Montana Standoff

by Nadia Nichols

  Molly studied him gravely and nodded her understanding. “I’m sorry this happened.”

  “It’s going to complicate things,” Steven said. “Charges will be filed, arrests will be made. All that bad publicity for New Millennium isn’t going to help your presentation at the next public hearing.”

  “Probably not, but right now all I care about is that you’re all right.” Her expression suddenly changed. “Are we still on for Saturday?”

  He took another sip of beer while he considered. “I won’t be as pretty, but if you’re still game…”

  A faint smile chased the shadows from her face. “I’m game. Will there be horseback riding?”

  “Not for me, thanks, but there are plenty of horses to ride.”

  “I’d rather just hang out with you, if you wouldn’t mind too much.”

  He reached out a hand and smoothed a stray curl of hair back from her face. “I’d like that,” he said. “Now you’d better get going. The last commuter plane leaves at seven, and my guess is everyone at Taintor, Skelton and Goldstein is waiting at the office with bated breath to hear your report.”

  “You shouldn’t be alone,” Molly said, her forehead furrowing with concern. “You could be more seriously injured than you realize.”

  “Get going, Ferguson. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have you stay, but I won’t be responsible for you being fired from your job because you played nurse to the nefarious Young Bear.”

  “But…”

  “Go. I’ll be fine.”

  She sighed her disapproval, bent toward him and brushed her lips ever so tenderly across his own, the lightest of kisses, and then rose. “If you so much as feel the slightest bit dizzy or nauseous, promise me you’ll call an ambulance. And promise me you’ll call your sister right away and tell her what happened, so she’ll know enough to worry about you. Promise.” She waited for his assenting nod before gathering her jacket and purse and then, with one last anxious glance over her shoulder, she departed. He heard the car door slam, the engine start, the crunch of tires on gravel and then nothing but silence. Molly was gone. He sat in the lonely void that her absence created and touched his fingers to his mouth, pondering the miracle of her kiss.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THURSDAY MORNING DAWNED ON waves of agonies that brought an involuntary groan from him as he struggled out of bed. The night had passed slowly, sleeplessly; a long-suffocating darkness filled with dizziness, nausea and unimaginable pain. He sat on the edge of the mattress, waiting for the worst to pass. He was still sitting there, bent over, when his phone rang. “Are you all right?” Molly said.

  “I’m fine. Stop worrying,” he replied, wishing desperately that she’d never left, that she was with him now, helping him stave off the grim reaper.

  “Did you call your sister?”

  “Yes,” he lied.

  “I don’t believe you’re fine, and I don’t believe you called your sister,” Molly said. He could picture her scowling with disapproval as she spoke. “I just phoned the hospital. The sheriff’s kidneys were bruised so badly the doctors were afraid they might shut down, and he has some fractured ribs and a broken nose. They thought his spleen might have been ruptured and they prepped him for surgery, but his condition has stabilized. They’re monitoring him in intensive care, which, incidentally, is where you should be right now.”

  “Intensive care is for really sick people.”

  “Do you feel dizzy? Are you nauseous? Is there blood in your urine? Can you take a deep breath without—”

  “Dr. Ferguson, I presume?”

  “Try to eat something, even if you don’t feel like it,” she said. “And Steven? Stay in bed until Saturday and drink lots of fluids. I’ll call you this afternoon to make sure you’re following orders.”

  He was still sitting on the edge of the bed when the phone rang again. It was Amy Littlefield, and her voice was choked with remorse. “You were right, Mr. Young Bear. Yesterday was so violent. I’ve never seen anything like that before. It was on the news last night, and on the front page of the newspaper this morning.” There was a long pause, and then she asked timidly, “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” Steven said.

  “I mean, the sheriff is still in the hospital,” she blurted out. “I went to see him. I could only peek through the window in the nurses’ station. He looks just awful.”

  I believe it, Steven thought, feeling the sheriff’s pain in every cell of his own battered body. Poor brave stupid bastard.

  “Those men were vicious with you. I thought they meant to kill you.”

  So did I, Steven thought.

  Amy had obviously spent a bad night thinking about things, probably as bad a night as he had, though for different reasons. “I don’t know what to say to you except I’m sorry. It was all my fault.”

  “You were doing what you thought was the right thing,” Steven said.

  “But you told me it was the wrong thing to do, and I did it anyway.”

  “The news footage was great, though,” Steven said with a wry grin that made him wince. “I doubt anything could’ve gotten Madison Mountain and the plight of our national forest on the table as quickly and dramatically. Don’t beat yourself up.”

  The third call was from his sister. “Molly just phoned. She told me what happened yesterday,” Pony said, her voice terse. “My God, Steven.”

  “Are we still invited to your barbecue?”

  “You could have been killed. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. I’d be on my way to work if I had my Jeep, but it’s up on Madison Mountain.”

  “You would be working if you were dying. It’s a good thing your Jeep is on the mountain. You should be in the hospital. Caleb and I are coming to see you. He wants to help in any way he can, and I want to make sure you really are okay.”

  “Look, Pony, don’t make a big deal out of this. Tell Caleb I’ll talk to him on Saturday. Right now I’m trying to figure out how to get my Jeep back. Molly drove me here last night before going back to Helena.”

  “If you are so okay, why did she have to drive you home, and why did she just call me? Steven, we are worried about you. I love you, and I know how stubborn you are….”

  “I’m fine,” he repeated, “and everything’s going to be okay. I’ll see you on Saturday, okay?”

  She paused. “You will see us in an hour, and we’ll take you to get your Jeep.”

  Steven felt a pang of tender gratitude. “I’d appreciate that.”

  It took him nearly an hour just to get dressed, but he was ready when his sister and her fiancé arrived, and the handful of aspirin he’d swallowed with his coffee had made it a little easier to move. By nine he’d retrieved his Jeep and was at his office, where the phone was ringing off the hook. He spent the entire morning fielding calls from journalists and reporters, from well-wishers and sympathizers, and from a hostile handful who told him in no uncertain terms where he could go and what he’d find when he got there. By noontime he was beginning to wish he’d taken all that well-intentioned advice and stayed home in bed.

  MOLLY WAS SITTING at her desk, working on a binder for a new mine-site claim and wondering for the millionth time how Steven was, and how he could possibly be anything but in critical condition after the beating he’d received at the hands of those brutish truckers. She’d watched the graphic footage on the late news and sat in shocked stillness, her blood running cold, her mind a blank. She’d never seen anything like that before. It had shaken her badly, and now she couldn’t help but question why she was sitting here in this office when she should be with Steven, making sure he was all right. She should never have left him alone yesterday. She should have driven him to the hospital no matter how he protested. She was reaching for her phone to call him for the second time that morning when Brad’s secretary poked her head around the door.

  “Sorry to bother you, Molly, but have you seen Brad? He has a call from the CEO of Condor International but I can’t l
ocate either Mr. Skelton or Brad, and I really don’t want to keep Mr. Dehaviland waiting….”

  Molly didn’t hesitate. “Put the call through to me, please. Perhaps I can answer his questions.”

  Within seconds she was speaking to Gregory Dehaviland, chief executive officer of one of the biggest oil-and-mining conglomerates in the world. His voice was smooth and professional, and he wasted no time getting to the point of his call. “I watched the evening news last night, and I understand what’s transpired here,” he said after Molly had explained that Brad was out of the office and that she was just his assistant, “but what I don’t understand is why New Millennium’s permitting process was flawed. Why in hell are we building an access road to a proposed mine site when we don’t have the proper paperwork in place?”

  “Mr. Dehaviland, we’re looking into this as well. It would appear that these permits, once they’re in the works, are considered to be valid even though they have yet to be approved. Standard procedure seems to be to move ahead once the paperwork is submitted to the proper authorities.”

  “Whose standard procedure are you referring to?” The man’s voice was clipped and acerbic.

  Molly paused. “I admit I’m very new to these practices and I can’t answer that question. However, in this instance, standard procedures obviously didn’t work. The citizens of Moose Horn are opposed to the proposed New Millennium mine and have engaged the services of an environmental attorney to fight it, and he—”

  “That would be Steven Young Bear, based out of Bozeman?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Obviously he’s caught us red-handed, breaking the law. I wasn’t the only one watching the news last night. This incident has gone national.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I want an explanation,” Dehaviland commanded. “Bending the law as ‘standard procedure’ is not a means to an end. Bending the law is akin to breaking it in my book.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We don’t need to be bending or breaking the law for any reason whatsoever. All permitting processes should be followed to the letter, always.”

  “Yes, sir. Perhaps you should speak with Ken Manning. He’s in charge of the New Millennium proposal.”

  “Ken Manning acts on the legal counsel of Taintor, Skelton and Goldstein,” Dehaviland countered. “That’s his job. Your job is to do the proper groundwork and make sure he gets the right advice. We pay your firm a lot of money to do that.”

  “Then perhaps you should speak with Mr. Skelton himself,” Molly said, her heart trip-hammering. “I’m not sure he’s in his office but I could transfer your call if you like, and you could leave a message on his voice mail.”

  “Please do so.”

  Afterward, she sat with her head in her hands, a myriad of emotions jumbling her thoughts. Dehaviland sounded like the kind of man who abided by the law and was sensitive to public relations, which was a good thing, as far as she was concerned. But what he had just intimated was that she might be in the employ of a firm that operated by an entirely different set of standards. That was a bad thing, and there were all kinds of bad implications wrapped up in it. She wished she’d had the nerve to ask Dehaviland about the Soldier Mountain uranium mine. She wondered what he knew about that lawsuit, and if he knew why the files were sealed.

  She tried Ken Manning’s office number and got his answering machine. She tried Steven’s home phone and got his answering machine. She tried his office and the line was busy. Tried it again five minutes later and it was still busy. Tried it every five minutes until he finally answered.

  “Young Bear.”

  “Ferguson,” she said, relief flooding through her at the sound of his voice. “You’re a hard man to get hold of, but I take it you’re still alive, even though you didn’t follow my advice about staying home and taking care of yourself. How are you feeling?”

  “Like six truckers the size of Madison Mountain beat the hell out of me yesterday,” he said. “Other than that, pretty good. I just got off the phone with Gregory Dehaviland. He’s the CEO of Condor International and he called me personally to apologize for the mess your firm has made of things.” Molly heard the undercurrent of humor in his deep voice. “So I told him that the only honest and intelligent attorney Taintor, Skelton and Goldstein had working for them was a redhead by the name of Molly Ferguson, and the rest of them spoke with forked tongues and walked a crooked path.”

  “You didn’t.” Molly felt a flush of heat in her face.

  “It’s the truth.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said he’d bear that in mind.”

  Molly pressed the phone to her ear as if by doing so she could bring herself nearer to him. “Well, I just called to make sure you were okay. You should be in the hospital, Steven, not at work. They aren’t releasing the sheriff until tomorrow or the next day. That should give you an idea how badly you’re hurt.”

  “That should give you an idea of just how tough I am,” Steven replied. “Besides, I don’t have time to be lying around in a hospital bed. I have a lot of work to do before Saturday rolls around.”

  Molly heard a tap at her door and Brad stepped into her office. “Yes, that’s right,” she said briskly into the phone. “I understand that he’s a busy man, but my client needs that paperwork right away.”

  “See you Saturday?” Steven said, without missing a beat.

  “I’ll be waiting impatiently.” Molly hung up the phone and raised an eyebrow at Brad. “Where have you been?”

  “Meeting with Ken,” Brad said. “Listen, Molly, we need to talk. The shit’s about to hit the fan. Bottom line, if we lose Condor International as a client because of this road-permitting business, we’ll lose our jobs, and that comes straight from Skelton.”

  Molly stood, the blood draining from her face. Her fingers rested on her desktop and she felt a sudden wave of dizziness. “When you say we, to whom are you referring?”

  Brad ran his fingers through his hair in a frustrated gesture. “You and me, baby,” he said. “You and me.”

  BEFORE HE WENT HOME that evening, Steven dropped by the hospital to visit Conrad Walker. The sheriff was in a private room and looking none too pleased to be there, but when Steven appeared, his swollen, battered countenance brightened to the extent that it possibly could.

  “You’re a lawyer,” he said, speaking with difficulty. “Can I sue New Millennium for disfigurement and suffering?”

  Steven laughed and groaned simultaneously as the pain racked him. “How much do you figure it’s worth?”

  “A couple billion, easy. That outfit should be good for it.”

  “I’d have to get a percentage of that. Ten percent, maybe twenty.”

  “Fifty,” Walker said. “You took at least half the pain and suffering. Probably more, by the looks of you. Thanks for jumping in, but you should’ve run for it, just like the news lady said.”

  “Next time I will. I’ve learned my lesson.”

  “Those bastards that did this to us are in jail,” Walker said with obvious satisfaction. “They put ’em in the slammer where they deserve to stay for a very long time.”

  “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but their bail was posted this afternoon and they walked.”

  “Even Reggie?”

  “Turns out Reggie is kind of like their mascot. He’s mildly autistic, and is on medication for attention-deficit disorder. Clyde happens to be his brother, and when Reggie saw you threatening Clyde, he went berserk. When the other truckers saw us supposedly beating up on Reggie, they went berserk.”

  “They thought we were beating up Reggie? A Goliath who could single-handedly whip four heavyweight prize-fighters?” There was no humor in SheriffWalker’s voice.

  “They’ll be arraigned sometime next week. Meanwhile the access road’s now officially closed, per instructions of Condor International’s CEO.”

  Walker brooded for a moment. “They just turned them loose? What would they have done t
o Reggie if I’d died?” he said.

  “The bail would have been set a little higher, they’d have closed the road just the same, and maybe put up a nice memorial plaque for you when they reopened it.” Steven handed him a paper bag containing a book he’d brought. “Thought you might like some reading material, since it sounds like you’re going to be down-and-out for a while,” he said.

  He heard Walker opening the bag as he left the room and was halfway to the nurses’ station when he heard him call out, “Damn you, Young Bear,” and laughed again in spite of the pain. The book he’d given Walker to read was entitled The Standard Police Procedural for Non-Violent Negotiations.

  MOLLY SIPPED her glass of wine slowly, looking around the candlelit dining room. The restaurant was busy for a Thursday night. She would have preferred a quieter atmosphere but Dani had suggested meeting here because the recent reviews had been very good. The cuisine was French and the menu was indecipherable but Molly didn’t give a damn. She wasn’t in the least bit hungry, and when Dani arrived and was shown to the table, she looked into her friend’s concerned face and to her absolute mortification she felt her eyes flood with tears. “Damn, I’m sorry,” she said, fumbling for a tissue in her purse as her friend came around the table to comfort her.

  “What is it, Molly? Is Steven all right?”

  She shook her head, unable to speak for a moment as she struggled for control. She wiped her eyes, drew a shaky breath, gave her friend a wan smile. “He’s as fine as he can be, considering what he’s gone through. It’s just been a long and awful day.”

  Dani took her own seat and leaned across the table. “Talk to me.”

  Molly crumpled the tissue in her hand and glanced self-consciously at the other tables, but nobody was paying the slightest attention. “You know what happened yesterday.”

  Dani nodded grimly. “The whole nation knows what happened on Madison Mountain yesterday.”

  “Well, it looks like I might lose my job over it.” Her voice trembled and she cleared her throat and took another sip of wine.