by James Hunt
“Won’t know until we can get in there and see what the malfunction was, but I’m putting my money on a pressure pocket the equipment didn’t catch.” Scott took a step back, giving Jake a look up and down. “That was some real cowboy shit, Sheriff. I didn’t realize they grew ’em this big in North Dakota.”
Jake examined his hands and checked his arms and face in the reflection of the ambulance’s window for any burns that he couldn’t feel. Aside from flush-red cheeks and sweat, he was fine. The tension in his muscles eased. “That man I pulled out. Who was he?”
“Rick Knox.” Scott shook his head. “Poor bastard. That’ll be the last we see of him.” He turned to leave, and after a few steps he looked back to Jake, a smile creeping up the side of his face. “Oh, and Sheriff. I look forward to those warrants.”
Jake watched Scott join the cluster of workers that had gathered on the perimeter of where the fire crew had made their stand. Small streams battled the blazing inferno, its raw heat and power more than the hoses could handle. That was what they were all up against. That was what his sister was trying to stop.
“Sheriff.” The dispatcher’s voice crackled over the radio on his shoulder. “You there, Sheriff?”
“Go ahead, Jackie.”
“You need to get to your sister’s house.”
6
Lena walked the empty halls of the high school, passing lockers and classrooms where half the students inside had dozed off, their attention span lacking the vigor needed to tackle their subjects. She stepped inside the administration office and saw Gwen sitting two seats from another girl. Both teens were disheveled, and blood oozed from cuts on their lips.
Gwen eyed her mother when she entered, but then quickly lowered her head, and before Lena got in a word the principal stepped out of her office. “Mrs. Hayes? Please, come inside.”
Lena took a seat in one of the two chairs as the door closed behind her. The principal sat in her chair across the desk and folded her hands together. “I know you’re aware of our school’s zero-tolerance policy on violence.”
“I’m aware, Samantha. I receive the newsletters.”
“Has Gwen spoken to you at all about what’s been happening with her at school?”
Aside from the occasional poor grade, Gwen had been a good student, despite the angst-ridden mood when she was home. But the truth was, Lena knew nothing about her daughter’s life anymore. “She hasn’t mentioned anything.”
The principal reached into the bottom drawer of her desk and pulled out a thick ream of files. “This is every student with a parent that works for New Energy Incorporated.” The stack was nearly a foot high. “Over one hundred students, Mrs. Hayes. And what do you think they’ve been talking about around the dinner table for the past few months?”
“Are you telling me the fight happened because Gwen is being bullied? Because of the bill?” Lena turned uneasily in her chair, and groaned from the ache in her ribs. Through the small sliver of a window she saw Gwen with her wild hair and bloodied lip. Her first emotion was guilt. The second was anger. “How long has this been going on?”
“This is the first time it’s escalated to such violence, but I can tell you that the verbal abuse has been going on for the past month. Maybe more.” The principal pushed aside the files. “Mrs. Hayes, I understand your position in the community, everybody does, but—”
The door burst open, and a woman rushed inside. Her cheeks were red and her hair unkempt and frayed. She switched her glance between the principal and Lena and then pointed back to the girls. “What the hell is going on here?”
The principal stood, straightening out her blouse. “Mrs. Foreman, if you could have a seat—”
“I’m not sitting next to that bitch.” Becky Foreman snarled. It was the same look she used to testify on behalf of New Energy. The company for which her husband worked. She was one of many who denied allegations that the oil company had done anything wrong. A belief she still held today.
“Everyone just needs to sit down and talk about this.” The principal stood, spreading her arms in attempt to bring them together.
“And what do you want us to talk about? Becky raised her eyebrows, her tone condescending. “How this woman is trying to destroy this town and every family that lives in it?”
The brick wall that Lena had banged her head against for the past two years was just as stubborn as when she started. “That’s not what I’m trying to do, and that’s not what’s going to happen. We have data that says—”
“You don’t have shit!” Spit flew from Becky’s mouth, and her neck flushed red to match the pink of her cheeks and ears. “You have no idea what you’re doing to our families.”
“Neither do you!” The final thread of Lena’s patience snapped. “You have no idea of what’s happened to the families who’ve lost their husbands and fathers. Or the kids who’ve spent their childhood in the bed of a hospital, with machines hooked up to them like some kind of battery!” She clenched her fists and held back the urge to wrap her hands around the woman’s throat. “I swear to god, if I see your daughter touch mine again, or any other student in this place, the oil bill will be the least of your problems.”
Becky Foreman deflated, slinking back into the lobby, where she grabbed her daughter by the hand and led her out the door. Lena released the tension in her hands, uncurling her fingers slowly, and regained control of her breathing and gently palmed her ribs. “I’m taking my daughter home.”
“Mrs. Hayes.” The principal stepped around the desk but kept her distance. “Just remember that even though there were people who didn’t vote for you in the election, you still represent them as well.”
“I remember.” Too well most times. Lena gestured for Gwen to follow, and her daughter did so without question. They remained silent all the way to Janine’s car, which she had borrowed for the drive over. Once buckled in, Gwen kept her eyes locked onto the passing landscape, her arms crossed, the blood on her chin crusted and dry.
“Why didn’t you tell me this was happening?” Lena shook her head in disbelief. “You should have said something, Gwen.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered.”
“What are you talking about? Of course it would have mattered! You’re my daughter. If I don’t know you’re in trouble, then I can’t help you.”
“Just like you helped all those other families?” Gwen whipped her head around, her face scrunched into a frown. “All those kids who got sick? All those workers who got killed? What did you do for them, Mom? Oh, that’s right. Nothing.”
Lena slammed on the brakes, the seatbelt pulling tight against her chest. She shoved the shifter into park and rounded on her daughter. “Enough, Gwen! I can’t stop something if I don’t know it’s happening. You’re the one who’s choosing to shut me out. Not the other way around. And don’t you dare try and use those families as some type of an excuse that I was a bad mother. They were in real trouble, not wallowing in some worthless pit of self-despair.”
“That’s not what makes you a bad mother.” Gwen kept her eyes locked on Lena’s. “Locking your five your old daughter in her room while you got high does.”
And there it was. Lena knew it was only a matter of time before the past resurfaced. She thought she was prepared. She wasn’t. “You’re right, Gwen. That does make me a bad mother.” She placed her hand on Gwen’s shoulder, but pulled away when her daughter flinched. “You have a right to hate me for that. But if you hang onto that for too long, it will define you. And the soul can’t survive on hate alone.”
Lena caught her daughter’s reflection in the window. Every tear that fell was a stab in Lena’s heart. But it was a pain she had to endure. Gwen was angry, and Lena was the punching bag. She’d have to take it for a while, let her daughter work through it.
“I should have stayed with Dad,” Gwen said.
Lena shifted the car back into drive and put her foot on the gas. “That’s one decision I’m not sorry about. But I want you t
o understand something right here and now. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, that is more important to me than you and Kaley. Not my job, not some bill, nothing. There is no competition between you and the rest of the world in my eyes.” The phone in her pocket buzzed, and she saw Jake’s name flash on the screen. “Hey.”
“Lena, where are you?” Jake’s voice was quick and panicked.
“I just picked up Gwen from school. We’re on the highway headed back to the house.”
“Thank god.” A breath escaped his voice. “Listen, do not stop until you get here, you understand me? Are you good on gas?”
Lena checked the gauge, which was at half a tank. “Yeah, it’s fine. What the hell is going on?”
“It’s Mark. He’s hurt.”
Tires kicked up dirt and dust from the unpaved road that had worn through the open fields. Lena didn’t let up on the accelerator until she was in her front yard, then slammed on the brakes, the tires skidding across the grass. She exited the car, the engine still idling, and sprinted to the blockade of officers at the front door.
Blood covered the front porch steps, and Lena felt her heart sink to the pit of her stomach. “Mark!” Both Jake and his deputies turned at the sound of her voice, and Jake intercepted her before she could see her husband.
“He’s all right,” Jake said. “Just got roughed up a bit.” Lena jerked left and right, trying to look past and break free. “Hey,” Jake said, trying to calm her. “He’s fine. All right?”
Lena nodded, regaining control of her breathing, the day’s emotional roller coaster getting the better of her. “Where is he?”
“In the house. We have the paramedics looking at him.” Jake looked past her to Gwen, who had remained by the car, and he furrowed his brow. “Jesus Christ, what happened to her?”
“She got in a fight at school.” The town’s anger was reaching a tipping point, and Lena wasn’t sure how much more she, or her family, could endure. “Did he see who did it?” And that was when she finally noticed the black ash on her brother’s face, and the bloodshot eyes. She wiped her thumb across his forehead, smearing the dirt.
Jake lowered her hand. “There was an explosion at one of the New Energy rigs. I’m fine.”
“What the hell were you doing there?”
“Don’t worry about it. Listen, Mark said he didn’t recognize the guys that roughed him up. Though he did give us a description of their truck. Brown and white. Looked like it had been in a wreck.”
“Believe me now?”
“I never said I didn’t.”
When Lena stepped inside she saw Mark at the kitchen table, a paramedic bandaging a laceration on his forehead. Aside from the large cut, his left eye and bottom lip were swollen. The paramedic had removed Mark’s shirt, revealing bruises that circled his chest and back. When they made eye contact he pushed the paramedic aside and hobbled to her. “Thank god you’re all right.” They both winced when they embraced, and Lena cupped Mark’s cheeks.
“I could say the same for you.” Mark gestured over to the table, and the paramedic excused himself, giving them a moment alone. When she went to touch his forehead, he intercepted her hand before it got there. “I’m fine. Really.”
“This is getting out of control.” Lena collapsed in the chair and buried her face in her hands. Mark joined her, and she felt his hand on her shoulder.
“I told you I’m fine.”
Lena shook her head. “It’s not that.” She bit her lower lip. “Gwen got in a fight at school.”
“What? Why?”
“The same reason for your surprise visitors today.”
The color drained from Mark’s face. He looked the way she felt inside. Wincing, he stood. He limped the length of the kitchen, and then back to the table. “We need to pull the girls from school.”
“I know. Jake already has someone picking up Kaley.” Christ, Kaley. What if someone had gone after her? A sudden burst of rage flooded her veins and she slammed her fists onto the kitchen table. “All of this fearmongering bullshit!” Her knuckles popped, but when Mark placed his hand over hers she felt the tension ease.
Lena summoned the paramedic back inside to finish up with Mark and also had him take a look at Gwen. With the three of them at the kitchen table with their injuries, they looked more like a gang of marauders than a family.
Kaley’s arrival was the only high point of the night, and once everyone was patched up the paramedic left, and Jake joined them in the kitchen, still smelling of smoke. “You need to cancel the town hall tomorrow.”
“No,” Lena said. “They know they can’t win, and now they’ve resorted to violence to stop me. It won’t work.”
“Dammit, Lena!” Jake kicked the chair, his fists looking to punch anything in his path. “I can’t arrest every single employee that works for the oil company! And you and I both know they’ll be in full force at the vote. We don’t have the manpower to deal with a crowd that large, and if things go wrong—”
“Things have already gone wrong, Jake!” The legs on Lena’s chair scratched against the kitchen floor as she quickly stood. “Things went bad when the shale boom took off. And it went bad two years ago when the children of homes that were in close proximity to the underground water runoff of the drilling sites got sick. And it went worse last year when more kids got sick and the fatalities on the oil rig reached double digits!” She approached Jake and gripped her brother by the shoulders. “We lose this, and we’ve run out of options of how to fight them. And then it will only be a matter of time until more people are hurt.”
Jake uncurled his fists. He nodded. “Fine. But each of you will have a deputy with you at all times until the town hall is over. And that’s non-negotiable.”
“Fair enough.”
“We’ve put out an APB for the truck,” Jake said, returning to business. “If they were stupid enough to start doing this shit in broad daylight, then they couldn’t have gotten very far.”
“I need to head back into the office and finish everything for tomorrow,” Lena said.
“Can’t you just work from home?” Mark asked. “What’s at the office that you can’t do here?”
“I’m going over the case files from the lawsuit, see what I can use against the opposition.” Despite the reasoning, no one liked the decision, but Lena got her way regardless. The next order of business was handling security of the house. Two deputies would stay and watch the girls during the town hall.
Lena tried convincing Mark to stay to help keep the girls safe, but he wouldn’t budge on attending. With security handled, Jake walked out the door, and Lena followed him to the truck, making sure they were alone. “Did Kelly Coleman file a missing persons report with you today?”
Jake shifted uneasily. “No. Why?”
The body language was off-putting, and Lena knew her brother well enough that she struck a nerve. “She came to see me earlier. She mentioned that Reese worked a night shift the other day and never came home. She thought maybe he was in trouble, something about the old civil suit we filed two years ago.”
Jake gesticulated his movements. “Never heard anything about it.” His voice wavered nervously and wouldn’t look her in the eye.
The wheels turned, and Lena cocked her head to the side, giving him the same look their mother would have. “Are you sleeping with her?” The pause was for only a moment before he tried to deny it, but it was enough for Lena to know the truth. “What the hell are you thinking?”
“What the hell am I thinking?” Jake reached for the inside of his jacket and made sure everyone else was still inside before he pulled out the bag of meth. “What the hell are you thinking having this?”
The color drained from Lena’s face, her skin matching the whiteness of the cloth that covered the cuts on her cheek. “Where did you get that?”
Jake shoved the drugs back into his jacket. “From the glove compartment of your car.” He stepped close, the winds of guilt now blowing in her direction. “You looked
me in the eye last night after the wreck and said you weren’t using.”
“And I wasn’t.” She spit the words back at him, angrily, just as she did when during the years when she really was high. She felt the cold crawl of the addiction run up her spine. “I kept it to remind me of what it could do. To test me.” She could still smell it, the sweet stench of chemicals melting in the spoon. She felt the growing desire that clouded her mind from everything in the world except the greedy release of ecstasy that only a hit could unearth. And she never got tired of digging.
Jake shook his head. “What if one of the girls found this, or Mark? Hell, what if I had a deputy search the car instead of me?” He pounded his chest, his cheeks once again red with anger. “Don’t go back down that road.”
“I don’t plan on it.” Both of them took a moment to calm down before heading back inside. After Lena tucked Kaley into bed, she hitched a ride back into town with Jake.
Main Street was dark and empty when they arrived, and when she unlocked the door to her office Jake radioed Deputy Longwood to come over and keep watch. When Lena stepped through the door Janine pounced, bombarding her with questions and concerns, but after a few minutes of explanation Lena managed to sooth Janine’s worry, and the two got back to work.
The old files of the lawsuit had grown thick with dust, and every turned page of the ancient manifests filled Lena’s nose with the foggy haze of the past.
“Mrs. Hayes?” Deputy Longwood suddenly appeared in front of her desk. “There’s a Mr. Ken Lang outside.”
Lena watched Ken pace leisurely from the view of the window, his hands behind his back, gripping a thin manila folder. “You can let him in.”
The normal air of vanity that surrounded Ken had been replaced with a grit she hadn’t seen before. Without a word he slapped the folder on the desk and crossed his arms. “Renounce your bill, or that runs Friday morning in every newspaper in North Dakota.” Lena reached for the folder and opened the page, eyeing the documents closely. “Maybe even national syndicate if it picks up enough steam online.”
