Many Rivers to Cross

34

34 A croWd had gathered around the dead man sprawled on the street in front of the convention center. Malik and several others were shouting at the anned policemen who were ordering them back to the curb. Robert Guyton took Dee's arm and said, "I know a place where you'll be safe." He broke rank with his guard unit and escorted Dee and the children down the sidewalk toward the touristy shopping mall called Riverwalk Marketplace. At a loading dock between the convention center and the mall, a rusted metal staircase led upward above the dumpsters to a concrete walkway built across the backside of the building. The four of them climbed the stairs and stood gazing out at the rippling muddy waters of the Mississippi River. The current was running high and strong, engorged by Katrina's rain, and waves splashed against the old pilings below them. Dee had never seen the river so empty of traffic. The sightseer paddle-wheelers and the usual cargo ships and tugboats and industrial barges had all disappeared, safely anchored out of hann's way or washed ashore somewhere. Sunlight gleamed off the towering spans of the Crescent City Connection, the twin bridge over the Mississippi that linked New Orleans to the sleepy towns of Gretna and Algiers on the west bank. She cupped her eyes and looked for traffic movement on the bridge, some sign of buses or ambulances or transport trucks driving across, anything that would signal rescue. She wished she and her children were high up on that bridge right now, heading out of town in a Greyhound bus, taking old Highway 90 down through the marshlands to Houma and on up through Cajun country to Opelousas. But the traffic lanes were all empty this morning, an eerie spectacle for a 259 260 major bridge into a major American city. No one was entering or leaving this place. "The buses aren't coming," Robert Guyton said, studying the bridge as welL "They're all sitting in bus yards, up to their doors in floodwater. And that's not the worst of it. There aren't enough licensed drivers in town to drive them out of here." Dee had told Mr. Tran not to become discouraged, but she didn't know how much longer she could hold out herself. She was beginning to lose hope. "What's going to happen to us?" she asked him, holding LaMarcus and Ashley to her side. "For right now," Guyton said, "I'm going to get you settled someplace safer than that circus you were in. Before the day's over, the convention center's going to turn into a cesspooL The whole thing is out of controL" Dee looked up into his handsome unshaven face, his eyes almost hidden under the bill of his cap. "Why are you doing this, Robert Guyton?" she asked him. What did he expect in return? He smiled at Ashley. "I have a daughter your age, young lady," he said, resting a hand on her braids. "She lives with her mother in Lafayette. I get her every other weekend. I wish I had more time with her." He turned to Dee. "If it was the other way around, I'd want somebody to make sure my daughter was safe." He seemed like a good man. But Dee didn't know how much to trust him. "So what's your plan?" she asked. Guyton adjusted the rifle strapped to his shoulder and motioned for them to follow him down the walkway. "When I was a student at Southern," he said, "I had a job in this malL Wore one of those striped referee shirts and sold shoes at Foot Locker. I know this building pretty welL" The half mile of shops and restaurants in the narrow Riverwalk Marketplace were enclosed under a single long roof. As they passed a milky skylight, Dee peered down into a chic women's boutique whose party dresses hung undisturbed in pale rays of sunlight. She knew it was only a matter of time before looters discovered a way in. Robert Guyton found a maintenance entrance and tried the handle on the glass door. When it proved to be locked, he slung the M-16 off his shoulder and bashed in the glass with the rifle butt. Dee was startled by the noise, the bold decision. She grabbed her children and...