Free Fire

17

At six-forty-five the next morning the thermalsin the upper geyser basin created a wall of billowing steam across the highway that wetted the outside of the windshield of the Yukon so Joe had to brake, turn on the wipers, and crawl through. For a moment, in the midst of the sharp-smelling steam, he was blinded and had the strange sensation of being in an airplane as it rose skyward through the clouds.

Demming was in the passenger seat clutching a large paper cup of coffee; Nate was in the backseat smelling of wood smoke. The two had met uneasily at the Yukon ten minutes before.

“Thanks for saving us,” Demming had said.

“Anytime,” Nate said.

It was crisp and cold, the first shafts of sun pouring over the western mountains as if assaulting the day. A heavy frost made the grass sparkle and coated the pine trees. Elk grazed in the open parks, wisps of steam curling up from their nostrils.

Joe’s holstered Glock was on the console between him and Demming. He had watched her reaction when she saw it and detected no official warning. Maybe she hadn’t awakened yet, he thought. Nate wore his.454 in a shoulder holster beneath a billowy, open fatigue jacket, the leather strap in clear view across his chest. He had no doubt she’d seen that too and said nothing.

They didn’t encounter a single vehicle until they turned from the highway to Biscuit Basin and nearly hit a black SUV head-on that was coming out. Joe swerved sharply right, missingthe front bumper of the SUV by inches. The SUV turned away from the Yukon as well, and both vehicles went off the road into opposite shallow ditches. Joe stopped but the SUV continued on, the driver jerking it back onto the road and roaringaway, heading north with a spray of pea gravel that pepperedthe back window of the Yukon. It happened so quickly that Joe didn’t get a glimpse of the driver through the smoked glass windows of the SUV-only the gleaming grille like the bared teeth of a shark that had just missed an attack.

“Man!” he shouted. “Where’d he come from?”

Demming squirmed in her seat, lap soaked with spilled hot coffee.

“I’m all right,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” Joe said. “My fault. I wasn’t expecting anyone because we haven’t seen another car all morning.”

Nate was half-turned in the seat, watching glimpses of the SUV wink through the trees. “Two in the car but I couldn’t see them clearly,” he said. “Wyoming plates, but I didn’t get a number.”

Demming said, “I look like I wet my pants.”

“His driving does that to people,” Nate said.

“I’m sorry,” Joe said to Demming, shooting Nate a glance. Nate smiled back.

Joe breathed slowly until his nerves calmed, then pulled back onto the road.

Cutler’s park service pickup was sitting where they had parked the day before. Joe pulled up beside it as Demming used the last of a box of tissues to absorb the coffee on her uniform pants. He put the close call behind him and climbed out.

The odor in the air was familiar, he thought, but it was from a different time and place. It reminded him of Sundays, growing up, and the smell that came from the kitchen while he lounged in the living room with his brother, Victor, watching football.

Joe wondered if the meeting with his father had skewed his mind, triggered reminiscences that had long been put away.

Nate got out, sniffed, squinted with puzzlement, said, “Pork roast?”

Joe clipped the Glock onto his belt, cold dread gripping his stomach, remembering something Cutler had said the day before.

By the time they found Mark Cutler’s body in Sunburst Hot Springs, his volunteer Park Service uniform and most of his flesh had separated from the skeleton and was floating free, boiling in the water. Commas of black curly hair were being carried down the runoff chute along with bouncing yellow globulesof parboiled fat.

“No. .” Demming gasped, stuffing her fist in her mouth, turning away.

Joe froze, stared in absolute horror, and forgot for the longest time how to breathe. Finally, he unclenched himself and put his arms around Demming and held her. She didn’t resist. He felt her hot tears on his neck.

He looked over her head at the scene. The trunk of the body turned slowly in the hot springs and more pieces came loose. The spring boiled angrily. Joe made himself look away, despite a morbid fascination that shamed him.

“That poor son of a bitch,” Nate said as he joined them. “When I go, I want it to be from a bullet to the head. I sure as hell don’t want to be stew.”

Demming was the first to recall the encounter with the black SUV. Voice trembling, she tried to contact dispatch on her handheld to alert rangers on patrol as well as the personnel at the park gates. No one answered.

“Come in, anyone,” she said.

Static.

“We’re out of range,” she said dully, indicating the radio. “Let’s try Mark’s truck radio.”

“On the chance he left it unlocked and his keys in it,” Joe said, clearly remembering how fastidious Cutler had been about taking his keys and locking the truck at every stop the day before.

As they trudged back toward the vehicles, Joe said, “That SUV can’t be more than fifteen minutes away. Maybe we can catch it.”

“Mark was such a nice guy,” Demming said. “No one deserveswhat happened to him. If whoever was driving that SUV did this, I’ll shoot and ask questions later.”

“I like her style,” Nate said to Joe.

“We don’t know anything yet,” Joe said. “We don’t even know if the SUV driver even saw Mark, much less knocked him into Sunburst. But he sure was in a hurry to get out of here.”

Nate said, “Luckily, there aren’t that many roads. Whoever it is has three options: He could be on the way to the gate at West, or continuing north toward Mammoth. Or he could have cut through the middle of the park by now toward Canyon Village. If he gets to Canyon, that would give him three other ways out.”

“God, this is horrible,” Demming said, shuddering. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

Joe hadn’t either. He couldn’t get the scene out of his mind. He made a point not to look over at the rivulet of cooling springwater that bordered the path they were on in the chance he would see more of Cutler’s body floating away. He imagined the truck keys were likely somewhere deep in the thermal pool, caught on a ledge, heating to over two hundred degrees. At what temperature would metal melt? He didn’t know. How long would it take for Cutler’s bones to boil clean white and sink, like the bison bones he had seen deep in the water the day before?He jolted off the trail into the trees and threw up.

“Sorry,” he said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

He could tell by the look on Demming’s face that she might be next, and she was.

They heard a roar ahead of them in the direction of the road. By now, the sound was familiar.

“Geyser going off,” Joe said. “I wonder which one it is.” He also wondered if the body in the spring had upset the delicate interconnected underground plumbing of the thermal basin enough to cause an unscheduled eruption. Cutler would have known the answer to that question, he thought.

Nate was in the lead and he topped the hill ahead of Demmingand Joe, and was the first to see the geyser.

“Oh, no,” Nate said, shaking his head.

“What now?” Joe asked.

“We won’t be chasing any SUV,” Nate said. “And, Joe, you aren’t going to like this one bit.”

Joe didn’t.

A fissure had opened through the thin asphalt of the road directlyunder the Yukon. Steam and superheated water were blasting up from the ground into the chassis. The windows of the vehicle had been blown out, the paint was peeling off the sides in curled shards, and the tires and plastic grille were melting.

“Jesus,” Demming said.

Joe thought, How can this possibly be happening? — although he knew that in Yellowstone, it happened all the time. Things just came out of the ground anytime, anywhere.

“Your old boss was right,” Nate said. “You’re really rough on trucks.”

“Not now,” Joe said.

“The SUV will get away,” Demming said softly, shaking her head.

Joe found Cutler’s pickup locked and the keys missing. There was nothing they could do to pursue the SUV, call for help, or get out of there.

“This place is kicking our asses,” Nate grumbled.

It took an hour for Joe and Demming to flag down a road maintenance truck on the highway. An old couple from Nebraskahad swerved to avoid them and never slowed down, and an RV speeded up, despite the fact that Demming had flashed her badge and put her hand on her weapon. When the truck stopped, Demming crowded in and Joe said he would stay and wait.

“I’ll call dispatch and get some rangers here as fast as I can,” she said. “An ambulance too.”

Joe didn’t ask what she thought an ambulance would pick up.

Nate sat on an overturned dead tree trunk that was white with absorbed minerals. The morning had heated twenty degrees already with the rising sun, and the ankle-high grass was now wet instead of frozen. Three bison had emerged from a stand of trees and were slowly grazing their way up the trail toward Sunburst.

Joe sat down next to him and stared at the hulk of the Yukon. The fissure beneath it had stopped erupting, although he could hear burbling and see an occasional puff of steam.

“Man,” Joe said, sighing, nodding toward the Yukon. “This keeps happening to me.”

“I know,” Nate said. “If you would have parked ten feet eitherway, it would have missed it.”

“Cutler was a damned good guy,” Joe said. “I really liked him.”

Nate nodded. “Somebody didn’t. Question is, who knew he’d be here?”

Joe hadn’t thought of that. “Herve,” Joe said. “And whoever took the message or saw it before it was given to us.”

“Or anyone you, me, or Demming told about the meeting this morning,” Nate said.

Joe hadn’t told anyone. There was no one to tell.

“I wonder if Demming called her bosses,” Joe said, not wanting to go where his thoughts seemed to be taking him.

Nate nodded. “Maybe we’ve got a big problem on the inside. I can’t say I’m shocked at the idea.”

“Damn, you’re cynical.”

“You forget,” Nate said, “I used to work for the Feds myself in another, um, capacity. No personal agenda in a closed bureaucracycan surprise me.”

A black raven the size of a football cruised along the basin, calling out rudely. It skimmed the rivulet, saw something in the water, turned and landed. The raven quickly speared something in the stream-a piece of Mark Cutler-and ate it a second beforeit blew up in an explosion of black feathers.

“I hate ravens,” Nate said, holstering his.454.

Joe hadn’t even tried to stop Nate from drawing his weapon and firing because he agreed with the sentiment, given the circumstances.

A half-hour before approaching sirens split the silence, Nate patted Joe on the shoulder and said he had to go. “There will be lots of questions,” Nate said. “Portenson might even be here. I don’t have time for that now.”

“I understand.”

“Besides, you and Demming can cover everything,” Nate said. “I’ll catch up with you later.”