There were faint twitterings, high up. Woodland birds, maybe warblers. Colors came last: the needles were rusty brown, the torn earth dull ocher.
Like the light, the sound of the approaching trucks arrived so subtly that Steven heard it before he knew he was hearing it. When he realized what it was—the loggers were coming—Steven felt something shift in the pit of his stomach. He felt excitement, and something else.
The sounds grew slowly louder, and the trucks appeared. Four pickups, loaded with equipment, pulled into the open area and stopped in a semicircle. The drivers got out of the trucks and drew together into a group, all looking at Steven and the others. It was not quite daylight, the air was still dim and gray. The protesters had propped big signs up against their trees, with hand-painted slogans: CLEAR-CUT IS CLEAR
MURDER, and THINK OF THIS TREE AS A CITY: YOU'RE COMMITTING
A CAPITAL CRIME. None of the signs was as brilliant as they'd wanted. Steven's said TREES MAKE OXYGEN. PEOPLE BREATHE OXYGEN. ARE
WE CRAZY?
The loggers wore battered hard hats and jeans. There were five of them, and they stood together, talking, looking at Steven and the others. One, in a yellow helmet, set his hands on his hips and shook his head slowly. Their stances—belligerent arm-crossing, scornful hands on hips—suggested anger, and at that, pride reasserted itself. Steven was proud to be here, confronting an angry enemy, making a declaration. He felt excited and triumphant. His heart began to pound.
Yellow Helmet turned his back and began talking to the others. They all watched him. One of them laughed; Steven felt a small shock. What could be funny? This was serious. He wondered what they were saying. The back of the truck held chain saws.
Steven began to feel uneasy at their laughter, their casual stances, their saws. The loggers seemed to be in charge of this situation, whatever it was. They seemed practiced, experienced: they knew the forest. They ruled here.
The logic of the protest no longer seemed so clear. Was it foolish? Was it sensationalist, misguided? The back of Steven's head was chafed and raw against the bark. The chain now embarrassed him. It seemed silly and theatrical, with its evocations of imprisonment, religion, torture. But if not now, when did you take a stand? All heroic gestures seemed
foolish at the time, didn't they? It was afterward that they took on significance. Though this was only meant to be a gesture: it came to Steven very clearly now that he did not want to lose his life, or his leg. He wanted only to make a statement, not a sacrifice. But here he was, chained bizarrely to the rough bark of this tree.
It was, he understood now, absurd, a children's performance. But how else did you effect change? The company refused to talk, the congressman would do nothing. The forest—this huge natural engine, this silent, efficient factory of oxygen, soil, clean water, habitat—was at risk. No one else would protect it.
Behind him, someone began calling out, taunting and jeering: “Come and get us.”
Steven, nearest the trucks, on the wide curve of his big tree, could not see the others.
“Chicken!” shouted someone. “What's the matter, you don't dare do anything?”
The taunts were idiotic. They hadn't discussed this at the meetings. And where was the reporter? Who was going to record what happened? They shouldn't be yelling. Where was Cusack? Why didn't he say anything? This could get out of control. He imagined the high, terrifying whine of the shredder, its stutter and catch when something was thrown into it.
Yellow Helmet left the circle and began to walk toward them. He carried a long shaft of rolled-up paper, like a blueprint. Steven watched him approach, his heartbeat rising. He braced himself: here he was, the enemy in the flesh. Here was the man who would bring down these towering giants, destroy this grove of silence and coolness, transform it into a churned-up wasteland.
The logger walked across the clearing. He was short, with a heavy chest and a thick middle. He wore jeans and a faded plaid workshirt. He reminded Steven of Jim Cusack, chained somewhere behind him. The same clothes, the same short, shaggy beards, the same ruddy cheekbones. Even the same bright blue forceful gaze.
We're the same, Steven thought, we're the same. He could feel the pounding of his heart. The idea seemed a revelation. The logger came closer, and Steven saw he was older than Cusack, his sunburnt skin thickened and lined. He works in these woods, Steven thought: this had the clarity and weight of crystal. The logger's life seemed suddenly immanent, a transparent fan of experience. He lives near here, Steven thought; that's his truck. He has young kids, an ex-wife in a trailer somewhere.
As the logger reached him, Steven felt a powerful bolt of kinship. He met the man's eyes, his own eyes eager. I understand you, he thought. He was ready to smile. I'm like you. The logger stopped before him and put his hands on his hips, a negligent, contemptuous gesture.
“You asshole,” the logger said, and spat at him.
The impact was small but shocking. The saliva was heavy and clotted, and slid slowly down the side of Steven's nose. He tried to lift his hand to brush it off, but his arms were behind the chains. He felt it slip onto his cheek and stop.
“You think we want to fuck around with you guys?” asked the logger. “You know what it means to run an operation like this?” The man stared at him. “We know what you're up to. We know you freaks are trying to grow marijuana in here.” He shook his head. “We should just cut these trees down with you assholes on them.”
“Right,” Steven said stiffly. He meant this to be cruelly cutting, conveying sarcasm and fortitude, but it came out like weak agreement. He felt like a fool. And what did the guy mean about marijuana?
NOCUT lost the battle, and the trees had come down.
The loggers had left that morning, but returned two days later with an injunction. This time Steven and the others stood by, unchained, while the sawblades whined sideways into the ancient trunks. The loggers wore ear mufflers, but the protesters did not, and their bodies vibrated with the roar. It drowned out the sound of their pulses, it echoed in their skulls. The big trees stood steady while they were cut, then went down fast and suddenly, toppling like mountains, thundering down like the end of the world. NOCUT held up signs and shouted slogans, but no one heard them in the din. The trees went down. This time the reporter was there, documenting their failure (he'd gotten the day wrong before). By the time the article came out, the forest was leveled. There were only splintered stumps and degraded earth left. Every bird, animal, and insect had been evicted from a densely populated thousand acres.
After that, Steven felt his time was over in the Northwest. He felt stranded, as though he'd been abandoned by some tidal movement. The day after the trees came down, Jim Cusack asked if he wanted to come hiking that weekend. They were all going, he said. Steven could see that for the rest of them nothing had changed, that they were all still carried along in that surge of energy, but for Steven it had stopped. He'd become separated from his life there.
On the bus, the snorer shifted, twisted, and settled his head on the other side. Steven wondered how old he was. When did you decide you were too old to wear dopey pants and Grateful Dead T-shirts? Was there a moment when it came to you, that you were too old for this now, or was the change unconscious, part of a sartorial drift that functioned throughout your life, moving you silently from one set of wardrobe options to another?
He looked out the window again: the fence was gone, and the mall. The bus was passing through thick woods now, conifers crowding up
