While the Deep South was getting battered by tornadoes and thunderstorms a couple of weeks back, folks here in Varmint County were taking all the weather forecasts in stride.
Thanks to that big range of mountains on the western edge of our county, it's been nearly a century since the last twister found it's way into Varmint County, a nasty little booger that destroyed the coal camp of Turtletown, wiping out the 50 coal company houses dotting the hillside.
Fortunately, the miners had been on strike for two months and the company had just kicked all the families out of their shanties. While the coal company's commissary, office building and rental houses were all swept into the sky, the miners and their families watched from their tent city on a nearby hill, thinking that there is, in fact, a God.
Anytime a band of tornadoes sweeps in from the West, the storm front tends to rise over Flatiron Peak and the ridge of mountains stretching toward McCracken's Neck and bounce right over our little county to land smack dab in the middle of those flatlanders to our East.
Once in awhile one of the twisters will skim the top of some of the highest peaks, knocking down a cluster of trees before moving on, but Varmint County folk long ago learned to avoid building homes on mountaintops and stick to the hollows and flats below. That is, until those big city land developers got the bright idea of selling scenic mountain home sites to big city nature lovers.
About a dozen years ago, some slick talkers from over in the Carolinas came in and bought up the last available land along Mud Lake, putting in a golf course, a row of lakefront cottages and a fancy restaurant, all behind a locked gate to keep the local trash out.
They called it Whitetail Bay because they figured they could sell lots to city slickers who would visualize whitetail deer grazing in their backyards. Only problem was, all the road and cottage construction chased the deer population off. Not to be thwarted in their plans, the developers bought a herd of tame deer from a wildlife farm down in Georgia and released them to graze along the roadside as potential buyers were being ushered around in golf carts.
I related some years ago how Cooter McBean, a slightly off-kilter Vietnam veteran, hired Smiley's Taxi Service to take him out to Whitetail Bay, loaded down with a .303 Enfield of pre-WWII vintage and a bag of bullets. Cooter bagged two of the tame deer that walked up to him out of curiosity, fielddressed them on the spot and called Smiley from a pay phone to come and pick him up. Of course, Cooter got busted because the only pay phone was at the golf course clubhouse. Sheriff Smoky showed up just as Cooter was tying the second deer across the hood of Smiley's taxi.
Well, to get back to my subject, those developers soon ran out of lake lots to sell, but all the amenities they had promised the buyers were costing them more than they were taking in. They began to look around for more cheap land to buy, develop and sell to city slickers.
The remaining undeveloped land around the lake was either part of the Mud Lake Wildlife Management Area or on land owned by the Hockmeyer Clan. Not to be dissuaded, the Whitetail Bay Development Association bought a tract of land up on Hickory Flats, near the top of one of the highest mountains in the Flatiron Range, and commenced to develop Whitetail Highlands, an exclusive mountaintop gated community offering "breathtaking views in a wilderness setting, dotted with natural ponds."
Of course, they failed to mention that Whitetail Highlands was located on an old coal strip mine, the homesites were all located on spoil piles and as for the ponds: "We like to trap beaver down along Muddy Fork and bring them up here where we drop them in the ponds," State game warden Curley Hofstetter once admitted. "The acid water in the ponds kills all their parasites and the beaver don't stick around long enough to suffer any damage themselves."
In no time at all, Whitetail Highlands was sold out and vacation homeowners and retirees started moving in, building mountain cottages and drilling for water. One of the developers, Otis B. Hudsupple, constructed a "model home" and hired former Road Superintendent Pothole Perkins to drill a well for him. Two weeks later Pothole was still drilling.
"Uh, how far have you gone, Mr. Perkins?" Hudsupple asked.
"Well, we're at about 600 feet so far."
"How much is that gonna cost me?
"You're up to about $12,000 right now, but we still ain't found a decent stream of water, and that don't include the casing, pump or reservoir."
"You haven't found water at 600 feet? I find that hard to believe!"
"Well, Mister Hudsupple, this old strip mine destroyed all of what we call the perched aquifers, rock layers high on the mountain that hold water. We gotta go all the way to the true water table. This mountain is, let's see, 3,455 feet above the valley below, where the water table is only 40 feet down. It rises a bit under the mountain, so I figure we'll hit it in another thousand feet or so."
So it was that Otis Hudsupple and twenty or so other new residents of Whitetail Highlands showed up at the next county commission meeting.
"We need public water up there. Nobody can afford to drill wells down to the water table." Otis explained, acting as spokesperson for the group.
"You all still have that locked gate?" Squire Little Hair Pennywell asked.
"Yes, everyone has to punch in a code to get through."
"Well, Varmint County can only run public water lines along public roads, so we can't run any lines up that mountain."
"We can't afford to pay for three miles of water line to run water up to the top where we all live. What are we going to do for water?"
"Drink a lot of Mountain Dew," Little Hair suggested.
It came as no surprise, when the county held its annual delinquent property tax auction, that about half the lots were in Whitetail Highlands. A few stubborn holdouts remained, including Otis B. Hudsupple, who gave up on the well and constructed a cistern to trap rainwater for the pipes leading into his 21st century, geodesic dome mountain retreat.
Then the storms came blowing over a couple of weeks ago. Tornadoes blasted Alabama, Northern Georgia and even swirled into the valleys of East Tennessee and the Kentucky Bluegrass. One twister was even bearing down on Varmint County when it hit the top of Flatiron Peak and ricocheted over Hickory Flats, ripping up a half dozen empty homes, all foreclosed by Varmint County Bank & Trust.
The twister also ripped a geodesic dome from its stanchions, sailing it off into the stratosphere. Otis B. Hudsupple was in his bathtub at the time, soaking in heated rainwater, when he suddenly found himself staring up at open sky. The tornado left Otis and his wife unharmed, but removed their twelve-room dome neatly from overhead.
About twenty minutes later and ten miles away, Cooter McBean was sprawled out on his dog-eared couch salvaged from a junkyard, watching Sesame Street on PBS, the only station he could pick up on his ancient black & white TV with a coat hanger antenna. Suddenly his plywood and scrap lumber shanty shuddered and collapsed around him.
Since his arrest years ago for poaching pet deer, Cooter had fared poorly. He lost his rifle as the cost of staying out of jail and eventually had to pawn his fishing poles and his medals from the war to pay the fine.
A little loopy from being wounded, captured and tortured by the North Vietnamese, poor Cooter could not hold down a job, but survived by doing odd jobs and errands for folks in Lower Primroy. He lived for awhile in half a double-wide trailer donated by the Widow Perkins, sleeping under the roof and maintaining his kitchen and living room in the backyard.
The Widow's son finally was released from prison and repossessed the half-trailer, leaving Cooter without a roof over his head. Sheriff Hiram Potts took pity on his old high school buddy and gave him a little plot of land on the backside of the old Potts home place, enough to put in a little garden and construct a shack to live in. Aunt Goldie Potts let Cooter run an electrical cable from her house to his shanty and gave him an old TV set from her attic, along with a few pieces of furniture. Cooter at least had a place to lay his head, but was too proud to ask for additional charity, and muddled along as best he could until the twister hit.
Cooter might have been injured, but his little shanty was constructed of such flimsy material that it barely held out the rain, the whole one-room structure weighing barely 300 pounds. He crawled out from under the pile of scrap wood that was once his roof to find himself in a strange circular structure.
"Gawd, I've been abducted by aliens," Cooter exclaimed, screaming out, "Come on you Martians or whatever you are. I've been tortured by experts and I never broke.You ain't gonna break me now."
What Cooter had mistaken for a flying saucer was actually a twelve room, two story, $250,000 geodesic dome formerly owned and occupied by Mr. Otis B. Hudsupple, president of the Whitetail Development Association.
The dome had been pulled into the air half a mile by the tornado, then allowed to plunge to the ground. Being a dome, however, the structure behaved like a giant parachute and drifted softly to rest on top of Cooter McBean.
Hudsupple, of course, tried to retrieve his property, hiring Lawyer McSwine to pursue his case in Varmint County Circuit Court. Judge Hard Time Harwell ruled Cooter unable to afford an attorney and assigned retired County Judge Colonel Hugh Ray Jass to represent him in the jury trial.
"Mr. Hudsupple, do you deny that your home fell on top of Cooter McBean's house, destroying it and nearly killing Mr. McBean?"
"No, but nearly killing him is a stretch. He didn't have a scratch on him."
"But all of his worldly possessions were destroyed, and he could have been killed."
"His worldly possessions aren't worth the cost of my suit, and he wasn't killed."
"No matter, you were negligent in allowing your dome house to be lifted by that tornado and dropped on Mister McBean. Punitive damages are justified."
"How can he be negligent? That tornado wasn't my client's fault," Lawyer McSwine objected.
"If he had built a standard building instead of a dome, it would have disintegrated instead of sailing off into the air and landing intact ten miles away on my client," Colonel Hugh Jass insisted.
"If he had built a standard building, the tornado would have killed him!" McSwine objected again.
"Precisely. Your client's good fortune was my client's near tragedy. I rest my case."
The two lawyers, Otis Hudsupple, Cooter and Judge Harwell met in the Judge's chambers while the jury deliberated their verdict.
"I think the jury is going to award Cooter a sizable sum," Colonel Hugh predicted.
"My client will appeal. We should not have to pay a cent."
"But you will. Your client's house fell on another man's head. It doesn't matter that he wasn't injured. I'll find psychiatrists to testify that now Cooter is afraid to go outside unless he's wearing a helmet."
"He's always been afraid to go outside without a helmet. Thinks the Viet Cong are laying for him."
"Prove it."
"What do you want?" Otis Hudsupple finally asked.
"We'll settle for the dome. Your insurance will pay you off and it will cost you more to move that thing back up on the mountain than it's worth. Mr. McBean doesn't want your money, just a roof over his head."
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