Page 10 of South of Nowhere
“No. Tomas and the crew are about two miles south. Nothing.”
“That’s harsh—kids, Louis was saying.” She was the young mother of twins.
Another pickup appeared, slightly less spattered than the others. Marissa Fell washed her vehicle every other day. Polish was involvedtoo. The paste kind, which few souls on earth now used. It was largely how she ran the administrative side of the police department, clean and orderly, everything in its place, if not spit shined.
Climbing out, the solid, curly-haired woman zipped up her blue quilted parka.
“I got ’em.” Her eyes danced Tolifson’s way, then took in the levee. “How’s it holding?”
“No idea.”
From the backseat of her Silverado, she collected wires and power strips, and Tolifson a gas-powered generator. Marissa had also brought paper towels. Tolifson started to wipe down the table. Debi took over. And when they were dry-like, she ran the cables to the generator and fired it up.
Marissa said, “Ruth’s manning nine-one-one. She’s just telling everybody who calls we’re on top of the situation.” Her troubled eyes were on the white torrent of the river’s surface and the cascade. “But seeing that? I’m not so sure…”
Tolifson nodded at the tents. “Might be safer up here.”
She snorted a laugh. “Have the landlines. Can’t run a police department via mobiles and Zoom.”
“Suppose not.”
“What a day. What a day. You holding up?”
Haven’t failed the test yet, he thought. “So far…”
They shared another glance, then Marissa climbed into the truck, made a three-point turn and headed down the hill.
Tolifson was startled by a woman’s voice from behind him, snapping, “Mayor. There are people taking selfies, right under the breach! You really need to get on top of this.”
His lips grew into a tight line.
DRB was back.
4.
DRB.
Tolifson’s nickname for the athletic blond woman who had arrived in town a mere forty-five minutes after the levee had collapsed.
The initials stood forDisaster Relief…And aBword he had never uttered aloud and had thought only with regard to a few individuals, all well-deserving of the designation.
“Look.” She was pointing to the base of the levee.
A dozen residents were recording themselves as the waterfall flowed down the mudslide into the spillway. Two kids were skipping rocks over the retention pond, which was, oddly, more appealing now than it was in its typical shallow, scum-covered state.
Tolifson ordered, “Debi, call whoever’s in the fire station and have them shoo those folks off.”
DRB didn’t seem to think “shoo” was strong enough. She said, “Announcements need to go to the media and cell provider alert system.”
The woman and her associate—a trim man named Eduardo Gutiérrez—had arrived in Hinowah with such authority that Tolifson had initially thought she was law, until he recognized their tanSUV as a commercial rental, not an official vehicle. Hair in a taut ponytail, wearing a forest-green baseball cap, orange-brown Carhartt jacket and black rainproof pants, DRB had announced that she did disaster response for a living and happened to be nearby. She would take the lead now and then stay to assist, when teams from the county and state arrived.
As DRB watched—schoolmarm-like—Tolifson placed a call to the Olechu County Fire Service, which ran the civil defense system. It was making emergency broadcasts about the collapse and potential flooding of the town and he told the dispatcher who answered to add to the warning that no one should take selfies—
“No, no, no,” DRB said sharply.
He turned, frowning.
“The minute you say that, they go out and start taking selfies.”
