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going to tell me what’s in the briefcase?” the driver asked, smiling to show that he wasn’t making a threat.
    â€œNo, I think not,” Vladdy said.
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    T HE GIRL, C HERRY, would be angry with him at first, Vladdy knew that. While she was at work at the motel that day, Vladdy had sold her good stereo and DVD unit to a man in a pawnshop full of rifles for $115, less $90 for a .22 pistol with a broken handgrip. But when she found out why he had done it, he was sure she would come around. The whole thing was kind of her idea in the first place, after all.
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    T HE DRIVER OF THE VAN was going from Mammoth Hot Springs in the northern part of the park to Cody, Wyoming, out the east entrance. He had told them he had to pick up some people at the Cody airport early in the morning and deliver them to a dude ranch. The driver was one of those middle-aged Americans who dressed and acted like it was 1968, Vladdy thought. The driver thought he was cool, giving a ride to Vladdy and Eddie, who obviously looked cold and out of place and carried a thick metal briefcase and nothing else. The driver had long curly hair on the side of his head with a huge mustache that was turning gray. He had agreed to give them a ride after they waved him down on the side of the road. The driver lit upa marijuana cigarette and offered it to them as he drove. Eddie accepted. Vladdy declined. He wanted to keep his head clear for what was going to happen when they crossed the huge park and came out through the tunnels and crossed the river. He had not done business in America yet, and he knew that Americans could be tough and ruthless in business. It was one of the qualities that had attracted Vladdy in the first place.
    â€œDon’t get too high,” Vladdy told Eddie in Czech.
    â€œI won’t,” Eddie said back. “I’m just a little scared, if that’s all right with you. This helps.”
    â€œI wish you wouldn’t wear that hat,” Vladdy said. “You don’t look professional.”
    â€œI look like Marshall Mathers, I think. Slim Shady,” Eddie said, touching the stocking cap that was pulled over his eyebrows. He sounded a little hurt.
    â€œHey, dudes,” the driver said over his shoulder to his passengers in the backseat, “speak American or I’m dropping you off on the side of the road. Deal?”
    â€œOf course,” Vladdy said. “We have deal.”
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    E DDIE WAS TALKING TO THE DRIVER, talking too much, Vladdy thought. Eddie’s English was very poor. It was embarrassing. Eddie was telling the driver about Prague, about the beautiful women there. The driver said he always wanted to go to Prague. Eddie tried to describe the buildings, but was doing a bad job of it.
    â€œI don’t care about buildings,” the driver said. “Tell me about the women.”
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    V LADIMIR AND E DUARD were branded “Vladdy” and “Eddie” by the man in the Human Resources office for Yellowstone in Gardiner, Montana, when they showed up to get their work assignment three weeks before and were told that there were no openings. Vladdy had explained that there must have been some kind of mix-up, some kind of misunderstanding, because they had been assured by the agent in Prague that both of them had been accepted to work for the official park concessionaire for the whole summer and into the fall. Vladdy showed the paperwork that allowed them to work on a visa for six months.
    He had not yet seen the whole park, and it was something he very much wanted to do. He had read about the place since he was young, and watched Yellowstone documentaries on television. He knew there were three kinds of thermal activity: geysers, mudpots, and fumeroles. He knew there were over ten thousand places where the molten