Slickrock Paradox

by Stephen Legault

  “Well, we’ve got options.”

  “Do you? Really? I mean, the place is pretty dry. Kane Creek and Hatch Wash are rare—they have year-round water.”

  “Well, that is one of the things that makes the area appealing. We can also pump it in, if we have to, or truck it in, but that makes things expensive.”

  “Not as much return to the investors, eh?”

  “I don’t think that’s a bad thing, do you? Making money is what a business is supposed to do.”

  “I don’t really know. Would you consider building a dam?” asked Silas.

  “It’s way too early for us to be thinking about things like that,” answered Martin, making a dismissive wave with his hands. “Tell me, Mr. Pearson. You’re pretty curious—what’s your interest? I take it you’re a hiker and you like Hatch Wash?”

  “Well, I’m not really much of a hiker. Maybe an explorer would be more accurate. Let me tell you what I’m getting at, Mr. Martin. Did you read about the FBI finding a body up at Grand View Point, over in Canyonlands?”

  “Sure . . . wait a minute . . . that was you! You found that body. Now I recognize you. I’ve got to tell you, you don’t look much like your picture.”

  “A lot of miles have passed since it was taken. Mr. Martin, do you know who it was that I found?”

  “No. I can’t remember the name. I think it was in the papers—”

  “Kelly Williams—”

  “That’s it. Should I know it?”

  “You should. I understand that he worked for you, albeit indirectly. He was on the payroll for Dead Horse Consulting. They were doing some of the preliminary environmental assessments that are required for you to consider drilling in that area. He was an archaeologist, working with another man named Peter Anton. The two of them had another colleague. Her name was Kayah Wisechild—”

  “Was?”

  “Was. She turned up dead, about two weeks ago now. I found her too.”

  “You found both bodies—”

  “I did.”

  “What are the odds?”

  “I’ll be spending some time in Vegas after this is through.”

  “How did you . . . I mean, how did you find both of them?”

  “Purely coincidental. You see, I was actually looking for someone else. Someone I lost. My wife. Three and a half years ago she went missing in this region. She went out to explore . . . somewhere . . . and never came back. I’ve been looking for her ever since. In the last two weeks I’ve found two bodies of people who were working on an archaeological evaluation of Hatch Wash. Both where your company wants to build a dam and draw water for your oil developments up on Flat Iron and in the Behind the Rocks region.”

  “Now wait a second—”

  “Hold on, Tim, it gets better. I think my wife was also onto your work. I think she knew about it before either Williams or Wisechild, and she was about to blow the whistle.”

  “That’s not possible.” Martin stood up and turned to look out the window.

  “I think it is. Her name was Penelope de Silva. Does that sound familiar?”

  “I’ve never heard of her. Never.” Martin turned and looked at Silas. His face was pale, but his eyes were narrowed.

  “Are you sure? She was pretty doggedly determined not to let a place like Hatch and the Canyon Rims fall into the wrong hands.”

  “Back up a second.” Martin sat down and played with his coffee cup, showing an agitation that hadn’t been there five minutes before. “You said these two people, this Williams and—”

  “Kelly Williams and Kayah Wisechild.”

  “When did these two go missing?”

  “A little more than two years ago.”

  “And your wife? When did you last see her?”

  “Three and a half years ago.”

  “What exactly are Williams and Wisechild, and Dr. Anton . . . what exactly were they looking for in Hatch?”

  “I don’t know if they were looking for anything in particular. They were doing an antiquities survey. What they found will keep you out of Hatch Wash, maybe forever. It will shut you down.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Ruins. Ancient Pueblo ruins, Mr. Martin. Surely the consultants have told you about this.”

  “We haven’t discussed it. I understood that there were no significant sites in Hatch or anywhere else in that vicinity.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Well, the senator’s office, to start with. Jared Strom backed it up.”

  Silas was silent a moment. “When did they tell you this?”

  “When we first hired them.”

  “When was that?”

  “You see, that’s what I’m getting at. I have no idea who these Williams and Wisechild people are. No idea. I’m very sorry to say I’ve never heard of your wife. Canusa just got involved with this play a little over . . .”—he looked at the ceiling, counting—“fourteen, no fifteen months ago.”

  “I find that hard to believe. Dead Horse has been working on this area for years, at least three or four.”

  “Not for us. We were invited in about fifteen months ago. They approached us.”

  “Who is they?”

  “The BLM, and others. The senator actually made the rounds of all the midsized operations looking for suitable partners to work on his Utah Land Stewardship Fund. It was a good opportunity. We have people here in the US, of course, who speak on our behalf . . .”

  “Lobbyists.”

  “We call them government relations specialists, but sure, lobbyists. They make sure that when someone like Senator Smith is looking for partners, he finds us. Nothing wrong with that. He approached us and we evaluated the play and decided to jump in.”

  “Was a report on the environmental and historical significance of the area part of that evaluation?”

  “A small part. We looked at the petroleum reserve reports and the financial reports, but yes, there were those considerations as well. I have to assure you, there was nothing there to indicate that Hatch had anything more than a steady water supply.”

  “You know what I hate?” asked Silas. Martin looked confused. “I hate being lied to.”

  “I think it’s time we put an end to this—” Martin stood.

  Silas remained seated. “I think you have been lied to. Either that or you are lying to me. It’s one or the other, Mr. Martin.”

  “Well, I’m not lying, and I’ve got to tell you that it’s time for this conversation—”

  “If that’s the case, then I’d ask some hard questions of your consultants. They knew over two years ago, and maybe longer, that Hatch Wash would be off limits to the kind of development you are considering to support your . . . what did you call it? Your oil play?”

  “I intend to ask those questions. I assure you, nobody is being lied to. Not you, and not me.”

  Silas stood and shrugged. “I’m afraid you’re in for a rude awakening, Mr. Martin.” Silas held out his hand. “Welcome to Utah.”

  SILAS WAS BACK at his bookstore when his cell phone rang. It was Katie Rain. “We’ve picked up the memory card from your friend Roger.”

  “Did you watch it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Agent Taylor has sent the file to the FBI’s Digital Evidence Labratory in Quantico for analysis.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think Peter Anton is in trouble.”

  HE WAS AWARE THAT HE was dreaming but couldn’t stop the pageant of images. “Si, it’s like an installation from Mars or Saturn—vast, complicated, sinister, an alien presence,” Penelope said to him.

  A sinister, alien presence. He could see tears running down her cheek, but when he reached to push them away, he could no longer touch her.

  THE BOOK WAS One Life at a Time, Please; not one of Edward Abbey’s best known works. Not Desert Solitaire, not The Monkey Wrench Gang nor even The Fool’s Progress. Abbey himself wrote somewhere that he preferr
ed it, and his other books of essays, to those more commercially popular works. Silas found the line on page ninety-six. It was in the essay “River Solitaire: A Day Book,” chronicling Abbey’s ten-day solo trip down the Colorado River. The writer had launched his skiff just upstream of Highway 191 and floated past the Atlas Mill and then Potash. The Potash plant was a massive industrial complex on the banks of the Colorado about fifteen miles from Moab, and to most observers, it did indeed appear like a sinister, alien presence on the red rock earth.

  It was a good place to hide a body. Silas considered if he wanted to find a third corpse. Maybe it was time to let the feds earn their pay.

  It was six thirty-five. Most sensible people were still fast asleep on the first day of the September long weekend. What the hell, he thought. He found the cordless phone and dialed the now familiar number. It rang four times before she answered.

  “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Silas, what is it?” Something in his tone had betrayed him.

  “There’s another body.”

  THE TEAM MET near the Atlas Mill, just off the highway. Silas stood next to his Outback, a cup of coffee in his hands. Two black SUVs pulled up, followed by the Grand County sheriff in his patrol car and then Derek Penshaw from San Juan County. Silas watched as Dwight Taylor first got out of the driver’s side of the lead SUV, then Agent Nielsen and Katie Rain emerged from the passenger doors. They walked over to him.

  “Are we ready?” asked Taylor. He had his hands on his hips and wore his inscrutable aviator sunglasses that morning.

  “Just a minute. We’re waiting for one more.”

  “Who?”

  Silas peered over his shoulder toward the bridge that spanned the Colorado where it emerged from Hal Canyon. He pointed at the Lincoln Navigator rolling across it, slowing down for the sharp turn near the Atlas Mill. “My lawyer.”

  When Ken Hollyoak rolled down his window, his hair was standing on end and he had heavy bags under his eyes. “The next time you want to find a body, Dr. Pearson, try to do it during regular business hours, will you please?”

  Silas got back in his car, leading the convoy, Ken behind him, followed by the cavalcade of law enforcement agency vehicles. They drove along the twisting curves of the Colorado River, the road hemmed in on one side by five-hundred-foot cliffs of Navajo sandstone and the slick red back of the river on the other.

  Silas had no idea what he was leading everyone to, except that in his dream Penelope had been quite specific about where she wanted Silas to search. But for what? For her, or for another body somehow connected to her own disappearance? Silas felt his stomach twist further into a knot. The constant motion, the feeling of living on the razor edge of a cliff, was taking its toll on him. He checked his reflection in the mirror and realized he was rapidly becoming an old man.

  Another twenty minutes of the winding road, the river, the acid green hue of the late summer cottonwoods, and they came to the gate of their destination: the Intrepid Potash Corporation’s Moab mine. Silas got out as the other vehicles pulled up. In a minute a pick-up truck bore down the paved road beyond the gate and a man in a hard hat got out. He waved and unlocked the gate. Agent Taylor walked up and the two men shook hands.

  “I’m sorry about this,” Taylor apologized. “We’ll do our best to not get in the way.”

  “You said on the phone that you believed there was a body on site?”

  “That’s right. We have reason to believe someone may have dumped a body here.”

  “When?”

  Taylor shrugged. “We don’t know that.”

  “Okay, well, the place is all yours. We ship about a thousand tons of potash a day out of the site, mostly by rail, so there is some activity going on,” the mine manager said.

  The convoy followed the manager up the Potash Road, and in a moment the main mine site came into view. The mine manager handed them hard hats.

  Silas ignored them all as he scanned the site. The Colorado River slipped quietly by. That would be the obvious place to start. The entire mine site might end up being part of his search, though.

  “What is this place?” Katie Rain asked.

  “Intrepid Potash,” said the manager.

  Ken Hollyoak, now more awake, cut in. “Used to be Texas Gulf when it opened in 1963. The Saskatchewan Potash Corporation bought it in 1995, and Intrepid bought it in 2000.”

  “Mine’s unique in all of our operations. We pump Colorado River water three thousand feet underground to dissolve the potash and push it to the surface through pipes. We use settling ponds to separate the brine from the marketable potash, which we either bag or ship out as raw product.”

  “What’s it used for?” asked Silas.

  “Everything from water softeners to fertilizer to drilling rig solutions.”

  “It used to be an underground mine when it opened,” added Hollyoak helpfully. “An accident that very year trapped twenty-five men twenty-seven hundred feet below the surface. Only seven survived.”

  “We’ve come a long way since then.” The manager leveled a stare at Hollyoak.

  “Okay, Dr. Pearson,” Taylor interjected. “Where do we start?”

  Silas looked back at him. “You know, the last two times I did this I was alone, without a bunch of people looking over my shoulder asking me questions—”

  Taylor held up his hands as if in surrender and turned and leaned on his truck.

  Silas walked toward the river, the sheriff, Agent Nielsen, and Katie Rain following him. He crossed the road and stood on the banks and then looked back up at the mill as if seeing the plant from a boat mid-stream. “Let’s spread out. Start on the bank of the river and just work our way up to the plant.”

  “Not many places to hide a body,” said Rain.

  “We might need to bring in the ground X-ray machine if we don’t find anything on the first pass,” said Agent Nielsen. Silas was impressed; they were taking his lead seriously.

  Eventually Taylor and the two ERT agents joined them in their skirmish line. Within an hour they were soaked with sweat, and standing up in the shade of the hulking mass of the processing plant.

  “What’s next?” asked Taylor, taking a drink from a bottle of water.

  “Inside?” asked Rain.

  Silas shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He closed his eyes to remember the dream.

  “What else is there?” asked Taylor.

  Silas looked around, his hands hanging loosely at his sides. “The settling ponds.”

  They drove in a convoy behind the mine manager again. Half a mile from the plant, high on a bench of sandstone, were four hundred acres of settling ponds laid out like rice paddies. Massive earth movers were perched on the edge to scoop out the settled salt and potash from the slurry that filled the ponds. The ponds were electric blue. Set against the red earth they were startling.

  “This is really the most amazing part of the operation,” the manager boasted. “Mother nature does most of the work. We get three hundred days of sunshine, and the relative humidity is 5 per cent, so we don’t need to use any energy. We just let it sit.”

  “Why is it so blue?” asked Rain.

  “We add a blue dye, like food coloring, to aid in the evaporation process. The color absorbs more heat. The ponds are lined with heavy vinyl to prevent leaking. When we’re ready to extract the final product we use laser-guided equipment,” he said, pointing to the giant earth movers, “to scoop out the potash and salt so we don’t rip the lining.” He stopped and realized that nobody was listening any more. All eyes were on Silas.

  “Which ponds have been recently excavated?” Silas asked.

  “These three here.” He indicated the ones by the two massive excavators.

  “So that leaves us with—”

  “Another fourteen,” the manager said.

  Silas looked around him, feeling defeated. He turned and looked at the manager. “How hard would it be for someone to get
in here, say, after dark?”

  “The gate is locked. We’ve got a team of security, night watchmen who make their rounds of the main plant and all the auxiliary facilities. I’d say it would be tough to come in the main gate—”

  “Are there other accesses?”

  “Well, there are other roads in the area.”

  “Have you got a map?” asked Silas.

  They stood around the hood of the manager’s pick-up and compared the map of the mine with Silas’s usgs fifteen-minute topographic sheet. Silas turned and looked above him at the cliffs that fronted Dead Horse Point State Park, and below them at the crumbling Paradox Basin. He traced several routes on the map with his bone-dry finger, then he stopped.

  “Let’s start over here.”

  They followed the manager around the massive ponds to where the road threaded between two reservoirs and then crossed a level plane to another set of tanks. They drove to the far side of the ponds and parked.

  “This road,” said Silas as they gathered around the map again, “is called the South Fork Road. It winds along the river and connects with the Grand View Point Road way up on the mesa. From here you could drive up and be on Island in the Sky in about an hour.”

  They turned and looked at the settling ponds. “Alright, let’s get to work,” said Taylor. “Remember, if we find anything, we’re going to be looking for forensic evidence, so crime scene rules are in effect. Janet, I want full video documentation before we start here.”

  They waited for half an hour while Unger walked a complete perimeter of the series of settling ponds, videotaping the entire scene. Meanwhile, Silas, to the consternation of Taylor, walked up the road toward Island in the Sky half a mile, looking for tire tracks.

  When he came back, he said to Taylor, “Half a dozen vehicles have been over this road since the last rain. Tough to tell which was the most recent.”

  “Leave the forensics to us, Dr. Pearson. You concentrate on whatever it is we’re here to find. Okay?”

  Silas moved to the ponds. Huston had returned from his SUV with an infrared camera and began to scan the ponds, slowly walking along the narrow banks. Silas walked with him, more out of interest than his ability to be helpful. He had to admit that at this point, with the sun bearing down on them, and the afternoon looking like it would turn into some kind of biblical storm event, he was prepared to admit that Penelope had led him astray. There were more than seventy miles of Colorado River in the essay in One Life at a Time, Please. Maybe he’d misread the dream.