To Paint a Mountain Black

Under the relative cool of a canvas shroud erected in the wasteland of Dry Country, a young man sat cautiously, in awe, going over interview questions in his mind.

Wearing the lightest-weight desert apparel, he tried to hide his discomfort, squirming only when the elder man wasn’t looking. The old Fahrenheit scale had gone the way of the automobile, but even the lower numbers of the Celsius scale did little to fool the mind. It was hot—well into the mid-50’s.

In the distance, the rising thermals created the illusion of a barren, flooded landscape with dunes towering above the surface. But water was something alien in this part of the country. Had been for more than a quarter of a century. Would that change? There was only one hope, and that hope was towering over the young man as he waited patiently for an opening to get things under way.

The young man was a stranger to the heat, but he dared not risk showing weakness in the shadow of the great oilman before him, only occasionally brushing away the sweat that poured from his brow. But heat was not the only factor weighing heavily on him.

Nerves and an intense desire to prove himself drove him to endure the discomfort. His assignment for Modern Science had taken him into the heartland of the old America, and he wasn’t going to let either heat or intimidation stand in his way. He had a job to do and, damn it, he was going to do it.

On this mid-afternoon October day, dust devils howled and swirled dust and debris high into the air just beyond the confines of the makeshift shelter. Not too long ago, life was everywhere, but the last vestiges of it had since eroded into the landscape now sculpted in eerie grays, browns, and yellows. Artifacts of the once-thriving civilization that lived here shimmered in the incessant waves of thermal currents.

Three days ago, there was no shelter—only a towering dune that seemed no different from the countless others that stretched for hundreds of kilometers in all directions. But this mountain of sand, built up over the years by thunderous storms and horrendous winds, was different. It was the beginning of a last, desperate effort to save the nation, perhaps even the world. In the face of the giant earthmovers, even nature couldn’t compete with the determination of the visionary.

Man, indeed, could still move mountains given reason. Unearthed after three days of constant digging, sifting, and moving, this solitary testimony to man’s insatiable appetite for energy now, ironically, represented humanity’s future.

It also stood to reinforce just how bereft and desolate this area had become, for not even rust could survive the searing heat baking America’s heartland.

Not too long ago, too, the breeze was cool and gentle, blowing lazily through streets, carrying with it the sounds of laughter and the lightly acrid smell of grazing land and oil fields alike, dispersing in sweet whispers out on the plains.

But not this day. Not now and nevermore, for every day was the same – blistering hot, dry, dusty, and dismal.

“Not at all like when I was a kid.” The elder man spoke up suddenly, as if trying to allay the pressures of the young man struggling to find a place to start.

Jacob Lester—the legend, the visionary—seemed all his reputation made him out to be. His voice was crisp, but something about it caught the reporter’s attention. For all his gruff mannerisms, he seemed distant, as if he were longing for a way of life he’d never see again.

“Yep, my friends and I used to run our horses just a little ways from here,” he said as the young reporter scrambled with his notebook, frantically scribbling the words in a shorthand only he could decipher.

“Things were surely different back then. Used to fool around every chance we got. We had our fort, our secret hideout, where no one could find us. Especially girls. Yep, we did everything we could to keep the girls away.”

The reporter didn’t pay much attention when Jacob averted his eyes to the ground. He didn’t notice the look in the old man’s eyes as if he was remembering something very painful. Didn’t notice that, for a moment, Jacob seemed lost a million miles away. His hair, graying in parts and slicked back, not in form or style, but in a vain effort to keep the tousled locks out of his eyes, was a ragged fringe about a tortured face.

And his eyes. Gray like his hair, but warm and full of determined life. This was his project, and he was going to make sure he covered every possibility.

“Yep, girls was like the worst thing a young boy could fall for.”

The reporter sighed, wondering when the old man would start on the stuff he could print.

“Katie was that way,” Jacob said, his stare drifting from the reporter.

The reporter flinched, feeling his face grow flush. This could be a detail that would make his article stand out from any others. Who was Katie? he thought as he watched the old man questioningly.

Jacob reached into a vest pocket to retrieve, the reporter hoped, a cherished picture of this Katie. Perhaps the old man would go over the fine details lost in the fit of boredom? Old people, especially ones as seasoned as this, loved to go over stories of their victories. All he had to do was wait. Right?

Instead, Jacob pulled out a packet of cigarettes, slapped them against his hand, and offered one.

Disappointed, the reporter declined the offer, twisting his face in disgust, then relaxed it immediately, feeling a sour look upon him. He had lost points with his abrupt, albeit silent, condemnation.

“Don’t rightly think that was fair of me. My Katie didn’t mean to up and leave, you know. This damn heat got her and took her away from me.”

Jacob’s eyes glistened as he muttered a suppressed apology. He stumbled for words, and again his mind seemed lost in thoughts buried in the depths of memories hidden from the world. Just when it seemed he was about to continue, he stopped himself and drew a cigarette from the pack.

“Dear, dear, sweet Katie,” he said softly as he struck a match. With a weathered hand, he shielded the flame from the gusty wind.

It was then the reporter noticed the thick gold ring. In the center was a black stone. Onyx, the reporter thought. No—when the light caught it just right, it sparkled a deep sapphire blue. It was flanked by two small diamonds, diagonally opposite each other.

Focusing on the ring, the reporter abruptly wedged another question into the elder’s train of thought, partly to get the answers he sought and partly to keep the man, the giant in his field, from collapsing into a heap before him. “You miss her, don’t you?”

Jacob turned rigid in his seat, shocked as if the question was offensive in some way, but only for a moment before his face was again awash in the slight smile that had begun the interview.

“Yep, I surely do,” the elder man said, shaking his head slowly from side to side. A heavy sigh seemed to force the image from his mind as Jacob continued talking about what he was more at ease with.

“It was here I learned how to smoke. Stole the loose change out of my daddy’s dungarees and went down to the local. Took me three days of trying before I got the nerve enough to ask someone to buy them for me, but then no one would.”

A look of contentment came over Jacob as he remembered and reminisced about the good old days of his youth. And someone else.

“Charlie came to my rescue. Well, sort of anyways. He’s my brother, see. Not only did he fetch the pack right out proud as any, but he taught me not to waste any either. You see, I was fixin’ to puff a pack in no time without really knowing what the heck I was doin’. But he showed me how to inhale so I would really be smoking. Anything less was only what a wimp would do, and I wasn’t no wimp for no one.”

Reacting to the surprised look from the reporter, Jacob pointed his finger furiously at the reporter. It seemed Jacob was trying to fend off an unspoken accusation. “So, I took a fresh Marlie from the pack and put it to my mouth. I was shakin’ so bad I couldn’t hold a match. Not from nerves, you understand. It was excitement. Here was my older brother initiating me into the realm of the grownups, and I was getting there way before any of my friends.”

The pride in his achievement was evident in the size of his smile as he leaned back in his chair.

“And then it was up to me to show all my friends. Charlie gave us the smokes on the condition I promised not to tell if we’s was caught.” Jacob puffed the cigarette deeply, then coughed. “Yep, I showed all my friends just how grown up I was. Why, I was inhaling regularly.” He coughed again. “I must be getting old.”

He chuckled, then cleared his throat to catch his breath. “Most of the time I didn’t cough. I knew I had to make the effort ’cause otherwise my friends’d just laugh at me.”

The reporter sat relaxed, continuing to scribble the words in his notebook as Jacob rambled on.

“I knew then that wimpiness and smarts were two things often courtin’ each other, for though I was a big man to my friends, I was just kidding myself.”

The coughing returned. Jacob flicked the half-smoked cigarette away. Reaching for a flask, he offered some to the reporter. This time, the reporter knew not to repeat the same mistake as before, eagerly taking a small plastic cup from the table and holding it out.

The refreshment was not what the reporter was expecting as the caramel liquid poured into the cup.

“You do like bourbon, don’t you, son?” The elder man’s lips were pressed in an ulterior smile that sent a shiver through the young reporter.

Was this a test of character? Of manliness? Or just the ravings of an old fool desperate for companionship? Those were the reporter’s thoughts as he shyly looked the liquid over.

Jacob realized the reporter was on to him, so it seemed, saying nothing as he took a sip. But he was also onto the reporter, outflanking him with each move, taking pleasure at the young man’s brave grimace as the liquid burned his parched throat. At least it was wet, and if nothing else, would provide a common focus for both, relieving the obvious tension that still choked them.

Looking up, the reporter felt the elder man’s scrutiny burning into him. Feigning appreciation, he took another sip before shooting out another question as Jacob filled a cup for himself.

“When did I get into the oil business? Well, let me see now. My Daddy was in the business. When I was eleven, he took me to see a gusher come in. The problem was, the gusher damn near broke my daddy’s heart. All the thunderin’ and gurglin’, and all that come up was a bunch of gas.”

The reporter’s eyes widened.

“Oh, there was oil, too, but not enough to pay for the drillin’ of the well. That was hard. Then again, growing up was hard, and I done it almost overnight. Why, when that well came in less than expected, I could see a look in my daddy’s eyes, and I knew we was done for financially.

“He taught me good about what he knew, and nowhere could he understand what happened.

“I knew. I just couldn’t bring myself to second-guess him, to tell him someone else come in and side-sunk right into his soul. Took the cream right off the bottom, leaving only the dregs under pressure sitting where the drill came bursting through.”

Jacob took a deep swig from his cup.

“Yep, that was some tricky thieving. But that was the way things were. Had been ever since the winds come and dry out everything but the oil business. Why, that’s when things really started to change.

“The grass was the first to die off. Started in the cities, you know. They done put water restrictions on everybody. At first, they banned watering the land to make it look pretty. Then they banned washing the cars. And then they done restricted things so bad people couldn’t make themselves decent.

“The stench of death was everywhere. Cattle died by the thousands out in the scrub. Even in the cities there was a stench of death. No, I don’t mean the stench of flesh rotting in the gathering heat like in the country. I mean the stench that comes when a whole town dies, only now it wasn’t just no single town. Whole counties quickly died and turned to dust. People migrated north into the new temperate zones. But then those turned to desert. Why, it soon got so bad you had to move clear to tropical Canada just to catch your breath.

“But we stayed. We stayed as long as we could. As long as the oil held out.

“That lasted until there wasn’t ‘nough people to make oil worth a damn. When the end started, people abandoned everything. They’d drive their cars as far as they could, then abandon them along the roads ’cause those who went before them dried up everything in sight.”

Jacob calmly took out the cigarettes and offered the young reporter another.

“No, thank you, I don’t smoke.” Again, he graciously refused the offer.

Jacob shrugged and took one for himself. He eyed the young man as if granting him a new respect for standing his ground.

“So, round these parts, the oil industry died. I suppose it pretty much the same way round the world. Like what good is oil if there are too few Yankees to use it, know what I mean?”

The reporter shot Jacob a questioning look.

Jacob recoiled in his chair. “I know what you’re thinkin’. Why we back in this God-forsaken hell? Son, you think I like it here? Na, not for a long time. Look, nothing is alive here. It’s completely dead. The rest of the country will be too unless…” The words drifted like so much dust in the wind.

“We got a job to do. It’s as simple as that.”

But the reporter’s dazed look didn’t falter with the explanation. Instead, it prompted Jacob to reach deeper.

“You wonderin’ what kinda job could be done out here, aren’t ya? What job is there to do out here in the middle of Dry Country?

“You know there ain’t been rain anywhere east of the Rockies in more than twenty-five years? Well, we’re gonna see if we can change that. The powers that be think if we can just get a little rain, then maybe, just maybe, we can get something to grow again. And with growth comes life.”

The reporter mumbled something about the heat—too quietly for Jacob to make out exactly, but he seemed to have a good idea what the sentiment was.

“Yeah, I know it’s getting close to sixty degrees now. Well, when we’re done it’s gonna be a whole lot hotter than that.”

“I beg your pardon? Did you say… hotter?” The young man was taken aback as he gulped for air in the oppressive heat.

“Yep. ‘Twas what I said, all right. Hotter than hell we’re gonna make it. And just when you think things gonna explode from the heat, God’s gonna piss on us so hard you just ain’t gonna believe.”

“I’m sorry, but I still don’t follow.”

Jacob liked hearing the young reporter’s words. Up to now, the conversation was more one-sided than anything else, like a grandfather telling tall tales to his grandchild. But now, now the reporter was redeeming himself as a thinking person, not just an analog of a tape recorder sitting dumbly nodding his head for courtesy’s sake.

“We got the Ozarks on the east, but they’s not tall enough to make the rain fall. So, we’re gonna build a new mountain.”

The reporter’s heart began to race as he wondered about this. Then he eyed the army of a thousand or more tracked crawlers outfitted with huge storage tanks standing in a solitary line, spaced a hundred meters apart, not too far from where they were sitting. Looking like giant alien creatures, they waited.

The crawlers here and the detachment of crawlers flanking to the north and south would move slowly across the land, spreading the rich, thick liquid of dinosaurs and painting the landscape black.

The oil industry would once again boom for a time, a brief time. But it was not to quench industry’s thirst. No, this time humankind’s survival was at stake.

Oil, once the lifeblood of this great country, would once again make a mark in man’s destiny, increasing the temperature in the Midwestern United States enough to lift what humid air there was high on the thermal updrafts, where it would condense in the blanket of particulates now hazing the earth.

To create rain.

To create life.