STORY ENDED
Thus—the story of the man in the vividly green flannel shirt—the highly hued silk neckerchief—and the leggings that ran to above his knees!
As it was destined someday to be re-told by a professional taleteller—one, that is, who, as has been said, can facilely expand an incident into an episode—a person into a character—a colorful objective high light into a vivid description—a pungent remark and its answer into a dramatic conversation. Instead of its being narrated, as it was, vastly condensed—if not almost skeletonized!—with many an “I”—yet, withal, constituting a perfect web of facts and persons, persons and facts, and presented with such an amazing dexterity—such a fluidity of expression—and with so much facility of sheer style—that the whole, skeleton as it was, comprised a rendition that seemed far too dramatic—far too artfully smooth in the telling—far too colorful—to emanate from a prosaic steel-mill chemist; the rendition seemed, beyond peradventure, a concoction that had been cunningly created, by its teller, over long dark hours of lying awake at night—its incidents—its characters—first juggled from one part to another like balls—moved an artistic notch hither or thither like chessmen—and then all the parts skillfully welded together; a pure romance, no less, designed by a man determined to involve in it three practically unknown fields of knowledge, and therefore baffle and overawe any hearer or hearers; a romance which, its bizarre elements once thoroughly mastered by its proposed narrator, could, if needs be, be set forth over 2 hours’ time—over 30 minutes’ time—or compressed into 10 minutes’ time; a piece of sheer fantasy—whether skeletonized—or whether expanded—designed to someday serve, on a spit of land known as Bleeker’s Isle, a purpose. If, that is, on Bleeker’s Isle, at some unlucky hour, too many persons representing the Law might unexpectedly land there!
But which piece of fantasy had had to be used, perforce, today—because no cunning alternative narrative had been prepared in advance!
In short, the teller, by the tale he told—skeletonized though it were—branded himself far more as “Actor” Hart, facile and accepted proficient liar, than he did as humble steel-mill chemist of a plant unknown to any man who sat on Bleeker’s Isle.
And the frigid, contemptuous silence—frigid, at least, on the Sheriff’s part—contemptuous on the parts of the other two men—which greeted the end of the teller’s uniquely scientific—perhaps but pseudo-scientific!—tale indicated that, had he been scheduled to drown like a dog before, he was more than scheduled to do precisely that now!
And had the four men who now sat in a grim and ominous silence about the island-marking stone been able to see and hear a certain conversation which was being held at this very moment far upstream, each would have found that drowning—for somebody, at least—was a bit closer than he himself even then dreamed! For the conversation in question was being held in the small office atop the observation tower that reared itself above the high land which itself lay just above the Cooperstown Dam. Land that was safe from all possibility of inundation because of the way those hideously suppressed waters were encased in huge confining walls. A conversation which was being held between two men. One of them being United States Engineer Allan Kirby, seated at a huge table reading a third-carbon copy of a broadcast which had just been sent out and which had begun: “Run!—run—run—people of Big River Lowlands—for it’s a matter now of minutes!” And the other being his assistant, William Goring, just now encased in a niche between the protruding corner of that table and the filing cabinet, and engaged in the filing of the original copy of that very broadcast—for future records. And the conversation was revolving about the wisdom—or lack of such—involved in sending out such a warning broadcast if, by chance, the dam might stand for hours and hours yet. Except that unfortunately the conversation was destined to be suddenly terminated—both as to itself and its point of argument. By a roaring sound that was quite different in nature than the slow persistent roaring sound which, thus far, had been made by the waters spewing through those open gates and pouring over the top of the dam.
It was a sound that—to the two engineers—held the familiar twang of rending steel—except that it was so loud and so continuous that it meant that hundreds of bars of such were being rended at the same moment—and hundreds each moment thereafter. And it held at the same time an ear-splitting reverberation of “poppity-pops” which to both men told of concrete literally exploding because of sudden stresses in it—except that each “pop” was made of hundreds of such explosions taking place simultaneously, and followed by like giant “pops” at intervals of no more than a 60th of a second.
And it was Kirby himself who was first to reach the dam-side window of the tower office.
“What—what is it, Chief?” asked Goring, hopelessly jammed in between filing case and outer table corner. “A gap—at last?”
“Gap?” And Kirby’s white face, turned back towards his assistant—told the full story! If already it was not being told by the increasing screams of rending metal—and the increasing barrage of giant “pops.” “The whole dam’s going at last, Bill! So jump fast—if you expect to see it. My God—I—I can’t look at it. Millions of dollars—hours of labor—going to hell and nothingness. Okay!—hop across the top of the desk there—okay! And get in on a damned painful look-see—millions of dollars going up in smo—but thank God it’s dollars only that are being hurt—and not people—thank God that everybody in the whole Valley is off now from land that can get inunda—no, not that window, man, this one!—this one’ll give you the best view—yes—here you are—and here goes for myself now, too, God help me, for—well, look!—look at that half-ton chunk of concrete flung 20 full feet up in the air—yes, turning over and over above that seething, boiling roof of water—well, if it isn’t boiling, what do you call it?—but, whether or no, will you note how that water’s been shoved squarely up in the air?—10 feet higher than even where the edge of the dam was?—by the tonnage of water in back of it?—yes, of course, of course the increasing momentum of the moving mass has something to do with it—and boy, oh boy, but I’d hate to be on one of those Big River islands below Confluence, and see that wall of water bearing down on me out of the fog—Bleeker’s, for instance?—well, it’ll be at Bleeker’s in about 30 minutes—more or less—and with none of that gentle advance swell, either, that Engineer Findley dilated on in his article—why, if it doesn’t inundate the island in 60 seconds flat, I’ll resign from engineering—yes, and to 10 feet or mo—yes, I hear it!—that’s the Reservoir wall cracking—at Segment A—there must be a hideous pull this second on those oblique connecting beams—which means that the section of the dam nearest us—the section you figured might hold because of the solid underpinning—must be toppling under water—certainly at Segment 58!—where those beams are attached—Jupiter, if only you were right!—if only that section would hold!—and Segment 58, of course—or if only those damned beams would snap—but no dice!—there they move!—see?—slowly—in unison—like a giant piston—two—four—six feet!—the point of the dam they’re attached to at least has moved with ’em—and the Reservoir wall to boot!—Lake Oho and the Ohiuri sure are one now, Bill!—what’s that?—do I sense the din increasing?—hell-fire, I hear it increasing!—which means that that whole west section must be toppl—but why not?—for now that the Reservoir wall’s pulled out, there’s nothing to help hold anything against the Powers of that dammed-back wat—but look!—it is going!—the whole west section!—under—under water, yes—but look at that crest rising straight up into the air!—yes—all the way from about Segment 49 to—to—to about Segment 61—now do you still think it might stand?—why, if there’s not 10,000 steel rods commencing to snap this very minute—and 50,000,000 cubic feet of concrete commencing to explo—what’s that?—you can’t hear me for the noi—well, neither can I hear you—God, what a roar!”