by Scott Carson
Gillian suddenly felt a throb rising through her skull, a tightening pressure that forced her eyes shut and trapped her breath. She thought that she would do anything to alleviate that pain. Absolutely anything.
Get air, then. You need air.
Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe she needed to accept the pick and get to work. All she had to do was curl her fingers around the handle. The rest would take care of itself.
The caress of the worn wood in the dark felt just like the old desk under her palm in the schoolhouse. So familiar and so sacred. Like the idea of sacrifice.
Sacrifice is about salvation, Mrs. Baerga had said in her heavily accented English. Not vengeance. Whoever told you that story used the wrong word. Lots of people would die for family, honey. But how many would die for a stranger?
That question had never been asked in the Galesburg School. That question had troubled Gillian for years, because it was a good one. Now, down here in the water, with lungs burning and skull pounding, staring at her grandmother’s phantom figure, Gillian wanted to ask it herself.
Why did you call it sacrifice when it was murder? Why was the only way to remind people of the pain suffered in Galesburg to inflict new pain on others? They’re not bad people down there in the city. You just think they are because you never met them. Everyone is scared of the other until they actually meet. It changes then. I wish you knew how quickly it changes.
Her grandmother stared at her, eyes flat, lips sealed. There would be no answers coming down here. There would certainly be no questions.
That was the problem with Galesburg—there had never been any questions. Just the demand for obedience.
Gillian pushed the pick away. Stumbled backward, hit the wall. The throbbing in her skull was gathering pressure, threatening to burst. Her lungs begged for air. Her mother and grandmother approached with their picks outstretched, waiting, waiting…
I didn’t volunteer, she thought frantically. I fell, that was all. I’m not here to help. I do not want to help.
The wall shivered behind her. Someone stepped back from it. She looked up, looking for help, but saw the face and recognized it: Jeremiah Fleming. She’d sketched him so many times. He was smiling, but not at Gillian. He was smiling at the wall, which was still shivering—no, shaking now, a more violent sensation. The wall was shaking and the water was roiled by falling rocks.
It’s coming down, she realized as her vision grayed and the throbbing in her skull pounded at her eyes and ears as if seeking an exit. The water whirled around her as the others stepped back, all of them smiling now, and Gillian turned and saw that the black hole was widening as the rocks fell unaided, the whole ancient structure separating and collapsing. Somewhere on the other side, her father waited. She couldn’t reach him, but she knew that she wanted to be on the right side of the wall when she drowned. She didn’t want to die here, not even with her family.
She pushed off the bottom and lunged toward the collapsing rock wall. A hand grasped at her arm but Gillian tore free, reached for one of the stones that had not yet fallen, and pulled herself upright and through the widening hole. A rock struck her leg, another hit her shoulder. Somewhere up ahead was daylight.
She fought toward it even though she knew that it was too late and that the surface was out of reach.
74
The rain had begun again. A thin, sheeting mist. The clouds screened out any trace of the sun, and the Chilewaukee lay in shadow as the demolitions team installed the second round of charges. Drill bits whirred, boring through the old concrete. Dust rose. Explosives were passed from hand to hand and packed into the new holes. Fuse cord linked the charges, tracing the stone face like tangled fishing lines.
Mick stood with Anders Wallace, indifferent to the soaking rain, watching patiently. There was no need to rush. After so long a process, the end would come in a hurry.
Ben Quirk had walked down to observe the charge placement. Now he walked back to Mick. His eyes were ringed with dark, swollen circles, but within them was a glimmer of hope. No, not just hope: confidence.
“It’s going to work,” he told Mick.
Mick nodded. Ben was right and wrong all at once. A beautiful contradiction that showed how little Ben understood of the world.
“I think so, too,” Mick said, and then someone shouted over him.
“Hey! Quirk! You hearing this?”
Ben pivoted, looked back at the man who’d shouted to him, and said, “Hearing what?”
“Put on the emergency band! Listen!”
Quirk took his radio off his belt. Mick watched as he changed the band and turned the volume up.
“I’m right on the other side,” a voice called through static, and Mick felt a chill. He knew the voice. Who was it? How did he know that voice?
“What’s he mean, on the other side?” Quirk shouted.
“He says he’s right on the other side of the fuckin’ stone!”
For a moment, no sound but the rain and the static. Mick looked at Anders Wallace. Anders was staring at the intake chambers. He looked troubled. Mick had never seen him look troubled before. Angry, yes, but not like this. This was almost fear.
“Who’s speaking?” Quirk said into the radio.
Yes, Mick thought, who? Whose voice is that, and why does it fit? Why does it somehow make sense in this moment?
Static. Crackle. Then: “Aaron Ellsworth. Sheriff Ellsworth’s son.”
“Whose son?”
“The sheriff of Torrance County. Who am I talking to?”
“The hell is happening?” Ben Quirk said in astonishment, looking at Mick as if Mick could explain. Mick just stared. He felt control slipping away from him, receding like the floodwaters had done hours earlier. A force of nature one moment, then gone the next.
Quirk shook his head, lifted the radio again, and spoke into it.
“You’re talking to the Army Corps of Engineers, among one hell of a lot of others. What do you mean, you’re right on the other side?”
Static. Crackle. “Just what I said. I’ll set off a chemical light. Your guys on the stone face will see it. It might take them some searching, but I promise you, they’ll see it.”
Words were exchanged from the team on top of the ridge to the men on the ropes below. Nods and hand signals, and then the men on the ropes began sidestepping across the concrete face of the intake chambers, moving on the balls of their feet, staring into the fractured rock. They were just above the waterline. Another blast, and the steeply graded tunnels would fill with water. The reservoir would empty into them. Just one more blast was all it would take; Mick was sure of it.
The rope team passed slowly over the rock, then dropped even lower, their feet actually in the water now, and worked back the way they’d come. This time one of them stopped. He hung there, suspended, attached to the forest above by the ropes, attached to the rock by the tips of his feet. Half in the water, half out. After a long moment he moved one hand to his mouth. The next voice on the radio was his.
“Affirmative. I’m seeing it. He’s not far back.”
A tide of chaos rose. Voices from all directions. Mick was vaguely aware of Ben Quirk yelling at everyone to shut up. Then Quirk was lifting the radio again.
“Where the hell did you come from, Ellsworth?”
Static. Crackle. “The other side of the mountain. The old discharge basin.”
Ben Quirk sank down onto his ass. He was still holding the radio to his mouth, but he hadn’t spoken. He just stared at the intake chambers, where his demolitions crew waited.
“That can’t be true,” he said finally.
Static. Crackle. “It’s true. The tunnels go all the way through. Send someone down there to look.”
Quirk lowered the radio and turned slowly. Stared at Mick.
“That’s not possible,” he said. “Is it?”
Mick didn’t answer. He looked for Anders Wallace. Anders had moved away. He was walking away from the tunnels, out toward the high side of
the dam.
Mick followed.
75
When the wall began to crumble, Deshawn stared into the widening darkness, searching with less and less hope for any sign of his daughter. The hole in the mountain was exposed now, but Gillian was nowhere in sight.
The photographer had been leaning down, eye to the camera, but he stepped back abruptly and looked up at the sky.
Deshawn followed his gaze. The morning sun was gone and bleak clouds had filled in again, but he had no idea what had drawn the man’s attention. The photographer studied the sky for a few seconds. He seemed dismayed.
“Well,” he said. “That was unanticipated.”
Deshawn knew better than to speak, he really did, and yet…
“What happened?” he said. He couldn’t help himself.
The photographer looked at him.
“Nothing,” he said. “And that is just the trouble.”
Deshawn didn’t understand, but now the man was removing the camera with its troubling, oddly bright silver lens from the tripod, gathering his gear with the mild disappointment of a photographer whose sunset had been ruined by unexpected clouds. A shame, yes, but hardly a crushing blow. There would be other days and other sunsets.
“Take care, sir,” he said. “I’ll see you down the road.” The photographer pointed at the peaks around them. “Something to remember, Mr. Ryan? The mountains don’t sleep. People think they do, but people are wrong, and it’s a dangerous thing to forget. The mountains don’t sleep; they creep. Ask any geologist. Think about how much of our earth has moved over time and how far it has come.”
He seemed to want a response, be it an argument or agreement. Deshawn said nothing.
“There’s nothing stagnant in this world,” the photographer said. “That’s what you must remember. Everything is in motion. The molecules are either in balance or at war, do you see? This world promises us only one thing: motion. Action. The world is never passive. Never.”
Deshawn nodded. He did not want to exchange any more words. He wanted only for the photographer to leave.
“We’ll see each other again,” the photographer said.
This time Deshawn shook his head.
The photographer laughed.
Then he vanished into the trees and the rain.
76
Gillian felt the rain on her face before she opened her eyes, and then the brightness surprised her, so she closed them again and returned to darkness.
That was when the water rushed in on her, pummeling her. It filled her nose and mouth and suddenly she was thrashing, fighting it, fighting her way back to the surface, fighting to get out of the darkness and into the blinding light.
When she made it, gasping and choking, her eyes opened again, and she saw that the light wasn’t so blinding at all. It was the dim, leaden light of an overcast day. She was treading water, and stone walls surrounded her. Forested slopes climbed above them, chasing up to distant peaks and the gray sky above.
Reality crept back in stages. Memory followed it but kept at a safe distance, as if unsure of things, as if to rush on her would mean disaster.
Someone was shouting her name.
She turned toward the sound and saw her father up above. He was looking down from the rim of the chamber basin, on his knees beside the fence.
No, he was handcuffed to the fence. She saw it and felt that it was her fault but couldn’t remember how or why.
She floated, staring up at her father. “What did I do?” she said.
When she spoke, he sagged against the fence post. There was sense of relief in him that she didn’t understand. There was not much at all that she understood at that moment.
“Dad?” she cried. “What did I do?”
Her father shook his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Just get the hell out of there, Gillian!”
In the distance, sirens were wailing. Coming closer. Coming down the road. She remembered the road; she remembered the trail. She remembered that Aaron Ellsworth had gone into the water. Where was he now?
Overhead was the staccato thump of a helicopter. The chopper was coming in low. She watched it hover, its nose pointed toward the mountain, as if someone was inspecting the scene. She looked in the same direction. Most of the far wall was gone, the stones knocked free in an orderly fashion. A gaping chasm of darkness lay beyond. She thought she saw motion in there. Maybe light, too. And was there a voice? If the sirens and the helicopter were silenced, would she be able to hear a—
“Gillian! You need to get out of there!”
This voice she heard undeniably. Her father was calling for her.
She turned away from the hole in the wall, swam to the side of the basin, found a jutting piece of stone to grab ahold of, and began to climb.
When she reached the fence, the cold and the fatigue finally hit her. The fence loomed between Gillian and her father. It wasn’t so high, but she wasn’t in climbing condition. She could see him but couldn’t get to him.
“I need a second,” she stammered through chattering teeth. Her back muscles cramped and she leaned forward to avoid a spasm. Her father reached through the fence, his left hand outstretched.
“Gillian. I’ve got you.”
She took his hand. The sirens were right behind the tree line now, and she knew that they wouldn’t be alone for long. He squeezed her hand tightly. Too tightly, but it felt good even with the pain. He turned away from her. He seemed uneasy, scanning the trees, searching the shadows.
“It’s just the two of us,” he said. “He’s gone.”
“Who is?”
He didn’t answer. She rose shakily.
“Sit down,” he said. “Help’s coming.”
“I’m coming across first,” she said.
She made it on the first try, falling into the grass on the other side of the fence.
“Give me the key,” her father said.
She looked at him blankly.
“For the handcuffs. It’s in your pocket. You need to unlock me. When they get here, they can’t see this.”
She found the key with trembling fingers, bent to the cuffs, and unlocked them. He pulled his wrist free while Gillian released the opposite cuff from the fence post.
There were voices in the woods now. The sound of footsteps and snapping branches. People coming in a hurry.
“I’ll explain it to them,” her father said, and she was impossibly grateful for that, because she knew so little of what had happened here. “You okay? You can handle this?”
She nodded. “I’m good, Dad. I’m…”
Stoic, she thought, the word floating in a memory. But she just repeated, “I’m good.”
Then the police burst through the tree line. Three of them, weapons drawn. A man in a military uniform behind them. The cops looked at Deshawn and Gillian. She found her badge, held it up. The military man barely glanced at them. He was staring at the hole in the wall. The hole in the mountain.
“Holy shit,” he said in a whisper that was almost reverent. “Is this where he went in?”
“Yes,” Deshawn Ryan told them. “We don’t know what happened to him.”
“He walked through,” the man in uniform said. “All the way to the other side.”
“Swam,” Gillian said. The man looked at her for the first time.
“How’d you find it? How did you know?”
She didn’t have an answer, and she felt trapped and exposed all at once, felt like a criminal, not a cop. Then her father answered for both of them.
“I was here once before,” he said. “A long time ago. I thought the place seemed dangerous then. I thought it would be a problem in a flood.” He paused. “I wanted to give it another look, that’s all.”
A nice white lie, Gillian thought. The right choice for today. Don’t mention the dead men in the tunnels who offered instruction. Police tend to frown on that sort of excuse.
“Well, bud, we’re awfully glad you did. We were about to pour a few h
undred million gallons of water through here and right on downstream.”
“You stopped it?” Gillian asked.
“I think so.”
They’ll move on, she thought. They won’t get trapped again. They’ll have to go slower without the floodwater to help, but they will move on downstream. They won’t have the right force any longer, but Galesburg, like gravity, is always working.
77
Aaron sat with his back against the fractured concrete wall and watched the chemical light burn down to a neon dusk, like a dimming bar sign. The chemical light was a more sophisticated version of the things they handed out to people at rock concerts. You had to crack it to trigger the chemical reaction, and then it glowed.
He remembered the Fourth of July at the city park in downtown Torrance, the same park where he’d helped retrieve at least a dozen bodies from the floodwaters. The Fourth of July had been his father’s favorite holiday—and the only day he’d always take off work. He’d stay in uniform, but it was a family day all the same.
There was a bandstand in the center of the park, and merchants set up alongside and sold food and trinkets, junk souvenirs and deep-fried treats. There had been one tent filled with multicolored chemical lights. When Aaron was young, he was fascinated by them, and something about that amused Steve Ellsworth. He’d buy a half dozen of them and parcel them out, laughing each time Aaron carefully cracked the plastic tubing in inch-long segments, making sure to soak out all of the light that was possible.
Water seeped along his neck, but he didn’t move away. It was a reminder of how close he was to the Chill: the big lake was pressing against his back, separated by only a few feet of cracked concrete.
He stared down the tunnel and tried to imagine all of the water pouring through. What would it have done? Ripped through here, charged through the basin, down Cresap Creek, and then on to the Ashokan.
Then what?
He couldn’t imagine, but someone had been imagining that very thing, though. A lot of people, actually, for a lot of years. How many were down there, he had no idea, but the tunnels had taken time.