Canyon Secret (16 page)

Mabel opened the car door and peeked back in before saying goodbye. “Maybe the Sheriff might add a little spice to your life. After all, he does have a cute bum.” Betty erupted into laughter and watched Mabel limp toward her house.

S
horty Davis finished his bacon and eggs breakfast with his wife Carol. As his daily routine demanded, he then used the bathroom, walked to the kitchen window, and wound his pocket watch. He carefully placed the antique silver watch in his lined Copenhagen can and twisted on the lid. The butterscotch mints waited by his packed lunch bucket. Shorty stuffed them into the pants pocket of his bib overall jeans. As he stared out of the window, he blessed himself and whispered the same prayers he said for the past twenty years. Carol laid his yellow rain slicker on the back of the chair near the front door. “It rained and snowed off and on all night long, Johnny. You’ll be needin’ your slicker today.”

Shorty turned around and said, “August first and the thunderstorms and sticky snow are right on time. Did you hear that thunder last night? There were some beauties.”

Carol closed the distance between them and kissed him on the cheek. “It might be worth your while to shave tonight after work Mr. Davis. After all, it’s your fiftieth birthday and who knows what I might have in store for you tonight.” She twisted her head away in a flirty motion and continued, “I just hope you ain’t too old.”

He laughed and replied, “You’ll see how old I am when I get a hold of you tonight. Fifty ain’t too old. You’d better take a good nap this afternoon ‘cause you’re goin’ to need it.”

The slap on his behind barely reached his skin. “Go to work and bring home the bacon. I’ll be fresh as a daisy when you come through that door. Now get going old timer.” Shorty picked up his lunch bucket and rain slicker, kissed his wife goodbye, and walked to join his waiting ride to Hungry Horse.

Carol picked up the breakfast dishes and smiled to herself at the thoughts of their bantering. She thought of how fast time had gone by since their wedding thirty years earlier. Now he’s fifty. She flashed on how handsome he looked in his blue wedding suit that he borrowed from his older brother. Carol sat down at the kitchen table and finished her second cup of coffee. He’s still cuter than hell, and I’ll fix his wagon tonight with the surprise party.

The men slowly boarded the bus. Yellow rain slickers and silver hardhats trudged along as each man waited his turn to climb onto the bus. Tomas walked right behind Shorty just like he did every day. Shorty continued with a Navy story that he started while the men waited in the quonset hut. “We just finished pulling out of Frisco and cleared the Golden Gate Bridge when the Captain sounded general orders. I was a Seaman E-3 Gunners Mate and I bolted to the bow to join my gunner at our BMG-M2. I—”

Tomas listened carefully and interrupted Shorty’s story, “What’s a BMG?”

“It’s short for a Browning Machine Gun. We used them against hostile small surface craft and commando-types. Shit, you interrupted me and I can’t remember where I was goin’ with that. Let’s see—”

Buck Morris seized the opportunity to tease his nemesis Shorty Davis. “No wonder you can’t remember where you was goin’ with another one of them borin’ Navy stories. You’re fifty years old for Christ’s sake. It’s lucky you remembered to get on the bus this mornin’.” Except for Tomas, most of the men within earshot of Buck’s comment laughed. Over his right shoulder, Shorty flipped Morris the finger.

Tomas loved hearing about Shorty’s Navy stories. He memorized all of the ports he visited, the people from other countries he met, and the women from the Asian countries that he spent time getting to know. Tomas started to entertain thoughts of joining the Navy himself. He even talked to Shorty about it. “What a jerk that Buck Morris is to Shorty. It’s just that he’s so jealous of all of Shorty’s experiences.” He faced his partner and said, “Go ahead, Shorty, what happened after you got to your machine gun?”

“I’ll finish the story once we get to the block, Kid.” He flipped Morris a dirty look and popped a butterscotch candy into his mouth. He silently looked out the window as the bus passed North Lion Lake, and he thought about how much he enjoyed telling Tomas his stories. “The Kid is the only one that’s interested in my Navy stories. What a great kid he is. I hope he does join the Navy; he could go to any school he wants. I wonder what his old man thinks about it?”

The men walked slowly to block number four and climbed down the ladder. Tomas climbed down first and took Shorty’s lunch bucket from him and set it in the corner with his bucket. He readied the powerful vibrator for the day as Shorty poured himself another cup of coffee. Clifford and the other two men joined them in the block. Shorty growled as he surveyed the condition of the block to be poured. “The rain and snow made a mess out of them steel forms. Be careful today, it’s slicker’n hell in here today. Pay attention, Kid. We’ll rotate out more often until this rain stops.”

The operator shack hugged the east wall of the mountainside next to the cement mixing plant. After the full buckets left the cement mixing plant, the endless cable roared through the giant wheels housed in the operator shack. Buckets hung off a carriage attached to the cable. Each bucket held sixteen cubic yards of cement and measured ten-feet high, six-feet long, and six-feet wide. Each cubic yard of cement weighed about twenty-three hundred pounds.

Jiggs Quinn enjoyed his reputation as the top operator on the Hungry Horse project. His booming baritone voice matched his laugh. He reviewed the order of the bucket drops with his bellboy, Frank Rodriquez. “We’ll start out with drops on the six block. Then we’ll catch four and finish up on the two block for the first run.” Jiggs laid out the rest of the order of drops for the morning.

Rodriquez jotted the order down on his pad, looked up and asked, “Did the rain cause any problems last night?”

“Graveyard shift told me they had a couple of short-out electrical problems. They picked up the slack in time, so no big problems.” Jiggs pinched a small chew from his Copenhagen can and slipped it behind his lip. “Give me plenty of time in between loads just in case. I’ll tighten slack more often in case we get another power overload or short-out. Okay?”

His veteran bellboy smiled, gave a thumbs-up signal, and walked down the stairs of the shack. In his mind, he reviewed the order of the concrete drops and mapped out his points to stand and signal for each of the cement drops for the blocks.

After he finished telling his Navy story to Tomas, Shorty Davis barked out the rotation schedule for the day. He gathered the attention of his crew as the loaded bucket of cement headed their way. The crew hugged the corner as the bucket dropped its load into block number four. Each block was thirty-feet wide, ten-feet long, and five-feet high. The bucket soared skyward as the load emptied. Tomas and Clifford fired up their vibrator and started packing the concrete on their side of the block. The other two men followed and started pounding the concrete into the corners of the block right next to Tomas and Clifford. Shorty worked behind the crew and prepared the back-up vibrator. His eyes shifted up through the pounding rain as the bucket disappeared on its journey back to the mixing plant.

Jiggs Quinn watched the next bucket empty above the two block and sky for the trip back to him and the mixing plant. His bellboy walked back to his point to direct the next load back to block six.

Shorty’s crew in block four moved through the cement and backed toward the west wall. The vibrators noisily forced the cement down into all possible crevices and small holes. Shorty set the back-up vibrator in the corner of the block. The rain pelted his hardhat and bounced off his slicker. Noise from the vibrators shut out the rest of the world from the five men working in blocks four.

Frank Rodriquez signaled from above the four block and Jiggs sent the loaded bucket out of the shack. The bucket glided over the first two blocks. Jiggs felt the electrical power shut off. “Shit! Oh no!” His voice roared out of the shack as he frantically reset the buttons and pushed the power buttons in front of him. No response. “OH my God. No!” He pounded on the red emergency shut off button several times and ripped the phone off the hook. No dial tone.

The endless cable went slack. A fully loaded bucket dropped from the skylines as it flew pass block three and continued its downward route toward the four block. Shorty casually glanced over his shoulder and saw the out of control bucket racing toward his crew. “Look out! Get over the side!” His crew kept working. In slow motion action, he lifted one boot at a time out of the heavy concrete and slipped as he attempted to close the distance between the oncoming bucket and his oblivious crew. The bucket doubled its speed as it entered the top of the block. The men seemed a mile away as each of Shorty’s labored movements seemed slower than the one before. He yelled again. “Get out of the block!” No reaction from his crew. His voice pleaded in a slow motion action. The words lingered in the air. The men continued to work. “Get out! Get out!”

Shorty stepped up on a partially exposed crossbar in the rebar. And with the two by six board in his hands, he heaved his body into the backs of his four men. Tomas and Clifford bounced over the steel forms and landed on the front of the forms outside of the block. The other two men landed between the steel forms and the front part of the block. Their vibrators whipped over the front of the Dam. Both men hung on to the wooden supports.

The roar of the crashing bucket into the walls of the block caused men in nearby blocks to look up. They unconsciously shut down their vibrators and stood in confused disbelief. The east wall of the block collapsed. Red-hot cement poured over the face of the Dam like lava from an erupted volcano. Most of the reinforcement bar anchors in block four violently separated from the mangled steel forms. Excess cable continued to roll and tear at the walls of block three. And then it stopped. Deafening silence covered the east end of Hungry Horse Dam.

Mass confusion flooded the accident site. Stunned men stood frozen in time and struggled to believe what happened. Other men raced to the four block and peered into the area devastated by the run away concrete bucket. The first aid team came from all sections of the construction site and gathered as a group near the disaster area.

Word of the accident quickly spread to the west end where Mikhail and his partner talked and unloaded a stack of metal pipes used for cooling poured concrete. Bud Reynolds nodded his head and wrinkled his sun-tanned face as the walking boss filled him in. Mikhail set the final three pipes on the storage rack. He turned and faced Bud walking quickly toward him. Bud gathered his breath. “Mikhail. A full bucket of mud crashed into block four where your kid—”

In two steps Mikhail blew by Bud and disappeared around the bend of the Dam. He stumbled as he stepped over lumber, tools, makeshift stairs, and ironworker’s materials. His mind raced and the same horrible memory of his childhood and the news of his father’s accident ripped into his mind. His heart roared with pain. Men stepped aside as he trampled by them. Mikhail struggled to catch his breath and the nerves lit up every inch of his heaving stomach. Block number five stood ahead of him. Voices belted out instructions and men grabbed ropes, shovels, and boards as they sped toward the devastated four block. Mikhail bowled four men over makeshift stairs and handrails. Men set heavy boards across the surface of the block while other men pulled the tangled endless cable up and out of the block. Mikhail looked. Tomas was nowhere in sight. His heart sunk and his stomach heaved his breakfast.

One voice stood above all others. Jiggs Quinn shouted instructions, “Hook that goddamn come-along cable to that bucket. You over there, get to that pickup parked near the safety gate.” His partner, Frank Rodriquez pushed the man out of the way and hooked the come along cable. He then raced to the Dodge Power Wagon pickup and jumped in the cab. He pushed the ignition button and the engine fired to life. Jiggs waved his hardhat, and Frank slowly backed up. What was left of the now empty bucket fought the pressure. The truck tires spun, and black smoke rose from the gravel road. Finally, the bucket eked away from the crushed west wall of block three.

Mikhail now stood next to Jiggs Quinn in the block. Both men gasped as the moved bucket partially revealed an arm and foot of a man. Another man carefully removed concrete and splintered wood and steel. The crushed man’s body became exposed. Jiggs stepped back and whispered for the first time in his life. “Good God Almighty, it’s Johnny Davis.”

Mikhail also stepped back and tears flooded from his eyes. It wasn’t Tomas. Relief and grief poured through his body. A quick prayer raced through his mind. Then grief roared. He knew how much Tomas respected and trusted Shorty Davis. But his attention reeled behind him as he heard Tomas scream, “NO! Not Shorty! It can’t be. It’s his birthday! He saved our lives. NOOOO!”

Two first aid men grabbed him by the arms and guided Tomas up and out of the block. Mikhail’s legs struggled to hold up his weight as he followed Tomas. He reached his son and held him for the first time since he was ten years old. Tomas cried and called Shorty’s name over and over. Mikhail patted his back and said nothing. There weren’t any words. He saw through his own tears another team of men carrying Clifford out on a stretcher.

The other two other members of Shorty’s crew walked arm in arm toward the first aid shack. Their yellow rain slickers now were splattered with cement. Silence roared back in as men continued to uncover the battered body of Shorty Davis. Dr. Green walked by Mikhail and Tomas after checking Shorty. He placed his hand on Tomas’s shoulder and shook his head as he walked back to the first aid shack.

A
fter he visited his friend Clifford at Kalispell Regional Hospital, Tomas walked down the back stairs of the three-story brick building. Clifford suffered severe burns from the concrete that spilled over him in the accident that happened four days earlier. The doctor planned to release him the next day after his morning check-up. Clifford’s neck burns posed the biggest health problem. The burns on his hands and right arm prevented him from returning to work for a week or two. Tomas felt relieved after hearing that his new friend beat any infection or serious skin damage.