The Killdeer Connection

by Tom Swyers

  “When they do their fracking, they spill some wastewater and kill off acres and acres of land. They know how to clean up oil, but they don’t know how to clean up this toxic water. They call it brine—it’s extremely salty, and it’s laden with other chemicals, too. We don’t really know what it’s made from because they won’t say. They say the chemicals they use to frack are proprietary, and they aren’t required to disclose them. But this stuff kills the soil for good. Nothing grows on it ever again.

  “The government officials tell the oil company to haul the soil away, but I’m not sure they ever did. These guys keep up their fracking until they get their oil. Then they start flaring the gas. Not more than a few days after, Joseph’s three-year-old dog drops dead out in the field. Their cattle start getting sick. They develop infections; their legs swell, and they begin limping. Ten of them drop dead. The other cows quit producing milk for their calves, lose sixty to eighty pounds in a week. On top of it all, their tails start falling off. I ask you, how do tails just fall off cattle?”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “But it’s true. Then Hannah comes to see me. She’s been healthy her entire life. She walked outside to work on her garden, her pride and joy, and her lungs start to burn. I couldn’t figure out what was going on with her. I ran some tests, and she had high arsenic and germanium levels in her blood and urine. I ask myself, where did that come from?”

  “Fracking?”

  “I can’t think of another explanation. I mean, who knows what leaks from these wellheads? Then Joseph began noticing that he felt sick when he went outside of his house—he’d get lightheaded and dizzy and have trouble breathing. He came in to see me, and I couldn’t figure out what was going on with him, either. I told him he needed to get someone to test the air around his place. So he hired an environmental scientist. He spent thirteen grand of his own money and discovered benzene, methane, chloroform, butane, propane, toluene, and xylene in the air around his home. So he notified the EPA. They were slow to respond. They finally said it was too soon to draw any conclusions and more testing needed to be done.”

  “Let me guess. They said the science is still out.”

  “Exactly. But nobody is doing any science. There’s no government funding for any science. The government funds research on how to frack oil, but it doesn’t fund the impact of fracking on humans. People like the Salars are the science today. They are the human guinea pigs. There has to be enough Salars out there who will complain that they’re dying before the government might look into it. More likely, they might actually have to die before that happens.

  “By the time enough people die, the fracking boom might be over, and the government will say it’s too late. But it’s already too late for the Salars. They died within a few months of each other in 2010. They tried to sell their property and live somewhere else away from the oil fields. But nobody wanted to buy their gas chamber; no bank wanted any part of financing such a deal. When Harold figured this out, he volunteered to move them off their property, but they died before he could move them. He was real close to his parents. They were his best friends. I saw him at their funerals. It took a toll on him. That was part one of the tragedy.”

  “What happened to Harold’s wife?”

  “That’s part two. Sunya had been a caretaker for Harold’s parents when they got so sick, they needed help. Harold came out in the summers to take care of them, too, but he was still teaching at Columbia the rest of the year. Sunya volunteered to take care of them the rest of the time, starting in 2009. After Harold’s parents passed away, she returned with him to New York City. She died a few months later.”

  “Oh, my God, what did she die from?”

  “I don’t know for sure.”

  The tragedy of Harold’s life had now been revealed. Harold’s reputation, his chair at the university, his livelihood as a consultant—all had been accomplished in partnership with Big Oil, the same industry that had killed his parents, his wife, and maybe him, too. Pete McNeal had said that the medical examiner had found high levels of arsenic and germanium in Harold’s blood as well.

  David tried to put himself in Harold’s shoes for just a second. Sadness and loneliness ran through his veins. Harold was an only child, had no immediate family, and his parents, the people closest to him, had been killed by the very thing that Harold had embraced throughout his life. Suddenly, Harold’s letter to David, given to Jim Fletcher, screamed through his head: There’s a lot you don’t know about me. And that’s for your own good. It’s in everyone’s best interests not to know too much.

  Now he knew the secret, or at least he thought he did. Harold hadn’t wanted David or anyone to know about his past because the lawyers at Baxter & Chadwick would use his parents’ fracking experience to try and impeach him on the stand as an expert witness, to show his bias against Big Oil, to attack his credibility. Harold had been trying to make amends for what happened to his parents by helping Ben Prior salvage his life. In his letter, Harold had implored David to always follow the killdeer, and here he was in the City of Killdeer. David wondered if he had discovered the killdeer connection.

  “David, are you okay?” Russell asked.

  “I’m sorry . . . All of a sudden, I just felt a rush of sadness for Harold. I think about his smile, but now I know the torment it shielded. The oil . . . it caused so much pain for him. I never thought about it that way. I have a simple, naive view of oil. Crude means gasoline to me, and that’s a good thing because you need it to get places. But now I’m seeing another dimension to it. Its blackness has taken on a new meaning.”

  “Yes, I understand. When profit becomes the sole motivator in our lives, we end up destroying ourselves to line our pockets. Our hearts don’t beat like pump jacks on a wellhead. Our blood doesn’t move by a pipeline or a train. Understand that I’m half Mandan, an American Indian. I was raised to have a respect for the land, our Mother Earth. We don’t call her that for nothing. We depend on her to provide fertile soil to grow our crops and provide food for our cattle, our livestock. Some of us don’t live to make money. We live to be one with the land, to be one with one another, and that doesn’t stop at property lines or mineral rights. What I do to my land impacts others, even if they live miles and miles away. What you do to your land impacts me. We are all neighbors, brothers and sisters connected by the land, by Mother Earth. And our connection with the land doesn’t stop with us; it extends to families who come after us, after we are gone. The land is sacred. We cannot keep extracting things from her without incurring a price that will be paid for generations to come.

  “In Killdeer, we had a well blowout here in 2010. Two monitoring wells that screened the water in the aquifer showed the presence of brine and tert-butyl alcohol from fracking. The warning signs were everywhere, but the dollar signs ruled. A few people get high on meth, a few on heroin, but it seems most everyone gets high on oil. What’s more important to us? Oil or water? Without water, we don’t exist. We’ve existed without oil before, and we now have the technology to do so again. But we’re addicted to oil.”

  David sat there for a second, absorbing what Red Bear had said. It made sense, but something didn’t quite come together in his mind. “I see your point. Russell, you say you’re half American Indian?”

  “Yes, my father left the Fort Berthold reservation and married my mother, who was white. They settled in Killdeer.”

  “Did you know Harold and his family were Muslims?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I’m trying to figure something out about Harold and what’s going on in my life handling his estate and all.” In the back of his mind, he was thinking about Julius Moore and what he’d said about racism and hate crimes. “Did either of you face discrimination growing up?”

  Red Bear chuckled and shook his head. “No, not really. Understand that this place is beautiful, but it’s a harsh land, too. When I was growing up, people didn’t have any time for racism because most everyone was just trying
to survive. Our parents had no ambulances, no flight-for-life helicopters, no telephones, no electricity, and no propane, for that matter. We all learned to live together because we had to rely on one another to live.”

  “Do you know anyone who would want to see Harold dead?”

  “You know, when you said on the phone that he was killed, I thought long and hard about who might have done this. I don’t have a clue.”

  Just then, a nurse stuck her head in the office. “Dr. Red Bear, I’m sorry to disturb you, but you wanted me to tell you if the patients were backing up in the waiting room. There are four there now waiting to see you.”

  “Oh, okay. David, I’m afraid I have to get back to work. I need to see six patients per hour to pay the rent on this dump, make payroll, and take home something for myself and the family. Do you have someplace to stay tonight?”

  “I was going to try and get to Valley City today, but I think I’m going to have to take a nap in the car this afternoon if I’m going to make that trip.”

  “Why don’t you stay in Killdeer tonight? I’d have you over to my place, but the house is full. My in-laws had to move in because they could no longer afford the rent on their apartment. The cost of living around here has gone through the roof.”

  “I suppose the hotels are booked here, too.”

  “Yeah, especially during the workweek. But I’ve got an idea. You can bunk at the ambulance station across the street. I’m on the board of directors, so I can arrange it. How does that sound?”

  “It beats sleeping in the car.”

  Red Bear laughed. “Walmart?”

  “Yep.”

  “Figures. I’ll have my receptionist give you the key. Take the bunk farthest away from the garage, next to the outer wall. That’s the quietest place in the station.”

  “Sounds great.”

  “Maybe I can take you to breakfast tomorrow morning?”

  “I’d like that.”

  David and Red Bear parted ways. David got the key and then was outside standing on the sidewalk beneath the old water tower that had Killdeer painted on it in all caps. He was trying to figure out what to do with himself in town for the rest of the day. The Killdeer ambulance station was across the street. It was a new building with four bays painted the same schoolhouse red as David’s house. The sign in front of the building said ambulance calls were up 100 percent year-over-year, and volunteers were needed.

  David looked at the key in his hand. It was shiny gold and glistened in the sunlight, just like the copy Harold Salar had given him for his apartment. It was a déjà vu moment that convinced David he needed a beer and some food to hold it down.

  SIXTEEN

  David spent the afternoon waiting on an eighteen-dollar hamburger at the Cowboy Bar and Grill while nursing a series of room-temperature beers. He sat alone at the end of the bar. There was a big flat-screen TV mounted on the wall in back of the bartender’s area under some huge buffalo horns. The place had old black-and-white pictures of cowboys parading through town on their horses long before the oil trucks ruled. He was watching the regional newscast when his burger finally arrived. It tasted gamy. David wondered if the missing cattle tails that Dr. Red Bear had mentioned had turned up on his plate. He lost his appetite for beef and picked at the french fries.

  The waitresses and the barkeeps were busy talking about new job opportunities or trading oil-field rumors—who was making a killing and who had gotten themselves killed or injured. A young woman came in and sat beside David at the end of the bar to order lunch. She was slim, but her figure was lost in a gray hoodie and matching baggy sweatpants. When she pulled her hood down, bright-orange hair flowed over her shoulders. David couldn’t help but look down at her feet. She was wearing open-toed spike heels with her sweat suit, revealing perfectly pedicured toes tipped off with a Creamsicle-colored nail polish. He glanced at her profile while she looked at the TV screen. The woman had a cute button nose. Her cheeks and skin were smooth and glowing, which set her apart from most of the women David had seen in North Dakota so far. Most of them had complexions like saddle leather.

  On the screen, the television-news reporter was talking about some man who had been beaten to death with a pipe outside of a Williston strip club the night before.

  The woman looked at David. There was fear in her eyes. “I was there last night, you know.”

  “Really?” David said, not knowing what else to say.

  “Yes, I was on stage when it happened outside.” Her hands were trembling.

  David realized then that she was a dancer. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine now. I’m leaving, going to Las Vegas or someplace . . . anyplace else. I’ve done my last tour of duty here.” She turned her attention back to the TV.

  David saw that tears had welled up in the corners of her eyes. He felt sorry for her. “I guess it must have shaken you up. It would have gotten to me, too, for sure.” David thanked God he hadn’t gone to the bars in Williston last night. Stay out of bars. Stay out of jail.

  “That’s the thing,” she said to him. “One second I was giving him a lap dance; the next he was dead. They said his head split open like a watermelon. But all that didn’t bother me. I was more upset he hadn’t left me a bigger tip. That’s when I knew it was time to leave.”

  David nodded. Now, he was at a total loss for words. One part of him wanted to help. She was a pretty young woman in obvious distress. What guy wouldn’t want to help—especially after a few beers? But David hadn’t talked to single women in a bar since before he married Annie twenty-five years ago. Certainly, he had never talked to a stripper before. The other part of him didn’t want to end up trying to be this woman’s therapist. He was afraid he’d say the wrong thing, and it would set her off, landing him in trouble. So he kept nodding like a slightly drunk bobblehead.

  “I think I need to apologize,” she said. “I didn’t mean to dump on you. It’s just that I haven’t been able to talk to anyone about it.”

  David gave her comment a couple of nods until he realized he was getting dizzy, and he stopped. The beers were getting to him. It reminded him that he was never one who could hold his liquor, even if it was just beer. He looked into her exotic green eyes. “I’m sorry, but I’ve never been in that situation before. I don’t know what to say.”

  The woman looked at him and started laughing. “You mean you’ve never given a man a lap dance?”

  “No, no, of course not. I meant that I’ve never been with a person who was alive one minute and dead the next. I can’t imagine what that feels like.”

  Now it was the woman’s turn to nod. Then she looked at him. “Are you coming or going?” she asked.

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “Are you just coming to the oil fields, or are you leaving? You’re certainly not dressed like you belong here.”

  David was wearing a pair of khakis and a blue dress shirt. He didn’t like the idea that she was able to read him so easily. But then again, he figured that’s what she did for a living. “That’s the thing,” he said. “I don’t know if I’m coming or going. It’s day-to-day for me. Tomorrow I think I’m headed to Valley City.”

  “That’s funny,” she said, smiling at him. The pupils of her eyes were dilated, making her glance sideways seem inviting.

  He felt for a second like she was flirting with him. Then he looked in the mirror behind the bar directly in front of him. His hair was a mess. He had blood smudged down his cheek—or so he first thought, before realizing it was ketchup from his burger. He hadn’t showered, and he surely smelled of body odor and beer. While he wasn’t wearing Carhartt’s flame-resistant line of clothing like the oil workers, he was beginning to look and smell like an oilman. David realized then she wasn’t actually flirting with him. At best, she saw him as a potential business opportunity on the way out.

  David checked his watch. Annie was out of school by now. It was the first time they’d been separated for this long and by this much distance in a
long time. He finished up what he could manage to eat of the raunchy burger and fries. Stepping away from the bar, he tucked some bills to pay the tab plus tip under his beer glass. He wished the young woman well and said goodbye before pulling out his cell phone.

  He had no service, so he tapped into the bar’s Wi-Fi to Google the nearest cell-phone tower. Then he got in his Spark and drove northwest toward it.

  He knew he wasn’t in the best condition to drive, but it didn’t matter. He missed Annie with a pang as sharp as hunger. When he spotted a hill outside of town, he pulled over, put on his parka, and climbed it. When he got to the top, he had two bars and dialed home.

  “David, is that you?”

  “Yes, it’s me. Live from the back of beyond.”

  “Where are you? I can barely hear your voice through the static.”

  “Yeah, it’s the wind. I’m outside of Killdeer, North Dakota. I had to climb a hill to get a decent signal.”

  “Be careful. It’s so good to hear your voice.”

  “Yours, too. How was the first day of school?”

  “I’ve got a lot of adjustments to make. Teaching is quite different from working in human resources. But I like interacting with the kids. I feel like I’m making a difference.”

  “That’s great. I can’t tell you how proud I am of you.”

  “You’re a sweetheart for saying that. I really appreciate it.”

  “I hope one day I can make you proud of me.”

  “What are you talking about? I’m—”

  “Please don’t, Annie,” David said as his voice cracked. “My legal career has caused us nothing but heartache. There’s no security in what I’m doing, no stability. It seems all I do is take on more and more risk every day for the potential of earning less and less income. I’m so sorry. You should have married someone else . . . I’m really not good enough for you—”

  “Stop it, David. Don’t say those things. I made a vow to be with you for life.”