The Yellowstone Event (Book 5): The Eruption

by Maloney, Darrell

  Linda was barely listening.

  She was too busy savoring the taste of the bread and wondering how she could get more.

  “Can you teach me how to bake this?”

  “Nope. But I’ll bake it whenever you want, as long as you provide the zucchini from your garden and the pecans from your pecan tree.”

  This time Linda didn’t hesitate.

  “Deal!”

  The arrangement had worked well for a year and a half and only recently did Mamie decide her life journey was nearing an end.

  She decided to teach little Amy and littler Amanda how to sew and knit and cook.

  So on this particular morning they were baking candy.

  It was another old family recipe, and was as simple as it was tasty.

  It required only butter, sugar, vanilla, corn syrup and pecans.

  Lots and lots of pecans.

  They’d made one batch already and the girls had already eaten a good-sized portion of it.

  “Don’t you girls think eating so much candy will give you a stomach ache? That’s what my mother used to tell me.”

  Amy looked at Amanda and they answered in perfect harmony, “No.”

  Mamie smiled.

  “Yes. That’s what I used to tell my mother too.”

  Amy said, “Miss Mamie, do you think we can add some coconut to the next batch?”

  “You don’t like my candy after all?”

  “Oh, yes ma’am. I do, I do… it’s just that I love coconut and I thought it might make your recipe better, that’s all.”

  “Let me tell you about recipes, honey. When you have one that everybody loves, you don’t mess with it and you don’t change it.

  “And there’s no way I’m changing Mamie’s pecan candy recipe.”

  Amy looked a bit sad.

  “However,” Mamie went on, “One of the fun things about baking is that you get to invent new recipes whenever you want.

  “Go over there to my cupboard. There’s some flaked coconut in there. We’re going to make a new recipe.”

  Amy smiled broadly.

  “Can we name it Amy’s squishy coconut pecan candy?”

  Mamie laughed.

  “Sure we can. That sounds like a fine name.”

  Amy trotted off in the direction of the cupboard.

  And everything went dark and silent.

  Chapter 51

  Right next door Ted and Linda Rogers had been carrying on a very spirited discussion in the girls’ absence.

  They’d always been deeply religious.

  They’d always placed their trust in God to keep themselves and their children healthy and safe from harm.

  When news came that the Yellowstone volcano was rumbling back to life they chose not to be frightened.

  While everyone else around them was freaking out and the world was going nuts over what they were all calling the Yellowstone Event, they clung to their religious faith.

  Then Linda had a dream.

  It didn’t make her question her faith, really.

  It just made her see things from a different perspective.

  She sat down with Ted a couple of nights before, after the kids had gone to bed.

  “God cleaned the earth once, by the great flood,” she started. “Who’s to say He doesn’t want to do it again, this time by fire?”

  “Either way, we’ve got nothing to worry about,” Ted countered. “The Bible says the righteous will be protected from harm. The volcano won’t blow in our lifetimes. And if it does we won’t be harmed.”

  He was able to calm her. To soothe most of her fears.

  Still, she wondered.

  Her thoughts festered for a couple of days.

  The doubts came.

  On the one hand she felt bad, for she wasn’t the stalwart believer her husband was.

  On the other hand her family was everything to her.

  If there was even the remotest chance Yellowstone was going to explode beneath their feet it was their duty as parents to get the kids to safety.

  Hours before she’d had another dream.

  This time the dread was more forceful.

  She awoke from a dead sleep at four in the morning.

  And she and Ted had been arguing ever since.

  Well, perhaps arguing was too strong a term. Maybe debating was better.

  Each of them stuck to their guns.

  To Ted, it would be a slap in God’s very face if they didn’t trust Him enough to stay.

  For Linda, God would certainly understand their desire to get the kids to safety, for the Bible tasked the father and the mother to care for and provide for their young.

  For hours they went back and forth. They’d sent their girls to Mamie’s house and granted their son extra video game time so they could continue their discussion behind closed doors.

  They were still at an impasse.

  They were both exhausted.

  She from having been awakened so early by her dream; he from having been shaken awake.

  They took a brief nap, resolving to finish their debate after they awakened.

  After half an hour the earth trembled and woke them back up again.

  It wasn’t their first earthquake. There had been a lot of them in recent days.

  They’d always taken them in stride before; he because he put his faith in the Almighty and she because she was a good Christian wife and yielded to her husband’s judgment.

  Awake again and with clear heads they picked up where they left off, until they found one area on which they could agree.

  The impasse was finally broken.

  By the area school system, of all things.

  Both parents were strong believers in the educational system.

  They’d each had one parent who hadn’t finished high school.

  They’d seen first hand how those parents had always struggled to find work; and how they were paid less than others who were equally talented, equally hard-working, equally dedicated.

  Just because those others had a diploma.

  Now, Jackson was a fine little town and a great place to raise a family.

  But the Jackson Public Schools had closed down three weeks before, with no firm plans to reopen other than a vague promise to “resume once the crisis has passed.”

  Linda was a housewife with experience as a real estate agent.

  Ted was an insurance adjuster.

  Both were good people, and both readily admitted their limitations.

  Neither, they felt, was qualified to home school their three children.

  Oh, they’d try. The closing of the schools left them no choice.

  They’d gone on-line when the schools closed to find out what the requirements were.

  They’d have to keep meticulous records, making sure the children studied the appropriate curriculum for the prescribed number of hours per day.

  They’d have to assign lessons taken from state-provided textbooks, and to quiz and test each child based on that material.

  The problem was, the mail was no longer running.

  The long-time motto of the U.S. Postal Service that said mail would always be delivered didn’t apply in this case.

  "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" said nothing about catastrophic volcanic eruptions.

  “We can’t get the text books,” Linda argued. “And we owe it to the kids to provide them a good education, or they’ll suffer for the rest of their lives.”

  The impasse was finally broken.

  An agreement was finally reached.

  The following day they’d meet with Mamie Sellers and try to convince her to leave with them. They’d find a new home in another state and take her along, for she’d been like a mother to them both.

  The only problem was it was too late.

  They’d waited too long.

  They embraced, having just made one of the hardest decisions of their lives.
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  Then everything went dark and silent.

  Chapter 52

  On their way to Yellowstone, but not quite there yet, Rocki and Darrell discussed their upcoming interview with Julianna.

  “When’s the last time you talked to her?”

  “The day before yesterday.”

  “And how’s the evacuation going?”

  “She said it was an agonizing process. She said most of the people they’re finding now are already aware there’s something going on.

  “They’ve felt the earthquakes. They’ve smelled the sulfur in the air and seen the animals leaving the area.

  “They’re finding it harder and harder to hunt, because game is increasingly scarce. And they’re finding alarming numbers of dead fish floating on the rivers and streams.”

  “Well, that should make it easier to convince them they need to get out of the area.”

  “That’s just it. Most of them are convinced now. But they’re spread out over hundreds of thousands of acres. They might find one man in a cabin and load him up in their vehicle, then have to drive another five miles before finding another one.

  “Then when they fill up their vehicle with five or six people they have to drive sixty or seventy miles to a Red Cross relocation center and then back again.

  “She says it’s those long drives back and forth that waste so much of their time and limits the number of people they can get out of there.

  “And she says they’re having an additional problem they never expected.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Some of the people they’re rescuing are saying, ‘You have to save my friend so and so too.’

  “But they have no directions to so and so’s cabin. The primary person they’re rescuing doesn’t know how to get to so and so except by following trails and landmarks only he knows. And some of them are several miles away in dense woods.”

  “So how are they dealing with that?”

  “They’re asking the primary rescue how soon he or she can go to get so and so and drag him back. Then they’re saying they’ll be back in that amount of time to pick them both up.

  “That, of course, throws their search efforts even more out of whack because they have to put their search on standby to go back to the same place a second time.

  “In short, she says it’s a mess.

  “She says they could use another hundred search teams and they’re running out of time.”

  “How so?”

  “Word is the sheriff is going to call off rescue operations any time and make them evacuate themselves.”

  “What’s she going to do?”

  “Who?”

  “Julianna, Goober.”

  Rocki smiled.

  “Who is Julianna Goober? I only know a Julianna Cervelli.”

  “Oh shut up, squirrel butt. You know what I mean.”

  “She says she’s not sure. She’s got friends all over the southern United States who are asking her to come and stay with them, either temporarily or permanently.

  “And a couple in Canada too, I think she said.

  “The problem is she says she’s fallen in love with the deputy she’s working with and that complicates things.”

  “Men always screw things up, don’t we?”

  “You said it, not me.”

  “Apparently he’s got his own friends and relatives pushing him to come and stay with them. And thus far they haven’t been able to agree where to go.”

  “Have you seen a photo of her?”

  “Hold on a minute.”

  Rocki happened to be on Facebook during their conversation catching up on messages from friends telling them they were crazy.

  She went to Julianna’s page and brought up her profile photo, then held up her phone for Darrell to see.

  “Oh, she’s pretty.”

  “Yes. She said she used to be a model.”

  “Tell her she can move in with us if she leaves Deputy Doo-Right behind.”

  “Excuse me, Buster?”

  “Well, I’ve been advertising for a new sideways chick. I told you. Because you’ve been getting kind of grouchy lately.”

  “I believe the term is side chick, and you’d be grouchy too if you had to put up with your own nonsense all the time.”

  “So I can’t have a side chick?”

  “No, you may not.”

  “Okay. Just thought I’d ask, that’s all.”

  “Why don’t you go take a nap while I sharpen the knives in the kitchen?”

  He wasn’t sleepy. He wisely changed the subject.

  “I miss Penny.”

  “Yeah. Me too.

  “We need to tell Meadow we want to take her on our next trip. I think she enjoyed traveling.”

  “You think she’d let us?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not. Maybe if we promised not to take her within a thousand miles of Yellowstone.”

  “That leaves Florida and the east and west coasts. Or maybe the deep south.”

  “How about we do a book on Mardi Gras?”

  “Mardi Gras would be too noisy. Penny wouldn’t like it.”

  “Sure she would. The crowds would love her. They’d line up to pet her.”

  “Yeah, maybe.

  “Or maybe they’d ask her to roll over and show her underside and give her beads.”

  “Well, that wouldn’t be so bad. She likes to play dress-up. Remember that sweater Autumn put on her two winters ago? It was the ugliest sweater in the history of sweaters, but she liked it.”

  “Honey, she’d eat the beads and get indigestion.”

  “Yeah, I guess. Probably wouldn’t be a good thing to have to find a vet out in the middle of nowhere.

  “Hey, how many miles until the next town? I’m down to a quarter of a tank of gas.”

  She never answered.

  Through the windshield they saw a brilliant flash of light.

  Then everything went dark and silent.

  Chapter 53

  Gwen and Melvyn and Hannah and Tony went early that morning to visit the FEMA Relocation Center in downtown Phoenix.

  They wanted to beat the rush.

  But as it turned out, there was no rush to beat.

  Most Americans were still procrastinating, still hoping Wayne Hamlin was wrong and all the other scientists were right.

  And that they still had plenty of time.

  The federal government had had the forethought of setting up such offices in many of the larger cities in the south and along both coasts in an effort to speed the application process and to make more room for evacuees quicker.

  Those who planned to take advantage of the office to speed their move to Alaska saw it as a timesaver and a good decision not typical of government agencies.

  Naysayers saw it as the government trying to push them off their property more efficiently. They said the government never did anything efficiently which didn’t benefit them directly and take advantage of the little man.

  Gwen wasn’t sure which way to lean, though she could certainly understand both views.

  She and Melvyn had lived in Phoenix for a very long time. It was a wonderful city. More than that, it was their home. It would be hard to say goodbye.

  On the other hand, she and Melvyn had married in Seattle more than forty years before and had chosen Alaska as the destination for their honeymoon cruise.

  They’d been to the forty-ninth state twice more since then and loved its beauty.

  They’d never given any thought to actually moving there until the Yellowstone Event came along.

  But then again, they’d always loved a good adventure.

  Moving to Alaska and adjusting to life there would certainly be that, and so much more.

  She was getting more and more excited by the day, Gwen was. She and Hannah had been not only colleagues, but good friends as well. It would be quite an adventure to move to Alaska and to have homes built for them.

  She’d been a bit apprehensive at first
.

  Then she learned the government was setting up a variety of programs to help her and others like her take the big step.

  A woman at the relocation center filled her in.

  “A lot of people who are evacuating from the danger zones don’t want to relocate to Alaska. Many of them are too old or too frail. Many can’t take the cold.

  “That’s why we’re making it easy for people who live outside the danger zones, who wouldn’t be in any real peril, to move to Alaska in their place if they so desire.

  “That way you’ll get to relocate with the government’s assistance, the evacuee from the danger zone will move into your house, and everyone will be happy.”

  It was the “everyone will be happy” part that got their attention.

  Gwen asked, “Well, how does it all work?”

  “You’ll agree to sell your home for the amount quoted on your last tax appraisal. Sometimes a value will go up, sometimes it will go down, but we’ll agree on the last appraised amount as a fair medium.

  “The government will cut you a check for that amount, and will sell your house to an evacuee from the danger zone for the same amount. We will not make any profit on the deal, because that’s not what we’re here for. We’re just here to facilitate everyone’s movement.

  “You’ll use the money we give you to settle with the bank and pay off your mortgage. The rest of the money that represents your equity, you’ll use to help you get started in Alaska.

  “We have a lot of builders who have signed what we call cost-plus agreements with the federal government. What that means is that in exchange for being permitted to build homes on Alaskan Land Act land they agree to build a new home for you at cost plus ten percent.

  “That way they can’t gouge you on the cost, and none of the builders will be taking advantage of the situation.

  “You’ll be given a list of those builders and can deal with them directly.

  “If the equity on your existing house isn’t enough to cover the cost of your new one you can apply for a government-guaranteed low interest loan. Again, we have a list of approved and licensed lenders who cannot charge you more than two percent.

  “In all likelihood you’ll need a place to stay while your house is being built.

  “That won’t be a problem. The government has purchased thousands of recreational vehicles and positioned many of them here in Phoenix. You may choose one which fits your needs…”