Three Rivers Rising (16 page)

Peter’s father.

Kate

People from the hills,
they bring what they have:
dry things,
food,
tinctures,
or spirits.
The latter sterilizes
scrounged
or improvised
tools—
at least in this camp.

Another stick
on the paltry fire,
smoldering pieces of chairs,
kindling,
whatever could be carried
or spared
from the few households
on higher ground.

Patients stagger in.
Some are carried.
I tend burns,
torn flesh,
broken bones.

Broken spirits—
know nothing of fixing those.
Send them on to the preacher.

Wake the boy
from time to time.
Keep him dry
in a lean-to.

He isn’t Early,
remind myself.
He’ll live
and it won’t bring Early back,
but he
will
live.

No hunger.
No sleep.

Only doing.

Woodvale

Whitcomb

I pass through Woodvale,
recalling it as the pride of the valley.
A town built by Cambria Iron:
pretty white houses,
maple-lined avenue,
and horse-drawn streetcars.

Stunned,
numb,
grieving,
citizens of Woodvale have no words.
Woodvale had no warning.
Most of a woolen mill,
a tannery,
two schoolhouses,
the streetcar shed with dozens of horses
and tons of hay,
the wire works, and
hundreds of houses
are gone.

One out of every three people in Woodvale is dead.

I cannot bear to wonder
if I will find anyone alive in Johnstown.
I hurry on.

Johnstown

Kate

Don’t need answers—
Who did this thing?
Why’d this happen to me?—
and such.
Some folks will make themselves crazy
wrapping their heads around it.

Just see broken bodies
and fix them,
if I can.

Just see need
and answer it
with
will,
muscle,
endurance,
bearing up.
Those are the only answers I need.

No mountainful of water
can beat me down.

Celestia

Wandered all day.
The second night threatens
to be worse.
Talk of thieves
and disease.

Cannot take another step.

Darkness inside
rivals the gloom,
fog,
dusk.

I am attracted by sounds of bustling
and the warm glow
of a lantern.
I find myself again
in the domain
of calm,
efficient
strength—
the woman with the heavy rope braids.
The woman who saved me
by almost drowning me.

I want to restore her pride
after seeing her moment of weakness.
I sense that weakness would be intolerable to her.

“Hello!” I interrupt her chopping up a chair.
She drops the little ax and turns,
straightens her shoulders,
smoothes her apron,
waits.

“I…uh…you saved me yesterday….”
Nothing.
I try again: “I want to thank you….”
No response.
“Celestia Whitcomb.” I hold out my hand.

Her eyes narrow.
Her hands remain at her sides. “Kate.”
“Don’t recall you, Miss.
Went into shock myself
for a spell.”

I withdraw my hand. “Well, you
did
save me, Kate.
And I want to repay you.”

“Don’t want your money.”

I hold up the shreds of my petticoats and shrug. “I have no—”
how absurd everything suddenly seems—
“I have no
pockets
.”
I bite my lip to hold back a smile.

Kate raises an eyebrow. “Nor shoes neither.”
We look at each other,
exhausted,
unreal,
on the verge
of sharing a laugh,
a desperately needed release.

The first tremor ripples through me,
a snort escapes,
but I sense how quickly laughter will give way to tears,
how the shaking will shatter me
into a million scattered pieces.
Kate stiffens again.
“Well, if you’ve got strength for foolishness,
you’ve got strength for work.
Lend a hand.”

I follow her to the fire.
She hands me a bundle from the hills,
an armload of petticoats—
fresh,
white,
starched—
a great deal better than what I’m wearing.
“Rip these,” she says, “and boil them for bandages.”
I regard my own garment—
torn,
frayed,
and wet.
The irony tickles again
and my eyes sting
with overwrought tears
unshed.

Kate sets a chipped pot
on a grate fashioned with barrel hoops and wire.
“Don’t drink anything not boiled
and don’t touch the dead.”

Peter

The hands.
The voice.
My lifeline.

I bring myself round
every so often,
when she comes by
to hold my eyelids open
with her quick tough fingers
and peer into my eyes.
I struggle to recognize this face:
the sandy freckles,
like a spotted mare.
Then she frees me with a grunt: “Good.”

I am a good boy.

I know only that I want to go home.
What’s become of my home?
Is someone waiting for me there?

I may never know,
but I keep reaching
for the
voice
and
the
hands.

Celestia

The quiet desolation
of the valley
is
too
quiet.
Has no one heard of the devastation?
Does no one care?

Isolation.
Trains cannot get through.

The lines are all down
indefinitely.

What about my father?
He must know about the flood.
He must have surmised that I am in Johnstown.
Is he wondering if I am dead?
Or am I dead to him already?

Kate finds a man with a horse
who is heading up to South Fork.
I scrounge for dry paper
to send a note.

How to encompass all that has passed
since I tiptoed down those clubhouse stairs?
The man stares
while the nag sighs and chews
and shifts her weight.

Dear Father
,

I am alive—if you care to know it
.
Tell Mother not to worry
.
I love you both
.
I hope you still think of me
as
your loving daughter
,

Celestia

We feed the patients
as best we can,
Kate carrying a huge pot of watery gruel—
a feast compared to what may be had
in the rest of the valley—
and me ladling into bowls
or spooning into mouths,
boiling the vessels and utensils
between turns.

Our last stop is a tent of sorts—
a tarp draped over a piece of fence,
a patient moaning underneath.
Kate usually goes in alone.
Must be a horrible sight.

This time
Kate lowers the pot,
stretches her back,
and nods toward the tent. “You feed the boy.
Mrs. Davis over there needs a poultice.”

My legs ache.
My feet are swollen.
I long to finish
so we can rest
and maybe eat, too.

I bring the lantern
and the tent
comes alive,
flickering inside.

A cry struggles out of me
even before
I completely recognize
my love.
Alive!

Peter!

I would not have believed
before this moment
that any of the tears in Johnstown
would be tears of joy.

Peter

The chasm between
my nightmares
and wakefulness
has not been worth crossing.
What would I wake to?
Remembering all I’ve lost?

But now, for the first time,
I think Celestia is calling me
to come across.
Is Celestia waiting there for me?
Alive?
Or calling me to the other world?

Or maybe
it’s all been just a terrible dream
and I’ll open my eyes to find
Celestia rocking in my mother’s chair,
watching me sleep.
Same as before.

Celestia

Weary.
Weak.
Waves pass through me.
I wrap my arms around my middle
to hold back the pain.
At least Peter improves.

The man with the mare
returns
with my note
unopened.

“He isn’t up there,” the man says. “No one is.”

Father must have
retreated
to the city,
fearing
a mob,
a vengeance,
thinking nothing
of me.

I am truly disowned.
This is how it feels.

A shiver works through me
and all my heat leaves
through stinging cheeks
and burning eyes.

“Typhoid,” Kate says. “It’s here.”

After all I have survived,
now I should die
to spite them?

My legs fold up beneath me.

Kate

Typhoid.

The standing water
might kill more
than the wave.

Folks doubled over
stumble into camp.
Some too feverish
are carried.
Cordon off a separate section,
extra clean.

The girl has it.

The boy is well enough.
He helps me now,
helps me care for her.

And so they switched places.
The vigil is his.

They get me to thinking,
and I don’t like to give in to thinking:
If I was there to see Early die,
maybe
he’s been watching over me—
soul dead
in a moving body—
and he doesn’t like what he sees.
Maybe
he’s pointing me
to lessons.
Maybe Early is saving me
even though I couldn’t save him.
Early is pointing me
back to life.

East Conemaugh

Maura

The railroad is good to us,
repairing the tracks
straightaway
so food and water
and the blankets of city folks
can get to us.

Joseph’s out on the line now,
since almost the first minute,
finding ways to get the trains through
even if he has to lead the cars
one by one
like skittish horses across a stream.
His work is interrupted every few minutes
by another newspaperman
from a city I will never see
wanting to hear the whole story again,
wanting to know if he’s aware that he’s a hero
and that important people all over the country
convey invitations to tea.
My Joseph has charming ways, though,
saying, “There’s too much work to be done.”
That and his smile seem to satisfy the newspapermen.
Just what a hero would say—
I read it in their faces as they scribble.

They shake hands,
tip their silly hats,
and canter down the hill
back to Johnstown.