Volcano Watch

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

We returned to Mammoth as we had left, in convoy. This time it went without a hitch. Long line of vehicles herding home, four months and six days after we all hightailed it out of town, the mountain in our rearview mirrors.

Now the mountain looms before us: long time no see.

Jimbo and I, in Jimbo’s heap, followed Walter in his new Explorer. Fire-engine red, like the one he’d lost. Walter had already put the mileage on it, wandering hither and yon for weeks at a time. He’d send postcards. I’d write letters. Other than that, I slept, ate, socialized when pressed, read, watched more videos than I needed. Boxed up lab equipment, put it in storage.

It took Resident Visitors Day, and its prospects, to rouse me from my torpor.

The Army Corps of Engineers had plowed a road across the ash-and-pumice tuff, following highway 203, and the cars raised a haze of ash. Erupted ash and pumice had filled in the gash across 203, the handiwork that had rerouted our evacuation. We passed a forest of gray tree stumps, stripped of bark, splintered. The intervening ground was wormy with charcoal. Just ahead was the hilly plateau on which the town had stood, and above that naked shelf was the mountain.

Landforms laid bare, a geologist’s dream.

“Man,” Jimbo said.

I glanced at Jimbo, barely visible behind the wings of his hair. First I’ve spent time alone with him since the hospital. He’d visited faithfully while I was laid up, jiving with the nurses, but we hadn’t found much to say to each other. Eric was always there, and behind him, Mike. Ghosts aren’t white, they’re tropical neon yellow. Except for Lindsay, who is a winter and whose best color was always gray.

The road leveled and we came to that juncture where we’d always gained the first glimpse of town through the screen of Jeffrey pines. No screen now. In my dreams, nothing has survived, not a single shard to indicate that anything but ash ever existed on this plateau. In my memory, it’s a mountain ski town in deep forest. But in reality the town looked like a beach, with mile after mile of sand castles eroded by the poundings of high tide.

Jimbo’s head snapped right. “That the ranger station?”

I looked. Rubble, unidentifiable but for the fact that the ranger station is the first building on the right as you come into town. Didn’t matter which way I looked. All buildings were the same, reduced to trace evidence. All tree stumps were the same, as though only one kind of tree had ever grown here, a barkless gray splintery species.

We drove on and I saw in the distance the ash trails of two Geological Survey vehicles heading for the Lakes Basin.

Halfway up Minaret Road a flagman directed us into a bulldozed parking lot.

It was a warm summer day and doors slammed and neighbors sieved among the cars. It was like countless occasions — concerts, races, barbecues, parades — which invariably began with greetings in the parking lot. We were a silent bunch today, going in the direction we were flagged.

Walter set off at a brisk pace ahead of everyone.

“What’s up with you two?” Jimbo asked.

I strapped on my belt bag. “He’s giving us some time together.” Who knows when we’ll hang out next? From here, Jimbo’s off again on the summer roller-ski biathlon circuit.

My brother and I walked Minaret, arm’s-length apart, like probers crossing an avalanche field. We came to the boxy perimeter of a foundation and Jimbo speculated that we had stumbled upon the Ski Tip. Hard to say. I found myself looking for curlicues of wood, for the kitschy soul of Bill’s establishment, but of course that had not survived. Jimbo traipsed into the rubble to poke around.

I waited, resting my hands on the pouch at my waist.

Jimbo turned and the sun caught him full on, and I felt a shock. He’d aged. In my memory his face is still a boy’s face — soft curves to the cheeks, the brush of thick blond lashes. In reality, his lips were thinner than I recalled, his forehead faintly lined. He stood fixed, solitary customer of the Tip today. He looked like he didn’t have even ghosts for company.

I did, although their company brought me an unbearable ache.

I came over to Jimbo and punched his arm. “Let’s go.”

He looked down at his arm, as if I had left a mark. The shock of it. His dweeb sister trying for cool. Cool, the state he desperately needed to return to. “Hey,” he said. He hooked his arm through mine. “Hey, you sure left the place a mess.”

We abandoned the Tip and followed the crowd. Resident Visitors were making too much noise, stirring up too much ash, and the gray bones of the town seemed to shrink from us.

Not ours anyway. The Town of Mammoth Lakes is now home to scientists, engineers, and government agents and it’s become a boomtown of trailers and behemoth vehicles. We came to the new town hall — seven motor homes parked in a U around stepped rows of metal picnic tables. A blue plastic canopy tented the area. There was a table with thermoses and platters of sandwiches and fruit, a table stacked with FEMA bulletins, a huge corkboard of photographs, and three wheeled carts with video displays.

Jimbo said “there’s the Stobe” and headed for the food table where Stobie was hovering as his mom, Lila Winder, unwrapped a tray of cookies.

Always the female who does the food.

“Cassie!” An arm enveloped me and a tall form bent. Hal Orenstein raised a camera. “For the Mammoth Times? I’m putting out an issue.” I smiled and he shot. He whispered, “The biggies are here today,” and nodded at a plump woman shouldering a minicam with the CNN logo.

Good, I thought. I unzipped the belt bag. Very good.

I passed into the throng, which under the blue canopy took on an underwater feel. The displaced citizenry seemed not sure what to do, where to look — at the videotapes of faintly familiar steaming landmarks, at the densely captioned photo montage of their volcano’s evolution, or at the realtime mess it had made. Many simply made for the food table. The place had an unreal air, a mix of science fair and refugee camp.

I wormed deeper, on the hunt.

Phil Dobie found me and we huddled. He wore his USGS jacket with the Volcanic Event Response Team logo. Very visible, very smart. He leaned in and his beard tickled my ear as he whispered, “you ready?”

“I need Walter.”

“Why?”

“We’re a team.”

Phil and I jostled on until we bumped into Walter, who had been hunting through the throng for me. I said “now?” and Walter nodded so I took the package from my pouch and passed it to Walter to give to Phil. A little team ceremony.

Phil set off.

“Over there,” Walter said.

I looked, and caught sight of Len Carow’s sharp profile and FEMA jacket, and beyond him the rest of the biggies — Council members and agency reps and reporters — and there of course was Adrian Krom.

Impossibly, Krom is smiling. He’s bald, that glossy brown animal pelt gone, but it gives him a drop-dead cool air like some massive shaved-head athlete. The skin of his face is marred, and he’s in shirtsleeves and the scar on his arm magnifies the effect, as if he’s undergone ritual scarification for admission to some secret tribe. He moves haltingly, his right leg apparently braced beneath his slacks, but you get the impression he could cover the distance in a lunge should the need arise.

He smiles as if he’s untouchable. He’s been untouchable since the chopper evacuated him to the hospital, untouchable through the months of rehab. In a Time magazine piece titled Road Back From Hell, he swears the real heroes were Eric and Mike, but the gist of the article is that he got caught in the eruption because he’d stayed behind to be sure everyone was safely out. And he did indeed succeed. The only ones to die were those who came in after the evac: some crazy sightseers who’d come by dog sled, three Japanese volcanologists and their chopper pilot — and the two volunteers, the heroes. Walter and I get a mention, as well: I nursed Krom like an angel; Walter stood fast. The upbeat ending: Krom survived, and now he’s ready to return to duty, to challenge another volcano and save the day anew.

He did not notice me or Walter in the milling crowd.

Phil’s voice suddenly carried over the noise, “…and if you would direct your attention over here, we have some footage that…” and I didn’t catch the rest, undoubtedly lost in Phil’s beard, but it was all right because the crowd began to shift toward the video displays.

Walter and I buffeted our way through to the show.

There were two displays, and on each screen a different disaster movie. Here was a Mammoth Mountain montage — from treeless slopes to bald summit. Here was the fissure on Red Mountain, belching up steam.

People did a double-take.

It took them a moment to realize that while the Mammoth Mountain video was post-eruption, the Red Mountain fissure footage was pre-eruption.

Compared to the aerial views and tracking shots on the other screens, this fissure video was dull stuff. Single fixed camera angle. The only thing that changed was the buildup of snow — and, at the top of the screen, the date. And, for those science wonks in the crowd, the data crawl at the bottom showed daily fluctuations in mag field, strain rate, gas emission. Phil had started the video a couple of minutes ago, so we’d come in partway through.

“I don’t get it,” Lila Winder said.

Walter said to Lila, and to everyone within earshot — which was a good number of Resident Visitors and biggies—“Ask Adrian. It’s his video.”

Andy DeMartini bellowed, “Yo, Mr. Krom.”

I watched the display start again at the beginning, January ninth, and run to its end, February thirteenth. From the day after the Inn meeting to the day I found Gold Dust.

The day after the Inn meeting, Krom had taken me and Len Carow down to Hot Creek to see the activity, and Krom had showed off his specially-designed monitor. And then I’d left in a huff, and Len Carow had left to join Lindsay, and Krom had taken a ski up to Gold Dust to install the device so that it could monitor the fissure. And there it remained until Mike followed me to Gold Dust. He saw I’d found the place, he retreated to the parking lot, and after our confrontation, after I’d gone home, he’d skied back up to Gold Dust to retrieve the monitor. And then Krom stored it in his office. And then Lindsay came and took it. And then Walter found it in her safe. And then, at last, it came into my possession. After we were rescued, I’d opened Walter’s pack and learned what all the fuss was about.

I’d become something of a video junkie in the time after that, and this was one I watched again and again. Admiring the cleverness of the little microprocessor-controlled videocam he’d built into his monitor. Admiring the quality of the picture. It’s like you’re there. You can almost smell the sulfur. I could admire his solution to his timing problem. How easy. The monitor was his personal record of the fissure’s progression. It told him he had time — time to champion his evac route, time for me to find the fissure. He didn’t have to ski up there every day, he had the scene telemetered to his computer. How fucking easy.

I expect Krom admired it, as well, enough anyway to keep the data and video and not erase it. He couldn’t frame it and hang it on his wall of merit, but I expect he had liked to replay it now and then. Lift a margarita, make a toast. His triumph over Lindsay. Private celebration. Certainly, he never expected her to break in and steal it. Certainly, he never expected Walter to find it in her safe. Certainly, he never intended it to go public.

And here he came, disbelief on his scarred face.

For just a tick, I felt fear — fear that he would find a way to survive this — but Lila caught him. She got right into his face, and she’s big enough to do it, and she said, “You knew.” She’d evidently gotten it now, she’d seen on the video how Krom had been able to foretell the future on Red Mountain. “You knew,” she said, “you shabby excuse for a man.”

Len Carow, still glued to the tube, grew a thin smile.

And now curious members of the town Council were crowding in.

Something new showed on Krom’s face, the thick look of a cornered animal, and then the CNN minicam nosed out of the crowd and Krom panicked. He lumbered to the video cart and killed the picture. The fissure expired. The minicam swung for a head shot of Krom. He put up a hand, blocking the lens. Carow whistled and hooked a finger and the plump reporter altered course. Attention shifted Carow’s way, leaving Krom for the moment free.

I moved in, close enough to smell his sweat. I said, “Are you scared?”

He had hold of the brushed-steel handle of the video cart. He made no answer, did not acknowledge he’d even heard, as though the blood was pounding so hard in his ears he’d gone deaf to all but his racing heart.

I waited with my own heart pounding, greedy for something more.

Walter was beside me. “Shall we?”

I waited until Krom finally swung his head my way, until his depthless brown eyes hooked on mine, and I tried to read in there his future — where he’s pilloried for Mammoth — and then I turned and broke free of him and walked with Walter out from beneath the blue canopy into the open.

“Are you satisfied?” Walter asked, and I didn’t know how to answer. The rush had passed, as adrenaline will, leaving me hollowed. I asked, “Are you?” He took so long to answer that we’d started walking, and when he finally said “It’s a rough sort of justice,” I didn’t press any further. I wasn’t sure how to quantify rough justice. On the one hand, Adrian Krom had committed murder and he was free. On the other hand, he wouldn’t be playing hero in anybody else’s town, playing challenge with anybody else’s volcano. Was that enough?

Walter and I headed up Minaret, boots crunching paved pumice.

Minaret Road had grown noisy: chatter, shouts, somebody crying, the crash of rubble thrown on top of rubble. People stood out in bold relief, dwarfing the remains of buildings. Even in the distance, mile after unobstructed mile, tall figures could be seen tramping over the corrugated landscape.

We came upon what we judged to be the lab. We went inside and settled onto low seats of pitted concrete. I rubbed the ridged scar on my right hand, then pressed my hands between my knees. Maybe it’s a female thing, trying to hide scars.

“Well.” Walter braced his hands on his thighs. “What are you going to do?”

“Maybe go see if I can find the house.” I suddenly wanted to go see it all — the house, Walter’s place, Lindsay’s. Eric’s. I didn’t want to leave a stone unturned. I wanted to see everything, burn it into my memory.

“What are you going to do for a living?” Walter said.

“Oh.”

“You must give it some thought.”

I had, actually. “Maybe go into geotech reconnaisance.” Soil stability studies, make sure houses are built on solid ground.

Walter snorted.

Nobody gets killed. “What about you?”

“I’m too old to begin anything else.”

I thought, he doesn’t look too old. I’ve been treating him like old porcelain, but he looks crisp in his tan field jacket with the epaulettes and flap pockets. He looks jaunty with his scar, as though he’s fought a duel and won. He looks as though he’s finished aging, having reached an accommodation with the elements, his face settled into its final high-relief topography.

He said, “I’ve been thinking about the name.”

“What name?”

“Of our business. Sierra Geoforensics. I think we might personalize it.”

Before he spoke again I understood what was coming.

“Shaws and Oldfield, Geoforensics.” He looked at me.

“You’re serious?”

“I do think my name should come first.”

“I’m serious, Walter.”

“So am I.” His eyes, on me, were sharp again, astringent blue.

“You wanted more than you got, just like I did.”

“Very well then, dear, what do you expect? Batting rate of fifty-fifty? I say we can do better. Or you can go crawl around building sites and expect zero percent and achieve what you expect.”

I flinched. “Do we need to do this now?”

“We need to do this here.”

I got up, and paced the lab. Not much had survived. Concrete survived, blasted and tossed here and there. Steel survived, I-beams in tangles like ropes. The storefront window survived, shattered and melted and blackened. The lab was gone but its footprint remained. I felt the sudden sharp pain of loss. I knew it would last a very long time. A lifetime. And I knew, at last, there was but one way to bear it. Try again.

I turned to Walter. “I think we should stick with Sierra Geoforensics. It’s an established brand.”