Yellowstone Standoff by Scott Graham

hundred feet into the water next to the ramp. Halfway down the dock, the two boats that made up the park’s cross-lake transportation fleet bobbed in the water, snugged by their boxy sterns to the dock’s rubber bumpers. The diesel-powered launches, thirty feet long by fifteen feet wide, squatted in the bay like miniature tugboats, their bows upswept to break the lake’s notorious swells, their open sterns low in the water. Three-sided wheelhouses, each big enough to accommodate a single, standing pilot, stood near the bows of the matching boats’ otherwise open decks.
    A handful of scientists unloaded blue plastic storage containers in the shape of beer kegs, hinged plastic boxes the size of suitcases, and rubber-coated duffle bags from a pair of whitecargo vans parked at the head of the ramp. The researchers carried the gear to a growing pile on the dock next to the secured boats. A woman stood beside the stack of gear, a clipboard in her hand and a nylon satchel draped from her shoulder.
    â€œAnd you are...?” she asked Chuck upon his approach.
    â€œChuck Bender. You’re Martha?”
    She nodded, a crisp tic of her chin.
    Yellowstone National Park Research Logistical Coordinator Martha Augustine was as legendary for her drill-sergeant-like officiousness as for the power she was said to wield over scientific work in the park. According to widely accepted rumor, proposed research projects in Yellowstone gained approval only with Martha’s assent. It was whispered she could sabotage a project or researcher she didn’t like—and was regularly accused of having done so—with a mere stroke of her pen.
    Martha’s fine silver hair poked from beneath her Smokey Bear hat. Wrinkles fanned out from her thin lips like the spokes of a wheel. A translucent plastic cover known among park personnel as a hat condom protected the hat’s porous straw material from spray coming off the lake. Crisp creases ran the length of her forest green, park-service-issue slacks. The badge on the breast of her gray jacket gleamed. Above the reading glasses perched on the end of her nose, her brown eyes glinted with sharp intelligence.
    â€œYou’re the Archaeology Team, correct?”
    â€œI am. With one other.”
    â€œMore than one, as I recall.”
    Chuck risked a smile. “I do have three members of my fan club with me.”
    Martha’s face turned to marble. “Five total,” she said. “You, team lead. Clarence Ortega, assistant. Janelle Ortega—” she paused before biting off the word “— wife . Carmelita and Rosalita Ortega, daughters .”
    She glowered at him over her glasses, her eyes flinty.
    â€œLex approved it,” Chuck said.
    â€œHis decision, not mine.” She checked her watch. “I’ve got you for 2:00. Place your things here with the rest and be ready to board at 1:30. That’s thirty minutes from now.”
    â€œGot it.”
    â€œTwo boats every ninety minutes. One for gear, the other for passengers. The Wolf Initiative made their two runs first thing this morning. Lex and Jorge, the cook, went in with the first boat. The Grizzly Initiative made their runs next. The 2:00 is for the rest of you—Meteorology, Geology, Drone, Canine.”
    â€œWe get the afternoon wind and swell,” Chuck noted.
    â€œFrom what I understand, you brought your family along for the experience.” She jabbed her pen at the white-capping waves beyond the narrow neck of the bay. “There’s part of your experience right there.”
    She tucked her pen in her clipboard, reached into the satchel hanging at her side, and extracted a handful of plastic items. The bright red objects, three inches long by an inch wide, looked like fishing bobbers. Each one tapered to a recessed button and tiny LED light at one end and a metal clip at the other.
    â€œPersonal locator beacons to be attached to your packs,” she