A chorus of cursing came from the men on the bank. The rope was stuck, and wouldn’t move through the pulley. They argued over what to do, but Lee cut it short:
“Someone’s going to have to swim over and clear that pulley. We can’t mess with carrying the beams out; they’re too heavy to carry.”
The men were not cheered by this pronouncement. One of them, a man from the second car, kind of snickered and yanked a thumb in my direction. “Why not let young power-pull do it?”
There were snorts of amusement from the short fat guy, and Tom began to protest in my behalf, but I interrupted him. “Sure I’ll do it,” I said. “I’m probably the best swimmer here, anyway.”
“He’s right about that,” Tom admitted. “He and his friends go out swimming in surf higher than your head.”
“Good man,” Jennings said heartily. “You see, Henry, we’ve swum this river many times, but it’s not easy. You’re best off pulling yourself over with the rope; that way you won’t be carried downstream. Just get over there and clear that pulley, and we’ll have this bridge up in no time.”
So I stripped and plunged into the river. Holding on to the rope meant I couldn’t really swim, and the rope was so slick that I had to be very careful pulling myself hand over hand. And the swift current pulled my feet downstream so that kicking wasn’t very effective either. It took a lot longer than I would have guessed to cross, but eventually my knees rammed into soft mud, and I walked out onto the other bank. When I stood on firm mud I shouted back to the men that the swim had been no trouble, and followed the rope to the pulley.
A mass of water weed had grown on the rope, and when I pulled it free the rope ran cleanly and the system was working again. I was pleased with that, and the men on the other bank called out their congratulations. But watching their silhouetted forms walk delicately over bending planks to the pilings, I realized it would be a while before they were finished. Meanwhile I was standing wet and cold, with the river between me and a stitch of clothing. Jennings had probably known I would have to swim back across, but he kindly hadn’t made that clear. There was nothing for it but to get back in the water and pull to the other side. I cursed Jennings briefly, yelled my intentions to the men, squished through the mud until the water was up to my chest, and started pulling again.
What I hadn’t counted on were the ten ties, now pulled out into the river and floating downstream from the rope, exactly in my way. Around each beam I had to kick myself upstream, or dive under, all the while keeping a hold on the wet rope. Still, I would have been okay; but out of the gloom upstream rolled a full torrey pine tree, floating low in the water. It barged right over me, and then got hung up in the rope, and all of the sudden I was thrust well under the surface, caught in a thicket of twisted branches and poking needles. I was barely able to hold on to the rope, and I hadn’t had time to get a good breath; chill water shoved at my mouth and nose. The tree wouldn’t let me up. The rope bowed under the new pressure. Desperately I shoved my face up between two branches and got a quick mouthful of air. I shifted hands on the rope and seized the trunk of the tree in my left hand, pulled it over and the rope under. The tree flipped over; it was still caught on the rope, but now I could tread water beside it, still holding the rope. “Chinga!” I gasped. “Shit! Pinché buey!”
“Hey!” they were calling from the bank. “Anything wrong out there?” “Henry!” Tom was yelling.
“Nothing!” I yelled back. “I’m okay!” But now they were hauling the rope back in, pulling me across. That was fine by me. I realized why none of the men had been anxious to swim across. I took a couple hand-over-hand grabs, but they were pulling faster and soon I squished into mud. Two of the men waded knee deep to pull me out. On shore they wrapped me in a wool blanket, and after I had dried off with it they gave me another to sit in. I huddled over the lanterns and told them it had been no problem. They didn’t have much to say to that, and Tom gave me his suspicious eye.
While I warmed up they got the bridge assembled. The ties were placed on the pilings, the rails were slid over the ties, and spikes were driven through gaps in the rail flange, into already existing holes in the ties. The rails were closer together than the two rows of pilings, but not by much. Black figures crawled back and forth over the structure, silhouetted by the lantern light in a variety of precarious positions; once I saw a standing figure drop a plank he had been lowering onto an isolated beam, and fall to his hands and knees to avoid falling in. The plank swirled away. Shouts from Lee punctuated the sounds of hammering.
“The first time they did this it must have been a lot of trouble,” Tom said to me, crouched by my side with his hands around the lantern glass. “I guess it must hold those cars, but I sure wouldn’t have wanted to be the first to take one across.”
“They look like they know what they’re doing,” I said.
“Yeah. Tough work in the dark. Too bad they can’t just build a bridge and leave it there.”
“That’s what I was thinking. I can’t believe the…” I didn’t know what to call them. “That they’d actually bomb a little bridge like this one.”
“I know.” In the dim glow Tom’s expression was somber. “But I don’t think these folks are lying, or going to all this trouble for nothing. I guess whoever’s up there is keeping the existing communities separated, like Jennings said. But I wasn’t aware of it. It’s a bad sign.”
Jennings walked nonchalantly along one rail and jumped onto the bank to approach us. “Just about done,” he announced. “You men should walk across now. We take the cars over as empty as we can get them, although it’s just a precaution, you understand.”
“That we do,” said Tom. He helped me to my feet, and I put on my clothes. I wrapped the blankets around my shoulders, for I was still cold. We crossed the downstream rail very carefully. The ties felt solid when I walked on them, but they were a touch warped, and the rail didn’t lay directly on a few of them. I pointed this out to Jennings, who seemed very much at ease on the rail.
“It’s true. We can’t keep those ties perfectly flat. It makes for a little yaw when you cross, but nothing worse than that. At least not so far. We’ll see if Lee has to go for a swim like you did when he brings the first car over. I hope not—it’s still a fair walk to San Diego.”
On the south bank we gathered by the lanterns and the men holding them directed their light at the first car. Lee and another man cranked it slowly across. The rails squeaked and squealed as the car went over a tie; the rest of the time they were ominously silent. The car was an odd sight in the middle of the stream, hanging over both sides of the rails, a big black mass on two spindly strips, like a spider walking across its web strands. When they pumped it up the other bank the men said “All right,” and “That was a good one.”
They walked the equipment over, and pumped the second car across, and then pulled up the spikes and hauled the rails to the south side. Lee was a terror for keeping them arranged in order, so that it would be easy to set up the next time they came north. “Very ingenious,” said Tom. “Very clever, very dangerous, very well done.” “Looked simple enough to me,” I replied. Soon the rope was rigged through a pulley on the other shore, and the platforms of the two cars were stacked with equipment again. We got on the front one with the other men, and were off rolling. “The next one’s a lot easier,” Jennings told us as we pumped up the slope and away.