His hand passed over something solid, a tree fallen over into the river, and he grabbed the branches and held on long enough to pull his face out of the water. Hawley forced a breath. Everything around him was movement. A heaviness caught around his legs, dragging him under again. He pulled and kicked until he saw a flash of purple nylon. It was Steller’s tent.
He was maybe two hundred yards downstream. The wave had picked him up, pushed him forward and then hauled him along the edge of the river. The current was still choppy and rolling, chunks of blue slush bobbing along the surface. Hawley clung to the tree and used it to pull himself toward shore, his limbs aching from the cold. The entire beach was still flooded, but he could see the current pulling back through the boulders, receding to its original shape. Hawley reached the base of the roots where the tree had been forced over, the wet bark scraping his nails, and in one final push dragged himself free of the river.
The beach was swamped, pools left behind cloudy with rust-colored water. Hawley touched his ribs. They were tender. The side of his cheek was torn open where he’d hit the rocks. He’d lost his gun and his wallet. His body was shivering, his clothes drenched. He turned to look at the glacier’s altered face, the empty hole where the ice had sheared away.
His coat was so heavy with water that it felt like the weight of another person across his back. Hawley shrugged out of the sleeves and threw it to the ground. He pulled his shirt over his head and wrung it out, his muscles shaking, his skin awash with goosebumps. When he put the shirt on again, he felt colder than before. He slid his hand into his front pocket. Lily’s note was still there, but the ink had blossomed and bled, so that each letter was now three times the size. A GIRL. Hawley held the paper between his fingers. Then he folded it carefully and put it back into his pocket.
His boots squished as he staggered toward the parking lot. When he climbed over the embankment he saw the women, soaked and slick as rats. They still had the aluminum case. They were standing by their Silverado with the hood open, pulling out blankets from the trunk. Hawley glanced at his pickup truck. The bed was full of water.
“You made it,” said the girl.
“I guess so,” said Hawley.
“The engines are flooded.” Steller was holding a flashlight. She let it slide down the length of her hand. But the girl gave him one of the blankets.
“You get your picture?” He wondered if they had even tried to look for him.
“Nope,” said the girl.
“I’ve never seen a piece that big fall before,” said Steller.
“I thought we were dead,” said the girl, and she started to laugh. Steller laughed, too. The women were giddy, their voices pitched high. They had held on to each other and it had been enough to keep them on land. It was something they’d talk about in years to come. And later—when their lives were full and they no longer loved each other—forget.
But Hawley would never forget.
“Where’s the clepsydra?” Steller asked.
Hawley looked down at his hands. He could still feel the bowl’s weight pulling him to the bottom of the river. “Gone.”
“You lost it?” said the girl.
“I think it broke,” said Hawley. He remembered the pot being wrenched away from him, the sound of something fracturing beneath the waves.
Steller hurried back toward the beach, but stopped just short of climbing down. She stayed on the upper banks of the river and scanned the shore. Hawley and the girl followed her, blankets wrapped around their shoulders, and all three went back and forth along the edge of the parking lot. The beach was covered with debris, branches and piles of fish tossed up from the wave. A massive swarm of birds—hawks and gulls and crows and starlings—were eagerly devouring the salmon, picking out chunks of flesh and carrying away pieces in their claws, as the fish flopped and twisted on the rocks. Hawley saw the ragged remains of the purple tent in the distance, floating downstream. But no sign of the clepsydra, or the crate.
“Maybe it will wash up,” said the girl.
“You know what I went through to get my hands on that thing?” Steller said. “It was more than three thousand years old, for fuck’s sake!”
Hawley would have to return the money to the bank in Anchorage. Then he’d call Jove and tell him the deal had been a bust. There’d be no extra cash, no happy reunion with Lily, just a long ride home with his tail between his legs. His hand slid to his belt. It wasn’t until he felt the gap there that he remembered his gun had been washed away.
He said, “I’m going to need that case back.”
Steller took a step closer to the girl. “We delivered the clock as agreed,” she said. “We did our part.”
“It’s your fault it got lost,” said the girl.
“The only thing that matters is that I didn’t get what I came here for.”
“You think we’re going to just give you the money back?” the girl asked.
They didn’t know he’d lost his gun. But then again, maybe they did. The adrenaline and icy water had cleared his head completely. Even with the blanket the girl had given him, he was in danger of hypothermia. His body was starting to shut down, his shoulders trembling, his teeth chattering. But he couldn’t go back with nothing. It was either the clock or the money.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I’m sorry, too,” said Steller, and from underneath her shirt she produced a snub-nosed Ruger. It was the kind of gun an old man might own. Someone who didn’t care anymore about how things looked, only if they felt right. Hawley had always thought Rugers looked like toys, the handles longer than the nose, but they were tough guns. He’d seen Rugers run over by trucks and still fire without any problems.
“I’m going to give you five seconds,” said Steller, “to get in your car and get out of here.”
“You’re not going to shoot me,” said Hawley.
“That’s one,” said Steller. She cocked the hammer, and the cylinder spun into place. Hawley saw there were at least three slugs inside. “Just stop,” he said. “Wait a minute.”
“That’s two,” said Steller.
Hawley stood there in his wet clothes, trying to figure if the woman was serious. She looked serious enough. He glanced around, trying to gauge the distance for cover. He didn’t have much to work with. The Silverado, his truck. And the girl. She was twitching like mad, holding on to the hood of the car. In a few steps he could have his hands around her neck.
The sky rumbled and they all felt the glacier shift. Steller kept her eyes straight, but Hawley turned to the river. There was no waterfall of snow, no signs of cracks on the surface. But he could feel the change, an internal compaction coming loose, deep within the ice shelf, a place so used to pressure, the molecules had shrunk and now there was a stirring, a cave full of secrets about to yawn and spill open.
“Three,” said Steller.
“All right.” He raised his hands. The blanket fell from his shoulders. He started walking backward, toward his car. “I’m leaving.”