The Glacier Gallows (2 page)

“No sign of our fearless leader?” asked Peter.

“Appears to have gone walkabout,” answered Cole.

“Nice morning for it,” said Joe. “You were up for sunrise as usual?” Everybody in camp knew Cole's predilection for a few hours' peace in the morning.

“Let's hope he gets back before we eat all the pancakes.” Cole felt uneasy. Brian Marriott had taken quickly to backcountry travel, but he was a city boy and inexperienced.

Breakfast came and went and the hikers and their guides began to pack up the camp. As the hikers busied themselves, Cole approached the head guide. “Derek, I'm getting worried about Brian.”

“Me too, Cole. I've already sent Tad to have a walk around to see if maybe he's gone out for a walk and lost track of time.”

“I'm going to go and check around too. Will you make sure the team is okay?”

“Will do. If Brian's not back in another fifteen, we'll get organized and look.”

“I'll meet you back here then.” He'd seen no sign of Brian on his morning walk, but Cole backtracked to the rise of land where he'd drunk his coffee and scanned the surrounding countryside. Brian was not there. Cole returned by way of the cliff that dropped down toward Crypt Lake. When he got back to camp, several other hikers looked concerned and were huddled with the lead guide.

“I think we ought to call in some help.” Joe Firstlight sounded anxious.

“And tell them what? That Brian has gone off for some alone time? I think it's too early for that,” said Rick Turcotte, a broad man wearing a sweat-stained baseball cap. He was a federal Member of Parliament from northern Alberta and was the Junior Minister of Natural Resources. Brian was an old friend of his and had recruited him to come on the hike.

“We'll split up into three teams.” Derek took control. “One guide per team. We'll search for an hour, and if we don't find anything, we meet back here and I'll call for help. Agreed?” He looked at Cole. Cole could feel panic rising in his throat. “Remember, people,” continued Derek. “The first priority in the search is safety. We can't find anybody if you break a leg.”

The search party was hastily assembled. Joe Firstlight, who was seventy and worn out from the previous day's climb, opted to remain close to camp. The three teams were dispatched to look east, west, and south of their position. The route north descended from the sheer cliff face to Crypt Lake. “We need to look there too.” Cole indicated the drop-off.

Tad gave him the thumbs-up. “We will.”

The searches began. Each guide carried a portable radio, and Derek put the party's satellite phone into his pack. He set off down the path they had climbed the day before; Cole hurried to keep up, and Rick Turcotte lagged far behind, nursing blisters. After half an hour they had dropped almost a thousand feet in elevation and walked a mile and a half from where they had camped. Cole dreaded the moment when they would have to turn around and regain all that elevation. When they stopped for a short break, Rick caught up. “We're not going to find anything here,” he complained.

“How do you know?” asked Cole.

“Because Brian is lazier than I am. He wouldn't walk all this way just to turn around and climb back up. Let's go back and see if the others have had better luck. Bastard is probably sitting back at camp drinking coffee right now.”

“If he was, they would have called.” Derek patted his radio. He checked the dials to make sure it was receiving a signal. He started to walk again; Cole and Rick followed him.

“My experience is that when someone wanders off, you don't send out amateurs to find him,” continued the
MP
. “You let the professionals do the job.”

“You get a lot of that on Parliament Hill?
MP
s just going walkabout? Wouldn't you just send a search party to D'Arcy McGee's?” retorted Cole.

“I grew up in Fort McMurray,” snapped Turcotte. “We've got more bush up there than most people will see in their lifetimes.”

“Had,” said Cole. “Now you have more toxic-waste dumps and poisonous holes in the ground.”

“Don't start on me, Blackwater. We're supposed to work together on this trip.”

“Yeah, well, Brian isn't here to referee, and I've got to say that in the five days we've been together, I've yet to hear a single idea out of you that doesn't sound like business as usual. Hasn't this made an impression?” Cole motioned to the grandeur around them. “This park used to have a hundred and fifty glaciers. Now there are twenty-six.”

“How is that my fault?”

“The tar sands are the fastest-growing emitter of greenhouse gases in Canada.”

“Even if climate change is caused by human activity—and there is still no conclusive evidence—”

“No conclusive evidence?” Cole stopped in his tracks and turned to face the
MP
. “The verdict has been in on this for more than a decade. It's a fact. Human activity is speeding up climate change and threatening life on Earth.”

“Even if it is, Canada is only responsible for two percent of all the greenhouse gases on Earth. The tar sands are just a tiny part of that. How would shutting down our country's economic engine help?”

“It would send a message that we're serious. This trip was supposed to illustrate the real impacts of climate change on the Earth. Fewer glaciers mean less dependable water for the prairies. That means drought, lower crop yields, less money for farming communities in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and the Dakotas. We've got solutions—”

“Gentlemen!” Derek stopped and turned toward them. “Please, we're supposed to be—” He was cut off by the crackle of the radio. He took it from his belt and adjusted the squelch.

“Derek, can you read me?” a voice crackled over the receiver. It was Tad.

“Five by five,” said Derek. “What have you got?”

“I think you better get back here.”

“You find him?”

There was a long silence. Cole thought he could hear Tad Thomas clear his throat. “What's left of him.”

OTTAWA, ONTARIO. DECEMBER 4, THE PREVIOUS YEAR.

THE PHONE ON BRIAN MARRIOTT'S
desk rang three times before he picked it up. “Marriott.” Brian Marriott, former power broker and lobbyist for the petroleum industry, was the new executive director of the Alternative Energy Group.

“Hello, Brian, it's Joe.”

“
Oki.
Mr. Firstlight, how are things in glorious Montana today?” Brian used the traditional Blackfeet word as a greeting.

“It's very cold. We blame you up in Canada, of course.”

“It's cold here too. Our nation's capital was built with two principal defenses against foreign invasion in mind: brutal cold and oppressive heat, depending on the season.”

“I didn't think that anybody ever bothered to attack Canada.”

“Only you Americans. Twice. We won both times.”

Joe Firstlight laughed. “Well, maybe what my country needs is a good ass-whooping from our northern neighbor. Nothing else seems to learn us.”

“What can I do for you?”

“Well, I don't know, Brian. I just wanted to bounce a few ideas off you. Give you a bit of an update on where the Tribal Council is at right now. You got time?”

Marriott looked at the clock on his desk. It was 11:25
AM
. He had a lunch meeting with an
MP
at Hy's Steakhouse. “I've got time. What's on your mind, Joe?”

“I just don't know if this is going to work, Brian. The whole damn thing feels like it's falling apart again. And after all this work! I'm just so frustrated with the council right now.”

“Slow down, Joe. Tell me what's going on.”

“Last night the council met behind closed doors. Again. I got a few friends on the council still, people I served with when I had my seat, so I got word what they were talking about.”

Marriott looked at the clock. “Wind turbines?”

“That's right. And hydraulic fracturing. Fracking.”

“That's no surprise, Joe. They've been talking about fracking for months.”

“They did more than talk last night, Brian. They took a vote.”

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes. The chairman said that he was fed up with the debate and forced a vote. Straight up or down. It was five up in favor of opening the res to fracking.”

“That's going to cause him no end of headache.”

“Damn right. People are already protesting. But the people won't last if it's zero degrees and blowing a Blue Northern. The chairman says that this is good for the Blackfeet. We got eighty percent employment. He says we need the revenue and the jobs that fracking will bring.”

“What does he say when asked about water?”

“Nobody asks.”

“Well,
you
do.”

“I'm not on the council anymore. It's been four years. Nobody listens to an old man who teaches at the community college. When people from the newspapers ask, the chairman says that the company has done an environmental assessment and that there's nothing to worry about.”

“Look, Joe, I don't want to tell you what you already know, but that's a load of crap. Fracking is the most destructive way to get gas out of the ground. It's a high-pressure injection of water and a slurry of toxic chemicals that gets blasted into the bedrock and shatters it. Where does the chairman think the poisoned water is going to end up?”

“He doesn't care. He says that the Blackfeet need the money to pay for schools and to help their young people stay out of jail.”

Marriott rubbed his face. “Well, tell him that he won't have to worry about the school because when fracking poisons Browning's wells, he can just shut it down. Ask him where the kids will go then.”

Joe Firstlight was silent. “Brian, I know.”

“I know you know. I'm sorry. I'm just frustrated.”

“I am too.”

“Listen to me. I'm three thousand miles away and I'm lecturing you on what's best for
your
people.”

“You care. Maybe more than our current council chairman, you remember what it means to be Blackfeet. You know, we have a belief about holes in the ground. It's a desecration. You dig a hole in the earth and death follows.”

Brian was silent for a long time. The hush weighed heavy on the line. Brian cleared his throat. “So, what happened with the wind power discussion?”

“They voted to put that proposal on the shelf.”

Brian rubbed his face again and blew out through pursed lips. “You're kidding me, Joe.”

“They said that they would revisit it. Maybe next year. They said that the financial risk was too high to invest in wind. They say there is less risk with gas. The fracking project is being led by a company called High Country Energy. You know them?”

“Not well. They were a start-up when I was in the business, but small potatoes. Looks like they are getting aggressive with their growth strategy. Was someone from High Country Energy there last night?”

“I don't know. This whole thing wasn't on the agenda. I can ask around to see if they had someone in the room, but I'll have to do it real quiet.”

“Ask. If someone from this High Country Energy was there and we can tie him to any members of the council, we can plant the story and cause some trouble.”

“I don't know if that's smart, Brian.”

“Joe, I've had it done
against
me a dozen times. Back in the bad old days when I was on the wrong side of this issue.”

“I just think that if we ever want to get wind turbines up and running on the western edge of the reservation, we're going to need the council. Maybe we can get
HCE
to help with financing that too. They say they want to diversify their company's investments.”

“Energy companies aren't talking about wind when they say they want to diversify. They want to get into what they call unconventional oil and gas. Fracking, yes, but also the tar sands.”

“That's a long way from here.”

“But it's all tied together, Joe.”

“If you say so. What's our next move?”

“You need to find out if High Country Energy was in the room last night. I'm going to poke around and see what I can learn about them, see if I can figure out where their money is coming from and what they are doing with it. Nobody gets a straight up or down vote without notification, and behind closed doors, unless there's some graft involved.”

“Careful, Brian. You Canucks think everybody plays nice. This isn't a game of cowboys and Indians down here. This is for real.”

“I know. Hell, I'm on the side of the Indians.”

“But the Indians always lose, Brian.”

“I'll call you when I learn something, Joe.”

“
Kitaakitomasttsimo
,” said Joe Firstlight.

“Yes, we'll see you again soon.” Brian hung up the phone. He was late for his lunch meeting. He picked up his Blackberry and took his coat from the rack next to the door. He rode the elevator to the ground floor of the building and pulled on his gloves. The cold air that greeted him as he stepped onto the street felt like a wall of ice. As usual, he wondered why he put up with Ottawa winters. For the cause, he laughed to himself. He couldn't believe he was even thinking that.

Hy's was just a block from his office, and he dashed through the bitter wind, holding his scarf over his face. He stepped inside the restaurant and stamped his feet to knock the snow off them. On any given day, half a dozen Members of Parliament, Cabinet ministers, and senior civil servants could be found dining at the Ottawa establishment.

The maître d' escorted him through the restaurant. Brian said hello to a few other people as they went. When he arrived at his destination, he greeted his friend. “Mr. Secretary,” Brian said, extending his hand.