Editor's Note: Author Ann Pancake grew up in the heart of West Virginia coal country. Her 2007 novel Strange as this Weather Has Been is the story of one family's struggle against the relentless destruction of its beloved mountains. I went home to West Virginia a couple weeks ago. October is the most beautiful season in Appalachia. The reds and russets, the yellows and oranges and purplebrowns, put into even more terrible relief the experience of swinging around a bend and seeing the horizon blasted to a dead gray mesa. October also means deer season's coming soon, and in preparation, …