MARSDEN GAVE THE FERRY AS MUCH POWER AS the engines offered. At such driving rpms, he worried about burning them up. The barge was a hundred yards off their port bow. Marsden tugged on the steering wheel. The ferry slowly responded, nosing away from the hulking shape that was riding low in the water and rapidly bearing down on them.
“We might just make this,” Marsden said.
Picking up speed slowly, the ferry was making plodding headway against the current.
Atkins turned to take another look at the approaching barge and saw a sudden burst of flames. Almost simultaneously, there was a strong explosion. Slammed to the deck, Atkins struggled to his feet. The ferry, engines open wide, was making a rapid turn as the current shoved it upstream. Large pieces of the barge, hurled far into the water, burned with a white intensity.
Elizabeth was on her knees, bent over Marsden.
“He’s unconscious,” she said. “He must have hit his head on the radio console.” Marsden had a deep gash just above his left eyebrow. Elizabeth pressed a handkerchief on the wound.
Atkins grabbed the steering wheel and tried to get the ferry back on course, headed downstream. It was no use. They’d swung around too far in the current and were facing upstream, toward the waterfall. The engines weren’t powerful enough to get them turned around again.
In a matter of minutes they were swept past the island and the ferry landing they’d left thirty minutes earlier. They were being pushed quickly upriver.
In the dim, gray light, Atkins could just start to make out the rough outline and dimensions of the waterfall. What he saw left him speechless.
The rim or edge curved toward the Missouri side of the river and appeared to be five or six hundred yards long. The water below was boiling. He saw clouds of foam rising up over the falls.
Atkins realized in amazement that he was gazing at the scarp of a fault that had pushed up from the depths and breached the Mississippi. That thought riveted his attention as much as the sight of the waterfall. He could also hear it now, a pounding roar. He thought again of a thrust fault and what it did beneath the earth, how the hanging wall moved sharply upward while the footwall dipped. Thrust faults were common in mountain chains, but exceedingly rare in this part of the country.
Elizabeth had managed to stop Marsden’s flow of blood. “I don’t believe I’m really seeing this,” she said, looking out the pilothouse window at the river. She was as moved as Atkins. The force of the cataclysm, seen up close, was beyond anything in her experience.
She pointed out how the height of the waterfall—they were still too far away to see it clearly—appeared to drop off sharply at both ends. On the side closest to the Missouri shore, the drop looked considerably lower. And the water below it was less turbulent.
Their only chance, Atkins thought, was to try to get close enough to the Missouri side so they could go over the falls at its lowest point. There was no way to avoid going over. But if they could maneuver to where the drop-off was minimal, they might be able to slide over without too much risk. At least such was his hastily formed plan.
Atkins told her what he was going to try.
“How far is it?” she asked.
“A mile. Maybe a little more. Here we go.” He swung the wheel over and aimed for the shore. If he could keep the speed up and stay ahead of the current, he might be able to steer instead of being shoved along by the river.
Atkins kept heading toward a cluster of tall trees on the Missouri shore that he was using as a marker.
The sky was lighter. It was the hazy twilight before dawn. Atkins noticed how the quake had ripped long, gaping chunks out of the shoreline.
When they were four or five hundred yards from the falls, he got his first good look at it and almost froze up. It was the biggest thrust fault he’d ever seen, or ever read about. Far below the surface of the earth, there’d been a strong vertical displacement of the rock, driving one side of the fault upward, the hanging wall, while the other side, the footwall, dropped. The sharp upward movement had created the waterfall.
He thought it was forty feet high, maybe more.
“We’re coming up on it,” he shouted.
He kept the ferry angling toward the Missouri shore.
They were almost there. Another two hundred yards and they’d be right on top of it. Realizing they were going too fast, Atkins threw back the throttles and tried to straighten out the bow.
At the last moment, just as they were approaching the edge, he saw that the drop-off was at least ten feet. Better than forty, but still not a safe drop. They were going to take a hit.
“Here we go!” he yelled. “Hang on!”
The ferry nosed over and slammed down in the water in a tremendous burst of spray.
Afterward, he had only fragmented impressions: the stern up in the air, suspended. The jolting impact as the bow crashed down in the churning water. The way the ferry pitched dangerously on its side, almost capsizing. Mainly, Atkins remembered his shock when he looked down the length of that curving wall of water as it poured over the huge upthrust in the middle of the river.
But he had no time to do much more than glance at this spectacle—and at the wreckage of the towboat and barges that had gone over earlier and were capsized in the swirling water. He was fighting to control the steering wheel as the ferry rocked in the powerful eddies below the falls.
They made a complete circle, then another, the ferry pitching wildly, threatening to tip. Water crashed over the lower deck. Atkins worried they’d be sucked into the vortex of boiling water at the base of the waterfall. A great whirlpool had formed there at mid-river, where water pouring over the edge of the scarp collided with the downstream flow from the bridge. He threw the wheel hard to starboard and leaned on it until slowly, a few yards at a time it seemed, they were out of danger.
The Missouri shore was less than a hundred yards away. Atkins steered in that direction. Much of the shoreline around the ferry landing had collapsed. Only a few of the piers were still intact. There was no way to tie up there.
Elizabeth managed to rouse Marsden. “Where are we?” he asked, getting up groggily. “We’re hardly moving.” Then he saw the waterfall off to the right.
“We went over that?” he said, blinking his eyes.
“Can you get us into shore?” Atkins asked.
Marsden took the wheel and sized up the situation. A few minutes later he’d nosed the ferry into an overhanging section of riverbank that hadn’t collapsed. The current, even in that close, was exceptionally strong and he had to keep the engines running at full power to hold the bow into the shore so his deckhand could jump off and tie up to some trees. It took a few minutes before he had the bow and stern secured.
“Thanks for the ride,” Marsden said, smiling at Atkins. “Sorry I missed it.”
He followed them on unsteady legs down to the deck. The Explorer had come through the pounding with a four-foot dent along the passenger side, but it was essentially in good shape. Atkins was relieved when the engine started. He’d been worried about water getting under the hood and short-circuiting the electrical wiring.
The view of the waterfall from the pier was breathtaking. The roar of the water pouring over the edge made it hard to talk without shouting.
“Can we give you a lift somewhere?” Atkins asked.
Marsden shook his head. “I better stick with Agnes here,” he said, grinning. “I wouldn’t want something to happen to her.”
He disappeared for a few moments. When he returned, he carried a pump-action Remington shotgun, which he handed to Atkins. He also gave him several boxes of shells.
“No arguments,” he said. “You take this with you. Someone might want to try to take that Explorer. A good four-wheel-drive vehicle is gold at a time like this. I wouldn’t let it out of your sight.”
Atkins started to refuse, but Marsden almost shoved the shotgun into his chest. “It’s loaded. Just flick the safety off, pump it, and fire.” He gave Elizabeth a plastic trash bag filled with a few loaves of bread, some canned food, and soda.
Atkins laid the weapon on the back seat. “Good luck, then,” he said, smiling at Marsden.
“And to you, friend.”
Using an electric winch, Marsden lowered the off-ramp. They’d be able to drive right onto solid ground. The ferry was tied up at the edge of a muddy soybean field about half a mile from the highway.