The Thanatos Syndrome

me”—she nods to the tower —”I don’t see how a spill down there could get into the water here.”
    We gaze some more. There is nothing to see.
    But as we drift up the levee and back to the truck, Vergil calls us aside. We’re on top of the levee. He is standing casually, hands in pockets, looking down as usual. “You want to see something?” he asks nobody in particular.
    â€œYes,” we say.
    â€œLook over there.” He nods toward the south without looking up.
    We look. There is nothing to see but the fence and, beyond, the batture which widens into the Tunica Swamp and is mostly grown up in willows.
    â€œWhat do you see?” I ask Vergil finally.
    â€œLook at the willows.”
    â€œI’m looking at the willows.”
    â€œLook at the color.”
    â€œThe color of willows is green,” says Lucy.
    â€œThat’s right. So what do you see. Look where I’m looking.” He looks.
    We look. “Do you mean that couple of sick willows?” I ask at last.
    â€œIt’s a track,” says Vergil. “A faint yellowing which crosses the batture toward the tower.”
    â€œI see!” cries Lucy. “Damned if it isn’t! But what does—”
    â€œLet’s go,” I say. “We got company.”
    A small white pickup is moseying along the narrow roadway atop the levee.
    â€œThat’s just the levee board patrol,” says Lucy. “Now what do you think that yellow means?”
    â€œLet’s go, Lucy,” I say, taking her arm.
    We walk slowly down the slanting gravel road. The white truck seems to pay us no attention, bumps across the access road, under the pipe arch, and goes its way.
    â€œNow would you mind telling me—” begins Lucy when we are in the truck.
    â€œLet’s wait till we get home,” I say. Vergil and I are looking straight ahead. “Drive the truck, Lucy.”
    â€œOkay okay.”

7. FOR SOME REASON nobody says anything until we’re back at the dining-room table gazing down at the map.
    â€œNow what’s all this about, Vergil?” asks Lucy.
    â€œThey have a line there.”
    â€œA line?”
    â€œA pipe.”
    â€œWhere?”
    Vergil’s forefinger with its glossy nail and large half-moon rests on the green neck between the river and lake.
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œI used to run leaks for Continental all the way from Golden Meadow to Tennessee. That’s how we spotted leaks by chopper.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œBy yellowing. Grass and leaf yellowing over the pipeline. I got so I could spot the slightest off-green.”
    We look hard at the map as if we could see it.
    â€œI don’t understand,” says Lucy. “Couldn’t it be a gas pipeline supplying Grand Mer?”
    â€œNo. It wouldn’t be there. This runs from Grand Mer to Ratliff number one.”
    Again we look at the map.
    â€œWell, if there’s a pipeline there,” says Lucy slowly, “wouldn’t there be a cleared right-of-way with signs and so forth?”
    Vergil smiles and shrugs. Ask me about pipes but don’t ask me why folks do what they do.
    Lucy looks at me. “Am I being stupid? Ya’ll seem to know something I don’t know. What does he mean?”
    â€œHe means that there would be a right-of-way and signs only if they wanted you to know the pipeline was there.”
    â€œWhat are you saying?”
    â€œVergil is suggesting that there is a pipeline there and that it is hidden.”
    â€œI see. You mean that if there is contamination of the water supply, it is deliberate.”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    She muses, eyes blinking and not leaving my face. “Why do I have the feeling that you are not only not surprised but that you know a lot more about this than you let on?”
    I don’t say anything.
    She looks back at Vergil. His face is blank.
    â€œWhat kind of contaminant are we talking about?” asks Lucy.
    I shrug and tap the pencil on the cone on Tunica Island. “This is an old heavy-sodium reactor, one of the first and, I believe, one of the few still around. Right, Vergil?”
    â€œRight,” says Vergil, taking the pencil and warming to it. The subject is pipes. “Dr. More is right about the heavy sodium, but it’s not the core, the reactor, it’s the coolant. Okay?” He corrects me gently. He begins to sketch. “Okay, this is an old