Badwater

49

We lifted into the air, my stomach rising along with the chopper, my head spinning with the rotors.

Below, the pool rippled with rotor-wash. Otherwise, we’d left no observable trace. Soliano’s divers were en route to dispose of the explosives. Good wilderness manners: leave only footprints, take only memories.

And then, almost before we had cleared the ridges, we bellied down toward They-Don’t-Pay-Me-Enough Canyon. I pressed my face to the window and marveled at the scene. What a crowd. They seemed to have sprung up like desert blooms during my absence. Uniforms everywhere — sheriff tan and FBI black and ranger green and RERT silvery-white. They wore the canyon colors. They were clustered high on the hill above the hot zone. Up even higher, on the ridge above the mine, surveying the scene below, legs crossed in an Indian sit, was Pria. She wore a ranger-green jacket, big as a tent on her.

Had she looked up, I would have waved.

What to say, if she’s waiting outside our door at the Inn when we pack up to leave? You saved us, twice. How did you do that, at fourteen? Maybe we should sign you up. But, then, you pulled that teenage stuff too. You scared the shit out of me, disappearing from my bathroom. You should have told Walter what you were up to. And you didn’t talk him out of coming after me. Okay, that worked, Walter coming after me. I didn't really get what you said — if he can't go he won't go. I get it now. He could, so he did. Bottom line, Pria, you didn't make my head explode, although it was touch and go. You let me talk to you, even though I don’t speak alien. You made me surprise myself. So if you’re waiting outside our door I guess I’ll just say thanks.

The chopper banked and now I got a view of another chopper parked downcanyon of the mine. Milt was there, on a stretcher, attended by medics. So he was alive; beyond that, I could not tell. On the other side of the chopper, considerately out of Milt’s view, lay three body bags. I thought, fierce, Roy Jardine shouldn’t be allowed in the same neighborhood with Special Agents Darrill Oliver and Hal Dearing.

Walter leaned close to stare out my window. I spoke, low, so as not to attract the attention of Hap on the gurney, although Hap lay with eyes closed, unconscious perhaps, in his own world certainly. I didn’t worry about the medic who squatted beside Hap or the pilot because I’d never seen them before and didn’t care if they heard me or not. Soliano, I cared about, but Soliano was up front and likely could not hear me over the racket of the engine. So I said, low, to Walter, “I never know how to tally the costs.”

Walter settled back in his seat. “Don’t even try.”

The chopper banked again, cutting across the canyon to avoid flying over the hot zone.

Soliano’s head swiveled, showing his profile. He needed a shave. His whiskers were salt-white and I had to wonder if they’d been that color at the start of the week. And then I, too, looked where Soliano looked — down at the reservoir. From up here the beads appeared liquid, like a desert mirage.

A RERT stood well uphill from the tub, hands on hips, studying the cleanup job below.

I guessed they’d have to airlift in bulldozers and loaders to recapture all the beads, and empty casks to put them in, and telehandlers to move the casks. I wondered how many beads had been washed by the rain down into the soil. I wondered how far down the cleanup crew would have to dig to remove the contaminated earth. I wondered if they’d get it all.

Soliano appeared to know what I’d been wondering. “EPA will make this a Superfund site.”

I wondered how long it would take to remediate.

The RERT I’d been watching sank to the ground, draping his arms across his knees. I could now read the name on his air tank. Scotty Hemmings. He bent his head and clutched his facepiece in his gloved hands.

I guessed Scotty was wondering the same thing.