Road to Nowhere (30 page)

“Were they coming from Raleigh?” Louise said.

“They’d come from Asheville,” Steve said.

He hadn’t said it loud. It was just a reflex—he hadn’t even meant to say anything at all. But suddenly everyone was looking at him.

“It’s the local office. The local regional office.” It was still quiet and they were all still looking at him. “They have an engineering staff there.”

The side door opened and Patsy looked out. All eyes turned to her, to Steve’s relief.

“It’s his truck, but I don’t see him, or Lyle.”

Now Randy was the center. “Well . . . I hope nothing’s wrong.”

But something was wrong. And somehow, it would all be Steve’s fault. He knew it.

The sheriff had been wanting to arrest him since that first meeting.

Someone else was coming in the side door. It was. . . .

“Lyle!” Louise said. “Where is Joe?”

The little county manager looked at the room, one side to the other, his mouth wide open, and he started shaking. Physically shaking.

County manager, rushed to hospital from his last board meeting due to heart attack.

“Joe . . . he’s . . . he’s . . .”

“He’s what?” Randy said.

“He’s . . . he’s down in the basement. In the . . . the records room. With those roads people from Asheville. We’ve been down there all afternoon talking.”

Louise had stood up, like she would have gone racing down there. “Well, go tell him the meeting has started!” She plopped into her chair, quivering a little herself. But not from being nervous.

Lyle ran. Fast. They all heard his footsteps in the hall, and then on the steps, disappearing.

Finally, the slow, heavy tread of a group, and then Joe Esterhouse marched in and two men and a woman, and Lyle scampering last.

Joe took his chair, boiling mad, right beside Steve; and Lyle melted into his seat; and the DOT three sat in a little front row that Patsy had set for them. Their briefcase was now the center of all attention.

Bang!

Everyone in the room was glad he was not Joe Esterhouse’s gavel.

“Come to order. My apologies for the delay. Go ahead, Patsy.”

Steve was petrified.

“Mrs. Brown?”

“Here.”

Pause.

“Mr. Carter?”

Another pause. But this one wasn’t ending.

Joe turned and looked right at him.

“Are you waiting for something?”

What . . . ?

“No! Here. I’m here. Sorry.”

“Mr. Esterhouse?”

“Here.” Then, that aged, cragged face leaned close to him. “I need to talk to you.”

“. . . any time.”

“Eliza?” Patsy said.

“I am here.”

“Mr. McCoy?”

“Here.”

“Everyone’s present, Joe,” Patsy said.

“Thank you, Patsy,” Joe said. “Jefferson County North Carolina Board of Supervisors is now in session.” Joe was still angry, and he wasn’t trying to hide it. “Motion to accept last month’s minutes?”

“I’ll move that we accept last month’s minutes.”

“I’ll second that.”

Was it some kind of seniority thing? Always Louise then Randy.

“Motion and second,” Joe said. “Any discussion? Go ahead, Patsy.”

“Mrs. Brown?”

“Yes.”

He was next.

“Mr. C—”

“Yes.”

“—arter? Mr. Esterhouse?”

“Yes.”

“Eliza?”

“I vote no.”

“Mr. McCoy?”

“Yes.”

“Four in favor,” Patsy said. “One opposed.”

“Motion carries,” Joe said. “Minutes are accepted.”

The last chairs had filled up and there were a few people standing. Wardsville still had a big majority in the room, but most of the people who’d come in late were Gold Valley residents.

And front and center was the star attraction. The trio was wearing Department of Transportation polo shirts to seem friendly. In the middle lap was the closely guarded briefcase.

“Receiving public comment would be next,” Joe said. “I expect most of you are here to see these road plans. I’ll open the floor for comments after we’ve seen them.”

So they wouldn’t get to start with Everett Colony’s primal scream. Steve was remembering that he was supposed to get sworn in, or something, but he wasn’t about to interrupt Joe.

All right. Into the agenda. For these, he was ready.

First up: request for a special use permit for roadside lights.

He’d been through each item and checked the topographic maps and plat outlines and utility easements, and reviewed the zoning ordinance to make sure he had it all right. The roadside lights looked good.

“Mr. Carter?”

“Yes.”

Firm, authoritative. This was what he was here for.

“Four in favor, one opposed,” Patsy said.

“Motion carries. Next item.”

He knew what he was doing. If there were any questions, he was ready. Not that he really expected any questions. There probably had never been any questions, ever. But he was ready.

“Mr. Carter?”

“Yes.”

And then the next item, and the next, and the next. It was easy. This was how it was supposed to be. This was engineering.

“Next item, Fourth of July picnic,” Joe said. “The public is invited to Memorial Park in Wardsville tomorrow at noon for the annual county picnic sponsored by King Food.”

Finally, it was time for the fireworks.

“We will now have a presentation by Mr. Robert Jarvis of the North Carolina Department of Transportation.”

“Thank you, Joe.” Mr. Jarvis had a deep voice Joe pointed his gavel at the audience. “And I will not accept any interruption during the presentation. There will be adequate time afterward for comments.”

Jarvis had opened his briefcase.

“We can ask questions, can’t we, Joe?” Louise said.

“Board members may ask questions or make comments.”

“You can just jump in any time, Louisa,” Jarvis said. First names apparently went with the polo shirt friendliness policy. Although he should have tried to get the first names right.

But Steve was checking out the projector. Cool! He leaned closer to see. The thing popped right out of the briefcase.

And the lady was handing them each a notebook. Louise and Randy and Joe each set theirs on the table without opening them.

Steve got his. Just like Christmas! He started paging through.

The projector was on, pointed at the wall to their left. “Gold River Highway Extension,” in big letters. Patsy was closing blinds.

And Steve was cranking through the pages. Cross sections . . . elevations . . . proposed right-of-way acquisitions.

What a massive project.

He found the design criteria section. Only one page—this was a minimal summary. Real minimal. There was hardly any information. A few design assumptions . . . traffic projections . . . very strange.

“I think we’re ready,” said Mr. Jarvis. “I’m here this evening to present NCDOT’s plan for the completion of Gold River Highway in Jefferson County.”

And present he did.

Maps, pictures, lots of long sentences filled with long words. It did not take Steve long to realize something very strange was happening.

Was Mr. Jarvis really just caught up in the engineering of the whole thing? Somehow he wasn’t saying anything understandable. Randy and Louise looked completely confused. Joe had no expression. Eliza was staring at the notebook in front of her like it was a dirty diaper. Well, like he would stare at a dirty diaper. Like he usually did at two o’clock in the morning.

“Vertical change of altitude standards for limited access roadbeds will require an excavation as shown in this diagram.” The diagram projected on the wall showed a black line and a red line dropping down in a V shape under it. The scale was in meters, with nothing for comparison.

Steve felt words building up inside. He couldn’t let this get past.

“Mr. Jarvis?”

“Yes, sir.” Deep voice. Patronizing. Steve hated to be patronized.

“The North Carolina grade standard for vertical change in a limited access highway is only applicable when the limited access requirement is based on anticipated vehicle speed and traffic count, and I don’t see that either of those is pertinent here. In fact, there’s no assumption basis for a limited access design at all. Or am I missing something?”

Mr. Jarvis didn’t answer right away.

“You don’t have much in the way of design assumptions at all.”

Mr. Jarvis found his voice. “Those would be too technical for a presentation like this.”

“I think not.” Steve was feeling like his cookies were being stolen. “I sure want to see them. How are we supposed to evaluate these plans?”

“The engineering department has done a complete technical evaluation.”

“Then I want to see it. For instance, the cross-section on page thirty-two. A twenty-foot median? What’s up with that? Two-lane roadbeds on each side, median, shoulders—this thing is eighty feet across. The existing section in Gold Valley is thirty-five feet, and Hemlock is what, twenty-four feet? Who did the design work on this project? NASA? It looks more like a runway for the space shuttle.”

“You need to remember that this is a significant opportunity for Jefferson County,” Mr. Jarvis said. “I realize it may seem large . . .”

“Seem? It is! It is large. Look at this cut.” The diagram was still shining on the wall. “Is that really a thirty-five-meter notch? A hundred and ten feet?”

“Compared to the mountain itself, that’s actually fairly small.”

“Fairly small? You name one other cut in North Carolina that’s that big. It’ll be visible for twenty miles, at least, and it’ll change the whole ridgeline. Where are you even going to get enough dynamite to blast it? Or put all the rock you blow out?”

“I’ll be glad to have the engineering staff answer your questions.”

“Good, I’ll expect them to. I want design assumptions, in detail, a geologic core sample analysis to see if that cut is even possible, the whole environmental impact statement, which only has a two-sentence summary in this binder, a much better set of images showing the scale and visual impact of that cut, and I mean with the cut superimposed on them.”

“We’ll certainly work on that. . . .”

“And next, do you have a slide of page forty-one? I think you need to put it up on the wall.”

“I don’t believe that was part of our presentation.”

“You’re kidding.”

“This is meant to be a general overview, we won’t get into details.”

“I think most of the people here came to see that one map.”

“We can make it available after the meeting tonight.”

“No, let’s see it now.” Steve held up his notebook. “You have this document on that computer, don’t you? You can get page forty-one displayed on the projector.”

“I don’t know. . . .”

Steve was out of his chair. “Here. I’ll do it.”

He leaned over the briefcase projector and got his hand on the mouse. A little searching—the hard drive was a mess. Dozens of presentations mixed together. Didn’t they ever put them in subfolders? Finally he had to search—he typed in some text off one of the pages. The document was buried in an e-mail. Open it, find the page, project it.

“There.”

He stood up from the computer to see the map on the wall better. He looked around to see what everyone would think.

They were all looking at him.

Randy had his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands and his eyes narrow and his brow wrinkled—Louise was slumped in her chair with her eyes wide open—Eliza’s mouth was tightly closed, like she would start crying—Lyle was about to start screaming—Patsy was just blank—Mr. Jarvis was still startled and bent sideways from where he’d gotten out of Steve’s way at the computer—the rest of the audience members were in every other shade of confusion and bewilderment.

They were all frozen and staring right at him.

And Joe Esterhouse was smiling.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said. “I didn’t mean to hijack the meeting.”

“You just go right ahead,” Joe said. Smirking.

“Well—look at the detail map.” Steve pointed up at the wall.

“Maybe you could tell us what it is,” Joe said.

But it was obvious. “It’s Hemlock. This shows the project taking fifteen feet out of every yard on the street.”

“Sue Ann, you have never seen such a ruckus.” It was well after midnight. Randy sipped his iced tea, and he was mercifully glad for the peaceful and quiet living room and that comfortable chair. “I truly thought that Everett was having an attack. He couldn’t say a thing for at least five minutes, and you know how unusual that is for him.”

“It must have been such a shock,” Sue Ann said.

“It was that, let me tell you. Most of the people from Mountain View were having conniptions.”

“Now I don’t know what to think!” Louise said. “There was more shouting and name-calling than I’ve seen in eight years on that board.”

“Glad that road isn’t coming this way,” Byron said.

“I’m not sure it’s going to come any way, after tonight.”

“Mr. Coates is wanting it, I know that.”

“I don’t know why he would,” Louise said. “It couldn’t make as big a difference to him as it would to everyone in Mountain View.”

“But he does want it.”

“I spent the whole afternoon with those state people,” Joe said, “and I couldn’t get a single answer. Just, ‘We know what we’re doing and don’t you worry.’ In five minutes Steve Carter took them apart.”

“Wouldn’t he be on their side?” Rose asked.

“I’d have thought. But I’d say he might have about stopped that road. Those people are going to have a real job of it now.”

“You don’t seem worried about that.”

“I’d say anyone who was against that road would call Steve Carter their biggest friend.”

“Oh, Natalie.” Steve was drowning his sorrow in No Sugar Added SuperKids Apple Juice Made From Concentrate. “I made such a fool of myself.”

“You always say that. Everyone else says what a professional job you did.”

“Everyone on that board must hate me. Or at least think I’m an idiot.”

“Steve—they don’t. They’re glad you understand all those engineering plans. None of them do.”

He had to snicker, a little bit at least. “You should have seen the place blow up when they saw that map of Hemlock. Man. I’m glad no one had any weapons or those DOT guys would never have gotten out alive.”