Part 27 (1/2)

”What's this?”

”Keys to Lars's pickup. You'll need a vehicle. How do you expect to get around?”

”I can't take these,” Joe said, remembering Lars's obvious pride in his tricked-up 4x4.

”Take them,” she insisted. ”He likes you.”

”I'm hard on cars,” Joe said.

”Yeah,” she said, dismissing him. ”I'm kind of worried about that, I admit.”

It was easier than Joe thought it would be, despite the suspiciouslooks the gate rangers gave him when he pulled up in the jacked-up pickup with the loud gla.s.s.p.a.ck m.u.f.flers and got out. He found they were lonely in the last days of the season and didn't mind taking the time to show him how to plug into the video units in their gatehouses and download three days' worth of taped entrances and exits. Only at the Northeast gate did he have to show his badge.

He hoped Demming would have the same good fortune.

On the way back to Mammoth, Joe turned off at Biscuit Basin. Although yellow crime-scene tape was stretched from tree trunk to tree trunk across the pathway to Sunburst, no rangers had been left to guard it. He looked around to make sure no one was watching and ducked under the tape.

The trail had been trampled into muddy goo by dozens of rangers and investigators from the day before. The runoff stream ran clear. As he approached Sunburst and felt an almost imperceptible increase in temperature and humidity from the pool, he noted the pink microbes waving in the water and the driftwood where the thermister was still hidden.

Now that he thought about it, he recalled the tickle of air on his ankle the first time he came to the pool with Cutler. Moving step-by-step, he backed around the thermal until he felt it again.

It came from a mouth-sized hole in the ground. He knelt down and put his palm out. The gas emitting from it was odorlessand made no sound. But he could feel it licking his hand.

He stepped back and lit a match, held it out.

With a m.u.f.fled whump whump, flame raced up the stream of gas and danced on the tip as if waving. He felt heat on his face and hands. It burned cleanly and nearly six feet into the air before dissipating.

He found another mouth and lit it too. And another. The three flamers undulated slightly as they burned. He imagined how they'd look at night, illuminating the trees surrounding the thermal. ”Way cool” was how Samantha had described them.

He agreed.

He found four more holes that marched in a line toward the timber but stopped short of the loam and lit them all. There was now a wall of flame, each spout of fire licking silently in the air. It looked strangely tropical, Joe thought. And there was something else. The holes ran parallel to the dark line in the ground that Cutlerhad said was one of the few exposed coal seams in the park.

After watching them for a half-hour, he soaked his fleece vest in the hot pot and extinguished them.

”Way cool,” he said aloud.

Joe returned to the Mammoth Hotel to wait for Demmingand to make arrangements at the front desk for a cabin for Marybeth and the girls the next night. He didn't want to subject them to rooms in the empty hotel that even he found lonely. He used his credit card, knowing the state would likely not reimbursethe cost, and wondered as Simon ran it when exactly his first new paycheck would arrive.

When Simon returned his card and said he could pick up the keys in the morning, he said, ”There have been a couple of older gentlemen asking for you. I hope you don't mind, but I asked them to wait outside the lobby for you to return.”

”Wait outside? Why?”

Simon looked apologetic.

Joe got it. ”They were stinking drunk, right?” he said with despair.

”Beyond stinking,” Simon said. ”They reeked. And one of them had a little accident on the couch. He dropped his bottle of cheap whiskey.”

Joe turned to see that the cus.h.i.+ons on the overstuffed couch near the fireplace had been removed.

”Son!” George Pickett shouted as he staggered into the lobby from outside. ”Son! My boy! Fruit of my loins!”

Doomsayer remained outside so he could throw up on the sidewalk.

Joe angrily intercepted his father. ”What do you want?”

”To see my boy. Do you know how good it makes me feel to say I'm going to visit my son? Is there something wrong with that?”

His father hadn't shaved or changed clothes since he'd seen him at Old Faithful, as if their meeting had been the catalyst for the bender he was on. He stunk of whiskey and something rottenhe'd eaten. His eyes shone with a giddy brand of happiness that bordered on the manic. His smile was forced, and as he stumbled, Joe reached out to hold him up.

”We have nothing to talk about,” Joe said.

”But you're my son!” George said loudly. ”The only one I have left.”

Joe glanced over his shoulder to see Simon look away discreetly.

”You can't just stand here and yell,” Joe said. ”You're sure as h.e.l.l not driving anywhere. Don't you have someplace to stay?”

”With you!” George slurred. ”We can bunk with you! We can stay up late and tell stories and catch up. That meeting we had, that was no good. We need a new start.”

Joe felt like smacking him, and instantly felt guilty for even thinking it. He was was his father, wasn't he? But he was so much less than that, even though he'd come to Mammoth to see him. his father, wasn't he? But he was so much less than that, even though he'd come to Mammoth to see him.

Joe handed George the keys to room 231.

”Don't wreck it,” Joe said, getting both men into the room.

”You aren't staying with us?” Doomsayer asked.

”Never,” Joe said. ”And get out tomorrow when you two can walk.”

”Ah, tomorrow,” Doomsayer said, watching George stagger toward the bed and collapse into the middle of it. ”We don't speak of tomorrow up here. It may never come.”

In the cabin he had rented, Joe sat at a small table and surveyedthe accommodations. It would do, although it was dark and close. He'd hoped there would be a private bedroom for him and Marybeth. He missed his wife, and recalled their last moments together by the fireplace. Instead, there was a double bed and two singles in a long room. Maybe they could send Sheridan and Lucy out for some ice or something, he thought.

He hoped George Pickett would do as he was told and be out of the area by morning, when his family was due to arrive.

Tossing his bags into the small closet, he wondered when Demming would get back. He'd need to leave a note at the hotelabout his new location.

And speaking of location, Joe thought, where in the h.e.l.l was Nate?