"They're rags from my wife's scrap bag. They're to make flags to mark where the dead animals are. Can't expect the 'copters to find 'em if they don't know where they be."
Although the air was bitter cold, the wind had lessened and holes of blue sky showed through the clouds. But the water about them was muddy-brown and full of drift. Grandpa reached for an oar.
"Wait a minute!" Tom said. "I got strict instructions from Marjie to give you coffee afore we set out. Wait a minute."
Grandpa guffawed. "We got a cat by that name 'cause she never does."
Paul broke in excitedly. "And she just had four kittens—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John."
"Well, I'll be a chipmunk's tail," Grandpa chortled in surprise. "No worse'n namin' people for saints who they don't resemble a-tall."
"Easy to remember, too," Tom said, "and no hurt feelings if you call one by t'other." He was pouring thick black coffee into the lid of his thermos. "Its extry stout," he said, offering it first to Paul, "to fortify us for what's ahead."
Paul tasted it, trying not to make a face. Then he gulped it down, feeling it burn all the way.
Grandpa sipped his, meditating. "Over to Assateague," he thought aloud, "over in those dunes there's plenty hollows to ketch nice clean rain. Whatever ponies is left, there's places for 'em to drink. But here...." All at once he dumped the rest of his coffee overboard. "We got to rescue the live ones right now, or they'll bloat on this brackish water. Let's go!" he bellowed.
With Tom directing, they each took an oar and poled off into the morass. It was heavy going. The sludgy water was choked with boards from smashed chicken houses, and with briar and bramble and weedy vines so thickly interlaced it was like trying to break through a stout wire fence. Silently the three in the boat threaded their way along, stopping time and again to push rubbish aside and to scrape the seaweed from their oars.