Quicksilver (The Forensic Geology Series, Prequel) by Toni Dwiggins

fired his gun again, the ice cracked again, and the bedrock knob chipped on the other side, on Walter’s side this time.
    My heart slammed. I whispered, “Were those good shots or bad shots?”
    “Good shots,” Walter said.
    Henry fired a third time and this time he chipped the center of the knob and I wanted to yell stop shooting up the geology but I was shaking too hard to get the words out.
    There was a micro-moment in which Walter and I considered our options, glancing at the path back to the notch, trying to do the geometry of angles of fire, and then Robert yelled at us, “He’s coming up.”
    I nodded and Walter yelled, “Henry we’ll come down once you say you won’t shoot.”
    “I won’t,” Henry called, “once you come down.”
    Walter pushed up to his knees and I followed suit, thinking I sure hope we’re all clear on the timing of coming down and not shooting but once we were standing and I had a line of sight down into the valley my fears eased, slightly.
    Henry stood watching, his gun barrel pointed groundward. He gripped the weapon with both hands and I guessed that was to counteract the tremors or maybe it was a sharp-shooting style but it looked for all the world like he’d had to wrestle the gun out of firing position.
    Henry had shed his parka. He wore a brown long-sleeve shirt tucked into his jeans. He wore a belt holster.
    Robert stood a few yards behind Henry. He was making no move to tackle his brother.
    Walter and I came down off the knob to join the Shelburne brothers.
    ~ ~ ~
    I t wasn’t an Old West six-shooter in Henry’s hand. It was a modern-day Glock, carried by cops everywhere or at least at the crime scenes I’d worked. Henry’s Glock was matte black except for the slide, the metal there silvered where the finish had worn off, which left me thinking Henry Shelburne handles this gun a lot. Or maybe Henry ‘Quicksilver’ Shelburne had sanded the finish down to silver on purpose.
    He still gripped the gun with both hands. He pointed it somewhere in the neighborhood of our six legs.
    Robert, Walter, and I stood side-by-side in a lineup in front of the tunnel.
    Henry spoke to Walter. “I am hiring you.”
    Walter said, gently, “We prefer not to work at gunpoint.”
    “It’s just in case.”
    “In case of what, son?”
    “ Just in case. Just in case .”
    Walter said, more gently, “All right.”
    Henry raised his hands, and the Glock. His hands shook. The gun oscillated. “A geologist needs to go in.”
    “Cassie will go,” Walter said promptly.
    I got it. Henry didn’t know that Walter was the expert on the auriferous channels, Henry just knew we’d been hired to get his brother here. And given that we’d followed the float and found our way, I guessed Henry got that right. By now, either one of us would do. And Walter delegated me. I got it. He’ll stay outside with crazy Henry while I get to go on the treasure hunt. He thought he was protecting me. He always has. When I was a kid assisting in his lab and he took me to my first crime scene, he bought me a whistle in case we got separated. All these years later and now we’re doing the tricky dance of who is protecting whom. Vigilance is in his DNA. It’s tattooed on his soul.
    There’s a man with a gun. And Walter is stepping up.
    I stole a glance at Robert. He stood rigid, watching his brother. Not overtly afraid but then I’d not seen Robert Shelburne show fear. I did not know how he would exhibit fear.
    I refocused on Henry. He looked a little lost, as if he’d come out of hiding too soon. His face was more weathered than the teenager in the photo but the Sherpa wool cap now cupping his head made him look young again. Still, he did not have teenage Henry’s cool squint. His eyes were reddened, blinking. Lack of sleep, trying to get a wet fire going, crying, who knew? His nose was pinkish, sunburned, peeling. I guessed the weather had been clear and sunny before we joined the hunt, although I wondered why