Volcano Watch

by Toni Dwiggins

  “The escape clause.”

  He gave a half-smile. “Is that what you call it?”

  “It’s what Lindsay calls it,” I said, then softened. “Look, I just want somebody who knows what he’s doing and if you’re it, then outstanding.”

  “I am it. But Len’s not interested in my qualifications.”

  “Why?”

  “Goes back to Mount Rainier. Up in Washington state. Lindsay told you about Rainier?”

  “She did. But tell me your side.”

  He stared straight ahead, at the runway. “It was my first posting. I wanted to do my best. I wrote my own eruption-sim software and ran the numbers, of course, but I didn’t stop there. I got to know the towns in the volcano’s flowpath. I drove the roads, I walked the land. I knew by how much the population of Puyallup was swelled by its annual fair. I went with the Tacoma mayor to his favorite brewery, and I went back again to meet the locals. I needed to understand their fears, and I needed them to trust me when I made the hard calls.” He craned his neck and peered at the sky, where a slip of silver separated itself from the blue. “Len and Lindsay were at Rainier, too. Len was senior to me and he thought he should be in my job. She thought so too. Len and Lindsay. You didn’t find them at the breweries, they kept to their own.”

  I said, “She’s a wine drinker” and then I said, “never mind.”

  “Rainier got serious but the volcanologists kept dithering. I had a call to make—and it’s a hell of a call to order the evacuation of entire towns—and the officials, my friends at this point, were on the spot too. But my obligation was damn clear. It was to the locals. The everyday people who were sitting in the way of disaster. I made the call. We emptied the towns. It was a month before it became clear Rainier was not going all the way.” His head turned, as he followed the jet down onto the runway. “Cost the towns a lot of money. Lost business. Disruption. I felt like hell about that. But Lindsay…” He unbuckled his seat belt. “She crucified me. She told the press I was out of my depth.”

  His voice held so much bitterness I thought he might stop.

  He went on. “I accepted a demotion. And I’m still trying to rebuild my reputation. At the start, I did it on my own time. When a volcano acted up—anywhere—I flew there on my own nickel. I listened and I learned. FEMA was still rebuilding its own reputation and they had to be convinced to give me another shot. I convinced them. I’ve been proving my worth. Again, and again.” He angled in the seat to face me. “I made a mistake at Rainier, I won’t dodge it, but it was a mistake in timing, not priorities. I wanted to save lives. That’s what I aim to do here. I want you to know you can count on me to be single-minded in the pursuit of my job. I’d like to show you. If you’ll come to Hot Creek, there’s a slight chance in hell Len Carow will agree to come too. You’re one of the lives I’m here for, and he can’t ignore that. I’m going to show him I’m on the job. He’ll have to put it into the record.”

  I believed Lindsay had crucified him, all right. I knew she didn’t suffer fools lightly, not when it came to her job. But I wasn’t convinced Krom had been a fool, at Rainier. I had to give him credit, now, for owning up to his mistake. And I couldn’t argue with his priorities. But if Lindsay was trying to crucify him again, now, she’d have a reason. She would never let her animosity interfere with her volcano.

  “I’ll come,” I said. “But just so you know—Lindsay taught me everything I know about this volcano.”

  *****

  Len Carow clearly did not like being sandbagged, either.

  He stood by Krom’s Jeep, suitcase in hand, frowning. “Fuck d’y think yr’doin, Adrian?” He waved an unlit cigarette at me. “Sorry—Oldfield?—language.”

  He reminded me of one of those financial types Walter watches on TV: thin-faced, thin-haired, glasses, cranky. I said, “No problem.”

  “S’posed to call Lindsay when I get in, Adrian. Go see her road.”

  “Did she inform you of the upcoming Council meeting on the subject? Nothing’s set in stone.”

  Carow gave a brusque nod.

  “So, can you spare us an hour right now, Len?” Krom skated a glance at me.

  Carow toyed with his cigarette, sliding his fingers along its length, upending it, reversing it.

  I said, “Hot Creek’s just up the road.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  We bumped along in silence the two plowed miles to the creek.

  There were several cars in the clifftop parking lot. “Tourists,” Krom said. “Hot Creek’s on the sightseeing maps.”

  Len Carow grunted.

  As we got out of the Blazer, Krom took a pack and hitched himself into it. He caught my look, and put a finger to his lips.

  We went to the rim. We both watched Carow look down.

  Hot Creek is a meandering watercourse that has dug a deep gash into an old rhyolite volcanic flow. For the most part the creek is placid but in places, like down below, it churns where channels of cold snowmelt meet magma-heated water so hot it will take off your skin. I used to know how to find the warm currents where the waters mix, and I used to come out here to soak under the Milky Way. I used to worry about the boys catching me in the raw, not about what put hot water into a cold river.

  Krom set off and Carow and I followed, making our way down the switchbacks into the gorge. Carow paused to read the Forest Service sign warning that swimming is inadvisable: arsenic in the water, sporadic geyser eruptions, abrupt changes in temperature. Lindsay had the sign put up several years ago, last time the volcano stirred. The message got through. No one dips in Hot Creek any more.

  There were a few people down here, picnicking on snow-cleared rocks, kids poking around. Krom threw Carow a look, then hiked a thumb downstream.

  We set off downriver. This part of the creek is deceptively bucolic. Long-stemmed reeds haired the snowy banks and ouzels skimmed the water in search of insects. The waters churned, and steamed, but it looked inviting as a hot tub. We hiked in silence, Krom growing noticeably tense, then we rounded a bend and Carow stopped to read the second Forest Service sign, which warned that continuing beyond this point was inadvisable. Nevertheless, the trail continued beyond this point, and within a few yards it slipped into a steamy haze and then disappeared around a bend.

  Carow indicated the sign. “Yours, Adrian?”

  I spoke. “Lindsay’s. It gets dicey further downstream.”

  “Fine,” Carow said, turning, “end’a the line.”

  “No,” Krom said, “we keep to the path and we’ll be safe.”

  “We go back’n we’ll be safe.”

  Krom said, “It’s part of the job, Len, seeing it. Looking at it on a map doesn’t put you in the shoes of the people we came here for.”

  Carow glanced at me. “Adrian likes’t play hero.” His look shifted to the steamy landscape downstream. “Fuck heroes. Not what we do.”

  Krom said, “Cassie?”

  He didn’t have to worry. I was hooked. I wanted to know what had changed downstream. I wanted to know what was in Krom’s pack. Mostly, though, I felt Krom had made an exceedingly good point. FEMA should get out in the field. I said, “Yup, I’m coming.”

  Krom threw me a smile. Best friends.

  Carow, with a sour look, stalked past the sign.

  We set off downriver, meeting the leading edges of drifting steam. We rounded the bend and surprised a damp-faced man with a camera peering like a kid from his jacket, and then we passed him and continued on.

  It was like passing from winter to a peculiar kind of summer, for the air grew warmer and the thinning snow receded until we entered a landscape licked nearly clean by steam and heat. The steam-pocked rocks were the colors of summer, pink and orange, and the walls of the gorge had been stained a daisy sulfur yellow. The bubbling hot pools and sucking mud pots and hissing vents filled the air with the industrious thrum of activity. A frog lent his croak to the music. At creekside a seam had ripped open along the bank, spitting mud and pebbles like grease
from a frypan. Everywhere there was steam, billowing from fumaroles, clinging to us as we skirted the vents, lending a brassy tinge to the sky.

  Carow had to remove his glasses.

  I hadn’t been here for two years but I’d prepared myself for the intensity of the activity. Lindsay monitored it, Lindsay kept me posted. Still, a vague unease settled over me, as if I’d returned to a familiar street after a long absence and the houses and trees were there, yet something had changed. I couldn’t put my finger on it. It wasn’t the increased vigor. I was, simply, disoriented and I didn’t know why.

  Carow paused to look at a gemlike hot pool.

  Krom moved to stand beside him.

  The pool was large. Its milky blue water steamed and bubbles skated across the surface. Minerals dissolved by the water had built a thin white lip around the edge. I knew this pool. I glanced around. No, maybe not. Hot pools change. I turned back.

  The water domed, as if the pool were drawing a breath. I said, “Back off. Now.”

  Krom threw an arm across Carow’s chest and we all leapt back as a geyser jetted into the air, sizzling steam.

  Carow muttered “fuckin hero” and fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette.

  I turned to scan the creek and found a bulge jutting off the cliff like a rooster’s breast. I looked downriver to the spot where the creek takes a hard right hook. I came back to the pool and knew where I was. I did know this pool. Hydrothermal phenomena come and go, but this was not a question of coming and going. This pool used to sit out here all by itself and there was nothing within a couple hundred meters. Now, it’s spitting close to the mud pots and fumaroles we’d just passed. The old neighborhood used to be one block long. Now, it’s two.

  Did Lindsay know? She must.

  Krom had moved over to inspect a shelf of rock. He unslung his pack and removed an oblong box. So that’s the big surprise, I thought. It looked to be some kind of monitoring device. I came closer, and my eyes stung. Krom turned. His eyes were reddened.

  “Gas,” I said, “move away. Hydrochloric, I’m not sure, some sort of acid.”

  “I’ll let you know.” He fiddled with the box, coughing, then retreated.

  “Whose is that?”

  “Mine.” He wiped his eyes. “Work around enough volcanoes and you learn how to take their temperature. When it’s your call, you get interested. I don’t depend on the scientists. They’re clubby. I got hold of one of their devices and improved it. Mine has a camera, and the data can be telemetered. I always offer one of mine for their use but they don’t like innovations from outside the field.” He shrugged. “So they watch him their way and I watch him mine.”

  This was for the record, I thought, showing Carow that Krom’s on top of things.

  Carow was mashing out his cigarette, which he’d tossed at the word gas.

  “You have to keep watch on him,” Krom was saying. “There’s one thing you should never forget—he’s an unpredictable chum. But it’s not personal. He doesn’t care who gets hurt. Which makes him all the more dangerous, don’t you think?”

  It sure sounded personal to me. Maybe that’s what he’d learned during his exile after Rainier. Take it personally.

  Krom turned abruptly and went to the creek bank. He dropped to a crouch, examining something.

  I tensed. More gas?

  He stayed poised on the bank for what seemed like minutes, then he lunged and stood, all in one movement. He held something cupped in his hands. He walked past us and approached the hot pool, testing the ground with each step. He was within a stone’s throw of the water.

  Carow turned to watch. “What the…?”

  I said, “You’re too close, Adrian.”

  Krom crouched, holding his cupped hands outstretched. Then he brought his hands to his chest—like getting ready to pitch—and he did pitch, a soft one, and his ball landed just at the edge of the pool and I wondered if he’d missed, if he’d meant to throw it in.

  It was a small frog. Yellow-legged mountain frog. It sat frozen, but for the eyes, which swiveled wildly. Then its legs flexed and it launched and landed and hopped again, unhappy with each landing because the ground was rough with pumice. It hopped once more—this time toward the pool, the bubbling sound of water—but it did not land as it must have expected in wet creekside mud. It lit on the thin lip of the pool. The delicate crust cracked and gave way beneath the minuscule weight of the frog, and crust and frog dropped into the scalding blue water.

  I clenched in expectation of a scream, even the smallest scream, but there was nothing.

  Carow was looking at Krom with open disgust.

  “Picture the guy with the camera going in for a closeup of that pool,” Krom said. “Picture kids running loose.” He folded his arms. “If Lindsay’d agreed to close this area—and I mean barricade the road, shut off access to the whole place—we wouldn’t be here having this talk and that little creature would die of old age.”

  Carow stared. “Why didn’t she close it?”

  I didn’t know that Krom had asked her. “If she said no, listen.”

  Krom flipped a hand. “She’s says jump, you all jump. She says wait, you all wait. I say barricade, she says it’s too soon.”

  I said, “She puts up a barricade too soon and she’s crying wolf.”

  “Define too soon.”

  I couldn’t.

  He smiled. “You’ve all been too close too long. The cult of Lindsay Nash.”

  I said, tight, “She knows this place like you’ll never know it.”

  “Then she should know better.” Krom strode over to pick up his pack. “This place warrants closing.”

  Carow worked another cig from his pocket, and the white stick steadied his hand. “Fuckin good idea.”

  I felt the heat rise. I’m a fool. You fool, I thought, you clueless little sandbagged frog, you sure played your part. Getting Carow out here so Krom could turn Hot Creek into a battleground. And Lindsay’s not here to defend herself.

  I walked away.

  Krom called after me, “Cassie, this isn’t a question of loyalties.”

  I kept going. I knew Lindsay wasn’t against a barricade just because Krom was for it. She had a reason. Don’t cry wolf. A fumarole hissed as I passed. I knew if it got to the point that the whole area needed closing, she’d say so. She’d come out and build the damn barricade herself.

  My eyes stung and my throat was on fire.

  I thought of Coyote. Coyote, in the end, did escape the giant’s belly: he came upon a swelling volcano and recognized it as the heart of the giant. He could not resist. He pulled out his hunting knife and hacked at the heart. Lava spurted, and the belly trembled, and the giant opened his mouth in a roar of pain and Coyote ran out with the terrible fire scorching his heels.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “So you coming out for the race tomorrow?” my brother asked.

  Jimbo and I were shoulder to shoulder at the kitchen counter, shredding lemon peel and grating nutmegs. Hot spiced cider in our house has always been a beverage of balm—bad day, fall on the slopes, D on a test, didn’t get the job, out comes the cider pot. My day today, watching Krom cook a frog, had been less than perfect. Jimbo’s day, training up at Lake Mary, had been foul as well. He’d missed a shot and taken two falls, and in the biathlon 20K race that’s all she wrote.

  As if losing a race was the worst thing that could happen tomorrow at Lake Mary.

  I focused on the lemon peel. Not my job to make a fuss about race scheduling. I said, light, “Tomorrow? I really should wash my hair.”

  Jimbo fired a nutmeg at me.

  I caught it. “Shoot like that tomorrow and you’ll win.”

  “Wash your hair tomorrow and I’ll shoot you.”

  I said, “You are seriously sick,” and he nodded. The old black humor. I’d finally adopted it myself, the family black-humor gene expressing. Got blacker as we grew from kids into teenagers, from teenagers into adults, as time took us farther from our brother Henr
y’s death, by God. Jimbo and I are living together now because we both got the jumps after a big quake swarm hit a couple weeks ago. My crummy condo is a couple blocks away and I’ve been gradually ferrying my stuff here. Jimbo’s scummy house, rented with four other guys, is on the other side of town and Jimbo goes back mainly to play beer pong. It’s weird, but good, living again at home.

  Technically, we’re house-sitting while Mom and Dad are in Scotland settling property Dad inherited. Jimbo has his old room upstairs and since my old room is now my parents’ workroom, I have the cottage out back. And we seem to feel better having the jumps together, here. Tonight, the old black humor fit like a skin. Would you rather be buried in lava, Jimbo asked after the latest quake, or smothered in ash? It’s good to be back home.

  I tossed the nutmeg back to him. “Trade you for a biathlon cartridge.”

  He missed. “Say what?”

  “Cartridge. You shoot them instead of nutmegs.”

  After Hot Creek, I’d finished my dig at Casa Diablo and then returned to the lab. I’d spent several hours oven-drying my samples and catching up on paperwork. I’d nuked a burrito for dinner. I’d come home beat and taken a marathon hot shower. In an hour or so—after my cider nightcap—I plan to haul my rejuvenated carcass back to the lab and find out what I’d got at Casa. And if the gods are with me, and the soil and the gunpowder match the evidence, I’ll know where Georgia last walked.

  And if the gods are indifferent, and there is no match, I’ll know where I have to go next: the biathlon range. Which is okay. If she last walked there, it did not mean anything other than she took a stroll at Lake Mary. And so I convinced myself that my dread of a dig at the biathlon range was nothing more than dread of digging through a shitload of snow. And then, as I’d been showering, I’d had the brainstorm of getting a cartridge from Jimbo. I know this about biathlon: the ammo is specifically designed to work in the cold. Few other than biathletes use the stuff and they use it in limited circumstances. If I could rule out biathlon powder, I’d save myself a dig.