“Now what?” Mab asks Monday.
“We drive out onto the dam,” she says. “The hammer must be positioned at a ninety-degree angle to the material you want to break through.”
“Can we do that?” says Mab. “Drive out onto the dam?”
“Small to medium backhoes such as this one are the ideal machines for maneuvering in tight spaces,” Monday says.
“What if the dam’s already too weak to support us?”
No one speaks the answer to this out loud, but we all hear it just the same. If the dam collapses under our weight, we’ll go into the lake and we will not come out.
Monday starts the machine again, and we drive forward at a pace that makes our ride so far feel fast in comparison. At the lip of the lake, the edge of the dam, we pause to try for calm, for deep breaths, for a small prayer, to say goodbye to the solid world, just in case, ready to all go down together if it comes to that, though, truthfully, it also feels like life might be about to get better, and we’d just as soon stick around for it if we could. We move forward, an inch an hour it seems like, a slow creep over grass and onto the cement top of the dam which feels like solid ground—not as much give beneath us—but of course is less so, the concrete holding but the timbers beneath shrieking as they bow, but holding too, making our slow way as we leave the part built over ground and cross onto the part holding back water. The spine of the dam is wider than we are. But it is not a lot wider than we are.
To our right, upstream, the lake is still, quiet but deep. Mab and Monday can swim, but I cannot, and unstrapping me from a sinking backhoe and pulling me to shore through frigid waters is probably more than any of us would survive. To our left, below us, is the ravine, what we’ve always thought of as the ravine, which is actually a ghost river, a once and future river, a dry gully ready to be filled again. It is not so far down. It is not so full of thorns. But it is far and full enough if we should fall.
Out over the middle of the dam, as much behind us as ahead, water above and brambles below, Monday shifts into neutral and puts on the parking brake. She lowers the stabilizer legs down on either side, though I don’t know how much stability they’ll provide since they’re only just wider than we are. And only just fit. We all try very hard not to breathe.
“We have to turn around,” Monday whispers.
I am about to shout incoherent protest, but Mab gets there first. “We’ve come this far. We can’t go back now.”
“I am not saying go back, One. The hammer is behind us.” They both turn and look. “The hydraulic attachments go on the stick which is on the boom which is on the back. We have to turn around.”
Monday reaches down and releases something under our seat, turns us in a slow circle, and suddenly we’re facing the other way. Out our new front windshield, the hammer looks like a giant metal finger at the end of a giant metal arm, elbow pointed at the sky, finger pointing to the ground, more twisted than I am, also waiting. We can still make out the plant on the shore we came from, in front of us once again.
“How do we work that thing?” Mab breathes.
“Joysticks.” Monday points to them. There is one apiece on little pillars on either side of us.
“Do you know how?” Mab’s voice climbs, and I will her to lower it. I do not know how delicate our balance is. I do know shouting will not help Monday.
“The books say all it takes is training, practice, and a careful touch,” Monday says confidently.
“You have no training! You have no practice!” Mab’s voice goes the wrong direction. “Your touch is not careful!”
“They are yellow!” Monday yells back.
“It takes more than being yellow!” Mab is shaking, rattling the entire cab, rattling me where she grasps my chest and shoulders.
“I am an expert in all yellow things!” Monday is indignant. She needs to get out and run laps around the backhoe, but it is as possible for her to do so at the moment as it is for me.
I am tapping One One One on Mab’s arm as hard as I can, but she is numbed by cold and terror and cannot feel it. So I muster all my energy and concentration and shout into the frozen night, “Maaa!”
Not Mab. Not Monday. Me. I have had sixteen years of practice. My touch is fine as cobwebs. I am Miracle Mirabel, a maestro on the joystick. Even in the dark, I can see their faces light with comprehension, then giddy, dizzy relief.
“Hah,” I say. Tell me how.
“The left joystick swings us side to side,” says Monday. “You have to position the hammer between the front wheels.”