The Rift - Softcover

About the Author

Walter J. Williams has taught martial arts, small-boat sailiing, and English grammar and composition. In order to research peoples and locales for The Rift, he drove the length of the Mississippi from New Orleans, Louisiana, to Hannibal, Missouri. He lives in rural New Mexico with his wife, Kathleen Hedges.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

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The horizon immediately after the undulation of the earthhad ceased, presented a most gloomy and dreadful appear-ance; the black clouds, which had settled around it, wereilluminated as if the whole country to the westward was inflames and for fifteen or twenty minutes, a continued roar ofdistant, but distinct thunder, added to the solemnity of thescene. A storm of wind and rain succeeded, which continueduntil about six o'clock, when a vividflash of lightning wasinstantaneously followed by a loud peal of thunder; severalgentlemen who were in the market at the time distinctly perceived a blaze of fire which fell between the centre and southrange of the market.

Earthquake account, Feb 12, 1812

The sound of drumming and chanting rolled down from the old Indian mound as the school bus came to a halt. Jason Adams wanted to sink into his seat and die, but instead he stood, put his book bag on one shoulder, his skates on the other, and began his walk down the aisle. He could see the smirks on the faces of the other students as he headed for the door.

He swung out of the bus onto the dirt road. Heat blazed in his cheeks.

"Wooh!" one of the kids called out the window as the bus pulled away. "I can feel my chakras being actualized!"

"Your mama's going to Hell," another boy remarked with satisfaction.

Jason looked after the bus as it lurched down the dirt road, thick tires splashing in puddles left by last night's rain. Another few weeks, he thought, and he wouldn't have to put up with them anymore.

Not for the length of the summer, anyway.

The drumming thudded down from the old overgrown mound. Jason winced. Aunt Lucy must have let his mother off work early. There wasn't going to be a lot of business at the greenhouse till Memorial Day.

It was bad enough that his mom was a loon. She had to drum and chant and advertise she was a loon.

Jason hitched the book bag to a more comfortable position on his shoulder and began the short walk home.

Green shoots poked from the cotton field to the north of the road. The furrows between the green rows were glassy with standing water. Swampeast, they called this part of Missouri, and the name was accurate.

The inline skates dangled uselessly off Jason's shoulder. Gravel crunched under his shoes. He could put up with the drumming, he thought, if only he were back in L.A. Drumming was even sort of normal there-well, not normal exactly, but there were other people who did it, and most other people didn't make a point of telling you that it quahfied you for eternal damnation.

Jason passed by the Regan house, a new brick place on the lot next to where Jason lived with his mom. Mr. Regan was as usual puttering around Retired and Gone Fishin', his bass boat parked inside his carport. So far as Jason could tell, Mr. Regan spent more time polishing and tinkering with his bass boat than he did actually fishing. The old man straightened and waved at Jason.

"Hi." Jason waved back.

"Found a place to skate yet?" Mr. Regan asked.

"No." Other than the outdoor basketball court at the high school, which was usually full of kids playing basketball.

Mr. Regan tilted his baseball cap back on his bald head. "Maybe you should take up fishin'," he said.

Jason could think of many things he'd rather do with his life than sit in a boat and wait for hours in hopes of hauling a wet, scaly, smelly, thrashing animal into the boat with him.

He really didn't even care for fish when they were cooked and on a plate.

"Maybe," he said.

"I could give you some lessons," Regan said, a bit hopefully.

Regan had made this offer before. Jason supposed that he sympathized with his neighbor's being retired and maybe a bit lonely, but that didn't mean he had to assist him in his rustic amusements.

"Maybe after school's out," Jason said.

After he finally went crazy from living in the Swampeast, he thought, sitting in a boat next to a stack of dead fish might not seem so bad.

The drum boomed down from the mound behind the houses. Jason waved to Mr. Regan again and cut across the soggy lawn to the old house where he and his mother lived. Batman, the dog that belonged to the Huntleys on the other side of his house, ran barking toward Jason in order to warn him off. Jason, as usual, ignored the dog as he walked toward his front porch.

Jason's house was very different from the four modem brick homes that shared its short dirt road. A dozen or so years ago, when the farmer who owned this area decided to retire, he sold the cotton fields to the north of the dirt road and created a small development south of it-two new brick homes built on either side of his own house, four altogether. When his widow died, Jason's mother had bought the old farmhouse, and when Jason first saw it, four months ago, he thought it looked like the house that Dorothy lived in before she went to Oz. It was a turn-of-the-century frame farmhouse, large and spacious, painted white. There were a lot of things that Jason liked about the house: the funky old light switches, which had pushbuttons instead of toggles. The crystal doorknobs and the old locks on all the bedroom doors, some of which still had their skeleton keys. He liked the sashes that made a rustling sound inside the windowframes when he lifted the windows, and he liked the screened-in front porch with its creaking floorboards. He...