He was on something hard, and on his face, stripped to the waist, a pain in his upper back that seemed to run through his bones and down his spine. He made a frantic effort to move his hands, but someone leaned on his back and held him down. The pain grew worse and he grayed out briefly.
When the thickness cleared from his senses he was still lying on his face… he knew the main room of the house, and Jim Selby was kneeling by him, a gentle hand on his brow.
"Sam?" he kept saying.
"It blew," Merritt murmured thickly, and tried again to move. "It blew, Frank—It's blown—"
Jim's steady, hard grip on his arm pulled him back to present time. "Mr. Burns was inside. Five others got it too. We don't know what happened. No one knows why he went back in; they saw him clear the doorway, and then he went back in."
There were some boxes left," Merritt recalled. "We couldn't tell for sure which was—we—Meg. Where's Meg?"
"With her mother. Easy, Sam. You took a big sliver of wood in the back and a blow on the head, by the feel of it. Stay down."
"Who else, who else, Jim?"
"Frank Burns: in the building when it blew. George Remington; Len Andrews; we still haven't accounted for Tod Miller and the Hansford brothers; we think they're in there. And we have some injuries, lesser ones—we were afraid you'd die on us. You stay quiet."
"What supplies lost?"
"A lot."
A knee came into Merrill's field of vision, and he turned his head painfully to see Amos Selby.
"I'm all right," he croaked. "Amos—"
"We got the fire stopped," said Amos. "It cost us plenty. We're moving what supplies we got left into the house itself, except the explosives. They want our food, they'll have to get us to get it."
"They might next time." Merritt tried to rise. Jim and Amos stopped him forcibly.
"There's nothing you can do," Jim said.
"How's Meg taking it? And Hannah?"
"They'll be all right; they'll be all right, Sam. Lie still."
"Why did he go back?"
"I don't know. No one could see in there."
"Maybe he thought I didn't make it.Maybe—"
"Keep it quiet.There's not a thing in the world you can do now for anyone. Just stay still til we can get time to move you upstairs."
"I can walk."
"You're not going to."
"There's no time—"
"There's no time to replace you. Stay down and listen. We can get more supplies from downriver. We got that planned already. It'll take some time; it's going to hurt folks some; but this isn't the end of us, not this time."
"Force—ought to go out and check on the men out at the bridge. If—"
"Well take care of it, Sam. Well see to it.
The lower room still showed the scars of the night before, the disarranged tables and benches, the stacks of goods, the reek of smoke. But regular as life itself there was Meg Burns trying to put things to rights, pulling the heavy tables around, moving crates.
Merritt descended as far as the warped tread on the stairs before she heard him and looked up; and she brushed her hands on her coveralls and rushed toward him.
"I'm all right," he said, and continued his way down, holding the rail for steadiness. She waited tensely until he had come to the bottom of the steps and then led him to a bench at the nearest table.
"You oughtn't to be on your feet."
"Where is everyone?"
"Mother's resting. Everyone else is out in the yard trying to clean things up and take inventory of the damage. We—" her voice quavered. "We read the burial service this morning."
"Meg, if only—"
"Don't give me if only." She sank down opposite him and rested her head on her hands a moment, then lifted tear-filmed eyes to his. "You were in there with him. You tried."
"Others did too, Meg. And they're dead. They just—" There was nothing to say, nothing that would make it reasonable, even to himself. He shook his head and stared at her helplessly. "I don't know why I'm alive. I didn't know he wasn't behind me, Meg. I didn't know."
She took his hand and curved her fingers about it as if he were the one who needed comfort "There's no way you could have done more," she said. "Go back upstairs. Go back to bed, Sam. You don't need to be down here."
He shook his head. "I'd better find out what has to be done."
"Leave it to Amos and Mr. Porter. They're doing all right for now. Amos is leaving in about an hour, on his way for more supplies. He'll beg or threaten them upriver. It's going to be all right, Sam."
"What about the men at the site? Were they all right?"
"They're fine." She stared at him a moment, thinking, and at last spoke it. "She was trying to tell you something, wasn't she? She knew what was going to happen."
Merritt nodded slowly. "I suppose," he said, "that she did."
Chapter 9
Merritt paused a moment to catch his breath, within view of the dam area, and continued uphill. Andrews saw him first and hurried downhill to meet him, offered his hand to help him. Merritt shook him off and walked beside him up to his usual vantage point.
"It wasn't necessary, sir."
"You know it was," Merritt said shortly, and sat down on a log they had long since dragged up for that purpose. From where he was he had a view of much of the canyon, and of the facing wall in particular. Most of that rock beyond it on the upper slope was supposed to be gone. It was not.
"We have men over there now trying to find out what went wrong," Andrews said.
"It sure didn't do what it was supposed to do," said Merritt
"Maybe," said a voice from behind him, "it had something to do with the instructions we were given."
Merritt did not need to look around to know it was Tom Porter. The voice was unmistakable. He swung round slowly and carefully, and looked up at the man.
"That's one possibility among others," said Merritt. "I suppose it's a very good one."
Porter had tried for an argument with a witness present. Now he folded his arms and stared down at Merritt. "You think you can do something out here you couldn't do from the house, then? Or have you got any good ideas at the moment?"
Merritt gathered himself to his feet slowly, looked at Andrews. "Go see if there's any news from across the canyon," he said, and George Andrews wisely took himself off in a hurry. Merritt turned with dead calm and looked at Porter, eye to eye.
"Porter, I'm not in the mood to argue with you or anyone else right now. If you want things your way, I'll just walk back to the house and let you settle your own problems. But otherwise, stay out of my way."
"We've wasted a week already, and we look like we're going to lose more than that. I haven't insisted you be out here, knowing well enough you couldn't, but now that you are here—"
"Porter," said Merritt, with as much calm as he could muster, "you don't insist anything where I'm concerned. If you think you can finish this project, you go right ahead."
"All right, bad choice of words. But you've been out a week and nothing you've left me has worked. The blast didn't go as planned. Reynolds went down on the slide and near went over the edge; he was lucky to get off with a broken leg. We've had two of the oxen slaughtered last night on the farside and we can't expect to get replacements inside a week. The way you want to build that extension of the road out to the dike isn't working: it caved in and hurt a man. I haven't bothered you with such details. Do you want a further list?"
Merritt drew a long breath and wiped the cold sweat from his face. Not in a communicative mood, he turned from Porter and walked to the rim of the gorge.
"Answers?" Porter prodded him.