by Thomas Cater
“Did you ever meet her mother?” I asked.
“Didn’t have one,” Amy said. “Never knew a mother’s love. Her pappy said she died givin’ birth and the child was snatched from its dead mama’s womb, which is why she had organic weaknesses.”
“What about Mr. Ryder?” I asked. “What kind of man was he?”
“He was a hard man,” she said frowning. “He kept her locked away for years, and when her eyes got bad, he gave her to me. I never heard him say a kind word to nobody, not even his daughter. What kind of a man would treat a child like that?”
The old woman was beginning to tire. I tried to be brief.
“Was the wall around the house finished when you arrived?” I asked.
“There has always been a wall around that house, though I don’t know as you could rightly call it a wall,” she said. “The first wall was just a bunch of old stones piled up a long time ago, in the dreamtime.”
The dreamtime? I was getting confused and nervous. “Do you know who put it up?” I asked.
She shook her head. Words were coming more slowly. “There was a man who came to make it high and strong. I do not know his name, but once he got started, he didn’t stop for fire nor famine. Miners’ houses burned down, the water went bad, sheep and cattle died, and even the fruit on the vine and the vegetables in the ground withered. It was the worst year in the history of the county, at least for Elanville.”
I was wide-awake, but our elderly host was beginning to nod and drowse. I wanted to continue, but courtesy demanded a short respite no matter how anxious we all were to hear about the events that may have decimated Elanville.
I begged the grandson for more questions and he agreed; his own curiosity was aroused.
“How long were you with Elinore and when did you leave?”
“A long time,” she said from behind closed eyes, “maybe fifteen years. One day her pappy said, Amy, your services won’t be needed anymore.’ That’s all he said.”
“Was she all right then?” I blurted out. “Was she showing signs of…insanity?”
The old face was tranquil in sleep for a moment then she spoke in murmurs.
“She was puttin’ on weight, but seemed to be happy. He let her wander through the flowers with her ‘magic glass,’ that’s all.”
“Amy, did she ever try to run away?” I asked
“Run away?” she replied. “Where’s a blind baby goin’ to run?”
We waited for more, which never came, and then she began to snore. We were all relieved. Virgil covered a yawn with his hand and stretched. Violet got to her feet. Rodney Taylor clamped the pipe between his teeth and buttoned his sweater.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to her another day,” I asked.
A man of few words and none to spare, Rodney Taylor nodded as he led us to the door.
Chapter Seven
We reviewed the conversation on the way back to grandma’s house. I was particularly interested in Elinore’s power to call down lightning and thunder and to make people do her bidding. Virgil was curious about the wall and the Elanville disaster, which seemed to have soured the land and the water.
Pop-eyes, I concurred, was a sign of a thyroid condition. Violet could not understand a relationship that allowed a man to lock up an ailing child and not suffer some dreadful psychological remorse. Was he afraid of her, or was he afraid of what she might say or do to others? We all wanted to know more about the magic glass, but couldn’t reach any conclusions.
Mrs. Holmes was waiting with her grandchildren when we returned. Short and chubby, her skin was as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Her short, curly hair was the proper shade of blue-gray and she never stopped smiling. She was sitting on a couch in front of the TV flanked by the two little Stamper's; they were busy stuffing their mouths with an assortment of snack foods.
“Did you talk to Amy?” She asked.
We nodded. Violet took the initiative to explain the revelations that followed.
“Isn’t she delightful,” Mrs. Holmes said. It was more a statement than a question. “I just love it when young people take an interest in local history.”
“Mother, how well did you know Samuel Ryder?” Violet asked without a pause.
Mrs. Holmes struggled with the hem of her dress, which was riding up over her chubby knees. She shifted her bulk from one leg to the other.
“If you were in business in this state in the early 1900s, you knew Samuel Ryder,” she said. “Your grandfather operated a saw mill. Samuel bought railroad ties from us. He was also on the board of the C&O Railroad. He was a very powerful man.”
“Then his death left Elinore wealthy?” I asked.
“Yes and no, Mr. Case. She had money, but it was the kind you had to fight hard to keep. Since she was young and infirm, she was not up to the task. She managed to keep a little, but her father’s associates duped her out of most of it. There were rumors that she owned stocks and bonds, but they were concealed somewhere in the house. Being blind, she didn’t know the location. It took all she had to keep the house going and the taxes paid. She ran out of money in the early fifties, made a little on coal, oil and gas royalties, and rent on the company houses, but it wasn’t much.”
“You mean there could be stocks and bonds in the house?”
“That’s the rumor, Mr. Case.”
I stared at Virgil.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier?”
“I didn’t want to trouble you with rumors,” he replied.
“Trouble me? You troubled me with all those…troubling stories. Why didn’t you want to trouble me with some good news?”
“I wouldn’t invest too much stock in those old stories,” he said.
The mention of coal, oil and gas made me think of another issue we failed to discuss.
“What about utilities,” I asked. “How about heat? It must cost a bundle to heat that place in the winter?”
Mrs. Holmes laughed. “It’s easy to see you’re from out of state, Mr. Case. You think a coal baron is going to give his ‘spoils’ away to a utility company? In those days, they built their homes on or near the coal seam, which they mined. All they had to do was tunnel into a basement wall for fuel. If you kick a little dirt from the ground, you’re standing on coal. When gas came in, a well was drilled on your property and you were entitled to free gas.”
“You mean the house is sitting on a seam of coal?”
“Right below the floorboards,” she said.
“Is it valuable?” I asked.
Mrs. Holmes smile grew expansive. “It depends, Mr. Case; it’s the Mercer seam and it used to be called the ‘cream of the Mercer.’ My late husband said it was the dirtiest god-damned seam of coal the Almighty ever created.”
“Mother!” Violet shouted.
“What do you mean, dirty?” I asked. “How dirty can coal get?”
“It’s full of impurities,” she continued. “Slate, bone, iron pyrites, it has something to do with geology. Upshyre County is one of the few places in the world you can find Mercer Coal. A hundred million years ago, that seam formed when the earth was in turmoil, giving birth to monstrosities. That coal is the afterbirth, but it does have some value,” she continued, “about ten dollars a ton when it sells, which isn’t often, and that’s run o’the mine.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“From the mine mouth to the buyer, no freight or cleaning and washing charges included.”
I was thrilled by the thought my impulsive and compelling purchase might also include the possibility of mineral wealth.
“I’m fascinated; how many tons in an acre?” I asked.
“It varies, depending on the thickness,” she said. “Out there it’s less than 10,000 tons to an acre.”
I made a quick calculation of my holdings. “That’s… $100,000 an acre! In 26 acres, that’s about $2.6 million dollars!”
Mrs. Holmes smile did little to bolster my enthusiasm. “Yes, but you se
e, there aren’t very many people or companies who want to buy coal as dirty as the Mercer. It takes a lot of time and money to get it out of the ground, clean it and sell it. You’d be lucky to get five hundred down and a thirty cent royalty per ton.”
I was incensed by the impropriety of robber coal barons, even though I’d never met one, but might be one.
“Then I won’t sell,” I said.
“C’est la vie, Mr. Case, C’est la vie.”
Things were becoming more and more convoluted. I couldn't understand why the mineral rights weren't purchased years ago, since there were very few ghosts who could intimidate D-8 dozers.
“The land has already been extensively mined,” she continued. “At least 60 percent of the coal is gone. I suppose you met your new neighbors at Elanville. They’ve been scavenging coal for generations. Those hills are honey combed with abandoned coal tunnels and drifts. They cook and heat with it and consider it their birthright. Some people say that’s what’s wrong with them; the fumes and ashes from that coal have been known to poison everything it comes in contact with.”
I could feel my newly acquired fortune slipping through my fingers.
“You did notice Scary Creek, the little stream that passes in front of the house?” she asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“No matter how dirty or polluted it may look to you, it is a protected stream, and the Department of Natural Resources will castrate you if you try to strip that coal.”
“Mother, please!” Violet pleaded.
“Oh, be still you silly child. I’m just trying to point out the pitfalls of the mining industry to Mr. Case. I’ve lived in this county all my life. I’ve seen good times and I’ve seen bad. There has always been coal, but as a rule, it does more harm than good. It provides few jobs, but only for the short term. In the end, it leaves nothing but a mess and many unemployed, uneducated men hanging around doing nothing but making trouble for people who like the land the way it is and want to keep it that way. If I had my way, they’d never mine another ton of coal in this county and we’d all be better off.”
“Mother, you old hypocrite! How can you sit there and talk like that when there are strip miners on your property right now taking every pound of coal they can get their hands on.”
Mrs. Holmes squirmed uneasily on the couch. “A body’s got to live, Violet. Besides, they don’t steal it from me the way they do other people. I make them pay big money up front and fifty cents a ton royalty. I don’t know whose money they’re spending to get at that coal, but you can bet it’s not their own. No one in his or her right mind would pay that kind of money for Mercer today. You can get better out of a gob pile.”
I could see we were on a collision course if the subject didn’t change. “Mrs. Holmes, I am interested in your views on the coal industry, especially now that I have become the owner of choice mineral rights.” I glanced at Virgil for confirmation.
“The mineral rights are included with the property,” he said. “That is a condition of the sale. There is also an old codicil attached to the title that states they are not to be sold independently of surface rights, which means the house and timber, though I’m afraid there is very little that could be done if a new owner chose to sell them separately.”
I was relieved to learn that as a property owner I did have recourse to a few liberties with the land.
“Thank you. Mrs. Holmes, I’m anxious to learn all I can about the house and its previous owner. Virgil and I have been trying to figure out where we could find information about the builder of the wall that surrounds the house. Do you know anything at all?”
She turned the question over in her mind, almost as if she were turning back pages in a magazine.
“I can remember the first time I ever laid eyes on him. He came into town on the train. I was just a child, five or ten years old. I watched him unload his equipment from the baggage car. He had a whole wagonload of trowels and wooden levels, a wheelbarrow and hoes, picks, hammers. It was all bleached white from working in concrete. I remember how everyone stood around and didn’t say a word to him. He had a way about him that didn’t encourage familiarity. Dr. Farnsworth was standing on the depot platform not ten feet from me. He was behaving neighborly, but that man never gave him a second look. He kept loading the wagon with his tools and rode out of town without stopping once to ask directions. He knew exactly where he was going, and so did everyone else.”
“The man, you say, the mason, do you remember his name? Did you ever see him again?”
She shook her head. “I saw him once or twice poking around in the old section of the graveyard. We were putting flowers on papa’s grave. I don’t know what he was doing, but he was checking out those old stone markers real close.”
“Did you ever see him working on the Ryder wall?”
She shook her head. “No, but I heard he worked night and day to finish. I can’t imagine why the big hurry. I think he was out there for maybe two or three years.”
I never thought about how long it might take to enclose 26 acres, but that sounded like more than enough time. Still, there were undoubtedly many factors to consider.
“Did he work alone, or hire help?”
“Oh my, yes. At one time or another, nearly everyone in Elanville worked on that wall. You would have thought they were building the great pyramid of Egypt.”
I had been under the curious impression that the residents of Elanville, who all seemed to be suffering from genetic deformities of one kind or another, worked in the mines. Where had the stone workers come from?
“How many laborers were there?”
“I think there were nearly half a dozen every day of the week.”
“I thought it was a small mining community?”
She rolled her head back in that silent laugh once more. “No one could keep track of those people,” she said. “School officials and census takers had a devil of a time with them.”
“Do you know where he lived?” I asked, hopeful that a few artifacts might be salvaged and add dimension to the story.
“Samuel put him up at the Abacas’ hotel for awhile. He eventually moved into one of the company houses. He took in a woman with a child to cook and clean for him. I know the name, if you can give me a minute…Kirk! Yes, that’s it. Her name was Kirkwood, and she had a little girl whose name was…”
She slumped back on the couch in a silence. “Oh, my! That child’s name was Alicia!” Her eyes become glossy with tears.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
She kept gazing off into space as if she were gathering up more loose ends.
“They both died in a fire, Mr. Case, not long after the stone mason arrived. It was the first of several fires that took the lives of many people out there. No one gave it much thought since the houses were board and batten and coal was used for cooking and heating.”
I still did not understand the alarm that had driven the ever-present smile from her face.
“Why should that upset you?”
Her fingers writhed nervously in her hands. “The people who died in those fires weren’t transients, but locals down on their luck or people in desperate need of shelter or work.”
Her insinuation needed little in the way of further explanation.
“I never thought about that before,” she said, staring at me as if for the first time.
“It probably doesn’t mean a thing,” I said, unwilling to concede that some kind of conspiracy may have occurred more than 70 years ago in that remote wilderness.
“If it doesn’t mean anything, then what are you doing here, and why are you asking all these questions?” She replied,
I felt intimidated by the charges in her voice, but the anxiety I felt was gathering momentum.
“Mother, just because the stone mason was living there doesn’t mean he had anything to do with the fires. For Pete’s sake, let’s not forget, it’s been a very long time!”
I meant to say something simi
lar, but I was silent in the face of her emotion. I did however appreciate Violet’s attempt to extricate me from a tense and confusing situation.
“Were the bodies of the victims buried in local cemeteries?” I asked.
Mrs. Holmes gazed at me with resignation in her eyes. “There wasn’t anything left to bury,” she said, “just a few scorched bones, which were buried in makeshift graves.”
I leaned back in the chair, sated on grisly information that needed time to digest.
“You see,” she said. “There was and may still be something wicked at work out there. I don’t know what it is, but I can see you are right in the middle of it, Mr. Case. If my children are going to be involved, I want to take some precautions. So if you don’t mind, I’m going to call a friend of mine and ask him for a blessing and some prayers.”
Violet bolted from her chair. “Mother, please, we don’t need Father Rooney’s blessing.”
Mrs. Holmes squirmed and wiggled off the couch and waddled to the phone.
“I’m not going to sit by idly while my daughter pokes her nose into God knows what kind of diabolical goings on…”
“Oh, God!” Violet moaned and pretended to pull her hair in a fury of impatience.
“Mother, I think it’s time we left. I know Mr. Case is probably very tired and anxious to get some sleep.”
Mrs. Holmes replaced the phone, took her grandchildren in her arms and kissed them both.
“Don’t you take these innocents out there,” she said. “If you must poke into things that don’t concern you, leave the children here.”
“Yes, Mother; and thank you. We’ll be seeing you in a few days.”
She kissed her mother’s cheek in a gesture of good will. Virgil pressed his cheek to hers and I reached for a hand.
“Thank you, Mrs. Holmes,” I said. “If you think of anything else that might be helpful, I’d love to hear about it. I will be here awhile; I’m living in an RV. Virgil knows where I’m parked.” I quickly added, “probably in his driveway.”
I could see the Stamper's were not overwhelmed with the prospect of hosting my van. I excused myself again and tried to catch up. They were already out the door. Mrs. Holmes caught me by the arm.