Read Online SWAINS LOCK (The River Trilogy, book 1) by Edward A. Stabler - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Edward A. Stabler
Tags: Mystery, Gold, possession, 1920s, heroin, curse, Silver, potomac river, flood, moonshine, gravesite, chesapeake and ohio canal, mule, whiskey, great falls
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sign claimed that trees
and vegetation on Olmsted Island were periodically carried away by
massive floods on the Potomac.
“It does look like this island has a
different ecosystem,” Nicky said. “Everything looks miniaturized…
almost fragile.”
“Like a bonsai version of the plants and
trees up the hill,” Vin agreed. The walkway wove around rocks and
depressions before crossing a rocky, fissured gully studded with
pools of stagnant water. The roaring they had heard in the
background for the last few minutes grew louder. Around a short
ridge and past a swampy basin they reached the observation deck,
which was mounted fifty feet above enormous rocks at the base of
the cliff. They found an opening between sightseers at the railing
and felt the cool breeze that drifted up to the platform from the
river below. Vin’s eyes were drawn to the cycling clouds of spray
where water pierced water at the base of the Falls. For a few
seconds he felt hypnotized, unable to focus elsewhere.
“Unbelievable,” Nicky said, raising her
voice against the roaring. “This is ten times bigger than I
expected.”
Vin blinked his hypnosis away. “Even though
you’d seen the photo of the Falls?”
“The scale must be hard to capture in a
single shot. And the motion.”
Vin nodded. What the 1924 photo of Lee
Fisher and K. Elgin at Great Falls couldn’t convey was the
animation of water following every possible path downstream. At the
head of Olmsted Island, the river was a half-mile wide as it
slipped around and over a field of large rocks. As the island
emerged on the Maryland side, a dented and fissured phalanx of rock
pushed into the river from the Virginia side, framing the top of
the Falls. Great Falls itself was a flowing staircase of three
arch-shaped drops, each over twenty feet high and split and twisted
by immense knuckles of fractured rock worn smooth like putty.
Between the upper, middle and lower drops, the river crawled
downstream through staggered boulders as a fabric of waves and
haystacks, with thousands of white veins writhing and twisting
across its sliding body of jade. The split currents converged again
at the base of the Falls, pulsing downstream as a train of standing
white-maned waves.
Vin looked across the river at the crowded
observation decks atop the cliffs on the Virginia side. “We’re both
looking at the same thing,” he said, “but what we’re seeing is
entirely different.”
Retracing their path along the boardwalk,
Vin studied the landscape of rocks, scrub pines and scrawny
hardwoods. What generation of this island’s trees was he seeing
now? The hundredth? Thousandth? Millionth? He tried to visualize
the scope and power of a flood that could – that had, that would
again – wash all this away. Like the people who had walked here, he
thought, and fished and hunted above and below the Falls across a
hundred generations, and left no trace except a handful of
petroglyphs hidden in the rocks along the river. They must have
left their bones here, too, interred in the underwater caverns and
sieves that lace the Falls. He pictured the degraded bones of those
who disappeared in the cataracts a thousand years ago embracing the
swollen flesh of a recent arrival, a wader who had slipped into the
river above Great Falls this summer and was never seen again.
From the corner of his eye, he saw a flash
of motion in the woods upstream from the walkway. He stopped to
track it, hands on the railing as Nicky walked on. Too large for a
squirrel or a small mammal, but very quiet. Could it have been a
deer? Was the island big enough for deer? Peering at the scrawny
trees and moss-stained rocks, he couldn’t see anything moving.
Whatever he’d seen was out of sight now, eclipsed by a rock or
hidden in a depression. He turned back to the boardwalk and saw
Nicky swing along its next leg, ten paces ahead, hands stuffed into
her pockets, shoulders relaxed and low. Her short brown hair
bounced and gleamed in
and vegetation on Olmsted Island were periodically carried away by
massive floods on the Potomac.
“It does look like this island has a
different ecosystem,” Nicky said. “Everything looks miniaturized…
almost fragile.”
“Like a bonsai version of the plants and
trees up the hill,” Vin agreed. The walkway wove around rocks and
depressions before crossing a rocky, fissured gully studded with
pools of stagnant water. The roaring they had heard in the
background for the last few minutes grew louder. Around a short
ridge and past a swampy basin they reached the observation deck,
which was mounted fifty feet above enormous rocks at the base of
the cliff. They found an opening between sightseers at the railing
and felt the cool breeze that drifted up to the platform from the
river below. Vin’s eyes were drawn to the cycling clouds of spray
where water pierced water at the base of the Falls. For a few
seconds he felt hypnotized, unable to focus elsewhere.
“Unbelievable,” Nicky said, raising her
voice against the roaring. “This is ten times bigger than I
expected.”
Vin blinked his hypnosis away. “Even though
you’d seen the photo of the Falls?”
“The scale must be hard to capture in a
single shot. And the motion.”
Vin nodded. What the 1924 photo of Lee
Fisher and K. Elgin at Great Falls couldn’t convey was the
animation of water following every possible path downstream. At the
head of Olmsted Island, the river was a half-mile wide as it
slipped around and over a field of large rocks. As the island
emerged on the Maryland side, a dented and fissured phalanx of rock
pushed into the river from the Virginia side, framing the top of
the Falls. Great Falls itself was a flowing staircase of three
arch-shaped drops, each over twenty feet high and split and twisted
by immense knuckles of fractured rock worn smooth like putty.
Between the upper, middle and lower drops, the river crawled
downstream through staggered boulders as a fabric of waves and
haystacks, with thousands of white veins writhing and twisting
across its sliding body of jade. The split currents converged again
at the base of the Falls, pulsing downstream as a train of standing
white-maned waves.
Vin looked across the river at the crowded
observation decks atop the cliffs on the Virginia side. “We’re both
looking at the same thing,” he said, “but what we’re seeing is
entirely different.”
Retracing their path along the boardwalk,
Vin studied the landscape of rocks, scrub pines and scrawny
hardwoods. What generation of this island’s trees was he seeing
now? The hundredth? Thousandth? Millionth? He tried to visualize
the scope and power of a flood that could – that had, that would
again – wash all this away. Like the people who had walked here, he
thought, and fished and hunted above and below the Falls across a
hundred generations, and left no trace except a handful of
petroglyphs hidden in the rocks along the river. They must have
left their bones here, too, interred in the underwater caverns and
sieves that lace the Falls. He pictured the degraded bones of those
who disappeared in the cataracts a thousand years ago embracing the
swollen flesh of a recent arrival, a wader who had slipped into the
river above Great Falls this summer and was never seen again.
From the corner of his eye, he saw a flash
of motion in the woods upstream from the walkway. He stopped to
track it, hands on the railing as Nicky walked on. Too large for a
squirrel or a small mammal, but very quiet. Could it have been a
deer? Was the island big enough for deer? Peering at the scrawny
trees and moss-stained rocks, he couldn’t see anything moving.
Whatever he’d seen was out of sight now, eclipsed by a rock or
hidden in a depression. He turned back to the boardwalk and saw
Nicky swing along its next leg, ten paces ahead, hands stuffed into
her pockets, shoulders relaxed and low. Her short brown hair
bounced and gleamed in
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