It was still dark when they heard the truck door slam in the driveway next to the kitchen. The grey aluminum storm door opened and in ducked the boys’ uncle Jeff, Karen’s half-brother. He was one of the biggest men the boys had ever seen and there was no mistaking that he was native with his raven black hair and tanned skin. People often said that Lex looked as though his Uncle Jeff had spit him out; they looked so much alike. This always made Ricky feel like an outsider because he looked more like the people of their father's European heritage.
“Hey what’s for breakfast, Sis?” Uncle Jeff winked at the boys as he slung his Natural Resources Canada logoed jacket over the back of a chair and sat down at the kitchen table.
“Bubble and squeak with salmon steaks just as you requested, your highness,” Karen sometimes adored her older brother. He was all the family she had left other than her two sons.
“Awesome!” Uncle Jeff grinned at them. Now the boys understood why all the furniture seemed so big in their grandfather’s house. Their Mom told them that the house had been built by their grandfather and Uncle Jeff over thirty years ago when he was just a teenager and they both moved south after Jeff’s mom died of tuberculosis.
“Awww, can’t we just have cereal,” complained Lex. “What the heck is bubble and squeak anyway?”
“Ancient Indian recipe little half-breed,” boomed Uncle Jeff in his best stereotypical Indian mimicry, “potato, leeks, eggs and mussels all fried up together. Doesn’t it smell great?”
“Mom says half-breed is a derogatory term and that we are called Métis now,” chimed in Ricky.
“Is that so?” Uncle Jeff cocked an eye toward his sister, unsure of whether he was annoyed or amused with the courage of the little fella to speak up. “Well actually…”
Uncle Jeff never got a chance to finish as his sister stepped between them and started ladling the bubble and squeak onto her brother’s plate. “Yes it is and I won’t have you telling them any different,“ Karen advised him sternly. “That war ended a long time ago and I won’t have you stoking that fire in my kids. You know more than half the people in this land have native blood in them. That means we all belong to the land.”
Jeff put a big smile on his face and gently put his hand on his sister’s arm, “I didn’t mean nothin’ by it Sis. I was just goofing around. Aren’t you hungry boys? This smells great!” Uncle Jeff winked at Ricky and started shoveling the food in. As much as he promised himself he wouldn’t, he managed to touch that nerve in his sister again, after all this time. He could never really get over the fact that his father had married a white woman within two years of his mother's death. Karen's mom was young and had a hard time coping with a bitter native son and baby. By the time Karen was two years old her mom had run off
Jeff knew he played a significant role in Karen’s mothers’ decision to leave. Being back in the family home with his sister again brought back a flood of memories of stupid heated arguments on things no one could do anything about. He was so bitter back then. Although his father never came out and said it, Jeff came to blame himself for his sister leaving and going south when she was just seventeen. So when Karen phoned him up last month telling him that she was splitting up with her husband and didn’t know what to do, he saw it as an opportunity to atone for past wrongs he had done to his only remaining blood relative.
“Disgusting!” Ricky declared. “I will have some of the salmon though,” and he speared one of the grilled steaks from the plate in the middle of the table.
“How about you Lex? You like it?” questioned Uncle Jeff digging the tines of his fork into a mussel.
“It’s OK,” answered Lex as he picked out the potato that he knew he would like, anxious to please his uncle.
“Well you kids have fun and don’t forget to clean up,” Karen was hurriedly pulling her things together to get out the door. “I should be home by 3:00 or so, I have to spend a lot of time on my lesson plan for this new class. Have fun and mind your uncle in the bush,” she reminded the boys as she kissed her sons and stumbled out the kitchen screen door.
“At last men only!” Uncle Jeff remarked as he rolled his large frame slightly to the left and squeezed one out that sounded a lot like a blast on Lex’s trumpet, “I thought she’d never leave!” He roared and made another toot.
“Yeah!” Lex laughed as he belched as loud as he could.
“Copy that!” Ricky sounded off a large burp of his own.
Odd, Jeff mused to himself as he gathered up the dirty dishes, how the most rudimentary animal functions bond all males. “Well, boys let’s get crackin’. Lex put the leftovers in the fridge. Ricky put the dirty dishes in the sink. You boys make sure to clean the dishes when you get home after our trip today, right?
“Right,” Lex marched in step.
“Sure, Uncle Jeff,” Ricky said as he quickly turned and picked up his smooth stone he had forgotten on the table.
“Hey that’s one nice piece of lava you got there, Ricky.” Jeff noticed as Ricky jammed the stone deep into his jeans.
“Lava? Is that what it is?” Ricky pulled back out to look at.
“Yeah that dark red brick color can only mean lava around here,” Uncle Jeff was looking at the smooth stone closely in Ricky’s hand. “Most are a light purple. Dark red one’s like that are really rare. You had better be careful down by the river collecting those rocks, the water in the Skeena River is fast. I once knew a guy who stood in the current the wrong way, got his foot wedged under a rock and the force of the water pushed him onto his back under the water. Simple mistake and if someone hadn’t been there close to him, he would have drowned.”
“Oh, I didn’t get it at the river,” confessed Ricky.
“Well, that’s the only place a smooth lava stone like that can come from. It takes hundreds or maybe thousands of years for the rivers to wear a stone smooth like that,” Uncle Jeff informed the boys.
“Well, I found enough of these smooth red stones in the bush up on the ridge to fill that garbage can,” Ricky said.
“Really?” Uncle Jeff was deep in thought as he took the stone from Ricky and examined it more closely, “show me.”
As the three of them left the house dawn was beginning to break east over the ridge casting a rhubarb hue into the light blue sky. Ricky wasn’t sure he would be able to find the same spot where he left the main trail but knew Uncle Jeff had a good eye for sign in the bush. After walking along the trail for about twenty minutes there began a light rain in the forest and Uncle Jeff, who was trailing the boys, stopped and pointed left.
“Is this where you went in, Ricky?” The long grass was pushed down, as it was obvious something had left the trail here.
“Ah, yeah, could be,” Ricky wasn’t really sure until he noticed the red berries all over the path. He picked up a couple, “Yeah, I remember knocking all of the berries off these plants.”
“That’s what I figured,” said Uncle Jeff looking off into the bush. “Don’t ever eat any of those red or white baneberries. Just a couple for a fella your size could stop your heart.” He looked at Ricky, “show me where you found the stone.”
Ricky led the way toward the big red cedar tree and showed Lex and Uncle Jeff the conical pile of stones between its two large roots.
“I don’t understand what brought you in here in the first place,” Uncle Jeff was down on his left knee picking up one of the scores of smooth bright red lava stones that were stacked neatly into a wide cone maybe two feet high and three feet across at the base. “And where were you Lex?”
Lex didn’t know what to say. He knew he was wrong for letting his little brother go off on his own, but he was tired of being the babysitter.
Ricky had no problem telling his story. He would have told Lex last night if he had of been nicer to him. Uncle Jeff and Lex listened with rapt attention to every detail of Ricky’s story. The wet dog smell, the breathing sounds and the whistling, they were fascinated.
The boys noticed that Uncle Jeff seemed very concerne
d, “You guys should stay out of the bush around here. And if you do go in the bush make sure you make lots of noise. Don’t try to be quiet. There are lots of bears and the odd mountain lion that you do not want to surprise in the bush.”
“Is that what you think it was, a bear or mountain lion?” asked Ricky.
“No. Your instincts were right there, Ricky. Animals don’t whistle,” replied Uncle Jeff contemplatively as he set the red stone he was examining back into it’s position in the pile and stood up. “It sounds like one of the Old One’s,” Uncle Jeff said more to himself than the boys.
“The old one’s? Who are the old one’s?” asked Lex.
Uncle Jeff noticed just how thick the forest’s embrace became a mere twenty feet from them and got an uneasy feeling that they might be watched at this very moment.
“Let’s move out guys, we have work to do today,” Jeff started back out to the trail with Lex close behind him. Ricky was quick to gauge his uncle’s uneasiness but couldn’t resist grabbing a couple more of those smooth red stones for his pockets.
They made it back to the house a lot faster than it took them to get to the place of Ricky’s encounter with the Old One. Uncle Jeff seemed to be in a hurry but kept looking back to make sure the boys were close behind. When the boys had a chance to talk about it later that night, Lex said Uncle Jeff was in a hurry because he was late to start his day, but to Ricky it felt more like his uncle was spooked by something. When they pressed their uncle as to who the Old Ones were all Uncle Jeff would say is that they would talk about it later.
Uncle Jeff had a job as a geologist for the federal government that provided him with a dual cab, four-wheel drive Ford pick up complete with a cap on the back. They all piled in and headed north for about an hour along the Nisg’a’ Highway until the wet, lush forests of the Coast Mountains gave way to a barren rocky wasteland covered in moss and lichen.
“Wow! What happened here!” exclaimed Lex who was riding shotgun.
“This is why we are here boys. We call this the Nass Valley lava flow, the most recent large scale eruption of lava in these mountains.”
“I don’t see any volcano. Where’s the volcano? If there is lava shouldn’t there be a big volcano?” Ricky was in the back seat moving from window to window looking for a volcano rising out of the rocky desert like those he had seen spewing lava on TV.
“Good point but no there is no volcano that blew its top here, guys.” Uncle Jeff began to explain. “This whole area is on the edge of the Kitsumkalum-Kitimat valley, formed millions of years ago by the movement along fault lines allowing the rock of the valley floor to sink, while the adjacent rocks were pushed up to form the mountains you see all around us.”
“Yeah, we talked about this in school,” chimed in Lex. “Tectonic plates come together and cause huge compressive forces that over time create mountain ranges.”
“That’s the idea,” began Uncle Jeff, but Ricky jumped in.
“But if plates are being pushed together, I thought you would get huge volcanoes?” Ricky insisted.
“Normally yes,” Uncle Jeff carried on, pleased that the boys were so keen to understand how it all worked. “In this valley the force is no longer compression but the opposite. About 50 million years ago the compressive forces of the plates coming together began to relax and the land began to pull apart, breaking into fault blocks. Rocks on the bottom of the Kitsumkalum-Kitimat valley began to sink without those compressive forces holding them in place. While at the same time the Hazelton Mountains in the east and the Coast Mountains in the west were pushed up along the fault lines.”
“So the lava seeped up through cracks?” Ricky puzzled it out.
“Exactly!” Uncle Jeff was excited, he had no idea these kids were so bright.
“Well then why is all that lava out there all broken up into big chunks instead of all smooth like tar?” Ricky asked.
“As the lava is forced up through the fault line it is about 1000 degrees Celsius, very hot and very viscous, molten rock. But as it begins to cool, say below 700 degrees Celsius, the lava begins to solidify on top but the molten rock below continues to run forming lava tubes,” Uncle Jeff explained.
“Ah, I get it,” Lex began to describe the process in his own terms. “Just like the skin on the chocolate pudding that mom makes for us. As the pudding cools a hardened skin forms and cracks on the top while the hot stuff stays runny below.”
“You got it. And as the lava flow dissipates or the volume becomes less and less these lava tubes become large and cavernous but cannot support their own weight. As the lava rock cools and contracts the lava tubes cave in on themselves and you get this landscape of lava rubble.”
Uncle Jeff pulled up to a small white, padlocked shack with a communications aerial on top, “This is one of the seismic stations I have to run through a maintenance routine. You boys don’t wander off too far, this won’t take long.”
Lex and Ricky were amazed at the size of the lava flow and took several minutes just scanning the area. Rubble and ponds of lava seemed to fill the whole valley as far as the eye could see. There was very little vegetation growing on the lava fields and the boys concluded that this must be a fairly recent event.
“How long ago did this happen, Uncle Jeff,” Lex asked as Jeff pushed his tools from the tailgate to the bed of the truck and closed up.
“Well, you tell me. How long ago do you think this happened?”
“Don’t know, we were just trying to figure that out,” piped up Ricky.
“It happened in the mid-1700’s, about 250 years ago,” Uncle Jeff responded.
“That long ago and still nothing grows here?” Lex’s found this fact incredulous.
“You have to have soil to grow. How long do you think it will take for enough organic material such as weeds, moss and lichen to break down and create soil deep enough to support the cedar and spruce trees that used to grow here?”
“A long time,” Ricky pondered aloud.
“A very long time to us. Another thousand years of what you see here, small weeds, moss and lichen. The rain will weather and break down some of the lava. Grasses will slowly take hold and eventually smaller bushes until finally after hundreds and hundreds of years, there will be enough topsoil for a forest again. Now hop in we have to get to the next seismic station quickly, I am behind.”
“I call shotgun!” Ricky bolted for the passenger side door and hopped in leaving Lex shaking his head and hopping in the back seat.
“Was there anybody living around here when the lava came through?” Ricky asked, looking out at the endless rubble desert.
“Well, yeah,” Uncle Jeff gave Ricky and Lex a long sideways glance wondering if Karen had told these boys anything of their ancestry. “Our people, your grandfather’s people, we are all related to the Nisga’a people that lived here.”
“What happened to them?” Lex was leaning forward with his arms folded on the back of the front seat.
“C’mon man, lean back and put your seatbelt on, your mother would skin me alive if anything ever happened to one of you boys,” Uncle Jeff admonished Lex. “Well, it was a long time ago but they say most of the people were killed quickly and in two villages, more than two thousand people died.”
“Wow, that’s a lot of people. How come so many died? Didn’t they have any warning?” Ricky was astounded.
“Remember that it happened 250 years ago when the fastest thing was a horse and there wasn’t even a telegraph anywhere, let alone a telephone. Molten lava can move incredibly fast when it is forced out of the ground. It took the path of least resistance like any other liquid and flowed down the Tseax River valley to the Nass River valley and the Nisg’a’ villages,” Uncle Jeff painted the picture.
“What? Were they sleeping? Did it happen in the middle of the night or were they caught off guard somehow? How come they couldn’t outrun the lava or get out of the way?” Ricky was perplexed.
“Precisely Ricky, they were caught off gua
rd. They never had a chance because the carbon dioxide released through the fault moved down slope with the wind and killed them all through asphyxiation before the lava ever came close to them,” Uncle Jeff said as they pulled off the road.
“You mean they died from poison gas?” Lex concluded.
“No. They died from lack of oxygen. The sheer volume of carbon dioxide that seeped out of the fault at the time of the lava flow, pushed away all of the oxygen to the point where the people simply couldn’t breathe.”
“Like a fish out of water?” Lex surmised.
“Unreal,” Ricky simply stated.
Over the next couple of hours they made several stops to inspect and maintain the seismic stations along this leg of the fault block.
“This is our last station to inspect boys, the Tseax Cone, the place where it all started. It may not look like much but the lava pooled up there before the cinder cone dam burst open and lava was pushed out from below.”
“Is it still active?” inquired Lex as he looked up the 100-meter slope.
“Sure is,” said Uncle Jeff, “that’s why we monitor this area so we can warn people when it starts to rumble.
“Is it dangerous? We won’t be gasping for air around here will we?” Ricky looked concerned as he got out of the truck.
“No, the sensors we have would detect abnormally high carbon dioxide levels along with any seismic activity. We’re pretty safe here,” Uncle Jeff assured the boys as he removed his toolbox from the truck.
“I suppose we could outrun the gas in this truck anyway, eh Uncle Jeff?” Ricky was patting the tailgate at the back of the truck.
“I am sure,” smiled Uncle Jeff as he checked his instrumentation.
“Of course, it takes oxygen to burn gasoline, so the truck may not get us very far if the carbon dioxide comes out really fast like last time,” Lex said as he jumped in to ride shotgun, delighted with the uncomfortable look on Ricky’s face.
A Guest for Halloween: A Lex & Ricky Mystery Page 3
