"Billy. You're on watch tonight at the Big Bend station from midnight to four in the morning. You and John Vose will be team number eight. You'll need heavy coats, boys. It's gonna be in the mid-teens tonight. Any questions?"

The North Dakota state policeman, Sergeant Hess, continued to assign volunteers to river watch duty. Ten men and women will be on duty throughout the night to monitor the rise or fall of the Red River. Each two-person team is given a cellular telephone. A laminated instruction card is attached, describing exactly which buttons to push to report to the Flood Control Alert Center (FCAC). Teams are briefed to report the river condition at their assigned stations every half-hour; each two miles apart along the levee south of town. The farthest-away team will be just thirty miles from Fargo.

John pats Billy on his shoulder and gently nudges him toward the muddy Jeep truck assigned to them. Billy carries the telephone and John hefts a battered cooler chest, sliding it onto the passenger side floor. Billy slides behind the wheel, sure that he doesn't want old John to drive.

"Got your lantern and an extra battery, Billy? It's going to be real dark until after 1:00 A.M., when the moon comes up."

"Yeah. I got it. Don't worry. You just be sure we've got a full jug of hot coffee." Billy was barely seventeen and not particularly happy about being teamed with John. John was nearly sixty-five and known to be a bit eccentric, possibly a little touched in the head and certainly strange. Spending the early morning hours with John made Billy very uneasy.

It's now shortly after 1:15 A.M. when the moon rises over the broad expanse of the flood plain. It glimmers on the water in the silence of the night. Hardly a sound is heard, save the lapping of little waves against the levee. It was nearly a three-quarter moon and to those whose eyes were now well adjusted to darkness, it seemed like a huge floodlight up there, casting shadows behind every tree. The long shadows shorten, as the moon gradually rises higher and higher in the clear night sky.

Billy now sees quite clearly the dark shapes of half-covered farm buildings across from their position. Off to the right, a line of submerged fence-posts barely show their tops before disappearing completely into the silvery murk. Tops of trees look more like tufts of dark brush, though many are 30-foot tall cottonwoods. Ripples in the water indicate which way the river flows, steadily northward in a silent steady surge toward Pembina.

It's just before 3:00 A.M. when John speaks to Billy in an excited whisper. "Billy. Look there .. off to the left of the old barn. Do you see it?"

"See what," replied Billy with a tone of annoyance in his voice. "I don't see anything. What's the matter with you, old man? And why are you whispering?"

"Don't get smart with me, you young whipper-snapper. Get the sleepy seeds out of your baby blues and look closely. There's a couple big boxes or something moving down the river. See 'em?"

He decides that he'd better humor the old man, or who knows what he might do. Billy is a little afraid of the grizzled fellow. He leans out of the truck window and strains to see what John is talking about. Just as he was on the verge of saying that there wasn't anything out there, he sees something.

"Yeah, I see it, John ... but there ain't two, there's a dozen or more things moving out there in the river. See there, now they are passing the tall tree and the barn roof. What in the hell are they?" Now Billy was getting interested. He shined his big flashlight toward the things out there, whatever they were, but it was not strong enough to reach them. "What in the hell are they?"

John sees more of them too. He counts 50 box-like objects floating along. Now and then some bob up and down while others barely move at all. John counts 65 and tells Billy to get on the cell phone to tell FCAC what is going on. "And you can tell 'em too that the water's down about six inches. Got that?"

Billy dials the phone number and soon talks to a lady named Molly. "That's right. We saw 50 or 60 big boxes out there. No.. no we don't know what they are. It's too dark even in this moonlight to tell much. If I didn't know better I'd say they were shipping crates. They're too big to be bales of hay." And Billy's imagination was working over-time trying to visualize what those objects might be.

John came over closer to Billy and declared, "I know what they are now Billy. They're coffins."

Billy's face turns flush. His voice falters as he responds to Johns words. "Coffins? Did you say coffins?" He wonders how the crazy old man knew that.

"Yep, they're coffins I'd say," repeated John. "Reminds me of the 1950 flood when the same thing happened. Those coffins just popped up out of the grave and started down the river.

Yes..ssirree. That's what we've got here. Coffins, young man."

Billy, still on the phone, asks, "Did you hear that, Molly? Old John says that what we've got out there are dozens of coffins floating down the river. And they're headed for Pembina. My god!!"

John sits on the front fender of the truck, seemingly lost in thought and reflects on the bizarre scene before them. He mutters in a low voice, "Hmmmm .., I wonder if Sam Bigbee is one of 'em this time too."

"What are you talking about," interrupted Billy. " ... and who in the heck is Sam Bigbee?"

John pauses, looks at Billy and recounts the tale of Sam Bigbee. Before Sam died in 1948, he told his old friend John that in all the years he'd lived in Fargo, he never once got the chance to go across into Canada to see Winnipeg. And it wasn't until the big flood of 1950 that Sam finally made it. For it was then that Sam's casket floated up out of his grave and was carried by the flood-waters all the way to Winnipeg.

"Yes sir," mutters John. "Old Sam is off on another trip to Winnipeg. I'll just bet you that he's in one of those coffins out there. And by my reckoning he'll be in Winnipeg by Thursday night. Don't that beat all?"

Now Billy is sure that he's been paired up with a crazy old man.