Page 74 of South of Nowhere

But Redding did not step into the trap. “No, the whole shift was here. But as soon as I heard about the collapse, I got ’em out. These boys—and gals—volunteered. Hugh and me, the operations manager, we’ve been helping with the bags too, in between moving the electronics and paperwork records to high ground. In case the whole levee comes down.”

“You moved fast.”

“I started yesterday.”

Ah…an admission!

The miner continued, “I thought something like this might happen. I know the Never Summer. It’s been part of my whole family’s life for nearly two hundred years. I check the weather daily. Hereand up north, at the source. Snowpack—how deep? Last winter—how cold was it? Was there any melt in January or February or is the mountain still loaded with the snows from October, just waiting to melt and flood? And now, record heat? I knew it was going to swell. I always keep sand and bags ready.” He nodded to a huge pile.

How good an actor was he?

“So we’ll stay put.”

“Your workers?”

“You notice anything about their cars?”

Shaw had not.

“They’re all pointed at Hillside Road. Which, yes, goes up the hillside. And look at the exhausts. The engines’re running. We hear the levee goes entirely, they can be out of here in thirty seconds.”

He squinted as he looked over Shaw. “I suppose you talked to thePetticoat Junctiongirl.”

“Annie Coyne. Yes.”

“I’ll bet she’s not leaving either.”

When Shaw said nothing, Redding chuckled. “Of course not. She’s afraid I’ll sneak in and turn her faucets on. Flood her out from the inside. Or burn her spread down. That woman needs to chill. She’s convinced my family’s been stealing water from hers for generations. A barn owl spooks and it’s because I’m poisoning crops late at night. A combine breaks, it’s sabotage. The price of soy goes down, I’m pulling strings.”

Shaw looked at the wall of sandbags that had grown higher as they’d spoken. It was now about four feet tall and the way the workers were moving, it seemed likely they’d have the front of the mining operation covered in the next hour.

Shaw’s eyes scanned the mine, the refinery and the surrounding hills.

Then the wall of bags.

“You think this’ll hold?”

“I’m an engineer, Mr. Shaw. I calculated estimated velocity,volume, dispersion per hundred feet from the levee, grade of the land. And temperature—everyone forgets about temperature. Bad mistake.” He examined the bags. “It will hold. Let’s hope the forecast’s wrong, and we get some overcast on the mountain up north. Slow the melt. Now, I appreciate your visit and you can thank Mayor Tolifson for his concern. Of course, you know he’s of two minds.”

“How do you mean?”

“He wants me to evacuate so he doesn’t need to allocate resources to save assholes like me who don’tfeellike evacuating.” He looked at Shaw wryly. “Then there’s the other aspect. He doesn’t want us to stop the sandbagging. If my mine gets destroyed or has to shut down for a year, that means layoffs. And you know what unemployment means in places like Olechu County.”

“I see a lot of small towns in my work. It means drugs and crime and overdoses.”

“You’ve got that one hundred percent right, Mr. Shaw. And I suspect that that’s more thanactingpolice chief Tolifson can deal with. Anything more I can help you with?”

“No. Just wanted to deliver the message.” His eyes scanned the hillside above the offices, the road to the refineries.

“Consider it delivered.”

Shaw turned to walk back to his bike.

Redding called, “One thing.”

Shaw looked back.

“Here you are, Paul Revere, riding around warning everybody, ‘The water is coming, the water is coming,’ on that horse of yours. You better figure out where you’re going to get your own ass to when you see that tidal wave coming your way. If it’s easier to come back here than it is to get to high ground, feel free.”

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