The Thunder Keeper

by Margaret Coel

  She lifted the receiver. “Vicky Holden,” she said, her tone now sharp with irritation.

  “This is Vince Lewis.” The voice boomed over the line, as if the man were shouting from the outer office. “I must speak with you.”

  “What is this about?” The name meant nothing to her.

  “I have to see you today.”

  “Mr. Lewis,” Vicky began, struggling to contain the growing sense of exasperation. “I have a full schedule. Perhaps my secretary can set up an appointment for next week.” Next week, she was thinking, was already booked. She had to file the brief with the appellate court, unless the Navajos decided not to proceed. The possibility sent a little shiver through her.

  “You’re an Arapaho from Wind River Reservation, aren’t you?”

  Vicky took a moment. The conversation had lurched in an unexpected direction. Vince Lewis, whoever he was, had taken the trouble to find out about her. Whatever he wanted to talk about could affect her people.

  “Hold on.” She cradled the receiver into her shoulder, turned back to the computer, and tapped the keyboard. Today’s schedule floated onto the screen. This morning’s meeting—already starting—the brief to finish, two o’clock with a landlord about a lease, three o’clock with a couple in need of a new will. She was an expert on leases, wills, divorces, and custody matters, the everyday cases she’d handled the last five years in Lander and had hoped to escape in Denver. But every senior partner had an important client or friend who needed mundane legal help, and somehow the cases fell to her, inserting themselves around important matters like the Navajo Nation.

  The couple could probably be rescheduled, she decided. Wills were seldom urgent.

  She said, “I could see you at three.” That would still give her an hour before she had to leave for DIA to pick up Lucas, who was flying in from Los Angeles at five. “You know where we’re located?”

  “You don’t understand.” The words were whipped with impatience. “Not your office. Not my office either. I’ll meet you at the Ship’s Tavern in the Brown Palace.”

  “Wait a minute—” Vicky began, then stopped. A vacancy, like the absence of sound in a vault, came over the line. She pushed the intercom button. “Laola, can you get the caller back?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Don’t tell me that. Just do it.”

  “He wouldn’t give his number.”

  Vicky drew in a long breath. “Reschedule my three o’clock,” she said. Then she swiveled to the computer, clicked on print, and waited while the printer spewed out several pages. Jamming the pages into her leather folder, she headed out into the corridor, her heels sinking into the plush royal-blue carpet, past the cubicle where Laola worked, past a succession of doors with the partners’ names discreetly emblazoned on bronze plaques, and past the doors to the associates’ offices, one of which had been hers five years before.

  Displayed on the walls between the offices were large oil paintings of mountains and lakes in gilded frames. Sometimes, in the corridors of Howard and Fergus, she felt as if she was drowning in the low hum of purposeful activity that emanated from behind the doors.

  She rode the elevator to the top-floor conference room, wondering what she’d done. Canceled an appointment to meet someone she hadn’t heard of fifteen minutes ago, and she had no idea what the meeting was about. No, that wasn’t true. It was about the reservation.

  The others—men in dark suits, ties knotted smartly at the collars of light-colored shirts—were already seated around the polished cherry conference table. On one side, Jacob Hazen was flanked by the two Navajo councilmen, their dark heads silhouetted against the windows that framed a view of the Rocky Mountains. Across from the Indians were three lawyers from Howard and Fergus, including Wes Nelson, the managing partner.

  “There’s been a new development,” Wes explained as she slid into the vacant chair next to him.

  As if on cue, Jacob Hazen leaned forward, bracing his stocky frame on both elbows. “Lexcon’s proposed a settlement,” he said.

  “Settlement!” Vicky heard the astonishment in her voice. “The court ruled in their favor. Why would they want a settlement now? Everything’s going their way.”

  One of the councilmen cleared his throat. “We hear a rumor Lexcon’s found another methane gas field on the res. They’re gonna want to give us a settlement in the old case, grease the wheels, you might say, so they can get on to drilling the new field. We’re thinking we oughta consider an offer.”

  Vicky remained quiet. She was aware of the eyes on her. “What makes you think they’ve located another field?”

  “They never quit looking.” The Navajo gave a sharp laugh. “Flying planes over the res all the time, looking for methane coming up from the earth.”

  “They also collect data from satellites.” Jacob Hazen nodded toward the windows and the endless sky with gray clouds breaking over patches of blue. “Commercial satellites up there, orbiting the earth, making images. Oil and gas companies buy data from satellite companies all the time.”

  “We’re buying our own satellite data now.” This from the other councilman. “No reason for Lexcon to know more than we know. We got a specialist to tell us what’s going on.” He pushed his chair back and began levering himself to his feet.

  Vicky stayed seated. She heard her own voice going on about how the case was too important for the district court ruling to stand, about how the appellate brief was due next week, but the others were getting to their feet, chairs scudding backward on the carpet, papers crackling. A sense of futility as heavy as weights settled over her shoulders. How could she help them if they didn’t want her help? Suddenly she felt glad she’d agreed to meet Vince Lewis this afternoon. If something had happened on the reservation, she wanted to know about it. Maybe she could help her own people.

  Vicky stood up and turned to Wes. “Could I see you a moment?”

  6

  “You may want to hold off on the brief,” Wes said. His voice cut through the elevator’s soundless, downward pressure.

  Vicky was quiet. She had every intention of finishing the brief, even if she had to do it on her own time. She would call Hazen to reiterate the importance of going ahead with the appeal.

  The elevator doors swooshed open, and they walked wordlessly down the corridor to a spacious office that was all royal-blue carpet, dark leather sofas and chairs, and glass-topped tables with silver vases and figurines that winked in the overhead light. Beyond the desk, a wall of windows framed a view of the dark clouds threading like smoke around the tops of adjacent skyscrapers.

  Vicky took one of the leather chairs and waited until Wes had sat down in the high-backed chair behind the desk. Loosening the knot of his dark tie, unbuttoning the collar, rubbing his neck. “You’ve been doing a fine job on the Navajo case,” he said. “No worries, I hope. No insecurities about being the only woman on the team.”

  “This isn’t about the case, Wes.”

  The man’s eyebrows shot up in a mixture of surprise and expectation. “No? What, then?”

  “I got a call this morning from someone named Vince Lewis. What can you tell me about him?”

  “Vince Lewis?” The lawyer let out a low whistle. “Very big man, Vicky. Vice-president of development at Baider Industries. What’d he want?”

  “He wanted to see me this afternoon.”

  “No kidding!” A grin started at the corners of Wes’s mouth and spread into a full smile. Light danced in his gray eyes. “You know what this means?”

  “I hoped you could tell me.”

  “Baider Industries must be considering new counsel, and they’re looking at Howard and Fergus.” Wes threw a glance around the office as if to locate the place whence such good fortune had come. “Baider’s been represented by Michaels, Starcroft and Loomis.” He shrugged. “Nathan Baider and Loomis are friends from way back. But word on Seventeenth Street is that Nathan Jr.’s running the company now. Goes by the name of Roz, don’t ask
me why.” Another shrug. “Could be Roz convinced the old man to hire new counsel.”

  So much had changed in the five years she’d been in Lander, Vicky was thinking. She was a half beat behind. She said, “I’m not familiar with Baider Industries.”

  “No? Well, let me fill you in.” Wes laced his fingers together over the front of his shirt, the dark tie. “Big diamond mining company. Mines in Colorado, Wyoming, Canada. Mined some of the world’s largest diamonds up there in Wyoming. The old man’s a real immigrant success story. Fifteen years old when he got out of Germany two steps ahead of the Gestapo and landed in New York.”

  Wes leaned back in his chair, warming to the subject. “Worked his way west to Colorado and spent ten years mining molybdenum at Climax. Soaked up everything he could on geology and went looking for diamond deposits. There’s gold, silver, lead, molybdenum, tungsten, phosphate, and probably a thousand other minerals in the Rocky Mountains. But diamonds? Nobody’d heard much about diamonds until Nathan Baider got into the business. You ask me”—he leaned over the desk—“Nathan Baider still calls the shots. He’s not the kind to let go. The company’s his baby.”

  Vicky stood up and walked over to the large oil painting above the sofa: buffalo foraging in a snow-shrouded pasture. She turned back to the man at the desk. “If Baider Industries wants new counsel,” she said, “why didn’t the vice-president call you or one of the other senior partners? I’m the low person on the totem pole here.”

  Wes flashed her a tolerant smile. “Don’t underestimate yourself. No doubt they’ve heard about you heading up the appeal on the Navajo case. Lawyers talk, you know.” He gave her a conspiratorial smile.

  Vicky walked back to her chair, then to the painting again. She could always think better when she was moving, a gift from the old ones, she supposed. Crossing the plains, always moving through the vast spaces. They had to think while they were moving. She said, “I think Lewis wants to tell me something about the reservation.”

  “Sit down, Vicky,” Wes said. “You’re making me nervous. Baider’s in the diamond business. They operate mines in southern Wyoming. You ever heard of diamond deposits on the res?”

  Vicky dropped into her chair. “No,” she said simply. Oil, gas, gold, uranium, timber, water—the reservation was rich in natural resources. She’d never heard of diamonds.

  “Let’s imagine the conversation over at Baider Industries,” Wes went on. “Roz decides it’s time for new counsel, somebody up to date on natural resource laws and regulations. Any suggestions? Vince Lewis—his job is to keep track of such matters—says, ‘Sharp female lawyer over at Howard and Fergus handling Navajo v. Lexcon. Arapaho. Natural interest in natural resources.’ ” He paused, grinning at her. “Roz says, ‘Go have a talk with that phenomenal lady.’ ”

  “At the Ship’s Tavern?”

  “Vicky, Vicky.” The lawyer was shaking his head. “You’ve forgotten the street is a small village. Town criers always looking for news. So Vince meets you on neutral territory. Anybody who recognizes the two of you won’t know what to think.” Wes shrugged. “He’s your classic movie-star type—tall, dark-haired, good-looking. Has a roving eye that his wife ignores. The two of you are having a friendly drink, that’s all. But if you’re spotted at the Baider building, or somebody sees Lewis here, Michaels, Starcroft and Loomis’ll have the news in ten minutes. I suspect Roz’d like to line up new counsel before he cuts any ties.”

  “I don’t know, Wes . . .”

  “Trust me on this.” The man pushed his chair back and got to his feet. “The meeting is a preliminary interview. Lewis’ll ask some discreet questions, gauge your response, and try to figure out if you’d like to represent Baider Industries. You’ve got a mighty big fish on the line, Vicky. Reel it in, and we’ll see that you’re amply compensated.”

  Vicky hesitated. The uneasy sense that had gripped her during the brief conversation with Vince Lewis was still there. “He said it was a matter of life and death,” she told the man standing on the other side of the desk.

  “Hey, Nathan Baider built the company with that attitude. Everything’s a matter of life and death at Baider Industries.” He came around the desk, and Vicky got to her feet and followed him across the office. He flung open the door and stood back, waiting: the friendly, relaxed smile, the little wink. She stepped out into the corridor.

  “Let me know how the meeting goes,” he called.

  She kept going in the direction of her own office, the closed doors and oil paintings blurring past like moving trains. She’d forgotten how the game was played—Wes was right about that. But he was dead wrong about Vince Lewis. She would meet the man at the Ship’s Tavern and she’d find out what was going on at the reservation that was a matter of life and death.

  7

  It was almost three when Vicky struck out for the Brown Palace Hotel a block away, joining the knots of people scurrying along Seventeenth Street, umbrellas floating overhead. Skyscrapers rose around her, like the cliffs of a concrete canyon, the spires lost in the dense gray clouds. Rain spattered the pavement and pinged against the cars that crawled past, windshield wipers swinging in crazy rhythms. The air smelled of gasoline and stale food, so unlike the smells of sage and wild grasses that came with the rain on the reservation.

  At the Tremont Place intersection, she waited for the light to change. The traffic spewed flumes of dirt-gray water into the air. Across the street, the doorman at the Brown Palace stood under the striped awning and blew on a whistle, beckoning a cab half a block away. The whistling noise was muffled in the sounds of the traffic splashing past.

  On the diagonal corner, several men in dark raincoats stepped off the curb and started across Seventeenth Street, collars pulled up around their heads. Only one carried an umbrella. Vince Lewis. Tall, dark-haired, good-looking guy—movie-star type. Wes had gotten the description right.

  The others made a precision turn to the right and headed down the side of the hotel, but Lewis kept walking toward the entrance, shoulders held back, dark, curly head held high.

  The light turned green. As Vicky stepped off the curb in unison with the little crowd around her, she saw the black sedan bearing down Tremont Place. Instinctively she jumped back, stomach muscles clinched, fingers tightened around the strap of her black bag. She felt someone take hold of her arm and yank her out of the way as the sedan made a wide arc through the street, then bumped over the opposite curb and onto the sidewalk. She stood frozen in place. It was heading straight at Lewis. The man pedaled backward, holding out the umbrella, as if it might stop the oncoming destruction.

  There was a thud of compacted weight against bones and flesh. The man was thrown upward, suspended above the hood a half second before he crashed into the windshield and crumbled onto the sidewalk. The sedan bounced over the curb and sped through the red light. Traffic squealed to a stop, tires sliding on the wet asphalt.

  Vicky caught the last three numbers on the plate—672—and the make: a Camry.

  She broke through the other pedestrians and ran to the man on the sidewalk. One leg bent sideways over the umbrella, arms flung out, dark hair wet and matted about his head. Blood spurted through a gash that ran from his temple along his cheek and laid open the pink raw flesh inside. There was a stillness, an air of resignation about him, as if he knew that the most vital part of him was preparing to leave and there was nothing he could do.

  She dropped to her knees and curled her hand over the crown of his head to keep the spirit from departing, the way she remembered the medicine man treating her grandfather when she was a child.

  “Send an ambulance!” someone shouted into a cell phone.

  “Let me through. I’m a doctor.” A man’s voice came from behind. Vicky felt someone shove against her. Reluctantly she removed her hand and got to her feet. “Please don’t leave,” she said out loud so that the spirit would hear.

  A large man brushed past and dropped to one knee. He began probing the unconscious man’s wr
ist, then the carotid artery. Seconds passed. Finally he removed his own raincoat and laid it over the prone man. A siren sounded in the distance.

  Vicky stepped back through the crowd flowing around her like water, until she could no longer see the body sprawled on the pavement. A mixture of dread and nausea welled inside her. Stuck in her mind, like a still from a movie, was the image of the movie-star-handsome man in the black raincoat suspended over the hood of the sedan.

  The siren grew louder, piercing the sounds of the rain on the sidewalk. A red-and-white ambulance drew alongside the curb ahead of the black squad car pulling in. Two officers in dark blue uniforms emerged from the car and shouldered their way through the crowd, shouting orders to stand back. Slowly a path opened, and the ambulance attendants hurried across the sidewalk.

  “Anybody see what happened?” one of the officers shouted.

  Several people raised their hands.

  The officer produced a small pad from inside his jacket and began moving around the periphery of the crowd, asking questions, jotting notes in the rain.

  “I saw it happen,” Vicky said when he approached.

  “Your name?” His tone was calm, matter-of-fact, the narrow, reddish face unreadable.

  She gave him her name, address, telephone numbers, and told him about the black Camry speeding up, jumping the curb, running down the man. The words spilling out, as if the horrible image in her mind might be washed away by the torrent. She drew in a breath and told him the last three license-plate numbers.

  “It was deliberate,” she said, watching the stretcher being wheeled across the sidewalk toward the ambulance. “The driver wanted to kill him.”

  “We’ll need a complete statement from you tomorrow.” His eyes held hers a moment before he turned toward another woman who had raised her hand.

  “Officer,” Vicky said. He glanced back. “I was on my way to meet someone named Vince Lewis. It may have been him.”

  “Wait here.” He began shouldering his way through the cluster of silent people toward his partner. After a moment, he was back. “Driver’s license says Vincent R. Lewis. You know him?”