Montana Standoff

by Nadia Nichols

  “Yes. Her first public reprimand, and her first horseback ride, which happened to be up a very steep mountain.”

  “All in one day?”

  “Near enough. She needs something special.”

  “Hmmm. Roses?”

  “Are roses good for sore muscles and a bruised ego?”

  “Roses work for everything,” the woman’s sage voice pertly informed him. “What color roses would you prefer we send? Yellow is for friendship, white is for purity of spirit, pink is for beauty, red is for love.”

  He thought about this for a moment and wondered why the wild flowers that colored the prairies and mountain slopes and alpine climbs had not attained such lofty symbolism as roses had since they were by far the most beautiful flowers of all, and tougher than any cultivated rose. But then again, he was a man. What did he know about things like flowers, or a woman’s heart? “All of them,” he said.

  “How many?”

  “At least a dozen.”

  “A dozen is a nice number. Any less, and a woman might feel slighted.” Spoken like a true florist, but he heeded her advice. He’d sent Molly two dozen roses, four each of the yellow, white and pink, and twelve of the red, hoping they might help to bridge the gap that had widened between them on the drive back from the Bow and Arrow. It seemed doubtful to him that mere flowers could wield that much power, but time would tell. She’d either call to thank him, or her chilly silence would span the rest of his life.

  He spooned the chicken onto a plate and added the vegetables to the hot oil in the pan. He’d gone without lunch and the food smelled good but he had no appetite, because in Helena there lived a woman who believed that he didn’t trust her, and that knowledge preyed on him and stole his hunger and his need for anything but her forgiveness and understanding—though he wasn’t sure he was worthy of either.

  NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES Molly drove it, the distance between Helena and Bozeman remained the same, and it took her two hours to reach Steven’s house, which gave her two hours to rehearse exactly how she would present Dehaviland’s proposal to him. Yet when she turned down his drive, her cleverly rehearsed and passionate presentation fled before the overpowering need to see him again. She climbed from her car, her muscles stiffer than ever after the long drive. He opened the door and stood in the doorway, watching her careful approach.

  “You’re walking pretty good, for a lame cowgirl,” he said. “It’s good to see you. Come inside. I’ll make a fire in the fireplace and fix you a drink. Have you had supper?”

  She paused at the foot of the steps. “Are you going somewhere?” she said, her heart plummeting as she noticed that he held his new leather briefcase.

  He nodded. “Moose Horn. They’re discussing the emergency zoning they want to put in place, and the meeting starts at seven. I’d ask you to come along, but if we arrived there together they’d probably tar and feather us both. It won’t take long. I should be back in a couple hours.”

  Molly’s disappointment was huge. For the past two hours she had envisioned a celebratory evening together, just the two of them. Perhaps they would have shared a bottle of wine in front of the fire, and talked away all the barriers between them. “I guess I should have called before driving all this way. I’ll make this quick. I have good news. Great news.”

  “You resigned your job,” Steven said.

  Molly felt a rush of anger at his insensitive words. “I met with Gregory Dehaviland this afternoon. He wants the two of us to work together to broker a deal between Condor International and your group. He’s offering to sell the patented mining claims on Madison Mountain for two million dollars. That’s the amount of money they’ve invested so far in permitting, road building, test drilling, and site preparation. He’s talking about shifting their mining operations to a place called Butte Mountain, which is about forty miles due west of here on privately owned land. You’d have until March to raise the money. I know it sounds like a lot, but—”

  “Why would he do that?” Steven asked.

  “Because he’s a nice man,” Molly burst out heatedly. “Because he wants to change things, improve the public’s image of the big corporate mining interests—and because he owns a cabin on the Yellowstone River below the Madison Mountain watershed. He wants to protect the natural resources as much as you do.”

  Steven nodded thoughtfully. “I suppose you saw the legal papers that go along with his remarkable offer?”

  Molly felt her anger intensify. “I believe Dehaviland’s an honest man, and I took him at his word.” She could see his skepticism and her fists clenched involuntarily. “Steven, why can’t you believe this is real? If you can come up with the money, which Mr. Dehaviland thinks you can easily manage, there won’t have to be any emergency zoning in Moose Horn because there won’t be any mine on Madison Mountain.”

  “Were you the only one present at this meeting with Dehaviland?”

  “Yes,” Molly said stiffly. “He said he wanted to run it by me first because he trusted me the most.”

  “Smart man. No wonder he’s CEO. And then I suppose he asked you to come here and fill me in before the public meeting tomorrow night?”

  Molly felt the stab of betrayal at Steven’s words, drew a sharp, painful breath and blinked back the sting of tears. “I came on my own, but I can see it was a complete waste of my time. You don’t believe a thing I’ve said.” She turned abruptly on her heel and started for her car.

  “Molly.” She felt his hand close on her arm and tried to shrug it off. She stopped, but refused to look at him. “Molly. Stay, please. We need to talk. I believe in you, I just find it hard to believe Dehaviland.”

  “Well, you know what, Young Bear?” she snapped in a voice that shook with pent-up emotion. “I no longer give a damn what you believe or don’t believe. In a one-hour lunch at the Bistro this afternoon, I learned more about Gregory Dehaviland than I would in a lifetime of lunches with you, so you go ahead and attend that ridiculous meeting with those foolish people to discuss your unnecessary emergency zoning laws. I’m through trying to talk to you or understand you, and that’s all I have to say.”

  She wrenched out of his grasp, gained the safety of her car, and was five miles down the road before her emotions finally caught up with her. She pulled onto the shoulder, rested her forehead against the steering wheel and wept bitter tears.

  THE MEETING AT THE TOWN OFFICE in Moose Horn lasted forever, the talk droning on and on, with each of the twenty-seven residents needing to have their heated, self-righteous say in every quarter, no matter how irrelevant it might be to the subject at hand. Steven tried to concentrate, tried to moderate and give good input, tried to participate the way he knew they wanted him to, but it was impossible. He should have stopped Molly from leaving. He should have stayed with her and skipped this endless meeting that was leading nowhere. Instead, he’d stupidly said the very worst things he could have, and then gone off about his own business. The two dozen roses he’d sent hadn’t helped at all. Their relationship was on rockier ground than ever, and he didn’t see any way to right his wrongs.

  His first instincts had been to keep Molly’s announcement to himself until he’d had time to speak with Dehaviland himself and make sure the deal with Condor International’s board of directors was legally cemented, but when 10:00 p.m. came and went with no end in sight, Steven stood.

  “It’s getting late. We’ve laid the groundwork for the emergency zoning, and I can help you get that in place, but before we leave here tonight there’s something you should all be aware of,” he said, cutting off Amy Littlefield’s fiery diatribe. Amy stopped, visibly surprised by this interruption, and then sat down abruptly next to Conrad Walker, who had nodded off early on and slept through most of the meeting.

  “Gregory Dehaviland, chief executive officer of Condor International, has made a tentative proposal pending final approval from the board of directors. According to his attorney, if we can raise two million dollars by March, the mining company will
sell us the patented mining claims on Madison Mountain. It seems Dehaviland owns a camp on the Yellowstone River and doesn’t want the watershed threatened by mining runoff. It also appears that he’s trying to work with us and reach a compromise that will make both parties happy.”

  For a long moment everyone sat in stunned silence. “Two million dollars?” Amy said, the first to recover. “Oh, sure, I’ll just write him a check. Not a problem.”

  “That’s what they’ve invested in the mine to date,” Steven said. “It’s not an unreasonable amount, and it’s not an impossible task to raise that much money in six months, but it will take a helluva lot of campaigning. I haven’t yet spoken to Dehaviland personally, and I wasn’t going to tell you about this offer until I’d seen something in writing, but it’s doubtful I’ll be able to get in contact with him before the public hearing tomorrow night, and I think this matter might be brought up in front of the media. I didn’t want you to be caught off guard.”

  Another thoughtful silence fell upon the room as everyone digested this information, and then Amy said, “What do you think we should do?”

  “Run with it, if the offer pans out,” he said. “It’s the best option we could ever hope for. If we hold our ground and fight the permitting through environmental litigation, we might slow the process down a lot, but we’ll probably lose in the end. Tomorrow night we’ll have more media in one place than we probably ever will again. If Dehaviland’s attorneys bring up the buyout option, we can announce that we’re starting a campaign to raise the funds, emphasizing that any donations will be tax deductible, and that when purchased, the mining claims would become the property of the Madison Mountain Land Trust. I’ll start setting up that trust tomorrow morning, first thing.

  “And here’s something else to think about. Because those claims are already patented, that means the property will become a private inholding in the national forest. It will encompass over five hundred acres, and a board of directors will need to be established to oversee the trust and to decide how to manage the land.”

  “Manage it? What do you mean? The whole purpose of our protesting the New Millennium mine was because we wanted to keep the mountain wild,” Amy said.

  “I realize that, but a land trust needs a board of directors and some kind of plan. Let’s wait and see what happens at the meeting tomorrow night before we talk about this any further.”

  Steven drove home faster than was prudent, hoping beyond hope that Molly would have come back and been waiting for him, but the house was dark, his driveway empty, and a bleak, hollow emptiness filled him with her absence and became the full measure of his failure.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MOLLY’S ANSWERING MACHINE was flashing when she arrived home, and while she heated up a can of chicken-noodle soup she played it back. The first message was delivered in a stern, maternal voice: “This is your mother, who loves you. Call me. Your father and I are worried about you.” The second was along the same lines. “Hey, it’s Dani. It’s 7:00 p.m. Monday, where are you? I tried you yesterday, too. Have you eloped with your handsome counselor? Please call.” Molly laughed bitterly at the idea of she and Steven eloping. The third message was from Stradivarius John, professor of the violin. “Molly, I’ve been thinking about you. How about dinner this Saturday?” Fourth message: “Molly? Brad. Something’s come up, something urgent. Call me as soon as possible, no matter how late. You have my cell-phone number.”

  Molly carried the saucepan of hot soup to the sofa and set it on the coffee table. She mixed herself a drink and sat down. She felt completely numb. She should call her mother. She should touch base with Dani. She should find out the urgent stuff from Brad. Later. She’d call them all after she’d eaten. She took a sip of her drink and let her head tip back. What a long day this had been, and from the sound of Brad’s voice it wasn’t over yet. What could have come up? Could it have anything to do with the public meeting tomorrow night?

  Her thoughts drifted back to Steven, in spite of her resolve never to think about him again. Damn the man for being such a cynic. He was stubborn-headed and unswervable and he saw things one way: his own. She glanced at the phone. In spite of her anger with his obstinance, she wanted to call him so badly that her hand began to tremble. She lowered the glass and moaned aloud, “What would I say to him?”

  A heavy knock at her door startled her. She wasn’t feeling the least bit sociable, but she pushed wearily off the sofa and, carrying her drink, walked to the door and slid back the dead bolt. It never occurred to her to ask who it was, but as she swung the door inward a greater force pushed it hard against her and she staggered back with a cry of alarm, followed by a gasp of surprise. Ken Manning stood in her doorway. He appeared uncharacteristically disheveled and his eyes had a narrow glitter that put her instantly on guard. “Mr. Manning,” she said, gathering her startled wits. “What are you doing here?”

  “We need to talk,” he replied, closing the door deliberately behind him, a sinister move that immediately caused Molly to retreat several steps but not before she caught a strong whiff of alcohol.

  “It’s late and I’m very tired. Can’t this wait until morning?” Molly’s initial surprise was rapidly being replaced by feelings of vulnerability and fear. Manning’s eyes were hostile and his body language menacing.

  “No, it can’t,” he said. He was standing in the same spot but the impression he gave was that he was advancing somehow, and Molly took another step back. Her level of anxiety had risen to the point where she no longer felt the pain in her muscles from that long and torturous horseback ride up Montana Mountain, but she tried to maintain a calm demeanor.

  “Mr. Manning, I think you should leave immediately. We’ll discuss this some other time.”

  “I’ve worked for Condor International for fifteen years,” he said. “Fifteen years of loyal service, and I’ll be damned if I let some two-bit woman lawyer ruin my reputation and cost me my job.” He took just one step as he spoke these words, but it was enough.

  “Get out,” Molly said. She lifted her drink as if to fling it at him and half of it spilled down her arm, as icy as the blood that ran through her veins. “I’m warning you. Leave now, or you’ll force me to call the police.”

  “You’re no threat to me,” he continued, taking another menacing step. “No more of a threat than that other flame of Young Bear’s. I have connections in high places….”

  Molly flung the glass at him but he dodged it easily, and, if anything, her action made things worse. He lunged toward her and she jumped back, bumping into the coffee table. In a flash she whirled, picked up the saucepan of hot soup, and flung it in his face. This time she didn’t miss, and while he wiped at his eyes with a bellow of pain and outrage, she flew past him, wrenched open the door and dashed into the hallway. She heard footsteps pounding up the stairs and came face-to-face with a wide-eyed Dani at the top of the stairwell.

  “Hurry!” she said, grabbing her friend’s hand and jerking her around to follow. “He’s right behind me!”

  Dani didn’t hesitate and when they reached the entry door to the apartments they were both running. They ran straight to Dani’s car and jumped in. Dani wasted no time pulling away from the curb.

  “Saints preserve me,” Molly said, slumping back in her seat and raising her hands to the sides of her face. “I can’t believe what just happened.”

  “Are you all right? What did just happen? Who was right behind us? And where on earth have you been for the past two days?”

  “Ken Manning just showed up at my apartment. He’d been drinking, and he was behaving in a threatening way, and…” Molly wrapped her arms around herself to try and stop her teeth from chattering as the adrenaline worked through her. “And so I threw my drink at him, followed it with a pot of hot soup, and that’s when you came on the scene.”

  Dani was visibly shocked. “My God, Molly. Why was he there? What did he say? Do you think he was trying to rape you?”

  Molly shook he
r head emphatically. “No. He was very angry. He wanted to hurt me, and I think it has something to do with his job. Could I borrow your phone?”

  Dani reached in her coat pocket and handed it to her. Molly was so rattled it took her several minutes to remember Brad’s cell-phone number. He answered on the second ring. “Molly,” he said when he recognized her voice. “Listen, Manning was fired today by Dehaviland himself, and I think Skelton might have inadvertently implied that you were behind it. I just wanted to warn you because Manning was pretty damn ugly when he showed up at the office this afternoon. He made quite a scene.”

  “I can believe that,” Molly replied. “He just made quite a scene at my apartment.”

  “He went to your place? Are you all right?” Dweeb that he was, Brad did sound genuinely concerned.

  “Yes. He was drunk and threatening, and when he wouldn’t leave, I left at a dead run. Could you do me a favor? Call the police and have them check my place out?”

  “I’ll do that right now. Where are you?”

  “With a friend who made a very timely appearance. I’m definitely not going back there tonight. I’ll see you at the office tomorrow.”

  Molly folded the little phone up and handed it back to Dani. “Thanks.” She slumped back in the seat and drew a deep, albeit shaky breath. “Look at me. I’m barefoot, half-dressed, and didn’t even get to eat my supper.”

  “Yeah,” Dani said. “That Ken Manning is definitely lacking in manners.”

  DANI TOOK HER TO THE HOUSE she and her boyfriend shared five miles outside of town. It was a rambling old place with a big, friendly kitchen and two golden retrievers whose quiet, devoted affections were just what Molly needed. That, and a strong drink, and a bowl of vegetarian chili heated in the microwave. Dani’s boyfriend, Jack Richards, was out of town. He was an airline pilot and was gone most of the time, or so it seemed to Molly, but he and Dani had been together for two years and seemed to have a good relationship.