by Joe Hart
He sighed and remembered how angry Jason had been after the two white men left. He had sworn and cursed their existence, while at the same time vowing to right this wrong against their people. Silent Fox had smiled and assured him that all would work out for the best. In one way or another, it always did. He had seen seventy-five summers come and go, and that was one truth that had yet to fail.
As he lit the burner of his small stove and placed the stew pot over the flame, he could hear the high whine of his grandson’s motorbike. In a few minutes, the whine became a low rumble and then stopped abruptly.
Joshua banged into the house without preamble and began yelling for the old man before the door was shut.
“I’m in the kitchen, Joshua,” Silent Fox said, just loud enough to be heard. The old man hoped that each example he set for his grandson would eventually sink into the young man’s thick skull. Joshua had his father’s will and his mother’s looks. It was a dangerous combination as far as Silent Fox was concerned, but he smiled nonetheless when the young man stomped into the room like a whirlwind.
“They’re almost ready to drill!” Joshua half yelled as he sat heavily in one of the two wooden chairs near the small kitchen table. The young man nearly vibrated with energy, and his dark eyes roamed over objects he had seen thousands of times, taking in each one as if it were an alien artifact.
“There must be thirty trucks and seventy men down in the valley! You should see the way they’re raping our land, Grandpa! It’s horrible! The white pigs. If this was earlier times, it would get dealt with exactly how it should!”
The old man let the younger rant without comment. He had a slightly bemused look on his face when he turned and leaned against the sink to watch his grandson angrily flail his hands about his head.
“They have no right! You said yourself that they were lying!”
“Yes, I did, and they are. But no matter, the old days when our people fought bravely and died for the land we stand on are gone. Everything is determined with paperwork these days, paperwork and talk. What will be, will be. We cannot change the will of the world. The warrior spirit lives on, but only in the hearts of lawyers and judges. These are the only warriors that hold weight anymore,” the old man said, turning back to the stove to stir the stew.
“What about the Pale Man?”
The words stopped Silent Fox, his hand with the spoon frozen over the stew pot. It was as if the words had mortared him in place and only his eyes were free to move. His own warning to the white men came rushing back, and a heavy feeling weighed on his shoulders. After a few moments, he licked his dry lips and turned to face the young man before him, who was so much like his own son that it was unnerving at times to look upon his proud features.
Joshua knew he had hit a nerve. His grandfather’s eyes had gone cold. Normally there was a flicker of humor or happiness behind the gray eyes, but with the mention of the legend, the fire had disappeared.
“The Pale Man is just a legend, Joshua, and I will not speak of it under this roof.”
“I know there’s truth to the stories. I’ve heard you tell the people during celebration. I’ve seen fear in your face when you say its name. The Pale Man could right the wrongs that have been done to us, it could save our people from the rape and humiliation that the whites are committing in the valley, I know—”
“You know nothing of what you speak!” Silent Fox roared, startling the younger man. The fire was burning behind his eyes again, but it was a cold flame without reason or confinement. Joshua could see that the old man was angry and afraid.
“It is legend, nothing more! Foolish tales told around fires to embolden ideals that have long since died. Ghost, smoke, and shadow are all you seek. I will have no more of this talk in my house! You can choose to abide or you can leave.”
Joshua sat motionless for a few moments before he pulled his feet under him, and then he stood from the chair. He towered over his grandfather by nearly four inches, though Silent Fox was not a small man. His dark eyes reflected his grandfather’s anger, and Silent Fox could see that he was no longer looking at a child. Joshua was a man.
“I’ll just grab a few things and go. I’d rather spend the night outside than within the house of a coward,” Joshua said through clenched teeth. The young man turned and left the kitchen quietly.
Silent Fox heard him rummaging in his room for a few minutes. Then Joshua strode past the doorway with a large backpack slung over one shoulder. A few minutes after the front door slammed shut, the old man heard the Yamaha come to life and scream away from the house. Silent Fox listened to the receding whine of the bike until it blended into the quiet of the house and was gone. He shook his head and blinked slowly before turning and stirring the stew, which was beginning to bubble.
The small fire crackled within the ring of low stones that contained it, jumping as though it longed to escape its confines and tear across the dry land alighting everything it came across.
The fire danced in Joshua’s eyes, which were like two miniature mirrors. He sat cross-legged, his hands cupping his knees. The small camp he had made looked like a crash site. There was a one-man tent and a bundle of firewood to his left, and his dirt bike stood like a sentry off to his right.
He could hear the occasional bang of pipes or the starting of an engine at the drilling site over the small rise near his camp. He had stood for an hour before dark watching the progress down below. With each erection of equipment on the valley’s floor, his anger grew until he couldn’t stand to watch any longer, and he had returned to his makeshift home for the night.
A pan of canned beans and bacon sat bubbling on a flat rock a few inches outside the fire ring, but Joshua made no move to eat his dinner. He was lost in the thoughts that cascaded through his mind like rain on the fields. Why did his grandfather seem so reluctant to stand up for himself and the members of their nation? Was he becoming infirm in his old age? Where had the spirit of the warrior that had once been so prevalent within his people gone?
Joshua knew he was somewhat of an oddity. There weren’t many youths still keen on the old ways. After high school most of his friends had moved off the reservation in search of colleges and jobs that didn’t hold with the ways of Nez Perce in the traditional sense. Joshua had always been enamored with the ceremonies, the stories, and the spiritualism that accompanied his heritage. He often felt utter disdain when he saw an old classmate return for a traditional celebration. He watched their polite smiles as they walked among the earlier generations, as if they were in a history museum and not surrounded by their family.
Joshua did realize one thing from the confrontation with his grandfather: there was some truth to the Pale Man legend. The fear in Silent Fox’s eyes had affirmed at least that much, and deep inside he knew that if he was to learn more, he would have to do so without his grandfather’s help.
Joshua’s reverie was broken when he heard several rocks slide against one another just outside the fire’s ring of light. He squinted in the direction of the sound and wondered absentmindedly if a bear had wandered close, tempted by the smell of his food cooking.
Soon the sound repeated, and then he heard more movement to his right. Joshua stood and searched the dancing darkness with his eyes, trying to spot movement or a shape that didn’t belong within the rough outcrops of rock and sage. His hand went to the sheathed knife that hung from his belt, and he drew the short blade that glittered in the firelight.
All at once several men stepped into the camp from different directions. Joshua counted four of them, all dressed in dark green fatigue pants and loose button-up shirts. Each man carried a short menacing-looking rifle that hung from a sling around his shoulder. They moved quietly and with purpose, and as they neared he could see that they all had smiles on their faces. A solidly built man wearing a white shirt stepped closer than the others, gazing at Joshua with a slight sneer as he surveyed the knife in the youth’s hand and the defiant look on his face.
“Nice c
amp you have here, my friend,” the man said silkily as he began to circle Joshua in a wide swath. The man looked at Joshua’s bike and the small tent, then at the beans, which were beginning to turn black near the fire. “Burnin’ your dinner, though,” the man drawled.
“You don’t have any business here. Leave,” Joshua said in what he hoped was a confident tone.
Laughter rippled through the men as they glanced around at one another. The man in the white shirt dipped his head, and when he raised it, he was smiling again.
“Actually, you don’t have any business here, little buddy. You’re on the private property of Emerson Industries. So get your shit packed up on your cute little bike over there, and get your brown ass down that mountainside.”
Joshua looked from one man to another. Their hard features seemed more angular in the dancing light, and his anger was suddenly upon him like a rogue wave.
“You fucking bastards! You’re on Nez Perce land, this isn’t your home! Fuck you!” Joshua punctuated the last two words by spitting across the fire on the man in the white shirt.
The reaction was immediate, like two volatile liquids being mixed in a beaker. The man in the white shirt leapt the fire and kicked out at Joshua’s hand that held his short knife. Joshua tried to pull the knife up in defense, but the man’s hard-soled boot caught his wrist in a vicious upward soccer kick that sent the small blade spinning off into the darkness. Just as Joshua tried to throw a punch at the man’s square jaw, the man whipped the butt of his rifle around and connected solidly with Joshua’s temple.
The young Nez Perce fell to the hard soil as though his feet had been cut from under him. He moaned into the dirt, and a wide cut had opened on the right side of his head.
“Fucking Indians never learn. We took your land once, and we’ll do it again,” Jones said, eliciting uproarious laughter from the other three men. “Go ahead, boys, show him why it’s not a good idea to mess around on other people’s property.”
Joshua tried to raise his head off the ground, but the first man wound up and landed a solid kick to his rib cage. Joshua heard several ribs snap and screamed in pain. Another kick came from the left and caught him in the hip. Joshua rolled onto his side and tried to cover his head, but the last thing he saw was the way the firelight reflected off the design on the bottom of the combat boot swinging toward his face.
Elliot Rydon sat at a small steel table that had been set up at the back of a large canvas tent. Halogen lights powered by a nearby generator shone down and illuminated the interior like spotlights on a stage. An air conditioner hummed in the corner, and a water cooler bubbled. Many reports and complex graphs were scattered across the desk in front of Elliot, who sat staring past his steepled hands deep in thought.
He felt like a general on the front lines of a battlefield, surrounded by men who were willing to give up their lives for him. The victory he sought was not peace but money, and the war was being waged with drills and pipes rather than mortars and missiles.
The tent flap was suddenly thrown aside and Jones ducked in, his eyes flashing in the bright lights.
“And where have you been? I needed the latest core samples an hour ago,” Elliot said.
Jones walked briskly across the tent and stopped before the table. The light fell and died on the black machine gun that hung heavily across his chest. Elliot eyed the other man and the gun with equal scrutiny before raising his eyebrows, awaiting the response.
“Just like you said, boss, had to go rough up a young brave a little while ago,” Jones answered.
Elliot sat up straighter, and his attention sharpened to a needle point. He narrowed his eyes at Jones. “What happened? Where?”
“Lyle saw some sort of light reflecting off a bluff on the west ridge, so we went up to investigate. Young native kid was camped out up there, just over the rise. Got lippy when we told him to leave, so we showed him the door. Don’t worry, boss, he won’t be an issue.”
Elliot studied the man on the other side of the desk, and for a moment wondered if at some point in the future he would have to have Jones handled. The man was dangerous, like a wily pit bull on a short leash. Elliot nodded almost imperceptibly.
“Good, maybe send a little message to his friends too. Anything else?”
“No, the rest of the perimeter is clear, and the guys are stationed at their posts. What’s the schedule looking like?”
Elliot sighed deeply and settled back into the uncomfortable chair. “We’re actually on time for drilling, should cut the surface layer no later than seven a.m., so that’s good. I still have the execs breathing down my neck over the land takeover. That Indian lawyer’s been making a fucking stink at the corporate office every day for a week. He’s trying to prove the documents are forged. Don’t they ever know when to quit?”
Jones smiled and recalled his own words not a half hour before.
“Anyway, once I get the latest core samples, I’m out of here. I’ll be back in the morning, and I’ll most likely stay tomorrow night to oversee production if these readouts are right.”
“Just out of curiosity, boss, how much oil is down there?”
Elliot smiled and his eyes narrowed once again. The mention of oil always brought a smile to his face. Oil—yes, there was oil here, a substantial amount. Enough to add another zero onto the quarterly report for Emerson Industries, but he didn’t give two solid-gold shits about the oil. Little did Jones—or for that matter, anyone at Emerson—know why he really had such an interest in this land.
The brine water in the natural underground spring that lay beneath their feet was really what he was after. The dirty water that would be pumped out of the hole that would be drilled tomorrow was what gave him shivers every time he thought about it—or more importantly, what was in the water. Lithium, millions and millions of pounds of lithium were floating in the water. He had discovered the deposit in the spring months ago, when the oil field had been under research by Emerson. There were a select few who knew what was in that water, and now they were all on his private payroll.
The water would be pumped away from the drill site and into large holding tanks that were now waiting in the dark nearly five hundred yards away. Once these tanks were full, they would be transported to a warehouse where an exchange would be made with a buyer. Emerson was paying him $1.6 million for the completion of the drilling project. He would make forty times that amount from the lithium.
“Lots of oil, my friend, lots and lots.”
Jones nodded and said good night as he stepped out of the tent and into the darkness. Elliot leaned back in his chair and smiled as he laced his hands behind his head. He saw hazy zeros lining up before his half-closed eyes.
Joshua’s eyes fluttered open, and he was surprised to find himself face-down on the hot soil. He coughed suddenly, and the taste of blood filled his mouth. He gagged and curled up as pain began to flow throughout his body. It radiated from his broken ribs and into his bruised extremities. Tears began flowing from his eyes as he attempted to sit upright. After a moment of straining, he sat up, leaning heavily on his right arm, which was planted away from his body like a lone tent peg. Nausea flooded his stomach, and his head spun with vertigo. He threw up onto the ground in front of him. The vomit was reddish brown, and he choked from the pain in his ribs. After steadying himself from being sick, he looked around.
His bike still was where he had left it, but his tent had been knocked down. From the looks of it, it had been cut to shreds by several blades. His small cooking pan was bent and lay in the dirt just outside the ring of stones, which were now cold.
Joshua slowly got to his feet and stood. Neither of his legs felt broken, only bruised, and he nearly fell backward as another wave of dizziness hit him full force like a small tsunami. He assumed he had a concussion, and after nearly a full minute of steadying himself, he began to take a few shaky steps toward the dirt bike, which now looked like it was a mile away.
“Get some more fucking pipes over here!
” Elliot yelled, as four men ran full tilt toward a pile of the steel tubes that lay several yards away. His voice was mostly lost in the din of equipment that was chugging and humming as the large drill rig bored through its sixtieth foot of soil.
Elliot stood watching the massive steel arm rotate in the hole that had been blasted earlier that morning. A three-inch hose ran from the top of the pivoting arm above the drill shaft down onto the ground near Elliot’s feet. Every so often he stepped lightly on the black hose and felt the pulse of the water coursing through the inside. Each time goose bumps would break out on his body. He smiled into the bright sunlight of the Idaho midday, his teeth flashing white in contrast to the dark sunglasses he wore.
Elliot stepped away from the drill site and began making his way back to his command tent, as he now thought of it. One of the foremen for the drilling crew was passing the other direction. Elliot stopped the man by raising his hand.
“How long till we hit the oil?” Elliot asked loud enough for the other man to hear.
“Not sure, sir, but I’d guess another six hours. We should be at nearly three hundred feet by then, so we’ll be close.”
Elliot nodded at this and dismissed the other man, and then continued on in the direction of his tent.
Jones was waiting for him when he stepped into the coolness of the canopy that blocked most of the sunlight. He let his eyes adjust for a moment, and then he carried on to sit behind the metal table where he had sat the night before.
“What can I do for you, my friend?” Elliot asked as he settled himself into the chair. He started going over reports that chronicled the drill team’s progress so far that morning.