Gray Mountain

Chester said, “Many of our streams, rivers, and wells have been contaminated by strip-mining. The headwater streams have been choked off with valley fills. The slurry ponds leak into the deep wells. Burning coal creates tons of ash, and the companies dump this into our rivers. So please, Samantha, don’t drink the tap water.”

“Got it.”

“That’s one reason we drink so much wine,” Mattie said. “I believe I’ll have another glass, Chester, if you don’t mind.” Chester, who evidently was both chef and bartender, did not hesitate to grab a bottle off the counter. Since she would not be driving, Samantha agreed to another glass. Almost instantly, the wine seemed to hit Mattie and she began talking about her career and the legal clinic she founded twenty-six years earlier. As she prattled on, Samantha prodded her with enough questions to keep her going, though she needed no assistance.

The warmth of the cozy kitchen, the lingering aroma of the baked chicken, the taste of home-cooked food, the buzz from the wine, the ope

She said, “On the porch, earlier, when we were talking about Donovan, you mentioned the ‘trouble.’ Is that off-limits?”

The Wyatts looked at each other; both shrugged. It was, after all, a small town and few things were off-limits. Chester quickly deferred and poured himself more wine. Mattie pushed her plate away and said, “He’s had a tragic life, Donovan.”

“If it’s too personal, then we can skip it,” Samantha said, but only out of courtesy. She wanted the scoop.

Mattie would not be denied. She ignored Samantha’s offer and plowed ahead. “It’s well-known around here; there’s nothing secret about it,” she said, sweeping away any obstacles to confidentiality. “Donovan is the son of my sister Rose, my late sister, I’m sorry to say. She died when he was sixteen.”

“It’s a long story,” Chester added, as if there might be too much involved to properly tell it all.

Mattie ignored him. “Donovan’s father is a man named Webster Gray, still alive, somewhere, and he inherited three hundred acres next door in Curry County. The land was in the Gray family forever, way back to the early 1800s. Beautiful land, hills and mountains, creeks and valleys, just gorgeous and pristine. That’s where Donovan and his brother, Jeff, were born and raised. His father and grandfather, Curtis Gray, had the boys in the woods as soon as they could walk, hunting and fishing and exploring. Like so many kids in Appalachia, they grew up on the land. There’s a lot of natural beauty here, what’s left of it, but the Gray property was something special. After Rose married Webster, we would go there for family picnics and gatherings. I can remember Donovan and Jeff and my kids and all the cousins swimming in Crooked Creek, next to our favorite camping site.” A pause, a careful sip of wine. “Curtis died in I think it was 1980, and Webster inherited the land. Curtis was a miner, a deep miner, a tough union man, and he was proud of it, like most of the older guys. But he never wanted Webster to work in the mines. Webster, as it turned out, didn’t much care for work of any kind, and he bounced around from job to job, never amounting to much. The family struggled and his marriage with Rose became rather rocky. He took to the bottle and this caused more problems. He once spent six months in jail for stolen goods and the family almost starved. We were worried sick about them.”

“Webster was not a good person,” Chester added the obvious.

“The highest point on their property was called Gray Mountain, three thousand feet up and covered with hardwoods. The coal companies know where every pound of coal is buried throughout Appalachia; they did their geological surveys decades ago. And it was no secret that Gray Mountain had some of the thickest seams around here. Over the years, Webster had dropped hints about leasing some of his land for mining, but we just didn’t believe him. Strip-mining had been around and was causing concern.”

“Nothing like today, though,” Chester added.

“Oh no, nothing like today. Anyway, without telling his family, Webster signed a lease with a company out of Richmond, Vayden Coal, to surface-mine Gray Mountain.”

“I don’t like the term ‘surface-mine,’ ” Chester said. “It sounds too legitimate. It’s nothing more than strip-mining.”

“Webster was careful, I mean the man wasn’t stupid. He saw it as his chance to make some real money, and he had a good lawyer prepare the lease. Webster would get two dollars for every ton, which back then was a lot more than other folks were getting. The day before the bulldozers showed up, Webster finally told Rose and the boys what he had done. He sugarcoated everything, said the coal company would be watched closely by the regulators and lawyers, that the land would be reclaimed after the coal was gone, and that the big money would more than offset the short-term headaches. Rose called me that night in tears. Around here, property owners who sell out to the coal companies are not held in high regard, and she was terrified of what her neighbors would think. She was also worried about their land. She said Webster and Donovan were in a big fight, said things were terrible. And that was only the begi

“The rape of the land,” Chester added, shaking his head.

“Yes, that and more. They clear-cut the forest, shaved it clean, and shoved thousands of hardwoods into the valleys below. Next they scraped off the topsoil and pushed it down on top of the trees. When the blasting started all hell broke loose.” Mattie took a sip of wine and Chester jumped into the narrative. “They had this wonderful old house down in a valley, next to Crooked Creek. It had been in the family for decades. I think Curtis’s father built it around the turn of the century. The foundation was made of stone, and before long the stones began to crack. Webster started raising hell with the coal company, but it was a waste of time.”

Mattie jumped back in. “The dust was awful, like a fog over the valleys around the mountain. Rose was beside herself and I often went over there to sit with her. The ground would shake several times a day when they were blasting. The house began to tilt and the doors wouldn’t close. Needless to say, this was a nightmare for the family, and for the marriage. After Vayden knocked off the top of the mountain, about three hundred feet, they hit the first seam, and when they finally started hauling coal off the mountain, Webster began demanding his checks. The company stalled and stalled, then finally sent a payment or two. Not nearly what Webster was expecting. He got his lawyers involved and this really irritated the coal company. The war was on and everybody knew who would win.”

Chester was shaking his head at the nightmare. He said, “The creek ran dry, choked off by the valley fill. That’s what happens. In the last twenty years, we’ve lost over a thousand miles of headwaters in Appalachia. Just awful.”

Mattie said, “Rose finally left. She and the boys came to live with us, but Webster refused to leave. He was drinking and acting crazy. He would sit on the porch with his shotgun and just dare anyone from the company to get close. Rose was worried about him, so she and the boys returned home. He promised to repair the house and fix everything as soon as the money came in. He filed complaints with the regulators, and even filed a lawsuit against Vayden, but they tied him up in court. It’s hard to beat a coal company.”