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  CALDERA

  By Larry LaVoie

  Copyright 2011 Larry LaVoie

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I would like to thank my wife Anna for the many hours of support she has given as I write and for her review and input on the book, the characters, and the story itself. It goes without saying, this book would not be nearly as well written and enjoyable to read without the editing talent of my editor, Sharon Shafa.

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.

  CALDERA

  Chapter 1

  Mount St. Helens Volcano Monument, Hoffstadt Bluffs Visitor’s Center

  A year ago Dr. Jason Trask swore he would not spend another birthday on Mount St. Helens, yet here he was staring at the plaque with the fifty-seven names of the victims who lost their lives so many years ago. They were not friends or even acquaintances, but he felt a special kinship to them, for they, like his father, had lost their lives in the eruption of Mt. St. Helens on May 18, 1980. The ritual had become a tradition his mother had started when the monument was dedicated twenty years after the disaster. When he had mentioned he didn’t want to attend this year, his mother insisted he make the trip one more time, for her, if not to honor his departed father. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to pay tribute to his father, but it bugged him that his father’s name was not on the plaque even though he’d gone missing while making a Co-spec run over the mountain at the time of the eruption. Why wasn’t he listed as one of the victims? Jason had asked himself every year. He asked the question again this year as he reviewed the names, but he knew this trip up the mountain, like all the others, held little hope of giving him an answer.

  As much as he respected those who had lost their lives, he was only there to placate his mother. The ritual couldn’t have come at a worse time. He had been watching events on the other side of the world and they demanded his attention.

  He glanced at his mother and his younger sister Molly huddled together on the edge of a solemn crowd of mourners. Though it was spring in the city all were bundled up against the chilly mountain air. The solemn toll of a bell drifted away in the breeze, one ring for each name on the plaque. His mother still carried the pained expression from the loss of his father. Jason understood. He remembered vividly the day his father died though he was only six years old at the time. He was the last family member to see his father alive.

  After the ceremony, Jason, his mother and sister climbed back into his Jeep and drove higher up the mountain to Johnston Ridge. He had made this a part of their private ritual. They got out and stood looking at the massive crater left in the mountainside. The ridge was named in memory of David Johnston, a young scientist who had lost his life while observing the volcano the day it erupted. He must have been terrified, Jason thought imagining the side of the mountain lifting up and flying toward him.

  Jason knew first hand that David Johnston had done his job up to the very last second. He, personally, had heard Johnston’s last words. Standing in this very place where David Johnston must have been standing, Jason imagined he could still hear his voice; a voice that took him back to the last day he had seen his father.

  That day was especially exciting for Jason because it was his sixth birthday. May 18, 1980 began as a crisp Sunday morning with a few fluffy clouds scattered in a perfect blue sky. He remembered holding his father’s hand as they walked up the concrete steps of Mount St. Helens Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington. The observatory was a plain brick office building that had been hastily set up as the watch center when Mount St. Helens had started producing earthquakes a few months earlier. The mountain had been quiet for the past week and his dad had brought him to the observatory to see where his father worked; what a volcanologist did while he was away from home. Since the mountain had been quiet, nobody, not even the scientists on watch, expected anything spectacular to happen that day. Still, Jason could sense a bit of nervousness in his father, edginess barely perceptible as they entered through the double-glass doors.

  “I’ve got my reservations about this,” John Trask said to his son. “Don’t annoy the scientists by asking too many questions.” He looked sternly at Jason. “Okay?”

  Jason nodded his head and tossed his Yo-Yo at the floor and expertly retrieved it. They entered a large room and Jason stuffed the Yo-Yo in his jacket pocket and gazed in awe at the activity in the room. Along one wall strange pieces of equipment clicked and clattered while spewing reams of paper in a wide continuous ribbon. The desktops were cluttered with leftover fast-food containers, paper cups and pop cans, intermingled with stacks of computer paper and reports. The smell of stale tobacco was strong and a blue haze clouded the room.

  As he took in the strange surroundings, Jason recognized a family friend, Dr. Milton Bainbridge with his arms full of empty pizza boxes. So this is what famous scientists do when they aren’t giving interviews on TV, he thought. He had seen Bainbridge with his graying hair and neatly trimmed goatee on the six-o’clock news almost every night for the past two months. He watched as Bainbridge crumpled the cartons and tried to stuff them into an already overflowing garbage can. Bainbridge removed a pipe from his mouth and exhaled another puff of smoke that drifted upwards, adding to the blue haze.

  As his father guided him to a desk in the far corner of the room, Jason checked the time on his new Mickey Mouse watch and compared it with a large clock hanging on the wall. Seven-forty exactly; it keeps good time, he mused. In addition to the wrist watch he had received a red bicycle, and after much pleading with his father, this trip to volcano headquarters. It was a good birthday, indeed. Jason’s eyes widened as he continued to observe the array of computer screens, flashing lights, streaming computer paper and clattering printers. They were just like what he had seen pictured in a magazine. “This is awesome,” Jason said to his father.

  “Stay here,” his father said, parking him in a swivel chair. “I’ve got to make a phone call. Don’t move ‘til I come back.”

  He watched his dad disappear down the hall and when he was out of sight, Jason spun around in the swivel chair, rocked back, and put his feet up on the desk like he had seen big shots do in the movies. He studied the things on the desk, a picture of his mom and a picture of him in his T-ball uniform. It had been taken a month earlier, when my parents were getting along, he reflected. They had been arguing a lot lately.

  An annoying squawk from an overhead loudspeaker caught his attention. The room was intermittently filled with scratchy voices from an unknown source. A phone rang and a pretty woman about the age of his mother answered.

  “You’d better take this,” the woman said, handing it to Bainbridge.

  Jason leaned forward and listened.

  “Ma’am,” Bainbridge said angrily, “Call the Clark County sheriff. I set the Red Zone, but it’s his job to enforce it.”

  Jason sat up, his eyes widened. He could tell Bainbridge was upset.

  “Tell him this may be the calm before the storm,” Bainbridge continued, “Sometimes volcano systems get plugged up and become quiet for a period. The system could be building pressure.”

  Bainbridge cupped his hand over the mouthpiece, his gruff voice shot across the room, “Idiots, I can’t believe people are this stupid.” Bainbridge dipped the bowl of his pipe into a can of Red Chief tobacco and pressed it down with his finger still cupping the phone with his other hand. He put the receiver back to his ear, softened his voice and spoke very distinctly, “As I told your wife, the mountain is still not safe. If you insist on going up the mountain, the sheriff will be escorting a caravan of property owners into the Red Zone later this morning. I highly recommend against it, but
who the hell listens to me?”

  Bainbridge rolled his eyes and used the chair beside the desk as a footstool. “I don’t buy that argument,” he continued, “all the signs point to an eventual eruption.” He slammed the phone down. “Who the hell do these people think we are fortune tellers?”

  “I thought we were,” Jason’s father called stepping from the hallway. “Come on, Jason.”

  Bainbridge took the pipe out of his mouth. “John, I wasn’t expecting you until this afternoon.”

  “Couldn’t sleep,” John Trask said. “I’ve got the plane fueled up for a Co-spec run. Anything new?”

  Bainbridge shrugged, “You mean other than irate calls from idiots wanting to return to their homes inside the Red Zone?” He squatted down eye level with Jason. “You’ve grown a foot since I last saw you last.” He talked with the pipe clamped between his teeth. His breath smelled of tobacco. “I can’t believe you’ve grown this much.” He stood and turned to Jason’s father, “Has it been that long? He was just a toddler.”

  “I know,” his father said putting his hand on Jason‘s shoulder. “Yesterday he was in diapers, now he’s driving me nuts with all his questions. He pestered me until I finally gave in and brought him along with me today.”

  “Dad,” Jason protested. He looked up at Bainbridge. “Can I see a seismograph?”

  Bainbridge grinned, his tobacco yellowed teeth still gripping the pipe. “Sure thing, but first I need to update your dad on a few things.” He stood and turned to John. “Carbon dioxide levels were up the last reading we got yesterday. If you can get close enough to the steam vent we could use a complete gas sample as well. ”

  “I don’t think there will be a problem. Things have been pretty quiet. You sure it’s okay to leave Jason?”

  “We’ll get along just fine. Don’t you take any undo risk, ya hear.”

  “No problem, it’s a beautiful day for flying.”

  Bainbridge took Jason’s hand. “What do you say we check and see if there have been any earthquakes this morning?”

  “Cool.” Jason turned and waved goodbye to his father.

  “You be a good boy,” John Trask called before walking out the door.

  Bainbridge steered Jason to an instrument with a drum and needle along one wall. “This drum holds the graph paper,” Bainbridge explained to Jason. He pulled a piece of the paper from a stack on a desk. “Here, see these lines? That was an earthquake we had last week. What magnitude do you think it was?”

  Jason studied the paper. It looked like someone had covered it with a bunch of red scribble marks. “Three point four at its highest resonance,” Jason said.

  Bainbridge grinned. “I’ll be damned. You’ll make a fine volcanologist one day.”

  “I’m preparing for science fair,” Jason said. “Can you tell me, what exactly is a tilt meter?”

  Bainbridge removed the pipe from his mouth and stared into the boy’s hazel eyes. “Where did you hear about a tilt meter?”

  “Scientific American. It’s a magazine.”

  “I know it’s a magazine, but aren’t you a little young to be reading it?”

  Jason looked up at Bainbridge. “I’ve been reading since I was three, you know.”

  “Well pardon me. Let me see. A tilt meter... a tilt meter is a device—”

  The radio interrupted them, squawking loudly. For an instant all activity in the room stopped.

  “Vancouver, Vancouver this is it!” David Johnston’s excited voice filled the room through the loudspeaker.

  Bainbridge grabbed the microphone. “My God, David, get out of there!”

  Jason glanced over at the seismometer. It was wildly scribbling red ink across the paper drums.

  Bainbridge spun Jason toward a desk. “Sit down and don’t move!”

  Jason hiked himself up in the chair and checked his watch again. It was 8:32 in the morning. Mount St. Helens was erupting. He watched the blur of activity in the room and wondered where his father was.

  A bolt of lightning flashed and the roll of thunder shook Jason back to reality. He was staring at the massive depression before him and black clouds threatening to pelt them with sleet or hail. Since the eruption over nine-hundred feet of new mountain had grown in the caldera, but it was barely perceptible in the enormity of the crater. He shook his head; David Johnston didn’t have a chance.

  He knew now that David Johnston had been aware of the risks standing only six miles from the summit, but Johnston couldn’t have known at the time the side of the mountain would blow out in a horrific explosion. He must have known those would be his final words. Jason shuddered at the thought.

  Standing on this spot Jason felt a special connection with David Johnston. Johnston’s finial words had linked the two of them to his father. At the moment of the eruption communication had been abruptly broken with the small plane his father had been flying and like David Johnston, his father had never been heard from again.

  Molly tugged at Jason’s jacket sleeve and Jason looked down at her.

  “Jason, we need to go,” Molly said, rubbing the goose flesh on her bare arms. “I left my coat in the car.”

  Jason removed his jacket and wrapped it around her. Under his jacket, he was wearing a Pendleton wool shirt, and though it hugged his muscular frame, it provided plenty warmth. He could smell the ozone in the air and the cold dampness setting in as he watched clouds continue to roil up in the crater. “Let’s give mom a few more minutes.”

  For some strange reason he wanted more time also. Without a gravesite or a place to put a headstone there had been no closure, and there had been no bell tolling for his dad. No place, other than the solitude of this snow covered ground, could ease the anguish he was feeling. In his mind, at this very spot, the mountain and his father had become one, melded together in an eternal monument. This was his day to remember, to reflect, to communicate with his father as one might do at the gravesite of a loved one. The mountain, with its now quiet snow-covered slopes, renewed green vegetation and abundant wildlife seemed as sacred and peaceful as any cathedral. It was a mystic cemetery where at times it seemed to talk to him. Indeed, it was here at this very place he had made the decision to follow in his father’s footsteps, to become a volcanologist.

  He heard his mother sob and put his arm back around her. Through blurry eyes he watched the steam cloud in the caldera swell and obliterate the mountain top. He looked up at the angry clouds. At least it isn’t raining this year.

  “Your cell phone is ringing,” Molly said removing it from Jason’s coat pocket and handing it to him.

  Jason checked the message surprised he could get a signal this far from civilization. It was his boss, Sandy Sanders, USGS Headquarters, Menlo Park, California. He switched off the phone. He needed more quiet time.

  Chapter 2

  May 18th Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming USA

  During the night a remote seismic monitoring station had stopped transmitting after what volcanologists call, “a significant event,” a term used for a major earthquake. Shallow earthquakes of a level six magnitude meant trouble in the volcanically active Yellowstone caldera. Though earthquakes were common, it was rare for one to reach magnitude six due to the magma beneath the park dampening the resonance of the shock wave. Dr. Milton Bainbridge knew this one was different from the over 3,000 earthquakes each year in Yellowstone. For one thing, this one had done some damage, not to mention had jolted him out of a sound sleep. Most of the earthquakes couldn’t be felt and would not be evident except for the continuous recording of the seismographs placed around the park. With a pool of magma less than two miles under his feet, a magnitude six earthquake could mean magma was rising causing the thin crust to yield to the tremendous strain and Bainbridge wasn‘t taking any chances.

  On the morning news Yellowstone was the coldest spot in the nation and Bainbridge could feel it in his bones as he hiked up Mallard Lake trail. He noticed the brisk wind had cleared the late snowfall from the branches of
the scrawny lodge pole pine in the area, however a heavy blanket still covered the trail. With each step his breath rose in short bursts forming fine white crystals on the fur lining of his parka hood. I’m getting too damn old for this, he thought as his boots sank knee-deep into the white powder. Normally replacing a faulty sensor would not require such immediate attention, but recent events within the Yellowstone caldera made it imperative all the monitors be operating. Hunched over from the weight of a day pack, he leaned into the wind, and with a sense of urgency took short deliberate steps. He used his pack shovel as a walking stick as he ascended to the upper part of Mallard Lake Dome.

  A hundred feet down the trail he could barely make out the image of his young assistant, Carlene Carlson.

  Bainbridge steadied himself, turned and watched Carlene struggle up the slope. Even in heavy clothing she presented a slight feminine outline. Not yet thirty, dressed in a powder-blue Gortex parka and matching snow gear, she looked more like someone on a ski trip than the scientist she was. She waved him on, but he waited. If I had a daughter I’d want her to be exactly like Carlene, he thought watching her determined movements. He wished his son had been as close to him as Carlene. He sighed. He hadn’t talked to his son in several years. Putting the thought aside, he scanned the tree-line. It was important that they stay together this time of year and he had gotten too far ahead of the young geologist. The grizzly bears, awake from their winter hibernation, had already been seen at lower elevations rummaging campsites for food. They tended to be less aggressive if people were in pairs.

  He brushed the frost from his goggles and scanned the area for the transmission station antenna and the solar panel that powered it. He located it and shuffled over to it, glancing again at Carlene before shoveling the snow away from the antenna base. Carlene trudged the last few yards and stooped over beside him, her wool mittens planted on the knees of her coveralls. She sucked in a deep breath of frigid air and let out a cloud of steam.