But it was inevitable. I knew I had to go into the cellar. Wherever Carrie was, that was another story, but John, he couldn’t be anyplace else but down there.
So I moved into the hallway, switched on the light, and stood in front of the cellar door. I know now what it means to be shaking like a leaf. I was so scared of what was ahead of me. I forced myself to wait for even a few more minutes till I got a better hold of my nerves.
Finally I was ready. I eased open the cellar door just wide enough to squeeze through, and then I stood at the little landing at the top. It was pitch dark down there, pitch dark, and I switched the landing light on and off, but the bulb was burnt out or loose or something because no light would go on. I couldn’t hear anything or anybody downstairs.
“John?” I called out. “John?”
It’s strange to me now, but I remember I called his name gently, almost as a loud whisper. Reverently even, I don’t know. Like I was afraid to be too loud. That’s a remarkable thing.
There was no answer.
I pushed open the cellar door as wide as I could to let in some light.
And until my eyes got used to the darkness I just sat down on the second step from the top and waited.
Still I heard nothing, but I could not get it out of my mind that John was down there somewhere, and he just was not answering my calls. Why, I could not say.
Then little by little I started to see shapes, and before long I could see most of the cellar. I could make out the furnace and the air ducts, a cluttered work table, the churn, things like that. Not good, but I could see them.
Nothing was moving. And I decided that I had guessed wrong when I figured John Lehmann was down there.
But I wanted to be sure, and so I slowly and quietly eased myself, still sitting, one step at a time lower till I was maybe a third of the way down and could see all around the cellar, both in front of the steps and behind them.
And then, God help me, I did see something. I was not in any way prepared for what was over on the far side, the side of the cellar along the river. I would never have guessed it in a million years.
Everything was still only in shades of gray, nothing had any color, but by this time I could see lots of detail. Close to the river wall was an old brass bed, with rumpled bedclothes. I guessed soon enough that it was where John had been sleeping, it sure looked like it, down there in the cellar. Probably ever since Carrie had disappeared.
Then right away between the bed and the wall was a long mound, newly dug in the dirt floor. That took my breath away. I knew what it was all right. That mound was just long enough, and slightly rounded, and I knew what it was.
Lots of feelings went rushing through my head then. Fear, and anger, and pity, and hurt. And the inevitable, “Why?”
Aw-w, God, that scene did pain me so.
I could not imagine what the mound was doing down in the cellar. And why in the world he had buried her down there. She had died, sure enough, my fears were right, but Carrie belonged in a proper grave. She did. But here she was, down in a hidden pit in a moldy cellar. With a bed right next, and with the dark and mildew. It was such an awful place.
I do not think I can tell you just how sad and how alone I suddenly felt. With Carrie gone.
Then I was able to see John moving a little. I had missed him till that moment. He was kneeling at the head of the mound, with his hands clasped together. And he was trembling, I made that out. I didn’t quite see his face, but he had to mean what he was doing, kneeling down there like that. He was praying, is what.
I could hardly believe he did not hear the noises I was making, nor the shouting. But he paid no attention. It was as if I did not exist.
Well, he was right next to the wall. And the wall was right close to the river. And there is no way to tell what happened next but to say it right out.
All of a sudden I caught hold of a noise, low down and far off, a kind of vague rushing sound. Then it got to be like a grinding noise. It grew. And it kept on. It got louder and louder and closer and closer until I could tell it was coming from outside. And still it got louder. Soon it was a roar, a loud whirring roar that was deep in the river and coming towards the house and then, whatever it was, it crashed into the cellar wall and broke clear through and forced the water through the hole like a piston. And that water lifted John clear up and smashed him hard against the wall right in front of my eyes.
In just no time at all.
The water came thundering through the hole now, wailing through the hole, and it thrust every which way just violent, and I screamed and scrambled up the steps and out of the cellar just as the water pulled the steps away and filled the whole of the cellar. In only a few seconds. No more time than that.
And I run from the house as fast as I could just as the water swirled up out of the cellar and across the floor and out of the house.
I run till I couldn’t go no further, up a little hill just about a hundred yards from my house. I fell down on the ground and couldn’t move, I was so tired. I lay there aching and heaving and panting, and I was crying and scared out of my wits.
Then I sat up finally and forced myself to look. And what I saw didn’t even seem real to me. The water was spilling out of the house it looked like in slow motion now, out of the door and the first floor windows, with odd little gurgling sounds, slowly, slowly, as if it had almost found its level. But it surrounded the house as it came out, and the house became like an island in a sudden little lake that was connected to the river.
In nothing but the moonlight it was an eerie sight, let me tell you. The moon glistening easy on the water. And the house all black.
John was done for, that I knew. He was finished.
Well, the house started to creak and groan now, from the heavy tow of the river, and the pressure got to pulling at it and pulling at it until it started to come up and away. It began to break apart and splinter, with awesome tearing sounds, and it wasn’t too long before there wasn’t no house there at all. The house was gone, torn all to pieces.
And then all the pieces of it floated slowly away, almost like each piece took its own turn, until there wasn’t even nothing left to see. And the river smoothed down again, as if the house in the moonlight never even existed.
There was one great deep swirl in the water right out in front of me. It lasted for only a few seconds, and then it was gone too.
John and Carrie Lehmann and their farm had disappeared forever, just like that.
That’s the story.
I know how crazy it sounds, but there was a live thing in the water, that I know. I don’t know what it was, or where it come from, but something smashed a hole in John’s cellar, right through from the river, and the high water that come in took away the house and everything in it and left only that silent inlet when everything was gone. Right in front of my eyes. And there was that great swirl. Something alive did that. So I know what I’m talking about.
But there are lots of things I don’t know.
For instance, I know what happened to John. I know how he died. There is no question about that. But I don’t think I or anyone will ever know what happened to Carrie.
I hope she died natural. I know deep in my heart it wasn’t John that did it, I know him too well, but I just hope she died natural. I hope it wasn’t nothing else. I mean, I hope it wasn’t nothing she did, or caused to happen.
I’m sure as I’m sure I’m gonna die myself one day that she was down there, though. And whatever happened to her, John just went crazy with grief. It had to be that.
I never told anyone what I saw. Right away when it happened there was talk about the bad flood in the valley below Garlock’s Bend, about all the heavy rains, and about poor John and poor Carrie.