CRIMSON FALLS

  A MONSTER IN THE MIST

  Edward J. McFadden III

  www.severedpress.com

  Copyright 2022 by Edward J. McFadden III

  “And when you hear the sound of the waterfall coming nearer and nearer, tidy up the boat, put on your best tie and hat, and smoke a cigar right up till the moment you go over. That’s a triumph.”

  – Ray Bradbury

  1

  June 22nd, 1969, Niagara Falls, NY U.S.A.

  The riverbed sucked at Andy’s boots as he trudged across what remained of the Niagara River, the early morning sun baking the mud and algae clinging to the limestone and dolomite. Power washers and sandblasters roared as workers cleaned the stone, and massive core drills rumbled and buzzed as boreholes were created to test the foundation of the falls and investigate how to slow erosion. Two tall all-terrain cranes sat amidst trucks and equipment, metal work enclosures hanging from their hoist cables like lockets at the ends of silver necklaces. One of the cages twisted in the gentle breeze as its crane moved into position for the day’s work, the scent of oil, earth, and low tide wafting down the empty channel. A chain-link fence with green concrete blocks holding its metal support poles stretched along the crest of the American Falls, and it looked like the barrier might fall over in a strong breeze.

  Andy’s gaze strayed uneasily upstream as he pictured the twenty-eight thousand tons of dirt and stone that diverted the river’s flow to Horseshoe Falls. He was a stonemason trained by the Albert Felia Construction Company for this project, and he knew that the odds of the cofferdam failing was close to zero, but so was getting hit by a bolt of lightning, and some folks got hit twice. He rolled his shoulders, remembering the hazard pay and how it was going to cover the much-needed repairs and renovations on the Weston house.

  Something glinted in the mud and Andy bent, his gloved hand digging through the muck. It was a coin, and as he rubbed the dirt and mud away with his forefinger and thumb, he saw it was an 1887 Indian Head penny stained green with moisture and worn by time. An old memory climbed from his stomach and lodged itself in his throat, angst running through him like a tremor. The date. There was something about that date lodged deep in the back of his mind covered by years of callus. He looked around, saw nobody watching, and slipped the coin into his pocket.

  He cut across the step-like formation of Hell’s Half Acre, the thick trees of Robinson Island to the southwest. Soldiers from the Army Corps of Engineers milled about, waiting for boreholes to be completed, and engineers in boots and ties combed the area, examining the riverbed for fissures. A loud clang echoed through the gorge as a cage hit stone and the crane’s motor fell silent.

  Gulls cried and circled above, their screeching a constant reminder that this was their territory. Steam and smoke rose from chimneys as the cities on both sides of the border came to life and prepared for the rush of tourists that had come to see one of Earth’s greatest natural wonders without its makeup on.

  Ahead, the lip of the falls loomed like the end of the Earth, and below, beyond the pile of tumbled boulders, the raging Niagara River continued on its way as if the American Falls didn’t exist. A thin stream of water still trickled onto the talus below, a narrow serpentine trail of mist rising above the crest of the American Falls like a solitary storm cloud.

  “Weston,” came the voice of his boss, dewatering superintendent Pat Cranson.

  “Morning,” Andy said.

  “We’re good to go. As soon as Dom gets here you can go down.”

  Andy nodded as he stowed his lunch pail. Tony Bendesi waited behind the crane’s controls, reading the newspaper, and sipping coffee. The second crane was dark, the staggered shifts an hour apart. Andy zipped his jacket and pulled on his safety harness, making sure all the buckles were secure. He put on his hardhat and goggles and climbed into the steel enclosure that resembled the cages crazy people hid in when they teased great white sharks.

  The cage had two steel benches, a toolbox bolted to the deck, and carabiners were affixed to each support strut. Andy sat on one of the benches and snapped on his safety line as he sucked in humid air, the scent of algae cooking in the sun filling his nostrils.

  “Let’s go,” shouted Pat.

  Dominic was taking his time coming down the large stone steps of Hell’s Half Acre, clouds of cigarette smoke obscuring his head. Dom was always late, but he was good at his job and there hadn’t been a line of people waiting to dangle a hundred feet above a pile of jagged rocks with nothing but a steel cable for support and a pile of dirt and stone holding back the river.

  Pat put his hands on his hips, trying to look angry, but it was all show and no go. The two men were friends and drank together at The Barrel.

  Dom already had his safety harness on, and he pulled on his goggles, stubbed out his smoke, and stored his lunch.

  “Morning,” Andy said.

  Dom grunted.

  “Can we get going? Everyone is waiting on us,” Pat said.

  Dom said nothing as he climbed into the cage, sat on the bench opposite Andy, and snapped in his safety line. His partner's bloodshot eyes, rosy cheeks, and rancid breath said it all.

  “How you feeling?” Alex asked. “You were a bit blitzed when you left The Barrel last night.”

  Dom groaned but said nothing.

  Pat secured the latch on the cage gate and gave a thumbs up.

  Tony put down his paper, cranked up the crane’s generator, and the hoist cable went taut as a horn blared.

  The cage swayed and twisted as it lifted from the ground and swung over the safety fence, a knot of warm maggots wriggling in Andy’s stomach. He’d been doing this for two weeks, but he still wasn’t used to it. Going over the lip of the falls made his knees weak, and his bowels loosen. It wasn’t just the height, and as the riverbed was replaced with a pile of jagged stones a hundred feet below, the moisture in his mouth migrated to his armpits and forehead, the stomach maggots in a frenzy.

  Dom sat with his eyes closed.

  The view from the top of the American Falls was spectacular, even with the spigot turned off. Wisps of mist rose from the base of the trickling falls like smoke from a dying fire, miniature rainbows painting the sky in a myriad of colors. Beyond the scree pile, the Niagara River roared, the observation platform jutting over the channel packed with people. Paths and trees filled the shoreline, and beyond, the sprawling city of Niagara Falls rose above the blanket of green.

  Andy eyed the jagged face of the falls as the cage dropped, the whine of the hoist motor rising above the shrieks of the seagulls, the grumble of the cleaning equipment, and the buzz of core drills. The history of the falls was displayed in its face, the layers of stone stacked beneath the riverbed like tree rings. Every Niagara native knew the falls were ten thousand years old, and that they were created when the glacier that shaped the area fully melted, and the upper Great Lakes emptied into the Niagara River.

  He’d gone through extensive training concerning all phases of the dewatering project, and Andy knew the project’s main goals were to study how the hard riverbed eroded slower than the softer shale stone below. A second phase entailed the installation of water pipes with sprinklers that would moisten the shale layer and reduce erosion, but Andy didn’t have anything to do with that part.

  A horn sounded and the cage jerked to a stop. When it ceased swaying, Andy and Dom retrieved their rock hammers and went to work. Their job was to scale the face of the falls, clearing away loose stones before engineers began their investigation of the talus at the bottom of the falls to determine if and how some of the scree might be removed. The rumor mill said there were also several crews of Army Corps clearing away human remains, and other unidentified debris from the base of the falls. Talk around town ranged from UFOs, to sea monsters, to lost Attawandaron gold, and though Andy couldn’t believe most of the stories he’d heard, he couldn’t deny he’d seen soldiers carrying away things wrapped in tarps and boxed up in wooden crates.

  The ring and tap of hammers chipping at stone echoed off the face of the falls, shards of rock ranging in size from pebbles to basketballs breaking free and falling to the scree pile below, the crack and snap of breaking stone as they landed like concussion bombs. Andy lost himself in the work, using his pick to break away loose rock. The cage creaked and popped, but his unease drained away, Dom’s humming and the gentle misty breeze easing his worry.

  A horn sounded and the second cage swung over the lip of the falls. Most likely Oli and Brandon, the other primary crew trained to descale the face of the falls. Their cage was on the opposite end of the rock face, and Andy hadn’t spoken to either man in weeks, despite them being on the same job site.

  Andy and Dom worked until the lunch horn sounded at 11 AM, and their cage was hauled topside for lunch. The partners had only cleared a ten-by-ten square foot area in four hours. At that rate, they weren’t going to finish on schedule, which Pat made clear as Andy and Dom ate, and Tony read his paper.

  Three men in dark suits and wearing fedoras wandered to the edge of the falls, peering through the chain-link fence.

  Andy said, “Pat, something happening today?”

  The boss shrugged. “Bunch of bigwigs around this morning… early. The rumor is they found something in the scree pile.”

  Dom’s head snapped up. “Something?”

  “Do I look like I’m on the inside?” Pat said. He had his fishing hip waders on, his
face was smudged with dirt, and his white ballcap with a blue jay on its front was askew on his head.

  Tourists lined the side of the river, watching the workers, and Andy hoped it lasted. The falls were a year-round attraction, but the summer months were the town’s bread and butter, and the Canadian side was no different. Tourist dollars equaled survival, and there’d been significant opposition to the dewatering project. Wiser opinions prevailed, the winning argument being that if the erosion of the falls wasn’t dealt with—soon—the falls might collapse into a series of large rapids, which would look significantly less spectacular than the existing falls, and tourism would suffer proportionately.

  After lunch, Tony positioned Andy and Dom’s cage below the section they’d cleared, and the duo went back to work, tapping and chipping, shards of stone falling like rain and tinkling off the rock face onto the scree pile. Sweat soaked Andy through, his hands damp, his legs cramping as he clawed at the stone.

  “You see that?” Dom asked. He was pointing down at a corner of the talus below Prospect Point. The crowd on the lookout platform above had been cleared away, and a small group of men stood peering down into the gorge.

  Andy said, “The Army Corps drillers are scheduled to begin boring a three hundred-foot

  vertical hole from the brink of the falls today near the point.”

  Dom nodded. “Could be. Why all the soldiers, though?”

  The thin mist from the trickling waterfall obscured sections of the talus, the bigger stones sticking from the white clouds like broken teeth. Dom fished binoculars from the toolbox and trained them on the crowd below. “Shit. There’s a tunnel.”

  “Let me see,” Andy said, and when Dom didn’t hand over the binoculars, Andy took them.

  Three suits stood fifty feet back from a massive dark maw, a team of soldiers inching toward the cave mouth. Mist hovered over the site, the constant roar of Horseshoe Falls like thunder.

  “Give those back,” Dom said, and Andy handed over the binoculars. “Those soldiers are carrying some serious hardware. What do you figure they’re looking for?”

  Andy had no idea and couldn’t understand why anyone would want to find out.

  “The soldiers are inside.”

  Andy sniffed, a nasty scent floating up from the scree pile.

  “Looks like they’re stringing explosives along the edge of the opening.” Dom let the field glasses fall from his eyes. “There wasn’t blasting scheduled for today, was there?”

  “We’re not supposed to be down here if there is,” Andy said. His gaze shifted to the tool chest as he thought of the emergency radio therein.

  “Pat would know, we should get—”

  The rat-a-tat of gunfire echoed from below, and Andy snatched the binoculars.

  A thick stream of smoke trailed from the cave mouth as a roar boomed through the gorge, the sound of a massive beast in great pain, or very angry. More gunfire and smoke as soldiers sprinted from the tunnel, taking cover behind boulders.

  A loud scraping sound, like giant nails dragging over glass, then a snarling growl that ended in a venomous hiss that made Andy’s ears hurt.

  The hoist chime rang, and both cages were jerked upward at once, metal screeching as the cages dragged over outcroppings of stone. Yelling and screaming from below, and as the last of the soldiers broke free of the cave a hollow womp reverberated off the sheer rock walls. The face of the falls trembled, and the cage shook as it was hauled upward, the lid to the tool chest falling shut with a bang.

  “Hold on,” Dom yelled.

  A deafening wail of pain faded as rocks tumbled and stone cracked, and an avalanche sealed the cave opening. Clouds of dust, dirt, and mist bellowed over the observation deck, obscuring the suits from view. Below on the scree pile soldiers appeared out of the dusty fog, and one of the men wearing a dark suit was taking pictures.

  When the cage reached the lip of the falls, Dom yelled, “What the hell was that?”

  Pat was waving his hands, shaking his head. “They called at the last minute. Some kind of emergency.”

  Most of what was found at the bottom of the falls was removed without fanfare. What Andy had seen on this day was something more, but he said nothing. Judging by the number of suits watching the festivities, whatever had been buried beneath the falls didn’t concern him. It would take years, countless hours of research and investigation, and a level of obsession Andy didn’t know he was capable of before he discovered how wrong that assumption was.

  Four months later, almost to the day, Andy stood on Prospect Point with his wife, Stacey, watching the falls come back to life. Though the hordes of tourists had fled, the dry falls having lost their cachet mid-season, people still watched from various vantage points equipped with cameras. There was a ceremony to mark the beginning of the return to normalcy, and a child pulled a cord that operated a horn that signaled the drag-line operator to begin removing the cofferdam. The first gush of muddy water spurted through the dam at 11:05 AM, but there wasn’t a noticeable difference in the riverbed until noon when water had filled all the fissures and holes.

  “Quite the sight,” Stacey said.

  Andy waited, and as one hour slipped into the next the flow of the falls increased, and by 4 PM the roar of Niagara had returned. As water covered the closed cave mouth his angst and fear drained away, yet he didn’t understand why it had been there in the first place, or why it had fled.

  Seeing his relief, Stacey said, “You O.K.?”

  He smiled. “I am now.” He’d refrained from telling his wife what he’d seen and heard because he didn’t want to upset her… and his story was a little crazy. What had he seen, really? Nothing. But the roar. The cry of… he didn’t know. It no longer mattered and with his worry draining away he wanted to tell his wife everything. He was moving on to the next job, a huge retaining wall at the hydroelectric plant, and the dry falls were in the rearview.

  “You feel better now that this project is over?”

  He nodded. “But not for the reasons you’d think, though.” He spilled it then, all of it, and when he was done, he couldn’t tell if Stacey had bought what he was selling, or if she was just being polite and supportive.

  “What did Pat and Dom think?”

  He hiked his shoulders. “If you had heard the roar… the primal scream.”

  She put her arm around him and pulled him in. “Did you tell anyone else?”

  He shook his head no. “Some fed came around and questioned us. Said we weren’t to tell anyone what we’d seen, which wasn’t much when you break it down.”

  She nodded. “What do you think happened?”

  He stared at the raging falls, gulls crying, cool mist rolling over the observation platform in thick waves. “I don’t know, but there was something in that cavern the bigwigs didn’t want free.”

  “Should I be worried?”

  He hugged her. “No. The Army boys set off enough explosives to bring down tons of talus, and that hole—whatever the hell it was—is sealed. If there’s something in there it will never get free.”

  She kissed him as they were engulfed in cool mist.

  2

  July 24, 2019, Niagara Falls, NY U.S.A.

  “Welcome everyone and thank you for choosing Mists Edge River Tours for your Niagara adventure. My name is Celeste, and I’ll be your guide today.” The college student stood next to the pilothouse at the back of the boat, twenty people stacked like sardines strapped into padded seats before her. “Say hi to our captain, Alex Weston, who will bring us into the mists today.” Several of the passengers twisted their heads around so they could see aft, and Alex waved.

  He drove the boat and liked being in the wheelhouse behind his glass windows. Celeste had the difficult job. He didn’t want to think about when she graduated university and he lost her. He had other guides, but none spoke with the passion of Celeste. She was an environmental studies major and planned to dedicate her life to the preservation of the falls.

  “And over there is First Mate Javon. If you need anything during our trip, be sure to grab his attention. O.K., let’s get underway while I tell you about our trip today and run through some safety rules.”