As it happened, the crematorium which had been constructed in the middle of Main St. had in part used recycled supplies from the town's earlier derelict premises. One of the features of the little crematorium was a solid and impressive cinder-block brick wall, separating the public area from the place where the heat was brought to bear.
The cinder-blocks had formerly been part of the cellar of the burnt-out hotel and unfortunately there weren't quite enough of them to completly build in the back of the crematorium.
So the back wall was, temporarily of course, constructed of wood.
Old wood salvaged from old buildings.
Brittle, dry, frail old wood.

So that when the high technology new cremation furnace managed to ignite the wooden crate and that in turn turned the Gelignite into past tense, the force of the explosion was directed by the block walls straight back out through the rear wall.

The fireball engulfed the stockyards and cheese factory, and badly singed the sand house , but since everyone normally at work was either at home with the flu or in the funeral cortege, not a bruise was left on a soul.
Those mourners who had solemnly watched the wooden crate slide down through the brick wall and then listened to the final summation by Reverend Little, were all stunned by the noise of the explosion and almost without exception thrown onto their backs as the roof lifted, but actual physical injury was miraculously totally avoided (with the small exception of Mahalia Gugenheimer, the wife of the cooper, and Jeb Dunk the blacksmith. They by pure and unlikely chance happened by pure chance to be in close proximity to each other by pure coincidence and chance and he by pure chance happened to be bending to do up his boot lace and by pure chance she happened to be leaning on a chair and so, Dr. Bill Johnstone had to later extract one of Mahalia's teeth from Jeb's thigh and one of Jeb's teeth from the close proximity of her bustle. Pure chance.)

The explosion was not without its tragedies.
Old Harry from the brewery who was tending the furnace just about dead-heated the young stranger in arriving at the Pearly Gates, much to his surprise. He died so fast he didn't know he had, the half-formed thought in his mind as his body components went explosively their separate ways "My God! That was a powerful chilli!"

One of the things that the human race is noted for, of course, is its resiliency.
So within a matter of days, the worst of the rubble had been carted down to the Selbyville railyards and loaded into gondolas for transport to the escarpment above the Toenail Ridge cliff, there to be tipped over the side in an early example of land-fill.
The broken windows in the saloon and General store had been replaced.
In fact Parker in the beer joint used his legendary Yorkshire personality and salesmanship and persuaded the board of the brewery to replace his window for him, on the understanding that they could cover the new glass with a large sign advertising their Supremely Healthy, Invigorating, Truly Tasty, Yeasty Selbyville Beer.

The cheese factory appeared at first inspection to be a total loss.
However, by following their noses, the inspection crew found, firstly to their amazement, and then to their olfactory stupefaction, that the heat of the fire had not destroyed the cheese in the vats, rather just toasted it to perfection, and within days the Fenster Cheesey Comestibles Corporation was exporting instant Welsh Rarebit, just add toast.
This was such a sales success in Portland that the factory was able to rise new and pristine in a matter of weeks, restored to its full operational capabilities.

One of the beneficial aspects of the flu epidemic was that the stockyards had been empty at the time of the explosion.
If the usual quota of beef had been present, and a similar outcome to the cheese factory had been experienced, heaven alone knows what the impact on the world would have been at the ready availability of flame-grilled beef just waiting to be offered for sale.
Probably nothing, people are too sensible to give up quality and taste and texture and quality just for convenience.

The heat from the blast and subsequent fire had fused some of the sand to glass and this was quickly souvenired by young Cyril Hoskins who tried to redeem it at the beer bottle reclaiming depot but Danny Devlin was smarter than that, besides he'd had the same idea himself and was busy fiddling the receipts so that his nephew Sean could do exactly the same thing. If you're going to be dishonest, at least keep it in the family.
This premise has worked brilliantly for generations of Mediterranean islanders anyway.

Old Harry's funeral was a sad affair.
Needless to say, Reverend Jeremiah Little officiated and Heironymus Whitehouse took care of the physical arrangements, while Little's Women prepared a slapup lunch for the mourners.
When he was alive there was little in the world that Harry enjoyed more than a good free feed, and here he was, guest of honor at his own funeral and not a bite could pass his lips.
Just goes to show that, even in the after-life, in the words of that great psuedo-philosopher Heinlein "There ain't no justice!"

Obviously there wasn't about to be a cremation this time, in fact, the last body burning forever had just about occured in the valley, so drunken Billy Carter had to dig a hole up on Goats Hill for the planting of the deceased.
Dave Munzbuck the carpenter went all out on the final wooden overcoat for Harry, smoothing it on the inside so that not one splinter protruded to disturb the rest of the old man, polishing and waxing the outside so that it shone in the sun, sealing the edges so that no water would be able to affect the remains, not that water had ever had too great an effect on Old Harry when he was alive. The closest he had come to water when he was breathing was the occasional splash dropped into his bourbon at Chuck Parker's Saloon.

Well, of course, everyone showed up for Harry's send-off.
Not the sort of occasion one could really miss.
Even that skinflint Michael Cotton locked up the General Store and put in an appearance.
The brewery closed down for a shift so that all of Harry's former workmates could tell lies to each other about how much he meant to each of them.
Harry didn't have any family in the valley of the Toenail Ridge but a cousin travelled in on the Shortline from Vancouver in Washington, mostly to claim his belongings. There was a bit of a fuss about that, because New Jersey Jack Lazyacre had turned up a will from somewhere that he said Old Harry had had him prepare, and sure enough it did kinda look like Harry's mark on the bottom, and in that document the deceased had decreed that everything he owned was to go to a widow woman over Rowel way.
Not that there was a lot to distribute.
Harry had lived a frugal and generally untidy existence in one of the old huts that had originally been built by Emmet Selby way back when the valley was first settled.
Its contents had pretty much remained undisturbed until Sheriff Dillon went through the place.
Harry had apparently just lived with the stuff on the top layer, and as new possessions surplanted old, the old slowly sank into the general miasma that spread on every level surface. Harry's belongings sorta lay on top of Harry's belongings.

And down at the bottom of the deepest pile was a tin trunk, locked, chained, sealed.

The Next Chapter in the Saga!

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