One Mile Under (23 page)

“There was an operative from Alpha who was there at the river at the very same time,” Hauck said. “And then he left, immediately after.” They told her about what Rooster said he saw, and how the balloon he was operating was brought down with traces of what could be gunpowder on it.

Jen shook her head and blew out a blast of air. “I can’t say I didn’t have my doubts … One day Chuck is all full speed ahead. He even got six of his fellow farmers and ranchers to sign on. Then this terrible thing with his son and …”

“And what?” Hauck asked.

“And suddenly there’s a toe tag on it. Dead as a body at the morgue. There were a lot of law clerks in Greeley and Denver who’d put a whole lot of time in pro bono on this stack of files. I thought we had a good chance.”

“Where was it being heard?”

“We were taking it to the state appellate court in Denver after the local judge,” she chortled, “no surprise, ruled we had no standing to bring up the case. By all means check
his
vacation fund. Chuck was looked up to by the farming community here. Third generation. He backs out, the rest find an excuse to back out as well.”

“So it’s all dead now?”

She put her hand on the stack of files. “Everything’s just sitting here. Decorating the office. All it takes is a nod from the right person and we can have it back on track.”

“That right person being Watkins?”

“Any of them, actually. Anyone who wants to stand up. But Chuck would be first on the list.”

“I was up at Hannah the other day. Someone from RMM, Moss, took me for a tour.”

Jen nodded. “Yeah, they’re good at that kind of thing. He show you all the fancy 3-D imaging?”

“And the levels of safety they stringently maintain. All the concrete and steel reinforcing to prevent the oil or gas or chemicals from leaching into the soil.”

“And, to be fair, much of that is absolutely true. But how do you explain a farmer in Mead who can light a flame in his well and the whole thing goes up like a giant blowtorch?” Jen reached over and tossed Hauck a couple more bound documents. “Or a rancher in Keenesburg, less than a quarter mile from a well site, whose cattle are dying on their own grazing land and the toxicology report says ammonium persulfate poisoning. That’s one of the chemical agents they mix with fracking water to loosen the shale. Along with hydrochloric acid.”

Hauck paged through the top file a minute and then tossed it back on the table. “So no court in the region was willing to hear your case, so you were going to take it to Denver because of the environmental threat?”

“Not the environmental threat,” Jen said. “That kind of suit would take years, cost millions … Even if we had a chance of winning. What
we
were filing was an injunction against the town. Templeton.”

“The town …? I don’t understand.”

“They were the defendant. And it wasn’t over oil, at all …” Keeler pushed across a document with Watkins’s name in bold capital letters at the top. “It was over water.”

Trey Watkins.

Rooster.

Trey’s father pushing Hauck away.

RMM. And the gleaming metal tankers chugging toward Hannah from the river.

It all came clear to him now.

That’s not oil,
Moss had said.
It’s water
.

Water that kept the wells flowing. Water that ran the fracking process, which could reach the shale.

“The town is selling off its water supply to RMM,” Hauck said, pushing back his chair.

“Out here, water flows
up
hill, Mr. Hauck,” Jen said, “to money. Yes, RMM and other firms have locked up what used to be farmland for exploration and drilling. But wells are one thing. Nothing happens without the water. And these days, there is none. It’s the water they’ve diverted away that’s the biggest threat to the way this place used to be.”

Hauck gazed at Dani, everything sinking in. She asked, “It’s legal for a town to sell of its water supply?”

“Not the essential water supply …” Jen shook her head. “That’s governed by law. But what becomes classified as excess water, yes. And look around at what they’re dealing with here. You see the fields. The so-called excess water they’re selling off is precisely what the farmers need to irrigate their crops.

“In normal years, farmers and ranchers paid an average of thirty dollars for an acre-foot of water,” she explained. “That’s about three hundred and twenty thousand gallons. In a drought year, when water is scarce, that can rise to as high as a hundred dollars per acre. Today, oil and gas exploration companies are paying as high as one to two
thousand
dollars per acre. That’s treated water from city pipes, runoff from the Rockies; what’s already low, but sitting in reservoirs near Greeley. And from the Poudre River in Templeton. It’s like a bubble. The farmers can’t compete. They’re being systemically starved, between the weather and the oil development companies, who for that same acre of water can get a thousand times the return as on a field of crops. Farmers and ranchers can’t produce their crops or graze their cattle, so there’s no choice but to lease out their land for something.”

“How do they get this massive supply of water?” Dani asked. “Where does it all come from?”

“There are auctions,” Jen said. “Just like there are for land. A single well can use up to five million gallons. Statewide, the mining industry is consuming up to thirteen billion gallons per year. To put it in perspective, that’s enough to serve a population base four times the size of Greeley, which is a city of close to a hundred thousand. Or to make all the man-made snow at every ski area in Colorado for the next ten years. And the demand keeps growing. Cash-strapped cities are balancing their budgets by selling off whatever water they can do without.

“Farms are being forced to shut down. Those that remain trade high-end corn and potato crops for low-revenue ones like alfalfa and beet root or hay that can be produced without much water. The energy companies are locking up supply with long-term agreements. Town managers make themselves look good by balancing their budgets. But it’s the farmers and ranchers who are truly being starved.”

“So you and Watkins and a few of his fellow farmers got together a class action suit and were suing the town to stop them from selling off their supply to RMM?” Hauck said.

“You can see why it scared them.” Jen nodded. “Take away that water in abundant supply, those hundred-million-dollar wells are basically just giant holes in the ground.”

“So they were pressuring Watkins to stop, but he kept on.”

“Until his son was killed. He said he was being harassed, but he kept on ahead with it. I figured it was the kind of way we were all being harassed. Who could ever have imagined this? I was suspicious when I heard what happened, but I had no proof. And even if I did …” Her exhale conveyed her futility. “Their interests are vast, Mr. Hauck, and their will to use them just as undeterred. There are the people in the white hats in this town and the people in the black hats, and you best not forget who’s who.”

Hauck shook his head. “Oil companies just don’t operate in their own sphere above the law. BP had to deal with that in the Gulf. Tobacco companies had free rein and then they were forced to obey the law.”

“BP faced a government that had an interest to make them pay. Here, they’ve completely bought off all the channels that could possibly redress them. Lawyers. Local judges. Half the state legislature. Hell, even the state land councils and water boards are basically just rubber stamps with all the public pressures of jobs and energy independence.

“But what they’re really doing is systematically raping the town … The way of life here. And in its place they’re constructing football stadiums and senior citizen centers. And fancy new vehicles for the police to buzz around in. Yes, there
are
jobs—mostly for people from out of state. Engineers and field workers. The people here get jobs serving them coffee and sandwiches. Once those wells dry up, these will become basically ghost towns. Ghost towns, with a fresh coat of paint slapped on them. And it’s happening all around these parts. Watkins and a few others finally said, enough. Now look what’s happened …

Hauck said, “What about the county prosecutor here in Greeley?”

Jen Keeler smiled skeptically, as if it was something she knew and Hauck would soon find out for himself. “Good luck with that one. Take a guess who his largest campaign contributor is. It’s also been in the financial papers that RMM is involved in some sort of takeover conversation. Profits from the Wattenberg field are all this company is about right now, and they’re sprinkling them back around here pretty strategically.”

“It is like the Wild West,” Dani said. “The guy with the biggest herd runs the town.”

“And the saloon.” Jen Keeler grinned. “Whoops, I meant the stadium.”

Hauck met her eyes. It was clear what he was up against.

“What about back in Carbondale?” Jen said. “That’s where the crimes of record took place.”

“Accidents,” Dani said. “The police chief there wouldn’t even open an investigation.”

Hauck shrugged. “There’s no real proof anyway. Other than this Robertson guy being on the river at the time of Trey’s accident. And that won’t add up to an indictment.”

“So now it’s your turn …” Jen pushed aside the documents and looked back at Hauck. “What’s your stake in all of this? Your business card says Talon. Partner. Back in Connecticut. You probably have a life back there. A family. Look at this place. It’s mostly scrub and dirt and wind. And people you’ll never see again in your life. Why do you want to take this on?”

“You mean other than the six people who have died?”

“Six people you never met. You probably don’t even know their names.”

“You’re right. I don’t. Maybe it’s not so easy to answer, but like you said earlier”—Hauck grinned—“I could ask the same question about you.”

Jen Keeler gave him back a smile of complicity. “You’re taking on a lot here, Mr. Hauck. These people might wear suits and ties, root for their kids in soccer, and go to church on Sundays and drive SUVs, but, trust me, they’re as ruthless and single-minded as you’ll run into. But I’m pretty sure you already know that, don’t you …?”

“I think I do.” Hauck smiled. And stood up.

Jen stood up, too. “And, trust me, the ones in the cowboy hats aren’t a whole lot better.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Jen walked them out and to the door. “I hope you know what the hell you’re doing … You seem like a nice guy. These aren’t people you really want to mess with.”

“People have been known to say that about me, too.”

“Monica, say goodbye to Mr. Hauck, the last remaining white knight in the Wattenberg field.”

The tattooed girl waved. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Hauck.”

Hauck put out his hand. “Thanks for your time. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing each other again.”

“Stay safe,” Jen said.

“Everyone’s telling me that these days.” He was about to open the door, when he saw something out the front window through the shades. In the parking lot of a farm supply depot across the street.

A black SUV, the windows dark.

“So, tell me,” he said to Jen, “who drives a new, black, tinted-out Denali out here? I’ve seen a few of them in town.”

Jen spread the shades with a finger and peered out. “Those are the men in the black hats, Mr. Hauck.”

The man behind the darkened window in the black SUV saw Hauck staring out at him. He picked up his phone and called in to his office.

“Mr. Moss,” he said, his eyes trained on the Open Range Initiative storefront, “it’s Hale. You asked me to stay on our subject. I thought you’d want to know, he and the girl have been meeting with someone I think you’d find interesting.”

“Who’s that?” Moss, at RMM’s headquarters, inquired.

“The Keeler woman.”

There was a groan on the other end, followed by a troubled sigh.

“They’ve been inside for about half an hour,” Hale said. “I can see them through the window. I think they’re coming out now.” He watched them step out of the storefront office. He saw the subject look across the street, fix directly on him. From behind his sunglasses, around fifty yards away, Hale was sure he could see his target smile. The hair rose on his arms.

“I think I’ve been spotted. You want me to stay on him?” he asked.

“No,” his boss replied. “Let him go.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” Moss said with a sigh. “Come on back. I think it’s time to explore more persuasive measures anyway.”

Moments later, Moss told his secretary to hold his calls and patched into Randy McKay at Alpha. “Are you alone?”

The Alpha man excused himself a moment and replied, “You can talk.”

“Our friend has made a connection in town that may turn out very unfortunate. Jen Keeler. He’s been meeting with her this morning. How do you imagine that happened?”

“If he dug, it was only a matter of time,” McKay said.

“Well, I give him marks for persistence. But he’s clearly misread our hospitality. I don’t think our first attempt on the road made much of an impact on him.”

“I can arrange something more persuasive,” the Alpha man said.

“Where’s John?”

“I told him to lie low while this fellow was poking around. But if he’s needed, I can assure you, he’s close by.”

“Well, maybe it’s time,” Moss said. “The guy’s so interested in water rights, what do you think, maybe he’d be up for a little swim. Just remember, this isn’t some OSHA functionary coming around with a clipboard and pen. You know what his résumé is.”

“It’s not our policy to underestimate anybody,” Randy McKay said. “You can be sure I’ll pass along your request to the right personnel.”

“I’m confident you will,” Moss said, and hung up.

McKay turned back to the person he’d been speaking to before the call, sitting across his desk. “We have to arrange something for our nosy new friend in town. Moss thinks maybe he’s ripe for a swim. But remember, this guy’s no lightweight.”

John Robertson nodded. He stood up. “Neither am I.”