A Valley to Die For Read Free

of money, nothing more.
    She shut her eyes and thought about walking along the quiet valley road in early summer, pausing, as she always did, where wild hydrangea bushes tumbled down the southern bluff to the very edge of the berm left by road graders. She gathered bouquets in her mind, filling her arms with clusters of tiny florets surrounded by popcorn puffs of white blossoms—so beautiful against the dark green leaves.
    Now, in November, the bushes displayed empty seed heads ringed with papery brown blossoms, a left-over beauty she could take freely. She never picked the summer blooms lest she rob quail of food, or humans of viewing pleasure.
    She had put a bouquet of dried wild hydrangea on the coffee table last weekend, a subdued arrangement that suited the fall landscape outside her windows.
    Unlike JoAnne, Carrie had rarely been a protestor. After more than sixty years on earth, she was wise enough to realize that most people who knew her didn’t have any idea what protests she might be hiding. Life had always been easier that way; and now, it seemed safer too.
    She thought about courage and wondered if she had it.
    Maybe, just maybe... standing up for what one believed in... ?
    But it would still be no more than a gesture—only putting off the inevitable—unless they found a legal way to stop the quarry.
    And, maybe they had found something, or, at least, maybe JoAnne had. She’d sounded different over the phone last night, excited even, and had been about to tell Carrie why when her cat dumped a jar over on the kitchen counter. She’d stopped talking then, said she had to go clean up the cat’s mess, and Carrie would have to wait until today and hear about it with all the others. Then JoAnne had giggled. Drat! JoAnne wouldn’t care if wondering about what the news was kept her friend awake all night—which it hadn’t, since Carrie knew it must be good news from her Thursday meeting with the State Environmental Commission in Little Rock.
    A twinge of pain crossed Carrie’s forehead, and an involuntary frown deepened the lines there. JoAnne accomplished so much, she was so very capable! Carrie wished she, too, had good news to report. She didn’t. No one at the meeting would look at her with hope and admiration showing in their eyes.
    Down in the hollow, fog was drifting through dark tree trunks, but when the sun lifted above the ridge, the fog would fade, and they’d have a good day for the meeting. She looked up at her blue and white wall clock, then shut her eyes again, thinking she should pray for the valley. Even before words could form, ringing music from Handel’s Messiah boomed into her head:
    “Every valley shall be exalted.”
    Exalted, yes, but how could they keep it safe ?
    Her lower lip pushed out. It wasn’t a pout—far from it. She’d begun using the gesture as her own small act of defiance years ago, when her parents insisted that their only child must eat liver. In protest against what she saw then (and, even now) as incomprehensible adult behavior, she’d stuck out her lower lip.
    It did no good. Her parents ignored the gesture. By the time she was in first grade, she’d given up on even that protest and it was eventually forgotten. Now, seated in her blue and white kitchen, Carrie remembered, pushed out the defiant lip, and felt much better.
    When you came right down to it, blowing up the valley was yet another adult action that Carrie Culpeper McCrite found incomprehensible.
    “Can’t stop progress,” the County Judge had told her only yesterday. “Road department needs stone, needs a quarry nearby. Save tax money. You folks that pay taxes oughta be glad, not doin’ complainin’ about one valley bein’ messed up a bit. That’s progress.
    “Now, there, Mrs. um, MacWhite, you go on back home and enjoy your bird watchin’. I’ll run the county in a proper manner, do what’s best for all you folks.”
    He had squeaked forward in his chair and smiled up at her. “Can’t