The Forensic Geology Box Set

by Toni Dwiggins

  Mike said, “What’s she talking about?”

  “Cass?” Eric said. His look shifted to Krom then back to me. “You certain?”

  Krom said, “She’s overwrought.”

  “No, Adrian,” Walter said, “I don’t believe she is.”

  Krom turned to Eric. “We’re wasting time.”

  In the silence that followed, Eric called Bridgeport, who advised us again to stay put. Eric shut off the radio. He rubbed his forehead. “Let’s just...figure out where the hell to go. Cassie? You real sure you don’t want to go back down?”

  Could I say yes? Could I say I knew one hundred percent we could not safely get out 203? Or Pika? Would I be saying the same about Pika if Krom had been a bloodless bureaucrat who went solely on computer sims and data streams? Could I be one hundred percent sure about my call? Because Eric’s made his position clear. He goes with my call. As long as I’m sure. And I’m going on second-hand volcanology and gut instinct and fear of a man who doesn’t count his wins the way I do. I wished I knew more about the volcanic plumbing. If I knew more, I could say with less fear that I’m sure. I was numb with cold and fear.

  Krom said, to Mike, “Get these straps off me.”

  Mike sprang to undo the bonds. “We’ll move you right now.”

  “Where?” Walter asked it of Eric.

  There was a pause, during which time Mike unbuckled a strap and Krom shifted and Eric and Walter got to their feet. A vacuum, and if I didn’t act now someone else was going to fill it. “I’m sure,” I said.

  Eric told Walter, “We stay put.”

  “Uh, no,” I said. “Look, we know the activity started in the moat.” I drew an oval in the ash, representing the caldera, and an ellipse within the oval representing the moat. “And then it diked up to Red Mountain.” I drew a line from the ellipse to the southwest loop of the oval. “So maybe it’s also traveled along the caldera’s ring fracture to where it intersects Mammoth Mountain.” I extended the line northward along the oval, and drew a triangle. “Here.”

  They studied my drawing. My heart pounded. I thought of Lindsay’s drawing at the Inn, on top of Krom’s. All the circles and stars and lines and crosshatches. All the volcanic plumbing. What a mess.

  Krom said, “You’re not a volcanologist.”

  I met his look. “Nobody here is a volcanologist.”

  Eric said, “What are you saying, Cass? The whole mountain could blow?”

  “I’m not saying that.” Any number of things could happen. “All I’m saying is there’s complicated plumbing around here. All I’m saying is there have been phreatics on the mountain before—last time Inyo blew there were steam blasts up here. Lindsay showed me the old craters.”

  Mike’s face darkened. “You knew?”

  I’d known the challenge would come from Mike. “The last phreatics came with the Inyo system—five hundred years ago. Inyo’s quiet, Mike. I didn’t know there was a phreatic up here. Maybe Red Mountain’s stirring things up this time. Maybe Inyo will still go. I don’t know. I didn’t know. But here we are.”

  Eric said, “You expect more like we saw up the road?”

  “Could be.”

  “Could it be more than that?”

  “Could be.” I was dizzy, damp with sweat. “Not likely. Phil was monitoring up here—there’s been no discharge of magmatic gases, no shallow quakes. My guess is anything more will be the same stuff, coming around the old craters where the trees have been dying.”

  “That your guess, Cass?”

  I sought Walter’s counsel. He looked as I’ve rarely seen him in the lab, casting about for the answer. This damned strange mineral. He’s seen it before but what’s it tell him now? He doesn’t have the luxury of time so he’ll have to make an educated guess. How Lindsay would have loved this, the two of us mulling this over. Finally we capitulate—geology is volcanology, honey. At least for now. I said what Lindsay always said, “With a volcano, the past is a pretty decent guide to the future.”

  Walter decided. “I agree. I would expect more of the same. Steam blasts in the old craters, perhaps, but not a fresh magmatic eruption on the mountain.”

  “Cassie,” Eric said, “what do you want us to do?”

  “Go up.”

  They didn’t get it. Even Walter. Maybe they thought I was trying to ease the tension, with a joke. Then Eric got it. Eric, who knows when I’m joking and when I’m not. He stepped away from the porch overhang and tipped his head to look up the two thousand feet to the summit of Mammoth Mountain. “You’d better think again,” he said.

  Mike scooted out to stand beside Eric.

  “We’d be well above the old craters,” I said. “The likelihood of a new blast coming near the summit is less than one coming lower down.” Could I be one hundred percent sure about that? Nothing’s sure. The world is in eruption. I said, “It’s the safest place we can be, right now.”

  Eric came back. “That’s a bitch of a climb.” He indicated Krom.

  “I wasn’t thinking of climbing. I was thinking of taking the gondola to the top.”

  Eric’s mouth dropped open.

  But Mike began to grin, like he’d just learned the secret of life. “You’re right.”

  Mike thinks I’m right? Wrong becomes right, down becomes up, the world flips.

  “She’s right.” Mike windmilled around us. “Oh yah, the machinery is housed inside the gondola stations and we’ll have to see if there’s any ash inside but I don’t think so because it’s solid workmanship from top to bottom. I didn’t just operate the gondola, you know, I also lent a hand with repairs and I’ve seen all the schematics.” He turned to Krom. “It’s gonna work, Mr. Krom. The gondola cars are made in Switzerland and you all know the Swiss reputation for excellence. And the cables are straightforward, simple mechanics, and I doubt if ash has clogged the cable housings but if it has, just running the machinery should be enough to free the cables. We’ll see. I have a lot of faith but I know we’ll have to see.” He halted, grinning at us all. “You realize we have a big generator? The power outage doesn’t affect us. We’re self-sufficient there. I know where all the keys are. I can get us in. I can get things working and then I think I can guarantee us an event-free ride to the top. You’ll see, Mr. Krom. You’ve helped me and I know I owe you—so you just leave it to me.”

  Krom said, “Mike...” but Mike was already on his way—too wired, too ready to flap his wings and go—to heed Krom.

  I watched my new ally loping off toward the gondola, wondering if having Mike on my side should make me reconsider.

  Eric said, “If you’re sure.”

  Walter said, “We’re sure.”

  Okay Lindsay, I thought, we’re going up. In the gondola. You believe that? Krom believes, Krom knows when he’s whipped. Walter’s signed on. I don’t think Eric quite buys it but we are going up. Last time. Once we get to the top, you know, there’s no place else to go.

  CHAPTER 49

  And now it became Mike’s show.

  He cranked the generator and to everyone’s surprise but his own the gondola motor came promptly to life. He ran the lift and stopped it, ran and stopped it, ran and stopped it with the brio of a conductor running an orchestra through its paces.

  Satisfied that the gondola ran, he supervised the loading of items into the cars, checking weights and distribution and balance. There was a lot of stuff; he’d finally gotten into the ransacking spirit. He bossed us until one car was filled with gear, and the rental ski equipment he’d appropriated was stowed on the carrier. He placed us in the car behind, Krom reclining on one bench, Eric and Walter and me crushed together on the other, packs on the floor. He handed the operating manual to me, his onetime assistant. He lashed Krom’s sled to the outside carrier, taking his sweet time.

  Krom watched with a half-interested frown and I wondered if, against all evidence, he had accepted the need of going up.

  I didn’t worry long about Krom. I worried about the volcano, the unpredicta
ble chum. I could hear the distant cannonade and feel the quakes that ran from the ground up through the cable machinery and down to our car. Forget the pre-flight check, I wanted to tell Mike. You’re going to busybody us into oblivion. But Mike perversely fussed with the sled until it clung like a baby to the gondola’s back. In truth, I was afraid to interfere with Mike’s zeal and Swiss excellence.

  Finally, his rough face beamed at the window. “I’m going to start her up. Cassie, you hold that door wide open. Eric, you be ready to take my hand when I say now.” Mike bustled over to the switch.

  I held the door. I had a horror, in the dark and suddenly noisy gondola station, of Mike missing the car, running after us, screaming for us to wait, but he just loped easily across the floor and paced the car as it scuttled around the track. And then, slick as though he’d practiced the move on lunch breaks, he caught Eric’s hand and leapt inside and folded himself onto the floor amid the packs. Seconds later, the car gained lift and sailed out of the station into the ashy sky.

  “Shut the door, Cassie,” Mike snapped.

  We swung skyward. Mike went over the operating manual, patiently paging. Krom closed his eyes. Walter and Eric looked out the windows. I followed suit.

  Always an incomparable view from the gondola. Lodge and Inn and gondola station fast dropping away below. Jagged peaks of the Minarets to the west, stubby domes of the Inyo chain to the north, caldera to the east just coming into sight. This is how I remembered the view: the most faraway features incised. Didn’t look that way now. In the perpetual twilight, landmarks were uncertain, distance was lost. The eye telescoped to the near view, to the gondola window where particles of ash already clung, themselves incised as snowflakes.

  The thunder was louder but in motion we could no longer feel the quakes.

  I looked east, down toward the caldera. The south moat did not appear to be currently in eruption. The caldera walls were identifiable but the floor lay in murk. If the ground down there were rotting it would look like this. Liquefaction. Soup.

  No one spoke. It seemed we were going to rise stoically to the summit.

  I scanned the mountain below as it dropped away. No fresh explosion pits, no evidence of activity. It was as it had always been, but for the ash. I knew these runs: St. Moritz, Bowling Alley. Skied them. In snow, not ash. Wouldn’t enjoy skiing this. Snowboarders the only ones crazy enough to ride this. Ash? Awesome, dude. I suddenly giggled.

  Incredulous silence in the car.

  We swooped toward the mid-station and as we passed through the dark lift building I wondered what degree of shelter this might afford.

  We rose, and rose.

  “There it is,” I said.

  Mike came up on his knees, Krom braced to a sit, Eric and Walter turned. To the southeast, the folds of the mountains embracing the Lakes Basin came into view. Red Mountain was venting, a fat smokestack of ash. Boom boom. Boom.

  Just like in my dreams.

  “There’s town,” Mike said, and we turned our attention downward.

  The higher we rose, the more the town came into view. Same ghost town we’d abandoned yesterday. Eons ago. Events now seemed to unfold in geologic time.

  Although if the Red Mountain eruption went pyro now, events would unfold in a flash. A hot burning flash rolling down to envelop the town.

  I craned to look for the summit of Mammoth Mountain. Eleven thousand feet and some change. Gain some altitude above the moat, above Red Mountain. Good. By God we were going up and there was the illusion we would climb right out of the ash, rise to the clean blue sky that must exist up there somewhere.

  “What’s that?” Walter said.

  There was a bump like we were passing through a cable tower, and then another bump and the car gently seesawed.

  We stopped.

  We stared up at the cable, waiting, and then I peered out the window and estimated the fall to the slope below. Probably not survivable.

  Mike got to his knees to look. “We just need to wait until it starts again.”

  Krom said, “Wait? You’ve got the manual.”

  “I can’t fix it from here. That’s for when we get to the top, for maintaining the machinery so we’re not stranded. Mr. Krom, you have to realize....” Mike stopped.

  Of course Krom did not realize because none of us had thought it useful to advise him of contingencies.

  Eric opened his pack.

  Mike said, “Let’s give it time to start.”

  “How long?”

  Mike agonized. “Fifteen minutes?”

  Eric looked to me. I scanned the terrain, getting my bearings. We were suspended over East Bowl, two-thirds of the way to the summit. To my left, I could just make out the Red Mountain vent. We were stopped cold. No hum of machinery. I thought, this is Mike’s show. Mike does know his stuff, he’s devoured the manual, he did lend a hand with repairs when he used to work the gondola, and if I hadn’t interfered with his repair that long-ago day in the station he may well have fixed that problem. I said, “Let’s wait and see if it starts.”

  “No.” Eric dug in his pack.

  “Ten minutes?” Mike said. “How about that, man?”

  Eric said, “We go now.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but really I didn’t know if it was better to stay or to go, and so I let the moment pass. Walter was helping Eric with his pack. Mike tucked his hand into his armpit and kept his mouth shut.

  “Go where?” Krom asked.

  “Up,” I said, “still up,” and I crawled over Mike to sit on the sliver of bench beside Krom, to allow Mike and Eric access to the door.

  Krom began to laugh.

  Eric had the gear out and he helped Mike into the harness and roped him and tied the rope to the crossbar inside, and Mike went out the door and with a thump spread-eagled over the roof. Through the window we saw him reach down to unlash the sled. Eric hauled Mike inside and the sled came after him, screeching across the roof. With ropes and carabiners they secured the sled outside the door. Mike put his weight on it and raised a thumb. There it held, a step into nowhere.

  “No,” Krom said.

  “It’s fine.” Mike went over the side. I stretched to the window and watched him rappel down.

  Eric turned to Krom. “Now you. Just try not to stiffen and don’t go limp.”

  For a dark moment I wondered if Eric would just toss Krom over and let him free-fall, if I asked. I moved to Krom’s legs. Walter prepared to get him around the middle. Eric had the head. Krom watched us in surprise, as though we had not heard him decline the invitation. Contrary to instructions, he stiffened.

  I said, “Ease up. We’re wasting time.”

  “Wrong way,” he said. He gritted his teeth as we moved him, biting off the pain. We worked him out the door and Eric strapped him in.

  “Ready below?” Eric yelled.

  Mike shouted.

  We slipped the carabiners and began to let the sled down. Krom’s eyes locked on me, and he slipped me back to that day in the lab when he’d told me where the wrong way led, where the driver who made the wrong call during the eruption took them. And then the sled descended out of my sight. Nothing for him to do now but descend to the mercy of the volcano, take the pain, and survive.

  Below, Mike caught the sled.

  Eric hauled up the ropes and harness. “Sir.” He helped Walter strap in and belayed Walter as he worked himself into position. I watched Walter rappel down, holding my breath for an eternity, thinking Walter’s getting too old for this.

  Eric hauled up the gear. “Cassie.” He checked the hardware and webbing and then held the harness open for me, like an evening coat. I buckled in.

  Eric shouldered into the radio pack. “I’ll toss the other packs when you’re down but I’m going to carry this baby mys...”

  There was a bump, and we looked at each other in instant knowledge. Eric cursed. He spun to the door and then back to me and for a moment I thought he was going to toss me over anyway since I was already
roped.

  “Throw them packs,” I screamed.

  We lunged, grabbing packs, taking time only to aim wide, and Eric shouted “wait there” and Mike was waving his arms and shouting too but we couldn’t make it out because the gondola car yanked us forward out of earshot.

  Ash consumed their faces, their shapes, and then there was just the yellow tinge of their survival suits and then ash assimilated that, as well.

  Eric swung the door shut.

  We rose, helpless. I got out of the climbing harness, watching through pitted glass for explosion craters or crevassing, and when at last we topped the final hump of cable track and funneled into the gloom of the summit station, Eric shoved open the door and we jumped. I hit the floor hard and scrambled for the switch. It had been fifteen years but the simple skills of my first paid job were intact. I shut down the gondola.

  Eric sprinted to the other car and unstrapped a pair of skis. I was on his heels. I reached for a second pair.

  “Whoa,” he said. “Not you.”

  “It’s steep. We’ve got to haul that sled up.”

  “Three can do it. Stupid to risk a fourth. I’m bigger and stronger. I go.” He put on ski boots.