Cloud Waltzer

by Tory Cates

  It all had been a fairy tale, she kept reminding herself, the ball, the magic, festive air that pervaded the entire fiesta, the night of the tethered flight. She shook her head to rattle the images loose. None of it had been real, none of it could have been sustained in real life. Not her life. But the pounding of her blood as she remembered Archer lifting her off the floor of Cloud Waltzer’s basket that night, of her naked thighs wrapped around his waist, was all too real. Just as the feel of his flesh, so solid and unyielding beneath hers, within hers, had been real.

  She forced her attention back to the immediate present. As she looked out her car window a mirage seemed to have taken shape on the high, arid mesa that swept out far beyond her view. There, atop a sheer rock island several hundred feet higher than the surrounding plains, was what appeared to be the materialization of a village out of Don Quixote’s Spain. The bleached adobe homes were clustered together, one defiant clumping of humanity amidst the unbounded vastness of Nature rolling on endlessly in either direction.

  But it was no mirage, Meredith quickly corrected herself, remembering the guidebooks she’d devoured upon first coming to New Mexico. It was an ancient Indian pueblo called Acoma, “the Sky City,” because it sat on those towering cliffs above the valley floor which itself was well over six thousand feet in elevation. She vaguely remembered that the pueblo had been occupied since sometime in the tenth century. More clear was the memory that the bloodiest battle in New Mexico’s history had been fought there in 1599 between the Acomans and the invading Spaniards.

  The Indians had defied Spanish orders by withholding supplies and killing some soldiers. High on their rock perch, the Pueblos had believed themselves invulnerable to attack. After two days of fierce fighting, the Spaniards with their steel armor and explosive weapons conquered the Indians.

  She looked with new eyes on the land and the simple buildings that had weathered so much. Births, deaths, storms, wars, the coming of the white man, the passing of the old ways. And still they stood. The timelessness of the vista comforted her and placed her own sorrow in a different light. Certainly she ached for what could never be, for the love she could never share with Archer Hanson. But she too would endure. She hadn’t cut her ties with the world that had spawned her to wither away out here. She would not only endure, she swore, she would grow strong.

  Acoma Pueblo seemed to fade back into the high desert as Meredith sped toward Antonito, but she was still able to pick it out in her rearview mirror. She kept it in sight for as long as she could. When it disappeared altogether, she still clung to the determination it had forged within her. A new optimism percolated through her. She straightened her spine against the car seat and concentrated on the task that awaited her: the interviews at the mine.

  Her upbeat attitude acted like a tonic on her sluggish brain, clearing out the cobwebs that had been gumming up its functioning for the past two weeks. Once again she started feeling and thinking like a journalist. A flock of questions, all the tough questions she needed to ask to uncover how the mine operated and what Archer’s part in it was, came to roost in her newly uncluttered brain.

  She pulled her digital recorder out from the tote sack on the seat beside her and switched it on. Methodically, she began reciting the points she wanted to cover into the microphone. She could transcribe them before she stopped at the mine. She figured that she would probably be confined to a few showplaces and prevented from seeing anything of significance. She made up her mind that she wanted to see it all. Her diligence might annoy Archer; it might ultimately even embarrass him when her findings appeared in print. But if she were ever to be a person in her own right, she would have to stop being an emotional rag doll. She had to have her own inner compass set and pointing to true north at all times. Right now, she felt secure and happy with the direction she was following.

  She was surprised when a sign announcing the turn-off for Antonito appeared in front of her. The past sixty miles had passed without her even being aware of the distance. The road out to the mine was bordered on either side by high chain link fences that lent an ominous air to the approach. She was glad she’d phoned ahead to tell the mine foreman she was coming.

  She’d debated whether or not to warn anyone of her arrival, knowing that they would alert Archer and that he might forbid her to set foot on his property. But that hadn’t happened. The foreman had phoned back to confirm that he would be waiting for her the next morning. Looming in the distance was the cone of Mount Taylor, the peak that Archer had told her was sacred to the Indians. It seemed to hover directly above the mine.

  She stopped just outside the gate at the entrance to Antonito Mine to replay her questions, solidifying them in her mind. At the gate, the guard stopped her.

  “May I help you, ma’am?” He had the straight black hair and high cheekbones of the Navajo.

  “I have an appointment with Hatch Nelson,” Meredith answered.

  The guard pressed a button on the intercom system set up in his little hut and spoke into it. Meredith wondered whether the elaborate security was to keep the uranium in or protesters out. Would the gate close, barring her from entering?

  “Go right on in,” the guard welcomed her after confirming her appointment. “Headquarters is straight ahead. Just head toward Mount Taylor; it’ll look like you’re driving straight into it.”

  The conical peak grew larger as she approached. It seemed the mountain was reeling her in, pulling her toward it by a mysterious force. She topped a rise on the desolate road and gasped as she looked down on the other side. All feeling of desolation vanished. Beneath her was a sprawling operation. Impossibly huge, prehistoric-looking machines and chunky buildings with steam pluming over their roofs covered acres of land at the base of the mountain. It was so unexpected and so vast that Meredith had a hard time comprehending that one man, Archer Hanson, had brought it all into being.

  Headquarters for the Antonito mine was a small, functional, wood-frame structure dwarfed by the enormous metal buildings that surrounded it. The only thing noteworthy about the main office building was the cluster of Navajo men milling around in front of it. Suddenly, Meredith regretted having come. Though it was contrary to her every journalistic instinct, she really didn’t want to uncover Archer’s dirty secrets. The unhappy faces assured her that all was not well at Antonito. That the secrets did exist.

  Inside, a secretary buzzed Hatch Nelson, the mine foreman whom Meredith had seen the day she’d met Archer. He ambled out, his callused hand extended. From his grizzled gray hair to his scuffed boots, Nelson looked like a man who was always slightly dusty.

  “Pleased to meet you, Miss Tolliver. I’m Hatch Nelson.” His greeting was warm and open. It put Meredith on her guard. She wasn’t going to be charmed into glossing over her inspection of the mine. She stiffened in resistance to the transparent display.

  “Thank you for meeting with me, Mr. Nelson,” she said with a cordial firmness. “I’m looking forward to seeing all of the mine.” She stressed the word all.

  “You bet,” Nelson replied in a sprightly tone. “Archer said to give you free rein. Anything you want to investigate is yours for the asking.”

  Meredith tried to figure out what Archer’s strategy was.

  “I thought we’d start off with an underground tour,” he said, heading off toward a structure that housed an oversized elevator.

  The elevator ride seemed endless. It was like a balloon flight, only in reverse.

  “How far down are we going?” Meredith asked. She could feel the denseness of the earth closing in around her as they hummed down farther and farther.

  “I thought we’d have a look at the workstation at thirty-three hundred feet.”

  “Underground?” Meredith asked the obvious with her jaw dropped in disbelief.

  “That’s where they keep the uranium,” Nelson laughed.

  Meredith was finding it harder and harder to remain wary around the affable, easygoing man. She scribbled notes as he ran down
some facts and figures.

  “The uranium ore that we extract here is processed into a concentrate called yellowcake that has nothing to do with Betty Crocker.” He laughed easily at the well-worn joke. “Most of that is shipped out of state to be refined into metal and then fabricated into fuel rods for power plants.

  “We’re located in what is called the San Juan Basin. The basin covers an area almost the size of New England.”

  The big elevator shuddered to a halt.

  “Looks like we’re here. All ashore that’s going ashore.”

  They stepped into a vast excavation lit by a string of bare bulbs. It was cool and damp. Men in yellow slickers made bright spots of color in the gloom. Meredith was astounded by the level of activity. It was a beehive 3,300 feet beneath the surface of the earth.

  Nelson pointed out various miners and explained what they were doing. Meredith nodded, but didn’t jot down any notes. She wasn’t looking for technical data about uranium mining. She was looking for more parts to the puzzle that was Archer Hanson.

  The flash of a blowtorch illuminated the dark cavern. Sparks showered down on the asbestos-coated worker. Nelson explained what the man was doing, but Meredith paid scant attention. Unable to contain her real mission any longer, she blurted out, “What were those men doing at the main office? Protesting?”

  Nelson was taken aback by the suddenness and the ferocity of her question. “Yep,” he answered in his western drawl, “I suppose, in a way, you could say they was protesting. Protesting poverty and a dead-end future on the reservation. They’re job applicants, Miss Tolliver, and they come back day after day looking for work here.”

  Meredith was unprepared for such an answer; in her surprise, she warned Nelson, “You know I’m going to be asking those men myself when we get back up.”

  The leathery face crinkled into an expression of suppressed rage and Nelson stomped off toward the elevator. Stunned, Meredith paused for a moment before running after him. She had no intention of being abandoned in the bowels of the earth.

  The ride up was strained as Nelson visibly fought down his anger. Finally, in a voice tight with control, Nelson spoke. “Last person who ever called me a liar, Miss Tolliver, ended up in the hospital for a week. I wouldn’t lie for myself and I sure wouldn’t do it for Archer Hanson. Though I would do just about anything else on earth for that man. He ordered me not to tell you the big secret out here at Antonito, but you know what?”

  The gleam in Nelson’s eye made Meredith a little uncomfortable about being all alone with the man a couple thousand feet from daylight. “What?” she asked hesitantly.

  “I’m going to ignore his order and tell you anyway. You came out here with a whole bunch of ideas already set in your mind and you need to have them knocked over. So here’s the secret—Antonito has been operating in the red for just about five years now.”

  “Wha . . . ? But I’ve seen the annual reports,” Meredith babbled.

  “Doctored. Archer keeps the mine propped up with money from his development company. And do you want to know why?”

  Meredith nodded her head silently, wilting under the heat of Nelson’s obvious dislike for her.

  “For men like those you thought were protesters. There’s almost nothing else for them out here. Nothing except government handouts and some cheap wine to wash the humiliation down with. That’s why Archer keeps the mine running. He’ll go broke before he’ll take these jobs away from the men here. Even if it means playing out a big charade with them.”

  The hydraulic whir of the elevator seemed to grow to a deafening roar when Nelson fell silent. When he spoke again, it almost sounded as if he were saying the words more to himself than for Meredith’s benefit. “Archer and I had a big run-in a month or so ago. I told him that we’re losing too much here. That he needs to shut down. I’d already gone ahead and ordered a slowdown to cut back on our losses, but Archer, he wouldn’t hear of it. Got pretty riled up just at my suggesting it.”

  Meredith remembered the day she’d first met Archer, when she’d seen Nelson coming out of his office and had assumed that Archer had just ordered his foreman to stop the work slowdown that she had assumed was a labor protest.

  The elevator ground to a stop and the doors creaked open. She followed behind Nelson, trying to keep up with his lanky strides and falling behind. Outside headquarters, a Navajo man, his hair pulled back and bound in the traditional style, broke away from the crowd.

  “Hey, Mr. Nelson,” he hailed the foreman. “You think any jobs’ll be opening up soon?”

  “I’m sorry, Luther, but like I told you yesterday, we won’t be hiring again for a long time. When we do, I’ll post notices at the reservation.”

  The man’s shoulders slumped and he shuffled back to his companions, but none of them left.

  That confirmed Nelson’s story, leaving Meredith with an entirely new and even more perplexing set of questions. She ran to catch up with the mining foreman.

  “Mr. Nelson,” she said breathlessly. “Why? Why does he do it?”

  Nelson slowed his headlong retreat and turned to Meredith. He saw something in her face other than journalistic curiosity. Something other than a detached, professional interest. “Why do you want to know?”

  The answer was on her lips before it had time to form in her mind. Like a wild horse kept too long corralled, the truth broke free. “Because I love him.”

  Nelson stopped then and faced her square on. “You do, don’t you?” he asked, though the answer was already shining in her eyes. “All right, if that’s how things is, I’ll tell. But I guarantee you, young lady, if a word of this ever leaks out, a lawsuit’ll be the last of your worries. I personally will be the first. You understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes, yes,” Meredith muttered, unable to hide her eagerness.

  “Well, let me see . . . it was about twenty-some odd years ago, I first laid eyes on Archer. He was a tall, gangly kid. No more’n thirteen. I was working as foreman for old man Hanson on a gas field outside of Grants. Old Gunther sent Archer out to the military school there in Grants and told me to keep an eye on him. Just like the boy was another assignment.” Nelson paused and looked out on a landscape that was suddenly alive with memories nearly a quarter of a century old. He smiled to himself, then continued.

  “Never saw a boy so quiet. Not shy, mind you. When Archer had something to say, he’d say it, and say it loud. He just seemed all tied up in himself. Considering what the old man was like, I can understand why he was that way.”

  “Why? What was his father like?”

  “Hard.” Nelson spit the word out. “Hardest man I ever knew and he was twice as hard on Archer. Gunther never wanted a son, he wanted a business partner. That’s why he sent him out to that military school, to toughen him up.” Nelson chuckled.

  “But Archer, Archer wasn’t having any of it. He ran away from that school as soon as he could. Just lit out for the desert. Ended up on the reservation. I think he’d have ended up dead if he hadn’t. The Indians, I don’t know how to explain it, there was just a kinship there right from the beginning. The school would call me and I’d go out and collect Archer. Then he’d turn right around and run away again.

  “Maybe the Indians, since a lot of them had been shipped away to school, understood why a boy would run away. They never made a fuss over him. Just sort of treated him as one of their own. Let him be. That was the first time in his life that Archer had been around people who weren’t playing up to him or scared of him because of who his father was. They couldn’t have given two hoots who Gunther Hanson was. I guess that’s why, around them, the boy was finally able to find out who Archer Hanson was.

  “He never forgot them. From the time he first got started, he was looking for a way to pay it back to them. He found it with the uranium mine. For a while, she turned a tidy profit. But they just never worked out the problems with nuclear energy and demand has been slipping for a long time now. As soon as Archer realized what all
the problems were and the long-range implications, he started up his solar energy outfit. He’s trying to develop some kind of industry to replace the jobs here at the mine. But until he does that or goes broke trying, he’s keeping the mine open.”

  Meredith nodded, too overwhelmed to reply. She mumbled a sketchy farewell and an embarrassed apology to Nelson, then left. Her head was still spinning from all that she had discovered by the time she stumbled into her apartment late that evening. She fought to keep the personal revelations separate from the ones she could use in her story, but they kept meshing together. Why had Archer wanted to keep her from seeing the mine?

  She started to call, purely as a professional, to ask him that question. Before she could finish dialing the numbers, though, she replaced the receiver. Archer had told her not to call and she couldn’t, not even for the sake of the article. Besides, she had to admit to herself, it wouldn’t be for the article that she’d contact him. It would be for herself. All that was pertinent to what she was writing was that the mine at Antonito existed as it did. Why Archer might have wanted to keep its operation a secret was not relevant to anything other than her tortured feelings for him.

  She had procrastinated long enough. Her deadline was now bearing down on her with an ineluctable immediacy. She had no time for any further research. She had to begin writing. When Meredith sat down with her laptop, it was with an undeviating will to work. She would get this profile done and it would be the best piece she’d ever done. She opened a new document and was confronted with the most terrifying sight a writer must face—a blank sheet of paper. Fortunately, on the long drive home, she’d blocked out a lead and decided on the tone and voice she would adopt for the profile. With her notes arranged by her side, she arched her fingers over the keyboard and began.