Chapter 46
For the next few months, a legal battle raged, with Firelight Ridge caught in the middle. So many rumors were flying around that Bear called a meeting at The Fang one day in mid-April. He asked Lachlan and Maura to attend, since they knew more about the situation than most people.
Almost the entire community showed up, even though it was “breakup” season and the snow was giving way to mud. A din of chatter and speculation filled the bar.
As Andrea Reed walked into the bar, Lachlan caught her eye and gave a quick shake of his head. She’d been lobbying him to take her side, but he couldn’t do that, even though she’d helped Maura escape from SS. She’d have to make her case on her own.
Shortly after she took her place next to Bear, Dr. Reed came in. He nodded at a few folks, including Pinky, before standing on the other side of Bear.
When there was no let-up in the busy chatter, Bear pounded on the bar counter to get everyone’s attention. Slowly everyone quieted down.
“We’ve got a situation here in Firelight Ridge. There’s a lot of confusion and misunderstanding, so I figured we should hear from the people behind all this. As far as I understand it, Dr. Reed invented something called the Wave Core, it’s an energy-generating device that converts magnetic energy to something we can use.”
Andrea Reed stepped forward. “That’s where I come in, me and TNG Enterprises. A lot of you have gotten very generous offers for your property. We want to continue researching and developing the Wave Core right here in the area, in Wind Valley, and you all can benefit from that.”
“You the one with the free cell service?” Frank Stetson called out.
“Yes. That was a gesture of goodwill,” she answered. Lachlan and Maura exchanged a glance— goodwill, my ass .
“No, that was an underhanded way to get your hands on our land,” growled Old Solomon as he stood. “Read the fine print.”
“Never mind the cell service,” Andrea said quickly. “Imagine a brand-new source of renewable energy. You can be part of that. We’ll be hiring, we’ll be bringing in engineers and researchers. It will be a huge economic boom for this place.”
Martha the farmer got to her feet. “And if it doesn’t work? I heard it could make my sheep sick.”
“We’ll do everything we can?—”
Dr. Reed interrupted Andrea mid-sentence. Lachlan got the feeling he did that a lot. “They can’t promise anything. Until we fix the issues with the Wave Core, the wildlife will suffer.”
“What about people?” Ani called out. “What are the long-term effects? Or short-term, for that matter?”
Lachlan knew that Maura was most concerned about that. She’d started to wonder if Pinky’s confusion was simply old age or connected to the Wave Core somehow, even though it supposedly had been inactive all these years. Of all the residents in the area, he lived the closest to Wind Valley.
Andrea stepped in front of Dr. Reed. “We have a strategy to prevent any impact on people. We have experience with that, since our entire family was affected while we were here. But it wore off, and it gave us valuable information.”
Before she could explain further, Dr. Reed shouldered his way forward and took center stage again. “She’s lying. Even if we can eliminate the danger to humans, there’s no way to protect the wildlife. Not yet. This technology is a breakthrough, but it’s not ready. Not even close. They can’t guarantee that no one will be harmed.”
Shocking everyone in the bar, Jared Chilkoot stood up to speak. “That so-called professor sent someone onto our property with a grenade,” he said loudly. “Can’t trust him. Us Chilkoots can vouch for Andrea Reed and her company.”
The Fang erupted in an uproar of voices, while Dr. Reed tried to shush the crowd so he could explain.
“What’s in it for you Chilkoots?” someone shouted.
“You only look out for yourselves, not us!” yelled someone else.
Lachlan shot an alarmed glance at Maura. This was getting out of hand. Then he jumped as he heard his own name.
“Lachlan, you’re a scientist. What do you think?” Martha’s voice carried over those of the others, who all quieted down. Suddenly he was the focus of all eyes in The Fang.
Maura squeezed his hand, offering support, and he slowly stood up.
“There’s a lot to consider—a potential new form of energy, the wildlife, the wolf packs, the health effects, the economic effects, even the Ahtna legends about Wind Valley. But there’s one factor that no one has mentioned yet, and it might be pretty important…”
Mid-June
Lachlan took Maura to the best viewpoint he knew to watch the jokulhlaup—a craggy overlook with uninterrupted views of both Wind Valley to the east and Korch Glacier to the north, with a rare glimpse of Thunder Pass just west of the glacier. While it was impossible to predict exactly when the flooding would start, he’d been monitoring air and ground temperature readings closely, cross-referencing them with the past history of the Korch jokulhlaups, and had narrowed the time window to a roughly six-hour period.
If he was correct, his recent work would be groundbreaking, since jokulhlaups were notoriously difficult to predict.
What he didn’t know was which valley would get flooded. The earthquake had shifted the underlying ground formations enough that he thought there was a good chance the flooding would not take its normal route into Smoky Lake.
This year, he was making a bold prediction. If it came true, he’d have one hell of a research paper to publish.
He heard Maura let out a sigh. “It’s so peaceful up here. We should drag all the different sides up here and make them take some deep breaths.”
“Couldn’t hurt.”
“Poor Ruth. I saw her the other day and she’s mortified that her uncles and cousins are working with TNG. Can you believe Andrea offered them a one-percent stake in the business if they helped her? They’re the ones who came up with the free cell service idea. They know it’s our soft spot out here.”
Lachlan shook his head. “I almost went for it myself.”
Maura leaned against him and rested her head on his shoulder. He loved it when she did that. “I can’t be too angry with Andrea. At least she agreed to testify against SS. She makes a pretty solid eyewitness.”
Two days after Maura’s brush with death at the edge of Wind Valley, Officer Cromwell had picked up SS as he limped out of the forest, bloodied and exhausted. He was now in jail in Blackbear, awaiting trial on kidnapping and attempted murder charges.
The state of Colorado had dibs on the next charges against him. Pete Perkins would be spending the foreseeable future right where he belonged—in jails and courtrooms, unable to bother Maura.
Recently, the Blackbear police had sent word that their suspect was acting very strangely. He kept telling everyone that any minute now he’d turn into either a wolf or a werewolf. This new obsession had apparently eclipsed even his fixation with Maura. The Wind Valley wolf pack had gotten its revenge.
The man needed professional help, and hopefully he would get it. But all that mattered to Lachlan was that he was out of Maura’s life, and Maura was here, with him. They were together, and whatever they did next, they’d do it together. Their first stop would be Hopper, Colorado, so he could meet her family. But after that…
“You know, if my prediction is right, I’ll probably get all the funding I need to do some traveling,” he told Maura. “How do you feel about seeing the jokulhlaup in the Himalayas?”
Her face lit up, as he’d known it would. Now that she was free from SS, she was itching for more adventure. He just hoped he could keep up with her.
“Ask me again after I’ve witnessed one jokulhlaup,” she teased. “Maybe I won’t find it all that exciting.”
“Prepare to eat those words.” He looked at his phone. He had cameras set up at various points above all potential routes of the flooding, and a server storing all the footage. Elias, acting as his intern, was monitoring all the inputs. But up here, of course, he had no cell service. All he could do was watch and listen with his own eyes and ears.
He wasn’t the only one whose future depended on what would happen next. Andrea Reed and all the TNG executives were waiting anxiously for the snow to clear so they could begin transporting equipment into the valley. They’d already staged two bulldozers to clear a road. The Lamplight Motel was filled with workers waiting for the go-ahead.
After the big meeting at The Fang, the vast majority of Firelight Ridge residents had either refused to sell their property to TNG or were waiting to see how things panned out. They’d listened to what Lachlan had told them at the meeting—no matter what plans humans made, sometimes nature had the last word.
He checked his watch. A half hour to go before his predicted time window closed. Damnit, so much for that. Back to square one.
And then…just as he was ready to pack up and head back to town, a low thunderous rumble resonated from the direction of Korch Glacier.
“That’s the sound of the ice dams breaking up,” he said excitedly. “See, what happens is that…”
“Glacial lakes fill with meltwater and rainwater during the spring and summer, which puts pressure on the glacier,” Maura finished for him. He grinned at her, loving the fact that she’d remembered his explanation of the jokulhlaup. “Then when something causes the ice to break up—warming temperatures, in this case—the ice dam collapses and all that water drains into nearby waterways.”
“A-plus, Ms. Vaughn. A gold star, too.”
She sketched a little curtsy. “Is it always this loud? It sounds like a freight train!”
“They’re noisy, yes. They’re picking up boulders and slamming them into each other. You can hear the sound a good two minutes before you see it. If we see it.” He put his binoculars to his face and stared at the bend in the valley where the flooding outburst would come through—if it wasn’t going to Smoky Lake instead.
Maura stared through her binoculars too. “Last minute bet on which way it’s going to go?”
“Nope. Let the mystery unfold.”
Moments passed. The deafening roar of the flood grew louder and closer, and even up here, Lachlan felt the vibration in the ground.
And then—a massive wall of ice and mud and rocks and water burst into view. It barreled through the deep cut between the forested slopes known as Wind Valley, almost as if it was coming home. The intense force of the flow ripped up lower elevation trees by their roots and sent them tossing like toothpicks along the churning torrent.
“Oh my God,” Maura breathed. “That’s unbelievable.”
Lachlan couldn’t say a word. As much as he’d studied the jokulhlaup phenomenon, as many times as he’d witnessed it—in Greenland, Iceland, the Andes, New Zealand—the sight always took his breath away.
“How long will it last?” she asked after some time had passed.
“It could be hours or days, even weeks. This is the most dramatic part of it. After this it subsides into extreme flooding.”
They watched the tumbling water travel through the valley, finding every low spot and outlet for its icy fingers.
“Will it form a new river or a lake?” she wondered.
“It’s possible. Jokulhlaups can lead to landform modification, mostly through erosion and sediment redistribution. Looking at the topography, my educated guess is that it will join up with Snow River just below Firelight Ridge. This might be the new jokulhlaup route, or it might go back to Smoky Lake. My models don’t have the answer to that question.”
“So what’s going to happen to the Wave Core?”
They shared a glance loaded with questions. “Not much can survive a jokulhlaup. My guess is it will end up in pieces somewhere in the Gulf of Alaska.”
She nodded soberly. “So be it, then.”
“So be it,” he agreed.
They shared a moment of silence for the hotly debated device. Nature has spoken , thought Lachlan. Very loudly, too.
“If Dr. Reed decides to resurrect the project, he’ll have to start fresh,” he murmured.
“Good. Maybe he can figure out a way to minimize the harm it causes. And maybe they’ll send their damn bulldozers home until he gets it right.”
“They’ll have to. Their permit only applies if there’s legitimate research potential. Right now, that research is tumbling down the river.”
“Thank you, jokulhlaup,” Maura murmured.
“Mmmmm,” he growled. “Every time you say it right, I get turned on.”
Maura laughed and snuggled against him. Holding hands, they watched the churning floodwaters for a long while, until Maura let out a sigh.
“I need to get back. I’m meeting with Ruth Chilkoot for the end-of-year student assessments.” She frowned thoughtfully. “Something’s going on with her. She sent me a note saying she urgently needed to speak with me.”
“Any idea what’s up?”
“No, but I’d bet anything it has to do with those darn Chilkoots.”
Lachlan had to agree. He’d been fielding nasty looks from various Chilkoots ever since the Fang meeting. Then recently, they’d stopped coming into town entirely.
“Oh, and I have a new student for next year, did I tell you?” Maura was saying.
“No, did a new family move into town?”
“It’s a much juicier story than that. Apparently a woman showed up at the gas station claiming that Gunnar is her long-lost half-brother. The next day she disappeared, leaving behind her nine-year-old boy. It’s a lot for poor Gunnar, so he requested a meeting.”
“Smart man. He knows how lucky we are to have you here. And by we, of course I mostly mean me.”
He grinned as she planted a flurry of kisses on his chin, cheeks, and finally his lips.
“Here’s something funny,” she added. “I asked if he wanted Ruth to join us, since she has so much experience with kids who aren’t her own. He got this very uncomfortable look on his face and said, ‘Better not.’ Do you know what’s going on there?”
“Nope.” He watched the roots of a birch tree catch the wind as it sailed down the water flowing through Wind Valley. “But I have some advice for him.”
“What’s that?”
“Love is like the wind. It always wins.”
Thank you so much for reading!