Deep River Burning

by Donelle Dreese

  As Denver listened to the band play “America the Beautiful,” she caught a glimpse of Josh’s figure in the corner of her eye. He stood on the steps leading up to the front door of the public library. He leaned on the black rail with his feet crossed at the bottom and his hands in the pockets of his faded jeans, relaxed and handsome. He had gotten his hair cut since the last time she saw him, but it was still long enough so that the loose brown curls and waves unique to him were still recognizable from a distance.

  She watched him for a while. His smile would always reveal that mischievous boy that would do nearly anything on a dare, but his countenance was more serious now, more penetrating. Denver avoided him after their encounter on Desert Ring Island, and he knew it. He may have expected her to withdraw from him for a while, but it felt unnatural and awkward not to speak to him. They were together a mix of ambivalence, anger, hope, passion, endurance, and conflict. They were fragments of opposition for which they would have to provide the connecting threads.

  Denver’s attention was diverted by a pamphlet being passed through the crowd explaining the situation of the mine fire and the various alternatives that were being considered for putting to rest the deadly industrial phantom that constantly moved beneath the town. Some wanted the mines flushed, but no one could determine how and from where they would get that much water. Some wanted the mines filled with sand and crushed rock, which had already proved useless because of the high temperatures that melted the material into a liquid sludge. Others argued for the mines to undergo entire excavation, which would mean turning the majority of the town into a bulldozer zone. Still others voted for digging a trench cutting off the fire’s path so that it could not keep spreading through the underground shafts. What would be left of Adena with deep trenches cutting through its streets and yards? What would happen to those homes still sitting over the hot spots? They would be left to burn.

  The residents couldn’t stay there regardless of the method chosen. Denver’s father knew all of this before. He knew that relocation was the only way despite the volatile opposition that confronted him. Members of the Adena Coalition revitalized their efforts and tolerated the continuing chastisement from other members of the community. Death threats directed toward the activist members increased as well as prank phone calls and hate letters. The stress was taking its toll on the coalition and the violent murders of Denver’s mother and father were an indication that the death threats were not in jest. Two of the members became ill after living in fear of not only subsidence and deadly gases, but also in fear of being murdered by those who sought to discontinue their relocation efforts. If it wasn’t the stress of the situation that weighed heavily on the minds and bodies of the townspeople, it was the gases themselves, which left them vomiting and falling asleep, not knowing if they would wake up.

  After the march, the Adena Coalition arranged an outdoor public hearing in front of the municipal building where citizens and officials could voice their concerns through a microphone. A woman by the name of Mable Warner stood up and announced to members of the Mines and Energy Management Committee present at the gathering, that she didn’t believe there was a mine fire under Adena. She vehemently opposed any action toward relocating residents and claimed that the threats of present and future danger were illusions. A small voice inside of Denver wanted to laugh at this woman, so staunch and severe in her wide-eyed glasses and polyester suit, but she understood that this woman was afraid.

  As Mable spoke, the indications and proof that they had all witnessed demonstrating that the mine fire existed passed through Denver’s mind rapidly. She wondered what the woman saw when she looked at the world around her. Adena was “the hottest spot in Pennsylvania,” and if the sink holes, smoke spouts, gas meters, blanched trees, split highway, hot tombstones, and smoldering hills didn’t convince her, what would? In the winter, when there was snow, Adena was the first town to melt, particularly the portions of town that were in the impact zone. When Joseph Laredo collapsed in his living room due to being overcome by gases, a near panic sparked through the town like electricity moving through a power line. But Mable Warner still remained adamant in her convictions. And those who did not want to believe in the fire, followed her without question.

  When Joseph Laredo stood and took the podium, there was a silence that fell over the crowd where only the distant blue jays could be heard calling from the trees. Joseph was still a powerful man in Adena, and he was a dear friend to Denver’s family. When Denver saw him, she could still see the grief on his face from the deaths, but she didn’t know if that was really his sorrow or just an ongoing reflection of her own. Laredo addressed the crowd with this short speech:

  “I’d like to begin by offering my sincerest condolences to the friends and family members of Ted and Savannah Oakley. It may sound cliché to say that Adena will not be the same without them, but I say it wholeheartedly because it is true. Without Ted’s wisdom and leadership, and Savannah’s warmth and kindness, our community is a poorer place. We must keep their memory in our hearts and minds as we proceed and renew our commitment to cooperation and compassion and remember that we do not solve our problems in Adena by turning to violence.

  “I would like to also welcome to Adena, residents, State Senators and Congressmen, representatives of the media, to all those whose presence here comes from a concern about the welfare of our community. It inspires me to know that so many would gather here today to show support for this town that we hold so dear in our lives. Adena is not just a name on a map, it is home to many hard-working people who live in houses where their great grandparents were born and where they passed on. We have not always agreed on how to respond in times of crisis, yet we are all here today to join together in our struggle to preserve our home town. I believe that means something. If we work together, Adena will prove to be a town that will not die, and in the future, our celebration will be all the more triumphant knowing the trials we have overcome. No fire that burns is brighter than the flame inside the heart of every member of this community who is willing to help keep Adena alive and thriving. Thank you.”

  Shortly after Laredo’s address to the crowd, a thirteen year old girl with long, thin hair that kept blowing in her eyes stood up to read a letter she had written to the President of the United States. Her voice was slow and clear yet unrehearsed. She wore a green, floral dress, and she shook nervously in front of the crowd. She read her letter asking the President to give her family money so that they could move and live a healthier life in another town. There wasn’t a dry eye in the crowd among mothers and fathers. Aunt Rosemary wandered serenely through the crowd in a lavender sundress saying hello to people and especially to old timers who were full of Adena stories. Helena, who was standing next to Denver, reached for some tissues from her purse, but Denver’s worrisome eyes were scanning the crowd that was lacking in security and observing the impact the young girl was having on the audience.

  A few weeks ago, Helena shocked everyone by announcing that she was flying to Las Vegas to marry a man named Carl Yeager. Although Denver was surprised, the news wasn’t overly astonishing to her. Helena was a charming, spirited, raven-haired young woman who could make a pair of sweatpants look good. She had always attracted the opposite sex quite easily and usually had a boyfriend while other guys waited in the wings to see if it would work out.

  Carl was a bit older than Helena and had recently inherited his grandparents’ house since they passed away. He was looking to settle down in his new house, which was not too far from Denver’s house, maybe two more miles into the countryside. Denver was happy that Helena was still close by but not in the hot zones. Carl didn’t pay too much attention to the mine fire. He didn’t work in Adena, or spend much time there, so he didn’t concern himself with the controversy. He thought it was all “much ado about nothing.” What mattered to Denver was that Helena seemed happy, and although Carl wasn’t there with her at
the march, Helena’s gold wedding band sitting next to a modest pear-shaped diamond engagement ring flickered in the sunlight.

  After the little girl in the green dress read her letter, a councilwoman by the name of Sarah Durant approached the podium and displayed a petition with 18,636 signatures supporting relocation that was going to be mailed to the White House. Then, a man by the name of David Lewis stepped to the podium and announced to the crowd that the carbon monoxide monitor placed in his home by the Department of Environmental Resources indicated that he was living with a very high level of the gas in his home. He believed his son’s respiratory problems were a result.

  Despite the opinions of medical doctors indicating that carbon monoxide at such levels could be hazardous to someone’s health, the danger was still downplayed and the Health Department played a significant role in keeping this information quiet. As it happened, Lewis’s home was investigated afterward, and it was found that the house once belonged to a bootleg miner who dug a hole from his basement down to the mine and tunneled his way laterally to the coal pillar that was under the main street running through town. The bootlegger, by the name of Woleski, removed nearly all of the coal from the pillar and left behind a direct pathway with few barriers stopping gas and heat from entering into the basement of Lewis’s home.

  The crowd was captivated by Lewis’s story and the series of stories that followed as each person who felt moved to share their coal experiences, rose to the stage. The time when the crowd seemed most moved to cheer or protest was when a woman, named Betty Snyder, took the stage and recited a poem she had written.

  I was born in the town of Adena

  I’ve lived here all of my life

  My daddy was a bootlegging miner

  My ma was a dutiful wife

  My grandpap was also a miner

  He gave his whole life to the coal

  To keep his family from starvin’

  Till the dust and the dark took its toll

  Now they say Adena is crumblin’

  Cause it sits on some tunnels on fire

  And we’re standing here waiting for a miracle

  While the flames just keep getting higher

  My heart is broken in pieces

  From watchin’ my great hometown bleed

  If only the miners would’ve stopped diggin’

  Instead of being taken by greed

  In the end maybe we’re all to blame

  For stokin’ our homes with the rock

  When excavation destroys the land

  Until we feel mother nature’s hard knock

  Some of you will probably hate me

  When I tell you my boxes are packed

  The holes in the ground aren’t fantasies

  My eyes can see they are fact

  If you stay, I wish you well

  Watch out for the gas and the fumes

  Adena will soon be an empty ghost town

  And old miners will rise from their tombs

  Someone from the crowd yelled, “The miners were just trying to keep their families warm!”

  For Denver, the day was a cathartic success. No longer did the people affected by the coal suffer alone and in isolation. The day of the march restored a sense of hope that had been swallowed up by the deep fire, but the hope would be short lived. A long-term crisis that slowly scrapes the skins of people until they wear their bones on the outside is the worst of all. It would be better for the sky to fall quickly so that in the dank, petrified regions of despair, there is suddenly no direction left to go but up. The people of Adena still had more space to fall into, more time to find blame for this environmental disaster of human cause, more time to hang on to something inevitably lost.

  That night, Denver sat on a rock on the other side of the street and looked at her house with the dim lights glowing through the downstairs windows. It would be wise, she thought, to learn the history of a house before you move into it. You are entering into the lives of others whom you do not know but will come to know intimately. And their lives were not perfect. They will leave behind their spirits in the floorboards and voices in the walls, their songs in the kitchen, their cries in the bedrooms, their blood in the pipes and their laughter in the yard. Denver knew that her house would bear the occupancy of death long after her departure; that it would stand as a testament to the fear and chaos that characterized Adena in its fight for survival. A part of her died in that house with her mother, with her father, and she intended to leave that part of her there with them.

  Chapter 12

  Wolves

  She wanted to preserve things. To preserve Adena, to preserve the landscape upon which it rested, to preserve the friendship she had cherished all of her life, to preserve herself. No one likes to feel as if parts of themselves are scattered about for the wolves to stalk and devour. And sometimes she felt that way, like there were wolves circling, waiting for her to make a mistake, and then they would come out from their hiding places and take what they wanted because they knew that eventually, she would make a mistake. Somehow, they know the vulnerable people, the fragmented people who haven’t figured it out yet, who haven’t gathered their strengths into that impenetrable shield that the wolves can also see. When the shield is there, the predators stay away. When we are whole, we are strong. We have the strength of everything we know working together. But it seemed that everything was falling apart in one slow motion wave.

  She went for a long walk on the back roads around her house and found herself admiring the signs of survival all around her. The birds built their nests in the tallest trees that would sustain their own lives and the lives of their young, the flock of geese that went to the same spot every spring hoping to find the same nourishment and refuge they found every year, and a small snail slipped into his shell as round and smooth as a polished gemstone.

  This place was a paradox. It was a small place, with big problems. It was a small town on a small section of a larger river where there are small houses, small animals, slender forests, and it could all be made thoroughly unrecognizable and uninhabitable in a matter of a few short days. Denver felt small in the midst of all of this hunger.

  “Anything is possible,” she said out loud. No one ever thought the wild pigeon would become extinct. The population was once prolific in Pennsylvania. She imagined a mile-long flock gliding in the sky, descending upon its home farther northwest where it has been said that so many birds would nest in one tree that the branches would break from the weight and hang dangling like broken arms. The birds must have been striking, large in stature with red eyes and red feet, a rust-colored chest, and sprawling wing span. When the babies sat in the nests with their mouths wide, they uttered a high-pitched screech that the hunter would hear, and the poles would rise into the trees and bump the babies from their beds. No one ever thought the birds, that would leave their nests in the morning in one mass body of wild flight, would ever become extinct. The flocks seemed endless.

  Denver felt suffocated in her own sense that something was very wrong, and she spent her free time trying to find a way to get away from it. There are things we just know by the way every cell in our body contracts and expands in response, and what she knew nagged at her like a drumbeat in the distance that keeps getting louder. She walked down one dirt road, then another dirt road, and another road farther away from the house, a road she rarely ever explored. She reached an open space where down in a large pit sat a bulldozer and other mining equipment familiar to her. The pit began there and went on and on in a wide strip that looked like a knife slice in flesh. The bone marrow is worth money, she thought to herself. It heats the home that holds the human that drinks the water that breathes the air that hates the hole that halts the highway, “I don’t know why she swallowed a fly, perhaps she’ll die,” she sang.

  As she continued her walk, she heard an engine running behind her. She turned around and saw a sh
iny, red pickup truck moving slowly toward her. She didn’t think much of the truck, but it did seem to get louder or closer, so she turned around again and realized the truck was crawling at a pace not much faster than her own and following her. She didn’t recognize the truck, and she couldn’t see who was driving it. She was just about ready to run into the trees when she heard a voice from the window.

  “Denver? Denver Oakley?”

  “Randy! Damn you, you nearly scared the daylights out of me, crawling up on me that slowly. Don’t you know that I’m a marked woman around here?”

  “A marked woman? How did that happen?” Randy asked.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Oh, all right. I know most of the story. You’re involved in the relocation project.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, that’s what happens when you get involved I guess.”

  “And what happens if you don’t get involved?”

  “You stay out of trouble.”

  “Or you stay in another kind of trouble,” she quickly responded.

  “Want a lift back to town? Hop in,” he said as he leaned over and opened the door for her. Hesitantly, she got into the truck. Randy was a banker in Adena. He was someone she ran into on occasion, but not someone she considered a friend.

  “So, what brings you out here all by yourself?” he asked.

  “I was just going for a walk, to think.”

  “Why would somebody as pretty and sweet as yourself be way out here alone walking and thinking?”