Free Fire - C. J. Box [86]
Nate said, “Luckily, there aren’t that many roads. Whoever it is has three options: He could be on the way to the gate at West, or continuing north toward Mammoth. Or he could have cut through the middle of the park by now toward Canyon Village. If he gets to Canyon, that would give him three other ways out.”
“God, this is horrible,” Demming said, shuddering. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
Joe hadn’t either. He couldn’t get the scene out of his mind. He made a point not to look over at the rivulet of cooling springwater that bordered the path they were on in the chance he would see more of Cutler’s body floating away. He imagined the truck keys were likely somewhere deep in the thermal pool, caught on a ledge, heating to over two hundred degrees. At what temperature would metal melt? He didn’t know. How long would it take for Cutler’s bones to boil clean white and sink, like the bison bones he had seen deep in the water the day before?He jolted off the trail into the trees and threw up.
“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.