The Weight of an Infinite Sky

by Carrie La Seur

  Alma edged even with Anthony. “Without the Fry place, or ours, or the Murphys’, Harmony was blocked. Now that they have the Frys’ they can start moving across these smaller leases they’ve picked up.”

  Edith scooted to the edge of her chair as if ready to jump up. “We have to leave. We’ll have to trailer the animals out to Dwight’s cousin. Oh my. Oh my.”

  “Dean never would have stood for it,” Joe declared, to a chorus of “That’s right.”

  “What about the affidavits? What are you doing with those?” Reddy asked. “Can’t we get a judge to do something? It’s coercion. Rick’s been scaring people to death.”

  “We might have a shot at an injunction,” Alma said. “And the FBI has our affidavits. They’re investigating Harmony’s activities, but there’s not a lot of hope there’ll be a big impact locally. Even if they shut down Harmony, some other company will just buy the assets. The leases and mining permits are worth real money. Investors aren’t going to abandon them.”

  “Here’s what I want to know.” Vince Wiley spoke in a wheezing voice that quieted the rumbling, indignant room. “While the FBI’s figuring out who and what to prosecute, what goes on with the mine? Do they just keep on mining across our land, when we only signed because they threatened us? Who stops them from doing that?”

  Anthony waited for Chance to say something, but Chance stepped back and nodded him forward. Nervous, Anthony pushed his hair back and cleared his throat to face the room with the stance Dean had taken to give orders to green ranch hands. The authority felt unexpectedly natural. Faces looked to him, waiting and attentive, because he was Anthony Fry, son of Dean, grandson of Lewis, and they were accustomed to listening to Frys. His hair, his footwear, and all his other idiosyncrasies did not matter in this moment—only his genetics. He took a deep and satisfying breath full of their trust in him.

  “Alma’s working on going to court to ask a judge to stop it, but Harmony’s coming fast—round-the-clock shifts, seven days a week. Not a union operation, remember? They want to be in there before anyone can get in their way.”

  Anthony looked over the assembled neighbors, letting his eyes settle longer on the ones who might need a little backbone reinforcement. It was the sort of crowd that would have intimidated him a few years earlier, but now he knew what he was here to do and his voice had a solid timbre.

  “I look around this room and I see us all in work clothes. It’s almost dark and we’ve got chores to get back to, families and second jobs. We’ve got no time or resources to take on the likes of Harmony Coal, but here we are.” He held his bandaged hand in the other and swallowed before he spoke again. “I had an idea. That’s why I asked you here. Chance probably thinks I’m crazy, but he’s too polite to say so.”

  Chance cleared his throat and looked amused but stayed quiet as Anthony continued.

  “The direction Harmony’s headed, aiming for our place through the Macleans’ land, they’re going to be doing prep work on the Wileys’ ranch within the week, a few hundred feet from Vince’s house, and come right through the Harpers’ land and next to the Tall Grasses’ acreage with the big cut later on.” He looked around the room, meeting each person’s eyes. Curly’s narrowed. His clan was out of favor in tribal government, Anthony knew. He hadn’t had a say in the Harmony contract. “We all have a lot to lose. My contact says they start clear-cutting the Macleans’ place tomorrow morning.” Tyler Myers turned out to be a useful person to know. When Anthony called, he hadn’t hesitated to rattle off the mine schedule like it was the lunch menu.

  Every eye was on Anthony. Edith Maclean had a tissue in one suspended hand, holding her breath.

  “What do we do?” she asked, bell clear. On cue, every head looked to her then back to Anthony. Chance nodded encouragement. Anthony wasn’t sure why Chance, who’d done all the legwork, was gently nudging Anthony into the lead. It had the feel of a classic Murphy scheme to draw him back into the net of community. Anthony could forgive him for that—even bless him for it.

  “Here’s my thought,” Anthony said. “We talked it through this afternoon, and it’s the best we can come up with. We block the machinery, just until we can get a court order. Maybe a few days.”

  “Shut it down?” Curly Harper repeated. His relaxed posture had suddenly gone tense as a hunting dog on point. “How you plan on doing that?”

  Anthony faced him. “We go over there tonight with as many people as we can round up. We blockade the road with our vehicles. Padlock the gates. Take shifts.”

  A fit of coughing took Vince. At last he got his throat clear and said, “You really think we’ll get away with that? What’s stopping them from running down a few of us and saying later they didn’t see us there?”

  From against the wall, Ed Murphy spoke for the first time. “Those are our kids out there, Vince. Dwight and Edith’s nephew works security. Jeff Coburn is doing blasting. Little Kayla Popelka drives one of those big dump trucks. We raised those kids. We coached their teams and bought their 4-H animals. If they don’t have our backs now, then I don’t know them at all. But I’ll tell you what I do know. If this is what we need to do to protect our land, I’ll be there.”

  In the still after Ed’s words, the whole room inhaled and exhaled. Duffy sipped his coffee loudly and set the mug on the mantel with a definitive thump. “Aw, hell. If the Murphys are in, I’m in. I owe you too much to say no.”

  Vince lifted a hand still bruised from the last IV inserted into it. “I don’t know how much help an old man like me can be in a fight, but I’ll be out there. It’s my land they’re moving toward.”

  “We’ll take precautions,” Chance said. “We’ll contact reporters so there’ll be coverage right away. We’ll put it on the Internet. I’ll call everyone I can think of. There’ll be outside pressure.”

  Curly stood with a long grunt. “I don’t speak for the tribe,” he said. With a nod to the white heads, he added, “And if this were a tribal meeting, I’d apologize for speaking in front of elders. It’s not a popular position, but my family has been opposed to this mine since the beginning. We’ve argued privately with council members. Burlington threatened us, too. Jenna finally convinced me to speak out, after what happened at their place. Whatever happens, I can tell you, my family will be there.”

  “Ahó, Curly,” Anthony said, with a glance at Jenna. She didn’t smile but lifted her chin in a way that telegraphed pride in her relative. “Thank you.”

  “Thank you, Curly. I’m glad that’s settled,” Reddy declared in her usual brusque tone. She crossed the room in a sudden hurry to clap a hand on Jayne’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s get started making food and banners. It’ll be a long night.”

  Anthony looked back to Chance, who was smiling and whispering something to Ed, but when he caught Anthony’s eye, he nodded approval again. Chance’s belief in him, perennial as the sage and sweetgrass, filled up Anthony like liquid poured into a vessel broken and mended. But the sensation was broader than that. The whole neighborhood believed in him and in their ability together to make a difference against impossible odds. This was what communities could do—they could fold you in and give you life and strength beyond your own weak means. Anthony felt expanded in ways that went beyond the fights with Harmony and Neal, buoyed by how the men and women around him saw him as one of them after everything he’d done not to be.

  Now Anthony began to see what resistance meant to the neighbors, how finding the will and the way to fight Harmony had altered them already. They were on their feet, charged with fresh energy. Even more miraculously, it was his will to fight that had emboldened them. The buoying was mutual. He held them up, made them more. This was the only thing that had ever changed the world, he thought: people who knew they had no hope deciding to stand together and fight anyway.

  Act 5, Scene 6

  A husky young man Anthony recognized stepped out in a safety vest from the small plywood office next to the main gate of the Rolling Thunder mine, carrying a
clipboard and chewing gum. Anthony braked and leaned out far enough to hear “Boys of Summer” playing inside the shack, almost drowned out by the idle of diesel engines. Tyler Myers took in the number of vehicles and spat his gum. Four pickups back, Edith Maclean climbed down and hurried forward.

  “Aunt Edith!” Tyler called out. “What’s going on?”

  Edith walked up to hug her nephew. “I suppose you’re wondering what brought half the pickups in twenty miles to your guard station.”

  “Well, yeah.”

  Edith took his arm. “You remember how I told you someone killed that calf of ours, that one Dwight put such stock in?”

  Tyler nodded.

  Edith swallowed and put a hand to her heart. It was a more dramatic performance than she’d given a week earlier, telling the same story. Anthony turned his face away to hide a grin. “What I was afraid to tell everyone was that the landman, that Rick Burlington, he came out insinuating that he did it. I don’t know if he did or not, but he frightened your uncle so much that he signed that mineral lease he never wanted to sign.”

  “What?” Tyler roared. “Burlington threatened Uncle Dwight?” He tossed the clipboard back into the shack and charged down the line of trucks to come even with Dwight Maclean. “Is this true?”

  Dwight dropped his head in an expression of shame that made every other head look away for an instant, embarrassed and angry for him. Just as everyone looked back up, Dwight gave his nephew an emphatic nod.

  Tyler wheeled back toward where Edith stood at the gate. “What’s everyone here for? What do you need?”

  “We’re trying to get a judge to stop Harmony mining on land people never wanted them on,” Edith said. “We hear they’re going to start clear-cutting our trees in the morning, but the equipment’s all still here. Is that right?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “We just need a day or two. When this shift leaves, we want to barricade the gate. We need your help.” Edith took Tyler’s arm again.

  From his perch Anthony saw Tyler’s glance down the road into the active mining area, then back at the guard shack, the weighing and the bald frustration. With a look skyward and the muttered words “Sweet Jesus,” Tyler set his jaw and put his thick hand on his aunt’s. “I’ll do it for you, Aunt Edith. They’ll fire me, but I’m back to college in a few weeks anyhow. I don’t know how the other guys are gonna see it.”

  Edith hadn’t had time to answer when the first horses crested the rise to the west, toward the reservation. Two older men were in the lead, one carrying a painted war shield, the other a feathered staff. As they rode closer, the one on the left came into focus as Curly Harper on a Belgian, man and horse on a scale so large it made the full-size pickups look smaller. Behind them a half dozen more horses, several with two riders, gradually showed themselves outlined against the evening sun, an apparition from centuries forgotten. When the riders saw the small crowd gathered at the mine gate, they began to shout and ululate, then urged their mounts forward down the hill, coming fast in loose formation, a wild, irresistible current.

  The riders came mostly without saddles, feet hanging low behind the horses’ shoulders, some in jeans and boots, others in shorts and sandals, loose and easy in the warm evening. Jenna was about halfway back, taking in the number of pickups as her horse came alongside. Behind her, her youngest brother held on with one arm. They stopped short beside Anthony.

  “I told you I’d bring the family!” Jenna cried, leaning down a little to make herself heard over the riders’ excited cries, the answering whinnies of the horses, and the chatter starting up all around as everyone began to discuss what to do. “We’re going to smudge the gate and pray.”

  Anthony got out of the pickup so Jenna could hear him. “You think this has any shot of working?” he asked below the din. “I feel like we just convinced a lot of good people to drive off a cliff.”

  Jenna took in the scene with a thoughtful expression. “We’ll fight it day to day,” she answered. “We’ll do what we can. I don’t think there’s an end to fighting the Harmony Coals of the world, not in our lifetimes.” She clapped Anthony’s shoulder and reined her horse toward the gate. “Never bet against Crow people if sheer cussedness can determine the outcome.”

  As Anthony sat enjoying the feeling of coming together, wondering how and if he’d managed to do something right, a familiar black pickup took the turn off the highway at high speed and headed their way at the front of a high column of dust. It was either Neal or Sarah and Anthony had never in his life known her to drive like that, but when the pickup pulled up, Sarah rolled down the driver’s window.

  “It’s your uncle, Anthony,” she shouted out the window at him. “You’ve got to come quick!”

  Anthony was at her window in an instant. “What happened, Mom? What did he do?”

  “I should have known better. Oh, Anthony. He isn’t what you thought he was.”

  “Did he force you to sign the lease?” Anthony demanded. He felt his face go red with shame for leaving her alone to face Neal. He should have checked on her even if he had to climb the gate and walk to the house—sandals, snakes, and all. “Did he hurt you? I’m so sorry, Mom, I should have—”

  “No, nothing like that.” She shook her head with the same longtime sadness he’d felt in Marx’s rig, watching Neal grow smaller in the mirror, as if the world had gone off on the wrong sidetrack somewhere along the line. “I—oh, Anthony, I said terrible things to him. I never should have said those things. I know it’s not like me, but I lost my temper. I accused him of killing Dean.”

  A pang of fear creased Anthony’s stomach. “What did he say?”

  “He said to me, ‘You were the one person who never gave up on me, and now they’ve made you believe it, too. They’ve turned you against me.’ And he left me alone and went out to the barn, and—” She paused and struggled to bring up the next words, head low. “He’s out there with a gun. I’m afraid he’s going to hurt himself. Please come, Anthony. Please.”

  Act 5, Scene 7

  As she drove them back to the ranch Sarah kept quiet most of the way. When she finally spoke, her voice was small. “It started when Jayne called to tell us about the blockade. When she realized you hadn’t called me she thought we ought to know. He took it bad and hung up on her. He thinks the whole neighborhood’s against him.”

  “Why wouldn’t they be against him? Now that you’ve both signed, half the county falls like dominos.”

  Sarah jerked her head toward him. “What? No. I never signed. He thought I was going to when he went up to talk to you. He was trying to talk me into it and I finally said okay just to keep the peace, but when he came back, I told him I couldn’t do it after all. Your dad didn’t want it and now you don’t. I’m only the trustee until the ranch comes to you. It’s not my place to go against you and Dean.”

  Anthony put a hand on the dash and leaned in to get a better look at Sarah’s face. Defiance was unlike her, at least where Dean was concerned. Neal might be a different story. She wasn’t afraid of him. That alone should have told Anthony that Neal wasn’t what he’d believed.

  “He told me you signed.”

  Sarah shook her head. “I only signed to let them on for core drilling. You know, samples, to see where the coal is. It don’t disturb much. I just want us to enjoy this place like we should have all along.” Sarah grasped his arm, not weak for once but firm and certain. “He’s a good man, Anthony, but he’s gotten all hurt and twisted inside. He cuts off his nose to spite his face. He’s forgotten how to be peaceful.”

  “What do you want me to do? He won’t listen to me.”

  Sarah sat straight and let go of his arm. No pretense this time. No feigned weakness. She was becoming a different woman before his eyes, and Anthony was glad. He liked this one better.

  “That’s where you’re wrong. You’re the only one he’ll listen to. I wish you could see how much you’re alike. Lewis and Dean were hard right at their core, but you and
Neal never were. That’s why you got hurt so bad. Won’t you please go talk to him? Tell him you don’t blame him for Dean’s death?”

  “What makes you so sure he didn’t kill Dad?”

  Sarah sighed with exasperation as she scanned the headlight perimeter for animals in the quick-falling twilight. “If I don’t know when Neal Fry is lying and telling the truth, I don’t know my own name.” Her voice dropped so that her words were almost a vibration in tune with the engine. “It’s just like when he was a kid. He didn’t really do what they all said he did, and nobody ever forgave him. It’s like that with Dean dying, and the mine. It’s none of it his fault. He’s doing his best. He’s still the man I loved all those years ago. Forgive him, son.”

  Anthony stared blindly at the illuminated dirt strip ahead. “You didn’t sign.” He needed to be sure. Anthony noticed his hands trembling, and he recalled that he hadn’t had a drink since early afternoon, so focused had he been on more important things. Neal had done that much for him.

  “No.”

  “You have to go back and let folks know. This changes things. They’re out there to keep Harmony from starting the clear-cut tomorrow on that strip of ours next to the Macleans’.” Then, not hiding the strain of it, Anthony forced the words she needed. “And I’ll talk to Neal.”

  They rolled to a stop in front of the horse barn. A waxing gibbous moon had risen and Ponch and Boomerang were at the fence like a pair of mismatched sentries, the wild speckled apparition beside the stout quarter horse, curious about the unaccustomed activity. Anthony stepped out reluctantly, and Sarah came around to kiss his cheek.

  “Remember that I love you both,” she said.

  “I will.” Anthony hugged her tight before she climbed back in to drive away.