'I'm a nameless courier, in a darkened tavern, secretly passing cash in a briefcase.'
'I wonder, could I ask you to sit forward a little? I just can't see you back in that corner.'
He couldn't help but smile as he leaned forward.
'Well, I'll be… Dan Young. You shaved your mustache.'
'Tell me something I don't know.' He chuckled.
'Oh and what could I possibly say to you, short of you giving me lots of money, which you are. I can't believe this. I'm speechless.'
'Doesn't sound that way to me,' he said.
'Now I feel completely stupid dressing up this way. Why are you doing this?'
'I'm only a lawyer, just like you. They didn't ask me what I thought.'
'Why'd they send you?'
'Nice smile?'
'This isn't a joke, is it?'
'The briefcase is full.'
'So what do you want?'
'To give you the money, get a little info.'
''Info? This'-she gestured at the briefcase-''is to help us get the Highlands Forest designated as a park. Lobbyists and court battles cost a fortune. Patty McCafferty and I and a lot of others are determined to save it.'
'Well, I know that.' Dan had watched Patty McCafferty speak in a voice that transformed her words into religion for the faithful. Maria Fischer's voice was a lesser instrument of that same fervor-a more interesting voice.
'So how do you feel about helping our cause?'
She waited for his response. He took the last gulp of his beer and contemplated the iced tea.
'You want my views on another forest preserve?'
'Well, maybe not.'
'Let's talk about it sometime when we don't have to go to the bank.'
''I know I'm not supposed to ask. But why all the secrecy? Why doesn't whoever it is just write a check for such a huge amount and take credit? Not to mention the risk of loss. Isn't it just crazy to carry around cash?'
'I guess I don't know, really.'
The waitress asked if they'd like something more to drink.
'You?' he asked Maria.
'Thanks, no.'
'I don't care for anything, thank you. Just the check.'
'It is an individual donor, right?'
'You don't give up easily.'
'Well, maybe you guys regularly sneak around with cash paying people, but we don't.'
'I could take it back. Tell them you don't want it.'
'Yeah, right.'
'Tell me,' he said. 'What drives you to save an old-growth forest?''
'It's still there. It's part of where we came from and what ties us to our past.'
'No. I don't mean that. What created this fire in your belly?'
'That's a bigger subject than a beer and a bowl of chips. Listen, I know we said we'd both go to the bank, but I can handle it from here. The bank is just down the street.'
'You think that's a good idea?'
'Nobody knows what's in here. It's just a briefcase. And I don't really want to be seen with you.'
'Ouch.'
'It's nothing personal.'
He gave her the I-don't-believe-you look with a little smile. 'So would you meet me again in a dark corner?'
'You get us another half million and we'll talk about it.'
Of course before she knew the courier was Dan Young, she had had many reasons to impress the man; she was talking to a big donor, after all, or at least the donor's representative, and the coalition desperately needed the money. But when she first saw him, there was more. She had felt him looking at her; he had seemed attuned to every detail of what she was saying-then again, maybe it wasn't what she was saying.
Aside from the fact that she hated his politics, Dan Young had always seemed to possess some quality that she found attractive. He was wide-shouldered and had the quiet confidence of someone who knew exactly what he was about. But he didn't quite swagger, although like all cowboy types he tortured animals, ate meat, did what his kind usually did. She wasn't quite sure what made him interesting.
Once at a county fair, before Dan's wife had died, Maria had been working a booth devoted to registering Democrat voters. She'd taken a break, gotten some hot tea, and moved to the back of the booth where she watched the people passing by. Not thirty feet away, Dan Young had been standing around with an odd mix of professionals and a few cowboys, but he looked more like the cowboys even if his jeans were a little new, his heavy blue work shirt laundered and starched.
Because he was Otran's lawyer and represented industry, she had been curious about him. But it struck her that unlike the other men in the group he had no roll of flab above the oversize belt buckle. Remarkable for a guy who had to sit in a chair hours on end. He was tall, she guessed 6'5' in boots, maybe 6'4' in his bare feet. Blond, obviously blue-eyed, he tended to half-smile under his bushy mustache and concentrate on whoever was talking, periodically shifting his weight from one foot to the other while he listened.
He had big hands and used them when he spoke. There was an earnestness about him that made people listen although he seemed to stay silent more than speak.
There was a dimple in his chin, and he had eyebrows that looked like they got regularly trimmed, and over the right brow was a faded scar. As she watched, the group of men had become more animated, one of them obviously trying to tease Dan.
Dan smiled at the fellow poking him in the shoulder, adjusted his hat, and walked away over to the far side of the arena where the bull riders were coming out of the chute.
'Hey, man, we were only kidding. Those big fuckers will kill you. Come on back here,' one of the men called out.
In a few minutes Dan Young was riding a bull. Everybody had heard about Dan-he had grown up riding everything on four legs-but when he jumped off the bull, a woman and a boy came running toward the arena. By the way the woman approached Dan, Maria could tell it was family. He tried to put his arm around her, but she shrugged it off and squared off to him, holding the boy on her hip. It was obviously his wife, and Maria was guessing that she hadn't been consulted about the day's adventure.
Maria had watched as the woman cut loose a verbal barrage. But when she was in his face, he sobered. Without hearing a word, she suspected that the woman was reminding him that he had a son, a family, and responsibilities. A trip to the hospital was not what their little family needed. The look on his face, the honest appraisal of what he was being told, gave Maria some information.
Reluctantly she had admitted there was some good in this timber-industry mouthpiece. Maybe it wasn't much, but something. Then she had seen him at the demonstration, where they had argued. But as ugly as their verbal sparring became, spurred on by her bloodred anger and his I-fear-nothing determination, she still secretly liked him at the end. It was something she didn't understand about herself and didn't want to understand.
Getting involved further with him, even in casual conversation, would not be practical, she knew. Practical. According to her father, she wasn't at all practical, and she was still trying to figure out exactly what that meant.
Living in an Alaskan cabin wasn't practical, but it was good, it was uncluttered, it was simple, and it enabled her to form visions of herself and her life. She lived free of the noise of civilization. The hardness of the place, the relentless cold, the backbreaking work, the isolation, the energy that she had to expend on preparing a simple meal, all had enabled her to see things that couldn't be seen on a hillside mansion in southern California. The impractical
