After a long struggle against a flow of water that was threatening to engulf everyone and everything, Ernie’s father did get to his seven year old son, eventually persuading him down off the branch he was clinging to and onto his back so they could both make their way slowly back to Sheriff Johnson, who was also Ernie Miller’s uncle, and a good man to have around in a tight spot.

And it has to be understood that having the local reservoir – four miles long and a mile wide – burst half way through a junior high school football match was a pretty tight spot to be in in the small Kansas town of Imolna, but not as tight a spot as being slowly buried alive with a freezing corpse in a foxhole deep in some Belgian forest.

Ernie’s father, and his brother the Sheriff, had been local heroes for a week or two after the flood and Ernie himself got his picture on page two of the Imolna Messenger, as he did a couple times more in the future.

As a twelve year old Ernie worked at Joe Mascala’s gas station situated on a small intersection about a mile out of town. Ernie used to cycle there every day after school to sweep the forecourt and wash the yellow Benzol gasoline pumps, and then, around six, when folks were making their way home from work, pump gas and wash windshields and chat with the folks as Joe fixed cars in the large old barn behind the forecourt.

Around eight Joe’d go and eat in his little bungalow next door leaving Ernie all alone behind the counter of the small wooden building that doubled as a grocery and liquor store. It was usually pretty quiet and Ernie liked to sit and read and listen to the radio that was usually tuned to a station that played a lot of Italian opera. Ernie preferred the Kansas City, or Wichita stations. He loved the live broadcasts of the Bennie Moten Orchestra, or the crime serials, and the occasional interview with a Hollywood star.

” You okay, Ernie?” The words were more of a hiss than a whisper.

” How okay can you be with a headless corpse for company, even if it is only Reuben Hughes? And why are you whispering, Maloney?”

” The Krauts might hear.”

” The Krauts are half a mile away.”

” Yea, but Cotton says…”