Jeff Rovin: Fatalis

" You did, Bill. I was busy bringing girls up here to make out."

"When you were eight?"

"When I was eight."

"Man. No wonder you're burned out now. Gave the Chumash spirits all your life essence. Me? I used to borrow my older brother's dog tags, grab my Daisy rifle and a backpack full of provisions like jerky and Twinkies, and I'd be on a mission in Europe. I had this Clint Eastwood, Where Eagles Dare , thing going. Storm the mountain fortress. The scuzzier the weather, the happier-"

"Shit!" Greene stopped and shined his flashlight ahead.

Roche stopped abruptly beside him and echoed the remark. Both engineers stood staring for a long moment.

About fifteen feet in front of them the left side of the road seemed to sag in. The sides of the depression were smooth and mushy. They reminded Greene of paper towels that had been run under a faucet in a TV commercial. Torn and ragged in the center and sagging around the edges. Mist swirled from the sides as damp, cool air mixed with the warming air.

"That's a big goddamned sinkhole," Roche said. "Either that or a small volcano. You sure the deputy said it was a one-footer?"

"Yeah," Greene replied.

Greene picked up a long tree branch that was lying in the shallow ditch between the mountain and the road. He didn't take a step without first jabbing the fat end of the branch straight down into the road. Earth around a sinkhole could be like quicksand, especially if the underlying rock had collapsed. That was a definite possibility in this area. On the drive up Roche had checked California Institute of Technology geological charts using the van computer. This section of the mountains sat on a confluence of fault zones: the Mesa-Rincon Creek, Santa Ynez, Mission Ridge, Arroyo Parida, and Santa Ana. The region could be laced with fissures large and small and it wouldn't surprise Greene if the weeks of rain had tapped into one. The potential volatility of the region was one reason the United States Geological Survey and the National Science Foundation were spending millions of dollars to study it, both on the ground and by satellite. What worried Greene was how much of the road might be in danger of falling in.

The ground approaching the sinkhole was stable and it took the men less than a minute to reach the rim. The opening was about six feet across, half of it on the road and half of it in the ditch. Dirt from the road was washing in with the rain and the smell that hung above the pit was awful, like a freshly opened cesspool. Exposed roots and the edges of slablike rocks jutted from the mountain and ravine sides. The stratum beneath had obviously collapsed and the dirt had been washed into the hole. There were about four feet of road to the right where the treadmarks of the black-and-white patrol car were still visible.

"The treads are right at the edge but the driver didn't have to swerve to avoid it," Greene pointed out.

"The sinkhole's getting bigger fast," Roche said.

Greene nodded.

"I'd better set out flares," Roche said. He turned and walked up the road, to the west. There would be more traffic coming down the mountain than going up at this time of day.

Cautiously, Greene moved closer to the sinkhole. As he neared the edge the ground felt like foam rubber, it was that saturated. The engineer could hear rocks coming loose underneath, possibly pieces from other cracked sections of bedrock. With nowhere to go, rainwater would have been pushed into existing fractures of the natural roadbed, stressing and expanding them. Daily traffic destroyed the remaining structural integrity. What Greene needed to know was how much of the road was in danger of collapsing. The hole beneath the bedrock might have been an isolated one caused by centuries of runoff from the mountain to the ravine.

Greene carefully knelt and leaned over the rim. The rocks of the roadbed had cracked and fallen about three feet. They were covered with dirt that was still washing in from all four sides. Greene ran his light across the edges of fallen rock. Each slab was about four inches thick.

As he knelt there more tiny pieces became dislodged and fell. Greene lay on his belly to distribute his weight over a wider area. He poked his head and the flashlight into the sinkhole and looked at the sides. The hole continued to the east and west, directly under the road.

"That's just great," he said.

Roche's workboots slapped on the mud behind him. "What's wrong?"

"Don't come over," Greene said. He looked back. Light from the flares had turned the world around them a dull, flickering red. "We've got a fissure."

"A big one?"

"I can't tell," Greene said. "Set out the rest of the flares, then call Chelmow and let her know what we've found. Tell her that until we know how far the fissure follows the road, this section should be closed. I also suggest that she get a geologist up here."

"Right," Roche said. He circled the sinkhole wide, walking along the ravine among the ferns and ivy. Then he jogged back to the van.

Greene lay down again and stuck his head back in the opening. He turned to the side to try and see deeper along the fissure. As he ran his flashlight along the mountainside wall, he heard a faint echoing cry from the fissure.

"What the hell?"

Roche stopped and looked back. "Did you say something?"

Greene shushed him with his hand and listened. After a few seconds he heard the cry again, louder than before.

"Christ," Greene muttered. He sat up on his knees and quickly slipped off his backpack.

"What's wrong?" Roche shouted.

"I hear crying down there."

"You hear what?"

"Crying!"

"Like a baby?"

"No," Greene said. "Like someone might be hurt."

The engineer hoped that an early-morning jogger or a dog-walker or teenagers who'd camped out in a cave hadn't taken a tumble into the sinkhole. He hadn't seen any footprints around it, but then they wouldn't have been as deep as the tire treads. The rain might have erased them.

Greene slid his legs around so that he was sitting on the soft edge of the sinkhole.

"Whoa there! What are you doing?" Roche asked.

"Going down," Greene said.

"Stan, no."

"It's okay," Greene told him.

"Stan-"

"Listen to me," Greene said. "I don't think any more of the road is about to fall in-"

"But you don't know that."

"It'll be okay."

"Famous second-to-last words," Roche said. "They're the ones that come right before, 'Oh, fuck!' Anyway, whatever's down there may not be a 'someone.' It could be a dog or that bobcat the deputy never found."

"It could be," Greene admitted. "So?"

"If it is an animal and it's hurt-"

"I know," Greene said. "It'll be really pissed off. But it could also be somebody's kid."

"Yeah. There's that."

"I'll be careful. Give me a radio check, then set out the damn flares and call Chelmow. Stay there in case I need you to tell her anything."

"Stan-"

"Just do it, okay?"

Greene removed the two-way radio from his backpack. He slipped his hand through the strap on the waterproof carrying case, then switched it on.

"Roche to Greene."

"I read you," Greene replied. "Stay tuned."

"I'm not going anywhere," Roche said. "But I want to say one more time that I think this is a stupid idea."

"Noted," Greene said.

Armed with the radio and flashlight, he saluted his partner back at the van and slid over the side. Landing on the rocks below, Greene lost his footing as well as the flashlight.

"Stan?" Roche cried. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Greene said. "I tripped."

"Damn it, this isn't what we came out here for-"

"I said I'm fine," Greene insisted. "Just give me a second to get back on my feet."

As he was pushing himself off the rocks he heard the cry again.