Chapter Thirteen - Wanker Stew

It made a great visual.

Just like the dream he’d had so long ago, about being swept away by the waters of the mighty Colorado, he pictured all those Southern California assholes learning to tread water as the liquid wall swept down on them like the wrath of God. All eight or ten or twenty million or whatever there were of them; Wanker Stew. His favorite thing about Hollyweird was that it was downstream.

His time as an attorney had taught him a little. He knew that he’d have to steal whatever he needed to accomplish the job. Otherwise, it would be too easy to trace the goods back to him. The key to successfully accomplishing his little plan was the same as winning in court: Preparation, research, doing your homework.

He drove his old Jeep into little towns all over Southern Utah and broke into Farmer’s Co-op stores, stealing a few cases of fertilizer and whatever other provisions he happened to need. He stashed his cache in the desert, making sure he wasn’t followed. Having learned from his first crack at terrorism, he made sure that he slept somewhere far away from his cache of stolen goods.

Before every job, he spent many hours casing the joint and the town. There were few cops in most of these small towns and they always had a routine. He made sure that he knew that routine before every job, he never struck in the same town twice and he never got greedy. Quick in and out, take what you need and leave the rest. That was the key to remaining free.

When he finally had enough fertilizer and diesel fuel, he stole a houseboat and loaded it all on board, hauling it in on a stolen two-ton flatbed GMC truck. He worked through the night loading the fertilizer and barrels of diesel fuel onto the houseboat, then returned the truck with a full tank of gas to the farm that he’d stolen it from. Farmers worked too hard to steal from them without returning whatever he’d taken.

It was risky, leaving the loaded, stolen boat unattended in the daylight, but he had no other choice. There was simply too much work to do to accomplish it all in one night. He couldn’t risk sleeping on the boat during the day and being caught red handed, so he returned to his cave in the desert for one last days sleep.

Tonight would be the culminating event of his life. When he was in college, a friend had asked him what he wanted out of life and his answer surprised even himself. He said, “I want to do something important, that people will always remember me for. Just one thing so that people will remember that Wally Wanker once walked this planet.”

Wally’s fantasy was about to come to fruition. If he died in the process, it didn’t matter, he had a calling. The flat nosed misfit from Tonopah was about to give meaning to his life.

At midnight, Wally crawled to the edge of the butte that overlooked the little cove where the explosive laden houseboat waited. Lake Powell was full of tiny, hidden canyons, some still uncharted all these years later. Some only existed when the water level was right.

He pulled his binoculars from his backpack and surveyed every inch of ground and water as far as he could see from his vantage point. This was one of those occasions when he wished he had better eyesight.

Once he was convinced that the coast was clear, he climbed down the hill and slipped quietly onto the boat. He wired the timer onto the starter caps. The initial explosion would set off the fertilizer and diesel fuel and, in theory, Wally would have his own Big Bang.

When everything was set, he pulled on his life jacket, opened the fuel cocks and pushed the start button. The sound of the starters cranking over the two huge diesel motors seemed enormous to Wally and he felt a chill creeping over his body. His scalp tingled and his hair felt like electric current was running through it. He took the steering wheel in his sweaty, fat little fingers and eased the huge boat out of the cove and onto the open water, for the ten mile trip to the dam.

As he neared Glen Canyon Dam, he cut the engines, set the timer for fifteen minutes and dove off the back of the boat into the warm waters of the soon-to-be-former Lake Powell.

The boat would drift the last two hundred yards under its own inertia, he figured, allowing him to make his exit before it got too close to the suction from the huge turbines for him to swim away. If he tried to swim too close to them, he risked being sucked into the current caused by the AC generators.

“Oh well,” he sang to himself as he swam away from the boat, “it’s been a good day in hell.”

The water was moving faster than he’d expected, even this far away from the turbines and he’d put a good deal of weight on by 1982, all of which mean that he was in danger of not making it to shore before the houseboat blew.

Despite nearly two years of work and careful planning, he hadn’t realized how tough ten minutes of hard, nonstop swimming was going to be. He was barely conscious when he did reach the shore and he’d swallowed a great deal of the soon-to-be-former lake.

He laid on the shore for a few minutes and then forced himself up and staggered toward the dirt road a few hundred feet away. His heart was pounding and his chest felt like it was going to explode.

He could see the road only a few more feet ahead but he didn’t make it. He passed out about ten feet from the road, drifting in and out of consciousness, until he saw headlights approach. He rolled over onto his large belly and crawled toward the roadway.

The Toyota pickup stopped, engine running and headlights piercing the darkness, and two men climbed out.

“Whaddya think, Pete,” the passenger said, “is he alive?”

“Yeah,” Wally groaned, “get me outta here.”

The two men helped Wally to his feet and got him into the cab of the pickup, which was no easy feat at his girth and in his condition.

“So what happened to you?” the one called Pete asked. “Your boat sink or something?”

“No, but it’s about to.” Wally said, slurring his words like a drunk. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Huh?”

“DRIVE.” Wally shouted with every bit of energy he could muster.

Reacting to the urgency in his voice, Pete put the truck into gear and took off in a shot. A few seconds later they saw a small flash followed by a huge one. Another second after that there was a boom, then a deeper BOOM that shook the ground and rattled the windows of the little pickup.

“Whoa!” Rudy shouted, “What in the hell was that?”

“Wanker Stew.” Wally muttered, grinning to himself in the dark cab. “Start swimming mother fuckers.” he mumbled too quietly for anyone else to hear.

“Where you guys headed?” Wally asked.

“Salt Lake.” Pete replied.

“Perfect. Wake me up when we get there.”

Pete and Rudy looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders. The sun was coming up and they were nearly in Salt Lake when they heard the first news reports on the radio.

“A house boat exploded on Lake Powell, near the Glen Canyon Dam during the night. The boat was reported stolen on Thursday and was loaded with a makeshift bomb of fertilizer and diesel fuel. It was completely destroyed.”

“Authorities say that this appears to have been an attempt to disrupt the operation of the dam by a radical environmental group, though no one has yet claimed responsibility for the blast.”

“The dam was not damaged and there were no injuries. Police have no solid leads at this time, though they speculate that this may be connected to a recent rash of burglaries throughout Southern Utah.”

Wally could feel the eyes of the two men on either side of him. He opened his eyes. “Don’t look at me. I don’t know nuthin’.”

“What do you think, Rudy, do we believe him?” Pete asked.

“Do pigs have wings?” Rudy replied. “Maybe we should turn him in.”

“I’m thinking no harm, no foul.” Pete answered.

Wally took a deep breath, not sure if he was more relieved or disappointed. One thing that he had learned over the years was patience and he knew that Hayduke would ride again.