A Multi Leveled Planet

CHAPTER TWO

THE MULTI-LEVELED PLANET

Chapter TWO

PHOENIX

“Have you found them?” Martha Walters ran to open the door to ask her husband, Leon. A mild earthquake had just shook the area two hours earlier, and the kids weren’t home. The sun was rapidly heading for the western horizon and Jason said he would be back before dark.

“No, didn’t Jason give you the general directions as to where the cave he found was located?”

“No, but I thought of asking not ten minutes after he left. Why didn’t I think of it earlier?” She wailed, tears brightening her eyes.

“There, there, Martha,” her husband encircled her still small waist with his arm, pulling her toward him. “I’m sure they’re okay, they’ve just gotten so completely enthused over this new find of Jason’s, they’ve forgotten everything else.”

“But they promised me if there was any kind of an earthquake , even a little one, they would immediately leave the cave and come home.

Leon, they promised!” She slipped out of her husband’s arms to head back into the kitchen, saying over her shoulder, “I feel that something is wrong. Jason would never forget his promise to me to get out of there. I know it!” Turning around to face him she cried, “There is something wrong, Leon, I can feel it!”

Leon sighed, he felt helpless. He would have teased her about her feelings as he had in the past, but this was not the time to do that. Hearing the back door slam shut, he hurried past her to see who came in.

“Is Jase back yet?” The youngest Walters boy stood with a worried frown of his own. He had not been real happy earlier that his brother ran off to explore a cave with his friends, leaving him behind. However, like his mother he was becoming concerned. At twelve he was two years older than Jason was when their father had taken him ‘spelunking’ the first time. A fact he was constantly reminding his brother of.

By ten that evening, Leon called the sheriff to tell him of the missing teens. By twelve midnight, half the small community outside of Phoenix had gathered together with various trucks and cars to go find Jason’s candy-apple red Toyota ‘King’ pickup.

It was two hours later, 2 A.M. in the morning when sheriff Bill Osborn drove down the long graveled driveway to the Walters ranch house,and Leon, riding with him, got out to break the news to his wife.

“We found the Toyota, hon,” he announced.

“But not him?”

“No, but we know where he went. They climbed a hill close by and dropped down into a hole just short of the peak. The pitons were still there complete with the rope that let them down, so they haven’t returned yet and it is too late now to go after them. We’ll start tracking them first thing in the morning.”

“What…” she swallowed before going on, “…what do you think kept them from…” again she faltered.

“There is no use speculating, honey.” Her husband put his arm around her, trying to comfort her, to ease her worry. “Maybe they didn’t feel the earthquake; it was pretty mild you know.”

“But it’s been so long, and they said they would be back before dark.”

“Hey, you guys!” The voice of their youngest son called from the family room where the large screen television was blaring. “C'mon in here you've got to hear this!”

The sheriff followed them into the room, silently approving its space and beauty. He knew Leon, Jason, and even young Josh had built the Family Room by themselves. On the wall that had once been on the outside wall of a house much smaller then, was the pine planking. Now hand faced and shellacked to a shiny surface it showed the family pictures in proud formation.

Opposite the pictures a huge window stretched from one end of the large room to the other, reaching from the ceiling down to within a foot of the knotty pine floor. All around the spacious room were deep couches and chairs, colorful rugs covered the floor, and numerous varicolored footstools were placed for comfort. Several home-made cushions placed for beauty as well as comfort and usability were tossed around. At the near end of the big room sat a giant screen TV.

As they entered the  room a news reporter was on the screen. In the background and to the right of the reporter a sign warning
“Yellowstone National Park is closed until further notice” caught the eyes of all that watched. Behind the reporter they could see dozens of tourists, packed cars and trucks full of camping equipment, some pulling small campers, slowly snaking through Yellowstone’s jam-packed gateway. In the distance you could see mysterious blobs of smoke ominously rising skyward.

“…nobody knows,” the reporter was saying, “just how long the park will be closed. One thing is sure though folks, no one will be allowed into the park until the restless volcano, a ‘Super-Volcano’, the largest one known in the world, settles to normal again.”

“Did you say, Mister Reynolds,” someone, probably a tourist, came up to ask the reporter. “That it is possible that this, uh…, this ‘Super’ volcano might erupt soon?” The man, at least in his sixties, wet his lips with a nervous tongue, behind him one could see a woman about his age edge up close to him.

“Well, yes…” the reporter frowned a bit, “I did say that, but they… I mean the volcanologists have constantly been reassuring us that it is highly unlikely to erupt just yet. We might be looking at a full eruption in the not-too-distant-future, but not yet.” The reporter smiled a bit nervously, trying to re-assure the man.

“How far from here do you have to be, to be safe from this ‘Super’ volcano?” The older man asked.

“Well,” it was obvious the reporter hedged, his eyes kept roving the area around them. Then, his face showing great relief he suddenly hollered, “Hey Jeff, Jeff Wainwright!” He called, waving to a man dressed in the forest department’s brown uniform.  “Come here a minute, would you? I can’t answer all these questions.”

“Sure,” the ranger laconically answered, “what’s the question?” He stared down at the shorter, elderly tourist, noting subconsciously the man’s bald pate was burnt from the sun; an older, previous sunburn was peeling back into the few hairs he had left. As the man spoke he nervously wiped a red and white kerchief over his skull, dampening the well used fabric.

“Go ahead,” the reporter urged the older man. “Ask the Ranger what you asked me.”

The tourist swallowed before he repeated his question. “How far do you have to be to be safe from this, uh… so-called ‘Super’ volcano? I mean if it should happen to erupt, or when it does erupt?”

The ranger’s face hardened a little, a question he really didn’t want to answer. “You mean,” his mind was on the listening television audience, trying to be careful with what words he used to answer this loaded question. No one wanted a panic. “When this thing blows…” he stressed the word, ‘when’, “…it will probably destroy everything, animals, trees, homes… uh, everything within many miles. Of course it is also highly unlikely the eruption will be anything near the giant eruption of over six-hundred thousand years ago, so we are not sure just how far one needs to be. If you remember Mount Saint Helens…”

“I remember, I remember, the elderly tourist raised his voice. I am not stupid, sir. I know what a volcano can do, but this is supposed to be a ‘Super-volcano’, whatever that means. I want to know what a super volcano can do compared to what just a plain ole’ volcano can do.”

“They are talking about Yellowstone!” Leon said in a loud, disbelieving voice as he turned to stare at the sheriff.

“We learned about Yellowstone in school…” Josh piped up.

“Come,” the sheriff made a motion with his hand for Leon to follow. While the two men slipped outside, Martha and Josh continued listening to the news.

“If Yellowstone goes…” Leon muttered.

“I wonder how likely the chance,” the sheriff mused, “that it will go off. How much is hype, how much is played down to avoid panic?”

“Can’t you get on your telephone and find out?” Leon asked, digging for a forbidden cigarette. He’d been trying to quit the last few months but found he constantly needed ‘just one more drag’. Behind Martha’s back he kept a few in his pocket and hoped she wouldn’t notice, and also hoped he wouldn’t forget to empty his pockets before he stripped for his shower.

“You can bet I’ll try,” the sheriff answered, “but remember, we are at the bottom of Arizona, that ‘Super volcano’ is way off in Colorado. Surely we are pretty safe down here.”

Leon shrugged, “I don’t know, seems I heard sometime back that if that thing ever goes it’s supposed to be what they call an ‘extinction event’.”

“Naw,” the sheriff chuckled, “I doubt that. Isn’t that only if it decided to blow like it did a million or so years ago?”

“I don’t know,” Leon admitted, but I don’t like the idea of it erupting  at all.”

“I know what you mean, I really do. I wonder,” again he seemed to muse aloud, “if that far off volcano is what’s causing our earthquakes? I mean, to us they feel mild, but if its that darned volcano… its so far away…”

“I sure wish Jason would show up.” Leon muttered worriedly, “His mother is going to imagine all sorts of things… well, I suppose I will too,” he admitted.

“We’ll form a rescue team tomorrow morning. We can get down into that hole with the kids’ rope still there, and then hopefully we’ll be able to track them. Could be they are lost in the cavern.”

“I don’t know,” Leon wrinkled his forehead, then absently reached up to scratch it. “Jason has been in all kinds of caverns, he’s well experienced and shouldn’t get lost. For that matter his best friend Kevin, is almost as experienced and I understand that even the two girls are spelunkers, too. It would be more likely,” he glanced up to meet the sheriff’s eyes, “that one of them slipped and broke an ankle or something.”

Unwilling to appear as worried as he was, the sheriff answered,
“Well, we’ll find out tomorrow. Jack, Lewis, Roger, Dave and myself will meet there just after daybreak, are you wanting to go with us?”

“I would sure like to but with Martha so afraid…”

“You can stay with your wife and son, Leon, everyone will understand, believe me.”

“If I change my mind I’ll meet you out by Jase’s pickup. I’m glad you left it there, just in case they get out and want to make it home before sunrise.”

“Reason why I left it,” the sheriff drawled, then with a little wave he announced, “I better get home and rest up a bit. No telling what we will be going through tomorrow, or how far into the hill we’ll have to travel to find those kids.”

“Right,” Leon approved.  “We all need to try and sleep. G’night sheriff.” Leon returned to the house as the sheriff’s car made its slow way down the graveled driveway.