23.

The hall stage was crowded with strangers, men and women in suits, while the villagers, local farmers, businessfolk and union people sat on white plastic chairs that at night formed towers to the rafters on either side of the gallery. The union members arrived in buses from the south wearing green T-shirts and sat stiffly beside the protestors of our village and neighbouring communities and outlying farms. Many of our crowd sported neon-orange shirts, something Emma had sorted out. Apocat and Kata’s cousins from the reserve sat in the back row, along with Pete Milkmemory. An early fog dimmed the room, of panic, anticipation, anger, greed and matter-of-fact conciliation. Cigarette smoke hung about the entrance.

Tom stepped to the microphone at the edge of the stage and said, “This meeting is to discuss the proposed quarry mine.”

Scores of union members cheered.

A thickset man with a beard and a belly got to his feet. “There will be a hundred and fifty high-paying jobs on this rock mine.” He paused and squinted. “Such as would bring such relief to this recess-battered region!”

Opponents of the quarry raised their arms and booed.

A man in a white shirt and a yellow tie got up. He approached the microphone. He said in a low voice that a health study sponsored by the province showed that the quarry would lead to a hundred and seventy additional deaths in the region, many respiratory-related. “Supporting this project is tantamount to being a friend of cancer,” he murmured. And then his voice quavered. “Blasting and dust from the mine would poison our air and devastate the region’s wineries. It would increase unemployment. It’s not a partisan issue. It’s not about politics. It’s about protecting the good lives and jobs we already have . . . preserving quality of life. It’s that simple.”

“The village is dying, man!” shouted a voice.

Tom introduced the spokesman for Wildland Construction, the China-based firm proposing the quarry. The man waited and, when the crowd had quietened, he said, “That study is suspicious and ludicrous. Part of our plan is to divert the highway away from the town. The Air Quality Management folk we have talked to say that our plan for the rock mine will not significantly increase highway truck traffic, and overall will improve regional air quality. All our studies have concluded that the mine will not endanger the health of residents in surrounding communities. This is not the first quarry we’ve launched. This is the right project, in the right place, at the right time. The quarry will bring in an estimated two billion in sales tax over the life of the mine as well as create hundreds of indirect jobs. Our five-thousand-acre quarry will yield about eight hundred million tons of granite over the next hundred years.”

“Yeah,” said Tom, taking the microphone, “and leave behind a hole fifteen hundred feet deep and four miles long. All the aggregate mined from the site will be trucked to the coast, to cities. Why should we sacrifice our beautiful and pristine plain to feed the aggregate demand of next century’s mega cities?”

One of the union members stood. “I’m forty,” he said, “and I’ve been out of work for three years. We’re talking about jobs, about putting guys back to work. This is a job I could get.”

Danny, from the back of the hall, called out: “I live within sight of the place Wildlife wants to mine. They’re misrepresenting the facts. People in this town want their land left the way it is.”

“You’ve sold your place already, Danny-boy!”

The Wildlife rep jumped up. “This land is crown land. It does not belong to the village.”

The government woman stood and bowed. “Yes, that is right.”

“They’re a billion-dollar transnational corporation that just wants its way.”

“That plain is where life was created,” called Kata. “It is a sacred place. Chief, please talk to them.”

“We have a moral decision to make,” Tom told the crowd. “It should be based on respect for religion and history. We should reject this massive quarry.”

“No,” said the Wildlife spokesman.

His supporters roared.

He held up a hand for silence. “What we are talking about is an essential source of ingredients that will feed the region’s economic ascent. Most of the vineyards will be fine.”

“How can it reduce highway traffic? How can you say to us there won’t be health hazards and environmental destruction?”

“Our town is known for its grapes, for the beauty of its vineyards.”

“Where will workmen and their families live?”

“Save us from conservative politics!”

“Take it to the Board of Supervisors!”

“Put it to the vote!”

Chairs screeched on the floorboards. The orange shirts and green T-shirts were roiling in opposition.

The Indians from the reserve sat in silence.

“This vote will be a watershed moment for us,” shouted Tom. “We’ve seen land all around us go to mining, microwave towers, landfills, prisons and other horrible so-called necessities.”

“I didn’t think the village was organized enough to really fight any change,” Lucy said to Emma.

“We can’t stick at what we wanted to be fifty years ago,” Emma said. “We have to change. But not this. Not this.”

A new figure stood from the table on the stage, a lanky young man with hair tied back in a ponytail and wearing a suit that looked too small for him. He stood at the microphone. “If I might have your attention.”

“Who the hell are you!” yelled Danny.

“That’s the tent man,” Emma said.

“I am one of the scientists who camped here last year,” the young man said. “I’m speaking as a consultant to Wildlife. Please — ” He held up his hands to quiet the boos. “There has been an influx of upscale housing and care-homes in your neighbouring counties — in towns and villages closer to the cities — over the last fifty years. The first people who moved out here were politically and economically conservative and vocal and the NIMBY attitude was very strong. It overwhelmed the natural openness and vitality of village life. Where there was successful opposition to major mines, to jails and similar employers, villages became bedrooms to the city and retirement centres. My partner and I have studied these communities. Broadly speaking, most now look like soulless ghost communities. You will be next, but you do not need to go down that road. Towns that have seen the light and welcomed mines and such sources of blue-collar jobs into the region have experienced a new spirit of revival. There is a healthy bustle in these towns. When much of the workforce has only a high school diploma, there’s the sense of family and the sense of possibility. There’s a real community, instead of a retirement or bedroom community.”

The Wildlife spokesman leaned over the microphone and smiled. “Wildlife Construction,” he said, “built a five-hundred-acre rock mine on Loaf Mountain over in the southwest corner of the province.”

“That is so,” continued the young man. “The town there was formally an upscale suburban haven, and that mine has now attracted thousands of new families into those quiet neighbourhoods. Property values have risen. That mine has filled those good schools and gentle hills with a fresh generation of kids.”

“Indeed,” said the spokesman. “Let me recap. It is quite simple. We will extract almost a billion tons of granite over the next century, supplying building material to other booming towns and cities. The final result, by the end of the century, will be a deep lake — plenty of water for the irrigation of crops and the potential for hydro power. In the meantime, plenty of jobs.”

“That’s bullshit! What about light-radar robot trucks? There won’t be any jobs in a couple of years!”

A thin man in a green T-shirt climbed onto the stage and stood shaking in front of the microphone. “I am an unemployed labourer. I am thirty years old. I have two kids. I grew up a mile from the proposed mine site, and now live in the city. I am two weeks away from losing my house and car. We need these projects to happen now. I just want to come home.”

“I speak for the wineries, and I vote yes,” came a voice from the table.

Representatives from local school districts, tourism councils, and chapters of the Sierra Club spoke in favour of the mine.

“I have a list, everyone,” called Dmitri. “Grape growers, teachers, the principal are all for the mine and so am I. Billion dollar transnational, so what? Wildlife will win!”

Locals whistled.

“What about our sacred land?” said Kata. “Chief Pete?”

Chief Pete Milkmemory stood up. He was as old as the sisters and wore beaded slippers and a red, white and black headdress. In one hand he held a tapered wooden peg, and in the other a small pelt.

“Yes,” he said. “We only have one creation site. Only one. It’s like your Garden of Eden.” He looked out of the hall window to the north. “Once it is destroyed by a mine, it’s gone. The site of the proposed mine is the place where all life was created.”

“But you’ve applied for a permit to build a four-star resort casino!” called the Wildlife rep.

The Chief turned slowly around. “I can’t remember the first time I rode a horse,” he said. His wide eyes stared ahead and his voice grew firmer as he continued. “We made a circle when the grass is brown. I will not talk here about the circle, but there were thousands of horses. We know the old ways will be forgotten. The wild horses are dangerous to people . . . We will not leave. If we go away we will always come back.” He shuffled into the aisle and held up the peg and the skin. Above his eyes, white discs with red centres revolved, dangling black beads trembled.

The band rose en masse and chairs clattered and the men and women began a rhythmical hymn, and the boards shook with their stamping.

Tom tapped the mike. “There are just too many uncertainties for me,” he said. “This vote is about the right to determine what happens in our community.”

I helped Tom and Harry stack the plastic chairs. Locals gathered out in the parking lot dust as buses carried the union members away.

I dreamed my wall was falling, the house full of water, and I was watching Danny from the glass room lose his footing and tumble into the dark thick loamy flood and Abi, all pale limbs, was swimming to rescue him, trying to haul him toward the house, and I jumped out of the window, down into the water, and he floated up in my arms, his face bony, his left eye shrunken shut, his right looking into my eyes, and there was no sign of the girl.

The future is an abstraction — like waiting in the dark to tell a story when there’s no one there, or writing in the dark, the words only legible when the light comes, a candle or the sun-up — and the past never began.

I tried to speak, to articulate something profound, at our last emergency meeting. It had been discovered that Wildlife might be planning to relocate the town, lock, stock and barrel, and Emma had sent out a shrill email, but only a few people showed up. Present were Apocat and Kata, Harry and Gee, Tom and Lucy with their new baby girl, all their daughters, even Abi. Had there been a family reconciliation? The ethnologists sailed in late with a handful of others. I knew there were ghosts among us and that they would have the most to say if we were quiet enough to make out the words. I said something like, “If we could just get perspective we could put it all together. But we never quite manage perspective, do we? We are always acting out of what we do not know.” Emma was looking at me with compassion and pity. I saw the way Abi gazed at the young ethnologist. I had expected blame and hatred, but found only sorrow. Even Kata and Apocat were cowed. We call for forgiveness and hang up. We send unsigned confessions. We drive past in trucks, tanks, sportscars, speedboats, bicycles, semi-trailers, and shout apologies that are lost in the wind. We run as long as we can. We die arms open, only children leaping a rift from one country to another. We cut ourselves off from the mothering past in order to advance, but lose touch with the ground. The dark warm land behind us sticks to our spines as our heads swivel mid-leap. Eventually it will be death because the sky’s claim is too powerful. But for now we must fly or fall.