The Language of Trees

by Steve Wiegenstein

  Alone in her bedroom, she read it once, and then again, and then again. Then she called into the front room where her mother remained by the window, although little could be seen outside by now, and the glass mainly gave back her own face. “Better get some rest.” Marie didn’t speak. Whatever she was gazing at, whether out in the night or in her own mind, was too engrossing to part from.

  “I had a letter from Mr. Bridges,” Josephine finally said.

  “He came by the other day, while you were out in the fields,” Marie said. “What? Mr. Bridges?” She didn’t answer. Of course Bridges, Josephine thought, annoyed with herself. “What did he want?”

  “Oh, he didn’t stop. Didn’t even knock. Just stood out in the road a minute, looking forlorn. Then he rode on up the way toward you.”

  Bridges in the roadway looking forlorn. For a moment Josephine felt exasperated at the theatricality of it, the dejected suitor trudging through the rain like some sort of Brontë hero, hiding his sorrows, but then thought of his letter again and realized that he hadn’t wanted to burden her with his failures at a time when she was so clearly burdened herself. Men and their maddening need to be strong. Pride, that’s what it was, pride at nursing his wounds in silence as though that added virtue. Well, she wasn’t going to have it, parting without a word beyond this woebegone letter. She valued herself more highly than that. She was not someone who could be left behind like a rusty bucket.

  And come to think of it, she valued him more highly than that, too. He was no whipped dog to slink away in shame. If the company had fired him, all the worse for them. J.M. Bridges needed to be reminded that he was not the instigator of whatever wrongdoing had come to pass here, regardless of the part he had played in it, knowing or unknowing. And she was the one to do it.

  She walked into the front room again. “I’m going up to the mine in the morning,” she said. “It appears that Mr. Bridges is returning to the East, and I want to say goodbye.”

  “Going east!” Marie said. Then as so often happened, her thought floated off into silence. A long minute passed before she said, “That’s a surprise.”

  “Indeed,” said Josephine as she went to bed.

  In the dark she thought of J.M. Bridges. How was it that the only man she had ever warmed to was now to be snatched from her? Or was snatching himself, she reflected bitterly. She alternated between frustration and simple sadness as she drifted off into troubled sleep.

  The morning woke her with a clap of thunder that would have driven her back under her covers had she not made up her mind. When did it ever thunder in November, for pity’s sake? She craned her neck to peer out the window. At least the bank of clouds was traveling north of them, far enough that she might not even get rained on. Though given their luck of late, that was hardly a wager she’d take.

  She had thought to leave quietly before first light, to dodge any fuss, but as she put on her heaviest woolen undergarments for the cold walk, she could hear Mama in the kitchen, humming a tuneless tune. Josephine came out, braced for questions to which she knew she had no answer, but to her surprise Marie said nothing, only handed her a basket with bread and meat, and on top of it a knitted scarf, tied with a bow. “Give that to Mr. Bridges,” she said. “I wanted to make him a present for his birthday, but didn’t know when it was.” Josephine took the items and climbed the hill behind the cemetery.

  From the high ridge that overlooked the river, she could see how it had overflowed its normal banks, spreading into the valley almost to the doorstep of the northernmost house of the village. In the springtime, the water filling the valley caused little concern, as long as the fields dried off in time for planting; but these winter floods felt ominous and brute, the muscled arm of Nature reaching out to push them from their comfortable places. The river ford was inundated, the ferry tied high into a cottonwood tree’s upper branches to keep it from being carried downstream to God knows where. They’d fished drift out of the riverbank many times, swept down from someone’s farmstead on the Little St. Francis or some other upstream tributary, fence rails and corn planters and children’s picture books.

  But no time to contemplate. She walked north as fast as she could manage, not wanting to have gone to the effort of this trip only to find that Bridges had left before her.

  When she crossed over into company land, the walking grew difficult, rocky and muddy at the same time, but she pressed on. And soon enough, she was descending toward the mine buildings, where she became aware of an odd sound—a whir, or hum, or whine, something she’d never heard before but which sounded intensely bad. She set down her basket and ran to see.

  Bridges and a crew of men stood on the dam, stabbing with long poles on the upstream side, with some of the men throwing chains into the murky water. The backed-up river had reached the top of the dam and was boiling over the spillway with frightening force, white waves churning between the boulders on the downward side. And strangest of all, the piercing whine seemed to be coming from inside the dam itself.

  As she came near, Bridges caught sight of her and ran toward her, waving his arms. “Don’t come out!” he shouted. “It’s not safe.”

  Josephine waited on the bank until Bridges reached her. He was grimy and covered in rock dust, but she didn’t mind. She embraced him with all her strength and kissed him, tasting the salt of his sweaty lips.

  Then he drew back. “I can’t talk now,” he said. “There’s a log caught in the intake to the turbine, and it’s got the gate wedged open. We can’t close the gate until we pull it loose. It’ll tear up the turbine. It wasn’t built to spin that fast or under this kind of pressure. Can’t you hear it? The bearings are burning out.”

  Josephine nodded. So that was the sound. She didn’t want to second-guess Bridges in his hour of crisis, but she knew the power of the river. If a big log was stuck, with the weight of the river pushing against it, a hundred men couldn’t dislodge it, no matter how many chains and pry bars they used.

  Bridges turned to join his workers again, but a new sound made him stop. It was a grinding, crunching noise, like great jaws cracking walnuts. As they watched, the trunk of a sycamore rose from the lake, a ragged and dripping Excalibur, and hung vertical, swaying as if blown by a secret breeze.

  “Well done, men!” Bridges cried, but the look on the workers’ faces told them that they had done nothing to bring the tree out of the water. And in that moment Josephine realized, and exchanging looks with Bridges saw that he realized also, that the tree was not coming out of the turbine intake, but was being drawn down into it, that it was being sucked irrevocably into the heart of the dam itself. And in an instant the tree disappeared beneath the surface, and the whine of the turbine abruptly stopped.

  “It’s jammed for good,” he said.

  Josephine didn’t answer. She was watching the men on the dam, who dashed toward them and scrambled up the slope from the dam. A curious urgency marked their movements, and even before their shouts reached them the recognition flashed upon them all—that if a full-sized tree, three feet across at the base, was being drawn into the turbine chamber, an immense amount of water was pouring through it, and the dam itself was in danger of failing. The cascade flowing over the spillway must have undercut it, with no way of knowing how much rock and concrete had already been washed out.

  The men had tethered their horses to a picket line on level ground a few feet uphill. Bridges grabbed the reins of the nearest one and leaped into the saddle. Josephine reached out. He paused for only a moment then swung her behind him.

  “We’ve got to get your people to high ground,” he said.

  “I know.”

  They rode at a terrifying gallop, round the ridge, across the cut-over ground, and into Daybreak’s forest land, until they reached the steep descent into the valley, where the horse’s footing became so uncertain that Bridges reined it up, jumped off, and ran. Josephine did the same. The horse would find its own way down the slope, or not. It didn’t matter.

 
; The two of them reached the cleared ground of the cemetery behind the Temple at nearly the same time, and Josephine was already planning their path. He was faster, so he would start at the northernmost houses, farthest from them and nearest the river, while she would strike for the middle of the village and run south. Bridges had apparently thought the same, for he veered north toward the upper end without so much as a backward glance.

  That was when she heard the roar.

  She had never heard anything like it, a low rumble that sounded more like an earthquake than anything else, or what she imagined a volcano eruption would sound like, the earth itself giving voice. If there was a God, if there were gods, they would speak with that voice, terrifying and deep, so low that she felt it more than heard it, a voice vibrating the skin of her stomach instead of the delicate membranes of her ears.

  The initial wall of water was three feet high, and an abatis of logs, limbs, and debris churned in its tongue. As she ran, Josephine saw a few people come out of their houses, drawn by the strange sound, and then run toward them.

  The ferry would be swept away. No doubt of that. And the first couple of houses—the ones built too close to the water, where they should have known better. The slow upward slope of the ground toward the center of the village might protect it, or at least keep the houses from being knocked off their foundations, though it was hard to judge.

  The wave smashed the ferry and then spread into the valley, losing force as it widened into the fields.

  And her house? Josephine felt sick. Closer to the ferry but not as exposed as the northernmost row. And would Mama have the sense to come out and run for the Temple, perched on high ground?

  Bridges did not slow down as the water hit the village. He ran on, shouting at the top of his voice, though he changed course as the first house tumbled in on itself like the little pig’s house in the fairy tale, and the first human cries of pain and fear rang out. Instead of running straight toward Daybreak, he veered north up the valley, as if he intended to dash back to the dam and plug the hole. A hundred feet, two hundred feet. And it wasn’t until Bridges turned and edged out into the water that Josephine realized what he was doing.

  “John, don’t!” she shouted, although he was too far away to hear. “Don’t die.”

  He waded into the muddy stream, working to stay on his feet and watching over his shoulder for floating hazards. When the water reached his thighs, it picked him up, but he stayed under control, bobbing like a fishing float as he coursed downstream feet first.

  A second house washed away.

  In the main river valley, where most of the floodwaters flowed, trees cracked and crashed under the weight of the wave. Josephine reached the Temple and paused to take stock. People swarmed up the hillside from the lower parts of Daybreak, but at the north end the houses were worryingly quiet. Caught inside, climbing into their rafters, she guessed.

  And Mama? She didn’t want to imagine.

  The current carried Bridges to her house. He grabbed a porch post and clung to it, steadying himself, then swung inside through a window. Josephine couldn’t bear to look, and she couldn’t bear not to look.

  How much time passed Josephine could not say. No more than a minute or two, but it felt like a hundred. Then she saw the front window of her house open, Mama’s window, and Bridges climb onto the sill. He balanced there momentarily then reached inside and pulled Marie to him like a child clutching a doll as the floodwaters raced by. He seemed to be deciding whether to stay with the house or jump into the water with her. Her arms draped limp around his neck, but at least she was alive.

  There he stood, teetering in the broken-out window of the house. He looked out across the valley, saw Josephine on the hillside, and gestured to her as best he could in recognition. She waved frantically to encourage him.

  Then a third house, the one directly north of their own, gave way to the pressure of the water. It lifted from its rock foundation and floated into theirs, knocking it off its footing as well, and the two houses drifted down what had been the main street of Daybreak. And as they slowly spun, the last sight Josephine had of them was her mother holding tight to Bridges as he fought to keep his balance in the window frame, the two houses bumping their way downstream like chunks of driftwood.

  Chapter 44

  As soon as she heard the roar, Charlotte instinctively knew what had happened. She had always been dubious of that dam, although she had always imagined that it would leak its way into uselessness rather than collapse. Yet here it came, the great rush of water that could only have happened from such a thing, and she watched in horror as it rounded the bend at the head of the valley.

  Her home, at the far south end of Daybreak, stood on higher ground than most, yet fear still gripped her as she saw the wave approach. Houses, sheds, fences, and a tangle of trees and bushes all rolled toward her. For a moment she froze, then without hesitation she scrambled out the back door and up the slope where she planted her vegetable garden, pausing only when she passed through the back gate. From this elevation, she could see that her house would be safe.

  But what about Newton, and Adam and Penelope? Charlotte followed the hillside toward the center of the village, as she strained to see. She crossed paths with Josephine Mercadier, the face of Panic itself, running down the slope from the Temple. Josephine pointed wordlessly to the jumble of houses at the upper end of the village.

  “Don’t go that way yet,” Charlotte called. “One task for safety, and then we’ll come at them.”

  She led Josephine back to the Temple. From that vantage point, Charlotte could see that the great surge of water, though devastating, was but one wave. The river would soon return to its former level. And they needed to be ready when it did.

  “Is there any rope in here?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Josephine said, still frantic. “Yes, wait. Yes. Some clothesline.”

  “Fetch it, please. We’ll tie ourselves together.”

  Josephine dashed to the storeroom for the rope, and Charlotte took advantage of the moment to stoke the fire in the big woodstove. They would need a place to bring the injured, and that place would need to be warm.

  They walked to the water’s edge and tied the rope around their waists. Charlotte had no confidence that it would hold them, but the cinch gave her a sense of reassurance anyway. They waded into the current.

  The shockingly cold water numbed her legs almost immediately, and the slick clay mud, washed in from the upstream banks, made for treacherous footing. Could this slimy slosh underfoot really have been their prime farmland, just minutes ago? And now, unrecognizable. An oblivious muskrat swam by.

  “Step lightly,” Charlotte said. “The water’s likely full of nails.”

  They reached the first house, more a pile of lumber than a house at this point, and looked inside. Empty. Either those inside had escaped, or they had been swept away.

  “Hello!” Charlotte shouted. “Anyone?”

  A man’s voice came from ten yards down. “Over here.” They glanced at each other. It was J.M. Bridges’ voice. “On our way,” she said.

  The current still tugged at them, but ebbed a little with each minute. Charlotte wondered why Bridges hadn’t come out to meet them, until they worked their way around to Josephine’s house.

  It had been torn away from its chimney and spun around three-quarters of a turn before catching on the trunk of a tree. The impact had tilted it into the soft dirt, with the door sill about three feet off the ground. Debris wedged underneath the floor to keep it at this crazy angle as the water receded. Charlotte sloshed to the door frame and looked inside: A jumble of furniture heaped along the wall. Bridges and Marie, pinned behind it, Bridges’ head peeking out of the top of the pile, a wan smile on his face. Nothing visible of Marie but her unmoving arm, draped around his neck.

  “We were doing all right until the house tipped up,” he said. “Then the room came down on us.” Josephine joined her at the door. “Your mama�
��s out cold,” Bridges said to her. “I kept the furniture off her as best I could, but we got roughed up a bit.”

  The two of them climbed into the house and pushed aside tables and chests to reach Bridges and Marie. They laid her on the tilted floor, where Charlotte leaned close to listen. Marie’s breath came in shallow, ragged bursts.

  “She’s alive, but we need to get her up to the Temple to dry off and warm up,” she said. “Help us carry her, Mr. Bridges.”

  “No,” Bridges said. Charlotte turned in surprise. With the furniture off him, Bridges had sunk to a squat, his back against the wall. “I can’t move my arm.”

  In a glance she saw that his shoulder hung at a strange angle, dislocated at least and probably broken. “Come up here and lie on the floor,” she said. “Get your feet out of the water. We’ll be back for you as soon as we’ve got Marie out.”

  Bridges complied, and without another word Charlotte and Josephine linked arms to carry Marie out of the house. Though she was a slight woman, the weight of her unconscious body bore heavily on them. They stopped every few feet to catch their breath as they slogged toward the Temple, until they came into view and more townspeople rushed to help. “We’re fine,” Charlotte said to the two Pettibone boys who arrived first. “Get Mr. Bridges out of that house.” Then more people arrived, and Charlotte and Josephine plopped to the ground to rest, gasping from their exertions.

  “The damn fool,” Josephine said. “He could have drowned himself.” “But he didn’t, and your mother’s alive,” said Charlotte. “Be grateful for life’s occasional favors.”

  “Oh, I’m grateful.” And Josephine, without warning and without restraint, began to cry.

  When Newton Turner heard the rush of water, he ran out of his house and looked up the street. The wave from the dam looked like a rolling hedge from where he stood, three feet high and roaring like a tornado. He dashed down the street to Adam’s house and burst through the door. “Run out the back!” he shouted. “Now!”