High Citadel / Landslide (64 page)

Donner said silkily, ‘Mr Boyd has laid on an instant earthquake. He’s been trying to make me believe that hillside is going to collapse.’

‘I’m a geologist,’ I said deliberately. ‘Tell me, Captain: what is the road like up in the Kinoxi? Wet or dry?’

He looked at me as though I had gone mad. ‘Pretty dry.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘You were kicking up quite a cloud of dust coming down the hill. Now tell me, Captain: where the hell do you think all this mud is coming from?’ I pointed to the greasy waste around the powerhouse.

Crupper stared at the mud, then looked at me thoughtfully. ‘All right. You tell me.’

So I went into it again and finally said, ‘Clare, tell the Captain of the demonstration I showed you with the quick clay cores. Don’t embroider it—just tell it straight.’

She hesitated. ‘Well, Bob had some samples of earth—he’d taken them from up here before Howard ran him off. He took a piece and showed how it could bear a big weight. Then he took another piece and stirred it in a jug. It turned to thin mud. That’s about all.’

‘Sounds like a conjuring trick,’ said the Captain. He sighed. ‘Now I have a thing like this dumped on me. Mr Donner, what about pulling your men off pending an expert investigation of the site?’

‘Now look here, Crupper,’ Donner expostulated. ‘We’ve had enough delay. I’m not going to waste thousands of dollars just on Boyd’s word. He’s been trying to stop this project all along and I’m not going to let him get away with any more.’

Crupper was troubled. ‘There doesn’t seem to be anything I can do, Mr Boyd. If I stop work on the dam and nothing is wrong my neck will be on the block.’

‘You’re damn’ right,’ said Donner viciously.

Crupper looked at him with dislike. ‘However,’ he said firmly, ‘if I thought it in the public interest I’d stop construction right here and now.’

I said, ‘You don’t have to take my word for it. Ring the geology faculty at any university. Try to get hold of a soil mechanics specialist if you can, but any competent geologist will be able to confirm it.’

Crupper said with decision, ‘Where’s your telephone, Mr Donner?’

‘Now, wait a minute,’ cried Donner. ‘You’re not going to grind this man’s axe for him, are you, Crupper?’

Clare said suddenly, ‘Do you know why Bull Matterson had a heart-attack, Donner?’

He shrugged. ‘It was something about Boyd being Frank Trinavant. Now, there’s a cock-and-bull story!’

‘But what if it’s true?’ she said softly. ‘It will mean that Bob Boyd will be bossing the Matterson Corporation in the
future. He’ll be
your
boss, Donner! I’d think about that if I were you.’

Donner gave her a startled glance, then looked at me. I grinned at Clare and said, ‘Check!’ She was pulling a bluff but it was good enough to manipulate Donner, so I followed up quickly. ‘Do you pull the men off the site or not?’

Donner was bewildered; things were happening too fast for him. ‘No!’ he said. ‘This is impossible. Things don’t happen like this.’ He was a man who lived too far from nature, manipulating his money counters in drilled formations, unconscious of living in an artificial environment. He could not conceive of a situation he could not control.

Crupper said harshly, ‘Put up or shut up. Where’s your site boss?’

‘Over in the powerhouse,’ said Dormer listlessly.

‘Let’s get over there.’ Crupper moved off through the mud.

I said to Clare, ‘Take the car and get out of here.’

‘I’ll go when you go,’ she said firmly, and followed me to the powerhouse. There wasn’t much I could do about that, short of spanking her, so I let it go. As we went along I sampled the mud, rubbing it between forefinger and thumb. It still had that slick, soapy feeling—the feeling of disaster.

I caught up with Crupper. ‘You’d better plan for the worst, Captain. Let’s assume the dam goes and the lake busts through here. The flood should follow the course of the Kinoxi River pretty roughly. That area should be evacuated.’

‘Thank God this is an underpopulated country,’ he said. ‘There are only two families likely to be in trouble.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘And there’s a new logging camp just been set up. Where’s that goddam telephone?’

Donner came back just as Crupper finished his telephone conversation. Behind him was a big hulk of a man whom I had last seen closely when crashing a gun butt into his jaw.

It was Novak.

He stiffened when he saw me and his hands curled into fists. He shouldered Donner aside and strode over and instinctively I got ready for him, hoping that Crupper could break up the fight quickly. Without taking my eyes off him, I said to Clare, ‘Get away from me—fast.’

Novak stood before me with an unsmiling face. ‘Boyd, you bastard,’ he whispered. His arm came up slowly and I was astonished to see, not a fist but an open hand extended in friendship. ‘Sorry about last week,’ he said. ‘But Howard Matterson had us all steamed up.’

As I took his hand he grinned and rubbed his face. ‘You damn’ near busted my jaw, you know.’

‘I did it without animosity,’ I said. ‘No hard feelings?‘

‘No hard feelings.’ He laughed. ‘But I’d like to take a friendly poke at you some time just to see if I could have licked you.’

‘All right,’ said Crupper testily, ‘This isn’t old home week.’ He looked at Donner. ‘Do you tell him—or must I?’

Donner sagged and looked suddenly much smaller than he really was. He hesitated and said in a low voice, ‘Withdraw the men from the site.’

Novak looked at him blankly. ‘Huh?’

‘You heard him,’ said Crupper abruptly. ‘Pull out your men.’

‘Yeah, I heard him,’ said Novak. ‘But what the hell?’ He tapped Donner on the chest. ‘You’ve been pushing to get this job finished; now you want us to stop. Is that right?’

‘That’s right,’ said Donner sourly.

‘Okay!’ Novak shrugged. ‘Just as long as I get it straight. I don’t want any comeback.’

I said, ‘Wait a minute; let’s do this right. Come with me, Novak.’ We went outside and I looked up at the dam. ‘How many men have you got here?’

‘About sixty.’

‘Where are they?’

Novak waved his hand. ‘About half are down here at the powerhouse; there are a few up at the dam and maybe a dozen scattered around I don’t know where. This is a big site to keep track of everybody. What the hell’s going on, anyway?’

I pointed up the escarpment to the dam. ‘You see that slope? I don’t want anyone walking on it. So those guys up at the dam will have to take to the high ground on either side. See Captain Crupper about getting the boys away from the powerhouse. But remember—no one walks on that slope.’

‘I guess you know what you’re doing,’ he said. ‘As long as Donner goes along with it, it’s okay by me. Getting the guys off the dam will be easy—we have a phone line up to there.’

‘Another thing—have someone open the sluices up there before leaving.’ That was merely a gesture—it would take a long time for the new Lake Matterson to empty but whether the slope collapsed or not it would have to be done eventually and the job might as well be started as soon as possible.

Novak went back into the powerhouse but I waited a while—maybe ten minutes—then I saw the small figures of men moving off the dam and away from the danger zone. Satisfied, I went inside to find Crupper organizing the evacuation of the powerhouse. ‘Just walk out of here and find high ground,’ he was saying. ‘Keep off the Fort Farrell road and away from the river—keep off the valley bottom altogether.’

Someone shouted, ‘If you’re expecting the dam to bust you’re crazy.’

‘I know it’s a good dam,’ said Crupper. ‘But something’s come up and we’re just taking precautions. Move, you guys, it’s no skin off your nose because you’re still on full pay.’ He
grinned sardonically at Donner, then turned to me. ‘That means us, too—everyone gets out of here.’

I was feeling easier. ‘Sure. Come on, Clare. This time you are leaving, and so am I.’

Donner said in a high voice, ‘So everyone leaves—then what?’

‘Then I have a closer look at the situation. I know the dangers and I’ll walk on that slope as though on eggs.’

‘But what can you
do
about it?’

‘It can be stabilized,’ I said. ‘Others will know more about that than I do. But in my opinion the only way will be to drain the lake and cap the clay outcrop. We can only hope the thing doesn’t slip before then.’

Novak said in sudden comprehension,
‘Quick clay?’

‘That’s right. What do you know about it?’

‘I’ve been a construction man all my life,’ he said, ‘I’m not all that stupid.’

Someone yelled across the room, ‘Novak, we can’t find Skinner and Burke.’

‘What were they doing?’

‘Taking out stumps below the dam.’

Novak bellowed, ‘Johnson; where the hell’s Johnson?’ A burly man detached himself from the crowd and came across. ‘Did you send Skinner and Burke to dig stumps below the dam?’

Johnson said, ‘That’s right. Aren’t they around here?’

‘Just how were they taking out those stumps?’ asked Novak.

‘They’d got most of ’em out,’ said Johnson. ‘But there were three real back-breakers. Skinner has a blasting ticket so I gave him some gelignite.’

Novak went very still and looked at me. ‘Christ!’ I said. ‘They must be stopped.’ I could visualize the effect of that sharp jolt on the house-of-cards structure that was quick clay. There would be a sudden collapse, locally at first, but
spreading in a chain reaction right across the hillside, just like one domino knocks down the next and the next and so on to the end of the line. Firm clay would be instantaneously transformed into liquid mud and the whole hillside would collapse.

I swung round. ‘Clare, get the hell out of here.’ She saw the expression on my face and turned away immediately. ‘Crupper, get everyone out fast.’

Novak plunged past me, heading for the door. ‘I know where they are.’ I followed him and we stood staring up at the dam while the powerhouse erupted like an ants’ nest stirred with a stick. There was no movement on the escarpment—no movement at all. Just a confusion of shadows as the low sun struck on rocks and trees.

Novak said hoarsely, ‘I think they’ll be up there—on the right, just under the dam.’

‘Come on,’ I said, and began to run. It was a long way to the dam and it was uphill and we were pounding up that damned escarpment. I grabbed Novak’s arm. ‘Take it easy—we might start a slide ourselves.’ If the shear strength had fallen according to my estimates it wouldn’t take much disturbance to initiate the chain reaction. The shear strength was probably under five hundred pounds a square foot by now—less than the pressure exerted by Novak’s boot hitting the ground at a dead run.

We moved gently and as fast as we could up the escarpment and it took us nearly fifteen minutes to do that quartermile. Novak lifted his voice in a shout. ‘Skinner! Burke!’ The echoes rebounded from the sheer concrete face of the dam which loomed over us.

Someone quite close said, ‘Yeah, what do you want?’

I turned. A man was squatting with his back to a boulder and looking up at us curiously. ‘Burke!’ said Novak explosively. ‘Where’s Skinner?’

Burke waved. ‘Over behind those rocks.’

‘What’s he doing?’

‘We’re getting ready to blow that stump—that one, there.’

It was a big stump, the remnant of a tall tree, and I could see the thin detonating wire leading away from it. ‘There’s going to be no blasting,’ said Novak and walked quickly over to the stump.

‘Hey!’ said Burke in alarm. ‘Keep away from there. It’s going to blow any second.’

It was one of the bravest things I have seen. Novak calmly leaned over the stump and jerked the wire away, bringing the electrical detonator with it. He tossed it to the ground casually and walked back. ‘I said there’ll be no blasting,’ he said. ‘Now, get the hell out of here, Burke.’ He pointed up to the road that clung to the hillside above the dam. ‘Go that way—not down to the powerhouse.’

Burke shrugged. ‘Okay, you’re the boss.’ He turned and walked off, then paused. ‘If you want the blasting stopped you’ll have to hurry. Skinner’s blowing three stumps all at once. That was only one of them.’

‘My God!’ I said, and both Novak and I turned towards the jumble of rocks where Skinner was. But it was too late. There was a sharp popping sound in the distance, not very loud, and a nearer
crack
as the detonator Novak had pulled out exploded harmlessly. Two plumes of dust and smoke shot into the air about fifty yards away and hung for a moment before being dissipated by the breeze.

I held my breath and then slowly released it in a sigh. Novak grinned. ‘Looks like we got away with it that time,’ he said. He put his hand to his forehead then looked at the dampness on his fingers. ‘Sure makes a man sweat.’

‘We’d better get Skinner off here,’ I said. As I said it I heard a faint faraway sound like distant thunder—something more felt inside the head than heard with the ears—and there was an almost imperceptible quiver beneath my feet.

Novak stopped in mid-stride. ‘What’s that?’ He looked about him doubtfully.

The sound—if it was a sound—came again and the quiver of the earth was stronger. ‘Look!’ I said, and pointed to a tall, spindly tree. The top was shivering like a grass stalk in a strong wind, and as we watched, the whole tree leaned sideways and fell to the earth. ‘The slide,’ I yelled. ‘It’s started.’

A figure came into sight across the hillside. ‘Skinner!’ shouted Novak. ‘Get the hell out of there!’

The ground thrummed under my boots and the landscape seemed to change before my eyes. It wasn’t anything one could pin down, there was no sudden alteration—just a brief, flickering change. Skinner came running across but he had not come half the distance when the change became catastrophic.

He disappeared.
Where he had been was a jumble of moving boulders tossed like corks in a stream as the whole hillside
flowed.
The entire landscape seemed to slip sideways smoothly and there was a deafening noise, the like of which I had never heard before. It was like thunder, it was like the sound of a jet bomber from very close quarters, it was like the drum-roll of tympani in an orchestra magnified a thousand times—and yet it was like none of these. And underneath the clamour was another sound, a glutinous, sucking noise as you might make when pulling a boot out of mud—but this was a giant’s boot.