Rain of Fire (28 page)

Sleeping at Wyatt’s house, as she had been since he left, usually gave Alicia a good feeling upon awakening.

This morning she was uneasy.

In the night, she’d been shocked awake by a quake that went on for many seconds, sending her heart into her throat while she waited for it to stop.

In Wyatt’s terry robe that dwarfed her, she moved restlessly around his kitchen making tea. She turned on the TV and found out that last night’s shake was bigger than she’d imagined.

A still photo of earthquake predictor Brock Hobart was in split-screen with host Monty Muckleroy.

Monty smiled. “Folks, our friend Dr. Hobart has done it again. Brock, tell us what happened in Yellowstone last night.”

“With the new moon rising,” Brock’s voice sounded a little thin, “Yellowstone experienced an earthquake of magnitude 6.1, as I predicted last Friday.”

“I believe you said 6.0.” Monty looked coy.

The audience laughed.

“Monty, if you don’t think a 6.1 was close enough, I’ll have to find another talk show.”

“Oooh,” went the audience.

“As far as I’ve heard,” Brock went on, “there were no casualties. Most of the energy hit the park interior.”

“What do you predict next?” Monty asked.

“My preliminary analysis, based on public information on the Internet from the Yellowstone Seismic Network, makes me suspect there is a lot of energy still in the ground.”

Brock’s casual prediction of more trouble infuriated Alicia. There he sat far from harm’s way while Wyatt and the real scientists were treated as nobodies.

After Monty promised to keep the nation informed through more chats with Brock, Alicia headed up to Mammoth. Two news crews waited in the lot outside Headquarters. Inside the Resource Center, Iniki Kuni had a rumpled look to her spiky hair.

“Did you feel that earthquake last night?” Iniki asked.

“It was tough not to,” Alicia allowed, realizing that the young woman was more frightened than she had been. “But, didn’t you grow up here? Aren’t you used to it?”

Iniki got up, revealing a thigh-high skirt. “It’s never been this bad. First that landslide, then last night…” Her voice went shrill. “Brock Hobart says it isn’t over.”

Alicia said kindly, “Maybe we ought to wait and see what Wyatt and the scientists have to say. Wouldn’t you rather rely on them?”

Iniki subsided back into her chair. “Okay, but I haven’t heard from them.”

“I came to send email to Wyatt,” Alicia said. She vowed that after Wyatt’s absence this time she’d stop being computer illiterate and get her own account.

With a glance over her shoulder at the large corner office, Iniki said, “Radford’s always freaking out about security. He doesn’t even let me into his email, but since he’s not here, why don’t you use Wyatt’s computer?”

“Password?” Alicia asked.

Iniki pulled open a drawer and pointed a dagger-like nail at a sticky note. “It rotates every week. Thunder for his favorite horse, stone, like rocks, get it? Or,” she grinned, “Alicia.”

As she moved down the hallway, Alicia smiled to herself. Inside Wyatt’s office with the door closed behind her, she smelled heat from the radiators and could swear she caught the scent of him, a subtle mix of deodorant soap and evergreen. Finding his dress jacket hanging, she buried her face in woolen folds. She wanted to cry, for staying at his house was a poor substitute for being with him. Even his office felt abandoned.

She moved behind his desk and sat, trying to hold on to her sense of him.

After booting up Wyatt’s computer, and finding his password was ‘stone’, she opened his email. Not checking up on him, she did scroll through his inbox. He must have cleaned house recently, for he’d deleted almost everything except a long list of messages from
[email protected]
.

Frowning, Alicia opened the oldest one that dated back over a year.

Congratulations, Wyatt! I’m so happy you decided on the Yellowstone job instead of going for the oil company money. At least you won’t be far, for I’m going to miss my favorite student. I look forward to our working together in the future
.

In the next half hour, Alicia learned that Salt Lake City was at risk for a major earthquake, that Wyatt and Dr. Stone communicated at least once a week, and that the professor’s favorite color was blue.

Alicia closed the folder. She brought up a new message box, but whatever had been in her head to tell him had gone. As for his password,
Stone
, yeah, she got it.

Leaving the Resource Center, she found Superintendent Janet Bolido in her uniform and badge, fielding questions from reporters on the lawn.

“Last night’s earthquake measured magnitude 6.1. The last time we had one that strong was in 1975,” called Carol Leeds of
Billings Live Eye
. Her faded mass of red hair made her look like Medusa in a jeans jacket. “What about damage?”

“The Lake Hotel got a good shake,” Janet said, “but in the morning light we’re finding harm was minimal. Glassware, souvenirs, and the round glass window in the main stairwell were broken.”

“Aftershocks?” another reporter asked.

“They haven’t been too bad,” Janet said with evident satisfaction.

Carol Leeds broke back in, “The main road was clear yesterday, but last night’s quake rained more rock and dirt into Gardner Canyon.”

“Is that a question?” Janet countered.

Alicia leaned against a porch post and found she was checking to see if it felt solid or whether there were more tremors.

Carol went on, “What do you think about Brock Hobart predicting last night’s quake?”

Janet’s voice stayed even, but Alicia thought she looked infuriated. “I take my information from park scientists. They tell me that earthquake prediction, as to the specific time, place, and magnitude, is impossible. Brock may have made a lucky guess. So did psychic Jeanne Dixon with the Kennedy assassination.”

“What do your scientists tell you is going to happen next?”

“There is a team in the field even as we speak, adding more seismographs to our already extensive network. If they come up with anything, you’ll be the first to know.”

A
fter Wyatt and Nick had gone into the field, Kyle studied the seismic data. As she worked, the information coming from the stations corroborated their suspicions.

The focus of most of the recent earthquakes, including the 6.1 magnitude they had dubbed the New Moon Earthquake, made an accurate map of the Saddle Valley fault plane, dipping down into the earth at about seventy degrees. A shiver ran down her back as she looked at the time and intensity of the previous shocks. Small tremors had stopped a few days before the New Moon Earthquake, the period of relative quiet a potential indicator of stress building in the ground. Noting the continued lack of post-quake aftershocks, her fingers went still on the keyboard.

No, she told herself, it wasn’t time to start thinking like Brock Hobart.

Yet, she decided to access his website. To the right of his publicity photo, shot in a rustic field setting, blared the headline:

Pressure, the kind that sent gas to the surface …

Grabbing a gas detector, she went outside to check on the area around the cabin to make sure it was safe. Too high a concentration and she’d be forced to start climbing to avoid the heavier-than-air hydrogen sulfide.

Once she’d gotten a negative reading, she decided to risk a quick check on the progress of melting snow for the horses’ drinking water. Down the hill in the sunny Saddle Valley, she and Wyatt had spread a black plastic sheet and scooped a thin layer of snow over it. The edge of the sheet was draped over a rock and folded to funnel melt water into a PVC bucket. Around the black expanse, bare earth glistened, with sparse areas of frost propping up little castles in the dirt.

Although the wind cut coldly at Kyle’s face and neck, even those ice palaces were collapsing in the sun. Certain they had laid the tarp out on snow a few hours ago, she looked around and found that across the hillside, the hummocky blanket of white renewed.

If she had not been so concerned with checking her gas detector, she realized she might have seen it sooner. The area of barren ground was perhaps twenty yards wide, the melt line roughly linear. It followed the slash of Nick’s red pen across the map, as heat from below the ground escaped along the Saddle Valley Fault.

When dusk fell with no sign of Wyatt or Nick, Kyle began to imagine the worst. Wyatt had gotten into a pocket of poison gas, or wandered onto a thin crust and fallen through. Nick had gone into the lava cave he had found up the mountain and been unable to find his way out.

Just before full dark, she walked outside and used her gas detector again to be sure all was still clear. Coming back, she checked on the horses. Gray fell eagerly upon the fresh food she put in the buckets, while Strawberry sniffed at Kyle’s pockets for the expected sugar treat. “Good girl,” Kyle whispered, petting her velvet nose.

Next came fueling the generator, building a roaring fire on the hearth, and lighting the Coleman lantern. Finally, she decided to make dinner. It was supposed to be Wyatt’s turn, but the guys would be hungry when they got in. With their food stores nearly down to canned and dried items, she chopped an onion and mixed in cans of beans, tomatoes, and chili. As she was stirring the pot, she heard the sound of boots on the porch.

“Yo, Kyle!” Nick opened the door with a grin, his nose red from the cold wind, his jacket and pants smeared with dirt. “That chili I smell?”

“You bet.” Feeling some butterflies at being alone with him after last night’s debacle, she blurted, “Have you seen Wyatt?”

Nick sobered. “He’s right behind me, seeing to Thunder.” He went to the fire and put his back to her, holding his hands toward the flames.

A moment later Wyatt paused in the doorway and took in the cooking pot. His eyes sought hers. “Thanks. I wasn’t looking forward to cooking.”

“You’re welcome,” she murmured. “I’m glad you’re back safe.”

“In addition to bringing the data drives from the west, I found traces of H
²
S all along the Saddle Valley.” Wyatt took a few long strides and intimidated Nick into making room for him to get warm.

Ignoring Wyatt, Nick looked at Kyle. “Did you see the snow has melted all along the fault?”

She nodded. “Based on your experience with live volcanoes, what do you think’s going on here?”

He frowned. “Volcanoes can throw off a lot more gas and heat than this and not hurt anybody …” he trailed off.

“But?” Wyatt asked.

“In 1993,” Nick said, “at Galeras in southern Colombia, volcanologists took a fieldtrip to the crater. They believed it was safe because the fumaroles were quiet and the earth tremors calm.” In a grim voice, he finished, “It erupted without warning. Killed nine and injured six.”

T
he next afternoon Kyle kept checking the seismic traces. Nick’s warning about Galeras only served to renew her suspicion that the quiet after the New Moon’s storm might be the calm before the next one.

She rose and went out onto the porch to stretch her legs. This sitting around waiting for something to happen was driving her crazy to be out in the field.

At just past two, she saw Nick walking up from the valley.

“You’re back early,” she called when he was within earshot.

“Thought I’d beat the cowboy’s time.” His light-hearted banter was back, a sign she interpreted to mean he wasn’t going to speak of the other night, at least not in a serious manner. “Where is he, by the way?” Something in Nick’s expression said he was turning the tables on her for asking where Wyatt was the afternoon before.

“Should be just down the way, putting a new cable on seismic station four.”

He nodded toward her boots at the doorway. “Get your shoes on.”

“What for?”

“Thought we’d check for gas readings in that lava cave I told you about. If you bring your climbing rope you can help us get in and out.”

The last thing she wanted was to go into a cave. “Don’t I need to stay here and watch the signals?” she said, though only moments before she’d been eager for an excursion.

“It’s not far up to the cave mouth, and I got to thinking. Gas readings from a lava tube could be another valuable early-warning tool.” She heard that he didn’t mind risking their lives for information.

Well, weren’t they all gambling by simply being here? If something happened as swiftly as it had at Galeras, there would be no time to even call for a helicopter.

Nick took her silence for assent. “Did I see your climbing rope in the stable?”

“It’s there on a nail,” she replied evenly.

He headed out for the small log building, but once alone, she hesitated. The mere idea of total darkness made her breath come shallow. What if they got underground and got lost?

When Nick came back, she was still sitting before the computer.

“Daylight’s wasting,” he said.

“I don’t…”