The Forest Prime Evil Read online

I lay down. With some padding, it could almost be cozy. I didn’t quite fit, but Shepard had been half a head smaller.

  “Be it ever so humble,” Evans said.

  “It added to his legend,” I said, getting up. “I’m finding that was very important to him. His tree planting, and much of what he did, was derivative.”

  Evans stretched the word out. “De-riv-a-tive,” he said, giving his best impression of a yokel. “Is that a five-dollar word for copycat?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but if you buy me a drink I’ll call us even.”

  “Don’t know many five-dollar words,” he said. “But I do know your Green Man wasn’t the first to live in a goosepen.”

  Evans had my interest. He was more than aware of that, and he played with me a little. “But there ain’t nothing new under the sun. Guess you know that too.”

  “Acquaint me with the old, then,” I said.

  “His name was Don McLellan,” he said. “He moved into a spot not far from here in nineteen fifty-eight. Near Jordan Creek. Made himself a three-story home out of a goosepen, kitchen on the first floor, bedroom on the second, and storage on the third.”

  “Was he destitute?” I asked.

  “Des-ti-tute?” asked Evans, again mocking my word choice. “No, he was an eccentric. My grandfather went out and visited with him a couple of times. McLellan said he worked in the timber industry most of his life. And what he liked to do best was climb the redwoods and look out at the world. He was hell on chains, my grandpa said, could scuttle up with his climbing rig faster than a monkey.”

  “How long did he live in his goosepen?”

  “Over a year. Like most of the eccentrics I’ve known, he had a grand dream. He wanted the nineteen-sixty world summit meeting to be held among the redwoods. McLellan thought that the world leaders should camp out together in goosepens. He was sure the ancient groves would work their magic and would bring everyone together.”

  “He was a dreamer,” I said.

  “One that wasn’t afraid of advertising his dream either,” said Evans. “He hung the Stars and Stripes and California’s Golden Bear from the highest redwoods, had himself the grandest flagpoles on the planet, I hear. His huge flags waved and flapped to everyone who traveled along 101.”

  I imagined the sight, wished I could have seen it.

  “It got him attention,” Evans said, “but it didn’t get him his convention. When it was announced that the world conference would be held in Paris, McLellan took down his flags and went back to his home state of Washington.”

  “And there moved in with the Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe?”

  Evans was amused, but not that amused. “Maybe he sounds funnier than he really was,” he said. “Like I told you, McLellan was an eccentric, but he wasn’t crazy. My granddad took some pictures of him. So did other people. And in all those pictures, McLellan was wearing a silver hard hat. He knew about widow-makers. If your Green Man had been as cautious, he’d probably still be alive.”

  “Probably,” I said. But I had my doubts.

  13

  EVANS DROPPED ME OFF at my truck. I offered him drinks and dinner but learned he had two kids, and a wife who liked him home on time for supper. I told Evans I’d be traveling south and asked where to dine. He said his wife always insisted upon the Scotia Inn. I had passed the place on the way to the redwood mill and been taken by its looks. Within such inns, history lurks. So, usually, does twelve-year-old single-malt Scotch.

  I got off the freeway at Rio Dell, a town just north of Scotia. The two towns share a border, but not much else. In Rio Dell is the anarchy of most little towns, hodgepodge housing and pell-mell businesses; one yard growing flowers, the next, rusted bikes and junked cars. The demarcation line between the two towns was almost palpable.

  You don’t expect elegance in a company town, but the Scotia Inn was just that. I was glad it didn’t have the interference of valet parking, and a doorman, and a concierge. I walked in, and looked around, and got a feel for the place without being asked for my papers.

  Its interior was a hybrid Gothic that played well with the two stories of burnished redwood. There were lots of comfortable sofas and chairs, and a grand piano awaiting anyone who felt like tickling its ivories. If my repertoire had included anything besides “Chopsticks,” I might have been tempted.

  The front desk was small, looked neither computerized nor dehumanized. The clerk wasn’t busy and appeared glad to see me. She was about twenty and apparently hadn’t yet been given a course on the dynamics of garnering the walk-in trade. “Hello,” she said, as if she didn’t expect an immediate return on investment. “Hello,” I said. She smiled, and I smiled. Then she went back to what she was doing, and I did the same.

  It took me less than five minutes to nose around most of the lobby’s corners. There were blowups of old photographs, turn-of-the-century pictures of proud lumberjacks standing atop mountainous stumps of their own creation or, more accurately, destruction. The loggers had that big-game-hunter pose, their feet on top of their kill, the veni, vidi, vici look in their eyes. At the inn there were no bear heads on display, but there was plenty of redwood.

  The restaurant was to the south of the lobby. I took a look at the menu, and the dining room, and came away impressed by both. There was a classic elegance, a setting that could compare favorably with any big-city grand dining spot. It had the antique chandeliers, and the polish, and the fine linen, and the real redwood paneling, not veneer. All this in the northern woods, the hinterlands. Perfect for Mrs. Evans. But it was about the last place in the world I wanted to dine alone.

  Downstairs was the bar. That’s where most good bars are located. Drinking dens need an illicit air, a speakeasy atmosphere. The grandeur of the inn surrendered at ground level, didn’t try to put on airs where they didn’t belong. Management genius. Pretension breeds abstention.

  The bartender gave me a warm greeting. He was about forty, with a full head of thick, curly hair, a whiskey voice, and a beer gut. He must have been sensitive about his weight. In the first minute of our acquaintance, he found reason to bemoan his burgeoning stomach. The extra pounds were recent he said, the result of his having injured his knee. I was glad he didn’t claim his voice was the result of a slow metabolism.

  I was thankful that the bartender knew how to talk and pour at the same time. He identified himself as “Dan the barman.” Normally I wouldn’t have thought much of his introduction, but he punctuated it with about a six-count pour of Glenfiddich. Dan the generous barman.

  Only one other bar stool was occupied, and the lessee looked comatose, except for a right arm that came to life now and again. He was an old man who’d left his choppers at home. Maybe he didn’t want his false teeth to get in the way of a drink. I had a feeling his pulse was as slow as his reach, which wasn’t fast, but it was regular enough.

  The bar menu was a lot easier to read than the one upstairs, with all the aigus and umlauts. Most of the items carried one less digit, also. Dan told me everything came out of the same kitchen, and everything was good. I told him to make a medium-rare assault on my arteries.

  Conversation came with the drinks and dinner. Dan was content to talk about anything. It didn’t take much to get him going on the Green Man and Sequoia Summer. In the gospel according to Dan, “every damn fool” knew that the Green Man had died of natural causes.

  “Environmentalists like to paint these woods as the Garden of Eden,” he said. “Well, they’re not, and never were. You think if a widow-maker had skewered me, anyone would have gotten excited?”

  He stood in front of me, shaking his head from side to side. I got the hint and did the same.

  “Damn right,” he said. “Those EverGroaners are just trying to make something of his death for political reasons. They figure they can get people to buy into their conspiracy theory.”

  Not that Dan didn’t find fault with “the other side.” He dismissed the Reverend Mr. Sawyer as an “extremist,” said he “kind of
expected preachers to make noise on Sunday” but thought that for them to holler on any other day “was bad taste, ’ceptin’ funerals, of course.”

  Dan did concede, however, that it was “right Christian of Sawyer to want to bury the Green Man in the Ferndale cemetery.”

  I asked about that, and Dan happily elaborated. “Surprised everyone,” he said. “Guess it’s easier being charitable to a dead man, though. Sawyer even offered to supply a tombstone, since Mr. Green Man died a pauper.”

  According to Dan, Sawyer’s offer had been turned down by a Sequoia Summer committee. In refusing the plot and gravestone, they explained that trees would be the only proper monuments for the Green Man. Thousands of living memorials, they said, would far surpass one cold marker. His funeral, it was decided, would be a celebration of life and not a concession to death.

  Some say preachers come to their calling because they would rather preach than be preached to. Sawyer did not appreciate being rebuffed, and the finger pointing resumed right after the funeral.

  “Sawyer called the Green Man’s funeral a pagan ritual,” said Dan, “full of chanting, and voodoo, and evil poetry.”

  “Was he in attendance?” I asked.

  Dan shrugged.

  I wondered what constituted evil poetry. Sawyer probably would have categorized anything other than psalms as obscene.

  “What poetry?”

  Dan shrugged again. “Don’t rightly know. But I guess one in particular got his dander up. Something about communion with nature. Sawyer said Shepard would have been much better served had he taken his communion with Christ.”

  Which poem? The verse, and the answer, came unexpectedly. The old man awakened from his stupor, and spoke.

  “To him who in the love of Nature holds

  Communion with her visible forms, she speaks

  A various language.”

  His oration wasn’t the best, his words dulled by alcohol, and lack of teeth, but his dramatic entrance commanded the floor. He attended to his drink before us. When he finished sipping, he accepted my questioning glance. He had very blue eyes, or maybe they looked that way because there was more red than white to his pupils. His face was concave, the lack of teeth giving his lips a puckered look, like an old roué.

  “William Cullen Bryant,” he said, overmouthing the words. “ ‘Thanatopsis.’ ”

  Dan said, “That’s mighty pretty.” But he didn’t mean it. He was embarrassed, as if the old man had broken one of the rules of the bar. He was supposed to be an oddity, a fixture like the colored plastic lamp shades or the bordello red vinyl; part of the atmosphere, the ancient rummy without teeth.

  “How did you remember that?” I asked.

  “Miss Lundy,” he said. “In the sixth grade. She was one for poetry, made us read and memorize it. Some of the townsfolk thought she was too much a freethinker. She once went out with a Wobbly, was the story.”

  “That was the poem recited at the Green Man’s funeral?”

  He nodded, long and exaggerated.

  “Were you there?”

  “Course.”

  “Why?”

  “Biggest funeral this county’s ever seen. Couldn’t miss that. Got to pretend everyone was there for me.”

  I left, but not without buying him another drink, and not without telling him that Miss Lundy would have been proud of him.

  Once outside, I put in a call to Miss Tuntland. I promised that I’d give her a real call later, but in the meantime, I needed to know if she’d had time to research Ashe O’Connor’s comings and goings from Humboldt County.

  “I did,” she said.

  “And?”

  “Your Green Goddess has visited Humboldt County at least a dozen times in the last three months. Typically her stays run two to three days.”

  “Any explanation for her trips?”

  “A few, yes. She traveled there once to dedicate a grove and went another time for some publicity shots. And, of course, she attended the Green Man’s memorial service.”

  “Was she visiting when he died?”

  “Yes.”

  “She has a mother up here.” My words sounded defensive, as if I was excusing her many visits and, in particular, her having been around when the Green Man died.

  “Interesting,” said Miss Tuntland.

  “Why?”

  “The genealogies of the gods are always enlightening.”

  “She didn’t ask for her nickname.”

  “But does it fit, Mr. Winter? That’s the important question.”

  The sun had already set, and the sky was getting darker. “I have to run,” I said. “I’ll call you later tonight.”

  “What’s your rush?” asked Miss Tuntland.

  “On my way to a campfire,” I said, as if that should explain everything. “Wish me luck.”

  “Knock wood,” she said.

  14

  I PARKED ON the outskirts of camp so as not to disturb the Circle in process, then quietly made my way forward. Teller was finishing up his talk. He was perspiring and had an impassioned expression. I wondered what I had missed.

  “I’d like to conclude with a thought from nature writer John Hay,” he said. “He wrote, ‘Trees stand deep within a kind of knowing that surpasses human knowledge. We are running too fast to absorb it.’ ”

  For a minute or two Teller let his audience deliberate on Hay’s words; then he left the Circle. His spell kept everyone else from moving. I think I was the first to stir. Undisturbed redwoods have the luxury of longevity. Their thoughts can traffic through the eons. I didn’t have the option of staying rooted for a few centuries to puzzle out how the Green Man had died.

  My first impulse was to follow Teller, but there were others I wanted to talk to as well. Ashe O’Connor was one of my intended interviews, but her ear was already being hotly pursued by a few of the campers. Josh wasn’t so occupied.

  “Let’s talk,” I said.

  He was surprised to see me and didn’t look altogether happy. “What about?”

  “Midnight ceremonies,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  He asked the question, I noticed, while leading me away from anyone who might hear us.

  “I’m talking about rituals in the woods,” I said, “what the Green Man called a return to the sacred.”

  Josh let out a long breath. “There were—plays in the woods,” he said softly, evasively.

  “We’re not talking about A Midsummer Night’s Dream, are we?”

  The setting was right, and I was beginning to suspect there was something in the Green Man very much like Puck, but I knew the plays Josh was alluding to were older than Shakespeare.

  He shook his head.

  “You were there.”

  “A few times.” A pause. “Most of the times.”

  “How would you describe these plays? Tree worship? Sexual ceremonies?”

  “You’re misinterpreting,” whispered Josh. “You’re making it sound like orgies were conducted.”

  “Weren’t they?”

  “What happened,” he said carefully, “was real and right. Shepard reminded us of the history, and of the correctness, of nature. We participated in some of the old ways. We acted out the same ceremonies that the Greeks, and the Italians, and the Indians, and the Africans did. He showed us how the ancients celebrated, and taught us holy days and holy ways that have been forgotten.”

  “I understand clothes weren’t a big part of these holy ways.”

  Josh looked around, wanted an excuse to escape. “It wasn’t prurient,” he said. “As we became educated, we realized that clothes were barriers to the world we wanted to get closer to.”

  “And the Green Man was your educator?”

  “No,” said Josh. “Nature was. He just showed us possibilities.” Strong sibilance. A loud snake in a garden. “He showed us the woods were alive, and vital. If he awakened the human spirit, was that such a sin?”

  “I’m not judging,” I said.
“I’m investigating.”

  “But you make everything sound so insidious. It wasn’t that way. It was beautiful.”

  “How often were these beautiful ceremonies held?”

  “On those nights when the moon was full.”

  “Where did they take place?”

  “In spots deep in the woods.”

  “River Grove?”

  “A few times.”

  “Was a ceremony held the night he died?”

  “No.” Josh answered quickly, harshly.

  “How is it that you now remember that night so well, whereas before you didn’t?”

  Josh’s mouth tightened, but he didn’t answer. I wondered what else had happened that night.

  “How many people usually attended?”

  “Between forty and fifty.”

  “I don’t imagine the ceremony times and sites were posted in the window of the Safeway.”

  Josh didn’t comment.

  “How’d you know when and where to go, Josh?”

  “Christopher would tell one of us, and the word would be circulated.”

  “Did outsiders ever take notice of these gatherings?”

  “No. We met where our seclusion was complete.”

  “Did only campers participate?”

  “Yes.”

  “No one else?”

  “No one else.”

  “Always the same people?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Circles within circles.”

  “We weren’t exclusionary.”

  “But I imagine these ceremonies might have shocked some first-timers?”

  Josh shrugged.

  “Didn’t they?”

  “I heard a few campers got upset. They didn’t understand.”

  “That’s not surprising, is it? Didn’t these get-togethers degenerate?”

  Josh shook his head fervently. “They just evolved.”

  “From what to what?”

  “It was like an educational series,” he said. “The man was a genius, Stuart. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get people excited about trees? He was able to show us how trees were sacred and wonderful, even sensual.”

  “Try as I might,” I said, “I can’t quite find trees sexy.”