Open Pit

OPEN PIT

OPEN
PIT

A NOVEL

MARGUERITE PIGEON

N
E
W
EST
P
RESS

COPYRIGHT
© Marguerite Pigeon
2013

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior consent of the publisher is an infringement of the copyright law. In the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying of the material, a licence must be obtained from Access Copyright before proceeding.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Pigeon, Marguerite
Open pit / Marguerite Pigeon.
Also issued in electronic format.
ISBN
978-1-927063-32-3
I. Title.
PS
8631.I4769O64 2013               
C
813'.6               
C
2012-906588-9

Editor for the Board: Douglas Barbour
Cover and interior design: Natalie Olsen, Kisscut Design
Cover image: coal mining facility © Jan Hyrman /
Shutterstock.com
Author photo: Edward Pond

NeWest Press acknowledges the financial support of the Alberta Multimedia Development Fund and the Edmonton Arts Council for our publishing program. We further acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (
CBF
) for our publishing activities. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested
$ 24.3
million in writing and publishing throughout Canada.

#201, 8540-109 Street
Edmonton, Alberta
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780.432.9427
www.newestpress.com

No bison were harmed in the making of this book.
printed and bound in Canada 1 2 3 4 5    14 13

For Mirna Perla, Carlos Amador, Berta Caceres
and the groups they serve in El Salvador and Honduras

AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Los Pampanos and the Mil Sueños mine, while based on real places, are fictional.

CONTENTS

2005

SUNDAY APRIL 3

MONDAY APRIL 4

TUESDAY APRIL 5

WEDNESDAY APRIL 6

THURSDAY APRIL 7

FRIDAY APRIL 8

SATURDAY APRIL 9

SUNDAY APRIL 10

MONDAY APRIL 11

TUESDAY APRIL 12

WEDNESDAY APRIL 13

THURSDAY APRIL 14

2008

JUNE 14

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

2005

SUNDAY
APRIL 3

11:50 AM
. Hwy 18, Morazán province, El Salvador

The bus passes yet another struggling 4×4. On the truck's open flatbed a half dozen passengers bump knees and press hats and scarves to their heads against the wind. One man briefly lifts his frayed Stetson and smiles, no front teeth. Danielle forces herself to smile back. Ahead of her, Antoine waves and grabs a shot with his phone as the man falls from view. The hard green school bus seat squeaks as he turns to show her.

“They used to call them ‘
peek-ups,'
” Danielle says, remembering, but she doesn't like what's happening here. The bus driver, Ramón, is going way too fast, overtaking
peek-ups,
sedans, motorcycles — everything chugging upwards on the narrow highway. The others seem oblivious, enjoying the foreignness, but Danielle can't concentrate on her schedule for intrusive fantasies of crawling from the wreckage of the bus to check for their pulses. She's had it with Ramón's music too, going BOOM da-da-dah.
Sí, ma-mi, sí!
BOOM da-da-da-da-dah.

“Reggaeton,” Tina said earlier, the end of the word sucked out the open upper half of her window with a few stray hairs from her tidy ponytail. “It's like Latin American hip hop. Pretty raunchy.” Tina rightly assumed Danielle hadn't identified the style. Tina has all kinds of pop culture references at her fingertips. She drops them like crumbs, letting you know where she's been and you have not. She also looks like a yoga instructor, which is fine, because she is one. But her stretch-fit top is a distraction. After she sat down at breakfast no one in the group heard a word of Danielle's review of drinking water safety.

Danielle looks back at her page. Six days' worth of meetings, tours, talks and sleeping in hammocks. Six days between her and getting what she needs. She checks her watch. At least Ramón is making up time. They left San Salvador late thanks to Martin, the chubby-faced stock analyst two rows up. Danielle has no idea why he's on this delegation, never mind what could've taken him so long to get ready. Let it not have been prayers. Neela did mention that he's a serious Christian.

Now Ramón gestures to Danielle to come forward. She hesitates. The road, straight and smooth all the way from the capital city, is winding and bumpy as they head north into the foothills. She would prefer not to fall on her ass on her first day. But Ramón cranks his arm more insistently and Danielle cautiously gets up, putting a hand on Antoine's seat back.

“We close?” he asks.

“Very.”

“Then what he want?” says Pierre, seated directly across from Antoine. The francophones joined the delegation together while travelling in Nicaragua. Grew up neighbours in Quebec City. Best friends for life. So said Neela. Danielle has a hard time seeing it. Antoine is sweet, Pierre imperious. He could pass for a cult leader in training this morning, all intensity, curly hair and bony bod. A tan abdomen and the nub of an outie show where his t-shirt has drawn up above his drawstring pants.

“I'm going up to find out,” says Danielle, a bit terse.

Arriving alongside Ramón she is disconcerted to see that he is sweating profusely, looking wound up. “We'll stop soon,” he says, nodding at the shoulder of the highway. The familiar sound of his quick singsong Spanish pulls Danielle back through time.

“I don't know. . . . We're already late.”

Ramón's hands curl more tightly around the steering wheel, his knuckles blanching. “This is special. A stand for cane juice.”

“I'm sure we can get something similar at the market in Los Pampanos. Our host is —”

“You can't get this,” Ramón interrupts, freeing a hand and flapping it at her, shooing.

Danielle wants to object, but she won't be
that
foreigner. The one who assumes everyone in the developing world has an agenda, steering you to their cousin's restaurant. Not in front of these kids. She hears the voice of her friend Neela, who organized the delegation. “Whatever happens afterwards, enjoy the first week. Relax. Be open. Learn something about yourself.” This was her final pep talk as she dropped Danielle at Departures yesterday morning with a folderful of papers, flight information for the others, directions to their hostel and the neatly typed schedule. Everything Danielle needed to take over. Except Neela's confidence.

“Alright,” says Danielle to Ramón. “As long as it's quick.”

Without waiting for her to sit down, he speeds up even more, cruising past a truck stacked high with water bottles, then a tragic, stuttering moped coughing blue exhaust. The music goes on, BOOM dah-dah.
O Mami!
BOOM BOOM BOOM.

Teetering back towards the others, Danielle hollers over it. “Ramón says we can get fresh cane sugar juice up ahead, a local delicacy. Stretch our legs a bit.”

Everyone but Pierre nods.

“My doctor of Chinese medicine says it's awesome for digestion,” says Tina, searching the highway for such a wondrous place.

A few minutes later Ramón pulls into a semicircular dirt driveway and parks behind a rickety wooden structure encrusted along its bottom half with dried mud.

“Is
that
it?” Tina asks.

Martin has his wallet out. “How much do they charge?”