Peter Hernon - 8.4

He backed away from the overlook and headed up the narrow road toward the ferry landing. He drove the two miles in silence, glancing out at the river, trying to see it in the darkness. Even with the windows up, he could hear the rushing water.

When they got to the ferry, it was riding up and down on her mooring cables. A two-decker. Not a big boat and square-sterned, it looked like a floating white box. There was room on the bottom deck for about ten cars.

“What do you think?” Elizabeth asked.

“I’m thinking I don’t want to do this,” Atkins said. He didn’t want to cross that river, but had no choice. Getting that seismograph up and running was about the most important thing anyone could do right now. They needed to know what was going on along the fault, how much energy it was releasing, what the aftershocks were doing. He had to try to get over there.

Getting out of the Explorer, he followed Elizabeth aboard the ferry. Hanging onto the chain-link railing for dear life, they climbed a narrow flight of metal steps to the pilothouse. He noticed a dark, massive shape looming out in the water maybe fifty yards downstream. As his eyes focused better in the dim light, he realized it was an island. A big one hugging the Tennessee shoreline. The ferry landing sat near the upstream end of the island.

They were startled by the distant sound of something crashing into the water.

“What was that?” Elizabeth asked.

A voice in the darkness said, “Nothing much. Just part of the Missouri shore falling into the river. It’s been like that for the last couple hours.”

It was Dick Marsden. He was standing in shadows next to the wheel, holding a pair of binoculars.

Atkins explained who they were and why they wanted to cross the river. He told the captain they needed to set up their strong-motion seismograph as close as possible to the earthquake’s epicenter. The device was designed to operate near the source of an earthquake without being knocked off scale by the shock waves. Atkins tried to explain as carefully as he could why they needed to get across the Mississippi. What was at stake.

Marsden laughed. His eyes were bloodshot. His skin mottled. Rotund and badly overweight, he wore a dirty blue jacket and watch cap. Atkins guessed he was about sixty years old.

“I’ve been living on this river nearly my whole life, and I don’t recognize it,” Marsden said. “It’s calmed down some in the last few minutes. The waves have dropped off. But you go out there now, it’s even money it’ll drown you.”

“We’ve heard about a waterfall,” Elizabeth said.

“As best I can tell, it’s a couple miles upstream, about mid-channel,” Marsden said. “When the wind’s right, you can hear it real good. Sounds like Niagara Falls out there.”

He handed her the binoculars.

Adjusting the eyepiece, Elizabeth focused on a faint, curling line of white water far out in the channel. Even with the binoculars, it was too far away to make out clearly. It reminded her of rapids and was apparently the edge of the waterfall.

“How deep is the drop-off?” she asked.

“I can’t tell,” Marsden said. “You can’t get a good look at it from this side.”

“Captain, will you take us across?” Atkins asked again. “We need to find out what’s going on in the ground. You’re the only one who can help us.”

“What if I lose this boat?”

Atkins didn’t even try to answer. He was asking a stranger to risk everything.

“Is that an island just downstream?” Elizabeth asked.

“That’s Chandler’s Point,” Marsden said. “It’s mainly a wide sandbar with a lot of timber.”

“How long is it?”

“Maybe a mile and a half, two miles,” Marsden said.

“What’s the river like down at the far end of the island?” Elizabeth asked.

“It narrows a little. The current really booms along down through there. No telling what it’s doing now. Lady, what are you getting at?”

“Could we head up between the island and the shoreline, then cut across the river when we get to the end?” Elizabeth asked. “That would put us nearly four miles upstream from the falls and we’d be trying to cross at a place where it’s narrower.”

Marsden rubbed his hand across his stubbled chin, thinking it over, trying to figure out what to do. He squinted out at the river through the broad windshield of the pilothouse, then clasped his binoculars to his eyes. “It might work,” he said. “There’s enough water running up the chute between the island and the shore, and it doesn’t look like the current’s too bad. But when we get to the end and make the cut into the main channel, the old man’s gonna hit us a ton.” He kept staring through the binoculars at the black water. “This ferry belongs to the state of Tennessee.” he went on. “I probably need to talk to some damn lawyer first.”

He took another long look. Finally, he said, “Jimmy, get ready to cast off.” The first mate was standing in the open hatchway. “We’re going to make a crossing. At least we’re gonna give it a try.”

Atkins took Marsden’s hand and shook it. Then he and Elizabeth hurried back to the Explorer.

“That was very good,” Atkins said. “I’m glad you listened to me and stayed behind.”

“I’ll probably regret it when we’re out there.”

It took a few minutes to drive across the pitching gangplank and tie the Explorer down. The mate chocked the tires securely, front and rear, with blocks of wood. The other vehicles had already been driven off. Their owners didn’t want any part of trying to cross the Mississippi.

“Let’s do it,” Marsden said, talking into a loudspeaker.

Atkins and Elizabeth made sure everything in the back of the Explorer was securely lashed down, especially the seismograph and shortwave radio. Then they joined Marsden in the pilothouse. He had both diesel engines revving at full rpms and wanted as much power as possible when they slipped out into the current.

“Cast off,” he said into the loudspeaker.

His deckhand untied the bow and stern lines. Marsden pulled away at full throttle from the shore and got the ferry headed up in the chute between the sandbar island and the Tennessee shoreline. The current was stronger than he’d expected, and the water was running deeper. The trees were thick on the island. It was impossible to see through them to the main channel on the other side.

“Current’s running maybe five knots through here,” Marsden said. “I’ve never seen it that strong. Agnes isn’t going to like it once we get around that island.” He glanced at Elizabeth, who was standing next to him. “I call this rust bucket ‘ Agnes. ’ It’s my wife’s name. It can get lonely out here at night, and I like to have somebody to talk to. The beauty of it is Agnes can’t talk back.”

Fifteen minutes later they were nearing the downstream end of the island. “We’re coming up on it now,” he said.

They came out of the chute, and Atkins sucked in a breath when he saw the Mississippi spread out in front of them. A broad expanse of dark, fast-moving water.

Marsden gripped the pilot’s wheel with both hands. He was leaning over it, staring out the window at the river. “Oh maaaan!” he said. “This is some current. I don’t know if I can hold her. Agnes, baby. We’re gonna need every bit of power you’ve got in you.”

As they came around the point of the island and entered the main channel, they hit the current that was pushing back upstream. The force was substantial. The ferry was swept nearly half a mile upstream before the propellers seemed to bite the water. Fighting the wheel, Marsden got the boat straightened out and angled into the current.