“I’ll come,” I said. “But just so you know — Lindsay taught me everything I know about this volcano.”
Len Carow clearly did not like being sandbagged, either.
He stood by Krom’s Jeep, suitcase in hand, frowning. “Fuck d’y think yr’doin, Adrian?” He waved an unlit cigarette at me. “Sorry — Oldfield? — language.”
He reminded me of one of those financial types Walter watches on TV: thin-faced, thin-haired, glasses, cranky. I said, “No problem.”
“S’posed to call Lindsay when I get in, Adrian. Go see her road.”
“Did she inform you of the upcoming Council meeting on the subject? Nothing’s set in stone.”
Carow gave a brusque nod.
“So, can you spare us an hour right now, Len?” Krom skated a glance at me.
Carow toyed with his cigarette, sliding his fingers along its length, upending it, reversing it.
I said, “Hot Creek’s just up the road.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
We bumped along in silence the two plowed miles to the creek.
There were several cars in the clifftop parking lot. “Tourists,” Krom said. “Hot Creek’s on the sightseeing maps.”
Len Carow grunted.
As we got out of the Blazer, Krom took a pack and hitched himself into it. He caught my look, and put a finger to his lips.
We went to the rim. We both watched Carow look down.
Hot Creek is a meandering watercourse that has dug a deep gash into an old rhyolite volcanic flow. For the most part the creek is placid but in places, like down below, it churns where channels of cold snowmelt meet magma-heated water so hot it will take off your skin. I used to know how to find the warm currents where the waters mix, and I used to come out here to soak under the Milky Way. I used to worry about the boys catching me in the raw, not about what put hot water into a cold river.
Krom set off and Carow and I followed, making our way down the switchbacks into the gorge. Carow paused to read the Forest Service sign warning that swimming is inadvisable: arsenic in the water, sporadic geyser eruptions, abrupt changes in temperature. Lindsay had the sign put up several years ago, last time the volcano stirred. The message got through. No one dips in Hot Creek any more.
There were a few people down here, picnicking on snow-cleared rocks, kids poking around. Krom threw Carow a look, then hiked a thumb downstream.
We set off downriver. This part of the creek is deceptively bucolic. Long-stemmed reeds haired the snowy banks and ouzels skimmed the water in search of insects. The waters churned, and steamed, but it looked inviting as a hot tub. We hiked in silence, Krom growing noticeably tense, then we rounded a bend and Carow stopped to read the second Forest Service sign, which warned that continuing beyond this point was inadvisable. Nevertheless, the trail continued beyond this point, and within a few yards it slipped into a steamy haze and then disappeared around a bend.
Carow indicated the sign. “Yours, Adrian?”
I spoke. “Lindsay’s. It gets dicey further downstream.”
“Fine,” Carow said, turning, “end’a the line.”
“No,” Krom said, “we keep to the path and we’ll be safe.”
“We go back’n we’ll be safe.”
Krom said, “It’s part of the job, Len, seeing it. Looking at it on a map doesn’t put you in the shoes of the people we came here for.”
Carow glanced at me. “Adrian likes’t play hero.” His look shifted to the steamy landscape downstream. “Fuck heroes. Not what we do.”
Krom said, “Cassie?”
He didn’t have to worry. I was hooked. I wanted to know what had changed downstream. I wanted to know what was in Krom’s pack. Mostly, though, I felt Krom had made an exceedingly good point. FEMA should get out in the field. I said, “Yup, I’m coming.”
Krom threw me a smile. Best friends.
Carow, with a sour look, stalked past the sign.
We set off downriver, meeting the leading edges of drifting steam. We rounded the bend and surprised a damp-faced man with a camera peering like a kid from his jacket, and then we passed him and continued on.
It was like passing from winter to a peculiar kind of summer, for the air grew warmer and the thinning snow receded until we entered a landscape licked nearly clean by steam and heat. The steam-pocked rocks were the colors of summer, pink and orange, and the walls of the gorge had been stained a daisy sulfur yellow. The bubbling hot pools and sucking mud pots and hissing vents filled the air with the industrious thrum of activity. A frog lent his croak to the music. At creekside a seam had ripped open along the bank, spitting mud and pebbles like grease from a frypan. Everywhere there was steam, billowing from fumaroles, clinging to us as we skirted the vents, lending a brassy tinge to the sky.
Carow had to remove his glasses.
I hadn’t been here for two years but I’d prepared myself for the intensity of the activity. Lindsay monitored it, Lindsay kept me posted. Still, a vague unease settled over me, as if I’d returned to a familiar street after a long absence and the houses and trees were there, yet something had changed. I couldn’t put my finger on it. It wasn’t the increased vigor. I was, simply, disoriented and I didn’t know why.
Carow paused to look at a gemlike hot pool.
Krom moved to stand beside him.
The pool was large. Its milky blue water steamed and bubbles skated across the surface. Minerals dissolved by the water had built a thin white lip around the edge. I knew this pool. I glanced around. No, maybe not. Hot pools change. I turned back.
The water domed, as if the pool were drawing a breath. I said, “Back off. Now.”
Krom threw an arm across Carow’s chest and we all leapt back as a geyser jetted into the air, sizzling steam.
Carow muttered “fuckin hero” and fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette.
I turned to scan the creek and found a bulge jutting off the cliff like a rooster’s breast. I looked downriver to the spot where the creek takes a hard right hook. I came back to the pool and knew where I was. I did know this pool. Hydrothermal phenomena come and go, but this was not a question of coming and going. This pool used to sit out here all by itself and there was nothing within a couple hundred meters. Now, it’s spitting close to the mud pots and fumaroles we’d just passed. The old neighborhood used to be one block long. Now, it’s two.
Did Lindsay know? She must.
Krom had moved over to inspect a shelf of rock. He unslung his pack and removed an oblong box. So that’s the big surprise, I thought. It looked to be some kind of monitoring device. I came closer, and my eyes stung. Krom turned. His eyes were reddened.
“Gas,” I said, “move away. Hydrochloric, I’m not sure, some sort of acid.”
“I’ll let you know.” He fiddled with the box, coughing, then retreated.
“Whose is that?”
“Mine.” He wiped his eyes. “Work around enough volcanoes and you learn how to take their temperature. When it’s your call, you get interested. I don’t depend on the scientists. They’re clubby. I got hold of one of their devices and improved it. Mine has a camera, and the data can be telemetered. I always offer one of mine for their use but they don’t like innovations from outside the field.” He shrugged. “So they watch him their way and I watch him mine.”
This was for the record, I thought, showing Carow that Krom’s on top of things.
Carow was mashing out his cigarette, which he’d tossed at the word gas.
“You have to keep watch on him,” Krom was saying. “There’s one thing you should never forget — he’s an unpredictable chum. But it’s not personal. He doesn’t care who gets hurt. Which makes him all the more dangerous, don’t you think?”