Stand Up That Mountain: The Battle to Save One Small Community in the Wilderness Along the Appalachian Trail Paperback - 2013

Chapter 1

For me, this is how it started. With a phone call.

âÈêMy name is Ashley Cook and IâÈçm calling about PaulâÈçs crusher.âÈë The woman spoke rapidly, as if seizing an opportunity that might pass. âÈêI got your name from a lady up on Yellow Mountain.âÈë

âÈêWho? Which lady?âÈë

âÈêBeth, I believe it was.âÈë

Beth Langstaff? My mind tried to find a reference. Witt Langstaff and his wife had bought the pastureland down the hill from me, below my pond. Beth. Must be WittâÈçs wife, I thought.

âÈêIs everybody okay? Is Witt okay?âÈë

âÈêWell, not everybody.âÈë The womanâÈçs voice was high and tight, like the first string on a guitar. âÈêPaul pulled a shot over at the rock crusher and it cracked the foundation on our house. WeâÈçve got a police report on it. I called that lady and she called her husband, who is off somewhere working, and that man said I should call you, because Paul has run all over the mountain, and you being a lawyer . . .âÈë She stopped to regroup. âÈêSee, Paul and Richard WhiteheadâÈ'you probably know himâÈ'and James Vance, we call him Nasty, they work for Paul, and he has violated the mining law in ten different ways. At least ten. I havenâÈçt counted it up, not yet. Now they want to put in a gravel conveyor that would be on a seventy-nine-foot tower.âÈë Ashley CookâÈçs words came out in a torrent, but her tone was clear and her intelligence obvious. Her accent was faint, country, but not overtly mountain, and I wondered if she was making an effort to conceal it. She said she was a Cook. I knew the Cooks from up on Little Horse Creek, but she didnâÈçt talk quite like them. She sounded as if she had moved away from here and come back, had tried to forget how to talk mountain.

âÈêI heard it,âÈë I said.

âÈêHeard what?âÈë SheâÈçd gotten tangled up in her own telling.

âÈêWhen they pulled that shot. When they blew that first chunk out of the mountain.âÈë

âÈêDonâÈçt you live up on Birchfield Creek somewhere?âÈë

âÈêI live up on the mountain.âÈë

âÈêAnd you heard it all the way up there?âÈë

âÈêYes.âÈë

âÈêThatâÈçs interesting,âÈë she said, as if this were an important part of a puzzle she was piecing together. Now she muffled the receiver and relayed my words to some audience: âÈêHe says he heard that shot all the way up on Yellow Mountain!âÈë

Yes, I had heard it. I was working at my desk when the air went wild with an explosion on Belview Mountain. The sound swept up the east slope of Big Yellow and screamed over the house. I sat up. Nearly levitated. One of the dogs, Biscuit, rose from a deep sleep and let loose a fusillade of barks. I expected every tree on the ridge to lie over flat, for feathers to fly from birds, but once the sound passed, everything stood as it had.

âÈêTell me about the gravel conveyor,âÈë I said. I wasnâÈçt sure what to make of any of this just yet, but this woman had seized my attention.

She paused. I detected in her tone that she was less than impressed that I did not immediately understand the significance of a seventy-nine-foot conveyor tower.

âÈêDo you want to talk to Aunt Ollie?âÈë she asked suddenly.

I didnâÈçt know if I did or not. In my brief moment of consideration, the phone was passed on to Aunt Ollie.

âÈêI hope weâÈçre not a-botherinâÈç you,âÈë said a new voice, âÈêbut, son, we got big trouble, Mr.âÈ'âÈë

âÈêYou can call me Jay.âÈë

âÈêAll right, Mr. Jay. We need help. WeâÈçre killed.âÈë

This voice I knew. The Cooks have been rooted in Avery County for as long as history or memory records. They are mountain people. Hard people with birdy faces who live high up on the cold creeks. Either hard drinking or hard churchgoing, the Cooks and Taylors I knew growing up were wraithlike. They grew potatoes and a little bit of corn, cabbage. They hacked at the slopes to try to get the earth to give something back. Some of them carpentered for a living, others worked horses, in timber, and one of them was married to a man who ran a sawmill down below our house when I was a boy. They talked in the singsong trill of the deep hollers. I asked Aunt Ollie how she was kin to my neighbor Stella Thomas, who was born a Cook.

âÈêSheâÈçs my sister. My half sister. See, my father got married twicet.âÈë

âÈêOkay.âÈë I had heard that before.

Aunt Ollie took a deep breath. âÈêWeâÈçre in trouble,âÈë she said before pausing. Was she smoking? She might have paused to pull on a cigarette. âÈêWeâÈçre barely hanging on. PaulâÈçs killing us.âÈë

âÈêAll right. But who is Paul?âÈë

âÈêOh, Jesus, son!âÈë she exclaimed at my lack of knowledge. âÈêPaul owns that rock crusher over across from my house. HeâÈçs killing us. You donâÈçt know Paul Brown?âÈë

âÈêPaul Brown,âÈë I said, scrambling to repair my credibility. âÈêClark Stone Company. I know of him.âÈë

âÈêWell, youâÈçre going to know Paul real good before this thing is over. Because heâÈçs going to pull that whole mountain down.âÈë

âÈêSo I hear. What can I do for you?âÈë

âÈêWhat we need for you to do, if youâÈçll do it, is to come to the county-commissioner meeting. I donâÈçt know if we need a lawyer, or a preacher, or a damn undertaker, but Sam Laws has got this thing all lined up the way he wants it. Thing is, doesnâÈçt Avery County have a Ridge Law?âÈë

âÈêNorth Carolina has a Ridge Law,âÈë I said. âÈêI donâÈçt know about the county.âÈë

âÈêWell, if IâÈçd knowed what to do, IâÈçdâÈçve already done it.âÈë She nearly said IâÈçdâÈçve already did it, but she corrected herself. I made a note of her efforts in this regard. âÈêWe canâÈçt get a lawyer because Paul has them all bought off already. HeâÈçs got a lawyer on a retainer, thatâÈçs what I heard. Ashley, sheâÈçs read everything on the books, but Paul donâÈçt care one thing about any laws, and heâÈçs wanting to get a variance for his conveyor tower and hit seventy-nine feet tall. And the commissioners are all a bunch of damn dogs, some of them anyway. You might know some of them.âÈë

âÈêWho is Ashley?âÈë I asked, treading furiously to keep up.

âÈêThatâÈçs who you were just talking to. Ashley Cook. SheâÈçs read everything in print and on the Internet, too. All the mining laws they ever passed. SheâÈçs my niece.âÈë

I heard a question raised from beyond her. A son? Husband? Aunt Ollie now relayed the question. âÈêDallas says, donâÈçt a seventy-nine-foot conveyor violate the Ridge Law? WeâÈçre killed if it donâÈçt. Hayull.âÈë

âÈêIt might.âÈë

She drew in her breath again. âÈêWell, IâÈçm honest I donâÈçt know what to do. You got to forgive me. I got your name and I told Dallas, thatâÈçs my husbandâÈ'everybody calls him Curly on account of his hair, IâÈçm sure youâÈçve heard of himâÈ'and he said we had to call somebody to do something about this, because Paul, heâÈçs coming in here like a Scud missile. And luckily Ashley, she got your name.âÈë Aunt Ollie felt the need to explain, for which I was grateful. âÈêWell, what happened was, Dallas asked a man, and he said to call Witt Langstaff from up on Yellow Mountain âÈçcause heâÈçs madderâÈçn hell about Paul. And his wife, Mrs. Langstaff, she said she would have to call him where he was a-workinâÈç, and then she called me back and she give me your number. Can you help us?âÈë

Jay Erskine Leutze was born in Virginia in 1964. He now lives in the Southern Appalachian mountains of North Carolina. Trained as an attorney, he has become a leading voice for state and federal conservation funding for investment in public lands. He is a Trustee for Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, one of the nation's most established land trusts.