At the end of 183 miles, the Madison River joins the Gallatin and the Jefferson to form the headwaters of the Missouri River. The Madison has risen inside Yellowstone Park. Its headwaters are themselves from the confluence of yet two other rivers: the Gibbon and the Firehole.
All of these rivers run with trout in the spring and fall. In summer, the trout retreat into a wide, deep spot in the Madison River called Earthquake Lake. The fish seek deeper, cooler water. The trout will begin moving back there within a week.
The Madison is born in the northern half of the Yellowstone Plateau. In these upper reaches, the River is narrowly confined between the peaks at the southern limits of the Gallatin and the Madison ranges. It heads west toward West Yellowstone, but upon approaching it, the river veers off sharply north. On the left bank are the town and the airport. On the right bank are the Industrial Village and the jobsite. Quickly, it broadens into Earthquake Lake.
The river flows back out of the northern end of the lake through a gap in the Madison Range. Between the lake and the mountains, the valley of the Madison River widens. The country opens up.
On the east edges of Earthquake Lake, the airport, and West Yellowstone lies the valley floor that is the roof above Digger O’Dell’s Madison Valley Abyss. It is ten miles across and is the only wide place among the upper reaches of the river. A city-sized lacolith has kept mountain building at bay. It is almost as though this ground has been prepared ahead, and saved.
Above ground, the Abyss has also been shielded from the movement of plate tectonics by the Gallatin Range on the east and by the Madison Range on the west. These mountains rest on Cratons deeply embedded into the Archean Western Churchill Province of the North American Plate. These are like great molars anchored with deep roots. These massive ranges stubbornly remain staked in place at greater depth, while the shallower southern half of the Yellowstone country, riding on the Wyoming province of the North American Plate, gallops past,.
The great Abyss has stood for tens of thousands of eons next to the planetary convector, waiting. Above it, the Madison Valley has witnessed a string of volcanic events. Some were massive basalt floods. Others were violent eruptions. The planetary convector has broiled whatever rests above it.
The Abyss and the supervolcano are presently somewhere within five to ten miles of each other. Their margins are irregular. Their seismic images have a grainy resolution. The geologists spy below with waveform reflections rebounding off structures tuned by their mass to ring at unique natural frequencies. This is not like a photograph. It is more like groping in the dark.
Noise fills the valley. Its peacefulness would have ended soon, in either case. Crews arrive. New roads are graded. Supply yards of steel and pipe crush the grass. Rust stains seep into the earth. Transmission towers and the power grid are ready. Temporary tents rise. The first heat of the summer settles into Yellowstone.
Digger O’Dell stands at a wooden stake. A yellow pennant flaps at the top of it. He looks west a half mile and sees another one, with a red pennant. They will begin at this one.
“I sure hope I’m right, Colonel. I guess we need to be exactly on the spot.”
“Relax, Digger. That will never happen. We’ll lower ceramic coated instruments down the hole to learn how close we are to the wall of the Abyss, and then we can drill a second pilot hole if we have to.” The Colonel has great faith in the unseen. He has to—and having no other choice makes this easier. Jeter thinks the grainy images that Digger and Bennington talk about could, just as easily, have been nothing more than a coffee stain. Rather, it is the men who explain them that inspire confidence.
“I suppose you can’t adjust the depth of the steel platform very much.”
“No, Digger. The loads increase the farther we build out from the subterranean cliff face. More than an extra five feet farther out and we have to redesign the steel. More than five feet closer in and the platform does not provide the workspace we need. Don’t fret. We’ve planned on that second hole.” Yet each wonders if there will be time.
As the faint noise of the first tractor approaches, Digger and the Colonel turn. The tractor pulls a flat bed of drill pipe. Colonel Jeter surfaces a persistent worry. “I sure hope the heat is not as bad as you think.”
“Colonel, this is just a huge convection oven with perfect thermal insulation. Everything depends on how much floor we’ve got at the bottom of the Abyss. The thicker it is, the better it insulates from the top of the Earth’s Mantle.”
“What’s your guess?”
“I think the crust beneath the abyss is unusually thick. I say that because the spot has not moved in perhaps fifty million years. All of this is the North American Plate. But despite how the name makes it sound, it is divided up into separate areas that, to some extent, each do their own thing. Right now, we are on the Archean Western Churchill Province. Somewhere south of here, perhaps ten miles away, is the Wyoming Province.
“Western Churchill is rooted deeply and is relatively heavier. This valley has resisted mountain building and the grinding past of the fast moving Wyoming Province. That means after subtracting four miles of crust, the eight miles of Abyss, you might still have twenty miles remaining until encountering the first part of the Mantle, the Asthenosphere. That’s a lot of insulation.”
“Okay, so now how hot? Give me a range.”
“Under normal conditions, you can figure on one-degree every 70 feet. So, if you start our tunnel at four miles, that’s 302 degrees plus the temperature on the surface. That’s what the temperature would be back in Pennsylvania. Here, it is double that.
“Of course, we not only have a heat source at the bottom of the Madison Valley Abyss, we will start to feel another one as the tunnel bores closer to the melted rock of the Yellowstone Caldera. The temperature inside the Yellowstone Magma Chamber may be 2000 degrees Farenheit. The good news is that the top of the Magma Chamber and the top of the Abyss are across from each other, both four-miles from the surface.”
“Bottom line, Digger.”
“Plan for 750 everywhere until we get inside one mile from the Yellowstone Caldera. Then the tunnel boring machines had better go fast.”
“Well, I’m damn glad you’ve thrown-in with us.”
“I don’t think I’d want to miss this, Colonel.”
The tractor and its load of drill pipe stops fifty yards short of the stake. In the distance, the pickup trucks ride across the meadows. Their tires press out the smell of chlorophyll from the grass, which has not yet begun to dry-out from the wet spring. The first crew of drillers arrives. Behind them, another tractor pulls another flatbed carrying two forklifts with caterpillar treads.
Colonel Jeter turns to Digger, “And so it begins, Dr. O’Dell.”
Digger does not answer. As the Colonel turns back to the scene, Digger crosses himself. His rumbly prayer cannot be heard, “Oh Angel of God defend me from danger. The divine mercy commits me to your protection.”
The design is done. The project begins.
Together, they steadily backpedal a safe distance to watch the crew shake out the job. A pickup truck towing the jobsite office trailer makes its way across the meadow toward them. Behind that, Colonel Jeter thinks he sees the Professor’s truck.
“What are you doing for money, Digger?”
“I got my last check from Allegheny two weeks ago.”
“I’ll put you on the payroll as a consultant.”
“Very much appreciated, Sir.”
“Where you staying, anyway?”
“Little motel in West Yellowstone.”
“As soon as we get these quarters constructed here, I want you to move in with us. Hot food and plenty of it, Digger.”
“You sold me, Colonel.”
“What about your place back in Plumville?”
“The neighbors put my stuff in storage
“You don’t ask for much, do you?”
“There always seems to be enough, Colonel.”
After another month in the woods, Claire needs some company. Hers is a more rounded personality than Bennington. The far end of his personality has a reclusive side. Claire is excited to see the hundreds of workers bustling about the valley. The scene is new. Claire reclaims the old, giddy feeling of the county fair, until suddenly she realizes that these men will ask her what she is doing here.
Showing up to visit is not a good excuse. Claire feels some vague disquiet as she threads the professor’s truck through the confusion of the hundreds of acres of busy jobsite that is just now sorting itself out and setting up.
She wants to stand on the roof of the Madison Valley Abyss. She wants a little excitement. She wants to be among people. These are girlish wishes, and, usually, there is plenty of time to grow old.
The truck that pulled the office trailer unhitches from it and returns to the city that is building two miles to the west. In a week, the first steel will rise above the valley, but for now, there is only the same, thin horizon line. Claire parks west of the driller’s trucks. She walks across the jobsite.
A worry flashes through her mind. Beneath a tarp in the back of Jim’s truck are two baskets of dirty laundry. She has volunteered to take them to the laundromat in West Yellowstone. Jim did not ask her.
Suddenly, Claire worries that if these men see the laundry, they will consider her only a maid or a secretary, and so she rehearses her excuse for being here. She has warmed to the roles that filled in behind the hot flash of new love. But domestic feelings are overwhelmed by the excitement that she sees around her. She wonders how is it possible for Jim to keep them away from all of this.
She cannot talk about it. Claire has no practice balancing two identities. As she approaches, Claire looks into the welcoming faces of Digger and the Colonel. At a distance, they each smile, then wave, and shout “Hello.”
Claire remembers that Jim has worried aloud during their nights around the campfire. He thinks that Utah will try to muscle back in, to send “those hog farmers” packing back to Indiana. Claire suggests they maintain a presence at the jobsite, but no, Jim says that would make him look like he was trying too hard. It is their place to come to him.
She knows they are missing all the excitement. Camping and prospecting has become tame. Jim is waiting for their call, but, for the present, they do not need him again. They have his idea.
Fifty yards out, within earshot, Colonel Jeter faces Claire with his hands on his hips. He shouts. “Hi, stranger.” My god, she looks good, Jeter thinks.
“Get a load of the legs on that broad, Digger. She is built. It’s a wonder that Bennington can keep his hands off her.”
“I don’t think he does.”
“Does what?”
“Keeps his hands off her.”
“No.”
“Bennington’s always sniffing around the girls. Everybody knows that.”
“Professor Bennington has an impeccable reputation!”
“That’s right, Colonel.”
“Well then?”
“He’s a great geologist, Colonel. But on campus, he’s an even more famous swordsman.”
“I just can’t believe it.”
“Well, Colonel, that is what consenting adults do after they consent.”
“He fooled me.”
“Didn’t you see how they got along at your big meeting?”
“I thought he was just attentive.”
“Oh, he’s attentive, all right. He’ll attend to every girl that lets him.”
She is closer now. The precision of her gait has a naturally seductive rhythm, like Bolero, hitting the same note over and over until you cannot stand it any longer.
“Hi Digger,” Claire chirps. “Hello, Colonel.”
“Hi Claire,” Digger says, happy to see her again. Digger has such a pleasant nature, Claire thinks.
“I’m glad to see you, again, Claire. You caught us on the right day. We’re going overseas tomorrow.”
“Where to, Colonel?”
“Italy.”
Digger adds boyishly, “We’re riding in an Air Force bomber!”
Claire is stunned. Everything is so exciting, and now this. “Wow. You guys! Man, do you get the perks or what? How long will you be in Italy?”
Digger rolls his eyes. The Colonel answers, “Just a single morning. Can we do anything for you before we leave?”
“Yeah. Do you guys have any dynamite and blasting caps we can buy?”
“You’ve come to the right place. Sure, we’ll go back to our camp and fix you up. Where are you and the Professor working?”
“In between Nuthatch Lake and Chickadee Lake.”
Digger looks impressed. “Golly, Claire, that’s remote, how do you pack-it into there?”
“Oh, Jim knows a route to get the truck in a good long ways. He wants us to drill 50 shot-holes this week.”
“Keeps you fit,” the Colonel says, approvingly.
“Dynamite shape,” Digger adds ironically.
They are about to leave when a film crew arrives.
WNET talks the Colonel into an interview. They set up fast. Their camera is mainly on Claire.
The interviewer exclaims, “So you were the one who actually discovered the volcano!” Soon Claire has sparkled through fifty recorded megabytes.
Their camera seems to love her, Digger thinks.
From down in the valley, at the base of the hill, across the little stream, the bear dogs retire to look up at the hilltop. Claire’s bare breasts bounce in the firelight. She has straddled Jim. She is nearly vertical. Her quads tense and relax to rebound her rear end against the tops of Jim’s thighs. He sees her glowing face working against the backdrop of starry constellations.
He sees her tire, and then reaches up to her shoulders to take some of her weight.
The dogs pant to hear her cries and gasps. Still, she works. She wonders. How can he stay so hard, so long? How many times have I cum, she wonders? Jim puts his off; he cannot bear the thought of stopping, of watching her slide off on to the sleeping bag, of it being over.
Finally, they lay still, on their backs. Their minds are empty. Endorphins and enkalphins have released, coursing through arteries, producing euphoria, dulling the day’s aches. The sight of Claire, her loose blonde hair cascading across her shoulders, is too much, and Jim is on her again. He lifts himself on his arms so that he can see more of Claire. She runs her fingernails along his hips.
All of this is electric.