by Linda Mackay
She looked me in the eye and decided to trust me by turning in a submissive position on her back and side. I pulled the knife out of my belt holder and started talking to her in a singsong voice. She tensed slightly as I cut the line, one knotted wad at a time, trying to touch the line and not the pup. I cut as fast as I could and as it loosened she began to wiggle to get loose. Hold on girl, just a few more cuts and you’re free.
One more cut and the pup squirmed free knocking me from my squatting position to the ground. She ran for the trees and I heard the low growl of an adult wolf as together they ran further into the forest.
“Holy Little Red Riding Hood, I thought you were toast,” Todd said.
“Me too.” They ran down the slope to where I was still sitting on ground. I took several deep breaths trying to figure out what had possessed me to attempt such a risky maneuver.
Amanda arrived first and held out her hand to help me up. “That pup didn’t even turn around and thank you.”
“I never saw the mom either, just heard her,” Todd said.
I brushed the dirt off me, and picked up every piece of the cut-up fishing line. “I didn’t see mom either and I never received any communication from them. That was the closest I’ve ever been to a pup and she sure was pretty, and feisty.”
“Let’s get out of here in case mom is planning on bringing back the pack.” I was with Amanda on that one.
“How about we don’t tell the others about this?” I asked.
“Got your back.”
“I saw nothing.”
Chapter 16
Do we really need to be so quiet? Silence freaks me out in bear country.” Todd stomped mud off his boots.
“Riding the horses doesn’t bother me, but this walking without making a sound is bullshit,” Amanda said.
“There are six of us. That will prevent any bears from bothering us.” Dad smacked a fly that landed on his cheek.
“You might want to relay that detail to the bears, especially the sows with cubs,” Todd said.
Amanda brushed a tree branch out of her path. “Since the bad guys know we’re here I don’t see the point.”
“With all this cackling, I wouldn’t say we’re being quiet.” Mac caught the branch Amanda released before it hit him in the face. I was pretty sure she did it on purpose. Amanda wasn’t normally passive-aggressive. She will either pout or tell you exactly how she feels, then act on that feeling. I was worried she was resorting to new tactics to deal with her anger. One thing most uber-intelligent people have in common is our quirks and idiosyncrasies remain basically constant. Most people possess genetics that allow them to react differently according to how different situations effect them. Geniuses seem to have been denied that social adaptability gene, and unless we work really hard at it, we don’t fit in because we simply don’t know how to adapt. If a genius starts changing how they react to outside stimuli, it’s time to run like the bulls of Pamplona are chasing you.
I wasn’t sure where I could run too, but I noticed Todd was also watching Amanda like he was expecting another bomb to explode. While I wasn’t worried about another bomb, I was worried about what the ground beneath us was doing.
We’d already seen streams slowed to a trickle, diverted God knows where. The Teton Fault in Jackson Hole reacted to the Mary Bay explosion with her own energy release. I could only guess what may be happening at Old Faithful and other geyser basins around the park. Even around the world the effects of this much land deformation could be disrupting all the tectonic plates. I rationalized with that much destructive power at work, why worry about Amanda slapping limbs into Mac’s face.
There were no longer any secret service agents in the area. We’d glassed a roadblock near the Thorofare trailhead, and were assuming there was another in the trees on the north side of Mary Bay. It was a surreal experience to be in a normally heavily traveled area and have it devoid of humans. It was like armageddon and we were the sole survivors.
We carefully walked closer to the new shoreline of the bay. Gauging from my memory of the surrounding landscape it didn’t appear the water was very deep. But for the water to still be here the land had to have tilted toward the mountains. This tilting had always been active, but was only discovered by humans in recent geologic times as the explanation for why Yellowstone Lake was tipping water southerly, like tipping a teacup to your mouth changes the level of tea on each side of the cup.
“I’m getting seasick.” Todd said swaying from side to side. “Did the land tilt or did the dome under the bay rise and push this water inland?”
I looked at Mac’s tightened lips and decided this wasn’t the time for a geologic debate. “Don’t know, don’t care, just collect viable samples, fast!”
“Joe!” Mac pushed Dad in the shoulder. “Eyes up. Hands on your firearm, not on the ground looking for rocks.”
“Fuck off.”
Todd poked me in the arm and pointed at Frank. He was whispering to my dad making it impossible for me to hear. His rifle however, was doing plenty of talking as Frank pointed just above Dad’s head. I must have taken a step forward as Todd grabbed my arm and shook his head no.
“What did he say?”
“Frank told Joe not to be an ass and do his job or Frank wouldn’t hesitate to do his.”
“He threatened to shoot Dad?”
“Technically, yes.”
I went back to looking at the rocks around the water edge, Amanda was searching inland, and Todd was next to me. I didn’t have time to think about Dad’s behavior. He had never been an easy person to be around, and while I blamed my mother for leaving us, I had come to suspect living with my dad had a lot to do with her desertion.
I found a few samples near the water and started working my way back up the hillside. I was beginning to think this was futile since debris could’ve been thrown over two miles from the blast site. There was no way three of us could cover that much terrain in a couple hours.
“Son of a who-haa!” My backpack dumped on the ground as my boot tripped over a rock. I bent to pick it up and saw the rock I tripped on wasn’t a rock at all, but a piece of concrete. It had fused to the rocks on the ground as it landed from its journey through the air, causing me to trip on it, instead of kicking it out of my way. I used my knife to dig it and the attached debris out of the ground and put it in my pack. The fact the concrete had been superheated enough to fuse to the surrounding area gave me hope it had originated in the vents under the bay.
“This is freaky that no one is around.” Todd said working next to me. “Makes me feel like I’ve been catapulted to the moon.”
“Doesn’t look like the moon,” I said.
“To bad because I could go for some cheese right now.”
“Who made that up anyway?”
“I have no idea.” Todd scratched his butt. Most people scratch their head when they’re thinking; Todd scratched his butt. I warned you geniuses were wired differently. I was obviously the exception to this rule…and howler monkeys fly out my butt every Friday?
“I can’t believe the trivia master is stumped by his own words.”
“Me either. Must be some gas in the air messing with my brain.”
“Gas. Oh boy. Do you smell any sulfur?”
Todd sniffed the air like a dog. “Nope.”
“Do you see any steam that normally rises out of the vents in the area?”
“Nope.”
“Wanna get outta here?”
“Yep.”
We moved up the hill toward Amanda. “I think we have enough samples.” I said as Todd and I jogged by Amanda digging in the dirt.
“Hey, wait for me. What’s the hurry?”
“Fear, sister, fear.”
“Did you see a bear?”
I looked back at Amanda. “It’s what we didn’t see. No vents releasing steam.”
“Good enough reason for me to haul ass.” Amanda said passing me like an Olympic sprinter.
We packed the samp
les in different packs, spread across several horses. According to Mac this would prevent the total loss of evidence in case something happened to one horse or pack. That made me feel so much better now that he scared the pants off me insinuating something was probably going to happen to one or more of us. I much preferred a reactive attitude to his proactive thinking. That way I didn’t have to remind myself people were trying to kill me.
We made our way closer to Turbid Lake, which was actually moving away from where Dad believed those setting off the detonation were stationed. I was ready to get the hell out of here, however Mac believed hunkering down for the night and making very specific exit plans was best. You know who got their way.
If we had to be stuck here I was at least going to rinse out my filthy jeans, shirts and underpants. After a week they were beginning to smell worse than the bears. Only problem with washing your clothes and taking a bath in a stream is if everyone else doesn’t do it, your clean nose magnifies their awful scents. We took a vote and all voted to bathe and wash clothes. Wow! For once things were going my way.
I walked down the hillside to the stream and rinsed the mud and stench from my clothes. Once back at camp I hung a clothesline in full sun. After hanging up my clothes to dry I carefully picked my way back down the scree slope to the inviting clear water. I carry biodegradable soap so we don’t pollute, but I still use it sparingly. Amanda calls it taking a “P” bath…pits and pussy. Todd says if it has hair it gets its share. This led to a heated discussion last year when we were stuck in a tent on the Pitchstone Plateau during a day of thunderstorms. Amanda argued Todd’s hairy-parts bathing theory was flawed since his penis didn’t have hair. Todd insisted it was implied his penis was included. I drank heavily and pretended to nap.
Today I opted for Amanda’s “P” bath, and then settled in on a flat rock to relax in the sun and dry. It rarely gets extremely hot in Yellowstone; even so when the sun bakes your body at this altitude it heats your skin like you are sitting on a beach in 90-degree heat.
“Not paying attention again.”
“You snuck up on purpose.”
“No, I walked down the slope and actually called your name twice. You had dozed off in the sun.”
“What are you staring at? Holy crap, turn around you pervert.” I’d forgotten I chose to sit naked on the rock.
Mac turned around. “I’m not a pervert. I’m a connoisseur of beautiful things. And you are a true work of art.”
Well hell. No one had ever told me I was a work of art. I decided I was in the mood to be flattered. I put on my jean shirt and long underwear bottoms, which were the only dry clothes I had at the moment. I turned back to find Mac slipping into the stream buck-naked. I’d never seen such a tight, muscled butt. My eyes moved down the rounded flesh to his strong thighs; on the right one was a long, thick scar. It was a wound that never had proper medical attention. My hands twitched to reach out and touch it before it disappeared into the stream. Damn! I’d like to be the rock that tush landed on.
“Are you going to stand there and stare, or come over and talk to me?”
“We’ll talk later, I gotta go.”
“Afraid to talk to a naked man?”
“Ahh…”
“Jorie, just hand me the soap, and then you can turn your back and sit behind me.”
“Okay.” Seriously, Jorie you sound like an idiot.
“Tell me about your mom.”
“What about her?”
“What job took your mom away from home so much?”
“Oh.” Snap out of it! “My mom was a member of the Stargate Project.”
I heard the water splash. Mac had either turned around or stood up. I wasn’t looking to verify which, no matter how much I wanted too. Okay, maybe a tiny peek.
“Your mom was a remote viewer?”
“You know what that is?”
“Of course, I worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency, but I think we’ll get further if we stop talking in questions, don’t you?”
He was making me smile again. This time I wasn’t going to question his motives. I was going to accept I liked that he made me smile.
“From 1977 to 1985 she was a member of the Stargate team and lived most of the year at Fort Meade in Maryland.”
“She left the program the year the DIA took it over.”
“Actually, she never left. She died.”
“I’m sorry. What happened?”
“Don’t know. We got a letter from the project director that said she died after a short illness. No phone call or personal visit, they said we were unreachable. Dad went to Maryland and collected what little was in her apartment. He had her body flown to the Blackfoot reservation for burial and that’s that.”
“You never asked your dad about the illness?”
“No. He didn’t believe the story and over the years I’ve come to agree with him.”
“What do you think happened?”
“Something foul.” I knew I was being vague, but neither Dad nor I ever talked about the suspicious nature of her death.
“You never questioned what happened?”
“Do you ask questions about secret projects and the people involved?”
Mac shrugged, “How old were you when she died?”
“Twelve.”
I could hear Mac splashing water over his naked body. How could he casually sit in the cold water that long without shivering? I wasn’t sitting in a snowmelt stream, however I was shivering. I was also about to hyperventilate in anticipation of him rising from the water. I knew it was anatomically impossible for a certain extremity to rise in the frigid water. But hey, a girl can dream.
“Do you know what project your mom was doing psychic work on?”
“No idea. When she’d come home she’d talk about going to exotic places like Russia, Afghanistan, Israel and Turkey. I assumed she traveled all over the world. After she died, I learned she was only going there in her mind.”
“I’ve read most of the files on the program. It was bizarre to say the least.”
“Most people in the government didn’t believe in psychics. I can’t imagine how horrible it must have been to go to work every day knowing people thought you were a phony and a joke.”
I could hear Mac getting out of water. After several minutes he joined me, and was now fully dressed. Darn, why was I disappointed?
“Don’t look at me like that,” I said.
“Like what?” Mac said sitting down next to me.
“With sympathy.”
“Sorry. But the program was sketchy at best.”
“Oh you mean like me hearing animals.” I was done with this conversation, and started walking up the slippery scree slope.
“That wasn’t an insult.”
“Yes it was.” I yelled back at him, my feet slipped on the scree, and I began to tumble down the slope. Two somersaults later I was stopped by one strong hand firmly on my back and another wrapped around my boob. We both tumbled one more time until I was lying on top of him. Both his arms now wrapped around me, keeping me from falling off onto the hard ground. All I could think about was missing his warm hand on my boob and if his blood was sufficiently flowing to allow a certain body part to rise.
“Are you okay?” Mac asked.
“Yeah, just thinking.” I carefully climbed off Mac. “You’re bleeding.”
Mac laughed wiping blood off his cheek. “I think we’re going to need another bath.”
“Crap and double crap.”
Chapter 17
I can’t believe we’re wasting time here. We could be moving south and closer to Joe’s all important laser point.” Amanda brushed her wet hair in front of the small campfire Mac allowed us to build.
Todd swatted her on the head with his oven mitt. “Good idea twinkle toes. Let’s camp in the Lion’s Den with the bad guys. Maybe we’d get lucky and they’d tie you to a tree and put a sock in your mouth.”
“Sock idea sounds good.” Frank fanned smoke
from the fire to his body to deter mosquitos.
“At least Mac let us have a fire,” Amanda conceded.
“Well, I think it’s spooky being watched like mice in a maze.” Todd turned in circles flipping the bird to whoever may be watching. “I think it’s great strategy to fall back and reconnoiter.”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “Stop trying to sound like a spy. Next you’ll be requesting a badge and security clearance.”
“I could go for a badge.” Todd pretended to flip out a badge and show it to Amanda. “Todd Cooper, DIA, I need to ask you a few questions about the events of July four.”
“Question this bud!” Amanda gave him several hand gestures, which I had no idea the meaning of. Todd responded with his own set of gestures, and I was happy they’d resorted to silent insults.
Frank swatted a mosquito. “Damn, skeeters. You’d think that explosion could have at least killed a few million of them. I think it just pissed ‘em off.”
“I’ll make steak and potatoes for dinner, maybe that’ll improve everyone’s disposition,” Todd said.
Mac was leaning against a tree with his eyes closed. “How the heck have you been packing steaks the past week?”
Todd reached into the pack with our food and pulled out bags of dehydrated steak and potatoes. “Homemade from the ranch.”
“You people are unbelievable.”
“Is that a complaint?” Todd asked waving the bags in front of Mac.
“It’s a compliment.”
“Hold the compliments till you taste it,” Amanda said.
“It may not taste like a juicy rare steak on the grill. But it’s better than peanut butter and jerky,” Frank said.
“Since we’re talking about peanut butter, do you know who invented it?”
A chorus of voices informed Todd their opinion of the question and how to entertain himself.
Sitting as close as we safely could to the fire, Dad and I were also trying to absorb some of the mosquito-evasion smoke. He hadn’t said much all day. The way he was staring at the fire, I was pretty sure I was the reason for his deflated mood.