Busted Flush

When Ana reached the end of the street, a wall rose at the edge of the town, a barren mound of churned-up mud, a tumor against the backdrop of the green jungle. The wall of mud served as a dike, diverting the flood of water around the village, buying them time.

Kate approached her, hesitating, not wanting to break her concentration. Ana, head bowed, was breathing hard, her back heaving.

“Ana?” Kate touched her shoulder.

Ana said something in Spanish. Then her eyes focused, and she smiled. “Wasn’t that something?”

“Will it hold?”

She shook her head. “Not with this rain. They’re still going to have to evacuate.”

“What about you? You holding up?”

“Same as always.” She took a deep breath and briefly touched the quarter-sized medallion she wore. Kate offered her a hand up and was startled at how heavily Ana leaned on her. She held her side, at the place where a bullet had struck her a year before. The wound still hurt her sometimes. “I’m going to go help clear the rest of those houses.”

Kate knew better than to try to argue, however hurt or tired Ana seemed. She went back to Tinker and the jeep.

The Red Cross had set up a tent and was distributing blankets and coffee. Hypothermia was an issue in the rain and cold. Tinker—Hal Anderson, a burly Australian ace with a beach-bum tan and weight-lifter muscles—had let the jeep stall out, which meant he was now burrowed under the open hood, doing who-knew-what to the engine. He’d rigged the thing to run on tap water—great publicity, not using any of the local fuel supplies during a global oil crisis. If he could mass-produce his modification, he’d be rich. But the device needed adjusting every time the engine shut off.

They’d been at this for three days, driving from village to village, staving off mudslides and evacuating towns. They needed a chance to catch their breaths. That was all she wanted.

Someone screamed and cried out a panicked stream of Spanish.

A river was pouring off the mountain. Water lapped the top of the wall Ana had made to hold back the flood. The edges crumbled. Suddenly the whole thing disintegrated. It was just gone, turned to soup by the rain, and the flood roared through the village. Ana was in the middle of it. Holding a little girl’s hand, she knelt in the street, hand on the ground, looking up at the wave pouring toward her. This wasn’t the slow, creeping wall that Ana had pushed back earlier. This was a mass of water so powerful it had picked up tons of debris—rocks, trees, a mountain’s worth of topsoil—and carried it barreling down.

Too fast for Earth Witch to hold it back. More water than mud, she couldn’t control it.

“Ana!” Horrified, helpless, Kate watched.

Ana reacted instinctively. She held the child close to her body and hunkered over, protecting her. Then, both of them disappeared in the torrent.

Kate started to run to her, but Tinker held her back, hugging her to him.

“I can break them out, I can blow through the mud!”

“No, you can’t!”

She struggled anyway, trying to break free, but he held her trapped.

Then someone yelled, “¡Mira!” Look.

The river of mud flowed in a steady stream, but something in the middle of it moved, turning like a whirlpool. Then, a shape broke the surface. A platform of stone rose, carrying two figures clear of the flow, which frothed around the interruption. The tower of bedrock stopped some six feet above the surface. It was only a few feet in diameter, but it was enough. Ana crouched there, the child safe in her arms. Both were drenched in dripping mud. Even from where she stood, Kate could see Ana gasping for breath.

“Christ,” Tinker breathed.

Kate cheered, laughing with relief.

The little girl shifted in Ana’s arms and clung to the woman. Ana cleared the mud from both their faces. She looked up, raised her hand. Kate waved enthusiastically.

Ana touched the ground, and a faint rumble sounded, even over the sound of the flood. More ground broke free, a line forming a narrow bridge from the platform to the hillside. Soon, Ana was able to walk to safety, carrying the girl.

One of the refugees, a young woman, broke from the crowd and cried out. The girl in Ana’s arms struggled. “Mama!”

Ana let her go, and she ran to the woman, who swept her up, sobbing. Holding her child, she went to Ana, touching her reverently, crying, “Gracias.” The ace bore it with a smile.

Kate ran to meet her and pulled her into a hug, mud and all. Like she would notice a little more mud after this week. “Are you okay? Come on, you have to get warmed up, get something hot to drink.”

Smiling vaguely, Ana hugged her back. “I’m okay. It’s nice to be saving people for a change.”

And it was.

The next morning, back in their hotel room at Quito, Ana was asleep. She’d been asleep for ten hours. She didn’t even look relaxed, curled up in a ball, hugging the blankets tightly over her shoulders, like she was trying to protect herself from something.