The Forensic Geology Box Set

by Toni Dwiggins

  Ten more minutes gone, by my watch.

  Hurry. I slung the subgun across my back and scrambled up the fall.

  When I achieved the top and approached the next kink in the canyon, the hiss fractured. It seemed to come from here, from there, from above, from below. A trick of acoustics.

  I went reluctantly around the bend, subgun at the ready—for what that was worth.

  Nothing.

  CHAPTER 47

  There was nobody to shoot.

  There was nowhere to go.

  So I just stared at the obstruction.

  My path dead-ended at another dry waterfall, an end-of-the-liner. It was a good forty feet high and its slick chute was edged by vertical strata that I was not equipped to scale. And even if I’d had the ropes and guts for it, achieving the top of this fall would bring me to the bottom of the true obstruction. It rose above the dryfall at least another forty feet and jutted out like a defiant jaw. Its rough gray face filled the canyon from wall to wall, like it had been born here, but there was no crater in the walls from which it might have been torn. There was only one way it could have got here. It had to have come from above, carried downcanyon in some past monstrous flood, and here, unable to shove its jaw through the narrow slot, it had come to rest. It was a keystone, locking the canyon shut. It was the biggest mother chockstone I had ever come across.

  I listened to the hiss of water. There was no longer any question where the water hissed—up above.

  When I regained my nerve, I searched for a way up. There was a narrow ledge on the right side of the dryfall, maybe eight feet up. The ledge slanted steeply and led to a fracture in the steeper canyon wall. I continued to search for a better route but there was none to be had.

  I waited, for Soliano’s helicopter to appear, for the good sense to send me back downcanyon. But the fastest way out was in front of my nose. Backpacking the subgun, I began to frog-crawl up the chute. Two feet up, I slipped back down, leaving some skin on the rock. Nopah Formation, I judged, upper Cambrian. I didn’t give a shit. I started up again. When I’d passed the bloody palm-streaks I figured I was committed.

  The ledge was worse.

  I no longer had to worry about slipping. I worried, instead, about toppling off. The ledge was so narrow I side-stepped, kissing the dryfall, heels hanging in air. I looked up, once, to the underside of the jutting chockstone chin. There was a stain of travertine, where water had once leached.

  The steep wall was worse yet.

  I glued myself to the rock, fingertips probing chinks in the brecciated dolomite, toes curling in my boots as I edged along the fracture. At last, the scarp widened and I exhaled in relief. My thin footpath now accommodated a heel-toe walk and as it angled up the wall, the wall flared inward and I could lean away from the edge. I chanced a look down and saw the chockstone directly below, where it bulged into the lower wall. I went queasy and snapped my eyes back to the business at hand. Ahead, where the scarp angled more steeply, the faint trace of a trail intersected. The trail followed a soft stratum of rock that had been eroded, creating a relatively flat bench. But this was no Park Service footpath. This was fit only for native creatures. I eyed the corrugated horns of the skull on the trail and, in the end, threw in my lot with the bighorn.

  It was not until I found a wide enough pocket to collapse that I realized I was crying. I wiped my face and blew my nose, then reset the subgun and scanned the canyon, searching for Hap.

  Nothing moving. Nothing orange, trying to blend in.

  I turned my attention to what lay below.

  It was long and narrow, like a lap pool. It nearly filled this section of canyon but for a shelf of rock that ran alongside the water below me—the decking of the pool.

  I thought of the pool at the Inn. I thought of Hap diving into the deep end, doing lap after lap in his purple trunks. I thought no further along that line.

  This pool was fed by a large waterfall at the upper end of the canyon. At the waterfall’s base, the pool was shallow. Then, as the canyon descended, the water deepened, plunging to unseen depths by the time it met the chockstone.

  No doubt this waterfall would dry up within a day or so, once the hurricane-spawned rainstorms that fed who-knew-how-many-square-miles of this watershed stopped.

  But for now, it fed the abyssal pool.

  My attention moved to the chockstone. It domed maybe fifteen feet above the water line. It was the lumpy back-head of the jut-jawed face I’d seen from below. It plugged this canyon and backed up this water as surely as a knot obstructs a fire hose. Undo the knot and the water flows free through the hose to the nozzle, which compresses it into a jet stream. I didn’t know how much water was needed to create a large and rapid enough flow to flush the beads from the reservoir and take them all the way down to the springs, but if I’d wanted to make that kind of flood I guessed it could be calculated. And if I wanted to keep track of the water level, I guessed I could rig up a depth gauge that transmits a signal.

  I scanned the canyon rim and spotted what looked like the desiccated spine of a cactus, only it was nothing so indigenous. It was an antenna and it rose from a cairn of rocks and it was well positioned to relay signals. Which meant there must be a box around here to send—and receive—them. Where? It didn’t really matter. Hap no longer had his remote.

  Thunder sounded somewhere beyond my patch of blue sky. Somewhere, perhaps at the head of this watershed, the rains were beginning again.

  I decided to have a closer look at the pool while I still safely could.

  The slope below the bighorn trail was steep and crumbly with talus. I had to scramble down, nearly losing my footing in the rocky debris. When I reached the pool decking, I realized my viewpoint had changed and so I scanned the canyon yet again.

  Nobody in sight.

  I turned to study the water. There was a strong current right now, fed at the inflow, puckering the surface. I peered into the depths. The water was opaque with suspended sediment, concealing the bottom. I broke out in a sweat, fighting the temptation to take a dive.

  Another crack of thunder brought me to my feet. I looked upcanyon and spotted a newcomer—the fat gray lip of thundercloud above the waterfall. And then I spotted a second newcomer—curled into a red-headed knob in the deep notch to the right of the fall.

  CHAPTER 48

  My first thought was, I wish I’d come in that way.

  I’d come in the hard way, via the chockstone and the ledge and the sheep trail, and now I stood at the deep end of the pool and stared upcanyon at Hap.

  He’d come in the easy way.

  The notch was almost a stairway, cleaving all the way down the canyon wall, paralleling the tall waterfall, intersecting the bighorn sheep trail, continuing down to the shallow end of the pool.

  The notch was so recessed that I couldn’t have seen it from my end of the sheep trail, on my way in. So recessed that Hap couldn’t have seen me.

  But we saw each other now.

  I found my voice and yelled, “Stand up.”

  He rose slowly, like an unfolding petal. Bracing his arms against the notch walls.

  I thought, jolted, he’s already sick. How long does it take between exposure and symptoms? Or maybe he’s just buying time. Playing me. I grew uneasy. But what could he do? I reminded myself, again, that I was armed. I reminded myself that I had a plan. Just do it, lady—you picked this movie, now start it.

  I yelled, “Come down.”

  He didn’t move. I raised the gun. He spidered down the notch stairs to the sheep trail.

  No, not sick. “Keep coming,” I yelled, wondering precisely where I wanted him to go, but he moved at my command so I did not have to decide just yet. I watched him walk that sheep trail as impeccably as if he were, himself, a bighorn.

  When he approached the skull, he paused.

  Plan was, I’d make him take off his shirt and kiss the ground and then I’d use his shirt to bind his arms behind his back. First, though, I wanted him away fr
om that skull. “Step over it. Don’t even think about kicking it at me.”

  He cleared the skull with an exaggerated step and lost his balance in the process, putting out his hands to catch himself on the trail. He held there in a crouch. A tremor started up in his right leg. I waited for his back to arch, his gut to convulse. His right leg flexed, and now suddenly he looked like a runner in the blocks, waiting for the start gun. The tremor, I realized, had been muscle fatigue. I felt that myself. I knew why he was crouching there. He was ready to make his move. All the while, watching my hands on the gun.

  I knew what he was wondering. Does she know how to shoot it? Did she learn, watching Walter? And if she did, will she or won’t she? And if she’s undecided, can I move fast enough to interfere? Throw a rock, like Miss Alien. Slide down and tackle her before she makes up her mind.

  I yelled, “Walter taught me how to use it.” I thumbed the lever away from safety lock, to single fire. Hap saw that and let out a low whistle. I said, “Lie on your belly.”

  He sank smoothly to the trail like the athlete he was.

  I saw now that I should never get close enough to tie his hands. Okay then, what’s the plan? Just keep him believing. He already thinks you’ll shoot. Or at least he’s not ready to call your bluff. Just keep him away from any place that could be hiding the explosives, and hold him there until Soliano comes. You’ve got him under control. Now increase the odds in your favor. I said, “Roll onto your back.”

  He turned over.

  “Take off your pants.”

  He rotated his head to peer down at me. “Hey Buttercup, change your mind?”

  I said, cold, “I know what you were after that night at the pool.” Blow a fog of romance into my eyes so I don’t see clearly. “It won’t work now either.”

  “Was after a little bit of life.”

  My heart hardened. “Take off your damn pants.”

  He put his legs in the air and peeled down the parachute pants. He wore the purple swim trunks underneath.

  I filed that piece of information. “Wad the pants. Slide them down to me.”

  The bundle rolled down the slope and I put out a foot to stop it.

  “Roll on your belly and clasp your hands behind your head. Arms out like wings.”

  “Like in them cop shows?”

  “Damn you do it.”

  He rolled, and clasped.

  I squatted beside the orange bundle. There was no danger of radioactive beads being caught in the pants because Hap had worn hazmat when he’d waded into the reservoir to get Milt. There was a danger that I’d fall into the pool while trying to muli-task here. Balancing the subgun on my knees, holding my aim on Hap, I freed one hand to unwad the pants and fish in the deep pocket to retrieve my field knife. I returned it to my own pocket, glad to put it beyond his reach. The familiar weight threw me, like I’d pocketed the knife for the field and come up here for the rocks. Some joke. I leaned back to dip the pants in the water, then slapped them flat on the decking, tugging the ankles to spread them out wide. Orange parachute flag.

  Hap called down, “What if nobody comes looking?”

  I stood. “They’re on their way.” Sooner or later Soliano was going to shift his attention from the search for Jardine and the mess at the Inn, and notice that we hadn’t checked in. Surely, I thought, he’s already noticed. He’s surely already sent choppers. Only, the searchers missed us earlier because we were inside the mine so long, and Dearing’s body would not have been visible. So they widened their search grid. But that’s okay. Walter’s going to come out of the mine and Pria will tell him where I went and he’ll phone Soliano. Maybe he already has. So the choppers are on the way, right now. Or ten minutes from now. And if they pass anywhere in the neighborhood they’re going to spot my orange flag.

  Hap groaned. “Arms’re cramping.”

  I bet they were. “Tell me where the explosives are and you can drop your elbows.”

  “Have a heart.”

  “You need to blast the chockstone, right? To let out the water.”

  “You had one an hour ago.”

  “That was pity.”

  He grimaced. “Then extend it.”

  “Here’s my heart. It won’t let you contaminate anything or anybody else.”

  “Not even to wake up John Q Public?”

  “Not even that.”

  “I’m hurting.” His elbows dropped.

  I raised the gun.

  He unclasped his hands and pressed them to the ground and when I yelled stop he let out a cry and flexed his arms. Everything slowed then—Hap lifting his torso, shifting his weight back to his knees, preparing to make his play, and I had all the time in the world to recall him making his play with Walter and to think, now I’m the one on the frontier with two hateful choices—and then time sped up and Hap was up on his knees and I had a nanosecond to choose, and I fired.

  He crumpled and collapsed and lay still on his belly.

  For a long moment I did not believe I’d hit him, I thought he was pretending, and when he swiveled his head to look down at me I thought he must see how the weapon shook in my hands. I gripped it harder, before he could make his next move.

  And then I saw the thin soil beneath him darken, to hematite red.

  I shook harder. All my will was bent toward stopping the shakes. I clenched my muscles until they screamed. This is what it’s like to shoot someone, I thought. It hurts.

  He was making a sound. A harsh exhalation.

  I said, “Where are you hit?”

  He stared at me. Incredulous. Like I thought I was some kind of EMT, assessing the victim she’d come to attend. Like the gun had shot itself. He rolled onto his side then, making another sound, a low moan. He bent his knees and then I saw the hole I’d made in his right thigh. Black against white skin, edges puckering like goose bumps, oozing red. He pressed his palm against the hole. The blood seeped out between his fingers.

  “Pants,” he gasped, looking down at the orange parachute pants on the deck. “Tourniquet.”

  I almost went to get the pants. But that was my flag. I almost took off my shirt to give him. But I feared to get that close. I said, “Use your T-shirt.”

  He gasped, “Fuck you.”

  I thought, if he loses enough blood he’ll pass out, and then I can go bind his wound.

  We watched each other, waiting.

  And then with a shout of pain he pushed himself up to a sit and peeled off Blinky the Three-Eyed Mutant Fish. Gritting his teeth, he wrapped the T-shirt around his thigh, twice, and then tied it off. The cotton wicked blood. He clamped his hand on the wound again and sank back to the trail.

  I shook all over. My own legs gave out. I sank to the smooth rock deck. I propped the gun against my knees, keeping it aimed at Hap. He watched me. His eyes closed. I saw that the T-shirt had stopped reddening, beneath his splayed fingers. He did not move. I began to relax. I gave in, catching the heat from the rock and the warmth from the dying day’s sun. My shivers died. His eyes flicked open, closed again. Neither of us spoke. Too drained to re-engage, like an estranged couple on vacation distracting ourselves with hiking and sunning and spatting and now, exhausted by our day in the sun, wary of the evening ahead. Wounded.

  “Cassie,” he said at last.

  Here we go. I tried to rally.

  “You recall the SFP?” His voice was thin, but steady now.

  The spent-fuel pool. I glanced down into the silty water. Not this pool. Another pool entirely.

  “Recall that dude?”

  Collier. Drew Collier. Guy who beat the crap out of Hap over a spilled glass of ale. Diver at the nuke plant who got too close to the fuel rods. Guy who died, whose death gave Hap a new nickname. Doc Death.

  “Listen.”

  I listened—to Hap’s raspy breathing on the sheep trail above me, to the hiss of the current in the pool below me, to my own shallow breathing as I took in the heated air. I could sit on this hot rock forever.

  “Waited
too long,” he finally said. “Watching on RC.”

  Radiation Control—initials no longer cryptic. I remembered well enough. Hap waited too long on radiation control, didn’t warn Collier soon enough that he was in a high-dose area. “By mistake?” I stirred. “On purpose?”

  “Outcome’s the same.”

  Death. He was telling me something now. I clutched the gun harder.

  “Too late, Cassie.”

  “For what?”

  “Initiator’s in the box.” He drew in a breath, expelled it. “Box is down a hole where ain’t nobody gonna reach it. Timer’s set.”

  I said, “You’re lying.”

  “Fraid not.”

  “You left your remote in the belt bag. You’d have to do it by hand and you got here after I did.”

  “Was climbing out,” he said, “when you caught me.” He curled almost into a ball. He’d started to shiver. “Got here before you. Shortcuts, Buttercup.”

  I prayed that he was lying. I whispered, “Where were you going, climbing up that notch?”

  “Up. High. Where I could watch.”

  I did not have to ask what he wanted to watch. The explosion, the release of the water, the flood. I jerked my head to look at the chockstone because that’s where the explosives had to be if he was going to let out the water. I scanned the chock for a crevice where explosives might be jammed but there was nothing marring the back head of the stone. I looked back to Hap.

  “You got the time?” He was still shivering. “Since you got my watch.”

  I looked. “Five forty-two.”

  His lips moved, counting. “We got nineteen minutes.”

  I froze.

  “Go.”

  “You go.”

  “Count on it. Be a sorry thing for a man to miss the culmination of his hard work.”

  I wanted him to move first. I wasn’t certain he could. But if the explosives blew, he was not in a bad place, up on the sheep trail. I was in a bad place. A shock wave of water could lap the pool deck and sweep me in.

  He said, “Walter’s waiting.”

  “What do you mean?”