Cassidy parked the rig and reached behind the seat for a pile of clothing. She slipped on a canvas coat, bug hood, and thick work gloves. Then she grabbed a ring of silver keys tied to a leather lanyard.
“All this to open the gate?” Pete said from his spot in the passenger seat.
“Stay in the truck,” she warned, then shut the driver’s side door.
But the lock box held no surprises. “Whew,” she said out loud. After storing the extra clothes, she climbed back behind the wheel. “When I was here in August we found a wasp nest in one of the lock boxes. Josh and Natalie got nailed,” Cassidy explained. She drove through the gate then hopped out to close it. When they were underway again, she noticed Pete scribbling away in his notebook.
“You’re not gonna write about that, are you?” she asked, appalled.
“Why not?”
“Because it has nothing to do with the project.”
“You’re telling me that facing hazards like wasps and earthquakes and poisonous gasses aren’t important?” he asked.
Poisonous gasses? She looked at him skeptically. “It’s just part of the job,” she said.
“But it makes your work unique,” he said. “Did you know that volcanology is considered one of the most dangerous careers?”
Cassidy squinted at him. “Compared to what? Preschool teacher?”
“You ever spend time with toddlers? Those wood blocks can be deadly,” he said with a shrewd look in his eye, and when she caught on, he broke into a wide grin.
Cassidy laughed. What have I got myself into?
After a short drive, they reached a narrow pullout leading up to an open ridge. “Here’s where the fun begins,” Cassidy said and hopped out of the truck, the delightfully crisp bite of the October air filling her lungs.
Pete stepped out on his side. “I read that you’re a former ski patroller,” he said, glancing at her through the open space across the front seats. “What made you want to go back to school?”
Cassidy took a moment to formulate an answer. It had been a while since she had talked about her patrolling days, or how her devastating breakup with Luke had ended her love for the job. “Um, well, my advisor at Berkley and I kept in touch. I did some fieldwork for him in the summers, that kind of thing. He really encouraged me to pursue a graduate degree. I think deep down I knew I wanted to, it just took me a little longer to follow through with it.”
“Do you miss it?” he asked, their eyes connecting.
“Yes and no,” she answered, trying to focus on his question. “I don’t miss skiing in the whiteout conditions or when it’s ten below zero, or dealing with belligerent guests. I don’t miss some of the emergencies.” She pushed away the real reasons she didn’t miss the job. “But I do miss skiing first tracks on bluebird days. I miss throwing avy bombs.” She grinned. “I guess I have a thing for stuff that explodes.”
Pete laughed. “Patrolling in Tahoe must have been an adventure though.”
Cassidy inhaled a shaky breath. “You could say that,” she said as they met at the back doors of the Suburban.
“I skied there once,” he added, looking pensive. “It was a clear day and the view was incredible. Snow wasn’t bad either.”
“Compared to what we get here I’ll bet it blew your mind,” she said.
“Ha! That’s for sure.”
Cassidy swung the doors open to reveal a pile of equipment, including the rescue litter and its wheel, an empty external frame backpack, work gloves, a can of Raid, and a shovel.
“I take it this isn’t to rescue one of us,” Pete said, helping her tug the litter from the pile.
Now that the sun’s light had filled in the shadows, Cassidy noticed that his eyes were a serene grey-blue. His sandy brown hair hung a bit long, like he hadn’t bothered with a cut in a while, giving him a rugged look. With surprise, she realized how good-looking he was. “Let’s hope not,” she said. “So far the worst injuries out here have been bee stings and twisted ankles. On our last trip my advisor’s dog found a skunk.”
“I had a pet skunk once,” Pete said with a half-grin.
“A skunk?” she said, sliding the litter to the edge of the tailgate. “Why not a puppy or a rabbit?”
Pete shrugged. Together, they lowered the litter to the ground. “I had those too. I grew up on a farm, so there were always lots of animals. My skunk was an orphan. My dad accidentally killed his mom with our tractor.”
The word orphan set off alarm bells inside her head, but she silenced them with a huff, annoyed. Her parents had been dead for over a decade. “And it never sprayed you?”
Pete shook his head. “Though it got the farm dogs.”
He followed her lead and helped put the rescue stretcher together and load it with the gear.
“So if these stations you installed are giving you the data you need to map the magma chamber under the mountain, why take them out?” Pete asked.
They each shouldered a small backpack; Pete slung a small SLR camera across his chest, and Cassidy closed all the doors to the Suburban.
“The study is done. We’ll get the final piece today when we acquire the data stored over the last two months, plus we can’t leave the equipment out over the winter. The solar panels will get buried, and without power the recordings will stop. And those seismographs cost about twenty grand, so we don’t like the idea of them sitting out here indefinitely,” she answered.
Cassidy readjusted her grip on the handles as they ascended to the top of the road cut. Her right foot snapped through a compressed layer
