Rivers carry their gifts, life. Food. Water. Joy. We see them, forget they are in captivity, domesticated? They can't reach us here, not up here!

But what would happen - if it were to jump its enclosure? That sinuous, sleeping serpent, quiet and contained, you may forget how mighty it could be - but it's been tamed! Trained! It would never, even if it could escape. No need to fear. No concern. You can walk past it a thousand times, maybe you have even...

You can grow accustomed.

Rivers don't flood often, not anymore. We control that. Them. Like a series of cups, buckets beneath a leaky roof to catch the water, to keep it from spreading, ruining the floor. Lakes.

The river wasn't contained before that. Floods happened, somewhat predictably, even. Expectantly. Every ten years? You built a house higher if you built there at all, on stilts, you understood, it could happen.

It wasn't sudden. Not a flash flood, not here. It rained a lot, the river widened, rose higher and higher and then you were flooded. This wasn't that.

A river digs into the earth, pushing sand, rock, revealing, it makes its route, creating a path, ever wider, every deeper - The Grand Canyon? It's most epic scale, those tall banks, walls to guide the water, It's less obvious at other places, but all land around a river slopes to it. It goes lower to the closest body of water - that's nature. That's how it works. It slopes. The area around a river is a gutter, to carry the water away.

Houses.

People grew bold. They tamed the river! They built dams! They predicted the weather! Stopped flooding...people did that, humans. Millions of people working in concert, tiny things and large, all contributing in ways that contained nature. Controlled it. Circumvented it.

And then they forgot. Forgot about how much pressure they were all under, that where they lived was dammed.

Dams break, great floods happen, accidents happen. This wasn't an accident, a bomb, detonated, many died, but Red Hills was safe. It could have been so much worse.

Not the town, of course that was absolutely destroyed! That was wiped off the map. A few structures survived...miracles. Magic.

But what truly made Red Hills wasn't wood, wasn't a Palace, did you see it? Just a ring, a stone ring going up right now, of course they'll have to start again but isn't it going to be magnificent?

Each of those tall towers rising up along the bank of the river, the roses just starting to grow around it, so lovely, Mama has already invited us to dinner, and -

The people survived. The people had been warned. Had evacuated. May Stoddard had identified the cause in time, secretly, if only just, but she didn't know that - how could she? They'd been gone just two days! Were they on the way when it happened, were they killed?

"Tackle." May hugged her, the only one she dared share that fear, to contain the panic. She couldn't check the Font - not until it was all over, until it was safe. And it had just started, was still coming -

That sound. So soft at first, so far away - like a bee let in from an unattended window, what room? That noise, far off but growing louder. You look around, trying to spot it, you know you're going to get stung. You can't escape, it's a whole hive! Millions, and they're massive, the size of elephants, and even that doesn't quite describe it because it's still getting louder. Water.

The damage. The destruction. The noise as it comes closer and closer, miles and miles, nothing stopping it, that wide tsunami that followed the rivered ravine, the lowest point, the reason that canal was so frustrating! Covanger fields was up hill!

They weren't Engineers - they weren't thinking that way, just trying to get water from one place to another, and it was coming now! Right now! On it's own!

The town was completely destroyed, those buildings, caught within the bosom of the Red Hills, snaking through them, splashing and saturating and slamming, spraying all over their beautiful features, leaving them wrecked and empty -

And then a long silence.

Tears. The irony - to produce water over water, to make more, to flood your vision to not see the damage of the flood! And that is life, that necessity, mourning, a part. A tragedy. Then just a rainbow.

It's how they saw it coming, the destruction, that mist sent up, spraying high into the sky like smoke! Light caught and shot and refracted, sent wild - a trail of rainbows like a fuse timing the destruction until it landed...passed. Then it was just one, everywhere you looked, horizon to horizon, a single rainbow.

Of course May knew this wasn't a good look for the homosexuals, that Dale would probably be quietly smug in church, once it was rebuilt...

Because the tears would dry, the water would dry and they were alive! There was no Book in the Font! He was alive. Safe. He would return!

There hadn't been enough time to save all the cows. The chickens. Hunter's forest half destroyed, only because Hickory hated roots! Weston's house long gone. His barn, Chase's lab.

The whole town. Gage's strawberries...

May would replant them, that was her work, women's work. Planting small hopes, sewing those seeds, yes, even tending to those fruits -

Because the people survived. What made Red Hills survived. May moved through the ruins, the small things that had made it through -

'Don't Shit in My River.' Re-raised after the evacuation -

Her flag, too - both there. That same stained sheet, not even dirty. Protected. Her loom?

Half buried, like an Oyster stomped, splattered, the pearl protruding from its obliterated housing, bright and beautiful, still covered in tragedy.

So much had been lost...and yet it was nothing compared to what it could have been. The debris! A mess. Shattered toilets, ovens, washing machines. Refrigerators. Cars. So much garbage to clean up. So much work to do.

Was it even worth it? To rebuild, to start over from almost nothing. A market? Tools. Strawberry seeds?

Of course it was! This song was not half sung, not even half started, her soul was not out of breath...so May sat and added to it, she played her music, their music...Tackle beside her starting to dance within the ruin, yet May stopped.

This song required a different instrument -

She grabbed the cloth produced, that durable melody made from the random debris that had landed within the bowls of her instrument. And she began to clean with it.

"We can't have them coming home and the place looking like a wreck." May told Tackle, "Imagine what the neighbors would think, and with the ball just a week away? We'll have to hurry."

They saw her, of course they did, talking to a horse, polishing a piano - somebody was always looking. People watch when they don't know what to do, they look to others for inspiration -

May showed them what to do.

Gage threw Hickory over his shoulder and they ran - it was a surge, out the door. Curiosity, fear, heroism? They joined the tide of soldiers emptying the building, the strangeness that occurred at the Font?

Soldiers didn't surge, did they? They didn't panic.

Gage knew that, trained his men not to do that, and therefore he recognized that not everyone was soldiers. There were soldiers. Veterans. They were the ones outside already. organized. In formation, briefings -

Vehicles were being fired up, small thoughts flashed through his mind as he moved, like the small weight on his shoulder, important. So important. Hickory bounced, it would probably be painful for him if he wasn't apparently made of raw power! Gage had felt it, like somebody coming up behind you and popping a balloon next to your ear.

Even if you knew it was coming!

Almost an hour of arms pumping, dodging checkpoints and blocked roads, jumping over them like hunting horses, avoiding trouble - they passed Hickory to each other like a football, taking turns, driving through the lines - a medic truck offered assistance, so many offers for help - first aid.

They had the wrong enemies, didn't they? Too late.

They kept running, and the lake, glanced between houses, trees, you could see it and wanted to sigh with relief, it hadn't gone done at all, that sound of water, the mist that now hung like a fog, like approaching a waterfall, it wasn't as bad as they thought -

It was so much worse. Another corner, there was no dam. There was no levy, just the natural hills it had been built into, the features, now eroding too. The water didn't just pour past it, the water was shot from between that gap like a fire hose. There was no way to...

"Holy shit!"

"You've got to stop it!"

Hickory gave Hunter the 'No Shit' look from Chase's shoulder as they moved through the traffic jam of vehicles, the people watching in a stupor, coming closer and closer to the mayhem.

Wide eyed troops found their stoic expressions threatened as they gazed upon the enemy they'd been sent to face and understood inadequacy perhaps like no soldier had before, how could you not be humbled?

And still, you couldn't tell. The lake had dropped maybe an inch? Two maybe? 140 square miles of water, 760 billion gallons, one escape - and as Hickory would say, still 99/100 full.

That was still 99% full after almost an hour...

Hickory was set on his feet, held up by his belt loops, the scruff of his neck as he fumbled through the book with free hands. Walls, of course, walls. They needed them now!

"Want me to use the other?" Weston offered.

"It's got to start from the bottom." Chase reminded, Hunter nodded.

"And before the opening, not after it, if you can do strips longer than it? Stack them like logs?

That's not what Hickory did, he ignored them, not even taking the time to tell them shut up, just tearing pages, and Gage heard the sound as it began to change, the noise of churning water, the flow, and he watched as it rose from the depths of that wet disaster like the fabled city of Atlantis -

Revealed.

Not a wall.

Just a sharp, single point like the top of a tree emerging, a long finger pointed to the heavens, a lightening rod to attract, to harness.

Taller.

Then a tapered roof, simple, but each second, each tear, even those features shifted, even the shingles changed and became more exciting, more intricate with each addition.

He wasn't stacking them, he was...

Page after Page, Hickory had pulled without thought or perhaps this was his goal? His plan. Pulling every point from both Fonts, one earned, one stolen - his hand still moving even after that watery blue glow failed to appear, turned to find something cheaper - he hardly looked up - nobody told him to stop, nobody could speak!

Nobody could see what he saw, that shifting shadow of a structure he was magnificently materializing. They could only gape as finally he lowered the book, dropped it from his hands -

Stone!

If that stone was a seed that could grow impossibly with enough water? And there was so much water, nobody expected this to come from it, what that seed would do, once planted.

"I couldn't put the Hatchery in the water, it needed something to grab onto."

Chase was hugging Hickory, shaking him, almost in tears, "You did it! Holy! This is incredible!"

It was...yes it was, because the seed - the start Hickory had chosen had been the College, a large building now, Red Hill's largest structure, but he hadn't stopped there, hadn't just stacked schools like crooked bricks to block the flow - he'd given it a bathroom. A bath house. A Complex, for dormitories, because it was cheaper to add to something! To keep adding!

What emerged from the water was a vast stone building but that was just the simple start to this wondrous structure, maybe it would have been enough just like that, it would have slowed the water that rushed past enough -

Hickory added the Chapel and the building had begun to shift again, the roof began to widen, form towers like stalagmites, became more open to the sky, but the Barracks changed it again before they even knew what was happening and the structure responded, like a defensive creature poked, spikes and shells -

A College of Warfare?

No, the Forest Environment changed that, trees sprouted and spread, it grew wider, parks, landscaping, wasn't just stone now but wood was blended. Molding and eves. Ivy climbed the walls, smooth and clumpy moss clung to the roofs, massive trees for shade - still growing.

The Glass works! It filled the open, airy tower with windows that rose above the surface but more than that...

So much more.

It stopped the flow of water, finally, that half submerged portion of the structure, underwater like a ruin to be explored, but there was plenty above, or could they pump it out?

That was when Hickory added the hatchery and that useless portion became the prize, a massive aquarium that extended far beyond even what they could see just now, a place to study the fish, the aquatic environment - but the river was blocked now!

Completely sealed off -

Sewer pipes swiped across, going under the still growing structure like an aqueduct, a bridge - it opened the flow again, not at the bottom where it was, but at the top - across the entire long section, from guardhouse to guardhouse, where they use to be, not just the dam, but the whole levy swallowed.

It was a waterfall, an overflow, to release the water slowly, so both the lake and the river could continue to exist, making not just a college in the process, but -

"It's a Wonder." Weston whispered, "Another one."

"Red River University." Chase said with amazement. With pride. With excitement. Already walking toward it like a zombie, unable to stop himself, "There's parks, we can do a baseball park, we can have an athletic program. Look at the Gym, that's got to be it, it's huge!"

"I don't know why ya'll are so excited." Hickory said.

Hunter had been quiet, Gage turned, and saw him watching Hickory intently, his eyes widened with those words and he mouthed, 'Oh, no. Distract him.'

Too late as Hickory grinned -

"It's just a Dam School."

"Dam School University." Chase sighed as the building finally settled; in flourishing, honorific academic script - the name chiseled itself upon those vaunted walls.

"Let's find out who blew the dam." Gage said, and Hickory nodded, hadn't forgotten, not for one second - just catching his breath, which was why no look of relief had crossed his features...

Weston thought it was over, thought that Hickory had intended to take the Font, to control the Dam and make sure nobody could threaten it again. To protect what was his - and that was part of it.

That was certainly a big part of it...

But just because one coyote threatened his chicken, he didn't stop after he trapped one coyote, killed one coyote - Hickory killed all the coyotes. Hickory set traps all over, still set traps every day -

Then he skinned them, hung the pelts to dry, used their livers for catfish bait and burnt the bodies, the ash and bone tilled into his garden.

There was no malice or revenge to it, to him it was unremarkable, just common sense, a man's responsibilities.

To protect what was his.

The Commander was a dead man walking, and whoever blew up not just the dam but the levy?

It was 100 times worse than their plan, their worst projection, and even that Hickory had refused because he saw a family fishing. He chose to fight a whole army instead - or die trying because that was the right thing to do...

Those people that blew that dam were done. A threat. To be exterminated.

It was simpler that way, wasn't it?

Weston couldn't imagine such a way of thinking, and neither could Gage, not at fist. The type of Man that would punch a buddies drunk father, a bigot, an Angel. Attack an Army and build a Wonder on the same day his eyes watered over not being able to give Tackle a strawberry. The same day he'd set off to kill a man, or ten, or a hundred or how ever many it takes without blinking.

You don't fuck with people like that. You either love them or you get out of their way and you pray you never, ever, ever piss them off.

Gage guided Hickory to one of the vehicles not blocked in, Weston shouting for the highest ranked person, Chase dragged himself away from the University and Hunter started the blueprints for the gallows.

It will be faster that way - time is money, after all, and a little consideration can go a long way...

So consider this, Weston - if your family could have something to do with this? Like you fear to admit, not even to yourself - find out, and find out quick because new traps are being set.