Hayden, Colorado grasped at a vague sense of privilege, a regal birthright passed down from pious pioneers.
On the outskirts of Los Angeles, in a suddenly festive house in the Santa Monica Mountains, five fugitives watched a live stream of five men sitting at a dining room table in a Spanish Colonial hacienda.
These were the oilmen who vanished after a round of golf in Chula Vista, still the guests of a cartel down in Mexico.
When the cartel’s captives emailed their companies orders to immediately suspend all fracking operations, the five fugitives house in the Santa Monica Mountains roared.
They saw each of the oilmen’s expressions absorb the first inkling of a deeper desperation.
This was the grim awareness of defeat, their wealth and influence, confidence and privilege vanishing with a keystroke.
Up in Hayden, Colorado, the hardworking gods in the mountains took a day off from hurling thunderbolts.
