Anyway, no one would be hurt by his momentary plunge into the narcissistic world of self-congratulations and self-backslapping. So for now, he would bask in the warm glow of the victory, gorge at the table of triumph, sleep in the bed of the conqueror. To the victor go all of the spoils, thank God, if not all of the adulation.
“So what do you think, Sean?”
“Huh—huh?” Sean mumbled, forcing his mind back to the present. “S—orry. Guess I was daydreaming.”
“Do you want to be a part of it?” Monument manager Judith Brisco asked, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice, “or not?”
“I apologize,” Sean said sheepishly. “Be part of what?”
“A part of this,” Brisco trumpeted, arching her petite arm through the air with a grand flourish, “a part of the team.”
“I was never very good at teams,” Sean acknowledged, rubbing his eyes, then running forked fingers through coarse, shoulder-length, red hair. “What exactly would we be doing?”
“You really didn’t hear a word I said,” Brisco sighed, placing her hand on her slender hips. “I’m about to appoint an advisory team to take stock of what we’ve got, gather preliminary information before we formulate a comprehensive management plan. When a corporation buys a company, the first thing they do is take inventory—see what they’ve got, what needs to be fixed, what needs to be purchased, what needs to be sold and what needs to be changed.
“The first thing I need to know is what we’ve got. How many springs and rivers have dried up with the drought? What kind of shape the rangeland is in? How many cows are presently grazing on the allotments compared to what those same permits allow? And does the foliage justify such numbers? Are we overgrazing? Is natural grass being replaced by opportunistic weeds, like thistles, tumbleweeds, snake broom and rabbit brush? Is erosion a problem? How many deer do we have? How many elk? Is poaching a problem? How much private property is in the monument and who owns it? Are they being good stewards? How many mines are here and are they just paper mines, leases, or has some digging actually commenced? How many minor roads? Which ones can be closed? How bad a problem are the ATVs? It’s a huge area, one million seven hundred thousand acres, and in short, I need to know what’s going on in every last single acre.
“My management style is definitely hands on. I like to make informed, educated decisions and I like to be involved in every one of those decisions. In my jurisdiction, I definitely will not tolerate loose cannons,” Brisco declared, her dark brown eyes glancing around for scowls of dissent. Fortunately, there were none.
Seated at a square oak conference room table were about a dozen men and women stuffed at various angles and inclines in their uncomfortable chairs, some slouching, some stiff with rapt attention, some resting their chins on their elbows and occasionally some dozing.
“My crack team, and it will be a crack team, will be a composite of BLM specialists, environmentalists, ranchers and recreational consumers,” she continued. “So how about it, Sean, do you want to represent the environmentalists?”
Sean’s mind had already started drifting.
It had been more than a year since that great speech and that equally great day, but none of the luster had faded. He could remember when he had started working on this project, more than ten years ago. At first, just trying to convince anyone outside of Utah that these canyons and plateaus had any real value had been a monumental task. In those early years, there were virtually no recreational backpackers, campers or sightseers in the Grand Staircase area. Other than Sean, the only other human creatures were cattlemen, Indians, hunters, miners, prospectors and the occasional fugitive from the law. Trying to convince people of the beauty of this land was like trying to convince the Cattleman’s Association of the elegance of a Jackson Pollard painting.
Back then, alpine terrain seemed to be all the rage—camping, hiking or photographing lush green foliage with musical bubbling brooks and relaxing in cool mountain air. Very few people appreciated the beauty and solitude of the dry desolate deserts of the American West. To most, they were forbidden wastelands, God’s forsaken earth, badlands, Satan’s Strand, Hell’s Kitchen and on and on. Why preserve them? Nobody wanted to go there anyway. Nobody wanted these lands. Certainly, not the state of Utah.
He was like a lone voice crying in the wilderness. No one listened, no one cared. As it says in the Gospel of Matthew, a prophet is never appreciated in his own land and certainly, Sean was not appreciated in his. Involuntarily, he grimaced. It was irritating, even downright embarrassing, that even after all these years he still unconsciously looked to the Bible for justification. It seemed one was never completely free of childhood indoctrination. Some atheist he’d turned out to be.
“Sean!” Brisco bellowed.
“Huh?” Sean stammered as he again jerked his mind back to the present. “I’m sorry, I didn’t sleep very well last night.”
“Obviously. In the short time I’ve known you,” Brisco chastised, “it seems you do a lot of that. I can’t imagine how you get anything done.”
“I manage, but I admit, I’ve always been a dreamer—an idealist,” Sean confessed. “But when needs be, I can roll up my sleeves and do the dirty work.”
“I’ll take your word for that,” Brisco said. “Well then, while I’ve got your undivided attention, let me make this short and to the point. Do you want to be a member of my inventory team?”
“I’m really sorry,” Sean said, trying to focus. “I was thinking about this last year. It has been truly amazing.”
“Well, yes,” Brisco said curtly, “but that’s all past history now. We need to organize. There’s work to be done. Do you, or do you not, want to be a part of this project?”
“Anything,” Sean said softly, with a hint of reverence in his voice, “anything to do with the Grand Staircase/ Escalante National Monument, I want to be a part of.”
“Good,” Brisco said, reaching up to smooth her already immaculate auburn hair, “then it’s settled. Ron, will you stand?”
Wearing the brown BLM field uniform, Ron Sparks stood up and grinned. He appeared to be in his fifties, robust with pent up energy, balding with gray hair swept back at the sides, accommodating blue eyes and wide grin.
“This is Ron Sparks,” Brisco said. “He is the deputy monument manager and will handle a lot of the day-to-day operations of the park. His experience has all been BLM and he comes to us from the Idaho state office. Among other things, Ron will be in charge of the Citizen Advisory Committee and that group will report to him. Now Monty, will you stand?
A middle-aged, slightly stooped, thin man also wearing the standard two-tone chocolate and beige uniform of the BLM with logo patches on both shoulders rose from the far end of the table and scowled silently at the group. He looked slightly emaciated and tired, and his skin had a fallow amber tinge, as often seen with cancer patients or people with cirrhosis of the liver. His eyes, however, were anything but cadaverous. A mahogany brown, they were alert, hard and mean.
“Monty Coleman,” Brisco continued, “for now, will double as a law enforcement specialist and as range conservation officer. Hopefully soon, we’ll be able to hire another range conservation specialist, so poor Monty won’t have to do both. However, he does have vast experience in both areas. Also at our disposal from time-to-time, we will have a government hydrologist, a botanist, an archeologist, a paleontologist, a geologist, a zoologist, forest