C. Box - Free Fire

As he dressed he recalled the events of the night before and was still numbed from them. It was as if his world had tilted slightly to the left into unreality.

His father had been too drunk to maintain a conversation and could barely stand. With Keating on one side and Joe on the other, they walked George Pickett home. Nate followed silently.

“I see you haven’t changed much,” Joe said to his father as they cleared the dormitories and steered him toward a crooked line of rickety shacks hidden even farther in the trees.

“I’m happy you’re here,” his father slurred, taking three tries to get it out. “I’d like to get to know you, Son.”

“You had eighteen years for that,” Joe mumbled, knowing the conversation would likely be forgotten by George when he woke up the next morning.

After they’d lowered George into a disheveled single bed in a coffin-shaped cabin strewn with papers and garbage, Keaton said something to Joe about organizing a get-together for the Picketts very soon, so they could talk.

“Nothing to talk about,” Joe had said, turning for the door.

“And it should be sooner rather than later,” Doomsayer intonedas Joe stepped outside. “We’re on borrowed time as it is, you know. .”

Demming was in the dining room waiting for him at breakfast.He could feel her eyes on his face, trying to discern what was wrong. He ordered eggs from a waiter with the name badge “Vladimir-Czech Republic” and told her about meeting his fatherthe night before in the Zephyr bar.

“He’s one of the Geyser Gazers,” Joe said, trying to sound casual. “He lives in a hovel and drinks like a fish, waiting for the Yellowstone caldera to blow up.”

After Vladimir brought breakfast and talked to them about how beautiful it was outside this morning-“a vision of a dream of nature”-in broken but charming English, Demming said, “So where is your friend Nate?”

“Oh, he’s around,” Joe said, not wanting to tell her that Nate was staying somewhere inside the inn, likely in one of the sectionsthat were officially off-limits to visitors. Nate had mentionedsomething about a tree house far up in the rafters, and Joe fought the urge to look up and see if he was there.

Before separating the night before, Nate had told Joe he intendedto spend the day talking to old Zephyr friends to see if he could learn anything about the Gopher State Five.

“Around, huh?” she said, put off. “I’m beginning to think he doesn’t exist. Like he’s your special secret friend. My son has one of those too, Joe. He calls him Buddy.”

Joe reviewed his notes and scribbled questions in his notebook while Demming went to find Mark Cutler, the area manager of Old Faithful. She returned with a cherubic and avuncular man about Joe’s age with a pillow of dark curly hair, red cheeks, and an air of cheery competence about him. He wore wire-framed glasses, a tie and a blazer, but looked as if he spent as much time outdoors as indoors, judging by his sunburnedskin and the scratches on the back of his hands.

“Mark Cutler,” he said. “I manage this joint.”

“Joe Pickett. Nice to meet you.”

“Judy said you have some questions, follow-up on Hoening and McCaleb.”

“Yup,” Joe said. “Bob Olig too.”

“Ah, Olig,” Cutler said, smiling at the name. “Quite the characters, those three.”

“Do you have a few minutes?”

Cutler looked at his watch. “If you want to sit down and talk, I really don’t, but if you’re willing to tag along with me as I do my work today, I’ve got all the time in the world.”

Joe looked at Demming and she nodded.

“We’ll tag along,” Joe said.

“Good, good. You’ll see some really cool stuff,” Cutler said, turning on his heel and gesturing in a “follow me” wave.

Joe instantly liked him for his affability and enthusiasm for his job. He guessed Cutler was a pretty good manager.

“I’ve got a couple of things to wrap up in my office,” Cutler said, leading them outside on a wooden walkway that led, eventually,to some low-slung administration buildings painted Park Service brown and tucked into a stand of lodgepole pine. “We’re winding down the season, as you can see. It’s quite an operation. That means shutting down all the facilities and winterizingthem, dealing with the reassignment of employees, year-end reports, too many things to count. It would almost be easier if we just stayed open all year, but we don’t.”

“So you knew the victims pretty well?” Joe asked.

Cutler shrugged. “Pretty well. I mean, I was their boss, not their buddy. But I got along well with them. They were good guys, despite what you might have heard.” He nodded toward Demming when he said it, indicating the tiff they had had with particular rangers like Layborn. “They worked hard and they played hard. Hoening had a bit of an agenda, as you probably know, but a lot of new hires do. They come here to save the place, but the day-to-day work starts to make them forget that.”

Cutler’s office was small and nondescript, nothing on the walls or his desk of a personal nature except for a photo of him smiling with Old Faithful erupting in the background.

While Cutler fired off responses to e-mails, Joe turned to Demming.

“The Pagoda is a palace compared to this,” Joe said. “Cutler manages hundreds of people, but his office. .”

“I know,” she said, rolling her eyes. “That’s how it is. Governmentemployees are the royalty and the contractors are our serfs. Discussion over, Joe.”

“Sorry.”

She smiled to show she wasn’t angry. Then: “I talked to Ashby for an hour last night. He’s not happy. The news about Darren Rudloff is getting out, and he’s gotten some calls already.Apparently, some reporters are asking him questions about the Zone of Death, like are there a bunch of armed outlawsin it, why isn’t the Park Service patrolling the area, those kinds of things. He doesn’t like it one bit and he’s meeting with Chief Ranger Langston this morning to discuss the situation. I may get called back to Mammoth to help out.”

“How can you go back and keep an eye on me at the same time?” Joe asked slyly.

She shook her head. “I’d rather stay here. I don’t know where we’re going, but it seems like we’re headed somewhere.”

“Story of my life,” Joe said.

“If I get called back, you may be asked to leave.”

“Oh.”

“They don’t trust you,” she said, lowering her voice. “They think you’ll do something to bring the whole Clay McCann/Zone of Death thing back into the headlines. In fact, it’s already happening, isn’t it?”

“I hope so.”

Cutler tapped the keys on his keyboard with efficient violenceand fired off the last e-mail, saying, “There! Chew on that, Park Service weenies!” As he did so, he glanced at Demmingand said, “Sorry, ma’am. No offense.”

“None taken,” Demming said coolly.

Cutler leaned back. “I’m going off my shift here now and putting on a different hat. Follow me.”

Cutler launched himself out of his chair and was out the door in a shot, Joe and Demming struggling to keep up. Cutler explainedthat his primary interest in life was geology, specifically geothermal activity. It was the reason he came to Yellowstone in the first place, twenty years before. Although he was area manager,his degree and background were in science, and he’d publishedscientific papers in international journals and kept a regular and ongoing correspondence with geologists around the world, wherever there were geysers. He had personally mapped more than two thousand geothermal sites within the park, and served as the secretary for the loosely organized Geyser Gazers, the volunteers who watched and recorded eruptions and hot-spotactivities.