The Thunder Keeper(60)
“I’m only interested in the prospecting part,” she said.
“Well, now . . .” He smiled. “That could be a first. How can I help you?”
Vicky took in a deep breath. It still took her by surprise the way white people got right down to business. She said, “Do you know of any diamond deposits in central Wyoming? Any reason for prospectors to look for deposits on the reservation?”
“The reservation?” Ferguson’s eyebrows shot up, and she braced herself for a firm “no.” Hoped for the answer, she realized. She could stop wasting her time and start believing that Lewis’s death had nothing to do with her people.
Ferguson cleared his throat, a professor about to deliver a lecture. “Mining companies,” he began, “usually deploy prospecting resources in areas with the best chance of success, which would be near known diamond deposits. As you can see”—he waved toward the map—“most deposits are on the southern border. Several companies operate mines there. The biggest is Baider Industries, which owns three mines. Although . . .” He paused, as if he’d just remembered something. “The Kimberly closed down its operations last month. Mine played out.”
“The Kimberly!” Vicky stood up and peered at the map a moment. She’d seen the Kimberly Mine on another map—in Nathan Baider’s office. And yesterday John O’Malley had left a message, wanting to know about the Kimberly Mining Company. She’d asked Laola to run a check on the company with the secretary of state’s office. She wouldn’t have to wait for the report. The company was a subsidiary of Baider Industries.
“Is it important?” Ferguson was staring at her.
“I don’t know,” she said after a moment. She was thinking that if the Kimberly Mine had played out, Nathan Baider could be desperate to find another deposit. He was anxious to produce more diamonds that could be certified on the world market. Maybe he got reckless and sent a crew to the reservation without taking the time to work through the tribal bureaucracy and secure the legal permits. Maybe . . .
Except there were no pins with rounded, colored heads in the center of the map.
She turned to the professor who was watching her, questions mingling with the concern in his face. “Are you telling me there aren’t any diamond deposits on the reservation?”
“We don’t know that,” he said.
Vicky sat back down. “What do you mean?”
Ferguson rearranged his angular frame in the chair and drew in a long breath. “It has to do with the peculiar geographical formation underlying Wyoming,” he began. “The entire state happens to be underlaid by a craton that is intruded by the largest field of kimberlite pipes in the United States. The pipes erupted like volcanoes about four hundred million years ago from ninety to one hundred and twenty miles below the earth’s surface, bringing up diamonds and other minerals. So far we’ve recorded forty diatremes, the upper portion of the volcanic structures, in Wyoming. Hold on.” He jumped up and disappeared in the maze of metal cases. In a moment he was back. “Kimberlite rock,” he said, handing her a chunk of dark gray rock that resembled solidified lava. It was lightweight and dense.
“Hard to believe diamonds come from such ugly ducklings,” he said, dropping back in the swivel chair, a fond gaze on the rock in her hand. “Some geologists believe Wyoming will someday be one of the world’s richest diamond producers, right up there with Africa.”
Vicky glanced up at the map of Wyoming, a vast, empty space of mountain ranges and plains. “Why the reservation?” she asked, locking eyes with him again. “If diamonds can be found anywhere, why would a mining company decide to look on the res?”
Ferguson shrugged. “There’s always the possibility that someone stumbled on a pipe. Sometimes prospectors find other minerals that come from the pipes—pyrope almondine garnets, sapphires, and chromium diopside, which is the color of emeralds. They wash them out of a creekbed, then trace them upstream until they locate the kimberlite pipe they washed from. They start digging. Take test samples of earth, looking for diamonds.”
Vicky was acutely aware of the maze of metal shelves around the room, the glass containers of rocks and minerals and residue—the earth reduced to small physical parts. So different from the way she always thought of the earth: a whole being with its own spirit. And yet, for this scientist—the light eyes seldom leaving the kimberlite rock in her hand—the earth’s spirit was in each small part: diamonds, trace minerals, ugly-duckling rocks.