Rain of Fire

by Linda Jacobs

  Nick moved closer and bent to Kyle’s ear. “That was a nasty one, killed thirty people in the landslide and flood.”

  Thankfully, she’d never told him. That was one more vulnerability she didn’t need. It was bad enough to see him again and wish they’d never crossed the line into intimacy.

  The reporter continued to question Brock. “What brings you to Yellowstone now?”

  He put on a grave look. “During last week’s alignment, I noticed the park experiencing an unusual swarm of quakes.”

  Kyle’s heart began to thud and she moved closer to Nick. “Wyatt has measured six inches of vertical movement on the caldera in the past week.”

  “Six inches isn’t much,” Nick murmured.

  “Not for a Cascade Range volcano. Here it’s pretty significant.”

  “So what are you predicting?” Carol asked.

  “I’d say …” Brock looked around at the mountains that ringed the high valley, as though searching for a sign. Finally, he placed his fingertips together. “Certainly with the new moon we could easily see an event in the 6.0 magnitude range.”

  Nick whistled.

  Kyle’s stomach clenched. As the reporters wrapped, and Brock slung his legs down and got off the picnic table, she started toward him with a determined stride.

  Nick snagged her arm. “Hey.”

  It was too late. In front of Carol Leeds and the other members of the press, she faced off Brock. “It’s been a while since USGS.”

  “Kyle.” A smile broke over his features, a man recognizing a former colleague.

  Though she’d once liked Brock, today she wasn’t having any. “I can’t believe how irresponsible you’ve become.”

  Brock made a gesture of bewilderment.

  “Every one of us in the field would love to predict when and where disaster will strike.” She pointed a finger at his chest. “But you’re going too far.”

  Video and still cameras captured the moment.

  Brock apparently noticed they were back on stage and shrugged. “Okay, then. When it turns out I’m right about the park becoming a powder keg, you and Darden here”— his look included Nick—”can buy the beer.”

  “We’ll be in the backcountry, as soon as we can get there,” Kyle told Brock.

  He sobered. “Maybe you ought not…”

  Before he could echo the thoughts she’d been having about the wisdom of going to Nez Perce Peak, Kyle started away with Nick at her heels. He caught up and took her arm.

  Carol Leeds followed them to the edge of the lawn. “Dr. Stone, was it…? Would you care to comment…?”

  Nick chuckled as he walked with Kyle under the portico outside the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel. “Even if you didn’t comment, they’ll make hay of your telling Brock off.”

  She swung to face him, hands on hips, color flushing her prominent high cheekbones. “I shouldn’t have done that, but damn it, it felt good.”

  As he held the door for Kyle, the lobby welcomed Nick. He didn’t mind roughing it in the field, but he liked comfort as well. The polished wood floor shone and a huckleberry scent mixed with chocolate wafted from the gift shop to sharpen his hunger.

  “You got a place to stay?” he asked.

  “I need to register,” Kyle replied.

  Nick followed her toward the desk on the lobby’s back wall, taking the opportunity to look her over. The years had been kind, reflected in her athletic build and quick movements he had to hustle to keep up with. He realized he’d never forgotten her scent, a mix of forest freshness and a jasmine-like musk. He did not think it was perfume.

  There were changes, though. This woman bore only a fleeting resemblance to the youthful Kyle Stone. That girl had been quiet and content to sit on the sideline while others played a rowdy game of Hearts on somebody’s, usually his, bunk. It had taken more than a few tries to convince her to sing along when he played guitar. Now, when she looked at him, her eyes bore the determination of a powerful woman.

  While they waited for checkin, he sensed she didn’t want him staring at her so he perused the lobby. Off to the right was a circular staircase to the upper floors, nestled in the curve of a huge bay window.

  “Oh, shit,” he muttered.

  He’d stood with Kyle in exactly this spot before. Though he’d had a devil of a time convincing her to come to Yellowstone, something he’d never figured out, she’d finally agreed.

  Back in the seventies, you didn’t just pop into a hotel with a woman like you could today, so she had turned her grandmother’s opal ring around to look like a gold band, while he signed the register, “Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Darden.” That evening, he had thought about going up those steps with her to a big carpeted room with a private bath, but all they could afford was one of the spare little cabins lined up in rows at the base of a sage-covered slope.

  This evening, though his USGS per diem would cover a hotel room, Nick decided he wanted to stay in a cabin. He wondered if he would be able to recognize the one he and Kyle had shared.

  The clerk looked their way. “Ladies first,” he said.

  “Go ahead.” Kyle glanced at him and their eyes met for the barest moment. It made him aware of how her silver-buckled belt defined a waist his hands might almost span. “You had farther to drive than I,” she insisted.

  Nick dragged his focus to the front desk.

  After he secured the key to a cabin, Kyle spoke briskly to the clerk, “I’d like a room in the hotel with a queen bed and private bath. Ground floor.”

  Drifting nearby, Nick waited for her. If he were alone, he’d probably just hit the snack bar for a burger, but this evening he wanted to buy Kyle dinner. It had nothing to do with being on expenses … it was because a single look into her enigmatic chameleon eyes had him prepared to spend a week’s wages on the best entrees and fine wine.

  Maybe it was just nostalgia for a simpler time in his life … What if he had not been a coward and taken a powder? The passage of time and his experiences with other women had cast that long-ago summer in ripe and golden hues.

  What an ass he’d made of himself, not recognizing Kyle.

  “How about dinner?” he asked with a grin.

  In that instant, he saw the toughness she’d shown to both him and Brock evaporate. Her unguarded gaze, that had not changed even as her face had matured, connected with his … This time for more than a moment… revealing she remembered everything.

  Yet, she turned toward the hall, key in hand. “You go ahead. I’m getting room service.”

  Nick watched her go, already planning to locate Brock and find out what made him so certain something big was breaking in the park.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  SEPTEMBER 20

  Wyatt heard the rain begin; first, a few pings on the metal roof of his Park Service housing. A moment later, it resolved into a steady thrumming. His bedside clock said seven past midnight.

  He found himself inexplicably awake, something that had happened to him before in the park, a sensation usually corroborated by the seismograph when he saw it the next morning.

  He’d come home this afternoon and turned on the TV just in time to see Brock Hobart predict a 6.0 event. Letters on the screen had proclaimed the coverage live. Next, Wyatt had seen himself on tape with a voiceover. “Here is what Park Service geologist, Dr. Wyatt Ellison, said about noted Yellowstone author David Mowry’s death in a brand new hot spring.”

  He’d been put out when the reporter interrupted his explanation with, “Wouldn’t this be dangerous?”

  Wyatt waited for his disclaimer, but the TV image shifted to Radford Bullis looking self-conscious.

  “Yellowstone’s Chief Scientist also gave a warning,” said the voiceover.

  Jesus, thought Wyatt. The new superintendent was not only going to wonder what kind of stupid interview they had given, she’d be livid.

  As if that weren’t bad enough, he next heard, “Immediately after our interview with Dr. Hobart, Dr. Kyle Stone of the Utah Instit
ute questioned his credibility.”

  She looks magnificent, Wyatt thought, with her shoulders back, pointing the finger and telling Brock off with increasingly rosy cheeks. But when Dr. Nicholas Darden took her arm on camera, Wyatt frowned.

  Lying in his bed, he listened to the rain. It was good to be inside and warm on an inclement night, but the cadence brought back the melancholy he’d felt in his tent when camping with Alicia. Tonight it had an edge to it.

  Wyatt pushed back his covers. Alicia would not expect him to drive down to her place in Gardiner this late, but he expected it would be a nice surprise.

  After dressing, he went into the kitchen, grabbed his parka, and plucked his keys off the counter. He first considered his Park Service truck then decided he was on personal business this evening.

  A few minutes later, he guided his pickup into Gardner Canyon, a steep-walled section where signs warned of falling rock. He sensed rather than saw the vertical amphitheater of thinly bedded sand and shale looming on the right side, where he’d often seen bighorn sheep defy the edge.

  Headlights swept around a curve and into Wyatt’s eyes; a big RV, probably heading up to the campground. He was happy to be on the cliff side rather than next to the drop-off. As the two vehicles drew closer to each other, he heard something over the truck engine and the wet slap of his windshield wipers. For a moment, he thought the RV had engine trouble.

  An instant later, he pinpointed the sound as coming from above in the rock amphitheater. A gathering roar shot adrenaline down his arms.

  He stomped his accelerator and blew the horn to warn the RV. The driver responded by swerving toward the roadway’s outer edge. Still blowing his horn, Wyatt sped downhill. The RV passed and he saw a white haired man with glasses behind the wheel.

  “Go back!” Wyatt shouted, waving a hand.

  The RV continued up.

  In the red glow of his taillights, Wyatt watched a jumbled mass of mountain roil across the road. A rush of compressed air ahead of the slide shoved the truck sideways like an invisible road grader. He fought the wheel, expecting any second to be caught and crushed.

  Ahead, the road curved to the right, out of the avalanche chute. Wyatt clutched the wheel and fought the pressure wave. A hail of rocks smashed his pickup’s panels and the passenger side window took a hit and broke.

  He wondered if he was going to make it.

  Kyle lay in her hotel bed beneath a lamp’s glow, unable to go back to sleep after believing she felt an earth tremor. Her watch said it was seven past twelve.

  Maybe she was imagining things, for there was a rainstorm again like last night. She got up and went to the window, peeking around the curtain to keep from being a nude silhouette against the room light. Outside, rain slanted beneath the streetlamp’s glow, breaking up the reflections on the pavement. A lone light burned in one of the cabins behind the hotel.

  Maybe Nick was awake, too.

  She stabbed her hands through her sleep-mussed hair. Working with him was going to be tricky. Although she’d turned down his offer of dinner, she wouldn’t be able to avoid him forever. Thank goodness Wyatt was going into the backcountry with them.

  Her stomach rumbled, protesting that her room service supper had been too light. Unfortunately, a quick mental inventory brought up nothing open in the park at this hour.

  Five miles down to Gardiner, her hunger bargained. There was at least one twenty-four-hour gas-and-convenience store.

  She dressed and left the hotel, driving the van past unlit office buildings, the post office and clinic. Down the hill around the hairpin turn, the campground was also dark as were most of the houses on the right side of the road.

  Kyle recognized Wyatt’s place. His porch light was on and though his Park Service Bronco was in the carport, his pickup was not there.

  A Coke and one of the big chocolate bars with almonds drew her on toward town. One thing she wouldn’t do anymore is chicken out because it was dark. Not after last night.

  A sign welcomed her to Montana and she headed into Gardner Canyon. No cars were coming into the park at this hour. As she drove, she reconsidered … perhaps a loaf of bread and ajar of peanut butter.

  Around the next curve, all thought of food was forgotten. Sound, sudden, a rumble rising into a roar. The primal note of landslide, a sound deeply embedded in her psyche, was enough to strike terror as she clenched the steering wheel.

  The van seemed to be in awful slow motion and she froze with her foot poised between the accelerator and the brake. She didn’t know if the danger was behind, in front, or about to strike her dead on as the cacophony filled the night.

  Headlights appeared from around a curve, an RV coming up from below.

  In the van’s high beams, a mass of mud and rock tore across the road directly in front of her. Kyle watched the RV caught and bulldozed, lifted up onto its side, and shoved over the drop.

  She jammed on the brakes, and the rear wheels lost traction. The back end came around, swung sideways, and slid on the sheen of mud coating the pavement. The edge of the drop was close, too close.

  Holding tight to the wheel, she watched the headlights arc through the night, expecting at any second to go past the point of no return.

  With a jolt, the van came to rest against the mound of earth. Kyle’s head jerked and she narrowly missed cracking it against the window. She expected the air bag to deploy, but it did not, probably because of the side impact.

  A vision of telling Hollis the Institute’s vehicle had been buried made her want to spin the wheel and accelerate away from the slide, but she cut the engine and left the headlights on as she leaped out. Her running shoes gave little traction on the slippery pavement and she nearly went down.

  From her pocket, she pulled out her flashlight and played it over the irregular mound of mud, boulders, and felled trees. The RV must be under tons of rock, but she had to hope it might be lying somewhere down near the Gardner River.

  The wind-driven rain renewed its assault and she pulled up the hood of her parka. She drew out her new cell phone and punched in 911, holding her other hand with the flashlight over the instrument to keep it from getting wet.

  The dispatcher answered.

  “There’s been a landslide in Gardner Canyon,” Kyle reported, finding it hard to talk and breathe at the same time.

  “Someone else has just reported that.”

  Kyle looked around, but as there was no one in sight, she assumed the call came from down the canyon. “I’m on the upslope side where an RV went over the edge. No rescue vehicles can get up from Gardiner, so contact the Park Service to send help down.”

  “What is your exact location?”

  “North of the Montana line, still inside the park. For God’s sake, I’ve got to go check on some people.” With a wet shiver, Kyle broke the connection. She decided to call Wyatt in case he was home for help, but her cell phone gave three sharp beeps and died.

  Studying the broken landscape, she could see the slide blocked at least two thirds of the river. Water ponded behind the earthen dam, dark water that would be even blacker without her flashlight. The quick torrent already ate at the loose material.

  She continued to play her light around. Then she gasped.

  The rain-scattered glow revealed the wheels and chassis of the RV tilted toward the sky. It lay in an eerily unstable position, almost on its back. One headlight was buried, the other pointed into the heavens. The vehicle’s rear end was in the river.

  “Help!” Kyle heard thinly on the wind.

  Sidestepping to avoid a fall, she hurried downslope. Her mind spun with things she wished she had with her, starting with the sturdy climbing rope she’d left in her bedroom at home.

  As she drew nearer to the RV, someone cried out again.

  Kyle slid to a stop on the downstream side. The engine still ran, giving off diesel fumes. The front of the passenger side was embedded in the slide, the window and part of the windshield buried. Through the driver’s
window at knee height, she saw two people crumpled on the ceiling that was now the floor.

  She scrambled closer and saw the door about halfway back. It appeared to be clear, but she would have to climb over a huge boulder to get to it.

  The rock was slippery and covered in sharp sand that tore at her hands. The traction of her running shoes was the only thing that got her to the top. About to make the four-foot drop that would put her in front of the door, she felt a little shift and went still, not sure whether to go or stay.

  Slowly at first, then with gathering momentum, the rock started to roll. Kyle leaped and grabbed the metal panel on the side of the RV. The raw bottom edge, now at the top, felt like it would cut her fingers off as she dangled from it. Her dropped flashlight shined a half circle on glistening earth.

  The boulder smashed the light, tumbled end over end, and landed with a splash fifteen feet below. From where she hung, Kyle couldn’t see what else might be coming down the hill. The sharp edge of metal dug deeper into her palms.

  She opened her hands.

  When she landed, her legs sank calf-deep into muck. She struggled to free her uphill foot. When she tried to lift it, her other leg went in to the knee. Stretching up, she just missed being able to reach the door handle.

  Kyle listened to the growl of the diesel and the river’s rush. Transferring her weight from one foot to the other, she wriggled to try and free them. First one and then the other shoe and sock were sucked off in the mud as, inch by inch, she drew her legs and feet out.

  The RV shifted, slipping farther down the hill. Praying it didn’t roll and crush her beneath it, she grabbed for the door handle. Her stinging hands gritty on the metal, she yanked and it gave in her hand.

  Kyle tumbled inside and smelled styrene from the paneling and carpet. She dragged herself up using a captain’s chair hanging from what was now the ceiling. The RV sloped at a high angle, and in the light from the dash, she made out an elderly couple in matching jogging suits, kept from rolling back by the ceiling box containing the air conditioner. A dark smear in the man’s silver hair might be blood.