Rain of Fire (16 page)

“Could you tell us about the spring … is it
Dr
. Ellison?” Carol Leeds asked.

“I was first on the scene,” Wyatt said. “Mowry’s wife Gretchen told me he dived into a portion of the creek that was cool yesterday.”

“How could that be?”

“Theoretically speaking, in an area of high heat flow, a new fissure in the earth might permit the release of steam or hot water in an area previously cool…”

“Wouldn’t this be dangerous?” Carol broke in.

Wyatt’s tone remained even. “I think David Mowry’s wife would agree that it’s dangerous.”

The reporter looked momentarily abashed, but pressed on. “How many more of these fissures could there be?”

His smile looked forced. “I was going to say that we have not had a chance to look into the story. The banks of Bear Creek have several areas that look similar.”

“I’m told that none of the park maps show a hot spring in that area,” Carol persisted.

“That’s correct,” Wyatt said. “Yellowstone is the world’s most active hydrothermal system; with more than 10,000 hot springs, pools, and geysers. We don’t put out any maps with all of them.”

Radford looked into the camera. “Be vigilant in watching for all kinds of danger, from wildlife to boiling springs. Don’t let what happened to David Mowry happen to you.”

Despite her persistence, the reporter seemed to know the interview was over. Thanking them, she moved on toward the crowd gathering at the chapel.

As soon as she was gone, Kyle turned on Wyatt. “Why did you evade her question about the spring? You had a chance to warn people.”

“Radford warned them,” Wyatt said evenly.

“I’m going over to the service.” Radford walked away through rows of staff housing toward the small stone chapel.

Kyle studied Wyatt’s expression and made a guess. “You were told to keep things quiet?”

Wyatt nodded. “The park’s new Superintendent wants things sunshine and roses. She’s got an idea to revitalize the old Wonderland campaign and thinks earthquakes”— he gestured toward the gathering mourners—”and cold springs turned scalding overnight might frighten Joe American.”

“You can’t just go along,” she challenged.

He looked chagrined. “Radford made it clear that with this woman exposed pegs will be hammered. Look at you … with Stanton gone, Hollis is after your head. None of us will be any use if we get kicked off the project.”

“Politics.” Kyle crossed her arms over her chest. “What a crock of bull.”

“Think about it.” Wyatt waved a hand at the breeze ruffling the cottonwoods and drifting golden leaves onto the lawn. “Who’s going to believe something’s going on underneath all this peaceful beauty unless we bide our time and gather evidence? Even with David’s death, everyone figures Gretchen might have gotten the story wrong about the spring. We’ve got the classic dilemma …”

She sighed. “Are we warning people or crying wolf?”

Wyatt checked his watch. “Time to head over. You coming?”

Church bells spread rich tones on the autumn air. Kyle almost told him she couldn’t bear to attend, but the pain in his eyes suggested he could use her support.

“Let’s go,” she agreed.

Several hundred people had arrived, with law enforcement rangers directing parking to keep the road in front of the chapel clear. As Kyle watched, another press vehicle was given a prominent spot at the curb.

With a grimace at the circus atmosphere, she followed Wyatt and joined the line of mourners. The sun on the stone buttresses that flanked the church’s walls brightened myriad colors of lichen on the native rock. Near the door, a young man comforted a slim gray-haired woman in black. Kyle presumed them to be David Mowry’s wife and son. It was confirmed when the woman greeted Wyatt with a hard hug and whispered, “Thank you for doing what you could.”

Wyatt led Kyle inside. A chill met them, as the stone insulated the sanctuary from the day’s warmth. After a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimness, she looked around the simple house of worship. Pale, painted walls contrasted with dark trim; a large and plain wooden cross adorned the front wall beneath the arch of ceiling.

The altar was decorated with banked floral arrangements. Orchids bent on emerald stems, carnations spread a cluster of pompoms, and blue stars of agapanthus rose on thick stalks. As Kyle and Wyatt advanced into the sanctuary, the flowers’ mingled scent smelled like the viewing room in a funeral parlor.

She was glad there was no casket in evidence.

Wyatt directed her toward a seat in the third row behind the Yellowstone brass. The small woman in a black dress suit had to be Janet Bolido, the new Superintendent.

As David Mowry’s family seated themselves in the front pew, a hush fell over the murmuring crowd. From the side of the altar, a man in crimson robes entered. He went to the organ and began to play “Nearer My God to Thee.”

Kyle had not been to church since Dad had driven them each Sunday in the Rambler wagon. Pastor White had exhorted them from the pulpit. When she’d spent the night clinging to a tree in stormy darkness she’d wondered if the earthquake happened because she’d let her attention wander during the sermon to the myriad colors in the stained glass, like rubies, emeralds, and sapphires.

Near the end of August 1959, there had been a memorial for the victims of Hebgen Lake, just inside the mouth of Madison Canyon. The local sheriff had vetoed a plan to meet directly on the slide and moved the site a mile west. A child psychologist who had evaluated Kyle while Franny and Zeke drove up from Arizona suggested they attend.

The mourners sang hymns and prayed, and The Bishop of the Montana Episcopal Diocese spoke. “Unto God’s gracious mercy and protection we commit you.”

She didn’t understand. Her parents must have been saved. They just hadn’t yet been located.

The Bishop intoned, “Lord, accept these prayers on behalf of the souls of Thy servants departed. Grant them an entrance into the land of life and joy in the fellowship of Thy saints.”

Kyle closed her eyes. “Dear Lord, please send Mommy and Daddy back.” Tears stung her lids. “If you do this, I won’t ever ask for anything, I promise.”

On the day of the service, there were still forty people missing. Ten of them were found alive.

Kyle never did ask God for anything else.

In the Yellowstone chapel, a woman in black robes came in bearing a large color photograph of David Mowry, one that Kyle recognized from his latest book jacket. The smiling, sturdy, bald man wore a red North Face parka.

The clergywoman arranged the photo against the back of a chair facing the congregation and went to the podium. When the last notes of the organ faded, she permitted a moment of silence before saying, “Let us pray.”

The chamber seemed to rustle as people settled themselves in their pews and bowed their heads.

“Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.”

The assembly joined in, their murmurs forming a communal growl.

Wyatt’s low baritone rumbled beside Kyle’s ear. “On earth as it is in heaven.”

She pressed her lips together. For an instant, she thought she saw the suspended chandelier move, but that had to be her imagination.

“Give us this day our daily bread,” came the never-forgotten cadence.

Kyle’s father had a saying. “All things cometh to he who waiteth.” He’d always stopped there for effect and broken into a grin. “If he worketh like hell while he waiteth.”

“Forgive us our trespasses.”

Any human trespass she could imagine paled in comparison to the night God had turned His spotlight of full moon on the Madison Valley, to better illuminate His shaking loose a mountain.

“As we forgive those who trespass against us.”

She realized she was crying in the same instant she saw the suspended chandelier really was on the move. Ever so gently, it swayed in an increasing arc while the mourners prayed on. After the colossal mistake she’d made last night, she was suspicious, but the telltale motion continued.

Kyle leaped to her feet, stumbled over peoples’ legs, and ran out of the chapel.

She was halfway across the lawn before Wyatt managed to snag her arm, realizing too late that it was her injured side.

He heard her gasp. She stopped.

“I’m sorry.” He touched Kyle’s other shoulder, gently this time. “What’s the matter?”

He’d wanted to leave the church the moment he’d seen the picture of David, hale and smiling in the red parka his wife had embraced in the clearing where he died.

Kyle rounded on him, wild-eyed, as he’d never known her. “Didn’t you see it?”

“See what?”

“The chandelier. Another quake.”

“I didn’t feel anything.”

He felt her trembling beneath his hand. A brisk breeze rattled the cottonwoods and sent more leaves spiraling. Night frosts had begun to fade the green of the irrigated lawns. “It’s cooling off out here. Let me get you some coffee.”

Placing a hand at the small of her back, he urged her toward the Resource Center.

Inside, at the receptionist’s desk, Iniki Kuni raised her head. Chief Ranger Joseph Kuni’s daughter, just eighteen and reed-thin, sported multiple piercings of ears, nose, and even her navel, visible in her waist-skimming top.

“The service over already?” she asked.

“Not yet,” Wyatt replied. “Iniki, this is Dr. Kyle Stone from the Institute in Salt Lake. She just drove in.”

His office door stood open, the desk piled with papers threatening avalanche. He showed Kyle inside and crossed the hall, trying not to look at David’s nameplate and vacant office.

In the kitchen, he checked the pots for coffee. Iniki pampered the staff, buying beans at a coffee shop in Gardiner and grinding them fresh. Today’s selection was featured in purple calligraphy on a lavender index card.
Viennese Cinnamon
, David’s favorite.

Wyatt pulled down the nice guest cups, thick white mugs with the Yellowstone Park logo, a mountain peak above the boast
Oldest and Best
. How long before it was superseded by
Wonderland?
.

Automatically, he stirred in a touch of cream the way Kyle liked it.

Back in his office, she stood where he’d left her. He moved a paper pile and slid a hip onto the corner of his desk. This erased his slight advantage of height and put them on the level. “So why is a tiny tremor such a big deal?”

Her lips moved in a bitter twist. “Believe me, you haven’t got the time.”

He was reminded of the evening in the Red Wolf when she’d refused to explain her tears. At the time, he’d felt rebuffed. Today, he determined to break down her defenses. “I’ve got all the time you need.”

Her eyes reflected a deep pain. “Last night I woke up and panicked, thinking the Wasatch Fault had let go a huge quake.”

“That doesn’t sound so terrible.”

She shook her head. “I climbed out the window into a terrific rainstorm and roped down the side of the building.”

The image almost made him smile.

“Don’t you dare laugh at me,” she threatened.

He maintained a solemn expression. “I’m not.”

“Your eyes are smiling.”

“Maybe.” He grinned.

Kyle gulped her coffee. “I scared my neighbor pounding on her door, telling her to get outside.”

Wyatt kept his tone reasonable. “Maybe I did feel like smiling. It sounds to me like you overreacted to a bad dream.”

“And again today.”

“Maybe.” She bowed her head. Her sleek hair was divided by a part above a faint widow’s peak.

“Tell me the rest,” he urged.

When she did not speak, he started putting things together on his own. Her panic attack last night and again when the chandelier swung, the hysterical note to her laughter after the earthquake on Dot Island, the odd way she’d acted at the Earthquake Lake Visitor Center, as though she thought the mountain might begin shaking again.

“Kyle,” he said, “if you’re afraid of quakes, why do you put yourself in places where they happen?” He propped his hands on the desk on either side of her, suddenly aware that mere inches separated their bodies.

She looked at him; her eyes clear green-blue. “Wyatt…”

With a pounding heart, he lifted his hand and cradled her cheek. Gently, he moved his thumb over the silky skin beneath her eye. A bluish shadow there bespoke her night terrors.

Someone rapped the office door in sharp staccato.

“Yee haw,” a man said jovially. “Am I interrupting anything?”

T
he intruder laughed lightly, the sound of a man who seldom took things seriously. Kyle’s view of the entry was blocked by Wyatt, but she’d have known that voice anywhere.

Already unnerved by the tenderness in Wyatt’s touch, she vowed not to drop her cup.

Wyatt backed away, his face flushing, and turned toward his guest.

In jeans and a blue work shirt, tanned, with sun-streaked tousled hair, the ghost from her past stood in the doorway.

“Hello, I’m Nick Darden.”

Kyle’s heart started to race.

Nick took a few steps closer with a compact catlike grace that still set him apart. His tawny-greenish eyes glinted with what could only be termed polite interest. “I’m looking for a Dr. Ellison.”