American Crow

by Jack Lacey

  ‘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 t
hrew 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.

  Dexy’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.’