American Crow (19 page)

‘Come on, I want to show you Black
Mountain while you’re here, Blake, and while
it’s
still standing too.’

‘Thanks, Benjamin,’ I said following
Nancy out of the door. ‘For everything…’  

The old timer raised a hand like some
Indian chief and smiled warmly, before returning to the fire as if it had
something to say to him.

‘You know where I am if you need me...’
he called out, as I headed down the steps after Nancy.

Outside I drew a breath and enjoyed the
flicker of sunshine that had managed to break through the forest canopy above,
then wondered if Benjamin had seen something else in there too, and had chosen
not to reveal it, something as equally as dark, if not darker than what had
gone on in my own recent past, and something that there was no way of avoiding
in the future…

Chapter Nineteen

  ‘black mountain’

F
or a while we drove in silence, both of us seemingly
reflecting on what had happened at Benjamin’s, as well as the night before. Not
that it mattered now I thought. In a few days I would have found the girl, I’d
be sat back in the static on Jerry’s site, listening to my old stereo as if
nothing had happened. Then I’d look back at my brief connection with Nancy and
enjoy it for what it was. Just a connection, that came and went…

‘He used to be a preacher you know,’ she
said eventually, pulling off the road again up some overgrown track.

‘That doesn’t surprise me.’

‘He’d just finished his training when he
received the draft for Vietnam. When he came back, he was a changed man. He
renounced pretty much everything. Women, drink, religion...

She placed a hand on my leg and squeezed
tenderly.

‘Look, I’m sorry if he gave you the third
degree in there, he was just trying to protect me, and protect others too.
There’s a lot of folk out there pretending to be something they’re not,
pretending to be union people or genuine activists, when in fact they’re just
company men who want to ply you for information. You have to be careful who you
speak to, Blake. It can get people killed...’

She switched off the engine at the
track’s end in front of some large mesh gates that had plastic warning signs
plastered all over them.

‘He liked you though.’

‘Is that so?’

‘He’s a very perceptive man is Benjamin.
Receives visions some people say. He just wanted to check you out that’s all,
like he does with everyone at first. But he did like you, I could tell. Come
on...’

Nancy jumped out, grabbed a rucksack from
the trunk, then led me over to a buckled section of the fence barring our way.
Squeezing through it, we worked our way onto a winding track, then walked for
quite some time in silence again, as if both enjoying the tranquillity of the
damp forest and its fluctuating birdsong as we headed higher.

‘And what do
you
think now I’ve
been checked out, Nancy? Now you know that I’m a private investigator?’ I said,
as we stopped at a large outcrop of rock where a free-flowing stream was
gushing out.

She turned slowly, the light catching her
silky brown hair and classical face, and for a moment I forgot what my question
had been.

‘The past is the past, Blake. We get busy
living, or we get busy dying. If something you’ve done with the best of
intentions didn’t work out, then that has to be okay, don’t it?’

‘Sure...’ I said unsure. ‘And have
you
let go of the past too, Nancy?’ 

For a second I saw the pain then the
determination in her weary eyes, before it dissipated and was replaced by
something warm and optimistic.

‘We don’t have to be beholden to
decisions we’ve made in our lives, Blake, situations been and gone that were
out of our control. We just have to deal with their consequences and try and
move on.’

I watched in silence as she knelt down, pulled
out a couple of glass jars from the rucksack then fill them in the stream.

‘If we can build a case to prove how much
the water system has already been affected up here from the surface mining,
then there’s a chance we can stop any further encroachment onto Black Mountain
itself.’

‘What you looking for?’ I said kneeling
down at her side.

‘Sulphates, heavy metals like calcium,
iron and magnesium, which in high quantities, decimates the macro-invertebrates
in the water, and excessive sedimentation too, which is just as bad. Then
there’s the sulphuric acid that’s created from the oxidized pyrite after the
explosives have been detonated. It leeches into the water system, then
eventually peoples’ wells, poisoning them with every glass.’

‘I admire what you’re doing here, Nancy.
Seriously,’ I said, placing a hand on her shoulder. 

She turned and stared deep in my eyes for
a second. It was the look of a woman who had lost everything but still was big
enough to smile about it. 

‘Someone has to make a stand, Blake.
Someone...’ 

I reflected on her words as we climbed
sharply again, wondering if Laura would have still been alive if I’d quit
tracing work earlier, if I’d been more involved in her life from the start.

The distant whine of chainsaws seemed to
offer me an answer suddenly. Destruction was inevitable for some, and came
sometimes when you least expected it. In fact, maybe it was just plain
unavoidable. Maybe everything we went through in life was just plain unavoidable,
because of the choices we
had
to make because of the people we were.

We broke through the trees suddenly and
came to a rocky ledge that offered a spectacular view over the mountain range.
I stood quietly for a second, speechless at the sight that confronted my eyes,
at the shocking scene that mirrored the one I’d seen previously in the
activist’s film.

In the distance teams of yellow trucks
and dozers were working their way through seams of coal, leaving a desolate
moonscape behind them which stretched for miles, leaving canyons full of rock
and grit.      

‘My god…’

‘This is the true reality of it all,
Blake,’ she said, offering the view with an open hand as if she were revealing
a prize on a game show.

I stared at the sea of tree stumps stretching
out to the horizon, as Nancy crouched down looking defeated again. Directly
below us, teams of bulldozers were shifting the fallen trees like they were
matchsticks, an army of mechanical caterpillars appearing to consume anything
green in their path.

‘Is there any hope of stopping this?’

‘We can’t do anything about the mountains
that have disappeared, Blake, but we can fight for those that are still
standing. You see that over there,’ she said pointing to a slope devoid of any
plant life.

‘That just took over a year to decimate.
It was once known as Hope Mountain. How ironical is that huh?’

She grabbed my hand unexpectedly and
pulled me over to the far side of the ledge.

‘You see that mountain right over there
in the distance?’

‘Sure.’

‘Now, that’s Black Mountain, the highest
in Kentucky, and some folks want to do exactly the same there if they get the
chance, cus it’s filled up to the brim with black gold that they want to get
their greedy hands on it. But we’re making a real big stand this time...

She pointed west.

‘On the other side is Halo and Vineburg,
both small towns with schools and shops and family homes and businesses, and
each one of them is going to get the same treatment as Crow Creek if the mining
people get their way. They’ll be acid run-off from the explosives poisoning the
streams, they’ll be coal dust and sulphur pumped into the air, filling the
children’s lungs, and they’ll be mud slides and coal wash off and sick people
everywhere, just like there always is when Corrigan’s circus comes to town…

She looked deep into my eyes.

‘And when the graveyards are full and the
coal has all been mined, there will be no one to point the finger at...as
usual.’

‘Surely, there is legislation to stop
them doing this?’

She shook her head despondently.

‘There are laws to lessen the impact. But
there is only so much the agencies and mountain people can do because the
mining companies are always two steps ahead. You see, Blake, they have the money
and power to pull every trick in the book to get their own way. That’s why I’m
testing the water around here to see how it’s been affected already, to try and
build a case to stop them before it starts. It’s a long shot, but we gotta do
something...’

‘But surely someone can be made
accountable, can’t they?’

‘They’re clever people with infinite
resources and connections. Just when you think you’ve got them cornered, they
wriggle out of your grasp and slither on to the next catastrophe.’ She sighed
in frustration then stared out across the Jekyll and Hyde landscape, as if
imaging what it was like before it had all been destroyed.

‘It’s hard to believe they can get away
with this...’

She looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

‘You see, the mining corporations form
shell companies. They’re smaller and appear unconnected to their larger, parent
companies, but they are...the threads are just harder to trace. The parent
company then lends the machinery and men and everything else to the shell
company so that they can break every law imaginable and give the Environmental
Protection Agency the run around while they mine the hell out of an area…’

She sighed and threw a stone over the
ledge.

‘Then, when they are finally cornered,
the company files for insolvency, absolving anyone involved of any
responsibility for the destruction they’ve caused, the people they’ve poisoned
and the activists they’ve killed and maimed.

I heard the strain in her voice and
wrapped an arm around her waist.

‘By the time the authorities have caught
up with them, Blake, all the coal’s been dug and the profits channelled through
to the larger company by some non-executive director of the shell company. Then
the cycle continues again and the mountains disappear one by one. Easy huh...’

She pulled away suddenly and wiped a tear
from her cheek.

‘You okay?’ I said lamely, trying to
offer some sort of comfort.

‘It’s just when I see it like this, it
gets to me. Tom used to love coming here...’

A siren sounded three long blasts
suddenly, drowning out her voice, before a line of powerful explosions fired in
quick succession along a man-made plateau in the distance, sending plumes of
rock and grit hurtling hundreds of feet into the air. The place looked and
sounded like a war zone...

‘You know, the Cherokee believe there’s a
powerful spirit under Black Mountain protecting it, and that’s why it’s still
standing. Christian folks call it an angel. A few of the old timers who used to
dig under there, named it their Black Angel. Some of them even recall mysterious
lights guiding them out after a roof collapse...’

‘You serious?’

She nodded and picked up her
rucksack. 

‘We need one now, Blake, we really do.
And I don’t care this time if it’s made of flesh and bone. Let’s get the hell
out of here. I’ve seen enough.’

‘Sure,’ I said following, hoping that
whatever it was, something similar and all-powerful was keeping an eye out for
Olivia Deacon too, because I had an awful feeling that she might just need it
as well...

Chapter Twenty

‘the dance’

Hangman’s Ridge. Early evening.

D
exy’s was a small, two-storey block-work shack overlooking a
lake, which if it were any smaller could be classified as a pond. Set around it
were a cluster of sorry-looking trailers, dilapidated tents and a handful of
log cabins, where Nancy informed me, the hard core hippies lived all year round
who formed the bedrock of activists fighting for the mountains.

I stared out of the passenger side window
as we drove deeper into the forest clearing, hoping that Olivia would be
amongst the cluster of rag-tag individuals who were preparing to dance under a
clear Kentucky sky.

‘Kinda looks pretty huh,’ Martha said,
parking up next to a battered old campervan.

‘Yeah, they’ve lit it up like a Christmas
tree this year,’ Nancy replied, pointing to the shack, where a bright emerald
sign was flashing the bar’s name intermittently in broken
italics.     

I stepped out of the truck and observed
the scene more intently. I reckoned there were around seventy or eighty
revellers in total gathered in front of Dexy’s, most standing quietly on the
dance floor waiting for the next tune, while others sat on long wooden benches
skirting the fringes, simply enjoying the spectacle.

It wouldn’t take long to sift through the
crowd I thought, then through the bar if Olivia was hanging around inside.
Nancy pulled in close as if picking up on my anxiety and offered a reassuring
smile.

‘I really hope she’s here for you, Blake,
and of course, I don’t…’

She pulled away suddenly and skipped
towards some friends who were approaching from the dance floor, arms
outstretched.

‘I haven’t seen her like that for quite a
while you know...well, not since, Tom, died,’ Martha whispered.

‘I wish I could stay, I really do. But
after I’ve found the girl, I’m going to have to return to England, you know,
and that could be pretty damned quick if she’s here tonight.’

She guided me over to the bustling ground
floor bar where she squeezed in amongst the crowd and ordered us a couple of
cold beers.

‘Well, we’ll see. There’s always a way if
there’s a will,’ she said winking.

I grabbed the bottle she’d slid down the
counter for me, took a slug, then turned and eyed the crowd, then the band
through the open doors. Some squat old guy had just started up on his banjo,
fingerpicking a plodding refrain accompanied by some younger members, playing
mandolins, guitars and a black accordion.

Soon clusters of people were spinning
around slowly, interlocking arms with the dancer opposite, before peeling off
to grab the next, while a caller in tight trousers and a Stetson shouted out
instructions.

I headed for the door and eyed the
colourful dance as it picked up momentum, then clocked the dancers one by one,
looking for a slim, blonde-haired teenager with heavy makeup, piercings and a
now, not so innocent face.

A good few minutes later and after
exhausting the crowd, I started to get restless. She wasn’t outside dancing, or
inside watching from ground level. Maybe they just hadn’t arrived yet, or she
and Ethan hadn’t been able to make it?

Frustrated, I went outside and circled
the dance area a few more times double-checking, then headed for the far side
of the lake where a handful of stragglers were strolling along hand in hand. I
eyed each face in turn as they passed in the half-dark, hoping I’d get lucky.
There wasn’t even anyone closely resembling the teenager…

When I finally found myself alone again,
I took a winding path towards a half-dozen cabins located on higher ground, one
of which had its lights blazing. As I drew close I heard the faint sound of
gentle music coming from inside, punctuated by intermittent shrieks of
laughter.

I decided to hang back, pretending to
listen to the dance from afar as I sipped my beer, until a door swung open
behind me. I turned and casually clocked the guy heading in my direction. He
had long straight black hair and a disgruntled face, and was wearing an
‘I-love-mountains’ hoodie.

He glanced at me for a second then made
off towards the lake seemingly distracted. A few seconds later an oriental girl
followed wearing a patchwork coat and thigh-length boots. She eyed me wearily
then made in the same direction looking unhappy.

‘Jay...’

‘Leave it, Zi-Zi...’ the hoodie guy
snapped.

I turned away discreetly sensing a
lover’s tiff, then climbed the last few steps to the cabin and peered through
the uncovered window. Inside the scene was exotic, filled with lava lamps and
scatter cushions. The air hung heavy with either incense or cigarette smoke
making it difficult to see inside.

I stared through the dense cloud at the
shadowy figures in the centre of the room then made out some middle-aged guy
sat on a chair receiving a blow-job from a skinny blonde on her knees.  

I eyed the girl intently wondering if it
was Olivia, willing her to turn so I’d know for sure then caught the eye of the
dude suddenly, who then raised his beer triumphantly in the air. I shook my
head in bewilderment, relieved in some part that it wasn’t her, then turned and
scanned the lake from my vantage point, my mind working in double-time.

The dance should have been a joyful scene
to behold, to be enjoyed with good company and an air of celebration, but in
that moment it was all lost on me. Olivia wasn’t here, just like she hadn’t
been everywhere else I’d been. The trail it seemed, had hit a dead end once
again...

‘Damn it.’

I stared out across the water mindlessly,
then over at some rowing boats moored up in its centre and clocked a figure lying
in one of them, their long hair hanging over the boat’s rim as if they lay
sprawled inside.

Something clicked suddenly. Under the
bright halogen glare of the lights positioned over the jetty, the locks looked
light in colour, the hands dipping into the dappled water, slim and feminine.
Just like Olivia perhaps? My pulse quickened. Maybe the mystery figure was
actually the banker’s daughter after all? Her and Ethan
were
at the
dance... 

Hurriedly, I walked towards the
half-dozen boats clanking together at its end, hoping I’d hit that rich vein of
fortune all investigators were afforded from time to time. As I neared, I could
make out a dense cloud of smoke hovering above her, and that her head was
tilted backwards, as if she were taking in the constellations whilst enjoying a
smoke.

‘Hey?’ I said, so as not to scare her as
I approached.

She raised her head slowly and eyed me in
a haze, the light catching one-half of her slender face. Was it Olivia? I still
wasn’t sure. It could be. People could look different from their photos in the
flesh, appearances could change...She had similar fair hair that was for sure;
the right sort of cheek bones. I just couldn’t see any piercings. Had she taken
them out?

‘Olivia, is that you?’

‘Got the wrong chick, honey,’ a dry,
southern voice replied, dashing my hopes instantly.

I shook my head in disappointment.

‘Fancy a smoke?’ she said lightly.

Black-painted nails held out a crumpled
joint.

‘I’m okay thanks. Look, I’m trying to
find someone. She’s as pretty as you, but from England. Her name’s Olivia
Deacon.’

I watched her take a deep inhalation then
blow out several punctuated smoke rings before she answered.

‘Well, it is my lucky day. Fancy joining
us on my boat of love, handsome?’

I looked into her glassy eyes and
declined politely.

‘I don’t suppose you have seen or heard
anything?’ I pressed. ‘I’m looking for a young blonde teenager from London with
a punk appearance, who may have come up this way recently to do some protesting.’ 

I located the crumpled photo and slipped
it into her outstretched hand. She drew heavily on the joint and exhaled a good
three or four times again before she answered.

‘She’s cute, but I aint see her. Hold
on…there was a girl with blonde hair who came up to join the camp a few weeks
back, but I think she was French. Yeah, her name was Ka-rine. Sorry...’

‘She would have been with a guy from
Minneapolis called, Ethan, who’s involved in the activist scene up here.’

‘I know an Ethan Jones. He’s been up here
a few times.’

‘That’s him? Do you know where he hangs
out?’ I said sparking with optimism again.

‘Sorry. A lot of people pass this way,
get involved with the mountain protests then disappear. We’re a bit of a
meeting point up here at the lake, but as I say, I’ve only seen him, not spoken
to him direct.’          

I took the photo back, feeling deflated.

‘Is there anyone else here who might know
him better?’

‘Don McCraw might. He knows most people
around these parts.’

‘And he’s here tonight?’

‘Should be…he comes every year - a real
tall guy with cropped grey hair and steely blue eyes. You can’t miss him. He
runs an eco-centre called Open Ground, not far from here.’

I said my thanks and wandered back to the
dance. For a second it seemed as if I was finally getting close to the girl.
Now it felt as if she could be on the damned moon...

As I neared the bar again, the band
started up with some boisterous tune. Nancy I could see was now paired off with
some older guy and running between two lines of people, their outstretched arms
forming an arc above them as they ran awkwardly along to its end.

Our eyes met as I passed through the
crowd and she grinned playfully through the throng, looking as if she didn’t have
a care in the world. At the entrance to Dexy’s I turned and thought how good
she looked, then went inside hoping to find McCraw at the very least.

‘Hey,’ Martha called out, handing me
another beer through the heaving mass of denim and tattoo.

‘It’s my round,’ I shouted.

‘Pay me in the next life,’ she hollered
as I clocked the flight of stairs at the back of the room. I’d over-looked
them. What a fool. Olivia could have been sat upstairs the whole damned time…

I weaved my way through the
tightly-packed crowd, feeling annoyed with the oversight, then jogged quickly
upstairs. At the open door I scanned the twenty or so revellers relaxing around
the room on sofas and chairs, then at the handful gathered by the open windows
enjoying the dance below. All in all, there were around twenty-five to thirty
people in the upstairs bar, but no one else who even remotely looked like
Olivia Deacon.

Disappointed, I eyed the mass of pictures
and posters stuck to the walls declaring a multitude of protests going back to
the Sixties, then went and stood next to a lean-looking guy with grey hair and
a goatee wondering if it was McCraw.

‘Mighty fine affair these occasions,’ he
announced, noticing me at his side suddenly. ‘I love it when the lake’s all lit
up like that and everyone comes to dance. Best time to come up here too, before
all the Mosquitos hatch. How you doing anyways? The name’s Don McCraw.’

‘Blake,’ I said, as we shook hands
firmly.

‘Is that it? Just Blake?’ he said.

‘Sure is.’

‘Well, Mr Blake, you enjoying yourself
tonight?’

‘I would be if I could find someone I’m
looking for.’

He took a swig of his beer and leaned
back out over the reveal.

‘Well, we’re all looking for someone I
reckons.’

‘True enough.’

‘Where you from?’

‘London.’

I tensed, preparing myself for another
cross-examination like I’d experienced at Benjamin’s.

‘Heard it’s kind of a busy sort of
place.’

‘Certainly is.’

‘And do you look for people there too, Mr
Blake?’ he said, eying me warily for a second.

‘Sometimes.’

‘Well, it should be easier here, cus
everyone knows someone who knows someone. We’re a tight knit bunch us,
Kentuckians, doubly so up in the mountains.’

I leant out of the window reveal, joining
him, feeling like he had something to say that was worth hearing.

‘Well it shouldn’t be too difficult,
because she’s young, attractive and British,’ I said looking down at the now
frantic dance unfurling below.

He took another pull of his beer then
looked out into the distance as if deep in thought.

‘Is the girl you’re looking for called O-liv-i-a
by any chance?’ he said finally, sounding as if he was in on some huge secret
from which I’d been excluded.

‘Yes…’ I said tensing.

‘And why do you wanna find this girl, Blake?
Are you one of them private detectives too, like the others who’ve been
snooping around here recently?’

I stood back up rankled.

‘Look…I’ve had this conversation with
someone else already who gave me the third degree as well…’ I checked myself
and offered a jaded smile. ‘Do you know Benjamin from Crow Creek? He makes
furniture and toys and stuff.