Chapter 42
42
Bear didn’t seem to mind her lack of conversation. He was generally a quiet guy himself, so it was a comfortable silence.
When they’d gone a mile or so, he finally spoke. “Want to know why I drove back your way, just so happens right at the time you were ready?”
“Hm?”
“Lila told me to.”
“Oh. That was thoughtful of her.”
He grunted. “It’s just odd, that’s all. Like she knew it was the right time.”
Ani held her tongue. Lila didn’t want people here to know about her intuitive abilities. She had to respect that.
Bear didn’t follow up, for which she was grateful.
Their first stop was Pinky Bannister, who lived on a homestead five miles east of town. While Bear unloaded his delivery of green tea and Pinky’s favorite pretzels, along with some groceries, Ani checked him over. In his bare pine plank bedroom, adorned with several sets of antlers, he lay shivering under a pile of sleeping bags.
Poor Pinky had a bad case of the omegavirus, even worse than Gil’s. His voice was raspy, his breathing uneven, his fever raging. His answers to her questions meandered so much she could confidently say he was hallucinating. Maybe only the bad cases involved that particular symptom.
She wasn’t even sure if it was worth asking about the Wilderness Alive group, but she might as well.
“Pinky, have you heard anything about a group of kids camping on their own?”
He stared at her with dazed eyes. “Rivers run gold when you hop to it. Hoppy days, hoppy days.” Giggling, he repeated that a few times. “Snow castles, too.”
She startled. Hadn’t Victor written something about ice castles? “Have you seen Victor Canseco recently?”
“Can’t see co. Can’t see co. Sweet man. Tells a funny story about raccoons. You trust them? I trust them. Rivers run gold. Rivers run gold.”
“Pinky, you keep talking about rivers. Have you been swimming lately?”
He moved his arms in a swimming motion, leaving it to Bear to answer her question. “He told me he slipped on some rocks and fell into Copper Creek.”
“Oh dear.”
Just in case, she checked to make sure he didn’t have symptoms of a stroke, other than altered speech, and gave him some Tylenol.
Interesting that Pinky hadn’t mentioned any of his usual paranoid conspiracy rant topics. That was how Gil had been while he was sick, too. Delirious, possibly delusional, but not paranoid.
Their next patient had a much milder case. Solomon lived in a Sunseeker trailer on a barely cleared piece of land littered with old junk vehicles. Besides being a miner, he was a tinkerer and a trader, as well as a former chemistry teacher. He was riding out the virus on a lounge chair next to his fire pit. A face net protected him from the voracious mosquitoes.
When she asked about the Wilderness Alive group, he said that he’d helped them fix a broken water filter, but that was four days ago. “Ain’t seen ‘em since. Haven’t moved from this chair except to piss. I love this virus. Far as I’m concerned, they can keep the town like this. No one comes in, fine with me. Just airdrop us some supplies and we can take care of ourselves.”
Ani laughed, since that tracked with what she knew of Firelight Ridge. “Take good care of yourself and try that green tea.”
“For what? I don’t drink tea. I’ll chew it like tobacco, but I won’t drink it.”
“That works too. Have you noticed any strange thoughts or visions?”
“Kinda, yeah. When I first got sick. I thought it was from the fever. Should have known better than to go skinny-dipping in that creek.”
The mention of a creek caught her attention. “What creek?”
“Goldpan Creek, out Fire Peak way. Nice and private. No one around to watch my balls shrivel up.”
Bear dragged her away before he could really get going on that story.
She thought about the kid, Sawyer Miller, who had dragged his sister to the creek. He was the only one who had exhibited disordered speech. Was there a connection?
The third of Bear’s elderly patients was a woman Ani hadn’t met before, but had seen at The Fang in her handwoven ponchos belted at the waist. Paulina Volk was a hermit artist who had recently gone camping three days near a creek. She liked her morning swims. Like many of the waterways around here, the creek had no name that she knew about.
But it was just a bit south-southwest of Smoky Lake.
“Did you experience any hallucinations or delusions while you were sick?”
“Yes , but not nearly enough.” She actually looked disappointed. “I would have enjoyed more of that.”
Wow.
That made three elderly patients and at least one child who had experienced hallucinations and/or disordered speech after contracting the virus. And all of them had recently gone swimming.
Oh my God. Was the virus water-borne?
“Bear.” She jumped to her feet. “Can you take me to the CDC people at the airstrip?”
“Of course.”
She spent the ride putting her thoughts in order. Thank God for Bear, who didn’t require any conversation. At the airstrip, she practically flew into the military tent.
Dr. Christianson was huddled with other members of her team near the map taped to the whiteboard. “I need to talk to you,” Ani said urgently.
“I’ll be done in a few minutes.”
“Now!” Ani raised her voice, which was such an unusual thing for her that she nearly swallowed her tongue. “I need to talk to you now. ”
The doctor didn’t look happy, but she gave Ani her attention. “We’re a little busy here, if you hadn’t noticed.”
“You’re looking in the wrong direction.”
“What are you talking about?” The doctor started to turn away, but Ani grabbed her arm. Being dismissed felt so familiar. How many times had John shrugged off her opinions and desires? No more. Never again. No matter the situation.
She strode to the map that was mounted on the whiteboard and grabbed a Sharpie. She marked down the locations where the elders had gone swimming. Goldpan Creek. Copper Creek. The unnamed creek near Smoky Lake where the artist had been camping.
The pattern was unmistakable. All of the locations were downstream of the eastern lobe of Smoky Lake. The area where Bob’s cabin was located. Where Gil had fallen in the water chasing after her Igloo cooler. Was that how he’d gotten infected? It must have been.
As for the Miller kids…everyone’s favorite swimming hole was directly fed by a stream that flowed from that same watershed.
Heart pounding, she turned to the doctor. “I think the omegavirus might also be waterborne, and that’s when it’s most dangerous. That’s when it causes hallucinations. In every case I’ve seen with that symptom, the patient had recently been in the water.”
“We have no evidence of that. We believe transmission requires close proximity.”
“But you don’t know everything about it yet. It’s possible, isn’t it? You said someone’s trying to weaponize it. I think it’s getting into the waterways around here and that’s why people are getting sick.”
Dr. Christianson shook her head impatiently. “Most bioweapons are airborne, not waterborne.”
“Then…then maybe they’re not trying to weaponize it. Maybe they’re just being careless. I don’t know. But I think I know where they are.” She tapped the map on the spot north of Bob’s cabin. “Somewhere around here. Victor’s been working on a treatment, he wanted to get his research, remember? I’m worried that someone got there before him and that’s why the virus is getting out, and…” She trailed off. Dr. Christianson was watching her as if she was just as delusional as Pinky. “I know this sounds kind of…out there. But we can’t ignore the possibility that I’m right.”
She wished she could wipe that smug, dismissive look off the doctor’s face. This was so unlike her to push like this. No, it was unlike the old Ani. New Ani wasn’t going to just give up.
In fact, she’d never given up, she realized suddenly. She was a persistent fucking bitch when it came down to it. No matter what life threw at her.
And right now, lives could be at risk.
“You have to listen to me!” she cried. “We have to do something!”
Suddenly, she and Dr. Christianson were surrounded by military folk, and she was being hustled out of the tent. “Come along,” said one soldier. “Let the doctor work.”
In the chaos, Ani caught Sergeant Thomson’s eye. “Sergeant. Please.”
Thomson elbowed the other soldiers aside. “I’ll handle this situation.” She grabbed Ani by the elbow and hauled her out of earshot of the buzzing researchers and military folk. “Talk,” she commanded Ani.
“We need to get to Smoky Lake. That’s ground zero for all of this, that’s where Victor is right now, and I think that’s where there’s a group of kids still missing. It can’t be a coincidence. Maybe they stumbled across those mercenaries and are being held captive. Something is going on. Please.”
“Do you know where these kids are?”
“I think so. I can’t know for sure, but from looking at the map I think they’re on the farthest end of Smoky Lake, nearest the glacier.”
Thomson nodded briskly. “Then let’s go.”
“ Go? No, no, I want you guys to go. People with guns and planes and military training. Not me. I’m a…I’m just a pediatrician. A very ordinary, boring pediatrician.”
Thomson rolled her eyes and tugged her toward the tarmac, where a small flock of military aircraft perched. “No one is just anything. I’m an Army soldier but I’m also a poker champion. And my pork ribs could win prizes if I ever entered a contest. You really ought to work on your self-confidence.”
Ani gave a helpless gurgle of laughter as she stumbled after Sergeant Thomson. “You sound like my friends.”
“Don’t think of me as your friend, think of me as the soldier who is going to keep you safe while we stop a virus and locate some kids.”
They reached a helicopter—not the amphibious kind that had rescued them from Smoky Lake. This one was painted olive drab. Thomson rapped on the hatch of the helicopter. A pilot looked down through aviator shades. She gave him a signal he seemed to understand as “let’s go.”
“And rescue them,” Ani added. “We have to actually rescue the kids.”
“Now you’re just getting bossy. Can we fight some bad guys too while we’re at it?”
“I won’t stop you.”
Thomson laughed as she opened the hatch and helped Ani into the belly of the helicopter. “Maybe you can make up with that hot guy of yours along the way too.”