Volcano Watch

by Toni Dwiggins

  I said, “Georgia picked up some gunpowder and I’m trying to trace it. If it’s biathlon, that’ll narrow the field.” And if it’s not, that’ll make my day.

  Jimbo gave me a sidelong look, then swept up a handful of nutmeg and lemon peel and carried it to the pot of cider on the stove.

  Our kitchen is huge—our house is huge, like a rambling old train station—and the counter is a long way from the stove. My brother remained across the room, needlessly stirring the cider. Jimbo is slender and wiry and almost always in motion. He has wing-cut blond hair that sails with every move. Even indoors, just hanging out, he moves—stretching, bobbing on the balls of his feet like he’s going to launch into a sprint, coming around you to knead your shoulders. Now he stood quietly, hand on the spoon.

  “It’s a quick test,” I said, “compare the evidence to known powder.”

  “Mine.”

  “Anybody’s would do. You and I just happen to be living in the same house.”

  “You saying Georgia got whacked on the biathlon course?” He gave a weak grin.

  I did not return it. “I’m saying she might have walked where you shoot. Nothing more.” I waited. “So, bro, do I get a cartridge?”

  “No can do. My gear’s not here.”

  Where, then? I knew his skis were in the ski locker on the front porch, with mine. Where else would his shooting gear be but safely stowed in his room? I said, “Then help me with this. Obviously, you guys shoot up at Lake Mary on the range. Anywhere else?”

  He popped his thumb on the spoon handle. “What makes you think you got biathlon powder?”

  What makes you so touchy about it? I said, slow, “It’s one option.”

  “There’s a shitload of other options. Why don’t you go scope out Casa?”

  “I have.”

  He gave the spoon a shove and headed out of the kitchen. “So good luck.”

  “Wait a minute.”

  He started to hum—the Looney Tunes theme—then flattened himself against the doorjamb. “Look, I can’t get into this. I don’t have space for it. I just got space for my skis and my rifle and my body and my mind. Race, remember? I gotta keep it in control for the Cup.” He jerked upright and moved into the hallway.

  I was absurdly relieved. It’s just Jimbo being Jimbo. This is the way my brother always plays it. Put in an appearance and then get called away by a pressing need to do whatever he wants to do. Clear his plate from the table and leave me to do the dishes. This is what Jimbo does best—enlist your sympathy for whatever is bedeviling him, then bag out. So now he’s bedeviled by his lousy performance at practice today, and he doesn’t want to carry an image of Georgia tomorrow at Lake Mary.

  I didn’t blame him. And I didn’t want to dig for biathlon powder unless I had to. I went after him and blocked him in the hallway. “Answer me, Jimbo, is there anywhere else you shoot?”

  “I go out in back and plink at rats in the woodpile.”

  “Biathlon. I’m going to sample the range at Lake Mary. Should I be looking anywhere else? It’s a simple question.”

  “Just Casa, like I said.”

  “Biathlon, Jimbo

  “Yes, Catherine.” He raised his hands like I’d put a gun in his back. “That’s a ten-four, ma’am. We did, in the line of duty, shoot biathlon ammo at the targets at Casa Diablo.”

  “For God’s sake,” I said.

  He swiveled, grinning, hands still high. “It’s this way, ma’am. We like to practice with the same ammo we use in a race. Can’t practice at Lake Mary in the summer. Not allowed to shoot the campers. Summer we shoot at Casa. Ma’am.” He sidestepped around me.

  “I’m trying to find out where Georgia died.”

  Silence in the hallway. Whine of warp speed from the TV in the living room—into the unknown. He said, finally, “Get’s weird, you know, having a forensics chick for a sister.”

  “Gets weird having a brother who ducks the question.”

  “I answered—Casa and Mary.” He gave me a light punch in the shoulder. “Hey, here’s another answer for you—got an idea for Bill’s birthday. Vegas. Hotel, meals, shows, and then he can roll the dice with the leftovers. Win maybe, blow his mind.” Jimbo sauntered toward the living room.

  This is what Jimbo does second best—switch the subject. I called after him, “I still need a cartridge.”

  His voice came, above the threshhold of hyperspace, “I’ll get one to you.”

  I knew my brother. I knew he’d just bagged me. I dearly hoped it was just Jimbo being Jimbo. I took the stairs to the second-floor hall.

  The lights were off. You a shareholder in the power company? my father asks anyone who leaves the lights on. I flipped the switch; Scotland’s halfway across the world. I passed my old room and then the laundry room—which had been, once, Henry’s room, where I was babysitting Henry bored out of my mind, staring out the window at nothing important when Henry fell and hit his head.

  And then I came to Jimbo’s room and went inside and shut the door and turned on the light.

  My brother’s room was neat, uncluttered. His childhood stuff, whatever he’d kept, was stored like mine in the attic.

  I passed his dresser; drawers were too short to accommodate a .22 rifle. I yanked open the closet door. Clothes, shoes, a damp wool sock. I cursed it. Angry at having to search, angry for letting myself search. My hand brushed heavy nylon. I shoved deeper into the closet and pulled out a long bag.

  It was his gun sack. He had lied. His gear was here.

  I went very cold, and then I told myself you don’t know anything yet.

  I worked the zipper, removed the rifle, and felt around the bottom of the sack. Nothing. Where was the ammo? I’d seen his gear often enough, spread on the living room floor. There should be a cleaning kit and a metal ammo box.

  Okay, I thought, there’s another way. The rifle stock, where I gripped it, had an ammo clip attached. I had once pestered Jimbo into showing me how his rifle worked; I’d missed the target several times and lost interest. My fingers played along the edge of the clip, found a catch, and it popped out. It was so small that I wondered if Jimbo ever fumbled it in the rush to snap it into place for firing. Seconds count like dollars in a race, he’d told me. At the open end of the clip was a cartridge. I rolled my thumb across the bullet tip, wiggling it, but it didn’t want to come free. Jimbo never showed me how you got the cartridge in and out of the clip.

  I expelled a breath. Toughest thing in a race, Jimbo says, is that you’re skiing so hard your pulse hits 180 and then you dead stop and try to get your breathing under control so you can shoot straight.

  I knew how to get a cartridge. I snapped the clip into firing position, the way Jimbo taught me. I found the bolt, palmed it up, drew it back, slid it forward, pressed it down. Should be a round in the chamber now. I fumbled with the clip, seconds adding up like dollars, and extracted it. Okay, four rounds in the clip, one in the rifle. This was like my first days in the lab, keeping meticulous track of everything I touched.

  I had a loaded rifle. If it went off, it was going to shoot a hole in my brother’s ceiling and bring him stampeding upstairs.

  Avoiding the trigger like the plague, I pulled the bolt upward, and back. There was a pop as the bolt-action ejected the cartridge. I stashed the slick metal plug in my pocket. Breathe. I replaced the clip, jockeyed the rifle into its sack, and returned it to the closet. I was at the door when I realized what I’d done wrong. There are five targets on the range and the athlete carries five rounds in the clip, one per target. I’d left Jimbo with four. Of course he’d check before racing, and reload, but he’d know a cartridge was missing.

  And maybe by that time I’d know why he lied, why he hadn’t wanted me to compare his powder to my evidence. My brother has contributed his share to less-than-perfect days but he’s never before told me a bald-assed lie.

  My mind jumped to Eric on the retrieval, trying to send Walter and me back. Explaining, at the cop house, how he hadn’t
wanted to see me upset. I didn’t know what his real reason was but I did know it was a real bad call.

  I thought of Stobie on the retrieval, chiming in with Eric, giving me that bizarre cold smile.

  My pulse was heading back up.

  Eric and Stobie, two bad calls. Jimbo, one lame lie. Three biathletes trying to keep me from doing my job, or so it seemed to me. There had to be a reason but it was beyond belief that any of them contributed to Georgia’s death. They’d never had trouble with Georgia.

  The same could not be said about Lindsay, who’d clashed with Georgia as long as I could remember. Or Mike Kittleman, kicked off the biathlon team by Georgia.

  I fled my brother’s room.

  The hallway light was dazzling, painful. I found the switch and flipped it off, saving my father a penny or two, then took the two flights of stairs down to the garage.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I was on my way to the lab, at the intersection of Canyon and Minaret, when a blue Blazer passed heading east.

  Other than my Subaru and the Blazer, the roads were deserted. It was nearly midnight. A gibbous moon irradiated the night, and if Adrian Krom had looked my way he could have recognized me and my car.

  I waited until the tail lights disappeared, as the Blazer followed Minaret’s bend. The slug in my pocket pressed into my thigh, which argued for a left turn toward the lab. Instead, I turned right and headed east on Minaret.

  It’s the unexpected that shakes faith. A lame lie. A frog sacrifice.

  For all my worry, I couldn’t figure the frog. Everything was working for Krom—I got Carow out to the creek, Krom got his monitor on the record. The place was clearly dangerous. He could have just gone with that, playing the hero and making Lindsay the fool. Maybe he thought he needed the frog for dramatic effect. Maybe, but it gave me the creeps.

  We wound along Minaret, me keeping my distance, pacing him.

  I followed Adrian Krom, I guess, because he was beyond my reckoning and I wanted to know where was going at midnight in January.

  Minaret intersected Highway 203 and Krom turned left and then I knew we were heading out of town.

  And then, partway down 203, he stopped. I hit my own brakes. Looked like he’d stopped right about where the road arches over a streambed. Road humps there, bridging the culvert, and I thought maybe it’s that little rise in elevation that gave him a new angle in his rearview, gave him a new line of sight that revealed my identity.

  I didn’t know what to do. Turn around and go back? Drive on and say hi, where you going? And then he asks, where are you going all alone at midnight on a Saturday night?

  He started up again and I followed suit.

  He took 203 to the intersection with 395 and turned south, as did I. We accelerated to sixty. We had the highway to ourselves. We slowed as we approached the Hot Creek turnoff, and he took it.

  I didn’t have the guts to follow him there.

  I continued on 395 the five miles or so to the McGee Canyon exit and doubled back, thinking I was going to head straight to town and the lab. But then as I approached the Hot Creek turnoff and peered along that road and didn’t spot any tail lights I thought, I can do this without being seen.

  I knew what I used to do at Hot Creek at midnight, but he didn’t have a date.

  I took the turnoff.

  No barricade. No skull and crossbones. I stopped dead in the road. No tail lights ahead. I checked the rearview. Nobody coming up from some hiding place to say boo, either.

  I nudged the gas. Warp speed, into the unknown. The Subaru did about five miles per hour, undulating over the snowplowed bumps. A few yards short of the Hot Creek parking lot, I did a U-turn and parked by the snowbank. I grabbed my parka, got out, locked the car, and started to walk.

  I went back and got a lug wrench from my tool kit, then started off again.

  The Blazer was alone in the parking lot. About twelve hours ago, Krom had driven Carow and me here. Now, Krom’s Blazer was empty. He must have gone down.

  I wondered why.

  The trail down the gorge switchbacks several times and it is possible, by hugging the cliff wall, to avoid looking down. Which means anyone down there looking up doesn’t have the line of sight to see me. At least most of the way. I inched down, my boots making the faintest squeak on the packed snow. I hoped that the creek would be making enough noise below to mask my approach.

  At the bottom, there was no immediate cover. I came the final steps in a crouch, gripping the wrench.

  It was a beautiful night, moonlight bleaching the snow whiter, moonlight silvering the water. Cold enough to shiver when you stop, which made the heat emanating from the creek all the more inviting. I’ve soaked out here under just such a moon as this, with a beer banked in the snow for when I’d cooked enough.

  I listened. Rush of creek water. Hiss of hot water hitting a cold pocket.

  I scanned the creek and banks and saw nothing I hadn’t seen here before. I sprinted to a tall boulder and crouched there.

  He must have gone downstream.

  There came another sound, from the creek. I’ve heard this sound before—I’ve made it. It’s when you accidentally hit a cold spot and the shock of it pulls a hnnnh from you and you madly paddle away. I sat still, still as Coyote when he first learns he has entered the giant’s belly.

  And now came a cry—part coyote, part exhilaration.

  I’ve made that sound too but only when I was out here alone.

  I peeked around the boulder just enough to gain a line of sight on the creek, and now I saw him.

  He was bronzed by the moonlight.

  Nude as a Greek god. I could see him down to the thighs. He stood thigh-deep in the middle of the creek. He had to be standing on one of those sandbars that abruptly change the water’s depth. His body was better than I’d thought. I’d thought that under his loose-fitting clothes some of his bulk was fat, but he was solid.

  He crouched, then, cupping his hands to dip water and I thought, I’ve done that, dousing my face with the water to cool off, but he didn’t splash his face, he drank. God. Hadn’t he read Lindsay’s sign? This water’s not fit to drink. Even when I was a kid out here we didn’t drink it. Sure, we’d get some in our mouths inadvertently, and we’d spit it out. The taste is bitter. We’d accuse each other of peeing in the creek. My brother would needle me—Cassie drinks water fish screw in, ha ha ha—and I’d swear up and down I didn’t drink any such thing. But Krom drank.

  He straightened.

  No one swims in Hot Creek anymore. Except Krom.

  He raised his arms, showing muscle, and gave a long stretch. The move turned his inner arms outward, my way. The skin there was a shade lighter. There was something on his inside right arm, covering half the forearm. Dark, mottled, with a whitish background. If I had to guess I’d say it was a tattoo.

  I realized I’d never seen him with his shirt sleeves rolled up.

  He dove into the water and went under and I held my breath along with him and nearly burst before he came up, farther downstream. Now just his head was visible, wet and brown and slick. He had surfaced a few feet, at most, from where the steam gathers above the water.

  That was risky.

  The knees of my jeans were wet from the snow. I shivered, planning. Get out before he does. If he goes first he’ll pass the Subaru and he’ll know—assuming he didn’t already know. And that’s assuming he doesn’t see me pressed against the boulder on his way to the trail. Where were his clothes? I’d have put mine on the boulder so they’d stay dry. Maybe he’d gone in downstream. Maybe he was heading back that way to get dressed.

  I was right.

  He came out of the water downstream, rising so smooth and fast that the water sheeted off him. He stopped at the bank, feet still in water. One more step and he’s walking barefoot in snow.

  There came a sound. I’ve made that sound here too. Laughter.

  But it scared the bejesus out of me.

  His laugh was rich. He
was having a good full-throated laugh at something. He threw his head back, baring his throat like he was going into that coyote exhilaration cry again but he just went silent and stared up into the night.

  I was wrong. He wasn’t getting dressed. I started to rise.

  His head snapped down and he looked right at me.

  I froze.

  He was not looking at me. He was scanning the creek bank, the water, the gorge wall, the clifftop, then back again to fix on the creek. He was staring at the spot where the steam boils off, where the water gets just too hot. And then with his surprising grace he bent at the waist, right arm outstretched, palm up, tattoo showing again in the moonlight. He was bowing. He was bowing to the steamy creek.

  He straightened, right arm still outstretched, and extended his middle finger.

  I sank back down into the snow, hugging the boulder.

  What had we gotten ourselves into?

  I got so cold I had to move, and when I looked again he was gone. Underwater, downstream, or maybe the earth had swallowed him up. I didn’t know and I didn’t wait to find out. I took my chance, skittering across the snow to the trail. Up the switchbacks, boots thudding, heartbeats not far behind. I hugged the wall and never once looked down or back and so I didn’t know if he resurfaced and watched me hightail it out of there.

  As I passed his blue Blazer I glanced inside and solved one mystery, at least. His clothing was piled neatly on the passenger seat, and his boots sat patient as dogs on the floor. My God. He’d walked buck naked down into the gorge. He’d walked stone cold barefoot in the snow. That’s what he does at midnight on a Saturday night in the middle of January.

  I took off in a fast lope and as my hands swung free I realized I’d left the wrench in the snow.

  I loped to the Subaru, fumbled the key, scratched the paint around the lock, got the door open, and congratulated myself on parking the car so that it faced the way out.

  Speeding north on 395, I kept watch in the rearview for my unpredictable chum.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Were it not for Jimbo’s cartridge burning a hole in my pocket, I would have gone straight home for reheated cider and a hot bath.