They could no longer see the concrete bridge but it was clear to them when the house crashed into it. The lumber splintered and cried out. Trees and a car and cow corpses had been bobbing behind the house in the surge and now they all plowed into the side of it, the nose of the car bursting through a wall. The man and child were still in the window, the man folded over the windowsill like a towel, the child still holding on to him, still crying out. Now Asher could see only glimpses of them behind the building debris, but they were there. He did not think to pray and later he would remember this with guilt.

The roped man had disappeared. Then, there was a jolt on the rope, like a monstrous catfish at the end of a fishing line, and the man was crawling along the top of the overturned car, hurrying but also careful in where he stepped across the underbelly of the vehicle. The child was screaming more loudly now, then pounded on the man’s shoulder to rouse him.

The rope was burning Asher’s hands, cutting into his fingers and across the meat of his palm.

Then, even though Asher had not prayed (perhaps someone else had, perhaps all of them had except him), the house turned in one ninety-degree angle so that the people in the window neared the bank. The rescuer wrested them out of the house and then pulled them across a few feet of the frothing water.

When the roped man handed off the little girl—Asher could see her now—over his shoulder, the father in the window instinctively reached out for her as if the flood was carrying her away. He leaned out so far that he nearly fell from his precarious perch in the window. The rescuer pushed through the water—going under once, the child along with him, causing all of them on the bank to cry out and step forward.

The father pushed himself out of the window and was swallowed by the river.

The girl lay on the ground near Asher’s feet, Lydia and Zelda descending upon her as she coughed up floodwater and clutched at her throat as if being strangled. Only then did Asher see that most of her clothes had been ripped off and he looked away because she was older than he had thought, a teenager. He pulled his soaked tee shirt over his head and handed it to Lydia so she could cover the girl’s small breasts. The man with the rope turned to go back but then he collapsed, spewing forth a green spray of the river that had gulped down his throat.