Badwater (The Forensic Geology Series)

by Toni Dwiggins

  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 speeded 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?”

  “Means I saw Walter down below, when I was climbing up out of the canyon.” He shook so hard his shoes knocked. “Means he’s in a bad spot, down in the slot. Means you’re on watch. Don’t wait too long.”

  I thought, Walter can’t be down there. All the warmth went out of me. He can.

  Hap said, “T minus eighteen and some seconds.”

  I screamed run and the canyon walls bounced my scream back to me. There was no point screaming down here—I had to get up high enough to scream down the slot canyon for Walter to hear me. And the fastest way to get up high, with a view down the slot, was to climb the chockstone. I ran along the pool decking to the huge stone and started up. The angle was gentle but I nevertheless gave thanks for the rough graspable skin of the dolomite.

  It was not until I’d topped the chockstone and got a million-dollar view that I saw Walter down there, above the third dryfall. I gaped, stunned he’d made it that far, stunned Hap had told the truth. Walter didn’t see me. He was looking straight ahead, no doubt hearing the hiss and wondering what lay around the next bend in the slot canyon. He looked like some old desert rat, wet hair striping his scalp, frail torso bared in the desert heat, pants ripped at the knees. He disappeared into the bend. I found my voice and screamed.

  He emerged with his head thrown back. Open mouthed.

  I screamed go back.

  He didn’t. It would take a moment, I knew, for the shock to sink in. You come around the bend and here’s this giant stone head blocking your way and you hear that hiss from the canyon above and you know what the chockstone is blocking, and then you see your partner on top of the stone like some drowned-rat ninja with a submachine gun across her back.

  He found his voice and bellowed up to me. “Get down off that thing.”

  Of all things, I waved. I was spinning the scenario—scramble off the chock and up to the sheep trail and across the ledge and down the face to join him and drag him out Lady Canyon before we run out of time. I checked my watch. T minus seventeen and some seconds. If one could believe Hap. I turned to look. Hap had not left. He was sitting now, arms laced around his knees. He sat sunning himself like a crocodile on a river bank. What’s he waiting for? Maybe he couldn’t put any weight on his wounded leg. Or maybe he’d lied—maybe we had more time. Or less. My heart gave a squeeze. What if there’s not enough time to run?

  Hap saw me looking and drew a finger across his throat.

  I went very cold. Find out for yourself.

  To blow the chockstone, he had to have set the explosive charges somewhere on the rock. The most accessible place was right here, on top. It didn’t take me long to find it, on the far side of the crown. In a crevice beneath a shelf of rock was a metal can and short antenna, its spring-coiled base attached to nothing. No longer remotely operable. He’d had to take the timer out of the can and wire it to the initiator. And he’d told me where he put the initiator: initiator’s in the box, box is down a hole. I found the hole—a fissure, really—in the network of cracks around the shelf. Box was down there, all right. Neon yellow, size of a DVD case. Like he’d said, jammed down deep where ain’t nobody gonna reach it.

  He’d wanted me to know it was a done deal, that I couldn’t stop it. And maybe he even wanted me, and Walter, to save ourselves. I felt no gratitude for that, none at all.

  The numerals on the box down the hole were bright enough to read from here. T minus sixteen, and thirty-five seconds.

  I dashed to tell Walter I feared there was no time to run.

  But he was already coming up.

  Ah Jesus. Chute’s like a slide. I held my breath. I held my tongue. Don’t distract him. One word and he falls.

  He didn’t fall. He reached the ledge and anchored there.

  I breathed. He’s going to make it. He’s already committed himself to coming up here, which means he could be of no help to either Oliver or Milt back at the mine, and Pria told him where I’d gone, which means he’s got nothing on his mind now but making this climb. He’s already made it up four dryfalls and all he has to do now is reach the scarp. I can meet him there and guide him to the wide spot on the sheep trail, where we’ll watch in safety and despair the culmination of Hap’s hard work.

  But he did not move.

  “Walter,” I called softly, and when he looked up I said gently, “there’s explosives up here. We’ve got sixteen minutes.”

  He stared up the face of the chock, shaking his head like he could not believe it. And then his face went taut. “How many?”

  “What?”

  He bellowed. “How many charges?”

  I shook my head, I didn’t know, how should I know, all I’d seen was the yellow box and I didn’t see any wires so I guessed the wires came out the bottom so I guessed the charges were underneath. And what difference did it make how many?

  He looked at the canyon wall, eyeing the scarp.

  I died, as he began the sidestep across the ledge, and it wasn’t until he reached the wall and began to navigate the pitiful path that I truly knew he was going to make it. He found the place I’d found, where the wall flared inward. He stopped there, turning to lean into the slant, pressing his backside against the wall. The toes of his boots met the edge of the scarp.

  We stared at each other across the canyon gap. I could read the relief on his face. I tried to smile. It’s a cakewalk from there, to where the scarp intersects the sheep trail.

  And then I wondered what Hap was doing. I turned to look. Hap was gone.

  I scanned the notch that cleaved up the wall beside the tall waterfall. Hap could be there, in the recessed folds. I guessed he could climb it. He hadn’t lost a great deal of blood, and he wasn’t in shock. While Walter took his tortuous time climbing the chock, Hap could have made it to the notch, even limping. I wondered how high he’d have to climb to see the chockstone blow, to let the water out, to watch his flood do its work.

  And in the time it took me to wonder, I understood Walter’s question: how many charges? It made all the difference in the world. That’s why Walter shook his head when he looked up the chock. It was dolomite, dense and massive, and Hap wasn’t going to blow it up. He’d have to pry it open. And he’d need a shitload of charges and a focal place to set them. That’s why the box was down in the fissure.

  He was going to pry open the chockstone at the fissure.

  I was a learner in explosives but I sure knew rock. A fissure is a weak point and a blast would direct its force along that plane of weakness, widening it. And the place Hap needed to pry open was down below, to let out the water. The only way that works is if the fissure runs at an angle, exposing itself down below in a surface crack.

  So he feeds the wired charges down the fissure from up here, then goes down below and grabs the charges and sticks them along the exposed crack. Then waits for the big storms to fill the pool. I recalled the smooth back head of the chockstone above the pool. That surface crack was underwater now.

  But still, someone could dive under and find those charges.

  Was that right? I hoped so. I was about to wager on being right.

  Walter found breath enough to bellow again. “Move.”

  I checked Hap’s watch. I had time to climb down the chock and up to the sheep trail. I had time to do more than that. Once I’d understood, I could not pretend I hadn’t. I called to Walter, “I’m coming.” I moved to the far side of the crown, descending enough to be out of Walter’s view. He’d assume I was getting down off this thing in the most efficient way possible. I was. I sat and took off my boots.

  The water looked deep down below but to be on the safe side I took Hap’s flashlight from my pocket and turned it on and tossed it in and watched the light dim as it sank. Okay. I scooted as far down the rock as I could, and then stood and sprang off.

  I’m falling, and then just before impact my vision jumps to the place where the chockstone intersects the pool decking. Hap’s there, propped against the rock. I’m thinking, sta
rtled, he hasn’t climbed out yet. And then I see why. He’s wrapping the parachute pants around his leg. He came down to the deck to get the pants. He needs more bandaging. And now, seeing me jump into the pool, he’s surprised into action. He lets go of his wounded leg and reaches for the deck.

  I hit the water and my legs buckled and my arms whipped up and as I arrowed down deep the gun sling slipped off like someone had snatched away my coat.

  Oh Jesus cold. I gasped, cramping in the cold. Fighting my cramped self to kick for the surface. I came up and spat ice water. Where was he? I flailed, fighting the current, rotating myself, and saw him surface deeper in the pool. He looked in shock too, hanging by his chin on the surface of the water.

  The current took us both toward the wall of the chockstone.

  He fanned his arms, backstroking, going with the flow, pale limbs trailing.

  He knows, I thought numbly, why I jumped in. He knows I figured out where the charges are.

  I could ride this unrelenting current all the way to the stone but he’d be there first, waiting for me. I jackknifed and dove. Kicking my way blindly through the silt, hoping to avoid him.

  I bumped against his leg.

  He grabbed for me but I kicked away.

  When I surfaced I had no more fight.

  The current finished it, plastering us both against the chockstone. We were a couple yards apart. He could have reached me with a lunge. He didn’t move. He laid his cheek against the rock, wheezing. I mirrored him. My second wind had died. I waited for a third.

  I needed to go back under. When I’d kicked free of him, my foot had grazed a crack in the chockstone.

  I thought I heard Walter call. I could see, beyond Hap, a portion of the canyon wall but the chockstone’s bulge blocked most of my view. I thought by now Walter must have reached the wide spot in the ledge and collapsed just where I’d collapsed, the place where your limbs go to butter and your mind goes to mush. But he’ll catch his third wind and keep coming. In the water sought his daughter, now he’s with his Clementine.

  “Buttercup.”

  I took in a sweet breath, filling my lungs. I fixed my attention on Hap’s blue-eyed gaze. The whites were reddened from too much sun. I was close enough to see that.