McConnell House

1938 part 3

Moving day came. Me and Karl were prepared. I still wasn’t sure if we should be using the dynamite, but there was no changing Karl's mind. That house was going into the river, one way or the other.

Al the engineer set record time building his stick bridge. He had assured the public and the new popular mechanics reporter that even though they were working on the bridge all week, it could be assembled in far less time. The Popular Mechanics reporter wrote everything Al said down, took many pictures of the bridge, yawned and went back to his hotel room. I saw everything as I spent all my time watching them construct the bridge when not tending bar at the Iron Lady.

As for the previous Popular Mechanics reporter, Jerry West, I hadn’t seen a sign of him since the day I kicked him out of the bar. I heard a few rumours that he was seen around town, talking to anyone who would listen about the dangers of such a move. The people who did listen didn’t know why that would be such a concern. Everyone was waiting and hoping for it to happen.

For me it seemed that Jerry was going way overboard. It was one thing for him to try to stop the move because he had plans for the house, but this was quite another. He seemed to be obsessed with it now.

There was usually a small crowd watching Al and his workers construct the bridge. A few times I thought I saw Jerry also watching, but whenever I would approach he would walk off. I didn’t bother after that.

The bridge itself was the most peculiar one I had ever seen. It didn’t look like it could hold a man, let along a house. Al’s plan was to lift the house on a huge wooden trailer, and then pull it across the bridge with a Fordson tractor.

Nothing fancy there, but the whole reason he was getting the attention he wanted was the bridge itself. To me it looked like kids had built a little bridge across the stream, not one that was going to change history as we knew it. I doubt that we would have to sabotage it at all, let alone blow it up.

Karl didn’t care what it looked like; the explosives had to be set. That’s why I found myself in the middle of the night at the site, with Karl by my side.

“This is it kid. Let’s strap this to the bridge and get out of here, lickity split.” Karl set down the bag and started digging through it. I saw only one problem.

“Karl, where are we going to put the dynamite? The bridge is bare bones as it is. Don’t you think someone is bound to notice something attached to it that wasn’t there before?”

“Ah, I never thought of that my friend. You couldn’t be more right. But this has to be put on it, but how?”

“I don’t know! They will probably inspect the bridge right before they start the move. They will see it for sure.”

Karl smiled, like I just dropped the answer into his lap, “Yes, yes. That means we have to put the dynamite on after they inspect it. Genius Ty!”

I looked at Karl like he had lost his mind. I seemed to give him that look a lot, “Genius? Right. How about you explain to me why that is Genius?”

“Don’t you see? We stay somewhere here tonight, maybe even the gardeners shed. We watch and wait until after they inspect the bridge. While they are all busy preparing the house to be moved, we sneak over to the bridge and place the explosives on it. We only need to put them near the start, just enough for the house to go into the river. We won’t even have to get our little tootsies wet. Then we unroll the copper wire back to the shed, and wait until they move the house to the bridge. Then, ka-ploey!”

“Ka-ploey? Really?”

“Yes!”

“Really?”