Volcano Watch

by Toni Dwiggins

  Instead, I cranked the lab thermostat up to seventy and nuked this morning’s coffee. I got the tube of gunpowder from the secure evidence vault, hitched my stool up to the comparison scope, yanked the nose off Jimbo’s cartridge, and spilled half the powder onto the floor. Slow down. I slowed, pouring the remaining powder into a culture dish.

  I got up and locked the lab door and pulled down the blinds.

  Now focus. I focused.

  Gunpowder, Walter likes to say, has a fingerprint. During manufacture it is cut into tiny grains, and the cutting leaves tool marks. These show not only who manufactured the powder but also what batch it came from. The tool marks are like the whorls on fingertips.

  I put a grain of Jimbo’s powder on one slide and an evidence grain on a second slide. There had been a wealth of gunpowder in the soil from Georgia’s boots—seven distinct makes. I’d put one of each make into the envelope that was couriered to the gunpowder lab, and kept the rest. I had eighteen grains to compare against Jimbo’s powder.

  I snapped the slides in place. Two fields of view came through the prisms of the comparison bridge, putting the grains into lineup. Jimbo’s biathlon grain was dimpled, like clay indented with pencil points. The first evidence grain was crosshatched. No match. I did the next. No match. And no match a third, and a fourth time.

  I paused, thinking I heard steps outside. Nothing. Nerves. I refocused.

  Evidence grain five, shiny as a new dime, was dimpled.

  Evidence grain five—which Georgia had picked up in one of her last steps on earth—was a dead-on match to the grain from Jimbo’s cartridge, the ammo he had lied about. I felt a little sick.

  Same dimples showed up six more times. That made eight total that matched, out of eighteen grains. Nearly half the powder from Georgia’s boots was biathlon powder.

  Biathlon powder, I reminded myself—not, exclusively, Jimbo’s powder. Any biathlete’s powder would presumably have matched.

  Okay. Move on to the samples I’d collected at Casa Diablo.

  I first went to the window and scissored apart two vanes of the blinds but all I could see was the reflection of my own eye in the glass. I closed my eyes and saw Krom at the creek, only in my fatigued imagination he bowed and extended his middle finger to me. I let the blinds snap shut.

  Death from being a dumbshit.

  I went back to work.

  From lockup I got the Casa soil samples and combed through them, separating out the gunpowder. I lined up the Casa grains, one by one, against the evidence grains. The only make that matched was dimples. Like Jimbo said, they practiced at Casa with the powder they use in a race.

  But I still had six makes of gunpowder from the evidence soil that did not match any of the Casa grains, which argued that Georgia’s boot soil did not originate there.

  Dimples was my only ID. Dimples, in quantity. Dimples said, you lose. You’re going to have to dig through a shitload of snow at the biathlon range.

  Tomorrow. Right after the races.

  I was cleaning up when I heard a noise outside. I grabbed the nearest thing to hand—the heavy marble pestle from the bowl of the mortar, our mineral-crusher—and went to the door and listened. Silence, then a shuffling like snow sloughing off a tree limb. Then silence again. I could stand no more. I opened the door and came out.

  Krom was at the window, forefinger raised. He said, “Saw your lights. Didn’t want to disturb you. Didn’t want to just walk on by like we’re strangers.” He touched his finger to the window then wiped his hand on his pants. “Your window is dirty.”

  I came all the way out and looked. The glow from inside the lab seeped through the blinds enough to illuminate the dusty glass and show the circle and dots and curved line. It made me think of the circles and lines he’d drawn on the map overlay at the Inn, only that drawing was of the Inyo craters and evac routes and this, which he’d put on my window, was a smiley face.

  Show Len Carow, I thought. And tell him about the creek.

  Show him a smile and tell him about a swim?

  I said, “What are you doing here this time of night?”

  “I’m a night owl, like you. I like to keep an eye on things when everybody else is sleeping. No distractions. Some nights I stroll through town for hours. Gives me the feeling I own the place.” He pulled a wrench from his big parka pocket and held it out, making me a little bow. “Yours, I believe.”

  I had no choice but to accept it. Subaru lug wrench in one hand, lab pestle in the other, I stood speechless, armed to the teeth.

  He smiled and bid me good night.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Two miles southwest of town, one thousand feet higher, the Lakes Basin is more wintry than town. Trees are weighted with snow, ground-feeding birds have gone, lakes are frozen.

  This is nirvana for the biathlon. The race course begins on the white bank of Lake Mary, climbs and drops through forests of white fir and mountain hemlock and loops the skiers back to Mary to shoot the targets. They’ll make the circuit five times in the 20K and nearly die before they reach the finish.

  The Cup races were scheduled here a year ago, and when the rumbling started and US biathlon officials made noises about moving this Cup, Georgia and Lindsay went to bat and kept it here. I envisioned a USBA official in stripes like an umpire sandbagging Georgia—near the stocky Jeffrey pines on the lake’s south side. Our volcano has scared the bejesus out of him and he and Georgia come to blows.

  Absurd, but I wished for a scenario like this.

  I saw Lindsay pacing the officials area like a mother bear.

  She damn well better have taken the temperature of the volcano before she came up here this morning.

  The athletes were tense: stretching, tying on bibs, rewaxing skis, zeroing rifles on the range to ensure that the sights are true. The crowd was loose, shooting the shit about who’s off and who’s on today. It was mostly locals with a mix of foreign boosters who follow the circuit. Nearly all the foreigners spoke English, and the predominant accents were Scandinavian and Russian because these are the demigods in biathlon. There was the smell of damp wool and beer and chocolate, and the sound of rifle fire from the range, like corn popping. At the far end of the spectator area a snowshoe volleyball game was in progress.

  Walter was talking to me about the biathlon powder I had identified, and he was almost as eager to dig here for gunpowder as he was to watch the race. Almost.

  I saw Jimbo on the range, zeroing—which meant he’d already checked his clip and reloaded. I’d wait and see what the dig turned up before raising the issue of the cartridge with him.

  The loudspeaker screeched. Walter and I flowed with the crowd and grabbed a spot at the fence that separated the spectator area from the course.

  Whistles and cheers as racers approached the start gate.

  I saw Stobie in the start area, the armorer keeping track of the shooters’ artillery. Stobie’s workmanlike skiing was suited for search missions, not races, and his shooting skills were iffy, but his closest buddies were biathletes and so he’d taken on the job nobody wanted, just to be on the team.

  I shifted attention to the officials area and saw Lindsay ushering Len Carow to a folding chair. That surprised me—the FEMA honcho turning out for the race. My vision jumped, to Krom crucifying Lindsay at Hot Creek and Carow with his pinched shocked face seeing it Krom’s way. So what was Carow seeing here today? Business as usual, don’t cry wolf—because here he was schmoozing with Lindsay. I wondered if she’d had the chance to show him the Bypass. I wondered what he’d said. It struck me that Lindsay was onto Krom’s turf with the evac route and he was onto hers with his monitor at Hot Creek. And I couldn’t help myself, all I could think was it’s my future they’re battling over.

  There was an intoxicated clanging of cowbells as somebody’s favorite came out the start gate. I forced my attention to the race. Skiers start in intervals, and the fifth racer to start wore the red-white-blue racesuit and he elicited a deafening roar. I
saw a tall figure with a telephoto lean over the fence for a clear shot—Hal Orenstein, always here for a race, always runs it front page in the Mammoth Times. I saw Bill Bone, puffed up in a parka with the Ski Tip Cafe logo, waving his hands like they were on fire to help the American along. My pulse quickened. The sentiments came. Go for it. Whip ‘em.

  The Americans are often the laughingstocks of the biathlon circuit. Officials joke they should start the Americans ahead of everyone else so the Americans can finish before the timekeepers have to leave for dinner.

  “Go for it!” I yelled.

  Jimbo tore past us in a furious stride and I watched him disappear into the woods, and by the time he’d skied his first four kilometers and come back down the track I knew he had a good time. When he hit the flats I screamed “go go go go go” and got out my camera. In my viewfinder he’s skating for speed and the rifle on his back looks like it grows out of his spine. He’s grimacing at the pain of it.

  He came onto the range, unslung his rifle, and dropped to prone, his skis spread-eagled beneath him.

  My mind jumped and I pictured the soil beneath him, beneath the snow, mostly glacial till but there could be volcanics intermixed, and of course gunpowder, unburned biathlon grains tracked about this entire area. I pictured Georgia lying prone in the snow, a halo of red spreading from her head. And who stands above her with bloody hands?

  Jimbo inserted a clip, dug an elbow into the snow, and brought the rifle to his cheek.

  Five rounds in the clip. Unless he hadn’t checked.

  My brother trued his aim. The target was fifty meters uprange, five black circles on a white plate. Five targets for five rounds. Orange wind flags hung limp. Easy shooting. I raised the camera and through the viewfinder saw a shudder run along his body. He was going to have to kick that pulse down, get into a cadence if he wanted to hold his firing position. I saw him inhale and pull the trigger, so slowly it seemed the pin would never fire, and then he exhaled and the shot finally came like a surprise at the end of the exhalation. One eye winked out on the target.

  “Well,” Walter said, voice honeyed in satisfaction.

  I gazed upward and made a little prayer. Rifle fire popped. I looked to find Jimbo already up, hunching into his rifle sling. There was a swagger to the way he kicked his skis into motion, which told me what I wanted to know before I checked the targets. He’d aced all five. I punched Walter’s arm.

  “Here’s Eric!” Walter yelled in my ear.

  I followed Eric as he came in a tuck down the track, skated the flats, and hauled onto the range. He just powered those skis. Every muscle popping. He was beautiful. I watched him shuck out of his rifle sling and drop to prone. He shuddered. My heart was in my ribs. I tried to get my breathing down. I watched him raise his rifle, pausing to calculate. He approaches the biathlon like it’s a case. He figures every angle, he has to compensate for that lost eye. I watched him on his belly, measured breathing. I thought, just shoot. Hurry up. He shot, and took a miss on the third target.

  I expelled a breath and hiked a leg onto the fence rung. Eric and Jimbo had another four loops to ski and three bouts to shoot and I was going to have to tough it out with them.

  In the distance came the wail of a siren.

  I watched the Russian and the Finn jockeying for the lead, and then I watched Jimbo on his second lap coming down the track like friction didn’t exist.

  More sirens, close now, and the growl of heavy trucks.

  Walter turned, eyebrows lifting.

  The noise reached the parking lot, crescendoed, and then the sirens cut off and the truck engines idled down.

  Heads turned. In the officials area Len Carow got to his feet, knocking over his chair. My brother, on the range in marksman’s pose, paused with his rifle mid-air. On the track, a skier came up out of his tuck and collided with another skier.

  Lindsay was on the loudspeaker telling the racers to continue.

  The crowd was no longer watching the race. The people nearest the parking lot backpedalled. A path cleared and I could see vehicles massed at the edge of the lot—fire engines, police, sheriff, ambulance—and I thought someone must have had a heart attack. Then I saw the trucks, heavyweight gray-green beasts. A man in camouflage jumped out the back of a truck and others bailed after him and I could read National Guard on the helmets.

  Uniforms—police, sheriff, fire, medics—poured into the crowd and widened the pathway and the Guard massed behind them at the mouth of the parking lot.

  The loudspeaker crackled and then went dead.

  Krom appeared in the pathway, carrying a bullhorn, and on his heels was Mike Kittleman in his volunteer firefighter gear.

  I hadn’t seen Mike since the meeting at the Inn, spiffy in his best suit sweeping the stairs, and I wasn’t surprised to see him again doing Krom’s bidding.

  I figured I knew what that was.

  I knew what was coming. I’d dreamed of this. I knew the words even before Krom raised the bullhorn. I could have chimed in with Krom’s amplified voice. This is an evacuation.

  Blood pounded in my ears.

  Krom’s voice was unhurried, sure of itself. “You will all move,” he told us—and Walter grasped my arm—“in an orderly manner under direction of the officers toward the parking lot, where you will start your cars and exit under the direction of the National Guard.” Krom was grim, big shoulders slumped, bullhorn dropping to his side, but his face was flushed and his hair ruffled like he’d skied a race himself. He gave off a hot shock of energy.

  I listened for the thunder and my toes curled in anticipation of the shaking.

  I saw Lindsay elbowing through the crowd, her face white, and now Krom saw her as well, sending a nod her way, and then he raised the bullhorn and said, “Race officials, disarm your shooters.”

  Stobie, the team armorer, moved to obey. Jimbo, the nearest shooter, moved to hand Stobie his rifle.

  Now Lindsay and Krom were in a huddle. Abruptly, she knocked the bullhorn from his hand.

  I gasped.

  Stobie’s hand froze on the rifle butt.

  Krom bellowed “disarm the shooters” and bent to pick up the bullhorn.

  Lindsay shouted “wait.”

  Stobie, at an impasse, shook his rump.

  I wanted to scream at him stop kidding around, this is an evacuation, but Stobie would likely be shaking his rump in the midst of an ashfall in the hopes of cheering everyone up.

  And then his kidding stopped.

  Time stopped for me, then. Deep inside I’m yelling wait and no one hears. Not my brother, who decides to take back his rifle, and not Stobie, who is holding onto it in vacillation. Not Walter, who is moving for Lindsay. Not Lindsay, who is turning to look in surprise at Mike Kittleman.

  Mike’s sprinting onto the range.

  Mike hasn’t been on a biathlon range for years, ever since Georgia kicked him off the team. I’m wondering what Mike’s doing out there now.

  Jimbo keeps reaching for his rifle and Stobie keeps vacillating, until the hurtling blur that is Mike slams full-body into Stobie and the two of them stumble. They don’t fall, because Jimbo gets into it, grabbing for Mike. Mike whips around and gut-punches Jimbo and my brother goes sprawling.

  People are running. Lindsay is almost to Mike when Walter catches her. I see Eric coming, very cool, kicking out of his skis, and I scream hurry.

  Mike grabs Stobie and they dance round and round in a bear hug. Mike in his fireman’s gear is bulked-up as Stobie.

  And now I understand what Mike’s doing—Krom’s bidding. Trying to disarm the shooter.

  The Mammoth cops are moving in. They’re shouting. They all know these guys.

  Before the cops can reach the dancers Stobie throws off Mike. Except Mike’s got hold of the rifle like a man on a cliff edge holds fast to a tree.

  Stobie and Mike are both in possession of my brother’s rifle when it goes off.

  And then time jumps and neither of them wants the rifle—it’s dropp
ed, abandoned—and Mike stands alone looking down in horror at Stobie’s rag doll form, the doll’s head reddening the snow.

  I no longer screamed. I moved to help, only I hadn’t moved, I was paralyzed.

  It was Krom who took over then, Krom who’d come prepared for disaster. His cops herded people away from Stobie and his paramedics swarmed. His ambulance crew broke for the parking lot and rushed back with a gurney and medical kits. His fire crew hit the sirens. His paramedics bundled Stobie onto the gurney and hustled through the stupefied crowd. His Guardsmen recovered the rifle and moved to disarm the shaken biathletes on the range. Krom kept it all moving at a brisk clip.

  I was moving now, toward my brother.

  But Lindsay was already there with her arms around Jimbo, and Walter was already speaking to Mike, who stood with his hands tucked into his armpits.

  They all seemed to be a very long distance from me, and I seemed to be wading through chest-high snow. I kept moving, and my eye caught on Krom, who was closer, and I was moving so slow I had an eternity to watch Krom.

  Krom was now head-to-head with Len Carow. Carow appeared to argue with Krom. Krom passed a hand across the back of his neck and shook his head. Carow looked away, his glasses mirroring the sun, and his attention settled on Lindsay. Krom too broke away. His elbow cocked and released in a vicious backhand tennis stroke and the bullhorn cartwheeled across the snow. He headed for the parking lot, where a small army lounged against the trucks, and he returned with a heavy Guard escort.

  “This is an evacuation,” he bellowed—no reassurance, no bullhorn and none needed because a silence had taken the Lake Mary basin—“and you will all move in an orderly manner under the direction of the National Guard toward the parking lot.”

  And then he was coming my way and I looked at him, stricken, and he shot me a hard look and said in passing, “It’s a drill, Cassie.”

  I stood dumb. It’s a drill.

  The crowd was moving fixedly toward the parking lot.