The Thunder Keeper

by Margaret Coel

  “I’m okay,” she managed. She made herself take a long breath. “Suppose Baider Industries located a diamond deposit at Bear Lake. What would be the next step?”

  Charlie Ferguson looked startled. “Bear Lake Valley? That would be highly controversial. They might want to keep it secret. Wouldn’t want tourists and rock hounds trampling the area. They should get a mineral lease and authorization, but they might not. They might want to see what they’d found first. Dig a prospect pit about twelve hundred feet deep and take out a few thousand pounds of rock. The average diamond yield is point-zero-five carats to seven carats per ton of rock. If the sample rocks showed gemstone-quality stones, they’d want to make a bulk commercial test with about ten thousand tons of rock. At some point they’d probably file for a mining permit.”

  “How much time are we talking about?”

  “An established mining company that knows the ropes—”

  “Like Baider Industries,” Vicky cut in.

  The man shrugged. “Let’s just say the process would be smooth.”

  “A mine could be operating before anyone realized what was going on?”

  “Possibly.”

  Unless someone like Vince Lewis decided to blow the whistle, Vicky was thinking. She turned back to the map: a blue-and-green blur with red, yellow, and white pins jumping out at her. After a moment she realized the professor had sat down, and she took her own chair.

  “How large is a diatreme?”

  “Anywhere from a few acres of surface area to a mile in diameter.”

  “How can I find the kimberlite pipe in Bear Lake Valley?” she said.

  Ferguson exhaled a long stream of air. “You could try panning for trace minerals downstream from the valley . . .” He hesitated. “You could hire a plane to fly over the valley and do photo imaging, the way DeBeers locates new deposits in the interior of Australia. A very expensive process, I might add.”

  Vicky shifted forward, a sense of excitement gathering inside her. “What about satellite imaging? Could satellite sensors detect a kimberlite pipe?”

  The professor shrugged. “Sensors can detect the color of your hair,” he said. “Problem lies in interpreting the data. It takes highly trained geologists. Some work in government labs. Others are at commercial satellite companies that sell the imaging data.”

  Vicky stood up and swung her bag over one shoulder. “You’ve been very helpful,” she said.

  “I’m afraid you’re on the wrong track.” Charlie Ferguson was on his feet next to her. “I’ve known Nathan Baider for years. If he found a new deposit in central Wyoming, he’d notify our office.”

  “You said a mining company would want to keep a new deposit secret.” Vicky kept her eyes on his.

  “From the public and other mining outfits,” the man said, “not from our office. It would be a significant find, the first pipe identified in the area. I can’t believe Nathan wouldn’t have let us know.”

  Vicky drew in a deep breath. “The pipe’s there,” she said after a moment. “I intend to prove it.”

  “How do you propose to do that?”

  “The same way an oil and gas company proved methane gas on the Navajo reservation.” She shook the man’s hand and thanked him again, ignoring the puzzled look that had come into his eyes.

  Vicky walked back across the campus, pulling her cell phone from her bag as she went and punching in the number for Jacob Hazen’s office. There was a roll of thunder in the distance, a speckle of rain. After she’d talked her way past the secretary—“Don’t-tell-me-Mr.-Hazen’s-in-a-meeting this is an emergency”—the voice of the Navajo lawyer burst through the line, as loud and clear as if he were in one of the buildings she was walking by.

  “Tell me, Jacob,” she said, launching into the reason for the call, marveling at the white habits she’d picked up, “who interpreted the satellite data on the new methane gas field?”

  There was a pause on the other end. “This have to do with the brief?”

  “The brief is at the appellate court,” she said, letting herself into the Bronco. Rain pecked at the windshield.

  The man’s sigh sounded like a gust of wind through a tunnel. “Geophysicist at Global Visions, the satellite company we bought the data from. Name is Dave Hendricks.”

  Vicky extracted a notepad and pen from her bag. Thunder came again, causing static on the line. She scribbled down the name of the company. Probably in New Mexico or Arizona, close to Navajo land.

  “They’re here in Denver,” the lawyer said, as if he’d tuned in to her thoughts. “Out at the tech center.”

  Denver. She glanced past the windshield at the black clouds in the north, over the reservation, and breathed a silent prayer of thanksgiving to the spirits that guarded the world. “Can you get me an appointment this afternoon?”

  “This afternoon?”

  “I can be there at four,” she said, checking the dashboard clock. It was a little after twelve.

  “What’s this about?”

  “About a mining company that’s going to destroy a sacred place.”

  “I don’t know, Vicky.” Another sigh mingled with the static. “A sacred place, you say?”

  “Bear Lake in central Wyoming.”

  “The place of the spirits,” the lawyer said after a pause. “Okay. I’ll ask Hendricks if he can help out. Don’t be late.”

  Vicky hit the end button, then dialed her firm. After a moment Laola was on the line. “Vicky Holden’s office.”

  “Any messages?”

  “Secretary of state faxed over a report. You’ll never guess who owns the Kimberly Mining Company.”

  “Baider Industries.”

  Silence. A second passed before Laola said, “Soon’s the report came in, I tried to call Father John, but he was out. I left a message. Oh, one more thing. Lucas called. Wanted to make sure dinner’s still on tonight.”

  Vicky told the secretary she’d see her tomorrow and pressed a couple of buttons. Lucas’s voice mail clicked on. “I’m running late, Lucas,” she said, cradling the phone into her shoulder, starting the engine and steering the Bronco into the traffic moving away from campus. She was always late with her children, she thought. Always behind someplace where she should have been.

  “It’ll be seven-thirty before I can get to the restaurant.” She paused. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  As she took the on-ramp to I-80, she saw the black sedan in the side mirror. The vehicle was coming up the ramp.

  She jammed down the gas pedal and passed a semi, then another, the Bronco shaking beneath her, her hands trembling on the rim of the steering wheel. Then she swung into the passing lane again. Another semi dropped behind, then a truck and sedan. The highway ran ahead. Another semi, as small as a child’s toy, was framed in the gray sky.

  She was flooring the gas pedal now, racing toward the semi, putting as much distance as she could between the Bronco and the black sedan behind her. She could hear the thunder in the distance.

  27

  The storm had broken loose, washing great sheets of water over the pickup as Father John drove north across the reservation. Thunder crashed overhead, followed by jagged flashes of lightning that lit up the air a moment before the haze closed in again. The pavement ahead shimmered in the headlights. Occasionally other headlights rose out of the haze, and another vehicle blurred past. He could barely make out the shadows of the foothills to the west, but to the east there was nothing. He might have been driving on the edge of the earth.

  Another truck passed, and the Toyota started to hydroplane, flying through the rain. He let up on the gas pedal until the tires gripped the pavement again.

  He realized the turnoff to Bear Lake had flashed outside his window, but he was already past. He hit the brakes. The Toyota skidded sideways before stopping broadside across the pavement. He pulled the steering wheel left and drove back, peering past the wipers for the dirt road into the mountains.

  It rose into the headlights. He slo
wed for the turn and started winding up a narrow, muddy path. The rear wheels spun sideways, then found a purchase that sent the Toyota plunging ahead, pine branches raking the sides. There were fresh tracks—deep impressions filled with water. Wentworth’s SUV, he thought.

  The road curved through a half circle and emerged into the mountain valley, with scrub brush and willows bent under the rain. The lake had to be close. He slowed down to get his bearings. After a moment he saw the gray surface of the lake rising to meet the rain.

  He followed the road around the shoreline and stopped near the clump of willows where he’d parked a few days ago. There was no sign of the SUV. He hesitated. He could be wrong. Wentworth and Delaney could have taken their captives somewhere else; there were hundreds of miles of open spaces around. They could be anywhere.

  He didn’t think so. They were here. It was the logical place.

  The moment he turned off the headlights, he was enveloped in the gray haze. He found a flashlight under the seat. Dead. He knocked it against the palm of his hand until it sprang to life and sent a thin thread of light flickering over the windshield and dashboard. Then he got out, pulled his cowboy hat forward, and started through the willows, flashing the light about, searching for the footpath to the cliffs lost in the clouds above.

  The light shone over something white in the branches. He pulled them aside. Tire tracks through the sodden underbrush led to the white SUV. A few feet ahead was the opening in the brush where the path started.

  Rain beat against his jacket and ran off the brim of his hat as he started up the path. The flashlight cast a thin column of light ahead. He followed the footprints in the mud—different-sized prints overlapping one another. Ahead, the smaller prints slid into a flattened area near the trees. Ali must have fallen. Fallen and been dragged back to her feet. The small prints loped from side to side, as if the girl had been stumbling.

  Let me get there in time, he prayed. He was half jogging now, pounding his boots hard into the slippery mud. He would have a chance with Delaney, he tried to convince himself. The man retained a semblance of morality, a sense of right and wrong that had driven him to the confessional. He did not want to kill again. But the boss—Wentworth—was a cold-blooded killer. It was Delaney he would have to appeal to. And Delaney was logical.

  The thunder sounded like tanks rumbling through the sky. Lightning turned the air white and sent a charge through the earth that he could feel reverberating inside him. He was in an opening, with the trees falling away, when the lightning flashed again. For the briefest moment he saw the petroglyph shining on the cliff above—human looking, eyes all-seeing, hands raised in benediction. He was not alone. The spirits were here, the messengers of the Creator.

  He climbed faster, light from the flashlight bouncing ahead. With every flash of lightning, he searched the cliffs above for the ledge, for some movement, some sign of the two men and their captives. There was nothing, only the petroglyph urging him onward.

  He started up the boulder field, the climb steeper now, hand over hand. He jammed the flashlight into his jacket pocket and grabbed blindly at the rain-slicked boulders, depending on the lightning to see. His boots slipped backward, and a large rock came loose under his hand. For a moment he thought the boulder field would start rolling downhill, carrying him along.

  Suddenly he saw a light in the rain above. He kept climbing, moving slowly now, feeling the way, trying to catch his breath as he pushed on. His chest felt tight, his throat constricted. The ledge was a few feet above. He pulled himself up onto a narrow path, keeping one hand on the flat face of the cliff for balance. Below, the mountainside dropped into the darkness.

  The thunder came again, like a blast of dynamite that made the cliff tremble beneath his hand. In the lightning that followed, he made out three figures on the ledge. The petroglyph above was chalk white.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the shadow lunging at him. Instinctively he backed into the cliff. The sharp edges of rock stabbed through his jacket and into his skin. When the blow came, it was like an explosion inside his head.

  There was an instant, no more, when his whole consciousness collapsed into pain that ran like a river down his spine. He felt his legs dissolving beneath him, and he clawed at the face of the cliff to stay upright in the darkness closing around.

  28

  It was quitting time at the Denver Tech Center. Techies in jeans and khakis, a few managers in shirts and ties, poured from the glass-and-concrete buildings, down the walkways that curved through manicured lawns. Vicky spotted the sign for Global Vision and parked in the lot.

  She rode the glass-enclosed elevator to the tenth floor and stepped out into a carpeted reception area with windows that curved around the periphery like the cockpit of a spaceship. Beyond the windows, the clouds seemed close enough to touch.

  “May I help you?” A young woman with long, dark hair that hung down the front of her white blouse looked up from a computer screen.

  “I have an appointment with Dr. Hendricks.” Vicky handed her business card across the desk.

  “He’s expecting you.” The woman gave her a welcoming smile and lifted the phone. “Ms. Holden to see you,” she said into the receiver. Another smile as she set the phone into place.

  “Ms. Holden?”

  Vicky swung around. A slim man in his mid-thirties, about six feet tall, dressed in khakis and a yellow polo shirt, came toward her, hand extended. His palm was rough against hers, like the palms of men who spent time outdoors.

  “Come on back.” He waved her through a doorway and into a large room filled with cubicles. “Here we are.” A hand shot out at her side and ushered her into a cubicle on the right.

  It was small: a couple of chairs, bookcases crammed with books and cartons, a desk in front of the window. An outsized computer monitor took up most of the desk’s surface.

  “Make yourself at home.” He pulled a chair over to the edge of the desk and dropped into the other chair in front of the monitor. “Jacob tells me you’re looking into the possibility of diamond deposits in the Bear Lake Valley,” he said. “Wonderful place.” His expression took on a faraway look. “Spent a couple weeks hiking up there two years ago, looking at the petroglyphs. You can sense something special about the place. Be a shame to see the valley ruined by a mine.”

  “My people won’t let it happen.” Vicky felt the beginning of trust for this white man.

  “Arapahos.”

  She nodded.

  He turned to the computer and began clicking the mouse. A haze of gray, blue, and green flowed onto the screen, like an impressionistic painting taking shape. “You’re seeing a bird’s-eye view of Wyoming,” he said, his gaze on the colors that dissolved and re-formed. “From about four hundred miles above the earth’s surface. There are the Wind River mountains below the cloud cover.” He pointed to the knobs of white poking through the grayness. “Okay, now we’re closing in on the central part of the state. I’m going to bring it up.”

  She was looking down on the Wind River mountains: the snow covering the high, treeless peaks, the sharp definition of cliffs, the rivers threading the area. A tiny truck was on a road. Ranch buildings, trucks, and cars scattered about a green meadow, like miniature blocks.

  Slowly the image began moving eastward over the valley itself. They were skimming the tops of the junipers and pinons, swooping overhead like the eagles that guarded the area. She could see the jagged cliffs and Bear Lake nestled at the base of the slopes. “I don’t see the petroglyphs,” she said.

  “They’re here.” The image stopped on the cliffs above the lake. “We’re looking straight down, so we can’t pick up the vertical images on the face of the cliffs.”

  After a moment she heard herself telling the scientist that the valley was a holy place where the spirits had chosen to live on the earth.

  “I believe it,” he said, moving the mouse. “Now let’s go prospecting.” The view was changing. The mountain slopes and pine trees
gave way to meadows carpeted in grasses.

  Vicky held her breath. Suppose there was no pipe. Her theory would collapse. Nothing about the deaths of Vince and Jana Lewis would make sense.

  “Bingo,” Hendricks said. “Here it is.” He pointed to an open park. “Kimberlites are marked by vegetation anomalies. No trees in the area, and noticeably higher stands of grass, which makes the pipe susceptible to remote sensing. Also, notice the bluish earth caused by the erosion of the rocks.”

  There was a clicking sound, and the image was magnified. Through the brush and grass, Vicky could see the large bluish circle in the earth. The circle was enclosed by dark rocks, so different from the red-and-brown boulders in the area and the pink sandstone cliffs above.

  “A kimberlite pipe,” Hendricks said. “Formed from molten lava thrust up four hundred million years ago. Brought diamonds close to the surface, where human beings, real Johnny-come-latelies on the earth, found the sparkling nuggets and decided they’d look good on their bodies. Imagine. People walking around with billion-year-old rocks on their fingers.” He glanced at her left hand, then looked away.

  “Are there other pipes in the valley?” she said.

  “We’ll see.” He turned back to the screen. Fifteen, twenty minutes passed. The scientist was quiet, immersed in the changing images.

  “Don’t find any,” he said finally. “Doesn’t mean they’re not there. It’d take a lot of time to examine the data more closely.”

  The kimberlite pipe he’d found flashed back onto the screen. “Look at that.” He jabbed a finger at what looked like a disturbed area in a section of the black rock. “Somebody’s been working this pipe. Probably taking test samples of ore.”

  Vicky could feel her heart speed up. “What’s the exact location?”

  “Exact coordinates, here we come.” Another click-click. Numbers appeared on the screen.

  “How far is the pipe from the main road?”

  Hendricks studied the numbers. “I’d say about four miles in a straight line north of the big petroglyph on the cliff. I’ll print it for you.” He clicked the mouse. A whirring sound started somewhere down the corridor.