Road to Nowhere (6 page)

What a strange place!

But the Warrior was mighty. It was his words she was listening for. She had heard his great and angry voice tonight in the angry voices of men. There were great powers involving themselves in the small world.

The Warrior. Ancient, and known by the ancient people who had lived here in ancient times. If he was not known now, he was still as mighty.

He had opened the place on the council for her. He would do anything else he chose.

“Outright bunch of schoolchildren.” Home and sitting in the kitchen, Joe was feeling slightly less aggravated.

“Drink your milk.” Rose had it on the table in front of him.

“That bunch from Mountain View are about the worst at it. Don’t give a lick about anyone but themselves.”

“They’re worried about the road.”

“People worry about too many things, and there’s no sense to most of it.”

“But they don’t know that. When would anyone see what the road looks like?”

“We’ll hear in April it’s been approved, and we’ll see plans in July.” Joe sniffed the milk and set it back down. “Vote in December.”

“Are you going to drink that or not?”

“I’m going to drink it.”

“Is there something wrong with it?”

He drank a bit. It was the road that smelled. “It’s not the milk.”

“You’re not letting people’s complaining bother you?”

“No, there’s always people complaining. It’s the road itself. There’s never trouble about anything like there is about a road. Especially this one.”

“What if the state doesn’t approve it?”

“They will.”

She didn’t question that. “And the five of you?”

“Might come down to Louise.”

But it wasn’t just the road, either. Rose had her eye on him.

“So what’s really bothering you, Joe?”

“Mort.”

“I’m sorry he’s gone.”

“It’s more than being sorry.”

“What about him?”

“Just a thought, and I don’t care for it.”

“About Mort or about the road?”

“Both.”

“Both,” she said, and that made her think. “What do you mean?”

Once Minnie had brought him that letter, it’d been nagging at him.

“In fifty years, I’ve never seen a letter like that one from Raleigh.

I’ve never seen such a list of rules for qualifying. To get the money, the project had to have been in the plans for at least twenty years. That’s what it said—projects of at least twenty years’ standing. Only county roads, no state or U.S. routes. It had to be a new road, not an improvement to an existing road, but it had to be a connection between existing dead-end roads. Now what is all that supposed to mean?”

“You know better than anyone what to expect from them in Raleigh.”

“I thought I did. How many roads in North Carolina are matching all those rules?”

“It’s a big state,” Rose said.

“They might just as well have said it was for Gold River Highway.”

“Then what does that have to do with Mort?”

He hated to say it. “If Mort was alive, the road would have been voted in. Now that’s he dead, it just might not.”

“I don’t believe that’s the reason.”

“Wish I didn’t. There’s always someone behind a road. This one’s worse than the usual. There’s like to be someone just as bad against it.” He was sure of it, and he said it. “It’s evil, Rose. It’s more than politics. It’s true evil.”

“True good can stand against that.”

“Joe looks so tired anymore,” Louise said. She was sitting in the bed, thinking.

“Know how he feels,” Byron said. “Put the light out.”

“I will. He’s been on that board for more than forty years.”

“Enough to wear anybody out.”

“I don’t even remember how long,” she said. Now she was thinking.

February 10, Friday

They were half way up Ayawisgi, looking north toward Fiddler Mountain. The snow was real thick; way down was Gold River, slicing between the white mountains like a knife—they could even make out the rapids.

Wade had the door to the model open but the customers had their eyes stuck. Wade pointed left, west. “That’s the national park way out there. Sure looks nice in the winter when the weather’s clear.” Everyone’s breath was little cloud puffs.

“It’s just beautiful.” That was the wife. Wade still wasn’t sure if they were real or just window shopping.

“Come on in,” he said. “Same view from inside, but a lot warmer.”

Randy took a deep breath. Everett was really a reasonable man, and he always had been. He was just forceful. And he didn’t hesitate when he had something to say. And— “Mr. McCoy? Dr. Colony can see you.”

He followed the young lady down the hall to the office in back.

Everett had a file open and was scratching notes on the first page.

“Thank you for seeing me, Everett. I just wanted to take make sure you were understanding that vote the other night.”

Everett finished his writing and Randy was looking straight into his eyes. “I understand,” he said.

“That wasn’t about the road. It was completely different.”

“No one’s fooling me. Wade Harris and his crew back in Raleigh are pulling their strings.” He closed his folder. “They’re behind this flood plan.”

“Now, that’s why I came to explain. That’s just a normal thing, Everett. We’re always getting papers like that from departments in Raleigh. I’ll take care of it at the next Planning Commission meeting.”

“When is that?”

“We only meet every other month, and just when we have to, so it’ll be March, or later. But I don’t think it has a thing to do with the road. You can really believe me on this.”

“I’ll believe what I want to believe.” He stood up from his desk with the folder in his hand and pointed it right at Randy. “Those people will do whatever it takes to force that road into Mountain View, and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep that road out.”

“Who’s buying houses like these?” the husband asked. Wade had done the tour, the wife was just about sold and the husband was leaning.

“It’s mostly people like you buying the cabins, couples wanting a vacation place in the mountains. The larger houses are more year-round people, retired or a few who work in Asheville. You have the quiet here, and the view, and the prices are reasonable.” He started the finance spiel.

They acted okay with the numbers, but Wade was only giving it maybe a thirty percent shot. There was still the big hurdle to get over.

“And where is the grocery store?” the lady asked.

That was it. Wade smiled. “Well, now.”

There were a couple strategies to try. He’d had a lot of practice experimenting with them, figuring which one worked best for which customers. Except that none of them worked for anyone.

“One big reason people like Gold Valley so much is it’s not being real developed.” This wasn’t going to work, but it was the best he had. “Some people go into Wardsville to the nice little local grocery there. And some people drive on down to Asheville.”

“How close is Wardsville?”

“You go out to the interstate and about ten miles, and then right into town. It’s a cute little place.”

“Ten miles?” Just that exact tone in her voice.

“That’s after you get to the interstate,” the husband said.

Move fast. Wade led them over to the big front window.

“Just look out here. Sure, you don’t see any stores. But I’d say most people don’t want to.” The sun was reflecting off Fiddler Mountain and the whole thing was sparkling like Disneyland. The sky was baby blue and not a cloud in it, and Gold River looked like liquid silver through the bare black toothpick trees. “And for a second home for weekends and quiet vacations, you find out the shopping ends up not being so important.”

But that was looking real hard for her to imagine. “Well . . . but . . .” She was sinking quick.

At least they didn’t care about schools. That was death.

“We’ll think about it,” the man said, starting toward the door.

January and February were real thin months, and Wade was ready for desperate measures. “And let me mention that Gold River Highway, that we came up here on, is going to be extended right over the mountain into Wardsville. The town’s only about three miles from right here in a straight line.” Nothing wrong with saying that. It was on the plan.

“When would that happen?” the man asked.

“We’re working on that right now.” The law said he couldn’t outright lie to them. “Last I heard, it might be about two years.” That was the truth. He had heard it. “And that’s going to push prices of everything in the valley here way up.”

“Two years . . .” The wife was looking at the book again. Then back at her husband. “And then he says prices will go up.”

“We’ll think about it,” the man said, and Wade took a deep, satisfied breath. They were the same words as before, but with a slightly different tone and a completely different meaning.

And Wade hadn’t told any lies. Except calling Wardsville cute.

Louise locked the salon door. There was still some sunset left out over the courthouse, and she stood to look at it.

It was just lovely, a little pink and orange and a few clouds. And stars off in the other direction where the sky was black, and the mountain right up in them.

She made herself think about that road. She could see where it would come over Mount Ayawisgi. It had been a while since she’d been over in Mountain View, and she decided it might be worth a peek.

She turned onto Hemlock and passed King Food, and then up the hill by Memorial Park, past the library, and there was Mountain View.

It wasn’t that big of a neighborhood, just about five blocks along Hemlock and three or four blocks on either side, but so fancy. The houses away from Hemlock weren’t as large, but people still took such good care of them.

Of course, it wasn’t the easiest place to live. She and Byron were just as happy to be where they were, on Coble Highway, where people didn’t have to keep their yard perfect and neighbors didn’t mind a few extra Christmas decorations or all the clutter of little statues and birdbaths she liked in her garden. There was a lot of looking down on each other in Mountain View, and having to please each other.

She came back out at the far end of Hemlock by the high school. The parking lot was mostly empty at this time of the evening, but across the street and down a little, the furniture factory still had some cars. They must have had some good orders recently to be running an evening shift.

And down past the factory, Hemlock just petered out into that dirt road. Goodness sakes. It was hard to imagine what that would look like.

Somebody was down there, tall and thin and in a black suit. She drove up close.

“Roger!”

Roger Gallaudet was looking every inch like a funeral home director, even just standing beside his car at the end of the pavement.

“Hello, Louise.”

“I came to see what it would look like to have a road up here.”

Roger nodded. “That’s why I’m here myself. I suppose lots of people are thinking about it.”

“Don’t you live up here?”

“Right behind Everett Colony.”

“Then you know what he thinks.” Louise was not looking forward to the next year of board meetings.

“I do.” Roger was still staring up the mountain. “I think I’ll go have a talk with him.”

“I won’t get mixed up with that!” She gave him a big good-night smile and turned her car around and started back toward town. Hemlock was lined with trees through Mountain View, old oaks and maples, and even a few hemlocks.

Well, Randy and Everett Colony and all of them shouldn’t have to worry a bit about widening Hemlock. There wouldn’t be room, with all the old big trees right up by the street and leaning over it. Especially the biggest ones, right in front of Everett’s house.

Oh, look at the sky! What a color it was, an impossible dark white mix of blue and red, and gray cloud smudges like old paint on weathered wood, and the knife-sharp silhouette of the mountain like torn black paper.

The trees were silent as the sky, watching. The whole mountainside of them, standing rigid and black, held their arms up to it.

Eliza joined them as the mountain, the sky, all of life together changed from day to night, through every moment between light and dark.

They had all talked about a road at the meeting. She couldn’t imagine it, or where it would be; it was too disturbing to even understand. But she knew the Warrior would not allow it.

February 13, Monday

“Charlie.”

“What?”

Wade was staring out his window. Dead day, not a client, not even a call. Might as well call the boss and make it worse.

“Hey. I’ve been thinking. You have the timeline for completions this summer?”

The voice in his ear was annoyed. “It hasn’t changed since Christmas.”

“Maybe it should. I think we’ll be overbuilt by October, by maybe twenty or thirty houses.”

“We need to sell eighty houses this year, so that’s how many I’m building.”

It was always the same. “Jump in a lake, Charlie. Nobody wants a house twenty miles from a grocery store.” Wade was fuming, like he was most of the time when he was on the phone with Charlie Ryder. He took his three deep breaths.

Charlie was talking before breath number two. “I’d build a grocery store. What was the problem with that? I don’t remember. The land by the interstate is zoned commercial, right? Didn’t we try to buy it?”

“Yeah, when I first moved up here. The whole place around the Gold River Highway exit is zoned commercial. But it’s all messed up who owns it. It’s called the Trinkle farm and there’s a bunch of heirs, and they’re all out of state, and they’re all suing each other over who owns it.”

“Yeah. Now I remember. Can’t we get someplace else rezoned?”

“There’s no place big enough and flat enough, and the board wouldn’t rezone anything else anyway.”

“Go ahead and try,” Charlie said.

“You try. I’ve got enough to do.”

“Like what? You haven’t sold anything in two weeks.”

Three deep breaths wasn’t going to do it, so Wade didn’t even try. “I’ll quit, Charlie. In a heartbeat.”

“No, don’t quit. Just sell the houses.”