Lena McLean, who raises goats in a beautiful valley, confronts the discovery in the region of rich deposits of the sand used for oil fracking. The community is divided between those who want to sell their land for sand mining and people who want to preserve the environment. Taking a strong position against mining, Lena becomes the target of a large global organization that wants to exploit the frac sand deposits.
Excerpt
Even before she saw the dog lying on its side in the middle of her driveway, Lena had a premonition, which must have come from the virulent hostility of her opponents at the town meeting. A man she had never seen before threatened her, saying that if she didn’t change her position on the issue that divided their community, she would be sorry. That was less than an hour ago, and now in her driveway, illumined by the headlights of her car, it looked like he had carried out his threat.
She stopped the car and got out slowly and moved toward the body, knowing it was Grady, the English shepherd that she and Devon bought as a puppy from a kennel in another valley not long before Devon was diagnosed with lung cancer. With tears in her eyes, she knelt and touched the soft white fur on Grady’s chest—he was still warm, so it must have happened after the meeting. There was a wound in his shoulder and another in the back of his head, suggesting that he was brought down and then executed. She imagined Grady, who served not only as a herd dog but also as a watch dog, confronting the car of his assassin as it came up the driveway, barking loudly, charging at the hand that held the revolver through an open window, and taking a hit. She leaned over and pressed her face against him, smelling the time before she lost Devon, and she started sobbing, feeling as if she had lost him again.
After a while she sat up, resolving to call the sheriff and report this crime. Since there was no cell phone service in the valley, she would have to go into her house and use her landline. She was about to move Grady out of the driveway in order to take her car up to the garage when she realized that it would be better not to disturb the crime scene, so she left the dog and the car where they were, and she walked up to her house. It was on a hillside that eventually led up to a ridge, where the land became suitable for corn and soybeans. In the valley there were only pastures and wooded areas, with strips of land suitable for hay.
She approached the house, and with a tremor in her hand she unlocked the front door. It led into the lower floor of the house, which in front had an office, a guestroom, and a bathroom, and in back a basement and a storeroom. Opening the door, she was greeted by Katiuska, who mewed as if she knew what had happened to Grady. She paused to give a stroke of comfort, and then after switching on a light she climbed the stairs with the cat attached to her right leg.
The upper floor had a living room, a dining area, a spacious kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bathroom. It was where she lived, except for periodic bouts of work in the office. With her husband gone and her two daughters living elsewhere, she had the whole house to herself, with only her two cats for company.
As she headed for the phone, which was in the kitchen, she was intercepted by Kazimierz, her male cat, who acted as if he had only one thing on his mind.
“Yah, yah,” she told him. “I’ll get your dinner. But I have to do something else first.”
She picked up the phone and punched the cell phone number of the sheriff, which she knew by heart.
He answered after one ring, saying: “Lundquist here.”
“Hi, Earl. It’s Lena. I hate to bother you at this hour, but—”
“It’s all right,” Earl told her. “I’m always here for you. What’s happening?”
“Well, I called to report a crime.”
“What sort of crime?”
“A murder.”
“What?”
“They killed my dog,” she said before he got too excited.
He sighed in relief. “You mean Grady?”
“Yah. They executed him.”
“Oh, jeez,” he said as if she was his teenage daughter who had gotten herself into a jam. “I’ll come right over.”
