The Chairman Took My Badge And Left The Wrong Drawer Locked

Everett Sloane fired me beside a box of stone that smelled like pennies after rain.

I had wet a loose chip in my blue enamel saucer. Six drops, as my father had taught me. Enough to wake the clay, never enough to soak the label.

"We won't need that service after Friday," Everett said.

"Which service?"

He looked at my saucer. "Caretaking."

I set down the dropper.

I was a short, broad-shouldered Filipino American woman of fifty-six, with brown skin, silver at my temples, and a scar across my left thumb. For twenty-three years, I had been the geological core archivist at Copper Wren Exploration in Casper, Wyoming.

Everett Sloane was a tall white man of sixty-two, with neat gray hair, pale blue eyes, and cuffs that never held dust.

His shoes clicked on our concrete floor. Outside, wind pushed dead cottonwood leaves against the loading door.

"Basin Meridian is buying the company for eighteen million four hundred thousand dollars," he said. "They have software for all this."

He waved at the racks. Each long box held stone drilled from deep ground. Little wood blocks marked the depth. A break in the wrong place could turn a good record into a lie.

"Software doesn't keep a depth block from sliding," I said.

He smiled the way people smiled at children who knew too many train facts.

"Your shelves can be replaced with scans. Please give me your badge."

"Who told you scanning was allowed?"

"Lourdes. We own the samples."

My father had warned me about that sentence.

Mateo Manalo had drilled private claims and worked for small crews all over central Wyoming. When he lent his core archive to Copper Wren, he had used a lawyer. On the signature page, he had pressed so hard that I could feel his name through the paper.

The originals were in my bank box. A copy lay in the bottom drawer of my desk.

Everett had never asked for that drawer's key.

"Some of these samples belong to the company," I said. "Some don't."

"Your father was paid for his work."

"His fees and his property were separate."

He laid an envelope beside the saucer.

Inside was a termination letter, effective at noon, and an offer of $7,500 if I signed a release within seven days. One clause said I held no claim to any materials on company premises.

"Have someone read that to you if you need help," he said.

I read it again. Then I put it back.

"I'd like my final time sheet."

His smile thinned. "Payroll will handle it."

At the far end of the aisle, a woman lowered her field notebook. I knew her from the buyer's first visit.

Anika Desai was thirty-eight, an Indian American geologist with dark curls pinned close and a habit of waiting until everyone else stopped talking.

She had asked about the old Red Draw holes. Everett had answered for me.

Now she looked at my envelope.

"Will Ms. Manalo be here for the physical check?" she asked.

"Our operations manager can walk you through," Everett said.

"That's not what I asked."

He turned toward her. I took my lunch bag from the desk.

I left the company keys on top of the letter. I kept the key to my own drawer and asked for a supervised time to collect my personal things. Everett said human resources would call.

I did not open boxes, copy files, or take a sample. I had spent my life keeping clear records. I would not spoil mine on the way out.

At the door, Anika caught up with me.

"The Red Draw series," she said. "Why does the shelf map use an M prefix?"

"Manalo."

"An owner code?"

"Yes."

She wrote that down.

On my way home, I drove along the North Platte. The wind ruffled the water into small dark squares. I parked before I reached the bank and sat with both hands on the wheel.

My father had died nine years earlier. He had left me his house, $12,600, and a room's worth of rocks that took a warehouse to hold.

People had been more impressed by the house.

At the bank, I took out his agreement, my estate papers, and Copper Wren's signed acknowledgment that I had become the lender after his death.

The title across the first page read CUSTODIAL LOAN OF GEOLOGICAL MATERIALS.

I called a Casper lawyer named Ruth Velez. She had handled Dad's estate.

"They fired me," I said.

"Did you sign anything?"

"No."

"Good. Bring the loan."

Before I left the parking lot, my phone lit up with an email from Anika.

She had attached the sale's archive schedule. Beside MANALO COLLECTION, someone had typed: Seller-Owned; Complete; Unrestricted Digital Reproduction Rights Included.