The clouds were back, dismal ceiling over the forest, as yet shedding no precipitation, but there was an unseasonal moisture in the air and uncertainty in the wind.
Merritt looked down into the chasm where water went over the flume at its usual rate and boiled onto the rocks below: rain or snowmelt in the mountains would have swollen that flood considerably. Downriver sandbars showed where fall had seen the river high above them, and the riverboats, half-loaded, still plied the middle of the channel with greatest care.
"If the rains and the melt just hold back," Merritt said to Frank Burns, as they walked back from the edge, "we may make it. But that they should come early—"
"We don't panic yet," said Burns. "Sometimes there's a little warming in mid-winter, a little rain: false spring. But I figure we got at least a month left, maybe two; three, with rare good luck."
Merritt cast a worried glance over his shoulder. "Pray for three. Or get me more men up here."
"Sam," said Burns, "the men who didn't come in the first place or at the second call, didn't come because they have families to protect and property to guard. You've been here long enough to know what it would be for a woman and kids to try to hold a place with no men around, or what you'd have left of your farm if you boarded up and took a month elsewhere."
"We're at the point we need that help, even at cost. We're going to have to call the women to move rock if it comes to it. We're going to blast some more this week, and weather permitting, we're going to be working daylight to dark and maybe beyond that."
"You've been double-shift yourself too often, long since. You're showing the effects of it, and my boys have to chase you off the dangerous jobs. You're not winning anything by it, you know that; other men can do some of your work. You don't have to prove anything to us. You know that, I hope."
Merritt shrugged. "About that, I don't bother; but there's problems on both shifts, that's all, and they have to be answered. Frank, if we have an early spring, it's all over. That's the bitter truth. Somebody better warn those downriver families."
"I don't think it's near winter's end, not yet. The animals are still carrying winter coats, the river's still down, and the sea wind hasn't started yet. Just because it's warming here doesn't affect the high snows."
"Farmer's sense?"
Burns laughed softly. "I know you got no appreciation of our ways, Sam, but we aren't in trouble yet."
"We will be, first rain that hits the high river. That flume won't carry a flood and that dike will hold just long enough to make real trouble."
"I sent word long since that any family that's living riverside now is risking their lives. They're taking precautions. We know this old river; no offworlder has to tell a Hestian when it's dangerous to stay, no offense."
"None taken."
"You're a pessimist, Sam. Are you really convinced it's not going to hold?"
"I'm convinced it's not the best I could have done, but it's the quickest. Maybe if it holds this year we can use it for a diversion while we build again. That's what I hope."
"I've heard about your plans for the next stage; Meg told me. So you're really thinking about staying on."
"I was. I'm stubborn. This is my life's work, maybe all I'll ever amount to, thanks to my youthful stupidity in signing on to come here; and if it takes a year or so to finish it right, well, I might be persuaded; and maybe more things, I don't know. After what it's cost me, what else have I got to look forward to? But it's going to cost you people too. It's going to cost you more than you might want."
"They're paying you plenty already."
"Huh. What good is that here?"
Then what kind of payment are you talking about?"
"Free license—to build, to make projects… my way."
Burns gave him an under-the-brows look, frowned a little. "Sam, if we all live through this, you can about name your price on any terms. But I wonder what attracts you here."
"It's someplace," he said with finality, brushing aside the inquiry, and sighed and looked up once more at the darkening sky. "Day crew's going back now. You'd better walk back with them."
"Aren't you coming?"
"I have a matter to check out yet. Go on, Frank. I'll catch up with you. I have my pistol, and I've walked that trail a hundred times alone."
"Not in the dark."
"I'll start back before then."
Burns hesitated, nodded then and walked over to join with the line of men headed back to the station. Merritt went his way to the bridge and slowly across that swinging thread to the other side, to take a last look at the blast site.
It was later than he had planned when he started back, across the bridge again and past the guard station. "Stay the night," one of the men there urged him, but he refused, tired, and unwilling to disturb the crew at the house by the search they would surely make. The sky had deceived him. There was suddenly little light left, the overcast palling the sky to an early night, and the wind that had been too warm now blew with knife-edged cold. He left the station and hurried down the sandy trail at a dogtrot for all that he was tired—dreading most the ravine where a bit of woods remained between the site and the safety of the house, a two-hundred-yard stretch that, in spite of trees cleared back from the path itself, had an unpleasant closeness about it, where the trail necessarily bent and one had the feeling of being shut within the gray-limbed forest from all sides. Here, his steps whispering through the dry leaves, it was almost dark, the light cut off except from overhead.
Something hit the trail ahead and bounced, a small object; and the next one hit him on the chest. He skidded aside, ripped his gun out and thumbed the safety off, swung toward a crash of branches.
"Ssam," said a voice from a slight altitude.
He looked up into the limbs of the nearest tree. It was Sazhje.
"Ahhrht, Ssam?" she inquired.
He remembered the gun in his hand and put it away. Sazhje dropped down from her tree and landed on her feet, peered this way and that as if to ascertain whether he was truly alone.
"Sazhe's all right," he said, and held out his hands.
Her face relaxed into a fanged grin, and she came forward, chattered something at him and slipped her long-fingered hands into his.
"Ssam come," she said, tugging at him.
"Where?" And remembering that she could not understand that question: "Sam all right?"
"Ah," she affirmed, and pulled at his hands again, anxious to leave the trail.
Warily he moved with her and entered the shadows of the trees, where it was nearly night indeed. She would have led him farther, but he braced his feet and would not go. She chattered at him angrily.
"No," he said, which she understood. He sat down on a fallen log and she sat down next to him astride it. She jerked several times at his arm, frowning.
"No," he repeated.
She rose up on one knee then and edged close to him, her hand on his shoulder, patting his arm excitedly and trying to tell him something. Her frustration was pathetic.
At last she put a thin arm about his neck and patted his face with gentle fingers that did not feel human— warm despite that she was naked in the chill wind; and too slim to be a woman's.
"Ssam," she mourned into his ear.
"What's wrong with you?" he wondered aloud, and caressed her silky head. It drew a chirr of contentment from her, and she nestled almost into his lap and talked at him senselessly, content to be petted. For a long time he stayed there and talked to her in similar fashion; but the last light was going quickly, and he was anxious for what worry he would be causing at the house.
At last he rose to leave her, and she grew visibly upset, at first pleading and then scolding, and took his arm with such force that he backed away in alarm, tried to pry her steely fingers loose and began to fear he would have to hurt her to get free.
When he jerked back and laid his hand on his pistol her manner changed entirely: she held out her hands and pleaded with tears in her voice, but he went his way, broke onto the trail and began to run in earnest, fearing treachery. For a time a rustling in the leaves pursued him, but when he had left the ravine and come into the open again it was no longer with him.
He came up the hill still running: lights were lit and the outside gates were closed when he came to the station; and a shout went up as they opened to him. He was relieved to be inside with solid wood booming shut behind him, to be surrounded by human faces and human voices. He was still shaking in the knees as he mounted the steps to the main house and walked in the door.
"Sam!" said Burns with great relief. "We were just about to go out looking for you."
"I know, I know. I'm sorry." He controlled his voice and peeled off his coat, hung it on a peg with the others.
"You've been running," said Hannah Burns.
"Some. I knew I was late and it's cold out there."
"We were dreadful worried.—Here. Meg. Get Sam some hot tea and some stew from the pot, will you?"
There were other men eating too; and Merritt sat down at the side of the table nearest the crackling fire and nodded his thanks as Meg set dinner before him. Others went about their business. Meg settled at the bench beside him and leaned against the table.
"Sam, you just about had all the house looking for yon tonight"
"I'm sorry. I said I was sorry."
"You stay out so late—always. You're wearing yourself out I hate to see how tired you are."
He realized that he had lifted a spoonful of stew and was stupidly staring into it; he let it down into the bowl again. He took the cup instead and drank, and then looked at Meg.
"You look in the sky today?" he asked her. That's why I stay late."
"Does killing yourself help?"
"Let be, Meg," he said, sharper than he had intended, and was instantly sorry. He reached over and took her hand. "Meg, I am tired. Forget it."
"You were more than tired when you came through that door."
"Let be."
"Did something happen out there?"
He considered a moment, weighed how effective a lie would be with Meg. "Sazhje's back," he said quietly. "But don't tell it."
"You saw her?"
"I talked with her a moment—at least for what little she can say. I don't know what she wanted—only that maybe I crossed that odd little mind of hers today and she waited for me this evening."
"After being gone three weeks?"
"I don't know why she came, or what she wanted. Truthfully."
Meg gave a short and humorless laugh. "Maybe it was you."
"Meg—"
She smiled a little. I'm sorry, Sam. That was mean."
"You know the truth about what there ever was with her; and I'm sorry it ever touched you. That's the main reason I don't want you to mention Sazhje's coming around this evening. I don't want to start it all over again. I have enough on my mind without that."
"You don't have to explain to me. I know you too well."
"Good or ill?"
Her hand closed on his, tightened. "Enough so you can't lie to me; enough to be sure why you do most things, and to know you're worried sick over the work out there. If you think I'll add to your problems, you're wrong."
It was a true shot, well-aimed. He looked into her eyes and believed her. "There were things I said some time ago," he said, "that I've daily wished I hadn't. I'm mortally sorry for that, Meg; I wish you could understand me then and now… but there are things that must hit too hard to ever completely forget."
"Do you want me to forget?" she asked, which was the terrible direct-question manner Meg always had, cutting to the heart of things.
"Do you have to ask like that?"
She smiled one-sidedly and shrugged. "Only when the answer's plain. What was true then still is."
"Less so. Less so. Meg, I'd be off this wretched world at the first chance sometimes; and ten minutes after, I don't know. And I'm less and less sure you couldn't leave it if you had to; but I'm not sure you'd be happy outside it."
"I know what you think," she said.
He started to ask what that was, but there was a stamping and an opening of the front door, and Amos Selby and Jim were there with a great deal of commotion. Meg sprang up to welcome them and to take their wraps; and Amos came over after to take Merritt's offered hand.
"I didn't know you were back," Merritt said. "Or did you just get in?"
"About three hours back," said Amos, stepping over the bench to sit down; Jim took the other side, and Meg sat down next to Amos.
"We've been unloading," said Jim. "We—thanks, Hannah," he interjected as Hannah Burns put a bowl of stew and a cup of tea in front of him. Another woman gave the same to Amos. "We got a lot of supplies and a few new workers, most of them kids. And food for the next few weeks, anyway."
"How are things downriver?"
"Not much changed," said Amos, "but it's tight rations in a few areas. They're willing to suffer to make sure we eat. Anything so long as they know we're at work up there and the dam is rising."
"You—" Merritt began to ask further of that.
And then an alarm began ringing. Steps thundered to the door; the door flew open with a thunderous crash and Ken Porter filled the doorway. "We got a fire!" he shouted into the silence.
Benches scattered and men rushed for the doorway, for the tool storage and shovels, and women shouted for sacking and buckets. Children began to cry.
"Watch it!" Amos shouted at everyone. "You know what started it"
But no one was paying attention, and he looked at Merritt.
"Better double the sentries," Merritt said. "Meg—you and the women lock that front door after us and be careful what you open it to."
He ran, then, after the rest, snatching his coat that held his gun; and Amos and Jim were at his heels.
It was a warehouse: it was going fast, the entire yard lit by the fire that had involved the roof and at least a portion of the adjoining one. Men were carrying supplies out of it, ignoring the danger of collapse, for the supplies, the food, were life itself.
Merritt collared several men and sent them to the guard posts himself, to be sure every point was covered; and then he seized up a shovel and dropped it again, for in his fatigue the third warehouse only then occurred to him. Men had lost the first building, vainly trying to smother the fire with buckets of earth: there was no water on the hill… it must be carried up from the river; and stinging smoke and wind scattering the dust made the effort impossible.
"Never mind!" he shouted, running. "Get the supplies out of the other one. The explosives… get them out!"
Dazed men dropped shovels and stared, some moving, others wiping at eyes and simply trying to see and breathe. It was very hard to hear over the roar of the fire and wind. Merritt shouted at them again and finally went from one to the other, pushing and shoving them into action; then he went to the door of the third storehouse, blind in the dark and the smoke, trying to locate the boxes of caps and the explosives, trying to remember how many there were in all: fifteen, he thought—two on the site already, the rest, the most part—in the warehouse. Heat numbed the air, deadly heat.
He found the boxes, heaved up a double load, started for the door.
"Sam?" Burns' great voice bellowed out of the dark. "You found it?"
"Give me some help," Merritt called back, staggering with what he carried. He looked up as the light of fire showed between the shingles of the roof and swore without breath. "We're afire," he gasped as he struggled past Burns and toward the door.
Men were ready there, relieving him of his burden, taking it far from the fire, gingerly.
"Never mind that stuff," Merritt said of the supplies they were rescuing. "Get back in here and help us before the whole shed blows."
Burns staggered out again, discharged his load to waiting hands, though there were few enough willing to go into that overheated building. There was no time to argue with them.
Twice more he and Burns each made the trip from the inside to the door, and by this time the roof was showering sparks, fire raining down in a roiling smoke. They worked their way back and forth through the tangle of boxes and sacks, sweating and gasping under that heat-sensitized load.
A last time Merritt handed over the explosives to one of the men waiting, and staggered out free into the clearer air, coughing and wiping his eyes. Then there was a wash of air and pressure and sound too deep to hear.
He was on something hard, and on his face, stripped to the waist, a pain in his upper back that seemed to run through his bones and down his spine. He made a frantic effort to move his hands, but someone leaned on his back and held him down. The pain grew worse and he grayed out briefly.
When the thickness cleared from his senses he was still lying on his face… he knew the main room of the house, and Jim Selby was kneeling by him, a gentle hand on his brow.
"Sam?" he kept saying.
"It blew," Merritt murmured thickly, and tried again to move. "It blew, Frank—It's blown—"
Jim's steady, hard grip on his arm pulled him back to present time. "Mr. Burns was inside. Five others got it too. We don't know what happened. No one knows why he went back in; they saw him clear the doorway, and then he went back in."
There were some boxes left," Merritt recalled. "We couldn't tell for sure which was—we—Meg. Where's Meg?"
"With her mother. Easy, Sam. You took a big sliver of wood in the back and a blow on the head, by the feel of it. Stay down."
"Who else, who else, Jim?"
"Frank Burns: in the building when it blew. George Remington; Len Andrews; we still haven't accounted for Tod Miller and the Hansford brothers; we think they're in there. And we have some injuries, lesser ones—we were afraid you'd die on us. You stay quiet."
"What supplies lost?"
"A lot."
A knee came into Merrill's field of vision, and he turned his head painfully to see Amos Selby.
"I'm all right," he croaked. "Amos—"
"We got the fire stopped," said Amos. "It cost us plenty. We're moving what supplies we got left into the house itself, except the explosives. They want our food, they'll have to get us to get it."
"They might next time." Merritt tried to rise. Jim and Amos stopped him forcibly.
"There's nothing you can do," Jim said.
"How's Meg taking it? And Hannah?"
"They'll be all right; they'll be all right, Sam. Lie still."
"Why did he go back?"
"I don't know. No one could see in there."
"Maybe he thought I didn't make it.Maybe—"
"Keep it quiet.There's not a thing in the world you can do now for anyone. Just stay still til we can get time to move you upstairs."
"I can walk."
"You're not going to."
"There's no time—"
"There's no time to replace you. Stay down and listen. We can get more supplies from downriver. We got that planned already. It'll take some time; it's going to hurt folks some; but this isn't the end of us, not this time."
"Force—ought to go out and check on the men out at the bridge. If—"
"Well take care of it, Sam. Well see to it.
The lower room still showed the scars of the night before, the disarranged tables and benches, the stacks of goods, the reek of smoke. But regular as life itself there was Meg Burns trying to put things to rights, pulling the heavy tables around, moving crates.
Merritt descended as far as the warped tread on the stairs before she heard him and looked up; and she brushed her hands on her coveralls and rushed toward him.
"I'm all right," he said, and continued his way down, holding the rail for steadiness. She waited tensely until he had come to the bottom of the steps and then led him to a bench at the nearest table.
"You oughtn't to be on your feet."
"Where is everyone?"
"Mother's resting. Everyone else is out in the yard trying to clean things up and take inventory of the damage. We—" her voice quavered. "We read the burial service this morning."
"Meg, if only—"
"Don't give me if only." She sank down opposite him and rested her head on her hands a moment, then lifted tear-filmed eyes to his. "You were in there with him. You tried."
"Others did too, Meg. And they're dead. They just—" There was nothing to say, nothing that would make it reasonable, even to himself. He shook his head and stared at her helplessly. "I don't know why I'm alive. I didn't know he wasn't behind me, Meg. I didn't know."
She took his hand and curved her fingers about it as if he were the one who needed comfort "There's no way you could have done more," she said. "Go back upstairs. Go back to bed, Sam. You don't need to be down here."
He shook his head. "I'd better find out what has to be done."
"Leave it to Amos and Mr. Porter. They're doing all right for now. Amos is leaving in about an hour, on his way for more supplies. He'll beg or threaten them upriver. It's going to be all right, Sam."
"What about the men at the site? Were they all right?"
"They're fine." She stared at him a moment, thinking, and at last spoke it. "She was trying to tell you something, wasn't she? She knew what was going to happen."
Merritt nodded slowly. "I suppose," he said, "that she did."