Page 6 of Dark Sky

They’d both been summoned to appear before the governor. Joe had left a telephone message on Ewig’s phone asking if the director knew what the meeting was about. Ewig hadn’t called back.

“Why am I here?” Joe asked Allen.

“I’ll explain,” Allen said.

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Governor Colter Allen was in the midst of completing his third year in his first term of office. His term had been wracked with problems including a #MeToo scandal, as well as revelations that he’d falsified his résuméandhe’d been backed by donors of questionable character, including Joe’s ownmother-in-law. Additionally, Governor Allen was thought by general consensus within the state to have fouled up the response to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic by lurching from strict shelter-in-place orders to a full-blown reopening within weeks, then issuing no guidance at all for months while the virus raged.

Joe’s relationship with the Republican governor was nothing like it had been when Spencer Rulon held the office. Although slippery at times, Rulon had enlisted Joe to be his “range rider” and he’d sent him out to different places in the state on special assignments. And when Joe had gotten into trouble, which was often, Rulon had backed him up.

Allen had assumed office with the misconception that Joe would doanythinghe asked, including gathering dirt on his political opponents and spreading misinformation on his behalf. When Joe had refused, Allen retaliated. If it weren’t for Rulon stepping in as a private-practice attorney and representing him, Joe would have long been out of a job and possibly indicted.

Although there had been rumblings about the possible impeachment of Allen—Wyoming’s first ever—the bills to start the proceedings had been killed in committee by the legislature. According to theCasperStar-Tribune, the house of representatives and senate seemed to have concluded that rather than play hardball with the governor, they’d simply wait him out and elect someone new.

By his very nature, Joe was nonpolitical. He’d done his best over the years to avoid trips to the capital city and especiallyduring the short sessions of the legislature when nothing ever seemed to happen. He had no doubt that he’d taken the right path, especially now when the finances of the state were in a tailspin and all the committee hearings and general sessions seemed filled with anger and acrimony.

Joe thought that Allen had aged in the past three years. The governor’s once-broad shoulders had slumped and his salt-and-pepper mane was thinning and turning snow-white. His movie-star good looks—which he’d once parlayed into a few scenes in a soft-porn pseudo-western feature calledBunk Housethat no one had known about until his #MeToo scandal broke—were filling out and softening. Jowls like the beard of a tom turkey hung down from his jawline and jiggled when he talked.

“If you’ve been paying any attention,” Allen said to both Joe and Ewig, “you’ll know that we’re facing more budget cuts. No one is safe, including your agency.”

“I’m aware of the situation, Governor,” Ewig said. Unlike Joe, the director was duty-bound to testify during the legislature and defend the department’s budget. Joe didn’t envy him.

Wyoming was unique because its financial health was determined almost solely by the boom-and-bust mineral industries and the taxes they paid on extraction. Citizens paid very little. There was no income tax, and property taxes were some of the lowest in the nation. When coal was booming—as it had been in previous years—the state was flush with cash. That was no longer the case, and lawmakers were trying to figure out how to deal with the downturn.

It wasn’t going well.

The legislature was dominated by Republicans, and there were good ones and bad ones, as well as ideological factions that might as well comprise different parties altogether. Groups of legislators could best be defined, according to some, by how loudly they said no to any new ideas. The mayor of Saddlestring had put it best to Joe—the one thing the Wyoming legislature specialized in was inertia.

“I plan to run again next year and I need a win,” Governor Allen declared to Joe more than to Ewig. “You need to help me get it.”

Joe shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

“Coal’s dying, oil prices are low, no one wants new taxes, and the Cowboy Congress isn’t going to help me at all,” Allen said. “As we’ve seen, they’ll do absolutely nothing to diversify our economy or bring in new revenue. They’ll just sit around blowing hot air while I twist in the wind so they can make the case for a new governor next year. They’ll point at me and say, ‘The state went to shit with him in office.’ That’s their brilliant strategy.”

Ewig took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Joe guessed he’d endured Allen’s rants before. Joe tried to keep his own face blank while he listened. A new governor, he thought,wouldn’tbe the worst thing in the world.

“All of our revenue streams are tied to dying concerns,” Allen said. “The legislature prefers to rub its hands and gnash its teeth while watching them die. They’re all hoping against hope for something good to happen, like a war in the Middle East that would raise the price of a barrel of our oil.”

Joe tried not to react to that.

Allen spun in his chair and pointed to a large map of the United States. “Either that,” he said, jabbing his finger at the states of Washington, Oregon, and California, “or we need the West Coast to break off and fall into the ocean and drown all of those lefty politicians who won’t let us export our coal to Asia. The Chi-Coms want to buy our coal. We want to sell it to them, but we need a seaport to do it. The environmental wackos on the West Coast won’t let us. We’re between a rock and a hard place, gentlemen.”

He turned back around. “Have either of you ever heard of Steven Price?”

Both Joe and Ewig shook their heads.

“Have you ever heard of Aloft, Inc.? Or a social media site called ConFab?”

“ConFab sounds familiar,” Joe said. “I think my youngest daughter uses it.”

“Your youngest daughter and tens of millions of other people,” Allen said. “It’s the fastest-growing social media platform in Silicon Valley.”

“It’s a mystery to me,” Ewig confessed. “I don’t even do Facebook.”

“Another reason we’re in trouble,” Allen said with derision. “My state directors are wallowing around in the twentieth century while the rest of the world passes us by.”

It was an unnecessary insult, Joe thought. Rick Ewig was a former game warden and had proved himself to be a verycompetent director of the agency. Allen’s reputation for disparaging his own people was being demonstrated right before Joe’s eyes.

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