Gray Mountain

“Oh, sure. There’s a county road not far away. I’ll show you later. Cool cabin, huh?”

“I guess. I’m not much on cabins. Donovan showed it to me one day, but we were a thousand feet in the air. If I remember correctly, he said there’s no plumbing, heating, or electricity.”

“You got it. If we stay tonight, we’ll sleep by the fire.”

Such a sleepover had not been discussed, but by then Samantha was not surprised. She followed him up the steps, across the porch, and into the main room of the cabin. A log was smoldering in the fireplace. “How long have you been here?” she asked.

“Got here late last night, slept by the fire. It’s really nice and cozy. You want a beer?”

She glanced at her watch: 11:45. “It’s a little early.” There was a cooler next to a small dining table. “Do you have water?”

He handed her a bottle of water and opened a beer. They sat in two wooden chairs near the fireplace. He took a swig and said, “They were here this week. Someone, not sure who, but I doubt it was the FBI because they would need to produce a search warrant. It was probably operatives working for Krull or some other outfit.”

“How do you know they were here?”

“Got ’em on video. Two months ago, Donovan and I rigged up two surveillance cameras. One is in a tree across the creek, the other is in a tree about fifty feet from the front porch. They’re activated here, at the front door. If someone opens the door, the cameras come on and run for thirty minutes. The trespassers have no clue. Last Wednesday, at 3:21 to be exact, four goons showed up here and went through the cabin. I’m sure they were looking for the documents, hard drives, laptops, or anything else that might be of use. Interesting, though, that they did not leave a trace. Nothing. Not even the dust was disturbed, so you gotta figure these guys are pretty good. They also think I’m stupid, but now I know what they look like. I have the four faces, and when I see them I’ll be ready.”

“Are they watching now?”

“I doubt it. My truck is hidden in a place they’ll never see. This is our land, Samantha, and we know it better than anyone. You want to take a look?”

“Let’s go.”

He grabbed a backpack and she followed him out of the cabin. They trekked along Yellow Creek for half a mile and stopped in a clearing to enjoy some rare sunshine. Jeff said, “I don’t know how much Donovan told you, but this is the only part of our property that was not destroyed by the strip miners. We have about twenty acres here that was untouched. Beyond that ridge is Gray Mountain and the rest of our land, and it was all ruined.”

They hiked on, climbing the ridge until the woods opened up and they stopped to take in the devastation. It was desolate enough from a thousand feet in the air, but from ground level it was truly depressing. The mountain itself had been reduced to an ugly, pockmarked hump of rock and weeds. With great effort, they climbed to the top of it and gazed through the choked-off valleys below. For lunch, they ate sandwiches in the shade of a dilapidated trailer once used as mining headquarters. Jeff told stories about watching the destruction as a kid. He’d been nine years old when the mining began.

Samantha was curious as to why he had chosen Gray Mountain as their Saturday hiking destination. Like Donovan, he preferred not to talk about what happened there. The hiking was far from pleasant. The landscapes and views were ruined, for the most part. They were smack in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains with thousands of miles of unspoiled trails at their disposal. The situation with Krull Mining was extremely dangerous; they could’ve been followed.

So why Gray Mountain? But she did not ask. She might later, but not right then.

As they were descending, they walked past a vine-covered waste yard of rusting machinery, obviously abandoned when Vayden Coal fled the site. Lying on its side and partially covered with weeds was a massive tire. Samantha walked closer and said, “What is this used for?”

“The haul trucks. That’s a small one, actually, only about ten feet in diameter. Nowadays they’re almost twice as big.”

“I was reading the news yesterday. Did you see the story about the Millard Break shoot-out the other night? These ecoterrorists—”

“Sure, everybody knows about them.”

She turned and stared at him with unblinking eyes. He took a step back and said, “What?”

She kept staring, and said, “Oh, nothing. It just seems to me that ecoterrorism would appeal to you and Donovan, and perhaps Vic Canzarro as well.”

“I love those guys, whoever they are. But I really don’t want to go to prison.” He was walking away as he said this. At the foot of Gray Mountain, they walked along the edge of a creek bed. There was no water; there had been none in a long time. Jeff said he and Donovan used to fish at that spot with their father, long before the valley fill destroyed the creek. He took her to their old home site and described the house where they lived, the house built by his grandfather. They stopped at the cross where Donovan found their mother, Rose, and he knelt beside it for a long time.

The sun was disappearing over the mountains; the afternoon had slipped away. The wind was sharper, a cold front was moving through and bringing a chance of flurries by morning. When they were back by Yellow Creek, he asked, “Do you want to stay here tonight or go back to Brady?”

“Let’s stay,” she said.





They grilled two steaks over charcoal on the porch and ate them by the fire with red wine in paper cups. When the first bottle was empty, Jeff opened a second, and they stretched out on a pile of quilts in front of the fire. They began kissing, cautiously at first; there was no hurry because there was a long night ahead of them. Their lips and tongues were stained with cheap merlot and they laughed about it. They talked about her past, and his. He did not mention Donovan and she was careful to avoid him also. The past was easy compared to the future. Jeff was out of a job and had no idea what he might do. It had taken him five years to finish two years of college; he wasn’t much of a student. He had spent four months in the county jail on a drug charge, a felony that was still on his record and would haunt him for a long time. He avoided drugs now; too many friends ruined by meth. Maybe some pot occasionally, but he wasn’t much of a smoker, or a drinker. They slowly got around to the topic of their love lives. Samantha talked about Henry as if the romance had been more involved than it was. Frankly, though, she’d been too busy and too exhausted to begin and maintain a serious relationship. Jeff had once been engaged to his childhood sweetheart, but his jail time disrupted their plans. While he was locked up she ran away with another boy and broke his heart. For a long time he took a dim view of women and treated them as if they were good for only one thing. He was mellowing now, and for the past year had been seeing a young divorcée over in Wise. She worked at the college, had a nice job and two brats. Problem was, he couldn’t stand her kids. Their father was schizophrenic and they were showing signs. The relationship had cooled considerably.

“You have your hand under my shirt,” she said.

“Yes, it feels good under there.”

“Actually, it does. It’s been a long time.”

They finally kissed as if they meant it, a long, probing kiss with hands groping wildly and buttons flying open. They took a break to undo belts and kick off shoes. The next kiss was more tender, but all four hands were still working, removing. When they were nice and perfectly naked, they made love by the glow of the fire. At first, their rhythms were awkward. He was a little rough and she was a little rusty, but they soon got the hang of each other’s body. Round one was quick as both needed a release. Round two was far more satisfying as they explored and changed positions. When it was over, they lay sprawled on the quilts, gently touching each other, exhausted.

It was almost 9:00 p.m.


The dusting of snow was gone by mid-morning. The sun was bright, the air clear. They hiked for an hour around Gray Mountain, hopping across dried creeks that once brimmed with rainbow and brown trout, ducking into shallow caves the boys had used as forts in another lifetime, crawling over boulders blown from the earth two decades ago, and meandering through trails that no one else could possibly find.

Samantha wasn’t sore from last night’s marathon, but certain muscles seemed a bit tender. Jeff, though, seemed unfazed. Whether climbing mountains or having sex by the fire, his stamina was endless.

She followed him through a gorge at the base of the mountain, then to another trail that disappeared into thick woods. They climbed rocks, part of a natural formation, and entered a cave, one that was impossible to notice from twenty feet away. Jeff turned on a flashlight and looked over his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“I’m right behind you,” she said, practically clinging. “Where are we going?”

“I want to show you something.” They crouched low to clear a wall of rock and climbed deeper into the cave, which, but for the flashlight, was pitch-black. They moved slowly, as if sneaking up on something. If he had yelled “Snake!” she would have either fainted or died instantly from a heart attack.

They entered a room, a semi-round cavern with a ray of sunlight somehow penetrating the rock. It was a storage room, one that had been in use for some time. Two rows of army surplus lockers stood against one wall, a stack of cardboard containers against another. A table made of a sheet of thick plywood sitting on cinder blocks held a collection of identical storage boxes. The boxes were plastic and sealed tightly. Jeff said, “We played here as kids. It’s about two hundred feet into the base of Gray Mountain, too deep and low to have been ruined by the mining. This room was one of our favorites because there’s light, and it’s dry, no moisture whatsoever, and it’s the same temperature year-round.”

Samantha pointed to the table and said, “And those would be the records you stole from Krull Mining, right?”

He nodded with a smile and said, “Correct.”

“I’m now an accessory to a crime. Why did you bring me here, Jeff?”

“You’re not an accessory because you had nothing to do with the crime and you’ve never seen these boxes. You’ve never been here, right?”

“I don’t know. This doesn’t feel right. Why did you bring me here?”

“It’s simple, Samantha, and it’s not so simple. These documents have to be delivered to the other attorneys, Donovan’s co-counsel. And soon. I’ll figure out a way to do it, but it won’t be easy. The FBI is looking. Krull is watching. Everybody would love to catch me with the documents. Hell, I helped steal them and now they’re hidden on my family’s property, so I wouldn’t have much of a defense, would I?”

“You’re toast.”

“Exactly, and if something happens to me before I can deliver them, someone needs to know where they are.”

“And that someone is me, I suppose?”

“You’re smart enough to figure it out.”

“I doubt that. And who else knows about this?”

“Vic Canzarro, and that’s it. No one else.”

She took a deep breath and walked closer to the table. She said, “There’s nothing simple about it, Jeff. On the one hand, these are stolen documents that could cost Krull Mining a fortune and force the company to clean up its mess. On the other hand, they could mean a criminal prosecution for you or whoever happens to have possession of them. Have you talked to the other lawyers, to Donovan’s co-counsel?”

“Not since he died. I want you to do that, Samantha. I’m not a lawyer. You are, and it needs to be done immediately. Some secret meeting where no one is watching or listening.”

She shook her head as she felt herself fall deeper into the spiderweb. Had she finally reached the point of no return? “I’ll have to think about that. Why can’t you and Vic meet with the lawyers?”

“Vic won’t do it. He’s running scared. Plus, he has a lot of baggage here in the coalfields. It’s a long story.”

“Are there any short ones around here?”

She walked to the lockers and asked, “What’s in here?”

“Our gun collection.”

She thought about opening one of the doors for a peek inside, but she knew nothing about guns and didn’t want to learn. Without looking at him, she asked, “What are the odds of finding a military sniper rifle, with night vision optics, and a stash of 51-millimeter cartridges?” She turned and stared at him, but he looked away and said, “I wouldn’t open that if I were you.”

She headed for the entrance, brushed beside him, and said, “Let’s get out of here.”

They left the cave and were soon zigzagging along the trails. It occurred to Samantha that if something did happen to Jeff she could never find her way back to the cave. And, furthermore, if something happened to Jeff she would be back in Manhattan before Mattie could organize another funeral.

Nothing was said for a long time. They shared a can of bad chili on the porch for lunch, washed it down with the last of the wine, and took a nap by the fire. When the naps were over, they found themselves kissing and groping again. The same clothes eventually came off again, tossed haphazardly around the room, and they spent a delightful Sunday afternoon together.





29


Phoebe Fanning’s bail was reduced from $100,000 to a mere $1,000, and at 9:00 a.m. Monday morning she posted it through a bondsman. The deal came about after Samantha successfully badgered the judge into releasing the mother while the father remained in jail. The well-being of three innocent children was on the line, and after two days of harassment the judge had come around. Phoebe’s court-appointed defense attorney claimed to be overworked and had little time for the preliminary matters; thus, Samantha had stepped in to secure the release. She walked out of the courthouse with Phoebe and drove her home. She waited with her there for an hour while a distant cousin brought the kids over. They had not seen their mother in over a week, and had obviously been warned that she would likely serve time. There were a lot of tears and hugging and so on, and Samantha was quickly bored with it. She had carefully explained to Phoebe that she was facing a minimum of five years in prison, much more for Randy if he took the fall, and that she needed to prepare her children for the inevitable catastrophe.

As she was leaving the Fannings, her cell phone buzzed. It was Mattie at the office. She had just received the news that Francine Crump had been stricken with a severe stroke and was in the hospital. The saga of the free last will and testament continued.

At the hospital, a frightening and antiquated facility that should have inspired healthy habits in every citizen in Noland County, Samantha found a nurse in the ICU who could spare a word or two. The patient had been brought in just after midnight, unresponsive and with almost no blood pressure. A CT scan revealed a massive hemorrhagic stroke, or severe bleeding into the brain. She had been intubated and was comatose. “Things are not good,” the nurse said with a deep frown. “Looks like she went hours before they found her. Plus she’s eighty years old.” Because she was not a member of the family, Samantha was not allowed to peek into the ICU and see who might be sitting with Francine.

When she returned to the office, there were phone messages from Jonah and DeLoss Crump. As their mother lay dying, they were desperate to chat about her estate. If Francine had a new will, it had not been prepared by the attorneys at the Mountain Legal Aid Clinic. If there was no new will, and if Francine remained comatose until she died, then it was abundantly clear that Samantha would be dealing with these unpleasant people for many months to come. A hot will contest was taking shape.

She decided to ignore the calls for the moment. All five siblings were probably racing to Brady, and she would hear from them soon enough.

The firm’s brown-bag lunch that Monday was spent digesting some ominous news. As Mattie had warned, the attorneys for Strayhorn Coal were reneging on their agreement to settle the Tate wrongful death case. They had sent her a letter, as the presumed attorney for Donovan’s estate, and said that they would not settle; instead, they were aggressively appealing the verdict. She had fired back an e-mail with the flippant suggestion that they should try and control their aggression. Her theory was that they were willing to push the appeal, hope for a reversal, and roll the dice in a retrial with Donovan out of the way. Such a retrial would be three years down the road, at the earliest, and while they waited and got paid to stall, their client’s money would be hard at work elsewhere. Annette was incensed and pushed Mattie to bring the matter to the attention of the judge. Strayhorn and Donovan had an agreement to settle for $1.7 million. It was unfair, even unconscionable, for the defendant to back out simply because the plaintiff’s attorney was now dead. Mattie agreed; however, so far no one in Donovan’s office could find anything in writing. It looked as though they reached a deal on the phone, but no settlement memo was prepared before he died. Without written guidelines, she doubted the court would force the settlement. She had consulted with a trial lawyer friend and a retired judge; both thought they were out of luck. She planned to have a chat with the trial judge, off the record, and get some idea of what he was thinking. The bottom line was that it looked as though the estate would be forced to hire a lawyer to handle the appeal.

On another subject, Barb reported that the office had received eleven phone calls that morning from the Crump clan, all demanding to see Ms. Kofer. Ms. Kofer said she planned to schedule a meeting later that afternoon. Not surprisingly, both Mattie and Annette had busy schedules with no time for the Crumps. Samantha rolled her eyes and said fine, but these folks are not going away.

Francine died at 4:30 that afternoon. She never regained consciousness, nor did she get around to revising the will Samantha prepared.


Early Tuesday afternoon, Jeff eased through the rear door and was standing at Samantha’s desk before she realized it. Each smiled and said hello, but there was no movement toward anything more affectionate. Her door was open, and, as always, the place was filled with incredibly nosy women. He sat down and said, “So, when would you like to go hiking again?”

She put a finger to her lips and softly said, “Whenever I can work it into my schedule.” She had thought about sex more in the last twenty-four hours than at any time in the last two years, since she broke up with Henry.

“I’ll have to check with my secretary,” she said. She still found it hard to believe that someone might be listening to conversations in her office, but she was taking no chances. And given his paranoia, he was saying almost nothing. He managed, “Okay.”