8
After only a few hours of searching, fighting the choppy surf and half the time bailing water out of the canoe, Adam and Bucky were exhausted. Their rain slickers had only done so much to keep them dry, and they became so cumbersome, that Adam and Bucky dumped them on the shore. A large tent and fly had been set up at the water's edge. The hands had built a fire under the fly, and whenever a canoe came in, dry men took over, and the damp men rested under the fly. Using a string of buoys that were anchored further and further out, Ben had organized a grid search of their side of the lake.
They began to find wreckage on the second day. The wreckage showed evidence of a fire and an explosion. Word was passed to the town officials and locals were asked if they had heard the explosion at all in the days leading up to the disappearance of the boat. When a search team on the California side reported that the ark was now afloat, and the animals and tent city had disappeared, the searchers began to look for the large, floating barn as well. When a second steam boat finally reached Lake Tahoe, and was launched on a fitful, windy morning, the ark was found.
On board were 10 of the 30 passengers and crew, safe, sound and dry. The steamboat pulled the ark to shallow waters and the ramp was lowered so that the survivors could disembark. They were taken to area doctors and examined. They had suffered bumps and bruises, burns and broken bones, but all would survive.
Sarah Tungsten Vince was one of the survivors. Her husband had gone down with the ship. The solitary crew member who had survived told the tale in pieces. The ship had been stalled, tangled in debris that wound around the drive wheel and forced them to a standstill. Either the steam gauges had been ignored or had been malfunctioning. With no release, the pipes had burst, knocking over cans of kerosene that set the boat ablaze. Only one life boat had been lowered before the boat was completely engulfed. The captain and most of the crew fought the blaze gallantly, while throwing women and children overboard and pointing them to the single rescue craft.
The ship had gone down in less than thirty minutes according to the few survivors that had been conscious through the whole ordeal. The ark had met up with the lifeboat the following morning. With no means of propelling itself, the ark drifted with the storms and rain, looking after the survivors until they were rescued. Shortly after they had been removed from the ark, Noah's followers pushed the vessel back into deeper water and it disappeared again.
Sarah returned to her mother's ranch in shock. Adam visited once and was told that Sarah didn't want to see anyone. The steamboat company and the Maritime Safety Commission began an inquest into the accident, collecting the rescued pieces of the boat, and attempting to dredge up the showboat it self. But the rains continued, rolling in in the afternoons, until the end of August, making it almost impossible to dive for the vessel.
On the first sunny dry day, Adam returned to the Tungsten ranch to bring Sarah to Carson City to testify for the inquest. He was told that she had sold her portion of the ranch to settlers, taken the money, and gone to San Francisco. Adam was given a written statement to bring back to the inquest, and sat his horse at the end of the ranch road for a long time, looking west as if he could see Sarah there on the horizon. He said the goodbye he wished Sarah had given him the chance to say in person, then turned back for home.
On the second week of September the dive teams discovered that the the ark had run aground a mile north of the edge of Ben's property. The searchers managed to climb aboard the vessel and they reported that the boat was empty of animals and people. There were no visible tracks where the vessel had been beached, and no evidence of anyone camping on that section.
A new search began around the perimeter of the lake. Some of the animals that had been reported passengers on the ark began to appear on farms, ranches, or walking down the main streets of towns. Tracks were found on the California side indicating that a large group of barefooted human beings had left the lake and headed south. The tracks disappeared into the mountains.
The Enterprise wrote an article titled "The Ark's Epitaph", informing the public of as much of the story of the ark as it could gather. Ben suspected that before the year had ended there would be a dime novel, songs and a play written about the Nevada Noah who bravely saved shipwreck survivors after months of mockery and ridicule. The animals were shipped to San Francisco and given to a circus. The boat itself was seized by the army, and after several attempts to load it onto wagons had failed, the boat was sketched and dismantled. The army photographer who had been called to take pictures of the boat, sold them on the sly to Reno and Carson City papers. He made a fortune.
In the last week of September, Adam and Thomas rode up into the mountains. They found where the searchers had spotted the last of the tracks and started a search from there, looking for a settlement, signs of travel, or bodies. Thomas felt a kind of responsibility for the old man and Adam was curious enough to join him. They searched for days finding small families of freedmen and natives that had been a part of Noah's following. None of them could tell where Noah had gone. They simply related that they had stepped off the ark, and followed the old man into the mountains. When they grew tired, they stopped, created shelters and began to live off the land as they had done before.
Towards the end of their search Adam and Thomas found a grave. It had been dug shallow, and piled high with heavy stones. A simple cross stood at the head, the upright beam made from the staff that Noah had used. They found two small sets of footprints around the grave, and sticks cast to the side that might have been used to dig the grave. They searched an additional day for the two young women that Ben had seen living with Noah on the ark, but couldn't find them.
Thomas and Adam reported the grave to the sheriff of the nearest settlement then returned to the Ponderosa.
As fall descended, the holiday seasons approached, and Elizabeth's first birthday drew nearer, Adam tried and failed to maintain contact with Sarah Tungsten Vince. His letters and telegrams went unanswered, and word finally came from Rachel Tungsten that Sarah had accepted a teaching job teaching English to children in China. She would be leaving on the first of the year. Adam offered to arrange to be there to see her off, through Rachel, and Sarah finally accepted.
Elizabeth began to walk. Her first tottering steps were taken in the dooryard while Ben was feeding the chickens. She had gone from sitting, to pulling herself up on the barn wall, to stumbling towards Ben a few steps, before she went back down on her hind end. Ben had begun shouting for his boys and they formed a square in the dooryard encouraging Elizabeth to walk from brother to father to brother until she started to fuss. Her progress was so fast that on the next trip into town Ben had to have her fitted for shoes.
Elizabeth had picked up names as well. "Papa" was simple. "Jo-jo" was her name for Joseph. "Oss" was her excited way of calling for her second oldest brother and Adam was "apum". The Cartwright men adapted quickly to their new monikers, but for Adam. He finally got Elizabeth to say "Dadum" and settled for that instead. Hop Sing was "opsee" and he would beam ear to ear anytime he heard it. He called her "Missy Lizzy" and spoiled her the most.
The Cartwrights planned to celebrate her birthday privately, but would host a celebration for the community a few weeks before. Friends and neighbors that had been instrumental in helping the Cartwrights adjust to a little one in the house were invited. Ben had asked only that his guests bring food instead of gifts.
The party was held on a warm, sunny day at the start of November. There wasn't a single moment that Elizabeth was on her own, or on her feet. She was passed from friend to neighbor and back again until she began to fuss, clinging to Ben, then Hoss, then Joe and refusing to be held by anyone but her family. As requested, the guests brought food instead of gifts, and the array of dishes and variety of tastes rivaled any church picnic.
The guests celebrated and danced well into the night, and well after the guest of honor was put to bed. When the last of their friends had left, after helping to clean up the dooryard, Adam went into the barn to finish his chores. When he returned to the house he had crate in his hands, covered by canvas. A tag was attached to the crate that read, "To Miss E. Cartwright, Many Blessings"
Adam set the crate on the coffee table and he, Ben and Joe unwrapped the canvas. Inside was a perfect replica of the Lake Tahoe ark. The door on the side lowered and revealed stalls that had been carved into the inside of the vessel. In each of those stalls were small, separate wooden figurines. Most of the pieces were animals, but five of them were different. One had long white hair, and a long white beard, and wore long robes and carried a staff.
The other four wore broad brimmed hats, and boots. One wore all black, one wore a green jacket, one wore a white shirt and tan vest, and one had snow white hair.
"That's us!" Joe said, holding up the figurine that had been carved and painted to look like him. "These are really good!"
Ben held up the Noah figurine, his thumb brushing over the knife strokes still visible under the paint. "There's no signature on the tag? No return address?"
"No. One of the guests must have left it." Joe said, reaching into the ark to put all the animals in their stalls.
"Very strange." Ben said.
"Oh...wait a minute. Something here, Pa." Adam said, his fingers reaching into the tiny windows on the shack built on the top deck of the boat. He pulled a wrinkled and rolled up piece of parchment out of the window and handed it to Ben, before sticking his fingers back into the tiny building. "Nothin' else."
Ben opened the parchment and stared at the roughest handwriting he'd ever seen. It took him a moment to interpret the poor spelling and poorer penmanship. When he did, he read," And the Lord said in his heart, "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.""
Ben met Joe's questioning gaze and smiled. "It's from Genesis. After the waters receded and Noah left the ark he made a sacrifice to God. And God promised...never to destroy his creation with a flood again."
"What sacrifice did the Nevada Noah make?" Joe asked.
Ben took in a breath. "Many sacrifices, Joseph. Many."