Dead Sand

by Brendan DuBois

  “It means you keep your job,” she snapped back, and then she hung up.

  * * *

  With the other journalists, I tagged along behind the police officers, marching up to the fence, moving in a straight line the best they could over the rough terrain. From where I stood, the line looked pretty thin, and I wondered if the governor’s decision to pull away the National Guard had been the right one.

  The drizzle was coming down harder.

  “Lewis? Lewis Cole?”

  A young woman reporter moved over to me, wearing a light blue knit cap over short blond hair. She had on a black wool coat and blue jeans, and she looked like she could be Paula Quinn’s younger sister.

  “That’s right,” I said, “and you must be Melanie, the stringer for the Chronicle.”

  “The former stringer for the Chronicle,” she said, smiling. “Thanks to Paula, I’m now a full-time reporter.”

  “Good for you,” I said. “I hope it works out.”

  “I hope so, too. I have a message for you, from Paula. She’s taking a few days off—understandable, right?”

  “Right,” I said. “What’s the message?”

  “A simple one,” Melanie said. “Just ‘thanks.’”

  “Just ‘thanks,’” I repeated. “Appreciate you passing it along.”

  “No problem,” she said. She looked over at the fence and the two opposing lines, and she said, “What’s going to happen?”

  “The protesters are going to try to occupy the plant site. The police are going to try to keep them away. Good chance it’s going to get nasty, and quite soon.”

  “So much for peaceful protests.”

  “The NFF makes no bones about what they plan to do, and if it takes violence, so be it.”

  She looked again. “I wonder where their leader is—that Chesak fellow.”

  I took off my small knapsack and retrieved a set of binoculars. I brought them up to my face and scanned the approaching crowds. I looked twice more and handed the binoculars over to Melanie. “Doesn’t look like he’s there. Quite the surprise.”

  She took the glasses, gave the crowd a good look. “Yes, quite a surprise.”

  Not the last one for the day.

  * * *

  Melanie went closer, and I stayed back, watching half of the protesters break away from the crowd and move to the left, moving quickly, coming to the fence. Some carried ladders and propped them up against the chain-link fence. Cheers broke out as three protesters scaled the ladders and reached the top of the fence, but they were knocked sprawling as police officers up against the fence poked through the openings with their nightsticks, pushing the ladders back. The other group—a ready reserve, it looked like—hung back, cheering on their comrades.

  Other police officers stood by the fence as well, squirting pepper spray. Some of the antinuclear activists turned away, but some wearing gas masks or goggles managed to stay there, working at the fence.

  More shouts, more pounding of the staves against the shields. The crowds were falling back. The number of people seemed smaller than what I recalled from the other day. Raindrops splattered against my coat. A wind picked up from the east. It looked like the protest was faltering. If it ended in the next half hour or so, I could get home, write my column, and make a very important phone call to Annie Wynn. Then maybe to Diane Woods as well.

  It was time for decisions, and all I needed was the proper time and place.

  Then it all went wrong.

  * * *

  To the right, about fifty yards away from the place where the police and the protesters were battling, seven or eight young men suddenly stood up, wearing coverings with leaves, twigs, and vegetation about them. Ghillie suits, what snipers use to come up close to their prey.

  The men trotted to the fence line, each carrying a length of rope. They clipped the ends of the rope to the fence, and as one, they tugged.

  The fence fell.

  “I’ll be damned,” I whispered.

  Sometime during the night, they must have crept up to the fence and quietly sabotaged it, cutting through the supporting wires and frames. Then, at the proper time, this hidden crew had broken a lengthy section of fence. There was a large open space leading right into the power plant property.

  The group of protesters that I thought had been waiting and killing time as some sort of ready reserve started running to the opening, moving fast, shields and staves at the ready.

  A diversion, that’s all the fence climbing with the ladders was. It was just a diversion.

  With shouts and yells of triumph, the NFF members ran into the plant property. From the left, a line of police officers was running to the fence opening as well, and in another minute or two, they collided.

  * * *

  Fighting broke out, a confusing mass of police officers and protesters, wrestling, punching, flailing. I tried to keep track of it all and failed. Three demonstrators ran past me, hooting and laughing, hollering, “We did it, we did it, we did it!” Somewhere horns blew. There were whistles as well. The protesters moved against some of the police officers, and there was fighting among them all, nightsticks against wooden staves, against shields, against raised arms.

  Near me was a construction trailer, and smoke billowed out as flames burst through broken windows. On the cement wall of a building, a solitary demonstrator was spray-painting FUCK NUKES. Two dark gray pickup trucks came in from the plant site, screeching to a halt. Security officers from the power plant tumbled out, shotguns up. I looked around, looked around. More shouting. Two police officers were nearly surrounded by protesters, retreating up on a small rise of land near the burning trailer. One officer fell. The protesters ignored him. They kept on pushing and pushing at the solitary police officer.

  Leading the charge was a man I recognized, even with a bandanna over his face: the previously missing Curt Chesak. He was shouting something I couldn’t make out, but he was also carrying a length of metal pipe, which he swung back and forth at the police officer holding a nightstick, reaching for a weapon, the police officer stumbling …

  It was Diane Woods.

  I started running.

  Someone tripped me. I fell, scraping my knees and hands. I got up and ran again, and Diane was on the ground, curled on one side, as Curt stood over her, hitting her again and again and again with the length of pipe. He then bent down and tugged at something, and with a whoop and yell of triumph, he held up her riot helmet.

  “Diane!” I yelled, getting back to my feet, and there was a pop pop pop as tear gas canisters exploded in the crowd. Some of the police officers tugged on their gas masks, but I kept on running, pushing, shoving, and then I was there. The ground was stone and gravel with some tufts of grass, and blood. There was sprayed blood. Diane was on her side. Her hair was matted on one side. Blood streamed from her mouth and nose. Her eyes were closed. I gently rolled her onto her back. My hands were shaking. Rain started pouring down. I touched her skin. It was cold and clammy.

  Loud reports, coming from behind me. Gunshots. Not more tear gas. Gunshots.

  I put my hand at her throat, feeling and looking for a pulse.

  I couldn’t feel a thing.

  Couldn’t feel a thing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  I was grabbed from behind, thrown to the ground. Sirens wailed, and I got up and was kicked in the head and fell back. Long seconds seemed to pass. I got up again in the rain. An ambulance from the nuclear power plant was parked near the rise of land, and a folding gurney was being pushed in, a still shape wearing a Tyler police officer’s jumpsuit aboard, a blanket pulled up, the head secured in a pink foam collar. Four or five police officers were helping put the gurney in. The door was slammed, and the ambulance roared off, siren sounding.

  Two other ambulances were parked nearby. A fire engine was by the trailer, and firefighters in yellow turnout gear were wetting down the structure. I got up, legs shaking. Some semblance of order seemed to be restored in the driving rain
. Police officers with shotguns were standing guard over a seated assembly of protesters, their hands behind their heads. Another line of police was standing by the opening in the fence. Between them was a pile of wooden staves and plywood signs with the NFF logo. Two more gurneys were being loaded onto ambulances. On paved ground near a collection of pipes and valves, two bodies were stretched out, and police officers there were taking photos, measuring, talking to each other, hands moving a lot. Little triangular signs with letters on them were set up around the bodies, marking evidence.

  I swallowed. My mouth was very dry, and my hands and knees hurt where I had fallen onto the dirt and gravel. A helicopter roared overhead, followed by another, both from Boston television stations. There were loud voices coming from somewhere, and I saw Ron Shelton standing on a cement block, being besieged by reporters. I moved over and caught snatches of his conversation, as Ron tried his best.

  “… we abhor violence, of course we do, but this was not a peaceful organization…”

  “… we can’t make a comment yet on these deaths, until we have the full facts from the investigating authorities…”

  “… we believe our security force responded appropriately to the threatening actions posed by these trespassers…”

  I elbowed my way through the reporters frantically taking photos and shouting questions, and I yelled out, the best I could, “Ron, can I get an escort to leave the plant site?”

  I had to shout twice more before he responded. His face was quite red, and his hands were trembling. “No,” he said. “No one’s leaving until the police and our security organization complete their preliminary investigation. I’m sure you understand that.”

  I was going to say something else, but I saw two security officers from the Falconer nuclear plant standing warily behind Ron, watching us members of the Fourth Estate at work, and I just nodded and slipped out from the crowd.

  * * *

  I walked away from the news gaggle, took out my notebook, made sure my press pass was fluttering publicly in the breeze. I knew I was being watched, and I had an idea of what to do. I walked slowly and then stopped, making notes in my notebook, trying to shield it from the rain, so it looked like I was trying to reconstruct what had just happened. There were more sirens sounding out in the distance, meaning reinforcements were on their way, so I didn’t have time to waste.

  So I didn’t waste any. I ambled slowly away from the ambulances, the bodies, the police, the security force, the firefighters, and the helicopters overhead, and from that bloody rise of land where one Chris Chesak had pummeled my best friend, Diane.

  In a few minutes, unescorted and by myself, I reached the main parking lot, where my Ford Explorer was parked. About twenty feet away, there was a news van from the ABC affiliate in New Hampshire, and a young, attractive woman dressed in a red cloth coat whom I recognized from the 6:00 P.M. newscasts was screaming at two plant security officers, her face the color of her coat, using language that would make a U.S. marine blush.

  I quietly got into the Ford, started up the engine, and slowly backed out of the parking lot and went out to the main access road, where I halted at a stop sign. Ron had said the plant was closed down, which meant that the gates at the north and south ends were closed and guarded.

  I shifted into drive. I knew there were other ways out of the plant site.

  I felt the urge to slam the accelerator down and get going, but I kept things under control as I made a turn onto a bumpy dirt road, and kept my speed limit at about fifteen miles an hour, passing underneath the huge transmission lines that led out to the rest of the state. It was a short but difficult drive, because in my mind’s eye, I kept on seeing the form of Diane on the ground, the gleeful joy that Chris Chesak took in battering her, and I also remembered the cold touch of her skin, and my frantic search for a pulse.

  There. The Stony Creek Road gate. Last time I was here, it was locked and unguarded. Today, in the driving rain, it was still locked.

  Locked and guarded.

  * * *

  I drove up a bit and glanced over at the gate. A pickup truck from the Falconer security force was parked at the side, and two security officers were standing outside, in light brown rain slickers, weapons over their shoulders, watching me. I gave a cheery wave, then stopped the Explorer, then put the gearshift into reverse. I slowly backed into a turn, as if I had gone down the wrong road and was lost.

  I backed down a few yards toward the gate and waited, looked out the rain-streaked windshield, watched the moving wiper blades, and then looked up at the rearview mirror. The security officers were talking and didn’t seem too concerned, and again I saw the bloody shape of Diane on the ground.

  I slammed my foot down on the accelerator.

  Still in reverse, the Explorer quickly barreled its way down the dirt road, right up to the gate, and the guards seemed shocked, and I braced myself for the impact as I roared right by them and the rear bumper of the Explorer struck the fence hard. The jolt of the collision rattled my teeth, and my hands flew off the steering wheel, and the Explorer fishtailed and went off the side of the road, and the rear hatchback window was shattered, but in front of me was a splintered and open gate.

  Two very angry security officers were running toward me, one shrugging off his shotgun, the other frantically talking into a handheld radio.

  I gave them another wave, punched the Explorer into drive, made a muddy and violent U-turn, and got the hell out of there.

  The trip from Falconer to Exonia takes about twenty minutes.

  I got there in twelve.

  * * *

  As on my last visit to the hospital after a violent incident, the parking lot was crowded, with cars parked everywhere, another news helicopter overhead, and a television crew doing a live stand-up outside of the emergency room entrance, the harsh lights from the camera making everything look unreal in the driving rain. I found an empty spot at a parking lot a hundred yards or so away, and backed in my Ford so the broken rear window wasn’t visible. If the security people at Falconer had put out an alert to local law enforcement about a Ford Explorer with a shattered rear window, I didn’t want to make it easy for the Exonia cops to track me down.

  I trotted up a slight hill to the emergency room and was out of breath when I got in, and I was so fortunate as to see Kara Miles standing by herself, sobbing. When she threw herself at me I hugged her hard and said, “How is she? What do you know? How is she?”

  Through the sobs she gasped out that she wasn’t sure, that Diane had gone straight into surgery, that she was promised an update as soon as one was made available, and for God’s sake, will you stay with me?

  “Yes,” I said, still holding her tight. “By God I will.”

  * * *

  We found a place to sit just outside of the emergency room entrance, in a short hallway, and she held my hand and said, “Thank God I got the call … there’s a secretary at the police station, she knows about me and Diane … when she got word about her being hurt, she called me … and bless the people here, Lewis, there’s none of this bullshit about me not being a family member or a relative … so here I am…”

  She had on a pair of dark blue sweats and a dungaree jacket, and her eyes were swollen and weepy. Her nose looked raw as she sniffled. “Lewis … you’re bleeding. Your lower lip.”

  I touched my lip, and my fingers came away bloody. I put a handkerchief to my lip. “Had a bit of a problem getting out of the plant site. How long have you been here?”

  “Not that long … damn it, did you see Diane before the fighting broke out? Did you talk to her?”

  “Yes, I did,” I said, “and she told me the good news about you two. I’m happy … real happy.”

  Kara drew a forearm across her nose, wiping it. “Some fucking happy good news … I gave her a hard time, I delayed and delayed, all because I was such a tight ass about fighting for some cause … instead of fighting for the woman I love … and look where I am. Shit, Lewis, tell
me … how bad is it? Did you see what happened?”

  I couldn’t say anything else. “She was cornered by a couple of the violent ones. She put up a fight. She fell. They beat her up pretty bad, Kara … I saw a lot of blood … but this is a good place. They’ll do their very best.”

  She sobbed some more, and as the minutes and minutes dragged on, more police officers from the Tyler Police Department came in, most of them in civilian clothes, as the usual efficient cop telegraph got to work, alerting everyone that a fellow officer had been hurt. While they came in, a few nodded at Kara, but they clustered together as a wounded tribe as Kara held my hand tight and talked about the trips she and Diane had taken over the years to Northampton and Provincetown and Key West, and lots of islands in the Caribbean, where Diane would often rent a sailboat so they could go island hopping, and how they had planned a trip after Christmas to the British Virgin Islands to celebrate their engagement, and—

  A short, plump woman in surgical scrubs came out through a set of swinging doors that had HOSPITAL STAFF ONLY posted on them, and then she spotted Kara and came toward us. Kara squeezed my hand so hard I could feel my muscles ache, and she whispered, “Oh Christ, what will I do if I’m a widow before I get married, oh, Lewis, what will I do?”

  The doctor smiled weakly and said, “Let’s go somewhere private, all right?”

  The two of us got up and made the very, very long walk to a private reception room that was about five feet away.

  * * *

  The doctor’s name was Hanratty and she got right to it. “The good news is that she’s alive. She’s made it through surgery. However, she’s suffered some severe injuries to her face and skull.”

  The doctor went on, talking about fractures and abscesses and broken orbital sockets and nose, and stitches and such. I felt like I was going to float out of the chair. Diane was alive. She was alive. I knew her well. She was so very strong, and—