Dig Too Deep (8 page)

Fourteen

“Ms. Briscoe? Any ideas?”

My eyes fly up to the front of the class, where my calculus teacher taps an equation on the board. “Um …” I have no idea what he's asking. For the past twenty minutes, I've been replaying the conversation I had with Cole yesterday at church. The one where he acted like everything was totally normal. Sort of. “Um … no.”

Mr. Patterson frowns and points his marker at me. “Pay attention, please. Jones, how about you?”

Jones offers up a suggestion as I fall back into my thoughts. After the service, Cole and I talked for a while; then he kissed me good-bye, much to Granny's horror. Basically, a perfectly normal Sunday … but something still felt off, and I've been worrying about it ever since. That, and everything else. Like flunking Calculus. And the water. And Granny.

Today's the appointment for her x-ray, and I've been wondering about the cost. Will it be a hundred dollars? Or a thousand? It doesn't really matter since we don't have either. Not even close.

Thanks to the quarter tank of gas I put in the car today, we have only twelve dollars for this week's groceries. Eight dollars less than normal doesn't seem like a big deal until I start trying to figure out what we're going to give up. Some food? Granny's Mountain Dew? Ironically, eight dollars is exactly what we spend per week on bottled water.

“You okay, over there?” Granny asks, as we're driving to her appointment.

“I'm fine. Just thinking. How about you?”

“I'm awright. Just, I don't feel too chatty.”

“No, neither do I.”

We're a couple miles from the clinic when she says, “You think I got it?”

“What?” I look over. Her face is drawn up with worry, like it's been stitched on. “Cancer?”

Her lower lip quivers as she nods.

What can I say? I don't want to worry her. But she'd see right through me bullshitting her, and that would piss her off. After a few seconds, I give her the truth. “I don't know.”

She reaches over and squeezes my hand. “Me neither.”

I'm pulling off the highway a few minutes later when she says, “Your family's your rock, Liberty. You remember that. Whatever happens to me, the good Lord says if you build your house on solid rock, you gon' be okay.” There are tears in her eyes.

I roll up to the stoplight and turn to her. “Stop that. Right now! There will be no quoting from the Bible unless we find out something's wrong. Okay?”

She laughs, a croaking, baby bird sound that builds into a belly laugh that brings on a hoarse cough. “You tickle me. Awright, then. Drive on and let's get them pictures shot. I'm plumb tuckered out already.”

The x-rays take all of fifteen minutes, and then we're in the car, headed back over the mountain.

“Granny, how long's the water been orange?”

“Oh Lord, Liberty. You done asked me that fifty-leven times.”

“Just an estimate. Like, a year? A couple months?”

“Been less than three, 'cause it weren't that way before Tanner's Peak got blowed off.”

“Did you ever drink it?”

“I reckon I did. Toward the beginning. They told us it was safe.”

“Who did?”

“The county.”

I tap my fingers on the steering wheel. “Did you get some kind of report?”

“Yep. Came in the mail, all official looking.”

“Do you still have it?”

Granny sighs. “Reckon I do. Somewheres.”

“If they said the water was safe, what made you stop drinking it?”

“Well, it don't taste right.”

“How long did you drink it before—”

“God almighty!” Granny says. “Am I on trial for my life? Stop asking me all these dang questions. I'm tired.”

“All right, all right. You just rest. We'll be home in half an hour.”

“Wake me up then,” she says.

“What else would I do? Leave you asleep in the car?”

“I wouldn't put it past you.”

When we get home, Granny heads for the couch, and I head for the old wood desk in the corner of the dining room. The drawers are stuffed with paperwork—letters, receipts, bills. Like Granddaddy, Granny keeps everything. Unlike Granddaddy, she doesn't organize any of it.

It takes an hour, but I find the water report buried in the third drawer. There's a cover letter from the county saying the numbers on the report are well within legal limits, and a second page from Quality Laboratory Services. I glance at the data listed, but it doesn't mean much to me. Random numbers follow various elements: coliform bacteria, nitrate-nitrogen, pH, iron, sulfate sulfur, chloride, etc.

I have to say it all looks pretty professional and well done. I'll look up minimum standards for drinking water next time I'm at the library. But the letter says they're within legal limits, which means our water is safe to drink.

I walk into the kitchen and fill a glass from the sink.
It's safe
, I tell myself, staring at the bright orange liquid. According to the county, I can drink this and not get sick. That'll save us eight dollars a week in bottled water. That's 40 percent of our grocery bill. We could get almost twice as much food—meat, vegetables, maybe even some fresh fruit!

I put the glass to my lips.

It's safe.
The county paper says so.

Just a little rust.
Everybody says so.

I'm thinking of strawberries and oranges and rib-eye steak. My mouth is watering like Niagara Falls, but then Granny starts to cough. It goes on and on until she's hacking up what I know are tiny clots of blood. Probably wiping them on the inside of her T-shirt so I don't see them, so I won't worry, so I'm not reminded that she's dying.

Sighing, I dump the water into the sink.

Fifteen

The radiologist said it would be days before we get the results, so for the rest of the week, we go through the motions. Granny rests, worries, and prays. I worry too, but I try not to let her see. MFM sends new emails that I regularly delete without reading. The application I requested from Georgetown arrives. The early-action deadline isn't until November, so I put it aside. But I wonder if it's even worth filling out. Even if they accepted me, I still don't have any money.

Other than that, it's life as usual. I go to school and hang out with Cole. Things are back to normal, I think, but I never mention the mine, and I only go to the library when I know he's busy with other stuff, like during baseball practice—which is where he is when I finally get to check those water numbers.

It's just like the county claimed; all the levels are well within the legal limits. It appears Granny's water is just as safe as the water we had in DC. My mind spins out a dozen different conspiracy theories. Maybe the testing company lied about the results. Maybe the county altered the data. But none of them really make sense. Neither the lab nor the county would want people drinking bad water.

“Hey, beautiful.”

I jump ten feet and click “home” … trying to leave the water quality web page before Cole sees it.

“Hey.” I stand and turn to him, blocking the computer. Its dial-up connection is slower than glaciers. “I thought you had practice.”

His eyes stare past me, toward the screen. “We got done early.”

“Nice.” I put my hands on his shoulders, hoping he'll look at me instead. “So, what are you doing here?”

“History project.” Instead of looking deep and romantically into my eyes, he leans down and starts reading the web page.

There's silence. Then he stands up, frowning at me. “You're still tryin' to make trouble for the mine?”

“Not trouble,” I say. “I just want to—”

“All the stuff Mr. Peabody does for this town. All those jobs he creates.”

“Okay, hang on.” I try to keep my voice level, because I want him to really listen to me. “You keep saying that MTR creates all these great jobs. But all the numbers indicate that a mountaintop removal mine uses thirty percent fewer workers than the old way. So Peabody actually cut jobs.”

Cole rolls his eyes. “Where'd you get that? One of your bleeding-heart websites about saving salamanders?”

“No, it's a fact,” I say. The librarian's giving me a pretty furious
shh
signal, so I lower my voice. “Think about it. Half this town used to work for the mine. Now there's only a handful of jobs. People are living on welfare. Businesses are bankrupt.”

“That's not Peabody's fault,” Cole says. “That's because of the economy.”

I'm baffled that someone as bright as Cole could be so deluded by the mine's propaganda machine. “No,” I say gently. “It's not.”

“Look, Liberty …” He kneels down and puts his hands on my knees. “I understand you're upset about your granny. But …” I can tell he's trying to pick just the right words. “Sometimes cancer just happens. It's not Peabody's fault. It's not anybody's fault.”

“But what if, in this case, it
is
somebody's fault? And what if that somebody is the mine?”

“What if it's not? I mean, think about what you're doing. If you're wrong and people end up losing jobs over this … Peabody Mining's the only game in town. If he shuts down, there'll be nothing.”

“And that's worse than people dying?”

“Lib, I don't understand how somebody as smart as you can buy into all these smoke and mirrors.”

Oh my God.

“Look, just trust me on one thing. You have to stop stirring up trouble. For you own good.”

“My own good? What's that supposed to mean?”

“I'm worried about you. You wanna fit in here, right? But if you keep pointing fingers at Peabody, you're just gonna piss people off.”

“But people are
dying
,” I say.

“Not because of the mine.”

“You don't know that!”

He runs his hands through his sweaty hair and hooks his fingers behind his head. “Look, can't we just … what's the term? Agree to disagree?”

“Sure.” I can agree to disagree—without agreeing to drop my research.

He leans forward and kisses me on the forehead. “I just want you to be happy. Take my advice and leave the mine alone. Okay?”

I just smile and bite the hell out of my tongue as he heads for the history section.

Saturday morning, spring's made a full frontal attack on winter. The dogwoods are budding out and the last little bite in the air is gone. There's always a point between the cold and warm of the year when I step outside and just know, somewhere in my bones, that winter's over. It's probably some kind of caveman instinct, but it makes me feel hopeful. Or it would, if I didn't have to re-create the miracle of the loaves and fishes at Kroger today. Another week's worth of food to buy and eight dollars less to do it with.

After breakfast, I fire up the El Camino and drive down the mountain with Granny's SNAP card and twelve dollars in my pocket. Forty-five minutes later, I'm holding two packages of frozen vegetables and staring at the cases of bottled water in the cart. I already put back Granny's Mountain Dew, but I'm still three dollars short. My choices are (a) have no vegetables this week, or (b) put back one of the cases of water. Which means, we'd run out of water around Wednesday. Which means …

I drop the broccoli and corn back into the freezer bin. One week with no veg won't kill us. I can't say the same about drinking the tap water.

After a month in Ebbottsville, I don't even think twice about using the SNAP card. I've seen more people with them than not, and I'm just so glad we have it, I stopped caring what other people might think. If it weren't for SNAP, I don't know what Granny would eat, but she definitely wouldn't be able to afford bottled water.

My phone rings as I'm loading the groceries into the car.

“Hi, Cole.”

“Hey. Lib, I got some bad news.”

For some reason, I think instantly of Dobber. “What is it?”

“I can't go to Jason's party tonight.”

“Oh.” I try not to sound like the highlight of my week has just been canceled. “That sucks. Why not?”

“Mom says it's family dinner night. She springs that on us every once in a while.”

“It sounds nice actually.” I bet they have pot roast with potatoes and carrots. Or fried chicken and mashed potatoes. And some kind of pie for dessert … apple or maybe cherry. My mouth is watering like crazy and I have to swallow before I can speak. “No worries. I guess I'll see you at church tomorrow?”

“Abso-damn-lutely.”

“Okay. Have fun tonight.”

He snorts into the phone. “Unlikely. I'll be missing you.”

“Aw. I'll miss you too.”

“You better.”

I swear I can hear his dimples, and it makes me smile. After I hang up, I get in the car, put the keys in the ignition, and just sit there. I do
not
want to be one of those needy girls who has no life outside her boyfriend. I don't. So why am I so bummed about this? It's one freaking night, not the end of the world.

I start the car, not wanting to admit the truth. That he is my world. It's not like I can go hang out with my girlfriends instead. Cole's the only game in town for me. My throat closes a little at the realization that that's exactly how he described the mine.

On the drive back to Granny's though, the air feels great and the sun lights up the green-gold tree buds like neon twinkle lights. I blare the music as loud as it will go until I lose the signal in the rocks. Then I sing to myself—songs from TV commercials, Lady Gaga, whatever I can think of. Windows down, I'm belting out “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” at the top of my lungs when I pull up in the yard and see, of all people, Dobber sitting on the front porch with Granny.

Head. Steering wheel.

“Well, you gotta give her a A for effort,” Granny says as I climb out of the car.

Dobber jumps the porch railing and drops into the front yard in one easy movement. Guys are so hot when they do that stuff. I don't think they have any idea. “Need some help?” he asks.

“Sure.” I hand him the cartons of water and grab the other two bags myself.

We get everything put away in the kitchen and Granny says, “I'ma let y'all set on the porch and talk while I take a lil' rest.”

“Really?” If it were Cole on the porch, she'd be out there with a garden hoe and a can of pepper spray.

I hold the door open for Dobber and watch Granny settle on the couch with her blanket. “You need anything?” I ask.

“Naw, sugarplum. You go on outside with your friend.”

I have no idea what's going on in her head—if she just likes Dobber better than Cole or if it's a matter of boyfriend versus friend. Either way, Dobber is standing on my front porch, staring across the mud lawn that's just starting to sprout green, like he belongs there.

“Nice day,” he says. He's wearing a sweaty T-shirt that's maybe two sizes too small, meaning it's perfect, and a pair of cut-off sweatpants that remind me of the debacle at Cole's house last weekend.

“What are you doing here?”

There's that smile … totally dangerous. “I was out for a run and found myself in the neighborhood. Thought I'd stop by.”

“Welcome the new girl?”

“Somethin' like that.”

I'm well aware Granny's listening to everything we say, so I head down the steps. “Walk with me?”

“A'ight.”

I head for the ridge trail because it's the only path I know well. Walking single file uphill, we don't have a chance to talk until we reach the top. Tanner's Peak looks just as raw and wounded as it did when I first saw it, and it makes me think about our conversation at lunch the other day.

“What Peabody did to your dad … it's so unfair.”

“No shit.”

“Why'd you want me to know all that?”

He stares across the valley at the acres of bald mountainside. “Your granny's sick, ain't she?”

“She's …” I still can't bring myself to use the
C
word. “We don't know really.”

“But she ain't well?”

“No,” I admit. “She's not well.”

He nods and turns back to the mine. I think there's another whole set of roads over there now. Like they've been clearing farther and farther to each side. I wonder if they have a limit or if they could just keep on going—blasting the top off the next mountain and the next and the next—all the way to Tennessee.

“My daddy ain't well neither.”

“Cole told me. I'm sorry.”

“You think it's the water making people sick?”

I pause. Up to now, I've been the one asking questions about the mine. It feels weird to be on the other end. “Maybe. It's happening in a lot of other places with that kind of mine nearby.”

“The people from the county though, they come out and tested our water.”

“They tested Granny's too and said it was safe to drink.”

“Y'all drink it?”

“No, but Granny did for a while.”

We're standing side by side staring at the ant-size men working across the valley. I'm conscious of Dobber's elbow nearly touching mine and wonder if Cole knows he's here. Or if Dobber will tell him. Or if I will.

“Liberty?”

“Hm?”

He's staring at me now, his gray-brown eyes squinting against the sun. “Be careful. A'ight? That there”—he jerks his thumb toward the mine—“that ain't nothing to be playing with. Peabody'll hurt you if you get in his way.”

“I'll be careful.” Trying to lighten the moment, I say, “Besides, I've got you and Cole to keep me straight.”

His shoulders go stiff and his forehead creases with frown lines.

It's so uncharacteristic—Dobber frowning. “What?” I ask. “What's that face for?”

“Just … what I said.” He turns and walks toward the trailhead. “Be careful. Real careful.”

As he ducks into the thicket, I get the impression he's telling me to be careful of more than just the mine.