Thrilling Thirteen

by Ponzo, Gary

  Robert appeared unconcerned. Still waiting for that Margarita.

  Walter said something, whispered something, so hushed that I could not make it out and I moved down into the trough and knelt beside him thinking okay finally he’s got an idea.

  Something landed in front of me.

  I jerked, and looked. It was entirely commonplace. And unsettling as hell.

  Now that I was on eye level with Walter I turned to him—what now, because things are really going to hell here, because we really need an idea here. He met my look and gave a shake of the head. Don’t.

  Don’t what? I could think of a dozen things not to do. I could think of nothing useful to do.

  “You need to sit ankles together,” Henry said. “You need to do them first.”

  I looked up.

  Henry nosed the Glock in our direction.

  Walter took hold of my arm and tugged me down to sit beside him in the space he had cleared.

  The package Henry had tossed was closer to me. So I picked it up and ripped the plastic open. Took out two cable ties. Passed one to Walter. They were heavy-duty, rated to handle a couple hundred pounds. I’d used heavy-duty ties like these to bundle duct hoses when I installed my washer and dryer, two years ago. Now, slowly, Walter and I began to bind our ankles. Threading the cable ties, a micrometer at a time. Sounded like a clock ticking.

  “Zip them.”

  We zipped them tighter than I’d wished. Sounded like a machine gun.

  “Now you need to do your wrists,” Henry said.

  I took out two more cable ties. Passed one to Walter. We bound our wrists. At Henry’s instruction, zipped machine-gun tight.

  Walter hunched over his knees and muttered, “Blast it.”

  I whispered, “You okay?”

  He hiked a shoulder.

  Henry crabbed close and retrieved the open package. He moved to the mouth of the grotto. He took out a tie and tossed it to Robert. It landed short, in the brush edging the pothole. He took out another tie. Hands shaking. He crabbed closer. “I don’t want to shoot,” he told Robert.

  “You don’t need to.” Robert leaned forward and held out his hands.

  Henry tossed the tie. It landed true. It floated on the pool like a stick. Robert picked it up and began to loop it around his wrists.

  “Only do one hand,” Henry said. “Thread it through the handle first.”

  Robert’s face tightened. He had to twist his torso and stretch his arm to reach the spigot. He slid around the surface of the pool like it was ice. He gripped the spigot. He anchored there. And then with an effort he threaded the cable tie through a wheel cutout in the handle and closed it off around his wrist. He pulled the zip tight. Quite clearly it was not going to slip off over his big hand. He adjusted his position to face his brother. Awkward, now. No relaxing on the raft, no Margarita on the horizon.

  Henry returned the package of cable ties to the belt bag. He asked, again, “Did Cam know?”

  “You’re like a dog with a bone, Bro.”

  “Did Cam know?”

  “I kept him out of it.”

  “Then why were you fighting?”

  Robert took a long pause. “Fighting?”

  “That day on the Yuba.”

  Robert took a longer pause. “I’ve never fought with Dad. Which day on the Yuba we talking about, Henry?”

  “That day Cam died.”

  I thought, oh shit. I thought, as if it mattered, Robert lied about being in Sacramento the day his father died.

  Robert slowly held up his uncuffed hand. Palm out. “Let’s be clear, Henry. You overheard us talking about the company, right? So if you heard that, you also heard me giving Dad the strategy, the way it got funded. And you heard Dad disagree. He waved his hands around, like he does. But no blows were exchanged, for Christ’s sake. We argued. That’s what you heard.”

  “No,” Henry said. “I didn’t hear the strategy. I didn’t hear that part.”

  “Then I don’t follow, Bro.”

  “I saw that part.”

  Robert gave a strained laugh. “You’ve lost me, Bro.”

  “You said, Henry would not be an asset in my world. When I heard you say that, I left.”

  “You left? Well then…”

  “The trail is steep, Robert. I saw from up above.”

  Robert gave a little jerk.

  “I saw Cam wave his hands.”

  Robert gave a stiff nod.

  “I saw Cam fall over.”

  “He had a heart attack,” Robert said.

  “I saw Cam fall into the water.”

  Robert sat stone still in the quicksilver.

  “I saw you watching. That’s all you did.” Henry holstered his gun. “And then you left.”

  19

  Henry turned and walked away.

  Robert remained silent.

  Walter and I were silent. I could hear my own heartbeat, the pulse in my ears. I could hear the distant cry of a bird, the crunching sounds of Henry’s boots upon gravel, Walter’s quickened breathing beside me. I could hear the hiss of the mercury through the spigot. A constant sound. Otherwise, the silence went on and on, excruciating.

  At last Walter spoke. Whispered. “This is news.”

  Was it? Hadn’t I suspected as much, when I obsessed on the steel clip on the mesh pocket of Robert’s pack? Yes I had. And then I’d let it go. And then Henry had come on scene. Henry and his gun. And I had a new suspect in my sights.

  Now I fixed my sights again on Robert Shelburne. One expression after another seemed to chase across his face. Worry, confusion, anger, calculation. No, what I saw was mounting fear. And then he started yanking his cuffed hand, trying to free it from the wheel handle of the spigot.

  I glanced at my partner. He was doing the same. Bent over his feet, shifting position, trying to find an angle to work.

  Good idea.

  I followed suit, hunching over my own feet, positioning my ankles, hoping for a little give in the binding, a space between one foot and the other which could be capitalized upon. Maybe if I took off my boots I could slip one foot free. Hands bound at the wrists but that left my fingers free. I yanked the laces on my right boot, the boot with the torn tongue, didn’t even feel the bruise anymore, that damage entirely inconsequential, and now in my haste I’d knotted the laces and I thought fiercely pay attention but already another thought had entered my mind. A geologist thought. How many times have I used a rock pick to pry out minerals deep inside a pocket in an outcrop? I didn’t have my tools at hand but I sat in a field of rock debris. I started raking through the gravelly soil.

  Walter hissed, “He’s coming back.”

  I snapped my attention to Henry. He was indeed returning and what he carried chilled my bones.

  Robert, too, had seen. Had frozen.

  Henry Shelburne went straight to the grotto, went inside, skirting the pool where his brother sat stunned, squatting at the back of the grotto where the old timbers and riffle blocks were stacked in a jumble. Henry deposited the armful of kindling he’d brought from the campfire.

  Brown and dried, thick woody stems, shriveled leaves still bearing their resin glands, I guessed, because when Henry had thrown that kindling onto the campfire it threw off that nose-tingling odor.

  That, and set the campfire ablaze.

  Flammable as hell.

  Walter whispered, “Can you get free?”

  Yeah, sure, if I can find a pointed shard. If it’s pointed enough to do the job. I whispered, “Rock pick.”

  He nodded and began to pick through the pebbles around his feet.

  “Hey Bro.” Robert’s voice rang out. Strong, but without the hearty gloss he’d put on Bro before. Strong and harsh now. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Henry stood and opened his belt bag. He took out a box of matches.

  “Not fair,” Robert said. “Not a fair fucking game.”

  I was transfixed. I knew this game. I’d seen Robert play it back at the
great mining pit, the void, the place where a mountain had once stood. Robert standing in the mountain misery, striking a match, dropping it onto the resin-thick ferns, showing how quickly the stuff would ignite. Explaining how the brothers had played this game when they were kids, vaporizing the mercury to go after the gold. But Robert’s demonstration for us was just a dog-and-pony show. This, here, now, was the real deal. This mountain misery was tinder-dry. This stuff was ready to kindle a bonfire of old timbers and riffle blocks—no doubt impregnated with mercury—and if that bonfire got lit it was going to heat the pipe coming out of the wall, through which the mercury flowed from some never-ending supply somewhere in that hillside.

  I wondered at what point it would give off its poisonous vapors.

  I glanced at Walter. He too was watching. Pebbles forgotten.

  “Get past it,” Robert said. “Dad’s dead. I panicked. End of story.”

  Henry opened the box and took out a match. Hands shaking.

  “This game is fixed,” Robert said. Anger flared off him like heat from a fire. “You’ve got matches. I’ve got nothing. What kind of game is that?”

  Henry said, “No kind of game.”

  “The hell it isn’t.”

  Henry struck the match on the side of the box.

  I waited for Robert to scream, because once Henry lit the mountain misery on fire and heated the mercury, Robert wouldn’t be wanting to scream, wouldn’t be wanting to open his mouth, in fact he’d be holding his breath.

  The match was burning.

  “You want to play poker, brother? Let’s play poker.” Robert sucked in a breath, let it escape. “I’ll see you.”

  I shook my head. How? With what? Robert had no moves, no hand to play. He was bluffing.

  Robert twisted his head, underneath the spigot, and brought his face to the silver stream.

  I sealed my lips. Some kind of crazy-ass Shelburne bluff, ready for the fire to start, the mercury to heat, to vaporize, for the poison to pour out of the spigot. Ready to breathe in a lung-full. Hey Bro I’ll see you, this what you talking about?

  Robert opened his mouth wide.

  It was a moment before I understood.

  He was not bluffing. He was drinking.

  ~ ~ ~

  Henry, stunned, let the match burn down to his fingers. Jerked. Let the match fall. By the time it touched ground it had gone out.

  Robert turned away from the flow, and grinned. A crazy-ass grin. “Drink it today. Shit it tomorrow.”

  I tried to take it all in. Drinking elemental liquid mercury. Who does that? Only a crazy Shelburne brother. I knew the stuff was poorly absorbed through the skin but who knew it would freely traverse the digestive tract—well Robert clearly knew, or hoped, Robert who had read up on all things mercury, Robert who was anything but suicidal. But still. I swallowed hard, watching him open and close his mouth like a fish out of water, a fish who’d performed the wrong kind of respiration.

  “We can…” Robert spat, “…play this game all day.”

  Henry recovered himself. He lit the next match. “I’ll see you, brother.” He let the match fall. This time it stayed alight. The little flame kindled a spray of mountain misery. It crackled to fiery life. Henry kicked it aside.

  Robert stared.

  The brothers locked onto one another, a poisonous face-off, waiting it seemed for someone to make the next move.

  Henry did. “And raise you.” Henry pulled the Glock from his holster and tossed it into the pool.

  20

  I thought it must have been a mistake.

  Even as I watched the gun rise with the toss and then fall with gravity—dropping into, no, onto, the surface of the pool—even as I watched the game change I thought it must have been a mistake.

  They thought so, too.

  Henry’s head tipped up and then dipped to follow the arc of the gun as if someone else entirely had tossed it.

  Robert’s mouth opened, an O of surprise.

  Walter grunted, a sound of disbelief.

  And then the Shelburne brothers upped their game.

  Henry took another match from the box. The fire he had kicked aside was already consuming itself but the main pile of kindling awaited the next match.

  Robert’s free hand stretched, reaching for the gun.

  Henry smiled.

  It was too late but I did the only thing I could think to do, went back to raking my hands through the rock debris, hunting for that shard, my mind racing—what the hell Henry?—and the ugly answer came. Suicide by brother.

  Walter whispered, “Use your nail.”

  It took me a very long time to get it, to understand what Walter meant, and then for a hysterical moment I almost hooted at the beautifully absurd genius of it, but Walter was watching me with such fierce hope that I wanted to cry. Sure, it could work, but Robert was about to shoot the shit out of his brother and Henry was about to turn that mercury stream into vapor and we were relying on my fingernail?

  He lifted his bound hands, clasped. “I’ll buy you the time.”

  I gaped. You will?

  ~ ~ ~

  Walter sat up straight and bellowed, “Your grandfather was here.”

  I was taken aback all over again. And had to stop myself from actually turning my head to look around. The Shelburne brothers were doing just that. Henry’s head swiveled, the match in his fingers forgotten for the moment, but still at the ready. Robert looked right, looked left, although his field of view from inside the grotto was severely limited. My field of view was just damn good enough to see the top of the mercury pool, to see his fingers kiss the handle of the Glock.

  “Right here,” Walter bellowed. “Look at this.”

  I looked.

  Walter held his bound hands high. Unclenched now. His right hand commanded attention. He pinched a small rock between his thumb and forefinger. “This is what you came for.”

  Henry peered at Walter. Robert cocked his head. I looked back and forth, from one brother to the other, from the brothers to Walter. Surely they could not see what I could see. Could not make out the details.

  I could make out the details. It was a largish pebble, rough and reddish, lumpy, bits of rock cemented together. A conglomerate, if anyone was asking. I wondered, could it be?

  Walter shot me a look. Shot my bound hands a look.

  Use your nail.

  And then I understood, staring at the pebble pinched between Walter’s fingers, staring now at his fingernails, a man’s good-sized hands and a man’s good-sized nails. His nails were too large. Unlike mine, which just might fit into the locking bar of the cable tie. Yes, Walter. I get it.

  You do your bluff, I’ll do my best to unlock this sucker. And then what? And then we’ll see.

  “Listen to me, boys,” Walter said, voice gone soft now, so soft that we all had to strain to hear. “Your grandfather saw that hillside. Look at it.”

  They looked, scanning the walls, and while they looked I bent to my work. The heavy-duty cable tie binding my ankles had a big wide slot. And I had small unclipped fingernails. Doable?

  “I give you this,” Walter said. “A workable hypothesis. Follow me. A, you have a source of trapped mercury in that hillside. B, it is likely trapped in a bedrock basin. C, something created that basin. D, a long time ago a dike intruded a Tertiary gravel channel and acted as a giant riffle. It created a giant pocket, in which gold collected. That ore specimen you brought to the lab, Robert, originated in there. In that hillside. Right behind you.”

  I began to think it wasn’t a bluff. As my mind followed the geology lesson, my fingers worked. I worked my right pointer fingernail into the cable slot and pressed down on the locking bar. Astonishingly, the lock opened. Not astonishing. The right tool for the right job, hey? I nearly laughed. A crazy-ass laugh.

  I stole a glance at Walter, gave him the slightest nod.

  He returned it.

  “In that hillside,” he said, “there is what geologists call a fracture spri
ng. It charges with winter rains that percolate through the soils. Over the years it eroded the material in the riffled pocket and some of it flushed out here.”

  Eroding the trough where we sat. I thought, it’s really not a bluff. I held my breath and very very slowly backed the loose section of the cable tie through the slot. Sound like a clock ticking.

  “Some bits larger than others,” Walter said, loud again, “and at least one a large enough specimen that it caught the eye of your grandfather. Most so small they would catch nobody’s eye. Unless one knew where to look.”

  Henry turned. “How do you…?”

  “Know?” Walter glanced at me.

  I held the opened tie in a loop around my ankles. I held it like a prize.

  “How do I know?” Walter boomed. “I deduce. I look at the geology, Henry. I analyze. I make a hypothesis. And because I understand what I am looking at, I know where to look.”

  “Is there…”

  “Yes.”

  Henry came out of the grotto, pausing at the entrance, eyes fixed on Walter. Robert leaned forward, his bound hand straining against the cuff. His unbound hand had captured the Glock. He held it loose, upended, and a thin silver necklace slid out of the barrel.

  I thought, chilled, could the thing work?

  “Come here, son,” Walter said.

  Yeah, I thought. Step away from the grotto. Step away from the kindling. Step away from your brother.

  “Look,” Walter said, “right in my hand is a bit of that gravel. The same stuff your grandfather found.” Walter angled his bound hands. Showing a different face of the tiny rock. “Look here. There is a visible grain of gold. You can see it but you’ll have to come closer.”

  I stared at the pebble. There was color. Could be a flake of gold. Could be a grain of pyrite. Fool’s gold. Either way, my pulse leapt. With a tremendous effort I yanked my gaze from the pebble to look at Robert. His face was keen. Avid. His gun hand had gone slack.

  I moved my feet. Just slightly to the side, in preparation. Keeping them together as if they were still bound.

  “Come on, son,” Walter said. “You should have a look at this.”

  Henry whispered, “No.”