by Lou Cadle
He shook his head. “Not a thing.”
“I wonder what’s going on,” she said, shaking her head. “We’ll know more by tomorrow morning, when we get all the teams in and a chunk of data from the new north monitoring station.”
“You don’t have that up already?”
“Just got it working,” she said. “Thank Akroyd for me, and the two of you come up when you have it all processed. I’ll get this much out on email to everyone.”
“So the LIDAR isn’t back in?” he asked, wanting to see the report on other gasses.
“Not yet.”
Norio hurried back to the gas lab and helped Akroyd process the rest of the data, double checking the two instruments’ readings against each other and entering the numbers into mapping software. When the other team came in from the eastern half of the mountain, they worked together. By eight in the evening they had clear, detailed maps. The volcano was waking. But if it was going to erupt, no one could pinpoint where. Not yet, at least. When was an impossible call, but when usually was.
The unique mystery here was the absence of a clear bulge, like the one on Mt. St. Helens in 1980. The satellite had detected a spot of warmth to the west, though the temperature increase was slight—if he were a betting man, he might bet on it.
By the end of the day, the consensus around the CVO office was that it was too early for an eruption. People who had been working for 30 straight hours went home to shower and sleep.
Again, Norio went home with Akroyd after 9:00, anxious to get into the air as soon as possible the following morning. Akroyd’s wife warmed dinner for them and joined them at the dining table.
To his surprise, the kid came in and sat with them, too, the iPod headphone cords dangling around his neck. “Do you know Gamera?” he asked Norio.
“Jake!” the mother said, blushing.
“Isn’t he Japanese?” said the kid, pointing a thumb at Norio. Jake, so a boy. He was androgynous-looking, thin and long-haired.
Norio said, “I’m American but my mother was born in Japan. My father was born in Baltimore. I know Gamera, though. I prefer the robot movies, like Majingā Zetto and Jette Jaga.”
“Cool,” said Jake. “I like the old Gamera best. Better than the new one.”
Norio nodded. “Me, too.”
“Can you watch them in Japanese? Understand it, I mean?”
“No, I’m not quite that fast with hearing it. My mom mostly spoke English at home.” He read Japanese fairly well, as Japanese scientists were at the forefront of volcano research. He liked knowing the content of those articles upon publication, before translations were widely available.
He spent a surprisingly pleasant meal talking with Jake about monster movies. The kid had a lot of informed opinions on special effects. Finally, the mother hustled the kid off to bed.
“Thanks for entertaining Jake,” said Akroyd.
“Wouldn’t have done it if I wasn’t enjoying it,” said Norio.
Akroyd shook his head and smiled, conflicting messages that Norio couldn’t tease apart enough to understand. “We should call into the office and see if there’s any news.”
Norio made the call. Kate said the harmonic quakes continued to be sporadic. If nothing changed, she’d consider rescinding the evacuation advisory for the weekend. Plenty of complaints had been voiced about the evacuations already, she said, but the Forest Service would still keep everything above the timberline closed to hikers and skiers for now. Everyone at the office, VDAP, police in the area, the FAA, all agreed that would be a good plan, just the right level of caution. The media and public would complain, but they always do.
Certainly nothing was going to happen any time soon, everyone knowledgeable agreed.
As it turned out, everyone was wrong.
Section III: The Day
12
Dawn. Friday, June 14. The Mountain.
Reid Glacier is nearly one-quarter melted. On the surface, white ice still glows in the early morning light. But beneath that, close to the mountain’s rock, are millions of gallons of water. Gravity had spilled some down the hill already, but until now, the westernmost part of the glacier has stayed intact, functioning as a natural dam for the expanding buried lake.
Overnight the clouds have cleared. This morning, were you standing on the glacier, its sweeping white lines of its ridges would stand stark against the vast sky, a sky moving from black to midnight blue to a rich cerulean.
Were you standing on the glacier appreciating that color, and you knew what was about to happen, happen any second now, you could not save yourself. No one can run that fast.
^ ^ ^
On the western side of the mountain, McNeil Point.
Ellen woke that morning in her sleeping bag next to Ty in his. Dawn’s gray light filtered into the tent. She looked over at Ty, still sleeping, and smiled to see him there.
After their day in Portland, Ty had convinced her over a supper of Reuben sandwiches to go with him on the two-day hike. She felt safe with him, and she didn’t hesitate at all before saying “yes.”
Her plan for June had been to move on north after a couple of days on Hood, to visit Mt. St. Helens on the way up, drive all the way up to Bellingham then slowly make her way south, visiting all the mountains with lodges and any others that appealed. If she wanted to keep to that plan, she should forget about Ty. But Bellingham and a month of driving the mountains was only a plan, and she didn’t want to forget about him. She liked him.
“I’m not acclimated to the altitude,” she had warned him.
“We’ll take it slow. In fact, I know of a hike that’s only eight miles. We’ll do that, camp early, take a spur hike the second day if we feel like it.”
“You’re not one of those guys who make walking together into some sort of competition, are you?”
He grinned at her. “We’ll take it slow,” he said again, and she had understood in an intuitive flash that he thought she was still afraid of him and was guaranteeing more than a slow walking pace. Nice guy. But not fake-nice or boring-nice. Kind. Empathic. The right sort of nice.
The hike had taken them through thick woods and uphill at a sharp angle. She had to move slowly in the thin air, but he stopped often for her to catch her breath. On a patch of snow, he guided her with care, managing to be helpful but not condescending. The snow—ice, really—was scary, for the ground off the trail fell sharply away from it. Had she slipped, she might have slid down a hundred feet of rock-studded slope, but she got across the ice without incident, moving carefully, and with his help.
“Excellent,” he said, once she was on solid ground. They walked side by side. “It’s clear of ice and snow for this time of year. Maybe the rains have melted it all away.”
“I thought Oregon was always rainy.”
“Only west of the mountains, and usually only until April. This has been a lousy wet May,” he said.
“Doesn’t it depress you, all that rain?”
“It does, a bit, but the summers make it worth it.” He looked up at the clouds. “I think the weather may clear by tonight.”
He led them off the main path onto what looked like nothing more than an animal trail. “There’s a cave I want to show you.”
“We’re not really equipped for caving, are we?”
“Not that kind of cave,” he said. “It’s an old lava tube. Very old, probably hundreds of years.”
A few hundred yards down the narrow track, he turned left toward a small black opening into the hillside. He had to duck to enter. He beckoned her on.
Curiosity pulled her forward. After the entrance, the cave opened up into a ten-foot-diameter cylinder of rough rock, and Ty could stand. His voice echoed as he said. “You can see in the rear where it has collapsed. This won’t be here for much longer.”
“As long as it doesn’t collapse today.”
“It’ll happen soon, but soon in geological time, not today,” he said, moving deeper into the tube. “There, see ahead?”
Where he pointed, the rough dark rock had collapsed into a pile of nasty-looking jagged rubble.
“Geez, it’s cold in here,” she said.
“Yeah, it’s a little pocket, and air doesn’t move much in or out through that small opening. Nothing nicer on a hot August afternoon than to come in here and have lunch.” He looked so pleased at showing her this, she couldn’t help but feel happy too.
“So there was lava here?”
“A bit. This isn’t that kind of volcano, like a Hawai’ian one. It erupts ash and pumice for the most part, only rarely is there flowing lava. And it’s not smooth lava at all, like you’d see in Hawai’i.” He touched the jagged rock wall in illustration. “The outer layer cools, becomes rock, and the hotter lava flows through it and out, leaving this.”
“But it’s dormant now, right? The volcano?”
“No, they’re all active, the whole Cascade Range. There was extra steaming a month ago on Hood. It goes on all the time.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s like tornado season back in Nebraska. You know they’re possible, but one has never hit you, right?”
That was so. She’d never even seen a funnel cloud in person.
After fifteen minutes of poking around, they left the lava tube and made their way back to the main trail. They came to the high end of the trail at a rustic stone building made of flat gray rocks, gray like the graphite of a pencil. Since none of the rocks sitting around on the ground were that flat, it must have taken someone a good while to find the right shape stones, drag them here, and build this.
Above them, trees were absent; they had reached the timberline. They were looking close up at the outline of Mt. Hood, glacier-covered and majestic. It must have been a stunning sight on a clear day, with blue sky behind it, but it was impressive enough with the top disappearing into cloud.
They found an open spot in the meadow beyond the little structure and sat side by side facing away from the summit, and they talked. They made camp early, and once the tent was up, they sat in it, out of the cooling breeze, and kissed.
Her lips felt dry and cracked from the altitude and cool from the ambient temperature, but soon enough, they were moist and warm and tingling. Without her being aware of willing them to move, her arms went around his neck and she pulled them both down onto her bag, and the kiss went on and on. He was the one who broke away first. “You kiss really well,” he said, breathing hard.
A feeling of satisfaction at the compliment joined the other glow, a complicated mix of arousal and hope and real pleasure in Ty’s company. Was there anything as wonderful in life as new romance? If there were, she had yet to experience it.
About 90% of her wanted to pull him back into another kiss, to strip off his clothes, to have her way with him. But a rational 10% told her to pay attention to what was happening, to think, to not decide something so important in this brain-numbed state.
“You, too,” she said. “Kiss nicely, I mean.”
“It’s been a while, so that’s good to hear.” He shook his head and gave a wry grin. “Let’s finish making camp, ‘k?”
She smiled and nodded, not wanting to talk more, wanting to preserve, with silence, the lovely feeling. They finished setting up camp, had a light supper of ramen noodles with canned chicken, and he identified several wildflowers for her, though few were fully open in the cloudy, failing light. Before they had gone to sleep, they had kissed again, lying next to each other in their separate sleeping bags, driving each other again to a state of excitement, but they had backed off before it went further. And she had slept well.
And now, in the morning, she was glad they hadn’t done more. She wanted to—oh, she had wanted to—but there was something sweet, and safe, and good about not moving too fast.
Ty made a noise and his face twitched as he stirred to wakefulness. She had an urge to roll over onto him seduce him before he was fully awake. She was smiling at the thought when his eyes popped open, and he smiled back at her. “How can you be so beautiful in the morning?” he said, his voice rough with sleep.
She laughed. “You don’t need lines like that. I like you already.”
“Not a line,” he said, “Just a truth.” He reached over and stroked her hair once, and then let his hand drop to the edge of her bag. She could smell wood smoke on his fingertips. “How’d you sleep?”
“Amazingly well. I usually toss and turn on the ground when I’m camping, but the last couple days must have worn me out. How about you?”
“Dreamt a lot,” he said. “I always do at altitude, vivid, strange dreams.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, it’s like my own, odd version of altitude sickness, these wild images all night. I wake up, but only halfway, then slide back down into sleep, and there’s some other scary thing awaiting me.”
“Remember any?”
“Only the last. Gotterdammerung,” he said.
“Pardon?”
“You know, the Wagner opera, the Twilight of the Gods? I dreamed I was watching it, but not as a play, as a participant. There were gods walking around me, like Vikings. Thunder, lightning. Ice.” He frowned.
“Your mind sounds like a fun place to live.”
“Usually I like it here. But I could do without the altitude dreams.” His frown eased. “Ready for breakfast? I brought some granola bars. We could make tea.”
They were soon dressed in layers against the cold, sipping tea, sharing three different granola bars under a beautiful blue sky when she felt a deep rumble, a slow shivering of the earth.
“What’s that?” she said.
“Avalanche, I think.” He looked up at the mountain and studied it. “Not above us, though. Somewhere to the south.”
“Are we okay here?”
“Sure,” he said. “We’re on a ridge. But someone hiking over that way a few miles may be in trouble.”
She liked that he sounded like he cared. Not in some fake, watch the news and say oh isn’t it horrible way, let’s pretend we care and put on ribbons, tsk together in the supermarket aisle, like she had seen far too often, but like he imagined real people, with real lives, who might need help. It made her imagine them, too, and feel concern.
He might have been reading her mind. “There’s a ski patrol, don’t worry. People know to at least carry their cell phones and leave them on.”
“I left mine in your car. I didn’t think there’d be a signal.”
“I have mine in my pack. There isn’t a signal but rescuers can ping them, you know, find people that way.”
“I didn’t know. That’s cool.”
“Technology can be useful,” he agreed, looking back at her. He did a double take. “Hey, your hair is red.”
“Oh, yeah, when it’s sunny, it gets some red highlights. You’ve only seen me in the gloom.”
“It’s nice,” he said. “I like it.”
It was a fine thing to be admired, she thought. She compared how she felt now to the stress she’d had at work at the end of the school year. Those two Ellens seemed like two different people altogether, the bitchy and unhappy Ellen who felt prematurely middle-aged, and this Ellen who felt 22 again. “Thank you,” she said to Ty, and she meant the thanks for much more than the compliment. Thank you for making me feel so much better, so alive. Thanks for making it a vacation to remember.
13
The Mountain.
The dam of ice cracks. Great chunks of Reid Glacier fall off to the west, and a flood of melt water pours down the steep flanks of the mountain. Carrying chunks of ice and boulders, it rushes down, pulled inexorably by gravity into valleys. It strikes a hiking party of four at the timberline who had been out for three days and, like Ty and Ellen, never heard the announcement to stay off the mountain. They are crushed in seconds. A wall of water hits the tree line and snaps fifty-foot tall trees in half. Branches and whole trees join the churning debris as the thing—half avalanche, half flood—barrels down the slope. Its power lets it
wash up over short ridges but it keeps seeking valleys. It finds forest roads and erases them. It strips soil so that the water turns to roiling mud. It is not merely a flood but a lahar. It finds the Sandy River valley and courses down the V of it, washing away banks, picking up more trees and boulders, hurtling towards the tiny towns of Rhododendron, Mt. Hood Village, and Brightwood, where not everyone heeded the recommended evacuation.
^ ^ ^
The Riverside Bar and Grille, Mt. Hood Village. 7:34 a.m.
Sylvie was the only waitress on this morning, but as the place wasn’t busy, she was managing.
But she didn’t like the table of four snotty snowboarders at the window who clearly thought they were far cuter than they were, fueling up on pancakes and coffee and making comments that must have seemed clever to them but were just childish and irritating. Why did it take guys so long to grow up? She was near their age but felt like their mother as she put up with their crap.
She pushed into the kitchen and picked up a tomato omelet and side of wheat toast for Mr. Ramirez, one of the regulars, a shy man with a bad limp. Hip-first, she pushed back through the door, balancing the two plates on one arm so she could grab the coffee pot, too.
Then a huge pine smashed through the front window, decapitating one of the snowboarders, and a wall of water rushed in, ferociously fast. Sylvie dropped the plates and screamed. Mr. Ramirez never even got a chance to turn around. They were crushed when the building around them collapsed. The few who survived the collapse suffocated moments later in the torrent of mud.
^ ^ ^
Cascades Volcano Observatory, Vancouver, Washington. 7:41 a.m.
Norio was hanging out in the glass-walled front room, waiting for Akroyd to finish getting the instruments back on board the helicopter and for their chance to finally go and see the mountain in clear skies when one of the female hydrologists flew into Kate’s office, yelling. Norio followed her to the doorway, where the woman was waving her hands and saying, “Gone! Just freakin’ gone!”
“Calm yourself,” said Kate sharply. “From the beginning.”
“One minute, the upper gauge on the Sandy was rising, and then bam, it was gone. We thought, what’s going on, some problem with it? But then the second one—”
