Weak For You

by Shanade White

  “Mr. Montgomery, let me be frank with you, the legacy is just the tip of the iceberg. Are you aware that the fines for your dad’s illegal activities alone could bankrupt the family? And there’s the little matter of the lease on the land,” she said, taking a seat next to him.

  “Lease? What lease?” Seth asked, confused again.

  Tina shook her head, as if she’d known that he’d be confused, then said, “The lease with the Yup’ik tribe for the land your family has been living on.”

  “That’s not right, my family has owned that land for generations,” Seth said, feeling like his life was spinning out of control.

  Tina opened a file and pulled out a creased and worn piece of paper, “Here is the original lease signed in 1917 by your great-grandfather,” she said, handing the paper to Seth. When he still looked confused, she continued. “Many of the native tribes in this area were given back to the lands stolen from them during the gold rush period, your great grandfather was able to negotiate this lease. It gives your family the right to use the land in any way they see fit for a hundred years.”

  Seth scanned the lease quickly, the language making it difficult for him to make much sense of what was in it, but one thing he recognized clearly was the signature at the bottom of the page. It belonged to his great-grandfather, of that he was sure, there was a framed copy of the same signature in his father’s study. He’d always wondered why anyone would frame their signature, but he’d always heard that the man had gone a bit crazy in the end.

  Seth sat stunned, unable to take in this new turn in the topsy turvy reality that had become his life. “So, what happens if the Yup’ik don’t sign a new lease?” He was pretty sure he knew the answer but wanted to hear it anyway.

  “Then they take over the land and use it how they see fit. Your family home is gone, the mines are gone, your cabin is gone,” Tina said pointedly.

  “That might be the best thing that could happen to me,” Seth mused out loud.

  “I’m afraid not,” Tina said, interrupting his thoughts of just walking away from the whole mess and leaving it for someone else to clean up. “There’s the little issue of the contamination and pollution your family left behind. You don’t actually think the EPA is going to let you walk away, do you?”

  “That’s why you said it could bankrupt us,” Seth said, the truth sinking in.

  “If they make you pay cleanup costs and penalties for all the laws the mining company violated, even your billions of dollars won’t be enough,” Tina said, again not softening her words at all. “But I do have some good news. Since you’ve had nothing to do with Montgomery Mining since you became an adult they can’t charge you criminally for anything your father did.”

  “That’s supposed to make me feel better?” Seth asked, sarcastically.

  Tina just shrugged her shoulders and said, “I’m here to help you in any way I can, but if I were you I’d start figuring out how to get that lease signed and the back country cleaned up before the EPA comes down on you.”

  He’d gotten up from his chair then, too shocked to say much more than, “Thank you for all the information. I need some time to process this.” Then he’d walked out of the room, a man who’d suddenly inherited a company that probably was corrupt to the core.

  Sam cleared his throat, he and Julie been waiting for him to reply for so long that they’d begun to think he wasn’t going to answer. Seth sighed, he knew he’d been sitting silently for too long. “It’s such a long story and I’m not sure I even want to tell you, if you know just how terrible my dad was, you might not want to help me and I really need your help.”

  “Seth, I think you’re going to have to tell us. We can’t get involved unless we know the entire story,” Sam said, pouring them all another glass of wine. “We’ve got all night.”

  Seth took a big gulp of his wine then a deep breath and started at the beginning, from the time he was thirteen, until last year when he’d been appointed head of Montgomery Mining. When he was finished, Sam and Julie were silent for a long time. Each turning the story over in their minds, looking for inconsistencies, signs that Seth was more involved in the business than he was letting on.

  Finally, Julie said, “I can see that you have a big mess on your hands, but what I don’t see is how we fit into the picture. We’re ecologists not environmentalists, I don’t see how we can help with the cleanup. That’s not what we do, we study moose.”

  “That’s exactly why I need you. I’ve spent the last year working on a plan that would allow me to get the land cleaned up and pay for it,” Seth said, then added, “But if I don’t get the lease, I can’t do that.”

  “And we can help make that happen?” Julie asked, still not seeing the connection.

  “It seems that the Yup’ik have me in a difficult position, and they’re making the most of it and the truth is my father cheated them for so long, I’m willing to give in to their demands. As you can imagine, the animal population in the area has been steadily decreasing over the last fifty years and for a community that lives off the land, that’s devastating. I think you two can help with that, at least having you there will make them happy,” Seth explained.

  By the time he left that night, Seth felt sure that Sam and Julie would agree to help him. It had been hard admitting to them what his family had done to the pristine wilderness of Alaska, but he was also sure that they understood that he had nothing to do with it. He hoped he’d done enough to entice them to come, but if not, he’d do as he’d been doing for months and come up with a new plan.

  Chapter 2

  Lauren slammed her car door and tottered across the broken sidewalk to her office thinking that she had worn the wrong shoes. When she turned the doorknob, and stepped into the door of her new office, she thought she’d gone to the wrong place, but the woman at the desk in the little waiting room jumped to her feet and greeted her immediately.

  “Welcome, Ms. Anderson. I’m Heather Whitcomb, I’ll be your assistant here in Naknek,” the woman who looked to be several years older than she was said.

  Lauren stood stunned, rooted to the spot. When the memo had come across her desk that she was going to be assigned one of the biggest territories in Alaska, she’d been not only disappointed but confused. Now she was walking into an office that looked like it hadn’t been renovated since the 1950s. None of this made any sense, she was supposed to be in Kentucky, not Alaska.

  “Is this all there is,” she said, without even thinking.

  Her assistant laughed. “The rest of the staff is in Anchorage. Your predecessor, a Mr. Parker, liked this little town for some reason and moved his office here long ago.”

  Lauren had no idea what to say, the assignment in Alaska had been a bit of a surprise from the very beginning. Her mentor in Atlanta had been pushing for her to fill a job in Kentucky working with abandoned coal mines, a job she was perfect for, but at the last minute the director had put her here and she was beginning to wonder who she’d offended.

  “I was a bit shocked when I got here too, but once you get used to it, it’s not so bad. We have our own little kitchen, a nice little bathroom, and I understand that the boiler keeps it nice and toasty in the winter. Come on, I’ll show you around.”

  Lauren followed her down a hallway to a nice little kitchen and poured them both a cup of coffee and gestured to the table in the middle of the room. As soon as they sat down, Lauren said, “I’m sorry if I seemed rude, I just didn’t expect this.”

  “It’s okay, I don’t blame you,” Ms. Whitcomb said, “It is a bit of a shock when you’ve been used to the big offices we’ve been working in.”

  “So, you’re not from around here?” Lauren asked, trying to get a better handle on the situation.

  “No, the director asked me to join you here as a personal favor to him. I just got out of a messy divorce and it sounded like a good idea,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “So far all it’s been is a lot of work, but there are some nice people in town.�
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  Two things stood out to Lauren: first that Ms. Whitcomb knew the director well enough to do him a personal favor and second that she’d had a lot of work to do. “What have you been working on?”

  Ms. Whitcomb sighed. “I guess there’s no time like the present to show you what we have here.”

  She got up from the table and Lauren assumed she was supposed to follow her. They walked back down the hallway to a closed door that they’d passed on the way to the kitchen. Ms. Whitcomb opened the door and stepped back to let Lauren into the room which was packed with box after box of documents. Each box had a label, but the sheer volume of material in the room left Lauren speechless.

  “This is the extra office. Your office is across the hall, there are more boxes in there,” she said, leading Lauren across the hall and opening another door.

  “What is all this?” Lauren asked, envisioning herself buried in paperwork for the rest of her career.

  “I think it’s time you spoke to the director. I’ll get him on the phone for you and transfer it to your office,” she said, and turned on her heel, clearly not planning to tell Lauren anything else.

  Lauren walked around and sat down at the desk, feeling the entire time like she didn’t belong there. As the minutes passed, she began to question her role here in Alaska, and the possibility that she’d been put here for a reason. Growing up in Georgia she’d seen plenty of prejudice in the world, but she’d never been touched by it personally. But for the first time she began to question whether she’d been put here because she was not only African American but a woman, she’d heard similar stories.

  The truth was that she was much too qualified as a field agent and supervisor to be here in Alaska where the EPA had little to do. It was true that the area was a top provider for mined metals, oil, and natural gas, but other than the occasional new gold mine, most of the industry had been here for generations. She’d always thought that the director was a fair man, but maybe she’d been wrong about him and he’d stuck her here in Alaska to shut down her career which until now had been promising.

  She was just plotting a huge lawsuit when the old-fashioned intercom on her desk beeped and Ms. Whitcomb’s voice came thought the grey box. “The director is on line two, just punch the blinking light.”

  “Lauren Anderson,” she said, after she punched the button.

  “Lauren, good to hear your voice. I assume you’re all settled in. How is Naknek, I hear it lovely this time of year. Has Ms. Whitcomb been taking care of you?” he said, sounding much too jovial for her current mood.

  “She’s been fine,” Lauren said coldly. Hoping that there was an explanation coming.

  The director took a deep breath. “Okay, I can hear that you’re unhappy and I don’t blame you, I wasn’t completely honest with you when I sent you out there,” he began, then waited for Lauren to say something.

  “This does seem a little bit out of the ordinary,” she said carefully; the man was still her boss at least for now.

  “Maybe I should have explained first, but I was afraid you would turn the job down and I really do think that you’re the best one to untangle the mess up there.”

  “I take it you mean all these boxes of papers,” Lauren said, envisioning herself scanning and compiling years of paperwork for the next two years.

  “Yes, but that’s only part of it,” he said, then added, “We’re in a bit of a mess here, Lauren, and I could really use your help.”

  The use of her first name threw her for a minute. “Well, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on. This office is a mess and not exactly what I would have expected from a district supervisor.” She was getting tired of playing games. “Let’s get right to the point. What exactly is it you expect me to do?”

  “As I said, I need you to clean up a mess. The man who ran that office before you disappeared about two months ago and I think that if you look at just a fraction of all that paperwork you’ll soon discover why,” the director said, then paused as if what he had to say next really bothered him. “It bothers me to say it, but Neil Parker took bribes from everyone he could during his career with the EPA, most of them amounted to nothing much at all, permits for small gold mines, an occasional safety violation over looked. But it’s become apparent that he worked closely with Montgomery Mining, made a fortune in bribes from them to do anything from approve a building permit to ignoring all safety regulations. It’s been going on for a long time and with him gone we’ve got a nasty little situation on our hands.”

  “I don’t understand, if Montgomery Mines is that bad we can just bust them, make them pay for cleanup. If what you’re saying is true, someone should be in jail,” Lauren said, her anger rising as she began to understand what had happened.

  “I’m afraid it’s not that easy,” the director said, then explained about Seth Montgomery as his recent rise to the head of the company. “He can’t be held accountable from what I understand, the company can be, but he can’t be personally held responsible.”

  “Then we’ll make the company pay for cleanup,” Lauren said, clearly not understanding what the problem was.

  “That’s true, but it’s important that no one finds out about the bribes, you do understand that. Without someone to hold accountable, the blame is going to fall on our shoulders, and I think you can understand that we don’t want to happen,” the director said in his best politician voice.

  Lauren knew immediately what he meant. “What you mean is that you need me to save your job.”

  There was silence for so long, she was sure she’d over stepped, but then the director laughed and said, “That’s one of the reasons I knew you’d be perfect for this job. You never beat around the bush. So, I’ll tell you that yes, I need you to save my hide. I screwed up and trusted Neil Parker, he was one of the good old boys when I took over, it never even occurred to me that he might be rotten to the core.”

  “What is it you want me to do?” she asked, not sure how he wanted her to handle this situation.

  “I want you to get Seth Montgomery to agree to pay all the cleanup costs and operate his mines according to current standards,” the director said as if he’d just asked her to run to the grocery store for milk.

  “Oh, is that all?” she asked, as a joke.

  “Well, there might be one other little thing that you’ll have to deal with,” he said, as if she could handle any more. “The land in question is under a lease from the Yup’ik tribe and expires in a few months. I’ve heard rumors that they’re going to refuse to sign a new one, which is going to expose the extent of the pollution on the land and us in the process. If you could help convince them to sign that new lease it would make our job easier.”

  Lauren sat back in her chair in shock. “I don’t know if I’m the right person for this job,” she said, thinking about how long it would take her to repack the few belongings she’d brought with her.

  “You’re wrong, you’re the perfect person for this job. Look, just check out the situation and if you still feel the same way, I’ll find someone else to do the job,” the director said, but she could hear the disappointment in his voice.

  “I’ll check it out,” Lauren said, resigned to her fate, at least for now.

  “Thank you, Lauren. I think you’ll find that it’s going to be more rewarding than you think,” the director said, then hung up.

  Lauren stared at the phone for a long time, then hit the red button on the intercom, pleased when Ms. Whitcomb’s voice answered immediately. “I guess you’d better come in here,” she said.

  Sam and Julie were sitting at the kitchen table using their favorite technique when they had to make a big decision. Sam had taken the pro side and Julie had taken the con and one by one they were listing each, then evaluating it to help them decide if they would take on the project in Alaska or stay where they were in Coldwater Canyon.

  “We’ve only been here for a few years, there’s still so much to do,” Julie said.


  “But we’ve got the program up and running, the data we have now is more than enough to write our paper,” Sam countered, then added, “And a winter in Alaska would give us the peace and quiet we need to actually write the paper.”

  Julie jumped on that. “Alaska in the winter?”

  “It won’t be that bad, we’ll live in town,” Sam reasoned.

  “What about Annabelle, she’s only two, it’s not like we can take her into the back country with us,” Julie asked, sure she’d gotten him.

  “We’ll bring Nicole with us,” Sam said. “Isn’t that what our plan always was?”

  Julie knew she’d been beat on that one; Nicole had been with them from the day that Annabelle had been born, she was more like one of the family and Julie would never consider moving anywhere without her. But she still had one more worry.

  “Sam, how do we know that Seth is telling us the truth, this whole thing is kind of hard to believe,” Julie said, the playful tone gone from her voice. “I don’t want to put my name on something that’s going to come back and haunt me.”

  “I was worried about that too, so I called a few friends at the EPA. They’re trying to keep this quiet so it was a little hard to get information, but it sounds like this Parker guy was rotten through and through.”

  “So, you think Seth is telling the truth that he didn’t know how bad things had gotten?” Julie asked.

  “I do, I remember when he came out last year all he talked about was living in the back country and how much parts of Coldwater reminded him of home. He just didn’t seem like the type to have had anything to do with this.” Sam had given a lot of thought and knew deep down that his cousin was telling the truth.

  “I agree. So, are we doing this or what?” Julie had already made up her mind, and now she was even more sure.