by Lou Cadle
“Where? Down the mountain?”
“Get your pack on, and we’ll figure it out.”
She put that and the goggles on and the world went a little darker. Like it wasn’t dark enough already. They stepped from the cave mouth and into what should have been, on any normal day, fresh air. Today, it was a weirdly altered landscape. Downhill, trees were flat on the ground. Not just a few. All of them lay like matchsticks, lying west to east, neatly piled, like a giant had dropped a box of straws on the mountainside.
Several trees were smoldering, tiny fingers of smoke rising from denuded branches and joining with the airborne ash. The sky wasn’t visible as anything more than a vague sense of backlighting.
“Maybe we should go up,” he said, turning around and looking to the east. “Get above the tree line.”
“Closer to the volcano?” She listened for its roar, that jet engine sound. She could hear it, but faintly. She realized they couldn’t get closer to the volcano. They were on the volcano. “Closer to the eruption, I mean.”
Ty was thinking, she could see, calculating, looking upslope and then down. He shook his head, decisive. “Nope. Getting down to the road is going to be impossible. The trail will be gone, and the route is full of downed trees.”
“But your car.”
“The car is gone. It’s dead. It is no more,” he said. “And even if it were a tank, it still couldn’t get down the road. Imagine all the trees, downed like this, for several miles of road.”
“So we can’t stay here,” she said, but now she wished they could. The lava tube now seemed the coziest of homes. Damn that gas.
“I think our only chance is to get above the tree line to a clearing and wait for rescue. We need to be visible,” he said. “Maybe we can get to McNeil point and stake down the tent. It’s brightly colored. As soon as they can, they’ll get helicopters up here looking for survivors. They’ll see the tent from the air.”
“You sure about that? That they’ll send out rescue?”
“Yes. Or news helicopters will come looking for a scoop even earlier. Us surviving, that’ll be big news. They’d love to rescue you, get the exclusive. Then you can get rich if you want, selling your story to those slimy news programs. Survivor stories.”
“I’d rather stay poor and be in a hotel room taking a shower,” she said. “About a hundred miles from here.”
“Smart woman.”
“So if we have to go towards danger, let’s get going.”
“We should be fine. If it keeps venting from where it is, up top, doesn’t suddenly get bigger and spill more pyroclasts down at us, we might make it.”
“Might?”
“Best I can give you, I’m afraid. Best I can give myself.” He took her hand. “Let’s give it our finest shot. C’mon.”
They made their way toward where the trail used to be, steadying each other as they clambered over downed trees, making slow, slow progress. The ash had fallen on the tree trunks and turned them slippery, like it was sleet falling and not tiny bits of rock. Every step onto a log was a disaster—a mini disaster among the vast unthinkable disaster. Her thighs ached as she took a giant step over a tree, rested for a heartbeat as she straddled it, dragged her back leg forward, and did it again immediately. Through her jeans she could feel heat from the downed trunks.
This was insane, she thought, over and over. Going back to the cave, crawling in, and letting the mystery gas take her consciousness and then her life: she wondered if that might not be the better death. Or would being burned alive be better? It would hurt, but not for long. Two hours ago, her choices in life had been so simple: move on from the Portland area, or hang around with Ty another few days? Get naked with Ty, not get naked with Ty? She looked back on the moments before the eruption with nostalgia, as if she were ninety years old and thinking about her carefree youth far, far away.
On and on they went, struggling uphill. Every five or ten minutes, their masks filled with ash. They had to take them off and shake them out. Then they replaced the masks and could breathe again. Still, ash seeped through Ellen’s. The urge to cough grew. She resisted it for a while, but finally it overwhelmed her and she had to stop as a powerful coughing fit overtook her. She hacked as her chest convulsed. Her throat ached. Ty watched her, worry in every line of his body. She held up her hand, tried to indicate she was okay. But she wasn’t. When the coughing fit passed, leaving trails of sooty tears running down her cheeks, they were able to move on.
They made it to a clear spot next to a rock outcrop. No downed trees. Mud underfoot, ash and mud both making for slippery footing, but they were as far as they needed to get, not to McNeil point, but above the line of downed trees, where someone might spot them. The air was a bit cleaner than it had been when they left the lava tube. Was it that time had passed since the initial eruption, or was there more of a western breeze? Her urge to cough had passed, for now, at least. Small favors.
Ty shrugged off his pack and pulled out his cell phone. He turned it on. When Ellen pointed at it and raised her eyebrows in a question, he called, “The ping, remember?”
In the distance, the jet engine noise of the eruption still roared, louder now that they were closer to it. The airborne ash kept her from seeing the eruption as anything more than a darker patch to the east.
“If they are looking for survivors, they may be able to find us this way, with the phone.”
“Oh crap. My phone,” she said. It was down in his car. Burned to a crisp, no doubt. Her life was in that phone, every number, address, birthday. She probably couldn’t even remember her mother or Claire’s number without that phone.
“What about it?”
“Never mind,” she yelled. “Stupid thing to worry about.”
He unhooked his tent from his pack, snapped it open and staked it into the ash-covered ground. “We’re going to have to clean it often to keep it looking bright enough to see from the air.”
Faintly, she could hear the rare pop or crackle from the eruption. Once, she heard a whistle off to the east, like a firework taking off on July 4.
“I’m never going to see another,” she said.
“Another what?”
“Anything. July Fourth, I was thinking. Or Christmas or school year or enraging school board meeting or friend or sunset.”
He gathered her into his arms. He spoke into her ear. “Maybe not. But hope costs us nothing. And giving up does cost. We have to keep acting as if we are going to make it.”
She nodded into his gritty shirt, the ash scratching at her cheek. “Damn. It hurts to hug.”
He guided her out to arm’s length and ducked down to look at her face. “Feeling okay?”
“I’m good,” she lied, grateful the mask and goggles must make it difficult for him to read her expression. She took off her backpack to find her jacket. She’d slap at the ash with that for all she was worth. He was right. If she was going to go down, she should go down fighting.
A trail of smoke rose from the tent. “Uh,” she said. “I think the tent is on fire.”
Ty spun around. “Crap.” He looked over his should at her. “Turn away.”
“What? Why.”
“I’m going to put it out.”
She frowned, wondering why—“Oh,” she said. “You’re going to pee on it.”
“Turn,” he said, and she did, feeling the insane urge to laugh at the situation. After a few seconds he said, “okay.”
She looked back, said, “Good job. Smart not to use the drinking water.” She slapped at the ash on her side of the tent. The problem was, once beaten off the fabric, the ash didn’t go anywhere but straight up. Much of it settled back down on the tent, dimming the color again.
“Great!” he yelled. “Keep at it. Look, we’re getting more clearing of the ash in the air. I can tell there’s a sky up there!”
Damned if he wasn’t right. The sky was brightening. It wasn’t blue, but it was heartening to see more light in the yellow haze. She could fe
el the breeze now, stiffening, coming from the west. The new ash from the volcano was getting blown away from them. Again she stopped to clear her mask. She took out a water bottle and gulped down a quarter of it. In the time she took to do that and put the water away, the tent didn’t look much grayer than it had when she had stopped slapping at it. Her spirits rose a tiny bit. No more erupting, she mentally scolded the mountain. Bitch Librarian says, stop that right now.
She laughed at herself. Like she could intimidate a mountain the way she could an eleven year old.
“What?” said Ty
She was about to say “nothing,” and then she heard it. A thwupping, rhythmic.
Ty heard it too. His head canted back as he scanned above them. “A helicopter.” With a powerful yank, he pulled the tent from the ground and began waving it overhead. “See us. See us,” he said.
Ellen waved her jacket too. She backed several feet away from Ty, thinking, if they don’t see him, maybe they’ll see me. Spread out for a better chance. The urge to yell for help was hard to quench, but it’d be useless. She could hear the sound, louder now, but where was the helicopter?
19
11:00 a.m. In the air north of Mount Hood’s summit.
Norio fed another set of GPS coordinates to the pilot over the radio. The helicopter found the next location, swooped down to just above the glacier, and Akroyd aimed the COSPEC out the door and through the faint traces of a gas plume. Not much visible steam in this one.
“Getting good stuff now,” called Akroyd.
“Why’s that?” said the pilot. “Was something wrong before?”
Norio explained. “It’s clear weather, for one thing. It also depends on sun angle. The higher the sun, the more accurate the readings. We’ll lose it again about five or six tonight.”
“Gotta be done before then anyway,” said the pilot. “My girl’s got a ball game.”
Weird priorities, thought Norio.
“Okay, go up,” said Akroyd.
Norio took another image with his smartphone. Not much to see from this far up. He had some nice shots of the four biggest plumes of steam from close up. When they finished, Akroyd shut the door and Norio breathed a sigh of relief at the reduction in noise. He asked the pilot, “How much more fuel?”
“Ninety minutes, easy,” said the pilot.
Time enough to check another GPS location Kate had sent him, based on new tiltmeter readings. The pilot took the information and swung the ‘copter up and around in an arc, aiming for the spot.
Then his whole world changed.
The helicopter jerked as if it had run into a wall. Norio felt himself lift off the seat. A lurch, and they were suddenly on their sides. A rock back down so his head was up again. A twist the other way. He slid left. The pilot yanked at a control. Norio found his own hands were gripped on the seat harness. His feet had found purchase beneath the seat. His phone, still in his hand, dug into his palm. He hoped he hadn’t broken it. The helicopter leveled but spun twice around, fast, like a centrifuge.
He could smell vomit. It must be Akroyd’s. Norio had a stomach of cast iron, but now he worried about the pilot puking too and losing control. Glancing over, he could see the man was utterly focused. Good. Maybe they’d live through this. The helicopter stabilized.
“Shit,” Corey said. His voice was faint. His knuckles were white where he gripped the control stick. Sweat beaded on his face. Norio glanced out the window and saw it. Mount Hood had erupted.
“Whoa,” he breathed. The column of the eruption shot up beside them, thrusting far into the air. He could hear its roar even over the engine noise.
“Getting out of here,” said the pilot.
“No no no. We need to take shots of this.” His voice and the pilot’s were both muffled. Maybe he’d lost some hearing. Had they been outside, this close to the shockwave, he might be deaf. Didn’t matter. What mattered was taking advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
He got his phone aimed at the eruptive column and took stills. “Akroyd,” he yelled. “Get a video of this.”
No sound from Akroyd. Norio couldn’t spare a minute to check on him. He switched from stills to video on his phone. Every second of recording he did was crucial, invaluable to the advancement of the science. Watch the billows there mid-column, black bundles swelling out. Point down to the source on the mountaintop, the very top, not the western flank. The lightning began. Look at it—wonderful! It increased, mad bolts of red streaking through the black ash. Suddenly, he realized they were drifting away, growing more distant from the column.
“Hey!” he said to the pilot. “Get back closer!”
“I’m not going to die,” yelled the pilot.
“We won’t die! Get upwind. Just stay out of the ash.”
“I want to get on the ground somewhere safe.”
“Man, this is history,” yelled Norio. “You’re part of it. You’ll be famous. Get back closer.”
The pilot looked skeptical, but the chopper slowly eased back toward the eruption. Norio went back to taking video. “Akroyd,” he said as he shot. “Are you okay?”
“I can hardly hear you,” came the voice, loud in the earphones.
“Shockwave,” said Norio. Must have caught Akroyd just wrong. Norio’s hearing was off, but he could still hear the wonderful noise of the eruption, of the living planet making itself anew.
“Hurts my ears.”
“We should get him to a hospital,” said the pilot. “We should maybe get all of us to a hospital.”
“When we’re out of fuel,” said Norio, growing impatient with all these needless distractions. “I know we have plenty. Go higher.” Pyroclasts fell from the column and sped down a flank in a nuee ardente. Amazing. He followed it with his phone camera until it was out of range beneath them and then went back to shooting the eruption column. Lightning still struck through the ash but not as fiercely.
Unbelievable that he had been up here to witness this. But there it was, had to be believed. Like Pompeii. Or St. Helens. Or maybe—could it be?—more like Pelee. Pinatubo. Krakatoa. Depended on how long it erupted. Good sized for now, St. Helens at least. This was terrific, thrilling, and the research opportunity of a lifetime. Norio tingled all over and knew he was smiling like an idiot.
“I’m okay,” said Akroyd. “Except my hearing. Sorry I puked. You guys say anything to me just then?”
“Good to hear you’re okay,” called the pilot. “But no. Your friend here is too busy being fuckin’ Ansel Adams to talk.”
“Move to the north a bit,” said Norio. “Keep me pointed at the eruption.”
“Asshole,” said the pilot.
Norio didn’t care what he was called. As long as he was obeyed, he didn’t care about anything but the volcano.
“No, stay with the eruption,” said Akroyd. “It’s good. I’m fine.” He didn’t sound entirely fine but Norio approved of his professionalism. “You called Vancouver?”
He hadn’t thought of it. He got the pilot to radio in to Kate and gave her a brief accounting as he kept shooting video. “We can see it from here,” she said. “Stay as long as you can. Be safe. Talk later.” She had her own stuff to deal with, which was good by Norio. He didn’t want to ruin this moment with a bunch of human chatter. He wished there were some way he could be alone with his mountain right now.
The helicopter’s interior went blessedly silent of voices for a long while. The eruption kept churning. It was beautiful, the seemingly endless supply of magma defying gravity, and the way the black clouds of ash billowed out here and there—we must be able to model that better, somehow. The top of the column rose kilometers above them now. They were but a speck compared to that.
“I’m getting out of here,” said the pilot.
“No!” said Norio.
“I don’t want to run out of fuel with that going on. So screw you,” said the pilot, and he flew the ‘copter to the east.
Again silence fell among the three men. Norio s
witched back to taking still shots. He caught images of the ash column from an increasing distance. The eruption was now an anvil more than a column, as atmospheric dynamics pulled the top of it to the southeast. He aimed the camera down to catch oblique shots of the path of destruction from the nuee ardente, the pyroclastic flow he had seen fall out.
“Can you hold up here?” he yelled to the pilot. “Five minutes. Three minutes, even.”
The pilot glared at him but did as asked. Norio got some great wide-angle shots of the whole eruption. He realized he’d be looking at these photos the whole rest of his life, nostalgic. Proud. Moved every time, exactly the way he was moved now by the power and beauty of what he saw.
“Half hour of fuel,” the pilot said. “Need to get going.”
Norio hated it, but he nodded. Five minutes passed, the eruption growing more distant. He felt a pang at leaving it.
“Wait,” said Akroyd. “I saw something.”
“Now you, too?” muttered the pilot.
“Somebody. There!” said Akroyd. “There are people down there. Hikers.”
They were directly over the route of the pyroclastic flow. No way anyone had survived that. Not a chance in hell.
The helicopter spun around, hovered. “Where?” asked the pilot.
“Like five o’clock from where we are now. Back there.”
The helicopter rotated, pointed itself south.
“Keep turning,” said Akroyd. “Okay, stop. See over there on that ridge?”
“I see them,” said the pilot.
Norio didn’t. But, as the ‘copter moved forward, Norio did finally see a splash of color. “That’s ash down there,” he said. “In the air. I don’t know if your engine can take it.” The ash had settled like a fog over the slope. The air was clear at their elevation, but a hundred meters down, it hung suspended in the air, a ghost of the nuee ardente. The size of the tephra, Norio realized, that explained the suspended particles—that hovering stuff was the tiny pieces of ash from the flow. Larger bits had precipitated out already. Any breeze would keep the lighter bits aloft, maybe for hours.
