They needed guys with guns, but they were hard to find at least the right ones, with the right attitudes-and the task was made more difficult by government activities with similar, but divergent aims. It helped them keep away from the more obvious kooks, though.
"Damn, it's pretty out here," Mark observed. His host snorted. "There's a new house right the other side of that ridge line. On a calm day, I can see the smoke from their chimney."
Mark had to laugh. "There goes the neighborhood. You and Dan'l Boone, eh?"
Foster adopted a somewhat sheepish look. "Yeah, well, it is a good five miles."
"But you know, you're right. Imagine what it looked like before the white man came here. No roads 'cept for the riverbanks and deer trails, and the hunting must have been pretty spectacular."
"Good enough you didn't have to work that hard to eat, I imagine." Foster gestured at the fireplace wall of his log cabin, covered with hunting trophies, not all of them legal, but here in Montana's Bitterroot Mountains, there weren't all that many cops, and Foster kept pretty much to himself.
"It's our birthright."
"Supposed to be," Foster agreed. "Something worth fighting for."
"How hard?" Mark asked, admiring the trophies. The grizzly bear rug was especially impressive - and probably illegal as hell.
Foster poured some more bourbon for his guest. "I don't know what it's like back East, but out here, if you fight you fight. All the way, boy. Put one right 'tween the fining lights, generally calms your adversary down a mite."
"But then you have to dispose of the body," Mark said, ping his drink. The man bought only cheap whiskey. Well, he probably couldn't afford the good stuff.
A laugh: "Ever hear of a backhoe? How 'bout a nice fire?"
It was believed by some in this part of the state that Foster had killed a fish-and-game cop. As a result, he was leery of local police-and the highway patrol people didn't like him to go a mile over the limit. But though the car had been found-burned out, forty miles away-the body of the missing officer had not, and that was that. There weren't many people around to be witnesses in this part of the state, even with a new house five miles away. Mark sipped his bourbon and leaned back in the leather chair. "Nice to be part of nature, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir. It surely is. Sometimes I think I kinda understand the Indians, y'know?"
"Know any?"
'Oh, sure. Charlie Grayson, he's a Nez Perce, hunting guide, got my horse off o'him. I do that, too, to make some cash sometimes, mainly take a horse into the high country, really, meet people who get it. And the elk are pretty thick up there."
"What about bear?"
"Enough," Foster replied. "Mainly blacks, but some grizz'."
"What do you use? Bow?"
A good-natured shake of the head. "No, I admire the Indians, but I ain't one myself. Depends on what I'm hunting, and what country I'm doing it in. Bolt-action.300 Winchester Mag mainly, but in close country, a semi auto slug shotgun. Nothing like drillin' three-quarter-inch holes when you gotta, y'know?"
"Handload?"
"Of course. It's a lot more personal that way. Gotta show respect for the game, you know, keep the gods of the mountains happy."
Foster smiled at the phrase, in just the right sleepy way, Mark saw. In every civilized man was a pagan waiting to come out, who really believed in the gods of the mountains, and in appeasing the spirits of the dead game. And so did he, really, despite his technical education.
"So, what do you do, Mark?"
"Molecular biochemistry, Ph.D., in fact."
"What's that mean?"
"Oh, figuring out how life happens. Like how does a bear smell so well," he went on, lying. "It can be interesting, but my real life is coming out to places like this, hunting, meeting people who really understand the game better than I do. Guys like you," Mark concluded, with a salute of his glass. "What about you?"
"Ah, well, retired now. I made some of my own. Would you believe geologist for an oil company?"
"Where'd you work?"
"All over the world. I had a good nose for it, and the oil companies paid me a lot for finding the right stuff, y'know? But I had to give it up. Got to the point-well, you fly a lot, right?"
"I get around," Mark confirmed with a nod.
"The brown smudge," Foster said next.
"Huh?"
"Come on, you see it all over the damned world. Up around thirty thousand feet, that brown smudge. Complex hydrocarbons, mainly from passenger jets. One day I was flying back from Paris - connecting flight from Brunei, I came the wrong way 'round 'cuz I wanted to stop off in Europe and meet a friend. Anyway, there I was, in a fuckin'747, over the middle of the fucking Atlantic Ocean, like four hours from land, y'know? First-class window seat, sitting there drinking my drink, lookin' out the window, and there it was, the smudge - that goddamned brown shit, and I realized that I was helpin' make it happen, dirtyin' up the whole fuckin' atmosphere.
"Anyway," Foster went on, "that was the moment of my… conversion, I guess you'd call it. I tendered my resignation the next week, took my stock options, cashed in half a mil worth, and bought this place. So, now, I hunt and fish, do a little guide work in the fall, read a lot, wrote a little book about what oil products do to the environment, and that's about it."
It was the book that had attracted Mark's attention, of course. The brown-smudge story was in its poorly written preface. Foster was a believer, but not a screwball. His house had electricity and phone service. Mark saw his high-end Gateway computer on the floor next to his desk. Even satellite TV, plus the usual Chevy pickup truck with a gun-rack in the back window… and a diesel-powered backhoe. So, maybe he believed, but he wasn't too crazy about it. That was good, Mark thought. He just had to be crazy enough. Foster was. Killing the fish-and-game cop was proof of that.
Foster returned the friendly stare. He'd met guys like this during his time in Exxon. A suit, but a clever one, the kind who didn't mind getting his hands dirty. Molecular biochemistry. They hadn't had that major at the Colorado School of Mines, but Foster also subscribed to Science News, and knew what it was all about. A meddler with life… but, strangely, one who understood about the deer and elk. Well, the world was a complex place. Just then, his visitor saw the Lucite block on the coffee table. Mark picked it up.
"What's this?"
Foster grinned over his drink. "What's it look like?"
"Well, it's either iron pyrite or it's-"
"Ain't iron. I do know my rocks, sir."
"Gold? Where from?"
"Found it in my stream, 'bout three hundred yards over yonder." Foster pointed.