Zuni Stew: A Novel (16 page)

Bill walked around his desk and sat down.

“Where’s Jack?” Gabriel looked at his gold watch. “Half the day is almost over and I don’t have time to waste. Where is he?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” snapped Bill, practically growling. “TDY orders are always between the head office and the officer involved.”

Gabriel leaned on Bill’s desk with both arms. “Be a good boy, find out where he is. I’ll give you until noon.” D’Amico walked to the door and turned briefly. “The puppies are cute. Your female dog is very sweet. We Italians know how to appreciate a good bitch.”

30

F
ive AM Central Time. Mr. K checked off the last of the convoy departing from Knapp Chemical Processing Company. Handed the clipboard to Todd Murphy, his op-manager. Under the tarps, each heavy-duty vehicle carried secure barrels of yellowcake. The huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium, 550 metric tons, was ready for smelting into purified UO². Not potent enough to make a dirty bomb, yet if used in a conventional explosive device to disperse radioactive material, it could cause worldwide panic. If enriched to yield weapons-grade uranium with levels above 90%, it was ideal for weapons of mass destruction.

The new Peterbilt trucks had temporary license plates. Every glove compartment contained documents authorizing interstate delivery of the cargo. All bills of lading would clear. Two drivers would alternate, one man always on.

Mr. K was agitated. Irritated. He hadn’t heard a goddamned word from Gabriel, or the illustrious senator from Illinois. Fuck them. Nothing was going to get in the way. Nothing.

Mike opened the back door of the black sedan for Mr. K. The car rolled through the thousand-acre site surrounded by huge sand berms. High-intensity security lights lit the way to the guard house. A uniformed man inside saluted. A chain-link gate topped with cyclone wire clanged shut behind them.



Back in his paneled office at home, he tried to reach the senator, but was passed on to a private secretary.

“Senator Trask was expecting your call, Mr. Knapp. He’s just left for the senate floor this very moment, and said to tell you the bill looks good-to-go.”

“Thank Joseph for me,” Knapp said, and hung up.

Too early for Scotch. He poured a glass of orange juice from a crystal pitcher on the sideboard, topped it off with Smirnoff. His nerves were like sparking electrical lines. He had more trucks moving out the next day. Different routes. Every detail had been considered and planned. Cost of diesel fuel. Driver rotations. Sleeper times. Truck stops. Weigh stations. Each team would radio in their location every six hours to the company’s central dispatch who in turn reported directly to Mr. K.

Knapp would be in place to meet the shipments at their destination.



Gabriel left the hospital, circled back behind the row of housing, parked his rental in a jumble of mesquite brush, and climbed over the chain-link fence into Jack’s back yard. He knew Jack wasn’t there, but maybe something would point to his whereabouts. He moved quickly from window to window. The bedroom window was open, a faded curtain fluttered in the breeze. The unmade bed was empty. Hand on his revolver, he checked each room, then headed for the garage. The door was locked. He stepped back. Kicked hard. The cheap door popped open. A dust-covered Jeep was wedged inside.

He jogged back to the car, backed out in a spray of red dirt. Newman had two hours left to give him Jack’s location. The altitude was beginning to bother him; he fought to get his breath. His chest was aching.

“Christ,” he said out loud. “I can’t die here. In the middle of nowhere!” He drove slowly down the dirt road to the lake. Engine off. Window down. Hard to breathe. He slumped against the steering wheel, clutching his chest. Minutes passed before the pain subsided. He managed to pull himself upright, letting his head fall back, mouth open.

He didn’t hear him coming.

“Are you all right?” asked the young man, his face obscured by sunglasses and a black sash tied around his forehead. His hand was on the window.

“Yes,” stammered Gabriel. “Go away! Leave me alone. I was just resting.”

“E’lah:kwa.”
The man left as quietly as he had approached.

Gabe’s hand went to his shirt pocket. He popped the nitroglycerin under his tongue. It took a while to take effect. When he began to breathe normally, he wondered if the man had really stopped to help. Or did he imagine it? He reached for the crumpled newspaper he had read at breakfast. There it was—the photograph of a young Indian leaving the hospital with his father. Caption:
Tito Jahata leaves hospital against medical orders.

Why not, he thought. Nothing in this part of the world follows any rules. There had been an accident. A passerby pulled him from his truck and rushed him to the hospital in Gallup. The man who rescued Jahata was the new attending physician at Black Rock.

Gabriel rummaged through his duffle bag, removing an Army-issue sniper scope. He surveyed the surroundings. The lake. A dam. A single-engine plane taking off. He got out, stood on the running board, looked south. Rows of houses around the stone hospital. Pick-ups pulling into the ER entrance. A man with a backpack briskly walking away. He pulled the scope into a higher magnification. The man had removed the pack and was readjusting the straps. The pack looked heavy. The Indian looked back toward the dam, crossed the highway, and purposefully started toward the base of the mountains.

Gabriel reached through the window and grabbed the newspaper. Dr. Jack D’Amico saved the kid. Maybe the kid is helping the doc. He drove to the spot where the man struck out across the chamisa and mesquite-clogged mesa. He had to take it slow. The guy knows Jack. He owes him.

He started walking after him.



The entire FAA facility smelled of cigarette smoke and stale coffee. Crackling static and occasional cryptic comments on the communication radio were the only sounds. The single employee on duty, Jeff, stepped from the map room just as the door flung open and Bill stepped inside.

“Hey, Bill, what’s the hurry?”

“Someone killed my dog, Flipper. I think a man that showed up yesterday did it. Just as I was leaving the hospital, a patient told the receptionist about seeing a stranger parked at the lake. He had a long lens, looked like he was casing things out. He left his car on the main road and headed south on foot.”

“A tourist? A tourist who doesn’t have a photo permit?” asked Jeff.

When Bill met urgently with Louis Paul barely twenty minutes earlier, the shiwani departed with the words, ‘Bad spirits talking.’ For that reason alone, Bill said, “He’s no tourist. I think he’s a dog-killing sonofabitch.” A people killer is what he wanted to say. “Is the plane fueled?”

“What are you up to?”

“I’m starting an air search.”

“No! That guy is looking for you.”

“He doesn’t care about me, he’s after Doctor D’Amico.”



A sensation swept over Tito, a sensation he had felt once when he was stalked by a mountain lion. Not good.

He came to a wide, deep arroyo which he usually followed to the lake. Instead of hugging the rim, he began to crawl down the eroded channel. Before dropping out of sight, he took a 180-degree look. North and west. Three-hundred yards. A man tracking him.

Not allowing dust to rise, he slid in a crouch. He hit a shale escarpment. Unstable. No footing. He pulled off his boots and continued barefoot, using his toes to cling to the shale shards.

31

W
ith a resounding crack, the gavel sounded for quiet.

Senator Phillips steadied his grasp on the lectern. “Since May, nineteen seventy-two, over a year ago, scoping meetings and off-highway vehicle workshops were conducted to inform the public and solicit input. I can assure you, my constituents in Catron County and the Zuni tribe are cooperating with regard to ACEC use limitations regarding Zuni Salt Lake as follows.” He began to read out loud:

“Limit motor vehicle travel to designated routes. Include fluid mineral leasing. Allow withdrawal locatable minerals on 2,861 acres of federal mineral estate within the 4,839 acre Zuni Salt Lake Protection Zone. Exclude woodcutting.”

Phillips turned his head away from the podium to clear his throat, then concluded.

“The great state of New Mexico grants full authority to the BLM to manage the 4,839-acre special management area as ACECs under the alternatives in the DRMPR/DEIS. Colleagues, I thank you for your time and interest, and your positive vote for Senate Bill 236 as amended.”

A page brought over the senator’s canes. Once Phillips was stable, he stepped forward, slowly heading for his seat in the senate chambers.

Two rows away, Senator Joseph Trask closed his briefing book, and turned to look up at the scoreboard. Seventy yeas. Twenty nays. Ten abstains.

Senate Bill 236 passed.

Relief settled over him. Mr. K would get off his back. His thoughts were broken as two hands gripped his shoulders.

“We did it, Joe,” said the senator from New Mexico. “Lunch at the Ebbitt? I’ll buy.”



One-thirty PM Eastern Time. The senator from Illinois walked through the revolving doors by-passing the waiting line. He passed a wait station stacked high with a pyramid of martinis. The frosted glasses were flying to thirsty politicos. The Old Ebbitt Grill was packed. Noise volume high.

Senator Richard Phillips was already well into his drink. A waiter was at the mahogany and velvet booth immediately. Trask ordered. Double vodka martini. Up, with a twist. Smirnoff.

Phillips shifted in the booth, trying to get comfortable. His canes hung from a coat rack next to their table. The martini was helping to diminish the pain. With surprising vigor in his voice, he said, “You did it, Joe. I knew you could get those bleeding hearts from the Federal Register of Historic Places to shut up. Despite all the high-minded rhetoric from the President and Secretary of the Interior about environmental justice and Indian sovereignty, the administration steamrolled this one through. You have your pile of salt now, which the very thought of makes me thirsty.” He took a sip of his martini.

“Well, Richard, you have your water for that coal mining outfit, right in the heart of the sanctuary zone.” Trask’s comment was rank with sarcasm. “You played the game well. I might throw you a bone some other time.”

A three-tiered silver tray appeared, loaded with cold seafood on ice. “Your appetizer, Senators,” said the waiter.

Phillips reddened. The bastard was turning the screws on him, tighter and tighter. If only Trask had never seen those goddamned documents. “I came through, and now I’m sick of it. Makes me want to vomit.”

The Illinois senator signaled for another drink. Trask wasn’t the one who chose to overlook all but one bid for the latest land acquisition for Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque. He also knew Phillips had packed away a hefty profit. He had to ask. “I heard about your ranch up above Taos. How did you ever manage to...?”

Trask accepted the fresh martini, waited for the waiter to step away. “Don’t give me anymore of that ‘my-wife-inherited-money’ bullshit. Give me a little credit. I know where she came from, and it wasn’t money. It was a single-wide in Raton.”

Phillips set his glass down firmly, saying, “You bastard! The single most important thing my dearest late wife believed in was preserving the land. Now you and your partners are going to rape sacred land, land that has been sacred for thousands of years.”

“Especially your constituents, the Zunis, as you mentioned in your testimony this morning,” said Trask. “Sentimental crap. I happen to know you’re going to make a pile of money on your deal, too.”

“Look, we both know that coal mines need massive amounts of water. The USGS is a quagmire. I buried the Atarque Aquifer report, but one of the survey hydrologists is claiming the mining will lower the aquifer by a minimum of four feet. That could get us in a piss-pot of trouble. This is huge.”

Senator Trask closed the menu and set it aside. “That’s your problem. I’ve lost my appetite.”

As Trask left, Phillips reached for a cane, slammed it down on the table, knocking over the silver tray, sweeping chunks of crab, shrimp, and lobster across the floor.



Trask walked briskly back to his office on Capitol Hill. At the doorway to his suite, an aide approached. “With all due respect, sir, I need...”

“I’m not available for the next half hour,” said Trask, brushing past her.

Seated at his desk, he opened a bottom drawer and removed a telephone, one dedicated to Senate Armed Services Committee conference calls. He dialed Mr. K in Chicago. While waiting, he thought about the New Mexico senator. Christ, what was his guilt trip about? Phillips was a liar. Flat-out avaricious. He had to be with his lifestyle.

Mr. K picked up, his usual brusque self. “Knapp here.”

“It’s done, by Senate concurrence of the House amendments. The bill goes to President Nixon after the Secretary of the Senate certifies. It’s a go, Mr. K. You can move your trucks on to the property.”



A razor-sharp shale chip buried itself in the arch of Tito’s foot. He cringed, his mouth opened. A silent cry.

Behind Tito by a thousand feet, Gabriel slipped and slid uncontrollably down the side of the arroyo. Scraping, grabbing, tearing, ripping. Pockets torn. Shirttail in shreds. He shielded his face, hit bottom. Sand crystals embedded in his cuts. He spit. The spotting scope was gone.