by Thomas Zigal
“About a year later I lost my job and was feeling pretty sorry for myself and started hanging out with an old army buddy in Basalt, another unemployed alcoholic, and one night we got fucked up and started a fight with some rednecks in a bar and your county boys stormed in and hauled us to the lockup in Aspen. Somehow I remembered Ned’s name and asked a deputy to call him for me, and I’ll be damn if the old man didn’t show up that night and chew my ass out for being a bonehead drunk. Ned was AA and recognized a loser when he saw one. He offered to post my bail if I would stick around and go to the meetings with him. Cookies and milk or a week in the calaboose.”
Kurt struggled to remember what he was doing fifteen years ago, when this was taking place. When the idea of running for Pitkin County sheriff would have seemed a twisted joke. “How long did you stay in Aspen?”
“About six months. I got with the program and dried out, and I’ve been sober ever since. Well, for the most part.” He raised the glass of diet Coke, his lined face softening into a small, tight grin. “Ned was a good man and treated me like a son, but Jesus, there was hell to pay. Every morning at daybreak he’d drag my carcass into the Lone Ute Mine and we’d blast and drill and muck all day till my hands were bloody and raw. I was indebted to him for turning my life around, but then there I was again, a drunken Injun breaking my back for the white man.” He shook his head, smiling at himself now, the luxury of time and distance. “I don’t regret what I learned about hardrock mining. But after working with Ned Carr for six months, I never wanted to step foot in another dark hole in the ground as long as I lived.”
“So that’s why you knew your way around the Lone Ute,” Kurt said.
Nighthawk nodded.
“What’s your read on the Ajax explosion?”
“It’s easy to short out blasting wire, make a spark. I could have done it myself.”
Maybe so, Kurt thought, but it wasn’t easy fooling an expert like Lorenzo Banks. “Who’s your leading suspect?”
Nighthawk’s dark eyes grew narrow and severe. “Same as yours,” he said. “Ain’t that why we’re both here?”
Kurt gazed past the aging club members eating salads at their patio tables to watch a groundskeeper blow leaves off the fairway with his power pack. The golfers and their audience were out there somewhere, the sixth or seventh hole by now, chasing little white balls into a cup. “What do you know about Chilcutt?” he asked.
Nighthawk squinted, surprised to hear the name. “Who the hell is Chilcutt?”
Kurt looked at him. “We must be on different pages,” he said. “I’m after Neal Staggs and his VIProtex operative, J.J. Chilcutt. Who are you after?”
Nighthawk stuffed the last morsel of sandwich into his mouth. “VIProtex are just the hatchet men, like the Pinkertons used to be,” he said. “Night Clubbers, that’s what they call them. A small gang of VIPro hit men taking care of business for the big ranchers and the energy companies. I’m pretty sure VIPro talent was hired to pull the trigger on a Navajo brother trying to stop the logging of grandfather trees in New Mexico. They’ve got access to sophisticated computer networks and all the surveillance toys a high-tech security company can buy. Which is why they’re so slick at locating targets, going in fast, and disappearing without a smell.”
If this was true, Kurt thought, the possibilities were endless. A timber corporation wants to eliminate an old enemy in the green movement, they use VIProtex Central to track her down and then call on their local operatives to ride up in the night and throw a firebomb through her window. VIProtex was providing a private army for the power brokers.
“But why would they want to kill an old miner?” Kurt said, thinking aloud, his mind groping through the options. Ned was an industry poster boy, as Corky Marcus had pointed out.
Nighthawk smiled at him. “Shouldn’t that be obvious, my friend?” he said. “Ned was going native.”
Kurt stared blankly at the man, still unable to plug in all the loose connections. Still struggling to believe that Ned had made such a deliberate decision.
“He’d spread his blanket with the Red Man,” Nighthawk said. “Some folks would consider him a traitor to his race.”
That was possible, Kurt thought. A warped allegiance at stake, a broken promise, a breach of faith. Something larger than money. You surely wouldn’t kill a man over the silver in those mines, not at $5.50 an ounce. But one thing was bothering Kurt: How did anyone know that Ned was negotiating such an arrangement with the Indians?
“If VIProtex does its killing for hire,” Kurt said, “who hired them to blow up Ned?” The Skicorp? he wondered. Had Lee Lamar become incensed that the Indians might obstruct the old lease agreement and shut down the black-diamond ski trails around Ajax Mine?
“If you don’t know the answer to that, how the hell did you end up here?” Nighthawk asked, somewhat confused by Kurt’s ignorance.
“I followed Staggs from Aspen,” Kurt said. “I’m going to nail him and Chilcutt on three or four counts, if I can make ’em stick. If there’s money behind them, I want to know who it is.”
Jesse Nighthawk wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin. A dark delight stirred behind those piercing eyes. “The VIPro boys are bootlicks. The dude you were shaking hands with out there”—he nodded toward the course—“is the one you want.”
Chapter thirty-five
Kurt adjusted the binoculars to get a clear look at the intense concentration on Arnold Metcalf’s face as he settled over his putt on the ninth green. “What can you tell me about him?” he asked, watching the tall man limber his wrists and eye the flag fifty feet from his spiked shoes.
“His law foundation has built up a fat endowment—a paper trail of write-off contributions from all the usual suspects,” Nighthawk said, snapping photographs with a telephoto lens. “Metcalf is so flush he can send hotshot lawyers to put out every green fire in the West, free of charge. When he needs muscle,” he said, “he calls on his pals at VIProtex.”
Nighthawk had led Kurt back to the woods, where the Jeep Wrangler was hidden, and then he’d driven them out here to the ninth hole, an unauthorized vehicle leaving tire tracks in the soft grass.
“Check out the Asians,” Nighthawk said, his shutter whirring.
Kurt moved his sight slowly, locating the two men near the outer skirt of the green. They were engaged in an animated discussion about how the shorter one should play the roll down the long smooth slope.
“The little Jap is Colonel Yukio Komatsu,” Nighthawk said, “a retired military man and a higher-up in the Church of World Unity. He’s one of Father Ke’s inner circle.”
“Father Ke?” Kurt said, lowering the binoculars. “You’re pulling my chain, right? Not the Father Ke.”
“Father Ke is a high-dollar contributor to the Free West cause,” Nighthawk said, peering through the camera. “He owns cattle ranches and fish hatcheries out here, and he’s a major stockholder in the Japanese auto cartel.”
Father Ke was the shady leader of a worldwide religious cult. His followers were the lost souls selling flowers on city street corners.
“If the greens succeed in shutting down wilderness and national forests to dirt bikes and four-wheelers,” Nighthawk said, “the Japanese manufacturers are going to take a beating in the billion-dollar rec market. They were the ones behind the National Recreational Trails Act in ninety-one, courtesy of our environmental president. Thirty mill a year, taxpayers’ tab, to cut new ORV trails for the yahoos.”
Kurt slowly scanned the golfers and caddies spread out around the green. “So this is what you do for SPIRITT?” he said. “Take pictures, collect data, eyeball the players.”
“You got it, hoss. I show up wherever Free West is throwing a party. Back at the home office they download my legwork into their big computer system and the magic begins. Business affiliations, board memberships, cross-references, name-and-photo makes, who’s in bed with who. When the time is right, we’ll turn it all over to the Justice Department.”
&
nbsp; “You have evidence they’re breaking the law?”
“It’ll happen,” Nighthawk said, clicking away. “Sooner or later these nimrods are gonna slip up and our lawyers will be all over them like flies on a dead dog. We’ll pop a Night Clubber for jamming somebody,” he said, glancing sideways at Kurt, “burning down a cabin, whatever. And then their ball game’s over.”
Kurt found Staggs conversing with a white-haired gentleman wearing sunglasses and one of those natty Scottish golf hats from the 1920s. “How did you happen to be in the Ashcroft woods last night,” he asked, “when the Pfeil cabin was firebombed?”
Nighthawk wandered away from the Jeep, stopping to frame the golfers from another angle. “Keeping an eye on my business partner,” he said.
Kurt lowered the binoculars again. He was slow to make the connection. “Hunter?” he said.
“Something happens to the boy,” Nighthawk said, “we’ll never get that mine thing straightened out.”
A feeling of dread suddenly overcame Kurt. “You think they’re after Hunter now?” he asked.
Nighthawk shrugged. “They got Ned, then they got Tyler,” he said. “Maybe somebody wants those mines real bad. The boy is the only one in their way.”
Kurt’s stomach dropped. He didn’t want to hear out loud the voice he’d been hearing in the back of his head. “Can I use your car phone?” he said, glancing into the Wrangler.
“Go ahead. I’ll send Pitkin County the bill.”
Kurt checked his watch. Well after three o’clock. The boys were out of school now, on their way back to Basalt. He phoned the Sheriff’s Department in Aspen and asked for Muffin Brown.
“Not a very good connection,” she complained. “Where are you, Kurt?”
“Colorado Springs. I’ll tell you about it later,” he said. “Just calling to make sure you have someone assigned to the boys.”
“Gervin and Miller on this shift,” she said. “They’re escorting Meg and the boys back to Basalt about now. Is something wrong?”
“I hope not,” he said, still pondering the possibility that one of their cops might be dirty. “We’ll talk when I get back. Make sure Hunter stays under protection around the clock.”
“Should I be worried, Kurt, or are you just being a paranoid father?”
He watched Jesse Nighthawk amble toward the green and drop to one knee, click click click. “Do you know if anybody in the department is moonlighting for VIProtex International?” he asked her.
“VIProtex?” she said. “The high-profile security people?”
“Right. They have an office in Aspen.”
“Not that I know of,” she said. “I would have heard.”
“Do me a favor, Muff, and check that out. Go through the personnel records. See if anyone’s ever worked for them.”
The phone line crackled. “Jesus, Kurt. At least give me a good reason I’m going to spend my day digging through a hundred pounds of ancient paperwork.”
“If there’s a bad cop mixed up in the Tyler Rutledge shooting,” he said, “chances are he’s got a VIProtex match. I’ll explain it when I get back.”
He latched the phone in place and walked over to where Nighthawk was squatting behind a scrub oak, changing the film in his camera.
“Did you notice the little dude wearing the funky hat?” he asked Kurt. “He’s an engineer with Riebeeck Mining.”
“The South Africans?”
“Yeah. They’re in South America now, too, and Canada. I’ve heard they’re looking over a piece in Montana.”
“Some serious foreign interest in this Free West Rebellion.”
Nighthawk looked up at him, closing one eye in a squint. “Birds of a feather. They do a lot of jawboning about property rights and the Fifth Amendment and the erosion of freedom,” he said, “but when the rubber hits the road, it all comes down to money. Whose stock is up, who’s losing their investment.”
Kurt smiled. “My, but you’re a cynical fellow. Aren’t you forgetting who this benefit is for?” he said. “Ranch relief, the family farmer. The little people squeezed out of their livelihood by the spotted owl.”
Nighthawk stood up, peered through his viewer. “I’d like to get in a plane and drop about eight million leaflets over every redneck trailer park in the West,” he said, “and show all the Gomers a bar chart of where their jobs are going. Machines are replacing thousands of them, and the rest is being shopped out to Mexico and Indonesia for one tenth the labor cost. The owl’s got nothing to do with it.”
Security had spotted the Wrangler. Two carts were now approaching, swift, soundless vehicles with yellow lights flashing on their roofs. Kurt could see uniformed men coordinating their strategy on walkie-talkies, dashing toward them with military haste. “We’ve got company,” he said.
Nighthawk raised his head from the viewer. “Fuck,” he said, his expression souring. “I was just getting warmed up. Ah, well.” He seemed resigned to such an outcome. This had no doubt happened before. “Enough pictures for one day. Time to go to the house.”
He trotted back to the Wrangler and swung his camera into the rear hold. “You coming, hoss?” he said, quickly firing up the engine.
The first cart was bearing down on them, a battery-powered whine. The two guards looked like hard-nosed Marine recruits patrolling a barbed-wire perimeter.
“You go ahead,” Kurt said, glancing over at the golfers. “I want to talk to Metcalf.”
“Yeah, right. Best of luck.” Nighthawk waved two fingers, his tires spinning. “Catch you on the flip-flop!”
Gunning for the woods, he plowed a pair of ugly ruts through the smooth carpet grass, damp sod spewing up behind the Wrangler. Kurt watched the security carts veer off after him, sparrows chasing the cunning falcon. Even if he stopped to change his oil they would never catch that man.
He walked down the hill to join the admiring audience. The tournament was over for the day and the participants loitered around the green, exchanging handshakes, reliving key moments along the course. He followed the TV camera crew as it moved in close, the reporter pulling Arnold Metcalf aside for his comments. Kurt hadn’t noticed the three weathered ranchers until Metcalf collared them from the crowd.
“These folks are what this is all about,” he smiled into the minicam lens. “Come on up here, gentlemen, and tell Channel Two what’s been happening to your families since the federal government started meddling in your business.”
The ranchers were shy men wearing cowboy hats and pearl-button dress shirts. It seemed unlikely that they had ever set foot on a golf course in their lives and they looked reluctant and uncomfortable in front of a camera. The reporter was having trouble getting them to take the bait.
“You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you, Muller?”
Neal Staggs was standing on one side of him, J.J. Chilcutt on the other.
“I don’t know, Staggs,” Kurt said, turning to regard them. “I’ve got this overwhelming urge to drop my drawers.”
Staggs removed his sun visor and wiped his face and neck with a towel hanging over his shoulder. The band had left a dark wet impression through his graying hair. He looked like he needed a cigarette. “What’s it going to take for you to leave Mr. Metcalf alone?” he asked.
Kurt watched the attorney forcing a laugh at something one of the ranchers had said, his long arms wrapped around the fellow as if they were old bronco busters from the rodeo circuit. The cowboy movie star had joined them now, and in his presence the ranchers were as giddy as schoolboys. Metcalf saw Kurt staring at him, and his camera smile quickly faded.
“A half hour of his time,” Kurt said. “Five o’clock. He can name the place.”
Chapter thirty-six
The Free West Legal Coalition occupied a large corner suite on the twentieth floor of a downtown office building, one of the few high-rises of that scale in Colorado Springs. The open reception area exuded a casual folksiness, the walls filled with traditional Western paintings, Remington and Russ
ell, wagon trains through dramatic gorges, lone Indian scouts gazing out over the endless prairie. But in spite of the ambient summer light, the lawyers themselves roamed furrow-browed down the corridors in their serious pursuits, self-important and loud, briefcases knocking at their knees. An amiable young secretary led Kurt back to Arnold Metcalf’s office, and on the way they passed the ranchers from the golf tournament, hats in hand, hair slicked flat with pomade, touring an arcade of bronze cowboy sculpture with a chatty young law clerk wearing a turquoise bolo tie.
Metcalf answered the door himself with a drink in his hand. He was dressed in the same sporty clothes he’d worn on the course. “Come in, Sheriff Muller,” he said. “I’ve had my girl pull together the Carr file. We usually require a little more lead time for these reviews, but I can see you’re a man in a hurry. And I certainly want to help your investigation any way I can. Ned Carr was a good friend.”
Neal Staggs was standing at the tinted glass wall that faced west toward snow-shrouded Pikes Peak and a blue cloudless sky blemished only by a thin white vapor trail. Staggs, too, had a drink in his hand.
“I think you two know each other,” Metcalf said.
Kurt nodded.
“Thanks for your help today, Neal. I’ll touch base with you later this evening,” Metcalf said. “Better ice that shoulder if you expect to catch the pros on the back nine.”
“I’ll stay if you need me,” Staggs said, eyeing Kurt with his usual distrust.
“The sheriff and I will be fine.” Smiling handsomely, Metcalf turned to Kurt. “Unless he intends to pull that revolver on me.”
Kurt glanced quickly at his suit jacket like a man checking his fly. The .45 was perfectly concealed.
Metcalf laughed at his confusion. “Don’t be alarmed, Sheriff. We make a sonic-wave readout of everyone who comes through reception. It’s just a precaution. You never know when some lunatic ecoterrorist might try to disrupt our work here.”