"Aieee my brother.  This is a great night for our people."  Eddie Sam could scarcely contain his excitement as the pickup truck bounced and maneuvered gingerly along a rough, little used track of road that snaked across the sagebrush flats just below Dead Horse Bluff.  The jagged escarpment started about ten miles southeast of Shiprock, New Mexico and extended south and west in a sweeping crescent shape for over twenty miles, virtually cradling the Eagle Dome gas field.

"Aieee, you are right my brother," Albert Horseman, seated by the passenger-side door, replied.  The bravado he used to bolster the tense nervousness which gripped him and strained his voice several notes higher than usual.

Sam, was the middle occupant of three men riding in the cab of the rusty, old pickup truck.  At the wheel was Sam’s best friend, David Nez.  All were dressed in old army surplus camouflage BDU's (Battle Dress Uniforms) they'd purchased at an army surplus store over in Farmington.  They were three of the ten members of the Black Lizard squad of the recently formed NALM (Native American Liberation Movement). 

Sam was disappointed he had not been able to convince the squad's C.O., Lieutenant Matthew Tsosie, to join them tonight.  Sam liked Tsosie.  They'd grown up together.  But Tsosie was still convinced the faint-hearted leaders were right.  The NALM needed a leader who would act!  Not one who acted like a coward.  At meetings they talked about all the things that Farmington attorney, Danny Whitehorse, was doing to get the gas wells turned back on.  Whitehorse may have been Dineh, (the actual name of the Navajo people), but he lived in town, not on the reservation.  How could he understand?

“Have patience” the leaders said.  But how do you tell a hungry child to have patience and stop crying?  How do you tell a desperate father who can’t find work to have patience; that he might be able to feed his family next week or next month?  Patience had not saved Sam’s aged grandfather and grandmother.  Patience was for those who could afford it.  Eddie Sam’s patience had run out.

The Law didn’t work fast.  Eddie Sam liked Whitehorse but it might take him years to get the wells turned back on, if ever.  Meanwhile the dry well families needed help now, fast!  The NALM needed a war chief; a leader who would act, not one who counseled the members to sit back and wait for something that might never happen.  Eddie Sam had decided to be that war chief.

"Do you think that stuff's alright back there," Nez nervously asked the others.  By the cautious way he was driving and the dull sheen of sweat that covered his brow it was clear David Nez was very worried about the stability of the contents of the two five-gallon metal gas cans strapped down in the back of the truck.

They’d bought the two 50 pound bags of Ammonium Nitrite fertilizer in Gallup at the Farmer's Co-op.  That small of a purchase would never attract attention.  The diesel fuel had been siphoned from the tank of a large earth hauler left at night where crews were working on the highway just south of Cortez.  The wire, batteries, mechanical washing machine timer and old gas cans had been easy to acquire. Nothing in the collection of items was remotely traceable to any of the three truck occupants.

They had tested the system dozens of times to see if it was safe and if it would fire at exactly the right time.  It worked perfectly.  Tonight Eddie Sam would not only strike a blow for the tribe, but for his grandfather and grandmother who both had died within months after their income had been cut off by Gannon Oil.  Tonight he would rid the Sam family land of the curse of the Belagaana gas well that had stolen his grandmother’s will to live and broken his grandfather’s heart.    

The well site was only about a hundred feet off the road in the middle of a clearing devoid of vegetation.  Nez turned the truck so the headlights illuminated the well structure.  He and Horseman leapt out and sprang to the bed of the truck while Sam headed straight to the well. Each knew exactly what to do.  Nez and Horseman carefully lugged the gas cans to where Sam was already prepared to secure the bomb.  They heaved the cans up into position and Sam tied them off with rope to the central trunk of the wellhead.  Once satisfied they wouldn't move, Sam nodded to his companions and said, "You two get out of here.  I'll see you on the other side of the arroyo."

When the truck was far enough way, Sam set the timer for twenty minutes then reached into the bag to retrieve two plastic wire connectors.  He'd considered just twisting the wires together, but practice had shown that sometimes the wires didn't twist right and came apart if they were jostled in any way.

One wire was connected to the clapper and the other to the bell of the washing machine timer.  When the bell rang, the clapper striking the bell would complete the circuit and in an instant everything for many yards around would vaporize.  He felt every beat of his pounding heart as he twisted first one then the other wire to the timer leads.  If anything went wrong at this moment, it would be the last of Eddie Sam’s life.  But it was a chance he had already unhesitatingly chosen to take to assure vengeance against the hated oil company for the pain it had caused the Sam family and the misery it had spread across this part of the reservation over the past two years.  

He suddenly found himself bathed in sweat as he unerringly made the final connection. But all went as planned and in less than a minute he was off the well, canvas bag in hand, walking backward while obliterating his footprints with a sagebrush branch.

"Yieeee, Horseman cried as Sam leapt into the truck.  "I am grateful we will not be singing your spirit onto the shining way my brother."

"Not near as much as I am.  Step on it David.  This is about to become a place we do not want to be."

With three minutes to spare Sam told Nez to stop.  "I want to see this."

The three men gathered at the tailgate of the truck.  No one spoke.  It was the longest three minutes any of them could ever recall.  In the distance a coyote barked softly then turned the bark into a high-pitched howl that was immediately answered by other coyotes all around the area.  "It is a good sign," Sam whispered to his companions.  “It is Maii’ the spirit of Brother Coyote, who rejoices that the warriors of the Dineh have at last risen to fight again and bring chaos to the white man’s world."

Suddenly the silent darkness was shattered by the eruption of a huge garrote of first white, then yellow, then orange flame that rose in a fiery mushroom cloud that quickly rose hundreds of feet above the valley floor.  Just as the glow began to fade the shock wave rolled over the men.  Even from nearly four miles away it pounded against their chests and assaulted their ears.

For a moment it looked as if the fire of the blast would completely fade away to nothing. Then Sam detected a glow that seemed to be growing brighter and higher by the second.  The blast had raised an enormous cloud of dust and smoke that had momentarily obscured the true result of their handiwork.  As the dirty cloud dissipated, a huge orange glow began to reveal itself.  In less than a minute the men could see a bright spout of yellow/orange light which began near the ground and seemed to grow higher and higher in the air as the obscuring cloud was carried away by the gentle breezes of the night.

The trio was awestruck.   The fiery aftermath of their work was more spectacular and terrifying than they had ever imagined.  This was an event that would never be forgotten by Gannon Oil and would live on in tribal legend for decades to come.  More importantly, the cursed supposedly dry Belagaana well was gone, obliterated by an act that would have made his grandfather’s heart sing.  Suddenly Eddie Sam could contain himself no more.  He threw back his head and shouted a great "Aieeeeeeeeee!"  Soon two other voices joined his in celebration of their victory as Sam broke into a chant and began dancing the warrior's dance of victory on the side of the road.

                                                *                      *                      *

As the pickup truck containing the three exhausted but exultant men plied its way back to the outskirts of Shiprock, Eddie Sam asked, “David, did you mail the letter?”

"Yes.  I mailed it right at five o'clock just as the post office was closing like you said we should."

"Good.  Now Gannon Oil will learn there are consequences to starving out the old men, women and babies of the Dineh.  Albert, when are you going to call Whitehorse?”

"I’m going up to Cortez and call him from a phone booth up there.  I’ll leave as soon as we get home.”

David Nez dropped Sam at his trailer just as a faint tincture of light began to appear on the eastern horizon.  Sam turned the knob of his front door, stepped inside and closed it.  He was so tired he didn't know if he would make it all the way to his bed.  The couch was good enough and a dozen steps closer.

He turned on the light and leapt back in surprise.

"Ya Tah Hey, Eddie," greeted the man softly who was seated on the couch.

From the hallway another voice startled him. "Oh, my Brother, whatever have you done?"  He turned to see the face of Lieutenant Matthew Tsosie.  "Have you not learned the lessons of honor and patience and loyalty?  Have you brought shame and trouble down upon the Dineh?  Oh my brother," the man repeated with sadness, "what have you done?"

Then others filed out from down the hall.  They were the rest of the members of the Black Lizard Squad.

"Two of you stay here with Lieutenant Tsosie and I ," the man on the couch said as he rose to his feet.  He was tall, well over six feet.  "Corporal Charley, you and the others go get Privates Nez and Horseman and bring them here."

Turning back to face Sam the tall man said in a gentle tone, "It looks like you've had a rough night my friend, I think we better put on some coffee and let you tell me all about it."  The man giving the orders was the Commander of the NALM.

Two months later

Chapter 2

The long, yellow legal pad in front of Jason Stevens was on its last four unused pages when the call came in.  Now, thirty minutes later, they were gone as he furiously scribbled his last few notes on the heavy gray backing.  The phone had rung just as Jason was settling into his Monday morning law office routine.  Until that moment, his lucrative, rapidly rising career as the newest partner in the staid, prestigious, one hundred eleven year old Salt Lake City law firm of Kimball, Warner, and Young, could only have been described as quiet, ordered, predictable.  Now none of those words could even remotely continue to apply. 

In the short duration of the call, Jason had determined to resign his partnership, effective immediately, meet Danny Whitehorse, in Durango, Colorado on Friday night for a further briefing, and be ready on Monday, one week from today, to take up practice at Danny’s small law office in the bustling Northwest New Mexico city of Farmington, located in the center of the largest natural gas producing region in the U.S   He could scarcely believe he had so precipitously, made the momentous, life altering decision. 

The conversation started out innocuously enough with the friendly greetings and banter that typically characterized the dozens upon dozens of calls between them in the years since they had roomed together and worked at the non-profit legal clinic in Oakland, California just after Jason’s graduation from law school.  Danny, who’d graduated eighteen months earlier, managed the clinic in fulfillment of the public service obligation he’d taken on as a condition of the scholarship that had allowed him to attend the prestigious law school at UC Berkeley.

Out of high school, Jason, more out of rebellion against his strict father than anything else, went straight into the Navy where he distinguished himself as a Navy Seal during Desert Storm.  He mustered out with a purple heart and a Silver Star after recovering at Walter Reed from the bullet that came within millimeters of ending his life.  The military paid for the education, which ironically allowed him to follow in his father’s extraordinarily successful footsteps by becoming an attorney. 

At the time he met Danny, Jason was a still “wet-behind-the-ears” newly-graduated juris doctor trying to navigate his sole through the treacherous waters lying between his strong sense of idealism that held the practice of law as a high calling to serve all regardless of means, and the baser reality that Law was a profession whose primary purpose was to put food on the table, pay his bills, buy his house and fulfill his financial ambitions.

Between engaging in lively ongoing debates over the morality and purpose of the practice of law, chasing girls after work, and generally raising harmless hell around the Bay Area, Jason and Danny became lifelong best friends. 

The day Danny announced he was leaving the clinic to return to his hometown to open a low-budget private practice that would cater to a Navajo clientele, (he actually used the name “Dineh,” the real name of his people rather than the less proper name, “Navajo,” which had been foisted on his people by the Spanish over two hundred years ago,) he invited Jason to come with him.  He said it would be just like a continuation of their very satisfying work at the clinic.  Jason agreed and accepted Danny’s offer, but literally on the day Danny was to leave, Jason received word his father had suddenly died.  He would have to return to Utah to bury the man and settle the affairs of his father’s extensive estate. 

That had been over seven years ago and Jason‘s ambition to follow Danny to New Mexico had eventually died and been buried as deeply as his father as Jason’s life became enmeshed in taking care of his aging mother, administering the estate, and making a living.  He took a position with the state’s most prestigious law firm where he matured into an excellent lawyer.  But far too quickly he found himself becoming what he had always vowed not to become; an establishment lawyer practicing establishment law just like dear old dad.

But things were different now.  The family estate could basically run itself.  His mother had remarried two years ago and no longer needed her son to take care of her.   Although he commanded top dollar from his long client list, his inheritance assured that he never again had to worry about earning a living.  Just over a year ago his one and only stab at the eternal institution of marriage had ended disastrously after only three months when he came home one day to find the house empty except for a note from his beautiful, younger wife saying that she had to leave to “find herself.”  Apparently her aerobics instructor had lost himself in the same place.  All in all, Danny’s call could not have been more timely.

At first Jason thought the purpose of his friend’s call was simply to wander down memory lane for a few minutes.   Danny started talking about how well they had worked together at the clinic, how much fun it had been, and how good it felt to both of them to be helping people who otherwise could never have afforded legal representation.  But then Danny blindsided him by a completely unexpected question.  “Jason, how would you like to get that feeling all over again?”

A little non-pulsed; Jason had been asking himself just that sort of question about his own practice for at least the past two years.  He asked Danny what he meant.

For the next twenty minutes Jason listened and furiously scribbled notes as his friend unraveled a story about a company called Gannon Oil and how Danny suspected them of defrauding a large number of reservation families out of royalties on natural gas wells drilled on their property.  “So the bottom line is,” he finally concluded, “that my office has been overwhelmed with a huge number of poor clients that can’t afford to pay me.  I’ve filed a lawsuit in behalf of those clients that I may not have enough evidence in hand to even sustain through a motion for summary judgment let alone a full-blown trial.   To top it off, the lawsuit has stirred up public sentiment so strongly against me that there have actually been public protests outside my office.”

“Holy cow, Danny!” Jason said with concern, “And you’re the one who taught me to pick my targets carefully. It sounds like you’ve opened Pandora’s box.”

“There’s another thing, Jason.  Things are bad on the reservation.  Some of the young men have organized a paramilitary organization they call the NALM.  A couple of months ago some of the NALM hotheads decided the way to deal with the problem was to start blowing up reservation wells. If I don’t get ahead of this thing fast, the whole reservation could literally go up in flames.”

“What about you?  Are you alright?”

“You mean other than the fact that me and my two staff members have worked ourselves to the bone and the whole world hates us?  Hey, things are good!  Seriously Jason, about the only upside to everything is that the damages in the case are in the millions for my clients if I win and Gannon Oil has the money to pay the judgment.  I know all this probably doesn’t sound very attractive to a guy in your position, already making big bucks working comfortably for a top tier outfit, but the reason I’m calling is to ask if you would consider leaving your life of luxury to come down and join me as an equal partner in Farmington’s least profitable law firm?”

 Jason surprised not only his friend but also himself when without a moment’s hesitation he answered, “Hey man, what are friends for?  Of course I’ll come!  How soon do you need me?”

Danny was caught so completely off-guard by Jason’s answer that he had to let it sink in for a moment before he could gather his wits to reply.  “A, a – as soon as you can get here.”

“I’ll turn in my resignation today. It’ll take me a day to turn my cases over to someone else and a couple of days to pack up and hit the road.  I could be down there as early as Thursday night.  I assume you can put me up at your place until I can find something of my own?”

To Jason’s surprise, Danny hesitated.  “Ahmm - You’re always welcome.  You know that.  But Jason, I’m not spending much time at my house these days and I’d kind of like to keep your coming secret until just the right time.  How about we meet in Durango on Friday night.  There’s a restaurant on the south end of town called the Golden Slipper.  Does 7:00 o’clock sound alright?”  

Jason was confused and somewhat concerned by his friend’s hesitation but trusted it would be explained in Danny’s own time.  “That works for me.  And Danny,  - - Thanks man!  You've no idea how much I've needed this kind of change.  It will be nice to get back to practicing the kind of law real people need.”

As Jason hung up the phone, thoughts swirled furiously through his brain as he contemplated the momentous move he was about to make.  The class action case, six hundred forty-eight named plaintiffs vs. Gannon Oil, Inc. et al., Defendants, sounded very intriguing.

But there was something else in the conversation that added significantly to the swiftness of Jason’s response.  It was something he couldn't quite put a finger on, but it worried him.  Danny hadn’t told him everything.  There was a kind of unspoken, underlying urgency in his friend’s voice.  It was a forced, unnatural calmness that somehow conveyed a feeling of desperation.  This was not the relaxed, free-flowing, never-have-a-care conversation they normally had.  It came out as much a pleading cry for help as a simple request to join the man’s business.  A barely perceptible voice whispered to Jason’s mind that his friend was in trouble, - serious, dangerous trouble.

*                      *                      *

Danny Whitehorse hung up the phone, leaned heavily against the headboard of his motel room bed and heaved a huge sigh of relief.  His conscience stung him a bit for not telling his friend everything he probably should have about the situation, but still, he had told him enough.  The important thing was that the first step of Danny’s plan was in place.   Help was on the way.  And right now Danny desperately needed Jason’s help. 

Jason Stevens was the only attorney Danny knew who would be willing the risk his reputation, future and perhaps even his skin, to help prosecute a socially unpopular lawsuit against one of the living legends of the Four Corners region in behalf of a group of severely disadvantaged families of the Dineh.  Gannon Oil, the largest employer in northwest New Mexico was the corporate incarnation of the aging but still remarkably vigorous octogenarian and self-made billionaire, Red Gannon.  Fifty years ago it was Gannon who discovered the huge oil and gas reserves that now fed the booming economy of San Juan County.  Of the twenty-five thousand plus oil and gas wells punched into the hardscrabble soil of the area, Gannon owned nearly a third, over a thousand of which were tucked snuggly into the northeast corner of the Navajo reservation. 

Red Gannon richly deserved his reputation as an egotistical and eminently powerful man known to view the law as only a passing inconvenience.  More than one body had been left in the wake of Gannon’s ruthless rise to the top of the oil and gas industry in the Four Corners region.    And this was the man Danny Whitehouse had dared to take on.

Now, as he lay in a dingy motel room in Cortez, Colorado rented under an assumed name, Danny reflected that never in his wildest imagination had he dreamed his decision to sue Gannon Oil would cause him to run for his life, endanger those he held most dear, and force him to call on his law school friend to leave his own lucrative practice and rush to Danny’s rescue.

If only this were his own bed in his own home and all the troubles caused him by the Gannon lawsuit had never happened.  He wondered vaguely if he would live to ever again lie peacefully under his own roof.  He quickly dismissed the thought and chided himself for even having it in the first place.  If he started thinking that way, he might as well give up now before anyone else got hurt.

Chapter 3

It all began just under three years before when a huge, hulking, quiet man in his early fifties and his diminutive wife walked into Danny's office and very nervously asked to see an attorney.  Kathy Redhand, Danny’s tough, irascible, combative, sometimes foul-mouthed, but extremely competent and loyal secretary, introduced the couple as Mr. and Mrs. Robert Begay.  Robert spoke broken English in the halting, clipped accent common to the older generation from the reservation who had never attended school.

After exchanging the pleasantries, family information and respectful courtesies called for in fulfilling the greeting formalities of the Dineh, the man handed Danny a crumpled piece of paper and in a very quiet voice said, "A white man come to my home and give me this paper.  He say paper makes it so he can take my pickup truck away.  I need my truck so I can find work, so I chased him away.  But he say he will come back.  My brother told me you can help us, so I come to tell you about this."

The document was a copy of a writ of repossession issued by a local court in favor of Farmington's Chevrolet dealership.  Danny was surprised to see it was for a newer model truck.  Few Indians on the reservation had vehicles that cost this much.  "When did you buy this truck, Mr. Begay," Danny asked?

“I have this truck almost one and one-half years" the man responded timidly.

"And you are behind on your payments, is that correct?”

Begay was obviously embarrassed.  His head dropped. "Yes," he whispered. 

Danny knew the enormous emotional price this conversation was costing the man.  On the reservation, especially among the older generations, debt was a rare and extremely personal thing.  The ability to honor debts, whether personal, money or otherwise, was one of the most basic elements of a Navajo man’s pride.  Robert Begay appeared to be a proud man in the process of being crushed under his own sense of failure. 

Danny spoke in Navajo to make Begay more comfortable.  He raised the paper in his hand and said, "Obviously this rude Belagaana does not know you, Grandfather.  If he did, he would know that you would give honor to this debt."

The man looked up at Danny.  His shoulders raised a little as he took hold of words of respect he'd not expected.  "I have always given honor to my debts and I shall give honor to this one.  But oil company stopped sending us money before I could finish paying for my truck.  Now I need to have a job to earn money.  A job is very hard to find for Dineh.  Especially someone of my age."

"Are you telling me you lost a job with an oil company?"

"No, I do not work for them.  I let them drill one of those gas wells near my hogan and they send me money every month.  But three months ago, for the first time we get no money. I cannot make payment for truck.  It is very bad."  The man's shoulders drooped once again as he stared at the floor.  His wife dabbed at tears with the corner of her shawl.

"Oh, so they pay you royalties, is that right?"

"Yes, royalty is the right word."

"Did they tell you this was going to happen," Danny asked.

"No.  In January a man from oil company come to our house and say they need to work on our well.  Many men come with big machines.  They dig all around well and put a new pipe in the ground.  Then they push the ground back and make everything as it was before.  In March we wait for money but it doesn't come.  We get this instead."  Robert handed Danny a crumpled, soiled envelope.  "It looked the same as what our money comes in, but there is no money inside, only the writing on the paper.  Can you tell us what this paper means?"

Danny opened the envelope and removed a one-page letter printed on Gannon Oil, Inc. letterhead.   Printed in bold letters across the top it said, "NOTICE OF CESSATION OF PRODUCTION."  It notified Robert Begay that “. . .due to depletion of gas production capability,” the oil company was exercising its option to cease production of natural gas from the well located on the Begay property, effective immediately.  The letter cited several paragraphs in the lease terms as their authority to shut down the well.

"I'm afraid it's not good news Mr. Begay.  This letter is telling you the oil company is turning off the well on your land."

A look of incredulity spread across Begay's face.  "Why?  We did not tell them they could turn off well."

"This says that it’s due to depletion of production capacity.  Apparently they think there’s not enough gas in the well to continue producing.  Do you have a copy of your lease documents with you?"

"What is this thing called lease," the big man asked?

"The lease is what the Belegaana calls the papers you signed that gave the oil company permission to drill on your property.  When they first came to you before the well was drilled they should have given you some papers to sign."

"Yes," Robert confirmed, "They gave some papers to me and asked me to sign so they could send me money. I wrote my mark on them but I did not understand what they said.  I wrapped them and put them in a box with my medicine clothes.  I will bring them to you tomorrow?"

"Good.  I'll call the oil company today and see what I can learn.  I can't make you any promises Mr. Begay, but I'll try to do everything possible to help.  Don’t worry.  I can keep the car company from getting your truck, at least for a while. You did the right thing by coming to me.”

The man stood and helped his wife to her feet.   “You are a good man, Danny Whitehorse,” he said.  He paused for a moment then shook his head as if confused.  "It is very strange the way these white men work, isn't it; the way they send so many people and big machines to work on my well that they are going to turn off.  Why do they not just turn it off and not spend so much money?"

                                    *                      *                      * 

Danny called Gannon Oil that afternoon.  His call was forwarded to a man named Dave Blackthorn.  “Mr. Whitehorse, those fields have simply been over-pumped.  If we don't stop production now, we'll completely deplete them to the point we'll lose them forever.  At least this way we will be able to come back and get something out of those wells in maybe ten or fifteen years."

Danny gasped.  "Ten or fifteen years?  You mean those people will have to wait that long?"

"I'm afraid so Mr. Whitehorse.  Those fields need a chance to regenerate.  Unfortunately geology is on a much slower timetable than you or I."

Having no real choice, Danny accepted the man’s explanation as true.  He prevailed upon a local rancher to take Robert Begay on as a ranch hand.  To stave off creditors he filed a Chapter 13 bankruptcy petition, the fees for which he took out of his own pocket.  He had saved the Begay’s truck.  It would probably take years, but Danny knew the humble man and his quiet wife would eventually pay him back.

                                    *                      *                      *

As word spread among the Dineh that Danny had saved the Begays from disaster, more families began showing up with similar tales of hardship.  Over the next three months over one- hundred-fifty families from the Eagle Dome area, all with almost identical stories, made their way through Danny's office.  Then families began showing up from Tabletop Mesa.

For every family that came into his office scores who should have come did not.  Their misery was the quiet misery of the proud poor who suffer their plight in silent anonymity  - except for the crying of children who go to bed hungry and wake up hungrier still.

The list eventually grew to more than six hundred.  It was an overwhelming burden for Danny’s tiny, under-financed law office.  Chaco worked nearly full time trying to find jobs for these hapless people.  But no matter how hard he and his tiny staff worked, there were never enough jobs and always too much hunger and misery among the newly impoverished dry gas well families of Eagle Dome and Tabletop Mesa.

But there was something these people did have in extra measure.  Anger!  The anger that comes from experiencing life better than their ancestors could have ever imagined only to have it snatched away, likely never to be possessed again in their lifetimes.  The anger was deep-seated. White-hot.  It suffused the blood of scores of young men and threatened to boil over into violence that would endanger and perhaps consume the entire Navajo nation.