Henry
Saturday, September 8, Galveston, Texas
Even before dawn, the Gulf was roiling. By mid-morning, the city began to flood. Sister Elizabeth Ryan had bogged down quickly after leaving town. From the front of the wagon, she squinted ahead blindly into the rain, looking for the large golden cross atop the girls dormitory building. She kept thinking it must be just beyond her sight, but another whole hour passed before she made out the steep angle of the building’s roof. Feeling a keen sense of relief, she realized she’d been at the edge of the wagon’s bench and clinching her teeth for three hours.
Henry emerged from the blur of wind and water, trudging toward her waist-deep through the saltwater. He was yelling something, but whatever it was, it didn’t survive the din. She nodded her head in the affirmative, agreeable to anything as he took the horse’s bridle, leading it with the wagon toward the entrance of the girls’ building. He helped her down into the water, pointing her toward the porch. Stalwart Henry.
“I’ll unload!” he shouted. “Sister Camillus moved the boys over. Everyone’s in there.”
“Let the horse loose!” she shouted back. He said he would with an exaggerated nod.
Henry emptied the wagon of the supplies she’d brought from town and unhitched the horse. The water was nearing its belly now. Of the nine sisters, he knew this Irish one, Elizabeth, was the best with the horses and the wagon. Even so, it was remarkable she’d made it back. Henry looked over at the boys dorm to the west. Empty, it looked small and vulnerable. He patted the horse on the neck, stepped back, and gave it a brisk slap on its hindquarters.
“Ho, now!” The sound came from his barrel chest.
The horse darted through the geyser-like sprays of the breakers, before turning from the sea for higher ground. Henry watched it disappear with a furious beauty into the blinding rain. He looked at the boys building again. It looked smaller in the distance. Henry retrieved the white blouses and skirts blowing horizontally in the ripping wind from the clothesline nearby and stepped out of the floodwaters and onto the porch. Dropping the sopping laundry at the foot of the large ceramic crucifix just inside the entrance, he took up the axe and the blanket he’d left at the door. He handed the blanket to Sister Elizabeth.
“Why are you still here?” she asked.
“Why did you come back?” he replied.
“What needs to be done?”
“Go on up,” he said, shouldering the axe. “I’ll put the food away when I finish down here.”
With the blanket over her shoulders, Elizabeth complied as Henry marked out intervals around the perimeter of the great room with his eyes. A dozen children gathered at the rails of the atrium balcony to watch him. He hated that they had to see this. Raising the blade, he brought it down with all the force stored in his large frame. The hard wood floor gave way to five well-struck blows and the sea quickly gurgled up. As water flooded the expansive floor, he moved to the next spot, then the next.
“What’s he doing?” Albert Campbell asked Sister Elizabeth at the railing.
“The weight of the water will keep us in place,” she told the boy.
“But there’ll be holes all over the floor,” Sister Raphael whispered to Sister Elizabeth. “The little ones may fall in tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow will care for itself,” said Sister Camillus from behind them.
Sister Camillus had taken charge over the orphanage only last month when the elderly Mother Joseph who had cared for the St. Mary’s children here on the beach for the last quarter century had died. Like Elizabeth, Sister Camillus was from Dublin. Only thirty-one, she’d proven poised and decisive already in her short tenure.
“Mother Gabriel finally let me go,” Elizabeth said to her. “Mr. Unger helped me load the wagon. It took me three hours. She said I was to give you this.” She handed Sister Camillus a small silver cross. “It was Mother Joseph’s. Mother Gabriel said it belonged here on the beach with us. It’s been through all the storms.”
“We must take them up,” Sister Camillus said calmly holding the cross before her. Sister Raphael nodded and herded the children away from the rail, then upward to the third floor which was no more than a large attic, its ceiling the underlayment of the building’s high roof.
“I’m afraid we may be out of floors before the night’s gone,” Elizabeth said to Sister Camillus after they left. “The Gulf and the bay tremble for one another.”
“Sister Elizabeth, when Henry is finished, have him bring me all the clothesline from storage he can find.” Elizabeth assented and descended the stairs to Henry.
“We must stay with the little ones,” she told Henry, passing along the instruction, both of them knowing what Sister Camillus had in mind. Henry shook his head.
“Ma’am, that will be trouble.”
“We shall pull the children to safety.”
“Or be drowned together.”
“We must stay with the little ones,” Elizabeth repeated. Henry shook his head again and did as he was told.