by Dora Benley
As soon as the man turned his back on them and started to take orders from customers across the room while keeping his eye on them, Edward signaled Dora as if she were his troops. They both leaped up. He once again threw down the money. They both grabbed what they had not finished of their sandwiches, wrapped them in napkins, and stuffed them into their pockets. She followed him behind a marble pillar (this place was neo-classical and full of them) and then behind the next and the next until they made their way to the door. At least Edward had not revealed where they were going next at the Madison Campground.
She glanced behind her only to see the photographers with their cameras barging their way out of the restaurant behind them.
As soon as Dora and Edward leaped into the car they passed some frontier cabins as those horrible men pushed their way out the building flashing away. They were soon back on the figure eight road that ran through the park.
Chapter 25: Old Faithful Geyser Basin
Dora took out the remains of her sandwich and finished it as Edward ate his. "We do have to live a life, too, once in awhile. We cannot always spend our time avoiding thugs." She thought of the death defying feats at Sylvan Pass followed by the recent close call at the Lake Hotel.
Edward shook his head. "Churchill doesn't believe in that. Duty first. Always."
"That sounds like the military." She tried to resign herself to it.
"Whatever you want to call it. You get the idea." Edward emphasized the point he was making.
"Even in the military you are supposed to get time off. When you visit me, it is supposed to be like a holiday or vacation right?" Dora needled him. She thought longingly of the neoclassical hotel they had just left behind with the bright yellow exterior paint and the white Roman columns. It had sat along an enormous lake with mountains in the background and purple patched of Alpine flowers out front. She would like to have lingered there awhile even if it was only for another hour or two sipping tea and enjoying her sandwich instead of having to gobble it in a rush like this..
He brushed her cheek with his hand. "Amen! Wouldn't I like that! I have not been able to have that kind of vacation since before I met you, dear, back in May of 1915. My family were up to their necks in this map plot even then if you will remember, and I was only twenty-two. It was the year before in 1914 that everything started for me at Carchemish with my father. The war was just beginning. The archaeological dig that was his hobby was closing down. Lawrence was just beginning to sketch his maps." Edward swallowed hard. "And the Kaiser's spies started to follow us everywhere we went." Edward shook his head and sighed.
Dora could not get too distracted. She had to keep an eye on the park map. Short of being able to ask any fellow tourist or park employee they met for directions, it was their only guide. She did not think Churchill had been to Yellowstone, but if he had or had not, his directions to Edward had not been specific enough. Certainly at the very least he had not had time to give detailed directions. And not having detailed directions was risking your life around here where thugs hung out at every turn in the road — and in every restaurant, too.
God knew how many thugs worked for Hitler! He seemed to have collected an army already as Winston, Edward, and Lawrence had feared for years and years, ever since the last war in fact when the Austrian corporal had begun his rise in German politics, had assumed control of the National Socialist Party, had attempted an aborted coupe in 1923 which Edward and Lawrence had helped to put down, had gone to jail but had been sprung because of his popularity in Bavaria, and had finally gained a national consensus behind him. He had actually managed to get elected Chancellor and in effect Dictator of Germany. There was only a thin line keeping him from total, absolute control. That was von Hindenburg who was a very old man. Once he was gone there would be no stopping Adolf Hitler. He would have the army and navy behind him, the Luftwaffe, the SA or storm troopers, and the hearts of all Germans around the world except for America where all the German Americans like the Benleys were largely against the Nazis. Could Hitler be stopped even by the wily Winston Churchill? Dora and Edward were in Yellowstone today to find out and test the limits of what one bad apple, one devil among men, could accomplish.
They passed a strange place called West Thumb Geyser Basin. Steam was rising from the ground. Dora caught glimpses of emerald pools in the near distance. There was a giant one that was multi-colored with deep purple, light purple, yellow of different shades, intense emerald blue, white, and green. It seemed almost all the colors of the rainbow. Wooden boardwalks with people on them crossed the colorful, steaming pools. It made her shiver to think that if any of these simple tourists had enemies the way Dora and Edward did it would be curtains for them. They would get pushed into the witchly pools, and that would be the end of them.
"We are getting near the Continental Divide." Dora looked down at the map.
There were a lot of tall, lodgepole pine trees here. No one seemed to be hiding out among them as far as she could tell. But they were growing together in clumps only a couple of feet apart and formed and dark and dense wall behind which anything could be happening sight unseen.
After that the traffic started to increase. They emerged into a wide open area with lots of buildings clustered together in a giant parking lot. Her map as well as a signpost by the side of the figure 8 loop road told them that this was the Old Faithful area. Tourists milled about with cameras slung over their shoulders. She studied their faces to make sure that none of them were the camera men who had surprised them at the Lake Hotel. How could they get here that fast? Who knew? These agents of Hitler seemed like creatures who could fly through the air and dissolve and reappear in a matter of a few seconds like somebody from Mars.
"I wish these damn people would get out of the way!" Edward honked his horn in their faces.
A few of the tourists looked his way blankly and then turned away again with no recognition or understanding of what he had been honking about.
Even more tourists appeared, some climbing out of a trailer blocking the roadway.
"This is ridiculous!" Edward exclaimed. "Fabulously ridiculous! How am I supposed to get to the Madison Junction in time to meet Churchill's agent?"
He grabbed his gold pocket watch out of his pocket, the one he had inherited from his great-grandfather who had fought at the Battle of Waterloo under the Duke of Wellington. He carried it about everywhere with him, a great family military tradition. He sighed impatiently noting that the time was passing rapidly.
Edward tried to edge his way around the crowd but the roadway was only so wide. There were no other roads to follow that either of them could see. Dora rolled down the window and craned her neck. In every direction they encountered a solid wall of people.
"This isn't some tactic of the von Wessels, I hope!" Edward exclaimed. "I assume they have not hired all these folks to make sure I do not reach my rendezvous on time."
Dora exclaimed, "Where would they get all these people so fast?"
"The same place we picked up assistants when we needed them twice before on this trip," Edward reminded her. "Since almost everybody is unemployed, almost everybody is desperate for work. They are willing to do anything for a few dollars here and there. We took advantage of the Depression. Remember the war veterans I found along the highway? What about the farmers who obligingly blocked the road for us? Why not the von Wessels? Why wouldn't they work for them?" He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.
"But they are not ganging up on us or anything malicious!" Dora observed. "They act like we are not even here."
"Of course not! The von Wessels want them to make sure I do not get to the Madison Junction on time. That is all. It is very simple really. All the people have to do it walk across the parking lot. The von Wessels would not even have to let them in on the plot or anything risky like that." Edward threw up his hands.. "All they would have to do is make sure they all assemb
le here at a certain time. Then they are bound to be in our way just naturally."
True, Dora could count any number of "covered wagon" travel trailers hitched to cars parked around them, especially ones in bright red that really stood out. In fact there were a record number of vehicles everywhere —— as many as she had seen in any one place since they had left New York, in fact. She even counted a bus or two which could contain a number of people. It was hard for her to say what could happen anymore these days. It seemed like almost anything could, the more wild and unbelievable the better. Next she would see King Kong driving a trailer. That would be her luck. It seemed that the real world was taking on a very nightmare-like quality.
Suddenly there was a shout to the left. She felt a slight rumble beneath the car and wondered what was going on. Was it the vibration created by the mass trample of running feet? Something else? Dora craned her neck to see what was going on. Soon she did not have to crane her neck at all. Water was rising into the air high above everyone's heads. Why, it must be one of the geysers!
"That must be Old Faithful," Dora consulted her map. "Is that why all these people are gathered here?"
"If it is, remind me to get away fast and stay away. I heard waiters talking at the Lake Hotel. They said the blasted thing goes off every hour on the hour," Edward cursed.
There was a wind blowing. Some of the geyser's water was blowing their direction and raining down on top of their vehicle. Dora and Edward had to hurriedly roll up their windows, or they would get very wet very soon.
Dora quickly glanced at her map for some sort of explanation. The map itself did not say much about it. It just provided a location finder for the park as well as general information about motel rates and where to find a restaurant. But the park service had also distributed a pamphlet that expanded the more famous features of Yellowstone. She read aloud, "Why is Old Faithful Faithful?" She scanned the article. She reported to Edward, "They say it is often not once an hour that it erupts but about every ninety minutes or so."
"That is not much better!" he exclaimed.
"They say that geologists expect that Old Faithful has very shallow plumbing not far beneath the surface. They also postulate that for some reason they did not understand it is isolated from all the rest of the geysers in the surrounding basins except at some extreme depth for some mysterious reason that no scientist can explain. Old Faithful is the only geyser in the park that is so reliable — in all the world for that matter," she exclaimed. "It is also the only one that is so mysterious and isolated."
Dora shivered. There were too many strange, unexplained things going on today — and now the Old Faithful Geyser, too! It seemed almost supernatural.
"All I wish is that these folks would move on out of here. I do not care if the von Wessels brought them. I do not care if they appeared on their own because of Old Faithful. I just have to get this car to Madison quick." He tapped his foot impatiently.
Dora kept on scanning the material for something helpful. She nodded. "They say the geyser cone itself is built of something called silica."
"Whatever that is!" Edward sighed in an exasperated fashion as he continued to tap the steering wheel with his fingers.
"Apparently the geyser water contains it. So the cone builds itself. Then the water shoots up through the cone like a jet that constricts it and creates more pressure." She kept on reading.
"Don't give the von Wessels any ideas," he moaned. "Otherwise they will get their own silica even if they have to mine it here and build a geyser cone outside Ware Hall and maybe Churchill's Chartwell, too, just to thwart us and get in our way. That is what they love to do."
Dora continued to read from the map in order to steady her own nerves. "Underground the hot water pours into a teapot shaped chamber made of silica. Gases filter up from somewhere beneath the earth. Pressure builds. This heats up the water and makes it explode. It jets up through the narrow opening. That is what it is doing right now. Then it all begins over again." She plumbed the mysteries of the universe.
Finally the geyser stopped spouting. The crowd began to disperse. Edward immediately forced his way through and speeded up. But it did not do them much good. No sooner did Edward escape the Old Faithful area than he entered another geyser area with slow moving traffic.
"More geysers!" Edward hit his fist against the steering wheel.
She could not blame him. It did look other worldly. Somehow it looked as if Hitler had recruited all the spirits from inside the earth, hell itself, to rise up to get in their way and haunt them. She could almost imagine she could make out ghostly forms in the rising steam and sulphuric emanations. They were raising their ghosts arms and hands as they enveloped the car from every direction at once.
"Yes, this is called the Upper Geyser Basin." She again buried her face in the map so she did not have to look at anything outside the car. Maybe Edward would get through the area yet and this nightmare would end. "And unfortunately after this there is the Lower Geyser Basin. And I do not see how the von Wessels could have put them here. The hot pool and geysers have been here since before there were men — before in fact."
"Fortunately we do not have anything like that in England or Germany for that matter. God knows what Hitler would do with something like that if given a chance," he exclaimed as he forked it way around crowds and forced people to move by continuing to plow through traffic in a very risky and aggressive fashion, honking his horn the whole time. But what choice did he have? She was glad she was not the one behind the wheel. She would just leave it to Edward.
"What do you mean by that?" She turned and gaped at him. "What could Hitler do with a geyser?" She put her had to her throat. She was not sure she wanted to hear the answer to this question.
"I am just a Colonel in the British Army Mid-East Command. But the people who work for Hitler have some of the most devilish notions imaginable. If there is anything they could do, they would do it believe me. And this afternoon's experience shows it. If they could block me from getting to my rendezvous they will even if it takes busloads and busloads of people. If they could get the geyser to block me, they would do that, too."
That was a chilling thought — a Nazi geyser basin. But Dora had to keep her nerves under control somehow. She banished the very thought from her head immediately. It made her reach for the car radio and flick on some music, something that she had rarely done on this trip so far. Stormy Weather. It Keeps Raining All The Time came blasting out at them as one of the most popular hits of the year with lots of static, too, because the station broadcasting it must be far, far away as Dora wished she were.
"Dora!" Edward exploded. "I have to concentrate on my driving."
She had to flick it off. Instead she got out her mirrored compact with rhinestones and pearls on top of the gold box and regarded herself in the polished glass. She nervously kept on powdering her nose and her cheeks. She powdered her chin and her neck, any place at all that she could find to give herself something to occupy her nervous fingers. Then she got out her Weil perfume bottle that was fashioned to imitate the shape of bamboo and put it behind her ears and down her neck. Finally she got out her gilded Merlot lipstick tube with red lettering in the red cloth case and started to smear her red hot red lipstick on her lips. It was hardly the time or place to think of such a thing. But for Dora it was just the right time and place with all sorts of bizarre things going on outside the car and Edward in a mood that rivaled Old Faithful for explosiveness.
Out of the corner of her eye she could not help but notice what looked like smoke but must really be steam floating across the road and engulfing their car as if the von Wessels had turned into fiery hellhounds from under the earth and were wafting smoke at them from every possible direction at once. Even against her will she caught glances of hot blue pools with steam rising from them. Her hands trembled. She dropped her lipstick tube by mistake. When picking it up she caught a
glimpse of what was happening outside her window that was kept tightly closed as if that alone could protect her from the evil things that lurked outside. Incredibly enough she thought she saw boiling mud.
"Edward, what is that!" she gasped pointing out her window. At the same time despite the shut windows she smelled something funny.
"Damned if I should know," he replied. "I am just trying to get to a meeting with Churchill's agent. Otherwise I would never come here."
She gaped at the mud practically exploding in her face. She hurriedly fumbled for the brochure that she was relying upon to explain things to her. Her hands were shaking so it was hard to get hold of it at first. "It says water collects on the surface of the ground as it does anywhere. But Yellowstone is — is a volcano. In fact, it is a giant volcano. In certain areas gases escape through the ground. One of the gases is hydrogen sulfide. That is what gives the mudpots a particularly bad odor." She shivered and held her nose.
"If the von Wessels could package it into a bottle they would use it as a bomb and hurl it in my face to explode at my feet," Edward predicted.
A volcano . . . She shuddered. She certainly hoped that Hitler did not know about that. She could not say quite why. But it gave her a very ominous feeling.
Chapter 26: Madison River Picnic Grounds
Edward and Dora pushed on through a sea of cars and tourists constantly crossing the street back and forth to the different geyser basins. But just as they were gaining speed they suddenly had to slam on the brakes. The car in front of them halted for no apparent reason. Edward almost smashed into his bumper. The car behind them almost careened into them, too.
What caused this chain reaction? Was it Hitler's agents? Dora looked around wildly. Ambling along the pavement came a herd of buffalo instead. At least it looked like bison. They were huge and muscular with big snouts and evil looking horns close to the top of their heads. Long, mangy beards hung down to their chests. Their intense beady yellow eyes stared straight ahead. They tromped along pounding the pavement next to their car. The mangy beasts surrounded them on all sides as well as all the other cars stopped around them.
