“Jesus, what happened to you?” Standish hurried to his side. The cut added a gravity to his face she hadn’t seen before. Peter had always looked like an irritable nerd, but today he looked like a warrior.
“I had a run-in with some folks who were angry about the mill.” He flinched away from her hands, but she already had a good grip on his head. “Don’t poke at it.”
“Do you have a first aid kit?” She saw the box on the wall and got it down. She turned her ball cap backward and perched on the edge of his desk, then took out an alcohol wipe and began scrubbing. He gave a little hiss at the sting. “You should have left Canaan Lake, Peter. Whoever did this could have killed you.”
“Hey, I’ve got a job to do. I’m not going to let the company poison the people who live here, even if they don’t appreciate what I’m doing.” He pushed her hand away. “Where’s Hattie?”
“The dogs drove her away.” Saying it out loud made it hurt more. But she described her adventure in the woods to him anyway. He had to know everything, especially about the dead zone. “And this morning I found out something about Joe,” she added. “He has a wife with cryo sickness and feels like the company saved her life. He said he’d do anything for Victoria Wallace. Anything.”
“Wow.” He squeezed her shoulder. “I’m sorry about Hattie. Are you all right?”
She shrugged. “No? But what can I do until I can get my prescription filled? Do a rain dance?” She reached for the bottle of antibiotic ointment, unwilling to see the pity in his eyes.
“Hey, I learned while I was icing my head in the security office — Joe and Rob were both crack shots with an air bolt gun. Plus, they both liked hunting leather birds and know the woods like the backs of their hands.”
“Joe’s got the motive,” Standish mused. “If the company wanted him to make sure no one knew about that dead zone, he’d make sure of it.”
“Well, I think Rob would have done anything Joe told him. They looked awfully tight in that picture. And Rob was the one partying it up with those company biologists.”
“I wish Rob hadn’t gotten himself killed so we could ask him a few questions.” Standish paused, feeling a connection forming in the back of her mind. The dogs had killed Rob. The dogs were stalking Joe. She wished she could just sit for a moment and think about all of this.
But Peter was talking. “Fuck! I just got a message from Mark. They’re doing an aerial application of the degassing compound on a large test site I mapped out last week. It’s scheduled for three-thirty this afternoon.”
“Shit, that’s… half an hour from now.” Standish rubbed at her temples. Everything was moving too fast.
Peter stabbed his finger at his phone, his face going red. “He’s not picking up. I think I’m going to have to go straight to Victoria Wallace. There’s a spring in those woods and it feeds into the stream behind Jeff Eames’s farm. I have no idea what it might do to his crops — or worse, his family.”
Standish shook her head, remembering that UTV parked in the dead zone she’d found. “Do you really think it’s lethal to humans or animals?”
“I don’t know. Mark sent me the test results, but I’m still going over the more detailed breakdown, and I lost my notes. I thought they were right here in my desk and now they’re missing. But I do know the compound gives off a fair amount of ammonia as it breaks down. If someone were sprayed with it, it could irritate their lungs, burn their eyes—”
Standish sat up. “Wait. Did you say Jeff Eames’s farm?”
“Yeah, you know, its property line butts up against Sector 14. He’s probably fine, but… Standish? What’s wrong?”
She was already headed for the door. “Olive said she was going to look for butterflies in the woods behind Jeff Eames’s farm today. I’ve got to find her.”
“Standish!” he shouted, but the door slammed shut on his words.
PETER SAT BACK DOWN. He could chase after Standish, but that wouldn’t help Olive Whitley. He needed to buy her some time. He picked up his hand unit and found Victoria Wallace’s contact entry. His finger hesitated over it. The woman had threatened to have him deported. But then again, she’d do anything if she thought it would help the company’s bottom dollar.
He almost put down the hand unit. But if he did, Standish would be on her own out there.
“Come on, dude. The sheriff cleared you. Wallace will understand. Probably.” He jabbed at the screen.
“Wallace. What is it?”
Peter could see the basement hallway behind Victoria, her hand unit’s camera bobbing as she walked at a near-run.
“Ms Wallace, I know you think I’m crazy, but I need to talk to you about the degassing compound tests. I have reason to believe that the compound isn’t as safe as the chemical manufacturer maintains. My own tests suggest—”
“Bajowski, even if I were inclined to believe an environmentalist nut like yourself, I’ve looked at your test results. I don’t think they prove anything. Somehow your test site got contaminated with mildew spores, and that’s got nothing to do with my compound. I’ve got a badly damaged mill that could be ready to run degassed lumber in a week, and I’ve got a stand of capralis ready for the compound. This test could save the company half a billion dollars at a time we’re desperate for cash.”
“But there’s a major water source right there in that sector, and there are civilians in the woods this afternoon. We could be facing a major lawsuit, Ms Walla—”
“Look, Dr Bajowski, Sheriff Vargas swears you’re innocent. But I’m not putting this test on hold. The local yokels aren’t going to sue when they’re the ones wandering around where they ought not. I’ve been working on this project too long to let something as trivial as trespassers stop it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a company to run.”
She broke off the connection and Peter found himself staring at the blue background of his hand unit, the reflection of his face like an astonished cracked egg.
The bandage on his cheek didn’t quite cover the ends of the gash. He touched it with his fingertips. This would be nothing compared to the chemical burns Olive and Standish would get from the degassing compound. He stood up. He had to do something. He had to find some way to stop the air drop.
He began to pace from window to door, thinking hard. Mark had told him to get hold of someone in the government, and Standish had been leaving messages for her friend Dewey. Maybe Peter could reach her.
Peter paused in his pacing beside the terrariums. The flora-only tank looked worse than ever. Another fern had succumbed to powder mildew, and the patch of pseudo-club moss had shrunk, its edges gone brown. The tank beside it, the one with the tree scooters and the caterpillars, was surprisingly unscathed.
Something shifted in his mind. The connection, the irritating gap between his observations that had refused to close, snapped into place. He had built the tanks with nearly the same soil, the same frondy mix that covered the forest floor throughout Huginn, using nearly the same plants. But there was one difference.
“The mycelium. There’s no mildew in the tank with the mycelium.” He spun to face his desk. He had to write this down.
The door to his office swung open.
“Sit down, Peter. And don’t even think about touching your hand unit.”
The gun in Belinda’s hand didn’t waver even a bit. She just stood there, smiling at him, the gun — a real gun, the kind police officers carried — trained on his face.
STANDISH FOUND the track Peter had cut into Sector 14 and stopped to look around. The forest stretched in a line along the ridge of the hills, with no breaks for kilometers in either direction. If she turned around, she’d see the long valley of the lake and the creek that fed it, Believer farms strung along the valley like beads on a necklace. Across from them, the peeled stripes of clear cuts stood out on Songheuser’s land. But here the trees still held court, not knowing their term as supreme leader was coming to an end. Someday soon the cutting machines would sweep through, crus
hing the ferns and smashing the Christ’s fingers, leaving the pale dirt bare for the first time since the forests had evolved on this bit of former volcano. This was the forest’s last moment of peace, and any minute the drones would rush overhead to end it.
“Olive!” Her voice floated over the ferns, insubstantial and unwelcome. The girl hadn’t been home when Standish had stopped at her house. She had to be out here somewhere, searching for her butterflies.
“Olive!”
Standish gasped as she ran, her heart pounding. It wasn’t anxiety but ordinary fear. She checked her hand unit, strapped tightly to her wrist. Three twenty-five. The drones were on their way already. “Olive!”
Then she was at the first of Peter’s test sites, the ground gray and dead, the trees like naked sticks. A stink like forgotten laundry and abandoned basements made her cover her mouth and nose. It was worse than Peter had described it. The effects looked nearly as bad as what she’d seen from the transmitter tower — if they’d reformulated the degassing compound since that test in Sector 13, they hadn’t made enough changes to make any significant difference.
Then she was past it and glad to be back in the forest. She tried not to look at his second site, but only picked up her pace. She had less than a minute to find Olive, and no idea where the drones would spray. She slapped her hand unit. No messages from Peter. Why hadn’t he gotten back to her?
Peter’s track narrowed, leaving only a few cut branches to suggest a way in the woods. He’d charted most of this sector, hadn’t he? She tried to remember what he’d said.
“Miss Kate!” Olive burst out of the ferns, her eyes luminous in her pale face. She seemed to nearly float over the bracken, like some kind of forest sprite.
“Oh, thank God.” Standish ducked under a branch and knelt beside Olive. “We’ve got to get out of here. Come on.”
“No, wait. Look!” The girl had uncovered something shiny, some kind of plastic tucked under a squashed button fern. “Someone left this here.”
Standish studied the canopy above. “Just grab it and hurry.” She felt Olive get to her feet and stood, risking a glance at the sky. Her fingers curled and uncurled in the palm of her hand. She missed Hattie.
“I wonder who would leave their air bolt gun out here?”
Standish snapped her attention back to the girl.
“A hunter, I guess, although I don’t see why they put it in a plastic bag.” Olive began unzipping the top.
“Stop!” Standish grabbed the girl’s arm. “Olive, let me see that.”
The girl held out the bag but pulled it back when Standish reached for it. “There could be a reward. I need that money, Miss Kate.”
Standish didn’t know much about air bolt guns, but she did recognize Songheuser’s logo stamped on the handle. This was it. This was the gun that had been checked out from Songheuser’s ordnance locker and had never been recovered. It was the gun that had killed Duncan Chambers. The killer’s fingerprints could still be on it. “You’re right. You should leave it in the bag, though. I bet the reward will be higher if it’s nice and clean.”
Olive tucked the bag under her arm. “Good thinking. Come on, let’s go. I didn’t find any butterflies.”
Standish reached for Olive’s hand and tugged her toward the other sites. Or at least she hoped they were headed toward the other sites. Was that branch cut or had it just broken? Was she back on Peter’s track?
“Shit,” she whispered to herself.
“Did you hear that?” Olive sounded nervous.
“Olive, are we going the right way?”
“Ssshh,” Olive whispered. “Listen.”
Ferns rustled behind them. Standish let go of Olive’s hand and reached for the pepper spray in her pocket.
A low growl sounded to her right. Olive shrieked as a brown blur shot out of the ferns.
The dog hit Standish and she fell hard, smashing into the tree behind her and crumpling to the ground. The pepper spray canister disappeared into the ferns.
The dog bit down on her shoulder and she punched it in the side of the head, sending it sideways. Her head spun from hitting the tree.
The dog lunged again, going for her throat, the wet heat of its breath condensing on her tin necklace. It gave a shriek and shook its head, a red blister rising on its lip where it had touched the image of the saint.
Standish kicked the dog away from her, and another dog, black this time, burst out of undergrowth and leaped at her.
“Miss Kate!” Olive shrieked.
Something popped and whistled.
There was a terrible yelp and the black dog came down hard, its claws catching on Standish’s jacket and skidding down her front. She grabbed it by the shoulders and shoved it away. The silver end of an air bolt stuck out from its side, the tiniest trickle of blood showing on the dog’s coat.
The brown dog growled and took a step backward, its eyes on Standish’s throat. She could see the purple and pink scars on its sides.
Without taking her eyes off the creature, she slipped the necklace over her head and thrust it in front of her. “Get back. Get back!”
The dog whined and took another step backward.
Olive lowered the air bolt gun, still in its plastic bag. “Kate, are you OK?”
Motors whirred above them. The acrid stink of ammonia filled the air.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Standish shouted at Olive. She reached for the girl. “Give me the gun. Let’s go!”
A yellowish cloud settled down out of the trees, and Olive began to cough. Standish took her hand and aimed them downhill. Her eyes burned. She couldn’t see anything.
A sharp bark made her turn to her left. The black dog had gotten up. It took a lurching step forward and barked again. Standish caught herself on the nearest tree trunk. It was hard to breathe. She had to get Olive out of there, away from the cloud of gas.
The black dog barked louder, a long volley of barking, and a great crashing answered him as the pack rushed past. Standish felt a soft wetness on her hand and then a familiar soft ruff of fur. She blinked, trying to see if it was real, if this was really Hattie, but she couldn’t see anything, her eyes were running too much, and then she felt the leather strip of a collar pressing against her palm.
She closed her fingers around Hattie’s collar and let herself be pulled downhill.
I feel the best way to understand God is to think of Him as a kind of language. He is the tongue of all creation. His being transcends and includes the space between words, connecting and elevating the individual motes of creation.
For in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Can we even imagine the greatness of that voice?
— from THE COLLECTED WISDOM OF MW WILLIAMS
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“WE’RE GOING to go downstairs and find your boss. See, she’s got to make a little announcement.” Belinda stepped forward and grabbed Peter, snaking her arm around his neck to push the muzzle of the gun into his temple. She pushed him into the hall, squeezing the arm with the gun tighter around his throat. The smell of ferns came off her in waves, and for a discomforting moment, Peter felt as if he was gripped by a tree limb and not a woman’s, as if Belinda’s arm had turned from skin and bone into a tentacular horsetail limb, her Earthly human form transformed by her attachment to the forests of this world.
Her craziness was fucking with him. He forced a deep breath and focused his mind on the problem at hand. He had to keep her talking. That was his best chance to get out of this alive.
“Why did you come back? You already escaped.”
“We gave you all a warning. You were supposed to stop killing the world, not redouble your efforts!” Belinda paused in front of the window looking down on Main Street. She had something in her free hand, he realized. He could see her clicking it, then caught a glimpse of a tiny red dot dancing on the street below. A laser pointer. She was sending some kind of message to someone out t
here.
“I guess you never worked for a major corporation,” he gasped. Her grip was incredibly tight. Moving beer kegs had made her stronger than she looked. “All they care about is the bottom line.”
“Nobody move!” someone shouted below. Something crashed and someone screamed.
Belinda marched him forward. A woman pressed herself against the wall, her mouth open in fear. “I want Victoria Wallace!”
The stairs were just ahead. Peter had no idea how they were going to get down two flights of stairs to reach Victoria in the basement. He was going to trip and fall and Belinda was going to blow his head off. She was that crazy.
“Careful on the stairs,” she hissed, and she half-shoved, half-dragged him down. The homey smells of coffee and popcorn drifted out of the kitchenette as if this were any other work day. Peter ought to be walking into the kitchen right now for his third cup of coffee, and Julia from accounting ought to be coming out of her office with cookies, just like always.
But instead there was a gun pressed to his head and they were all going to be shot and killed and why? Because Victoria Wallace wanted to make it cheaper and easier to harvest horsetail lumber. This was all Songheuser’s fault. The company never took no for an answer, never paid attention to anything besides their stockholders’ earnings. They had screwed the Believers, rigged an election, covered up the death of scientists who were just testing a chemical they’d been ordered to handle, and yes, he was sure they had shot and killed the man he loved just so no one would find out what had gone wrong.
And now Peter would die too, and Songheuser wouldn’t give even half a shit.
“Put down the gun,” a terse voice said. Brett Takas was creeping up the stairs from the basement, an air bolt gun in his hand and a Kevlar vest strapped around his chest. “My team has already taken out your friend on the ground floor.”
“Where’s Victoria Wallace?” Belinda shouted.
“I’m right here.” Victoria stepped past Brett. She wore no vest. Her face was unreadable.
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