Storm

by George R. Stewart

  Ed sighted, and fired. For once his aim was good, but the sound of the shot obscured the pang with which the bullet pierced the thin steel. The boys scrouged down in a gully, in sudden fear that a passing motorcycle-policeman might have seen them. After a minute they went on, not enough interested to investigate the unlikely possibility of whether or not Ed had hit the switch-box.

  •

  On this day, Tony Airolo went out to see how Blue-Boy was getting on. Blue-Boy was not blue, but he was named after the boar in the old Will Rogers movie. Tony was letting him take care of himself for a while just now; it was good weather, and there were plenty of acorns. About half of Tony’s ranch was rolling foothill country, and the rest was this steep hillside pitching down into the canyon and bounded at the base by the railroad right of way. It was too steep and rocky to be really a pasture; sheep could manage it well enough, but quite possibly the boar could not. As Tony worked along the hillside a freight train went by, up-grade—a three bagger. Tony felt he was looking down right into the top of each of the belching smoke-stacks, just as if he were standing on an over-pass.

  Several natural gullies ran down the hillside, and as Tony came to one of these he saw the boar. Blue-Boy looked in good condition. Just now he was busy grubbing for acorns under an oak tree which hung on precariously to the slope. Watching for a minute, Tony decided that a boar was more sure-footed than you would think. Blue-Boy was getting along all right.

  3

  The storm centered now between the Hawaiian Islands and Alaska, somewhat nearer the latter. The dry east winds upon the northern fringe of its circuit swept Kodiak and Dutch Harbor, but the rest of its vast expanse lay over the ocean, and all its rain returned to mingle again with the salt water from which it had been drawn.

  The storm had grown still in size, and might now be called mature. If it had centered at Chicago, ships a hundred miles at sea off Hatteras would have tossed before its south winds, and Denver would have been at its opposite edge. From Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico it would have controlled the air, with its rain belt sweeping from Lake Superior to the Gulf. If it had centered over Paris, it would have extended from the Shetland Islands to Algiers. But as an elephant may be large but not among other elephants, so the storm was far from record-breaking among its kind.

  Moreover, it was not likely to grow bigger. As most obvious symbol of its maturity, the cold front had over taken the warm front along a line five hundred miles long, and was rapidly overtaking it along the remaining half. The elimination of the advancing front of warm air meant that no more moist tropical air could enter the storm system, and that, unless some new phase developed, the storm could only exhaust the energy which it already contained, and then die.

  But to speak of a healthy man of twenty-five as dying, although in some ways justified, would be counted an over-statement. The man is no longer growing, and his physical condition probably shows a decline. Nevertheless, most of his life and his best years of power lie still ahead. So also the storm actually contained within itself an amount of energy which in human terms was the equivalent of many millions of kilowatt hours. To expend this energy, even if no trick of air movements served to augment it, might take a longer time than the storm had as yet been in existence.

  In fact the activity of the storm was still rapidly increasing. Its recent maturity meant that it could no longer glide swiftly and easily as a wave; now, for every foot it advanced eastward, it bodily carried its air along. The pressure was falling at the center, the rainfall was heavier, the frontal winds had risen to the intensity of strong gales.

  4

  Above the City the banners still rippled out southeastward in the steady breeze. In the mountains, looking at the long lakes which stretched off behind the dams, you would have said it was October, for around the receded water-lines lay broad belts of mud, dried hard and cracked in the winter sun.

  Oscar Carlson owned, under a mortgage, five hundred acres in Tehama County, half pasture, half grain land. On this day he received a letter from the bank; it was worded in polite and impersonal terms, but the upshot of it was that he must pay his overdue interest. Carlson was a kindly man, but seldom gay like his Italian and Portuguese neighbors. Sometimes he was moody; a vague brooding sorrow which was his northern heritage welled up within him from bottomless inexhaustible deeps. He cursed God, and in the same minute said there was no God. After receiving the letter Carlson fell into one of his moods. He went out around the ranch to the pasture and looked at the grass which was being eaten off faster than it grew. “Should buy some feed,” he thought, “if I had credit.” In the wheat field he pulled up a few stalks; they showed no sign of recent growth, but were curled, conserving moisture; he inspected the condition of the soil. “It’s too much,” was all he said. An hour later, in the barn, they found his body hanging.

  •

  The Secretary of the Trade Association was preparing his weekly confidential report for members. He was a university-trained statistician and proud of his scientific detachment. “The market,” he wrote, “for cotton-seed meal and other prepared feeds is encouraging and definitely bullish. . . . Valley merchants report marked retail sales resistance, especially in automotive lines. This must be overcome, and several retail centers are planning a Mid-Winter Buying Week. . . . The adverse psychology is attributed in some quarters to augmented taxes and the relief situation. Noted by other reporting agencies is a deficiency of precipitation. Improvement is expected after Congress adjourns.”

  5

  The J. M. was working as chartman that morning. He lacked Whitey’s machine-like speed and precision, but he did not let that worry him—just mechanical skill, he thought to himself. Ordinarily he would have looked at the twelve-hour map made up the preceding afternoon, but this morning he wanted to see the situation develop from the actual reports instead of getting a premonition from some other person’s map. He was sure something was going to happen.

  Recording station after station, he could sense the setup. There was no need to wait for the Pacific chart, to find out about Maria. She was close enough now to show, and she was a roarer! The Byzantion reported today, after skipping yesterday. A slack ship, if there ever was one! She was plowing head on into Maria, taking the wind right abeam. She reported a strong gale (nine-point intensity) from the south, overcast with rain, and pressure at the even thousand. She would be taking it even worse for the next few hours. Three hundred miles northeast, farther from the center, the liner Eureka had 1006, and a five-point southeasterly. Five hundred miles northwest the Kanaga reported 993; she was closest of all three to the center, but being to the north and far away from the fronts had only a seven-point gale, north-northeasterly.

  After all, Maria was doing just about as expected. But there were some queer things beginning to show up elsewhere on the map—little matters which might not be important. Not even the best meteorologist could tell till he worked out his fronts and isobars. There were definite changes just the same, more than usual Low pressure at Edmonton, rain, and rising temperature. Light drizzle at Galveston. Fog at Dallas, enough probably to button up the airport. And, wonder of wonders, clear sky on the Alaskan coast—at Sitka and Anchorage and Cordova where it had been raining for weeks—clear sky, and temperatures below freezing. It all pointed him on farther north, and he waited for the Arctic stations; they were late as usual. What about Coppermine? He remembered its 1023 of yesterday.

  The Canadian Northwest must be on this page. There was nothing much else left. He let his eye run down the column, and found the Coppermine number. He almost started as he read the pressure—1032. She’d cut loose all right; there’d be plenty happening now.

  He filled in the rest of the stations, not surprised now to find that Fort Norman was 1035. He sat back, and with some reluctant admiration watched as the Chief’s pencil moved rapidly and deftly among the clutter of notations. Watching the map take shape, the J. M. felt his excitem
ent grow. With every isobar the drama of the situation was clearer.

  The Pacific High still stood firm, and also the eastern United States lay beneath another high-pressure area centering at Pittsburgh. But between the two the 1014 isobar showed a tongue of low pressure thrust up sharply from the tropics, covering Texas and reaching north through Oklahoma into Kansas. Following counterclockwise around the curve of the isobar, warm and moist breezes were blowing inland from the Gulf—thus the drizzle at Galveston and the fog at Dallas.

  Farther north the drama was more obvious. Trapped and dying, Felicia lay over Hudson Bay and Ungava. She was not strong enough to break over the high mountains of Greenland; north and south, areas of high pressure blocked her off. But Cornelia had made the crossing of the Rockies, and now, rejuvenated on the Alberta plain, was ready to sweep south, moving again with the speed of a young storm. And beyond, dominating all the north, was the piled-up menace of the polar air. Behind Cornelia’s cold front this mass could rush south across the plains with no mountain range anywhere to check it. What sort of conflict might arise between Maria and the polar air?

  He studied the map intently a moment, and decided what was likeliest. The great outflow from the north would deflect Maria from the usual course into the Gulf of Alaska; she would come on due east, smash the Pacific High, and let go her rain along the whole length of California.

  “Golly, Chief,” he burst out. “It’s rain in forty-eight hours, plenty of it.”

  “Hn-n?” said the Chief, looking up.

  The J. M. was embarrassed, interrupting with such childishness: “I’m sorry, Chief. I guess I’m excited.”

  “Well, why not? You haven’t seen as many storms come across that map as I have.” Then there was a miracle, for the Chief relaxed a moment from his work. “But don’t go throwing out any forty-eight-hour guesses. Storms are hussies, in this part of the world anyway. I’ve known a lot of them—storms, I mean. You can’t trust ’em twelve hours out of your sight.” And he went on with his work.

  The J. M., the Chief was thinking privately, was something of a whippersnapper, but might have the makings of a good weather-man. Enthusiasm was proper in a youngster, and a forecaster needed imagination—not too much, but some. Rain in forty-eight hours would be his forecast too, if he had to make one that far ahead. Just the same, there were two possibilities which would prevent rain. The Alberta storm might not go south, but go east following that other storm which was hanging around over Hudson Bay; the polar air would follow, and the advancing Pacific storm move against the Alaskan coast as usual. Or the polar air, on the other hand, might sweep southward so violently that it joined with the Pacific High; then the advancing storm would be blocked a thousand miles to the west, and California would have only dry cold winds from the northeast.

  In any case the next twenty-four hours offered no problem, and with confidence he began typing off a no-change forecast. Then Whitey shoved a telephone at him.

  “You better take this, Chief—sounds bad!”

  “Hn-n?” said the Chief, and then he heard someone plenty excited talking over the line.

  “Weather Bureau, hello! Hello there! Weather Bureau, Weather—”

  “Chief Forecaster speaking.”

  “Say, we got— This is Brownington Steamship Company. We got a ship in trouble. She just let loose an SOS. The Eureka relayed it to us. She’s making for her but she’ll take six hours. What’s the weather like out there?”

  “Can you give me the position?”

  “Not exactly—the Eureka didn’t give it. But we’ll get it.”

  “What ship is it?”

  “Byzantion.”

  “Don’t bother then. We have her position when she reported two hours ago. She must have been all right then. Just a minute—”

  But the man on the other end was almost wailing: “For God’s sake, hurry. It’s mostly a local crew; they got wives and families. The Register has an extra getting ready now.”

  Turning toward the map the Chief bumped into the J. M., dividers and slide-rule in hand.

  “I’ll have the gradient wind calculated in about—”

  “Put that damn thing away!” snapped the Chief. “No, figure it. But get out of my road!”

  The Byzantion was a slow ship, and once disabled would not move at all. He could figure her still being just about where she was before. But the storm had been tearing down toward her at a rate which would be around forty miles an hour. So the ship would be that much nearer the front. He looked at the close-spaced isobars. The ship’s barometer, if anyone bothered to look, would be down around 997 by now; the wind might have risen a full point, maybe more.

  “Hello—when she reported, the Byzantion had a nine-point wind—about, well, say fifty miles an hour. Now look here—don’t tell all this to the reporters or to the families either. But you better know. It’s going to get worse. In an hour it’ll be blowing a whole gale, sixty miles an hour anyway. Then for another hour it’ll be worst of all—gusts running over seventy. After that it’ll fall off, but there’ll be lots of wind for twelve hours, and a heavy sea after that. The storm out there is plenty big.”

  “Thank you—” the voice still had a wailing tone. “There isn’t anything you can do about it?”

  The Chief did not smile, for he recognized the appeal of despair.

  “Not a thing. I’m sorry.” And then Whitey was holding out another telephone to him. It was the Register.

  For the next hour the Chief spent most of his time trying to tone down the language of editors. “No, it’s not a typhoon. . . . No, it can’t be called a hurricane.” Since it could do no good, he dodged a public statement as to whether the storm was growing worse.

  All the time, as the early sun flooded in at the east windows and the City basked in the calm of a cloudless morning, it was hard to realize that at a distance of a few inches on the map, even in reality only a small fraction of the earth’s circumference, some of your fellow-townsmen were battling for their lives on a broken ship, and the front rushing down upon them.

  6

  “O.K., Jerry, change oil, lubricate, tires, battery. Give ’er the works!”

  “O.K., Mr. Goslin. Off from San Francisco again, are you?”

  “Sure thing. Starting Sunday, cover all north end of state—first stop, Colusa.”

  “Fella was tellin’ me the drought’s getting pretty bad up there.”

  “It sure is, and the luxury trade’s not so hot. But still they gotta buy flour—you know—the stuff they keep weevils in. I’m doin’ as good as I gotta right t’ expect.”

  “The new tires look swell.”

  “Are swell too. A guy that drives like I do, gotta have safe tires. Have ’er ready at two.”

  7

  It was hell on the Byzantion. The rudder-controls were jammed or smashed, and everything gone haywire, and she was taking them green. The First, best officer they had, had gone overboard, and Johnny the Greek lay white faced and groaning from a dislocated shoulder, and the cook was burned all over the face. The Old Man wasn’t much good, and most likely was hitting the bottle again. And the boats gone or smashed—but then you couldn’t have launched them anyway.

  But they still kept steam up, and followed orders when there were any, and the radio was working. Sparks said the Eureka was coming full-steam. It made you laugh anyway, to think how full-steam in this gale would shake up the goddam first-class passengers; they’d be puking their guts.

  So, weary and wet and bruised, they hung on minute by minute, waiting for the big ones to hit, and wondering whether she’d start breaking up.

  8

  Max Arnim turned off the ignition, slipped the clutch, and let the car roll to the gasoline pumps.

  “Fill ’er up, Bob—ethyl.”

  “Oh, hello, Max. I hear you’re having a week-end off from Reno—going below—tak
ing Jen down to Frisco.”

  “You sure hear a lot on this job.”

  “Sure do. Sounds like a swell party.”

  “She’s stayin’ with her sister.”

  “Oh, sure, sure Jen’s a nice kid, I know. When you leaving Reno?”

  “Tomorrow—after work.”

  “Pretty late—be dark all the way.”

  “Couldn’t get off earlier. Anyway I know old U.S. 40 like a book. We’ll pull in to the City around midnight.”

  9

  The J. M. bought a paper and stood at the street-corner, reading. All the Chief’s cautious language had been of no use, for the headline stood out:

  SHIP IN TYPHOON

  His first thought was that the Byzantion had it coming—sending in weather reports so irregularly, a slack ship. He read the details.

  But more than of the ship, the J. M. thought of the storm. Only four mornings ago he had drawn on the map that tiny closed isobar in the shape of a football. Now, already, Maria was a killer. The papers called her a typhoon; actually (though less violent) she was far greater than any typhoon.

  Other people stood at the sunny street-corner reading the same paper. The J.M felt distant from them. They must be thinking of the battered ship, of the drowned First Officer, of the man with the dislocated shoulder. If they considered the storm at all, they thought only of a sudden and unrelated cataclysm, arisen in a particular part of the ocean to the misfortune of a particular ship. They did not know of Maria’s birth and growth, of which way she was moving, or even of what she was. They did not know that now in her massed power, from Alaska to Hawaii, she swept the ocean and ruled the air.

  10

  There was a dance at Blue Canyon that Friday night. Usually you wouldn’t be having a dance at Blue Canyon in mid-winter; the road would be snowed over, and the only way you could get in or out would be by the railroad. But for this dance (maybe because it was so unusual) a lot of people turned out. From high up on the Pass they came, and from all the way down to Dutch Flat. There were railroad people and Power-Light people and telephone people, and highway people. There were young fellows and girls who worked at the resorts up in the snow-country. There were a few people from little mountain-ranches. And there were some men—pretty well broke—who were just hanging around out of work, knowing that as soon as the storms came the big companies would need extra men for emergencies.