Ill Wind

by Nevada Barr

  A shadow came around the back of the water truck, bent down, and began pulling or pushing at something. Envying Stanton his infrared scope, she strained her eyes, opening them so wide tears started, but there was no more ambient light to be gathered and she could see nothing more.

  Metal clanked on metal and a liquid hiss followed as something cascaded onto the packed earth. Anna smelled almonds. Memories from old movies and Agatha Christie novels flooded sickeningly through her mind. Cyanide gas was said to smell of almonds. She stopped breathing—a temporary solution at best and one not conducive to clear thinking. Shrinking back toward the slash pile, she hoped the down-canyon winds would carry the fumes in the opposite direction. From all reports these night dumps lasted only minutes.

  Sudden light flooded the clearing. The figure was spotlighted and Anna sucked in a lungful of almond scent. Not a man but a creature with a human body, the head of an insect, and one long, clawed arm hunkered there.

  In an instant her mind recoiled from appearance to reality: a human wearing the self-contained breathing apparatus found on fire trucks stood in the spill of light brandishing a pipe wrench. Liquid, rainbow bright in the headlights, gushed from a line of sprinklers on the rear of the water truck in a fine, even rain. It would take only a beam of moonlight to turn it into a spirit veil.

  Like an afterthought, blue overheads and the ululating wail of a siren added to the confusion. Someone shouted. A door banged.

  “Goddamn it!” Anna whispered as Jennifer Short, fumbling her .357 from its holster, ran into the light. Once again the woman had neglected to call into service or Frieda would have headed her off.

  “Freeze! Freeze!” Short was shouting like a cop in a TV movie. The insect head turned slowly, the pipe wrench fell from sight, hidden behind a trousered leg.

  Anna stepped clear of the sheltering brush and chambered a round of double-ought buck. The unmistakeable sound cut through the low-grade rumble of the engine and the siren’s whine. Insect eyes swiveled toward her. She shouldered the gun. “Drop the wrench,” she shouted. “Drop the wrench.”

  The pipe wrench was moved away, held out to the side, the eye plates of the mask black, unreadable.

  “Drop it.” Anna leaned forward, flexing her knee, ready to take the recoil if she had to pull the trigger. A cold vibrating in her stomach and the feel of the butt of the shotgun against her shoulder were all she was aware of. The world had shrunk, her vision tunneled till all that existed was the creature with the pipe wrench, clear and contained as a figure viewed through the wrong end of binoculars.

  Movement pried open her field of vision. Jennifer, her pistol worked free of the holster, circled to the west, putting the insect directly between herself and Anna’s shotgun.

  “Jennifer, stop!” Anna cried. Either deaf from noise or adrenaline, Short ran the last yard, completing the line. Now she and Anna stood less than forty feet apart, guns pointing at one another.

  The insect realized it as Anna did. Glittering eyes turned from her to Jennifer. The wrench disappeared behind a leg. Slowly, mesmerizing, with the gauntleted hands and inhuman head, it walked toward Short. Jennifer was shifting her weight, her feet dancing in the dirt. Even from a distance Anna could see her hands shaking. “Stop where you are,” Anna shouted. Nausea churned in her stomach and she wondered if it was nerves or whatever she was breathing.

  Aware that if she pulled the trigger, when the smoke cleared Jennifer might be dead as well, the insect ignored her.

  To Anna’s left was the canyon. If she shifted right the water truck would block her target. “Jennifer, move!” she ylled. “Move, damn you.”

  “Stop. Stop now. Don’t come any closer,” Jennifer was shouting. Shrieking like a banshee, the masked figure dodged right and charged. Anna saw the flash from the barrel of Short’s .357 and hurled herself to the ground. High-pitched and ringing, a bullet struck stone. Sparks flew and Anna felt the sting of rock splinters hitting the back of her leg. Two more wild shots rang out, then a scream. Anna looked up to see Jennifer clubbed to the ground by the pipe wrench. The monster-headed figure leaped from sight behind the far side of the truck.

  Head and torso behind the right rear wheel, Short lay without moving.

  Another fracture of sound and a muzzle flash came from the boulder beyond where Jennifer lay. Stanton. Like Anna, he’d ended up their fools’ chorus line.

  Flickering blue lights lent his body the fast-forward movement of early films as he ran.

  Anna was on her feet running, the shotgun clutched to her chest. Siren and engine roar clouded her brain, clogged her thoughts. Cacophony or cyanide was eroding her synapses. A car door slammed. The ground was uneven and becoming slippery. A stabbing pain, muscles outraged by sudden movement, nearly tripped her.

  Stanton was shouting. Then a loud regular clanging cut through the engine’s throb. The water truck had been thrown into reverse, the warning bell ringing the intention to back up. Through the shimmering curtain of toxic waste, Anna saw the rear wheels begin to tear free of the mud, crush the strip of ground between themselves and Jennifer Short.

  No time to think. Anna threw the shotgun from her, guaranteeing the canyon would be the first to claim it, and hurled herself backward, clear of the moving vehicle.

  The tire, silhouetted by garish blue light, filled her field of vision. A couple feet away, in its path, Short lay on her side, an arm thrown above her head reaching toward Anna. A glistening line of blood ran down her temple, over her closed eyelid and onto the bridge of her nose.

  In a heartbeat the water truck would roll over her, cut her in two. Scrambling till her butt was on the ground and her feet splayed to either side of the unconscious ranger, Anna grasped Short under the arms and dragged her back, pulling her up like a blanket. Digging heels into the ground Anna shoved both of them back. Something gouged deep into her side, raking the flesh from her ribs: a stick from the slash pile. Ignoring the pain, Anna pushed hard with her feet. The broken end of a branch had caught where the butt of her .357 hooked up and back, and push as she might, she could go no farther.

  The gap between the tire and Jennifer’s legs was gone. No time: Anna unsnapped the leather keeper that held her gun in the holster. Again she dug heels into earth and shoved back with all the strength in her legs. A tearing at her hip slowed her, then the gun broke free of the break-front holster and with it the stick. Loosed like an arrow from a bow, Anna shot back several feet, dragging Jennifer with her.

  Light was eclipsed, noise crushed down. The truck with its burden of poison rolled toward the cliff ’s edge. Trees snapped like gunshots as the rear axle crashed over the lip of sandstone. Blue lights scratched across Anna’s vision. She was seeing them from beneath the chassis of the truck. Tons of metal levered into the air, headlights stabbing wildly into the sky to rake the bottom of the low clouds.

  Screeching wrenched the night and the underbelly of the truck scraped down, pulled backward by the weight of the load. A moment of shocked silence followed, broken only by the oddly peaceful sound of small rocks pattering after. Then a rending crash and stillness so absolute the faint oscillating whine of the patrol car’s overheads was clearly audible.

  Jennifer’s head was on Anna’s shoulder, her weight pinning her to the ground. “Hope I got your feet out in time,” Anna whispered into the stiff web of sprayed hair that fell over her mouth and nose. She worked her right arm from beneath Jennifer’s and found the seasonal’s throat with her fingers. A pulse beat reassuringly in the hollow of the woman’s neck.

  “Hallelujah.” Anna’s voice rang loud in the new-made quiet and she wished she’d not spoken. As gently as possible, she eased herself from under Short and pushed up to her knees.

  “Anna!” Stanton’s voice.

  “Here.”

  “Anna!”

  Stanton was beginning to annoy her. “What the fuck . . .”

  “Behind you!”

  Anna dropped and rolled as a metal bar crashed into the ground wh
ere she’d been kneeling. White light flashed off the sightless eyes of the insect head. A heavily gloved hand raised again, the pipe wrench swung in a deadly arc.

  Anna scuttled backward, fell to her left shoulder, and rolled again, grappling for her revolver.

  The branch had torn it free of the holster. It lay somewhere in the dirt between her and her attacker.

  Crouched, pipe wrench on shoulder like a ball player at bat, the insect ran toward her. Bent low and pressed close to the slash heap, the gamble was Stanton wouldn’t shoot for fear of hitting one of the women.

  Apparently it was going to pay off. “Shoot,” Anna screamed, and kept rolling. Iron glanced off her upper arm followed by numbing pain, then smashed into the ground with such force she felt it through the earth.

  Then Anna’s collapsible baton was in her hands. In one desperate motion she rolled to her feet and whipped the weighted rod out to its full length.

  The pipe wrench struck her shoulder. For a sickening instant she felt her fingers loosen on the baton but no bones had been broken and strength flooded back.

  “Shoot!” she yelled as she lunged at her attacker swinging the baton. It connected somewhere between the gauntleted elbow and shoulder with a bone-cracking jar that pleased Anna to her toes.

  The insect grunted but didn’t fall down or back. The wrench was tossed from right to left hand and slashed at Anna’s face.

  Jerking the baton up, she braced the tip across her left palm and blocked the blow. The force shot angry pains down her wrists and left her hands tingling. Before her attacker recovered balance she kicked out, hoping to connect with a kneecap. Her boot cut along the inside of the assailant’s ankle.

  A scream was ripped loose. The wrench chopped down.

  Again Anna blocked it but this time her baton was forced to within an inch of her face. Her assailant was stronger and more heavily armed.

  “Shoot!” she screamed.

  “Get out of the way!”

  “Jesus.” Anna jerked the baton back. Overbalancing, the insect stumbled forward a step. She stepped into the opening and rammed the tip of the baton into the exposed gut with all her strength and weight.

  Her attacker bent double. Both hands on the baton, she swung the butt down toward the back of the canvas-covered neck. The pipe wrench caught her across the shins. Her blow fell wild, glancing off the breathing apparatus.

  A shoulder slammed into her chest and she fell back. Mud softened the landing but breath was knocked from her and her head snapped back, splashing muck into her hair and face. Curling up like a spring, Anna held the baton perpendicular to her body to ward blows from her face and upper body. With her feet she kicked out, keeping the pipe wrench at a distance.

  “Shoot, goddamn it!”

  The wrench arced up. Anna kicked but the cloying mud hampered her, adding to the nightmare feeling. Bracing her arms to absorb another strike, she yelled, “Look out!” in the slim hope of unsettling her assailant.

  The insect should have heeded her unwitting advice. A gun’s report hit Anna’s ears at the same time the bullet struck. The force of the shot pushed her attacker upright.

  For a bizarre moment the insect head hung over her, the wrench halfway down its arc, as if deciding whether to complete the strike or not. A second shot rang out and the fingers gripped so tightly around the wrench sprang open. The wrench fell, cracking Anna’s knuckles against the baton, then slithered heavily into the mud at her side.

  The masked figure stepped back stiff-legged, then crumpled, muscles and ligaments no longer receiving orders from the central nervous system. The strings that moved the puppet had been cut.

  Anna felt as if the second shot had cut her strings as well. Her head dropped into the sludge, the baton fell from her hands, her legs were rubbery, useless. Confusion clouded her mind, her heart pounded, and she felt as if she were going to vomit.

  Sirens and sucking sounds took over but she had little interest. A face formed over hers and she yelled.

  “Take it easy,” Stanton said. “Are you okay?” Taking her hand, he pulled her to her feet. Disoriented, nauseated, Anna shook her head to clear it. Nothing cleared. She tried to remember if she’d taken a blow to the head and couldn’t. Cyanide gas: she remembered the almond smell.

  Sirens closed in and the clearing was filled with chaos. “I called the cavalry,” Stanton said.

  Anna dragged her hand across her eyes to gather her wits. Her eyes began to burn viciously. Tears blinded her and she couldn’t force her eyes open. Wherever the sludge had come in contact, her skin burned.

  “My eyes,” Anna said. “My eyes . . .”

  “Holy smoke,” Stanton said softly as she reached blindly for him. “Let’s get you out of here.”

  Anna held tight to his arm and stumbled over the uneven ground. “Did you kill him?” she shouted over the sound of the sirens.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Was it Greeley?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. What a son of a bitch.”

  “You’re going to be all right,” Stanton said.

  TWENTY

  “DOES IT HAVE TO BE SO FUCKING COLD?” ANNA barked.

  “ ‘Flush with copious amounts of cool water,’ ” Stanton quoted sententiously.

  “Cool, damn it, not cold.”

  Anna heard the protest of antique plumbing as Frederick turned the shower knob. “That better?”

  “No.”

  “Well, think about something else, like July in Georgia.”

  “Shit. My eyes!” Water cascading down from her hair washed more acid into her eyes. The burning made her whimper. It felt as if the jelly of her eye was being eaten away.

  “Keep flushing,” Stanton said. “Tilt your head back.” Anna felt his hand on the back of her head and tried to do as he said. “Try and open your eyes so clean water gets in them.”

  “Can’t. Hurts.” Anna heard the whine in her voice and shut up. She was shivering and not only with the cold. Blindness: now there was a bogeyman to put the fear of God into one. Blindness, paralysis, and small closed spaces.

  “You’ll see. We got it in time,” Frederick reassured her. “I drove like the wind. You would’ve been proud. A regular Parnelli Andretti. Open now. Come on. A teensy-weensy little peek,” he coaxed, and Anna was able to laugh away a bit of her terror.

  His fingers were plucking at the buttons of her uniform shirt, peeling it off her back as gently as if he feared he might peel the skin off with it. His very care scared her and she tried to help, jerking blindly at her shirttail.

  He pulled it free for her. “Yowch! You’ve got an ugly gouge down your ribs. Greeley get you with the wrench?”

  For a moment Anna couldn’t remember. Her brain was fogged and that, too, scared her. The answer came in flashback. “Stick took my gun,” she said. “Scraped me.”

  “You’re burnt,” Stanton said.

  “What does it look like?” Anna strove for a conversational tone but missed.

  “Not bad. Not bad at all. Looks like a sunburn but not blistering or anything. Here.”

  Cold water was deflected to stream down her back. Keeping her face tilted so the dirty water would run away from her eyes, Anna gathered her hair and held it out from her body.

  “Let me get your shoes off,” Stanton said. “We don’t want this pooling in ’em and dissolving your toes.”

  “That’s a soothing picture,” Anna mumbled. She kicked off one shoe and felt him pull the other off as she lifted her foot.

  “I’m going to cut your trousers off, okay?”

  “Cut. And warm up the water. I’m getting hypothermic.”

  “Just a tad.” The aged metal creaked in protest and the edge went off the cold.

  Anna pushed her face into the stream and pried her eyes open with her fingers. She must have cried out because Stanton was asking what was the matter and she could feel the warmth of his hand on her bare shoulder.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said.
“You’ll get this shit on you.”

  “Right. Are you okay?”

  Anna shook her head. She couldn’t hold her eyelids open for even a second. The fact that she could see light beyond her eyelids seemed a good sign, but the fluorescent light over the stall in the women’s communal shower at the tent frames where Stanton had brought her was so bright even a blind woman could see it. The thought sent another stab of fear into her and Anna tried harder to get fresh water under her lids.

  Stanton slit her pantlegs and Anna gasped with the cold and the relief. Her skin burned and itched where the acid-drenched mud had soaked through. As he cut away her underpants he said, “Oooh. Black lace. A collector’s item. I shall have them stuffed.”

  Anna was grateful for the banter. Pain and panic had destroyed any vestige of modesty but she appreciated the thought. “As I recall, you never wanted to know me this well.”

  He didn’t reply.

  “How much more time have I got?”

  “Thirteen minutes. ‘Flush with copious amounts for twenty minutes,’ the doctor said. You’ve done seven.”

  During the wild and, for Anna, sightless ride from the cliff’s edge, Stanton had radioed Frieda to call the emergency room in Cortez. The doctor on call had given instructions for treatment. Stanton was carrying them out with kindness and precision. For the first time in more years than she cared to count, Anna felt taken care of. It made her weak and she was afraid she would cry.

  Hoping Stanton would attribute the gesture to modesty, she turned her back on him. “Distract me,” she said when she could trust her voice. “What do you figure? What happened?”

  “The obvious: Greeley had the water truck rigged to smuggle toxic waste into the park to dump it. It shouldn’t be too hard to trace where the stuff was from.”

  “Cyanide gas,” Anna said. “Almonds, remember? And acid. Some kind of acid wash used in industrial manufacturing, maybe. Stacy stumbles onto the scheme. Greeley kills Stacy.”