"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."
18
That afternoon, clay mccann drove south from West Yellowstone and the sun streamed in through the windowsbut didn't take the chill off the inside of the car one bit, he thought. In fact, it felt like it was getting colder, despite the digitalgauge on the dash that showed it was nearing sixty degrees.
Butch Toomer sat in the passenger seat, reaching incessantly to fiddle with the radio to try to find a station he liked. He had a toothpick in his mouth that never stopped dancing, and he was wearing his shades.
Sheila sat in the back, fuming. Her rage was palpable, an emotional cold front that could close schools and government buildings in seven states.
"Why the fuck is he here?" she asked McCann. "This was supposed to be a special day."
"I told you," McCann said. "I owe him some money. I told him I'd get it in Idaho Falls, and he insisted on coming along."
"I wish you two would stop talking like I'm not here," Toomer said. "It's getting on my nerves."
"You're getting on my nerves," Sheila said. "And don't get me started on Clay."
McCann shrugged. Fall colors were bursting like fireworks in the wooded folds of the mountains. Not that he cared. Scenery got old. Instead, he recalled how Sheila had looked that morning when he pulled into the parking lot of her shabby apartment building to pick her up. She had never looked better, he thought. Tight black sweater, charcoal skirt, black nylons, strappy shoes. And where in the hell did she get those pearls?
Oh, how her face fell when she saw Toomer in the car. Oh, the words she used. McCann was a little surprised when she was through that blisters had not formed on his exposed face and hands.
Several times, he had tried to catch her eye in the rearview mirror. He wanted to smile at her, have her know he was smiling at her. The only time she looked back her eyes were fearsome black daggers and when they connected with his he thought the temperature in the car dropped another ten degrees. "Do you think we'll have time to look at a couple of horse trailers in Idaho Falls?" Toomer asked. They had just crossed the state line from Montana into Idaho.
"Why?" McCann said.
"Elk season," Toomer said. "Christ, don't you pay any attentionaround here? Haven't you seen all those men wearing orangeand driving around with dead animals in their trucks?"
McCann didn't respond. He tried to catch Sheila's eye in the mirror again but she wouldn't look back.
"I got a two-horse slant load," Toomer said. "I want to upgradeto a four-horse stock, now that I'm coming into a little money. I like them stocks. They pull good and I got a mare that blows up when I try to get her to load into the slant."
It was as if he were speaking Martian, McCann thought.
"Clay," Sheila sighed from the back, "please take me somewherewithout horses. Or hunters. Or ex-sheriff assholes who won't take their sunglasses off."
McCann noted that her anger had been replaced by despair. He felt sorry for her. All dressed up and stuck in a car with Butch Toomer. And him. She deserved better, he thought. He wished Toomer was gone and she'd take her sweater off.