Beware the River

by Kitty Margo

  Then, above the deafening roar of the rushing water, I heard the buffalo snort. With nothing above water except my eyes and nose I looked up as the swift current stripped my shirt and shoes from my body almost taking me with them. There he stood on top of the trestle looking down at me… impatiently.

  Impatiently?

  Who did he think I was? The son of Superman who could leap raging rivers in a single bound! He gave one great upward toss of his giant head with his red eyes glowing, and snorted loudly.

  “Okay… you… over…grown… hairy… beast!” I choked on the water that rushed into my mouth when I opened it. “I’ll …show… you!” I coughed, trying desperately to clear my lungs. Rage gave me an adrenaline rush and I was able to grab the ladder with both hands. Using every ounce of my dwindling strength I grabbed onto the next rung and slowly dragged my exhausted and numb body out of the cold river.

  The water had leveled off and after several agonizing minutes I was able to climb up the tall, tall column, praying that the threadbare ladder would hold. When I finally reached the top I stood shivering on the railroad track and glanced around nervously.

  It didn’t take long to realize that I had climbed out of a bad dream and into a nightmare. The image of those kids stranded on the trestle above the river with a train coming in the movie Stand By Me flashed through my mind. I knew exactly how they felt.

  Just like them I was standing on a railroad track at least 75 feet from dry, solid ground. I wasn’t a bad kid.

  I didn’t lie, (only little white ones).

  I didn’t cheat, (only off of James’s math homework).

  I didn’t steal.

  So why were so many awful things happening to me? What if a train should come? That was actually funny. There were no what if’s in my life lately. The way my luck was running I should just start listening for the train whistle.

  I was having a hard time concentrating. I was beyond tired and freezing and all I wanted was to get off the railroad track before a train came, and into some dry clothes. However the buffalo didn’t seem to be in any great rush. He stood completely still, just staring at the dam. Then he snorted and tossed his great head toward it. He wanted me to look in that direction, I assumed. So I did. I didn’t see anything unusual, just some lights through a haze of thick fog.

  “What?” I asked through chattering teeth. “I’m… freezing and I’m soaked to the… bone, in case you haven’t…noticed and I don’t see any…th…th…thing out of the ordinary. Sorry.”

  Evidently those were not the words he wanted to hear. He snorted even louder than usual and tossed his head angrily in the direction of the dam. I knew he was trying to show me something, (red eyes were a dead giveaway) but no matter how mad he got or how loudly he snorted all I could see was the dam. “I really don’t see anything unusual about the dam. It looks just like it always does.”

  With these words the buffalo became absolutely enraged. He picked up his huge hoof and slammed it down loudly on the railroad iron. My entire body shook from the vibration and my ears chimed like a church bell. Then he started pawing the trestle and snorting like he was about to charge.

  “Okay, calm down will ya? I’ll look again.” Heck, I would agree to anything to keep the beast from charging me on a railroad track suspended above a raging river. What was his problem anyway? He definitely had a few anger issues to deal with.

  I squinted my eyes and peered into the fog.

  Nothing.

  I looked at the dam top to bottom, side to side and from every angle.

  Nothing.

  Yet there must be something that I was missing. Why else would the buffalo still be snorting and pawing the ground?

  Then suddenly the fog lifted!

  And I saw it!

  A crack!

  In the dam!

  It was hard to make out by the light of the moon and the dim glow from the nightlights, yet it was unmistakably a crack. Even as I watched, the fault was quietly snaking its way down the smooth face of the dam. And in the few seconds I had been watching it had grown noticeably wider.

  Suddenly, a stream of water shot out of the fissure with so much force that it splashed me on the trestle 100 feet away and filled my mouth, which was hanging wide open. I spit and rubbed water out of my eyes with my fists. When I opened my eyes a stream of water was shooting into the air as far as I could see. The dam was going to break! I was such an idiot! That’s what the buffalo had been trying to show me all along.

  Seconds earlier I had been so terrified of four water wheels. That seemed like a minor inconvenience now, compared to a 152-foot wall of water crashing down on me. Suddenly, all I could think about were the news reports I had watched following the Tsunami in Japan. Those poor folks were just minding their own business when the giant wave had come ashore. They never stood a chance. From the way things were looking, neither did I?

  What could I do to stop it? For crying out loud I was only thirteen years old. Couldn’t the buffalo have picked a more mature person to reveal this impending disaster to? Wait! I had to tell someone. Where was my phone? Oh, in my waterlogged pocket of course. Maybe there was still time to save the dam, but I had to act fast.

  I ran to the buffalo and put my hands on each side of his head shouting, “You have to get me to a phone! Maybe there’s still time to save the dam, but we have to hurry!” I grabbed onto his neck and held on for dear life waiting for him to fly me to the nearest phone. Squeezing my eyes shut, I held my breath and prayed that I would have the strength, in arms that still trembled from the climb up the ladder, to hold on when we became airborne. He didn’t move a muscle. I opened my eyes and we just stood there eye to eye. “Let’s go you crazy beast!” I shook his furry head in frustration and yelled close to his ear. “What are you waiting for?”

  Instead, the buffalo jerked his head out of my hands, snorted at me, and then ever so slowly began walking across the track. He looked back once as if to say, “I’ve done my part. The rest is up to you.”

  Chapter 13

  What? “Hey! Get back here! Do you hear me you stupid animal? You can’t bring me here and show me a crack in the dam and then just leave! Don’t you see that thing is about to blow?” That was a pretty dumb question. Of course he did, he was the one who showed me. In fact, he had been trying to show me for two days now. Man, why hadn’t I followed him earlier? But I didn’t have time to worry about that now. I had to get the buffalo to move a little faster or we didn’t have a prayer of saving the dam.

  What I thought didn’t seem to matter to the irritating buffalo though. He just strolled across the railroad track like he was at a garden party sniffing roses. He simply would not be rushed. But he really needed to pick up the pace before I, at my absolute wits end, completely lost it and started to scream and pull every last hair out of my head by the roots? What could I do?

  I kept glancing back at the dam and each time the crack had grown longer and wider. I had a nagging suspicion that even if I could get help here - without a phone, without my four wheeler, without anything except my own two feet - it would be too late to stop the reservoir from crashing through the crack that was growing larger with each passing second.

  At last we reached the end of the trestle and I jumped down and sprinted to the office. There would be a phone in the office where I could call for help. But, as my luck would have it, I noticed one small obstacle to this plan. There was a metal fence around the office that was at least 12 feet high with razor sharp barbed wire strung along the top.

  Going over the fence was out. There was also a huge padlock on the gate. There was no way I could break the lock. Sure, it seemed like the odds were against me, but I had to get inside to a phone. Hey, the buffalo could push over the fence as easily as he had pushed over that tree, couldn’t he? I turned around to ask him just that, but he was gone. Where was the ornery creature when I needed him? He had practically been my constant companion for two days and now he decided to pull a disappearing act?
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  I would look for him later. Right now I had to get inside the fence and to a phone. The million-dollar question was… how! Looking around for anything I could use to break through the thick wire, my eyes were drawn to a small drainage pipe under the fence and just above the rapidly rising waterline. I glanced back at the crack that was growing wider as I watched and knew it was my only option. For once in my life I was thankful for being skinny.

  That was about all I had to be thankful for. Odds were that I wouldn’t have enough time to make it through the pipe before water covered it. But what did I have to lose? If the dam broke I would be carried away on 152-foot wall of water, so either way my life would end in a watery grave.

  I had to try. Another glance at the water jetting out of the ever widening crack convinced me that I was wasting precious seconds even thinking about it. Taking a deep breath I squatted on my hands and knees and climbed into the pipe. Whew! Talk about claustrophobia! It was a tight squeeze, but with my arms held straight out in front of me I was able to inch my way along by pushing with my toes. I had never liked closed tight spaces, but this was the worse yet.

  I would almost swear the sides of the pipe were closing in on me, getting tighter. I felt my heart rate speed up and the fear that the buffalo had caused was nothing compared to the panic I was feeling at that moment. It was pitch black in the pipe and hard to breathe, like there wasn’t any fresh air coming in. I wondered if this was what a panic attack felt like?

  Suddenly, I heard water sloshing into the pipe. My first impulse was to back up. Then my panic increased by one hundred as I felt water soaking through my socks. I was a goner! It would take at least five more minutes to get through the pipe at the rate I was moving, and that was about four and a half minutes too long. I would drown before being swept through it and into the river when the pipe filled with the cold water.

  “Help!” I screamed as water began to trickle around my waist. “Help me, please!” I stretched my head to the top of the pipe gasping for air as water lapped over my head, but there was precious little air left. I inhaled the last of it and held my breath. I had risked everything and lost and no one would know until it was too late. Only the buffalo.

  The buffalo! Where was he? Would he just let me die after all we had been through? Would he? Of course he would. He hates you remember. And then I heard my mom’s voice, like she was whispering in my ear, telling me what to do in an emergency. Don’t panic, BJ. Remain calm. You can survive anything as long as you remain calm and do not panic. Use your head. Think of a solution to the problem.

  This was my last chance for survival. If I failed I wouldn’t get a second chance. In a last ditch effort I dropped my head into the frigid water. I was thrilled beyond belief to realize that the water had made the pipe slippery and as I slowly pushed with my toes I found myself actually making slow progress. My chest was on fire and my lungs threatened to burst as I inched along the floor of the pipe.

  Just as my lungs were issuing a final demand that I open my mouth and breathe, I was able to grasp the outside edge of the pipe and pull myself free. I surfaced taking deep, deep gulps of the sweet night air. Another second in the pipe and someone would have been writing my obituary come morning.

  I looked up completely exhausted and shivering and there stood the buffalo casually waiting for me out of harms way. I grabbed onto his hairy leg and with what little energy I had left pulled myself out of the water. I wanted to scream at him, punch him square in the nose, and call him every name in the book for allowing all of these terrible things to happen to me. But I didn’t even have the energy to speak. He was a spirit for crying out loud. Why hadn’t he used his supernatural powers to help me? He hadn’t been shy about showing them off earlier!

  I wanted nothing more than to fall to the ground and forget about the buffalo, the dam and all the other horrors that had filled the last few days of my life. But I knew I couldn’t. I felt the weight of the world on my slim shoulders as I took a second to look back at the dam. That was a mistake! What I saw made me lean against the buffalo for support. The crack was at least a foot wide now and spreading fast. It couldn’t hold much longer with that much pressure behind it.

  I ran to the office, picked up a flowerpot of lavender geraniums and smashed the window. Carefully reaching through the jagged glass I opened the door and had to wait a few seconds until my eyes adjusted to the darkness. Flipping on the light switch I finally saw what I was looking for. A phone! “Yes!” And taped to the phone was a piece of paper with words written in large red letters that make me laugh out loud for the first time since the buffalo had come charging into my life: IN CASE OF EMERGENCY CALL.

  Dialing the number with trembling fingers I watched as water began to seep over the threshold into the office. It took forever for the call to go through and the phone begin to ring. Finally, I heard the receiver click on the other end of the line. “The Tillery Dam has a huge crack in it!” I shouted before the person on the other end could even say hello.

  “A crack in the dam, you say?” The man yawned, sounding like he had been awakened from a deep sleep. “Now, just hold on there young man,” he replied groggily. I heard him lay down the phone and he was gone for several long agonizing minutes. “My monitors don’t suggest any loss of pressure at the Tillery.”

  Another jaw cracking yawn filled my ear. At least he was beginning to sound awake. “Take my advice, son, and don’t tie up this line for any more prank calls. You could get into serious trouble. This is gov’ment business.” Then he hung up.

  I quickly pushed redial and this time he answered on the first ring. “This is not a prank call!” I shouted into the receiver. “There is a crack in the Tillery Dam that is getting bigger as we speak and from the looks of it, it can’t hold much longer!”

  “Where are you calling from, son?” His tone of voice assured me that he didn’t believe a word I was saying.

  “I’m calling from the office at the dam. Doesn’t the government have caller ID? Never mind, just please send help immediately!”

  “Sure you are,” he chuckled. “How did you get in the office?”

  “What difference does it make how I got in? All that matters is that you get your butts down here and seal up this crack before it’s too late. We don’t have time to play twenty questions.”

  “I’ll tell you what, kid.” I could still hear deep laughter rumbling in his chest. “Hang up the phone and I’ll call the office number. If you answer the phone I’ll believe you’re inside. Fair enough?”

  I didn’t have a choice, even though it was a colossal waste of time. “Sure, whatever. Just please hurry up!”

  Seconds later the phone rang. “I told you I was telling the truth! Now will you please send help?”

  “As a matter of fact, I will” He ignored everything I had said, but he was no longer laughing. “There will be an officer of the law there in a matter of minutes to escort you off the property.” Then he slammed down the phone, just as the lights flickered and the power went off leaving me to stumble to the door in total darkness.

  At least the police were on their way. I had that much to be thankful for. And it was a good thing, because the water was up to my knees and I only had the light of the moon to see by as I waded out of the office and through the swift current. The water was rising faster than before and there was a 12-foot fence between me and safety.

  Sure enough within five minutes a squad car arrived. The office was built on a hill and I ran to the top above the rapidly rising water line waiting as the two officers approached shining their flashlights in my face.

  “Okay, young fellow. I don’t know how you got in there, but come on out now before you get yourself into more trouble than you’re already in.”

  I had to pinch myself to keep from laughing in his smug face. Was he crazy? Didn’t he see the predicament I was in? I was locked inside the fence with the dam about to break any minute. I didn’t see how it would be possible to get into more trouble than
that. Wisely I decided to control my sarcastic comments. These men were my only hope of making it out alive.

  “I can’t get out!” I shouted to be heard above the noise of the river.

  “There must be a power outage,” the officer muttered before turning to his partner and frowning. “The river is unusually loud tonight ain’t it, Jim? I can hardly hear myself think.” Then he turned to me. “Come out the same way you went in I guess, kid.”

  Wow! Was he ever clever! Why hadn’t I thought of that? I was standing inside a locked fence with water creeping into my shoes just for the heck of it. “I-can-not-get-out!” I spoke slowly, trying to remain calm when I really wanted to tell Barney Fife to earn his paycheck. “I climbed in through a drainage pipe under the fence and now it’s covered with water.”

  How much longer could the dam hold?

  “Didn’t you read the no trespassing signs posted all over this property? I bet you’ll think twice before breaking into private property again won’t you, kid?”

  “Yep, I sure will!” Why not humor him? “I will definitely think twice before I crawl through another cement pipe. Now, will you please just get me out of here before the dam breaks?”

  “Whoa, take it easy there, son. We’re going to get you out, and don’t you worry about this dam breaking.” He had a determined look on his face as he fiddled with the huge padlock. “Why, we had a disaster drill just last month and the topic was the safety of this very dam. We were told that nothing short of a plane crashing into it could bring it down. I don’t see any planes circling overhead, do you? Where did you get such a foolish notion anyway?”

  “Shine your flashlight toward my feet and you’ll see exactly where I got such a foolish notion.” He did and gasped as his jaw dropped to his chest. “Where do you think all of this water is coming from? I haven’t seen any clouds in the sky tonight, have you?” I pointed to the huge crack in the dam that was now gushing water in several directions at once, like the fountain at the park. “Look!”