C. Box - Free Fire

For the next hour, Cutler carefully removed coins and debris from the geysers and hot pools. Joe followed in his footsteps and gathered them and noted what was found in Cutler’s journal. Cutler explained how the underground plumbing system worked, how mysterious it was, how a geyser could simply stop erupting in one corner of the park and a new geyser could shoot up forty miles away as the result of a mild tremor or indiscerniblegeological tic. How the water that came from the geysershad been carbon-tested to reveal it was thousands of years old, that it had been whooshing through the underground works before Columbus landed in America and was just now being blasted into the air.

Cutler took a quick turn off the road and pulled over to the side. Ahead of them was a hugely wide but squat white cone emitting breaths of steam. Joe was unimpressed at first glance.

“What you’re looking at is Steamboat Geyser,” Cutler said. “It’s by far the biggest geyser in the world. When this baby goes-and we never know when or why-it can be seen from miles away. It reaches heights of four hundred feet, three times Old Faithful, and drenches everything around here for a quarter of a mile. The volume of boiling water that comes out of it is scary. Nearly as scary as its unpredictability. We’ve waited years for an eruption, and almost declared it dormant when it proved otherwise.”

“When’s the last time it blew?” Joe asked.

“A year ago, in the winter. Three times. No one was there when it went, but the evidence of the eruption was a herd of parboiledbison found a hundred yards away. It seems to be getting more active. The eruptions used to be up to fifty years apart, but last winter they were four days apart.”

Cutler whistled. “I’d give my left nut to see it erupt.”

The firehole river was on their left as they departed the geyser basin and drove north on the highway. Bison grazed along the banks and steamy water poured from Black Sand Geyser Basin into the river.

Geyser Gazers, according to Cutler, numbered nearly seven hundred strong, although the hard-core, full-time contingent amounted to only about forty. They were all volunteers, and includedscientists, lawyers, and university professors as well as retired railroad workers, laborers, and the habitually unemployed.The thing that brought them together was their love, knowledge, and appreciation for Yellowstone and the thermal activity within the Yellowstone caldera. Most showed up on weekends or took their vacations to help. Only a few stayed in or near the park on a full-time basis, like Doomsayer and George Pickett.

“How many ascribe to Keaton’s philosophy that we’re all going to die?” Joe asked.

“Maybe a couple dozen,” Cutler said. “The rest recognize the threat but choose to go on and live their lives normally, like me.”

“What about Hoening and the other Gopher Staters? Were they Keaton disciples?”

“No chance.”

“Another theory shot down,” Joe said, and smiled at Demming.That’s when he noticed how introspective she was. She didn’t appear to be listening to Cutler explain about geyser activities.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She shook her head, indicating she would tell him later.

Cutler parked at Fountain Paint Pots and grabbed his pole and slotted spoon. Joe said he’d meet up with him in a minute. As Cutler strode away on the boardwalk, Joe turned to Demming.

“Ashby?”

“Yes. He met with Chief Ranger Langston and they’re gettingagitated and nervous. They want us to break it off here and come back up to Mammoth. Langston is quite adamant about it.”

“Why?”

“Ashby said they don’t like the direction we’re headed, goingto the Bechler station, interviewing Mark Cutler. He thinks we’re going to open the Park Service to unwanted exposure.”

Joe shook his head, felt anger well in him. “ ‘Unwanted exposure’? What does that mean?”

“I’m not sure, but they seem to think you have another agenda. And they don’t like your friend being up here.”

“How do they know about Nate?”

“I told them,” she said. “I had to. It’s my job.”

Joe said, “How much time do we have?”

“They want us back by tonight.”

“I’ll think about it,” Joe said, wondering what they’d done to suddenly warrant Ashby and Langston’s concern, wondering if he’d need to call Chuck Ward to intervene, if possible. “I wish I knew what was going on here.”

“Me too,” she said. “What really seemed to upset them was us talking with Cutler. Maybe it’s just a Park Service versus contractor thing, I don’t know.”

“Or maybe Cutler knows something they don’t want us to find out,” Joe said.

As they drove, Joe noticed Cutler glancing more frequentlyin his rearview mirror.

“That’s strange,” he said. “I noticed that pickup back when we left Fountain Paint Pots. He was the only other vehicle in the lot, parked way over on the far side. Now I see it behind us.”

“Don’t turn around,” Joe said to Demming, not wanting her to reveal to the driver of the truck that they were aware of him. “Let’s check it out in the side mirror.”

Joe leaned over Demming to see. The mirror vibrated with the motor, but he could see a glimpse of a pickup grille a third of a mile behind them. Over a long straightaway, Joe could see the truck better. Red, late-model 4x4 Ford. Montana plates. Singledriver wearing a cowboy hat. As he looked, the pickup driver reduced his speed so it faded into the distance.

When Cutler turned off the highway at Biscuit Basin onto a one-lane road, he slowed down and watched his mirror.

“Don’t see him now,” he said. “He must have turned off. You guys are making me paranoid, I guess. I normally wouldn’t noticesomething like that, but there are so few visitors in the park the truck sort of stood out.”

The road rose into heavy timber and broke through onto a wide, remote plain dotted with dead but standing trees and steam rising from cratered mouths. The trees had no leaves and were bone-white in color.

“This is one of the hottest spots in the park,” Cutler said. “We’ve watched it get hotter over the past four years. That’s why the trees are dead; all of that hot mineral water got soaked up by their roots to fossilize them. There’s lot of activity here, and some really great hot pots.”

Joe glanced at his list of questions.

“What about Clay McCann?” Joe asked. “Did you ever meet him? Did they ever mention his name?”

Cutler shook his head. “I saw his name around but I never met him. And no, the Gopher Staters never mentioned him.”

“What do you mean you saw his name?”

“On some papers, some bio-mining contracts.”

Joe exchanged glances with Demming. “Bio-mining?” Joe said. “That’s twice today you mentioned it.”

“What, you haven’t heard of it?”

“No,” Joe said. He asked Demming, “Have you?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” she sighed.

They parked at the end of a dirt two-track that culminated with a downed log blocking the road and a Park Service sign reading ACCESS PROHIBITED. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Joe noticed that despite the sign there were clearly tire tracks in the crusty dirt beyond the log where someone had driven. He asked Cutler about it.

“Bio-miners, I’m sure,” Cutler said. “They have a permit. Follow me.”

It was midday and the sun was straight overhead in a virtuallycloudless blue sky and the day had warmed considerably into the mid-sixties. Joe was struck by the utter quiet all around them as they hiked up a footpath and over a gentle rise. The only sounds were their boots, breath, and the occasional caw of a far-off raven.

“It’s very controversial,” Cutler said, swinging a thermister in a case next to his leg as he walked. “I’m surprised you haven’t heard or read about these projects.”