Arches Enemy. Scott Graham
truck stopped thumping after I called in what we found.”
“That was me,” the chief ranger responded. “Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened—the vibrations from the truck, the cold snap from the storm, the woman’s weight on the skinniest part of the arch. I called George Epson, regional operations manager for O&G Seismic, right away. He’s sick about it.”
Chuck muttered, “Sure he is.”
The corners of Sanford’s eyes constricted. “George is the guy you wanted to punch in the parking lot. The older one. He came out here with the front-end loader the instant I asked.”
“He doesn’t look much like a manager.”
“He was a heavy machinery operator for a lot of years before they moved him up. He still spends a lot of time in the field. He’s a good enough guy. He had his share of misgivings about the decision to move the truck to Yellow Cat Flat and pound so close to the arches.”
Chuck grunted. “But he did it anyway, didn’t he?”
“Easy for you to say. You work for yourself; you can decide which contracts to bid on and which to pass up. George is a lifelong local, one of the few left in Moab these days. He was raised here in the years after the uranium mines closed and before all the tourists showed up, when the town almost dried up and blew away. He’s made something of himself with O&G, keeping on with what put Moab on the map in the first place.”
“I don’t get it. The contract you hired me for is aimed at keeping southern Utah from being destroyed by oil and gas development, but you’re standing here defending the guy who’s doing the destroying.”
The chief ranger filled his cheeks with air and huffed. “I’m not going to get into this with you right now, Chuck. I came back here to get your story. I need to return to the site. I’ve still got a dead body to identify.”
“You mean,” Chuck said, holding Sanford’s gaze, “you’ve got a crime scene to investigate.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m merely stating the obvious. O&G Seismic killed that woman. In fact, your guy George Epson killed her. He’s the boss, you said so yourself.”
Sanford’s eyes flared, the red spots on his cheeks growing brighter. “When it comes to crimes, you have to have intent, as in criminal intent. From what I saw out there, if anyone had any criminal intent, it wasn’t O&G Seismic, it was the jogger herself. She’s the one who went out onto that arch, against every regulation in the book.”
“Try telling that to her family, or to the people of Moab.”
“She snuck into the park and went out onto the arch. She was a lawbreaker, willingly and with forethought.” Sanford stabbed the air with his finger for emphasis. “Now that’s what I call criminal intent.”
Janelle said, “The locals around here might consider her something else. They might consider her a martyr.”
Sanford stuck out his chest, looking like a stuffed penguin. “You honestly think she might have been out there on purpose, in the middle of the storm, waiting for the truck to start?”
“For all I know, she might’ve jumped up and down on the arch to try to make it break after the truck started thumping. You’re the one who said she was on the narrowest part when it fell.”
Sanford lifted his cap and ran his fingers through his gray hair. “I … I can’t believe …” he sputtered.
Chuck said, “If the O&G guy, George, was uncomfortable with the thumper truck’s work outside the park boundary, I have to figure pretty much everyone else in town has been concerned about it, too.”
“True,” Sanford admitted. He returned his cap to his head, pulling its bill down until it met his glasses.
“People react to stimuli in odd ways,” Chuck went on. “You just talked about people feeling special energy or whatever when they go out on the arches. For some of them, moving on from there to martyrdom might not be much of a stretch.”
Beneath the brim of his hat, a hard glint entered Sanford’s eyes. “Which brings us to one of the reasons you’re here.”
Chuck held his breath as the chief ranger continued.
“You told me you were interested in the contract because of a specific newcomer to Moab, someone who’s all about special energy—or, I should say, truly enlightened energy.”
Chuck grabbed the legs of his work jeans, his fingers digging into the thick cotton fabric. Sanford’s phone chimed. He pulled it from a Velcro-fastened holster at his waist and put it to his ear, raising a finger to Chuck and Janelle. As he listened, his hand, holding the phone, began to tremble.
“Okay, yes, thanks,” he said, ending the call. He lowered the phone, his hand still shaking, and looked up the trail toward the toppled arch.
“Bad news?” Chuck asked.
Sanford returned his phone to its holster and knotted his fingers in front of him. “Can’t say.”
“Can’t say or won’t say?”
“Either. Both.”
“Sounds like you got an ID on the woman.”
“A probable,” the chief ranger agreed.
“Who was she?”
“You know I can’t tell you that. But …”
“But what?”
“You’re going find out soon enough. She was a friend of you know who.”
Just before the call, Sanford had mentioned a specific newcomer to Moab, one who was all about truly enlightened energy. Chuck shivered. The chief ranger had been referring to Sheila.
8
Two months ago in Durango, over pints at Steamworks, Janelle’s kid brother Clarence had posed a series of questions to Chuck concerning the Arches contract.
Clarence had followed Janelle to southwest Colorado a year earlier from Albuquerque. A graduate of the University of New Mexico School of Anthropology, Clarence tended bar at Steamworks between stints with Bender Archaeological and other contract archaeology firms in the region, making use of his degree when Chuck or other area companies needed an extra hand on a dig or site survey.
Tourists and locals alike flocked to Steamworks, Durango’s largest brewpub, housed in a 1920s-era former automobile showroom a block off Main Avenue. Chalk drawings by children covered the polished concrete floor. Muted televisions aired basketball and football games from walls shorn of plaster to reveal the building’s brick walls and ornate iron-lattice framework. Stainless steel air ducts webbed the high ceiling.
At twenty-eight, Clarence was three years younger than Janelle. He wore a checked flannel shirt over his sizable belly. His shoulder-length black hair, as lustrous as Janelle’s, was tucked behind his ears, revealing large silver studs glittering in both lobes. Deep laugh lines cupped his mouth, enhancing his bright white teeth. His brown eyes glittered almost constantly with mischief.
“I don’t trust it,” Clarence said to Chuck, his tone unusually serious. “This guy Sanford you’re telling me about, he’s in too much of a hurry.”
“He says he doesn’t have any choice,” Chuck replied. He took a swallow of his beer. The hazy wheat lager left a tart aftertaste at the back of his throat as he continued. “The Utah legislature convenes in January. The national monuments will be the first thing on the agenda.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with your contract at this secret site you’re so fired up about.”
“A coalition of tribes first proposed the monuments in southern Utah. They wanted to protect the sacred lands of their ancestors