by W E Monroe
Chapter Five: Flash Flood – The Dam Breaks
Leavin' Harrellson Corners the trip started out pretty good. Nate had a full belly of Flos cooking, Avis, the horse was doing alright. The first part of the eight and one-half miles to Murphyville wasn't too steep and the horse was handling it pretty well. Except for "Awww...Whowmmmpppf!" that darned sneezing.
About four miles out, the grade got a little steeper, and the horse was startin' to give-out. So, Nate got off and walked. For about another two miles this was alright, but the horse seemed to be gettin' sicker and Nate begins to wonder if Avis was gonna make it back to Murphyville.
Avis stated what might or might not have been an opinion in the matter. "Awww...Whowmmmpppf! Awww...Whowmmmpppf!
From the position of the afternoon sun, it was becoming obvious that unless Nate could move this horse faster, it was going to be well past dark when he'd get home. A switch was cut from a tree along the road and Nate moved to the rear of the horse. A few licks from the switch and this moved Avis along pretty good again.
After a while Nate, who'd been concentrating on his difficulties with his horse, looked up and said to no one in particular." As if I don't have enough trouble, now it's startin' to rain. Naw...goldarn it, not little bitty rain drops. BIG ones! Lord tell me what I did so wrong! I'll make it right!"
The Lord did not choose to reply.
It was soon the sort of rain that the folks in these parts call a frog-strangler. If it had rains just a little harder, Nate and Avis could have swim up that road.
Now, Nate had travelled this road often enough to know that just around the next bend, there was a rock overhang big enough for him and Avis to get under and out of the rain. In fact, if he could move Avis just a little further, only about ten or fifteen feet, the road leveled off and it would be easy going for himself and his now-useless horse. A lesser man would of said "to hell with the horse", but not Nate. That just wasn't the way he was raised-up. In the meantime it was still rainin' REAL hard.
Unknown to Nate, that rock overhang he was trying to get to was already occupied. Standin' under it was a sweet young lady name of Hester. She was there to work her plan in what she knew would be the successful courtship of Nate Cooley. However, the plans she'd laid, like Nate's, were also going very, very wrong. Two hours ago she'd moved into her position to waylay Nate. It was hot, and her Sunday-go-to-meetin' dress had started to 'wilt'. When she finally heard Nate's approach, she stuck her head out into the rain and peeked around the rocks to discover the reason for the late arrival.
"Something's wrong with Nate's horse", she said to herself.
Hester could also see that Nate was frustrated! And, he was mad! "The only way I'm gonna hold his attention to get some courtin' started, will be to whack him with a fence post." Fortunately, there were no fenceposts nearby. By now it wasn't just her face and hair gettin' wet. The rain was gettin' her Sunday dress all wet!
What had been a very modest Sunday dress, now wet from the rain, had become a transparent Sunday dress. Hester was unaware of this latest development. Could it be that the Lord was makin' sure nobody got whacked with a fencepost?
"Still rainin', my God is it rainin'!" Nate, being the mental giant that all school teachers are, decided that he was going to have to use brute strength to get this horse over this little rise. Pulling didn't do it.
Something that neither Hester nor Nate figured on was the effect of a little rain on a clay road. Well this day there was a whole lot of rain, in the span of only a few minutes. In some places, clay just gets messy and sticky when its wet. Round these parts, it also gets very, very slippery.
Now, poor ol' sick Avis, the horse, was tryin' to get up that hill. Couldn't fault him none. But, he was sick. And wet. And very tired. "Awww...Whommmpppf!" and getting sicker.
"One more try!" Nate muttered to himself as he went around to the rear of the horse, turned his back to Avis's rear end, knowin' Avis is a gentle horse and not likely to kick. He leaned against Avis's hind-quarters, lowered himself into a sort-of half squat so that he could throw his entire weight into this job. Takin' a position like this with other horses, can get you a short, painful flight, launched off a horses hoof.
Well,...that's right Avis is not normally a kickin' horse. But, you gotta admit, this was a really, really, bad day for this horse. It was as though Avis was sayin', "Alright, that's enough!" And with that he let go with a kick!
That kick raised Nate's two hundred pound, bug-eyed body, in a two-foot high arc that ended about six feet away.
Nate, landed, rolled over, slid down the incline of the road about six feet, then slowly stood up. A little woozy at first. He would later find the imprint of a horse shoe on one buttock that would remain for years.
Nate Cooley was very lucky. Much of the income of the local doctor and undertaker, depended on the generosity of Colchester County's horses.
Rain or not, Hester had come out of the overhang to see what was going on. Although soaking wet, she still had not noticed her wet, transparent dress.
The noise of the rain, couldn't cover all the miscellaneous noises coming from Nate and the horse. Coughs and wheezes and sneezes and little bubbling noises from the horse’s runny nose. Nate had maintained a non-stop conversation with himself for some minutes.
This enormous man continued muttering something, but Hester alarmed, couldn't make out the words.
The teacher was actually saying was "Alright, I give up. I'll tie the goldarned horse to a tree. I'll just have to sleep in that rock overhang tonight. Better take the rifle. Maybe some of Aunt Flo's vittles have survived in the saddle bags." While muttering this, Nate walked around to the other side of the horse and drew the Winchester rifle out of the saddle holster.
"STOP!...STOP!...STOP!...For God's sake, please...don't shoot that poor, sick horse" she screamed at the top of her lungs. Pulling up the hem of her Sunday dress, Hester leapt out to intervene.
Nate did not understand a single word she screamed and by the time he spun around, Hester had already said her piece and was now occupied full-time with what we'll call her slidin'-and-plowin' act.
When Hester's leading foot hit the soft, slippery clay, it went east, the next foot hit the clay and it went west. Then "SPLAT", her behind hit, and headed due south, taking the rest of her along. Legs far apart, she's sliding down this steeply sloped road at a pretty good clip! Soon, she's plowed enough sloppy-wet clay to plant two rows of corn in the little garden behind the Mooney cabin.
It's never been said that Nate Cooley is fearless. He surely looks fearless. He certainly commands respect. But, when you're stuck in the middle of thunderstorm with a useless horse, that's just kicked you...well, your nerves are gonna be jumpy. Hester's screamin', jumpin' and slidin' scared the daylights out of Nate Cooley.
Not only did Nate not understand a word that Hester screamed, he had been so startled, he had not even identified it as human. For all Nate knew, this thing comin' at him could be a bobcat with a new way to stalk prey in the rain.
Nate decided to scare this animal off with warning shots from the Winchester rifle. "BANG!...BANG-BANG!" The shots had absolutely no effect. It kept right on comin'. Too close now to shoot, or do anything. The 'animal' slidin' in the clay was now moving about as fast as a horse would trot. Then the animal's funny-lookin' lower legs in a "V" came right down an' up an' over the toe of one of his boots, and this thing made a sound like, "OOOOOMPH!" The animal was upon Nate! As soon as contact was made, those legs in a "v" clamped around the teachers right leg like somebody had 'sprung' a trap. Petrified, Nate waited' for the inevitable big toothy mouth to clamp down on his leg and start the rippin' and tearin'.
The shots from Nate's Winchester rifle scared the hell out of Avis. The horse, reared straight up and flipped right on over backwards, then he did a quarter turn to his right, and landed on that right side in the slippery clay.
Long as the horse had stood still
in one place he'd been alright. But, he was now providing perfect examples of the concepts of inertia and momentum. Especially, momentum! Exactly as Nate had explained them to his students Wednesday afternoon.
That horse needed real bad to whinny or scream out his terror what with that fall and now this terrible slide. But, it was his fate with that cold to have to experience it all with only another "Awww...Whooommmpppf!” and a little muted bubbling from that runny nose.
Avis finally slid to a stop, legs flailing uselessly on his down-slope side. He had traveled about fifty yards down the slope.
Nate by now, noticed that this other 'animal' that was clamped to his leg was making little noises like whimpers and cryin'. He peeled what turned out to be the bottom part of a dress off its face. "Holy Cow, would you look at that, it's a girl!" said Nate.
The way that the dress had flipped up to cover Hester's face, also kept the muddy clay off of her upper torso and her face. Her transparent Sunday dress exposed her considerable charms to Nate. To say that she had Nate's undivided attention, would have been the understatement of the year. Nate remembered that only a few hours before, the excitement of a woman's softness and warmth flattened against his belly. Now this! Almost more than a man can bear.
Tenderly, Nate helped the girl to her feet. Hester looked into Nate's eyes, for the first time up close. Nate, looking down at her, now recognized Hester as the girl that he'd seen give hell to Jesse Grant, in town.
"Are you alright?" Hester nodded. "Look, it's getting dark. We've got to get to high ground." His eyes swept across the raging water of the rising creek, now lapping at the edge of the road. The creek was almost two feet higher than when he had passed this morning. The road down to Harrelson Corners ran several miles alongside Buzzard Creek and followed a ravine much of the way. Upstream, water from this heavy rain was draining from an area of many square miles into Buzzard’s Lake on the south side of Murphyville. That would be a phenomenal volume of water.
Years ago, a couple of neighbors that lived on opposite sides of the creek decided to dam up that stream and make themselves a lake. The idea came from an old beaver dam across the creek that made a little pond. At that place, the ground on either side of the creek rose rather steeply. For several years, those two neighbors hauled wagonload after wagonload of dirt and rocks and dumped them in the creek bed. They watched their little pond become a big pond, and then a fair-size lake.
For quite a while those two neighbors puzzled over what to call their lake. They tried and tried to agree on a name that would suggest the lake’s beauty. They finally gave up in frustration and agreed to call it Buzzard’s Lake.
Those two neighbors had been dead for years and the dam needed a lot of fixin’. Who was going to fix it, and how to fix it, was hotly debated in Murphyville. But nothing was done. Nate had heard the talk in town about that old, neglected dam. He walked over to take a look at it once.
Now in this deluge, he remembered the talk, and what he had seen at the dam. He realized, ‘this could be the day the dam breaks! All that water might soon be crashing through this ravine, sweeping away everything in its path.
Nervously, he cocked his head and listened for any sounds that might herald the arrival of a flash flood. That wall of water would make a roaring sound, he thought. The sounds of trees being ripped out of the bank, or broken off by the force of the water, might carry for some distance and give warning.
"Listen to me real careful, Hester!" He tried to conceal his fear, but was only partly successful. Straining to hear over the hiss of the pouring rain and rushing water of the creek, Hester listened. "I'm gonna throw these big tree limbs across this mud from here, to the side of the ravine. We're gonna climb up the rocks on the side. It's only about twenty feet high. Nate immediately began to move several large tree limbs that had been laying for years on the ground. Soon there was a bridge of dead limbs across the slippery mud.
"Alright, Go!" Hester hesitated, looking back with eyes wide fear. "Get moving! Go! Go! Go!" Nate raised his great arm and slapped his wide palm hard on Hester's rear. The pain cut through her apprehension and she scrambled on all fours across the tree limb bridge. When she reached the near-vertical rocks, Nate was right behind her. Hester hesitated. Again a hand on her behind, this time softly, then another, lifting her up the wall of rocks. Hands slipping, feet searching for the next crack or the slightest outcrop, slowly she climbed up the rocks. Something in Nate’s voice warned of terrible danger. She couldn't imagine what.
Nate checked Hester's progress and in the dim light saw she was nearly there, but unable to go on. Then he heard it! A roar, like the roar of a great fire. A roar like that tornado three summers ago that splintered large trees. Right where he'd planned to build a cabin for a wife and some kids.
"Oh my God, Hester!.he shouted. Go on, get up there! Go on! Go on! Go on Hester!" Hester had no strength left. Nate, again put a hand on the young girls butt and with all the strength he could muster, lifted her to safety. Hester rolled over on the level surface at the top. Now she could hear the terrifying roar of the water and the rifle-shot cracks of timber being broken. Then she knew. Flash flood!
"Nate!" she screamed.. Looking over the edge she found him, hanging precariously. The roar of the approaching flash flood was deafening. Laying flat on the ground, reaching for a grip on Nate's clothing, she found one. That small amount of help was just enough, and Nate slowly, slowly pulled himself over the edge.
Both, absolutely exhausted, they watched in the dim light as the wall of water raced down the ravine faster than a fast horse can run. The front of the water-wall boiled like a caldron. Just behind the leading edge of the flood, trees, deer, a couple of cows and the body of a small child swirled to the surface, only to quickly disappear again.
As their eyes followed this awesome wall of water, they saw the forgotten horse, Mavis. The animal, still on its side with legs flailing whinnied in terror as the water struck with the force of a steam engine. Swept up and bashed hard against the rocks, the mare went limp and disappeared in the boiling water. When the crest had passed, they realized how close to death they had been. The wall of water rushed past less than a foot below the edge of the ravine. No longer the torrential storm, the rain, diminished. With sobs convulsing her body, Hester cried out her fear, and her relief.
"Hester, Hester, Hester...." Nate murmured. He knew what she needed. He caressed her face and Smoothed her hair. Two large arms embraced her firmly, warmly against him, as he sat on the ground. Holding her to his chest, he rocked her back and forth, making soothing sounds to calm her; to comfort her. An hour later, a frantic Rooster Mooney found his daughter, Hester, safe in Nate Cooley's arms.
"Hester?...Hester? Are you alright? Are you hurt?" Rooster worriedly asked, as she clung to Nate Cooley. Hearing her daddy's voice filled with a parent's concern, and love, Hester stirred and rose from Nate's embrace.
"Daddy, Daddy...it was terrible. The flood got Nate's horse. It almost got us."
"Mr. Mooney, I think we should get Hester somewhere where its warm." Nate suggested, shivering with the cold. Lifting himself from the muddy earth, he bent over and effortlessly lifted the girl.
The dismal light of this fateful Saturday faded into night, as Rooster led the way home. At the cabin, he stirred the glowing embers in the fireplace and added wood for a fire to the three wet and shivering people. Baths in the large round wash tub would wait until warmth returned to their bodies.