Predator (Copper Mesa Eagles Book 1) (7 page)

Jules bristled, but went on.

“The sandstone here is much too soft, and the rhyolite layer protecting it isn’t thick enough,” she went on. “It’s so porous that
anything
that spills will go right into the river, and there’s a good chance that the moment we begin strip-mining the mesa, if we make one wrong move, the entire side will come crashing down, and that’s a huge risk.”

He was still watching her, his eyes cold.

“But there’s molybdenum,” he said.

Jules took a deep breath.

“Yes,” she said. “But it’s all as composite rock, mixed together with molybdenite, and probably also copper and lead. Anyone who worked on the mine would run a risk of lead poisoning, not to
mention
the town.”

He put up one hand, indicating that she should stop.

“That’s best discussed at the site, I think,” he said.

Jules didn’t say anything and just nodded.

If it weren’t me, it would be someone else,
she thought.
Just cash the paychecks and don’t feel too guilty
.

Hard not to, though.

Jules and Gilbert drove to the site, speaking only to find a radio station and adjust the AC so that it suited them both. The closer they got to the mesa and the river, the worse Jules felt: about the town, but also about Seth.

Now, in the light of day, she wasn’t sure at
all
that he’d been trying to use her. The way he’d looked at her — the way he’d
kissed
her — weren’t like that at all. At some point, she’d noticed that his eyes lit up whenever she laughed, and it made her laugh more, just to see him so pleased.

But then again, there were cold hard facts: he was about to have an enormous mine in his back yard, and she worked for the company responsible for it.

Even nice people will try a Hail Mary like that
, she thought, as they stepped out of Gilbert’s luxury SUV. She secured her very large hat on her head, then walked toward Rick Flynn, the engineer. He was a little friendlier than Gilbert, but just as fundamentally greedy.

They all shook hands, and then Rick spoke up.

“Everything’s going according to plan,” he said, sweeping his arm along the expanse of red rock that cascaded down to the river. “As long as your buyout works.”

“It’ll work,” Gilbert said.

“It’s risky,” said Rick, frowning as they walked toward the mesa. “We’ve sunk millions into this already, and we don’t need it derailed by some inbred desert folk finding their great great grandpappy’s land deed.”

Gilbert cast a quick look at Jules, but she looked up at the mesa, pretending to watch a bird of prey circling high above them.

“The chances of someone being the owner of this land are minute at best,” he said. “Most of the people who settled here never bothered to actually register with the land office, since it was all the way in Salt Lake City.”

“Still,” said Rick.

“I’m not finished,” said Gilbert. “The archives burned down in 1903, and while they did their best to recover all those records, only about a quarter ever made it back to the office.”

Rick raised his eyebrows, the hint of a smile playing at his lips.

“So, if anyone ever owned it, the deed is gone by now and there’s no proof,” he said.

“Not unless the inbred desert folk have been keeping meticulous records themselves,” Gilbert said.

Now Rick’s smile had expanded into a full grin.

“We ought to use this more often,” he said. “I’ll have Christina work on a list of land use offices with archives that have burned down in the past hundred and fifty years. What a
fantastic
idea.”

Jules picked up a rock and pretended to examine it, mostly to hide her fury and astonishment.
 

I have to tell Seth
, she thought, swallowing her pride.
Maybe he was trying to use me and maybe not, and anyway it doesn’t matter because I’m leaving, but he should at least have a fighting chance.

Not that it sounds like he does.

As the two men walked on, they changed the subject to cars, what they drove, what they wished they drove.

Before the end of the afternoon, Jules tried to voice her concerns, but all it came down to was whether something was
legal.
Since Utah was one of the less regulated states, and mesa-removal mining so new, there were no real laws about it, and Gilbert and Rick couldn’t see anything besides dollar signs.

By the time she was back at the car, Jules felt defeated. She couldn’t stop the mine from ruining an entire town — no, the entire ecosystem of a river, across two states — and she’d been shitty to Seth. Maybe he had only asked her out to get her help, but after spending some time in this beautiful, wild place, she was less angry. After all, people would do anything to protect their homes.

As their SUV approached town, Jules’s phone suddenly buzzed in her pocket, then it buzzed again and again. She pulled it out to discover that she had seven missed calls and two new voicemails.

All from Seth.

I guess we were out of cell range,
she thought.

“Can I just drop you at the RV park?” Gilbert asked. “I’d like to get back to the hotel before it’s dark.”

Jules managed not to roll her eyes, and just agreed.

She was in the RV and listening to the voicemail before Gilbert had even pulled back onto the highway.

“Jules, I’m so sorry,” the first one began. “To be honest, I’m not really sure what happened, but if it was something I did, just tell me what it was and I’ll apologize. I swear. Other than that, I had a really good time last night, and thought that maybe I could see you again before you left, though I have to drive to Salt Lake City tonight, so tonight’s out. Call me back. Please.”

Next voicemail.

“Hi, Jules, it’s Seth again. I’m leaving for Salt Lake as soon as I get home from work, but I wanted to see if I could reach you before then. If you get this, give me a call, please, and if I don’t answer I’m probably just not in cell range.”

The timestamp on the voicemail was 3:53, and it was 4:28.

I hope he hasn’t left yet
, she thought.

Seth answered on the first ring.

“Jules!” he said.

“Don’t go to Salt Lake City,” she blurted out.

“I have to,” he said. “The records office there might have the deed that Hiram got for homesteading—”

“They don’t,” Jules interrupted. “It burned down a hundred years ago.”

The line went silent for a moment before Seth spoke up.

“
Shit
,” he said, and then, “How do you know that?”

“Can I just come over?” she asked.

In the daylight, the mesa looked even bigger, towering over everything around it. Jules watched it suspiciously as she drove up the driveway, then parked her truck.

Seth was already waiting for her on the porch, and she took a deep breath before getting out, not really knowing what to expect.

Did I fuck up last night?
She wondered.
Did he? Are we just friends now?

As she walked up, Seth started smiling, his dimples sinking into his face. Jules found that she couldn’t help but smile back.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey yourself,” she said.

They looked at each other for a long moment, both smiling but wary.

“Are we okay?” he asked, finally.

Jules closed her eyes and took another deep breath.

“Did you only take me on a date because you wanted info about the mine that’s on your property and you thought I’d give it to you if I had a good time?” she asked, all in one breath.

Jules opened her eyes to see Seth looking horrified.

“No,” he said. “Not at all, not even a little. I asked you out because I really, really wanted to see you again.”

Jules pressed her lips together, trying not to cry, and Seth took a step forward, taking her face in his hands.

“I
really
like you,” he whispered. “When you laugh it feels like the sun is shining right onto my heart.”

“So like you’re having open-heart surgery?” she whispered back.

“Outdoors open-heart surgery,” Seth clarified.

They looked at each other for a moment.

“Well, kiss me,” Jules said.

He did. His lips were warm and just a little rough, and when she moved her hand gently to his waist, she could feel the heat radiating out from his hard muscle, and deep inside she felt a funny twisting feeling that she’d never felt before.

When their lips separated, Jules looked into his eyes, flashing gold, and smiled.

“Would you accept help with the mine anyway?” she asked.

Inside the house, the dining room was a flurry of papers: some old, some new, some handwritten, some printed. In the middle of it sat someone who was obviously Seth’s brother. The two men had exactly the same eyes, though the brother’s hair was lighter and shorter, his nose different.

“I’m Zach,” he said, standing up. He hopped from where he’d been sitting to another bare spot on the floor, and shook her hand.

“I’m Jules,” she said, and thought she caught Zach exchanging a glance with Seth.

Did Seth tell him about me?
She thought.

The thought of boys shouting
I love you like plants love the sun
down the halls of her high school flashed through her mind, but she forced it out.

“So what’s the news?” Zach asked, friendly but all business.

Jules told them the whole thing, about the deeds probably not existing, and then about the archives burning down. By the end, Zach was sitting on the floor again, his head on one hand.

“Maybe we never owned it,” he said, tapping the eraser end of a pencil against a sheet of paper.

“Mom was
so
sure, though,” said Seth, who’d pulled out a dining chair and sat.

“What if she was wrong?” Zach asked. “What if she just thought that because her father told her that, and his father, and so on? What if they all just
thought
there was a deed, and there never was?”

“When did this highway go in?” Jules piped up. “Did the state of Utah have to buy any land from your ancestors? Maybe we could use that bill of sale to prove that at least they owned it then. Or the state considered them the owners.”

“Or when they put in the electricity?” asked Seth.

For hours, they tossed around ideas. Around eight, the three of them stopped and Seth made them peanut butter sandwiches, and they chewed in silence.

It’s not going to work
, thought Jules.

Chapter Seven

Seth

Seth stared into the center of his sandwich as he squeezed the edges, making the jam squeeze out and then recede. He tried to think about the deed, or receipt for payment on it, or
anything
that might prove their claim.

Instead, he was thinking about the dream. He’d had it again last night.

Ever since he could remember, Seth had had the same dream. He’d always liked it, because in it, he was flying high above the earth, looking down at all the people and buildings below, watching the serene curve of the river, seeing the vast landscape that he knew so well from a completely new angle.

He’d always chalked the dreams up to the stories his mom told him, about her own father who could turn into an eagle and fly off, coming back with flowers for her mother, flowers that didn’t grow for hundreds of miles. There were stories about his grandfather’s father, who Seth had never met, but who his mom said had built a nest high on the mesa where’d he go to watch over the town.

When Seth asked his mom if she could turn into a bird, she’d just laugh.

Last night the dream had changed, though. It had barely felt like a dream, and had felt more like reality: the sharpness of the cold air, the scent of the earth rising to meet his nose. For the first time, Seth had been able to see everything on the ground with perfect, crystal clarity, and he’d been able to stretch his feet out, grasping at the air with his toes, until he’d looked to his right to see a long, light brown wing.

In the dream, he’d wiggled his arm, and the wing had moved.

Then he’d woken up.

“Earth to Seth,” Zach was saying, waving a hand in front of Seth’s sandwich, and Seth blinked and looked up.

“There you are,” Zach said.

“Sorry.”

“I think we should check the attic again,” Zach said. “We got all the files down from there, but there’s all these chests and suitcases and bags. It’s probably worth a shot.”

Seth just nodded, still trying to shake the dream off.

“Sure,” he said, then took a giant bite of his sandwich.

The attic was a mess. Seth had only been up there a few times as a kid, but he remembered being amazed by the sheer amount of
stuff
up there. Stuff that seemed like it hadn’t been touched for a hundred years at least, that probably still bore the fingerprints and perfume of whoever had owned them.

As an adult, he quickly realized that no one had visited the attic in generations except to shove more stuff up there, and looking around, his heart sank.

“Where do we start?” breathed Jules.

“Well, I think newer stuff is by the door,” Seth said. “So we start at the other end, by the far wall.”

It was as good a guess as any.

For hours, they plowed through boxes and drawers, going through bags, pulling out delicate old clothes that seemed like they might fall apart at any moment, thick boots with mud still caked on them, and everything imaginable in-between.

“Our ancestors were packrats,” Zach finally muttered. It was nearly one in the morning, and Seth could tell his brother was tired and starting to get irritable. “This is all just trash.”

“It’s
cool
trash,” Jules said, picking up a picture frame. Two kids stared into the camera, their serious faces a little blurry. “Who’s this?”

Both brothers shook their heads, and the silent work went on.

After another hour, Zach stood and stretched.

“I have to go to bed,” he said. “I’m going to fall over up here if I don’t.”

“Go ahead,” said Seth. “You’ve been up almost twenty-four hours, you deserve it.”

“Night,” said Zach.

“Night,” said Jules, watching Seth’s little brother descend the staircase.