I Work Night Security at the Berkeley Pit in Montana. Something Lives in the Water.

The Berkeley Pit in Butte, Montana, is a mile across and 900 feet deep, filled with water so acidic it kills snow geese on contact. Nothing lives in it. Nothing could. That's what everyone in Butte knows. So when Carl Burke lost his job at the Continental Pit and took a night security gig at $24 an hour to keep birds off the toxic lake, he figured it was the easiest money he'd ever make. The job came with rules from Don Warner, the sixty-four-year-old man who trained him: heater stays off, engine stays off when you park, no smoking outside. "Anything warm on the rim is a lantern," Don said. Carl thought he was working for a cheap old man pinching the company's pennies. He was wrong.

The Ledger and the Climb

The first week was quiet. Carl learned the rhythm of the six propane cannons that fired every fifteen minutes to scare migrating geese away from the water. He learned the benches by number, the reflector posts by how they caught the cameras. Don taught the way a good foreman does—showed him once, let him get it wrong, showed him again without a sigh. But Don also kept a green cloth-bound ledger in the bottom drawer, writing in small square letters, and he never explained what it was.