The Forest Prime Evil Read online

  “He’s so much hot air?”

  “You got a real nice way of saying bullshit, mister.”

  “I bet you say that to everybody.”

  “No. Just mostly to bullshit artists.”

  Tina winked, gave me an eye of darkness. Then she poured another shot of Gold and drank it in a gulp. “He did tell one story, though, that sounded more true than not. Cincy and Coop had about the same version.”

  She took a long, last drag on her cigarette and spoke with the smoke coming out her nose. “They were liquored up here one night, talking big, and they announced they were going to pay the Green Man a visit, said they were going to go to River Grove to mess him up.

  “Next night the three of them were back here. They weren’t talking so big in the beginning of the evening, but then they got their wind back with a few drinks in them. Seems your Green man was doing some entertaining in the woods. He had himself a wild woman. A real screamer. ‘Course you got to take that with a margarita of salt. These guys are mostly acquainted with women that inflate.”

  “When was this?”

  “I couldn’t tell you.”

  “Sure?”

  She thought for about half a minute, snapped her fingers. “The night of that big summer storm. They were there before the rain. They said it was damn windy when they made their visit, but that she was screaming even louder than the wind.”

  “And they just walked away from the coupling?”

  “Doesn’t sound like them, does it? Course when they talked about it they were full of ‘should ofs’ and ‘could ofs.’ If you had to listen to them every night like I do, you’d know that was the story of their life.”

  I tried to get Tina to remember what else was said, but she couldn’t add much more.

  “Their favorite line was that they should have done a train on the bitch. That she would have liked it. That she was screaming for more and they should have given it to her. They said that for a couple of weeks. Those bozos got two topics of conversation: sex and getting wasted. And while I don’t have anything against either one of those things, sometimes I kinda like to discuss the weather too.”

  “Did they identify the woman?”

  “Yeah. The way they identify all ladies they’re not scamming on: bitch and fucking bitch.”

  “They didn’t know her?”

  “No.”

  “They didn’t describe her?”

  “Let’s say they had a generic description that fits all women.”

  A customer walked in, and we stopped talking. Tina started making small talk with the regular and continued that pattern as more and more men walked in. Before long the whole place was filled up. Tina was right: it wasn’t a Chablis crowd. Everyone knew everyone else. I was the joker in the deck that no one seemed pleased to see. The few times I tried to look around, I got granite stares. It was easier, and wiser, to look straight ahead. Tina knew better than to act friendly toward me. She approached three times to ask if I needed a new beer. Twice, I didn’t. Once, I did.

  Red was the better part of an hour late for our appointment. He hadn’t changed clothes, and he hadn’t showered. The bar stool next to me was the only vacant seat. Red sat down, then announced for the entire bar to hear, “Give me an amber shower, honey. A double. Over my rocks, of course.”

  Tina pretended deafness but eventually came over and filled a glass with ice and Wild Turkey, then dropped it in front of him. He reached for her, but she knew that move and easily escaped his hands.

  “Tina,” he said, “you’re getting more irresistible every day.”

  She responded by asking to be paid. Red didn’t look at me, just said, “Pay her.”

  I did. Then I opened my mouth to speak, but Red spoke first. “This isn’t the time to talk,” he said.

  But apparently it was the time to drink. Red ordered another double. And about ten minutes later, another. He talked with other people, but no one appeared anxious to converse with him. Except me. When he finally looked at me, he didn’t try to hide his disdain.

  “When you tried to pick my nose this afternoon with your business card, I noticed it said you’re from San Francisco. I hear only gay guys live in San Francisco.”

  “Is that so?”

  “That’s what I’ve been told. And I don’t see anything to make me think different.”

  I guess I was supposed to take offense. I noticed that Red’s brave and loud words coincided with the appearance of Harley, aka Cincy, and a third bovine-looking companion who I assumed was Coop. I’d seen the scene in a lot of bad westerns. In real life it didn’t play any better.

  Draw, pardner. Or, better yet, show what was drawn. I pulled the poster out of my pants pocket and unfolded it in front of Red. “Wonder what you could tell me about this,” I said.

  Everyone was watching us. Cincy and Coop had moved behind me and were doing some heavy breathing on my neck.

  “I can tell you to go to hell.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Eat shit and die.”

  “Thanks, but I’ve already eaten,” I said, standing up. Cincy and Coop didn’t budge. All I had to do was inhale and we’d be bumping chests. I was about to push by, which was what they wanted me to do, when a loud nose caused everyone in the place to jump. There was a sudden opening in the blockade. I walked straight for the door and, when I reached it, glanced back. Tina looked at home wielding an ax handle. The bar counter was still shaking.

  Red waved to me from his bar stool, remembering my departure with the shout of “Goody-bye, Mr. Private Dickhead!”

  The laughter followed me outside, but Red and Cincy and Coop didn’t.

  3

  IN ANIMALS THERE IS the instinct to flee or to fight. Man is supposed to be more complex than that. I had walked out of the bar knowing it wasn’t in my best interests to stay. But I wasn’t the kind of animal to flee. Walking away from the bar was one thing, walking away from the case was quite another. Now, I wanted to fight.

  The investigation I had suddenly committed to didn’t promise to be easy. The territory in question was spread out over eighty miles, from Garberville to Arcata, and those were the highway miles. The backwoods roads would be much slower navigating.

  What was left of Sequoia Summer was sequestered in Sweetwater, an area in the southwest part of Humboldt County not far from the Lost Coast. Josh had told me there were currently fewer than a hundred true believers who remained to carry the redwood flag. The surprise wasn’t that there were so few but that there were still so many. For students, the bell had already sounded for fall semester. For the rest, life’s responsibilities were calling. Those who had stayed believed there was no greater duty than protecting the tall trees and remembering the Green Man. Undoubtedly fanatics every one. Oh, joy.

  My drive south along 101 paralleled the Avenue of the Giants. Even from the highway, the redwoods dominated the landscape. The sun hadn’t yet set, but in redwood country that’s a moot point. There were long stretches where the redwoods blocked out the sky, where I’d look above and expect to see clouds but be treated instead to vast canopies of red and green.

  Logging has long been Humboldt County’s biggest industry and employer. It wasn’t hard to see the motivation behind old-growth deforestation. The larger, older trees are worth more. To a bank holding a note, the redwoods aren’t history, they’re a commodity. Logging companies look at ancient redwoods not in terms of their years but their board feet. A very large redwood translates to around 125,000 board feet. At today’s retail prices, that means a single tree is worth a lot of green, as in dollars. Big bounty on big trees. And big business. I passed fleets of eighteen-wheelers carrying enormous logs. I didn’t try to calculate their worth, only knew that when it came to money trees weren’t the only things that got cut down.

  The summer had seen tree sittings, passive resistance campaigns, bulldozer blockades, and rallies. At the height of the demonstrations, there had been upward of a thousand protesters. That isn’t th
e kind of number that usually captures national attention, but, considering that there were no major urban areas around, no television sets and Jacuzzis to go home to after chanting in some park, the figures weren’t negligible either. The protesters had to camp, had to be willing to rough it. Under conditions like that, even the best of causes lose their luster, usually more quickly than not. Ask George Washington about the high dropout rate in his Continental army.

  The last scheduled demonstration had been set for early September. The plan had been for the protesters to pack up and go home, their cause to be remembered and organized during the year from “central command posts,” which translated to a few cubicles in a few big cities. The death of the Green Man had changed all that. Not all of the tents had folded up, even though the nights were getting colder and longer.

  I traveled west on the Mattole Road through the Humboldt Redwoods State Park. The road was windy, and slow, and shrouded, and for all of that I was grateful. I had a chance to cool down, and think, and observe. Josh had told me the camp was off a dirt road near the Mattole River. He had been vague with landmarks, had just given me a blanket assurance that I couldn’t miss the turnoff. I could and did. After giving up on several other dirt roads, I finally connected with the right one and arrived at camp just as the sun was setting.

  The Sequoia Summer-cum-Autumn camp looked like a mini–tent city, something like old black-and-white pictures of logging camps. There was little in the way of conveniences or modern equipment; a primitive, solar-powered kitchen, a potter’s wheel, and a propane kiln were about the only exceptions.

  When I stepped out of my truck, the green welcome mat wasn’t immediately forthcoming. It was almost déjà vu of my reception at the Blow Hole. Heads turned and stared. No one said anything, and I didn’t know what the password was. It was dinnertime, and there was a line making its way forward to an immense metal caldron filled with spaghetti. The eyes of the campers were dark circled, making them look older than their years.

  I was about to announce, “I come in peace,” when Josh stepped out of his tent and did that for me. “Don’t worry,” he said, “he’s not a narc. His name is Stuart, and he’ll be assisting us in our quest for justice.”

  The eyes looked a little friendlier now. Some heads nodded, and several voices called out greetings. I did my imitation of being neighborly, hoping a few of them might learn something from it.

  “Have you eaten?” Josh asked.

  “I had a late lunch in Garberville,” I said.

  “Better have some spaghetti anyway,” he said. “Your next meal won’t be until morning.

  “Oatmeal,” he added, announcing the word like it was the special of the day.

  “What happened to my stocked cabin?” I asked.

  “It’s been commandeered,” Josh said, not bothering to offer an apology. “Ashe arrived unexpectedly today. She’s meeting with Teller and a few of the others right now. We always give her the cabin when she’s here. But don’t worry, she’ll blow out in three days tops. In the meantime, we’ve got a tent for you. Better that way anyway. It will be easier to direct you.”

  He didn’t wait for my reaction, just joined the chow line and expected me to follow him. Sotto voce I announced, “I don’t do investigation by committee.”

  Josh turned halfway around. “But we’ll need to review your progress every day in order to—”

  “No,” I said.

  Now he was all the way around. “What do you mean?”

  “I work by myself,” I said.

  “But we’re a collective here,” said Josh. “Everyone makes decisions together.”

  My experience is that when groups of people come together to root out evil, they become like the Spanish Inquisition, or the House Committee on Un-American Activities. “Not this time.”

  “This isn’t what we expected,” Josh said.

  “Life’s full of surprises.”

  “You won’t be reimbursed for the motels,” Josh threatened, “or any of the expenses.”

  I shrugged. If the spaghetti and tent were supposed to be inducements, they weren’t doing the job.

  Josh faced front once more. He would have preferred to continue the argument but realized that everyone around us was listening. Two minutes later he broke his silence to ask for a large serving of spaghetti. I wasn’t that brave. Blood might be thicker than water, but I wouldn’t have taken any bets on the spaghetti sauce.

  “Hungry?” the pasta slinger asked with a smile. Her dirty blond hair was tied back in a red bandanna. She had bracelets that stretched from her wrists almost to her elbows. When she moved, it sounded like castanets clacking. Earth mother type, heavy, but she carried her weight lightly, easily, as if it belonged.

  I returned her smile but not her enthusiasm. “Not too,” I said.

  She measured accordingly, and I thanked her. Most people were seated at large, communal tables, but Josh picked a spot for us away from everyone else. Several lanterns were already turned on, and we were on the periphery of their light. It was getting dark fast. When you live in a city, you forget about darkness. There are always lights, illumination enough to see in front of you, to watch your feet connecting with the ground instead of being disembodied from you. But I don’t usually worry about losing my feet. Just my head.

  “Stuart,” said Josh in an aggrieved tone, “I put my ass on the line for you. There were a lot of people who didn’t want you here. They’re suspicious of any investigators, private or otherwise. They assume a fascist mind-set. But I convinced them you were different.”

  “Who didn’t want me on the case?”

  He didn’t like the question. “Why do you ask?”

  “I’d like to know who was afraid of being investigated.”

  Josh signed. “There you go again. See, you’re asking the wrong questions, and jumping to the wrong conclusions. We’re not the bad guys.”

  “But you’ll be glad to point out all the bad guys to me?”

  “Yes,” said Josh, either not hearing my sarcasm or not wanting to.

  “Fine. Now who didn’t want me on the case?”

  He sighed again. “About half the people here. Everyone gets a vote. That’s how we decide things.”

  “And of that group, was anyone particularly vehement about not wanting to hire me?”

  “Why are you making me feel like a snitch?” he asked, his voice rising. “Why don’t you ask me about the politics of lumber money? Why don’t you let me tell you how the tallest trees in the world are being sacrificed to help pay for junk bonds?”

  “Because usually it does more good to ask people what they don’t want to talk about, as opposed to what they do.”

  Josh shoveled an enormous amount of spaghetti into his mouth. It gave him a reprieve from having to say anything. Then he filled his fork and mouth again. I sat and watched, admiring his fortitude. I was prepared to wait out the rest of his plate, but he never finished. The sound of an approaching vehicle brought him to his feet. A moving dust cloud encircled an old Jeep, the motes magnified in its headlights.

  “Ashe and Teller,” Josh said.

  Five people got out of the Jeep, two women and three men. Their mood was light, their conversation pleasant and full of laughs. Teller and Ashe were easily identified, he because of his age and white Saint Nick beard, and she because some people stand out in any crowd.

  Ashe O’Connor was lissome and tall, about five foot nine. Someone had written of her: “She could have been a model but chose to be a role model instead.” She had thick, dark hair. It was held up by several barrettes, and made me think of Rapunzel, and made me wish she’d let it down.

  Her good looks hadn’t hurt her cause. Ashe was the much-photographed force behind Proposition 150. The opposition had deridingly labeled her the Green Goddess, but that strategy seemed to be backfiring on them. Though the Great Trees Initiative had been outspent by lumber interests by about a ten-to-one ratio, the latest polls showed that public opinion was even
ly divided. The estimated buyout cost for the old-growth groves was well over a billion dollars. If Ashe could get the citizens of California to shoulder that kind of debt willingly, her current tag as a miracle worker wouldn’t be far off the mark.

  Some people have substance, a gravity immediately felt by others. I watched the satellites orbiting around her. Even though I was standing in the shadows, she noticed my scrutiny. Her attention made Josh remember me. “This is Stuart Winter,” he said. “He’s—”

  Ashe knew who I was. And knew what was politically correct to be announced and what wasn’t. “Ashe O’Connor,” she said, extending her hand. “It’s a pleasure.”

  She shook hands like a politician, making contact but not touching, then quietly told me we’d have to talk later. Her admirers were gathering already, and she went to them.

  My next introduction was to Thomas Teller. He was in his sixties but carried himself with the vigor of a much younger man. His long, white hair was bunched into a ponytail, and his cotton beard probably hadn’t been cut in forty years. His shoulders were broad, and his handshake callused and robust, almost to the point of being challenging. He had gained notoriety over the years by being one of those people who never stop beating the drums. Teller had been with the beats when they demanded their rights to free speech, had been antiwar(s), and antinukes, and antidespots. Old growth was his latest bugaboo and was now his full-time protest. He hadn’t left Humboldt for almost three years, had endured the isolation of the last two winters to be the conscience of the old forests.

  Some leftover spaghetti was brought out for the latecomers. They sat down at a table, and spectators began to settle around them on the ground. The scene reminded me too much of dogs waiting for scraps of food, or a word of praise. I thought about walking down to the river, but Josh reappeared with someone else in tow.

  He was a small man, probably a shade over five feet, but he didn’t come across as short so much as compact. He was well built, his arms thick, reminiscent of Popeye, his legs so heavily muscled they looked bowed. He looked to be about thirty, had longish dark hair and intent brown eyes.