Lone Rock

by Duane Lindsay

  When she smiled Adrian paused, in awe that he was sitting here, watching.

  A thought occurred to him as he reached for the coffee mug she’d given him. He sipped as the idea gelled, said, “What you’re doing is engineering.”

  She stopped in the middle of a complicated ribbon of notes. “What?”

  “Your music. I’ve been listening and watching you. You approach music the same way I do engineering. With your heart and your brain. It isn’t just art and it isn’t just mechanical. You do both.”

  Maggie paused, her hand poised over the keyboard. She seemed to be considering what he said. “Music is partly mathematical,” she said. “It isn’t just about feelings, you know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “About math. Well, consider chords.” She turned on her stool. “A chord is made of three notes. The first in the scale is the root, the next is the third, then the fifth. That makes a triad chord—triad for three tones. And the chord is played all at one time in a vertical line. See?” She pointed to her note paper but all Adrian saw was black dots and lines.

  “Okay,” he agreed so she’d continue.

  “Okay, If a chord is vertical—played all at once—and a melody is horizontal, played across time. Each of the notes in the melody has to follow strict rules about what works and what doesn’t if the song is going to sound right.” She warmed to her subject, as a person will who has an audience.

  She tapped the seat next to her hip.” Come here.” For the next half hour she gave him a look into the arcane language of the musician, the meaning of the dots and lines that, when transcribed, became the works of Mozart and Beethoven and Chuck Berry. These symbols, she told him, meant this, those squiggles meant that. The curly thing? “The G Clef; see? The curve goes around the line that means a G note.”

  “As a musician I can either just play what’s written without understanding it—and a lot of players do just that—or I can understand what the theory says I’m doing. I like that more, it makes me play better and I feel—” Her voice trailed off as she tried to find the right words.

  “I’ve never talked about this before. I don’t quite know how to explain.”

  “You feel as if you’re juggling everything all at once. The art, the mechanics, the skill in your hands, the sheer knowledge you possess that is both awesome and humbling.”

  “Yes!” She stared at him, amazed.” How could you.. how do you understand this? You know nothing about music.”

  “I know engineering. Maggie, what we do is not so very different. Like you said about musicians; there are a lot of engineers who just work the calculations. They know how the math is supposed to work, they apply it to whatever problem and; presto! Instant engineering. But all they’re doing is problem solving, and pretty basically at that.”

  “That’s like musicians who learn to play piano by just reading what’s printed,” Maggie said.” Too often they just see the notes on the page and translate it into movements from their fingers, and never understand what they’re doing, how it fits with other instruments, what it’s all about.” Her eyes were radiant in the bright morning winter light. The room seemed both large and small, as if they were sitting far apart and touching knees at the same time.

  Adrian smiled at her. “That’ s engineers, too. Just plug in the numbers and go on. No thought of what they’re doing; about the connection with bigger and bigger parts, or building things as a whole.”

  “How do you do it?” asked Maggie. Her expression was intense with discovery.

  “I look at engineering, especially design, as a complete project. How does the system work? How can it be integrated with the other systems? What’s the over-all goal we’re trying to accomplish and how can it be made better? And what does it cost? I like to make my solutions work more than just one way to accomplish the job.”

  “You like it to be right.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Adrian.

  “Because it’s more than just numbers, isn’t it? It’s art.”

  “Yes; like your music is more than feelings stumbled on by accident.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

  “Because I didn’t know before.” Adrian stopped, wondering how to continue. Somehow this had become more serious than he’d intended; and much more personal. He felt that, by continuing, he was going to show more of himself and he had a brief understanding of Maggie’s fear of performing. What if she laughed? What if she didn’t understand and this feeling of closeness vanished as quickly as it had appeared; dissolved like the pop of a soap bubble?

  Yet he felt compelled to explain. Fear and compulsion tightened his throat; he had to swallow before he could continue. “Because,” he said again and his eyes watched hers, waiting for any sign of rejection.

  But she merely waited, hands folded on her lap, expression neutral.

  “You can—” He stopped, thought, started again. Very scary ground indeed, he thought. “All right. You play music, which is about feelings. It’s all right to talk about it. If you do, people will listen, maybe even comment.”

  She nodded.

  “But engineering is supposed to be serious. It’s logical and cool and isn’t supposed to be art. It’s supposed to be...clinical.” He was pleased at the word. “Clinical. Dignified. You don’t talk about it, you, you don’t take pride in it, you certainly don’t share it with others.”

  Maggie said, “Since you couldn’t talk about how you felt, you just stayed quiet. The more you remained silent, the more alone you felt, the more you felt...apart...from everybody. Is that it?”

  Adrian could only nod. His feelings were confused ; he wanted to continue, he wanted to run away. Mostly he hoped she’d understand.

  “So you built the life of an engineer, separate from feelings, as if that was possible. And in doing that you kept yourself from feeling anything else. Wow.” Maggie nodded her head and a stray wisp of hair settled on her cheek. She brushed it away absently, a gesture Adrian adored.

  “You’ve never talked about this before have you? No; I didn’t think so. Just kept it inside.” She was amazed that he’d open up this way, and unsure how to respond. Finally, when the silence had grown to a very real presence in the room, she reacted as usual with music and humor. She turned to the piano. Softly, a finger touch on the keys, a whisper of breathe in the voice. She crooned. “Summertime...and the living is easy. Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high...”

  The chords echoed in the room, tender as a kiss. In the same voice. the same melancholy timbre. she sang, “pi are squared, and the radius doubled...calculations...and the square root of nine...”

  The music stopped, lingering in the air. She nodded her head somberly and said, “Yeah; that works.”

  Then she pivoted and grinned at him.

  The sky lay like a cover over the land. The temperature hovered at 20 degrees and the wind rushed down from Montana at fifty miles an hour. It was the sort of day that convincingly argues that Hell is not hot.

  Adrian and Pieburn stamped cold feet and rubbed frozen arms in the first room of the trailer, their boots battered and stiff, coats white with frost. The heater fan was in overdrive, buzzing against the wall, vainly trying to combat the cold.

  “Corley Sayres is coming today,” Pieburn said. His dark skin had taken on a purplish hue.

  “I’m thrilled,” said Adrian. This was not the first time they’d talked of the upcoming visit. It had been the topic of discussion for a week. Adrian had no mixed feelings; he didn’t want to see the guy. His opinion was that Wally Clooner had acted for the best by placing him in Utah and Corley Sayres anywhere else. It had been three months since he’d seen Corley yet he knew the old emotions would come to the surface quickly.

  “The weather’s nice though,” he said. As if in response, the trailer shook from a gust of wind.

  “We’re supposed to take him up to Section A-11,” Pieburn said.

  “Don’t we have any coffee?”

  “Y
es. And it’s your day to make it.” Pieburn took the coffee filter basket and held it out.

  “Really? Today is my day?”

  “Um-hmmrn.” Serenely, Pieburn handed over the basket and took off his coat. He began the difficult process of squirming out of the thermal coverall. His shoulders twisted and turned like Houdini escaping a straitjacket, and eventually the garment fell to the floor, where he kicked it into the corner.

  “Fine,” Adrian said. He began the thirty second chore—emptying the old grounds, adding a new filter, some coffee, water from a bottle—and set the pot in the machine. Sighing an exaggerated overworked breath he clicked the start button.

  “The Clarifier’s a dumb place to go on a day like this,” he said.

  “That’s the reason for the trip. The Plant wants to make a change and Corley’s here to bid it. He has to go up and look.” Pieburn said.” Bruce Hackbarth’s coming with, which should mean that it’s safe.”

  “And so much fun.” Adrian poured muddy coffee into a dirty white mug which he set on the edge of a tabletop covered with cardboard boxes. He poured another cup for Pieburn. The smell filled the room, making it feel warmer than it was.

  “Corley is going to hate this,” Pieburn said over the rim of his mug.

  “What’s with you two anyway?” Adrian asked.” Why does he hassle you.”

  Pieburn considered. “When we first met, Corley tried to intimidate me.” He shrugged. “I do not intimidate easily, which seemed to upset Mr. Sayres. He’d speak over me at meetings, push me in the halls, that sort of thing.”

  Like high school, Adrian thought. “Is it racial?”

  “I don’t believe so.” The rich baritone voice with it’s odd cadences gave the conversation a somber weight as if they were discussing the topic in a library or courtroom rather than a freezing tin can on the edge of the Utah desert.” I don’t think it’s because I’m black. I think he dislikes me because I am not afraid of him.”

  “You’re not?” Adrian was amazed. He certainly was afraid. “He’s bigger than you.”

  Pieburn shrugged again, an eloquent gesture.” I don’t think he’s dangerous. I believe he tries to get his way, but there is something ineffectual about it, as if he hasn’t thought about what to do if his victim doesn’t back down.” He smiled. “And speaking of Corley, I would think he’s undergoing the Bruce’s safety classes about now.”

  “Oh, I hope so.” Adrian liked the idea of the stern Corley Sayres sitting in a safety lecture, one which he had undoubtedly been through fifty times. The power of the Federal system was such that everybody succumbed to it every time.

  The thought kept him in high spirits until the phone call from Bruce Hackbarth. “He wants us to meet at the tower in fifteen minutes,” Pieburn said.

  Bundling into snow gear took ten of those and the walk to the tower against the harsh wind took another ten. They walked with heads bent against the gale, glancing up occasionally to get bearings against the huge machinery. By the time they reached the catwalks Corley and Bruce Hackbarth were waiting. With them were three other men who Bruce introduced vaguely as, “Tim Wilkey, from Consolidated Steel, Lou Burke from Edison Power and Harold Fulkersom of Dynamic Sales.”

  They nodded, huddled in their coats. Each carried. as required by the safety rules, a thick canvas strap attached by metal rings to a belt tightly fastened around the outside of their coat.

  “Everybody got safety harnesses?” Bruce Hackbarth asked.” Good. Let’s do it.”

  Everyone had well-worn work clothes and wore white hard hats over ear protectors. They looked like a band of Eskimo oilmen.

  Corley glared at Pieburn as they entered a relatively sheltered area at the base of a ninety foot tank. Pieburn, as usual, merely looked back without expression.

  Adrian was shaken again at his reaction to Corley. He seemed to radiate a power difficult to resist. Adrian kept a firm grip on his fear, but positioned himself at the far end of the column.

  They trudged up the open stairway, gloved hands sliding along the yellow handrails. The wind shrieked, making conversation impossible even in the still areas where the stairs wound around the machinery. Adrian was two people behind Corley when he noticed an odd thing. While the other men slid their gloved hands easily on the cold metal, Corley gripped it tightly, his arms moving like a skier, one never letting go before the other had firmly grabbed hold. The result was a stiff awkward climb. Was Corley afraid of the height?

  Adrian couldn’t believe it. He studied the ground below, three stories, no more than forty feet up. What was there to be afraid of?

  Four stories higher the catwalk stopped at the top of a flat roofed building and they all stamped out into the wind like Sherpas on Everett. The wind had died to a playful annoyance and the sky was bright and clear enough to hurt the eyes.

  Fifty feet away the building abruptly ended with a gap of thirty feet before the start of the next one. Bridging this gap was an open stairway going up twenty feet to a landing, twenty feet back down to the other side. Because the stairs were open and the stairway was completely unattached to anything, it was the most exposed place in the whole plant. Adrian liked coming up here on nicer days. It was a three hundred and sixty degree view of desert and low hills.

  When his turn came, Corley stopped at the foot of the stairway, staring upward as if seeing a ghost. His hands were fixed on the railing and Lou Burke and Adrian waited behind him for over a minute before Corley jerkily began to climb. He placed his feet carefully on each insubstantial riser, and slid his hands forward to climb the next step.

  Adrian decided to wait until there was less traffic. He wandered over to the edge and looked down. The others had gone on, vanishing behind a wall of machinery.

  It was so beautiful here. His breath formed vapor pools in the cold air, hovering like ghosts. Adrian watched the distant clouds and relaxed until he heard the screams.

  Without thinking he dashed forward, hardly touching the steps. He ran across the roof and around the blue edge of a pump house and stopped. Five men were clustered before him, each tethered to a bolt or rail. Everyone but Corley leaned forward near the edge where a section of the safety railing had broken. Corley was pushed back against the machinery as tightly as he could manage.

  “What happened?” Adrian pushed forward, trying to get through.

  “The railing gave way,” shouted Bruce frantically. “Your guy fell.”

  Your guy was Pieburn. Adrian shoved until he was at the edge and looked down. expecting to see a shattered body eighty feet below. Instead, he saw Pieburn hanging barehanded from a thick green painted pipe nearly fifteen feet away. Adrian could see fingers curled around the thick diameter of the frozen pipe. Pieburn couldn’t hold on long.

  Adrian unclipped his belt and snapped the connector around a nearby stanchion. It was too short; he needed others, “Give me your belts!”

  “What are you doing?” Bruce demanded. “I can’t allow you to go out there,”

  “Dammit, Bruce. He’ll fall if I don’t. I can save him. Give me your God Damn belt.”

  It was Lou Burke. of Applied Engineering. who said, “Here.” and handed Adrian the end of his strap.

  Adrian clipped his belt together with Lou’s and glanced over the edge, “I need another,”

  Adrian turned to Corley and held out a hand.” Give me yours,”

  “No.” Corley shook his head and pulled back further.

  Bruce unsnapped his own and gave the end to Adrian, “You be careful. If you both fall the paperwork doubles.” He squeezed Adrian’s arm through the thick coat and stepped out of the way.

  Harold of Dynamic Sales, safely belted, leaned over and called down to Pieburn. “We’re coming, just hold on!”

  Adrian went to the edge holding his triple length harness in one hand, playing it out like a rope. He stepped over the edge and began the slow climb down over freezing pipes, slippery with frost, never meant to be climbed. He tested each handhold before moving, being safe
first, thinking that this was how Corley had behaved on the stairway,

  “I can’t hold on. I’m slipping.” The voice from below sounded panicky.

  Adrian pushed his stomach against a heavy strut and leaned out over the empty air. Ten feet below he saw Pieburn’s hand was indeed sliding on the thick pipe.

  “I’m coming,” he yelled.

  “I can’t hold on!”

  “Dammit, Pieburn; don’t you fall.”

  He’s going to fall, Adrian thought frantically, and I won’t get there in time. He gulped in a deep breath and leaned further forward. His feet skidded on the slippery metal and he went over the edge.

  His side hit a strut, he bounced painfully against a transmitter and felt briefly glad of the padded clothing. Then he was clear of the pipes and falling freely through the air. He saw Pieburn’s hand claw at the pipe and fall away and he collided with Pieburn in midair with a crash that jolted them both. He wrapped both arms around in a tight embrace. The straps reached the end and Adrian felt cut in half as the belt tightened around his stomach. His arms nearly jerked out of their sockets as he stopped Pieburn.

  The pain came at him from everywhere. They spun around in space like a pendulum while the rope lost its energy and slowly twisted to a halt. Literally at the end of their rope.

  34 – Blame for the Fall

  Ashamed and humiliated at his own inaction, Corley pressed his back further against the hard steel and watched. Watched as four men heaved at canvas straps, hauling up a catch of rescuer and rescued. Watched two heads slowly rising above the catwalks, arms reaching out to them, cradling them into safely.

  And he couldn’t move, not a damn muscle. There wasn’t a single thing he could do, his body had frozen from more than the relentless wind. A terror beyond anything he could control held him in a grip of iron and Corley seethed, trapped within it.