Montana Standoff. Nadia Nichols

grown children. “What caused the crash? Do the police know?”

      “I don’t know. They were still investigating the scene when Amy and I went up on the mountain. We couldn’t get anywhere near the site.”

      Steven dropped his hand, stared out across the valley. Wondered if Sam had felt any different when he got out of bed on the morning of his death. “Hard to believe.”

      “He was so nice,” the girl said. “He really cared about what was happening. And now…”

      “Condor International, the mining company that owns the New Millennium project, is sending their geologist to talk to us about the proposed mine,” Rob Brown explained. “It isn’t really an official meeting. It’s more of a courtesy on the part of the mining company, but we wanted to show them we meant business when we came out opposed to this mine. We thought the best way to do that was to hire a good lawyer. So we collected money, held bake sales and bottle drives, sold raffle tickets for a donated Hereford calf. We raised five hundred dollars and then we contacted Sam, who agreed to represent us.

      “We gave him all our information. He went up on the mountain several times himself in the past four weeks to see what was happening. I paid him the retainer just this morning and I also gave him all the water samples we’d taken from the area streams. I believe all of it was with him when he crashed his car.”

      “I see.” The great weariness mired Steven’s thoughts. He wanted nothing more than to go inside his peaceful little house and close the door. He wanted to tell these earnest people to go away and leave him alone. He wanted to hide away from the mean, ugly world. Sam Blackmore was dead. He’d died this morning, while Steven was readying himself for Leona’s wedding to a slick car salesman who had those hokey radio commercials….

      “So you need someone to speak for you at this meeting that’s being held in…” he glanced at his watch “…a little less than an hour, but you have no money. I suppose you asked around and somehow found out that I was the lowest-paid attorney in the state of Montana, so you staked out my house.”

      Brown fidgeted, his face flushing. “No. We called the Beartooth Alliance, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and the Rocky Mountain Conservancy. They all recommended you highly. They said you were good, that you were a fighter.”

      “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I no longer handle active environmental litigation. My fighting days ended two years ago. And besides the fact that I’ve given up litigating, I have little knowledge of this particular proposal. I’m familiar with the mining company you spoke of, but—”

      “Isn’t that enough for a start?” Amy asked. “Please, Mr. Young Bear. We’re desperate. I know the town of Moose Horn doesn’t matter to most of the people on this planet, but to us it’s a beautiful place. We live there and we love it, and we don’t want to see it destroyed by some greedy mining conglomerate.”

      Steven shook his head. “I’m sorry you wasted your time.”

      “But…”

      “You’ll be late for your meeting if you don’t leave right away.”

      Brown reached for Amy’s arm but she shrugged away from him, thin face determined, eyes fierce. “My mother left me her diamond engagement ring,” she said. “It’s two carats, pear cut. Blue. A beautiful stone. I’ve had it appraised and—”

      “No,” Steven said.

      “It’s worth a lot of money. I’ll sell it and you’ll have the fee you need. Name your price. Just please come to the meeting tonight. Please, Mr. Young Bear. This means so much to all of us. If you could only walk on that mountain, you’d understand the awful thing that’s about to happen to the entire area, and what it means—”

      “Does it mean more than your mother’s engagement ring?”

      “This fight is so much bigger than me,” she said without hesitation. “So much bigger than all of us.”

      Steven felt his resolve beginning to crumble. Ever since Mary Pretty Shield’s death, he had deliberately avoided the fights, avoided the risks, avoided the pain of failure. He’d rolled down his shirt sleeves, buttoned his cuffs and toed all the proper political lines. But he would never forget her, or what she stood for. When Amy Littlefield spoke almost the exact same words that Mary had spoken nearly two and a half years ago, it was as if Mary were reaching out from the grave, trying to remind him of what was really important in life.

      And there was this truth, too. It was his fate to back the underdogs. All of his life he would walk that path. He’d never be a rich attorney. It simply wasn’t meant to be.

      “I’ll go to the meeting, but on one condition,” he relented. “You keep your mother’s engagement ring.”

      Steven declined the offer of a lift to and from the meeting with Amy and Rob, preferring the privacy of his own vehicle, but he had rapidly fallen behind their Dodge sedan and given up trying to keep apace. He felt as though the entire world were rushing by him at breakneck speed, everyone in a hurry to get somewhere, everyone late for something…but what? What drove people to live their lives at such a frenzied pace? Where was the enjoyment in that?

      He admired the alpenglow that backlit the mountain range to the west, highlighting those last clear streaks of gold and vermilion before dusk coaxed the stars to shine down out of the night sky, and wondered if the wedding reception was over, if Jolly John and Leona had left for the airport and their trip to Hawaii. Seemed like everyone wanted to honeymoon in Hawaii. If he ever got married, he’d opt for Alaska, maybe. He’d like to see the salmon run by the thousands up some wild, unspoiled river, camp in the shadow of Denali, float a raft down the Yukon…

      He sighed and glanced at his watch. Ten minutes to seven. He was definitely going to be late.

      MOLLY TOOK THE WRONG TURNOFF outside of Bozeman and was nearly in Deer Lodge before she realized her mistake. She pulled over and studied the road map intently, anxiously nibbling on one fingernail.

      In less than an hour, she’d be officially launched as a real, practicing attorney, pacing studiously before the residents of Moose Horn, calmly and succinctly explaining the financial benefits and industrial intricacies of a world they knew nothing of. She’d be skillfully guiding them into a brighter, more financially secure future, and who knows? They might even name their new library after her.

      Molly shook her head with a laugh. At this rate, she’d be doing well if she just found the town before the meeting was over. She tossed aside the road map and spun her car around, reversing her direction on a dime with a nickel to spare. She shifted, shifted again, and had the speedometer nudging sixty-five in mere seconds. Lovely little car to drive. It almost made this two-hour road trip fun. The window was down and the cool mountain wind whipped through the car. The road was made to order for her Mercedes, all curves and twists. She came around a tight corner and hit the brakes. A dark green Jeep Wagoneer blocked the road in front of her, traveling at a sedate speed that instantly caused her blood pressure to soar. She was already late for the first important assignment she’d ever had with Taintor, Skelton and Goldstein, and now she was trapped behind some nursing-home escapee.

      Another corner approached, and then a brief straightaway beckoned with no oncoming traffic. She downshifted, accelerated and flew past the sluggish Jeep like it was standing still. On the next brief straightaway she pegged seventy and U2 was blaring from the speakers when something struck her cheek just below her left eye. The car swerved as she hit the brakes, slapping wildly as an insect fell into her lap. Her brief, panicked glance identified the insect as a honeybee even as she felt the car leave the road. The Mercedes slid sideways and nosed over into a ditch, throwing her against the seat belt as the car came to an abrupt stop in a thick cloud of dust.

      Molly sat for a moment, dazed, then scrabbled to release her seat belt and jump from the car, brushing her hands over her clothes to make sure the bee was gone. She felt her cheek swelling where the bee had stung her. Tires crunched on gravel and she turned, blinking to clear the tears from her eyes. A vehicle pulled over onto the shoulder. The driver