As the truck traveled toward the big tree, Justy thought about Dale sitting up front between Jake and Kyle, like in the old days before Justy had arrived.
They drove under the second overpass, the one that fed the old highway into downtown Sequoia. Justy had heard talk that used to be hundreds of people living in the area, and she wondered where they had gone, what kind of stories they were living now. And this new wave of people, direct from the cities, bringing art and a love of the land that seemed different from Jake’s feelings. Sunshine and Nolan and Ochre were people Justy was drawn to, despite what Jake and Dale said about how they must earn their money. Ochre never smelled like the kids whose parents grew what Dale called the pot.
Lacee started singing a song, the wind whipping her voice away, almost before Micah and Justy had a chance to hear it. They continued on the freeway that took them past River Fork, and when Jake took an off-ramp, Justy leaned forward and saw the sign that said “Avenue of the Giants.” The truck entered the shade of the redwood grove, and they curved on the road in between the trees. Justy loved the incredible height of the trees and how the damp world beneath them kept all the plants so green. The Eel was off to her right, and she caught glimpses of it every few minutes.
In an open area, Jake brought the truck to a stop. The children stood and looked over the cab. Jake, Dale and Kyle climbed out of the truck, and Jake pointed to a pole in front of them with a small sign at the very top that said “High-Water Mark, 1964.”
“See that?” he said. “That’s how high the Eel got the year the bridge washed out at the Reese Ranch. That tiny little sign tells you why your mother didn’t graduate from high school.” He walked forward until he stood directly under the marker. More than thirty feet of pole rose above him. Justy looked at Dale and saw her stare up at the sign. Justy tried to imagine the river rising that high and saw herself swimming under tons of water, unable to see the sun. She’d heard the story about the bridge washing out—how Dale had been newly married to Jake, four months pregnant and six months shy of her high school diploma. How they’d had to use the old box-pulley system, the size of a coffin, hanging from cables across the expanse of Hollow Tree Creek Canyon. How Jake and Dale had climbed inside the box and how when they got to the other side, that platform was washed away also, so that Jake had to lower Dale to the ground by a rope tied beneath her arms. Justy didn’t know when she hadn’t known this story, but it took on another meaning for her as she looked at the sign. What Jake and Dale hadn’t talked about was the water raging underneath them. But maybe that wasn’t a thing a person could put into words.
“Thought you guys should see it,” Jake said, and climbed back into the truck. Dale stood a moment more and Justy thought about her swimming in the middle of the night. Maybe Dale felt like she was constantly surrounded by things that wanted to carry her away and felt that by swimming the Eel, she stayed strong. Dale nodded at the sign, went to the passenger side of the truck and climbed in while Kyle held the door for her. Jake headed the truck south to the logging site.
Lacee arranged the sleeping bags around them again. “What he doesn’t tell you,” she said, “is that a few miles farther on, he rolled a car once.”
Justy sat up and looked at Lacee, wanting to know the whole story.
“He did not,” Micah said.
“You can ask Kyle. They went to his high school reunion and Dad drank too much. You wouldn’t remember because you were just a baby.”
Micah blew his bangs from his eyes. Justy could tell he wasn’t sure whether to believe Lacee.
“Dad had to get twenty-four stitches in his head,” Lacee told him.
“How come he doesn’t have any scars?” Micah smiled, thinking he’d caught Lacee in a fib.
“Because the scar is under his hair.” She hit him on the arm.
The truck eased onto a dirt road and the children covered their heads with the top sleeping bag, trying to keep out the dust. Justy peeked out and saw redwood ferns and trees covered in an ashy layer. She ducked back under the cover and knew from the dust that this was a route many logging trucks had taken, their weight turning the dirt road into a fine powder. The children huddled under their dark canopy, and Lacee started laughing at the way Micah kept filling his lungs with air, trying not to breathe, turning red, then finally exhaling to take in another, equally dusty breath. Justy wanted to know how Lacee could tell such a scary story and then laugh so soon after.
The road became rougher and Jake shifted into second gear. Justy pulled the sleeping bag down, and the three children looked at the patches of empty forest. They had to hang on to one another when the Willys crossed the water bars, rattling their teeth. The engine whined as they climbed a small incline and then they were in a clearing, the earth raw with human and machine movement. Stumps dotted the landing, and six trucks were parked in a line by one of them. The area seemed nude, completely different from the redwood grove they’d just passed through. Jake pulled up next to Harris’s red Toyota, and Justy recognized Lefty Fry’s battered green Ford. Another new white foreign truck with fog lights and a roll bar waited on the other side of Harris’s truck. When Jake cut the Willys’s engine, they all could hear a chain saw and the deep rumbling of a Caterpillar tractor. Jake climbed out of the cab.
“Okay, kids.” He had to raise his voice to be heard. “We’re here to see that tree fall.” He pointed at a redwood tree looming at the left edge of the landing. It stood more than a hundred feet from the truck. Justy leaned forward, eyes searching for the top of the tree. Dale and Kyle got out of the truck. Jake indicated the new white pickup with a nod. “Looks like we got more than one grower here.”
Dale and Kyle both looked at the shiny vehicle, standing out among the dirty collection of trucks even with its layer of new dust. Kyle shrugged and Dale shook her head.
“If Gaines knew we were here, with the kids…” Jake looked at Dale.
“I’ll keep them close,” she half shouted back to him.
“Good idea,” Jake said, and walked to the group of men gathered around a cooler on the tailgate of the truck that was farthest away. Dale watched him go, then turned to the tree marked for falling. Kyle leaned against the side of the truck, following her gaze. The chain saw stopped. He whistled.
“What’s Juan doing with the Cat, Granpa?” Lacee asked. They all looked from the tree to the yellow D8 tractor pushing dirt into a pile.
“He’s making a bed for the tree. See, if you don’t make a bed, a redwood will shatter when it hits the ground, and then none of the timber is any good. There’s no money in a shattered tree, no matter how many board feet it has.”
“And that thing over there?” Micah asked, pointing to another yellow machine sitting idle at the far end of the landing.
“That’s a loader. It’s what we use to get the cut trees onto the logging trucks.”
Justy didn’t like the way it looked, with its sharp, pointy arms jutting in the air. She remembered the pictures she’d seen in a book about logging, how the men had such tiny saws and how tremendously huge the trees were.
“Figure I’ll go say hello to the guys,” Kyle said to Dale. He walked away and Lacee asked if the children could follow. Dale studied the enormity of the tree, then the tractor pushing its way across the dirt.
“Yes,” she finally said, still not looking at the children. “But don’t go too far.” She turned her gaze to the knot of men. No other women were present. The children each swung a leg over the tailgate, notched a foot on the bumper, brought the other leg over and jumped. Their feet thudded into the dust, and puffs of dirt rose in the air around their shoes.
“Keep an eye on each other,” Dale said, and they all nodded. Justy felt like they automatically watched out for each other, that maybe they were a tribe of three. A heavy trail in the dust next to one boot print showed where Harris had walked. Justy also noticed Gil Walker’s wheelchair marks.
“Look, I’m Bigfoot,” Micah said. His footprints were much bigger than his tennis shoes. Justy started walking, trying to be Bigfoot also. She searched the trees. The metal tread of the Cat clanked as Juan pushed dirt from in between the stumps. Young, pale redwood ferns grew at the edges of the landing, their lacy leaves gracing the red-ochre of the stumps. The earth was dry and small roots twisted in the soil as the maw of the Cat bulldozed forward. Justy noted the dirt was brown, not like the deep orange of the land the mining company owned and wanted.
Along with the dust, she smelled the fresh-cut redwood and breathed in its honeyed smell. Lacee linked arms with her and headed them in the direction of the men. When they approached, Lacee let go of Justy and stood next to Jake. Micah joined the girls, and the children waited to be noticed. They watched Mark Sloan lay his chain saw into the redwood trunk. A crescent of sawdust arced behind him. Sam Sloan and his brother, Frank, stood off to the side, watching their father’s progress. Frank held a Budweiser in his free hand. They all wore the same uniform—striped hickory shirts, loose-fitting Ben Davis jeans ripped off above the ankles, red suspenders, gloves, hard hats and the spiky black caulk boots.
Justy looked back at Dale and thought about her flowing in the Eel the other night. Dale gazed off in the distance, her lean body supported by the truck. Mark pulled the chain saw away from the tree and shut off the engine. The clank of the Cat didn’t seem so loud now and Lacee coughed. Jake put an arm around her shoulders. Justy tried to remember the last time Jake had touched any of them. Lacee stood straighter into her years, apparently forgiving Jake for not coming home earlier two nights before. Kyle winked at the girls and drank deeply from a beer. Next to him stood a clean-cut man with a camera hanging from his neck. The Cat stopped and the men shifted in the quiet.
“Too bad you can’t top it, Kyle,” Lefty said, saluting Kyle with his beer.
Kyle turned and gauged the tree again. “Once this one goes, there won’t be much call for my line of work.”
“Biggest tree I ever seen,” Jeff Harris said, his bushy beard twitching with his words.
“Gonna bring lots of widow makers with it,” Lefty said. He smiled at Justy and she looked away from him to the T-shirt Harris wore. It said “This bud’s for you,” and huge leaves filled the white space under the words. She wondered whose new white pickup was parked by Harris’s. All the men in the circle except the one with the camera were people she recognized from town and Hilltop, but she couldn’t guess which one had crossed over from logging.
“I seen bigger,” Gil Walker said from his wheelchair. Justy studied his face again, trying to see any changes in the lines since she’d watched him the day of the trapshoot.
“Hell, Gil. You seen everything,” Jake said. The group laughed.
Gil adjusted his Peterbilt cap and spat into the dust. “I’ve worked harder than any of you, climbed more trees than you’ll ever dream about.” He took a gulp of his beer and wiped his mouth. The men waited a minute and Justy assumed it was out of respect.
“Yeah, yeah. And screwed more women than there are stars in the sky,” Harris said.
The men laughed. When Kyle stopped, he pointed with his index finger from the side of his beer toward the children. Jake removed his arm from Lacee and said, “You kids go sit with your mother.”
They walked back to Dale and stopped in front of her. She returned from her thoughts and lowered the tailgate. The children climbed up and she handed them each a sandwich from the cooler. While Justy tasted the sweet blackberry jam, she looked at the sky, saw the tops of the trees hovering in a circle around the clearing. The doomed tree stood so tall and immobile, it was hard for her to imagine it falling. The trunk was clean of branches, much like the Drive-Thru Tree, broken only by the deep grooves in the bark. She watched Mark and his sons wedge metal pieces into the cut Mark had made.
“Mama,” Micah said, “will there be logging in the New System?”
“I don’t know,” Dale said, “but it seems that since the Bible says the earth will be restored, like how it was in the Garden of Eden, I figure not.”
Micah thought about this and then asked, “Since we’ll be perfect human beings, will I know how to play all musical instruments?”
Dale shrugged and said, “Maybe you should ask Brother Lucas next time you see him.”
“Okay,” he said, and went back to his sandwich. Justy felt closer to Micah than she had in months; she sometimes wondered what the New System would be like, and if maybe that was why Jehovah didn’t show up.
Jake and Kyle returned and Dale handed them sandwiches.
“That tree ain’t going to fall on us, is it?” Lacee asked Jake from her perch on the edge of the truck. Jake walked over and stood in front of her, facing away.
“No, girl. These guys know what they’re doing. See how they’re putting those wedges in?” Jake gestured with his beer and took a bite of his sandwich. “Those are to make sure the tree won’t twist while Mark does his next cut, what they call the face cut.” Jake watched the men with a certain kind of reverence Justy hadn’t seen outside the Kingdom Hall.
“Tree fallers in the Pacific Northwest, they’re better than all the rest in the world because the trees are so big. They even came up with something that’s called the Humboldt cut. It’s a special way to deal with the huge bases of the redwoods.”
“What’s a widow maker?” Micah asked. Jake pointed to the top of the tree. “See those limbs? When a tree is cut, those guys come flying off and can end up anywhere. I know of men who’ve had their head snapped off by one of them limbs.”
“A widow is a wife with a dead husband,” Dale said.
“Who’s the guy with the camera?” Lacee asked.
“He’s from the Eureka logging museum,” Kyle said. He shook his head. “That tree is thousands of years old.”
“Older than Jesus?” Micah asked, and Kyle nodded. The family remained quiet and Justy thought about the trip the elementary school had taken last year to the museum. In the entrance sat a slab of an old growth, showing how the years could be counted by the tree’s growth rings. Small markers indicated where major historical events correlated to the tree’s years, things such as when Columbus had landed in America, when the Constitution was written. The tree before them now was older than this country, Justy thought. A sadness tugged at the currents running in her.
“He’s beginning the face cut now,” Kyle said. Mark started the saw again and they watched him brace his leg before laying the blade into the tree.
“This will be the one that makes it fall,” Kyle said. Justy didn’t like the sound of a face cut or a widow maker. And the blade was so tiny compared to the tree—it seemed like a trick to her. She didn’t understand how that little machine could cut down all that history. And it didn’t make sense, how the Drive-Thru Tree continued to stand with its middle cut out. She’d seen pictures of the old logging days, when two men and one tiny saw took days to fall one redwood. Her favorite picture from the logging museum was the one where two men each sat on a horse in the cut of a redwood. Another one she liked was an elementary school photo with about fifty children sitting on the stump of a tree.
They watched Mark cut for thirty more minutes, then he yelled “Timber” above the sound of the running chain saw. He and his sons ran from the tree and stopped about forty yards away. Dale made sure each of the children was in the bed of the truck. The top of the tree swayed a little. Mark killed the chain saw and the landing became still except for a faint breeze in the treetops. The wind stopped and Justy heard a cracking sound. She looked at the men gathered around the beer cooler and saw that they all stood with their mouths open and hats off. Mark yelled “Timber” again. The cracking sound grew. The tree was cut all the way through but wasn’t falling. Maybe habit or memory held it in place.
Mark watched the tree, the quiet chain saw in his hand. He and his son
s kept their hard hats on. A pop, pop, pop came from the trunk and Mark yelled “Timber” once more, as if the sound of his voice could topple the tree. Time slowed, leaving the people and the tree in a void where things forgot to move forward. The redwood swayed and Justy heard its branches scratching other branches, other trees. Micah sneezed. A low, slow creak came from the trunk and then stopped. Jake looked at Mark, then back at the tree, yelled “Timber” a fourth time, the certainty in his voice diminished. The top of the old growth seemed like it was moving, but Justy wasn’t sure, just like she wasn’t sure if she really swam the Eel in her dreams. The creaking grew louder and the whole tree began to sway, barely moving, holding on to its severed trunk. Then it groaned again from deep within and began to drop toward the earth, a swath of red hovering in the sky. Then it picked up speed and fell fast, as if it had given up. It crashed its way downward, graceful even in its hugeness, taking and breaking the limbs of other trees with quick snaps of sound. Finally, it hit the bed Juan had made for it dead-on, and a powerful thud echoed when it landed. The Willys rocked with the impact, making Justy think of an earthquake. Two branches, the ones Jake had called widow makers, impaled the earth, and to Justy, it looked like God had thrown them there.
The afternoon felt split open, and a trancelike quiet filled the space the redwood had left behind. Dust filled the air, and occasional creaks of protest came from the tree as it settled into the earth. But for that noise, Justy could hear no other. Everyone remained still, as if frozen by what they’d seen. The forest itself seemed to be in shock, watching in inarticulate protest. She remembered this was a family day, and the sadness she’d felt earlier threatened to overtake her and shake her body with sobs. She placed Ochre’s stone on her tongue. The tree’s history seemed to press down on her, and she couldn’t look at the raw place in the sky where it had been. The image of the high-water sign in the middle of the other redwood grove came to her, and she was grateful that those trees were protected from these men and their machines, even though she knew that the fewer there were, the angrier Jake would become because he’d have no work. She wanted to know what would happen to the tree now that its grand stretch of time was over. The men looked confused, like maybe this power they’d been granted was both a blessing and a curse. Maybe she knew how they felt.
By Way of Water Page 15