Badwater (The Forensic Geology Series) (31 page)

Hap said, “Let’s get out of the way.”

He herded us along the narrow ledge that hugged the hillside to a wide spot, like a roadside turnout. We watched from there.

The fickle rain had stopped. Sun shafted through black clouds.

The ore cart nosed out of the tunnel, trailing the uncoiling hose. Milt rode like a flagpole in front. Pinned by the rising tide of beads, immobile. Hap began to whistle—heigh-ho heigh-ho—but he only whistled one bar before he let it die. The cart rolled onto the elevated track that bridged the steep drop-off. It came to a stop against wood blocks bolted to the rails. The front wheels hit a lever that pulled the pin on the dumping mechanism, and the side gate opened to release its load. The load spilled into the ore chute, which angled down to the ore-processing mill below. But this load was resin beads, not ore. Milt slowly lost his footing and joined the flow of beads and, like a log at a waterfall, he went over the side and down the chute, disappearing into the mill. And still the beads flowed. We watched for agonizing minutes while the hose spewed beads into the cart and the cart dumped beads into the chute, down into the mill. And when the flow turned to a trickle and then to a stop, I guessed the stockpile in the shaft had been emptied. And the mill down below us was full.

Hap said, “Down we go.”

We started down the switchbacked path we had climbed hours ago with Oliver and Dearing. We crept, boots sticking in the fast-drying mud. But it was not the poor footing that unnerved me—it was the mill, slumping halfway down the hillside like its old frame could not contain its new load. We descended to the final switchback before our trail ended below, in the valley. I turned to look across the fall line to the butt end of the mill. It seemed about to burst.

If it burst, the beads would run free down the mountainside.

Hap opened his belt bag and withdrew a putty disk with a wired metal stub at its center. He brought out a spool of red-sheathed wire. He used the multi-tool knife on his belt to strip the insulation off the end and then he spliced it to the stub wires. He said “wait here” and then in afterthought, “you move, I shoot.” He caught me staring at the facepiece on top of his head. “Mind’s somewhere else.” His eyes were turned inward, deep-diving cavepool eyes. He pulled down the mask, connected the regulator, raised the hood. He started off, traversing the fall line toward the mill.

He turned to look at us once, unclipping the subgun from his shoulder harness, holding it at the ready.

I looked beyond him—where Walter was looking—to the mine camp with its tumbledown shacks, and across the valley to the canyon wall that rose to the far ridge where we had come in. I asked, “What’s the range of an MP-five?”

“Maybe a football field.” Walter shrugged, at the impossibility of reaching the end zone.

I focused on the near view. Hap had reached the mill. He hurried, shouldering the gun sling, slapping the putty against the mill’s butt-end, and then he retraced his steps, unrolling wire from his belt bag. By the time he reached us he had the wired detonator in hand. It looked like a garage door opener. He depressed the button. There was a concussive jolt from the mill, and then it yawned open.

Gravity finished the job.

I wished for veils of rain to shield us from the sight of the spew from the mill. Resins ran free, carpeting down the slope. It was only at the end of the resin-fall that the mill disgorged Milt, who seemed to have momentarily jammed the works, but then the beads like ball bearings greased his way and carried him along with the avalanche.

The avalanche threw off a dust cloud—golden resin fines going aerosol.

Walter bowed his head. I did not and so I witnessed the recapture of the resins in the stone reservoir at the bottom of the hill. Some ran wide, some stopped short, some spilled over the concrete lip, but when the final bead had come to rest, the reservoir was topped.

Milt lay on his back, legs half buried.

I watched the poisonous cloud settle over the reservoir, powdering Milt. His right hand lifted, then fell. I held my breath. Unlike Hap—still masked, still breathing canned air—Walter and I were without protection. I worried about that poisonous brew down there, about those unshielded gammas. We were a good long distance and I’d learned by heart the inverse square law—radiation intensity decreases as the inverse square of the distance from a point source—but I nevertheless edged behind Hap, putting him between me and that point source. He did not appear to notice. His attention was riveted on the scene below.

Walter whispered, “Keep your head.”

I turned to ask why.

He jutted his chin. “Above that pile of rock...”

I lifted my face.

“
Don’t look
.”

But I already had.

“A
lmost there,” Hap said, softly.

I barely heard him over the hiss of his breather but as he unmasked I fixed my gaze squarely on his drawn face, taking scrupulous care not to look up at the hillocks of waste-rock ore tailings so as not to direct his attention toward Pria, who had appeared from who-knows-where and then disappeared behind the nearest hillock, and who knew where she’d turn up next. Miss Alien Apparition. I had trouble believing she’d been there at all.

Hap peered up at the sky. The clouds were closing back in.

In that micromoment, Walter’s eyes met mine and we settled upon a plan.

I said, “Why are you checking the sky?” and when Hap’s focus drifted back to me, I tried to hold it. “You need more rain?”

He eyed me and then his attention shifted again, to the reservoir.

And now there was a feathering of black hair at the base of the nearest ore heap and Walter shook his head and lifted his feet in a mime—
run
Pria, run to tell Soliano and then run home to hide under the bed—but she had already disappeared again so she didn’t catch Walter’s drift.

Hap was now scanning the hillside above the reservoir.

I said, “Hap.”

Mercifully, he turned.

Walter said—as if he did not think my theory was hogwash—“You need a flood, Hap?”

I thought, it is hogwash. This may be a floodable canyon but how is Hap going to summon a flood? Here? Now? Walter and I were correct with our first scenario—the rains will wash the nuclides down to the aquifer. That’s bad enough. I took my turn: “I’ll play your game, Hap. I know what else the ring means. Means you’re going turn clean water into bad water.”

Hap listened, like he had listened to Walter’s counsel.

I caught Walter angling for a look up the hill. I angled too. Had Pria run, after all?

Hap shifted to look.

I said, “Milt’s legacy, right? Crap up the virgin. Like he crapped up your sister.”

Hap’s attention snapped back to me.

I saw Pria then, sidling out from behind the ore tailings hillock. She put her finger to her lips. I tried not to flinch and give her away. Walter started in again, yammering about the aquifer, voice rising in outrage, covering the sounds of Pria’s approach. She came in a low crouch, straight and true, right for us.

Walter braced, as if for a blow.

She straightened and cocked her arm. She held a rock the size of a softball and she pitched it in a skilled overhand pitch and it didn’t have far to travel. Hap turned, unslinging the subgun but it was too late to do anything but catch Pria’s rock full in the chest. The gun slipped out of his hand and he came down hard on his back, turtling on the air tank. He rolled to his side, gasping. Before Walter or I could begin to come alive, Pria had dashed forward and snatched up the subgun.

I watched stunned. She comes out of nowhere and saves the day. No, she comes in her aunt’s truck and drives to point D and hikes from there only how in the world does she find this place? Some alien magic. I didn’t care. I wanted to hug her.

She shouldered the weapon and went to Walter, untying the knot that bound his wrists. Hap started to rise. She yelped “don’t move, you” and came back at Hap, aiming the weapon at his chest. “You used my
mother
.”

Hap froze.

Walter caught my eye, and tipped his head. He wanted us to stand in her way, some kind of blocking maneuver. I had no faith in that. She’s defending her mother—if that didn’t amaze Walter, it sure amazed me. What I don’t know about daughters could fill an ocean. I didn’t know if she could operate an MP-5 but if she could we had to stop her from shooting Hap. That’s a heavy burden for anyone to carry, much less a fourteen-year-old, and in any case Hap was no threat right now. I watched her fingers playing on the gunstock. Walter had edged in close to me, untying my wrists, but I could not have curbed a kitten right now, much less this girl. I said, “Pria, you can’t do anything for your mom now, but
look
. Look down there, that’s Milt down there and he’s still alive.”

She looked.

I said, “You saved us, you’re a hero, and you can help us save him. There’s a phone in the mine—we can call Soliano. He’ll send help for Milt. He’ll arrest Hap. So you can give Walter the weapon now.”

She said, still looking at Milt, “Is he sick?”

“Whoa,” Hap said, “Milt’s not the victim.”

She turned to Hap. “What do you mean?”

“I mean it’s your mom who’s the victim.”

Walter said, “Pria, listen to...”

“In a minute, Grandfather.” She jabbed the gun at Hap. “Say about my mom.”

Hap plunged ahead. “She had no idea what she was getting into. My partner was scouting for a place, she surprised him, he bought her off. I never even met her, Pria, until a couple days ago at her mine. Next time I saw her was this morning. Never dreamed she knew about
this
mine, much less she’d come up here. And I’m real sorry she sent you.”

“She
didn’t
.” Pria lifted her chin. “I figured it
out
. About the ranger fuck.” She flushed. “Chickie calls it that when they say what we can’t touch. Like bat nests. And drawings on rocks. And Grandfather said what kind of rocks we’re looking for so I figured it
out
.”

Walter looked stricken.

Pria glanced at me. “In your bathtub. I liked your bathtub.”

I nodded, faint, in reply.

“Chickie showed me drawings on that kind of rocks once, up here. But it was a long time ago so when I got here I had to go looking.” She nodded at an outcrop downcanyon. “Then I had to go find something to show that policeman, so he’d let my mother go.”

I blurted, “You went inside the mine?”

“You think I’m
stupid
? I was looking for footprints. Only then I heard you guys come out, and all that noise, and I hid.”

“Not stupid at all,” Hap said, “just trying to help your mom.” He cautiously sat up. “I tried help her myself, when she was sick. Remember?”

“No Pria,” I said, “he wanted to give her the medicine to put her out, so she couldn’t talk.”

“I wanted to stop the torment,” Hap said. “I saw my sister go through that.”

Pria looked stunned. “Is that true?”

“Yeah that’s true. Thanks to Milt.”

“Is your sister sick?”

“She’s dead.”

Pria’s hand went to her mouth. The weapon bobbed in her hand.

“So how about a little justice? For my sister and your mom. The victims. Let me go and I’ll tell their story.”

“You just did,” Walter said. “You’re done. Pria, whatever Milt did, he’ll account for. But now he needs help. That’s radioactive material down there—same thing that hurt your mom. Hap did that. And he’s the only one in position to undo the wrong. So I need you to let me take care of this.”

I went cold. Take care of this how?

“Give me the weapon, dear.” Walter put out his hand, and when Pria didn’t pull away, he took possession of the gun. He said, “Get up, Hap.”

Hap, wary, got to his feet.

“Take off that belt bag. Set your facepiece. Connect your breather.”

I said, “Walter
no
.”

“I’m with Buttercup, Walter.” Hap’s face was white. “You got a conscience. Use it.”

“I am.” Walter leveled the muzzle at Hap. “There’s human life at stake down there. Go get him.”

Hap was rooted.

Walter thumbed a lever, cocked the weapon, and fired. Dirt sprayed at Hap’s feet.

Hap flinched. Then, astonishingly, he smiled—that curbed toxic smile I’d seen in the RERT van the night he warned me to go with low dose. “Guess I lose.” He unclipped the bag and tossed it to the ground. He masked up and his smile disappeared behind the polycarbon shield.

I grabbed the belt bag and yanked open the zipper and rooted inside but there was no cell phone, and I considered running back to the mine to try to find my way to the tunnel where I’d left the pack with the satellite phone, but how long would that take on my rubber legs? And once I’d brought the phone back out and called Soliano, and Soliano and Scotty and his RERT team got themselves up here, how long would that take? Too long, for Milt anyway. I remembered Scotty’s words to me, two days ago at the borax mine: time equals dose.

I dropped the belt bag.

As I watched Hap trudge down toward the reservoir, my veins seemed to fill with poison. There was no clean way out here. This was the hopeless frontier between wrong and more wrong. I moved to stand beside Walter.

Pria folded herself down to an Indian-sit, hugging her chest, watching.

From where we stood it looked like a real rescue, a real hero in PC wading into the spent-resin pool to aid his unlucky coworker, plunging his hands into the poisonous beads to hook Milt under the arms. Sending up a new cloud of resin fines. All the while ticking off seconds and sucking up dose. If there’d been a health physicist on radiation control, counting the gammas, he would have surely screamed
get out
. Hap was trying. Milt was feebly protesting, not understanding. Hap tried to drag Milt to the rim but he sank with every step. It must have been like walking through quicksand. At last, he just dropped to his knees in the shit and got Milt around the waist and humped him over the shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He levered to his feet and staggered out of the tub.