The levy

The Levy
by
Sponge-Al Squarepants

A flash of lightning illuminated the whole river bottom as I left the
barn in my rain
slicker. Another line of thunderstorms was approaching from the
southwest. I could
usually see the lights from farms three or four miles down the valley,
but tonight all I
could make out was the security light on old Emery Martin's windmill. A
bolt of lightning
revealed only an eery blackness farther down the river.

Three hours earlier a storm had gone through. We had only caught the
south edge of it and picked up a half inch of rain or so, but fifteen
miles up the river, near Cedarville, the radio had reports of up to six
inches. The water would come up soon and fast.

I had fourteen heifers and a bull in the bottom pasture. It was
probably the best soil on my farm, but there were too many old ox bows
and low spots to be tillable. It had been in pasture ever since I was a
boy.

After the first storm I had gone out with a flash light to drive the
heifers in. I
counted them in the barn and found I was one heifer short. They usually
stuck together
but that one screwball female, number 37, sometimes got kind of spooky.
She'd probably
taken off from the rest of the herd before I had made it out there. I
knew I'd better find
her--if she got caught too close to the river when it came up she'd end
up in Osage county.

It really wasn't much of a river, the Turkey. I'd crossed it the
morning before
jumping from rock to rock at the shallow spot. Dad had once told me
that as a boy he'd
been picking berries along the river and almost got caught in rising
water. It made it up to
his chest before he made higher ground.

Ninteen of my twenty-six acres were on the other side, the west side.
The groves of trees there along the old broken down levy were the only
place I figured I could have missed thirty-seven. I'd try to cross at
the shallow spot, otherwise it would be four miles of driving to cross
up at Hane's bridge, and a two mile walk to get back taking the dirt
lane. I knew I didn't have time for that.

Before my flashlight beam even reached the shallow spot I could hear
the water crashing over the rocks. The water was only a foot higher I
reckoned, but that made the river almost twice as wide. I had a halter
with me. If I could just get across and catch her I could tie her to a
tree on some high ground and not have to worry about crossing back
over. I decided to try it.

The first six or eight feet weren't too bad, but as the water reached
my thighs I was
leaning sharply into the current to keep my balance. I was past half
way now, but I could
feel the water surging higher and higher. In an instant my feet were
swept out from under
me and my back crashed into a rock.
I was swept over and over two or three times before I could get me
feet under me. The cold water and fear left my whole body shaking
violently. My light was gone but I
plowed forward. By bracing each footstep against a rock, one short step
at a time I was
able to make headway.

As the water got to my knees I thrashed quickly to the shore, my heart
pounding. I knew I had come within a few inches of going down the
river. As I collapsed on the ground the storm broke. I was pelted by
sheets of rain. I had to keep moving. I stumbled to the top of the old
levy only to see a hundred feet of water on the other side as a flash
of lightning lit the pasture up like daylight. The land on the west
side of the levy was lower than the river itself, and water had broken
through somewhere upstream.

I looked back toward the river. A wall of water was now surging down
the
channel. The river had risen five or six feet since I'd crossed and was
only a couple feet
from the top of the levy.
I started to run down the levy. My heart was pounding even harder. If
I could just make it to some trees... In less than a minute the water
was at the top of a levy. Another flash of lightning revealed the first
of several maples in a grove about twenty feet west of the levy. The
water was around my ankles. I dove in and swam for the tree.

The water wasn't that deep or strong and I made it to the tree without
too much trouble, even though I 'm not much of a swimmer.
I caught the lowest branch and began climbing. I found a good fork
about fifteen feet up and settled in to wait.
I was exhausted. Sweat was pouring off of my body inside my slicker
even though the temperature must have dropped into the sixties and I
was soaking wet. Even though a bolt of lightening would fry me like a
piece of bacon, I had never felt as safe as I did in that tree. I
slept.

It must have been about half an hour before dawn when I woke.
Water was standing for at least a hundred feet in either direction from
the levy, but at least
it wasn't under water. I crawled down and splashed my way to the
levy.

Downstream, where the trees got a little thicker and closer to the
levy was a
strange glow. As I walked toward it I recognized an old oil lantern I
had seen in Emery's workshop. It was just sitting there, next to a
small tree which had sprung up in the middle of the levy. Tied to the
tree was number thirty-seven, contentedly chewing her cud.

I untied her, picked up the lantern, and started the long walk north
to the bridge.

"Emery you old fool. You didn't have any buiness out in that storm
trying to catch my crazy heifer," I said to him as I carried the
lantern into his shop. "I know this belongs to you and...". I stopped
mid-sentence as I saw his lantern on the sill of the window.

Emery grinned. "Where did you get that old thing?" His eyes had the
sparkle of a
man who already knew the answer.

"I found it this morning next to a tree on the levy. One of my heifers
got lost in the storm and was tied to the tree. Where did you
get..."

"I found it one night after a storm when I was a little boy. But you
see, thats not a levy. It's the right-of-way for the Cedarville
Northern and Southern Railroad. It was a
small local line that had only one engine and hauled mostly
produce.

"Stopped running back in '17, after a storm washed out the bridge
north of your
place. A signalman tried to flag down the 4 A.M. milk run with his
lantern, but she
couldn't stop in time. Ended up in the river. Killed the engineer and
the signalman."