Rain of Fire (14 page)

She thought of calling Hollis’s cell, but decided two could play his game. If she discovered and removed his hidden equipment cache, she could imagine his astonishment when he found it gone.

Moving through the Institute’s cool fluorescent corridors, she felt a shiver, the way she had when she was a kid playing hide and seek. But this was no game.

Trying to appear nonchalant, she opened doors and looked into laboratories and graduate offices. Some were blessedly empty. Twice, she blundered into a study group and had to exit after a quick scan of the space. In a small closet between classrooms, used for chemical storage, she surprised a young man and woman embracing.

There was no sign of the seismographs, not even in the storage sheds behind the building.

After half an hour of searching, she became certain Hollis would return and catch her. It was sweet to think of snatching the equipment from beneath his nose, but another to imagine his ire. He was taking this being in charge altogether too righteously.

As she made a third pass by Stanton’s locked office, she paused and stared at the door. She had a key, but since he’d been gone she’d had no occasion to go in.

Looking up and down the hall, she waited until some mineralogy students exited the lab and entered a stairwell. Sneaking around in a place she’d always been comfortable was crazy.

When she opened Stanton’s door, darkness within exuded a breath of basement air, redolent with the must of paper and an earthy scent. She groped for the light switch.

Stanton’s desk and credenza were piled with papers. His file drawers gaped to reveal overstuffed folders. It looked a mess, but Kyle knew Stanton could go straight to what he had been working on last week, or find the raw data for her own twenty-five-year-old dissertation project.

Without pausing in the outer office, she went through a rear door. Here stacks of rocks were piled on open metal shelving. Another door led into a darkroom, long unused since the advent of digital cameras. The last she remembered it had stored army-surplus sleeping bags for student fieldtrips.

Kyle opened the door and let in a wedge of light. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she made out the shapes on the slate counters and tile floor … seven portable seismographs made the darkroom look like the luggage-storage area of a hotel.

“Bingo,” she said.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Hollis Delbert’s grim voice made Kyle jump, but she loaded the sixth seismograph into the rear of the Institute van with assurance.

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

Hollis waved his arm. “It looks like insubordination.” He cast about for the ultimate slur. “It’s theft!”

“Don’t be tiresome.” Kyle bent and lifted the last seismograph.

“You had no right to go into the office of the director in his absence. Not without my permission.”

He really was serious about this. Not only serious, but she didn’t have anybody here to back her up.

“Did you locate more equipment?” Kyle asked.

A shadow passed across his face. He glanced sideways and didn’t answer.

“The National Earthquake Information Center told me they were sending you something.”

“Nothing definite. Take those seismographs back inside.”

Adrenaline flushed through her in a hot wave that left her fingertips stinging. “This is the second time in a week I’ve caught you lying.”

Hollis’s pale skin reddened.

“You twisted the truth on Monday when you knew perfectly well Stanton left me in charge.”

“The Consortium chose me.”

“And you just lied about not locating any seismographs. NEIC said they were going to send you some.” Even as she spoke, she realized how petty she and Hollis sounded, arguing in a public place like kids over a ball glove.

He planted his feet and put his fists on his hips. “Put the equipment back and give me the van keys.”

“No.” Kyle felt completely outside the box she’d built and lived inside. “When the equipment arrives from Boulder you can use it on the Wasatch.” She slammed the rear door of the van and headed around to the driver’s seat.

Hollis dogged her and she thought for a moment he was going to grab her or throw a punch. “I’m calling security.” He yanked his cell phone from his belt.

Kyle was in place, starting the engine. “Knock yourself out.”

As she drove away, she saw Hollis in the rearview mirror, waving a fist and shouting.

H
eard you had an even rougher day than the rest of us.” Chief Scientist Radford Bullis stood on the threshold of Wyatt’s park housing wearing full dress uniform. The expression on his broad face conveyed his own grief for David Mowry.

“You might say that.” Aware of his worn jeans and Wolf Advocates T-shirt, Wyatt invited Radford in. Behind his unexpected visitor, a crimson rim of sky shone above Sepulcher Mountain above Mammoth Hot Springs.

“I figured you’d forget Janet Bolido’s reception this evening,” Radford said mildly.

Though their new boss was not the first woman Superintendent in Yellowstone, she came from the Department of the Interior in Washington amid flying rumors she was everything from a nurturing coach to a harridan. “Isn’t the reception cancelled after David …?”

“I’d have thought so, but I spoke with Ms. Bolido myself. She suggested a memorial service in the park chapel tomorrow afternoon, but as for tonight, she believed it would give her a chance to personally convey her sympathy to the staff.”

“Easy for her to throw a party,” Wyatt groused. “She never met David.”

Radford nodded but went on, “If you like, I can wait while you dress. Drive us both up.”

Wyatt knew the pecking order well enough to get his dress uniform on in record time. Without further griping, he got into his boss’s truck.

Radford negotiated the hairpin turn up the hill toward park headquarters. “Tell me what happened today.”

Keeping his eyes on the campground across the highway, Wyatt noted several RVs with TV satellite antennas. An elderly couple in matching jogging suits was the only people outside.

“Hello,” Radford prompted.

“Helen and I rushed in to the Mowrys’ camp and administered first aid. Even if we’d had a saline IV, morphine …” The sense of helplessness Wyatt had felt came rushing back.

Radford slowed to avoid a bull elk defying a
ONE WAY
sign where the road entered Mammoth proper.

“We were too late.”

After a little silence, Radford said, “The news reported something about this spring being mysterious?”

“Mysterious enough. It wasn’t there yesterday afternoon.”

Radford raised a brow. “Is that what Gretchen says?” His tone conveyed that she might have been too distraught to tell a straight story.

“Yes, and I think she’s probably right. I was up along Bear Creek two months ago. Cooled my feet in the same spot.”

Radford seemed to consider as he drove into the eclectic small village that was the nerve center of Yellowstone. Past the older buildings of frame and stone that had once been an Army installation was the abandoned parade ground. The vintage, 1920s-constructed Mammoth Hotel, covered in pale siding, sat near modern dormitories built for concession employees. On the side of Terrace Mountain, the stair-step levels of the hot springs dominated the landscape.

Radford pulled into the hotel parking lot. “Keep your eyes and ears open tonight. You’ll see why it would be wise to keep your story to yourself.”

Wyatt got out and slammed the car door.

Inside the hotel lobby, a sign on an easel proclaimed, “Park Service Staff welcomes Superintendent Janet Bolido.” The party was well under way in the Map Room, named for a large wooden wall mosaic of the United States. In the high-ceilinged space with a wall of glass overlooking the lawn, at least fifty uniformed rangers mingled with support staff in cocktail attire and business suits.

Wyatt walked away from Radford.

“Tough about David, buddy,” said a fellow scientist.

A clap on the shoulder. “Hell of a thing.”

An outstretched hand.

The park historian and coauthor of several of David’s books stopped him. “Sorry you and Helen … but if somebody had to be there, I’m glad it was folks he knew.”

Though Wyatt had been keeping it together since this morning, he suddenly lost it. Things were changing too fast, big irrevocable things that were taking people he cared for out of his life. How he longed to turn back the clock to last week.

“Helen’s left town,” he told the historian. “I’m looking for a drink.”

Taking a glass of red wine from a caterer’s tray, he took a huge swallow and tried to compose himself. It was difficult with all the people around who had known David, so he walked over toward the food alone.

“This looks wonderful,” said a feminine voice beside Wyatt.

The petite woman’s close-cropped black hair held a sprinkling of gray. She had a good tan, or it could be that she had naturally golden skin, set off by a black velvet dress. Only the faint lines around her eyes suggested she was in her fifties.

Trying to appear a casual partygoer to this stranger, he tapped the crystal of his wineglass and noted its ring. Something special on the buffet also, an ice sculpture of the Gateway Arch constructed at the park’s north entrance in 1903. The elegant touch, coupled with the sumptuous spread, told him this was clearly catered by Firehole Inn in the small town of Gardiner, five miles north down the Gardner River Canyon.

Wyatt had not had any food since breakfast, and though he wondered if he would be able to eat, he followed the woman’s lead down the long laden table. He placed a crostini topped with goat cheese and basil onto his plate, along with an asparagus spear wrapped in prosciutto. As he reached to sample a small sandwich made with medallion of elk, Chief Ranger Joseph Kuni tapped the microphone that was set up in the center of the floor-to-ceiling bay window. A hush spread at the sight of the tall and elegant Native American.

“Good evening, everybody.” Though the sound system took a moment to kick in, Kuni’s voice needed no amplification. Wyatt had never been on the receiving end of one of his famous come-to-Jesus lectures, but he’d heard plenty about them. “I’m sure I speak for everyone here when I extend a hearty welcome to tonight’s guest of honor, Ms. Janet Bolido.”

An obligatory wave of applause swelled.

The woman in black turned to Wyatt and shoved her plate at him. Reflexively, he took it. Without so much as a thank you, she walked through the crowd that parted before her.

When she got to the microphone, Janet thanked Joseph for the ‘warm welcome.’ Wyatt shook his head. If he’d not been so preoccupied over David, he would have picked up who she was sooner. Her publicity photo didn’t do her any favors.

“Tonight is about getting acquainted,” Janet said, “and I want to tell you how pleased I am with the opportunity to serve as Superintendent of our nation’s first National Park.”

More applause.

Her face sobered. “There may be some of you here, especially those in the Resource Center, who find it difficult to enjoy the evening after learning of a colleague’s tragic death.”

A morsel of elk went dry in Wyatt’s mouth, and he set his plate on a tray.

“I want to take the opportunity to express my deepest sympathy to all the friends of David Mowry. Though I did not have a chance to know him before coming to the park, I read several of his books and was looking forward to meeting him. His loss is a great blow to our community and the world.”

After a moment of silence, Janet made what looked like a practiced sweep with her eyes. “This evening, I’d like to give you an idea of what I’m about.”

Radford Bullis came to stand beside Wyatt. “Check this,” he murmured.

“The National Park Service stands for preservation,” Janet said, “and I’m in favor of that as much as any person in this room.”

Wyatt took a long swallow of wine.

“However,” her voice firmed, “the Department of the Interior cannot be a money sink. Yellowstone is a wilderness of over two million acres, a hundred miles in any direction. With the exception of Grant Village in the late 1980s, and the newer Snow Lodge and planned Visitor Center at Old Faithful, most facilities in the park are ancient.”

She waved toward the historic frame buildings of Fort Yellowstone beyond the window. Over a hundred years old, they were still in service with rusting metal roofs and leaking steam radiators. “I’ve been sent here to encourage the building of newer and better tourist facilities. To do this with the budget constraints in today’s difficult economy will require that we promote increased traffic and boost revenue through soliciting financial contributions.” She smiled. “We’re about to embark on an international public relations campaign, reviving a promotion the Northern Pacific Railroad once used for Yellowstone.”

Pausing, she raised both arms and invited, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Wonderland!”

People started to laugh, but the wave of mirth was swiftly stifled as the Superintendent’s audience realized she was serious. Chief Ranger Kuni led a round of applause, his iron gaze holding control.