Road to Nowhere (20 page)

“With all respect.” Mr. Ross was still at the podium. Louise knew what he was reminding her of: those courtroom shows on television with the lawyers talking to the jury. “A judge might have a different opinion about whether this constitutes breach of contract.”

“He might,” Joe said. “I’ll just say I doubt it.”

“The law notwithstanding,” Mr. Ross said, “I hope you would abide by the spirit of the planning documents you’ve published for years.”

He left the podium, but there was an air he left behind, kind of like smoke, that lingered. Everyone seemed a little afraid of walking up to where Mr. Ross had just been.

But then Richard Colony broke the spell. He wasn’t as loud as his brother, but he still had the family boldness. After the lawyer, he was almost a relief—just straightforward bullying.

Louise listened to him lecture. Simply because they were all really just being selfish didn’t mean that they weren’t right. Now a lady was speaking, and Louise had seen her in the salon once or twice but couldn’t remember her name. It was hard to think of telling all these people they had to have a road they didn’t want. It did seem like it would ruin their homes, and Louise wouldn’t want crime and trash and traffic all around her house.

The door opened in the back of the audience and a sheriff’s deputy eased in. He was a young man in uniform, and he looked a little like Matt.

The people were still talking and it had been almost an hour. Joe wasn’t going to take much more. And what was she supposed to make of it all? She had no idea what she thought.

“I’m just worried about the children,” the woman was saying. “We’ve always had such a nice, quiet neighborhood for them to play in. They could walk over to the park. They could even play out on the streets. Not Hemlock, but the side streets—Washington, Henry, Maple. Now we’ll have . . . well, a highway. Right through the middle. Would any of you want that? I don’t think—”

Bang! Louise jumped—everyone did. It was Joe’s wood hammer.

“This meeting is adjourned.”

Joe sounded as hard as Louise had ever heard him. But he looked terrible, all pale and so old. The deputy was standing behind him.

“Well, Joe . . .” she said, but Everett Colony interrupted.

“You can’t just adjourn this meeting—”

“I said the meeting is adjourned. Board members, could you come with me.”

Even Dr. Colony took a breath. “What’s happening?”

But Joe was up and walking toward the side door. Randy stood up and followed him, and Louise did, too. She went through the door and down the stairs, and Joe and Randy were just going into Patsy’s little office. Louise squeezed in with them and the deputy, and then even Eliza was there with them standing in the doorway.

“Close the door,” Joe said.

Eliza closed it and there they were, the five of them all packed like sardines. Joe looked terrible.

“What is it?” Randy asked.

The deputy coughed a little to clear his throat. “Gordon called me. He asked me to come in here and inform you all. There’s been some kind of accident up on the mountain, and Wade Harris was in it.”

“Does that thing work?” Joe was pointing at the two-way radio set up on a shelf.

“I think it does.”

“Get Gordon on it.”

“Well, he said–”

“Now.”

The deputy was sure not going to argue with a voice like that. He had to push himself over to the shelf between Randy and Joe, and then diddled and poked and talked police talk into it.

The door opened and Luke Goddard was trying to get in, too.

Joe only looked at him, but then they heard Gordon Hite himself on the radio thing.

“Sheriff Hite, over.”

“Um, Gordon, this is Russell. I’m with Joe Esterhouse at the courthouse and he wants to talk to you.”

“Put him on.”

“You push here to talk,” the deputy said and showed Joe how to work the thing.

“This is Joe,” he said. “What happened up there?”

“Well, I’m still working at it.”

“It’s Wade Harris?”

“Sure is.”

“Where are you?”

Gordon’s voice came loud and scratched out of the speaker. “Up on the dirt road, Ayawisgi road. Looks like he was coming over the mountain, coming to the board meeting, I guess. And he went over the side.”

“How bad is he?”

“Well, he’s dead, Joe.”

Joe’s face didn’t change. It was like stone. Somebody started breathing real fast, as loud as talking.

“Oh my,” Randy said.

“Are you sure?” Joe asked.

“Of course I am,” Gordon said. “Is Everett Colony there? I was trying to reach him but he’s not home.”

“He’s up in the main room.”

“Have Russell bring him up here.”

“I’ll take him,” Luke said, but nothing people were saying seemed to mean anything. They were just sounds.

“Oh my,” Randy said again, but it didn’t look like he even knew he was saying anything. Louise realized she was the one breathing so loud. And Eliza had her eyes closed, all hunched over.

“Just a plain accident?” Joe asked.

“That’s what it looks like,” Gordon said. “He must have been hurrying. It looks like he missed a turn somehow and went rolling. It’s a real mess here, Joe. I need to get back to it.”

“Go ahead, Gordon.”

Louise was shaking. She wasn’t even sure what she’d just heard.

It couldn’t be real.

May 5, Friday

People filing in.

It was a wicked, evil shame.

They waited in line to sign the book. Then they went in. There were Louise and Byron, and they sat next to them.

Goodness sakes. What an awful thing to happen. He still couldn’t get over it. He wrote his name and Sue Ann’s and Kyle’s and Kelly’s in the book on the podium with the silver pen.

Gallaudets’ was all done up and the flowers were real nice, and the organ playing. He just couldn’t get over it. It was a tragedy, that’s what it was.

The poor family! She just couldn’t stand it. How could such a thing happen? She was sobbing and she couldn’t help it. Joe sat down next to her and Rose with him, and Randy and Sue Ann were back behind, all dressed sad and dark. Joe’s suit was so black he looked like death itself in it.

She had to hold Byron’s hand. It was the only thing to hold on to.

What solemnity there was.

She crossed the threshold and was taken by it, and she was humbled.

She knew the powers of the land, that had been here for the ages before any man had been.

She had heard the voices of other powers and she knew of their conflicts.

Here in this place was a power she had never known.

She felt shaken, and she took a place far from the altar.

There was Cornelia. To think they’d been rafting just a few weeks ago, the four of them, and she’d looked so modern and happy and stylish, with her movie star gold hair, and the way she was just so relaxed and casual. And there were his girls, too, that they’d talked about, and he’d seen the younger one at basketball games, who looked just like her mother, and the older daughter had more of Wade in her. He could imagine what they looked like usually—fashion models just like their mother. Now they looked just like their mother, torn to pieces like she was.

And it was more than a shame. Eighty years of seeing what men would do. He knew how terrible they could be. But this made him sick. It made him ready to die himself.

That poor Cornelia. What in the world was she going to do? Surely she’d move back to Raleigh. She must have family there. That would be her mother in the seat beside her.

Louise had to let go of Byron’s hand to find another tissue, and then she grabbed on again.

She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to lose her husband like that. To have that police car come up to the house and the officer knock on her door.

She held on as tight as if she were drowning.

He might have stopped this.

Two men dead, Mort and now Wade.

Gordon Hite on the other side by the windows. Not likely he’d be a match for such wickedness.

Rose was looking over at the sheriff. She’d be thinking the same.

What was the meaning? What had happened? The man who they had seen and heard speak was now unseen and unheard. But he was still with them! He was unbound. He was merged with all of them.

She knew it. She knew he had to be still among them. Not thinking and walking as he had been, but now part of all life.

As they all would be.

It had to be.

They were singing “Holy, Holy, Holy.” It was her favorite hymn.

“ ‘Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee.’ ” She sang it almost as loud as she could because it was the only thing that seemed to make any sense of it all, and also because otherwise she’d be bawling just as loud.

It was tearing at him inside. A waste of a life, destruction of these other lives. It made him so sick. The one who’d done this was still among them, and hiding what he’d done. “ ‘Though the eyes of sinful man thy glory may not see.’ ”

He hardly wanted to look around himself at the people there singing.

“ ‘All thy works shall praise thy name in earth and sky and sea.’ ”

No, it was wrong!
Thy works?
Whose? What did the words mean? She knew the earth, and the sky, and ancient mountains. These words had no meaning.

He’d come to appreciate Wade these last couple months, despite their differences on quite a few things, particularly Gold River Highway. That rafting trip had been such a nice gesture, even if it had been somewhat of a new experience for Sue Ann and himself. These last two years that Wade had been on the board, he wouldn’t have said they’d really gotten along, but he’d just recently started thinking that maybe he could get to know the man, that there was more than just everyone fighting for their personal desires. In fact, that there was anything at all besides just everyone’s personal desires.

“ ‘Only thou art holy; there is none beside Thee, perfect in power, in love and purity.’ ”

The reverend was ready to say his piece. The program said he was from a big Baptist church in Raleigh. Looked like he’d done his share of funerals.

“Friends. Cornelia, Meredith, and Lauren, and all of the family, want to thank you all for coming.

“We are together today because of Wade McMillan Harris. We knew him and we shared in his life. Now we have been touched again, together, in this grief.”

Joe had been to his own share of funerals.

There were a fair number of people there, and that was good, not that he recognized many of them, and not a single other person from Mountain View. Well, that was at least somewhat because they wouldn’t have known him, with there being so little coming and going between town and Gold Valley. But it would also be about the road. It wasn’t worthy to think it, but there’d be a few who might be glad that Wade wasn’t on the board anymore. But nobody would have wanted it for this reason.

And Luke Goddard was even in the back pew with his pad out, writing, but at least dressed half decent.

“I knew Wade from years ago,” the pastor was saying. “His parents were close friends at Jackson Street Baptist in Raleigh.”

There’d be a memorial gathering in Raleigh, the program said, and some of these people here today would be from Raleigh, which was quite a drive, but of course most of the folks who had known him back there would just go to the service there.

An interesting point was that Wade was being buried in Gold Valley, in a little church cemetery. It was an old church, built by the Austrians when they came after the Civil War.

The thought of being buried had always been uncomfortable.

There was hardness in the words.

“Yes, we know this has been a tragedy. We all feel this shock and this loss. And we ask why.”

But there was no answer to
why.

“And we ask how it could be.”

But there is no answer! Only the ancient powers knew such answers!

“And we stand face-to-face with the pain of this world—and we know we need a Savior.

“And as we each travel our road, we see how much we need a reason and a destination.”

The man speaking the words was in bondage to vain hope. Eliza felt anger and was surprised at the force of her hostility.

“Some people will see this tragedy and say God is cruel or uncaring or just nonexistent. I say that He is deeply loving, because despite our evil and hate, he still offers us salvation and forgiveness. I don’t know why he allowed this to happen. But I know we can run to His open arms at this time when we need Him so much.”

Oh, that was so good to hear.

“Now life will go on. It will not be easy for Meredith and for Lauren, who have lost their father, and for Cornelia, who has lost her friend, her companion, her husband. We don’t have Wade anymore.”

Louise was about to break down again.

“We do have hope,” the pastor said.

Yes, that was it. She sniffed and held it in. There had to be hope.

Fitting words. Difficult to have fitting words for a funeral like this. But the man knew his business.

“And I want to ask you who knew Wade and who know Cornelia to stay with her through the days to come and do your part to help her.”

His part. Somehow he would.

The last prayer was over and people were starting to get up, and Randy took a quick look around. Everett Colony was standing by the back door. There were plenty of empty seats and he could have been sitting, but it might just have been that he’d only just gotten there.

It was an honorable thing that the man had come. But the sight of him there, late coming and at the back door, pricked a little thought, of the last board meeting, when Everett had come in late.

“Joe. Rose. Thanks for coming.” Roger Gallaudet was at the door, shaking hands with ones he knew.

“A sad day,” Joe said.

“Joe?” Roger leaned close to talk quiet. “Could you come in soon and talk? Maybe the sooner the better.”

Randy was in his armchair, which was usually one place where he could get his mind off troubles and have a little peace. Now, after that funeral service, he was finding that troublesome thoughts weren’t respecting his armchair at all.