by Thomas Zigal
“Mr. Marcus, that’s your copy to keep,” Metcalf said from across the room. He had gone to the bar to splash more ice in his drink. “My staff will be happy to provide you with any other paperwork you require. If you like, we can copy Ned’s correspondence with our foundation over the past two years.”
“Thank you, Mr. Metcalf,” Corky said. “I will take you up on that offer.”
Kurt asked Corky to accompany Hunter and Nathan back to the lobby. “Give me a few minutes alone with the new partner,” he said.
Two of the guards remained with Kurt in the suite. He wandered over to the couch and stood looking at the large painting of the cowboy mail-carrier trudging through deep snow. “A party just isn’t a party without our old friend Neal Staggs,” he said. “Where was he today, Arnold? Have they reassigned him already? That fella can’t keep a steady job, can he?”
“I’m a busy man, Muller. What’s on your mind?”
“Platinum,” Kurt said.
There was a long silence, and then Metcalf addressed the guards. “Wait outside the door, gentlemen. I’ll call if I need you.”
After they left, Kurt went to the bar and poured himself a Scotch on the rocks. Glenlivet 21. Nothing but the best for the Free West Legal Coalition. “I know about the South Africans,” he said. “I know that Ned didn’t want them messing around in his mines and threatened to poison the deal.” He swirled the ice in his glass. “But there was too much money up for grabs to let him do that, wasn’t there, Arnold?”
Metcalf sat behind his sprawling desk. He seemed worn down by the reading and loosened his tie. “Your speculations run to the melodramatic, my friend. But I will grant you this—there is money to be made,” he said. “Enough to send the kid to the best schools and provide him with a lifestyle beyond his wildest dreams. And there’s surely something in this for you too. Your persistence should be rewarded.”
Perhaps it wasn’t the reading that had produced this weary look. But something was troubling Arnold Metcalf. Something had happened to ring this entire floor in paranoia.
“An extra fifty grand a year can buy a lot of toys for you and your son, Muller. Why don’t you come to your senses and help me see this thing through? It doesn’t have to be a war. Everybody can walk away a winner.”
“I don’t know, Arnold. I hear you saying those same words to Ned right before you had his brains blown out.”
Metcalf’s expression tightened. “Ned was getting long of tooth and had become overwrought and irrational,” he said. “Still, we might have been able to work everything out had he not insisted on bringing in outside influences who do not share our philosophy. Our”—he paused, reflecting, tapping his fingertips together—“cultural values.”
Kurt smiled at him. “You’re talking about Indians, aren’t you?”
The attorney showed no reaction. “I know the kind of stock you come from, Muller. You and I, we speak the same language. We wouldn’t have had the misunderstandings that came between Ned Carr and me.” He dawdled with the Scotch glass in front of him. “Why don’t you take some time and reexamine your feelings about me and my organization? Consider the opportunities available. An arrangement like this could secure your son’s future. Don’t let anger be your guiding principle.”
Kurt sipped the expensive Scotch and smiled again. “Arnold, you’re a very good judge of character. I am from strong stock. I’ve got so much integrity and sound business sense I would be a fool to get involved with an organization that’s in trouble with the IRS.”
Metcalf stopped playing with his fingers. The statement had caused a sudden frown.
“You were right when you said I ought to learn more about the 501-c tax status,” Kurt said. “So I did some research on that very topic and guess what I discovered? The IRS insists that a public-interest firm like yours cannot take on a case that directly benefits someone on your board, or a major contributor to your cause. You aren’t allowed to provide insider profits to your sponsors, Arnold. But that’s what this platinum deal looks like to me. The Riebeeck Mining Corporation is one of your most loyal supporters. Last year they contributed a hundred thousand dollars to the Free West Legal Coalition. And you’ve used your pro bono services for Ned Carr to send a big strike their way.”
“You’re grasping at straws,” Metcalf said, taking a long drink of Scotch.
“Well, Arnold, that’s what broke the camel’s back, isn’t it?” He reached in his suit jacket and withdrew a folded document. “Here’s the letter from the IRS saying they intend to look into my allegations.” He had enlisted Meredith and her reading group to help him with the research. “I’ve found four cases on your docket where a ruling in your favor will benefit Free West patrons and members of your board.” He dropped the letter on Metcalf’s desk. “Expect a phone call from the regional director in Denver, a man named Marvin Rainwater. He seems real interested in your story. If I were you, I’d warm up the shredders, Arnold. It would be a damned shame if you lost your nonprofit status.”
He looked around the opulent suite. “You wouldn’t be able to run this place anymore, would you?”
Kurt crossed the room and stopped to retrieve his old leather briefcase lying on the conference table. “Marvin Rainwater,” he said, shaking his head. “You know, that almost sounds like an Indian name.”
When he opened the door to leave, the two VIProtex guards were waiting for him in the corridor. Tall, stern young men, their arms rippling with pumped-up muscle, thumbs latched in their gun belts. Suddenly a tiny red light went on in the back of Kurt’s head and he turned around, staring back at Metcalf across the long expanse of carpet. The man hadn’t moved from his chair. He was gazing numbly at the letter on his desk.
“You’ve heard from Jake Pfeil,” Kurt said.
Metcalf’s eyes shifted uncertainly. Enough to tell him it was true.
“I’ve known Jake a long time,” Kurt said. “He’s a fair man. If you didn’t have anything to do with his sister’s death, you don’t have anything to worry about.” He studied the two guards, the arrogant set of their bodies. “But if you did, Arnold, all the security in the world won’t stop him from killing you.”
Metcalf stood up. The blinds had been drawn across those magnificent glass walls and there was scant natural sunlight in the suite. Without his glasses the attorney’s eyes appeared dark and hollow. He looked like a marked man living out his days in a dingy hotel.
“So long, partner,” Kurt said as the two guards came forward to escort him away. “See you on the tour bus.”
Chapter fifty
Two hundred people showed up for Hunter’s going-away party on Aspen Mountain. At the boy’s request, McDonald’s catered the affair and provided a huge humming, air-filled Moon Walk for the kids to bounce around in. Despite the festive atmosphere and the many good friends gathered around the picnic tables, Kurt was in a melancholy mood and wandered away from the group to sit on a boulder and take in the expansive green silence of Annie Basin on the south side of the mountain. This was where he had stood with Kat and Randy only a month ago, surveying the forest with binoculars. Since that morning too much death and ill will had darkened Kurt’s spirit, and he wondered if there was anything in this world that could patch the hole in his own heart.
“Mind if I join you?”
Meg looked remarkably euphoric today, exhilarated by all the children frolicking about the picnic site, somersaulting in the Moon Walk. This was her idea of heaven.
“The Carrs are nice people, Kurt,” she said, sitting beside him on the boulder. “I just had a wonderful conversation with Susan.” Nathan’s wife. He had brought his family to Aspen to meet Hunter and see where Dad had grown up. “She said they intend to add on to the Carr cabin and come back for a month every summer. Maybe at Christmas to ski.”
Kurt watched Nathan’s children, Daniel and Claire, chase after Lennon in a game of tag. Kurt had spent the past few days with them and knew how fortunate Hunter was to be joining such a fine family.<
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“Is everything okay, Kurt? You’re awfully quiet today.”
He tried to smile but the effort seemed strained. “I know Hunter has to leave, but I feel bad for Lennon. For both of them. I guess I’m having trouble with all this loss.”
She stood up and stepped to the rock ledge, gazing out over the basin. A solitary hawk circled the fir forest below.
“This has got to be a hard time for you. Maybe you should talk with someone professional.”
He listened to the children shrieking, the burble of conversation. Talk was always inadequate.
“Were you in love with her?”
Ah, yes, love, Kat had once said to him. It makes fools of us all.
“Maybe,” he said. “I was beginning to recognize the signs.”
In the long ensuing silence he watched her wavy auburn hair ripple in the breeze and remembered the many years when it had fallen to the middle of her back, a frizzy luxurious mane. “You’re pretty serious about that Bhajan guy, aren’t you?” he said.
“We’re thinking about having a baby.”
It didn’t come as a surprise. Meg was forty-three, facing her limitations. She had always wanted another child. “Then I won’t be the only parent in a wheelchair at my kid’s high school graduation,” he said.
She smiled at his remark. “How do you think Lennon will feel about a new baby?”
“Excited. He’s been wanting a brother or sister for a long time now.”
She rolled her neck, a yoga exercise, and stared off into the hazy summer light. “And how about you?”
Struggling, he thought. Still struggling. “You’re a grown-up, Meg. You don’t need my permission to be happy.”
She nodded slowly and turned around, toeing at a loose rock, nudging it away with the edge of her hiking boot. “I understand you’re officially back on the job as the Pitkin County sheriff,” she said.
He sighed deeply. “Need the income. I owe the town of Carbondale five thousand dollars. Don’t ask why.”
He expected one of her lectures on the dangers of the job. Instead she said, “I’m proud of you for the way you’ve handled this whole horrible mess. I may have to revise my opinion of you as a cop.”
Muffin Brown blew a loud police whistle, capturing everyone’s attention. Nathan and Susan Carr began to wave and call in the picnickers scattered about the area.
“They’re opening gifts. Come on,” Meg said, taking his arm. “Let’s go see what kind of loot he’s getting.”
Hunter sat at a table piled with presents and tore into the wrappings, uncovering the mementos brought by townspeople. A silver aspen-leaf key chain, ski patches, local T-shirts, a Colorado refrigerator magnet, a Rockies baseball cap, a framed painting of the Roaring Fork River. Kurt and Lennon were giving him three polished stones for his rock collection. The children from his kindergarten class had made drawings of the school and pooled their money to buy a bat feeder. Watching Hunter grow more and more excited by the wonderful surprises, Kurt looked around for Lennon and saw that his son was standing next to Meg, caught up in the celebration as if it were his own. Several times they had discussed Hunter’s leaving, and Lennon was philosophical about it. His friend would come back every summer. They could talk on the phone, write letters when they learned to write better. Kurt marveled at the innocent optimism of children. They refused to believe that the people they loved could disappear from their lives.
Preoccupied with his brooding thoughts, he hadn’t noticed Jesse Nighthawk until the man emerged from the back of the crowd and pushed his way to the picnic table. Hunter was opening his last present but stopped abruptly when the imposing figure squatted down in front of him, a stranger wearing a black cowboy hat with a long feather stuck in the band. “Here ya go, young fella,” he said, handing the boy a leather pouch. “I brought you something from our people.”
Hunter stared at the man, then glanced sheepishly at Kurt for some explanation. “Go ahead and open it,” Kurt said.
Inside the pouch was an eagle-bone choker, identical to the one Jesse was wearing.
“Soon you will be making a long journey to another land, but I want you to always remember that you once roamed these mountains,” Jesse said, gently tying the choker around Hunter’s neck. “You are Weminuche Ute, the Blue Sky People. Your name is Echohawk. Go and make a sound that rings forever.”
Kurt looked over at Meg and Lennon, spooned together, watching the ceremony with a reverent awe.
Jesse Nighthawk dug his fingers into the earth and scooped out a handful of dirt. “This is your mother,” he said, showing Hunter the dark soil. He lifted the boy’s T-shirt and rubbed the dirt over his bare chest. “Carry her with you all the rest of your days.”
With this blessing Kurt’s heart lifted and he felt himself letting go.
Acknowledgments
My sincere gratitude to the writers whose books and articles have shed light on various aspects of this work, especially David Helvarg, John D. Leshy, Oliver Houck, Carl Deal, Rudolph C. Ryser, Nancy Wood, and Wilson Rockwell. Thanks to Don Stuber for introducing important material, to Doug Hattersley and Ben Ryberg for answering my questions, and to Holt Williamson for filling my mailbox with background information. And a great big abrazo to Paul Foreman, the last Renaissance man, who can speak with authority about hard-rock mining and Pliny the Elder in the same sentence.
About the Author
Thomas Zigal
Thomas Zigal is the author of the critically acclaimed Kurt Muller mystery series set in Aspen, Colorado, and the thriller The White League, set in New Orleans. He is a graduate of the Stanford Writing Program and has published short stories and book reviews in literary magazines and fiction anthologies for the past thirty years. He grew up on the Texas Gulf Coast and in Louisiana and now lives in Austin, Texas.