part0021

Hill looked at Hatch more than the road. Every time the man spoke, which was often, he turned his head to her. She wondered about whether he’d deliver on his promise of getting her up that trail, let alone up the paved road they were currently traveling.

"There might be a towel back there if you need to dry off." Hill pointed to the back.

"No need." Hatch brushed off the slush with her hand as she scanned her surroundings.

Computer monitors and hard drives lined both walls of the rear interior. Some of the monitors were stacked two high. Newspaper clippings and photographs were stuck to the van's walls. Most of the images depicted earthquakes. Several long planks of wood bounced noisily about on the floor liner. Gallons of paint were contained by a cargo net that worked to retain them as the Ford swerved.

"It's my passion." He shook water from his plaid flaps as he turned his head, eyes off the road again, and gave a sheepish shrug. "I'm a quake hunter."

"And how do the paint cans fit in?"

"I need to eat. Following earthquakes doesn't really foot the bill, ya know. I paint houses and do general handy work."

She glanced at the side mirror. "That explains the extendable ladder on the side of the van."

"No room on the roof." Hill raised a hand and patted the roof above his head. The van swerved.

The sleet intensified. Duct tape held the wiper blade together on Hatch's side. It only managed to clear the bottom half of the window, leaving her view blurred.

"How well do you know this area?" she asked.

"Like the back of my hand. Been chasing these little hiccups up and down the fault for years. Breakneck is where I spend much of my time."

"I need you to take me to the ATV trail, preferably close to the glacier. That's where they are."

"Hell, I could take my hands off the wheel and Jessie could get us there by herself." He demonstrated. Wind shoved the van and he quickly brought it under control. "Hang tight. Be at the split in less than five minutes."

"Ever take Jessie off-road?"

Hill laughed. "She can take on anything. Toughest girl I've ever met."

"Got to ask. Jessie?"

"It's a long story for a short ride." This time he kept his gaze focused on the road in front of him. "Probably not old enough to remember, but there was a big quake in Anchorage."

"I was briefed on it."

"Well, whatever they told you couldn't do justice to the true devastation a quake of that magnitude causes."

Hill nodded. "I can still see it clear as day. Good Friday, 1964. I was only six at the time, but my father had taken me to Cameron's Café on Fourth Ave. Friday nights at Cameron's were the best because I got to spend time with my mom while she worked. With my mom working as a waitress, I was treated like royalty, extra scoops of ice cream, the works. My mom had just slipped into the kitchen to make my sundae.”

Hill was quiet for a moment. Whatever visual recall the retelling had evoked, it gave him pause. At least for a moment.

"It was the craziest thing. I remember seeing my mom in the kitchen. In the version I created, she turns to me and blows a kiss my way. In reality, she never looked back. I knew the truth of it then, just as I do now. It was my way of coping with what happened next.”

Hatch pictured the scene.

“The crunching sound was deafening, like somebody had thrown a handful of nails into a garbage disposal while it was running. At that age, I was a big Godzilla fan. I swear I thought for a moment he had come to Anchorage.

“I remember sitting there, holding my spoon in gleeful anticipation of my special treat when everything went all topsy-turvy. Not all of it is clear anymore. I'm sure much of it is tucked down deep inside and to be honest, I don’t think I'd really want to remember all the details. I know this, my mother died in that kitchen along with the cook. My father tried like hell to claw his way to her, but it was too late. She'd been killed instantly. All because I wanted a sundae.”

"You were six." Hatch saw the strain in the man’s face and knew, all too well, its burden. "Can't blame yourself."

"I know. There's been a million years between then and now, but it took me a long time to forgive myself for that sundae. I think in some ways my father blamed me, too. You can’t be mad at the ground. It’s as silly as being mad at the wind and rain. Those are forces outside our control. All we can do is work to understand them. But what we can blame, what we can control, is ourselves. I guess everybody has that moment in life where they find their purpose. Comes I guess at different times for different people. I imagine every circumstance is different, but for me, it was that day, Good Friday 1964, at 5:36 PM. It’s strange to be able to go back to that millisecond and time where your whole life fractured."

Hatch nodded. She, too, knew the exact day and time her life changed forever. Her new trajectory had her landing in uncharted territory, but adopting her father's code as a way of life had satiated Hatch's need for purpose. "Did I miss the part where you explained why you call your van Jessie?"

"It's the clearest, unfabricated recall from that day." Hill cleared his throat. "In my father's haste to rush to my mother's aid, he failed to notice my leg was trapped at the ankle by a huge piece of concrete wall that had fallen. I remember calling to him. And then Jessie appeared. Her name tag, centered above her breast pocket of her sky-blue uniform of Cameron's Café, read Jessie. She must've been new, because I'd never seen her before. Never saw her after. We buried my mother the following week and moved to Vermont. But Wendy brought me back."

"It's what I named the big one."

Hill shook his head. Jessie shook with him. "Nah. For me, that will always be the big one , but that's for reasons you now know. The next big one is coming. I've been trying to get anyone and everyone to listen. Sent my findings to every news station about a million times. They just write me off as some crazy old coot. You know, maybe I am. Who’s to say?"

"I think it takes a special kind of crazy to run toward a collapsed roadway to rescue two people you don’t know, who were seconds from drowning." She smiled and followed it with a slight bow of her head. "And I will take that kind of crazy any day of the week and twice on Sunday."

Hill ran his hand through the smoky gray of his beard, wringing out some of the accumulated rainwater. "I was scared to come back. And you can read all you want about earthquakes, watch newscasts from around the world, but until you experience firsthand what it's like when the earth just rips out from under you and slams you down fifteen feet, you just don’t understand. Those four plus minutes might as well have been four lifetimes."

"But you're here now. You faced your fear."

"I'm facing it right now. Every time I go on the hunt, I feel it with me every step of the way."

"What was it that brought you back?"

"Like I said, my father moved us to Vermont. He wanted to put some serious distance between us and Alaska. I ended up joining the military with the hopes of following in my father's footsteps by joining the Navy. Even tried to get myself into the SEAL program. But the rubble that fell on my ankle in '64 came back to bite me in the ass. It did some serious damage, and I ended up needing surgery. I've got a couple pins in there. Wasn't enough to disqualify me from service, just Spec Warfare. So, I used the military to pursue my other passion. Weather. Earthquakes.

“Named the big one Wendy after the girl who wrote me a Dear John letter while I was overseas, spending my days aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise. '76 to '80, those were some of the best years of my life. During my West Pac deployment, saw a little excitement when we were followed by a Russian Kynda-class rocket cruiser. Followed us around for a few days, kinda scary, but nothing like the action of today. But whatever we lacked for in an action, we sure as hell made up for in general quarters drills.

“But we did some real good, too. We received a distress call that fifteen Taiwanese fishermen were stranded in open water. Probably would’ve died if our battle group hadn't been there to receive the distress call.”

The whole time he spoke, Burton never took his foot off the gas pedal, and he drove wildly, barely looking at the road and making Hatch grateful that the view out the front of her side of the windshield was obscured by the duct taped wiper and its failure to clear her view.

"Don't get me wrong. A 9.2 megathrust earthquake is nothing to balk at. Was the most powerful in U.S. history and it killed over a hundred people and sent tsunamis that demolished villages. Did you know it was the second worst recorded earthquake in the history of the world?"

She noticed the wonder on his face. "And you're telling me that quake wasn't a big one?"

"It was decent. But nothing earth shattering. Alaska has the most active seismic activity of all fifty US states. During the last century, we’ve had nine out of the ten biggest earthquakes in the US. It has more earthquakes than any state in the nation and is one of the most seismically active regions in the world."

"Didn't know that." Hatch wasn’t sure how much she’d recall from the conversation, but at least it gave her a break from the situation they were heading toward.

"You and your friends picked a hell of a time to come to Breakneck. Wendy’s mighty pissed off."

"Nothing like a woman scorned." Hatch smiled at her comment. "If that wasn’t the big one, then when? Where?"

"Honest opinion? It’s hard to tell. If anyone could predict it, people would evacuate beforehand. There’s science, and then there's quake whispering." Hatch gave him a look. He smiled. “It’s what I call it, and I don’t really whisper to the quakes. I listen.”

"And that’s how you knew where to park so you didn’t fall in the sinkhole?"

Hill laughed hard and slapped the wheel. "My goodness, no. That was pure coincidence. I wasn't listening to the ground. I was checking Jessie's undercarriage. There was a loud clanging sound. Haven't heard anything since we've been driving, so I guess it's fixed itself. Maybe Wendy's little temper tantrum shook whatever needed fixing back into place. She tends to do that."

"Do what?" Hatch wondered what had been the cause of the sound that had sent Hill under the van to investigate. Would it crop up again when they were off road?

"Help. She gave me purpose. Sure, she redirected my life at an early age, but I've made peace with that long ago. Now, I see the purpose in what I do, even if nobody else does."

"How much time until the next one? I know geologically speaking the big one is coming ‘soon’. That could be thousands of years, though. What do you think?”

Hill swung his head side to side. Jessie followed. "If I knew that, I'd be a millionaire. And probably wouldn’t be driving toward it."

"What do you mean ‘driving toward it’?”

"I mean that every bit of data I've crunched since the '64 quake has led me to believe the big one is coming soon. And all signs are pointing to Breakneck as the epicenter." Hill then gripped the steering wheel tightly, whitening his knuckles. "Hang tight, we're about to go off road."

Hill drove with the same reckless abandon he'd shown on the paved road. Somehow, he managed to navigate the trail's slick, muddy surface without losing control. Jessie fishtailed as they rounded a bend. "How far up is that thing saying we have to go?" His voice strained as if he were traversing the steady incline. The rain turned into ice, cutting visibility to less than five feet ahead. It sounded like nails bouncing off the hood and windshield.

Hatch checked their location. "Looks like once we get around that bend in the trail, we'll have less than a quarter-mile to go until we reach our objective."

"I hear the military in the way you talk. I don't see a uniform or badge, so I'm guessing you and your friends are some type of government contractors. Am I close?"

Close? He was spot on. But Hatch felt it better not to add credence to his claim. "You know the old saying, if you have to ask—"

"I probably don't need to know." He offered an apologetic smile. "I get it. Not trying to be nosy. Just wondering if your team being here has anything to do with that kidnapped deputy marshal."

She measured her words, careful to reveal little. "It does. Though, I'm here as an observer."

Hill eyed her and gave a shake of his head. "Doesn't look that way to me."

Hatch dropped the conversation and Hill made no attempt to pick it back up again. Jessie rounded the bend. Hill kept her speed up to compensate for the steady incline. The tires no longer had traction. Worse, the precipitation had reached whiteout conditions, further restricting visibility, making it almost impossible to see the roadblock that appeared out of nowhere. Through a curtain of sleet, Hatch spotted the seventy-foot Douglas Fir, uprooted and laying across the trail.