The Forensic Geology Box Set

by Toni Dwiggins

  We dozed.

  Something was caressing me. I slapped my neck and came away with a crackling mess that gave off a bitter smell that cleared my head. I knew what to do. I wiped my hand clean, rolled to the dig, and scooped a palm of water. The silt had nearly settled out and it tasted less salty now. It left my hand silky smooth. When I had guzzled enough, I tied Hap’s bandana over the mouth of the water bottle and sank it in the muddy seep. What a fine gift Hap had given me. Then I slept again, dreaming of salt rings and abysses and vibrating shapes and a woman powdering my face with talc until I could not breathe.

  Walter woke me and said, “Look.”

  We stared across the saltpan, that great white starlit belly, to the Badwater Road where a pair of white eyes traveled north. It’s them. They’re looking for us.

  We capped the water bottle and drank one last time from our oasis and then once again we broached the saltpan.

  The night air was velvet now, not brutal, and we walked lightly across the crackling ground, and I thought we’d make the Badwater Road in no time at all. Except it was taking forever to reach the floodplain. Walter’s old-man shuffle was slowing us down. My rubber legs were slowing us down. There came another pair of eyes on the Badwater Road, and that spurred us on, and at last we waded onto the floodplain. And then the saltpan changed again, bunching up, and we walked on tufts of salt that grew and grew as we picked our way deeper through this miniature forest.

  There came a shriek.

  We turned and Walter’s flashlight caught it and I knew that’s what I’d seen from the car and then I ducked because this was no mirage.

  Walter stumbled.

  I grabbed his arm. We went down together and I sliced my palm on a fin of salt.

  It came at us low, skimming the tufts and then wheeling to avoid a pinnacle, and then it tumbled, wing over wing, and hit the pan.

  We froze.

  It picked itself up, pale wings unfolding. It screeched and came our way.

  I kicked a chunk of rock salt free and heaved it and the bat shrank back, and then, insanely, came at us again. Not creeping. Attacking. Rabid. Walter tried to blind it with his flashlight and in the beam the bat eyes shone red. It stopped. Mouth opened to let loose another shriek and the teeth shone, bloodied. We shoved ourselves up and took off, scrambling through the salt forest until we reached another floodplain and our legs gave out.

  We sat back-to-back, Walter sweeping the flashlight beam to and fro, me listening for bat wings.

  ~ ~ ~

  Someone bent over Walter.

  I reached for the flashlight, which had rolled away, its beam now dimmed.

  She turned to me.

  The moon was up behind her, silhouetting her. Her face was in shadow. All I could make out was her long black hair, feathered like a shawl. She crouched, one hand cradling Walter’s head, her lean body twisted toward me, other hand braced on her knee. She was still. She was a pillar of salt.

  I croaked, “Who are you?”

  From her shadow face came a high young voice. “An alien.”

  And she turned back to Walter. She lifted his head and took a water bottle from the sling around her hips and put it to his mouth. “Drink, grandfather.”

  CHAPTER 18

  I heard water running. Splashing.

  I dove into the cold pool below the waterfall. It was heaven.

  “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.”

  I lay on a cloud. I fought through fog.

  “If you’re happy and you know it, croak like a frog. Rrrribit, rrribit.”

  I opened my eyes.

  Hap Miller leaned over me. His heart face was inches above mine. “Welcome back. Long time no see.”

  “Where am I?”

  “You’re in fantasyland, Buttercup.”

  I made a slow survey. I was in a Spanish villa: sand-colored walls, arched stone fireplace, carved-wood furniture. I lay in a cloud of soft pillows under a heavy flowered spread. I began to remember being carried on a litter, transferred to this bed. A needle. My left arm lay on top of the spread, needle in my vein. Tubing ran up to an IV bag hung on the brass bedstead. Ceiling fan sent down a warm breeze. It wasn’t enough. I pushed back the spread and breeze tickled my bare skin. I smelled of sweat and salt. I was in my underwear. I yanked up the spread.

  Hap grinned. “See a whole lot less on the ladies at the pool.”

  I burned, beneath the covers. I now heard shouts. Kids. I turned my head. Two big windows, bristling palm trees outside.

  Hap said, “We’s in the playground of the rich and richer. This time of year, the furriners. Jess love the wild west—cain’t get enough of our deserts. And heat! Gotta come see for theyselves how hot hot is.”

  “Hap.” My throat felt scraped raw. “Where is this?”

  “Welcome to the Furnace Creek Inn.”

  “Walter?”

  “Doing fine. Right next door in a corner suite. With a private veranda for if he wants to catch himself some fresh air with his morning latte.” Hap sighed. “As for poor me, I share a room with Milt. I do fear he’ll snore.”

  “Why are we here?”

  “Headquarters. The FBI, in the dapper person of Hector Soliano, negotiated a sweet deal. A German here and there had to be relocated but otherwise all are happy—except the taxpayers footing the bill. Then again, they’ll never find out so all’s well.”

  “I need to talk to him.”

  “All in good time. Doctor Hap needs to make sure you’re up to it.”

  “You’re a doctor?”

  His eyes went flat. “You sound like my daddy.” He gave the IV bag a squeeze. “My daddy tried to send me to Harvard med school but damn, they didn’t want me. So I went to Podunk U and got me an EMT certificate. That’s Emergency Medical Technician, ma’am. That didn’t satisfy daddy so I went into the nuke biz and got me a health physics degree. I thunk daddy’d be impressed by all them alphas and betas and gammas under the supervision of his manly son. Daddy wudn’t.” Hap shrugged. “But hey, Milt was happy to hire a guy who can do radiation protection and, on the side, patch people up. You okay being tended to by a part-time EMT?”

  I thought, Daddy sounds like poison. I said, “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” He took my hand and checked my pulse. He put a blood pressure cuff on my IV arm and pumped it up. He brushed the sticky hair off my forehead. Cool hands.

  I let my heavy eyes close. The pressure cuff pinched. The sheet abraded my tender feet. My left hand stung. My skin felt sticky. I tasted grit. I didn’t care because I could summon enough saliva to swallow. I located an ache in my stomach that I identified as hunger. It was good to be alive.

  There was a crash and I opened my eyes.

  Hap held my arm steady. “Just thunder.”

  Rain came in a rush, clattering so loud my ears rang.

  “More on the way, Hector says. That is, Hector says the clerk at the front desk says. Hurricane off Baja California and we get the whiplash.” Hap fanned himself. “Cool us off.”

  I wetted my lips. “There was a girl.”

  He jerked a thumb. “Outside. Least she was, checking out the little bitty thongs on the ladies at the pool. Disapproving, I’d say. Methinks she is a Puritan.”

  “Who is she?”

  “She told Hector she’s an alien.” Hap held his nose. “In need of a bath.”

  I smelled my own rank smell. “How’d she find us?”

  “Took awhile to figure out you needed finding. We were at the talc mines way late, and when Hector couldn’t raise y’all on the cell he figured you were up some canyon but next time he tried he got a mite worried. So he called Furnace Creek and they sent a ranger out rangering but he didn’t find you on the West Side Road so he went on over to the Greenwater Road because that’s where you said y’all were going next. Ranger found somebody’d seen a car like yours, so we all thought you were up some canyon over there. We didn’t drag our sorry butts to Furnace Creek until after dark.”


  “What about Chickie?”

  “Miss Chick left her mine in a huff not long after you left.” Hap cocked his head. “Course, Milt left around about the same time. Went home to pack some necessities for him and me, shop for the others. Since it seemed we were gonna have a sleepover.”

  “When did Milt get here?”

  “Late. Gotta say, though, don’t see Milt as much of a suspect. Hasn’t got the imagination to bushwhack you.”

  What it took was gall.

  “Anyhoo, we all end up here at the Inn having a tailgate party, and a tip comes in—backpackers came across your car. So Hector dispatches some of his manly agents to find you.”

  “What about the girl?”

  “Right there, listening in. We did attract a little crowd. Best I can make out, she’s local and sees herself as Miss Alien Desert Rat and damned if she isn’t because she went out and beat the FBI to the rescue.”

  I thought, bless her.

  Hap checked his watch, then disconnected the IV and gently pulled the needle from my arm. “Feel okay, Cassie?”

  Like I’d been resurrected. “You do good work.”

  “Uh-oh.” Hap took my left hand. “Doctor Hap missed something.” He rummaged in his kit. He squeezed a worm of ointment on my cut palm. He studied it. “Make a cool sketch.” He gestured at a sketchpad sticking out of his kit. “I draw hands. Fact, I’ve drawn most of the hands at the dump. Get me some down-time and I gotta fill it. Did a real cool one for this deconner who blew out his gloves—little necrosis of the tissue.” Hap made a face. “But it made for a Jackson-Pollocky sort of avante-garde effect.”

  “Like Roy Jardine’s face?”

  “Not that avante-garde.” He bandaged my cut and released me. “Tell me, find anything out there afore you got bushwhacked?”

  “No.”

  “Heard about your loss. That’s a bitch.”

  “Loss?”

  “The ice chest. Your soil map. Walter’s been having a cow about that.”

  Me too.

  “Cheer up. Start again, right? Go get more dirt off that rig?”

  He’s asking if I can? Why’s he so interested? I thought, suddenly, just because Chickie and Ballinger left the mine early doesn’t make them the only ones with the opportunity to bushwhack us. Jardine could have done it himself, if he knew where we were going. Who knew our plans, at the mine? Just about everybody. Hap certainly; he’d been the one who first asked. Or it could have been one of Soliano’s agents who overheard, and phoned Jardine. Not Soliano himself, though, I couldn’t buy that. But what about Scotty, or someone from Scotty’s team? Good God, I was getting paranoid. Yeah, but paranoid’s good.

  Hap put away his band-aids. “From now on, take care out there.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m not talking bushwhacking.”

  “So I’ll wear a dosimeter. That what you’re talking about?”

  “You know what you are? You’re like every other pragmatist who figures the odds. I’m trying to keep you out of the doodoo and you’re thinking odds are you won’t step in any.”

  “I understand odds.”

  “You’re not listening. Story of my life. Hey, you know Homer? Homer Simpson, works at the nuke plant?” Hap wore a new T-shirt. He stretched it to show off the caption: Trust Me, I’m Here to Help. He sighed. “Nobody listens. I tell everybody I gotta frisk them slow so the reading’s accurate and everybody bitches because they’re under the gun to get stuff done. So I say sure, let’s turbo-frisk, and you can take some home to the kids.”

  “I get your point, Hap.”

  He wouldn't stop. “And you know what’s the real hoot?”

  I shook my head.

  “The numbers. Any idea how the experts came up with their numbers?”

  “What numbers?”

  “Numbers that say you got a so-and-so chance of getting cancer, or a scratch on the DNA. They don’t rightly know what dose is gonna do it. So they take a guess. And that’s where they get the numbers they feed into the equations.”

  “Will you please stop?”

  He seemed to recoil. “Shore thang.” He unhooked the empty IV bag and folded it around the needle and neatly coiled the tubing. He dropped the package in a wastebasket and tied off the plastic liner. He moved to me, at last, and eased the pressure cuff down my sticky arm, catching the hairs. “Sorry.”

  “It didn't hurt.”

  “Then sorry about the lecture. I do go on and on.”

  “It's not that.”

  “Bad breath?”

  I laughed. “No. It’s just...a long story.”

  He took off his watch and cocked his head.

  “Starts with my grandmother.”

  “Don’t it always?”

  I laughed again. “Okay, you asked for it. She—my mother’s mother—was at NTS way back when they were doing the atomic tests. Nevada Test Site. I’m sure you’re familiar with it.” Of course he was; NTS was almost next door to the dump. “She was a reporter, which was a big deal for a woman back then. Just for the local rag but since local was Vegas, covering the tests was local news. And it was always a big party. I mean, people went to the hotel roofs to watch the mushroom clouds. So when my grandmother gets sent to the test site to cover the story, she wants to make it entertaining. She stations herself in one of the phone booths and does a you-are-there report. She’s dictating as the bomb goes off. The concussion knocks the booth over and shatters the glass. And my grandmother is lying on the ground, cuts all over, the blast wave blowing dirt in her face—and she doesn’t miss a beat. The receiver’s still live so she keeps reporting. She just lies there in the fallout and talks on the phone. Scoop of a lifetime. My grandmother dined out on that story for years. My mom told it around our dinner table. I thought it was exciting, until I got bored with it. And then my baby brother was born with hemophilia. That’s when your blood won’t clot and... Well I’m sure you know.” Of course he knew; he must have learned it in EMT school; might need to tend a bleeder. “Since hemophilia is a genetic disorder, my folks tried to figure out where it came from. But there was no family history of it. So that kind of left the mutagenic factor. We figured Grandma got zapped. No way to prove it, but... She only had one kid—my mom. My mom had three kids. Fifty-fifty chance she was going to pass on that damaged gene each time. My older brother got a pass. My younger brother didn’t.” Poor little Henry, bleeding into his joints, bleeding out, bleeding all over my homework. “That’s when my mom learned she was a carrier. Women don’t express the trait, they just carry it and pass it on. We don’t know about me—there’s no definitive test to determine my carrier status. Only sure way to find out is to have a kid.” I shrugged. “So that’s why I got bitchy about your radiation lesson.”

  Hap had paled, beneath his freckles. “What happened to your brother?”

  “He died. Bumped his head. Bleeding into the brain.”

  Hap folded the pressure cuff and tucked it away in his kit. He said, at last, “Goddamn.”

  I watched the ceiling fan spin. My throat ached. I’d sure done a core dump here. I blamed it on the case, which was scratching around my buried bone like a gamma scratch on the DNA. Normally, I keep it buried deep. Normally, I’m not thinking about my brother, although he’s always there to be plumbed. Normally, I’m not thinking about having a kid, or the fear of losing a kid—it’s something that drifts into my thoughts now and then and I wait until it drifts away. Unless Walter brings it up, worrying that my love life consists of hit and run, warning that I’m consigning myself to a future alone. And I cling to my cowardice and wait until Walter tires of the effort. My leg muscles twitched. I sat up, holding the bedspread to my chest, glancing around the room for my clothes. “I should get going.”

  Hap went to the closet and pulled out a big robe. He back-stepped to me, dropping the robe on my feet. “Give a hoot when you’s decent.”

  I smiled. “Thanks but I’ll just use my own clothes.”

  “Can
’t,” he said to the wall. “Sent them to be laundered.”

  I dropped the bedspread. “I had soil in my pockets.”

  “That’s why I sent ‘em, Buttercup.”

  “It was evidence.”

  “Whoops.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Hap held the door open and I—wearing the voluminous robe and matching terrycloth slippers—stepped out to a roofed walkway supported by stone pillars. The walkway bordered an astonishing lawn.

  Hap said, “Wait’ll you see the pool!”

  We waded into the steaming grass. The rain had stopped and the sun already blistered through black clouds. We passed white-clothed tables and turquoise-cushioned chairs shadowed by fat umbrellas. We went to the edge of the lawn and stopped at the low stone wall. Stone stairways and meandering paths terraced down to a lower level of red-clay tennis courts and there, directly below, was Hap’s slate-decked pool with its splashing kids and sunning thonged ladies—and gentlemen—on turquoise air floats, and the pool was edged by a wall of stone arches and a stone beehive fireplace, and beyond the stone arches was more lawn, and tall palms, and then the astonishing green ended and the real world of desert gravel began.

  “Like I told you,” Hap said, “fantasyland.”

  I turned to look back at the Inn buildings, which climbed right up against a mountain face. The red tile roofs and ocher adobe walls reflected the maroons and browns of the native rock.

  “Those mountains are called the Funerals. Guess that makes this heaven.”

  Close enough, I thought.

  “And that down there—if you’ll turn around again—is the low-rent district.”

  I turned. The Inn sat up at the head of a giant fan. Down below at the fan’s foot were dark radial lines, like crevices between toes. I recognized those smudges—stands of mesquite. This fan had some significant subsurface drainage. Potable water maybe. I stored the thought, although if one were stranded on this fan all one need do for a drink was stick out one’s thumb and hitch a ride with one of the cars traveling the blacktop that ran from the Inn downfan to the oasis.