You retrieve David Banicki's old notebook from its plastic baggie, then pull out a pen as Elton heads for a tool shed. The first thing you do is record the damage done to the horses. You work one animal at a time; Elton, who possesses an extensive knowledge of anatomy, adds to your already considerable notes just before he takes a sledgehammer to each horse. They die screaming and yanking on their harnesses, as if they still want to live even though they're so infected that they're almost dead already.
Then you approach the dam. The sound rattles your teeth and makes your eyeballs jiggle in their sockets, but you sketch the dam itself, then make a few guesses about its operation. Though impressive, the dam is crudely built: Elton uses bolt cutters to snip the wire frame holding the stones in place, and then you both use long iron poles to break the dam apart.
Once the stones are out of place, the two of you hurry back to the old barrow; after a few minutes the hammering sound grows irregular, like a dying man's heartbeat, and then the concrete shatters and water blasts out across the wetlands, carrying with it fragments of plastic and pieces of crude machinery. The water level drops above the shattered dam, leaving dead horses hanging upright like crucified thieves in their dirty plastic harnesses.
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