Rain of Fire (34 page)

A faint snort came from the lower left hand side of the slope. Kyle turned to him with a questioning look.

“Gray! That you, boy?” Wyatt called. Another snort was followed by a long horsy sigh. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Do you have your radio?” Kyle asked.

“With Thunder.” He gestured toward the pile of rubble.

“My radio is with Strawberry.”

“Oh.” Wyatt thought from her expression that she understood the slide had taken the animals.

Above them, there was a sudden clacking of rocks. His stomach twisted.

“Can you get up?” Kyle asked. “Hang onto this rope?”

Another little shudder. The sound of pebbles sifting threatened to loose his bowels.

“I’ve got to.” He moved his feet, pulling them free of the loose debris.

She freed one hand to help him rise and he got a look at her palm, scraped and slick with blood. She wiped it on her pants before clasping his hand and pulling him up.

The instant he put weight on his right ankle, a stab of pain shot all the way to his brain.

He inhaled sharply. “Shit. I’ve done something here.”

Kyle grasped his arm. “Lean on me.”

“You’re not hurt?”

“I was up on the rocks above the action,” she said in a shaky voice.

Even without his glasses, Wyatt saw the grim look on Kyle’s face. “I mean are you doing all right with all this?”

For an instant, he caught a glimpse of something primal in her eyes. “Hell, no, but I have to.”

Though he wanted to run off the treacherous ground, the best he could manage was to grab the rope above Kyle. Together, they began a lopsided sideways hobble over stones that looked blurred and turned underfoot. It was amazing how he took for granted his usual sure way of walking in the field.

Kyle steadied them both from behind him and he wondered how she managed with her rope-burned hands. “One step at a time.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He found a hollow between two larger rocks and his ankle complained again.

“Don’t ma’am me. Move your right foot left about six inches.”

With Kyle’s help and slow painful steps, Wyatt made it onto the forested slope. There, they both let go the rope, and he was able to see well enough to limp along. He cupped his hands once more and shouted, “Darden!”

Nick did not answer, but there was another tortured sigh.

It was difficult to keep up with Kyle as she hurried toward the sound, but he managed. He didn’t want her to face what they might find alone.

Kyle saw Gray first. The big horse lay with his head facing downhill at the base of a trail of broken earth. His front leg lay crumpled beneath his chest and both his rear legs canted at crazy angles. His saddle was empty.

Wall-eyed, Gray struggled to lift his head.

“Broken neck,” said Wyatt. “Poor devil.”

Kyle’s heart surged when she saw Nick sprawled beyond Gray’s shoulder. It looked as through he’d stayed on the horse until the last, for his limp hand still held the reins. She reached him and knelt, thinking that the next seconds could change so much.

Wyatt slipped in beside her and reached for a pulse. With one hand on Nick’s neck and the other on his chest, he said, “He’s breathing.”

She exhaled the one she’d been holding.

Wyatt bent closer and squinted. “Describe any injuries you see.”

Nick’s face was pale, but that might be from the beige dust that coated everything. Although he appeared largely unscathed, if he’d damaged his spinal cord he might never walk upon a volcano again.

“What we need is a chopper,” Kyle concluded.

She grabbed Nick’s radio, hanging from one of Gray’s saddlebags. Wyatt took it, squinted, and clicked buttons. “Mayday, Mayday. This is Ranger Ellison. We need a medevac stat.”

Bent beside Nick, Kyle smoothed back his matted hair and felt the stickiness of blood. On the side of his head where he’d hit the ground, she found a swelling knot. “He’s hit his head on something.”

Gently, she tapped her fingernail on his collarbone. When he did not respond, she became more aggressive, pinching his earlobe and calling him in a sharp voice. His eyelids did not even flutter. Desperation welled and she screamed, “Nick!” reaching for his shoulders.

Wyatt put a restraining hand on her arm. “Don’t move him.”

She slumped down. “Sorry.” She knew better than that.

“He’s breathing, but unresponsive,” Wyatt said into the radio. “We’re on the south side of Nez Perce Peak. On the trail where the shelf goes along the canyon, the pilot will see the slide.”

Tears ran down Kyle’s cheeks as she brushed her fingers along Nick’s beard. If they had just risen ten minutes earlier this morning, they’d have been well clear of this stretch of canyon. Right now, she’d be calming Strawberry with a soothing hand on her graceful neck. Wyatt would be subdued, Nick ebullient. All of them would have been impressed by the distant sound of avalanche in the canyon.

His report complete, Wyatt moved away and squatted behind Gray’s head. Very gently, he stroked the horse’s limp withers. The only response was another roll of eyes.

Wyatt unsnapped the flap on his pistol holster. “I hope the dust hasn’t clogged this.”

Kyle gasped.

He met her eyes. “Look away.”

The shot echoed through the canyon.

I
n the waiting room at the Mammoth clinic, Kyle checked her watch against the wall clock. It had been nearly an hour since the chopper brought them in.

She and an equally filthy Wyatt waited in the crowded anteroom outside the treatment area, drawing stares from others.

“We should have taken Nick to a bigger hospital,” she said.

“No second guessing.” Wyatt shifted in the plastic chair. “After the way David died, I thought we should bring Nick to the nearest facility.”

Kyle cradled a cup of machine coffee in her raw red hands. Nick’s words about dying in the field kept playing in her mind.

Wyatt squinted at the wall clock.

“Almost eleven,” she read it for him. “Do you have a spare set of glasses?”

“At my house.”

Much as she wanted him to stay with her, she suggested, “Why not go and get them?”

“Then I can check on the seismic.” He echoed her anxiety over whether the quake had relieved any of the pressure at Nez Perce.

Their eyes met.

Wyatt started to rise and stopped. “Before I go, you sure you’re okay?”

Kyle met his gaze. “Truth to tell, I’m numb. I just keep telling myself the quake is over.” She put her palm onto the flat arm of her chair.

He looked down at her hand. “You notice there are no significant aftershocks.” She’d been trying not to think about it.

“Could be a sign we’re in for more.”

“I hope not.”

Wyatt got up and winced when he put his weight on his right foot.

“You should get that looked at.”

“Since it hasn’t swollen, I think it’s just a stone bruise.” He tested it gingerly. “I’ve got an elastic bandage at home.”

He put his hand on her shoulder and left it a moment. “I hope Nick’s all right.”

“He should be.” Kyle gave a faint smile. “His head has always been hard enough.”

She watched Wyatt walk away.

If Nick made it through, how would he feel about how close he’d come to the edge? Surely, this brush with death was going to have an impact on him.

“Please, please,” she repeated, as close to a prayer as

she’d come since she was six.

Two men came in wearing neon vests. The larger man cradled his wrist and the other had a seeping cut over his left eye. From their conversation, Kyle gathered all their efforts at clearing the road in Gardner Canyon had been negated as another section of the cliff had collapsed onto the road. The man with the bad wrist told his buddy he was evacuating the area as soon as he was treated and could gather up his family.

A chill ran down Kyle’s spine. If it were true that the area of instability underlying the park was as large as the GPS data indicated, even Mammoth might not be safe. Certainly, the people who had been through this morning’s quake weren’t ready for another one.

A mother came in carrying a crying girl of about six years. Tangled brown curls framed a small scarlet face. The child didn’t look hurt, but her sobs kept working up into screaming fits.

It reminded Kyle of herself as a six-year-old, being airlifted out of Madison Canyon to a Billings Hospital. She lay in a strange bed with high rails like a crib, though she was too big a girl for one. Light came in from an open transom over the door, giving a dim view of beds filled with sleeping children.

Before nightfall, Kyle had been watching the other kids, but though they talked to her, she hadn’t answered. In the bed on her left was a girl about five with her arm in a cast. Her mother and father had brought her a new doll dressed in blue to match her pajamas. On the other side was a girl in a green nightgown; she had burned her hands grabbing a stove burner. White gauze made her hands look like paws. She had kissed her parents and promised to never do that again. In the corner of the room was pretty flushed Sally, her mommy had called her that when she came in and asked Miss Darla if Sally’s temperature had gone down yet.

Nobody had come for Kyle.

But Mommy and Daddy must get here soon. That was the only thing she had to hold onto. In the morning, they’d come and bring her something, too. Then she’d talk to the other girls.

Footsteps sounded in the hall outside the ward. There was a click and the light over the transom went out. As though someone had clapped their hand over Kyle’s mouth and nose, she tried to breath but could only manage a choking wheeze.

Sally stirred. “You okay?”

Kyle could not speak.

“Miss Darla!” Sally called. “Something’s the matter with her.”

Swift steps approached. The door opened, a switch snapped. Bright light stabbed Kyle’s eyes. Miss Darla approached like an angel in white, her cap a sail. “What’s this, little one?”

Kyle found her breath and screamed. Once she started, she couldn’t stop.

Sitting in the clinic waiting for news of Nick, she bit her lip to keep from sobbing. Tears stood in her eyes.

“You all right, ma’am?” The road worker with the cut on his head asked.

Kyle pushed to her feet and slammed though the door of the nearby ladies room. She barely made it to a stall before the tears came. Great heaving sobs that shook her so hard she had to sit down on the closed toilet seat and hug herself.

She’d been a fool to think studying Yellowstone was something that could be controlled; an idiot to believe it was anything less than playing with fire.

At two in the afternoon, nearly three hours after Nick had been brought in, one of the doctors came from behind a pair of swinging doors. In her thirties, she wore a white coat spattered with blood Kyle tried not to notice.

“I’m sorry I’ve taken so long to get back to you.” She pushed back a stray tendril of her blond hair. “But as you can see, we’re swamped.” Though her voice sounded serious, she wasn’t using the hushed tones with which bad news was usually imparted. “Nick is conscious and oriented.”

Kyle nodded, aware that her eagerness set her up for a fall. “He’s okay, then?”

“His pupils are equal and reactive. He’s doing as well as can be, given that he was unconscious for a while. It would be best for him to get a CT scan, but since we don’t have one, I’ve ordered X-rays.” The doctor gestured around at the other patients. “It may take awhile. Since this is an urgent care clinic and not a hospital, if all goes well, I’m thinking of releasing him later … but only if someone can stay with him overnight.”

“I won’t leave him alone,” Kyle vowed.

The doctor sobered. “If he gets worse or loses consciousness again I’d recommend the air ambulance to Eastern Idaho Medical Center.”

Properly warned, Kyle entered the exam room to find Nick sitting on the edge of a wheeled bed wearing a gray hospital gown. His hair and scruffy beard had turned uniform beige from the gritty landslide. Dirt streaked his arms and blood was drying to a crust where it had dripped down his neck.

“You all right?” She struggled to sound upbeat, but his pallor frightened her.