The Cardinal Divide (11 page)

Dale van Stempvort certainly seemed to crave attention, even to revel in the conflict he created among his fellow activists. Black-water thought him unbalanced. He seemed dangerous. He had a propensity for rash statements, like the one staring at Blackwater from the pages of the newspaper spread open in front of him.

So the question Blackwater posed to himself over his second cup of coffee was this: just how far
would
van Stempvort go to stop this mine?

He looked at Dale van Stempvort's number again on his Palm. He had taken everybody's name, email, phone number, and address down after the first meeting at Peggy McSorlie's farm and entered them there for safekeeping. He picked up his cell and was about to dial the number when a familiar-looking pickup truck pulled into the doughnut shop parking lot. Cole watched, amazed, as Dale van Stempvort parked his truck and stepped out, adjusting his ball cap. Cole hid behind his newspaper. He didn't want to be seen talking with Dale. He needed another couple of incognito days in town to interview the President of the Chamber of Commerce and others under the guise of a magazine story. Talking with Dale could cast suspicion on his cover, and at the very least make people think that the story was for
Canadian Geographic
rather than
Report on Business.

From behind the paper Cole watched Dale order a coffee and a muffin and then, without a word to anybody, walk back out. Cole swept his phone, paper, and Palm Pilot into his arms and followed Dale into the parking lot.

Dale stepped into the truck. Cole checked over his shoulder and, certain he wasn't being observed, deftly moved to the passenger side of the truck, opened the door, and slipped in.

If Cole Blackwater's sudden appearance in the cab of his truck startled Dale van Stempvort, he didn't let it show. Instead he simply said, “Good Morning, Cole.”

“Morning, Dale.”

“Saw you behind the newspaper in the shop there.”

“Well, I didn't want to blow my cover quite yet,” Cole said, somewhat embarrassed.

“Oh yes.”

“Shall we go for a little drive, Dale? Have a chat?”

“All right. Where to?”

“How about just to the outskirts of town and back?”

Dale backed the truck from its stall and turned right on the highway, heading west toward the mountains.

“Listen, Dale, I wanted to talk with you about this story in the paper this morning. Have you seen it?”

“Yes, I saw it.”

“It's quite the story.”

“It sure is.”

“Dale,” said Cole. “I'm a little disappointed that you went to the media after all we discussed yesterday.”

“Now just wait a minute, Cole,” said Dale, turning his head sharply. Cole thought for a minute that Dale was going to explode, and prepared himself for the possibility of physical violence. He suddenly questioned the wisdom of jumping, unwitnessed, into the cab of a pickup with a man whose sanity he had only moments ago questioned. “Wait a minute,” Dale said again, more calmly, turning his eyes back to the road. “That reporter called me. I didn't call him.”

“How do you mean?”

“The reporter called me. The telephone was ringing when I walked in the door. I've never even heard of him before. Somebody from Red Deer that doesn't normally work this beat.”

“Did he say how he knew to call just then?”

“I didn't even ask. I just assumed that it was blind luck that we had wrapped up our strategy meeting. You know, a coincidence.”

“Some coincidence.”

“Well, the story has been pretty hot, and I have been in the paper a lot.”

Cole looked at the paper in his hands. The byline was given to Richard T. Drewfeld. He made a mental note to call Mr. Drewfeld later that morning.

“So you didn't call the reporter.”

Dale stiffened. “Cole, I know you don't like me. Maybe I'm too rough around the edges for a big city environmentalist like you.
But an agreement is an agreement, and we agreed to hold off the media for a week while we developed our plan.”

“But you were quoted.”

Dale hunched forward a little. “Yeah, well, what was I supposed to do? Tell the guy to fuck off, that there wasn't any story?”

“But Dale, you told the guy that you would be willing to do anything to stop the mine. That's hardly a mush-ball quote. And the reporter knew that we'd been in a strategy session! Did you tell him that too?”

“I did no such thing!” barked Dale in his thick Dutch accent. “Look, the guy seemed to have already known that we were planning to oppose the mine. It wouldn't take a rocket scientist to surmise that we were going to go head to head over this one. And as for the comment about doing anything necessary, well, he took that out of context.”

Cole was silent. They had left town now and were still driving west on Highway 16. “Let's turn around,” he said, as calmly as he could.

Cole knew from years of experience that Dale van Stempvort, if he was telling the truth, had fallen for two of the oldest tricks in the journalist's book. First, the reporter had conned Dale into believing that he already knew certain things. A statement as open ended as “I understand local enviros are gearing up to fight this mine” could have tricked van Stempvort into believing the writer knew about that day's meeting.

The second trick was to get van Stempvort talking and then just sit back and listen. People are uncomfortable with long silences, and often avoid them by continuing to talk. In this case Drewfeld may have simply asked what was being planned to stop the mine, and van Stempvort could have rattled on for 15 minutes. Then the reporter could have taken a sentence, even half a sentence, that met his needs and used it to make van Stempvort sound like the frothing-at-the-mouth radical he was.

They drove in silence for a few minutes. Then Dale said, “I screwed up, didn't I?”

Cole breathed out heavily. “It could be worse. It could be that nobody was interested in this as a story at all. But yes, you did screw up. You should have told the reporter that you didn't have anything to say or told them to call Peggy.”

“Look, Cole, I'm sorry. Sometimes I just get a bit hot under the collar. I hate it so damn much what those bastards are doing, and are going to do, that I don't think.”

“We need to think, Dale, if we're going to win.”

Dale stared toward the approaching town of Oracle. “I know it,” he finally said.

“Stay out of the media. Deal?”

“Deal,” Dale said, smiling. Then, “Where can I drop you?”

“Pull off 16 up ahead. I'll hop out.”

Dale pulled over on the shoulder of a side street about four blocks from Cole's motel. Cole began to open the door. Dale grabbed his arm and Cole stiffened. Dale relaxed his grip, “Wait a minute, Cole.”

Cole sat back, but left the door ajar. “What is it?” he said.

“I know you think I'm some kind of raving lunatic. An eco-terrorist. A mad bomber,” Dale grinned at the labels. “I know that's what everybody thinks. That I'm some kind of psychopath. That I'm dangerous.”

Cole was silent. He watched the big man. Dale gripped the wheel with both hands intently, not making eye contact. “I'm none of those things, really, Cole. It's just an act. It's for show,” sighed Dale, looking over at Cole. “I didn't have anything to do with blowing up gas wells.”

“But you didn't deny it when the stories came out.”

“I didn't and I know that seems pretty stupid. But it was a good opportunity to tell
my
story, and as long as nobody was laying charges against me, I didn't see any reason to assert my innocence. I know that may seem dumb to you, but it gave my issue a lot of attention, Cole.”

It gave
you
a lot of attention, Cole thought, but remained silent.

“Anyway, I just really want to stop this mine. And if you say that means
not
talking to the media, well, then I'm willing to listen. For now.”

Cole regarded him for a long, silent moment. He saw in Dale van Stempvort's face no malice. He saw no guile. He saw simply a big, rough man fighting for something that he believed in. Did Dale van Stempvort conceal something dark and sinister behind his mask of innocence? Cole had no way of knowing. I'm a liar myself, after all, mused Cole.

Cole sighed deeply. He swung the door open, and said, over his shoulder, “You gave me the benefit of the doubt yesterday. I'm giving it back to you now. Let's hope neither of us comes out of this too disappointed.” He stepped out of the truck.

He puzzled over the question of Dale van Stempvort as he walked the four blocks to his motel. He needed to trust Dale in order to continue with his work. He needed to know that there wouldn't be a story in the paper the day after every strategy session. Some of the tactics they were considering required the element of surprise to be effective.

The morning was bright and the temperature climbed steadily. It must be fifteen degrees, a respectable spring day in the Eastern Slopes. May could be bright and sunny, but as often as not it could shepherd in weeks of rain, even snow. Ian Tyson's lament came to mind:
Just like springtime in Alberta, warm sunny days, endless skies of blue. Then without a warning, another winter storm comes raging through
.

As he walked he found himself humming the tune. That melody catapulted him into Saturday morning breakfast with his brother Walter and their dad at the Coral Café in Clairsholm. After their morning's tasks at the feed store, they would stop for breakfast before driving back to the ranch. Cole and Walter would fight to see who got to sit in the middle of the pickup. Whoever lost had to jump in and out of the truck a dozen times on the drive, opening and closing gates on the way home. He stopped humming. No sense in letting in any more of
those
memories. Cole pushed thoughts of his father back under the dark and heavy anchor that kept them in place.

He reached the Rim Rock Motel and crossed the now nearly empty parking lot. It was 11
AM
, and Blackwater guessed that nearly every person staying there was out on a job site. It was his intention to join them just as soon as he could. He climbed the outside stairs and followed the walkway to his room. His computer was waiting. He had some digging to do. When he reached his room he rummaged through his pockets, fishing for the key, digging through the usual collection of receipts, wrappers, coins, money, lint, and other rubbish. He heard a loud shout from a room a few doors down to his right. He looked up quickly, and noticed for the first time the open door, and the maid's cart protruding slightly onto the catwalk.

Cole held his breath, listened, and then heard another shout, a loud male voice. The voice was familiar. Curiosity overtook him, and he quietly walked the twenty metres down the catwalk toward the open door.

“You're a filthy whore!” a man's voice yelled through the open door.

Cole stopped.

“Fuck you, George.”

“Fuck me? Seems like you're fucking everybody
but
me!” George roared.

He took a step back from the open door and tried to peer into the room through the window, through the tiny gap between the drawn curtains. He was aware that he might easily be seen through the drapes because he had daylight behind him. He took another step back and glimpsed Deborah Cody making a bed, while George Cody stood behind her, his meaty hands on his hips.

“That's a lie,” Deborah Cody said, tucking the sheets into the foot of the bed.

“Have you been fucking
him
?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Have you been fucking Mike Barnes?”

Good God, thought Cole Blackwater, and took another step back.

“Have you?”

Deborah Cody turned to face her husband.

“I found
this
,” said George, his voice quieter. Cole could see George waving a slip of paper at Deborah.

“That doesn't mean anything,” he heard Deborah say.

“It says plenty.”

“He was a guest here, George. He must have left that in his room.”

“It wasn't in
his
room,” George spat.

Deborah turned her back on her husband and finished making the bed.

“You're fucking hopeless,” George said. “You disgust me.”

Cole realized that George was about to storm out of the room, and he turned as quickly as he could, careful not to make a sound, and padded to his own door. He didn't relish the idea of an enraged George storming from the room, finding him lurking there, and
soundly thrashing him, taking out his rage for his wife on Cole. Nor did he want to endure the mother of all awkward moments.

He breathed heavily and fumbled with his key. His heart pounded as his vulnerable back faced the open doorway, where George and Deborah quarrelled. Several wrappers and a crumpled five-dollar bill fell to the ground in his haste to locate his key. Finally he opened the door.

He kicked the detritus into the room as he entered and gently pushed the door shut behind him. He stood and panted in the darkness. Why was it so important that he not be caught listening? Surely George and Deborah wouldn't involve a blameless guest in their dispute. But there was something in George's voice, and in Deborah's cold ambivalence, that made Cole Blackwater panic. George had sounded on the edge of rage. And the way Deborah had simply brushed the issue aside, as if she were brushing the sheets smooth as she made the bed, struck Cole as calculating.

He stood with his back to the door. In the darkness he peered around the room. His bed was a mass of twisted blankets and the towel from his morning's shower hung over the straight-backed chair by the small desk where the phone and his computer sat. His room hadn't been made up yet.

He quickly switched on the lights and peered through the curtains before parting them. He flipped open his computer and turned it on. In a moment Deborah would enter his room to clean it, and he would be deeply engaged in his work when she did.