Death Canyon

by David Riley Bertsch

  Jake stood up, nodded at him, and went to the car. He shook off another wave of nausea, started the car, and headed south.

  Jake checked his watch; he’d been gone for well over three hours. When he got within range of a cellular tower, he called Noelle. She sounded anxious, and he reassured her that he was okay and asked if they could meet in town. She agreed.

  * * *

  Jake and Noelle met in the town square. She hugged him, feeling around for injuries as if there might actually be holes in his body.

  “What the hell happened?”

  Jake told her about the man he followed but kept it vague. She wasn’t ready for the whole story. Not yet.

  Noelle put her hand to her mouth when Jake told her about the man plunging into the boiling water and the young girl. When Jake finished, they both fell silent for a moment, until Noelle suddenly spoke.

  “I almost forgot!” Noelle walked quickly across the street to a newspaper stand and grabbed one. She came back waving the paper at him. “Did you see this, Jake? Have you seen this?”

  Jake hadn’t yet read the paper. “No, what is it?”

  “You said they closed the park, right? Look at this!” Noelle held the paper up. Jake took it into his hands so he could read it.

  The headline read: “Old? Sure; But Not So Faithful.”

  Below the headline was a picture of a park seismologist at a podium. The caption explained further:

  Yellowstone park scientist Jarl Hughes explains the reasons for a possible park closure. The proposed shutdown would be temporary until scientists determine what is causing the seismic changes in the region and deem the area safe.

  Jake skimmed the remainder of the article. Geothermal features throughout the park were betraying their schedules and habits. Some, like Old Faithful, were not erupting at all. The seismologist quoted in the article attributed this to “a change in the underground anatomy of the geyser.”

  Other geysers had grown more intense. In some places, small releases of steam and water, miniature geysers, had seemingly sprouted overnight. The temperatures had changed drastically in many of the park’s hot springs and pools. Sulfur dioxide readings were at an all-time high in the region, and fresh elk and bison carcasses indicated extremely high levels of noxious gases in certain localized areas. And of course there were still the earthquakes. There’d been sixty-one documented quakes in the last two days in the Yellowstone area. Ranging from 1.2 to 3.4, most were too subtle to feel.

  Jake flipped to the second page. Accompanying the remainder of the article was a small photo of Old Faithful, complete with its crowd of international tourists. The geyser was completely quiet. The caption read: “11:55 a.m. yesterday. The eruption was expected to start at 11:30.”

  “Jesus.” Jake looked up at Noelle for a second, and then buried his face in the paper again.

  A second article ran below the lead story: “End of Days?” An opinion piece by a staff writer for the Daily. The article contained nothing new to Jake. Yes, Yellowstone was a supervolcano. Yes, a complete eruption could send the world into an ice age. Sure, it could be a similar event to that which killed the dinosaurs. Compelling stuff, but it provided no new information that might explain why this all was happening now.

  It was all just speculation. Jake knew that it was many times more likely that small change was occurring rather than an impending big eruption. Still, it wasn’t every day that the local newspaper predicted the end of the world with your town as the epicenter.

  “This is crazy. And printed before this morning’s fiasco. They must have made the final call right before or after the boardwalk failed.” Jake handed the paper back to Noelle. “Have you heard anything through the park service grapevine?”

  “Not really. Except to be ready for a big crowd in case Yellowstone closes. Guess I’ve gotta ‘be ready.’ They’re expecting a lot of refugee campers in the Tetons if they close Yellowstone. They even designated some temporary campsites.”

  “Don’t you need to get back up there?” Jake asked.

  “No.”

  Jake didn’t believe her.

  “They’ll give me a call if they need me,” she reasoned.

  “What do we do now?”

  “Do you have the license number for the car you followed that we could run?”

  “Nope. Never got close enough. I think without that, we just wait and see what happens next.” That thought made both of them uneasy.

  Jake put his arm around Noelle. “Let’s get something to eat, I’m starving.”

  Inside the café, the barista was playing R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It.”

  24

  THE HOT ROCK TRACT. NOON.

  The sun was bright and warm when Makter arrived, bringing a deceitful aura of tranquillity to the structure and its surroundings.

  On the way out of the north entrance, the ranger had informed him that the park was going to be shut down for at least a few days. He had to go back now to get his camping supplies if he had been camping in the park.

  “Just driving through, thank you,” he told the man in the booth. Makter tried to smile genuinely. Somehow he despised the man in the booth, even though he’d interacted with him for just a moment.

  You’re losing it, Mak.

  Another voice retorted, You never had it, Mak. He did his best to block out both.

  After a few miles, Makter pulled into the driveway, got out, and rang the bell. Nobody answered. Makter tried again but with the same result. This wasn’t unusual. It was a big house and Jan was usually focused on his work upstairs in the office. Makter tried the doorknob. It was open. He let himself in.

  The relationship between Makter and Jan went back more than forty years now. They’d played together as kids and they’d learned to be men together. Both from German families living in Hoboken, their kin got along naturally. Both were raised in broken homes, and this cemented their fate together.

  Neither could even remember when they had first met, it was so long ago. In the beginning their respect and adoration for each other was mutual. They were equals in every way—school, sports, popularity. Both outsiders in school at first, they shared an envy and hatred toward the ruling class.

  They were inseparable.

  But during their freshman year in high school, Jan began to move up in the social strata of Washington and Jefferson High. He still spent time with Makter, but mostly when they were hanging out in the neighborhood. In school, it seemed like Jan wanted nothing to do with him.

  Makter was a troublemaker. Family life had led him to become violent and destructive. When he was fourteen he nearly beat a classmate to death with a bat after school, because of a trivial insult. The boy recovered but was too afraid to rat Makter out. The event was empowering. He never forgot that feeling.

  As the years passed, Makter saw Jan less and less. At fifteen, he was selling weed to his classmates. By their junior year, it became commonplace for Makter and his gang to drive into the cities, New York or Philadelphia, to buy cocaine and acid to sell in their hometown. Makter bought a car, and this helped him gain some popularity back in school, but he still felt neglected. He didn’t care about the money he made selling drugs, and he spent it freely. He had learned to crave power, respect, and fear.

  Meanwhile, Jan was succeeding in a more traditional sense. He was the offensive captain of the football team, a star receiver. His grades were among the best in the class. In the fall of his junior year, he was already talking to Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Virginia. Things came easily for him.

  Then he got injured. It was a late-season home game, and they were up by fourteen in the third quarter. The play was a fluke; Jan wasn’t even injured by an opposing player. His own tight end fell against his knee, tearing his ACL and MCL. He missed the remainder of the season. As he recovered, Jan also spent a lot of time at home. It was his right leg, so even if he could have borrowed his mom’s car, he couldn’t drive anywhere.

&nb
sp; His friendship with Makter was reestablished. Mak’s house had become quite the hangout for those from the wrong side of the tracks. His mother was working two jobs and even if she was home, she didn’t bother herself with disciplining her only child. She mostly sat upstairs in her bedroom, watched TV, and drank vodka chased with cheap beer.

  At that time, Jan didn’t want to be too involved with nefarious characters. He would smoke pot with them, watch a movie, and then limp home on his crutches. The idea stuck in his mind, though: Sixteen- and seventeen-year-old kids making as much money as their parents make working twenty hours a week. Dumb kids, too. I could make a killing if I were them . . .

  After Jan recovered, those thoughts went dormant. He set records in his senior year and went on to Harvard on scholarship. He didn’t excel there, but he did better than average. After Jan graduated with a degree in economics, his good looks and charisma made him a natural in commercial real estate. Entrepreneurial endeavors followed. He always stayed in touch with Makter, who was doing surprisingly well in admittedly darker circles. Jan traveled far and often, but when he was in the area, he always made time for his old friend.

  * * *

  “Jan? Hello?” Makter shouted into the cavernous two-story entryway. There was no response. He tried one more time and then climbed the stairway to the top floor. No sign of life.

  Makter turned in to the office with the big picture windows. The monitors were lit up and beeping. There was a half-empty glass of water on the desk and a bottle of scotch with two old-fashioned-style glasses on a serving cart.

  Someone left in a hurry. Makter looked around and then took out his cell phone. Where is everyone?

  Footsteps. The clicking sound of expensive leather soles echoed in the mostly unfurnished building. A cop? Sounds like a fucking cop. Makter looked around, but there was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. Dammit.

  The man spoke before he entered the room. “Do you know why you’re here, Mak?” His voice betrayed his disappointment.

  It’s just Jan.

  Makter was relieved it wasn’t the cops but not too eager for the conversation, judging by his old friend’s tone. Just like in high school, Jan had naturally risen to the top. Although Makter had helped him gain connections in the criminal world, Jan was now his superior.

  How can he know Trent tried to follow me?

  “Jesus, Jan. I came up to . . .” Makter was trying to come up with an answer. He had come to give Jan a piece of his mind, but Jan’s aggression was derailing him. He was on the defensive.

  “I asked you a question, do you know why you’re here?”

  “To get rid of Jake Trent.”

  “Wrong.” Jan’s voice got louder. “You’re here to keep me safe and worry free. You’re here so that I can do what I have to without interruption. Do you know the other important part of your job? Maybe nobody mentioned this to you.” Jan had a crooked smile on his face.

  “Don’t try to intimidate me.” Makter’s eyes were fixated on Jan’s.

  Jan ignored the stare. “To take the fall if things get really bad. You and that little cult of hippies you’ve collected go to jail while we finish our tests and move on. You know damn well that the people I work for can’t have their names mixed up in this.”

  “So you say.” Makter spoke defiantly now.

  “So now that you know who is going to take the fall if this thing goes wrong, why don’t you tell me what your progress is with Trent?”

  “Everything is going fine.”

  Jan opened his eyes wider and looked at Mak with doubt. “So you’ve got nothing to tell me about today. Nothing?” He laid the sarcasm on heavy.

  “I didn’t do anything today except drive here, sir.” Makter was trying to be respectful, but the violence in him surfaced through this sarcastic remark. He had bashed men’s brains in for disrespecting him like this.

  “Let me show you something.” Jan led Makter over to an open map on the desk. He pointed to the location where the house sat. “We’re here. Jake Trent lives down here. Mr. Trent, as we both know, is a legendary crime solver . . .”

  Makter laughed out loud thinking it a joke, but quieted himself because of Jan’s glare.

  “Am I wrong, Mak? Do you think I’m stupid?” Jan’s anger was hitting a peak. He started to shout. “So if Trent lives down here, and we’re trying to keep him in the dark about what’s going on up here”—Jan again jammed his finger at the location of the house; his voice turned into a strained shout and his face was red—“why the fuck would we allow him to follow us up to here?” Jan’s thumb was now on the road in Yellowstone, about where the bison had crossed. He was spanning the distance between his thumb and forefinger. “Fifty miles south of here! You brought a criminal investigator fifty fucking miles south of me!!”

  Makter raised his voice in response. “What? Nobody followed me anywhere! And Trent’s retired! If I was followed, how the hell would you know? I told you to give me space to operate, you sonofabitch!”

  There were dissonant voices in Makter’s head. In some ways, he still feared and respected Jan. Mostly, though, he wanted to slit his throat. Watch him bleed out.

  “How would I know? Despite my confidence in you—my now rapidly fading confidence—I took some of my own measures to ensure my safety.”

  “You put a fucking tracker on my car? His too? I’m not a fucking child, Jan!”

  “I did indeed. And rightfully so, as it turns out.” Jan’s temper was flaring. “You out of your mind, Mak? What did I ask you to do?” He didn’t leave time for the man to answer.

  “I asked you, no, I told you, to stay near Trent and watch him. Watch him! I told you if and when I needed more, I would instruct you further. I told you we needed to make sure that he didn’t come snooping around, that nothing caught his attention.

  “And what did you do?” Jan was shouting now. “You came up with some sick fucking fantasy world! You let your own twisted desires put our work at risk! Start a cult? That’s what you gleaned from my instructions?! That you should dream up a goddamn cult to ‘distract’ Trent, that just so happens to satisfy your sick mind? We only needed three months! Your ‘distraction’ is going to ruin us!”

  Jan was pacing in front of Makter now, the veins in his head and neck bulging with boiling blood.

  “I mean, fucking murdering people, Mak? Really? You’re a sick fuck! I used to think it was a good trait, to be merciless and demented like you. You would do anything, no matter the consequences. Now I know you’re just a demented little child!”

  This was too much for Makter’s mind to digest. He wanted to pounce, to end Jan’s life. But again, something held him back.

  Argus was like a fucking son to me!

  Another voice: Fucking kill Jan, you pussy!

  Then another: Keep it together. He’ll get his!

  Makter’s eyelids twitched. Instead of addressing Jan’s insults, he dissociated totally and readdressed the previous topic. His voice was friendly.

  “Well, shit, don’t you think that would have been helpful for me down there? The trackers? Sonofabitch, Jan! How the hell did Trent follow me anyway?”

  “I’ve got no idea.” Jan’s voice was calmer, resigned. “I’m guessing he recognized you, you idiot. Have you even figured out what I am in charge of up here, Mak?”

  Makter ignored the insult. “No. Hell no. I don’t give a shit. I just wanna do my job, make my money, and get back at that bastard for what he did. For both of us.”

  “I share your sentiment on Jake Trent. But don’t you think his death would attract some unwanted attention? If you’ll recall, he’s still got some pretty important fed friends. Someone could come looking around. Someone not on our payroll.”

  “You’ve paid off the feds? What for?”

  “Feds, a few locals. Everybody we could. Some of the low-level authorities were too principled and shortsighted to hear me out.” Jan paused. “It’s time you understand what’s going on here.”

  Makte
r wasn’t listening. He’s soft! Kill him! The voices came out of nowhere again, louder now.

  “I need a glass of water,” Makter said. His scalp and face were itching and burning. He felt hot.

  “I’ll do you one better.” Jan walked over to the serving cart and poured Makter a scotch.

  Jan started talking again. “Do you know what a barrel of petroleum costs right now?”

  25

  THE HOT ROCK TRACT. THE SAME DAY.

  The question caught Makter by surprise. “It’s high, I know . . . a hundred dollars?”

  “It’s one sixty, and that’s an all-time record high. Do you know where we get energy in this country?” Jan asked. Makter shook his head rather than guessing again. He could feel the scotch coursing through him. It relaxed him slightly.

  “Coal, natural gas, nuclear power, and the rest? What do you know about nuclear reactors?”

  “Nothing really. I don’t wanna live near one; coal’s dirty—pollution and shit.” Makter shrugged, still not seeing the point.

  “Right. Nobody wants a nuclear plant in his or her backyard. And with this eco-generation”—Jan practically spit the phrase out—“moving us all toward sustainability and eco-friendliness, nobody can stomach the thought of black smoke billowing into the air anymore, right?”

  Jan is always interested in the dumbest shit. What the hell is he talking about? I thought he wanted Trent’s head?

  “Mak, what if I told you that what we are working on here could someday contribute as much energy as both of those sources combined?”

  Makter was confused. “Are you fucking with me?”

  “I’m a businessman, you know that. I don’t give a shit about the environment one way or another. I go where the money is, and I get no real thrill from committing petty crimes.” He gestured at Makter, who took it as a compliment.

  “The people who came to me with this job, they can’t afford to be held accountable if things should go wrong. My reputation isn’t quite as spotless as theirs. So like you, I’m a liaison, a link in the chain. I watch over the day-to-day operation of the project. It wasn’t complicated really.”