by Linda Jacobs
She controlled her tone with an effort. “We’re trying to get some vital real time data for Nick Darden at USGS. He flew into the park this morning to measure gravity and discovered Nez Perce Peak is swelling at a foot an hour.”
“Good God.” Hollis’s imperial tone was replaced by uncertainty.
“The thing is,” she said evenly, “Wyatt is having some trouble logging in to the site. We need to give Nick the safest place to wait until he can be picked up by helicopter.”
Hollis was silent. She wondered whether he was suspicious of her story or realizing the magnitude of his mistake.
Wyatt reached his long arm across the desk and took the receiver out of her hand. “Get with the program, Hollis. You might try firing Kyle, but you can’t cut off the National Park Service without getting your ass into a serious sling.”
She heard Hollis sputtering as Wyatt kept talking. “Right now, no one knows except her and me that you cut off my security access. But if they find out what a childish stunt you pulled with Darden’s life at stake, you’re going to be looking for a job.” He handed the receiver back.
“If they find out?” she heard Hollis say faintly.
“Nobody has to know,” she told him. “Unless something happens to Nick.”
Five minutes later, they were in. Kyle pulled up the GPS elevation data and compared it to the information that was several days old. The mountain had come up three feet the day the quake killed the horses, twice that yesterday, and they confirmed that the rate was now a foot an hour and rising.
“Maybe Nick is still set up at station four.” Kyle spoke around a lump in her throat. “Let’s call and warn him.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
OCTOBER 1
The first jolt of the quake knocked the satellite phone off the chest containing the seismic station equipment. The second sent Nick sprawling.
Lying on his side, he had a view down the Saddle Valley and up the north flank of Nez Perce Peak. He told himself there had been plenty of tremors, so many that he should be inured to them by now.
This was different.
There was a noise like an approaching plane, but he didn’t believe a military fighter would be in the vicinity. Rather, he suspected the frenzied rush of heated rocks and gases, hurtling up the final vent toward the surface. The din continued to grow.
He glanced at his watch. 1:12 PM. Locating his camera, he figured there was no sense being the only one to see what happened next.
With hands that shook, he raised the Nikon and tried to focus. The quaking of the ground grew more violent and he lay on his stomach and planted his elbows.
He saw it first, of course, because of the great difference between the speed of light and sound. The peak in front of him seemed to shimmer as though seen through heat waves. Reddish cinders danced.
Then there was lift, almost in slow motion as the top quarter of the mountain peeled free. Seen through the telephoto, it looked as though Nick sat directly in the path of millions of tons of flying rock. He steeled himself not to flinch or stop taking pictures.
The concussion shoved his chest and he collapsed with his face in the dirt. Now, nothing was in slow motion. The explosion of sound first surrounded and then penetrated him. His bones vibrated. A sharp stab of nausea unsettled his internal organs and he feared losing control of his bowels. Pinned by the pressure wave, he lifted his hand and touched wetness on his cheek. His eardrums must be bleeding.
Here it was. What he’d desired, angled, and prayed for. In awe of Nature’s display, he felt completely insignificant. What happened in the next few seconds would decide his fate … or at least whether he was to survive this initial eruption. There was no telling how many or how large subsequent blasts might be. Whatever he might wish now, he was stuck with his decision.
And what he’d told Kyle about being killed by a volcano.
If the side of the crater had broken down, resulting in a lateral outburst, he’d be done for already. The fact that he was still alive meant this force was directed upward. Shoving his camera inside his parka, Nick managed to make it to his feet.
As the shock wave subsided, rocks thrown out of the volcano, known as bombs for obvious reasons, peppered the sky.
He’d heard about rock falls. The secret was to dodge the bombs, a dicey experience, while trying not to panic. Especially not to turn your back and flee, when every instinct screamed, “Run for your life.”
Nick’s feeling of being inconsequential rose. Even as he braced like a tennis player about to receive service, he knew one false move could mean a broken limb or being smashed in the chest or head.
Above the mountain, a dark column rose into the sky. Tongues of what looked like flame leaped from the mouth of a new crater where the relatively soft cinder cone had been. Fumes stung his nose and made his eyes water. Blinking, Nick struggled to focus on the incoming missiles.
There came a mean-looking one, an irregular, twisted bomb shaped like a piece of driftwood. He started to feint left, then watched its spiraling path and stood his ground. It landed a few feet away, finishing the job on the satellite phone.
“Son of a bitch.” Definitely no life flight now.
Here was another pitch, headed straight for the plate. He jumped right and watched it crash to earth. Adrenaline surged as another projectile landed in the middle of the solar panel for the station. Bits of silica and plastic flew.
More rocks fell, glowing crimson and ochre, and giving off steam as they landed. Nick darted this way and that with the sinking sensation that his opponent was running him all over the court. Several plum-sized pellets hit, one on his shoulder and the other on his foot. Both stung and he felt the heat through his clothing and boot.
He decided it would be better to seek cover than continue the deadly game of dodge ball. Gasping for breath, he snatched up his backpack and dove behind the storage chest.
With his pack as protection for his head and shoulders, he hunched down behind the barrier and looked toward the eruption’s source. Rocks the size of cars ejected from the crater to bounce and tumble down the flanks he’d surveyed not two hours ago.
The violence did not diminish. Protected from rocks coming in laterally, Nick peeked up from under his pack for those falling out of the column of ejecta. As fast as they were coming, he heard one auger in nearby before he saw it. Then another landed uphill, giving him just enough warning to jump aside before it jounced and rolled to lie hissing on the tarp. Smelling hot sulfur, he kicked the missile aside and watched it continue downhill.
It began to happen with chilling regularity. With horror, he knew it was no use watching out. He would either be hit or not.
All the while, he prayed there would not be a pyroclastic flow. His position low on the flank of the mountain would be a death trap should a mix of hot rock and gases come rushing down the volcano.
With a crash, a red-hot bomb hit the chest three feet from Nick. Small bits flew, embedding themselves in his forehead and cheeks, and burning like branding irons. With a cry, he clawed at his face, tearing at both rock and flesh. His hands came away slick with blood.
God, it hurt. Even with the slivers removed, he felt the raw searing and smelled scorched flesh along with smoke and rotten eggs.
A moment later, a new and noxious odor filled his nostrils. Heat flared … the tarp over the chest was on fire.
Wind whipped up the flames and forced him from his shelter.
More bombs hissed and sizzled through the air, some streaking in on his left with a sound like a passing bullet. He could hear nothing out of his right ear. It ached deeply, yet felt as though it were plugged with cotton.
A baseball-sized rock struck his right hand, smashing his little finger as neatly as a hammer blow. Pain exploded in his head.
He wasn’t going to get out of this. The thought sounded crystal pure against the cacophonous backdrop of noise assaulting his remaining ear.
Fighting back from the edge of giving up, he scanned
the slope for a better hiding place. It was barren, but for dry grasses he believed would soon be a raging brushfire. Around fifty yards upslope was a copse of aspen, but that would burn as well.
Nick gauged the wind and decided. Instead of just holding his pack, he shrugged it on. His moon suit lay nearby. Grabbing the heavy material, he slung it over his head and shoulders and began scrambling upwind of the fire.
A bomb landed on a nearby boulder and shattered both. Shards flew in all directions, and more small fires started in the nearby grass.
It could only have been a few minutes since the eruption began, but he was already reduced to staggering uphill on trembling legs. Thinking of how worried Kyle would be when she realized what was happening, he managed to keep moving.
With an eye on the sky for falling bombs, he put his foot down on a loose rock. It turned, his ankle followed, and the next thing he knew he was on all fours. Trying to steady himself, Nick managed to set his hand down on a glowing fragment and burn his palm through his glove. His breath hissed in through his teeth and he swore. With his head hanging like a whipped dog’s, he waited for a fresh assault of pain.
For like the solid earth, his pain was layered. Topmost was the sharp agony of his seared face and neck, like a never-ending scream. Next, his smashed finger refused to go numb even in this cold. He pulled off his bloody glove and saw white bone where the meat had been stripped away. And beneath those pains were the deep aches of numerous and distinctive bruises where rocks had struck until he was like a punch-drunk boxer.
Nick rocked his weight back and forth between his hands and knees in preparation for getting to his feet. One and two and … nothing. His arms and legs shook with the futility of the task.
Another wave of tremors propagated through muscle and bone. He turned and looked up at the rim of the crater.
He’d been lucky so far today, as he had been all during his career. To keep his good fortune coming, he now ignored a sharp jolt of quake and lifted his good hand. His injured finger sent an arrow of pain that seemed to pierce his skull, but he managed to transfer his weight and move a knee forward.
Sweat ran down his cheek and dripped from his chin onto the rocky ground as he crawled. Twenty feet, fifty, and the slope steepened. Dark sparks began at the periphery of vision and closed down into a tunnel before his face.
He had to keep moving, but despite determination, he felt himself going down. His cheek landed hard, more insult to his burned flesh. In fact, pain was the only thing keeping him conscious.
In just a minute, he’d go on, but for now, he lay still. The cold wind found his sweat and started him shivering.
With an effort, Nick raised his head and looked toward the summit again. This time, he had to swipe blood out of his eyes and blink until his sight cleared.
Kyle would be so pissed at him for dying up here.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
OCTOBER 1
Nick doesn’t answer,” Kyle told Wyatt as she replaced the receiver and wiped her damp palm on her trousers.
He concentrated on the computer screen. “Look at this.”
The signal from seismic station four was like nothing she’d ever seen. Similar to the harmonic tremors Nick had pointed out, but this pattern had symmetrical excursions that went on for three or so cycles, subsided, and then renewed with greater amplitude. The effect was to draw something that looked like threads on a screw.
As they watched, the signal from the station flat-lined.
“Think things just got quiet up there?” Wyatt asked.
“Not a chance.” Kyle tried to breathe. “Station four is off the air, just like Nick’s phone.”
A shimmer from the surface of Wyatt’s coffee attracted her eye. It was on the move, a sure sign that tremors were passing beneath Mammoth.
Wyatt brought up station five, near the crest of Nez Perce Peak. It too had gone off line.
“What about the others?” Kyle gripped Wyatt’s shoulder.
“I’m clicking as fast as I can.” It took mere seconds to discover that the core stations surrounding Nez Perce had all gone down at precisely 1:12 PM.
Kyle pressed her fist to her mouth. “Keeping fanning out.”
He did. The first station they found that had recorded past the time was in the Lamar Valley. It showed that the screw-shaped signal continued.
A sudden rumbling shivered the office windowpanes and shook the ancient walls of the Resource Center. A distinct resonance Kyle remembered from once hearing a grain elevator explosion forty miles away. Long and rolling, it grew louder by the second.
Wyatt swiveled his chair and looked out the window.
Kyle was already on her way to the door. She heard Wyatt’s boot heels clacking behind her as they went through the lobby and out onto the lawn. Hugging herself against the biting wind that presaged the cold front, she walked away from the Resource Center so it wouldn’t obstruct her view of the southwestern sky.
As the initial roar began to subside, Kyle saw a dark plume rising miles away in the direction of Nez Perce Peak. Much taller than it was wide, like every textbook picture of a classic Plinian eruption column, described by Pliny the Elder at Vesuvius where hundreds of thousands died.
“God,” she said. “Oh, God. Nick.” The chill air did not seem to contain enough oxygen.
Wyatt put his arm around her. “I’m sorry, Kyle.”
Numbly, she stared at the roiling smoke pushing toward the stratosphere and tried to maintain hope. She continued to be awed by the column’s massive height.
“It doesn’t look big enough to have blown up the whole mountain,” she hoped. “More like a sustained release from a crater.”
“Perhaps.” Wyatt sounded doubtful.
“Maybe he’s alive.” Yet, his satellite phone was dead, and there was no signal from seismic station four.
There was no reply from Wyatt.
“He was over a mile from the peak,” she argued. “Just because the equipment was damaged doesn’t mean Nick didn’t take cover somehow.” This was foolish, but once the seed was planted, she couldn’t stop it growing.
“Kyle.” Wyatt’s face was sober.
“Yes,” she insisted. “The eruption has stabilized.”
Wyatt squinted through his old pair of glasses.
Though she had trouble imagining going near the mountain … “After St. Helen’s exploded, there were helicopters and planes in the air right away. Some of the best news footage came from 15,000 feet.”
“But another blast, a bigger one could happen at any moment,” Wyatt said.
Something shifted inside her. “Wasn’t that true then? Isn’t it true every time a scientist steps onto an active volcano?”
Though Nick and the others who walked the edge were unarguably daredevils, she was the one who’d tried to have it both ways. To study Yellowstone from a distance, while rationing the time she dared spend there. Yet, she went through life trusting oncoming cars to stay on their side of the highway line, believing in the ability of a many-ton aircraft to fly, in short, fearing earthquakes and the dark because she had never shed the baggage of her past.
Kyle watched the eruption cloud billow skyward, realizing she and Wyatt were the only people who knew Nick’s position. If he could be found, given needed medical care, God forbid if it were only to retrieve his remains, they had to act fast.
“Wyatt, what was the name of the helicopter charter Nick used?” A raven, wings spread to catch a lift, cruised from the roof of the Resource Center to a nearby tree. “Some bird name.”
“Eagle Air.”
“Let’s go.”
They rushed back to his office. She dialed the number Wyatt found in the Internet White Pages. As the ringing went on and on, she felt like screaming.
After nine tones, a man answered brusquely, “Arvela.”
“Is this Eagle Air?”
“Yeah. Johnny Arvela. I own it.”
Across the desk, Wyatt sat in his guest chair, legs crowded b
y the scarred Park Service desk. She felt the tightness in him as he listened third-hand to the conversation.
“This is Kyle Stone calling from up in Mammoth,” she told the pilot. “You flew Nick Darden to Nez Perce Peak this morning?”
A snort, then, “I flew the crazy SOB.”
“I’m calling because Nick needs to be picked up and brought back down.”
The man laughed, but he didn’t sound as though he found anything funny. “He said the mountain might blow. Well, sister, have you taken a look out your window in the last few minutes?”
“Look, I’m with the Utah Institute of Seismology. Did you happen to see me on America Today?”
“I surely fucking did,” Arvela answered. “Based on your own prediction, your buddy is one crispy critter. And if you think I’m going to fly back up there, you’ve got another thing coming. My family and I are getting out of here.”
Kyle sensed his readiness to hang up. “If you won’t help, do you know any other pilot who might? Being on the scene to film an erupting volcano could mean a lot. Whoever gets the first footage will certainly be on the news.”
Awaiting the verdict, she met Wyatt’s concerned dark eyes. Then she followed his gaze out the window and saw that snow had begun falling in earnest. If they didn’t move soon, they might be socked in. “Please,” she appealed.
“I know one guy with the cast iron balls you’re looking for. Chris Deering.”
“Thank you,” Kyle said.
Wyatt grinned and put his feet to the floor, ready to go. She shook her head, grabbing a piece of paper to write down the number Arvela gave her.
“Not there yet,” she told Wyatt, dialing the cell phone of the other pilot.
The call was answered on the first ring. “Deering.” Though clipped, the deep, certain voice inspired her confidence.
“There’s a volcano erupting in Yellowstone,” she said. “How’d you like to be first on the scene?”
Deering chuckled. “I’m already going to be.” Her mouth dropped open. “You what? Where are you?” “You caught me in West Yellowstone. We can see that sucker blowing from here. Another five minutes and I’ll be in the air with a photographer.”