"A couple of your boys used to work for me. Damn fine millwrights."
"That's us!" Sam Zehedi said. "You give a Syrian a busted machine and
a wrench, he'll have it going in five minutes. We're a civilized,
Christian people. We been Christian a lot longer than the French or
the Germans. And you know what some dumb people called me when I first
bought the store? An Ay-rab. A heathen Ay-rab."
"They'll learn." Groff shrugged. He studied the newspaper story.
So this Chesbro was interested in newspapers. It looked, it very
definitely looked, as though he might have a piece of the _Hebertown
Weekly Times_ in his pocket; the story was pure propaganda.
Sam Zehedi went on: "Oh, they're learning. It's been five years now,
and I didn't let any grass grow under my feet. I'm a respected man
in this community, mister. You don't hear any Ay-rab talk any more,
except maybe from some of the summer people. Jews--they're bitter about
Ay-rabs, but then somebody sets them straight. I guess I'm the first
Syrian boy around here except for peddlers going through in the old
days the way they used to. It's like being a pioneer. Or a missionary."
He glanced at the clock. "What the hell," he said, "I don't think
anybody else is coming in this rain. I'll get the truck started and
pull her around the front, then you can hop right in and I'll lock up,
then we'll go tow you out."
"Fine," Groff said. "I appreciate it very much." The storekeeper
disappeared in the back; a door slammed and over the drumming rain
Groff heard a truck engine roar into life. Zehedi gunned it and held it
for a minute and then took off, swinging the pickup around in front.
Groff dashed for the cab when the door swung open and vaulted in. His
speed hadn't helped him a bit; he was wet all over again from his brief
exposure.
Zehedi got out on his side, sensibly swathed in a slicker, put out the
lantern in the store and locked up. He climbed back into the cab and
had to raise his voice to be heard above the rain beating on the top.
"Well, here we go, mister. About how far?"
"Quarter of a mile, maybe."
"We'll get you there." He put the truck in gear and crawled away from
the store, feeding the gas lightly. "My tires are pretty good," he
said. "I'd hate to start spinning my wheels, though." They crawled up
the long, gentle grade into the driving torrents.
"Notice my store's located at the foot of the hill?" he chattered. "I
picked it partly for that. People have time to see the sign, not like a
flat straightaway where they go whizzing past fast as they can."
Groff cranked down the window and stuck his head out. He couldn't be
wetter and he wasn't perfectly sure that through the rain-streaked
window his ditched car would be visible. The headlights seemed to bore
yellow cones through the teeming rain without illuminating anything
outside their sharp margins. The drops battered at his face and hair;
he pulled his head in feeling a little stunned. The violence of this
storm--he had a vague feeling that it couldn't go on without something
giving. What, he didn't know.
Headlights stabbed at their eyes from the rear-view mirror. Behind them
a horn howled and out of the darkness behind plunged a shape. Zehedi
gasped and twitched his wheel to the right. The car from behind zoomed
past them, cut into the right lane again and roared on; its taillights
soon were dim and then disappeared.
"Crazy idiot!" the storekeeper gasped, appalled. "He could have wrecked
us! He must have been going fifty! In _this_!"
Groff twisted in the seat and stared through the rear window. There
were headlights, far back but coming up fast. And the headlights went
out as he watched, with a glimmer....
He knew suddenly what had given. Even a city man, born and bred in city
safety, could recognize the signs.
"_Step on it_," he said to the storekeeper swiftly. "_Floodwater behind
us. Get us to the top of the hill. Fast._"
Zehedi didn't argue or hesitate. Few people argued or hesitated when
Groff used that tone of voice. Quickly and steadily he stepped on the
gas. They whirled around the curve where Groff's car stood empty and
past it. It was a long, straight upgrade from there. Either the rain
had slackened off a little or Zehedi was more worried about what was
behind them than about the rain; they roared up the hill, accelerating
all the way, and only stopped when they saw another car parked by the
side of the road, lights on and windshield wipers flapping, and a man
leaning out of the opened door, staring back.
It was the car that had passed them. Zehedi recklessly stopped
alongside him, making it a tight squeeze in case another car wanted to
get by. The other driver misinterpreted the move.
"Jesus!" he said. "That's a good idea! Keep them from getting past into
that. Jesus!"
He was in a flap, Groff observed. It wasn't surprising. "Flood?" he
called. But he knew the answer.
"Flood? Christ a-mighty, the whole goddam Atlantic Ocean's down there.
I was trying to pass a lousy milk tank truck for five miles--they
ought to widen this road, you get stuck behind a truck on these hills
and--anyway, I finally got past him, and all of a sudden I hear him
blowing his horn like a son of a bitch and I turn around and--" The
man choked. "Jesus!" he said again. "That lousy little creek. This time
of year, half the time it's practically dry. And here's the whole creek
jumping up out of the ground at me. I stepped on the gas and got the
hell out of there." He peered back nervously, as though the creek might
still be following, though they were easily two hundred feet up. "You
haven't seen that milk truck, have you?"
It would be a long time, Groff was absolutely sure, before anybody saw
that milk truck again.
Zehedi leaned across him. "Hey, mister. You think there was much damage
down there? I own the store back there--you know, Sam's Grocery, down
at the foot of the hill."
The man laughed. It sounded very nervous. "Not any more you don't," he
said.