6
They walked along the sidewalk until they came to his office where they shook hands. She thanked him for his pro bono work as her attorney and complimented him on a job well done. And if she decided to hang around the town for a few months, they promised to do lunch at the Brady Grill someday.
It was almost 5:00 p.m. when she hustled across the street, jaywalking and half expecting to be arrested for it. She glanced to the west, where the mountains were already blocking the late afternoon sun. The shadows consumed the town and gave it the feel of early winter. A bell clinked on the door when she entered the cluttered front room of the legal aid clinic. A busy desk indicated that someone was usually there to answer the phone and greet the clients, but for the moment the reception area was empty. She looked around, waited, took in the surroundings. The office layout was simple—a narrow hall ran straight down the middle of what had been for decades the busy domain of the town’s hardware store. Everything had the look and feel of being old and well used. The walls were whitewashed partitions that did not quite make it all the way to the copper-tiled ceiling. The floors were covered with thin, ragged carpet. The furniture, at least in the reception, was a mismatched collection of flea market leftovers. The walls, though, were exhibiting an interesting collection of oils and pastels by local artists, all for sale at very reasonable prices.
The artwork. The prior year the equity partners at Scully & Pershing had gone to war over a designer’s proposal to spend $2 million on some baffling avant-garde paintings to be hung in the firm’s main foyer. The designer was ultimately fired, the paintings forgotten, and the money split into bonuses.
Halfway down the hall a door opened, and a short, slightly stocky woman in bare feet stepped out. “I take it you’re Samantha,” she said, walking toward her. “I’m Mattie Wyatt. I understand you’ve had a rather rude welcome to Noland County. I’m so sorry.”
“Nice to meet you,” Samantha said as she stared at the bright pink and square reading glasses perched on the end of Mattie’s nose. The pink of her glasses matched the pink tips of her hair, which was short, spiked, and dyed a severe white. It was a look Samantha had never seen before, but one that was working, here at least. Of course, she had seen looks far funkier in Manhattan, but never on a lawyer.
“In here,” Mattie said as she waved at her office. Once inside, she closed the door and said, “I guess that nut Romey will have to hurt someone before the sheriff does anything. I’m very sorry. Have a seat.”
“It’s okay. I’m fine, and now I have a story that I’m sure I’ll tell for many years.”
“Indeed you will, and if you hang around here, you’ll collect a lot of stories. Would you like some coffee?” She fell into a rocking chair behind a desk that seemed perfectly organized.
“No thanks. I just had coffee with your nephew.”
“Yes, of course. I’m so glad you met Donovan. He’s one of the bright spots around here. I practically raised him, you know. Tragic family and all. He’s thoroughly committed to his work and rather pleasant to look at, don’t you think?”
“He’s nice,” Samantha said cautiously, unwilling to comment on his looks and determined to stay away from his family’s tragedy.
“Anyway, here’s where we are. I’m supposed to meet another castaway from Wall Street tomorrow and that’s it. I don’t have a lot of time to spend interviewing, you know. I got four more e-mails today and I’ve stopped answering them. I’ll check out this guy tomorrow and then our board will meet and pick the winner.”
“Okay. Who’s on the board?”
“It’s basically just Donovan and me. Annette is another lawyer here and she would be invited to the interviews but she’s out of town. We work pretty quick, not a lot of red tape. If we decide to go with you, when can you start?”
“I don’t know. Things are happening pretty fast.”
“I thought you weren’t that busy these days.”
“True. I guess I could start sooner rather than later, but I would like a day or two to think about it,” Samantha said, trying to relax in a stiff wooden chair that tilted when she breathed. “I’m just not sure—”
“Okay, that’s fine. It’s not like a new intern will make a big difference around here. We’ve had them before, you know. In fact, we had a full-blown fellow for two years a while back, a kid from the coalfields who went to law school at Stanford then hired on with a big firm in Philadelphia.”
“What did he do here?”
“She. Evelyn, and she worked with black lung and mine safety. A hard worker, and very bright, but then she was gone after two years and left us with a bunch of open files. Wonder if she’s on the streets these days. Must be awful up there.”
“It is. Pardon me for saying so, Ms. Wyatt, but—”
“It’s Mattie.”
“Okay, Mattie, but you don’t seem too thrilled at the idea of an intern.”
“Oh, forgive me. I’m sorry. No, actually we need all the help we can get. As I told you on the phone, there’s no shortage of poor folks with legal problems around here. These people can’t afford lawyers. Unemployment is high, meth use is even higher, and the coal companies are brilliant when it comes to finding new ways to screw people. Believe me, dear, we need all the help we can get.”
“What will I be doing?”
“Everything from answering the phone to opening the mail to filing federal lawsuits. Your résumé says you’re licensed in both Virginia and New York.”
“I clerked for a judge in D.C. after law school and passed the Virginia bar exam.”
“Have you seen the inside of a courtroom in the past three years?”
“No.”
Mattie hesitated for a second, as if this might be a deal breaker. “Well, I guess you’re lucky in one sense. Don’t suppose you’ve been to jail either?”
“Not since this afternoon.”
“Oh, right. Again, sorry about that. You’ll catch on quick. What type of work were you doing in New York?”
Samantha took a deep breath and thought of ways to truthfully duck the question. Invention failed her and she said, “I was in commercial real estate, pretty boring stuff actually. Incredibly boring. We represented a bunch of unpleasant rich guys who build tall buildings up and down the East Coast, primarily in New York. As a mid-level associate I normally spent my time reviewing financing agreements with banks, thick contracts that had to be prepared and proofread by someone.”
Just above the pink and square frames, Mattie’s eyes offered a look of pure pity. “Sounds awful.”
“It was, still is, I guess.”
“Are you relieved to be away from that?”
“I don’t know how I feel, Mattie, to be honest. A month ago I was scrambling along in the rat race, elbowing others and getting elbowed myself, racing toward something, I can’t even remember what it was. There were dark clouds out there but we were too busy to notice. Then Lehman went under, and for two weeks I was afraid of my shadow. We worked even harder, hoping that someone might notice, hoping that a hundred hours a week might save us where ninety hours would not. Suddenly it was over, and we were tossed into the street. No severance, nothing. Nothing but a few promises that I doubt anyone can keep.”
Mattie looked as if she might cry. “Would you go back?”
“I don’t know right now. I don’t think so. I didn’t like the work, didn’t like most of the people in the firm, and certainly didn’t like the clients. Sadly, most of the lawyers I know feel the same way.”
“Well, dear, here at the Mountain Legal Aid Clinic, we love our clients and they love us.”
“I’m sure they’re much nicer than the ones I dealt with.”
Mattie glanced at her watch, a bright yellow dial strapped to her wrist with green vinyl, and said, “What are your plans for the evening?”
Samantha shrugged and shook her head. “Haven’t thought that far ahead.”
“Well, you certainly can’t drive back to Washington tonight.”
“Does Romey work the night shift? Are the roads safe?”
Mattie chuckled and said, “The roads are treacherous. You can’t go. Let’s start with dinner and then we’ll go from there.”
“No, seriously, I can’t—”
“Nonsense. Samantha, you’re in Appalachia now, deep in the mountains, and we do not turn visitors away at dinnertime. My house is just around the corner and my husband is an excellent cook. Let’s have a drink on the porch and talk about stuff. I’ll tell you everything you need to know about Brady.”
Mattie found her shoes and locked up the office. She said the Prius was safe where it was parked, on Main Street. “I walk to work,” Mattie said. “About my only exercise.” The shops and offices were closed. The two cafés were serving an early dinner to thin crowds. They trudged up the side of a hill, passing kids on the sidewalk and neighbors on porches. After two blocks they turned onto Third Street, a leafy row of turn-of-the-century, neat, redbrick homes, almost all identical with white porches and gabled roofs. Samantha wanted to hit the road, to hurry back toward Abingdon where she had noticed several chain motels at the interchange. But there was no way to gracefully say no to Mattie’s hospitality.
Chester Wyatt was in a rocking chair reading a newspaper when he was introduced to Samantha. “I told her you are an excellent cook,” Mattie said.
“I guess that means I’m cooking dinner,” he said with a grin. “Welcome.”
“And she’s starving,” Mattie said.
“What would you like?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” Samantha said.
Mattie said, “What about baked chicken with Spanish rice?”
“Just what I was thinking,” Chester said. “A glass of wine first?”
They drank red wine for an hour as darkness settled around them. Samantha sipped slowly, careful not to have too much because she was worrying about her drive out of Noland County. There appeared to be no hotels or motels in Brady, and given the town’s declining appearance she doubted there was a suitable room anywhere. As they talked, she politely probed here and there, and learned that the Wyatts had two adult children who had fled the area after college. There were three grandchildren they rarely saw. Donovan was like a son. Chester was a retired postal worker who had delivered rural mail for decades and knew everyone. Now he volunteered for an environmental group that monitored strip-mining and filed complaints with a dozen bureaucracies. His father and grandfather had been coal miners. Mattie’s father had worked the deep mines for almost thirty years before dying of black lung at the age of sixty-one. “I’m sixty-one now,” she said. “It was horrible.”
While the women sat and talked, Chester eased back and forth to the kitchen, checking on the chicken and pouring wine. Once, when he was gone, Mattie said, “Don’t worry, dear, we have an extra bedroom.”
“No, really, I—”
“Please, I insist. There’s not a decent room in town, believe me. A couple of hot-sheets joints that charge by the hour, but even they’re about to close. A sad commentary, I suppose. Folks used to sneak off to the motel for illicit sex; now they just move in together and play house.”
“So there is sex around here?” Samantha asked.
“I should hope so. My mother had seven kids, Chester’s had six. There’s not much else to do. And this time of the year, September and October, they’re popping out like rabbits.”
“Why?”
“Big storm just after Christmas.”
Chester stepped through the screen door and asked, “What are we talking about?”
“Sex,” Mattie said. “Samantha’s surprised that folks have sex around here.”
“Some of them do,” he said.
“So I’ve heard,” Mattie shot back with a grin.
“I didn’t bring up sex,” Samantha said defensively. “Mattie mentioned an extra bedroom for the night.”
“Yes, and it’s all yours. Just keep your door locked and we’ll stay out of trouble,” Chester said as he disappeared into the house.
“He’s harmless, believe me,” Mattie whispered.
Donovan arrived to say hello and thankfully missed that part of the conversation. He lived “on a mountain out in the country” and was on his way home from the office. He declined an offer of wine and left after fifteen minutes. He seemed distracted and said he was tired.
“Poor thing,” Mattie said when he was gone. “He and his wife have separated. She moved back to Roanoke with their daughter, a five-year-old who’s about the cutest thing you’ll ever see. His wife, Judy, never adjusted to life here in the mountains and just got fed up. I don’t feel good about them, do you Chester?”
Chester said, “Not really. Judy is a wonderful person but she was never happy here. Then, when the trouble started, she sort of cracked up. That’s when she left.”
The word “trouble” hung in the air for a few seconds, and when neither of the Wyatts chose to pursue it, Chester said, “Dinner’s ready.” Samantha followed them into the kitchen where the table was set for three. Chester served from the stove—steaming chicken with rice and homemade rolls. Mattie placed a salad bowl in the center of the table and poured water from a large plastic jug. Evidently, enough wine had already been served.
“Smells delicious,” Samantha said as she pulled out a chair and sat down.
“Help yourself to the salad,” Mattie said as she buttered a roll. They began eating and for a moment the conversation lagged. Samantha wanted to keep the conversation on their side of things, not hers, but before she could preempt them, Chester said, “Tell us about your family, Samantha.”
She smiled and politely said, “Well, there’s not much to talk about.”
“Oh, we’ll help you along,” Mattie said with a laugh. “You grew up in D.C., right? That must have been interesting.”
She hit the high points: the only child of two ambitious lawyers, a privileged upbringing, private schools, undergrad at Georgetown, her father’s troubles, his indictment and imprisonment, the humiliation of his widely covered fall from power.
“I think I remember that,” Chester said.
“It was all over the press.” She described visiting him in prison, something he discouraged. The pain of the divorce, the desire to get out of D.C. and away from her parents, law school at Columbia, the federal clerkship, the seduction of Big Law, and the three less than pleasant years at Scully & Pershing. She loved Manhattan and could not imagine living anywhere else, but her world was upside down now, and, well, there was nothing certain in her future. As she talked, they watched her closely and absorbed every word. When she’d said enough, she took a mouthful of chicken and planned to chew it for a long time.
“That’s certainly a harsh way to treat people,” Chester said.
“Trusted employees just tossed into the street,” Mattie said, shaking her head in disbelief and disapproval. Samantha nodded and kept chewing. She did not need to be reminded. As Chester poured more water, she asked, “Does all drinking water come from a bottle?”
For some reason this was amusing. “Oh yes,” Mattie replied. “No one drinks the water around here. Our fearless regulators promise us it’s safe to drink, but no one believes them. We clean ourselves, our clothes, and our dishes with it, and some folks brush their teeth with it, but not me.”
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 openness of two extremely hospitable people, and the promise of a warm bed all came together halfway through the dinner and Samantha truly relaxed for the first time in months. She couldn’t chill out in the city; every moment of downtime was monitored by the clock. She hadn’t slept in the past three weeks. Both parents kept her on edge. The six-hour drive had been nerve-racking, for the most part. Then, the episode with Romey. Finally, Samantha felt her burdens floating away. Suddenly she had an appetite. She helped herself to more chicken, which pleased her hosts greatly.
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 beginning. The next morning a small army of bulldozers plowed its way up to the top of Gray Mountain and began—”
“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.”
Chester said, “Their well water was contaminated with sulfur. The air was always thick with dust from the blasting and coal trucks. It just wasn’t safe, and so Rose left again. She and the boys stayed in a motel for a few weeks, then they came here again, then off to somewhere else. This went on for about a year, wouldn’t you say Mattie?”
“At least. The mountain continued to shrink as they went from seam to seam. It was sickening to watch it disappear. The price of coal was up, so Vayden mined like crazy, seven days a week with all the machinery and trucks they could throw at the site. Webster got a check one day for $30,000. His lawyer sent it back with an angry demand. That was the last of the checks.”
Chester said, “Suddenly it was all over. The price of coal dropped dramatically and Vayden disappeared overnight. Webster’s lawyer submitted a bill for $400,000, along with another lawsuit. About a month later Vayden filed for bankruptcy and walked away. It restructured itself into a new company, and it’s still around. Owned by some billionaire in New York.”
“So the family got nothing?” Samantha asked.
“Not much,” Mattie replied. “A few small checks in the beginning, but only a fraction of what the lease called for.”
Chester said, “It’s a favorite trick in the coalfields. A company mines the coal, then goes bankrupt to avoid payments and the reclamation requirements. Sooner or later they usually pop up with another name. Same bad actors, just a new logo.”
“That’s disgusting,” Samantha said.
“No, that’s the law.”
“What happened to the family?”
Chester and Mattie exchanged a long, sad look. “You tell the story, Chester,” she said, and took a sip of wine.
“Not long after Vayden left, there was a big rain, and a flood. Because the creeks and rivers are choked off, the water is diverted to other runoffs. Flooding is a huge problem, to say the least. An avalanche of mud and trees and topsoil swept through the valley and took out the Gray home. Crushed it and scattered it for miles downstream. Fortunately, no one was in the house; by then it was uninhabitable, not even Webster could stay there. Another lawsuit, another waste of time and money. Bankruptcy laws are like Teflon. Rose drove out one sunny day and found a few of the stones from the foundation. She picked her spot, and she killed herself.”
Samantha moaned and rubbed her forehead and mumbled, “Oh no.”
“Webster disappeared for good. When we last heard from him he was living in Montana, doing who knows what. Jeff went to stay with another aunt and Donovan lived with us until he finished high school. He worked three jobs getting through college. By the time he graduated he knew exactly what he wanted to do: become a lawyer and spend the rest of his life fighting coal companies. We helped him through law school. Mattie gave him a job at the clinic, and he worked there a few years before opening his own shop. He’s filed hundreds of lawsuits and taken on every coal company that ever thought about operating a strip mine. He’s ruthless and fearless.”
“And he’s brilliant,” Mattie said proudly.
“Indeed he is.”
“Does he win?”
They paused and exchanged uncertain looks. Mattie said, “Yes and no. It’s tough litigating against the coal companies. They play hardball. They lie and cheat and cover up, and they hire huge law firms like yours to stonewall anyone with a claim. He wins and he loses but he’s always on the attack.”
“And of course they hate him,” Chester said.
“Oh yes, they certainly do. I said he was ruthless, right? Donovan does not always play by the book. He figures the coal companies bend the rules of legal procedure, so they force him to do the same.”
“And this led to the ‘trouble’?” Samantha asked.
Mattie replied, “It did. Five years ago, a dam broke in Madison County, West Virginia, about a hundred miles from here, and a wall of coal sludge slid down a valley and covered the small town of Prentiss. Four people were killed, virtually all the homes were destroyed, a real mess. Donovan got the case, teamed up with some other environmental lawyers in West Virginia, and filed a big federal lawsuit. He got his picture in the paper, lots of press, and he probably said too much. Among other things, he called the coal company ‘the dirtiest corporation in America.’ That’s when the harassment started. Anonymous phone calls. Threatening letters. Goons back there in the shadows. They began following him, and still do.”
“Donovan is followed?” Samantha asked.
“Oh yes,” Mattie said.
“So that’s why he carries a gun.”
“Guns, plural. And he knows how to use them,” Chester said.
“Do you worry about him?”
Chester and Mattie both managed a chuckle. Chester said, “Not really. He knows what he’s doing and he can take care of himself.”
“How about some coffee on the porch?” Mattie said.
“Sure, I’ll brew a pot,” Chester said as he rose from the table. Samantha followed Mattie back to the front porch and retook her position in a wicker rocker. The air was almost too cool to be outside. The street was silent; many of the homes were already dark.
Encouraged by the wine, Samantha asked, “What happened to the lawsuit?”
“It was settled last year. A confidential settlement that’s still under wraps.”
“If the lawsuit was settled, why are they still following him?”
“Because he’s their number one enemy. He plays dirty when he has to, and the coal companies know it.”
Chester arrived with a tray of coffee, decaf, and left to do the dishes. After a few sips, and a few minutes of gentle rocking, Samantha was about to nod off. She said, “I have a small overnight bag in my car. I need to get it.”
“I’ll walk with you,” Mattie said.
“We won’t be followed, will we?”
“No, dear, we’re not a threat.”
They disappeared into the darkness.