Marshal Blevins coolly leans a wooden chair back into a corner. He balances on its back legs, feeling the load shuffle off his frame. He hears these two college boys, but he does not listen. Instead, he watches the sunrise melt the thin hoarfrost with which the night has glazed the east-facing windows. He follows the drips as they race to the windowsill. This is the Colonel’s office in the Industrial Village. By habit, Blevins is meticulous in his attention, yet this too is a posture he is pleased to yield, when he can.
Always it is the little things. He notices that Jeter has taken the time to hang only a single memento, and this is from the project he had been on before he came to this one. Blevins thinks perhaps that those other people on that other project had enlarged the photograph, and had framed it, and had packed it snugly, and then had sent it on to the Colonel weeks or months after he had left them. People will do such things if they love you, Blevins knew.
Blevins sees no pictures of the family, if Jeter has any. The Marshall realizes with embarrassment that he has never asked the Colonel if he did have any. He also could not remember the Colonel asking about his either, not that Blevins had any, but most people will still ask. But then, most people do not do what Robert Jeter does. It had been the busiest spring and summer that Blevins had ever known in the Yellowstone country. He hopes that it will not be a hard winter coming up.
That single memento—that large framed photograph—shows Colonel Robert Jeter in New York’s upper harbor. He is standing atop a caisson reaching down eighty-feet to anchor into the seabed. The Verrazano Narrows Bridge is behind him. Blevins thinks that the cameraman must have been in a boat. Massive swing-gates to either side are closing the ship’s passage of the new and, as yet, uncompleted storm surge barrier. At the end of each gate, they have mounted a short flagstaff and at the top flaps the Star Spangled Banner.
Almost at the point where the solitary flags become an official looking pair, the camera lens snaps its open aperture across the scene just as Jeter salutes, or Blevins thinks that this was Jeter. The man in the photograph had his back to the camera. But if it wasn’t Jeter, then Jeter knew him.
The Marshal reflects that the Colonel has always gone from place to place making each place better. Whereas Blevins’ roads all converge at the same place, at Hobbes’ Summum Malum—the place where murder is most likely to occur. There are no photographs of an arrest or the end of a gunfight. The coolest under fire is simply glad to walk away.
Blevins knows that people like this engineer and, just as this lawyer, are glad he trots at the end of their leash. What was that that Thomas Hobbes called it? A visible power to keep men in awe so that they restrain themselves in foresight of their own preservation. I am just another junkyard dog, Blevins thinks.
Apart from the Colonel’s photograph, these walls are given over to the project. They mount large framed charts with colored trend lines rising from the lower left to the upper right. Blevins observes that the Colonel tracks the cryptodome ground displacement of the North Volcano, and the increase of lava shield size at the South Volcano and all of the many swarms of earthquakes.
His newest chart displays the concentration of Helium-3 escaping the cryptodome. Thus far, nine locations are pinned. Blevins knows that those measurements have come from Claire. She has that instrument that Jim Bennington had sent her and she is lugging it all across the Central Plateau.
Yes, he thinks, she has done pretty well by herself since the professor left. There has been no shortage of reasons for Claire to pack it up and go back home, yet she has stayed. Bear attack, man attack, wolf pack—in the time Blevins has known her, she has had more close calls than he has had. Blevins admires this.
In any case, it now is time to get that girl off that hill and into a building before it snows. He will see if Jeter can let someone fly him into the park today. The lady is dauntless, but even the bison come down off the higher elevations in the winter.
This morning, the supervolcano waits while the group discusses the growing local eruption in downtown West Yellowstone, Montana.
The Geyser Saloon used to have a stage for bands on weekends and it had a piano in the corner for the other days of the week. In front of each ran a wall of Plexiglas and chain link fence like at a convenience store in Trenton, New Jersey at three o’clock in the morning when a carload of young men pulls up out-front and just sits there, staring inside.
“Colonel, Washington needs to give us some help. It’s not fair to ask Wyoming and Montana to bear the entire burden. We used to have a mutual aid agreement with the National Park Service, but they pulled out last month.” Hank Bracken had been sent in from the governor’s office in Cheyenne. His opposite number from Helena has asked him to also stand in for Montana.
“Hank, how many officers do the police have here?”
“Six, and that includes the Chief, plus six nine-eleven dispatchers. West Yellowstone is no longer a town of 1,400 people. This Industrial Village, as you call it, has turned it into a metropolitan area of almost 17,000. West Yellowstone now has as many single males age twenty to forty as they have up in Bozeman with a population of 40,000. We need as many officers as they have.”
“How many police in Bozeman?”
“Sixty-five.
“That’s a ten-fold increase! How much do you need?
“We estimate six million dollars.”
“Marshal Blevins, how do you see this?”
“Hank is right, Colonel. Most of the trouble is the downtown bars. So, you won’t need patrol cars for those officers since that is walking distance. I arrested six men last night all by myself. We need to weld hitching rings on to the posts of parking meters so that we can tie them up on the street until we have time to walk them the block to the police station. And by the way, the police station needs a lot more jail cells. We need to do this on an industrial level. There’s an outfit that develops private prisons that can sell us purpose-built trailers.
“It has gotten worse there since the men have started going underground.”
“Washington will ask how much additional tax revenue the state is receiving. Hank, Washington will expect part of that increase to go into this.”
“Assault and battery has skyrocketed way out of proportion to the increase in tax receipts for either state, but particularly for Montana.”
Blevins leaned back again. “I think I know what is going on. We’ve been invaded.”
Bracken nodded. “You can say that again.”
“No, Hank, I’m not talking about the Colonel’s workforce. There’s something else. Two weeks ago, I started following some of the customers in the Geyser Saloon after they left. I’ve trailed them back to Bozeman, Belgrade, Cody, and to Idaho Falls. I’ve found nearly a hundred such persons all sent here for only one purpose that I can see—to cause trouble.
“Who would be interested in doing that?” Jeter asked.
“Maybe organized crime. This may be the start of a shakedown. Nine of the people I’ve been tracking have been arrested here. Three of these nine admitted to being from the Los Angeles area. Same person hired all three and he has vanished. They get paid by direct deposit from a Cayman Islands Bank.
“Bottom line—someone is moving in hard boys to stir things up and they are spending a lot of money to do this. From what I know about the shakedown racket, this operation has too much overhead compared to expected profits, unless this thing turns into a drug operation, which I doubt because everybody here has to take a pee-test every month.
“Then, Bill, this does not make sense.”
“Correct, Colonel, it does not make sense.”
“I’ll talk to Secretary Laruso and in the meantime, I’ll bring in additional military police.”
The human mammal may have adapted to ice ages, but people love their everyday routine. They have gotten used to the 200-foot bulge south of Madison Junction, as long as it keeps growing slowly. Folks do not call it a volcano yet, like Jeter and the scientists do. The other volcano has taken out a road, but around here, avalanches will do that every so often. So now folks worry about the commonplace again—cattle rustling, parking, and the reintroduction of the wolf.
The first wave of folks moving out of the west is over. The next one will not begin until the end of next spring, when things will take a more prominent turn. Then everyone will know someone who has moved out. There will come to be a shortage of houses and trailers up in Calgary and Winnipeg.
The Colonel thinks that working ninety-hour weeks has left him strangely peaceful. He knows that if he loses the race, that he could not have done any more than he did. Jeter’s conscience will be clear, but that is not enough for Jeter.
Over and over, he reviews in his mind, looking for that inevitable something overlooked, which will become the project’s major aw-shit. The thought consumes him. Yes, every job has at least one and usually more than one. They hide in the weeds.
On some projects he will find them. On some he will not. This one has gone smoother due to help from Bennington and Digger. And then, there is Padric Dempsey. What on earth would they have done without him? Better make that under the earth. Colonel Jeter chuckles grimly.
No windows, Claire thinks. Big though. Exploring. Not bad, not bad. Getting settled-in. This building closest to the road was built first and is the smallest. It was used for a time as a warehouse, but it has been empty for a month. They convert it over for Claire as best they can.
They have installed a chain link fence into a portion of the concrete slab that has a floor drain. And they have run a spigot inside. All for the dogs. Now why would they do all this just for me and the dogs, she wonders? They have so much else to do, so much else in on their minds. Why would they even remember? It is a big relief to have the dogs inside with winter coming on. They have been telling her how hard it is up here, a mile and a half higher than Indiana. Interesting what a mile and a half less air can do.
She stares through the fence at the dogs watching her from atop their paws with large whites showing at the bottoms of their eyes. Yes. They seem happy. Their faces are healing. She sees hair growing on those stripes that the wolves had left. The Karelians have curled up in the corner on a mound of burlap bags after sniffing everything and lapping up a drink.
Yes. Maybe no windows is better, she thinks. She has been living outdoors for nearly five months. Her mind has stored up enough spectacular views to last a lifetime. Yes, a cave is better. Just a place safe and sound, and warm and dry. All we need, she thinks, the dogs and me. The Karelians are acting glad to finally get indoors, too. Nope—sure won’t miss hauling that big bag of dog chow up and down that tree twice a day. No siree.
There is a carpeted corner with a chest of drawers and a bed. After living out of backpacks and sleeping bags, this seems like luxury, like that hotel in Jackson, she thinks. She wonders if Jim will ever sleep here? He has been gone over six weeks now. He must have been too busy to call, and she did not want to. She has been very surprised at herself. She has loved being alone. She had not missed anyone.
Until right now. Like that first crack in the ice, when it starts to break up.
Yes, just look at that, she thinks, as she plops down on the bed, looking up—a roof. Totally forgot there even was such a thing. I’ve got a roof, and heat.
They have installed a black T-bar ceiling grid without tiles. From it, they hang track lighting and raceways with power outlets. The glow of the lights hides the black space above, which rises without interruption to the roof joists and the ridgeline. Two pitch-corrected roof curbs penetrate the roof deck. In the center, one curb holds a powered roof exhauster. We won’t need that until spring, Claire thinks.
Next to the far gable end, the other curb holds a hatch for access to the roof. A long steel ladder runs down through the darkness fastened to a steel column. Just above an opening through the T-bar ceiling grid, a steel cage surrounds it up to the roof.
Outdoors, on the far side of her building, and next to the wall, a latticework of steel rises to thrust multiple communications antennae above the roof. Another iron ladder wrapped in a steel cage gives technicians access from the ground.
Some might think this is too industrial, but Claire does not mind. She takes her comforts when she finds them, but otherwise she does not miss them.
Thoughts of civilization return unexpectedly. “Sheets,” she exclaims with wide-eyed surprise. Smiling, she realizes that she had forgotten there even was such a thing as sheets. There must be some place in town to buy sheets and blankets. A pillow, too. Last year I couldn’t sleep without a pillow. This year I forgot that they exist.
Oh, hey, she stops. She wonders if they thought of everything. She looks around now for an interior door. Oh, yes. Here is one. It is closed. This is the only space they have partitioned.
She walks to it and turns the knob. Yes! Holy cow, a bathroom. An honest to goodness bathroom. My own bathroom. Just like back at Purdue. A toilet. A shower. Oh, no. The shower curtain has trees and mountains all over it. Just what she has spent the last five months looking at. Oh, well. And a sink. She runs the water until it warms. Hot water, she rejoices. It smells so fresh. Concrete floor. Oh, well. Really better. The grass on the hilltop was getting pretty thin.
These contrasts make Claire shake her head in amazement. “These people must have wondered if I danced around the campfire at night. I must have the immune system of a T-Rex.”
Across the big room, away from the carpeted area, and behind an overhead roll-up door, her equipment rests on the concrete. Not every girl that has a drilling-rig in her bedroom, she thinks. The canvas tents lay neatly folded. The sleeping bags are rolled and tied. The backpacks are standing up. The laptops and test equipment are high and dry. She never did find her geologist’s pick hammer, after all. Wonder where it got to, after all this time?
A chair, she thinks. Two chairs. One for company, if she ever has any. That’s all she needs. She nods. Or maybe a couch. There must be some old flea market around here.
A desk. How could I forget? I’ve got a dissertation to finish. I won’t be writing on that picnic table anymore. She will miss that picnic table, she thinks. She remembers Jim slicing bacon on it. Seems so long ago.
A television? No. Not until I have my PhD.
She opens her front door. Hello, civilization. The sunlight of a Wyoming Indian summer bursts indoors. She steps out and hangs across the railing, looking across to the guard shack and the military police at the front gate. That is the road that the army paved. It leads to the bridge they threw across the Madison River, connecting to Highway 191 that leads either south a mile to West Yellowstone or north eighty-nine miles to Bozeman where she sees the mountains thrusting up, blocking. Yet the road to Bozeman manages to get through. Beyond the nearby screen of roadside pines is the airport. She wonders if Cherry will consider it too far to walk, and too short to fly.
Claire pushes back on the railing, exhaling. “What am I turning into?” She will think about a name for it in the shower. It will be a long one, sudsy and hot.
The troublesome persistence of men can sometimes be taken by women as a compliment, but in this camp of men, Claire has abbreviated it down to only troublesome. It snowed two inches in the week before she moved off the hilltop. She moved the dogs into the middle tent. She used both sleeping bags. She began to see how miserable it would be.
But now it is Indian Summer—an intermission of sun and warmth before the curtain comes down a final time for winter.
The days are getting short. Soon, she may not be able to get out to Madison Junction, where she parks the Purdue truck and hikes the Karelians that pleasant mile up the Firehole River to the western slope of the bulging ground of the North Volcano.
So now, with her new gas chromatograph, Claire visits the slopes twice each day to take her measurements of Helium-3. She drives out in that long twilight hour before sunup and returns at lunchtime. After a couple of hours to feed and water the dogs, she and her Karelians drive back out again.
Claire Cheviot has been coming and going in and out of the Madison Valley since before there ever was a guard gate, or a paved road. This noon, she has the gate pass hanging from her rear view mirror, just like she should, but they choose to stop her anyway.
Now, the MP’s are leaning through the window, telling her she is pretty cute. She leans away saying, “not interested” with a level stare that refuses to turn away from faces of men who do not tolerate stares.
While looking her over through the truck window, they see the pistol grips and a chance to throw their weight around. They pull back from the window, draw their handguns, and order her out of the truck. No, they do not care that she has a gun permit. This is a federal installation. Get out of the truck, now.
The Karelians are out of their cage and a half-second from attacking. If only she had latched the cage shut, but trapping them in that way has its downside too.
The Bear Dogs would most likely be shot. They have saved her life. You don’t wimp out when it’s your turn, she thinks. Now she must save theirs.
A few people like Blevins and Jeter understood why she had to do what she did. The rest had opinions, which boiled off slowly as she gradually showed them what she was made of over the coming winter, and in the spring, and during that momentous first half of the following summer.
If the dogs had not been standing in the truck bed, she might have roared off, but instead, she can only smoothly pull away. They run for their Humvees. Colonel Jeter is speed dial 02.
Marshal Blevins is in his usual spot, leaning back against the wall on two legs of the chair. He is as good as anyone at figuring out the unheard half of a telephone conversation. He is at the door before Jeter had hung up and, as he moves through it, he can see the Purdue truck coming with two pairs of flashing lights behind it.
Claire later told me that the only thing as big as Blevins that she had ever seen move as fast as Blevins was the bear that tried to fight her dogs.
Blevins bends his knees and launches himself over the railing. As he lands, his cowboy hat flies up, and he catches it, all in a single motion, as if he had planned it. He waves Claire past, and then holds the cowboy hat up with one hand while raising his badge up off his shirt with the other. He stands like a rock in the middle of the road, and the Humvees leave skid marks in front of him.
Actually, those two MP’s were pretty lucky to get shipped-out that night because Jeter soon had his military police patrolling downtown, where there were many tough scrapes for a while, until the crowd got broken in.
The Colonel gave Claire his own hand-written permanent pass for open-carry and he confesses to her that he should have foreseen what would happen.
Blevins took the longer view, “It always takes a while to get the kinks out.”
The sort of kinks they have around Wyoming can kill you, Claire believes, and by this time, she should know.