“Goshdarnit, I thought we had this worked out!”
The gathered crowd shifts uncomfortably as the park ranger, a man withered by his thirties, wrings his hat in frustration.
“Come’on darlin’!” he coaxes the ground, “Come’on up!”
The ranger’s neck is blushing red and he keeps his back to us, his face turned away. From the side, it’s possible to see he’s wearing a stiff smile. He checks his watch very carefully. He pulls out his phone and checks the time there, too.
“Funny thing,” he says, “Certain things you can predict and certain things you just can’t but it’ll be any second now…”
Nothing happens.
“Here’s a trick that used to work,” the ranger says, “On the count of three, we yell ‘BOOM’! That’ll get a reaction! Ready? One… two… three!”
“BOOM!” we say.
But, still, nothing happens.
“Ha ha…” the man tries to laugh, “One more time: A-one and a-two and a-three!”
The crowd responds in a mutter, embarrassed for the man.
“Any moment…” he says.
We wait in an uncomfortable, almost mocking, silence. There is no wind and branches hang still. Birds do not sing. Even the monstrous children cling quietly to their parents.
“Whatcha’ doing over there, Brian?” another ranger calls from the forest, suddenly, “Old Miss giving you trouble?”
“It’s fine, Alana!” our ranger calls, gesturing her away, “All under control here.”
“She’s a feisty one! Let me have a look…”
“I’ve been doing this for years, Alana, I don’t need…”
“BOOM!” Alana shouts, jogging over, and her exclamation is nearly drowned out by the thick jet of water that explodes out of the ground in front of us.
Most of the tour group is too distracted to see that our guide is twisting his hat between his fingers again, even as Alana pats him jovially on the back. I wonder, for a moment, if he’ll hit her- he seems like a man with few straws left to break. Brian hangs his head, instead.
‘‘Ol’ Unfaithful’ is nature at the height of cruelty, a magnificent geyser that promises nothing. It celebrated its status as a National Park in 1981 with a decade of dormancy, followed by the scalding-fatality of a ranger in the spring of 1992. There is no predicting its pattern of eruptions, no seismic tell to be perceived by machines. It adheres to timetables one week and scorns them the next. It rumbles enticingly for hours before releasing dry, sulphurous, flatulence. It’s said to have sprayed mud, acid, and satanic prayers at different points in history. It’s said to have swallowed a schoolchild.
‘Ol’ Unfaithful’s’ only constant is perversity, and even that seems to move along a spectrum between playfully antagonistic, and outright murderous. Arrive with little expectation, reader, and keep some distance.’
-traveler
