Lyndon State College - Northern Lights Yearbook (Lyndonville, VT)

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V E R L Y N behind him. He was alone. Inside the railway station, halfway through Davis’s message, the buzzer stopped dead. Somewhere on the road, on that winding ribbon of mud, was a man in a truck and now nobody knew where. Mile after mile, a snail could have kept pace, racing motor, grinding gears, pick, shovel, chain and sweat. Mile after mile like an atom at creation. If ever a machine could become human, this one did. Twice the jar of the rumbling truck vibrated bridges loose from their already undermined foundations. They dropped with a deadened sound, like coffins in a mud- dy grave. Miraculously the spinning wheels found firmer ground, missing the maws of the falling trap by inches. Sticky, slithering mud, quicksand if he stopped an instant, oozed tenacious- ly around his struggling wheels. Some- where ahead in this New England no- man’s-land lay the deadly menace, dy- namite. One smashing blow; then one less truck, one less man — oblivion. Suddenly the motor gave a choking sputter, one last lurch and stopped, never to continue. Cautiously the driver pushed open his door and step- ped out upon the water-washed running board, like some futuristic explorer from his rocket, to gaze at the desola- tion of a new world in wonder. The grey dawn only accentuated the hor- rible reality. A cow or two already dead and bloated, floated swiftly by. Ironically enough, a bedraggled bantam rooster perched panic stricken on a warped plank, followed in the wake of his barn- yard intimates. Then, in rapid suc- cession, the house, barn, the family horse and wagon, and the trees that once grew around the homestead sped swiftly by in the mad race to nowhere. Jimmy took a deep breath and stepped with an experimental step into the water and on to the ground below. Step by step he began the long trek back, retracing those tortuous miles. Jimmy guessed that he was not an angel after all. Angels’ feet didn’t hurt and his did. His puttees chafed his ankles. He had lost a glove; his hand, stiffened with cold, turned blue and lost its feeling. It seemed years before the first bridgeless river twisted into view. Over acre after acre it spread its overflow. Jimmy had long since abandoned the roadbed, and had taken to the low hog- back ridges. Here was safer and high- er ground. He gazed with a sense of futility at the impassable sea below. It looked as if he would have to swim. He had an almost insupressible urge to laugh aloud. Just laugh and laugh and laugh. He had been hunting here not many seasons ago. All he had caught had been a cold. In that instant a way of escape came to him. That day while hunting, the party had come upon a deep gorge cut by the river, cut so deep that an overflow would be im- possible. Across that cut had been swung a crude cable bridge. It had been placed there to aid the game war- dens in guarding the private estate of an embittered and exiled aristocrat, who had chosen to withdraw from a hostile society and die alone, like an injured animal. To cross the river was his one thought. Hungry and cold but un- daunted, Jimmy Davis swung to the northeast. Over hill and valley he [6]

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January - 1938 brought an uncomfortable feeling of homesickness. He wanted to go home. Then, as flashes upon a screen, the streets of the endangered village flitted past. If he could only stop thinking; but he could not. In his imagination rose a vivid picture of turbulent waters on the cellar walls that crept to the window sills, trickled over and filled the room. The wall paper dampened and curled. Higher, driving man, wo- man and child to the house tops, crept the merciless tide. Up the blinds, mocking at the eaves, sneering at the roof itself, rising every second higher. Sure he had to go. He was the only volunteer wasn’t he? Everything might turn out O. K. There was a chance anyway. In those few seconds the past and present, a lifetime flashed by. Davis was a bit surprised to hear his voice, quite dry, but perfectly clear to all in the room. All eternity seemed to hang upon his words. “I’ll go.” The operator had not expected this answer. He looked up, a little lop- sided smile of disbelief on his face. As if to test the validity of Davis’s state- ment he said. “Not over that road you won’t. The Governor has ordered all heavy vehi- cles off the road by midnight. Bridges are going out right and left. You would have to have wings to get through. Not only that, the French and Conley Con- struction Company just sent a warn- ing. They’ve lost a box of dynamite in the confusion and haven’t been able to trace it. It’s on the road you go over.” “That’s a chance I’ll have to take.” “It’s a long chance. There’s enough explosive in that box to blow the whole State of Vermont to Kingdom Come!” “Never mind that. I said I’d go and I’m going. Tell them if I’m not there, not to expect me!” Then in a mo- ment of grim humor, “There’s more than one way of finding a box of dyna- mite !” Davis was standing by the door as he said this. Now he turned the knob. The door clicked open and when it shut Jimmy Davis was on the other side. Outside there was neither moon nor stars, nor beginning nor end. There was just now. His truck loomed near like a smudge of charcoal against the pale yellow buildings across the street. The rain streaked his glasses, dripped from his shin and ran in a chilly stream down inside his coat collar. For a mo- ment he wished he hadn’t said he’d go. He could turn back before it was too late. Jimmy stopped in his tracks. Dynamite indeed! The man was right: he’d have to be an angel to get through. Childishly and in a half amused man- ner, he wagged his shoulder blades. Angel or no angel he’d make one aw- ful try. Davis stepped off the curb, stum- bled on a sewer cover, recovered his balance and crossed to his truck. He surveyed the oil tins with a practiced eye. “Lucky”, he thought, “to have sal- vaged those.” With the oil he already had it would be quite a help. Tires O. K. Good brakes. The battery was in “Al” condition. Sure, he took care of his truck. It pays to be good to your truck. Jimmy slipped into his old ac- customed place. His foot found the starter. The engine turned over, shivered and started with a roar. A second to warm up; then he slipped the gears. Water obliterated his tracks [5]

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January - 1938 trudged, it seemed the earth around, although in reality it could have been only a few miles. Higher to the rocky formations peculiar to New England’s hillsides. Up eventually to the gorge. Sure enough there swung the bridge. His memory had not played him false. There swung the bridge, swung like a pendulum, slowly like his beating, laboring pulse, swung by one cable far, far into the depth of the gorge below! The one remaining cable stretched across the taunting gap. One strand of wire tied the world together. One bit of rusty cable connected him with his home, his family and relief from this nightmare. In frustrated desperation he lay up- on his stomach and tested the wire. Grasping it he snapped it as he would snap the garden hose back home or as he would a piece of rope. It rose and fell in snaky waves, annoyed at being so rudely handled. The vibrations reached the otherside and returned in all haste as if to protest such rude treatment. Back and forth, back and forth between wall and hand and yet came no tearing wrench, no slipping, no pulling loose, no rusty screech. The cable had been well strung. It held firm and true as the day it was hung! Could he cross? Would it hold his weight? Slowly, experimentally, he hooked his elbows over the iron, loosed his footing and swung free. There he dangled. Spiders on a thread matched his acrobatics and he the helpless fly. Slowly, inch by inch, he shortened the gap. Stubbornly he gained a foot or two. Favoring his frosted hand made it the more difficult. His pulse pound- ed in his head. He could feel his neck getting thick. A kaleidoscope of color- ed sparks darted here and there. His shoes pulled him down. His arms ached and pulled unmercifully at his shoulder sockets. Over and over, one hand clenched before the other let go. Don’t look down. Stop thinking. Go a little slower so the cable won’t rock. Time and again his will alone saved him. A weak- er man would have long since gone hurtling to the depths below, to be smothered by the frenzied water and ground to pulp by the waiting rocks. At last after tremendous toil his toes scraped the opposite wall. In one last superhuman exercise of inspired strength he crawled up and stumbled panting to the ground. He could go to sleep. The moss here was soft and com- fortable. Green feathers grown just to sleep on. But he must not. When his breath had returned to normal and the mists had cleared away from before his eyes he struggled to his feet and plodded onward. Each minute, each step, brought pain, and each etched as acid every detail of his struggle in his mind. That afternoon he stumbled into the dooryard of a highland farm. The owner, a young fellow, stood in the doorway of the red barn studying mi- nutely his flooded fields and making mental calculations of the damage. Now he started forward as Jimmy came into view around the corner. £ sjc :: Days later he entered his own warm kitchen to surprise a grief-stricken wife and round-eyed family. With stories of the flood so fresh and vivid in their minds they gazed at the apparition before them almost with disbelief. [7]