Montana Standoff. Nadia Nichols

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СКАЧАТЬ glanced at his watch. “There’s a town meeting being held at seven tonight to discuss the proposed New Millennium mine on Madison Mountain. Are you familiar with that project?”

      “Somewhat,” he hedged, guessing what was to come.

      “We…that is, the citizens of Moose Horn…had hired Sam Blackmore to represent us at this meeting.”

      “He’s a good attorney,” Steven nodded, thinking that they’d come to get his opinion on their choice of representation. “Experienced. He’ll steer you in the right direction.”

      “Then, you haven’t heard?”

      Steven recognized the undertones of darkness in those four words and felt the weariness within him deepen. The day had been long, and it wasn’t over yet. “I’ve been gone all afternoon.”

      Brown shifted uneasily. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Sam was killed this morning in a single-car crash. He was coming down the access road on Madison Mountain when he lost control of his vehicle.”

      “Sam’s dead?”

      Brown nodded. “Was he a good friend of yours?”

      “I knew him.” Steven rubbed the back of his neck, stunned. He pictured Sam the way he’d last seen him, not three weeks ago, on the courthouse steps in Bozeman. Balding, overweight, kind brown eyes and a slow-spoken honesty that made people rethink their negative attitudes toward lawyers. They’d shaken hands and spoken briefly, then gone their separate ways. Sam had a wife and three grown children. “What caused the crash? Do the police know?”

      “I don’t know. They were still investigating the scene when Amy and I went up on the mountain. We couldn’t get anywhere near the site.”

      Steven dropped his hand, stared out across the valley. Wondered if Sam had felt any different when he got out of bed on the morning of his death. “Hard to believe.”

      “He was so nice,” the girl said. “He really cared about what was happening. And now…”

      “Condor International, the mining company that owns the New Millennium project, is sending their geologist to talk to us about the proposed mine,” Rob Brown explained. “It isn’t really an official meeting. It’s more of a courtesy on the part of the mining company, but we wanted to show them we meant business when we came out opposed to this mine. We thought the best way to do that was to hire a good lawyer. So we collected money, held bake sales and bottle drives, sold raffle tickets for a donated Hereford calf. We raised five hundred dollars and then we contacted Sam, who agreed to represent us.

      “We gave him all our information. He went up on the mountain several times himself in the past four weeks to see what was happening. I paid him the retainer just this morning and I also gave him all the water samples we’d taken from the area streams. I believe all of it was with him when he crashed his car.”

      “I see.” The great weariness mired Steven’s thoughts. He wanted nothing more than to go inside his peaceful little house and close the door. He wanted to tell these earnest people to go away and leave him alone. He wanted to hide away from the mean, ugly world. Sam Blackmore was dead. He’d died this morning, while Steven was readying himself for Leona’s wedding to a slick car salesman who had those hokey radio commercials….

      “So you need someone to speak for you at this meeting that’s being held in…” he glanced at his watch “…a little less than an hour, but you have no money. I suppose you asked around and somehow found out that I was the lowest-paid attorney in the state of Montana, so you staked out my house.”

      Brown fidgeted, his face flushing. “No. We called the Beartooth Alliance, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and the Rocky Mountain Conservancy. They all recommended you highly. They said you were good, that you were a fighter.”

      “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I no longer handle active environmental litigation. My fighting days ended two years ago. And besides the fact that I’ve given up litigating, I have little knowledge of this particular proposal. I’m familiar with the mining company you spoke of, but—”

      “Isn’t that enough for a start?” Amy asked. “Please, Mr. Young Bear. We’re desperate. I know the town of Moose Horn doesn’t matter to most of the people on this planet, but to us it’s a beautiful place. We live there and we love it, and we don’t want to see it destroyed by some greedy mining conglomerate.”

      Steven shook his head. “I’m sorry you wasted your time.”

      “But…”

      “You’ll be late for your meeting if you don’t leave right away.”

      Brown reached for Amy’s arm but she shrugged away from him, thin face determined, eyes fierce. “My mother left me her diamond engagement ring,” she said. “It’s two carats, pear cut. Blue. A beautiful stone. I’ve had it appraised and—”

      “No,” Steven said.

      “It’s worth a lot of money. I’ll sell it and you’ll have the fee you need. Name your price. Just please come to the meeting tonight. Please, Mr. Young Bear. This means so much to all of us. If you could only walk on that mountain, you’d understand the awful thing that’s about to happen to the entire area, and what it means—”

      “Does it mean more than your mother’s engagement ring?”

      “This fight is so much bigger than me,” she said without hesitation. “So much bigger than all of us.”

      Steven felt his resolve beginning to crumble. Ever since Mary Pretty Shield’s death, he had deliberately avoided the fights, avoided the risks, avoided the pain of failure. He’d rolled down his shirt sleeves, buttoned his cuffs and toed all the proper political lines. But he would never forget her, or what she stood for. When Amy Littlefield spoke almost the exact same words that Mary had spoken nearly two and a half years ago, it was as if Mary were reaching out from the grave, trying to remind him of what was really important in life.

      And there was this truth, too. It was his fate to back the underdogs. All of his life he would walk that path. He’d never be a rich attorney. It simply wasn’t meant to be.

      “I’ll go to the meeting, but on one condition,” he relented. “You keep your mother’s engagement ring.”

      Steven declined the offer of a lift to and from the meeting with Amy and Rob, preferring the privacy of his own vehicle, but he had rapidly fallen behind their Dodge sedan and given up trying to keep apace. He felt as though the entire world were rushing by him at breakneck speed, everyone in a hurry to get somewhere, everyone late for something…but what? What drove people to live their lives at such a frenzied pace? Where was the enjoyment in that?

      He admired the alpenglow that backlit the mountain range to the west, highlighting those last clear streaks of gold and vermilion before dusk coaxed the stars to shine down out of the night sky, and wondered if the wedding reception was over, if Jolly John and Leona had left for the airport and their trip to Hawaii. Seemed like everyone wanted to honeymoon in Hawaii. If he ever got married, he’d opt for Alaska, maybe. He’d like to see the salmon run by the thousands up some wild, unspoiled river, camp in the shadow of Denali, float a raft down the Yukon…

      He sighed and glanced at his watch. Ten minutes to seven. He was definitely going to be late.

      MOLLY СКАЧАТЬ