Caldera

by Larry LaVoie

She ignored his incredulity. “If anyone would be concerned about Yellowstone, he would.” Carlene gave him a broad smile showing a pair or dimples and perfect white teeth. “He’s a former boyfriend’s uncle.”

  “I hope you’re still on speaking terms with him,” Jason said handing her the phone.

  “He still has a crush on me; at least he did the last time we spoke.”

  “And when was that?”

  Carlene rolled her eyes to the ceiling in thought. “About ten years ago.”

  Billy stood on an outcropping along the Lamar River staring at the dark thunderheads forming over a ridge to the North. “We better find shelter,” he said. “Those clouds don’t look good.”

  Across the river were a dozen or so buffalo grazing in a grassy meadow seemingly oblivious to the hikers. Behind Billy was a small creek they had just crossed. He turned and saw Becky on a boulder next to Terry snuggling up against the breeze. Wendy, dressed in shorts and a halter top, was washing in the frigid water of the creek. Sharp shrieks could be heard each time the icy water hit her face. She wiped with a towel, picked up her jacket and joined Billy. The wind whipped up and Billy put an arm around Wendy and zipped his jacket.

  “This is pretty flat ground. Can we make camp here?” Wendy asked.

  Billy looked down on her flushed face, rosy cheeks, and perfect smile. She was the most fun he’d ever had with a girl and he was sure he was in love. “Sure,” he said pulling her close to him.

  A thunderclap sounded in the distance and by the time the first large drops of rain hit the Ripstop nylon, the four of them were huddled inside the larger of the two tents with a deck of cards ready to ride out the storm.

  The senator’s helicopter landed at park headquarters and Jason and Carlene were anxiously waiting near by. It had not been easy convincing Senator Lake to hear them out, but when Jason invited him to come to the park and see for himself, the senator agreed to interrupt his busy schedule. Senator Lake emerged from the craft wearing a white Stetson, cowboy boots, and a dark western-cut suit, the hallmark of his image for the campaign against the establishment in the White House. A bolo tie and a slight bowlegged gate completed the image of an Old-West marshal ready to run the bad guys out of Washington.

  “Jason Trask, Senator,” Jason said, stretching out his hand. “This is Yellowstone Park Geologist, Carlene Carlson,” he said turning to Carlene.

  The senator tipped his hat to Carlene. “My nephew was right. Pretty young thing, for a scientist. What’s this conspiracy you were telling me?”

  “We’ve got a conference room set up at the hotel,” Jason said. “We can take the Jeep or walk if you like.” The Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel was a short distance. They could see it from where they stood.

  “Hell, this is such a pretty place, let’s walk. You can fill me in on the way. Did I tell you I used to come here with my scout troop?” He looked at a herd of elk grazing in front of the post office. “Glad to see they haven’t killed off all the wildlife. Had to fight like hell to get the wolves returned to the park. Lost a bunch of support with the ranchers, but hey, the wolves were there first.”

  Jason laid out the information for the senator as they strolled to the hotel. Inside they shuffled through a crowded lobby of newly arriving tourists and proceeded to the conference room. The room was sparsely furnished with an overhead projector, a table with six chairs and a small cart with coffee and cups. The walls were pine and free of decoration. A stack of files rested on one end of the table.

  Jason poured coffee and handed it to Lake. “We’re in the middle of a real dilemma, Senator. President Turner knows the park is acting up and the man who went to him with the news is dead.”

  “You mean Dr. Bainbridge,” Lake said, putting two lumps of sugar in his cup and swirling it with a plastic stir-stick. “It made the Casper paper. Died of a heart attack.”

  Jason nodded; surprised the man was aware of Bainbridge’s fate. “He died on the way back from Washington. As much as we can determine, the trip concerned a report he’d written predicting Yellowstone would erupt. Sandy Sanders, head of USGS Western Office, played down the report and won’t let us go public with the report. We’ve verified some of Bainbridge’s notes, enough to know we should be at least a Level Two alert.”

  “Level Two?” Lake asked.

  “An eruption is likely,” Carlene said. “Bainbridge thought the eruption would be weeks, maybe months away, but we think may be sooner. The park needs to be closed and a wide area around Yellowstone evacuated.”

  “Go on,” Lake said, he appeared genuinely interested.

  Jason pulled out a chair and plopped down. Carlene sat beside him, and Lake settled across the table from them, leaning back so far in his chair that Jason thought he’d fall over backwards.

  Jason fixed his gaze on the senator searching for a reaction, any sign that would tell him he would help. “We believe Sanders has been threatened into silence by Washington, or is afraid of the implications of a widespread evacuation.”

  “I see.” The senator raised his eyebrows. “As in a conspiracy.”

  Jason continued, “He visited us a few days ago and said we’d meet the same fate as Bainbridge if we went public. We think Washington wants to keep a lid on this.”

  Lake leaned forward with his hands interlocked as if he was praying, but his eyes stared into Jason’s. “The same fate as Bainbridge. You’re sure that’s what he said?”

  From the senator’s tone Jason believed the senator was going to be a hard sell.

  Lake continued, “Turner has been known to do a lot of stupid things, but I don’t think he’d prevent an evacuation if it was necessary. For all I know the two of you could be trying to get me to use this information to ensure my defeat. It sounds pretty preposterous; government cover-up, presidential threats, I thought we got rid of that when the last administration left the White House.”

  “I know it sounds crazy,” Carlene butted in, “You’ve got to hear us out. We can back up our claim.”

  Senator Lake checked his Rolex. “You’ve got fifteen minutes. If I’m not convinced, you’re on your own.”

  Jason turned on his computer. “Take a look at this.” He was hooked up to a Power Point projector, his presentation lighting up a screen at the end of the room. The display was the fallout zone from the last two eruptions of Yellowstone. Jason pointed with a laser pen. “This is the boundary of the ash from the Lava Creek eruption six-hundred-forty-thousand years ago. The geo-chemical print was traced through tiny particles of zircon and quartz that act like a fingerprint for the Yellowstone eruption.” He pointed to another egg-shaped outline that covered most of the Southwest and Midwest states down to the Gulf of Mexico. “The Huckleberry ridge eruption two-million years ago was even worse. As you can see the only area of the United States that hasn’t been buried by fallout in past eruptions is east of the Mississippi, Alaska and Hawaii, of course. Now we’re faced with an unknown.”

  Jason brought up another slide that showed sound wave images of the magma pools under the park. “These two magma pools have been here for a long time. We’ve known about them for many years and have been monitoring them closely. What was missed by most geologists until Milton Bainbridge started collecting data is this.” He pointed to the area where the new activity was centered. “There is a new anomaly that we aren’t quite sure what it is, but this area of the park is becoming very active along with the Mallard Lake Dome and the Sour Creek Dome. The new area has all the earmarks of a gas chamber under extreme pressure, or possibly, a massive lake of water. Either could spell a disaster equal to the two prior eruptions.”

  The next slide was a topographic map of the park showing the frequency of earthquakes for the past two years. “As you can see the seismic activity has heightened in both magnitude and frequency.”

  Next Jason brought up a graph showing acidity levels in the geysers. “Carlene has plotted pH readings of the geysers for two years. The acid levels have consistently risen over the
past six months. Co-spec results—a measure of sulfur dioxide levels—have jumped around, but have broken ten-year highs before dropping back to normal. This is common for magma moving in the system. Right now things are quiet, but that is what volcanoes do just before they get ready to blow.” Jason took a drink of water while he allowed the message to sink in.

  “Senator, the long and short of it is, Yellowstone is getting ready to erupt and if an area around the park isn’t evacuated, millions will die.”

  “Very interesting, but you haven’t shown me anything that proves this thing is going to erupt, or that Turner is any part of a cover-up.” Lake checked his watch again.

  “Wyoming is your state, Senator. The President has swept this under the table because he didn’t know how to deal with it.” Jason placed the light pen on the table and leaned toward Lake. “On the off chance that Bainbridge could be wrong, he’s willing to risk the lives of millions of people.”

  “And how do you propose I deal with it?”

  Jason brought up the map again shaking his head in frustration. “At least let the people know it’s a possibility. They’ll listen to you. Let them decide where they want to live for the next few years.”

  “And if it doesn’t happen, then what?”

  Jason slapped the table with his hands. “It’s going to happen! Everyone that works in the park will be dead the second this thing goes.”

  “Suppose you show me around and let me see what you’re talking about and I’ll see what I can do.”

  Jason headed for the door. “I’ll drive. Can you spare a couple of hours?”

  Joseph Talent smiled to himself. He ripped off the fake mustache and eyebrows and placed the disguise in a small paper bag and stuffed it into the nearest trash container. It had been a gamble staking out the room Jason had reserved for the meeting, but he needed to know everything that was going on within Yellowstone. Tapping into the reservation computers had given him just what he was looking for. He had learned more about the stability of the Yellowstone system in the brief meeting Jason had held with the senator than he had in all the other stakeouts. It was the first time he’d heard of the new system developing under the Norris Basin. This is significant, he thought. They think the government is behind the cover-up. He chuckled. With luck they would even blame Bainbridge’s death on the government. “Only in America,” Talant said smiling. He started whistling God Bless America as he followed Jason Trask, Senator Lake and Carlene Carlson around the park.

  Nearly three hours later, Carlene took Jason’s arm and held it tight as they watched the helicopter lift off. The whirlwind of dust caused them to close their eyes until the chopper was above the tree tops.

  “I think that went pretty well,” Carlene said as it disappeared over the southern horizon.

  “Time will tell,” Jason said.

  “You don’t think Senator Lake will help?”

  “Let’s get back to camp,” he said turning back toward the parking lot.

  Minutes later they were waiting for a caravan of campers, motor homes, and autos to spread out so they could slip in the line and head south. Finally Jason managed to catch a motorist’s eye and he waved them in. “So much for thinning traffic. Where did all these people come from,” Jason said as he pulled behind a huge motor home.

  Carlene couldn’t hide the nervousness she felt. “You think it’ll be as bad as the eruptions in the past?”

  “No way of knowing for sure. You saw the charts.”

  “Through time the size of the eruptions seem to have diminished, according to your slides,” Carlene said hoping to hear something positive. “The Lava Creek eruption was less than half that of Huckleberry Ridge.”

  “And that was five-hundred times the size of Mount St. Helens,” Jason said. He hit the brakes hard to avoid rear-ending the motor home. “Damn tourists. It’s making it impossible to get around. I wish they’d at least close the park so we could ——”

  “You’re dismissing what I said without a thought,” Carlene interrupted angrily.

  “I’m not dismissing it. You can’t wish this thing away. If any area in the park erupts it’ll be like dominoes and the whole place will go. Even what you might term a small eruption in historical terms will devastate most of the United States.”

  “Fine! What do we do now? I’m tired of waiting for someone else to do something.”

  Traffic started moving again. Jason put the Jeep in gear and was riding the tail of the motor home. “Don’t you just love it, look at that bumper sticker.”

  “Spending our kid’s inheritance. Maybe we could start a bumper sticker campaign. I survived The Yellowstone eruption,” Carlene said jokingly. “We could make a million.”

  “I doubt they would sell,” Jason said dryly.

  “Why do you have to be so negative?”

  “Because there won’t be any survivors to buy them.”

  “So we wait. What good will that do?”

  Jason glared at her. “We watch every burp and sputter until we can nail this thing on the head. Then we make so much noise the world will have to listen.”

  Carlene silently watched the dead pines alongside the road drift by as they progressed toward Canyon Village. She had been quiet for the better part of an hour. “When I was in high school I remember reading about a psychic who predicted an earthquake would dump California into the sea on a certain date. The psychic was so compelling the newspapers picked up on the story. When the day arrived, the airport was so jammed they couldn’t book enough flights out of the state. Incoming flights were at an all time low that day.”

  “Your point is?”

  “People need to know. Even if it doesn’t happen, people need to be told so they can make up their own minds what to do.”

  “Like when St. Helens was going to erupt. The people evacuated, but after a few weeks when nothing happened they forced their way back up the mountain. The day St. Helens erupted three hundred lumbermen were scheduled to return to work. The death toll could have been much worse.” He paused and furrowed his brow. “If our estimate is off even a little, all the pleading in the world won’t keep people away. What if that psychic had been off by a day? All those people who listened would have been back at home sitting around chatting about how stupid they had been. Then boom. At best we’ll have one shot at this and we’d better be right.”

  “People are superstitious. It doesn’t matter if we have the facts right or not, if the news gets out this place will be a ghost town overnight,” Carlene said.

  “You want to spread a rumor that the park is going to erupt?”

  “It might save some lives.”

  Jason shook his head in disgust. “Get real. You could do as much good calling in a bomb threat to all the hotels. It would clear them for an hour or two. While you’re sitting in jail trying to explain yourself, the park would open up again for tourists. Any news has to be backed up with credible information.”

  “But who’s going to listen?”

  “There are volcanologists outside the country who’ll at least review the data. We may get some support from them.”

  “How much time have we got?”

  “Not enough,” Jason admitted. “Back in ninety-one, when they were trying to predict the eruption of Pinatubo the scientists were in a cloud of ash before they finally gave a Level Five Alert.”

  “Forty-eight hours,” Carlene said. “Were they accurate?”

  “Barely. When it blew, seven hundred people lost their lives. Like Yellowstone, that mountain gave plenty of warning but nobody wanted to listen until the scientists said an eruption was imminent. How do you do that when it was belching ash and sulfur for weeks before it finally blew.”

  “I don’t want to wait that long.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to stick around and become a victim of this thing. I’ll get us out in plenty of time.”

  “How come that doesn’t make me feel any better?”

  Jason glanced at her. “Let’
s stop at Canyon Village for dinner. I’ve got to gas up.” He turned off the main road and into the service station. After waiting for a minute for an attendant he went inside. Several station attendants were gathered around a portable TV. This was the only place he knew of other than his home state of Oregon that wouldn’t let you pump your own gas.

  “I hate to interrupt,” Jason said, “but I need some gas.

  “Terrible what happened to Senator Lake,” a college-age girl said, walking out to his car. She had auburn pigtails and freckles. Her name tag said Nadine, San Diego.

  “Lake. What happened?” Jason asked. Carlene was getting out of the Jeep, stretching.

  The girl pulled the nozzle from the pump and placed it in the vehicle. “You wanted it filled?”

  Jason nodded. “What happened to Senator Lake?” he asked again.

  “The senator was just at the park, met with a couple of big shots at park headquarters. His helicopter crashed right after he left.”

  Jason stared at Carlene in disbelief. “My God. We just left him. Do they know his condition?” he asked the girl. By now Carlene was at his side.

  The girl shrugged. “There was a big ball of fire. They don’t see how he could have survived.”

  “No!” Carlene gasped placing her hand over her mouth.

  Chapter 18

  Neither Carlene nor Jason felt like eating. The news of Senator Lake’s death was too much. Their only hope of getting the word out about the eruption was as hopeless as the survival from the crashed helicopter.

  When they pulled into the parking area back at the monitoring cabin they saw a man sitting on the stoop outside the door. Carlene did a double take. She thought it was Milton Bainbridge for a moment. When she figured it out she said, “It’s Greg Bainbridge. What’s he doing here?”

  Jason shook his head. “I told him where his father’s keys were hidden.”

  “Probably upset about the house burning.”