The Cardinal Divide (7 page)

“Holy cow,” said Blackwater under his breath, and Jones laughed.

“The rest of us just say holy fuck,” chuckled Jones.

“I used to,” said Cole, wistfully. “I loved to curse. I could make a sailor blush,” he said, finishing his beer. “But it's a bad influence on my daughter, Sarah, so I try to substitute.”

Jones nodded his agreement. “Good thinking. Anyway, the McLeod River job isn't all that much different than previous incarnations of nearby operations. You remember. Overburden into the valley below, killing bull trout and harlequin duck habitat, and a twenty-kilometre long hole in the ground that grizzly bears, cougars, and wolves won't be able to navigate around. Even if they did, they'd likely get plastered on the haul road by those monster dump trucks, or cut up on the rail line.”

“Effectively cutting off another north-south migration route for wildlife,” said Cole.

“That's right, and all the genetic diversity that goes with it. The mountain parks are already islands, with the animals trapped on them, unable to migrate into the surrounding country to breed, seek food, find shelter, or take refuge from fires, floods, and other natural disasters. What that means is that the populations of these critters are getting inbred. No diversity means no resilience to weather the storms of life. This isn't going to help.”

“Sounds like a nail in the coffin, at least on Jasper's eastern slopes. Now I understand the urgency in Peggy McSorlie's call.”

They sat in silence a moment.

“Another for the road?” Jim Jones asked.

“Couldn't hurt,” said Blackwater, deep in thought.

Jones stood to get the beers, and Cole followed him through the house.

“Where's Betty?” he asked absentmindedly.

Jones fished a couple of bottles from the fridge and opened them on an opener affixed to the kitchen doorframe.

“She's at her mother's in Ontario.”

“Everything
OK
?”

“With the mother? Yeah. But Betty and I are on the rocks, if you'll excuse the pun.”

Cole nodded solemnly.

They touched bottles and drank again, standing in the kitchen. There were no obvious signs of domestic disarray: no pile of dishes, no half-eaten box of pizza on the counter. “You seem to be getting along,” said Cole.

“I'm getting by. Would prefer that I didn't have to.”

“Is it permanent?”

“Who knows?”

They nodded together, drinking.

“So you must know Wild Rose, out of Calgary. They're doing the
EA
.”

Cole smiled.

“You know them?”

“Yeah,” said Cole, nodding, his chin touching his chest. “I know them. I know one of the principals from a while back. We did some work together a long, long time ago in a galaxy far
away. Jeremy Moon is a good man, but he's got some pretty rotten clients.”

“Well, you can add Athabasca Coal to that list now.”

“How far along are they on the environmental assessment?”

“Nearly done. As of last week they were just looking for someone to put the magic to the report. You know, the buzz words like
mitigation
,
ecological footprint
,
carrying capacity
. That sort of thing. Take a fucked-up project like this and make it seem like the whole landscape will flourish after the pit has been reclaimed. Add a few bighorn sheep grazing on the slopes of the mine so that the American big-game hunters have something to shoot at. Grizzly bears be damned.”

“Sounds like they got it all worked out,” said Cole.

“Maybe, but I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid.”

“You sound familiar with the project,” Cole wondered.

“They asked me to review it. Add the magic,” Jim grinned.

“I got a note from Wild Rose last week too. Sounds like you said no.”

“Sure did. What did you say?”

“I said yes. To Peggy McSorlie.”

They touched bottles again and finished their second beer.

“Still, there might be something to keeping the door open with Wild Rose,” said Cole, looking out the kitchen window at the rock garden beyond. “I think I'll call Jeremy tomorrow and see what I can learn.”

Jim Jones was looking down at the kitchen floor. “You know, Cole. There's something funny about the project.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, they bring in this new hot-shot mine manager. He's been on the job for six months and suddenly they shift their whole focus from Mountain Park, where they tried to dig years ago, you remember? To the other side of the Divide, where nobody has done much preliminary work. I mean, there are hardly any core samples to show that coal exists there in the first place. Now they have the full-court press on, trying to set a speed record for completing an environmental assessment. They want to start work on the haul road this summer! They want tracks laid down for the rail line for the fall. It all seems so damn fast.”

Cole was silent.

“And Cardinal Divide, I mean, the place is synonymous with trouble. People have been fighting over it for thirty years. In the last ten years we've made some progress, getting some protection for it. Now these guys want to skirt the little provincial park and dig a
huge
, and I mean huge, hole in the side of it. It seems like a recipe for disaster for the company. Are they looking for a fight? Doesn't make any sense to me.

“Anyway,” said Jim, “it just seems a little strange. And asking
me
to review the assessment? And
you
? What's up with that?”

“That's more and more common. Find a known entity in the environmental movement to get some fingerprints on the report before it goes public, so they can say that the enviros are in support of the project.”

“Slimy bastards.”

“Yup.”

“Is there anything I can do to help, Cole?”

Cole thought a moment. “There might be. I'm going to be a known player by Tuesday evening. It might be that a call to Wild Rose from me won't go over all that well. Maybe you could call them and say you're having second thoughts, and that you just want to have a look at what they've got, you know, time lines, preliminary reports, et cetera, to reassess if you should take the job.”

“Could do. I didn't slam the door
too
hard on them.”

“Then just give me a call on my cell if anything seems funny.” Cole handed Jim his card.

“Cole, we can't lose this one, you know,” said Jim as they stood on the road by Cole's pickup.

“Jim, I don't plan on losing,” he said, looking his friend in the eye. “Hey listen, you said that they were both a mess. What did you mean?”

Jones shuffled a little. “Well, I guess that's a pretty harsh indictment of the little band of eco-warriors that Peggy McSorlie has assembled. I don't know. It's just that there isn't much bench strength there. Peggy is really the brains of the outfit. She's got this guy working with her named Dale van Stempvort.”

“Van Stempvort?”

“A loose cannon. No other way of saying it: the man is trouble. He moved to the region, I don't know, ten years ago or so, and nobody really knows much about him, like where he came from
or why he chose Oracle, but since he got there, funny business has been afoot.”

“What do you mean, Jim?”

Standing on the road, Jones peeled the label from his empty bottle of beer. “Funny business. Like the local forestry company plans to log one of its cut blocks, and they get a note saying that the trees have been spiked. Sure enough, they go out with metal detectors and there they are, six-inch long nails in the trees. Too high to hurt the faller, but a little land mine for the mill. And that was just the start of it. There were explosives.”

“I remember hearing about that. It made the national news. That was Dale?”

“Nobody knows for sure, but it's pretty strange that two gas wells got blown up within a few kilometres of his place. And Dale was in the paper a lot those days talking about the impacts of sour gas on his livestock. Still births, birth defects. He said some pretty vicious things to the media.”

Cole shook his head.

Jim put the bottle down. “Need a traveller, Cole?” he asked.

“Better not,” said Cole.

“Suit yourself,” said Jones, looking up at the mountains. “Nobody has ever been charged with any of that stuff, but Dale has never denied that he had anything to do with it. It's odd that Peggy would let him in on this Cardinal Divide campaign. The guy is a wing nut.”

I haven't even made it to Oracle yet, Cole thought, and already I want to turn around and head back home. It's one thing to fight a lost cause. It's another altogether to fight a lost cause and do damage control at the same time.

“I better hit the road, Jim,” said Cole, looking at his watch.

“Well, give my best to Peggy, and let me know if there's anything else I can do. Happy to be errand boy.”

“Thanks, Jim, and thanks for the beers. Just what the doctor ordered.”

It was after 9
PM
when Cole Blackwater turned his pickup east on Highway 16 and drove toward Oracle. He kept his speed down through the park, conscious of the herds of bighorn sheep that lurked along the shoulder of the highway east of the town.

Heading east on Highway 16, the Rocky Mountains came to
an abrupt end. The eastern slope thrust fault that had jostled the great slabs of limestone skyward also created a clean break between the rugged mountains to the west and the undulating foothills to the east. It took Cole less than an hour to reach Oracle. Cresting a small rise, the town was laid out below him along the banks of the Portsmith River, named for one of the first mining families in the region, a minor tributary of the Athabasca River. In the last wisps of daylight, Cole could see the town squared neatly along its streets and avenues, grid style. The highway cut across it to the north of the old downtown. There he could see the lights from gas stations and the Motel 6. On the north side of the highway ran the railway tracks, and then, below, in a deep dale, the river. Above the old main street and its neat lattice, on a small knoll, perched the new subdivisions, looking out toward the Rocky Mountains. Oracle, Alberta. Population 3,700 including dogs, guessed Cole. Home for the next two weeks.

Cole drove slowly down the highway, turned down Main Street, and looked for 2
^nd
Avenue, which would lead him to his hotel, his bed, and sleep. It had been a long day, and the days ahead would be just as long. Maybe longer.

He found the street and turned to the south. The Rim Rock Motel and Suites was set back from the road, with a large parking lot in front filled nearly to capacity with pickup trucks. And not your rinky-dink Toyota
SR
5s. Ford
F
250 Diesels and Dodge Ram 2500s and Chevy Sierras bulked up the lot. Next to his Toyota, a cherry-red Dodge stood a good foot taller.

He made his way to the motel office. A light in the office and another beside the screen door welcomed weary travellers.

He opened the screen door and the wooden inner door to the Rim Rock and entered the lobby of the motel. A woman stepped out from the back office. She smiled at him and said in a friendly, sing-song voice, “Good evening.”

Cole Blackwater guessed she was about forty, though he wasn't very good at placing a person's age, so she could be five years on either side of that. She wasn't the sort of beautiful that Cole Black-water scoped in the Cambie on Friday nights. She could be the mother of one of the girls that flitted about that joint. But he was taken with her strong features, clear blue eyes, and sandy blonde hair that hung loosely to her shoulders in waves.

He signed in and she handed him a key. “You're in room 232,” she said. He took the key and jammed it in his pocket. “Thanks,” he said, and then, “What's your name?”

“It's Deborah, Deborah Cody. My husband and I own the motel,” she said, extending a hand.

He shook it. “Well, it's a pleasure, Deborah,” he said.

“Pleasure's all mine,” she said with a sly smile. He watched her eyes, which for a moment locked on his.

“Is there a place to get a drink nearby?” he said as he turned toward the door.

“Right next door.” She gave him directions to The Quarry. “You'll find George behind the bar.”

“George?”

“My husband.”

“Right,” he said and stepped out into the night.

Cole found his room and dumped his bags on the bed, then felt his way to the bar. It was packed. Country music blared loudly and he made out the clack of pool cues striking balls over the din of mostly male voices. It's Monday night, he thought. Who are all these people? He gave himself a minute to adjust to the light, then had a look at the bar which ran along one long wall to his right. He made his way there, aware of the eyes on him, and the perceptible hush that fell over the conversations in the room.

He waited at the bar while George attended to the waitress' tray, piling on bottles of Molson's Canadian and tumblers of what looked like rum and coke. George was a large man, with broad shoulders, a thick neck, and arms that looked as though they could double as rock crushers. His hair, formerly red and likely curly, receded up toward the crown of his wide head and was cut short. Like his wife, he had blue eyes. George wore a trim moustache but otherwise was clean-shaven.

“Evening. What will you have?”

“Jameson, neat,” said Cole.

“Coming up.” George turned and Cole noticed his broad back beneath the shirt. Had he played football when he was younger? A body like that didn't come from heavy labour alone. A man had to work at a physique like the one George Cody lugged around.

George pulled a bottle from the back row on the counter behind
the bar, eyeballed a healthy shot into a glass, and placed it before Blackwater.