Abel scratched his chin in reflection. “Fascinating. What do you think all this Yellowstone business will amount to?”
Bobcat whistled loudly through lips. “I do know that Yellowstone has erupted three times in the past two million years.”
Abel nodded. “Mmm, Liz has mentioned that before.”
“Sure, well,” Bobcat continued, “that region of the West has seen major trouble a dozen times, too, farther back in time. The three most recent eruptions had a significant impact on the North American continent. Two of them most certainly would have altered global climate. The eruption two million years ago was something few people can imagine. From what I’ve read, the explosive force of that eruption was something like the earth being hit by a big meteorite. Now, if this eruption is like any one of the two worst events in the last two million years, I would speculate that we are in for some chilly weather.”
“You think so?”
“I’d bet on it, Abel.”
“For how long?”
“Oh, jeez, I don’t have any way to know, but I’ll bet it’s at least a few years, maybe much more. We’ll know more by tomorrow night. That’s when we should see the first fallout from the eruption.”
“Tomorrow? What’s tomorrow?”
“I can guarantee you, Abel, the sunset tomorrow night will be the most remarkable one you will ever see. It should be like no other.”
“Why’s that?”
“Dust and gases in the upper atmosphere will block certain wavelengths of light and scatter light deep into the evening. The reds and oranges will get through. The whole sky will look as if it’s on fire. It’ll be brilliant, mark my word. And the sunset will last for hours, as trillions of high altitude particles reflect the light well past the hour of dusk.”
Abel shook his head slowly in disbelief, but his friend had his undivided attention.
“Are you familiar with the Tunguska disaster?” Bobcat asked.
“Tunguska? Abel tapped his fingers to his forehead. “Hmm! Wasn’t that a meteor, or something like that, over Siberia, ah, sometime in the early years of the last century?”
“That’s the one. A meteor the size of a locomotive, traveling at 30,000 miles an hour, streaked into the atmosphere above Siberia and disintegrated in a powerful burst, like a hydrogen bomb going off. The explosion lofted tens of thousands of tons of pulverized debris from the object high into the uppermost layers of the atmosphere. That debris reflected so much light that newspaper editors in England reported that their readers could read the news by reflected sunlight as late as midnight, and this went on for many weeks. The sunsets were dazzling, according to all accounts.”
Abel took a long sip from a cold cup of home-brewed herb tea, then ground his teeth together audibly.
“How are you feeling about all this?” Abel probed.
“Oh, man,” Bobcat sighed, “I’d have to say I’m terribly nervous, really, knowing what I know about extinction.”
“You, of all people, you’re scared?”
“I am, Abel.” Bobcat focused on a spot on the floor, not wanting to look his friend in the eye. “Want to know what I really think?”
“Of course I do.”
“I think we may be in danger, all of us—maybe the whole damn planet.”
Abel chewed at the corner of his lower lip. “What do you think anybody can do about it?”
“God knows, Abel. Human beings have a hard enough time preparing for what’s coming down the pike a week into the future. No one on earth could imagine preparing for a disaster that’s been brewing for a million years. There’s no way to prepare for a Yellowstone. There just isn’t.”
“What do you think could happen to us?”
“You want it straight?”
“Yes, straight up!”
“We’re likely to go hungry.” Bobcat’s eyes were wide, dilated fully. “Crops could fail on every continent. If that happens, famine will stalk the globe. If this is another Toba, there aren’t going to be too many tomorrows for an awful lot of people on this little blue ball.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Well, you asked me, Abel. What in the devil do you want me to say?” Bobcat was visibly miffed.
“No, no, sorry. I mean, do you think Yellowstone is in a league with your, your mass extinctions?”
“Well, we’ll know soon enough.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
Smoke from smoldering brush circulated in Liz’s nostrils. Flickering ruby demons danced in darkness. Muffled scurrying noises, mice in a wall, drifted in and out. The odor, though, was pleasant. Neighbors had burned fall leaves by the curb when she was a child. It smelled like that.
The senses emerged one by one from the void, each bringing with it an unwelcome gift of pain. Taking stock of her immediate surroundings, trying to decipher what she was seeing and feeling, Liz sensed little that was familiar except physical agony so great she could not will her body off the earth to seek help. Her spine lay on what, straw? Something covered her but did little to temper cold. Fire smoldered on the edge of sight and red figures nearby moved in slow motion swinging white light beams through smoke and dust.
“Can you help me?” It took maximum effort just to pump a little volume behind the words.
A vision turned in Liz’s direction, flashlight beam to one side.
“Here.”
“I’m coming. Stay still,” a female voice called. A woman, small in stature, knelt down beside the scientist and played the beam about. The stranger touched Liz’s flesh, raised a wrist and took her pulse.
“Would you tell me something?” pleaded Liz.
“Of course, dear.”
“I don’t know where I am.”
“What is your name?”
Liz struggled with the question a moment. “El…, ah, Elizabeth.”
“That’s good, Elizabeth, that’s very good. You’ve survived a serious accident.
“Accident?”
“The crash of a plane.”
Liz vaguely recalled passengers seated in a jetliner. Their likenesses floated out of the darkness. “I’m supposed to be in Minneapolis.”
“You have fallen here. You’re in Alberta, dear, near the Canadian border.”
“There were others.”
“Yes, many of them survived the landing, like you.”
“I have a young daughter. I have to pick her up.”
“In time, mother, in time.”
“But I have to….”
“You need to be still. We’ll be along shortly to take you to the village. We can help you there.”
Confused, Liz looked away. She did not recognize that the tortured shapes in the firelight were the wreckage of a great airliner. The Airbus had split apart into two sections. The cockpit and first class seating area remained affixed to the wing superstructure. Much of the fuselage was distorted but still intact. It had suffered little fire damage. Most of the jet aft of the wings had separated from the main craft and burned furiously. Passengers seated over the wings had survived the crash landing; those in the back rows had perished in a flash fire. Liz had left her seat over the wings and had fallen into a first class seat when the plane pitched radically to avoid the ash cloud. Her behavior on board had conspired to save her life.
The stranger stood and turned toward the wreckage.
“Wait,” Liz called to the stranger in a panic. “When will you come back?”
“In a few minutes.”
“Thank you for talking to me.”
The tiny woman standing in the darkness replied, “I could do nothing less.”
Liz did not want the woman to leave her alone in such pain. She wanted to keep her engaged in conversation, to keep her nearby. “Who are you?”