her mind, pivoted on the heel of her boot and quickly stomped away.
“Who put a burr under her saddle?” Bucky asked, feigning offense.
“Sometimes you just have that effect on people,” Roper smiled, shaking his head.
“Like the prophets of old, I’se just tell it as it is,” Bucky Lee replied, staring at Roper with bleary eyes. “This heer ain’t no popularity contest.”
“Well then, Bucky,” Roper said testily, raising everted palms skyward in an apparent show of frustration. “What’s your answer?”
“All I’m sayin’ is it’s time to stand up and be confounded. Somebody’s gotta take back this country from them friggin’, bleedin’ heart liberals.”
2
One Year Later
THE GRAND STAIRCASE
Well over fifty-five hundred feet in total elevation, the cliffs of Utah’s plateau land are towering, rangy and distinctively colored. It is, in fact, the various rock hues that have inspired each tier’s popular name.
Commencing with the rim of the Grand Canyon and rising ever higher and higher in a northward progression is a great system of cliffs sometimes christened in western geology, the Great Staircase. In geological time, the oldest cliffs form the basal strata and the youngest, the crest or the crown. At the lowest echelon, sits the desert-edged Chocolate Cliffs; the second terrace, the brilliant Vermillion Cliffs; third, coursing ever upward in a step-like manner, are the chalky White Cliffs; the next landing, the steely Gray Cliffs; and the pinnacle, the lofty Pink Cliffs, alpine cap of the Aquarius Plateau.
Certainly, such a regal staircase, so massive, so majestic may be tramped, traversed, or otherwise trekked across by mere mortals—but surely only Gods may glibly stride up and down its colossal steps.
“What a great speech!” Sean Dunn O’Grady jumped to his feet, enthusiastically joining the erupting applause. With tears brimming and overflowing, he turned to the short, balding man on his right and shouted above the din, “Isn’t he great? Best damn president since JFK!”
The thunderous applause continued and so did Sean. His hands ached, his palms turned a meaty red and his fingers felt like stiff wooden appendages, numbed from the paralytic pounding. But who cared? What a victory! What a day!
Just imagine, Sean Dunn O’Grady rubbing shoulders with congressmen, senators, cabinet secretaries, governors, top-level bureaucrats and a virtual who’s who of the Intermountain business community. Everyone who was anyone was here, that is everyone except the conspicuously absent Utah political delegation. They considered it grandstanding, but to Sean it looked more like a grand display of sour grapes. The governor, both senators and both representatives, all republicans, as a show of solidarity in their displeasure, had snubbed the proceedings. What sore losers. Who needs them? Who cares?
But what an honor for the likes of Sean Dunn O’Grady. Never in his wildest dreams did he think he would be hobnobbing with these people, literally the de facto royalty of America. Nor did it matter that they mostly ignored him. What counted, he was here!
Looking around he grinned, his abundant freckles bunching at the corners of his mouth and surfing over the bridge of his nose. Without a doubt, from the looks of the attendees, he must have the smallest bank account of anyone. Being president of the Southern Utah Chapter of the Western Wilderness Alliance wasn’t exactly a yellow brick road paved with blocks of gold bullion or landscaped with dollar trees. But he hadn’t done it for the money. He would gladly trade trivial paper money for a righteous cause any day. Environmental crusades were his staff of life, his soul food, and that’s what he did it for. Today was his payday, not some computer printed check. And this was one hell-uv-a-day.
When he’d first received the invitation, he had been ecstatic. It was so unexpected, not that he hadn’t dreamed about it. The summons had to be the administration’s way of thanking him for his part, however small, in bringing this mammoth project to fruition. And he had played a modest part. Perhaps, a bigger part than anyone had realized, but some things are better left unsaid, some stories simply cannot be told. By their very nature, some things are not to be openly applauded and are meant only for self-congratulations. His role was like that.
From his church days of another life and time, he knew pride was a sin, but even in those days it was always considered a minor sin. Now as a devout atheist, he really did not believe in retribution for transgressions, thank God for that, nor rewards for good works. He realized, of course, a certain code of ethics was necessary for society to survive and keep anarchy at bay, but he really didn’t believe in sin, only crime, and of course crime was legislated by society as a firewall to deter chaos. But if a crime was committed and not witnessed, was it still a crime, philosophically speaking of course? Certainly that would be true of sins, if you believed in an omnipotent all-seeing God, but probably not of crime. Sin implied someone was watching and intimated future retribution. Crime on the other hand, suggested punishment by mortals. So, if someone committed murder and it was not witnessed and there was no evidence, it cannot be punished by mortals. Therefore, is it a crime? Or a sin? In essence, Sean rationalized, this was nearly the same question of a tree falling in the forest and no one hearing it.
Anyway, no one would be hurt by his momentary plunge into the narcissistic world of self-congratulations and self-backslapping. So for now, he would bask in the warm glow of the victory, gorge at the table of triumph, sleep in the bed of the conqueror. To the victor go all of the spoils, thank God, if not all of the adulation.
“So what do you think, Sean?”
“Huh—huh?” Sean mumbled, forcing his mind back to the present. “S—orry. Guess I was daydreaming.”
“Do you want to be a part of it?” Monument manager Judith Brisco asked, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice, “or not?”
“I apologize,” Sean said sheepishly. “Be part of what?”
“A part of this,” Brisco trumpeted, arching her petite arm through the air with a grand flourish, “a part of the team.”
“I was never very good at teams,” Sean acknowledged, rubbing his eyes, then running forked fingers through coarse, shoulder-length, red hair. “What exactly would we be doing?”
“You really didn’t hear a word I said,” Brisco sighed, placing her hand on her slender hips. “I’m about to appoint an advisory team to take stock of what we’ve got, gather preliminary information before we formulate a comprehensive management plan. When a corporation buys a company, the first thing they do is take inventory—see what they’ve got, what needs to be fixed, what needs to be purchased, what needs to be sold and what needs to be changed.
“The first thing I need to know is what we’ve got. How many springs and rivers have dried up with the drought? What kind of shape the rangeland is in? How many cows are presently grazing on the allotments compared to what those same permits allow? And does the foliage justify such numbers? Are we overgrazing? Is natural grass being replaced by opportunistic weeds, like thistles, tumbleweeds, snake broom and rabbit brush? Is erosion a problem? How many deer do we have? How many elk? Is poaching a problem? How much private property is in the monument and who owns it? Are they being good stewards?
