by Tim Washburn
“We’re working on it. If you’ll authorize the overtime, I’ll have the off-duty rangers on site within the hour.”
“Screw the budget. Do it. And get the on-duty rangers working in that direction. I want frequent updates and I want answers.”
“I’m going to head down that way for a look at the area. I’ll be on the sat phone if you need me.” Tucker hangs up and reaches into a desk drawer to retrieve his satellite phone. He checks the battery level and grabs the charger, just in case. After putting on his National Park Service hat, he works his way down the hall and sticks his head into the analysis center. “I’m heading down to the Old Faithful area. I’m on the sat phone if you need me.”
Before he can duck out, Rachael Rollins asks for a private word. Tucker nods her toward the hall, and Rachael joins him there.
She leans against the wall and crosses her arms. “I’m not sure now is a good time to leave, Tucker. There’s too much going on.”
Tucker waves the sat phone. “I’m only a phone call away. I need to see what’s going on with my own eyes.”
“I’m going with you. I know these hydrothermal systems better than you do. If there are any changes, I’ll spot them a lot quicker than you will.”
“No, Rach, I need you here to keep an eye on the data feeds.”
Rachael uncrosses her arms and pushes away from the wall. “Bullshit. I can’t do anything here, sitting on my ass.”
Tucker sighs. “I’d really prefer you stay here. Things could get dangerous.”
Rachael reaches out and grabs Tucker’s arm. “Whether I’m here or there won’t matter if the caldera blows. The entire park will be toast.”
Camp 27–Meridian, Mississippi
Interview: Denise from Duluth, MN—former seasonal park employee
“Summer before last was the last time I worked up there. Finally finished my degree and got a real job. We knew about the volcano, but it’s not like we spent every minute of the day worrying about it. With all the budget cuts, the park was usually short staffed, so we were so busy we didn’t have time to think about anything but doing our jobs. In the evenings, we’d sometimes surf the web and laugh about all the Internet rumors that an eruption was imminent. Then you’d see video of running animals some yahoo posted insisting it was a sign of impending disaster. I bet a majority of the park guests didn’t have a clue they were walking around on top of an active volcano. We just didn’t think about it much. I still had friends that were working up there.”
CHAPTER 8
Mallard Lake, Yellowstone National Park
Park Ranger Walt Stringer coasts the four-wheeler up to the western shore of Mallard Lake and kills the engine. Small by lake standards, Mallard would have been called a pond back in his home state of Texas. Walt climbs off the four-wheeler and takes a moment to stretch his back. After riding across rough terrain and steering around downed trees most of the morning, it takes a moment for him to get his legs moving again. With heavily muscled shoulders stacked on his tall frame, Walt is the quintessential mountain man, minus the long hair and shaggy beard. His arms and face are bronzed from his time outdoors and his once-dark hair is shot through with gray. He puts on his ranger hat, snags the two-way radio from the cradle mounted on the handlebar of his ATV, and strides toward the tree line. He works his way toward a patch of bright fabric, a tent tucked into a thicket of pine trees.
“Ranger approaching,” Walt shouts from a good distance away. A veteran of the first Gulf War, his search for solace led him to the National Park Service and Yellowstone, where news from the outside can be as limited as one chooses. With no television and no radio, Walt doesn’t have to listen to the nightly reports about drone strikes, dead soldiers, or unrest in the Middle East. Now there are just wide-open skies and buffalo roaming across the prairie.
That and the occasional unpleasant encounter with park guests.
With firearms no longer outlawed in the park, Walt is cautious about approaching campsites. But it’s not just weapons he’s worried about. He’s learned from experience to not venture too close to a campsite unannounced. He’s been cussed at, cussed out, and has walked up on some truly bizarre situations, including a family of nudists who moved nonchalantly around the campsite in their birthday suits.
The nylon walls of the tent flutter and the long zipper at the front slides open to reveal a bushy-headed man. “What the hell do you want?”
“And fuck you, too,” Walt mutters as he steps closer. He spots the leftovers from last night’s dinner scattered around a small propane stove.
“Sir, you do realize you’re in bear country, don’t you?” he says, coming to a stop about six feet away.
“Yeah, so what?” the man says, making no attempt to step out from the tent.
“All this food laying around will draw a bear to your campsite faster than bees to honey.”
“We ain’t seen no bears. You here to bust my ass about a messy camp?”
Walt keeps his hands loose, the right one hovering near the butt of his service weapon, a Sig Sauer P229. Loaded with 165 grain .40 caliber hollow points. The ammunition is powerful enough to stop a bear and absolutely lethal for anything on two feet. “Sir, would you mind stepping out of the tent?”
“Look, Lone Ranger, we’re just camping out here. Communing with nature.”
“Sir, I’ll ask again. Please step out from the tent.”
The man shoots Walt an angry glare before stepping out. He’s outfitted in dingy gym shorts and an old ratty T-shirt that reveals a set of skinny arms with more ink than a case of Bic pens.
“Who else is in there?” Stringer asks.
“Just my girlfriend. Jeez, here we are out in the goddamn wilderness and Ranger Ricky shows up swinging his dick around.” He turns toward the tent. “Janice, get your ass out here.”
A rail-thin, mousy-haired woman slithers through the tent opening and takes a spot behind her boyfriend. She sneers at Walt, displaying a black hole of rotted teeth.
Walt’s jaw muscles clench, release, then clench again. “Kind of late to be sleeping, isn’t it?”
“I don’t remember asking for a wake-up call. But, now that we’re up”—the man crosses his arm over his midsection and bows—“what can we do for you, Ranger Boy?”
Walt relaxes his body, but his hand doesn’t stray too far from his weapon. “Can I see your camp permit, please?”
“I know you’re itchin’ to pull your gun, Mr. Ranger Man. You got that look, you know. Probably the most exciting part of your day is hassling us campers.”
Walt takes two long strides, stopping only inches from the man. “You’d be a waste of a good bullet. Now, I’ll ask again, where’s your permit?”
“It’s . . . it’s in my wallet,” the man stammers.
“Let’s have a look at it.”
The man snakes his hand into his grubby shorts and pulls out a paper-thin wallet that nearly slips from his now-trembling hands. He removes a crumpled piece of paper and hands it over.
Walt studies the proffered paperwork. “So you’re here for two more nights?”
“Yeah.”
He hands the permit back and offers the couple a smile. “I hope you enjoy your stay. Remember, no campfires. It’s dry as a tinderbox out here.” As Walt walks back to the ATV, the radio squawks.
“Walt Stringer, what’s your twenty?”
He unclips the radio from his belt. “I’m down at Mallard Lake.”
“We need you at the Lower Geyser area.”
“What’s up, Brenda?”
A brief pause before she answers. “I’d rather not say over the radio.”
Stringer stares at the radio in his hand then punches the transmit button. “Oookaay. So what do you need me to do?”
“Another ranger will brief you when you get there.”
A small tingle of dread creeps down his spine. He can’t recall another instance during his twenty-year career where radio communications were cloaked in secrecy.
“Ten-four. I’m on my way.” He slaps the radio into its cradle and fires up the four-wheeler. Contrails of sand and grit swirl up from the tires as he gooses the throttle, racing across the rugged terrain. His mind clicks through possible complications, conjuring up one possible horror show after another, with no thoughts whatsoever about the possibility of the greatest horror show of all.
CHAPTER 9
University Seismic Observation Lab
The seismology lab is a beehive of activity. Scientists are studying the data while others are in constant contact with other colleagues, their phones pinched between shoulder and ear. Dr. Eric Snider scurries from his office, his head on a swivel, searching for anyone not otherwise engaged. He spots his prey in an instant. “Josh!” he shouts across the room.
Josh Tolbert, startled by the booming voice, jumps to his feet and hurries over. “Yes, sir?”
Snider hands over a Post-it note scribbled with a series of phone numbers. “These are some of our contacts at NASA. I need you to get on the horn and find out whether Terra or Aqua are anywhere in the vicinity.”
“Terra and who, sir?”
“Terra and Aqua are two satellites with thermal infrared capabilities. I need thermal images of Yellowstone and I need it yesterday.”
“Can’t I just get online and find the images?” Josh asks.
“There may not be any. We’re not a frequent stop for them. But I damn sure need them now. See how long it’ll be until we can get some new images.”
“I’m on it,” Josh says, hurrying toward the nearest phone.
Snider threads his way through the obstacle course of hastily assembled tables and sidles up next to Emily West, a postdoctoral fellow studying plate tectonics and seismicity. “Are these quakes occurring in all the usual places or in more unique locations?”
West glances up from her cluttered workspace. “A little of both. Most are confined to the caldera, but one interesting aspect is that the seismic activity originated on the east side of the park.”
Snider arches his brows. “That’s unusual. There’s not much in the way of faults to the east.” Snider pauses to think for a moment before saying, “Emily, will you pull up a topographic map of Wyoming?”
With a few clicks of the mouse a topo map pops onto the screen. “There’s nothing east of the park that would stimulate seismic activity.”
West taps the screen around Cody with the tip of her pen. “I know they’re punching a bunch of new gas wells in the Bighorn Basin.” She moves the tip of the pen farther south. “And the Green River Basin is littered with more new gas wells than you could count.”
Snider stares at the screen. “You think the drilling has triggered this new round of seismic activity?”
“Not necessarily the drilling. But I know they’re fracking a majority of the wells. And where there’s fracking there’ll be a slew of injection wells to dispose of the wastewater.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Regardless of what triggered the seismic activity, it’s now our problem.” She tosses her pen onto the desk and arches her back against the chair. “The area around Lake Yellowstone is bustling with tremors. The intensity has leveled off somewhat, but the quakes are becoming more superficial.”
“How deep was the last one?”
“A little less than a mile.”
“Magnitude?”
West leans forward and clicks on the seismometer for the West Thumb area of the lake. “Judging from data, I’d guess it’s in the neighborhood of four-point-three.”
“Plate activity?”
West curls a strand of her dark, curly hair around her finger. “Maybe some of it. But I believe the seismicity we’re seeing now is magma related.”
“Couldn’t it also be a large influx of water into the area?”
“Maybe. Hell, Eric, it could be a bunch of different things, but my gut tells me the earthquakes are magma related.”
“Is the magma rising toward the surface?”
“If it is, the ground deformation monitors will provide the answers.”
Snider pats her on the shoulder. “Keep me posted.”
Before Snider can slip away, Emily stops him with a tug on his shirtsleeve. She glances around the room, then stands up and steps in close. “Do you really think there’s a chance the caldera will erupt?”
“I don’t know, Emily. The one question buzzing around my brain is, after 640,000 years, why now?”
Camp 133–Millington, Tennessee
Interview: Brad from Boulder, CO—pharmaceutical sales
“Want to know something funny? I went on a hiking trip up around Mount Rainier right after my senior year of high school in May of 1980. Know what else happened during that time frame? No? Mount St. Helens erupted. Crazy, huh? Am I like a magnet for volcanic activity?”
CHAPTER 10
Old Faithful Inn, Yellowstone National Park
Tucker steers the old pickup toward the entrance of the Old Faithful Inn and parks. Both of the truck’s doors, shot through with rust, squeal in protest as he and Rachael exit. They both take a moment to survey the area around the geyser. Midmorning in June and the area is as desolate as a day in the dead of winter with six feet of snow on the ground. A group of park rangers are standing at the entrance to the walkway, turning away tourists. Tucker offers a wave and ducks into the lobby, Rachael following closely behind.
Stepping into the lobby of the Old Faithful Inn is like traveling back through time. One of the largest log structures in the world, the lobby of the inn soars nearly one hundred feet overhead. A framework of lacquered pine logs supports the gabled ceiling, creating a wide-open space framed by balconies on three levels. The anchoring element is a massive four-sided fireplace, sixteen feet square, with a chimney eighty-five feet high. The five hundred tons of rock were quarried on site, back when the only tools were man and beast. The midmorning sun streams through the high windows, casting long shadows across the wide-plank pine flooring. Tucker pauses to allow his eyes to adjust before scanning the lobby. The lobby is clogged with people, but no sign of his family. He steps toward the registration desk and removes his hat.
“Tucker!” an attractive female shouts as she travels the length of the counter toward him.
“Hey, April.”
At five-five, with a willowy frame honed by daily hiking, April Todd’s dirty blond hair is pulled up in a tight ponytail. Large silver earrings dangle from her ears, winking in the morning light. A small emerald-colored stud protrudes from the crease of her left nostril, and her fingers are devoid of jewelry with the exception of a silver band encircling her right thumb. The beginning of a tattoo is visible at the cuff of her short-sleeve shirt. This is her third summer working at the park and probably the last, since she recently completed her master’s program. She latches on to one of Tucker’s hands.
Rachael, with a look of disdain on her face, leans against the counter.
Tucker tries to slip his hand free, but April won’t let go. “April, Rachael, you’ve both met, correct?”
The two women barely acknowledge each other, leaving Tucker to wonder about what’s going on between them. He decides it’s not his problem and leans in, lowering his voice. “How strong have the earthquakes been down here?”
“Enough to scare the hell out of me.” April glances around to make sure none of the park patrons are within hearing distance. “I swear it sounded as if the roof was going to cave in.”
“Larger than what we’ve previously experienced?”
“Absolutely. I’m surprised the fireplace is still standing. That’s how strong they were.”
Tucker turns to glance at the tall column of stone, then turns back. “That fireplace has been standing for over a hundred years. I don’t think it’s going to suddenly topple over.”
“You weren’t here when the ground was rocking and rolling. It felt like walking through a fun house at the state fair.” April leans in closer. “You don’t think the earthquakes could tr
igger an eruption, do you?”
“Not impossible, but also not very likely.”
Rachael uncrosses her arms and leans in to join the conversation. “I hope you’re keeping those fears to yourself. The absolutely last thing we need right now is a bunch of hysterical tourists.” She glances at Tucker. “Can we get on with business?”
April shoots Rachael a nasty scowl. “For your information, I haven’t mentioned anything about an eruption. But these people aren’t idiots. They know something strange is going on.”
Rachael leans in farther, her forehead nearly touching April’s. “All they know is the park is experiencing earthquake activity. Something that frequently—”
“April, I’m looking for Matt and Jessica Mayfield.” Tucker reels his hands back and steps away from the counter.
April offers Rachael a sneer before stepping over to one of the computers. “Any relation?”
“Brother and his wife.”
“They’re here. Or at least they’ve checked in. Want me to ring the room for you?”
“Please.”
April hands the handset across the counter and punches in the digits. But before Tucker gets the phone to his ear, the ground shakes violently and screams sound throughout the lobby. A heavy thud sends tremors up his legs. Tucker drops the handset and whirls around. The upper third of one side of the massive fireplace has crashed to the ground.
“Everyone, stay back,” Tucker shouts as he and Rachael hurry over. The wood floor is splintered, and an older gentleman is pinned down, his legs buried under the rubble. Tucker kneels as he yanks the radio from his belt. “We have a situation at Old Faithful Inn. I need immediate medical assistance. All available rangers are requested on scene.”
“My legs. I can’t feel my legs,” the man on the ground screams.
Tucker surveys the scene. Removing the boulders, even if he could, might well cause more damage. He puts a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Sir, help is on the way. Can you tell me your name?”