Page 17 of South of Nowhere (Colter Shaw #5)

17.

Colter Shaw surveyed the mud- and water-filled pond, which resembled a huge murky swimming pool, twenty-five by forty feet.

He then scanned the town and noted a fire department pumper moving through the streets of Hinowah, slowly, making the PA announcement about the evacuation.

“Get him on the radio for me,” he called to Tolifson.

“Who?”

“The fire truck!”

The mayor looked around. Starr handed him the Motorola, and he hit a button.

“Buddy, you there?”

A moment later came a clattering response. “Han. Yeah. Go ahead. I’m prying ’em out. Just, a lot aren’t leaving.”

Colter reached his hand out and took the unit.

“Buddy, this is Colter Shaw. Your tank full?”

“My—?”

“The water in your fire truck,” Colter snapped.

“Oh, yessir. Who exactly are—”

“Get over to the base of the levee. Now! The retaining pond.”

“Well, the thing is, the levee…the pond’s right underneath and it’s looking worse. I—”

“If you’re not going to drive it, I will.”

A beat of a moment: “Who are you, sir?”

A bellow from Tolifson, “For God’s sake, Buddy, get the fucking pumper where he says.”

“Well, Han…never heard you talk like—”

“Now!”

“All right. Geez.”

Colter saw the big vehicle turn.

While Tolifson, Officer Starr and Dorion ran to their vehicles, Colter did his motocross run again, straight down the hill.

He nearly wiped out in the “puddle” at the bottom; it was a foot deep. But he yanked back on the bars and lifted the front wheel just before it slammed into the far side, and he went over. He drove thirty or forty miles per hour until the mud slowed him and he had to stop. He didn’t need to set the Yamaha down. It got stuck straight up in the goo.

He jogged to the retaining pond. Bubbles? Impossible to tell. Water continued to cascade from the levee into the pond and then on into the spillway.

With a groan of the powerful diesels, the fire truck approached. A truck of this sort would weigh twenty thousand to thirty thousand pounds. The engines were massive.

Behind it were Dorion’s SUV and the police department’s pickup, driven by Tolifson. Debi Starr was in the passenger seat next to him.

Colter gestured the muddy pumper to a spot where there was the most access to the pond.

Buddy, a balding and rangy forty-year-old in overalls, climbed from the cab.

Colter asked, “What’s in your tank?”

“Eight hundred gallons.”

“And capacity?”

A hesitation.

Tolifson muttered, “Tell him, Buddy. The man’s in charge. My Lord. It’s not trade secrets.”

“A thousand gallons per minute.”

“Your attack line?”

“One and a half inches.”

“So you can pump about six minutes’ worth.”

Buddy frowned in curiosity. “Well, that’s right. Say, you fire service?”

Colter said nothing about the fact their father’s survival education was, to put it simply, comprehensive. He said, “Nozzle the line and bring it with you.”

“Whatever you say, boss.” His attitude had flipped, fast, one-eighty. The man fitted a brass nozzle to the metal end of the canvas attack line and dragged it from the spool, jogging toward the retention pond.

Colter called to Tolifson and said, “Have the team up there drop a dozen sandbags and get them over here.”

Without questioning why, Tolifson fired up his pickup and, with Starr in the vehicle, sped to the south side of the levee. A moment later, the larger of the corporals and a massive townsman were flinging the bags over the side. They cleared the spillway and landed with a sucking thud in the mud.

Colter looked to the top of the levee, noting where Louis Bell’s pickup truck was still stuck. The family’s Suburban had been behind it, and like the pickup and the blue sports car, the driver of the SUV would have accelerated to try to beat the collapsing roadway behind it. Using the pickup as a reference point, he estimated where the family’s SUV would have ended up.

He pointed to a spot in the center of the pond.

“Buddy,” Colter called to the fireman. “What you’re going to do is shoot into the water there.” He pointed. “And zigzag. We’re looking for an SUV.”

Buddy blinked. “The family! They’re here, not the river! Never thought of that! Yessir.”

The truck arrived with the bags and Tolifson got out and dropped the gate on the bed.

Colter called, “Keep them there for now.”

Tolifson nodded.

To Buddy, Colter said, “I’ll rev and hit the supply.”

“Yessir.” The fireman gripped the hose and walked closer to the pond. He aimed toward the area indicated.

Colter returned to the fire engine and climbed into the cab. He pulled the hand control for the engine throttle and pushed the revs up. The engine growled impatiently. Climbing out, Colter shouted, “Ready?”

“Go!” was Buddy’s response.

Colter yanked the chrome supply lever on the side of the boxy red vehicle and almost instantly the hose went rigid. Given where they were and what was happening, he couldn’t help but think: The power of water.

“Everybody!” he called. “Look for metal or glass!”

The stream blasted through the several inches of water on the surface.

Colter stared at the swath it cut.

Buddy was making good progress, firing the stream into the soup everywhere that Colter had expected the SUV to be.

And where it was not.

Everyone stared at the stream, looking for any hint of the vehicle.

Nothing.

The mayor walked up to Colter and as both men looked at the pond, Tolifson said, “I get the rearview mirror thing, but what gave you the idea they might be here in the first place?”

Colter pointed to a sign, entangled in the metal posts, concrete footers and cable from a guard fence that had once protected traffic from falling into the river.

No FISHING from Levee

It took the man a moment. Then he exhaled a sour laugh and shook his head. “Goddamn. The sign was on the river side of the road. If it ended up here, the SUV might’ve come this way too. I saw that very sign hours ago. And didn’t think a thing of it.”

“Losing pressure,” Buddy called.

Colter glanced at the gauge. Twenty seconds of water remained.

And just then Debi Starr cried, “There!”

It was definitely the roof of a vehicle.

As the nozzle sputtered to silence and the line went limp, Buddy called, “What do we do now?”

Colter gestured back to the fire truck. “I need a ladder.”