by Edward Abbey
We heard him singing. Singing, that is, as a wolf sings, a proud prolonged profound Promethean howl of triumph and of joy, a hymn that dwindled after a time to the faintest vulpine vibration on the air but never died, never died completely.
New moon. New moon and evening star.
The new moon, signal of hope, glowed in the western sky. Quite near, almost within the moon’s embrace, hung Venus planet of love, rare as radium pure as platinum more precious than gold.
11
The Night Watchman
At midnight, right on time, the new night watchman drove up to the entrance gate in a rusted slab of Detroit iron, stopped at the security station and presented his credentials.
The guard looked them over. He wore a uniform, a visored cap, a gun, a Motorola. So did the new night watchman. “Casper W. Goodwood,” the guard said, reading the name and I.D. number on the embossed plastic card, checking the photo on the card against the face in the driver’s window of the pickup truck. The faces matched: both were blue-eyed, beetle-browed, ruddy-skinned, crude-featured, rednecked, basic native-American white male working-class chump, the only social stratum in America subject to legal and socially approved school, job and advancement discrimination, accompanied by slurs and sneers. Both faces were clean shaven except for a bushy, drooping, skunk-black Vietnam veteran’s mustache.
“Casper W. Goodwood,” the guard repeated, squinting first at the card and then at its holder. “Unusual name, Casper. What’s the W stand for?”
“Wilbur.” Goodwood’s voice came out as a throaty growl, less than sociable, but the guard seemed not to notice.
“Where you come from, Casper?”
A moment of silence. “Same place you do, Jasper.”
True fact: the guard’s first name was Jasper. The plastic card pinned to the breast pocket of his short jacket gave away that painful true fact. Blushing, the guard said, “What do you mean?”
Goodwood smiled. His smile was broad, deep, sincere, but somehow … somehow not heartwarming. “I mean shit, Jasper. Fuck-all shit, you know. I mean we come from nowhere. You know what I mean, nowhere.” The smile contracted slightly, becoming an unwholesome and unfriendly grin. “That’s why we work in a dump like this, Jasper. You follow me? Let me know if I’m going too fast.”
The guard stared. He was a big man, six-four, overweight but strong, pressed iron, pumped barbells, never dodged a fight. He carried the .357 magnum on his hip. And a two-foot Mag-light, heavy as a club. He shoved his wife around with one hand. One finger even. He lacked a sense of physical insecurity. And yet, staring at the face of this smaller man, Goodwood, who was smiling at him, the guard hesitated, feeling a rush of novel sensations. Though all he could see of Goodwood through the pickup window was the visored cap, the face, the mustache, the grin. And of the course the shoulders. They looked padded.
The guard said, “Well what the hell, Casper, we’re working here together.” He returned the I.D. badge, the employment papers and watched as Goodwood, wearing gloves, pinned the badge to his green twill night watchman’s jacket. The big shoulder patch read Ace Security SLC. Same as the station guard’s. “Might as well be friends,” the guard went on, “what the hell.”
“Sure, Jasper. We’ll work it out.” Goodwood gunned the idling engine of his truck. He looked around. “Where do I park?”
The guard pointed inside the gate. “Right over there. Lots of room at the end. Got your punch clock?”
Goodwood lifted the solid round metal gadget, thick as a canteen, with its winding key and shoulder strap, from the seat beside him and showed it to the guard. The guard nodded, started to speak again. Engine racing, Goodwood popped the clutch and lunged forward with a screech of rubber, yanked the truck ninety degrees to the right — twice — and slammed into a tight slot between two immaculate new company sedans. His front bumper, dipping then rising, just barely touched the woven steel of the security fence. Ten feet above, in sympathetic resonance, the coils of razor wire shimmered and tinkled and flashed.
The station guard watched as Goodwood got out of his pickup and rewired the door shut. Short fella, the guard noted, kind of heavyset type. Knuckles drag on the pavement. “You know the rounds?” the guard shouted. Goodwood was at least fifty yards away.
The new night watchman nodded. “Got the training course this afternoon.” He started off into the lights and shadows of the motor pool, following the fence. Already on duty. Eager beaver.
“Drop in when you feel like it,” the guard shouted after the broad, retreating back, “got lots of coffee here.” No answer. “That graveyard’s a long shift,” he shouted again. No reply.
What a shit, the guard thought. Where do they get these new guys? A real shit. He was glad to see Henderson, the swing shift watchman, emerge form the shadows, Doberman on leash, coming off duty. And Hankerson, his own relief, driving toward the gate. Happily Jasper poured three cups of coffee. None for the dog. The dog had his water dish, full of stale water and drowned and swimming insects, near the station door. While the dog refreshed himself Jasper and friends would drink their greasy coffee, fiddle with their peckers and talk about the quality of these new young security men. City boys, most of them, dope smokers on the sly, poor attitude toward the company. Thanks be to Jesus they weren’t stuck with any female gun slappers yet. A man could still talk. Probably won’t last long.
Henderson leashed his dog to the doorknob. Hankerson parked his car and joined them. Jasper mentioned the new night watchman, asking about his background. Henderson said the man was all right, had a solid employment record, good references, picked up on the job easily. Hankerson complained about his teenage kid: damned boy had left the key in his uncle’s pickup, somebody stole it only hours before. And no insurance on the old heap — hardly worth reporting. Jasper said there were a lot of strangers in town these days, looking for jobs, passing themselves off as miners or construction workers. Some of them not too honest. That’s the trouble, Henderson complained, we get this new mill under way here, those new mines, then two thousand dink-heads from Idaho and Colorado and Timbuktu come rushing in, grab the jobs that should go to our kids. That’s the price you pay for progress, Jasper argued; can’t have everything perfect.
They drank the coffee. They watched the nervous and irritable dog. They listened to the new watchman checking in, by Motorola radio, every ten minutes, as required.
“Goodwood here, 505, Post Six, everything ten-four.”
“Ten-four,” Hankerson responded on the entrance station radio, “501 clear.”
“505.”
At about 0030 hours (12:30 A.M.), Jasper said his so longs, picked up his lunch bucket and his Thermos jug and his True West magazine and went home. Grudgingly. He didn’t really want to go home but in Hardrock, pop. 3500, there was nothing else to do. Even the Atomic Bar, outside of town across the Arizona line, would be closing soon. Anyway Jasper drank only Pepsi-Cola, the officially sanctioned LDS beverage. The Church owned stock in Pepsi-Cola. The Church owned Jasper, full name Jasper Benson Bundy; he often wondered why he didn’t go by J. Benson Bundy, like anybody else in Utah would do. Sounded better, looked more … businesslike. Maybe he would.
When Jasper left Henderson left, dragging his whining dog. Hankerson sat alone at the gate, listening to the low static of the squelch on the intercom. There were now only eight men within the entire Syn-Fuels compound: himself, the new guy Goodwood patrolling the perimeter fence, an engineer, a foreman and the four welders working overtime somewhere deep in the complex guts of the ore reduction and processing plant. Patching boo-boos, playing catch-up; the mill, still under construction but nearly complete, was only five months behind schedule. Not bad for any project in Landfill County.
At 0200 hours (2 A.M.), the voice of Casper Goodwood crackled from the speaker of the base radio. He sounded different this time, somehow, and Hankerson, a calm and stolid fellow, felt his skin prickle.
“Hankerson …?”
Hankerson respond
ed, sticking to the code: “501.”
“Full alert, Hankerson. …”
“What? What’s up?”
“Bomb.”
“What?”
“Found a bomb, Hankerson. Clear the plant.”
“A bomb? You sure?”
“I know demolitions, Hankerson. This fucker’s ticking away and it’s big. I mean fucking big. Clear the mill. The whole fucking place. Quick.”
Hankerson smashed the glass over the red alarm ignition switch, yanked down the handle. At once the system began to function, activating ten heavy-duty factory klaxons installed at strategic points within the compound. Bellowing in counterpoint, they sounded like a chorus of lunatic mules risen from Hell, tortured by Lucifer and amplified one hundredfold by God.
Hankerson waited for the sound of running feet. Sticking by his radio, he said, “Where are you, Goodwood?”
“Post Seventeen. Down here in the cyanide leeching plant, I think. Lots of ducts and pipes and motherfucking valves and things. It’s a fucked-up mess.”
“What do you see?” Christ, thought Hankerson, that’s the most delicate expensive tricky section of the whole damned complex. “You sure it’s a bomb?”
“I’ll soon find out. I’m gonna disarm it.”
“Wait a minute. Don’t you touch that thing. We’ll fly in the Salt Lake bomb squad. You get out of there.”
A bunch of men in hardhats came pounding out of the reduction mill. Hankerson counted: … three, four, five. Where’s that other guy?
“Everybody out yet?” Goodwood asked.
“No,” yelled Hankerson. “Wait.” He saw the men running toward the rank of parked automobiles and pickup trucks. Stepping outside the station, he motioned them on to the open gate. “Bomb,” he yelled, “time bomb. Keep running.”
Amazed, they stopped, gaped at him, then ran past and through the gate and into the unlit gloom beyond. There they stopped again. The sixth man, the chemical engineer, middleaged and fat, emerged from a maze of pressure tanks and panted toward the gate house at a strenuous waddle. His yellow helmet fell off, bounced from a circle of light into the shadows. He stopped, clutching his roll of blueprints and a clipboard.
“Come on, sir,” shouted Hankerson, “there’s a bomb behind you. Better clear out.”
“Oh to hell with the bomb,” the engineer replied, looking back. “To hell with Syn-Fuels and Hardrock and to hell with the Pipe Fitters Union and the state of Utah.”
Hankerson heard the voice of Goodwood on the radio. “Everybody out? I’m gonna see if I can disarm this fucker.”
Hankerson rushed inside, grabbed the transmitter. “No, hold it, hold it, one man still in there.”
“It’s ticking. Might blow any minute.”
“Hold on a second.”
The engineer arrived, slumping into the doorway of the station, red-faced and panting, sick with disgust. He wiped his sweating face with a pocket handkerchief. “What a place,” he mumbled, sagging against the doorframe.
“Okay?” asked Goodwood. “Everybody at the main gate?”
“Everybody but you.”
“You can see them? Everybody?”
“Yes, sure.”
“Okay, here goes. Stand clear. Keep your hardhats on.”
The transmission went dead. Hankerson snatched a pair of hardhats from a shelf, gave one to the engineer. They put them on, sat down on the floor, waited. Hankerson kept an eye on the big wall clock. The sweeping red second hand completed one full revolution. Hankerson reached for the radio mike.
“Goodwood — how are doing?” No answer. Hankerson waited a few more seconds and called again. “505 this is 501. 501 calling 505. Come in, please.” No response. Hankerson looked at the engineer, who was leafing through a copy of Nuclear Times magazine. “He must be busy. Needs both hands, I guess.”
“Bomb scares are bullshit,” the engineer replied, not looking up. “Two pounds of bullshit in a one-pound bag.”
“This was reported by our night watchman, sir.” Again Hankerson radioed Goodwood. “Goodwood,” he said, “Goodwood — are you okay?”
This time the radio answered, but poorly, the voice of Goodwood coming through broken and scratchy. “Okay, okay … I’ve got it … open … Keep everybody … out. …” Goodwood seemed to be breathing hard, like a man engaged in strenuous labor.
Stress, thought Hankerson. My God, the stress must be terrible. “He’s trying to disarm it,” he said to the engineer. “The stress must be terrible.”
“Heroes are bullshit. Five pounds of bullshit in a cellophane baggie. Pour me a cup of coffee.”
“Yes sir. Just a minute.” Squeezing the transmitter button, he said to Goodwood, “What do you think? You need some help?” He looked at the clock. Three minutes had passed since Goodwood began the disarming operation. “Want me to call in the experts?”
The voice replied, still puffing a bit, “I’m the expert, shithead. Stop bugging me. This is extremely fucking delicate fucking work. You should see the wires in this motherfucker. Looks like the inside of a switchboard. With batteries and digital clocks and bubblegum. All wrapped around about a hundred fucking pounds of trinitrotoluene.” The engineer looked up, interested. “That’s TNT,” Goodwood continued, “to you simple laymen shits out there. Is everybody clear?”
“Yes sir,” Hankerson replied, deferring automatically to the sound of authority. “Seven of us. All but you.”
“Okay, I think I see the key to this little fucking electronic cundrum here. I think I see the nipple on the cocksucker. What the hell, let’s try cutting this wire, see what happens.”
They heard Goodwood laughing. They heard the clink of metal. They heard what sounded like a horse’s fart. “Wait up, Jack,” they heard him say, “I’m— “
The radio fell silent.
Hankerson and the engineer stared at the speaker. The foreman and the four welders, clustered at the gate, stared at the two men inside.
They waited. Hankerson squeezed his button.
The cyanide leeching plant blew up.
In the morning, searching for Goodwood’s remains among the twisted, smoking, sputtering, blackened ruins, they found no trace of him. He was obliterated. Vaporized. Transported far beyond all mortal ken. What they did find was a hole in the back fence big enough to lead a horse through and a pile of horse dung under a juniper tree and a set of horse tracks — two sets, eight shod feet — leading south of town and into the slickrock wastelands of the Strip. A half-breed Paiute tracker and his dogs were able to follow the trail for only three miles into Arizona before the dogs, distracted, confused and maddened by chicken entrails laced with capsicum pepper, gave up the spoor.
Casper W. Goodwood’s name was not given in the news accounts, pending notification of next of kin. But the next of kin proved hard to find. Rechecking the man’s employment application, the company clerk found only one actual person identified by Goodwood as a blood relation, namely his uncle, Mr. Henry James Jr. of London, England, typist by trade, defunct in 1916 (AIDS). No parents, brothers, sisters or wife revealed. As such, the police report was then released to the press, which ignored the matter, having already passed on, a week later, to more current events.
Syn-Fuels Inc., Denver, subsidiary of Nuclear Fuels Ltd., Brussels, made light of the incident, preferring a minimum of publicity, blaming the affair on “routine labor troubles.” The union president, Antonio “Scarface” La Scala, interviewed in his suite at a New York state correctional facility, refused comment. “Gedda fug ouda heah,” he said, “fuggin’ paparazzi. …” The explosion — whether sabotage or accidental valvular malfunction — cost Syn-Fuels about two million, a trifling charge passed on through a daisy chain of Federal subsidies to the U.S. taxpayers, and it set back the production schedule by only eleven weeks.
The machine marched on.
12
Earth First! Rallies
When the two Mitsubishi bulldozers from BLM reached the head of Lost Eden Canyon, a li
ttle-known but magical branch of Radium Canyon, which leads in turn to Shivwits Canyon and the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, they found — the operating engineers found — the route blocked by a chain of chanting dancing flag-waving placard-hoisting T-shirted human bodies.
The Mitskinners halted their iron beasts, letting the mighty Mitsu diesels throb and champ. A thin bearded man of thirty, a pink-cheeked chunky teenage girl, they sat on their vinyl seats under canopies of two-inch steel and gazed in wonder, then in irritation, at the spectacle confronting them. What in the hell … is the meaning … of shit like this?
Unprecedented.
In the center of the chain, perhaps a leader, stood a tall young woman with blue-black hair reaching to her rump, a red headband with hawk’s feather around her brow, and a pair of startling fjord-green eyes that blazed within her charcoal lashes like radioactive emeralds of the finest purest deepest water. She wore — but who cares except the author? — faded Levi britches shrunken to a perfect fit (and what they fit was perfect), track shoes, and a snug sweat-soaked white T-shirt which proclaimed, with green fist and words of red across her proud upstanding jugs,
EARTH FIRST!
At her side posed a nearly naked lad, clean-shaven, golden-haired, with the sculptured muscles of a professional body builder, bronzed hide glistening under a becoming film of perspiration. Like everyone else in the group he was unarmed, prepared only for passive resistance and peaceful demonstration. The tool he carried at his side, on which at the moment he was gracefully leaning half his weight, was not as it might appear a primitive Neanderthal warclub but only a simple old-fashioned antique monkey wrench, of the type employed by early railroad mechanics when tightening nuts and bolts on the drive wheels of a steam-powered mogul locomotive. It was four feet long, with oaken handle and adjustable head of cast iron, and weighed only forty pounds.
The remainder of this gang, thirty in all, about half of them girls and the rest only boys, spread out from the center pair on either side, flaunting their youth and health, their black scarves, blue jeans, red rags and green flags —