“You need a haircut,” Dad says abruptly, shifting his attention back to his file. “Like I was saying, you’ll be done with graduate school soon. Time to get back on track.”
“I am on track.” I clear my throat and don’t meet his eyes. “And I’m not sure what I’ll do next.”
A lie. I know exactly what I’ll do next. A PhD in climate science, but I’m in no mood to fight. I haven’t seen him in a long time. I’d rather talk about the Cowboys’ playoff hopes. The Longhorns. His golf swing. Anything other than my career—than our opposing views on what I should do.
Dad’s eyes snap up and narrow on my face. “What the hell do you mean you aren’t sure what you’ll do next? Now that Owen’s in the Senate, we need you running our West Coast office, Maxim. You know that.”
The note of pride in his voice when he mentions my older brother Owen grates a little. Pride hasn’t been in his voice for me in a long time. Disapproval. Disgust. Frustration. That’s all I’ve gotten since I told him I’d be going to Berkeley for my master’s instead of starting at Cade Energy.
“Dad, I don’t know that I’m . . .” I hesitate. The next words could set off a bomb I’m not sure we should detonate this high in the air. “Maybe I’m not the right fit for the job.”
“Not the right fit?” He flips the file closed and glares at me. “You’re a Cade. You were literally born for the job.”
“Let’s talk about this later.”
“No. Now. I want to know why the company four generations of Cades spent building from the ground isn’t good enough for you.”
“I didn’t say that. I’m just not sure I’m the best person to run a company producing oil and gas. I question the sustainability of fossil fuels as this country’s primary energy source. I believe we should be aggressively transitioning to clean energy—solar, wind, electric.”
Shocked silence follows my words that are essentially a rebel yell to one of America’s most powerful oil barons.
“What the ever-loving fuck are you talking about, boy?” he bellows, his voice bouncing off the walls, trapped in the luxurious cabin. “You’ll finish that damn useless master’s degree, and start in our California office as soon as possible. I got no time for this wind and air and whatever tree-hugger horse shit nonsense they’ve been teaching you at Berkeley.”
“Nonsense is believing this planet will run forever on poison. If you’d just listen to my ideas about transitioning to clean energy—”
“Oil was clean enough when it was paying for your fancy education, huh? And your trips and cars and clothes. It wasn’t poison then, was it?”
“I wouldn’t expect you to notice, but I paid my own tuition,” I correct him softly.
Before he can verbally express the disdain on his face, a uniformed attendant peers through the curtain.
“We’re here, Mr. Cade,” she says.
When my father stands, his knee knocks the table. The file falls, spilling a flurry of papers onto the thick pile carpet. I bend to retrieve them, stuffing a few back into the folder. Certain words blare from the top page.
Pipeline. Army Corps of Engineers. Ancestral burial grounds. Water rights. Environmental impact.
“Dad.” I force myself to look up from the page long enough to catch and hold his gaze. “Where are we and what are we doing here?”
He doesn’t answer for a moment, but extends his hand until I reluctantly give him the file.
“We’re in Arizona.” He grabs his suit jacket from a hook on the wall and slips it on. He’s still fit and trim, and that suit costs enough to take ten years off any man. “Laying a new gas pipeline, and let’s just say the, uh, natives are getting restless.” He smirks at his own joke, but sobers when he sees I’m not laughing.
“That memo referenced the Apache,” I say with a frown.
“Until you man up and actually run something in Cade Energy, that memo’s none of your damn business, but that’s why I’m here. If they think their little protest will stop my pipeline, they can think again.”
“We’re laying a pipeline that disturbs sacred burial grounds?” Outrage and anger almost choke me. Shame, too, that my name is attached to something so heinous. “Will this endanger their water supply?”
“We’re laying a natural gas pipeline that will transport half a million barrels a day and create thousands of jobs.”
“So no thought for the environmental impact?”
“What about the economic impact?” he counters harshly. “If you did something other than sit at a computer all day studying, you’d know what it’s like to be responsible for thousands of families. Thousands of livelihoods. To have shareholders demanding a profit. And they care even less about some river on a reservation than I do. It’s my job, Maxim.”
“Your job should also be ensuring that pipeline doesn’t contaminate other people’s water.”
“I don’t have time to argue with you.” He heads for the exit. “You can stay here while I handle this, or get off for all I care. The worksite’s near a reservation, and according to our foreman, those Indian women got some of the best pu—”