Three Rivers Rising (15 page)

I curl up and hug myself.
A stranger wraps his coat around me
and carries me uphill.
I feel gratitude.
I feel relief.
But I will never again feel safe.

4:50 p.m
.
Solid earth is not long beneath me
before I learn
those of us sound in body
are putting aside whatever soundness of mind
has been compromised
to rescue those still struggling
in the morass.

Or assist those already hillside,
cold,
wet,
wandering in confusion.

Or comfort those who have already glimpsed
the first depth
of their unfathomable loss.

South Fork

Whitcomb

Evening
Leaving behind what was Lake Conemaugh,
I follow South Fork Creek
toward town.

I steel myself as South Fork comes into view.
Mostly built into the hillside,
South Fork has suffered less damage
than I expected.
Citizens are in shock nonetheless,
and I overhear:
“The planing mill.”
“The bridge,
the grocery,
and the barbershop.”
“My house!”
“My business!”
Someone counts twenty buildings and houses lost.
“One caboose and four train cars.”
Lives lost can be counted on one hand.

They recall
the man on horseback from the club
bringing the warning,
but no one put much store by it.
Like other warnings
other years.

No one at the depot
remembers seeing a well-dressed girl
board the train
a few days back,
but then,
everybody is looking for somebody
right now.

I cannot tarry long
if I want to make Mineral Point
before dark.

Conemaugh Valley

Whitcomb

Evening
I follow South Fork Creek
to where it joins the Little Conemaugh.
I recall the river valley as a deep channel
all the way
to Johnstown,
the railroad staying close by the water.
I peer through the trees
for any sign of the tracks
that once carried my family and me
home to Pittsburgh,
that in all probability carried Celestia
away from me
and into …
God only knows what destiny.

Mineral Point

Whitcomb

Night
The only hint that a town
of thirty white frame houses
once stood
on this plane
of bare rock
is the cluster of people
scrambling to make order of the debris,
to cobble together makeshift housing
before night falls hard.

If the citizens of Mineral Point wonder at
a stranger stumbling into their midst
looking as stunned and wild-eyed as themselves,
who happens to possess a box of dry matches,
they do not question it.
Perhaps they chalk it up
to a well-deserved miracle.

I offer up my coat
to a shivering woman
who has lost her daughter.

I roll up my shirtsleeves—
I am no stranger to labor
,
I tell myself,
mine was a hardscrabble youth—
and search out the driest kindling
to pass the night here.

The woman’s husband has gone off
to search for the body.
All I can do for her
is stoke the fire
and sit beside her
and her pain.

The people of Mineral Point, who had very little
and lost it all,
share what they can gather
and make a place for me by the fire.
People are decent
.
Rich or poor, they won’t let me die out here
.

Johnstown

Peter

Night
Rolling
and rolling,
searching,
cresting
with each wave,
but never advancing …
My eyes open
to stillness
in a strange building.
Memories line up.
A moan escapes.

“Don’t move”—a voice cuts the dark—
“The house could go any second.”
“Where am I?” I make out a profile
against a faint glow through a window.
“You are in my attic. Butler’s the name.
You ran aground my porch roof and I hauled you in.”
“And my father? I was carrying him.”
“Sorry, my boy. You were unconscious.
Looks like a nasty bump on your forehead.”
I touch the tender spot and wince.
No time for pain—I must find Papa.
I must find Celestia.
Where to start?
“And what is the address here, Mr. Butler?”
“I would have had a different answer this morning, son,
but tonight my address is
the middle of South Fork Reservoir.”

With pain and effort,
I raise my head
to see above the sill,
and there it is,
an entire lake
standing in Johnstown,
only a few building tops,
steeples and a clock tower,
poking out of the surface.
An entire lake
beneath this attic window,
and the orange flicker
reflecting in every drop
and lighting the terrible night
is a fire
at the stone bridge.

Celestia

Night
Darkness falls too soon
and a new, nameless dread
insinuates itself:
a flickering,
a fog of wood smoke,
and the scent of singeing
flesh and hair.

The big stone bridge
is a new dam
for Lake Conemaugh,
a logjam of debris—
even whole houses
with stoves still lighted,
soaking in floodwater infused with fuel—
and now the whole mess
is aflame.
I am unsure how long
the fire
has been burning
across one end of town,
but the voice in my head
grows more urgent,
saying I must hurry and find Peter.
If he is alive,
he might need help
and I may very well be the only person
looking for him.

Night

I look into every
soot- and smoke-blackened face
as I near the bridge.

Some eyes search my face in return.
Others see nothing.

How can such a fire
rise out of so much water?
Like the water itself is on fire.

Houses are piled on top of each other.
People climb out of windows
and scramble across the smoldering mountain
of buildings,
train cars,
trees,
all sewn up tight in miles of wire.
They head for the bridge.

Others simply jump
when the flames are too close.
Their fate is less kind
and they cannot be reached
by rescuers.

I peer through the smoke,
though it stings my eyes.
I can do nothing to help these people
and none of them is Peter.

Fire stretches into the blackness.
Coughing,
bare feet blistering,
I stumble in retreat.

AFTER THE FLOOD

East Conemaugh

Maura

The night is so long and cold
with these babies
and no food
for the morning.
Nothing dry to burn.

The loss settles over us:
no roof over our heads
to keep off the rain,
no pillow to lay our weariness upon,
no cross-stitch welcoming us home,
no canning or pickling.
No story quilt to wrap around us
and tell us who we are.
I gnash my teeth—
oh, why didn’t I think to grab
the baby’s favorite toy?
I can live without my comforts
but what else does
he
have?
Picturing it in my mind:
stuffed rag bear,
smiling,
wide-eyed,
taunting me …
forsaken
in the cradle …
only a memory now.

Johnstown

Peter

Dreaming in voices
as the sky changes to a lighter gray,
I realize we are a group
in Mr. Butler’s attic:
several women, another man, and Butler.
I open my eyes with effort
to see many eyes staring back at me,
inspecting me,
preparing to move me.

Save yourselves
.
Leave me here
.
Everyone I love is surely dead
.
My vision fades.
Butler lifts my feet
and two hands go under my arms.
I pass out again.

I dream Butler and the others pick their way across the rubble,
the water having subsided.
The two men carry me.
Or is it a dead man?

The men would move faster without me,
their balance better,
but they press on.

I feel gratitude—
such a kind gesture,
but unnecessary—
I strain to tell them it is too late.

Kate

No equipment.
Next to nothing for supplies.
But they’re calling me and a few damp blankets a medical station.
So they bring in this fella
about dawn,
more dead than alive—
a serious blow to the head
and a night cold and wet in an attic
surrounded by all that filthy water.
It doesn’t look good.

The boy comes round
then blacks out again,
yet he didn’t drown
in forty feet of water!
Early drowned in ten inches—
a stream that wouldn’t come over your boot.
Doesn’t make sense.
Different circumstances,
but their fate’s the same.
Some other girl will be the widow now
and her life will become a burden
like mine….
No.
Find the driest blanket.
Do what I can.
He must live.

Johnstown

Celestia

The night has malingered,
dripping cold
in spite of the fire’s heat.

Daybreak is a formality.
There is no sun to speak of,
only eventual illumination.

Heavy cloud cover
settles on the backs of nearby mountains,
making the valley a corridor.
Sounds echo off the sky
and my voice rings in my ears
as I inquire of every survivor:
“Have you seen a man
about this high?
Brown hair?
Do you know Peter?”

Mineral Point

Whitcomb

Waking, stiff-limbed,
I am the first to see the silhouette
in the murky morning light—
a man
carrying a girl child
limp against his shoulder.
A hoarse cry comes from deep within the woman’s body
as she stumbles to her feet.
I brace myself for the sadness,
dreading what might await me further down the line.
But
the girl lifts her head
and the woman shrieks in surprise.
The three fall in a heap of crying and rocking.
I turn away,
my eyes prickling with tears,
some for the little family
and even more for my own.

East Conemaugh

Whitcomb

I bid the girl and her parents goodbye
and resume slow progress
down the river valley.
Muddy,
tired,
hungry,
and anxious,
I arrive in the borough of East Conemaugh,
a larger town,
home of the train yard.
Everyone speaks with gratitude
of an engine driver
who sounded the alarm
with his whistle tied down.
His house is one of a hundred or so lost.
His locomotive is among hundreds
of train cars scattered about
or carried off by the flood
as it picked up speed
toward Johnstown.
And toward Celestia
.

Johnstown

Celestia

The valley is a mud puddle:
sky gray,
earth brown,
debris to match.
Standing water
reflecting it all.

The stench confuses
the gnawing in my stomach.
It will be quite a long time,
I assume,
before any of us
tastes food or clean water.
Such hunger,
such need,
and
so much work to be done.

Small pockets of organization form:
morgues
in the schoolhouse
and the saloon.

The fear of finding Peter
among the dead
tugs against
the dread of never knowing.
I concentrate only on placing
one bare foot ahead of the other.

Stranger after stranger
lined up in rows,
laid across desks.
I hurry through the aisle
covering my nose and mouth
with my borrowed sleeve.

I try to outrun the stagnant air
and reach the schoolhouse door,
but the whole of Johnstown
is no better.
I pause just long enough
for a thought to take root,
and I turn back.

My search had been
for the remains of a young man,
for Peter,
whom I did not find …
but still, some faint recognition
nudges at my mind.
I go back
to the familiar features
on the face of an older man.

He has no look of struggle
about him.
The cough had taken the fight out of him
long before the water came.