The Forest Prime Evil Read online

  “Come to think of it,” he said, “that ol’ Green Man probably wasn’t out there waiting for a bus, was he?”

  11

  I HAD A FEW hours to call my own before Evans could play tour guide. He drew a map of where I was to meet him, a spot just off Highway 36, and while he was drawing I asked for him to add to his map and show me where I could find Methuselah.

  Evans didn’t have to think on it, using his big right hand to add on a few lines and landmarks. As he drew, he volunteered that he had made almost daily visits to the tree throughout June and July.

  “Media circus back then,” he explained. “Guess they kept hoping that Trans-Miss would move in and cut the thing down with a sitter in it. That’s what your campers wanted, too. They egged T-M on. But them lumber companies aren’t stupid. Trans-Miss just waited out the media, and now they’re going to wait out the sitters. It’s that time of year when everybody’s beginning to air out their down comforters. Cold and rain are coming soon. It’s going to give a lot of people pleasure to know that, as the weather turns nastier and nastier, there’ll still be some fools sitting up a tree.”

  Evans chuckled and shook his head. His small eyes scanned the horizon hopefully. There were clouds, but none had a hint of rain in it. With a sigh, he put his dark glasses back on. “See you in a few,” he said, then drove off.

  Methuselah was a rarity: an old-growth redwood easily accessible by road in a nonpark setting. One of the mysteries of Methuselah’s longevity was that the tree stood in the midst of second growth. Why it hadn’t been felled sixty years back with the rest of its redwood neighbors no one could be sure. Trans-Miss considered Methuselah an oversight that needed to be rectified.

  Three signs told me I had come to the right place. I ignored the two that read NO ENTRY and PRIVATE LOGGING ROAD. The third simply read METHUSELAH and directed me forward with an arrow.

  Evans had told me I’d have to drive along for a mile or so, then leave my eyes open for a path that had been tramped to Methuselah’s grove. I had driven that mile, was inching along and looking at both sides of the road when I saw a familiar motorcycle. I parked and walked over to the bike. Its engine was only slightly warm.

  I wondered what had brought Doc to these woods, pondering that question as I looked around. Conservationists sometimes deridingly refer to lumber company acreage as “Christmas Tree plantations,” but even though there was only the much maligned second and third growth around me, the area didn’t strike me as sterile. A variety of birds flittered by, and a Douglas squirrel took me to task for trespassing. The grove was lighter and less dense than the one I had walked through that morning, the light not having to fight through a storied canopy of giants. Most of the trees were less than sixty feet high. Tall enough for you to tilt your head but not the kind of heights that keep the north woods chiropractors busy realigning strained vertebrae.

  I heard a sound not in keeping with the woods—not even a second-growth forest—and tried to locate its source. It wasn’t a sound with which I was familiar, and more’s the pity. Most of my friends don’t climb trees any more.

  Doc was descending from a redwood. He wasn’t exactly rappelling down, but his arms and legs were working in tandem in what resembled a hopping motion. I walked over to his tree and met him as he landed. He was winded but looked proud.

  “Aerobics of the woods,” he said, panting.

  “People usually take a stroll in the woods,” I said, “not a climb.”

  “I’m in training,” Doc said. “If I’m lucky, I might get some grant money for a canopy study I’ve proposed.”

  “A what?”

  “Canopy study.”

  He took a few more breaths, then explained further. “Most canopy studies have been done in South America. Scientists set themselves up in observational posts aboveground. They look down from the treetops instead of up at them.”

  “Why the nosebleed seats?”

  “Gives them a totally different perspective. It’s hard to believe, but there are diverse biotic communities that change over the course of just a single tree. New species of insects have been discovered on the upper levels of trees, insects which live out their entire lives there.”

  “And you think the potential for those kinds of discoveries exists in these woods?”

  “I don’t know. There are enough redwood decks around for many to simply assume the trees are among the most studied anywhere. I’m sure there will also be those who claim redwoods wouldn’t be conducive to a canopy study.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Their trunks rise up forever, and they don’t have the same kind of understory, and canopy, and emergent layers as do other trees that have been studied.

  “But,” he said, patting a tree trunk, “there are still secrets in these woods.”

  “Yes,” I said, “there are.”

  Doc ignored my dark agreement. “Just a few years ago someone discovered the first marbled murrelet nest in the old woods. Who would have figured that?”

  I nodded. No one had expected seabirds to be making their nests inland among the high limbs of evergreen trees.

  “I’m just getting my climbing legs,” said Doc. “Fifty feet’s about my limit. But I think it’s going to get real interesting when I get a couple of hundred feet up. Already birds are flying beneath me, not even noticing me. It’s a kick.”

  “You’ll get that view you wanted from the giant’s shoulder.”

  It was his turn to nod, then he turned away to fiddle with his equipment, loosening latches from his waist and shoulders. The climbing gear didn’t look state of the art. It was old, the leather harness worn and cracked.

  “Sure that’s safe?”

  “Hasn’t killed anyone yet,” said Doc.

  He looked like he was about to say more, but then he stopped talking and went back to removing the belt.

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “Borrowed it.”

  “From whom?”

  His answer came reluctantly: “Teller.” An explanation followed. “He’s worked about a million jobs. Half a century ago he was a lumberjack. They still called them that back then. You get him talking, and he can tell you about the days before mechanical tree harvesters, when they had fallers, and buckers, and swampers, and teamsters, when toppers were sent up to climb trees.”

  There was the slightest tone of Luddite nostalgia in Doc’s voice. It was also clear that he greatly admired Teller. He awoke from his musing.

  “You came for the lecture this morning,” he said. “I doubt whether you planned on one this afternoon as well.”

  “I actually came looking for Teller,” I said. “Figured he could answer the little riddle he left in my head last night.”

  “What riddle?”

  “Just before he fell asleep, Teller was talking about the Green Man, and he said that Shepard couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Then he said he couldn’t even see the redwoods for the giant Leucaena. I was curious as to what he meant.”

  “I can help you with that,” said Doc. “The giant Leucaena is a species of tree. It’s being touted as a wonder tree.”

  Whenever the word wonder precedes something, there’s invariably the downside explanation afterward, be it cost, or side effects, or warning. “What’s its drawback?”

  “The drawback of any introduced plant or tree: they usually don’t belong. Teller’s big on Aldo Leopold. Every other circle he gives Leopold’s catechism: ‘A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.’ ”

  “Did Teller ever repeat that to the Green Man?”

  “He would have had to.”

  “But Shepard still couldn’t see the redwoods for the giant Leucaena?”

  “After planting Leucaena around the globe? Hardly. He talked up its virtues right here in redwood country.”

  “In what way?”

  “He thought the lumber companies should p
lant giant Leucaena instead of redwoods. Said they should learn about the miracle tree. That didn’t sit well with Teller. To him, the miracle of the redwoods was more than miracle enough.”

  “Did they argue?”

  “Not that I heard. But Teller was upset that the Green Man couldn’t understand the importance of indigenous trees and plants. Shepard’s done other tree planting in California, and apparently he’s been pretty indiscriminate, not attending to the bioregions or prevailing ecosystems. He’s used Norway pines, and eucalyptus, and Afghan pines. To the purists like Teller, that’s bad. They think those trees are well and fine in Norway, or Australia, or Afghanistan, but not in California, not in areas where birds, and plants, and animals have built relationships with native trees and need them for their survival.”

  “Is Teller right?”

  “More right than wrong. But California is such a mishmash of imports, be it plant, tree, or animal, that I don’t think it really matters. Even before man got blamed for every environmental ill, nature was doing a pretty good job of dispersing species.”

  “You don’t sound very concerned.”

  “I’m a scientist.”

  “You said the same thing this morning. You make it sound like that absolves you from being human.”

  Doc smiled. “I didn’t mean it that way. What I should have said is that I try and be objective. In these woods, I think that makes me the rarest species of them all.”

  “Better watch out for the cross fire,” I said, then looked around, but not for rifles. “Which way to Methuselah?”

  Doc pointed east.

  “Far?”

  “Just down the slope, then a hundred yards or so.”

  “Where did Teller park?”

  “He didn’t. The Green Queen dropped him off. She had some large items she needed to pick up for her mother, so Teller loaned her the Jeep. He’ll be piggybacking back to camp on my bike.”

  “Her mother lives around here?”

  Doc shrugged. “Guess so.”

  He didn’t meet my glance, instead looked at a nearby tree and tugged at his climbing rig. “Want to take a go at a tree?” he asked. “Get above the armpits of humanity? Get a real view?”

  “You go ahead,” I said, not a little wistfully. “I have my own six-foot-under viewing to keep me occupied.”

  I walked where Doc had pointed and found the path. Methuselah stood out from the other redwoods even at a distance. They looked skinny, adolescent. Methuselah was much broader and taller, a powerful man among little boys. The platform had been built about thirty feet up. Teller was sitting there, motionless.

  “Ahoy, the tree.”

  Owl-like, Teller moved his white head, took note of my appearance, but didn’t bother to wave. As I approached the tree, I sniffed the air. No smell of cannabis. When I got to its base, I cupped my hands over my mouth. “How do I get up?”

  His voice drifted down to me. “What reason is there for your ascending?”

  “None. Except that you’ll probably get damn tired of me shouting questions.”

  Teller sighed louder than he had spoken, then he lowered the drawbridge, a chain ladder that came within inches of braining me. I started climbing up, trepidatious at first, then remembering childhood fun. Tree forts had been serious business back in my youth. We had kept a cache of acorns in our big coast live oak and defended our fort from all challengers. I made it to the top but didn’t see any acorns, just a few air horns.

  “In case the enemy breaches the defenses?” I asked.

  Teller was drawing in the ladder but looked over to where I was pointing. “That was the original idea,” he said.

  “But now?”

  “We have a sympathizer who lives within hearing range. Sometimes campers forget their shifts. If we signal, he’ll come and see what’s going on, maybe even assume the post if it’s an emergency.”

  There was a weariness to Teller’s words. I was reminded of disc jockeys who had gone up to sit in towers, vowing not to come down until their sporting team had won, then been forced to remain on their perch for half a season. Sometimes an idea that seems wonderful when conceived becomes more and more of a millstone around the neck over time.

  “You think the sentries are keeping Methuselah standing?” I asked.

  Teller shook his head, his beard waving more than his chin. “It’s the lawsuit we filed,” he said.

  “So why keep doing this?”

  “Because we said we would.”

  “When does it stop?”

  “When the battle is won.”

  “Or until election day?”

  Teller allowed himself a little smile. “Unofficially, there has been talk of that. The media still show up now and again, and they always find a sentry. We’ll certainly have to keep up our presence until November.”

  “Don’t you find it boring?”

  “No. I was a fire watcher once. Lived high up in the world. I could see fifty, a hundred miles, in all directions. I miss those days. I don’t believe I ever thought so deeply.”

  “Is that why you volunteer to sit here so frequently? So that you can think?”

  He nodded. Then he smiled, albeit a little ruefully. “And I can’t deny that I like to get away. The young invigorate me. Their enthusiasm is infectious. But I need a rest from their questions, from being the patriarch.”

  “Do they ask you about your other fights? Your other causes?”

  Teller shook his head. “People section redwoods, and look at the stories there, but we’re not adept at reading the wrinkles in humans. I tell them stories when we gather for Circle, mine and others, but I don’t know what makes an impression, or what they remember.”

  “You’ve been in Humboldt County for more than two years now.”

  “I want to die here,” he said.

  I gave him a look, and he held up his hands. “Not soon,” he said. “I’m just beginning to know what it’s like to settle roots.”

  “Have you made friends?”

  “A few.”

  “Doc must be one of them?”

  “Yes. He needed a mentor. Or maybe he needed a father.”

  “I left him climbing a tree.”

  Teller beamed. “He’s getting better at that. He needed some direction. I told him he should get used to the climbing.”

  His words suggested he was talking about more than trees. “Think his canopy study will get him anywhere?”

  “Off the ground at least.” Teller snorted. “That’s an important step for Doc. He’s still learning about the real world.”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  “Doc’s had it different than most. His father died when he was young. He didn’t have any brothers or sisters, just a well-off mother who thought the sun rose and set around him. Doc was indulged. He never thought about money, just kept going to school. That was their deal, I think: as long as he told her he was studying something or other, she was content. He never worked. Then, a few years ago, his mother died. Doc was left with a good sum of money, but not as much as he must have expected. His money manager set him up in some investments that went south, and suddenly Doc was just another graduate student struggling along. Difference is, Doc never expected that. Now he’s still coming to terms with the fact that he’s going to have to work for a living and not be a gentleman scientist.”

  “He told me you’d held down quite a few jobs.”

  Teller nodded. “I used to get on a bus,” he said, “sometimes with no more than five dollars in my pocket, and I’d go off to a town I didn’t know anything about. It never took me more than a day to find a job, and I didn’t get on that bus again until I had a hundred dollars in my pocket.”

  “Then another town?”

  “That, or another cause.”

  “Tempted to hop a bus these days?”

  “Not really. I’ve finally found a place I call home.”

  “What do you do when you’re not hugging trees?”

  “You’re asking for a l
ot of secrets,” he said, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking inside and smiling. “I read an awful lot,” he said, “and I square dance. Every Thursday. My Circle talk is always abbreviated that night, and no one knows why. I guess everyone thinks I have a date. To most in the movement, that’s acceptable.”

  “But do-si-doing in the woods wouldn’t be?”

  “Questionable, maybe.”

  “What about other ceremonies in the woods?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I heard the Green Man was trying to bring back the old ways, trying to resurrect more than his name. Any truth to that?”

  “He was exuberant,” said Teller.

  “Interesting description,” I said. “Something like calling a clear-cut ‘forest enhancement.’ ”

  That was hitting below the timber line. Teller flinched. He wasn’t good at obfuscating. For too long he had railed for truth.

  “I don’t know if even he knew what he was doing,” he said. “For a great man, he was incredibly naive.”

  “Was he a great man?”

  Teller nodded, long and seriously. “Oh, yes. I think to be a great man you have to have one vision, a singleness of purpose. Most of us are diverted by other interests. The fever in us bursts. It never did with him.”

  “Along with his fever,” I said, “he spread his passions.”

  Teller didn’t say anything. He made me tell him what I knew. I did. Teller didn’t say anything back for a while, just contemplated what I had told him.

  “I’d heard talk,” he finally admitted. “But I preferred to think it was just that.”

  “You never participated in the ceremonies?”

  “No.”

  “Let’s assume it’s true,” I said. “Why was Shepard playing the bongos to a bunch of young, racing hormones?”

  “To help further his dream,” said Teller. “I guess he thought that by indoctrinating followers into the secrets of the woods, he would gather disciples. The Green Belt drove him to such deeds, the thought of billions and billions of trees surrounding the globe. I don’t know if any pharaoh or king ever dreamed so grandly.”

  “Forest rituals seem rather extreme.”

  “So was his goal.”