Sherman muttered under his breath.
“It is as much his as ours.” Dot’s eyes were on her husband.
Sherman licked his top lip, feeling the chapped skin. “Diving a wreck isn’t anything like salvage. You’ll do more damage than good. You should wait for the waters to drop.”
Hunter expected this argument. “And if they never recede? I can’t do anything if there is nothing left to salvage.”
“So why go? The buildings are surely unstable. The water might be toxic. Don’t put yourself at risk. You are more important to us than anything else.” Sherman flipped his teacup upside down.
“Because some salvager is going to get in there sooner or later. We both know it is better if it is me. Besides, I know what to look for.” The man-boy stood up and gathered his dry bag from the rear of the truck. He pinched the compressor seal letting the bright orange rubber expand with new air. Reaching inside he pulled out a rolled towel, still damp. Tenderly he unrolled the cloth across the table and motioned to his grandmother. She leaned in close to see. Dozens of large seeds were revealed.
She picked at a seed with a crooked finger. “Pumpkin?” she asked hopefully.
Hunter nodded. “We found them two days ago. There was a bushel that hadn’t burst. We each took one.”
She silently counted the seeds. “Those are worth-“
“They aren’t worth anything if you can’t plant them.” Hunter interrupted. “I figured you’d know what to do with them better than most.” He turned back to his grandfather. “The pilots think the water rose calmly on some streets. When the sea wall broke the river’s inflow balanced against the tide somewhere around Passyunk. Most of Center City is probably a big swimming pool.”
“Doesn’t mean anything survived. There are only six steps from the kitchen to the street.”
“I should still look.”
Dot rinsed the plates, stowing them in the nightstand. Sherman folded up the table leaf, widening the surface so he could lay with his wife in their bed, such as it was. Hunter walked with the lantern and tucked down the hem of the tarps outside. The three met at the bumper. Sherman hopped down in bare feet.
“They say the rain is coming hard next week.” Hunter said.
Sherman nodded.
“Are you going to stay here?”
Sherman looked back at Dot, out to the woods, then down the road to the felled trees. A few electric lights tried to peak through the foliage. “She’d like to, but we can’t stay long. Someone is going to clear those trees eventually.”
Hunter looked back to his grandmother. She was sitting close to the lantern, counting the seeds again. The two men moved towards the edge of camp. He clasped his grandfather’s shoulder. “Don’t go far.”
“We won’t. If we go, you’ll find us on higher ground. We’ll leave our mark.” He put out his hand for a shake.
Hunter felt the metal pushed into his palm.
Sherman leaned close. “Your grandmother is right. It is as much yours as ours. Be careful.”
The next morning Hunter traversed a cable bridge to the 676 platform. The onramps had all washed away, but there was more than a half mile of elevated concrete road that remained stable. Private salvage crews had set up to work off the platform. A dozen slips and a pair of small cranes were enough to handle their operation.
Three flat boats were still docked. Hunter followed the others onto a steel hulled salvager and found a spot on the bench. Tesso climbed on after the last diver, and marched back to the open cabin. She started the gas engine and let it rumble, while she stalked the deck; checking hoses, compressors and the winch. Her face hid behind oversized sunglasses and a ball cap. She didn’t make eye contact with any of the divers. She threw off the bow rope and pushed the boat out from the slip, before returning to the captain’s chair.
Hunter stared at the river. They were floating fast along with the brown blue water. He couldn’t see bottom.
Without warning, Tesso turned the wheel and gunned the throttle.
Hunter reached for the steel bench, but couldn’t stop himself from slamming into Roy, a muscle bound diver next to him. Moesha, in her three point subway stance, snickered at him from across the way.
“Sorry.”
Roy shrugged it off.
Moesha was still laughing. Hunter turned to her and shouted over the engine. “Do you know how many streets we are doing today?” She wore the same hot pink tiger stripe swim shirt he had seen her in the on the last five dives. Her flippers were cut short and tipped with neon green electrical tape. On their first dive together she had joked it was the closest thing she’d had to a pedicure since the waters rose.
“Panama, Pine, Waverly, maybe Lombard.” She shouted back.
“That’s it?”
She looked at him sideways while she wrapped her spool. “We aren’t making it to South Street yet.”
“I don’t care about South Street.”
She squeezed up her face and looked at Roy. “He doesn’t care about South Street. I told you this kid is a tourist.”
Roy considered Hunter again.
“I’m in this for more than money.”
Moesha raised her eyebrow. “Oh? You’re a Samaritan huh? If you want to drop concrete boxes or pull bodies the Feds are looking for volunteers. They could use a nice boy like you. You could swim down and try to find some of those babies still strapped into their car seats. You look like the kind who wants to be a hero.”
Hunter had heard the story. A diver had found two twins still strapped in. The driver had crashed and drown, but the minivan floated. One baby survived, sucking on a pocket of air. The other – Hunter shivered. “I’m no Samaritan.” He wasn’t a hero either.
“Good, ’cause I don’t got time for that. We need to get our shit done so we can get to South Street. That is where the money is at.” Moesha spat.
The chop calmed as they passed between two apartment buildings, each kneeling in the muddy water. Hunter said a silent prayer as they entered the city of brotherly love.
The early dives were short. There was barely a thing worth salvaging on Panama or Pine. The boat bottom was littered with sealed bottles of motor oil, scrap metal and garden hoses. Hunter grabbed some faucets and a shower head. One of the others found a wallet and a few dollars cash, still dry in a Ziploc. Tesso made him give her the cash and throw back the leather. No one was getting rich today. They would barely cover fuel costs.
Waverly had been a different story. They found a firetruck and an ambulance submerged under a collapsed building. The truck had been marked on the salvage maps a full block away, but it must have drifted. Underwater it was impossible to tell if the building had fallen violently from the impact or crumpled over in slow motion. Either way the brick had heaped on the truck. Most of the divers worked the ladder truck. Hunter followed Moesha and Simon to the ambulance.
“I got an air pocket in the back.” Simon called out over the two way.
Hunter swam down to find the hatch open. The gurney was gone. Most of the cabinets hung open. A pyramid of stale air was trapped in the top. Simon’s torso was above the water line stuffing medical supplies into his dry bag. Hunter stayed below and grabbed at anything that looked like it might survive.
Moesha swam in. “You leave anything for me crabs?”
“Closest to the door.” Simon said, pointing back into the water towards the defibrillator and the ready kits.
“Shorted out batteries and water logged gauze? Gee thanks.” She grabbed the bags anyway.
One by one the divers surfaced, chucking cinched orange dry-bags and loose hunks of metal over the side of the skiff.