| |
MARMOT CAMPGROUND:
Wesley opens his eyes and nothing looks familiar, and he wonders where he is. When he turns his head, he sees the bases of two porcelain toilets under brown swinging doors, and remembers.
The river was freezing cold and light was fading fast when he found the campground last night. He could not stop shivering and remembered the hot spring Jamie had mentioned. He found the yellow rope around the trees and followed the running water to the river. He carefully searched for the right temperature where they mixed, then gratefully sat down in the warm water. He remembers it took several minutes before he stopped shivering. Even though it was very comfortable, he knew he could not sleep in the open and had returned to the campground, where the only available shelter for the night was the bathrooms.
He sits up and his wet clothes stick to his skin, making him wish for some dry ones. He grits his teeth against the pain in his ribs as he grabs the edge of the changing table to help him stand up. He leaves the bathroom to get his bearings, and a quick look around tells him the campground is now an island in the river which means the logjam will be under even more pressure. He needs to get up to the dam, or at least find out if Jamie managed to get it open.
He’s much closer to the dam than to the ranger station, so he looks for a way out of the campground. He remembers Serra’s green pickup is stuck in the mud, not the river. He goes down to check it out, but even from a distance, it’s obvious the truck will be useless.
He notices a short distance farther upstream the water is flowing over rocks, and he heads up to check it out. The opposite side of the small gully would be too steep for a vehicle, but not for someone walking.
He slowly enters the water, and it is only three-feet deep, so he wades across to the opposite bank and walks uphill. He knows if he continues west through the forest, he’ll find an old logging road, and that will take him to the dam. The problem is on foot, it will take him at least an hour to reach it, and he can only hope it won’t be too late.
He does notice his ribs feel better than yesterday and quickens his pace. An hour later, when he walks out of the woods, he notices the fresh tire tracks on the logging road and kneels down for a closer look. The pattern suggests an SUV has driven up, then back down this road recently.
He gets up and continues down the road and walks alongside the reservoir. He knows with the water at maximum capacity, a break in the logjam will destroy the dam.
Ten minutes later, he stops next to the concrete building. He steps up to the door and sees the large and small footprints in the dirt. He tries the doorknob, and it turns easily, so he pulls and the door swings open.
He goes inside and sees the overlapping small and large footprints have moved around the dusty floor. The giant wheel appears not to have moved in many years, and he doesn’t understand why Jamie and one of the rangers didn’t open the concrete gate and release the water.
He grabs the wheel for balance and kicks the rust off a flat cast iron rod sticking out from the base, just an inch above the floor. He steps down on the rod, but it barely moves, so he stomps on it until he hears the thump of thick metal. He grabs the wheel on one side and pulls down. The screeching of grinding steel is almost painful as the wheel slowly moves. The strain of pulling sets his ribs on fire, but he grits his teeth and keeps turning. Two more pulls are all he can take and he has to let go. The wheel rolls backward, so he jerks his foot off the rod and hears the thud when the wheel locks into place.
“Oh, crap,” he whispers between breaths as he bends over to cradle his ribs for a few moments. He slowly straightens up and walks outside and goes around the building to the wide flat surface of the concrete dam.
Fresh flakes of rusty steel lay on the concrete under the twenty-foot-long, six-inch diameter, cast iron rod. The rod is supported on two sets of concrete blocks, with chains to raise a massive slab of concrete hanging down in the water. The slab can be raised or lowered to regulate the outflow of the water into Sparrow Valley. Under normal conditions, the overflow spillway handles the runoff and the gates are never opened.
The top of the block has moved up five-feet by his turning the wheel, and water dribbles from thick green algae clinging to the side of the concrete slab, now above the waterline. He walks over to the chain-link fence along the top of the dam and looks over the edge at the river below. A ten-foot-wide stream of water is gushing out into the river, one hundred-feet below.
The river is quickly rising up the banks, and he hopes the people downstream are ready for the flooding coming their way. He walks over to one of the concrete blocks, then sits down and wishes he had the strength to continue opening the dam. At this slow rate of flow, the reservoir will take a long time to release enough water.
He releases a long, slow breath of frustration. Maybe the fire in his ribs will ease up a little and he can open it a little more in a few minutes, but for the moment, there is nothing else he can do. He wonders if Jessica has convinced her uncle to postpone the track meet. Unless he can get the dam open, a lot of people could die. He just needs a short break, and he’ll try again.