Juan shook his head, like most of the town, what Jasper didn’t realize that the tower had never really been used for storage like this, at least not since before the collapse. Even when Murphy controlled the tower and the pump, the tower had been used for overflow and had never really stored more than a few thousand gallons at a time. Juan began writing in his notebook.
The tower is almost full, it more weight than…
The boy’s hand froze mid-sentence, and for a moment he just stared at the word weight blankly and then shook his head. How could he have been so blind? Of course the tower was failing, it’s been left to rot in the sun, given just enough maintenance to keep her from leaking like a sieve. Then without any real forethought, they pumped 20,000 gallons into her. What was that? 80 tons of water? Juan suddenly felt sick, this was Miles fault he realized, the old man should have considered this. He should have inspected the tower and made sure it could take the weight before they even considered filling her.
“Juan, are you okay?” Allen asked.
Juan looked up first at Allen and then Jasper. He hesitated for just a moment and then scribbled a quick message. He shoved the note into Allen’s hands and then turned and stalked off in the direction of the shack.
“Where in the fuck is he going?” Jasper demanded.
Allen and Jasper looked down at the note. The tower can’t take the weight. We need to dump the water.
“He can’t be fucking serious!”
Allen and Jasper took off at a run towards the shack and arrived a moment before the door swung open, and Juan came out carrying a set of bolt cutters on his shoulder.
“No way! No fucking way are we dumping the water!” Jasper shouted.
Drawn to the commotion the rest of the Black Jackets began to come in closer, curious to see what was going on. But if Juan felt intimidated by Jasper or his men for even a moment, the boy didn’t show it. His face was nearly blank and carried the look of a man resigned to accomplish some unpleasant but necessary task. Juan didn’t break stride and just marched calmly towards the tower as Jasper walked next to him repeating his objections and swearing up a storm.
“You can’t do this Juan. I know you’re in charge of the pump and all, I got that. But I’m in charge of the security of this…this whole…facility and that includes the tower and the pump.”
Juan didn’t even acknowledge Jasper he just kept walking and with each step, they took closer to the tower the Black Jacket’s arguments seemed to grow even more desperate.
“That water, that water represents security as well. I’m not…I’m not authorized to let you just…just dump it. I’m sorry… I really am. You hear me Juan?”
Walking just a few steps behind Juan, Allen watched the scene closely as they were now both surrounded by Black Jackets. He slipped his hand down to rest on the hilt of his belt knife, waiting for the moment when Jasper would step in front of Juan and try to physically stop the mute boy. However that moment never came, they reached the base of the tower and Jasper, and his men stopped short.
“This is all on you pal, so you better think about this Juan! It’s going to be your ass and not mine!”
Juan and Allen arrived at the base of the tower, where a four-inch drain pipe came down from the tank above and ended in an elbow joint. Attached to the end of the pipe was a rusted lever that at one point had been painted red. The lever was held closed by a clasp and a rusty padlock.
“This is it then?” Allen asked.
Juan nodded and then wrestled the bolt cutters into place around the padlock. Juan adjusted his grip and then began to try and pull the cutters closed. Allen set the lantern down and grabbed ahold of the cutters to help, and a moment later the boys were rewarded with the loud snap as the old padlock fell away. Jasper and the other Black Jackets just stood back and watched with an almost morbid fascination as Juan hoisted the bolt cutters and prepared to hit the release valve.
“You’re not going to dump all of it right?” Allen asked.
With the bolt cutters raised and ready to strike Juan replied with the briefest of shrugs. Then the boy swung the cutters down as hard as he could, smashing into the release valve, but the handle only moved a few inches, so Juan hit it again and finally on the third strike the lever gave way. Immediately a jet of water came blasting out of the pipe blowing water in a 30-foot arc out across the compound and into the street. For Juan and Allen standing on either side of the pipe the sound of the rushing water was deafening. Juan looked up and gave Allen a little grin but the dark haired boy only shook his head in reply, he had trouble tearing his eyes away from the thousands of gallons of water rushing past them, wasted. For Jasper and most of the Black Jackets it was the same, a look on their faces somewhere between terror and awe. But a few of them, perhaps the more practical of the group, took advantage of the situation. They ran back to their posts and scooping up their assorted canteens filled them from the geyser, then they filled whatever else they could find on hand with water. Finally, seeing an opportunity most hadn’t had in years they, they stripped off their shirts and risked the sting of the spray for a quick wash.
Jasper watched his men with cold indifference, and it was obvious he thought there was going to be hell to pay. Allen looked from Jasper and back to Juan and then over the noise of the rushing water shouted, “How much?”
Juan nodded in understanding and then walked over to the intake a pipe, the same one they had used a few days before to fill the tower. Years ago Miles had installed a gauge, it was an ancient looking brass contraption with a glass viewing window and a small red float inside. Juan had no idea if the gauge was accurate or not, but while Miles has definitely made a mistake in trusting the aging tower, the man’s knowledge of outdated dials and gauges was second to none. Juan raised the lamp looked at the red float and guessed the tower was still over half full. Juan stood there for the next few minutes, watching the jet of water, the gauge and men acting like kids in the spray. Finally, when the boy guessed that the tank was almost half-way empty, he stepped back to the rusted handle and with Allen’s helped forced the valve closed again.
The geyser of water ended as abruptly as it began and suddenly the compound seemed eerily quiet. The ground all around the tower was now choked with fresh mud and crisscrossed with boot prints filled with dirty water. The Black Jackets gathered back in, aside from Jasper every one of them soaking wet and grinning from ear to ear.
“Are we finally done with this madness?” the sergeant asked.
Juan looked from Jasper and then up to the tower above them before he started scribbling in his notebook.
I don’t know. Now we wait for the next breeze and see what the tower does. If I still think it may collapse, I’ll dump more.
Jasper shook his head, “You may save the tower kid, but do you really think that’s going to save you when the council finds out about this?”
Through the Storm
While the dust storm raged overhead, Coal pushed forward, holding one hand up trying to shield his eyes from the sting of the windblown sand. Stepping over bits of broken asphalt and concrete he only made it five paces before he found the opposite wall of the gorge. Just as he suspected, it was a nearly vertical slope carved into the sandstone. Coal shook his head and taking ahold of the line tied to his belt, the bounty-hunter turned around and used it to guide himself back to the buggy.
Miles and Kyle were right where he left them, huddled together beneath the dirty length of canvas Kyle kept in his pack. Coal lifted the edge enough to slip his head underneath and join them. Though the canvas provided little real protection, it cut down on the dust and noise enough to allow the trio to talk without shouting.
“I’m glad to see you boys didn’t decide to leave without me,” Coal said.
“I don’t think we would have made it very far,” Kyle replied.
“Besides, you’re tied off to the bumper,” Miles added.
“Well look whose back amongst the living!”
“I
s that what this?” Miles replied.
“What did you find?”
“Not much. The good news is that when the highway collapsed it all fell in more or less one big chunk. That and this thing’s suspension is what saved our asses.”
“Yeah? Well tell me that again tomorrow when I’m pissing blood,” Kyle remarked.
“What’s the bad news?”
“That we fell about 20 feet and the walls are vertical.”
“Any chance of us jumping out like we did in those canals back in Phoenix?” Miles asked.
“Not this time, the ground is for shit and even if it wasn’t there, is no room to build up any speed down here. We only got about 15 feet in front of us and even less behind.”
“Where in the hell did a gorge like this even come from? This was a major fucking route!” Kyle said in obvious frustration.
“I found some bits of busted concrete amongst the asphalt. I’m guessing this gorge we are in once held a culvert or dried creek bed at one time, but a lot can change in 15 years. Over time, little by little, the road was undercut until…”
“Until the first car in over a decade drove across it, and here we are,” Miles muttered.
“No, here we were. We’re getting out of here,” Kyle corrected.
“And just where are we going?” Miles asked.
“I’m assuming the gorge narrows going to the East?”
“It does, but it gets narrow pretty quick, and it’s still too steep to drive out, not to mention choked with pieces of what use to be a highway.”
“I guess that means we’re going west, assuming the gorge gets wider that direction?” Kyle replied.
“It does, but it also means it gets deeper and I guess I don’t have to remind you what’s in that direction?”
“I remember, but we’re miles past the deepest parts of the Grand Canyon.”
“Yeah well, I got a feeling even the less touristy parts are deep enough to kill us if we wander over a cliff in the middle of a fucking sand storm,” Coal replied.
“I’m not worried Coal because I know you’ll be right out front guiding us the whole way.”
It was too dark to see the scavenger’s shit-eating grin or to see Coal shake his head in reply, but after traveling together for so long neither had to see it.
“Well, I guess that means we best get to it,” Coal said.
“Not before we pass around that bottle one last time, for luck,” Kyle said.
The bounty-hunter chuckled and removing the brown bottle from his coat took a quick swig before passing it to Kyle in the dark.
“Don’t forget about me, I think I’m due a bit of luck myself,” Miles added weakly.
The trio pushed on through the storm with Coal walking in front of the buggy, guiding them through the storm and deeper into the gorge. While the sand storm raged overhead, the gorge seemed to provide at least some shelter from the worst of it. Coal could see only about ten feet in front of him at any given time, and though Kyle crept along with the buggy behind him with the LED light bar on, it did little to cut through the blowing sand. The floor of the gorge was filled with boulders, loose rocks, and drifts of sand, all of which seemed to materialize out of the gloom. At times the rover was forced to slow to a crawl and guided by Coal maneuver around or over these obstacles at odd angles. It was nothing that the buggy wouldn’t have been able to handle in the light of day, but in darkness and in the midst of the storm it was a slow and dangerous going.
As Coal guided them further west, the gorge began to widen steadily. Instead of being a relief, the sense of space actually made Coal feel uneasy, knowing that a massive canyon lay somewhere out there just waiting for them to stumble over the edge in the darkness. As they descended and the rock walls rose around them, the storm seemed more and more distant, and the air was starting to clear. Coal moved slowly keeping a hand on one wall of the gorge while he carefully tried to find his footing in the dark. Each step had him more concerned, as the gorge began to steadily descend and each of his steps seemed to find more loose sand than stone. Then the bounty-hunter took a step, and his boot sank down to his ankles before finding purchase, and Coal just shook his head.
“Fuck this.”
Carefully reversing course Coal turned and using the rope made his way back towards Kyle and the rover, but in the swirling sand Kyle couldn’t see his friend.
“Stop, fucking stop!” Coal shouted.
The scavenger saw Coal materialize out of the darkness and immediately slammed on the breaks.
“What?” he shouted.
In the glare of the LEDs the half-breed didn’t look happy, but as Kyle waited for his friend to make his way around the side of the buggy a peculiar things happened, they kept moving. In confusion, the scavenger pumped the brakes again, though part of him already knew in an electric car that wouldn’t make any difference and they continued to move.
“What are you doing? Stop!” Miles shouted next to him.
“I’m trying!”
Kyle reached over and threw the vehicle into park, and again nothing happened, and a moment later Coal appeared, grabbed ahold of his door, and hung on for dear life.
“The sand, it's fucking sliding!”
The rover lurched forward caught in the sliding sand and was quickly picking up speed. In the dim glow of the lights, the entire floor of the canyon seemed to be moving as if the very ground had suddenly turned into a tan river. The in the glow of the lights a boulder came into view, dark gray against the sliding sand. Kyle had just enough time to curse and yank the wheel hard to the right. If turning the front wheels made a difference or if it was simply luck, Kyle couldn’t say, but they cleared the boulder by less than a foot.
“We can’t stop, we just have to go with it!” Kyle shouted.
The scavenger threw the rover back into gear and began jerking the wheel one way and then the other, trying to use the vehicles four-wheel drive to help control their slide. To his left, Kyle heard Coal curse, and in the corner of his eye, he saw the glint of steel as the bounty-hunter cut the line tied around his waist.
“Are you trying to fucking kill me!” he screamed.
“Get in!”
The bounty-hunter grabbed ahold of the roll bar and scrambled up and onto the top of the buggy. Just then a series of jagged stones came into view, and Kyle jerked the wheel hard to the left and then smashed the accelerator to the floor. The electric motors whined to life, and the rover leaped forward spraying sand into the darkness and narrowly missing the rocks.
“We can’t keep this up! We’re going to run out of road…” Miles began.
Then just ahead of them a rock ledge materialized out of the shadows. The river of sand was spilling over it and cascading down like a waterfall into the darkness. Kyle turned the wheel hard to the right, but this time they had nowhere to go, their lights only showing them that the ledge cut across the entire gorge. Left without any other choice, Kyle turned the rover towards the ledge and accelerated. Behind him, Coal gave out a war cry while Miles simply cursed. The rover struck the ledge squarely and launched over the edge and into the darkness of the canyon.
Juan and the city council exchanged messengers throughout most of the night, but it wasn’t until the first light of dawn began to peek over the horizon did they bother to venture down to the tower to speak to Juan in person. Juan drained the tower three more times during the night, leaving them an estimated 7,000 gallons of water and turning the once dusty lot around the tower into a muddy pit. Wadsworth said little at first. Instead, she kept looking from the tower to the muddy ground as if unsure which should concern her more. Johnson stood with his arms crossed, his eyes shifting between the two boys. Juan and Allen looked tired and dirty, but if either boy felt at all uneasy under the councilman’s gaze, neither of them showed it.
“Juan, will you have to dump anymore?” Wadsworth asked.
The mute boy hesitated for just a moment and then gave a shrug.
“The desert winds onl
y really pick up at night,” Allen added, “There is really no telling until then.”
“So there is still a chance we could lose the tower entirely?” Johnson demanded.
Juan gave a weary nod in reply.
“Assuming we can keep the 7,000 gallons we have now. That gives us what? Two days or water for the town, three at the most?”
“With luck,” Wadsworth replied.
The councilwoman‘s eyes shifted then to the dozens of crisscrossing lines that had been hastily added to the tower for support and then up the warped sections of steel.
“Juan, I understand how this could happen. What interests me more is why it was allowed to happen?”
The boy nodded slowly and then his eyes shifted down to stare at the quickly drying ground.
“Did you and Miles do any kind of inspection of the tower before he pitched the idea of using it as a water reserve?” she asked.
Juan shook his head.
“If Miles had, would he have been able to tell the tower couldn’t handle the weight?”
Juan didn’t look up and simply shrugged in reply.
“This isn’t your fault Juan, its Miles and perhaps the councils for not asking enough questions. He saved this town Juan, first years ago when he got the pump moved across town, installed it and kept it working. Then again when he helped Coal and Kyle get rid of Murphy. Perhaps we’ve just grown accustomed to expecting the impossible from Miles.”
Juan wrote a quick note and handed it to the councilwoman.
He’s a great engineer, but he’s just not that kind of engineer.
Wadsworth read it and nodded before replying, “I think you’re right. I also think that when Mile’s told us about the pump and then in the very next breath offered us a solution, we should have been a bit more skeptical.”
“I think we should have also been a bit more skeptical about who he decided to leave in charge while he was gone also,” Johnson added.
“It looks to me like Juan did the best he could, under the circumstances.”
“With all due respect Councilwoman Wadsworth, that’s a decision for the whole council, not just you. This boy cost us more than half of the town’s water supply, and I intend to call for a vote and put someone else in charge of the remaining water as soon as we get back to the chambers. I’ll see you there.” Johnson replied pointedly.
The Road North Page 27
