“Seriously?”
“Yes. Well, that’s a very simplistic version of what’s going on down there. But it’s an easy way of understanding it.”
“So… we’re walking on top of an active volcano even as we speak?”
“Yes.”
“Holy crap, baby. I don’t think I want to be here anymore.”
“Relax, Tony. The last eruption was over three hundred thousand years ago.”
“So… your mom was here to see it but nobody else was.”
She looked at him and her gaze turned into a glare.
“Sorry,” he sheepishly said. “I couldn’t resist.”
“You most certainly could have.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. So, that’s why we’re here doing this? To monitor the volcano?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. I thought you knew that. Back in the Eisenhower administration, the National Geological Survey decided they wanted to monitor Yellowstone in case the volcano ever started being a threat. That’s why we’re having to go all over the park. The thirty seven places they marked for either soil analysis or temperature analysis or moisture content were spread out over a wide area to give them a better idea of what was going on. And we have to visit the same areas they did, every ten years, to keep from corrupting the data. Comparing data taken from the same place ten years apart is like comparing apples to apples. Comparing data taken from two different places ten years apart is like comparing apples to oranges. It messes up everything.”
As they spoke, she was on her hands and knees, running her hands through long buffalo grass.
Her left thumb bumped into something hard. It wasn’t a rock. She brushed aside the grass and said, “Here it is.”
Julianna and Ron stopped their own searches and came to her. She pulled up the grass from around the marker and brushed the dirt away from it.
It did indeed resemble a railroad spike. On its head were the numbers 4355.
Chapter 11
The drill they brought with them was by far the largest piece of equipment they had. After Ron assembled it Tony commented it reminded him of a jack hammer.
“How hard is it to hold once we start drilling?”
Ron explained, “Oh, we don’t hold it. We’re only half finished. Now we have to install the frame for it.”
That took another half hour.
“The good news is, now that it’s assembled the first time, we can just load it up into four separate pieces each time we move. It won’t always take an hour to set up. From now on it’ll take just a few minutes at each location.”
“How long will it take to drill?”
“It depends on what we’re drilling into. The porous rock and soft earth will go fairly quickly. The non-porous rock a little longer. We can figure an average of a couple of hours or so at every location. And there are thirty seven locations, so it should fill up the ten days.”
“How did you get into this, Ron?”
“Into what?”
“This whole geology thing.”
“Oh. It started when I was a kid. I liked to collect rocks. My friends thought I was an oddball, but when I went camping with the scouts, they went fishing or tracking small game. That stuff didn’t interest me at all. I went hunting for rocks instead.
“Pretty soon I had a great rock collection. For some reason they fascinated me.”
“Do you like girls, Ron?”
“Of course I like girls. Why would you ask that?”
“Because I’m guessing you didn’t get a lot of dates.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, my friend. Girls are rock collectors too. I was a member of a community rock collector club when I was in high school. We met on the weekends. Four of our nine members were girls. I dated one for a couple of years. You shouldn’t be so presumptuous.”
“Just wondering… did they wear thick glasses with black frames, held together on the nosepiece by a Band-Aid?”
“Actually, a couple of them were pretty hot.”
“Uh, huh… I guess you’ll say they were hot like molten rock. See what I did there? Do you get it?”
“Oh, I get it. I don’t particularly want it. But I get it. Here’s the thing, Tony. I like girls just fine. But I can like rocks too. Just like you enjoy girls and being obnoxious at the same time.”
“I’ve been practicing my being obnoxious for a very long time. I’m very good at it.”
“I noticed. But think about this. A rock will never break your heart or cheat on you with your best friend. A rock will never put her cold feet on you in the middle of the night. A rock isn’t grouchy first thing in the morning and will never bite your head off for every little thing. A rock will never insist you take her out to eat at places you can’t afford, or buy her jewelry that costs more than a car.”
“Yeah. But you can’t hug a rock. You can’t make love to a boulder. Well, I guess you could, but it would be very awkward. A rock doesn’t smell sweet. It’s not soft and warm and doesn’t cuddle with you late at night and first thing in the morning. It doesn’t laugh at your dumb jokes or make you breakfast on the weekends.”
“A rock,” Ron countered, “will never walk away. When a rock says forever, she means it.”
Hannah chose that very moment to walk up on the two.
“What are you guys talking about?”
Ron said nothing.
Tony said, “We were just going over all the reasons I should leave you for a rock.”
“A rock.”
It wasn’t so much a question. It was more a statement. An incredulous statement.
“Yes. A rock.”
Most women would have asked what in the world he meant by it. Some women would have hit him over the head in fun. A few would have hit him over the head to hurt him.
Hannah, though, took it in stride.
“Good,” she said. “You have fun with your rock. When we finish here I’m going to the ranger station and pick me out a handsome ranger or two. Heck, I’m full of energy today. Why settle for two? Maybe I’ll pick out three of them. They can lie under the stars with me while you’re dragging around your big old rock and trying to have a conversation with her.”
Tony looked at Ron and said, “See what you’ve gotten me into?”
“Hey, I didn’t put my foot in your mouth. You did.”
Chapter 12
There was nothing hard about their data collection project. It was rather tedious from Tony’s point of view, because he had no clue what they were doing. He tried to follow Hannah’s explanations, but most of them were way over his head.
So he just watched as they drilled holes in the ground, ran a ground-penetrating radar over flat surfaces, and made a lot of entries into their laptop computers.
Tony spent a lot of time chatting with Julianna, who said she also felt like a pig in a chicken coop. They were quickly becoming good friends.
“Something bugs me about your last name,” he told her at one point.
“Cervelli? It’s Italian, I guess. Or Sicilian. My father never said. He left my mom on the day she told him she was pregnant. He came back occasionally, just to bring me a late birthday gift or cheap Christmas present. And to pretend, I guess, that he was a father. But he wasn’t, really.”
“Sounds like a sore subject. I’m sorry I brought it up. It’s just that… well, I’ve heard the name before. But I can’t for the life of me remember where.”
“Don’t worry about it. There aren’t a lot of Cervellis around, but there are a few. It was probably the last name of some kid you knew in grade school and lost track of years ago.”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
On the morning of the third day Julianna produced a deck of playing cards from one of her backpacks. She taught Tony how to play hearts and he in turn taught her to play poker.
He tried to show her a card trick, but instead sent the cards flying in all directions. Several of them fell off the rock face and into a ravine, and it took him the better part of an h
our to retrieve them all.
He agreed not to do any more tricks.
By the fourth day Tony wasn’t even making an effort to be interested in the work they were doing. His job, as he saw it, wasn’t to provide morale support or his witty humor. His job, according to the contract he signed, was to drive the Jeep and to load and unload the equipment, then to help set it up or break it down.
So that’s what he started doing. The time in between, when the actual research was being done, was his free time.
He spent a lot of time napping in the Jeep with the air conditioner running.
As for Hannah, she was like a kid in a candy store. This stuff fascinated her. She enjoyed it as much as an artist loved to paint or a musician loved to sing. It was, she felt, her calling.
The data they were collecting didn’t mean anything significant. If there was anything to find, they wouldn’t find it on this trip. For they didn’t have access to the previous data it would be compared with. It was a fascinating bunch of numbers, sure. But until it was bumped against the data the previous surveyors collected in past years it was just that: a bunch of numbers that didn’t really mean anything.
Toward the end of the third day they decided they were pretty rank and desperately needed showers.
They were a considerable distance away from the motel where her boss Brent was cooling his heels.
“It’s an hour’s drive there and another hour’s drive back in the morning,” Hannah said. “And we’ll have to unload all of the equipment and store it in one of the rooms overnight so it doesn’t get stolen. It’s too expensive to just leave in the jeep in a populated area. And of course, that means having to load it back up again in the morning.”
Tony said, “Didn’t you say this afternoon that we were way ahead of schedule?”
“Yes, but…”
“But nothing. I have one word for you, baby. Shower. Show-er. Shower, as in clean. As in not stinky. As in alive again.”
“That’s a lot more than one word, my counting-impaired friend.”
“I can count just fine,” Ron said. “And I’ll give you two more words. Hot food.”
In the end, they took a vote. Hannah was the only holdout, but reluctantly agreed to go when she saw she was all alone in her desire to stay.
Even Julianna, who wouldn’t accompany them to the motel but would rather go home to her apartment for the night, wanted to go.
“People think because I’m a park ranger, I like to rough it. I don’t mind camping. But curling up on a soft couch and catching up with my TV shows after a hot bath is kinda nice too.”
The decision finally made, the group loaded up and headed back to the ranger station, where they dropped Julianna and promised to pick her up again at nine the next morning.
It was just a bit after dark when Hannah and Ron knocked on room 210 of the Value Plus Inn.
Brent answered the door. He looked like death on a plate.
“Wow,” Hannah said. “What the heck happened to you? You look like you got hit by a truck.”
He sneezed violently. The sneeze seemed to come from nowhere and without warning. He tried to turn his head in time, but managed to spray Hannah with spittle despite his efforts.
“Ewww!”
“Sorry. It’s just that… well, it seems I’m terribly allergic to something out there in the great wilderness. I’m spending most of my time in bed and blowing my nose.”
“So why don’t you go back to San Jose? We can handle it here.”
“Because I’m in charge of the operation. The big boss sent me out here to make sure we do everything correctly. I have to stay here and supervise everything.”
“Um… pardon me for stating the obvious. But you’re not doing a lot of supervising when you’re not even in the park.”
“I know that. You know that. But the big bosses back in San Jose don’t know that. And you’re not gonna tell them, right?”
“I will if you sneeze on me again.”
“Sorry about that. Did you come by here to bust my chops, or was there a reason you dragged me out of my sick bed to make me even more miserable?”
“I came by to tell you we’re checked in. Tony and I are in 218. Ron is in 224.”
“You could have saved the company some money by letting Ron share a room with you two.”
“Ha! In his wildest dreams. Stop being a cheapskate.”
“Okay, okay. I’d invite you all for dinner but I’m in for the night. I just ordered a pizza. Hopefully I’m not allergic to it too.”
Chapter 13
They actually finished a day early and put Ron on an airplane to deliver all the data to the company’s headquarters.
“Now what?” asked Tony.
“Now the data will be turned over to Gwendoline Ann Lupson. She’s based at our Phoenix office and is in charge of the team that’s going to analyze all the numbers. And then to compare it with historical data from previous surveys.”
“That’s all well and good. But it’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“I mean you and I. We’ve already been paid for tomorrow, and we’re not flying back home until the morning after that. Do we reschedule our flight, or do we stay here an extra day?”
“I already told Brent we’re staying. I told him we deserved it after being eaten alive by hungry mosquitoes and being chased by bears.”
“We weren’t chased by bears.”
“Nope. But he doesn’t know that. He was stuck in his motel room the whole time, sneezing and spreading his germs all over the place.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said to enjoy our last day, but not to do anything crazy.”
Tony wrapped his arms around her and said, “Honey, crazy is precisely what I had in mind.”
They did indeed have a great time their last day in Yellowstone. They skinny dipped in an isolated lake, soaked in a hot spring, and made love under the stars. All things they couldn’t have done saddled to Ron and Julianna.
They felt like they were on their honeymoon all over again.
But alas, good times always end eventually, and so do honeymoons.
The following Monday they were both back at work.
Each went on to other things and put the data they’d collected out of their minds, seemingly forever.
Or maybe not.
Two weeks later to the day after their return from Yellowstone, Hannah’s phone started vibrating during a staff meeting.
Brent was droning on and on about… something. Hannah wasn’t sure what, because she was trying very hard not to nod off.
An emergency phone call could be her ticket out of the meeting.
She took the phone from her jacket pocket and held it beneath the table, out of view of Brent and anyone else who might not approve. She waited until Brent turned his back on his staff to explain a boring pie chart on the white board behind him.
Hannah stifled a yawn and stole a peek at her phone.
It wasn’t Tony, or her sister, or her mom. So much for a family emergency. She’d have to endure Brent’s incessant droning for another half hour or so until eleven.
Brent took his lunch at eleven. And he was never, ever late.
She didn’t recognize the number on her caller ID. She recognized the area code, though. 602. Phoenix. It was probably work-related. If she had to she might be able to excuse herself to check into a “work related crisis.”
She wondered if Brent would buy it, or would recognize it for the load of bull it would be.
She refocused her attention back to Brent and wished she had toothpicks to hold her eyelids open. She wanted desperately to doze off, and her eyes were getting droopy.
She wasn’t the only one.
But she was the first one Brent noticed, and he called her out.
“What’s the matter, Hannah? Am I boring you?”
“Oh, no… I find all this fascinating.”
“Uh, huh… what am I talk
ing about?”
“Um… something about pies and charts and numbers and stuff?”
“Yeah. That’s what I thought. Why don’t you go get yourself a cup of coffee? Maybe when you come back you’ll be able to follow the rest of the briefing.”
Hannah fairly jumped for the door, relishing in her opportunity to escape, while several other sleepy people in the room suddenly wished Brent had noticed them nodding off first.
“Be right back,” Hannah promised as she headed out the door.”
But as Hannah poured her coffee her phone vibrated again. This time it was a text message from the same mysterious Phoenix phone number.
“Drop what you’re doing and call me immediately.”
Hannah broke her promise. She never went back to the meeting.
Chapter 14
She recognized the voice on the other end of the phone immediately. Although they lived in different cities, they worked for the same company. As colleagues they frequently saw each other at company seminars, training sessions and social events.
In fact, Gwendoline was always the first person Hannah sought out when she made a trip to Phoenix for any reason.
They’d hit it off right away and become fast friends. Gwen was a bit older than Hannah, but not much. She said, “I’m not old enough to be your mother, so don’t you dare tell anybody that. I’m more of a big-sister type. I can be there for you to help guide you and keep you out of trouble. But I’m still young enough to get into trouble with you occasionally as well. Or at least some major fun.”
Gwen was a geologist by training as well. They both loved the same things. Science, art, soil samples. While others in the company spent their free time running willy nilly from one nightclub to another, Gwen and Hannah preferred to haunt fine restaurants, art galleries and coffee shops.
Instead of sharing beers, they shared stories. Of rock finds, old boyfriends and Gwen’s children. And of the child Hannah was soon to have.
The Yellowstone Event: Book 1: Fire in the Sky Page 4