Jame Richards - Three Rivers Rising: A Novel of the Johnstown Flood

to Mom and Dad,
to Grace and Frances Mae,
and to Franny

Father says he comes for the fishing,
but in truth he comes to keep an eye
on other businessmen.
I have never seen him hook
a worm or tie a fly.
I cannot imagine him gutting a fish
or scraping scales.
The only scales he knows
are for banking and shipping.
But his partners and rivals decided
it was time for fresh air, exercise,
peace and quiet,
away from the filth and crowds of the city.
So, even at this pastoral lakeside resort,
my father will not miss
the glimmer of a business deal
spoken over rifles or fishing reels.

Mother likes the sociability of the other ladies
though they cut her with their tongues.
She does not always follow their jokes
but laughs along.
The gentlemen come to hunt animals;
the ladies come to hunt other ladies
of a weaker sort.

Estrella shines
glossy dark eyelashes
and smooth pink cheeks.
My parents favorite,
and, at nineteen, my senior by three years.
She starts each day in a steamer chair
with plaid blankets and a book.
She plays the part of the lovesick sweetheart
her beau, Charles, learns the family business
back home in Pittsburgh
but her natural buoyancy is not long repressed.
Fun always knows where to find her.

Just now, an errant croquet ball rolls under her chair.
She laughs and runs to the game,
the dappled sunlight,
and the jovial golden boys.
Handsome Frederick
meets her halfway,
extending his arm.
Frederick with his shock of blond hair,
broad shoulders,
and skin glowing with health
Poor old Charles
with his consumptive cough
better arrive soon
if he wants to find his intended still betrothed.
He cannot compete with the gaiety
and romance of our sparkling little lake in the mountains.

Now about me
if I am not the fun-loving beauty,
then I must be the serious one,
the one who would toss the croquet ball back,
wave and sigh,
but be infinitely more fascinated
with my book
than with the superficial cheer
of the society crowd.
The one who gets the joke
but does not tolerate it.

The one who baits the hook
and guts the fish
with Peter,
the hired boy.

Papa says, Its unnatural
lakes werent meant to be
so high in the mountains,
up over all our heads.
Rich folks think
they know better than God
where a lake oughta be.

Hes talking about South Fork Reservoir,
miles of icy creek water
held in place above our valley
by a seventy-foot earthen dam.

The owners call it Lake Conemaugh.
They raised it up from a puddle,
built fancy-trim houses all in a row
and a big clubhouse on the shore,
stocked it with fish,
and now they bring their families in from Pittsburgh
every summer season.

Most of them stay in the clubhouse,
like an oversized hotel
with wide hallways,
a huge dining room,
and a long front porch
across the whole thing.
Dozens of windows, too,
so every room has a view
of the reservoir
I mean, the lake.

Papa says, They cant stack up enough money
against all that water.

Oh, Papa. I wave off the idea.
Everybody in Johnstown
kids each other about the dam breaking.
We laugh because it always holds.
Papa says were laughing off our fear.
Folks think hes something of a crank
for always bringing it up.

I dont say anything more
at least until I can think how to tell him
the sportsmens club
up at the reservoir
is my new boss.

Papa says, Dont go up there.
Being around all those rich folksll only give you ideas
of things you cant have.

He looks at Mamas picture.
I know hes thinking of ideas she had
for things he couldnt give her.
That was before she went to rest underground
in the cemetery on the hill.

Papa works underground
in a different hill,
digging coal for the Cambria Iron Works.
Papa says the mines are graveyards, too,
only without the resting and the peace.
His tears are black
and his cough is black.

I try not to smile. I bet I wont hardly see
any rich folks,
theyll have me working so hard,
planting
and pruning
and lugging stuff around.
I see him considering but
I pretend to give in.
Oh, okay, Papa, Ill just come to work with you, then.
Ask the foreman to find me a spot on the line.

He shakes his head,
coughing over his grumbling.
No, you go up where the air is clean.
We both know,
now that Ive turned sixteen,
Ill be in the mills soon enough,
putting in ten-hour days or more
on the Iron Works payroll.
Why not have one last summer of sun and fish?

He packs me a lunch bucket
with enough for several meals
and hands me his good wax coat.

Papa walks me to the edge of town,
our boots nearly left behind with each step
on this slop of a road.
Mud is just
part of life
in the valley.
Johnstown sits at the junction
of the Stony Creek
and the Little Conemaugh River,
which is joined
above us, to the east
by the South Fork Creek
after it fills the reservoir.
Due to the sometimes quicksilver activity
of these three rivers
after heavy rainfall,
Johnstown is no stranger to spring floods.

Papa claps his arm
on my shoulder
in place of goodbyes.
He looks like he wants to say something,
to say a lot of things,
if he could,
but we just look up the mountain pass together.

Right here where were standing
a long-ago river flowed,
carving a deep channel
through the rocks and mountains,
paying no mind
to the wildflowers thatd grow
someday,
or the little wooden towns
thatd spring up in the valley,
or the miner and his son
and the words they can and cant say.

The shadow of that old-time river
ripples over us,
and I leave Papa behind
on the road.

How might a girl like me,
who loves only books,
find herself wrist-deep in fish entrails?
With a boy
not of her rank?

It all began with the need for quiet,
a place to read
without the insufferable incessant prattling
of Mrs. Godwin
and that vicious little wig with teeth
she calls a dog.

I scouted a mossy glade
near one of the feeder streams,
relishing the exercise
but, even more, enjoying the solitude.

A rule must have been declared
at Lake Conemaugh
that no one leaves you alone for long
when you are enjoying yourself.
So about the third time the hired boy, Peter,
walked by with his fishing pole,
I spoke up: The fish not biting today?
Wellhe looked at his shoes
this used to be my favorite spot.

I thought it was only fair
to invite him to set up here,
though Mother would have fits
if she knew I was ten feet away