Free Fire Part 19

"I'd love to know the story behind that ring," Demming said, holding it up.

"I want to know who walks around with lug nuts in their pocket," Joe said.

Cutler emerged in ranger green with a radio on his belt. He loaded a long aluminum pole with a slotted spoon on the end into a pickup, along with metal boxes containing electronics.

"Thermisters," Cutler explained when Joe looked at the boxes. "We hide them in geyser and hot springs runoff channels to track the temperature of the water. We learn a lot about which geysers are getting active and which ones are shutting down by the temps."

"What's with the pole and spoon?" Demming asked.

"I use that to pick the coins and c.r.a.p out of the geysers to keep them clean."

Joe and Demming climbed into the truck and Cutler roared off.

"Hoening, McCaleb, and Olig were all proud members of the Gopher State Five," Cutler said. "Since I'm from Minnesota,we hit it off right away. They were just big old Midwesterners.They worked hard, loved their beer, loved the park. They used to come along with me sometimes to check geysers and clean out hot springs, like we're doing now. They'd come on their days off, when they could be s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around. When Ranger Layborn came around to ask me about them, it was as if he was describing entirely different people. He seemed to think they were big into drugs and crime, that they were some kind of gang. I never saw that side of them."

"Were they illegal hot-potters?" Joe asked.

Cutler smiled. "I'm sure they were. We frown on it when it's our employees, but it's just about impossible to stop. We can't watch everyone twenty-four/seven, even though the rangers think we should. No offense, ma'am," he said to Demming.

"None taken," Demming said, tight-lipped.

"Any other problems with them? What about the drug allegations?"

"Nothing I know of, and I mean that. That's not to say all of my people are clean. It's like any other work situation; there's a percentage of bad apples. But no more than any workplace in the outside world and less than some. h.e.l.l, I went to school in Madison, at the University of Wisconsin. Ranger Layborn could really ply his craft there."

"Not even marijuana?" Joe asked. "There seemed to be drug references in the e-mails he sent. 'Flamers,' he called them."

Cutler shrugged. "Again, I can't swear he wasn't smoking, but I never saw or heard anything that would confirm it. As you know, there's a certain att.i.tude and culture that goes with drug use, and he didn't seem to be a part of it. He was pretty tightly wound at times-kind of naively idealistic about environmental issues. But drugs, that would surprise me."

Cutler turned the pickup off the highway at the Upper Geyser Basin and parked it in the empty lot. Joe trailed him while Demming remained in the pickup to report to the PaG.o.da on the truck radio. The smell of hot sulfur and water was overwhelming.Cutler explained that the pools on either side of the boardwalk were 190 degrees, and the water temperature could be gauged by the color of the bacteria in the runoff-white beinghottest, green and blue cooler but still too hot to touch. Usingthe slotted spoon, he carefully picked up coins that had been tossed into the thermals and handed them back to Joe, who juggled them from hand to hand until they cooled off enough to inspect. Three pennies and a dime. The pennies were already gray with a buildup of manganese and zinc from the water, Cutlersaid, but the dime, being silver, was unblemished.

Cutler swung over the side of the railing and landed with a thump on the white-crust surface. He urged Joe to follow him.

"What about the 'Stay on the Boardwalk' signs?" Joe asked, knowing the ground was unstable near geysers and the crust was brittle. Horror stories abounded of pets and visitors who wandered off the pathway.

"And if I break through?" Joe asked.

"Third-degree burns at the minimum," Cutler said, businesslike."Excruciating pain and skin grafts for the rest of your life. If you live, I mean. Worse, you'll deface the thermal. But it would be nothing like if you actually fell into a hot springs or geyser."

"What would happen?"

"You'd die instantly, of course; then your body would be boiled. I've seen elk and buffalo fall in over the years. Within a couple of hours, their hair comes off in clumps and the flesh separates from the bone. The skeleton sinks and the meat and fat cooks and it smells like beef stew. Sometimes, an animal body affects the stability of the thermal and it erupts and spits all that meat back out. Not pretty."

"Maybe I should stay up here," Joe said.

"Just step where I step," Cutler said. "Not an inch either way and you'll be fine. I've done this for years and I know where to walk and where not to walk."

Joe felt a thrill being allowed to go where millions of tourists couldn't go, and stepped over the railing. He wished Demming-or Marybeth-could see him now.

For the next hour, Cutler carefully removed coins and debris from the geysers and hot pools. Joe followed in his footsteps and gathered them and noted what was found in Cutler's journal. Cutler explained how the underground plumbing system worked, how mysterious it was, how a geyser could simply stop erupting in one corner of the park and a new geyser could shoot up forty miles away as the result of a mild tremor or indiscerniblegeological tic. How the water that came from the geysershad been carbon-tested to reveal it was thousands of years old, that it had been whoos.h.i.+ng whoos.h.i.+ng through the underground works before Columbus landed in America and was just now being blasted into the air. through the underground works before Columbus landed in America and was just now being blasted into the air.

Cutler took a quick turn off the road and pulled over to the side. Ahead of them was a hugely wide but squat white cone emitting breaths of steam. Joe was unimpressed at first glance.

"What you're looking at is Steamboat Geyser," Cutler said. "It's by far the biggest geyser in the world. When this baby goes-and we never know when or why-it can be seen from miles away. It reaches heights of four hundred feet, three times Old Faithful, and drenches everything around here for a quarter of a mile. The volume of boiling water that comes out of it is scary. Nearly as scary as its unpredictability. We've waited years for an eruption, and almost declared it dormant when it proved otherwise."

"When's the last time it blew?" Joe asked.

"A year ago, in the winter. Three times. No one was there when it went, but the evidence of the eruption was a herd of parboiledbison found a hundred yards away. It seems to be getting more active. The eruptions used to be up to fifty years apart, but last winter they were four days days apart." apart."

Cutler whistled. "I'd give my left nut to see it erupt."

The firehole river was on their left as they departed the geyser basin and drove north on the highway. Bison grazed along the banks and steamy water poured from Black Sand Geyser Basin into the river.

Geyser Gazers, according to Cutler, numbered nearly seven hundred strong, although the hard-core, full-time contingent amounted to only about forty. They were all volunteers, and includedscientists, lawyers, and university professors as well as retired railroad workers, laborers, and the habitually unemployed.The thing that brought them together was their love, knowledge, and appreciation for Yellowstone and the thermal activity within the Yellowstone caldera. Most showed up on weekends or took their vacations to help. Only a few stayed in or near the park on a full-time basis, like Doomsayer and George Pickett.

"How many ascribe to Keaton's philosophy that we're all going to die?" Joe asked.

"Maybe a couple dozen," Cutler said. "The rest recognize the threat but choose to go on and live their lives normally, like me."

"What about Hoening and the other Gopher Staters? Were they Keaton disciples?"

"No chance."

"Another theory shot down," Joe said, and smiled at Demming.That's when he noticed how introspective she was. She didn't appear to be listening to Cutler explain about geyser activities.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

She shook her head, indicating she would tell him later.

Cutler parked at Fountain Paint Pots and grabbed his pole and slotted spoon. Joe said he'd meet up with him in a minute. As Cutler strode away on the boardwalk, Joe turned to Demming.

"Ashby?"

"Yes. He met with Chief Ranger Langston and they're gettingagitated and nervous. They want us to break it off here and come back up to Mammoth. Langston is quite adamant about it."

"Why?"

"Ashby said they don't like the direction we're headed, goingto the Bechler station, interviewing Mark Cutler. He thinks we're going to open the Park Service to unwanted exposure."

Joe shook his head, felt anger well in him. " 'Unwanted exposure'? What does that mean?"

"I'm not sure, but they seem to think you have another agenda. And they don't like your friend being up here."

"How do they know about Nate?"

"I told them," she said. "I had to. It's my job."

Joe said, "How much time do we have?"

"They want us back by tonight."

"I'll think about it," Joe said, wondering what they'd done to suddenly warrant Ashby and Langston's concern, wondering if he'd need to call Chuck Ward to intervene, if possible. "I wish I knew what was going on here."

"Me too," she said. "What really seemed to upset them was us talking with Cutler. Maybe it's just a Park Service versus contractor thing, I don't know."

"Or maybe Cutler knows something they don't want us to find out," Joe said.

As they drove, Joe noticed Cutler glancing more frequentlyin his rearview mirror.

"That's strange," he said. "I noticed that pickup back when we left Fountain Paint Pots. He was the only other vehicle in the lot, parked way over on the far side. Now I see it behind us."

"Don't turn around," Joe said to Demming, not wanting her to reveal to the driver of the truck that they were aware of him. "Let's check it out in the side mirror."

Joe leaned over Demming to see. The mirror vibrated with the motor, but he could see a glimpse of a pickup grille a third of a mile behind them. Over a long straightaway, Joe could see the truck better. Red, late-model 4x4 Ford. Montana plates. Singledriver wearing a cowboy hat. As he looked, the pickup driver reduced his speed so it faded into the distance.

When Cutler turned off the highway at Biscuit Basin onto a one-lane road, he slowed down and watched his mirror.

"Don't see him now," he said. "He must have turned off. You guys are making me paranoid, I guess. I normally wouldn't noticesomething like that, but there are so few visitors in the park the truck sort of stood out."

The road rose into heavy timber and broke through onto a wide, remote plain dotted with dead but standing trees and steam rising from cratered mouths. The trees had no leaves and were bone-white in color.

"This is one of the hottest spots in the park," Cutler said. "We've watched it get hotter over the past four years. That's why the trees are dead; all of that hot mineral water got soaked up by their roots to fossilize them. There's lot of activity here, and some really great hot pots."

Joe glanced at his list of questions.

"What about Clay McCann?" Joe asked. "Did you ever meet him? Did they ever mention his name?"

Cutler shook his head. "I saw his name around but I never met him. And no, the Gopher Staters never mentioned him."

"What do you mean you saw his name?"

"On some papers, some bio-mining contracts."

Joe exchanged glances with Demming. "Bio-mining?" Joe said. "That's twice today you mentioned it."

"What, you haven't heard of it?"

"No," Joe said. He asked Demming, "Have you?"

"Unfortunately, yes," she sighed.

They parked at the end of a dirt two-track that culminated with a downed log blocking the road and a Park Service sign reading ACCESS PROHIBITED. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Joe noticed that despite the sign there were clearly tire tracks in the crusty dirt beyond the log where someone had driven. He asked Cutler about it.

"Bio-miners, I'm sure," Cutler said. "They have a permit. Follow me."

It was midday and the sun was straight overhead in a virtuallycloudless blue sky and the day had warmed considerably into the mid-sixties. Joe was struck by the utter quiet all around them as they hiked up a footpath and over a gentle rise. The only sounds were their boots, breath, and the occasional caw of a far-off raven.

"It's very controversial," Cutler said, swinging a thermister in a case next to his leg as he walked. "I'm surprised you haven't heard or read about these projects."

Joe confessed he'd been isolated the last few months, workingon a ranch near Saddlestring.

"Lucky you," Demming said. He could tell by her demeanor that she felt strongly about the topic.

"I know I keep telling you how unique the Yellowstone caldera is," Cutler said, "but up here, wonders never cease, so what can I say? Over the last twenty years, biologists have discovered thermofiles-microbes-that are absolutely unique to anywhere else on earth. I'm no expert, but the reason they find them here is a kind of biological perfect storm-the combinationof the hot water, the minerals, and the ecological isolationof the area-that's produced all these rare species. Only real recently have companies discovered there are, um . . . properties properties . . . in some of the microbes that can be used for other purposes." . . . in some of the microbes that can be used for other purposes."

"What kinds of properties?" Joe asked.

"Well, one particular microbe has been found that radically a.s.sists bioengineers perform DNA typing. From what I understand,it's really advanced science in that area. Another microbe can apparently speed up the aging process in some mammals tenfold, or so they think. That's a scary one, if you ask me. And there are all kinds of rumors that I can't back up, like thermophilesthat can help unlock a cure for cancer, to other microbesthat can be weaponized. The government, legitimate companies, and bio-pirates are afoot up here these days."

"Bio-pirates?"

Demming moaned. "Yes, Joe. There have been reports of freelancers up here scooping up growth and plant species in the hot water runoff and trying to sell it to companies or other governments.No one's actually been caught at it yet, but every once in a while there's a report. As if we don't have enough to worry about up here, you know."

Joe felt a growing sense of discovery and excitement as Cutlerand Demming talked. This was new. There was nothing in the "Zone of Death" file about bio-mining, or McCann's connectionto it.

Ahead, he could see the trees parting and feel-if not yet see-their destination. It was a huge opening in the timber, walled on four sides by dead and dying trees. The odor of sulfur and something sickly sweet hung low to the ground.

"This is Sunburst Hot Springs," Cutler explained. "It's called that because, from the air, the runoff vents come off of it like spikes in all directions. It looks like how a little kid draws the sun in art cla.s.s, with spikes coming out of the circ.u.mference."

Joe could feel the heat twenty feet away and hear and feel a low rumbling, gurgling water sound somewhere beneath his feet. Sunburst was gorgeous, he thought, in a dangerous and oddly enticing way. The steaming surface of the water was nearly fifty feet across, held in place by a thin white mineral rim that looked more like porcelain than earth. The water inside was every shade of blue from aquamarine near the surface to indigo as it deepened. It was hard to see clearly into the open mouth of the spring because of scalloped ripples of steam on the surface, which dissipated into the air. Inside the spring the sun illuminated outcroppings, bronzing them against the blue, and Joe could clearly see a sunken litter of thick, stout barbell-shapedbuffalo bones that had been caught on shelves along the interior walls. Again, he felt the pull of the water but not as strongly. The placid blue water seemed to beckon to him in the way that a warm bath or a Jacuzzi pulls a frozen skier at the end of the day. Beyond Sunburst Hot Springs was a smaller pool rimmed with dark blue and green, meaning much cooler water.

Cutler saw him looking at it, said, "That's Sunburst Hot Pot. It's much, much cooler than the hot springs, and it's a really nice pool to lounge in"-he grinned slyly at Demming-"if one were so inclined."

Joe checked out the hot pot. If G.o.d designed a natural Jacuzzi, he thought, this would be it. It was waist deep, clear, and someone had fitted flat wooden planks into the walls to sit on. Obviously, the pool had been used for illegal hot-potting. Joe visualized Hoening sitting on one of the planks with a Minnesotafemale he had just lured out from L.A., and smiled.

"Nice place for a date," he said.

As he circled the hot pot he felt an odd sensation of someone blowing air up his pant leg. He stopped and turned, studied the ground. It took a moment before he saw the series of quarter-sizedholes in the ground, each emitting a light stream. He squatted and held his palm out to one of them, feeling it on his skin. No doubt, he thought, the superheated earth under the surfacehad to release something, like a natural pressure cooker. He'd heard about visitors (and, more likely, Zephyr employees) burying chickens in the ground in secret places to bake them. He thought he could probably do that here. The idea intrigued him.

The ground in the little tree-lined basin was nearly white, as if it had been baked. The consistency of the dirt was crumbly. Joe noted a long dark line in the earth that extended from deep in the trees and topped an almost imperceptible rise. The dark streak ran past the side of the hot springs and out the other side.

"What's that?" Joe asked.

"Like I mentioned," Cutler said, "the cool thing about the park is that all of the insides are pushed out in places. That's a seam of underground coal. It's not very big, and it's hard to say how far down it extends. It's one of the few places in the whole park where there's any coal."

Joe had learned earlier not to wander away from the path establishedby Cutler for fear of breaking through and falling in, so he stuck close to him, as did Demming. He watched as the geologistwent downhill from the spring itself along one of the troughs of runoff that came from the hot springs, where he pushed aside some ancient pitch wood stumps and revealed a thermister and a half-submerged wood-sided box of some kind in the water. He called Joe and Demming over, and they squatted near him.

With a small laptop computer, Cutler plugged into the thermisterand downloaded the last two weeks of temperature readings.Joe noticed both the instrument and the wooden box were covered with what looked like long pink hair that wafted in the soft current of the warm water.

"I call this 'million-dollar slime,'" Cutler said, pointing at the pink microbe growth. "This is the stuff used for genetic typingI told you about. I don't know how it works, of course, but the company that harvests it can't replicate it in a lab. They need to get it right here at Sunburst, and as far as they know, this is the only place on earth it can be found."

"Kind of pretty, but not very impressive," Demming said.

Cutler agreed. He told Joe that the bioengineering firm sent a truck into the park every month or so with a heated incubator in the back to harvest the microbes that had grown inside the box. The thermophiles were transported to Jackson or Bozeman and flown to the company laboratory in Europe.

"Okay," Cutler said, once again arranging the driftwood over the equipment so it couldn't be seen from the trail, "we're done here."

As they trudged back toward the pickup, Joe's mind raced with new possibilities. Demming eyed him suspiciously.