Redemption Mountain

by FitzGerald, Gerry

  He watched her shake her head in frustration. “What’s wrong with me, Charlie?” she said, turning toward him. An older couple walking a small white poodle approached them. She opened her fists and waved her palms in the air. “People have affairs and jump into bed with each other all the time! Why is it so goddamn hard for us?” she implored.

  The older couple smiled at Natty. She was embarrassed. “Sorry,” she apologized. The man smiled and tipped his hat. Natty watched them move down the sidewalk, out of earshot. She sniffed and rubbed the tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry, Charlie.”

  “Don’t be,” he said. “It’s okay, Nat, I…”

  She shook her head again. “I came all the way to New York just to spend the night with you, Charlie, to make something happen, ’cause I love you, Charlie.” The tears flowed again. “You’re the most wonderful man I’ll ever meet in my life—shit, Charlie, you’re like the top ten all rolled into one—and I think you love me, too, but…” Natty blinked rapidly. “Now we’re here, and I can’t do it, Charlie.” She squinted up at him pleadingly. “I can’t do that to Buck.”

  “Natty, it’s okay. I understand.” Charlie wiped the tears gently from her eyes. “Remember that night we visited Woody and Mr. Jacks?”

  “Yeah, I remember,” she said, covering his hands with her own. “’Course I remember—the night you said I was remarkable.” They both chuckled. They stood close together for a few seconds, then Charlie kissed her lightly on the forehead and took his hands from her face. Natty held his hands as they dropped between them.

  “How come this is so hard for us, Charlie? What’s the matter with us?”

  He squeezed her hands. “There’s nothing the matter with us, Nat,” he said firmly. “I think we’re just two moral people who find it hard to cheat on their spouses. And you’re wrong—a lot of people do it, but I think most people are like us. Most people find it hard to do.”

  “Yeah, well, most people ain’t married to Buck,” Natty said. “So, what should I do, Charlie?”

  “How about you go back to Red Bone and tell Buck that you’re leaving him?”

  Natty smiled. “How about you tell him?”

  Charlie laughed. They were both silent for a few seconds, then the rain started again. “Sure you don’t want to come inside and warm up?” he asked.

  Natty peeked up at the second floor again. “Charlie, if I was to go in there with you, I’d probably never go back to Red Bone.”

  “What about your kids?”

  Natty squinted. “What kids?” They laughed, then stood in silence for several moments. Natty took off her earrings and the silver choker. She looked at the jewelry in her palm for a few seconds as the rain dropped around the silver chains. She handed them to Charlie. “Tell Tina thanks, okay?” Charlie nodded. “Can you get me a cab, Charlie? I gotta go.”

  He moved to the curb with a hand in the air. A taxi pulled over much quicker than Charlie had wanted. He reached a twenty-dollar bill through the window and instructed the driver, “Milford Plaza.”

  As she entered the cab, Natty stopped, the open door between them. “Charlie, think we should probably skip the run tomorrow, okay?”

  “Okay, Nat. You let me know what you want to do. I’ll see you down in Red Bone. In about a week.”

  “Bye, Charlie.” The cab pulled away from the curb and rumbled toward Eighth Avenue. Natty let her head fall back and closed her eyes.

  CHAPTER 32

  Eve Brewster was standing in the Red Bone Baptist Church parking lot when the bus pulled in on Sunday night. She wore a long winter coat, buttoned up against the evening cold, and a sad, tired face. At her feet were a half dozen Merit 100 cigarette butts, flattened against the sandy pavement. Natty knew it was trouble as soon as she saw her. Through the window, their eyes met with no smile or wave or even a glimmer of welcome from Eve, and Natty knew that something bad had happened.

  Her hands jammed into the jacket pockets of her new blue warm-up suit, Natty had tears in her eyes as she walked slowly from the bus. Eve laughed and cried at the same time when she saw Natty’s new hairstyle. She hugged her and held her close. “Oh, God, you look sooo beautiful!” Then she sobbed, “I’m so sorry, Nat.”

  “It’s Mr. Jacks, huh, Eve?”

  Eve’s voice quivered as she took a deep breath. “No, honey, it’s Woody.”

  Woody Givens died in his chair in his room on Saturday night, about the same time that Natty, Charlie, and the ladies were having dinner in New York. Natty squeezed her eyes tightly for several seconds, then sobbed, “Aw, Evie, not Woody. He wasn’t supposed to—” She pulled back to look at Eve. “Oh, God, what about Mr. Jacks?”

  “We put him in Charlie’s place. Hank and I brought him over so we could watch him,” said Eve. “Didn’t think Charlie would mind.”

  “No, he won’t mind,” Natty said, turning toward the bus. “Gotta get my bag and go see Mr. Jacks.”

  “They’re going to move him to a home up in Beckley next week,” Eve called after her. “Hank talked to someone.”

  Natty stopped. “Jeez, Eve, you’d think we could do better than that.”

  Natty left her car in front of the store and walked over to the Pocahontas Hotel. She found her way through the darkness of the first floor to the stairway and climbed the steps slowly to the third floor. Maybe for the last time. She wanted to get anything else that Mr. Jacks might need, but also she wanted to, in her own way, say goodbye to her friend Woody Givens.

  For more than twenty years—since she was a little girl—Natty had known Woody, the huge, gentle black man who would call her over in the restaurant and give her a shiny quarter, no matter how poor he was. Sometimes he’d walk down the hill and push Natty on the swing when she was watching Buck and the other boys play baseball. He was one of her first true friends in Red Bone, someone she knew she could count on to always be her friend.

  The room smelled the same as always—of tobacco smoke and men’s bodies. Natty loved the smell of the room. She turned on the floor lamp next to Woody’s chair and looked around. Mr. Jacks’s drawer had been cleaned out and his dresser emptied. Eve and Hank must have taken it all across the street.

  Natty sat on Woody’s bed and looked at his empty chair in front of the small TV and, beyond it, at Mr. Jacks’s straight chair against the wall next to the window. It was still cracked an inch to let the smoke out.

  She thought about all the times that she’d come up here over the years. They’d tell her stories and enjoy their beer and never complain. Never a bitter word about the hard lives they were born into or the unfairness of working forty years in the mines, only to end their days in a dark, dingy room in Red Bone, West Virginia—the last residents of the Pocahontas Hotel. Natty always felt safe and warm in this room. She was going to miss it.

  Going down the stairs for the last time, Natty couldn’t hold back her tears. She stepped slowly, holding on to the banister, and sobbed for Woody, and for Mr. Jacks, who, she knew, wouldn’t last long in a strange home in Beckley without his friend. Outside the front door, she wiped her eyes and walked slowly down the middle of Main Street, exhausted from the adventuresome weekend, tired of crying, tired of feeling so alone.

  * * *

  CHARLIE’S APARTMENT ALREADY reeked of tobacco smoke. Natty opened the door quietly and saw Mr. Jacks sitting next to the kitchen table, talking to Hank. “Hey, Mr. Jacks,” she said, leaning over and kissing him on the forehead. She smiled at Hank, whose eyes were as bloodshot as she imagined hers were, and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m going to try to call Charlie.”

  She went to the rolltop desk, where she’d seen one of Charlie’s business cards. In the kitchen, she took the cordless phone off the hook. Charlie answered after two rings. “Hank?”

  “No, it’s me, Charlie. Natty,” she said.

  “What’d you do, break into my apartment?” he said with a chuckle.

  Natty went out onto the porch, away from the open kitchen door. “Charlie … Woody died
… Saturday night.”

  “Aw, no. Jeez, Nat. I’m sorry,” Charlie said. “That’s lousy. What was it?”

  “His heart, they figure.”

  “What about Mr. Jacks?”

  “Hank and Eve brought him over to your apartment.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Eve says he’ll be going to a nursing home they got for old coal miners up in Beckley.”

  Natty’s sorrow was palpable, even over the phone, and Charlie didn’t know what to say. “I’ll be down there in a few days,” he said. “For the eminent-domain hearing.”

  “Okay,” said Natty weakly. Neither of them spoke for several seconds. Natty leaned on the porch railing and looked out at the black night. She swallowed hard. “Charlie?” she said.

  “I’m here, Nat.”

  “Charlie, I’ve been thinking about a lot a things since yesterday.” He remained silent. “Thinking about us and everything, you know…” Natty paused and heard only Charlie’s breathing.

  “Go on, Nat.”

  Natty took several deep breaths. She backed away from the railing and leaned against the wall. The bricks felt warm against her back. “Charlie, will you take me away from here?” she asked quietly. “Me and my kids? Take us somewhere else, somewhere we can be, you know … like a family?” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “That’s what I want, Charlie.” She wiped her cheeks, wondering once again if she was making a fool of herself.

  “Natty, are you sure that’s what you want?”

  “I’m sure, Charlie,” she said, sobbing softly. “I’m sure. I love you, Charlie, and I don’t want to lose you, and … I can’t do this anymore, Charlie.…”

  “Nat, it’s okay,” he said, trying to calm her. “Nat, of course I will.”

  “You will, Charlie?”

  “You know that’s what I want. I love you, Nat. I love you, and I love the kids.” Natty sniffed her tears back and smiled.

  “Damn, Charlie,” she whispered. “Been waitin’ my whole life to hear someone say that to me, and now you’re a million miles away and I can’t even hug you or anything.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll get your chance.”

  There was a long pause, then Natty cleared her throat. “Charlie, I’ll tell Buck. When it’s right, I’ll tell Buck.”

  “Yes, you have to do that. Listen, Nat, I don’t know what’s going to happen after the hearing. I may not be working down there, so…”

  “Charlie, I’d have to leave real soon, you know, after I tell Buck. I can’t tell him and then stay around here for too long.”

  “Yeah, I know that. When do you want to leave?” asked Charlie.

  “Can’t be before the soccer tournament. Gotta stay for the kids.”

  “Okay,” said Charlie. “Right after the tournament. When you get back from Charleston, have your stuff ready to go.”

  “Okay, where do you think—”

  Charlie cut in. “I’ll figure that out, Nat. I’ll take care of it.”

  Natty smiled into the phone. “Okay, Charlie. I’m going to go now. I’m going to go see Mr. Jacks.”

  “Give him a hug for me, Nat. See you Friday.”

  * * *

  CHARLIE WALKED ACROSS the high school parking lot, shielding his eyes from the brown leaves and dust that circled through the air on the cold wind of the gray day. A lousy day for a lousy event, thought Charlie. In a few minutes, Bud and Alice DeWitt would have their farm taken from them by a corrupt system of big business, influential lobbyists, and powerful law firms trampling on the rights of the poor and the disenfranchised. And the system was going to trample on him a little bit after the hearing, when Torkelson, Tuthill, and Warren Brand consolidated their power. Charlie had to smile when he thought of how little it mattered to him now, but that would be no comfort to Bud and Alice DeWitt.

  He walked down the dark hallway and stood in the doorway of the gymnasium. The rows of folding chairs were set up facing him, and to his right, just inside the door, several uniformed men were busy carrying in what appeared to be a temporary judge’s bench, a witness box, and a voice-activated stenography machine.

  Two long wooden tables were placed at the front of the makeshift courtroom. Bud and Alice DeWitt sat at one of them, stoic looks on their faces. At the back of the room, a group of smiling men surrounded a red-faced Kevin Mulrooney. Charlie recognized the representative from the governor’s office and the state senator who’d appeared at the cooling-pond hearing two months earlier.

  A few yards away, Terry Summers and two other men Charlie didn’t recognize stood listening intently as Warren Brand held forth on some topic, eyeing Charlie from across the room. He hadn’t expected Brand. Perhaps his career with DD&M will be over sooner than he’d thought. As Charlie looked to the far corner of the gym, he saw Vernon Yarbrough in close conversation with Larry Tuthill. Staring at Charlie over Yarbrough’s shoulder was Jack Torkelson. Charlie couldn’t imagine why Torkelson was present, and wondered if he’d somehow underestimated the importance of Redemption Mountain to OntAmex.

  As he walked over to the DeWitts, Charlie scanned the dozen or so spectators seated in the “public” section of the improvised courtroom. There were two groups of men, obviously miners with a personal interest in the hearing, an elderly couple, and a few individuals Charlie recognized from Eve’s Restaurant. Then he noticed, in the center of the back row, an older man with short gray hair, who didn’t seem like a local. He wore a rumpled khaki trench coat over a brown suit, a white shirt with a loose collar, and a thin black tie. He had a long, weathered face and a protruding Adam’s apple.

  Bud DeWitt took Charlie’s hand. “Hello, Mr. Burden,” he said quietly.

  “Sorry it had to come to this, Bud.” Charlie looked at Alice, who raised her eyes briefly, with a flicker of a smile. Charlie walked back to where he saw a few single folding chairs beyond the last row of seats. He wanted to be out of the way, just a fly on the wall, to observe the proceedings.

  If it weren’t for Natty, he would’ve skipped the hearing. But now that he was here, he’d have to suffer through the well-rehearsed performance of the insufferable Yarbrough and his troupe of actors and, afterward, face the open condescension of the victorious Torkelson and Tuthill and the sniffing superiority of Warren Brand. It was the price you paid for being on the losing side.

  At least he’d get to see Natty today, and that would almost make it worth it. He wondered again how two people could be so in love with each other without having had any of the physical contact that leads couples to believe they’re in love. But Charlie had no doubts.

  A few more spectators straggled in, including Hank, who was frowning with disgust as he walked over to speak with Bud and Alice. He nodded briefly to Charlie, then took a seat behind the DeWitts.

  The door clicked open again, and a pair of young professional-looking men in business suits came and sat in front of Charlie. They were lawyers, most likely, who, like every other suit in the room, saw an opportunity in the taking of Redemption Mountain.

  Finally the judge took his place at the bench, shaking hands with Yarbrough on his way. Charlie eyed them with disgust. These guys wouldn’t even bother to hide their collusion.

  One of the court officers banged a heavy staff on the gym floor three times, announcing, “Hear ye, hear ye. The fourth circuit court of the state of West Virginia, now in session. The Honorable Winthrop Goodman presiding.”

  The judge briefly described the purpose of the hearing and explained that it was not a trial, that the rules were different, and that, at the end of the day, he would render a binding decision.

  “As you can see,” he said, “we’ve moved the venue of this hearing down to Red Bone for the convenience of the DeWitts and any witnesses they may wish to call.” The judge turned to the other lawyers. “Mr. Callahan representing the state, and Mr. Yarbrough for the petitioners, the Ackerly Coal Company and the OntAmex Energy Company. Gentlemen, you have the floor.”

  A lawyer rose and introduced
into evidence a dozen precedent-setting cases of eminent domain used by the state of West Virginia to seize private property to be used by the coal-mining industry. In a businesslike manner, he established for the court that this was a routine occurrence.

  As the lawyer finished up, the gym door opened and Natty entered, followed by the Pie Man. They quickly took seats next to her mother. Charlie watched her, as did many of the other men in the room. With her new hairstyle, she couldn’t hide anymore.

  Yarbrough was launching into his opening statement. “This is a textbook case for the proper use of the eminent-domain statute,” he began. Smiling and turning lightly on his feet, using his hands for emphasis while his deep voice filled the gymnasium, he had the attention of the entire room. “A huge, untapped asset, a major seam of low-sulfur coal, needed for the environmentally positive operation of our new power plant, putting hundreds of miners to work.” Several of the miners in the audience voiced their approval, earning a smiling rebuke from the judge. “Bringing home union-wage paychecks and pumping new life into the economy of one of our state’s most depressed areas.” Yarbrough was playing every card in the deck.

  The Pie Man got up and walked back to Charlie. “Sit down,” said Charlie, squeezing Pie’s arm. “Do you know what’s going on here, Pie?”

  The boy slumped in his seat. “Mama say Grampa and Mawmaw will have to move away from the farm. Mama was mad.”

  Yarbrough called several witnesses, including an engineer from Ackerly Coal, who testified that a Redemption Mountain surface mine was the only economically feasible method of supplying the new plant with local coal. Much of what was said was just technical jargon, but there was no way for the DeWitts’ lawyer to refute any of it. Yarbrough introduced a document stating that his client, Ackerly Coal, was willing to assume the state’s liability for just compensation for the property taken and would pay the DeWitts $100,000 for the farm, “well beyond the assessed value of the property, as your honor can see from the certified appraisal,” Yarbrough added. He turned and smiled at Bud DeWitt. “And, as a gesture of goodwill, we offer to include in the compensation any attorney’s fees incurred by the DeWitts in regard to this hearing, as well.”