By the time Paul and Grandpa set out on Watch Eyes and Billy Blaze, the
wind had dropped to fifty miles an hour. Yet the water from the ocean
was stealthily creeping up and up as if to reclaim this mote of land
and take it back to the sea. Spilling and foaming, the tide continued
to rise--flooding chicken farms, schoolyards, stores and houses--in its
surge to join ocean and bay.
Watch Eyes and Billy Blaze were used to surf and boggy marsh, for they
had been on many a wild pony roundup. Feeling ahead for footholds they
pushed forward, step by step, not seeming to mind the water splashing
up on their bellies.
Grandpa, on Blaze, cupped one hand about his mouth and yelled above the
wind. "Turn off at Rattlesnake Ridge, Paul. We'll stop at Barrett's
Grocery first and get the news."
Paul nodded as though he had heard. He was staring, horror-struck, at
the neighbors' houses. Some had collapsed. And some had their front
porches knocked off so they looked like faces with a row of teeth
missing. And some were tilted at a crazy slant.
Anger boiled up in Paul--anger at the senseless brutality of the storm.
He rode, shivering and talking to himself: "The big bully! Striking
little frame houses that can't stand up to it, drubbing them, whopping
them, knocking their props out."
A street sign veered by, narrowly missing the horses' knees. _98th
Street_, it said. Grandpa turned around to make sure he had read it
aright. "My soul and body!" he boomed. "It scun clean down from Ocean
City! That's thirty mile away!"
Without warning, Watch Eyes suddenly slipped and went floundering.
Paul's quick hand tightened on the reins, lifting his head. He felt
Watch Eyes jolt, then stretch out swimming. "Go it! Go it!" he shouted,
and he stood up in his stirrups, feeling a kind of wild excitement.
This was like swimming the channel on Pony Penning Day. Only now the
water was icier and it was spilling into his boots, soaking his blue
jeans and the pajamas he still had on. Yet his body was sweating and he
was panting when they reached the store.
In front of Barrett's Grocery two red gas pumps were being used as
mooring posts for skiffs and smacks and trawlers. A Coast Guard DUKW,
called a "duck," and looking like a cross between a jeep and a boat,
came churning up alongside Grandpa and Paul. The driver called out:
"Mr. Beebe! We need you both." His voice was a command. "Tie up your
horses in Barrett's barn and come aboard."
From under the tarpaulin a child's voice cried excitedly, "Paul, how's
Misty?"