Slickrock Paradox

by Stephen Legault

  “Of course, with Penny.”

  “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “Thought I did, sorry. I think I remember a talus slope and a ledge. I bet the girl was hiding there, making that video.”

  “You think she might have been in on the raid?” asked Silas to Roger.

  “I don’t know. If you look at the expression on her face, it shows real sadness. I don’t think she was in on it. I think she found out about it and took the video.”

  “But didn’t tell anybody? Just sent it home to end up in a sock drawer?” asked Silas.

  “Maybe she told Anton that she didn’t like what he was up to,” Roger speculated.

  “He whacked her,” said Hayduke. Silas looked at him hard.

  “What about Williams?” asked Roger.

  “What if this Anton dude finds out that the girl is going to rat him out, kills her, and then to cover his tracks does the guy as well. No loose ends,” said Hayduke.

  “One loose end.” Silas pointed at the screen.

  SILAS DROVE HOME to the Castle Valley in the dark. He and Hayduke had spent another two hours together pouring over the video, talking about the motivation of their possible suspects. Now he had to decide if he would let Katie Rain in on what he knew. He knew he should. He knew that the FBI would have far more resources to investigate the five suspects. How seriously would they take him when he went to them and said that two powerful business men, and a senator, were among those he suspected of killing not just Williams and Wisechild, but Penelope too?

  He had only been in the door a few minutes when his phone rang. It was Katie Rain.

  “You’re still in Moab?” His call display said she was calling from Dexter Willis’s office.

  “You people are keeping me busy. I kind of like it here.”

  “I was just debating whether to call you or not.”

  “Well, I guess that debate is over. How are you doing?”

  “I’m doing well. You mean, after having my place sacked and being interrogated on my picnic table, not to mention my culinary choices scrutinized—”

  She laughed and then stopped. “Taylor went pretty easy. I’ve seen a lot worse.”

  “I know he’s just trying to do his job, and so are you, for that matter. Did you call to console me, or have you got something on Williams?”

  “Obviously, we’ve looked into his past. He’s an only child; both of his parents live in Durango.”

  “How’d they take the news?”

  “Relieved and grateful, I think. It’s really hard on people when something like this drags on for years . . .” Silas was silent. “Said they wanted to meet the man who found their boy.”

  “I think I’ve had enough of grieving parents for a while.”

  “Williams was under investigation by the Antiquities branch of the BLM. You probably know that. He’d been on both sides of the law when it comes to Pueblo artifacts. The BLM was going to be turning a file over to us when he disappeared. Of course, we investigated, but didn’t find him or anything conclusive.”

  “Do you remember the location of the investigation?”

  “You mean, which office? It was Taylor’s—”

  “No, I mean, where he was alleged to have been pot hunting?”

  “Some place called Grand Gulch. You know it?”

  “Oh yeah, I know it, big canyon full of ruins. It’s what the government calls a ‘Primitive Area.’”

  “Well, apparently it was believed that he was removing artifacts; not many—”

  “The Gulch has been pretty picked over by legitimate, bona fide grave robbers from major universities over the years. Do you remember anything about Hatch Wash in his file? He worked on that site with Peter Anton and Dead Horse Consulting.”

  “I don’t remember the details. I’d have to look.”

  “Can you?”

  “Silas, what do you know about this?”

  “Katie, I don’t know if I can trust the FBI. You know, we’ve got a bit of a history, and frankly, I think that Taylor and Nielsen would be pretty happy to hang this on me and wash their hands of it.”

  “You can trust me, Silas.”

  “I feel like I can, but you’re still the G.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” He could hear the smile in her voice.

  “Alright, listen, I’ve got something that I think you guys are going to want to see.” He told her about the video, its origins, and what it contained. He told her about his list of suspects, and how each tied to Wisechild, Williams, and possibly even his wife.

  It was Rain’s turn to be silent. “Wow, you’re damn right we’re going to want to see it. Do you have it with you right now?”

  “The memory card is with a friend down on the Hopi Reservation. He emailed the video to me. My computer is at my store.”

  “Silas, this is important evidence. Taylor is going to want this. He’s not going to be happy you got it before him.”

  “It feels like nothing I do makes Agent Taylor happy.”

  “This is serious.”

  “Okay, what do I do?”

  “Would you give me your friend’s name? I’ll call him and ask him to turn over the memory card. Taylor will likely find out you’ve got a copy sooner or later, but in the meantime this will help us learn more about what these three individuals were up to.”

  “How about I call him and get him to call you?”

  “Okay, deal. If I haven’t heard from him by say, ten tomorrow morning, I’m going to have to take steps.”

  “Kick in my door?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “We’re likely going to have to go to this box canyon you’re talking about. Can you give us the coordinates for it?”

  “I could, or you could brace Peter Anton for them. He’s the only one left alive from that video, and he seems to figure prominently in all of this.”

  “We won’t have enough to charge him, and relying on him for this info would risk long delays. His lawyer will try to make a deal. Can you help me out here, Silas?”

  “How about I take you there?”

  “Oh, a field trip.”

  “Don’t get too excited. I doubt there are any bones for you to play with.”

  HE WANTED TO GET TO Tim Martin and Jacob Isaiah before the FBI got hold of the video file from Roger Goodwin, so he started early. The night before, he’d called Roger, apologizing for getting him into such a mess, and asked that he arrange to turn over the file at 10:00 AM sharp. He then called Katie Rain back and told her that Roger would meet the agents in Bacavi, on Third Mesa, to give them the memory card. That would give him enough time to confront both Isaiah and Martin, if he could find them.

  Silas was in Moab by seven-thirty. He had carefully planned his first encounter. He parked at the Visitor Center and walked the two blocks to the Moab Diner. He knew Jacob Isaiah ate breakfast there most mornings, so he waited outside. Isaiah emerged a few minutes later.

  “Good morning, Jacob,” he said.

  The old man started. “Jesus Christ, don’t sneak up on people like that. What the hell do you want, Pearson?”

  “Just a minute of your time.”

  “You going to pester me about your wife again?”

  “Not this morning, Jacob. Come on, let’s walk.”

  “I’m going to my office. Some of us work for a living. You’ve got two blocks to state your business.” They walked north on Main Street.

  “I’ll get right to the point then, Jacob. I’ve seen a video of Peter Anton working with a man named Kelly Williams, the same man whose remains I found at Grand View Point. They were clearing a set of ruins in Hatch Wash, moving out pots and even baskets. I think they were working for you.”

  Isaiah shook his head. “More goddamned accusations from you. First your wife, now you. What the hell is it with you people?”

  “Did you know that Peter Anton and Kelly Williams were clearing that site? Did you ask them t
o?”

  Isaiah was staring straight ahead when he answered. “No, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. There are no ruins in Hatch Wash. There’s nothing there. People have been down in that canyon for years and never found a thing. If you think you’re going to try and back me into a corner because I want to develop a resort on Hatch Point, you’re out of your mind. Ruins or no ruins, it’s no matter. I could care less. So could the BLM. It don’t make a bit of difference to me. And no, I never asked anybody to clear a ruin I never heard of.”

  “Dead Horse Consulting did the preliminary work for your environmental assessment. You weren’t counting on them finding anything because nobody ever had, but they did. When they reported this to you, you told them to clear it out so that it wouldn’t be an issue.”

  “You must think you’re pretty damn clever, Pearson. You seem to have that all figured out. So then what? I tell them to clear the ruins. So what? The ruins are still there. You think that if the BLM was so worried about disturbing Pueblo sites that just clearing them out of pots would make a difference?”

  Isaiah stopped and looked at Silas.

  “If there are Indian sites there, it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference if they had pots or arrows in them. It wouldn’t matter one fucking bit to my project up on the Mesa. Not one fucking bit.” Isaiah jabbed a crooked finger at Silas.

  “So you didn’t order Anton to clear them—”

  “You’re not listening to me. Your wife never listened either. I don’t care about Indian sites. What I’m going to do up on that mesa won’t matter one bit, even if you found the goddamned Cliff Palace there. You think that the kind of people who are going to come to my resort to play golf are going to hike down into that canyon?”

  “I’ve heard you want to build some kind of gondola—”

  “You’ve been talking with the conspiracy theory people, Pearson.”

  “I read it in the documents you filed at the Grand County offices.”

  “You spell out every possibility, but it’s pie in the sky now—”

  “Now that Canusa has found oil under Flat Iron Mesa?”

  “That won’t make a damn bit of difference either,” he said. “We’ll do tours of the oil fields. Do an interpreter show about energy security. People will love it.”

  “Here’s what I think, Mr. Isaiah. I think you hired Dead Horse to do the assessment for your project, and when they came back and told you they’d found a class one archaeological site, you sat them down and asked what it would take to clear that site so you could build your golf course and your resort. They said no problem. It will cost you, but we can get the job done. Somebody found out, maybe even my wife. Maybe Kayah Wisechild got cold feet when she realized what she was doing, desecrating her ancestors’ ruins. Maybe she was cut out of the deal because she was Hopi and Peter Anton thought she’d be a liability. She found out, anyway. When you or maybe Anton got wind of it, she disappeared. There were too many loose ends so Kelly Williams disappeared too.”

  Isaiah threw his head back and laughed. He sounded like a jackal. “The stories I heard about you were all true. You’ve been out standing in the desert looking for your wife for such an awful long time that you’ve gone and baked your fucking head.” He tapped his finger on the side of his hat. “I sure like hearing your stories, Pearson. I sure do. I need to tell you this, though. If hear that you’ve been telling this story around town, or to the feds, I’m going to sic my lawyers on you and they will eat you alive. We understood, Mr. Pearson?”

  Silas leaned forward. “It’s Dr. Pearson, Mr. Isaiah. As soon as I get a chance I’ll be telling this story to the FBI. I intend to show them where Kelly and Kayah were working before they were murdered.” He turned on the sidewalk and walked back toward the Visitor Center, leaving Jacob Isaiah boiling in the coolness of the morning.

  HE RETRIEVED HIS car and drove south on 191 to an industrial complex close to the offices of Dead Horse Consulting. He’d learned that Canusa Petroleum Resources had a local operations office in the complex and he gambled that Martin would be there bright and early. His gamble paid off. The receptionist in the windowless office took his name and called Martin on the intercom. Martin emerged from the back of the building and extended his hand to Silas.

  “I’m Tim Martin.”

  “Silas Pearson.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I have some questions about your operations in this area. I was at your press conference the other day—”

  “Quite the pomp and circumstance, wasn’t it? You Americans sure like your fanfare.”

  “I’m Canadian, Mr. Martin. I moved here twelve years ago, but I don’t really understand the place yet either.”

  “Come on back. You know, in Calgary or Houston I’d have a wall of PR people between me and the environmentalists, but down here it’s just me, a few engineers, and Samantha.” They walked through a tangle of cubicles to the kitchen. “Coffee?” Martin asked.

  “Sure, that would be great. I should tell you, I’m not with an environmental group.”

  “I just assumed you were here to bust my ass about our plans for drilling—”

  “Not today.”

  Coffee in hand, Martin led Silas to his office. A window provided a view of the Moab Rim, but the office was otherwise unremarkable.

  “You have a big presence elsewhere?”

  “We’re in the top twenty producers in conventional oil and gas in Alberta.”

  “Conventional?”

  “Old-fashioned. Our main businesses is not in the oil sands, though we have a stake on a play—a development—there. Most of our business is in exploration and drilling. We’re small-time in Texas and Oklahoma, but growing. We’re building our American team and that’s helping us get into the game down here.”

  “Hence the name Can-USA,” Silas concluded. Martin nodded.

  “What was it that you wanted to ask me?”

  “I want to know about your plans to drill in the Canyon Rims region; Flat Iron Mesa, Hatch Wash, and Back of the Rocks.”

  “As you might have read in the papers, we’re entering into the exploratory phase of our project. Any actual drilling is several years out. We’re applying to the BLM for a permit to search for oil reserves in several areas in and around the place you call Canyon Rims. It’s a designated Recreation Area, so we have to be sensitive to other uses.”

  “There are also half a dozen areas within the Canyon Rims complex that are Wilderness Study Areas.”

  “That’s right. The BLM has those off limits, at least until Congress makes a decision on them. Who knows when that might be.”

  “You don’t see your drilling plans as incompatible with the other uses in Canyon Rims?”

  “Our operations will have a pretty small footprint.”

  “I’m no expert, but won’t there be roads and pipelines and a lot of traffic?”

  “Some, but we can bury parts of the pipeline and regulate road traffic.”

  “So . . . drilling would require a lot of water. Am I correct?”

  “It does take some water to get the oil out of the ground in most cases.”

  “How does that work?”

  “It’s pretty simple, really. We mix water with clay—all perfectly harmless—to force the rock we’re drilling through, and then later the oil, up to the surface. The water gets cleaned up and is returned to the watershed.”

  “Cleaned up?”

  “We set up portable water purification systems that clean the solvents and residual oil out of the water before returning it to the source.”

  Silas could only imagine what his wife would have to say about that. “How much would you need?”

  “Depends on how many wells we drill, and how much oil each produces. We won’t know that for some time. We’re only at the preliminary stages. We haven’t received regulatory approval yet.”

  “That’s what the senator was talking about yesterday, streamlining.”

  �
��We think of it as harmonizing.” Martin took a sip of his coffee.

  Silas shrugged his shoulders. “Call it what you will, the idea is to make the process of getting approval for a project simpler.”

  “Sure, but without taking shortcuts when it comes to protecting the environment.”

  “Everybody talks about protecting the environment, Mr. Martin, but talk is cheap. You know that you’re going to get a truckload of opposition if you push ahead with a drilling project in the Canyon Rims area.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t an environmentalist?”

  “I’m not. Not really, but my wife is. I do like this part of the world. There’re lots of others who are going to line up against you.”

  “Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. Sure, Canyon Rims is a nice place, but it’s not extraordinary. There’s not much that is exceptional about it.”

  “I understand the groups like the Southern Utah Wilderness Association have been lobbying to have it added to Canyonlands National Park for more than a decade. They say that Hatch Wash is of particular importance.” Silas watched for his reaction.

  “Hatch Wash is pretty, like a thousand other places in the Southwest. You can’t lock everything up and throw away the key and keep everybody out except young, fit people with Vibram-soled boots. We either find places where we can drill responsibly, or we import all of our oil from Saudi Arabia, where they don’t have any laws at all. I’ve worked there, and in Iraq, and Kuwait. You think things are tough here? Over there they just cut your head off if you give them any grief.”

  “Have you done any kind of preliminary environmental assessment of Hatch Wash?”

  Martin shrugged. “I’d have to check with my engineers, but I don’t think so. This is just at the early stages right now. We know from the government’s own reports that there is oil there, enough to make this worth our while. Once we get things rolling forward we’ll have a look at the details.”

  Silas watched the man answer his questions coolly. He tried to remember some of the things that Penny would ask. What about the wildlife? What about the impact the traffic and the noise and the flaring would have on people who wanted to experience the wilderness?

  “Where are you planning on getting your water from if you drill in Back of the Rocks, Flat Iron Mesa, or Hatch Point?”