Chapter 16 - The Blood Beneath the Stone
The stand-off hovered on a razor’s edge, suspended between bloodshed and disaster, until Carter Hayes broke.
He didn't run toward the safety of the highway; he ran toward the bridge, driven by a manic panic. "The valve!" he shrieked, clawing at his designer hair. "The secondary shaft has an emergency shut-off at the old pumphouse! If the pressure cracks the lower cavern, the whole hillside—the entire valley floor—is going to slide into the gorge!"
"He's telling the truth," I said, grabbing Harry's arm. "Margaret warned me about this twenty years ago. The old pumphouse sits directly on the fault line. If the retaining wall gives, it will drag half my ridge and the county water main with it."
"Then let it slide!" Vance snarled, struggling against Michael's grip on the SUV hood. "Apex! Clear these locals out! We have private asset protection immunity under the Chancellor’s emergency declaration!"
The Apex guard leader stepped toward Michael, his hand dropping to his sidearm. "Let him go, kid, or you won't live to see your inheritance."
I didn't think. At sixty-eight years old, with arthritis in both knees and grief hollowing out my ribs, I moved faster than I had since my days in the timber camps. I grabbed the iron tire iron from the bed of my pickup and stood directly between the armed guard and my only child.
"You draw that piece on my boy," I growled, "and you’ll find out how deep this limestone really goes."
The guard hesitated, his eyes locking with mine. In that moment, he didn't see an old, grieving widower clinging to a patch of dirt. He saw a man who had already lost the only thing in this world he was afraid of losing.
"Dad..." Michael’s voice cracked behind me. The shame in it was thick enough to choke on. "Dad, don't do this for me. I’m the one who brought them here. I took their money. I signed the preliminary lease options. I did this to you."
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"We’ll settle our debts at the dinner table, son," I said, never taking my eyes off the guard. "Right now, we keep Margaret’s ground from sliding into hell."
A siren wailed in the distance—not the single, tinny chirp of Barnes’ cruiser, but the deep, air-horn blare of multiple emergency vehicles descending the switchbacks from the county seat. State Troopers. The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. Harry Collins’ dawn filings had finally hit the state desk in Nashville.
