Free Two Worlds and In Between: The Best of Caitlin R. Kiernan (Volume One) by Caitlin R. Kiernan Page A
Authors: Caitlin R. Kiernan
spillway. The caretaker and his Italians, the sewer diggers with their shovels and pickaxes, watched as the lake rose and ate away the mounds of dirt they’d spent all morning heaping along the breast of the dam.
Blackened holes that were her eyes, grub-clogged sockets haloed in naked bone and meaty tatter, cribs for the blind and newborn maggots of water beetles and dragonflies.
Some minutes past grey noon, the lake spread itself into a wide and glassy sheet and flowed over the top, beginning to slice and carve, bit by bit, sand and clay and stone washed free and tumbling down the other side. And now the morning’s load of cautious suggestions, desperate considerations and shaken heads, gambles passed on, the things that might have been done, none of it mattered. The workmen and the bystanders huddled, the dutiful and the merely curious, all rain-drenched, on either hillside, bookends for a deluge.
Tom Givens sat alone, safe and almost drunk again within the shelter of the South Fork depot, sipping Scotch whiskey from his silver flask and trying not to watch the nervous faces, not to overhear the hushed exchanges between the ticket agent and the yardmaster. During the night, almost a quarter mile of track had washed out between South Fork and Johnstown, and so there had been no train to Pittsburgh or anywhere else that morning. By afternoon, the tracks were backed up; the Chicago Limited stretched across Lamb’s Bridge like a rusty, fat copperhead, and a big freight from Derry, too common for names, steamed and idled rain-slick and sullen just outside the station.
Tom had come from the club in Bidwell’s springboard, but had lost track of Bidwell around noon, shortly after John Parke rode down from the dam. Soaked through to the skin, quite a sorry sight, really, drowned rat of a man galloping in on a borrowed chestnut filly. Parke had gathered a small crowd outside Stineman’s supply store, had warned that there was water flowing across the dam, that, in fact, there was real danger of the dam giving way at any time.
Bidwell had snorted, the practiced porcine snort of authority and money, had immediately busied himself contradicting the dripping engineer, assuring everyone who’d listen (and everyone listens to the imperious cut of those clothes, the calm voice that holds itself in such high esteem) that there was nothing for them to get excited about. Mr. Parke had shrugged, his duty done, knowing better than to argue. He’d sent two men across the street to wire Johnstown from the depot’s telegraph tower, had climbed back onto the mud-spattered horse, and then he’d gone, clopping back up the slippery road towards the lake.
Tom Givens’ ass ached from the bench, that torturous church-pew excuse for comfort, and the rain was coming down hard again, hammering at the tin roof. He closed his eyes and thought briefly about dozing off, opened them again and checked his watch, instead; twenty minutes past three, nearly three hours spent sitting here, waiting. He snapped the watch shut and slipped it back into his vest pocket. He knew that the sensible thing to do was return to the club, return to its amenities and cloister, and he also knew that he’d sooner spend the night sleeping on this bench.
When he stood, his knees popped almost loud as firecrackers. The yardmaster was yelling to someone out on the platform; the ticket agent looked up from his paper and offered a strained and weary smile. Tom Givens nodded and walked slowly across the room, pausing to warm his hands at the squat pot-bellied stove before turning to stare out rain-streaked windows. Across the tracks, Railroad Street, its tidy row of storefronts, the planing mill and the station’s coal tipple; farther along, the Little Conemaugh and South Fork Creek twined in a yellow-brown ribbon swallowing the flats below the depot, already claiming the ground floors of several houses out there. Along the banks, oyster-barked aspens writhed and
Blackened holes that were her eyes, grub-clogged sockets haloed in naked bone and meaty tatter, cribs for the blind and newborn maggots of water beetles and dragonflies.
Some minutes past grey noon, the lake spread itself into a wide and glassy sheet and flowed over the top, beginning to slice and carve, bit by bit, sand and clay and stone washed free and tumbling down the other side. And now the morning’s load of cautious suggestions, desperate considerations and shaken heads, gambles passed on, the things that might have been done, none of it mattered. The workmen and the bystanders huddled, the dutiful and the merely curious, all rain-drenched, on either hillside, bookends for a deluge.
Tom Givens sat alone, safe and almost drunk again within the shelter of the South Fork depot, sipping Scotch whiskey from his silver flask and trying not to watch the nervous faces, not to overhear the hushed exchanges between the ticket agent and the yardmaster. During the night, almost a quarter mile of track had washed out between South Fork and Johnstown, and so there had been no train to Pittsburgh or anywhere else that morning. By afternoon, the tracks were backed up; the Chicago Limited stretched across Lamb’s Bridge like a rusty, fat copperhead, and a big freight from Derry, too common for names, steamed and idled rain-slick and sullen just outside the station.
Tom had come from the club in Bidwell’s springboard, but had lost track of Bidwell around noon, shortly after John Parke rode down from the dam. Soaked through to the skin, quite a sorry sight, really, drowned rat of a man galloping in on a borrowed chestnut filly. Parke had gathered a small crowd outside Stineman’s supply store, had warned that there was water flowing across the dam, that, in fact, there was real danger of the dam giving way at any time.
Bidwell had snorted, the practiced porcine snort of authority and money, had immediately busied himself contradicting the dripping engineer, assuring everyone who’d listen (and everyone listens to the imperious cut of those clothes, the calm voice that holds itself in such high esteem) that there was nothing for them to get excited about. Mr. Parke had shrugged, his duty done, knowing better than to argue. He’d sent two men across the street to wire Johnstown from the depot’s telegraph tower, had climbed back onto the mud-spattered horse, and then he’d gone, clopping back up the slippery road towards the lake.
Tom Givens’ ass ached from the bench, that torturous church-pew excuse for comfort, and the rain was coming down hard again, hammering at the tin roof. He closed his eyes and thought briefly about dozing off, opened them again and checked his watch, instead; twenty minutes past three, nearly three hours spent sitting here, waiting. He snapped the watch shut and slipped it back into his vest pocket. He knew that the sensible thing to do was return to the club, return to its amenities and cloister, and he also knew that he’d sooner spend the night sleeping on this bench.
When he stood, his knees popped almost loud as firecrackers. The yardmaster was yelling to someone out on the platform; the ticket agent looked up from his paper and offered a strained and weary smile. Tom Givens nodded and walked slowly across the room, pausing to warm his hands at the squat pot-bellied stove before turning to stare out rain-streaked windows. Across the tracks, Railroad Street, its tidy row of storefronts, the planing mill and the station’s coal tipple; farther along, the Little Conemaugh and South Fork Creek twined in a yellow-brown ribbon swallowing the flats below the depot, already claiming the ground floors of several houses out there. Along the banks, oyster-barked aspens writhed and