“Not Bigfoots.”
Wayan Bagus nodded politely. “That is only true because there is no such thing as a Bigfoot.”
Vernon gasped. “Whoa. Time out. It’s been a long, stressful day, but let’s not talk crazy.”
“It was definitely a very big, very hungry bear,” Emerson said. “The good news is that, in the end, the bear agreed not to eat me. The bad news is that I agreed to give it most of our food in exchange.”
Riley hugged Emerson. “It was a good trade. We’re just happy you’re okay.”
“All’s well that ends well,” Vernon said. “I knew it would. Like I said, I wasn’t getting any unagi warnings.”
“We should take turns standing watch,” Emerson said. “We don’t want to get taken by surprise by bears or rangers.”
“Or a Bigfoot,” Vernon said. “Just ’cause we got a doubter among us don’t mean Bigfoot is any less real.”
At first light, the campsite was disassembled, and everyone prepared to set off for Sour Creek Dome. The bear had eaten 90 percent of the food, but Emerson had managed to salvage enough for a meager lunch and breakfast.
“It should be an easier hike today,” Emerson said. “We’re sticking to the valley floor until we reach Sour Creek Dome, so it should be fairly flat.”
Riley looked at the hill. “It looks out of place. It’s just kind of sitting in the middle of the flat expanse.”
“It’s what geologists call a resurgent dome,” Emerson said. “It’s formed by the swelling of a volcano’s caldera floor. There’s a vast supply of underground magma, and it’s literally lifting the ground.”
“Why here and not somewhere else in the caldera?”
Emerson shifted his backpack. “The magma is a lot closer to the surface at the dome, so that’s where the effect is most dramatic. However, more subtle changes are taking place all over the park.”
“Like what?” Riley asked.
“For one, Yellowstone Lake, where we started the hike, used to drain to the north. Today, that’s been completely reversed by the uplift of the dome, and the lake is now tilting and draining south.”
“What do you think we’re going to find at the dome?” Riley asked.
Emerson shrugged. “There are a couple possibilities. Whatever it is, it’s something worth killing to protect.”
“Well, I sure do hope it’s a cheeseburger,” Vernon said. “No offense, but the freeze-dried mush didn’t cut it for me. If I get a chance, I’m going to do a little hunting and see if I can rustle up something that doesn’t taste like tree bark.” Vernon patted the .45 tucked into his jacket. “I never miss with my lucky gun.”
“It is an attachment and bad for your karma,” Wayan Bagus said.
Vernon was last in line, lumbering along behind the monk. “No offense, but starving to death is worse for my karma.”
“I do not take offense,” Wayan Bagus said. “I am just a simple monk. The sun shines on the just and unjust alike. If the sun does not judge, then who am I to do so?”
Vernon looked suspiciously at Wayan Bagus. “Why are you all of a sudden so magnanimous when it comes to my Second Amendment rights?”
“Upon consideration I realized it would be unwise to part with a lucky gun.”
Vernon grinned. “I’m powerful glad to hear it. We need all the luck we can get.”
“Thank you,” Wayan Bagus said. “That is why I threw away the bullets. Bullets are very unlucky.”
Vernon stopped walking. “You didn’t.”
“I did,” Wayan Bagus said.
“What good is a gun without bullets?”
“It’s even better without the bullets. Now it is lucky for both us and for anyone at whom it happens to be pointed.”
Vernon shook his head and muttered to himself that vegetarians know nothing about anything, and that Wayan Bagus wouldn’t be so short if he’d eat a cow once in a while.
By noon, they had circumnavigated the lake and the marshy grasslands had given way to a thick forest of conifers. “I can’t see a thing through the trees,” Riley said to Emerson. “How do we know if we’re still heading in the right direction?”
“As long as we continue to walk uphill, we’re making progress. Hopefully once we reach a higher elevation, the forest will get a little less dense.”
“How are we doing with the food?” Riley asked.
“There’s not much left. If we budget it, we have enough for lunch and dinner. After that, we’ll have to forage.”
“Do you know how to forage?” Riley asked.
“Yes.”
“Let me rephrase that. Have you ever actually foraged?”
“No, but I’ve watched just about every episode of Naked and Afraid, so I’m pretty much an expert at this point.”
Riley cut her eyes to Emerson. “The people who go on that show mostly just sit around and starve until they go crazy, get sick, or threaten to kill each other.”
“That’s true, but you have to remember they’re disadvantaged in that they are forced to survive naked. Most of us are committed to wearing clothes on this trek,” Emerson said.
Riley looked at Emerson. “Keep it up. Your time is going to come. Live in fear.”
“I believe I’m being challenged,” Emerson said.
“It’s going to happen when you least expect it,” Riley said. “Total nudity. And we won’t need protection because I’ll be completely clothed.”
“We’ll see,” Emerson said. “I have excellent unagi when it comes to nudity.”
They walked in silence for the next two hours, listening to animals rustling in the underbrush, watching for signs that bears might be ahead. Finally the forest opened up into a vast meadow. The lower portions of Sour Creek Dome loomed on the other side, maybe three miles away.
Wayan Bagus pointed into the distance. “What’s that?”
“I don’t see anything,” Vernon said.
Emerson looked through his binoculars. “It’s a fence, but it’s probably a mile away.”
“Is that another one of your siddhi powers?” Riley asked Wayan Bagus. “Being able to see and hear at extreme distances?”
Wayan Bagus shrugged. “I hear and I know. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”
Vernon kicked a stone off the path. “My phone stopped working, which means my ratings are gonna drop like a rock on Fantasy NASCAR. We have no food. I’m hauling around a three-pound hunk of useless metal that serves no purpose other than being lucky, and I have absolutely no idea what Little Buddy is talking about half the time. Good grief. Holy crap. Somebody give me a Snickers.”
“We ate all the Snickers,” Emerson said, “but I have a couple PowerBars left. Do you want peanut butter or raspberry swirl?”
Vernon took the peanut butter, and the march resumed. A half hour later Emerson pulled up, and everyone stopped behind him. There was a twelve-foot-tall razor wire fence separating them from Sour Creek Dome.
“Looks like somebody has gone to a lot of trouble to keep people out of this area,” Emerson said.
“I don’t know about that,” Vernon said. “That fence looks like something out of Jurassic Park. I’m more concerned about what they’re trying to keep in than what they’re trying to keep out.”
“You think there’s a Tyrannosaurus rex in there?” Riley asked.
“Man-eating genetically engineered dinosaurs, Bigfoots, crazy park rangers,” Vernon said. “Who knows? I don’t know which one is worse.”
Riley looked to the right and then to the left. The fence stretched in both directions with no end in sight. “How do we get across?”
“I reckon up and over,” Vernon said, reaching out and grabbing on to the chain-link. There was a loud snapping sound, an arc of electricity jumped from the fence to Vernon, and Vernon went flying in reverse, landing on his back ten feet away.
Riley rushed over to Vernon. “Are you okay?”
Vernon looked up at Riley. His eyes were lazily rolling around from one side to the other, and his boots were smoking.
“Pamela Anderson?” Vernon asked. “Why aren’t you wearing your red bathing suit? Did I almost drown?”
Emerson and Wayan Bagus helped Vernon to his feet. Vernon’s hair was singed, and most of his eyebrows were burned off.