A Valley to Die For (2 page)

Now, sitting safely in her own kitchen a week later, Carrie wondered what set dynamite off. She hadn’t asked, mostly because JoAnne seemed to know, and JoAnne would be scornful if Carrie admitted she didn’t. Probably you lit a fuse.

But was that all? What happened if you dropped it or wiggled it or... sat on it?

There had to be information somewhere. Maybe an encyclopedia...

Rob probably knew, or could find out on the Internet, but then he’d have to know why his mother was asking such a question, and when he found out, why, of course, he’d have a fit.

One fit from her son would be an excuse to get out of the whole mess. But wouldn’t that make her a traitor to the cause—a cause she really did believe in?

Carrie pushed aside the coffee mug that said, “MOM for President,” and stared out into the awakening forest. She pictured the valley caves with their exotic formations and the layered bluffs, clear creek, wildflowers, and berries, all about to be blasted to oblivion just to make road fill, for goodness sake.

On the other hand, maybe dynamite wasn’t what they used today. Everyone knew now that explosions could be done with some sort of fertilizer.

If the blasting came, what they used sure wouldn’t matter much. The results would be the same. Beauty and peace in their valley would become a monstrous joke.

Did the quarry people think raw rock piles were beautiful?

Probably. Smashed rock meant money to them, and, for many people, money equaled beauty. They’d see the valley’s limestone bluffs as a pile of money, nothing more.

She shut her eyes and thought about walking along the quiet valley road in early summer, pausing, as she always did, where wild hydrangea bushes tumbled down the southern bluff to the very edge of the berm left by road graders. She gathered bouquets in her mind, filling her arms with clusters of tiny florets surrounded by popcorn puffs of white blossoms—so beautiful against the dark green leaves.

Now, in November, the bushes displayed empty seed heads ringed with papery brown blossoms, a left-over beauty she could take freely. She never picked the summer blooms lest she rob quail of food, or humans of viewing pleasure.

She had put a bouquet of dried wild hydrangea on the coffee table last weekend, a subdued arrangement that suited the fall landscape outside her windows.

Unlike JoAnne, Carrie had rarely been a protestor. After more than sixty years on earth, she was wise enough to realize that most people who knew her didn’t have any idea what protests she might be hiding. Life had always been easier that way; and now, it seemed safer too.

She thought about courage and wondered if she had it.

Maybe, just maybe... standing up for what one believed in... ?

But it would still be no more than a gesture—only putting off the inevitable—unless they found a legal way to stop the quarry.

And, maybe they had found something, or, at least, maybe JoAnne had. She’d sounded different over the phone last night, excited even, and had been about to tell Carrie why when her cat dumped a jar over on the kitchen counter. She’d stopped talking then, said she had to go clean up the cat’s mess, and Carrie would have to wait until today and hear about it with all the others. Then JoAnne had giggled. Drat! JoAnne wouldn’t care if wondering about what the news was kept her friend awake all night—which it hadn’t, since Carrie knew it must be good news from her Thursday meeting with the State Environmental Commission in Little Rock.

A twinge of pain crossed Carrie’s forehead, and an involuntary frown deepened the lines there. JoAnne accomplished so much, she was so very capable! Carrie wished she, too, had good news to report. She didn’t. No one at the meeting would look at her with hope and admiration showing in their eyes.

Down in the hollow, fog was drifting through dark tree trunks, but when the sun lifted above the ridge, the fog would fade, and they’d have a good day for the meeting. She looked up at her blue and white wall clock, then shut her eyes again, thinking she should pray for the valley. Even before words could form, ringing music from Handel’s
Messiah
boomed into her head:

“Every valley shall be exalted.”

Exalted, yes, but how could they keep it
safe
?

Her lower lip pushed out. It wasn’t a pout—far from it. She’d begun using the gesture as her own small act of defiance years ago, when her parents insisted that their only child
must
eat liver. In protest against what she saw then (and, even now) as incomprehensible adult behavior, she’d stuck out her lower lip.

It did no good. Her parents ignored the gesture. By the time she was in first grade, she’d given up on even that protest and it was eventually forgotten. Now, seated in her blue and white kitchen, Carrie remembered, pushed out the defiant lip, and felt much better.

When you came right down to it, blowing up the valley was yet another adult action that Carrie Culpeper McCrite found incomprehensible.

“Can’t stop progress,” the County Judge had told her only yesterday. “Road department needs stone, needs a quarry nearby. Save tax money. You folks that pay taxes oughta be glad, not doin’ complainin’ about one valley bein’ messed up a bit. That’s progress.

“Now, there, Mrs. um, MacWhite, you go on back home and enjoy your bird watchin’. I’ll run the county in a proper manner, do what’s best for all you folks.”

He had squeaked forward in his chair and smiled up at her. “Can’t stop progress, now, can we?”

Progress! Well, it depended on how you defined the word. At that moment, Carrie McCrite almost forgot herself. She’d wanted to reach across the desk and shake the man. If only she’d had the courage. Remembering, she smiled at the thought of it and wondered what that big man would have done if a pudgy, five-foot-two, grey-haired female grabbed his fleshy shoulders and shook him ‘til his head bobbed.

He’d see. He was young. He didn’t understand anything about tough women. He didn’t know JoAnne Harrington or... or... the rest of them.

That County Judge had something to learn.

Carrie shoved her chair back with a bang, went to spoon more instant coffee into her mug, poured hot water, then returned to her place at the kitchen table. She leaned forward and stared out the window again, trying to re-capture the feeling of peace and well-being that early morning in Blackberry Hollow brought to her.

Day came late to the hollow, especially when there was fog. Sun was just now edging down through the trees, but her bird feeders had been busy for some time. Cardinals, indigo buntings, woodpeckers, chickadees—a colorful bunch. The “tink tink” of the cardinals always cheered her.

Even if the stone quarry came, she’d still have her own twenty-five acres of protected forest. But every time she drove down to the Booths’ farm, she’d see not a valley but rock piles, dust, blasting, heavy machinery, and an army of growling trucks.

Thinking about it, Carrie, who never swore, murmured, “Just like hell,” into her coffee mug.

A sharp crack from over the hill punctuated the words, and she winced.

Deer rifle! Close. Too close.

It was like this every November.

CRACK.

Sounds were funny in the woods. Maybe it wasn’t that close after all.

Carrie knew hunting thinned out a deer population that could be too plentiful, but during hunting season her woods were a new and dangerous world. Posting didn’t always stop those who came into the area with guns; some hunters ignored the markings.

When she walked through the forest during hunting season, she wore her old orange ski jacket and a hunter’s hat and sometimes even sang aloud or carried her portable radio tuned to a music station. But why should she have to be afraid on her own land any time of year?

Because she knew all too well how far a shot from a deer rifle could carry. One had carried far enough to kill Amos.

She’d found the bloody remains of a butchered deer in the woods last November and, for a time, that brought back the nightmares.

Now they were out there again, hidden among the trees, shooting.

Until that awful November five years ago, the woods had always been a sanctuary for her—a cozy, welcoming place.

Amos, on the other hand, had loved these rocky, tree-covered hills because they made him feel masculine and strong. He’d never said anything to her, but she’d understood. She’d known exactly why he was planning to move here when he retired from his law practice in Tulsa, and why he agreed so quickly when she urged him to buy this land early so they could visit it on weekends. She’d won him over completely when she mentioned, very casually, that he could cut their firewood here, and, in November, he could hunt.

If only she hadn’t mentioned hunting.

Amos had almost swaggered that morning as he and his friend, Evan Walters, headed out to harvest deer. The two men had talked about the opening weekend of hunting season for months. They’d built the deer stand in late summer and begun putting out dried corn in the fall.

Since the weather that weekend was warm for November, Carrie offered to come along and serve a picnic. She didn’t mind waiting, sitting in a lawn chair reading or poking about in the woods near the road.

But, only minutes after they left her, there had been a shot, a cry from Evan. She could still hear that cry.

Then he had crashed back wildly, faced her, and...

It all felt like a bad dream now. It was as if, over the last five years, she had become disconnected from the real event, the horrible thing that was “only an accident.”

Now, for her, the horror usually stayed in its own dim shadow, hidden away, and the friendliness of the woods had returned. But Evan couldn’t seem to forget that day, even after five years—even after he’d been cleared of any homicidal intent by the courts. Thank goodness she no longer needed to see the man.

You couldn’t change the past, so why didn’t he just get on with his life? After all, she had! She’d been on her own for a long time when, at age twenty-nine, she married Amos McCrite. Their marriage had never been more than a friendship, so now, well, being alone was just fine, and she was proving she could cope, no matter what her age. No matter what, period!

It took her a moment to come back to the present and realize the phone was ringing. She looked at the clock again. Still early. It would be JoAnne.

Carrie had never decided if JoAnne didn’t understand how she valued her early morning quiet time or understood completely and didn’t care. One thing for sure, JoAnne herself didn’t spend much time being quiet. JoAnne was a lot like Amos.

But it wasn’t JoAnne, not at all. Henry’s rumbling voice apologized for disturbing her.

“Is JoAnne there?” he asked. “She wanted help organizing the notes from her meeting with the Environmental Commission and asked me to come by this morning, but when I got there, she didn’t answer the door. The cat came to the window and yowled at me, that’s all. Did she forget?”

Carrie wasn’t surprised. JoAnne was always going off on spur-of-the-moment quests. She had simply found something she considered more interesting or important than a meeting with her neighbor, Henry King. Still, it was odd that, given her opinion of all men, she’d invited Henry’s help in the first place, instead of asking Carrie herself to come.

Not only was Henry male, he’d been a cop. To JoAnne—who had pushed against lines of uniformed men during the war in Vietnam, had marched for civil rights, the ERA, and even chained herself to a log skidder in the Ozark National Forest—being in any kind of law enforcement was about as low as a man could go. Nothing Carrie could say softened JoAnne’s opinion about that.

She wondered if JoAnne had ever faced off against a woman law officer. She must remember to ask.

Once more Carrie checked the clock. Wherever she was now, JoAnne would be back for the Walden Valley Committee meeting in an hour and a half. After all, having the meeting was her idea in the first place.

A rumble coming from the phone broke into her thoughts. “Carrie, hello, are you there?”

“Oh, sorry, Henry, I was thinking about JoAnne. No, she’s not here, and I haven’t heard from her this morning. I have no idea where she might be. She’s usually up and busy quite early. She may have gotten into some new project hours ago and just plain forgot you were coming, or she could be out wandering the valley again, or maybe she’s just gone to town for cat food... or milk... or something.”

She knew she was babbling, but couldn’t think what else to say. Evidently it didn’t matter, because when Henry spoke again, he changed the subject.

“Cara, maybe we could go for a walk in the valley after the meeting, just the two of us, then drive into town for lunch?”

His use of the nickname, as well as his invitation, made her feel strangely warm, and she wondered—as she had more than once before—if Henry wanted a closer friendship. Some types of friendship could intrude on her independence if she let them. She was aware of that, even without JoAnne’s constant reminders.

But Henry was such a comfortable person to be with, and he’d never said or done anything that wasn’t suitable. It wasn’t a male-female thing at all.

She said, “Sorry, but I can’t. I’m baking caramel rolls, sort of a brunch. Everyone is invited to stay for rolls and coffee after the meeting, and then I need to work on the new brochures for our racks at the tourist center. I’ve got boxes of them to go over before Monday. Don’t worry about JoAnne. I’m sure she’ll be back in time. She’ll just have to make do without your organizing help.”

His voice was suddenly sharp. “She’d better get back, it’s her meeting.”

He paused, then said, more gently, “Will you be through with your work by supper time?”

She almost laughed at this follow-up, but stopped the laugh and was quiet for a moment. There could be nothing wrong in going to supper together. She would enjoy it, and he always treated her like an intelligent fellow human. How else should she expect him to act, at their age?

In this case, JoAnne just didn’t know what she was talking about. There was no harm in going out with Henry. He wasn’t going to make holes in her independence. He probably wanted to discuss plans for the valley protest, that was all.