Water Rites

by Mary Rosenblum

  It wasn’t signed, but Carter recognized the handwriting. Hastings put those jagged tails on his Y’s.

  Very carefully, he folded the certificates and tucked them into his pocket. Very carefully, he straightened the pile of diapers. She didn’t know, he told himself. But it didn’t really matter if she did or not. Dan Greely and Hastings had put strings on him and made him dance. Carter touched the butt of the Beretta lightly, feeling the paper crackle in his pocket. It might be enough to send Greely to prison for life and put Hastings in front of a court-martial. And it might not. Hastings was a general. Politics would come into it.

  “Carter?” Johnny stood in the doorway, his expression eager. “You find something?”

  “No.” Carter shrugged. “Maybe you ought to look. I’m getting fuzzy.”

  “Sure.” Johnny stepped past him and yanked a drawer open. “Go sit down. You look pale.”

  He felt pale. Carter limped through the house, not looking at Jeremy, his ribs searing him with every step. He thought he could make it, but Johnny caught up with him as he collapsed into the driver’s seat.

  “What the hell are you up to?” Johnny put a hand on the door. “Carter?”

  Carter hit the electric locks, rolled the windows up.

  “Hey!”

  “This isn’t your fight.” The engine roared and Johnny leaped backward as he gunned it in reverse, spinning a rooster tail of dirt as he backed the car around in a tight arc. Icy sweat stuck his shirt to his skin. He could drive one-handed. He could manage that much. He floored it and peeled out of the yard, the rear end fishtailing, Johnny’s shouting left behind in an instant. Breath whistling through his teeth, he roared up the drive, the car rocking and bouncing, driving lances of pain through his chest.

  Johnny didn’t get to die for Carter’s mistakes. At least he’d have that. If he got to the Shunt in time, maybe the war wouldn’t happen.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The countryside looked different from the cab of a truck. Kneeling on Renny’s plush carpet, Nita watched the riverbed unreel beyond the highway. Your perspective changed up here; you saw the dust and rock and the pump stations from a different angle. Nita stroked the cab’s carpet — not really carpet but acoustic skin, Renny had told her, reinforced by an electronic noise-cancellation system. With the windows intact, you could barely hear the purr of the engine. The quiet and the cool dustless air made the wind-scoured land look even less real.

  “We’re so . . . removed in here,” Nita said out loud.

  “How so, babe?” Renny tossed her a quick glance, then turned her attention back to the highway.

  “They aren’t real. The rocks, the riverbed.” Nita squirmed. Renny’s arm was hurting her again, but she wouldn’t take any more of the orange painkillers. “I wish I could take a turn and give you a break,” she said.

  “I’ve been worse off. Quit clucking at me like a mother hen.” Renny smiled faintly. “You’re right. It’s not real, all that dust out there. I don’t particularly want it to be real, either. I don’t want to look any farther than the road in front of me. Give me a nice room in a plaza somewhere, a good dinner, and a sharp deal. That’s real enough.”

  “You don’t look behind you,” Nita said. “Lydia keeps it all around her, doesn’t she? The past?” Preserved in the succulent leaves of long-dead plants.

  “You say some strange things, babe.”

  Past and present. A dusty barrier divided one from the other. Only Jeremy really straddled it. Nita sighed, urging the truck to move faster, watching the rocky scar of the riverbed drift past.

  “That stuff Lydia dug up is worrying you, isn’t it?” Renny said.

  Yes, someone planted those names, Lydia had told her. Sorry, I don’t have the real names yet. Rico’s getting better in his old age after all. It’s going to take me a little while to pick out the threads for you. But don’t worry. I’ll find ’em.

  “Yes, I guess it is.”

  “She’ll get you what you’re after. No one hides anything forever from Lydia.”

  “It . . . might not be in time.” Nita pressed her lips together. A terrible sense of urgency nagged at her. “Something is happening,” she said. “I know it.”

  “You fed me a line back there, didn’t you, babe?” Renny shot Nita a look. “You’re no operator. You’re in this as deep as Danny.”

  “I didn’t mean to be.” Nita looked at the trucker, trying to read the barbed tangle of her emotions. “It was strange, coming here. People are nice to me because I’m Sam Montoya’s daughter.”

  “So you’re Sam’s kid, huh? Small world. Maybe not.” Renny chuckled. “Yeah, Sam was another one like Danny. Kind of a hero around here, too. That why you came back?”

  “No.” Nita twisted to look into the rear of the cab, but Rachel was still asleep on the futon, sucking on her fist. “He was no hero to me. I think I hated him. Because he let those men kill him. He left me to get all Mama’s blame for it.” The blood that spattered her had never washed off.

  “You don’t hate him any more?”

  “I don’t know.” Nita frowned. “I think I understand why he did what he did. He knew those men would come for him. Sooner or later. But he didn’t want us — the whole town — to die, too. I hope — when he saw them — it still mattered to him.”

  Renny grunted. “I never gave a damn about Jesse. We scratched to live, and she would’ve done a lot better without a kid. I was an accident. If she’d had the guts, she would have left me out in the Dry when I was born. I chained her to that hose farm and we both knew it.”

  Nita shivered at her hurt. And anger. “And then Dan came along.”

  “Yeah, then Danny came along. He’s my age, did you know that? Almost exactly. I was twenty-three when he moved in with her. I heard about it from a friend of mine. I’d been working the east-west routes then, driving as an apprentice for an old witch who could make a rig fly, setting up with a partner of my own.” She gave a dry laugh. “I didn’t get back here much, didn’t want to. I guess Danny had something to offer Jesse that I didn’t. What happened the day they came for your dad?”

  “He stopped to hide me, so they wouldn’t kill me, too.” Nita let her breath out slowly. “They probably would’ve killed him even if he had run. You could see for miles around our place and they had rifles.”

  “How old were you, babe?”

  “Five. I think. About that.”

  “It’s a damn dusty world we grow up in,” Renny said. She shook her head and concentrated on wrestling the truck off onto the Mosier detour.

  Nita looked at the folded hills where Julio Moreno had buried the bones he had found. Such an easy place to die among the rocks and stumps of the long dead orchards. The truck growled a low note as it climbed up over the crest where Jeremy had showed her spring. “This land is full of our ghosts,” she said. “It’s crowded with ghosts.”

  “Ghosts, huh?” Renny shifted on her padded seat as she eased the truck back onto the freeway again. “Jesse talked about ghosts, but I never tried very hard to see ’em. Could be that’s what Dan did for her. Shared her ghosts with her.”

  The bitter thorn of Renny’s hunt had softened just a little bit. Nita reached out, met Renny’s hand halfway. For a silent moment their hands clasped; then Renny winced and let go to use both hands on the wheel.

  “Come down to the plaza before I take off again.” She gave Nita a crooked grin. “I’ll teach you to drive this baby. Then you can take over next time I get shot.”

  “I will,” Nita said.

  They passed the abandoned car dealerships and stripped, empty shopping centers that fringed the west end of The Dalles. “We’ll drop the rig at the plaza and pick up one of their loaner cars.” Renny eased the truck down the exit ramp. “I don’t drive this baby on that goat track to the farm.”

  “I’m going to the base.” Nita drew a slow breath. She had no proof to offer Carter yet, nothing that would save Dan. Except for herself. What she was. “I can wa
lk from here,” she said as they turned onto the plaza access road.

  Dust eddied across the asphalt lot. A single rig baked in the sun. “It’s too empty.” Renny scowled. “Stay put a minute. I’ll find out what’s up.”

  The dust sifted into the truck as soon as Renny cracked the sealed door. She cursed and slammed it behind her, ducking her head against the hot wind as she ran across the parking lot to the door. Something was wrong. Nita played with Rachel as she waited, trying to ignore the clench of unease in her gut. Rachel fussed and slapped at the dangled beads. No puddle lay beneath the caged hoses today. A dust devil twisted at the corner of the building, and Nita hugged her cranky daughter. Renny was coming back and Nita winced as she yanked the door open.

  “Bad news.” Renny scowled at the distant wall of the dam. Curtained by blowing dust, it bulked like a cliff wall across the riverbed. “Somebody blew the Pipe while we were on our jaunt. A lot of uniforms got killed.”

  Carter? Nita sucked in her breath, afraid to ask, afraid to say his name out loud. “Do they know who?” she managed.

  “No names, babe. A bunch of them got offed in an ambush and a couple more drowned when the Pipe went. Drowned, can you believe it?” Renny’s laugh carried no trace of humor. “Josie says it’s war around here. Water’s cut off and they aren’t going to turn it back on. Uniforms blew away a truck last night. Turned out to be a family with a kid. The locals are crazy mad, on their way down to the Shunt to kill uniforms and turn the water back on. Josie’s on her way out of here right now.” Renny gave Nita a sharp look. “She’s right, babe. How ’bout if I give you that driving lesson in Boise?”

  Nita shook her head, full of fear. “Will you give me that ride up to the farmhouse?” she faltered. “Before you leave?” Jeremy would know what was going on.

  “You’re as thick-headed as Danny,” Renny growled. “But I figured that out already.” She pulled a key from her pocket. “I got us a loaner. We’ll have to go through town and cut over to the house by the back way. The Army shut down the highway between here and the Deschutes bed. Even the rigs have to wait for an escort before they can go through. Josie said everyone is pissed as hell. I don’t know any more than that.”

  And Carter? Had he died in that ambush? His name kept sneaking into Nita’s head as the battered little loaner car chugged its way along the winding road that followed the rim of the Gorge. An ambush. Carter would have been in charge. There. Rachel squirmed and Nita bounced her, trying to distract her, trying to distract herself from her own fears.

  Beyond the windows, rows of irrigated beans or beets swung past. The plants were wilting, yellowing in the sun. The landscape still looked unreal, but this sense of unreality had the dull gloss of a nightmare. They had been gone only twenty-four hours. The Dalles was dying.

  Renny turned the car onto the narrow track that led to the farmhouse and braked to a halt. “Listen to me, babe. You got nothing to bargain with, right? People are about to start shooting.” She studied Nita’s face for a moment, then started the car moving again. “I’ve already offered Boise, so I won’t say it again. But you be careful, babe. Hear?”

  “I hear you,” Nita said as the car pulled up behind the sagging gray house. “I’ll be careful, Renny.” She climbed out, Rachel clutched awkwardly in her arms. “Take care of yourself.”

  “Hell, I’m not running off quite yet.” Renny looked grim. “I’ll stick around to see what’s going down. If it’s bad enough, I might want to cross the bridge and haul up to Goldendale and ninety-seven. That gets me back to the riverbed, and I can give this dog and pony show a miss.” She got out and slammed the door.

  Renny was worried. About her? “Thanks,” Nita said softly. Out in the fields, the beans lay dying. What if Jeremy wasn’t here? What if no one was here? What had happened to Carter?

  Jeremy and Johnny Seldon were on the porch, sitting in the shade. “Nita!” Jeremy’s relief hummed in the air. “I didn’t hear the car for the wind noise. Hello, Renny. Want some water?”

  “What’s going on?” Nita’s voice threatened to break. “Is . . . Carter all right? Was he at the Pipe?”

  “He was just here a few minutes ago, Nita.” Jeremy limped to the steps and put a hand on her arm. “He got hurt, but he’ll be all right.” For all his comforting tone, no comfort lay beneath his words.

  “What’s wrong?” she whispered.

  “He ran off and stranded me here.” Johnny peered around the corner. “I could use a ride.”

  He was angry. Nita turned her back on him. “I don’t understand,” she said, hugging Rachel to her. “I don’t understand, Jeremy.”

  “I don’t think I do, either.” Jeremy put an arm around her. “Come on inside, put Rachel down, and have a drink of water. I’ll get you a glass, Renny.” He urged Nita gently into the dim interior of the house. “I think he found something.” He looked at her sideways. “They were searching the house, looking for proof that Dan’s involved with the sabotage. All of a sudden he bolted out of here. He acted . . . pretty upset.”

  “He found what we were after.” Johnny had followed them inside, pulled out a chair, and dropped into it. “He found proof that Greely’s connected with Hastings. Where the hell did he go with it?” He banged a clenched fist down on the table. “Goddamn idiot.”

  “There’s no proof.” Nita stared at him. “Not here.”

  “There had to be. A letter.” Johnny gave her a cold stare. “Something.”

  He was so easy to read. “You know he found something,” she breathed. “You put it here.” Her eyes widened. “That’s why you came up here the other day. To hide it. And you just came back after you dropped us off in town. I knew you didn’t really want to see Dan, but I couldn’t figure out what you wanted. You meant to put it here and get Carter to find it.”

  “You got a problem, lady?” Johnny crossed his arms, gave her a crooked smirk. “You been watching too many mystery vids.”

  “You’re lying,” she said matter of factly. “You planted something to link Dan to Hastings. We found other stuff. You probably planted that, too. The shares with Hastings’ and Dan’s names on them. It’ll tie them together and tie them to Pacific BioSytems. So everyone will think they’ve been making money from those fields Renny talked about.”

  Rachel was squirming in her arms, protesting that Nita was holding her too tightly. They were all staring at her. Renny perplexed, Jeremy listening carefully. And Johnny — behind his cold, untroubled face — was afraid.

  “You’re behind it,” she whispered. “You hired Rico to fix the records and make it just obvious enough to find. You’ve done it all, haven’t you? The sabotage — the shooting. How could you do this to Carter?” Her voice trembled and broke. “My God, he loves you.”

  Johnny lunged up at her, then gasped as the heel of Jeremy’s hand caught him hard in the chest, jolting him back into his chair.

  “Sit still,” Jeremy said mildly. “I think that’s about enough.” This time, they all looked at the small automatic that had appeared in his hand. He didn’t look very clumsy, holding the gun.

  Johnny clutched the tabletop with both hands, breathing through his mouth. “She’s making it up.” He didn’t take his eyes from the gun. “She’s Greely’s lover, sticking up for him. I want to see one single shred of proof.”

  “I have it. I’m not showing it to you.” A lie, but he wouldn’t know. “He’s at the Shunt.” She turned to Jeremy, pleading now. “Josie at the plaza said everyone is going there. To turn the water back on. That’s where he went.” And he wouldn’t care if he died, trying to stop it. “I have to go there, Jeremy. Now.”

  “Nita are you sure?” He frowned at Johnny. “The Shunt is probably the most dangerous place in the country right now. If he’s there, he’s with the Army and you’ll get yourself killed if you go near them. They’re shooting at us, Nita. To kill.”

  Jeremy wasn’t going to go. “Renny?” Nita faced her. “I need the car.”

  “You’re
worse than Danny, babe. At least he has some sense.” The wiry trucker snorted, her eyes fixed on Jeremy’s gun. “You got a tank up your sleeve? Heavy hardware? What the hell is the point?”

  “I don’t know.” Nita met her eyes.

  “Oh, shit.” Renny’s scowl moved from Jeremy’s face to Johnny’s and finally back to Nita. “You and Danny. Load up, babe. You don’t know these goat tracks for squat and I do. No point in your getting shot any sooner than you have to.”

  “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.