Taos, New Mexico
06:00 HOURS
Ryan Marshall sat in his work truck overlooking the yawning canyon below. This was his favorite time of day-visualizing the day ahead while sipping coffee from his ever-present turquoise-colored thermos. Living from motels along the road didn’t always accommodate his daily caffeine fix; a top priority when starting a new job was to scope out a cantina that served the strongest cup of java. When home in Bernalillo, he used a Delonghi espresso maker to craft the perfect cup, but today his coffee came fresh from the diner in Pilar, a small town near the Rio Grande Gorge. Pilar was a Mecca to thrill-seeking white-water rafters who coveted the class-four water in this part of the gorge.
Alone in the early morning, Ryan would meditate and pray about the coming day. He visualized each element of the task ahead, evaluating the equipment and personnel at hand, trusting his intuition to discern potential problems. Ryan Marshall loved his job. He was widely recognized as one of the premier crane contractors in America. I couldn’t have done any of this without you, Grandpa, he thought, remembering Rusty, his beloved mentor.
Ryan looked across the canyon and could just barely make out the job site. The sun was peeking over the eastern rim of the gorge. The emerging sunlight sparkled off the dew layering the canyon from the night before. The rush of the mighty Rio Grande was barely audible from his vantage point, the river bottom ever deepening as the water plowed inexorably toward the Mexican border. The centuries-old Pinon trees stood like dutiful sentinels protecting the enormous canyon.
Ryan often daydreamed about what it was like before the first settlers arrived. What an awesome and terrible period of American history.
If the Pinons could tell a story, he knew the trees would bear witness to the hedonistic conquest of the Spanish Conquistadores, who first occupied the Land of Enchantment in 1540. The King of Spain had commissioned General Francisco Vasquez de Coronado to discover the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola that were rumored to be found in this area of North America. This region became the Southwestern United States, and was occupied by peace-loving Native American Indians who were easily subjugated by the Spanish soldiers.
The Spanish Conquistadors considered the Navajo and Hopi Indians savage and pagan. The Spanish government decreed that the Encomienda system should be established in the New World. Encomienda-similar to the Medieval feudal system-came to signify the oppression and exploitation of the American Indians, although the original intent was to indoctrinate them in the Catholic faith. The system was totally abused, however, as the Conquistadors were thousands of miles from Spain and behaved as they saw fit. The natives were abused, oppressed, exploited, ill-treated, and decimated by the Spanish Conquistadors. The Indians lost their freedom, their rights, their culture, and their religion. The Spanish Conquistadors were feared and hated because of this treatment; the very name Conquistador still conveys these terrible impressions among the Native American Indians of the Southwest.
General Coronado never found Cibola or the riches he was dispatched to bring back to Spain. He found no cities of gold, no El Dorado, yet his expedition had acquainted the Spanish with the Indian pueblos and opened the Southwest. Coronado had established one of the first places in North America to be inhabited, but the very last to be civilized.
A sudden radio transmission rousted Ryan’s attention. “Morning, boss, this is Corky,” squawked the radio in his Superduty truck. “What’s your twenty?” he asked, meaning “10–20,” the abbreviated radio-speak for “location.”
“Good morning, Corky,” Ryan replied, snapping back from his reverie. “I’m on the south rim of the canyon about even with the top of the tower, looking things over; you know the routine,” he said, taking another sip of coffee. “Confirm you’ve rigged the crane for Big Mo’s arrival.” Ryan lifted his binoculars to take a closer look at something that had just caught his attention. “I want us waiting for Apache Steel…not the other way around.”
“Ten-four, understood,” Corky Chalmers promptly replied.
Corky had worked with Ryan for only the past couple of years and was considered a relative newcomer to the high-steel industry. By comparison, some of the Navajos had been working with Ryan for over twenty years, coming from families with several generations in the high-steel business. But Corky’s special aptitude for coordinating complex lifts had been early recognized by Ryan Marshall. He had progressed quickly to foreman, leading one of several teams that were deployed through Marshall’s business: Levitation Solutions, Inc.
“Who checked the counterbalance stays?” Ryan asked, as he continued to hold the binoculars steady to the bridge of his nose. “Something doesn’t look right. It appears the tower is leaning slightly to the northeast. Are you sure this sucker’s plumb?”
“Well, if we’re out of wack, she’s been like that all week,” Corky replied, surprised by the question. “I haven’t heard anything from Martin or Artie; they’ve shared time in the bird’s nest. I’ll check if they noticed any swayback.”
Ryan was normally a no-nonsense man who wasn’t easily flummoxed, but was also a fastidious worrywart when it came to the safety of his men. In over twenty years in the high-steel business, his company had never suffered a fatality, an un-paralleled achievement in this very dangerous profession.
“Okay, check it out before we load the tower this morning. I’m heading back; should be there in about twenty minutes,” Ryan said.
“Ten-four, see you in a few. We’ll be ready when you arrive.”
Ryan Marshall was a big man at six-foot-five, weighing over 250 pounds. It was easy to see he inherited his prodigious size from his Italian grandfather, Amerigo. Ryan was raised in traditional blue-collar Catholic fashion, made just average grades despite extraordinary effort, and became politically very conservative. He was an attractive man with an angular face, a strong, dominating jaw, and light brown hair. Although he had a chiseled look, his face radiated warmth and his gentle hazel eyes could make women swoon. He was a naturally gifted athlete and played tight end for the New Mexico Lobos, finishing as an All-American. NFL scouts thought he had the size and talent to play professional ball, but he declined all offers. Instead, he started a construction company after graduating from UNM with a degree in mechanical engineering.
Ryan Marshall’s upbringing was anything but normal. He was raised in Albuquerque by Chance and Regina Marshall. His father was an investment banker whose business acumen was beyond compare. Many small businessmen held Chance in high regard for making them loans when other bankers would not take the risk. He was also active in the Chamber of Commerce, Knights of Columbus, and the church. He was a devout Catholic who served as an elder and church treasurer. Most everyone spoke kindly of Chance Marshall.
But while everyone knew Ryan’s father as an accomplished businessman, very few also knew that he was weak-willed when dealing with his wife, the overbearing and argumentative Regina Marshall. To the community, he only appeared the consummate provider- the Marshalls lived in a coveted home at the Albuquerque Country Club, furnished exactly as Regina specified. There was nothing too good for her taste, and Chance made sure he precisely accommodated her every wish.
Unfortunately, this submissive behavior didn’t bode well for developing a strong relationship with his only son. Being raised in an Italian Catholic family, Ryan observed that other, similar households were dominated by the man of the house. His father’s inability to stand up to Regina’s uncompromising behavior caused Ryan’s respect for his father to slowly erode, which became more obvious as he approached adulthood. Ryan’s inability to reconcile his feeling for his parents became a heavy cross that had weighed upon him throughout his life.
Ryan was born a man’s man. Lacking a suitable role model at home caused him to emulate both his grandfathers. He spent summer vacations in Northern New Mexico with his roughneck grandfather, Rusty Marshall, learning the intricacies of logging and how to operate heavy equipment. At home in Albuquerque, he spent his time with his Italian grandfather, Amerigo Metatucci, learning the gas distribution business and other manly pursuits-hunting and fishing being his favorites. Ryan had no interest in banking or the country club lifestyle that were his father’s stock in trade.
Ryan Marshall became a high-steel crane operator and early on cemented his reputation as one of the best in the business. He loved levitating huge pieces of iron that seemed nearly impossible to move. The iron skeletons he shaped became magnificent buildings, incredible bridges, and structures with character and beauty. The mighty steel framework he erected formed works of art high above the horizon.
Every spare moment Ryan wasn’t supervising a job, he doggedly chased his life’s true passion: a frictionless crane that could levitate infinite weight. He was obsessed with gravity’s universal influence and became an expert at levitating large objects. The art of moving immense weight, he learned, was simply a matter of strategic placement of pulleys; it was almost magical in its simplicity. He became an erection foreman for Manitowoc Crane Company and traveled extensively, perfecting his craft. After several years with Manitowoc, he eventually borrowed start-up capital from his father-in-law, Alfonse Coscarelli, to begin Levitation Solutions, Inc. with his wife, Sarah. Together they grew the business into a multinational corporation.
Ryan Marshall had become fascinated with moving huge objects as a child. His first introduction came while visiting his grandfather Rusty at a timber harvest operation near Farmington, New Mexico. Rusty was the foreman of a giant forest products company, having spent his entire career in the logging industry. He was a legendary logger in Northern New Mexico. The elder Marshall taught his grandson the practical application of mechanical advantage using logging techniques from a bygone era.
Ryan was just seven years old when he first visited his grandpa’s worksite, but never forgot that fateful day. His little eyes bugged out at the sight of a huge earth-mover buried to its tracks in a sinkhole- the operator churning the tracks, hopelessly stuck. Ryan always smiled when remembering the sight of Rusty’s red baseball cap flying through the air, having been thrown at the hapless tractor operator.
“Goddamnit! Stop moving before you kill the engine, you dumb son-of-a-bitch,” Rusty yelled, as he raced to the tractor. Rusty was known as the bull of the woods, having earned the nickname “Hot Piss” for his explosive tirades.
The inexperienced operator continued spinning the tracks of the D7, sinking lower with each forward thrust of the monstrous tractor.
“ Stop, ya dumb redneck,” Rusty shouted again. “Fetch me a choker and two twelve-inch blocks from the maintenance shed… then haul your sorry ass back and I’ll show you what a smart logger can do,” he fumed, leaning over to pick up his dirty red cap. “Fuckin’ kids don’t know a goddamned thing anymore.”
Rusty clearly had a plan for extricating the hopelessly mired tractor. By connecting the pulleys, he hauled the hulking tractor free with a much smaller piece of equipment. How can something so small pull out that big tractor? Ryan had wondered. He had learned an invaluable lesson from his grandfather, one which launched him on a lifelong quest.
From that moment, Ryan spared no effort in learning everything he could from his grandfather. He became extremely skilled at both the theory and the practical application of mechanical advantage; the workings of fulcrums, pulleys, inclined planes, and hydraulics became his passion.
Ryan capitalized on this knowledge and developed the skill to expertly move all types of heavy objects. It began with heavy equipment, following in Rusty’s footsteps, and he became a journeyman crane operator, mastering the techniques to safely erect cranes capable of handling enormous weight. From cranes, he graduated to relocating massive buildings in one piece without dismantling them. As his professional development continued, Ryan ultimately advanced to his present role as the premier designer of special application cranes. It was in this capacity that his services were now in great demand throughout the world. As the saying went: Levitation Solutions has the might to surmount any weight or height.
Even with these successes, Ryan was a long way from realizing his ultimate dream; he imagined the perfect crane, capable of levitating any object regardless of the mass. In this regard, he was locked in a mortal contest with his cousin, Jarrod Conrad, to unravel the mystery shrouding their obsessive dream: the source of universal gravity. Ryan pursued the mechanical means to overcome gravity: a frictionless crane that could levitate infinite weight. It was this single-minded obsession that drove him forward and put him on a path toward self-destruction, ultimately costing him more than he could have imagined: the love of his life.