“Is that normal procedure?” Emerson asked.
“There are several ways a body can be transported,” Milton said. “Most commonly it is by the coroner, but at times it will be delivered by the Park Police or a city ambulance.” He handed the report back to Emerson. “This is a very serious matter. Why would someone do this?”
“To conceal the attacker’s identity,” Emerson said.
Emerson thanked Milton, they did a complicated man-to-man handshake, and Milton walked away toward the bank of elevators.
“Will he get into trouble for this?” Riley asked.
“Unlikely. I simply circumvented procedure. The photos and the report are made available upon request.”
“I assume Milton works here.”
“He’s a forensic photographer.”
Emerson and Riley left the building and walked in silence to the Tesla. Riley got behind the wheel, and Emerson took the passenger seat next to her. Riley looked over at Emerson.
“Honestly? Really?” she said.
“What?” Emerson said.
“You’re gloating.”
“Not at all. Gloating implies a smug satisfaction in one’s success.”
“And you’re telling me you’re not feeling just a little smug.”
“I’d only be smug if I had an exaggerated self-opinion.”
“Heaven forbid.”
“Do you still doubt the existence of a secret society of Rough Riders?” Emerson asked her.
“I might have a little less doubt, but I’m not convinced. And at any rate I’m not ready to pin it on Teddy Roosevelt.”
“I like Teddy,” Vernon said. “He carried a big stick, if you know what I mean.”
Wayan Bagus smacked Vernon on the back of the head.
“Everybody knows that,” Vernon said. “Common knowledge.”
“The idea that there might be a society of Rough Riders is unsettling,” Riley said. “One psycho axe murderer is bad enough, but a whole army of them is truly disturbing.”
“It is written that the army, which the world with all its false gods cannot overcome, can be smashed with discernment.”
“Okay, then, Little Buddy. Let’s go to Yellowstone and discern the hell out of them,” Vernon said.
—
One of the many “attachments” that Emerson inherited from his late father was a Gulfstream G550 jet. It was configured to carry as many as fourteen passengers, two pilots, and a flight attendant up to 6,750 miles nonstop.
Riley appreciated it for the two Rolls-Royce engines and its engineering. Vernon appreciated it because it was stocked with a bottomless supply of Oreos, M&M’s and little bottles of rum. Wayan Bagus, for his part, looked like he was still deciding whether he appreciated it or not. It was, after all, a $50 million attachment, but the seats were extremely comfortable, and each had its own personal television. Not to mention the restroom had soft two-ply toilet tissue and tiny bottles of minty mouthwash.
Four hours into the flight, Vernon and Wayan Bagus were asleep. Riley and Emerson were wide awake.
“What’s your plan?” Riley asked Emerson.
“I reserved rooms for us at the Old Faithful Inn. It’s right in the center of the park and where the newlyweds were last seen. So I think it’s a good base of operations for us.”
Riley ate a strawberry off the catered fruit platter. “Search parties looked for them for two weeks, but the park is a thirty-five-hundred-square-mile wilderness. Nobody found anything.”
“They didn’t know where to look.”
“And you do?”
Emerson nodded. “If our theory is correct and the disappearances have something to do with the locations of mantle plumes, then our search area is limited to the blob of lava bubbling underneath Yellowstone.”
“That blob is enormous,” Riley said.
“Fifteen hundred square miles.”
“Criminy, Emerson, that’s the size of Rhode Island. It would take a hundred years. Maybe five hundred years.”
“As I could only reserve the hotel rooms for five days, I’ll just have to be extra discerning,” Emerson said. “Between my ability to discern, Vernon’s unagi, and Wayan Bagus’s special talents, it should be a piece of cake.”
Riley didn’t think it was going to be a piece of cake. She thought the investigation was going to be difficult and dangerous. Even if the homicidal lunatics didn’t show up at Yellowstone, there were the bears. She wasn’t a fan of bears. She could grab a snake with her bare hand and squash a spider with her shoe, but she didn’t like bears.
“What’s my role?” she asked Emerson.
“You’re the glue that holds our disparate personalities and talents together. You’re our Professor X.”
“The bald guy in Marvel comics? The founder of the X-Men?”
“Exactly! Only instead of being a bald dude, you have a lot of pretty red hair and you’re a girl.”
Riley stared at Emerson, trying to decide whether he was complimenting her, coming on to her, or just being, for lack of a better word, Emerson. She settled on just being Emerson.
“Thank you for thinking my hair is pretty,” Riley said.
“No problem,” Emerson said.
“So, what are Wayan Bagus’s special talents? Can he really disappear?” she asked.
Emerson gave a noncommittal shrug. “Some Taoists believe that it’s possible to develop certain supernatural powers, or siddhi.”
“Like being able to disappear.”
“Something like that,” Emerson said. “One of the siddhi is supposed to be the ability to move the body wherever thought goes.”
“Are there any others?”
“There are five primary siddhi. They include clairvoyance, being able to tolerate extremes of heat and cold, and being able to read minds. There’s also a bunch of secondary ones. Things like being undisturbed by hunger or thirst, being able to hear or see things far away, being able to assume any form desired, and being able to make yourself very big or very small.”
“Your Aunt Myra calls it all a lot of hogwash and magic tricks,” Riley said.
“It’s difficult to dispute Aunt Myra. On the other hand, there are things that defy explanation.”
The plane landed and taxied down the Jackson Hole Airport runway. Emerson gathered his papers up and dumped them into his knapsack.
“If you had told somebody in the year 1800 that there were invisible things called germs and that they were responsible for the common cold, he would have thought that you were crazy and believed in magic,” Emerson said. “Today, everybody simply accepts it as fact, despite that they’ve never seen or knowingly touched a germ.”
“Assuming it’s possible, how would you go about learning to read minds or make yourself small?”
Emerson went to wake Vernon and Wayan Bagus. “Concentration.”
“Doesn’t sound too hard.”
“There’s a catch. You have to learn to concentrate for a sustained period of time. It’s much harder than it sounds. Try to focus your mind on one thing.”
“Like what?”
“Something simple to start.” He picked up one of the strawberries from the platter. “Like this piece of fruit.” He held it up in front of Riley. “Try to think about only this strawberry and nothing else.”
Riley concentrated on the strawberry. “Have I disappeared yet?”
Emerson smiled. “Most people can’t concentrate for more than a couple seconds before their mind starts to wander to all sorts of things. The other fruit on the platter. The person standing in front of you. What you ate for lunch. If you were able to focus on that strawberry and only on that strawberry for even just one full minute, Wayan Bagus would tell you that you might be able to learn one of the siddhi.”
“If that’s true, why isn’t the world full of clairvoyants?”
“It can take decades, even a lifetime, to train your mind this way. Most people will never be able to do it. Once in a rare while, you might be able to do i
t for a short time and get a glimpse of that world. Haven’t you ever had a moment of déjà vu or a premonition of something?”
Riley focused on the strawberry. After a few seconds, her mind drifted to the missing newlyweds. Emerson had a way of making the impossible sound reasonable. “Maybe,” she said.
TEN
A rented Ford Explorer was waiting on the tarmac of the Jackson Hole Airport. Riley left the plane and walked to the SUV. She looked at the snow-capped Teton mountains in the distance, and took a deep breath of the fresh, crisp air. The town of Jackson was the sole vestige of civilization in the area. It was about seven miles south of the airport and completely surrounded by the Gros Ventre Wilderness. To the north was Grand Teton National Park and beyond that Yellowstone.
They piled into the car and drove out of the airport, turning left on U.S. Highway 26. After a couple miles, Riley exited the main highway onto the more scenic Teton Park Road. They passed crystal clear Jenny Lake and a couple miles later, fifteen-mile-long Jackson Lake came into view. They drove in silence along the lake, appreciating the natural beauty of the wilderness, the occasional elk at the side of the road, and even a grizzly bear rummaging through the marsh.
“This really is the middle of nowhere,” Riley said.
Emerson was reading through the Yellowstone guidebook. “Yellowstone is home to sixty-seven different mammals, including bears, wolves, bison, cougars, wolverines, bighorn sheep, beavers, and coyotes.”
“I sure would like to see a beaver or two on this here vacation,” Vernon said, ducking before Wayan Bagus could slap the back of his head.
The scenery became increasingly dramatic, and after a little over an hour of driving they passed through Yellowstone’s South Entrance. Conifers covered rugged hillsides. Streams meandered through high country meadows. Smoking pools of geothermally heated water dotted the landscape, and huge hairy bison grazed along the side of the road and posed for photos, slowing traffic through the park to a near standstill.
At Yellowstone Lake, Riley turned left onto the Grand Loop Road. A little later, a huge rustic-looking log hotel with a steeply pitched shingled roof and gables came into view. Riley pulled up to the front entrance, and a valet parked the car.
Vernon looked up at the building and whistled. “That’s one big log cabin.”
“The biggest in the world,” Emerson said. “Even more impressive considering that it was built back in 1903.”
Riley, Vernon, and Wayan Bagus walked through the front doors and explored the lobby while Emerson got their room keys from the front desk. Like the exterior, the inside of the hotel was luxuriously rustic, constructed from logs and four stories tall with balconies encircling each level. A massive stone fireplace with a beautiful ironwork clock and hearths on all four sides dominated the space.
There was a steady exodus of people from the lobby. It had been almost an hour since the last eruption of Old Faithful and crowds were beginning to form outside to watch six thousand gallons of boiling water shoot up to 180 feet in the air.
“I have to admit this would be pretty awesome, if it wasn’t for the fact that there’s a secret society of crazy park rangers after us,” Riley said to Emerson when he returned.
“So you have finally come around,” Emerson said. “You acknowledge the Rough Riders.”
“I acknowledge something. I’m not sure what it is.”
He handed her a room key. “I rather think the possible presence of the Rough Riders adds to the experience. The difference between adventure and adversity is attitude.”
“It’s hard to have a good attitude about someone trying to throw you off a balcony,” Riley said.
It was five P.M., and a tour group was forming, led by a pretty twenty-something-year-old park ranger wearing a gray two-pocket shirt, green shorts with a belt, and a broad-brimmed khaki campaign hat. About a dozen hotel guests were standing in a circle around her, waiting for the last tour of the day to begin.
Wayan Bagus pointed at the park ranger. “Emerson,” he whispered. “That’s the same uniform the men who forced me off my island were wearing, except the shirt and pants are a different color.”
“One more indication that we’re on the right trail,” Emerson said.
—
Riley tagged after the tour guide, and Emerson, Vernon, and Wayan Bagus tagged after Riley.
“Hello, everyone, my name is Beth,” the guide said, “and this is the south section of the Upper Geyser Basin tour. The tour starts here with Old Faithful. Old Faithful is one of many geysers in this part of the park. It isn’t actually the biggest or even the most regular, but it is the biggest most regular geyser in Yellowstone.”
A chuckle went up from the crowd, and Emerson shifted his body weight from side to side. Small talk was Emerson’s kryptonite, and he was already losing patience with the tour.
Beth spent a couple minutes regurgitating facts about Old Faithful before moving on to its history. “Back in the nineteenth century, before the National Park Service was created, the United States Cavalry was in charge of Yellowstone and used Old Faithful as a makeshift laundry. They’d put their soiled uniforms in the geyser, and they’d be ejected clean and warm. But don’t any of you get any bright ideas! The inn’s housekeeping department does a much better job!”
There was another chuckle from the crowd and an audible groan from Emerson.
After a couple more minutes of stock jokes about Old Faithful, the tour moved on to its next stop, a conical mound with an opening in its top.
“This geyser is named the Beehive Geyser. Can anyone here tell me why it’s named Beehive?”
No one from the crowd said anything. Emerson looked like he was about to jump out of his skin. Vernon was grinning from ear to ear.
“Anyone? Anyone?” Beth said. “I’ll give you a hint. It’s not because it’s filled with honey.”
Vernon raised his hand. “I reckon it’s because it looks like a house of bees.”
Beth smiled at Vernon. “Correct.” She looked over the crowd. “Does anyone have any questions so far?”
Emerson perked up. “I do have a question. Where is the top-secret government research facility?”
“Pardon?” Beth said.
“I’m only interested in the one located over the giant pool of lava capable of destroying the earth,” Emerson said.
The crowd was silent. An older couple took a step away from Emerson.
“You know. The one where you keep the kidnapped visitors who”—Emerson made air quotes with his fingers—“ ‘know too much.’ ”
Riley nudged Emerson and whispered into his ear. “For the love of Mike, Emerson. Asking crazy questions during a public tour is rude, not to mention insane. How do you know if you can trust this guide? She could be one of your Rough Riders. She could text Tin Man that we’re here.”
Emerson nodded at Riley and gave her a thumbs-up. “Right. Understood. I’ll find out.” He turned back to the tour guide. “One follow-up question. Do you have any unusual tattoos?”
Riley smacked her forehead. The rest of the crowd was staring at the park ranger, waiting for her response.
“Um. No secret government labs, but at any given time, there are a wide variety of scientific studies being conducted at Yellowstone,” Beth said. “The Yellowstone Center for Resources is responsible for coordinating all the research programs. It’s with all the other administrative buildings at Mammoth Hot Springs in the northwestern corner of the park.”
“Do you really kidnap people who know too much?” a twelve-year-old boy in the crowd asked.
“Yellowstone has its own court and jail and police force, also located in Mammoth,” Beth said. “But they only detain people for actual crimes, and that doesn’t include knowing too much.”
Beth walked away down the path, and the group followed her to the next attraction on the Upper Geyser Basin tour.
“What the heck was that all about?” Riley asked Emerson. “Haven’t we gotten thrown out
of enough places? What happened to wu wei? Remember, the Zen art of doing nothing but enjoying the scenery and letting the universe solve the world’s problems all by itself?”
“We’re looking for a couple missing hikers in an area the size of Rhode Island, so I’m burning down the haystack. We make a big enough spectacle, and I suspect that it’s only a matter of time before Tin Man or one of his associates decides to take us to the same place those missing hikers ended up.”
“The bottom of a boiling acid-filled lake?”
Emerson shrugged. “It’s not an exact science. Sometimes you need to follow your gut and know when to wu wei and when to make a little trouble.”
ELEVEN
Riley woke up to a brilliant blue-sky day. The inn was charming, and her room was beautiful with a full-on view of Old Faithful. She stood at her window and stared out at the geyser. Hard to believe it hadn’t been conceived and constructed by a Disney Imagineer. Also hard to believe she was there to investigate the disappearance of an island.
She’d had a restless night, waking and reviewing everything that had happened in the past couple days. In her heart she wanted to discount Emerson’s ideas about mantle plumes and murders and secret societies. Her head told her to pay attention. They poked the bear and the bear attacked. And as long as they kept poking the bear it wasn’t going to go away. Sooner or later the bear was going to find them at Yellowstone.
She wasn’t ready to buy into the mantle plume theory connecting the island with the park deaths, but she knew with certainty that something bad had happened…and maybe was still happening. She knew this not because there was irrefutable evidence of a crime. She knew this because the people in question had overreacted and overplayed their hand.
She thought about her dad back in Texas. He never closed his eyes to things that were wrong. Even when he wasn’t acting as sheriff, he refused to look the other way when someone was behaving badly or breaking the law. She knew she couldn’t either. Like it or not, she was going to help Emerson find out why the bear didn’t like getting poked.
She left the window and went to the dining room to meet Emerson for breakfast. She found him already at a table, studying a map of the park.