The Dam That Drowned Us

en I found her, and the mud still held th

with green, forty-two steps down the face of the dam, and at the bottom the valley opened out the way it always did when the water let go of it. The church first. Then the chapel roof, gray slate and

after rain, I knew where the old road ran under the silt, I knew that the mud in the eastern quarter was soft enough to swallo

hat a woman would be stan

lder and a coat the color of wet slate, and her hair caught the first light the way copper wire catches a lamp. She was turning slowly

ore my sense did. "You

ace that had not expected to be shouted

toward her, and the mud pulled at my boots with every stride. "You are standi

ove. "I am the one who

for a moment.

wet sound and set it down again. "I sent the le

al color, thick and a little wild from the wind on the dam crest. Her coat was good wool but old, the elbows shiny. The

s Fri

s Tue

Tuesday. I came early. I wanted to walk the basin before anyone could tidy it up for

years learning to answer badly, and now it

oir," I said. "That is what a reservoir i

long, or a church that size, or that." She pointed with her chin, and I did not need to follow the gesture to know what

farmhouse

aught them with her thumb. "The 1902 ordnance survey shows a single farmstead here. One building. Not a street, not

rvey is

he vil

924. There is a plaque in the

ked me nothing at all. The truth was the water had come in 1924 and taken a village the county had written down as two farms and a mill. The truth was

ld not be down here alone. The ground is bad

here. Your dam has a settlement problem, Mr. Rhys. I read it in the last three sur

what they

to catch." She closed the n

ch c

d street with the confidence of a woman who had read a map in her hotel room and memorized it. I fell in beside her because there was nothing else

m the univer

over a fallen lintel without looking down. "I grew up in the town

. The old road. My o

about it." Elin smiled at the mud ahead of her, a private smile. "She said the valley had a village in it b

t na

in glanced at me. "I was six. I thought she was being mysterious

top and wider at the base. I had been watching that crack for six years. I had put my hand in it in 1968 and found the wall cold and sound behind it. I had p

rs along it. "This

s sur

of the crack, then the other, and frowned. "The stone is dressed on this side. Look at the tool marks. Thi

ing old and familiar, and my jaw ached at the hinge. I looked at the crack and I looked at her hand on the stone, and I

a good eye

ecommend a full structural review. I am going to recommend it in writing, today, to the water board and the county a

people need t

ere steady and tired and not unkind. "You have been filing reports on t

r that. I was l

and the flap had fallen open, and inside it, on top of the notebooks

re thumbs had worried it for a hundred years, and the g

pointing at t

and the needle lay southeast, and the north mark on the dial was turned a full quarter away from th

?" My voice came out lo

, and for the first time she seemed uncertain. "

do not poin

ouse, at the shut door and the three chimneys. "It has always done that. My grandmother said it points home." She turned it in her hand. "I thought it was broken

I was born, since before the flood, since the night my father signed the paper that put the water over the valle

r," I said. "Wha

lightly. "Gwen Pryce.

and in the silence I heard the water in the reservoir above us settle against the dam

ds away, shut tight for fifty years, a

er head came up.

of the mud, my hand out to push her back

There is nobody

e stairs,

her hand, and the needle was trembling now, trembling and swinging

e said, "until you tell me wh