Walter hissed, “He’s coming back.”
I snapped my attention to Henry. He was indeed returning and what he carried chilled my bones.
Robert, too, had seen. Had frozen.
Henry Shelburne went straight to the grotto, went inside, skirting the pool where his brother sat stunned, squatting at the back of the grotto where the old timbers and riffle blocks were stacked in a jumble. Henry deposited the armful of kindling he’d brought from the campfire.
Brown and dried, thick woody stems, shriveled leaves still bearing their resin glands, I guessed, because when Henry had thrown that kindling onto the campfire it threw off that nose-tingling odor.
That, and set the campfire ablaze.
Flammable as hell.
Walter whispered, “Can you get free?”
Yeah, sure, if I can find a pointed shard. If it’s pointed enough to do the job. I whispered, “Rock pick.”
He nodded and began to pick through the pebbles around his feet.
“Hey Bro.” Robert’s voice rang out. Strong, but without the hearty gloss he’d put on Bro before. Strong and harsh now. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Henry stood and opened his belt bag. He took out a box of matches.
“Not fair,” Robert said. “Not a fair fucking game.”
I was transfixed. I knew this game. I’d seen Robert play it back at the great mining pit, the void, the place where a mountain had once stood. Robert standing in the mountain misery, striking a match, dropping it onto the resin-thick ferns, showing how quickly the stuff would ignite. Explaining how the brothers had played this game when they were kids, vaporizing the mercury to go after the gold. But Robert’s demonstration for us was just a dog-and-pony show. This, here, now, was the real deal. This mountain misery was tinder-dry. This stuff was ready to kindle a bonfire of old timbers and riffle blocks — no doubt impregnated with mercury — and if that bonfire got lit it was going to heat the pipe coming out of the wall, through which the mercury flowed from some never-ending supply somewhere in that hillside.
I wondered at what point it would give off its poisonous vapors.
I glanced at Walter. He too was watching. Pebbles forgotten.
“Get past it,” Robert said. “Dad’s dead. I panicked. End of story.”
Henry opened the box and took out a match. Hands shaking.
“This game is fixed,” Robert said. Anger flared off him like heat from a fire. “You’ve got matches. I’ve got nothing. What kind of game is that?”
Henry said, “No kind of game.”
“The hell it isn’t.”
Henry struck the match on the side of the box.
I waited for Robert to scream, because once Henry lit the mountain misery on fire and heated the mercury, Robert wouldn’t be wanting to scream, wouldn’t be wanting to open his mouth, in fact he’d be holding his breath.
The match was burning.
“You want to play poker, brother? Let’s play poker.” Robert sucked in a breath, let it escape. “I’ll see you.”
I shook my head. How? With what? Robert had no moves, no hand to play. He was bluffing.
Robert twisted his head, underneath the spigot, and brought his face to the silver stream.
I sealed my lips. Some kind of crazy-ass Shelburne bluff, ready for the fire to start, the mercury to heat, to vaporize, for the poison to pour out of the spigot. Ready to breathe in a lung-full. Hey Bro I’ll see you, this what you talking about?
Robert opened his mouth wide.
It was a moment before I understood.
He was not bluffing. He was drinking.
Henry, stunned, let the match burn down to his fingers. Jerked. Let the match fall. By the time it touched ground it had gone out.
Robert turned away from the flow, and grinned. A crazy-ass grin. “Drink it today. Shit it tomorrow.”
I tried to take it all in. Drinking elemental liquid mercury. Who does that? Only a crazy Shelburne brother. I knew the stuff was poorly absorbed through the skin but who knew it would freely traverse the digestive tract — well Robert clearly knew, or hoped, Robert who had read up on all things mercury, Robert who was anything but suicidal. But still. I swallowed hard, watching him open and close his mouth like a fish out of water, a fish who’d performed the wrong kind of respiration.
“We can…” Robert spat, “…play this game all day.”
Henry recovered himself. He lit the next match. “I’ll see you, brother.” He let the match fall. This time it stayed alight. The little flame kindled a spray of mountain misery. It crackled to fiery life. Henry kicked it aside.
Robert stared.
The brothers locked onto one another, a poisonous face-off, waiting it seemed for someone to make the next move.
Henry did. “And raise you.” Henry pulled the Glock from his holster and tossed it into the pool.
20
I thought it must have been a mistake.
Even as I watched the gun rise with the toss and then fall with gravity — dropping into, no, onto, the surface of the pool — even as I watched the game change I thought it must have been a mistake.
They thought so, too.
Henry’s head tipped up and then dipped to follow the arc of the gun as if someone else entirely had tossed it.
Robert’s mouth opened, an O of surprise.
Walter grunted, a sound of disbelief.
And then the Shelburne brothers upped their game.
Henry took another match from the box. The fire he had kicked aside was already consuming itself but the main pile of kindling awaited the next match.
Robert’s free hand stretched, reaching for the gun.
Henry smiled.
It was too late but I did the only thing I could think to do, went back to raking my hands through the rock debris, hunting for that shard, my mind racing — what the hell Henry? — and the ugly answer came. Suicide by brother.
Walter whispered, “Use your nail.”
It took me a very long time to get it, to understand what Walter meant, and then for a hysterical moment I almost hooted at the beautifully absurd genius of it, but Walter was watching me with such fierce hope that I wanted to cry. Sure, it could work, but Robert was about to shoot the shit out of his brother and Henry was about to turn that mercury stream into vapor and we were relying on my fingernail?
He lifted his bound hands, clasped. “I’ll buy you the time.”
I gaped. You will?
Walter sat up straight and bellowed, “Your grandfather was here.”
I was taken aback all over again. And had to stop myself from actually turning my head to look around. The Shelburne brothers were doing just that. Henry’s head swiveled, the match in his fingers forgotten for the moment, but still at the ready. Robert looked right, looked left, although his field of view from inside the grotto was severely limited. My field of view was just damn good enough to see the top of the mercury pool, to see his fingers kiss the handle of the Glock.
“Right here,” Walter bellowed. “Look at this.”