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When the river started to rise, they busied themselves getting everything as high up as they could. They threw ropes over the rafters and hoisted furniture into the air. A dining room table and its chairs became an elaborate swaying chandelier. They drove the livestock to the highest part of this rolling, water-logged terrain. “The river’s gone mad,” they said and whether she was merely crazy or hell-bent to wipe them out hardly mattered as the water rose and rose and rose.
When only one route of escape remained they clamored into their trucks piled with belongings under tarps and sloshed their way inland. Looking back, they saw the water lapping at the sides of the house. A clump of cattle stood on the high ground, chomping rhythmically as the water approached. Earlier they had abandoned hope of getting even half the herd together, scattered as it was among the low brush. But by some strange animal instinct it looked now as if most of them had come out of hiding to gather on the rise. Wild animals like deer and foxes waited awkwardly among them.
But the waters kept coming and soon they knew from reports of neighbors that their house too must be overrun. The only thing left was to pray that the animals at least would be spared.
They knelt under the shelter of a tree and closed their eyes and put their hands together and began to pray. They had always been devout and their prayers began as supplications. But something strange happened in the mud under the rain. Three generations of fury rose up to meet the waters. Those who had given their lives to this land. Those who had lost husbands and carried babies only to see them die at birth. Those whose mothers had given their lives to bring them into this wet and pestilent land where there had never ever been enough.
Except for water. Oh, of that there had always been plenty! Water in abundance! Plenty to go around… and then some! And for three generations it had come and taken from them whatever it wanted: dwellings, machines, animals, photo albums, their very lives.
But never again. Three generations of fury rose up like a dyke from under that tree to push those waters back. They cursed the waters along with whoever had sent them.
Unleashing their old anger made them strong. At this they became giddy for never before had they felt such fearlessness and power. It filled them up and made them reckless. They demanded that their animals be spared. If not, we will be like a scourge upon your creation.
And the threats worked. Bit by bit, the raindrops became smaller and fewer and then stopped altogether. They opened their eyes and saw that the sky had turned a lighter gray. They set up a camp under that tree and cooked food and dried out. Over the next few days, the waters retreated.
Before they left they knelt one last time beneath that tree and said their prayers, as they had been raised. Only this time it was gratitude not fury that spewed out of them. With tears in her eyes the eldest woman thanked God for making them the most fearsome sonsabitches ever to walk this earth, so fearsome that God himself cowered before their might. Damn right! they hollered and opened their eyes and got up and thumped each other on the back: Why, even the Old Man knows better than to tangle with us next time, they said. It was for this that they gave thanks and for a legacy of wrongs put right. The waters would threaten them no more — but if they did, they knew who would pay the bigger price.
When they got home and began to wash the mud from the house one of the children found a painted Virgin sticking out of the mud and began to play with it. The eldest woman bent down and took it from the child gently and nailed it to a post in the living room which showed the highest point the water had reached.
“Let us never forget this moment,” she said. “This is where we put the fear of Man in God.”
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