeper into that black pool of rising water: family, vocation, farm, mine, failure. He seemed to accept this watery death as his due after thirty-eight years, and the fact that he had led them all, friends and family, into this fateful trap, crushed him with an iron doom. And then, something lifted out from within him like a groan, or a sigh, barely audible:

"If the Lord had not been on our side,

this is Israel's song. . .

Then would the waters have engulfed us,

the torrent gone over us;

over our head would have swept

the raging waters."

"What?" Noel screamed in his ear. "What did you say?"

He did not answer her harsh voice but paused calm and confident in the midst of their dilemma. He was undaunted, now, filled with resolution.

"C'mon," Elmer directed. "We have to go back to the house." He turned his exhausted body and started to wade across the rising water, holding onto the rope. His friends followed him; there was nothing else to do. "Hold the light up, Noel."

The unsteady troop followed Elmer and began to slowly make their way against the current which now came up to the legs of the three riding on the men's backs. Then the rope went limp and they saw a long piece of porch railing tumbling in the current and their line going with it. "Leave go," Elmer said. "Leave go of the rope."

"I can't make it," Phil said. "My legs are cramping-grab the boy," he moaned.

John reached forward for the slipping child and Elmer stretched back to grab a fistful of Phil's jacket and keep him up.

Not here, Lord, Elmer prayed. Not here.

They stood helpless and beaten in the middle of the raging waters, afraid to move, paralyzed with dread, the children sobbing, their lives dangling by a thread.

Elmer was the first to hear the distant muffled voices straining above the splashing stream. Then he saw the dim light sweeping over the watery death in rhythmic turns. "Help! Help!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "Over here! Over here! There's a boat-it's coming this way! Wave that thing, Noel!"

And they were shouting for help in unison, now, and waving the only flashlight that still worked. It was like a dream come true; the little motor boat puttering closer to them across the dangerous waters. "Help! Help!" they called out; the children, too. Within a few moments the boat was near them and dropped a heavy anchor. The two men in long yellow slickers and hats helped the children and their mother into the safety of the boat.

"I don't think we can get you guys in without capsizing," the one man said to Elmer, John and Phil. "Can you hold on and we'll pull you across to the shallower side? Stay clear of the propeller."

The three exhausted men leaned over onto the sides of the boat. Elmer smiled at his sister and her children huddled in their dry yet fragile safety. One of the men looped some ropes under the seminarians' arms and around their backs to secure them to the craft, their legs still submerged in the creek waters.

"Go! Let's go," he said to his partner and the flimsy boat puttered its slow and saving way across the flooded patch to the high ground by the main road where a crowd of people were waiting

as they disembarked.

Elmer, dazed and exhausted, found himself being attended by a few seminarians putting coffee to his lips, wrapping blankets around him, asking questions that he was too tired to answer. Everyone seemed to be flitting about, moving faster than his eyes could focus. He couldn't hear much, either, for the hum of

exhaustion droning in his ears. Then he saw him or rather the silhouette of him, like in a dream: the tall stately bearing, his hooded head illumined by the alternating flash of yellow and orange lights coming from the emergency vehicles on the road: an angelic figure, still and serene, detached from the bustle of people tending to Elmer and the others, almost floating beyond the din.

"You okay, Elmer?" he asked, his limpid, tranquil blue eyes now a breath away from Elmer's face.

"Yes, Father," Elmer said and his eyes closed involuntarily. His head jerked up with the remnant of trouble still alive in his mind. "Phil! Philip! Where's Phil and Billy?"

"They're fine, Elmer. Everyone's safe," the rector said in that resonant voice of his that let Elmer drift off to sleep, secure as a baby lulled to rest in his mother's arms. "You did a great thing, a courageous thing, tonight. The Lord is with you."

The next thing Elmer remembered he was waking in a rattling van or something, the piercing siren calling him to consciousness. "Noel! Noel!"

"We're here, Elm," his sister whispered. "Your friends are in the other one."

"Thank God, we made it," Elmer said and reached a limp hand over to touch the heads of his niece and nephew.

"I'm sorry I said those things back there," Noel said. "You're a great brother; you're going to be a great priest, too."

"I hope so," he said. "I hope so."

Noel took his hand from her drowsy son's head and pressed it to her face, wiping her tears. "I'm sorry, sorry for everything, Elmer."

"God love you, girl," was all he could manage to get out at that tender moment before the ache of his body gave way to the welcomed sleep that overcame him as they rode to the hospital in the rattling ambulance.

It was dawn when the rector returned from Latrobe Hospital, secure in the knowledge that John and Phil, Elmer, his sister and her children were resting in warm beds. He would call their families to let them know their loved ones were safe. He was proud of the three men's courageous actions and of how the other seminarians had banded together to help them in the middle of the night. He rested against the pillar of the Roman arch on the Leander porch and lingered awhile, a tall and graceful figure. He looked out across the thick primordial mist blanketing the pond and fields to the horizon. A morning hawk sailed on a current of air and seemed to hover in flight above the bare fields. The dawn sun was peeking over the Laurel Ridge and it lit up the underbelly of clouds with patches of yellow-orange light sparkling along the billows of blue and white. The mist and mountains, the hawk and light, the fallow fields, seemed to him full of promise. He gazed awhile as the brilliant sun rose white and dazzling over the horizon; the mist lifting slowly and beginning to dissipate beneath the warm, April light. He imagined Jesus rising from the dead on just such a morning and he was filled with joy for his life's work, hope for the future of the Church. He thanked God for their deliverance and the tears came like consolation.

Father Richard A. Infante is the Parochial Vicar of St. Bernadette Church in Monroeville, Pennsylvania.