Nothing about this guy supported my hypothesis. These hills look nothing like his home near Vail, the Dacus Clarion wasn’t much of a job, and if he had a friend here, he wasn’t volunteering the information.
I changed tack. “What got you interested in the plant rescue?” I’d asked earlier, but maybe he had another answer.
He shrugged. “It’ll make a good story.”
“Doesn’t mean you have to get gardener’s knees to get the story.”
“No.” He chuckled. “That’s true. Just seemed like a good deed. And”—he offered his beer bottle in a mock salute—”seemed like a good way to meet people.”
Strange fellow if he hoped to pick up chicks at a plant rescue. Me and fifteen-year-old Jesse Ruffin had been the youngest females there, by at least a decade or two.
He took a long swallow of beer. “Probably sounds corny, but I watched my hometown disappear. The trails where I hiked, my cross-country skiing routes, the wildlife. Even the people became an endangered species, once the moneyed people rolled over the pass with their fume-belching urban assault vehicles. They priced the land out of reach of the people who had lived on that land, had cared for it. The newcomers had to grab their piece of it, so now there’s none left for those who’d called it home.”
The anger and pain in his voice and in his eyes stung me. His thoughts traveled lines too close to mine, almost as though he’d read my mind earlier in the afternoon. What do you do when you don’t have a home anymore?
“What was Vail like when you were growing up?”
“Mostly ski bums, guys looking for fresh powder and a free-wheeling lifestyle. Two guys started a sort of door-to-door traveling salesman bit, selling interests in the resort to wealthy guys around the country. We all grew up knowing the story—or the myth, more likely. The first President Bush even put up money. That was all good—people who liked to ski using money from people who weren’t around much.
‘Then corporate big business arrived and perfected the law of unintended consequences. They had to calculate a return on investment, and that meant growth. No matter that the water resources wouldn’t support golf courses and snow machines and insatiable expansion. Never mind that lynx, grizzly, and wolf habitats were sliced to ribbons. Never mind that the magnificent vistas people traveled to enjoy were now filled with glistening glass castles—which, incidentally, require obscene amounts of energy to heat because of the lack of solar conservancy design. So much destruction and waste, just so somebody can fly in for a few weeks a year, then shutter it up and jet on to the next site of conquest.”
His diatribe ended almost as unexpectedly as it had begun, with one hand around his bottle and him gazing off across Runion’s rustic dining room.
His passion stunned me. Was this more than a history of his home? Was it a prophecy for mine?
The waitress plopped two plates of steaming barbecue, baked beans, and fries in front of us, and Noah ordered another beer. I introduced him to the sauce selection—mildly sweet or spicy sweet—and he set to experimenting with both and neither.
“It’s got to be hard to watch a place you know as yours disappear,” I said, picking the conversation up where it had dropped.
He looked at me, maybe surprised because somebody was inviting him to stay on top of his soapbox.
“Yeah. The ironic thing is, they drove property prices out of reach for the ski bums who made it so colorful, the shop and restaurant owners who fed them and repaired their gear for cheap, even the people who cleaned their megamansions. Eventually somebody figured out rich people need worker bees—after it was too late for the natives. They’ve got crowded enclaves for their immigrant labor now.”
He shoveled in a forkful of pork and took a few thoughtful chews. “That’s why Golden Cove grabbed my attention. You people don’t understand zoning laws, as is evident driving down any road in this county. Unless the state or federal government owns it, the land around here is pretty much open to whatever somebody wants to do with it.”
I bristled. “This is South Carolina, you know. States’ rights? Self-determination? Staunch individualism?”
“Okay, I’ll give you the states’ rights thing.” His expression was almost a sneer.
“People around here hate being told what to do. They’re mostly live-and-let-live kind of folks.”
“So if I move a ratty house trailer next door to your family’s home, that’s okay?”
“I should have bought more land, if I find that objectionable. I let you alone, and you won’t be complaining about target practice in my backyard or howling hunting dogs.”
“You got hunting dogs?” He crinkled his nose, incredulous.
He’d missed the point of my colorful illustration. “You got a house trailer?” I didn’t point out that we’d let him ride around with a canoe lashed to the top of his car, poking dangerously out front and back, and I bet no one had said a mean word to him about it. We’d let him do it, even if we found it a bit quair, as folks would say.
“You need mechanisms to protect what you have.” He continued the argument. “Have you seen Tryon? North Greenville County? Golf courses galore. Extravagant uses of land. Huge houses perched all along the ridge line, destroying the very views everyone comes to enjoy. Who’s managing that? Who’s trying to contain it?”
He’d mistaken my corny attack on zoning for disagreeing with him. His words had grown shrill. No point explaining that South Carolina did have a ridge law preventing new construction over forty-two feet high on the ridges. Unfortunately, it had come too little, too late, and didn’t restrict the houses dotting the sides of the mountains.
“Do you have any idea what all that development in Cashiers and Highlands is doing to your own little corner of the world?” he said. “The water runoff from their paved parking pads and dishwashers and 3.5 toilets per house all runs downhill, right into the Chattooga River.”
The Chattooga was one of only a handful of rivers in the United States designated Wild and Scenic by the federal government. Locals tend to curse the memory of poet James Dickey and his novel Deliverance. How-ever, had it not been for the twenty-plus drowning deaths in the months after the Burt Reynolds film hit theaters, when wannabe he-men flocked to the river like lemmings to replay the man-against-nature-against-man battle, the river might not have been federally protected. Another reminder that we don’t do anything until it’s too late.
‘That’s an exaggeration,” I said, taking up the argument. “Wastewater has to be treated. They wouldn’t let—”
“They don’t treat water running off pesticide-treated golf courses or off asphalt parking lots. You think water coming out of some enclave’s privately owned wastewater treatment plant is water that mountain trout thrive in? The trout don’t think so.”
He leaned across the table. “Ever hear of the edge effect?”
I shook my head. Might as well let him talk himself out, even though I wasn’t liking anything he had to say.
“Just the act of cutting a break through a forest endangers the wildlife there. Predators roam the edges. Just like in an urban area, there’s a fringe element.”
He sliced along the tabletop with the edge of his hand. “Hawks swoop in on small birds or ground squirrels when they break cover, out into the open. Birds find lizards or insects that wander into an open spot. Deer, rabbits, all are more vulnerable to whatever hunts them as soon as they hit an edge. That old logging road we were on today, how long’s that been there?”
I shrugged. “Don’t know. They’ve been logging these hills since the early nineteen hundreds.”
“A hundred years, fifty, five. It doesn’t matter. It can’t heal. It creates two edges, either side of the road. It separates the populations on either side, walling them off from habitat, from mating choices. How many cuts, how many edges before they’re walled into extinction? The cask of Amontillado, in the wilds of Southern Appalachia. Walled off and dying.”
He pushed the cole slaw around on his pl
ate. He hadn’t eaten much.
“Did you know this area boasts richer biodiversity than just about any other place on the planet? And you people aren’t protecting it. You’re letting the Lionel Shoals of the world fly in and crap in your nest and you stand idly by, full of sweet Southern charm, and don’t fight to protect what you were given.”
He was about to tick me off, coming in making pronouncements. If things are so good back home, go back home.
But I kept my mouth shut because a part of me knew he was right. That cove forest, with more rare trees and plants than I even knew existed, was going to be bulldozed down behind a sign announcing GOLDEN COVE.
Gold, all right—in somebody’s pocket.
“According to you, folks in Colorado didn’t do such a hot job protecting themselves and their land, either.”
He’d started eating again. My plate was almost clean, and what was left, I mopped up with a hushpuppy.
‘They fought, at least. Hard. About ten years ago, someone set fires, burned several lift shacks and a huge lodge, trying to discourage construction of a new ski slope on what was probably the last breeding ground for lynx in Colorado—probably the last outside Montana. Huge blaze. Perfectly orchestrated and timed. Quite a commando operation.”
‘That’s smart. Who sets a fire to save animals?”
He crinkled his nose, puzzled for a moment at my sarcasm. “No, no. They didn’t endanger any animals. The shacks at the two lifts were isolated, with deep snow all around. Not much chance of it spreading or burning anything except what they wanted to get rid of.”
“So who burned it?”
“They never found out, though I know they had their suspects.”
“But it kept anyone from building the new slope?”
He was quiet a moment. “No. You can’t fight that kind of money and power. All they understand is more money and more power. Or force. The company opened more new slopes anyway. The new lodge was even more monstrous than the old one. No one’s ever seen another lynx.” He sounded sad. “But it did draw attention to environmental issues, helped attract more money and members, more energy behind both traditional lobbying efforts and more—unconventional warriors.”
The fires set in Vail. “Eco-terrorists, you mean.”
“Radical disrupters. Yeah,” he fired back.
Who was this guy? “Does Lionel Shoal have that kind of money and power?”
“He’s nothing but a pissant. He’s stupid and greedy—the kind that can be fought. That’s why stepping back and letting him roll on through is so unforgivable.”
“How do you know people aren’t fighting back?”
He gave me a pitying gaze. “Where were those dozers parked today?”
Maggy Avinger hadn’t been the only one who’d spotted them. For the first time, I realized I hadn’t seen her after it started raining. What had happened to her?
“So what would you propose?”
“Somebody needs to get hold of that land-sale contract. Some smart lawyer.” He cocked a bushy eyebrow at me. “Get hold of the lady who sold it to Shoal, see what loopholes there might be. Digging up plants to transplant them where they won’t survive is a painful exercise in futility.”
“You think I’m that lawyer.”
“I think you could get started on it, maybe bring in some of the environmental defense folks for help.”
My only environmental law experience, my first case in Dacus, had been representing Garnet Mills—right before the inspectors showed up and found a dead body in the torched plant. Not an auspicious opening to an environmental law career.
“I can’t solicit clients, Noah. That’s not allowed in South Carolina. But I do have a friend. . .” I began mentally exploring options, even though most weren’t realistic.
That he’d captured my interest seemed to satisfy him. He polished off his barbecue and refused the waitress’s offer of another beer. I had a flashback to my last visit to Runion’s, one of my first meetings in November with Melvin, who got drunk because he’d just found out his long-missing wife was dead. Next time I wanted barbecue, I’d come during the week, and I’d come by myself. Best way to avoid both crowds and drama.
6
Sunday
By spending Saturday night with Mom and Dad, I saved a drive up the mountain, making time to walk on their treadmill to work out the kinks from yesterday’s digging. I also got to visit with my niece, Emma, while her parents rehearsed again for The Mikado. Rather than sit around the drafty community theater auditorium, Emma opted to stay with my parents, make popcorn, and giggle uncontrollably while watching Three Stooges videos with Dad.
Sunday morning in church, I sat between Mom and Aunt Vinnia in our usual pew and studied the crowd. Mr. Mack came in the door beside the choir loft—the door in front of the congregation that, for some reason, everyone called the back door.
He nodded and exchanged greetings with people as he came up the aisle and gave me a quick nod as he took his seat a couple of rows in front of us, at the end of a pew. I could see his face in profile but couldn’t draw his attention again. I’d have to catch him after the service.
As the congregation settled in for the sermon, the bodies in front of me arranged themselves so I had a clear view of both the watchers and the watched. That’s one of the benefits of being a back-row Baptist—a broader perspective.
In her usual spot toward the front, a few rows from the pulpit, I saw Maggy Avinger’s short ginger-gray hair and the petite shoulders of her tweed suit. I couldn’t help noticing that Mr. Mack’s attention alternated between the hymn book in his hand and Maggy. He could have been looking at Pastor Richards, but what I could see of his expression said otherwise.
Great-aunt Letha, sitting to my left, fished the stubby pencil out of the pew holder to scribble something for her sister to read—probably a comment on the inappropri ateness of the scripture choice. Good thing she couldn’t tell I hadn’t been paying attention to the sermon.
After the service, I stood in the pew, sandwiched between Mom and Aunt Vinnia while they visited with those strolling past. Maggy waved at me and mouthed, “See you later?”
I nodded, and she moved in the slow tide toward the front of the sanctuary. She didn’t even notice Mr. Mack in the aisle behind her, part of the rear half of the congregation headed for the main door. His gaze settled for a moment on the back of her finger-combed hair as she moved away from him.
When he turned and caught my eye, he motioned Vinnia and me out ahead of him in the aisle.
“Have you got a minute? Outside?” I asked him as we shuffled out with the crowd.
“Certainly.” He gave a solemn nod.
The pastor and I exchanged perfunctory greetings as he stood in the doorway shaking hands. At the bottom of the steps, most people turned left toward the parking lots behind and beside the church. I turned in the opposite direction and waited on the sidewalk.
When Mr. Mack joined me, I didn’t waste words. “Mom gave me that clipping you received. Kind of nasty.” I had to tilt my head back to talk to him. Even though he tended to slouch, he towered over me.
Without fanfare, he said, “If I didn’t know better, I’d say Harden Avinger sent that. Just his idea of a joke. Truth be told, Harden wasn’t the easiest man to get along with.”
“According to the postmark, it was mailed after Harden died.” I couldn’t let on about Harden’s beyond the-grave “gift” to his wife, but that had been sent by his lawyer.
“I noticed that. I know it’s crazy to suspect him. He’s been gone for two weeks now.” He sighed. “I didn’t want to bother you. I just didn’t know what else to do.”
“No bother, Mr. Mack. Please don’t say that.” I patted him on the arm. One of my mother’s gestures that I now felt compelled to offer Mr. Mack. I didn’t know if it felt as reassuring to receive as it did to give.
He sank his teeth into his bottom lip as he considered something. “You in a hurry? Can you come to the car a minute?�
�
“Sure.” The touch of urgency in his voice hinted that whatever he wanted to talk to me about was more important than lunch at Maylene’s. Besides, Mom hadn’t come out of the sanctuary yet, so no need to rush to meet her and Dad at the restaurant.
Mr. Mack had parked his sedan half a block down the street. He unlocked the passenger door and retrieved a large white envelope from the front seat.
He turned back to me, holding the envelope to his chest. “I got another letter. So I’m doubly at a loss what to do.”
Her glanced behind me to make sure no one was nearby and offered me the envelope.
Mr. Mack’s address was typed on the nine-by-eleven-inch envelope, and the printed return address read Carlton Barner Attorney at Law. Inside the large envelope, I found a cheap letter-sized envelope; its flap was sealed, but the end of the envelope had been neatly torn off. Hand-lettering on the front read FORWARD TO HENRY “MACK” MACGREGOR. I glanced at Mr. Mack, slid out the thin, slightly yellowed piece of paper, and unfolded it.
The letter had been typed on a manual typewriter, the keys jumpy and several of the letters blocked solid.
Dear Mack,
When you get this, I’ll be pushing up dandelions in that poor excuse for perpetual care at the edge of town. Or paying for past sins, if all those emotional, intellectually stunted preachers have it right—which I doubt.
I wanted to do you one last favor, old friend, perhaps to earn myself some penance.
I will be dearly departed some weeks before you receive this. If you receive it, that means my dear wife Magnolia is still among the living. That, of course, depends on my lawyer doing exactly what I ask him to do—and he’s being paid enough not to screw up.
I felt compelled to tell you—our longtime friend and neighbor—why Maggy is still among the living and I’m not.
It’s simple: She killed me.
Now, don’t act so startled. She and I have been married 26 years, so you must admit I know her pretty well. She’s been planning this for some time. Not that I necessarily mind dying. I just hope it is—was?—relatively painless. She’s not a cruel woman, so I think I can count on that. Life’s not been exactly roses with this cancer—too constrained, too many rules.
Hog Wild Page 6
