Water Rites (35 page)
Authors: Mary Rosenblum
Tags: #Fiction, #Science Fiction, #General, #Collections & Anthologies
“Thanks, Renny,” Nita said softly. “I owe you again.”
“You sure do. It goes on the account. Let’s go.” Renny turned her back on Jeremy’s gun to push through the door and out into the glare of hot sun.
“I’m coming.” Jeremy limped after them. “I guess I’m in on this, too.”
Renny already had the engine running by the time they reached the car.
“What about me?” Johnny followed them, wary, scared, and furious. “How the hell do I get out of here?”
“Walk,” Jeremy suggested as he climbed into the backseat. “Better take a water jug.” He stared at Johnny. “West might be a good idea.”
Renny growled something under her breath, put the car into gear. She hadn’t been kidding when she had talked about goat tracks. The car bounced like a ball on the rutted trails that led back from the rim of the Gorge and down into the Deschutes bed. No one said anything. Only Jeremy looked serene, but he wasn’t. The rough track scored Renny’s arm with white agony, but when Nita offered to drive she nearly bit her head off. They didn’t pass a single car — the countryside might as well have been deserted.
The deep scar of the Deschutes bed opened out in front of them as they topped the rise. The narrow track dove straight down toward the bottom of the riverbed. Trucks and cars clogged the flat ground along the old bank, blocking the road that led down to the Columbia bed itself. Renny eased the car down the slope, rear wheels slithering in the loose gravel. “Busy place down here,” she said dryly. She pulled the car over behind a battered blue pickup and turned off the ignition. It was quiet. A bird chirped somewhere, an incongruous sound that set Nita’s teeth on edge. The tension in the air made her want to scream.
“Everybody out,” Renny said. “You all do what you want, but I don’t plan to die for any natives.”
She was speaking to Nita. Jeremy climbed out silently, tense but calm. Nita scooped up Rachel and followed him. She heard no gunfire, no screams, no shouts, but the air felt ready to explode. A pump station gleamed in the sunshine in the distance.
Rachel whimpered and Nita held her daughter tightly, acutely aware of her daughter’s warmth. “Renny?” She walked around to the driver’s side. Held out Rachel.
Renny’s eyes narrowed and Nita braced herself.
With a muttered curse, Renny shoved the door open. “Until you get back.” She took Rachel from Nita’s arms. “I’m no mother, babe. You come get her damn soon.”
“I will,” Nita whispered. She walked away as Renny slammed the car door. I am never going to see my daughter again, she thought.
What goes around, goes around again. And again. She closed her mouth against a laugh that would turn into a shriek.
“Bad?” Jeremy touched her arm, his eyes dark with worry.
“Yes.” She was trembling. “It’s never . . . been this strong before.”
“You’ve never been in the middle of a riot before.” Jeremy took her arm. “Are you sure you can handle this?”
“I don’t know.” Nita drew a shuddering breath and managed to stop shaking. “Carter’s here. He doesn’t know about Johnny. He thinks Hastings is behind this. And Dan.”
“Carter said Dan escaped.” Jeremy shaded his eyes. “I’m not sure that’s what happened, but he’s not in jail anymore.”
Which meant what? Johnny had set this up. He had taken Carter to find that damning evidence so . . . what would happen? She didn’t know, couldn’t make thoughts come together in her aching head. She held Jeremy’s hand very tightly as they threaded their way between the parked vehicles, grateful for this presence. He was no longer scared, was simply . . . calm.
He didn’t care if he died or not, wasn’t afraid any more. She focused on that calm, used it to fight the storm of fear/hate/anger that grew steadily stronger. She stumbled. People ahead. Lots of people. They filled the Deschutes bed like a dark, undulating plain. She shuddered. More cars. Trucks. They were so angry.
“I was up on the rim when the Pipe blew,” Jeremy said softly. “I saw the water come down the bed in a wave. It wasn’t a river, it was a flood. It was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen. Can you find Carter in all this?”
This was a flood, too, a dark, destructive torrent. “I don’t . . . know,” she gasped.
She could hear the mob’s voices now, a low, growling murmur that had been cut off by a trick of acoustics and a bulge of the riverbed wall. A rough barricade made up of vehicles and junk blocked the interstate. Most of the people milled behind it. A lot of them had guns. She was panting, suffocating, as if the anger and desperation burned up the oxygen in the air.
“Nita!” Sandy Corbett separated herself from the crowd, haggard and dusty. “What are you doing here? Do you know where Dan is? We heard he’d been arrested.”
“Dan’s disappeared.” Nita swallowed, her throat dry as dust. “Sandy, what’s happening?”
“What does it look like?” Sandy said bitterly. “Everyone has their back to the wall. Not one of us is going to have a crop left by tomorrow night. If the Army won’t turn the water back on, we will. Ransom’s bunch started it. We scraped together enough money to hire a Portland law firm to get an injunction to turn the water back on, but it’s already too late for some of the crops. I don’t know.” Sandy spat into the dust, her face gaunt with anger and exhaustion. “This time I’m about ready to listen to Ransom. What have we got left to lose?”
“Sandy, you have to stop it. John Seldon from Water Policy is behind all this. I’ve got proof. He set this up to happen, I don’t know why.”
“Seldon? Water Policy?” Sandy looked away from Nita, shoulders drooping. “I can’t make this stop, honey. Dan couldn’t make this stop. It’s too late.”
“It’s not too late, don’t you understand . . . Carter’ll die because he can’t see another Chicago happen and that’s why he came down here . . . once this happens it’s all over, The Dalles is dead forever, it’s what he
wants
, Sandy, this Johnny, we have to stop it.”
“Nita, stop it!” Jeremy grabbed her by the shoulders, gave her a single hard shake. “Calm down. You’re reacting to the crowd. Come on, Nita.”
Yes, reacting. Nita clutched Jeremy, gasping for breath, realized Sandy was staring at her, thinking
crazy
. “All right.” She sucked in a breath, shivering violently. “I’m all right.” Barely. Her nails had left bloody marks on Jeremy’s forearms. “It’s so loud, I don’t think I can pick out Carter,” she said in a small voice.
“He’ll be back behind the barricade anyway.” Jeremy scowled at the Shunt bunker. “He’s a lot safer there than here. I think we need to get out of here in one piece so you can deliver your proof to him.”
Which she didn’t have. Nita shook her head. He wasn’t down here to be safe.
Someone was yelling at the mob over a loudspeaker. An officer. Any second now the shooting would start. Whatever the uniform had said, it was the wrong thing. A howl of rage shook her.
“
You’ve had your chance
,” Ransom was bellowing over an electronic megaphone, his voice echoing down the riverbed. “
It’s our turn now. Let’s turn the water back on!”
A shot cracked out. Another. The mob moved, surging forward, voices rising in shouts, screams. Automatic weapons fire rattled and the crowd-roar was punctuated with screams. Bodies crushed in behind them and Jeremy yanked her into a stumbling run.
Everything that had mattered to her father, everything that had mattered to Dan would be gone, swept down the riverbed in this ugly feud . . .“Jeremy, wait.” She dug in her heels, clinging to him, dragging him into an eddy of clear space behind a parked truck. “You saw it — the flood. Make it. Make it again, but big. Really big. Fill the riverbed with it. Like the whole river’s flooding.”
“I can’t.” He jerked to a halt. “I can’t control the visions. Just the little stuff. And what good would it do.”
“Yes, you can. You made spring for me on the crest. You did it, it didn’t just happen. Do it!”
“It won’t help,” he gritted.
“If you admit you can do it, then you have to use it for something.” She stared into his pale, angry eyes. “You’ll have to be responsible instead of just running from it.”
He slapped her across the face.
Stunned by the blow and the white hot slash of his rage, Nita sprawled face down in the dust. He wouldn’t do it. Nothing would stop it now. Her father had finally lost. Dan had lost. Gunfire, screams, and shouts pierced her Terror clawed at her, growing louder in her mind, swallowing the rage. Nita lifted her head . . . and screamed.
A wall of water towered over her. It filled the upstream riverbed with foamy madness, stretching from wall to rocky Gorge wall. Bigger than the dam, a wall of darkness, it curled over them ready to crash down on them, smash them, drown them. Nita struggled with panic…even as she told herself it was only Jeremy, that it was only a making.
People were seeing it. Not everyone saw it at first, but those first, sensitive ones panicked, dropped their weapons and ran. As if their fear had soaked through the mob mind, allowing everyone to see it, too, more and more people froze, threw aside whatever they were holding until the entire mob charged for the riverbank in blind panic.
It’s only Jeremy
. The knowledge began to erode as the mob surged past them and the dark wave of their terror beat at her. The nightmare wave curled higher, closer, in nightmare slow motion, streaked with dirty foam. Nita struggled for sanity. In a few moments that water would sweep over the bunker, thunder down on her head, smash her, choke her, drown her.
It’s only Jeremy. It’s only Jeremy.
A burly man in a Corps uniform stumbled by, his eyes white-ringed and wild.
It’s only Jeremy.
Nita fought the wash of emotion that threatened to send her stumbling and scrambling up the bank. She clung to the truck that sheltered them. Slowly . . . slowly . . . the crest of terror weakened as people fled. Car engines growled and the riverbed emptied. Nita sobbed once as the world began to reshape itself. Jeremy’s wave still curled in the riverbed, closer, but moving very slowly.
Horns blared and the roar of engines began to diminish. The few men and women who still milled in the riverbed looked dazed and bewildered. Jeremy knelt in the dust, his fists clenched, eyes fixed on his hovering flood.
“Jeremy?” He didn’t react as Nita knelt beside him. In a spurt of fear, she shook him. He resisted for an instant, his muscles rigid, then sighed and slumped.
The wave crest vanished, leaving the sunbaked riverbed nearly empty.
“You did it. Everyone’s running.” Nita put her arms around him, trembling with the aftermath of the terror. “You stopped it, Jeremy.”
“I did . . . didn’t I?” He was trembling, too. He got unsteadily to his feet, leaning heavily on her, as if the terrible vision had sucked all the strength out of him.
“This way.” Nita put her arm around him, guiding him toward an outcrop of rock. “I’m going to try for the bunker. I think . . . the general will be there and Carter is going to find him. The wave won’t scare him. He’ll know it had to be you.” Now that the worst of the mob mind had thinned she could think again. “I have to tell him about Johnny.”
“I’m still in this. I’m all right.” Jeremy pushed hair out of his face. “Can you listen for people, Nita? I don’t want to meet some freaked out uniform with a gun.”
“I can do that.” Individual emotions should stand out sharply against the dull background of the retreating mob. “We’re okay. I think the soldiers mostly ran, too.” She clutched his hand and they began to pick their way along the riverbed.
So little sign of the flood and its effect remained. The baked clay of the bed didn’t hold footprints. Someone had dropped a battered hunting rifle and it lay wadged between two rocks. They worked their way around one of the long lava ridges that cut the riverbed here. A body lay in the dust on the far side — a boy. Nita recoiled. He lay on his back, head twisted at a sickening angle, his wide-open eyes staring at the sky. He looked about fifteen.
Jeremy groaned.
“He would have been shot by a uniform,” Nita said fiercely. “Or he would have ended up in a camp. And how many more?” She grabbed Jeremy’s arm, suddenly aware of a familiar touch against the murk of the distant confusion. “Carter,” she breathed. Alive. Not dead.
“Wait.” Jeremy yanked her to a halt. “Slow, Nita, or we’ll both get shot. We’re pretty close to the bunker.”
Not slow, no. The feel of him terrified her. It was full of death. She tore free of Jeremy’s restraining hand and broke into a run.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
R
eason finally penetrated Carter’s cold rage as he sped away from Dan’s house on the Gorge rim. He was wearing a Corps uniform, which meant he wasn’t likely to make it back to the base alive, never mind to the Shunt. And he had to make it to the Shunt. Hastings would be there — with his Rangers.
Carter braked, fighting the car one-handed onto the rough shoulder of the main road. Pain from his ribs was making him dizzy, but he fished in the backseat and found a shirt. It was a white dress shirt with a food stain on the front — part of Johnny’s dirty laundry. He slid his arms into the too-large sleeves. It would do. With his coverall rolled down around his waist, he looked more local than uniform — as long as he stayed in the car.
He put the car into gear and headed down the hill, toward the highway bridge that crossed the riverbed. The few locals he passed barely glanced at him. The town might as well have been a ghost town. Everybody must be down at the Shunt. He would have to come up on the Shunt from the Washington side of the Gorge. That was going to slow him down a lot, but Hastings would have thrown roadblocks across 84, and he wasn’t sure what orders concerning himself might have been issued. Probably none, since he wasn’t officially under arrest, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Purpose had contracted to a cold lump in his gut.
Killing Hastings wouldn’t bring anyone back to life and probably wouldn’t save The Dalles, but it would balance the scales just a little. He crossed the bridge and turned eastward on the Washington highway. Hastings would have thrown barricades across this road, too. He braked, stripped off the shirt and pulled his coverall up over his shoulders again. The Corps insignia gleamed on the collar. He had sworn an oath of office when he had been commissioned. The words came back to him suddenly and clearly, as if he had just spoken them only this afternoon.
I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States
. . . And the Corps, by its very existence, had shredded the Constitution. Water counted a lot more than individual rights any more.
. . . against all enemies, foreign and domestic . . .
Hastings was the enemy here. And Dan Greely. He drove fast, carrying death inside him like an unhatched egg or a bomb set to go off. A guided missile. Nothing more.
The Shunt bunker came into view, across the riverbed on the Oregon side. A dark mass of humanity seethed at the mouth of the Deschutes bed. Carter shivered, seeing Lakeshore in those dark figures. A wooden barricade barred the access road that led down to the bunker from this side. Two guards lifted rifles, sighting on the windshield as a third man waved him to a halt. Carter stared impassively at the muzzles of their guns, waiting for them to recognize him.
“I’m sorry, sir.” A corporal leaned in at the window. “The general said no one was to come through here.”
“He didn’t mean me,” Carter snapped.
“I’d better check, sir . . .”
Carter stepped on the accelerator, and because Hastings hadn’t named him specifically, and he was, after all, a colonel, the corporal nervously waved him through. The Shunt was right ahead. Carter drove down into the riverbed and parked the car, his skin tightening. No one was working on the Pipe. They were all behind the parked trucks, crouching low, rifles locked and loaded. Rangers and regular Corps.
He was too damn late.
As Carter flung the door open, gunshots cracked. The rear window of the car disintegrated in a glittering shower and he dove for the ground, realizing that he was in plain sight, well within the range of rifle fire from across the riverbed. Locals were running down into the riverbed, taking cover behind the lava ridges that scored the bed along here, firing. One of the running figures fell. Another. Carter spotted Hastings near the bunker. Crouching low, he started running, zigzagging from rock to rock.
Someone screamed hoarsely. It was a cry of fear, not pain. Carter glanced up, then tripped and fell, pain from his ribs blasting the breath from his lungs. Water! The dark wall curled over their heads, streaked with foam, ready to break. Carter heard more screams, heard his own voice yelling in fear.
Run
, his brain screamed at him, but his chest spasmed, pain doubling him over. In a moment the raging water would seize him again, tumble him down the riverbed, suck him down in its cold, terrible grip.
Jeremy.
The tiny, sane thought blossomed in his head.
It’s Jeremy
.
Panting, he lifted his head. Yes, the wave was too slow — not like the ugly brown flood from the Pipe. It wasn’t real. Soldiers ran past him. A wide-eyed corporal dropped his rifle and it bounced, the barrel barely missing Carter’s face. Blind with terror, people stumbled, fell, were pulled to their feet by friends and ran on. “It’s all right,” Carter shouted. “It’s an illusion.”
Nobody listened. Well, it looked damn real. Even knowing it had to be Jeremy, he still wanted to run.
For a seeming eternity it threatened and then . . . it vanished. Carter found himself staring at baked clay and dusty rocks, his heart still pounding. “Damn,” he whispered. He drew a shallow, cautious breath and looked around.
The riverbed looked as if the wave had actually hit. The mob had scattered, and cars and trucks were pulling out on the Oregon side. The barricade was nearly deserted. Dust blew away on the dry wind, and a few sprawled bodies lay in the sun. Drowned by an imaginary flood? Carter wondered numbly. Killed by real bullets. For the moment, it was over. What had Jeremy
done
?
Maybe now he had time to stop it. Touching the folded shares in his breast pocket, Carter staggered to his feet and touched the cold weight of the Beretta. Hastings would still be at the bunker. He wouldn’t have run far. Carter limped toward the bunker, black spots swarming at the edges of his vision. Blood soaked the side of his coverall. He wasn’t going to be able to stay on his feet much longer. Long enough, maybe. The Shunt appeared deserted although a small detachment of Rangers was already scrambling back toward it. No Hastings.
“Carter? Carter, wait!”
Nita’s voice? Carter turned, relief that she was all right leaping like flame in his chest, turning sick as he remembered where he’d found the stock certificates. And then she was running toward him, her black hair loose from its braid, whipping in the wind, her arms reaching for him. And his arm went around her, never mind where he’d found the certificates, because one of those bodies might have been her. He groaned as she pressed against him and staggered.
“You’re hurt,” she said. “You were there, weren’t you? When they blew the Pipe?”
“Yes, I was there.” He touched her face lightly, pierced with loss. “Get down. A lot of people still have guns out here.” He pulled her down behind a rock, searching the bed for any sign of Hastings. “Get out of here, Nita. Now. Head for the Oregon side, keep low, and get away from the riverbed. Please?”
“You’re wrong.” She grabbed his hand. “Carter — whatever you found in Dan’s house it was planted there for you to find. It was meant to look like Dan and General Hastings are behind this, backed by Pacific BioSystems. They’re not. It’s a set up.” She clung to his hand as he tried to pull away. “That’s why I came here. To tell you.”
“I’m sorry, Nita.” Maybe she saw her father in Dan Greely.
“I’m not just wishing.” She clung to his arm as he started for the bunker. “Carter, I know who did it. He admitted it. He gave himself away. It’s Johnny Seldon. It was so easy for him to use you. I’m so sorry.”
“Johnny?” Her accusation stopped him. “Nita, get out of here
now
. You’re going to get killed.”
“He wanted you to find it . . . he took you up there to find it. That’s why he came up there the other day. To plant it. He went back after he gave Jeremy and I a ride into town.”
“How do you know this?” He twisted savagely out of her grasp. Because Johnny had been up there. “Tell me how come you’re so sure.” A shot boomed out and he ducked, pulling her flat. “Stay down. I’m going to have to get you out of here somehow.”
“Dan.” She bolted to her feet and ran, upright, a perfect target for anyone in the riverbed.
Carter swore, and scrambled after her as best he could. She vanished down into the old channel. At least it was out of sight of much of the riverbed. He slid down after her, calling her crazy and an idiot, afraid for her. He rounded a spire of water-worn lava and halted in his tracks.
Hastings sprawled face-down in the dust between the ridges of lava. His face was turned toward Carter and his eyes stared sightlessly at the rocks. Dark blood stained the dust beneath him.
Greely leaned against the rocks less than ten feet from Hastings’s body, a large-caliber revolver in his hand. Carter looked at him, felt no surprise.
Nita stood squarely between them.
He watched her, watched Greely, his gun in his hand. Greely didn’t even seem to notice them. He stared at the gun in his hand with a confused expression on his face, let it drop into the dust. It landed with the dull sound of metal on stone.
“Don’t,” Nita said softly.
“You are some bastard,” Carter said softly.
“No.” Greely’s voice was slow and thick. “I didn’t . . .”
Nita stepped back against Greely, shielding him with her body, her face full of pain.
Carter edged sideways, purpose beating in his head. The scales were almost balanced. Almost. He might be able to yank her out of the way before Greely could reach for the gun. He just stood there. Looking at it.
“Stop.” Nita said. “You hear me, first.” Her cold, icy tone made him glance at her. “Johnny is behind this. With Major Delgado, I think. At least he shot at Renny and I when we left for Portland.”
“I’ve heard you on the subject of Dan Greely,” he snapped. Delgado. Yeah, he was for sure part of this. “Prove that Johnny is behind this.”
“Johnny told me he hadn’t planted the things at the house and he was lying. He recognized Rico, the name of the hacker who planted the fake information to tie the general and Dan to Pacific Biosystems. He told me he wasn’t behind the sabotage and he was lying.”
“He wasn’t lying, Nita.”
“Nobody can lie to me, Carter.” She faced him, fists clenched at her sides, her head up, meeting his stare. “I hear what you’re feeling inside . . . what everyone feels. Do you understand? When you lie, I can always feel it. You can’t hide a lie from me. Not ever.”
He shook his head.
“Right now, you’re doubting. You think it maybe was Johnny.” She said each word flatly, without inflection. “You’re thinking that he could have done all this. And you’re afraid that it’s true. What the hell do you owe this man? You’re nothing to him.”
She flinched as he jerked, fear bright on her face.
“Did you think I was going to shoot you?” He looked down at the Beretta, lowered it.
She was right. About his doubts.
And the debt.
She shouldn’t be able to be that right. Nobody knew.
Tears gleamed on her face. “Dan didn’t shoot this man,” she said. “He isn’t behind this. If you wait, I can give you the proof. You have to wait, Carter.”
His hands were shaking. Pacific Biosystems. That was the tie in. Johnny had said something about them, had jumped on Carter when he had followed up on it. If she was telling the truth. About reading minds.
Half an hour ago, a man had filled the dry riverbed with an imaginary flood.
Carter shoved the Beretta back into its holster and lifted his head to look Dan Greely in the face. “How did you get here?”
“Someone . . . grabbed me. Out of . . . your jail.” He spoke with an effort and seemed barely able to stay on his feet.
“Maybe it’s a frame. I don’t know.”
Nita gave a small, choked cry, her face turning up to the rocks above them, her body stiffening.
“You fool.” Delgado rose from behind tumbled boulders. “You dumb asshole. Why didn’t you just shoot him? Then everything would fit, and we’d be home free.”
He’d been there all the time. Carter stared up at him, keeping his hands away from the gun and still. Delgado’s eyes were on Nita, black holes in his dust-grimed face. “You hick bitch, you messed it all up. You want proof?”
“Nita, down!” Jeremy’s voice, hoarse and urgent.
Carter caught a glimpse of movement, blond hair from the corner of his eye. Delgado swung the barrel his way, then jerked it back toward Nita, Dan lunged for her, stumbling and clumsy, too slow. Carter yanked the Beretta from its holster, heart pounding. Delgado saw him and the rifle barrel swung back in Carter’s direction, moving too fast.
“No,” Nita screamed, leaping straight up the bank at him.
They were all moving now and the rifle barrel jerked and wavered. Carter brought the Beretta up just as Delgado fired. The short burst of ugly sound crashed from rock to rock, and the Beretta bucked in Carter’s hand. The slug caught Delgado in the chest, spun him sideways. He skidded down the slope in an avalanche of stones and dirt.
Behind him, Nita cried a hoarse note of anguish.
Carter turned slowly, not wanting to see. It wasn’t Nita. It was Jeremy. He lay sprawled on his back and she crouched beside him, her face twisted. Bright blood soaked the bottom of his shirt. A lot of blood. Dan went awkwardly to his knees beside her. He fumbled his shirt off, wadded it into a pad. Cold inside, Carter touched Jeremy’s throat. He had a pulse; thready and uneven but there.
“He’s dying,” Nita said.
Her eyes scared the hell out of him. She
felt
this. His last doubt vanished.
“Try to stop the bleeding,” he snapped at Dan. He had his cell out, was calling for paramedics, pronto. Snapped orders into the phone.
“Hurry,” Dan said.
Carter started for the bunker and the trucks, his ribs screaming. He was shaking by the time he reached it, clammy with icy sweat. Back up med teams were arriving from the base and he met one on their way to answer his call, sent them scrambling down to Jeremy.
He wanted to follow them. Not yet. He had to find the Rangers’ CO, pronto. Sort out the confusion, assess injuries, Shunt security, and the needs of the moment. Troops were reassembling, shaken, eyes flicking up the riverbed as if another flood could appear at any moment. Rumors were flying. Ghost flood. He heard that twice before he found the Rangers and their CO. Good enough, he thought. He sent people down for Hastings and Delgado, got a medic to give him painkillers and enough amphetamine to keep him on his feet.