by J. L. Jarvis
Samuel unhitched the horse and lifted Allison out of the carriage and onto the horse. He climbed on with her and they continued on horseback across the dam as the water began to spill over the road. The horse trudged through ankle deep mud. Behind them Powell lashed his horse, which plodded steadily toward them. The rain drove down upon them and the water rose beneath them. Powell was gaining, but they could go no faster.
When Powell caught up beside them, he swiped at the air until he caught hold of Samuel’s arm and pulled. Samuel fell, letting go of Allison, but she clung to him, trying to pull him back up. She fell with him. The horse went on without them.
“Go!” Samuel yelled to Allison, until he felt a fist in his side.
He turned and grabbed Powell by the collar but slipped in the mud and pulled Powell down with him. Water was rising about them. Soaked through, they arose clutching and jabbing, and then both slid into the water. Allison looked back from the shore to see Samuel get up. He could barely walk as the water rushed over the dam, but he headed for shore. Allison reached for him. Powell burst through the water and pulled Samuel down.
“No.” She stood motionless watching. “Samuel!”
She pushed her legs forward, but her skirt was too heavy. Strong arms pulled her back to the shore and held on. She could only watch. People yelled from the shore to Samuel and Powell as they fought, unable to hear over the rain and the water. Powell dragged Samuel under, but he came up gasping for air. He coughed and caught enough air in his lungs to grab hold of Powell and hold him by the collar. He landed a punch that sent Powell backward, and then he turned to make his way to the shore. A powerful current rushed about his legs as he fought his way to safe ground. A group of workers waited yards away, their arms outstretched. Samuel caught sight of Allison waiting for him, and he met her gaze with fierce determination.
In that instant, the ground gave way beneath him and the water leapt out from the lake, hurling him with it over the edge. A mighty wall of water swallowed him up with a thunderous roar. And the dam was gone.
“Samuel!” Allison screamed, and tried to run to the edge to dive after him, but the workers held her back. Her cries were unheeded as a wall of earth that was once the dam tumbled toward the unsuspecting valley below. Twenty million gallons of water pushed the dam with it, like a solid wall forty feet high and a half-mile wide, charging toward Johnstown at forty miles-per-hour. For fourteen miles the roaring floodwater pounded the valley, crashing and sweeping away homes and lives.
And Samuel with it.
Chapter 25
Maggie answered the door to find Jake leaning one arm against the frame, weary but still smiling.
“Need some help?” Hard rain had caused flooding.
“Oh, yes,” said Maggie, with a sigh. “Hank’s not home from jail yet, so we’ve been moving things upstairs by ourselves.”
Jake shook his head. There was nothing left to say about Hank.
“How’s everyone at your house?”
“I borrowed a horse and got my ma and the kids to St. John’s to wait it out. It’s going to be a bad one. Here, give me that.” He took a box from her and began hauling things upstairs. By the time they were finished, the water outside was waist high and coming into the house.
“Beth,” called Maggie, “Jake and I are heading over to the library. I need to see what I can do over there. Jake’s family went over to the Catholic Church. Are you sure you’ll be alright here? We could take you to the church.”
“I’m sure. You two be careful,” said Beth from the top of the stairs.
Jake pulled Maggie onto the horse and together they rode through the water toward the library, past people who struggled to wade through the water on their way to higher ground. Before they could reach the library, a train whistle sounded throughout the valley, shrill and unrelenting. People were running and screaming. First, they heard it—behind them—a terrible roar, growing louder and louder. Then they saw it.
A great wall of water and rubble came rolling toward them, consuming itself, sucking and devouring everything in its path and spewing over its top the remnants and splinters of homes and lives. Above the frothing wave, there hovered a mist blackened by the earth. Jake and Maggie ducked into the nearest building and frenetically climbed the stairs to the second floor as the water made chase. Jake pulled Maggie along as she tripped over her wet skirts. They reached the attic and joined about a dozen others, cowered in speechless fear.
There was a pounding on the roof as muffled voices cried to be let in. Maggie looked about at stunned faces, and then ran to the window. The library was gone, as were so many of the buildings. Wildly flailing and floating bodies of people and animals, living and dead, flowed past in swift succession as the water forged relentlessly onward. Strangely juxtaposed objects and pulverized parts of buildings pounded against each other. Maggie forced herself to block from her mind the horrific spectacle before her. She pulled then pushed at the window, then struggled with the lock. It was unlocked, but the window was swollen shut from the moisture. She glanced about and grabbed hold of a chair, hurled it through the glass. With a broken chair leg, she cleared away the jagged edges of glass, and leaned out the window. A boy who looked to be about ten lowered himself by his hands until he hung down from the eaves. Maggie wrapped her arms around his legs and guided him in through the window. She helped three more to safety. One panicky young woman latched on and nearly pulled Maggie with her into the rising rapids.
By this time, Jake had found an old iron curtain rod and used it to pry loose several slats in the ceiling until he had made a hole big enough to pull in the remaining half dozen people.
Maggie leaned outside the window and watched for people passing close enough to be pulled to safety. The water was dark and foaming with rage as it pushed through town, pounding and shattering everything in the way of its roiling rapids. An uprooted tree was hurled into the air, coming toward her. Maggie threw herself at the opposite corner just as the tree, like an enormous arrow, was hurled through the window with outstretched limbs.
Houses, parts of outbuildings, wagons, and logs surged rapidly onward, randomly serving as instruments of salvation or destruction. People clutched at whatever they could find until the water pulled it from them to hurl at someone else. Cries rang out amid the flood’s din as people flailed in the water. Some looked at Maggie with horror-filled faces. People were dying. She was too far from them to help. She could only look on. The cacophony dulled her senses.
“Jake? Come here!”
A crying child clung to a barrel which had lodged itself against a railroad tie, the end of which was snagged by what used to be a balcony. It held tenuously, threatening to break loose at any moment. Maggie couldn't reach it.
“Hang on tight,” Jake called to the child.
“Maggie, hold onto my legs with all of your might.”
Jake teetered from the window ledge, but he couldn't reach the boy’s hand. He eased out a bit further.
“You’ll be killed,” warned one of the idle attic onlookers.
Jake paid him no heed as he crept on his knees onto the floating railroad tie and reached, inching forward until he grasped the child’s hand. He pulled him to the window and tossed him the few inches left into Maggie’s waiting arms. As he did so, the tie was knocked loose and threw Jake into the vicious water. He was sucked under the powerful current. He bobbed to the surface some yards away, and then disappeared from view.
“Jake!” But Maggie’s cry was but one of many. She looked on as if her will was strong enough to drag him from the hold of nature.
“I tried to warn him,” said the onlooker.
If she heard him, Maggie didn't respond.
An older woman brought a shawl and wrapped it around the naked child, then pried him from Maggie’s arms and carried him away from the window. Maggie crumbled to a heap on the floor and kept watch by the window, but Jake never reappeared. A loud creaking tore through her grief. With a crack and a jolt, the
attic split open and was set free from the house. Bereft of hope, Maggie sat idly while the roof and wall broke free of the building. An abrupt jerk sent her spinning on a piece of floor, to which she grabbed hold, more from instinct than decision.
Along the waters she rode on her raft of floor planks, through a grotesque blur of bodies and limbs. Once valued objects now floated by without meaning or purpose through murky rapids. People passed by all covered in mud, their clothing torn from their backs, some of them screaming for help. Others rode by in silent terror, while others lay dead. A few fortunate ones were pulled to safety in nearby buildings. Many were struck down by swiftly churning rubble.
A woman held an infant with one arm, as she grasped a plank of wood with the other. Maggie’s arms ached and grew weak. The cold numbed her hands. But she hung on to her raft. She had to, although she no longer knew why. Jake was gone.
She became aware of hollering, and turned a weary head to see hands outstretched from a window. She was headed toward them. She gritted her teeth and reached out as she neared the building. She stretched for a hand. They touched. A man grabbed hold, but her hand, slick with mud, slid from his frantic grasp and she went on by. Their eyes were locked for an instant of panic before the current pulled her away. Maggie braced herself as she was spun around and sucked away by a changing current.
The water was knee deep on the first floor when Beth rounded the top of the stairs and heard Robin’s cry. The house trembled. Pictures fell from the walls. Beth stepped over shattered glass as she ran to Robin. Robin stood still and stared as water gushed in through the window and filled the room. Beth scooped up her daughter and struggled through water, half swimming, to get to the stairs that led to the attic.
Robin stood by the window at the end of the attic and watched.
“Come away from there, Robin. That’s not for your eyes,” said Beth as she led her daughter from the window.
The water was dark brown, frothing and merciless. Her ears were saturated, numbed by the death cries of people swept along as the water pushed through the town. It seemed to gather more power as it swallowed and decimated every obstacle in its path. In nearby windows, astonished faces peered out at her and she at them. Houses ground against houses until they broke into pieces that were carried away in the water.
Robin nestled into to her mother’s arms, silent and afraid.
“When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.” Beth looked about, focused urgently on any possible escape. There was too much water between her house and the hillside. But that side would be the best to be on, she decided. The closer she and Robin could position themselves to land, the better. So they staggered over to the other side of the attic, even as the floor shook and creaked beneath them.
Beth had watched several houses give way that were no sturdier than hers. She looked outside the window to see how she could get Robin to the roof. The climb was but a few feet, but it was wet and slick. If they lost their footing, they would fall into the waiting floodwaters. Her skirts were already wet and heavy. They would pull her under.
“Get undressed,” she ordered Robin.
“What?”
“If we don’t do it, the water will. Take your dress off.”
Robin and Beth stripped down to their chemises.
Beth took Robin’s shoulders and looked in her eyes. “Now listen to me, and do as I say. We’re going to climb to the roof.”
“I can’t, Mama. I’m scared.”
Beth looked very stern. “You’re not allowed to be scared. We’ll do it now and be scared later.”
Robin nodded obediently.
“Okay. Now here’s what we’ll do. Pretend you’re climbing a tree,” Beth told her with a forced and determined smile.
Beth tore her skirt into wide strips, and then tied them together to make a rope. This she fastened around Robin’s waist and took hold of the end. She looked out. She would need both hands to climb, but if she tethered herself to Robin and fell, she might sweep Robin in with her. She gave the end of their makeshift rope to Robin, and gave her careful instructions. After leaning precariously out of the window, Beth caught hold of the frame and worked her way to a standing position on the windowsill. With one hand, then two, she grasped hold of the roof shingles and hoisted herself up. Her foot rested on the top of the window frame as she worked to pull herself up and over. She refused to look at the rushing water, but the sound couldn't be blocked out.
“Robin! It’s your turn!” She had to yell to be heard over the noise. “Throw me the end of your rope.”
It took several tosses, but Beth caught the end of their rope. She tied it to the chimney, then went back to the edge and pulled as Robin climbed bravely from the window. Her left foot slipped from the sill, but Beth held onto her wrists and pulled her until she could swing her leg up and over and crawl onto the roof. They edged their way to the chimney, and hugged it while Beth tied the two of them to the chimney.
The passing sights ceased to seem real. The water looked so dark, not like water at all. A rain barrel floated by and crashed into splinters against an overturned house. Beth’s teeth chattered. It was only the cold, she told herself.
She looked fiercely at Robin. “If anything happens to me, you just hang on,” she told Robin. “No matter what happens, find something to hang onto.”
A house pounded against theirs and the roof broke apart. They were jostled and thrown, but their makeshift rope held them. Then chimney bricks fell like they had never had mortar. Their makeshift rope went with them.
“Hold on over here,” Beth yelled to Robin.
They were adrift on the roof, holding onto the edge. With startling speed they were carried. Angry water smashed against withstanding buildings and splashed muddy spray upon them. Filmy layers of splintered wreckage collected against edges of buildings that stood in the way, and new currents would form around them.
They rode the roof in terror as the rapids drove them past unfathomable visions. A hand wedged itself between boards of the roof. Beth grabbed hold to help and the hand came out easily, having been severed from its body. She shuddered and tried to quell the cry that came out for the sake of her daughter. They spun around and came to rest with a jolt that sent them into the watery wreckage. Robin’s little body was battered by abrading objects as she struggled to climb a nearby mound of rubble. In a daze she stood atop the splintered wood and piled bricks as volatile water pushed and piled rubble around her. They found themselves at the end of the Stone Bridge, which crossed over the river below the town.
Beth tried to move, but one leg was wedged in the wreckage, hopelessly pinned. She couldn't move it.
“Robin? Go to the shore!”
But Robin stood in shock, unable or unwilling to move from her mother.
Like a giant logjam, water was piling and packing debris until it moved or broke. Robin stood on a pile of bricks beside part of a house that shifted and leaned threateningly toward her.
“Robin? You’ve got to move!”
Robin turned her head toward her mother’s voice, hearing but not understanding.
“Robin! Run! Run to the shore!”
The building cracked and shifted a few inches more. Robin looked at her mother. She wouldn't move. Onlookers held back. The threat of the teetering building was too great a risk. Beth despaired. They were so close to the shore, so close to safety. She had nothing left but prayers.
“Lord help her! Save my Robin!”
The slim shape of a woman pushed through the crowd at the bank of the river. Stumbling over the debris, she ran toward them, toward Robin.
“Sophie!” Beth said. It was Jake’s friend from the Christmas party.
Sophie took Robin’s hand and tugged. She was too big for Sophie to carry. “C’mon, Robin. You’re coming with me.”
“Go with her, Robin!” urged her mother.
Robin looked at Sophie with wide, hollow eyes.
“Robin. You have to come now.”
But she would not, could not move. But the building did. The unrelenting waters pushed the looming building. It was going to fall.
Robin looked up.
“Now!” Sophie yelled, and Robin obeyed. She pushed Robin to safety as the wall toppled down, missing Beth but crushing Sophie.
With the threat of the falling building gone, several townsmen now rushed to Beth’s aid.
“My little girl. Is she okay?”
“Don’t worry. Someone’s taking care of her.”
“Sophie,” whispered Beth. “God rest her soul.”
Half a dozen men began working to uncover Beth while, not far off, a pile of debris had caught fire and now burned with increasing intensity.
“It’s my leg. I can’t move it.”
It was only a matter of time before the fire would reach Beth. Anguished cries for mercy cut through the air. Hopelessly trapped men, women and children had survived the flood only to perish in the fire.
Men chopped, pulled and pried as the fire burned on.
One man said, “We may have to cut off your leg.”
Beth looked at him in horror. Another man rushed to join them.
Eben Wakefield knelt beside her and put his hand on her shoulder. “I came down to help, and saw Robin. Don’t worry, she’s fine. Now let’s get you out of here.”
She lay helplessly watching them work, as though she were somehow apart from the scene. Her life was in the hands of these men. There was no more to be done but to wait and pray.
“When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.” She repeated the words in panicked whispers.
The warmth of the encroaching fire felt good to her cold, wet body, even as it spread closer. She wanted to rest in the warmth.
The men toiled for two hours to free her. Death assaulted her senses. Through the cold air, hot flames licked and charred the trees, railroad ties, pieces of houses, and human bodies. Haunting cries and the smell of burning flesh and damp wood overwhelmed Beth’s consciousness. She was dizzy, and then drifted off in a faint, only vaguely aware as they tugged and lifted her limp body. Her senses gave way to black silence.