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it but still annoyed at how he can be so closed-mouthed with strangers, bordering on the impolite. I know it’s probably a habit he’d picked up from years of semisecret missions and training exercises as the leader of Pararescue teams, but it doesn’t seem like an effective technique to me—it just makes the strangers all the more curious. It’s my father’s commanding presence and impassive features alone that usually keep people from asking more.
    Kim doesn’t push, but doesn’t look particularly intimidated either. From the steady way she watches us with her one good eye, I’m willing to bet she’s as tough as he is. Speaking to us both, her voice now hard, she says, “It’s about to be made private land in a crooked swap with the government. A group of us are trying to do something about it.”
    I nod. That was what I’d read about in a newsletter from the Access Fund, a climbing-oriented environmental protection organization. It was the reason I’d wanted to bring my father here before it was forever closed to the public. I tell her that.
    “I’ve seen the plans,” she goes on, her coffee-colored eye blazing with a zealot’s gleam. “You men are climbers, right? Well, a developer named David Fast”—she spits out his name with such venom that I guess she must be taking his assault on the valley personally—“is going to make that canyon down there into a bunch of high-priced homes on the river. This meadow”—she turns and sweeps her brown arm past the Hacky Sackers and other campers—“it’s going to be a goddamned golf course. And the hot spring up-creek is going to be some sort of massive concrete bathing facility.” She points at Wild Fire Peak looming to the east and tells us that it will be the ski area proper once they’ve stripped it of its forests and built lodges all over it. “In about two weeks Fast will start the serious construction, when the Forest Service makes its approval official. He’ll begin with a guarded gatehouse down the road to keep us out.” She pauses to look at each of us in turn. “We need help fighting him.”
    I ask, “What are you going to do? From what I read, the Forest Service has already announced they’re going to approve the swap. It’s kind of a done deal, isn’t it?”
    “No, it’s not,” she says fiercely, her hair slinging back to fully expose the eye patch. “Not when there’s fraud involved. Fast bribed some scientists and then lied to get a positive environmental assessment. We’re still trying to keep the local Forest Service manager from approving the exchange. If that fails, we’ll try to get an injunction in federal court. Tomorrow we’ve got a local TV station and one from Denver coming up here for a rally. What we need is more bodies, to show the Forest Service and the media we’re serious about this.”
    Sunny chimes in, “And it could get nasty, with the townies—”
    Kim cuts her off with a glance and then explains, “Fast has managed to convince some locals that his ski resort will be good for the town. A lot of them are investors, too. There’s a rumor going around that they plan to disrupt us tomorrow.”
    My brother’s impending arrival momentarily forgotten, I look to my father. He’s methodically chewing on his sandwich, leaning against the Land Cruiser, his face as expressionless as ever. Almost imperceptibly he shakes his head at me. Turning back to Kim, I say, “I’m interested, but I don’t know yet how available I’m going to be. My dad and I are waiting here for my brother, who could arrive at any time over the next couple of days.”
    Clearly that doesn’t seem like a very good excuse to her. She gives us both a one-eyed scowl and says, “We’re having a campfire meeting tonight, over there near our sites on the other side of the meadow. At least come by and listen.”
    Hearing nothing from my father behind me, I tell her I’ll try to stop by. Kim’s turning to leave when Sunny speaks up