8:00 a.m.
Givens lurks outside the dining room
until I finish breakfast. “The team is hitched
and the carriage is waiting for you, sir.”
I glance at my pocket watch—“I did not order a carriage”—
and move past him.
“Well, I thought you might have a mind
to drive down and fetch your daughter.”
Of all the meddling …
I stop short,
one foot on the stair. “Mr. Givens, I have no daughter.
In the future, you will remember that.”
11:00 a.m.
Another disturbance!
Shouting …
men’s voices.
I hate to leave my work,
but I push back from the desk
and follow the sound to the dam,
finding the kind of operation
I would never tolerate under my direction.
The lake has risen to the top of the dam.
Workers shovel rocks and dirt
while the young engineer employed by the club
rides a horse over the crest
and yells orders.
It’s been raining forever.
Shouldn’t they have started sooner?
A crowd of onlookers has gathered.
A local man leans toward me. “I been telling them
all morning to pull out those screens over the spillway.”
“Screens?” I glance toward the spillway
cascading through solid bedrock
on the far side of the dam.
The lake is so high,
yet the waterfall
looks only slightly heavier than usual.
“You folks put in screens
to keep the lake stocked with fish.
Now the screens won’t budge—
they’re all packed with branches and logs
coming downstream from the storm.”
“So what does that mean?” I glance toward the valley.
“The spillway’s clogged
and there’s no other outlet.”
“No other outlet? Are there no valves or pipes?”
The man from South Fork shakes his head. “Used to be.”
“That cannot be right.
There must be some mistake.”
“Right or not, what I can tell you
is all that water has to go somewhere.”
12:00 noon
The engineer on horseback announces
he has decided against
opening another spillway through the dam
to slow the emptying of the lake.
That action would ultimately destroy the dam—
best to let nature take the blame.
“I took the warning to the South Fork wire myself.
The valley has surely sounded the alarm hours ago.
We have done what we could.” He turns his horse,
muttering about his dinner,
and gallops back to the clubhouse.
12:30 p.m.
A smooth sheet of water
pours over the center of the dam
like cream from a tipped pitcher.
Even a businessman from the city
knows water going over a dam
means that dam is about to fail!
And a few men with shovels
will not succeed in holding back
three miles of reservoir.
Thousands of people live in that valley,
and my daughter is certainly among them.
2:45 p.m.
The mood of the crowd changes
as water sprouts
from the face of the dam
and washes away riprap,
the rocks tumbling down
toward the valley.
Workers have dismantled the bridge
over the spillway.
There is nothing left to do.
Everyone moves off the dam
to the sides
to wait,
to watch.
Several boulders roll away—
then more leaks.
Once the water gets a taste
for moving,
nothing can stop it.
A notch appears,
a trough
gouged
by lake water.
I can no longer hear voices now;
the rush uses up all the sound in the world.
Soon the better part of the dam just melts,
disappears.
The water cannot get out fast enough,
far enough.
My head cannot hold the roar—
no room in it for thought.
3:46 p.m.
Just shy of an hour
the lake is gone,
past a bend in the valley.
Silence is such a surprise.
My ears hum.
Workers climb down into the muck
to gather flapping fish.
Those precious fish
held in by screens
that helped the dam fail—
some sport to fetch them now.
3:50 p.m.
The lake is empty
and my mind is empty of rational thought.
All I have are tormented visions
of what that rush of lake water
is doing to my daughter
right now.
I can only wish Celestia
were right here with me,
so I could know she was safe—
I would not even care
what juvenile rebellions
she might be planning.
But this fretful wish
comes with the dark twin of knowing
I alone am responsible
for driving her away.
Fear
commands my arms and legs
to find my daughter—
fear that it is too late,
but also dread and regret,
and a need to know if she is alive or dead.
Though I cannot get ahead of the flood
and save her,
my irrational impulse is to try.
I begin to descend;
the other men try to hold me back, shouting,
“What’s the matter with you, Whitcomb?”
“The road’s washed away!” another yells.
I can barely form words,
something between a growl and a moan
escapes my throat:
“My daughter’s down there.”
“Sorry.” They release me. “Good luck—
stay up high or you’ll drown in mud.”
I pick my way through the trees
and tangles of branches
above the
washed-bare
valley floor.
I hear the men’s voices above me
echoing off the stone corridor: “Poor bastard.
Who knows what he’ll find.”
“If he even makes it there alive.
It’s fifteen miles to Johnstown and hell in every step.”
The mountain walls are ripped down to rock
over fifty feet up.
I am an hour behind the lake—
whatever is done
is long done now.