I saw Lindsay pacing the officials area like a mother bear.
She damn well better have taken the temperature of the volcano before she came up here this morning.
The athletes were tense: stretching, tying on bibs, rewaxing skis, zeroing rifles on the range to ensure that the sights are true. The crowd was loose, shooting the shit about who’s off and who’s on today. It was mostly locals with a mix of foreign boosters who follow the circuit. Nearly all the foreigners spoke English, and the predominant accents were Scandinavian and Russian because these are the demigods in biathlon. There was the smell of damp wool and beer and chocolate, and the sound of rifle fire from the range, like corn popping. At the far end of the spectator area a snowshoe volleyball game was in progress.
Walter was talking to me about the biathlon powder I had identified, and he was almost as eager to dig here for gunpowder as he was to watch the race. Almost.
I saw Jimbo on the range, zeroing — which meant he’d already checked his clip and reloaded. I’d wait and see what the dig turned up before raising the issue of the cartridge with him.
The loudspeaker screeched. Walter and I flowed with the crowd and grabbed a spot at the fence that separated the spectator area from the course.
Whistles and cheers as racers approached the start gate.
I saw Stobie in the start area, the armorer keeping track of the shooters’ artillery. Stobie’s workmanlike skiing was suited for search missions, not races, and his shooting skills were iffy, but his closest buddies were biathletes and so he’d taken on the job nobody wanted, just to be on the team.
I shifted attention to the officials area and saw Lindsay ushering Len Carow to a folding chair. That surprised me — the FEMA honcho turning out for the race. My vision jumped, to Krom crucifying Lindsay at Hot Creek and Carow with his pinched shocked face seeing it Krom’s way. So what was Carow seeing here today? Business as usual, don’t cry wolf — because here he was schmoozing with Lindsay. I wondered if she’d had the chance to show him the Bypass. I wondered what he’d said. It struck me that Lindsay was onto Krom’s turf with the evac route and he was onto hers with his monitor at Hot Creek. And I couldn’t help myself, all I could think was it’s my future they’re battling over.
There was an intoxicated clanging of cowbells as somebody’s favorite came out the start gate. I forced my attention to the race. Skiers start in intervals, and the fifth racer to start wore the red-white-blue racesuit and he elicited a deafening roar. I saw a tall figure with a telephoto lean over the fence for a clear shot — Hal Orenstein, always here for a race, always runs it front page in the Mammoth Times. I saw Bill Bone, puffed up in a parka with the Ski Tip Cafe logo, waving his hands like they were on fire to help the American along. My pulse quickened. The sentiments came. Go for it. Whip ‘em.
The Americans are often the laughingstocks of the biathlon circuit. Officials joke they should start the Americans ahead of everyone else so the Americans can finish before the timekeepers have to leave for dinner.
“Go for it!” I yelled.
Jimbo tore past us in a furious stride and I watched him disappear into the woods, and by the time he’d skied his first four kilometers and come back down the track I knew he had a good time. When he hit the flats I screamed “go go go go go” and got out my camera. In my viewfinder he’s skating for speed and the rifle on his back looks like it grows out of his spine. He’s grimacing at the pain of it.
He came onto the range, unslung his rifle, and dropped to prone, his skis spread-eagled beneath him.
My mind jumped and I pictured the soil beneath him, beneath the snow, mostly glacial till but there could be volcanics intermixed, and of course gunpowder, unburned biathlon grains tracked about this entire area. I pictured Georgia lying prone in the snow, a halo of red spreading from her head. And who stands above her with bloody hands?
Jimbo inserted a clip, dug an elbow into the snow, and brought the rifle to his cheek.
Five rounds in the clip. Unless he hadn’t checked.
My brother trued his aim. The target was fifty meters uprange, five black circles on a white plate. Five targets for five rounds. Orange wind flags hung limp. Easy shooting. I raised the camera and through the viewfinder saw a shudder run along his body. He was going to have to kick that pulse down, get into a cadence if he wanted to hold his firing position. I saw him inhale and pull the trigger, so slowly it seemed the pin would never fire, and then he exhaled and the shot finally came like a surprise at the end of the exhalation. One eye winked out on the target.
“Well,” Walter said, voice honeyed in satisfaction.
I gazed upward and made a little prayer. Rifle fire popped. I looked to find Jimbo already up, hunching into his rifle sling. There was a swagger to the way he kicked his skis into motion, which told me what I wanted to know before I checked the targets. He’d aced all five. I punched Walter’s arm.
“Here’s Eric!” Walter yelled in my ear.
I followed Eric as he came in a tuck down the track, skated the flats, and hauled onto the range. He just powered those skis. Every muscle popping. He was beautiful. I watched him shuck out of his rifle sling and drop to prone. He shuddered. My heart was in my ribs. I tried to get my breathing down. I watched him raise his rifle, pausing to calculate. He approaches the biathlon like it’s a case. He figures every angle, he has to compensate for that lost eye. I watched him on his belly, measured breathing. I thought, just shoot. Hurry up. He shot, and took a miss on the third target.
I expelled a breath and hiked a leg onto the fence rung. Eric and Jimbo had another four loops to ski and three bouts to shoot and I was going to have to tough it out with them.
In the distance came the wail of a siren.
I watched the Russian and the Finn jockeying for the lead, and then I watched Jimbo on his second lap coming down the track like friction didn’t exist.
More sirens, close now, and the growl of heavy trucks.
Walter turned, eyebrows lifting.
The noise reached the parking lot, crescendoed, and then the sirens cut off and the truck engines idled down.
Heads turned. In the officials area Len Carow got to his feet, knocking over his chair. My brother, on the range in marksman’s pose, paused with his rifle mid-air. On the track, a skier came up out of his tuck and collided with another skier.
Lindsay was on the loudspeaker telling the racers to continue.
The crowd was no longer watching the race. The people nearest the parking lot backpedalled. A path cleared and I could see vehicles massed at the edge of the lot — fire engines, police, sheriff, ambulance — and I thought someone must have had a heart attack. Then I saw the trucks, heavyweight gray-green beasts. A man in camouflage jumped out the back of a truck and others bailed after him and I could read National Guard on the helmets.
Uniforms — police, sheriff, fire, medics — poured into the crowd and widened the pathway and the Guard massed behind them at the mouth of the parking lot.
The loudspeaker crackled and then went dead.
Krom appeared in the pathway, carrying a bullhorn, and on his heels was Mike Kittleman in his volunteer firefighter gear.
I hadn’t seen Mike since the meeting at the Inn, spiffy in his best suit sweeping the stairs, and I wasn’t surprised to see him again doing Krom’s bidding.
I figured I knew what that was.
I knew what was coming. I’d dreamed of this. I knew the words even before Krom raised the bullhorn. I could have chimed in with Krom’s amplified voice. This is an evacuation.
Blood pounded in my ears.
Krom’s voice was unhurried, sure of itself. “You will all move,” he told us — and Walter grasped my arm—“in an orderly manner under direction of the officers toward the parking lot, where you will start your cars and exit under the direction of the National Guard.” Krom was grim, big shoulders slumped, bullhorn dropping to his side, but his face was flushed and his hair ruffled like he’d skied a race himself. He gave off a hot shock of energy.