It wasn’t the dank, musty smell, or the ever-narrowing walls of the tunnel that seemed to lead into the bowels of the mountain. Not even the spider web that caught Kyle across the mouth and made her flail wildly. It was the constant sense that something was about to strike her in the face that kept her heart galloping.
That, and she couldn’t seem to breathe.
Slow, she admonished herself, the litany she’d recited through the years whenever she had the misfortune to end up in darkness. But, though she managed to get her respiration rate down a little, there still didn’t seem to be enough oxygen in the rapidly warming air.
Nonetheless, she carried on, feeling as though her head were wrapped in some kind of suffocating cloth. With her once-more gloved hands waving before her nose, she brushed the ceiling and found it lowering almost directly in front of her. She stopped and bent, feeling for open space and finding a passage no more than three feet high. If she got down and crawled, she might…
Get out of here, her inner voice shrieked. Time to turn around and run back to where she could gulp even smoke-tainted air.
Gritting her teeth, she moved forward and found a duck walk sufficient to negotiate the low point. In this crouched position, the heat radiating from the rock was more noticeable. Trying to ignore the constant quakes rumbling like distant thunder, she made a sweep before her with her hands to make sure she would not hit her head upon arising. Then she shoved up from the floor.
She shuffled a foot forward but … which way to go now?
Although the general slope was downhill, here the floor seemed a perfect plane.
She chose a direction and moved. In three steps, she felt the rock above begin to slope down. Quickly, she executed an exact U turn and began to move forward as quickly as she dared. In four steps, the ceiling began to come down again.
She stopped, her hands curling into fists. A sound of frustration escaped her dry throat. Her eyes straining as they had been for long minutes, Kyle looked back over her shoulder and tried to decide whether she was coming or going. With time running out, she tried to feel lucky. She turned and looked forward again. All her senses strained to perceive some texture in the utter blackness. “Please, God,” she murmured.
There was nothing … but then there was … some indefinable nuance in the darkness that simply felt right.
She moved and this time the rock above stayed the same height so she was able to walk without stooping. In a moment, she could feel from the floor’s downhill slope that she followed the way of gravity, where the lava would have drained. And, though it might be her imagination, the blackness ahead did not seem so absolute.
Kyle began to move more recklessly. Her hands encountered no obstacle as long as she steered toward the faint suggestion of light.
Gray brightened to silver and she began to believe her prayer might have been answered this time.
Yet, she prepared herself for the worst. The opening would be no larger than her head. The ceiling was about to collapse between her and freedom. The heat radiating from the walls presaged a fresh outpouring of lava.
Nonetheless, she followed the sloping floor. With each step, the illumination grew stronger.
When she lacked about a hundred feet to the entry, she could see the patch of light, at least three feet tall and about as wide. Panting, she put on a burst of speed.
Kyle emerged into monochrome twilight and was immediately struck by the cold. Her chest muscles rebelled and it took a gasp to draw in air that stabbed at her lungs.
As fast as she could, she fumbled the jacket from around her waist and put it on. With wind-driven flakes of ash falling almost sideways, she blinked and tried to duck away from their assault.
The contrast between the light outside and total darkness was great, but as her eyes adjusted, she realized she’d thought there was a lot more day left. Her watch revealed it lacked a few minutes till seven. Not quite sunset, but she guessed that under these conditions there would be no more than fifteen minutes before it would be too dark to tell white from black.
She scanned the lowering sky and saw steam billowing from the crater. What were the chances any of the aircraft were still in the area?
Hearing no engine noise, she turned her attention to the pine-studded slope. Here the incline was at least fifty degrees and she thought that in the cave she’d lost quite a bit of elevation. Thankfully, she’d left the wildfire above where it would burn toward the mountaintop. Off to her left about thirty yards, she made out the dark shape of the rocky spine and realized she couldn’t be too far from where she’d seen Wyatt alight from the helicopter.
Sidestepping on the steep slope, Kyle began to make her way down. It was rough going in the semidarkness, as the contrast between rocks, roots, and solid footing ebbed. Ash coated the trees, making them look flocked as if for Christmas in the last of the dying light.
Despite having braved the blackness of the lava cave, she felt a stab of alarm as night fell. The familiar sensation made her long to reach for her pocket flashlight, though she knew it lay broken where she’d dropped it.
But she wasn’t going to think about the dark now. She had to find Wyatt and the others. They couldn’t all be dead.
Yes, argued logic, they could. There were dozens of ways Nick might have died.
Asphyxiated, bull-dozed by a boulder, blown to bits in the crater …
As for Wyatt, he might have been caught by the glowing ash cloud and turned into a mummy like the bodies found in Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Bitter liquid rushed up the back of her throat.
Kyle swallowed the burning bile.
Wyatt, at least, had to be all right. She would not think otherwise. Near the ridge, there was no sign that the flow had crested it. He could even be nearby, as she didn’t think he’d have gotten far on his bad ankle.
Cupping her hands, she shouted, “Halloo!” God, but her throat was raw.
The pines soughed and the earth continued to rumble.
“Wyatt!” she tried. “Nick? Anybody?”
Looking around the slope, she noted wisps of steam wafting from the ground not twenty feet to her right. Another field of fumaroles, this one much farther down the mountain.
The seeping gas, along with the heat she’d felt coming from the rocks in the cave, made her speed her steps. It shouldn’t be much farther to the clearing around the cabin and it would be a bit lighter out from under the forest canopy. But, she cautioned herself, the gas along the Saddle Valley fault could be so thick by now that she’d walk into a poisonous death trap.
All at once, the wind brought a faint rhythmic chop from the west side of the ridge. Kyle stopped and listened for several seconds, as the engine noise first grew louder and then receded.
Heedless of the uncertain footing, she began to run. Though it must be impossible for the chopper pilot or passengers to see or hear her, she cried, “Help! Down here!”
Larry couldn’t believe his ears, but that was definitely a helicopter, and it was getting closer. And unless he climbed out of the rock pile he and Carol had taken shelter in, out into the freezing twilight wind that was sure to give him frostbite, there was no way in hell the pilot was going to see them.
For the past hour or so, listening to numerous extrusions blast from the crater, he’d huddled against Carol. Dressed as they were, to leave the rocks meant certain death. Just as remaining there might.
As the whopping continued to grow louder, he said, “Hear that?”
Carol sat slumped with her head on her chest. Even though he’d saved her life by dragging her upslope and behind the boulders, she’d been despondent ever since.
Now, she raised her face to him, and he saw a spark dawn. “Deering’s come back for us?”
“Maybe. Let’s go!” Larry shoved up and kept his head ducked to avoid bumping it on the low ceiling of the dugout they’d burrowed into.
The chopper noise was static and he couldn’t tell which direction it came from. As Carol started slowly to move, he staggered out on legs stiff from sitting on cold stones. When the arctic blast hit him, he gasped.
Once in the open, the sound of rotors was a lot louder. An even stiffer wind began to beat at him as he turned and saw Deering’s Bell hovering over the rock pile. Inside the cockpit, the pilot lifted one hand in salute.
“Carol!” Larry shouted. He looked back to their shelter and saw her coming out with her arms folded, shivering.
Deering brought the chopper down and landed in a vortex of blowing cinders and soot from the wildfire that had passed through earlier. Larry ducked his head, squinted his eyes against the projectile storm, and grabbed Carol’s arm. Together, they ran for it.
Once inside, with Carol in the front seat and he behind, shedding dirt onto Deering’s leather seats, Larry put on headphones and asked, “How’d you know where we were?”
Deering concentrated on lifting off. When they were airborne and about fifty feet up, he pointed toward the seismic station, largely buried in ash. From this vantage point, it was obvious that the hot debris flow had contoured the hillside and managed to miss the boulders by mere yards.
“Saw where you dropped that,” Deering went on.
Larry looked and saw where he’d lost the camera. Even draped in several inches of ash, the shape was recognizable.
Through the headphones, he heard Carol regain her spirit along with her bitchiness. “The story of a lifetime, and no pictures.”
Deering looked over his shoulder and gave a Larry a look of sympathy. Unable to hold his temper, Larry burst out, “You’re upset because I dropped the camera to drag you away from that flow? Pissed because I saved your life?”
“Here’s the deal,” she came back. “I’ll owe you for my life. You owe me a Pulitzer.”
Thinking of his family and how close he’d come to dying, Larry decided he could damned well find some other job that had health insurance for Joey’s asthma.
Bending forward, Larry tapped Carol’s shoulder. “No, this is the deal,” he said. “You’ll have to collect in another lifetime, because I just quit.”
In her headlong rush, Kyle tripped over more deadfalls, each time staggering up and renewing her speed.
Ahead, the forest began to thin. Aiming for open space, she heard a sudden loud crack like a shotgun, followed by a streaking hiss.
The sky lit with a red glow that nearly blinded her. Ahead, she made out someone standing with an arm raised to launch the flare. The unnatural light also showed what might be a body on the ground.
As the signal began to fade, Kyle lost all sight in the bright afterimage. She stumbled forward, yelling, “Who’s there?”
Wyatt and Nick … one of them was down. And it must be them, for who else would know about the signal gun in the cabin? Blindly, she tripped over uneven ground and fell onto her hands and knees with a sob.
Boots crunched at a run over the rocky ground and stopped before her bowed head.
She couldn’t see detail. Were those Wyatt’s lace-up winter boots or Nick’s two-tone hikers?
Hands touched her shoulders through the parka. “Kyle.”
Arms enfolded her and pulled her up. Her cold cheek found the material of a jacket covered in gritty ash.
“Wyatt…”
His embrace tightened until her bruised ribs protested.
She ignored it, pressing closer. “I was so afraid for you.”
Wyatt’s lips brushed her temple and she didn’t care that both his mouth and her skin felt like sandpaper.
“You’re safe.” That was all that mattered right now. The rest of the world could wait while she savored this gift.
“Ten deep breaths,” Wyatt murmured at her ear. His thumb traced the track of one of her tears.
The helicopter crested the ridge. A spotlight cast them and the swirling ash in dazzling white and black shadows.
Wyatt let her go. Kyle looked at Nick who lay with his eyes closed. Though his face was covered in a sticky-looking mess of blood and dirt, she could see the angry patches of blisters peeking through.
The chopper noise rose to a scream. The black shape behind the blinding light came down into a hover less than fifty feet away. Dust rose in a cloud and dirt pelted Kyle’s face as the skids touched down.
“Nick?” she screamed.
Wyatt tapped her shoulder and shouted, “He’s pretty weak, but I hope he’ll be okay.” His glasses were so streaked she couldn’t imagine how he saw through them. “Time to go.”
The ground gave a jerk. “God, not now,” Kyle exclaimed, knocked sprawling to the earth along with Wyatt.
From where she landed hard on her back, she could see the dark interior of the helicopter, an instrument glow on Deering’s face as he maneuvered the controls with a set jaw. To her amazement, a filthy Carol Leeds rode shotgun with Larry in back. Kyle tried to get to her feet, but the quake continued.
Wyatt crouched nearby. For a moment, she thought he was looking at her, but then she saw he was transfixed by something behind her. Just as her father had watched death march up Madison Canyon, now Wyatt’s gaze revealed the same stark terror.
Mere yards uphill, parallel to the linear trace of the Saddle Valley fault, the ground was splitting open to reveal a line of brilliant red. It was like looking at the interior of a steel furnace.
Kyle froze. She tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry.
“Let’s go!” Wyatt’s shout galvanized her. They made it to their feet together and Wyatt dragged Nick up over his shoulder into a fireman’s carry.
They reeled across the heaving ground toward the chopper. Deering was upping the power, the rotors’ scream deafening to her ears that were still abuzz from when the peak exploded. A glance over her shoulder revealed thick crimson lava oozing from the fissure.
She saw that Nick’s eyes were open and that he was staring at the phenomenon. He might act flippant sometimes, but now his nightmare of burning to death in molten rock was reflected on his face.
The helicopter shuddered, both from the ground roll and Deering’s run-up. Then it lifted off. Kyle started to cry out to him not to leave, but that was worse than useless amidst the cacophony … and she knew he had to get the machine out of the way or no one would survive.
Another look behind showed a scarlet flash, as the lava broke free and sped in a liquid flood toward them. She and Wyatt made it the last few feet to where the Bell maintained a low hover.
She leaped for the chest-high skid and the thick metal caught her in the diaphragm. With her breath driven out in a whoosh, she turned to see Wyatt sling Nick over the support where he dangled by his armpits. Now, as Wyatt jumped and grabbed on, their combined weight shifted the Bell into a sharp starboard list. She felt the heat on her back from the molten river and drew her legs up, getting her breath and shouting at Nick and Wyatt to do the same.
The helicopter slipped sideways and down. In a second, Nick would start to scream and then it would be her turn. She squeezed her eyes shut, every muscle cringing as she strained to pull herself up.
Ever so slowly, she felt the craft begin to lift. With a surge of hope, Kyle opened her eyes and saw it was enough to keep Nick’s boots out of the lava. Yet, even as it rose, the chopper was still crippled by the uneven load. She looked up at the slanting rotors and prayed.
The rear door opened and Larry, looking like an ash-covered scarecrow, lay on the floor and stretched his arm toward them.
It was no use. She couldn’t reach up without falling off the skid.
The next few seconds seemed to last forever.
Then Deering managed to bring the Bell upslope of the fissure and start to bring it down again.
Kyle’s feet touched the ground.
Nick let go of the strut and crumpled.
Wyatt bent to him.
Larry scrambled up and got out. He grabbed Kyle’s arm and gave her a push into the helicopter. With a shove from Wyatt on his backside, Nick was in, too, gasping and puffing at Kyle’s side.
Despite his hurt ankle, Wyatt fairly vaulted into the rear seat, landing hard on Kyle’s thigh. Larry followed and slammed the door.
“Let’s get out of here!” he shouted to Deering.
With four of them crowded in the rear seat like sardines, they held on as the helicopter took off in a nose-down attitude to catch the lift. Out the windshield, they had a front row view of the widening fissure along the Saddle Valley Fault. To both the west and east, great fountains of lava spewed into the now-dark sky.
When the engine’s scream muted to a drone in her headphones, Kyle heard Nick say, “Yee haw.”
She turned to him. “I take it that means you’re all right?”
“Thanks to the cowboy. He found me crawling and got me out of harm’s way.” Nick grinned, but it was mostly grimace as he gestured to his bloody face and neck. “These burns hurt like hell.” He pointed to his gloved hand and she saw that the fleece was also blood-soaked. “Broken finger, busted eardrum …” His smile grew stronger. “But did you see the eruption? The most glorious thing I’ve ever seen.”
As the Bell flew higher, everyone turned to watch the glow from the crater. The eerie light tinged the underside of a renewed cloud of ejecta into the night sky.
Nick leaned forward. “I can’t wait to get back up here … map out the flows …”
Wyatt gave him an incredulous look.
Kyle reached across Nick’s shoulders to get Wyatt’s attention. He turned, their eyes met, and she shook her head.
“You walk the edge,” Wyatt told Nick. “I’ll watch.”
“You mean we will,” said Kyle, as she and Wyatt shared a grin.