Redemption Mountain (23 page)

Finally, he turned and walked slowly back to where Charlie waited for him. Hank sat down on the sandy ground and gestured to a spot in front of him. “C'mon, Burden, let's make a deal,” he said.

Charlie sat and crossed his legs Indian style. “What'd you have in mind, Hank?”

Hank put the plans on the ground next to him. “Now, everything's up to standard for water impoundments—the pumping and release systems, and the levees; your boys can read the regs as good as we can. But you're going to have to make a couple of changes you probably ain't going to like too much.” Hank reached into his pocket and pulled out his tobacco pouch. Charlie put his hands on the dusty ground behind him and leaned back on his arms. He was apprehensive about what was coming. If Hank was looking for a bribe, now was the time.

“What kind of a change, Hank?” Hank put a plug of chewing tobacco in his mouth and took off his jacket. The midday sun beat down on them, and Hank was sweating through his white shirt. He held his arm out and pointed.

“Around this northern half of the pond, where the land goes down away from the mountain, you're going to have to build that containment dike two feet higher than you got it laid out. And you'll have to reinforce it with steel.”

“Two feet higher? Reinforced with steel? That's way beyond the code, Hank. You said yourself, everything met the regulations.” Charlie was perplexed more than disappointed. He did a quick calculation and estimated the cost of Hank's requirements. “You know, Hank, that would cost us about a hundred thousand, maybe a hundred fifty,” Charlie said, looking around at the site.

Hank turned his head and spit a gob of tobacco juice in the sand. “Tough shit,” he said. “Your client can afford to build a safe pond.”

“Wouldn't a pond built to code be safe enough?” Charlie asked.

“Safe enough for the state and for the county. Safe enough for the board, too, legally, 'cause I can't
make
you go beyond the code.” Almost to himself, he added, “Not safe enough, though, for families living along Cold Springs Road years from now, when you and I are long gone and other people got responsibility for—” He stopped and turned to Charlie with a pained look on his face. “The levee needs to be higher, and it needs to be reinforced. It's something
I
need you to do.”

Charlie was relieved that Hank wasn't looking for a payoff. He'd known him only a short time, and while he'd concluded that Hank was a man of integrity, you couldn't be sure until the moment of truth. It had now come and gone, and Hank obviously had concerns about the project that were on a much higher plane. “What's it all about, Hank? There's more to this than code requirements, right?”

Hank gazed around at the surrounding hills with a faraway look in his eyes, as he resurrected the painful memories from twenty-eight years earlier. After a few moments, he nodded his head slowly, as if telling himself that it would be all right to share these memories with Charlie. “It was a lousy day,” he started in a low voice. “Raining and drizzling for three days straight. February twenty-sixth, 1972. It was a Saturday.”

Hank paused to gather his thoughts. “I was a schoolteacher and assistant principal at the time. Well, about noon, I get a call from a good friend of mine, a deputy sheriff here. Tells me that a dam let go up in Logan County—a coal-waste dam the mining companies build to make water impoundments to clean their coal. A hundred years they been doing it like that, in spite of all the problems they cause.

“Anyway, he tells me it looks like there could be some damage and maybe some injuries, and he was heading up to provide assistance. Reason he called me was he knows I got a cousin up there in a little coal camp town called Lundale, couple miles down the creek from the dam. Cousin was married to a miner, and they had a little girl.” Hank sighed. “So he picked me up out at the house and we drove on up there. Up to Buffalo Creek.”

For the next twenty minutes, Charlie didn't utter a sound as Hank told him the story of the Buffalo Creek disaster, the worst dam failure in West Virginia history. After a week of snow and rain, a series of three coal-waste dams breached, sending 130 million gallons of water crashing down the narrow valley of Buffalo Creek in southeastern Logan County. When the twenty-foot-high wall of black water and coal-waste sludge had finished its eighteen-mile path of destruction, five towns had been totally obliterated and nine others severely damaged. Four thousand people were left homeless. Seven hundred homes were destroyed, along with fifty house trailers, thirty businesses, and nine hundred automobiles and trucks. After weeks of searching through the rubble and debris, the death toll ended at a hundred twenty-five, including seven whose bodies were never recovered.

“We drove up as far as we could before the road disappeared, below Amherstdale, and then we started walking. The state police were there, and you could see they were pretty shaken. Told us we wouldn't believe how bad it was.” Hank paused and shook his head slowly, as if he were fighting off the horror of the memories.

“We came to a railroad trestle across the creek, and on the other side of it was this huge pile of rubble—must have been thirty feet high, covering forty or fifty yards of the creek bed—all packed in so tight you couldn't pull a board out of there. Looked like a pile of matchsticks, with a bunch of toy cars thrown in. But they weren't toys. It was what was left of most of the houses and buildings from all the towns for the next eight miles, up to where the dam broke in Saunders.

“We kept walking, and pretty soon there was nothing—houses gone, road and the topsoil washed away; even the railroad tracks were gone. People were wandering around with that dazed look on their faces—mothers calling out for their babies, children looking for their parents.… It was horrible, Charlie. Worst day I ever had to live through.” Tears rolled down Hank's face.

“Anyway, we get up to Lundale, and there's nothing left. Ground is scraped down to the gravel. Wouldn't have known there was once a town there, if you didn't know the hollows and the shape of the hillsides. Total devastation all the way up to the dam.” Hank turned to spit tobacco juice in the sand. “Cousin's house was gone. They found her body the next day and her little girl about a week later. Her husband was early shift down in one of the mines when it all happened. Later on, he gets his settlement check … pathetic little retribution payment—about twenty-eight hundred dollars, as I recall—and he turns into a drunk and moves away. Never heard from him again.” Then Hank added softly, “Can't blame him, though.

“Next day, the National Guard moves in, takes over, and shuts everything off. No volunteers, no media, no nothing allowed into the valley. Damn governor's in bed with the coal companies, and they're scrambling to cover their asses, calling it an
act of God
, just another natural disaster,
too much rain
, they said. And they don't want people snooping around and taking pictures of the dam or the destruction they caused—or the bodies of kids lying in the mud.” Hank's voice was bitter.

“They knew the dams weren't safe. State inspectors had been up there and cited them a year earlier for not having any emergency spillway. But they never did anything—nobody did—and the state didn't give a shit. They all just let it happen. The
motherfuckers
!” Hank slammed an open hand against the ground, sending up a cloud of dust. “They knew the night before that the dams might collapse, but they didn't warn
anyone
!”

Hank shook his head in frustration and wiped his eyes with his shirtsleeve. “Lot of 'em were kids, Charlie. Forty-three of the dead were under the age of fifteen. Had all these little bodies piled up in the cafeteria down at the middle school. Whole families wiped out. Jesus.”

The anger was back in his voice and in his dark eyes when he continued. “A hundred and twenty-five good people died at Buffalo Creek, Charlie. Wasn't any act of God. God had nothing to do with it. Was an act of
man
! And corporate greed, and arrogance from a hundred years of taking and taking and keeping the people poor and dependent and powerless…” Hank stopped to take a deep breath and calm himself down before continuing in a softer tone. “Three of the bodies they found were babies that no one could identify. Think about that, Burden. Three kids with no name, no identity.”

Hank pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose quietly. “You know what gets me the worst, Burden?” The old man looked at Charlie with sad, imploring eyes. “No one from the company, or from the state, or the federal government—no one ever said they were sorry for what happened. No one ever apologized to the survivors of Buffalo Creek for their years and years of nightmares or apologized to the relatives for their lifetime of heartache. And surely no one ever apologized to the people of West Virginia for making us look like … like backward, hillbilly fools livin' in flimsy shacks where we shouldn't be, like the flood was the fault of the people living there. Goddammit.”

Listening to Hank relate the story of Buffalo Creek, Charlie felt as close to the old man as he'd gotten to anyone in many years. It clearly wasn't a story that his friend enjoyed telling or one that he told very often. Charlie also had a newfound appreciation for his neighbor's strength of character and his sensitivity to the plight of his fellow West Virginians.
What was it Natty Oakes said her grandmother always said?… There's a lot of heartache in these mountains.
Hank would surely agree with that, thought Charlie. He chastised himself for even considering that Hank might've been looking for a payoff.

“So, Burden, when it comes to water impoundments, I go beyond the code. Make it as safe as I can. 'Cause I can't bring back any of those kids from Buffalo Creek, but maybe I can help save … Well, you know what I'm saying. Maybe it's just a symbolic gesture, but that's the way it is, and right now I got the gavel, so that's the deal.” Hank started to get to his feet. Charlie bounced up quickly and extended a hand to help pull the old man erect.

Hank spoke first. “We got a deal, Burden?”

Charlie smiled at his friend and offered his hand. “Yes, Hank, we've got a deal. We'll build a safe pond, for now and for years to come. What about the other two board members?” Charlie asked. “Will they be okay with this?”

“Oh, them? Miserable pricks, both of 'em.” Hank laughed. “But they'll be okay. They'll listen to me. What about your client? What are they going to say?”

“OntAmex? They're mostly miserable pricks, too. They'll approve it on my recommendation, though. Actually, Hank, they'll be thrilled with the deal. A hundred thousand is a cheap price to pay to keep the project on schedule.”

“Should've asked for more, then,” Hank said jokingly.

“Well, Hank,” Charlie said, as if he were thinking aloud, “maybe you'll get a little more. I've got an idea I need to work on. We'll talk about it before the planning-board meeting.”

They drove back to the administration building and parked next to Hank's beat-up old Chrysler. Hank refused Charlie's invitation to buy him lunch out at the Roadhouse, but they agreed to meet that evening for some cribbage and a shot or two of some local moonshine one of Hank's former students had brought over. Charlie watched Hank drive out through the gate, the rumbling exhaust of the Chrysler belching white smoke as it accelerated toward the access road. The big car rode low on shocks and springs that had given up long ago. In a few days, Hank could be driving a brand-new car, any make he wanted, Charlie mused, if he were at all interested in such things. One call to Vernon Yarbrough, and the next day Charlie would have a gym bag full of cash for the planning-board chairman. Of that, he had no doubt.

But Pullman Hankinson didn't care about cars or living high. He cared about people, his neighbors, and his town, and certainly about West Virginia. And he cared most fervently about the injustice of poor people dying because they were poor enough not to matter. Charlie felt a rush of pride in having Hank for a friend. It was a rare episode he'd experienced out in the field, a demonstration of selflessness and emotional exposure that didn't seem to exist anymore in Charlie's world.
Maybe that's what he had been searching for these past few years. Personal nobility.
A hazy cloud of dust hung in the air in the Chrysler's wake. Charlie smiled and whispered out loud, “You're my hero, Hank.”

*   *   *

T
HE NEXT MORNING,
Charlie was on the porch when he saw his blue Lexus coming up South County Road. Natty flashed the headlights and waved. She was standing in the middle of Main Street, ready to go, by the time Charlie got downstairs. “Keys are over the visor,” Natty said, as they started out at a slow jog. “Thanks for the car. It was a big help.”

“You're welcome,” said Charlie. It was then that he noticed Natty's appearance had changed. The long baggy shorts were replaced with lightweight red running shorts. On top, she wore a black T-shirt that fit snugly across her back and shoulders and hung loose at the waist. The shirt was short enough to occasionally reveal her small waist. In place of the customary Spider-Man cap, her hair was pulled back in a dark-green bandanna. Charlie smiled as he watched Natty's narrow hips and thin legs churn confidently in front of him. He wondered if she knew how good she looked in normal clothing.

When they exited the woods and hit the mountain trail, Natty picked up the pace and was soon twenty yards ahead. Charlie made no effort to catch up, as it seemed obvious that Natty wasn't interested in chatting. She was probably a little uncomfortable, as was he, with the idea of running together two days in a row, as if they were establishing a routine.

They ran through the dark woods above Oakes Hollow and down the logging road without slowing their pace a step. When Charlie finally crossed the wooden footbridge to South County Road, Natty was fifty yards ahead of him, and his lungs and thighs were burning. A half mile from Old Red Bone, Charlie saw Natty stop running. She turned around to look for him and then began to walk slowly to allow him to catch up.