Storm

by George R. Stewart

  •

  When Big Al had passed over Reno it had been full daylight, but the visibility was getting rapidly worse instead of better. He went on, following the Reno beam. Ten minutes later he was getting close to the summit, and things looked so doubtful ahead that he fully expected to be ordered around any moment and told to land. Reno would have been fair landing when he passed over, but might be hard by the time he could get back to it.

  Then inside of a minute, things had got bad. He could have turned around on his own responsibility, but he did not like to seem to lose his nerve—and maybe Reno had been buttoned up too. He was at eleven thousand, leaving a good two thousand feet of room to get over the near-by peaks. The air was rough, and the plane was in thick cloud; a little ice was forming. Any moment he hoped to come out into one of those long clear spaces with stratus banks above and below and maybe a mountain top just showing through the lower bank. Then suddenly Jerry yelled at him:

  “Bay trying to contact us; got the signal, but she faded—static.”

  At that moment Big Al saw the whole picture. He was just about to make headlines, perhaps. Maybe the headlines would keep running for several days until someone spotted the crashed plane and the charred bodies. He felt coldly calm, and decided to go ahead. Bay was just as likely telling them to keep away from Reno as to turn back and land there. Half a minute later, he knew that he had made the wrong decision.

  He’d have done better to try for some emergency field or even take her clear back to Elko on the reserve gas. A side-swipe took the plane, and then she went into a down-draught. He fought to regain control and get back altitude. (He hated to think what was happening among the passengers.) By the time he had control he was off the beam over in the N-sector somewhere. For the moment it was more important to get back some altitude than to hunt the beam. Just then he went into a thunderstorm, and even the N-signal disappeared. All he could do was to fight for control. If he kept moving west, he would gain altitude as the slope of the mountains fell away. Already he felt the drag of the ice; the de-icers couldn’t handle it; the weight was not so much as the distortion which the ice made in the flying-surfaces; the plane was getting hard to handle.

  And then, almost at his level, a mile away perhaps but looking close enough to touch, some black fangs of crags seemed to drift by—too steep for snow to rest on. There was nothing like them along the air-lanes. The Siena Buttes, maybe, he thought. If so, he was already miles off his course, to the north. He fought for control, and to keep to the west.

  •

  Blue Boy, the big boar, decided that he would get back to his dry shed. With the rain still sluicing down in torrents he trotted stolidly along the semblance of a trail which the feet of animals and men had worn on the steep hillside. When he came to the gully, he paused a moment, hesitating. Usually the gully was dry; even during most of the storm it had flowed an insignificant amount of water; but now, such was the cloudburst, the stream rushed six feet wide across the ledge. Above and below, it was a series of waterfalls.

  Blue Boy plunged ahead. He was almost across, when his long, low-hung body began to act like a dam. The water piled up in a wave against his upstream side; its buoyancy suddenly neutralized his weight; at the same moment his left hind-foot slipped.

  He was rolled over, kicking, ten feet downhill to the next ledge. He squealed shrilly, as a root scraped his tender snout. He struck the ledge more or less on his feet, and indignantly started to scramble out almost as he lit. But to scramble he had to crouch first, the buoyancy of the water tricked him again, and its sweep carried him away.

  This time he went farther, and hit on his back with a crash. For a moment he had another chance, but he was already bruised, half-stunned, and completely confused. His feet pawed the air uselessly for an instant; then a new wave slewed his forequarters around, washed him off the ledge, and dropped him head-foremost. Six feet down, he hit with a thud, all but smashing one shoulder; the shock took all the fight out of him. Convulsively sucking in for another squeal, he sucked water instead of air.

  From then on, he was an inert mass. The torrent hurled him end over end, and cracked his rump on a boulder. Where the water might have grounded him, his momentum as a falling body carried him on; it hurled him downward through bushes and vines. For the last thirty feet he rolled, spinning like a log. At the bottom he crashed through the barbed-wire fence, rolled three times more, and came to rest as his midriff suddenly crushed against something solid.

  His whole descent had not occupied ten seconds. He had hit against the place where the two big pipes of a culvert came together. The culvert passed under the railway; his forequarters sagged limply inside one pipe; his hindquarters inside the other.

  He was not yet dead, but he was too battered to save himself. The position of his body obstructed the flow, the water quickly rose higher, covered mouth and nostrils, and drowned him.

  •

  Opening the sluice-gates unaided was something of a job; when Martley had finished, he was tired. He listened for just a moment to the water sweeping through beneath him. Then he thought of the leak in his living-room, and the road washing away, and a dozen greater emergencies which might arise any moment. He turned and went rapidly along the narrow passageway leading to the hole up which he must climb. “Gotta hurry,” he thought. “Sure is a busy day!”

  The passageway was just high enough for a man to walk; now and then his shoulders brushed the sides. Seepage water dripped from the top and oozed through the walls; the air was so wet that he half seemed to be breathing water; he coughed. From above, from the sides, the concrete of the great dam—millions of tons—pressed in upon him.

  Ahead in the passageway as far as the bottom of the hole one electric light after another sent out a feeble yellow gleam. Then—without a warning flicker—they all went out. Black as Hell’s basement and the fires out!

  The darkness stopped the man in his tracks like a blow. The unexpected loss of his best sense brought momentary panic, but he suppressed it so quickly that he hardly missed the time of two strides. In the narrow passageway there was no chance of getting lost; he knew the distances and the hazards. He remembered where he was when the lights went out; as he walked he methodically counted his paces to know when he should expect to arrive at the end of the passageway. What worried him was why the lights had gone. In the storm anything might happen from the breakage of a local wire up to some major disaster. He hurried even faster; his men would need him; the L. D. might be calling. “Sure is a busy day!”—And this time he unconsciously spoke out loud for company and courage; he started as the voice reverberated hollowly from the concrete walls.

  Reaching ahead with his left hand he felt the end of the passageway. With his right hand, groping in the blackness, he found a steel rung—wet, cold, and slick. He began to climb upward into the narrow hole which he could not even see was there; it was as if he forced his way by will-power right into the concrete.

  Not for nothing had he been Superintendent at French Bar for eleven years. He knew every detail of the dam. He had to climb upward two hundred thirty feet, and the rungs were ten and a half inches apart—two hundred sixty-nine rungs.

  One—two—three—four. Counting to himself, he climbed by feel in the darkness—hand over hand, foot following foot. The water spattered upon him; he coughed in the dank air. Twenty-eight—twenty-time—thirty—thirty-one. He was climbing as fast as he dared. Forty-five—forty-six. His heart began to pound. His feet grew heavy. Sixty-six—sixty-seven. The hole was too small to give him free action. He felt cramps in his loins. Eighty—eighty-one—eighty—! (His left hand missed a grip and threw him out of rhythm.) Eighty-two—eighty-three. There was a pain across his chest and his ankle tendons were numb. He kept on grimly. One hundred! Then he rested. He took the next hundred again without halting. On rung two hundred, as he rested, he saw the dim little circle of half-light still high above him.

&nb
sp; His feet were heavy from the start, but he took the last sixty-nine rungs with a rush. He was wondering what had happened to his power-house. Were the dynamos still purring steadily like sleek happy cats? Had something smashed? Had the L. D. called? Exhausted, like a man finishing a race, he pulled himself out of the hole. Leaking in from the closed door was a dim halo of light. He stumbled toward it. He was suddenly conscious of some unusual roaring noise. He flung the door open; the flood of light blinded him for the moment; he put one foot out—and then paused. There was no wind, but only the strange roar, and spray—not like rain—in his face.

  In half a breath his sight came back to him, but for the moment he was not sure that he saw aright. There was no canyon wall, no swirling rain—only a solid wall of falling water. The dam was spilling; he was trapped.

  Perhaps it was the mere inrush of water from the streams swollen by the cloudburst; perhaps a wind-shift had piled water against the dam instead of the other direction. As he had feared, the opening of the sluice-gates was not enough; but he had not realized that it would be so soon.

  Because of the overhang there was a space of five feet between the doorway and the falling water. He looked one way and then the other, seeking escape. To the left his view ended against the solid wall of a concrete buttress. To the right his glance ran far along the sheer front of the dam with the water pouring over it; a few feet from where he stood the ground fell off and disappeared into the canyon.

  He reached out, picked up a stone, and threw it. From long experience with flowing water he knew from the way the stone disappeared that the solid-looking wall could not be more than an inch or so thick. It was falling only fifteen feet from the top of the dam. Given level and sure footing, a man could rush through such a waterfall, and no harm done. But here he had only a rough trail on a sloping rock-face and the precipice a few feet to one side. The best man in the world would be swept down. Courage would be only foolishness. If he stayed where he was, he would be safe; eventually the boys would come and pass a life-line through to him, or the dam would quit spilling. The storm wouldn’t last much longer.

  But not for a moment did Martley consider staying where he was —tamely. He remembered his leaderless men, his dynamos, the leak in the living-room, and the L. D. “I’m too busy to stay here,” he thought.

  He cast about for some means of escape. A few bits of junk lay in the passageway. They were useless. But just outside the door he saw a worn and rusted half-inch cable. Some construction boss had cast it aside as no longer trustworthy; but even if it were nine-tenths rusted through, the steel would still hold the weight of a man.

  Martley grabbed the end and pulled. The cable extended through somewhere beyond the wall of water. Martley dragged it in, hoping that the other end was stuck firmly. But it yielded; he pulled the loose end through the water, and found himself with thirty feet of cable.

  “I can’t stay here; I’m too busy,” he thought again.

  Martley looped one end of the cable around upon itself. He pounded it with a stone for a hammer. The rusty projecting ends of wire tore at his hands, but he fabricated a loop about three feet in diameter.

  Just outside the doorway he dug his heels in for a firm footing. He was so close to the falling water that he could reach it with his finger-tips. Like a cowboy on foot making ready to rope his pony, he stood with the awkward steel loop in his right hand. He cast it at the wall of water.

  It struck flatways, and was flung back. He corrected his aim. This time it disappeared neatly through the water. He pulled hopefully, but the loop came back to him without much resistance. He gathered it to his hand, and stood for a moment judging distance and direction.

  In eleven years he had come to know every detail about his dam. He knew that just beyond the water stood three rocks close together. If he could cast the looped cable among them it might stick.

  The third attempt did not pierce the water. The fourth went through, seemed to stick, and then yielded as he pulled a little harder. He tried again and again—now with no luck at all, now with enough hint of success to keep him trying.

  He was a methodical man and kept his count. The eleventh and fourteenth throws stuck momentarily. By now he knew exactly where the rocks must be. But the fifteenth try was a complete miss; his arm was tired.

  On the sixteenth throw he was careful. He pulled in; the cable ran freely for a foot and then stuck with a sudden jam. He was sure he had it! He pulled hard; he rested a moment, and then strained with his full weight. The cable was solid.

  There was, of course, a very good chance that, when he swung through an arc of more than a right angle, he would slip the loop off whatever projection held it. “I can’t stay here all day,” he thought.

  He grasped the cable at a point which he knew was about eight feet from whatever (presumably the rocks) the loop was caught on. He did not plunge at the water fall. He merely stuck his head and shoulders into it, and felt the rush take him from his feet. He held his breath and gripped the steel strands. The sluice of the water swept him across the sloping rock, but he knew that holding the cable he must swing in a circle. Beneath his left foot was nothing; he felt the void of the canyon sucking him down. He knew that he had been too reckless, but he gripped the cable.

  Then, still gripping the cable, he was lying on the sloping rock with water rushing against his face and shoulders. The loop of the cable was holding. Under his feet was empty space. He raised his face above the foaming rush, and heard the thunder of water plunging into the canyon. He panted a moment before daring to move. Then he bent both elbows, and hunched himself half a foot forward. He pulled up his right knee, and felt the roughness of rock beneath his foot. Only then did he dare to loose one hand and move it up on the cable for a fresh grip. (Even at that moment he felt, more than heard, the hum of the dynamos, and knew that the failure of the lights inside the dam had been purely local; the water going over the dam must have caused it.) The rest was easy.

  “Did the L. D. call?” he yelled at his wife from the doorway.

  “No!” she yelled back from where she was washing the breakfast dishes. “What made you so long?”

  “Oh—nothing much!”

  He was glad she did not come to look at him. His face and hands were scraped and bleeding; his pants-knees were both torn out. He grabbed the shovel from where he had left it on the porch, and hurried off to see about the road.

  •

  At the airport they waited. Waited. The radio-operators were listening. Now and then they tried to make contact. Minute passed by minute. Seven-fifty-four; seven-fifty-five. In the air, minutes count like hours on land or sea. The CSO sat there. He said nothing. There was nothing to say. Or to do! “Act of God!” Seven-fifty-six. No contact.

  Eight o’clock. Big Al due in at eight-thirty-five. Outside, the sun was shining. To the south the airways fine as silk. A Los Angeles plane taking off. Keep things moving—as if nothing has happened. Maybe nothing has happened. Maybe.

  Somebody came in. “Lottie’s out there!” he half whispered. Al’s wife—married six months. Used to be a stewardess. They all knew Lottie. Nice little thing. The guys joking Al about a baby.

  Who’s the best bluffer? Send him out. Let him kid along with Lottie. Don’t say anything. Not yet. (Pretty hard to bluff a stewardess.) Buy her a drink. No. She’d think that was funny. Buy her a coffee. God, why’d she have to come so early?

  Only eight-two! You mean—eight-two already! People will be coming to meet the passengers. They won’t be worrying. Sun shining. You wouldn’t think things could be so bad inside of two hundred miles. Would you now? Really. “Act of God!” “Prince of the power of the air!” Eight-three.

  •

  A half dozen men had gathered in the lounge-car just after eight o’clock. The conductor came in.

  “Good morning,” said a passenger. “On time—”

  Just then the
brakes went on with a grab that shook the whole car. One passenger went right down in the aisle; the others flopped half over in the chairs. By the time they pulled themselves up the conductor was gone.

  “God! Emergency stop!”

  “Anybody hurt?”

  The train was standing still. The men peered out. The rain was falling by bucketfuls. On one side the train was close against the steeply sloping wall of a canyon. On the other side—across the up-track—the canyon-wall dropped off fifty feet more to a roaring stream. The clouds were drifting in so low that they covered most of the opposite wall of the canyon beyond the stream.

  “Nasty place! Glad we didn’t go off the track!”

  They waited five minutes—ten minutes. They speculated what the trouble might be. The porter had no idea; no trainmen showed up.

  “We’ll not get in on time anyway. Tough! Here we hit every stop on the nose all the way across, and get held up just at the end.”

  “Come on,” said a young man to his companion, “let’s go out. Maybe there’s been an accident.”

  The sheets of rain made them hesitate, but once they had their overcoats on, neither one wanted to be the first to back down. They hurried along toward the engine, where the trainmen gathered about.

  They saw, not fifty feet ahead of the engine, water flooding across the tracks. Already it had washed out a lot of ballast, and the outside track was hanging in a long sag; even the inside track was much too doubtful-looking to risk the passage of a train.

  The conductor was shaking his head. “Look at that track!” he said. “The track-walker just found it in time to stop us—lucky he did, too! But not even a crew here to work on it yet. It’ll be two hours if it’s a minute. Lucky if we get away under three.”