I want to be fair to Vance. I want you to know the whole thing, because it isn’t a simple story, and I don’t think it’s fair to tell it like one.
Five years ago, we had the last big flood. Same creek, same crossing. The county put up a ROAD CLOSED sign and said it would be fixed “as soon as possible,” which turned out to mean three and a half months.
Back then, Vance didn’t lock his gate. He didn’t charge anybody anything. He just left it open, and every truck, car, school van, and propane delivery on our road cut through his hay meadow to get out to the county road.
It was a wet spring. That field turned into soup. By the time the crossing was fixed, there were ruts in his meadow deep enough to lose a boot in. He lost his whole first cutting of hay that year. That’s somewhere around two thousand dollars, the way hay prices were. Maybe more. He had to rent a disc and work that ground all summer just to make it flat again.
Nobody paid him a dime. Not the county. Not the families. Not me.
I know he filed a damage claim with the county that year. I know because he told me about it, standing at my fence with his hat in his hand. The county sent him a letter saying the damage occurred on private property, the county had not authorized use of his property as a detour, and the claim was denied.
“So the county closed the road, and everybody drove through my field, and the county says it’s not their problem,” he said. “And everybody who drove through my field says it’s not their problem either. So whose problem is it, Jo?”
I didn’t have an answer then, either.
The morning after he started charging, I walked up to his gate before the bus came. He was standing there with his coffee can like a toll booth operator.
“Vance, why are you doing this?”
He didn’t look at me. He looked down the hill at the creek.
“Last time, I was the only one who paid for that creek,” he said. “This time I’m not going to be the only one.”
“Those kids didn’t rut your meadow,” I said. “Ardith’s kids didn’t. Easton was four.”
He just reached over and tapped the can. Twice. Like he did every morning.
I went home and called the county.
The woman at the road and bridge department was nice about it, the way people are nice when they’ve already said the same thing forty times that day. The crossing was a total loss. The concrete slab had washed out and cracked in half. The county engineer had to design a replacement, and it had to go to the commissioners for approval, and it had to go out for bids.
“How long?” I asked.
“Ma’am, we’re estimating six months.”
“Six months.”
“It could be sooner. It could be later. There are eleven crossings out in this county right now.”
Six months of school days. That’s about a hundred and twenty days. At twenty dollars a day, that’s $2,400 per family.
For me, that would hurt. For Ardith, it was impossible.
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