Raylan_ A Novel - Elmore Leonard [42]
Boyd said, “We’re seein can we trust each other enough to fall in love and make it work.” Whatever that meant.
Carol didn’t ask.
She took the mike from the stand now and said, “Good afternoon. I’m Carol Conlan, a vice president of M-T Mining.”
She got a wave of boos, a few whistles she believed had nothing to do with her job, and questions fired at her:
“When’s M-T gonna do right by us?”
“Lady, we miss a day sick we’re laid off.”
Carol said, “My dad mined coal in West Virginia. I grew up in coal camps, so I know what you all are talkin about,” her accent taking her closer to West Virginia as she spoke.
A voice in the crowd asked her: “How’d you escape the life?”
“I got out on a scholarship to college, worked my tail off studying about industry, supply and demand and the coal business. I went on to get a law degree and was hired by the company that’s given you fellas your jobs.”
A man’s voice said, “They’s way less jobs workin mountaintop. What are all us miners sittin around the house suppose to do?”
Carol said, “Times change, don’t they? You’re drivin a car now stead of a team of mules. The blacksmith used to shoe your mules, what’s he doin? He’s gone, workin at something else now. Most coal mines are still underground, but you know it’s changing. There more and more surface operations workin today.”
From the crowd: “You mean desecratin the mountains.”
Carol said, “We restore the mountains, don’t we?”
The same voice: “Wait a hunnert years for the trees to grow? I doubt we’ll be around.”
She had something to say about future generations, but saved it. A man in the front row was standing now. He said: “My name’s Hazen Culpepper from over by Mayfield? I like to know why one of your gun thugs shot and killed my brother Otis for breakin a few windows.”
Carol softened her voice saying, “Hazen, I can’t tell you how sorry we are. But it wasn’t a gun thug shot your brother. We don’t hire gun thugs.” She said, “Otis lost his home because of someone carelessly dumping debris from a work site. I don’t blame Otis for gettin mad, but—and I hate to say this—your brother fired a shotgun at me. He was ready to fire again and one of our employees intervened.”
“You mean Boyd Crowder,” Hazen said, “standin over there against the wall?” He said, “Boyd, you tell her Otis missed?”
“Ms. Conlan was there,” Boyd said. “She saw him.”
“Then you’re both liars,” Hazen said. “Otis don’t miss with a twelve-gauge. You shot him when he wasn’t lookin.”
Raylan watched Hazen walk over to Boyd and say something to him, a few words, on his way through the crowd, having hands put on him, patting his shoulder. Raylan caught a whiff of Carol’s scent and turned his head to her standing next to him.
She said, “You’re not going to arrest him?”
Raylan said, “Which one?”
Now a woman in the front row stood up and said to Carol, “You don’t live anywheres near a mine, do you? You know what it does for people livin below? It covers everything you own in coal dirt. It’s all over the house on every surface. Is that why they call it surface coal? It’s in your bathtub, your well—you can’t drink the water no more. Every mornin a coat of coal dirt coverin my car. I have to wash my car before I can go to work.”
“Wait now,” Carol said. “You’re surprised it gets things dirty? Ma’am, it’s coal. You live in the heart of coal country. A boy comes home from playin, his mom says, ‘Junebug, your hands are black as coal. Wash ’em before grampa gets after you.’ This old man with fifty years of coal dust you’re complainin about, embedded in his pores. Ma’am, coal powers more than half the electricity in the U.S. Do we quit minin coal cause it’s dirty? My dad use to come home so filthy all you could see were his eyes. The coal industry mines forty million tons of coal a