By Way of Water

by Charlotte Gullick

  “Well,” the man said. Justy knew he taught science, math and PE—all the high school teachers taught three or four subjects. His T-shirt said, “Remember the Land.”

  “Nobody that I know from around here wants to see the mountain mined,” the man said, and pointed his index finger at photographs lying on the table. Justy strained forward, and she and Dale moved so they could see the pictures. They were taken from the air, before and after. The first picture showed the green-on-green of a forested mountain. The next ones revealed a bald and blocky pyramid.

  “You know what they use nickel for?” Ms. Long asked. Jake nodded and the man answered, “They use it in missiles and shit. Like we need more of those. As if ‘Nam wasn’t enough.” The man sat back with a jerk, throwing his hands in the air.

  “What the petition is for,” Ms. Long said, giving the man a sideways glance, “is to ask that further studies be done so we have a better understanding of the mine’s impact, how it affects the streams and the salmon runs. That sort of thing.”

  Jake stepped back and glanced at Dale. “If I sign it, will the mine people see my name?”

  “You got to take a stand,” the man said, leaning forward. Jake looked at him, opened his mouth and closed it. Justy felt his ache for the land they lived on well up in him again. If the mine was stopped, there might be a way to make the land his.

  “If they really want to see the names, they can find them,” Ms. Long said.

  “I don’t know, Jacob,” Dale said.

  Jake studied his boots and then said, “Can I think it over?”

  The man shook his head and Ms. Long said, “Of course. But we want to have this in by the end of June.”

  “We have another petition if you’re interested,” the man said. “It’s to protest the proposed search-and-seizure laws.” He talked fast, trying to jam in the information. “Did you know that if you get busted growing dope, they’re trying to make it so they can take your land, your vehicles, everything? It’s unconstitutional.”

  He was yelling the last part. Ms. Long patted him on the arm. He took a breath and said in a calmer voice, “It’s the war on drugs, man. Money is being pumped into this area for CAMP. Guns, ammunition, helicopters, the whole shebang. It’s like another Vietnam, and where does the government think people learned to start smoking herb in the first place? To get away from their trumped-up war.”

  He stood and Dale took a step back, letting go of Justy.

  “That’s enough, Roger,” Ms. Long said.

  “It makes me sick,” he said, and walked through the back of the booth. Justy stepped forward to look at the petition. Lefty’s beautiful writing was the only indication that a local had signed it. Justy wondered if, because he’d signed it twice, he’d canceled himself out. She saw that Sunshine’s and Nolan’s names were numbers 18 and l9, last on the list.

  Ms. Long smiled at Justy and looked back at Jake. “I can understand your position. But…your name on the list could swing a lot of people in this town.”

  Jake studied his boots again. “I’ll think it over,” he said finally. He gave a curt nod and walked away, Justy and Dale following. They moved through the crowd and then Dale stopped. She leaned down to Justy, “Smell that?”

  Justy sniffed something sharp and sweet, like the tarweed that grew on the ranch. Some of the kids at school smelled similar in the fall, when it was harvest time.

  “Somebody’s doing pot,” Dale said. “Probably those painter people.”

  Then Dale stood and walked fast to catch up with Jake. He joined Kyle in the last booth. Photos of the past century covered seven makeshift walls. From left to right, the pictures showed the passage of time in the logging world. An elderly man sat in a wheelchair; Justy recognized him from the mining museum in Eureka. Gil Walker sat next to him, and the two men didn’t seem to notice the world around them as they talked about the old days, when loggers had been real men and the trees bigger than anyone could imagine. Justy wondered what the words next to the pictures looked like to Gil, whether the letters he couldn’t read appeared like twisted little trees that he might want to cut down.

  The pictures progressed through time, showing men and mules, rivers of logs, handsaws standing three times taller than the loggers holding them. Then came pictures of steam engines known as donkeys, then chain saws, tractors and men in hard hats. Justy wondered where the women were, if the wives living somewhere else thought about their husbands, who risked their lives on a daily basis. She wanted to know what the women dreamt about at night.

  In the last panel, the redwood they’d seen fall last month lay on the ground, Mark and his sons in front of it. Even on its side, it still towered over them. Juan walked up and clapped his hands on Kyle’s and Jake’s backs.

  “Nice work back there, Colbys.” Juan winked at Dale.

  “You did your part,” Kyle said. Juan waved his hand and the men started walking, slightly in front of Dale and Justy. They talked bar talk: what was happening in the woods, the thinness of the work compared to years past, about C.C. Davis’s death last week—a redwood had slabbed, and the part of the tree that had kicked back had pinned him to another tree, killing him. The funeral would be held the next Saturday at the cemetery in Madrone. Juan stopped and put his brown hands in his jeans. “You know, Helen’s turning fifty next Sunday. We’re having a big barbecue, and she’d love it if you all came and played in her honor.”

  Jake pointed a thumb at Dale. “She can’t make it, Johnny. But me and Kyle, I bet we’d be able to make some time to sing her a song or two.”

  Dale looked away and Juan nodded. “That’d be great,” he said. They fell quiet and then the tattooed man walked past, smelling like tarweed. Juan leaned in closer. “There’s more and more of those kind these days.”

  They all watched the man continue through the crowd, the peace tattoo on his back shining in the sun. Justy liked how the symbol made the cliffs of his shoulder blades stand out sharper against his sun-browned skin.

  “Probably down from River Fork,” Dale said.

  “You’re right,” Juan said. “Lots of them there. Harris sells property to them.”

  “They’re buying up too much land,” Jake said, and Justy felt a far idea play in the corner of his mind.

  “It isn’t legal money,” Dale said.

  “I know what you’re saying, Dale. Helen, she feels the same way. It’s hard, though, when they bring in all that cash, ready to pay. You don’t really want to take their money, but sometimes it helps us make it through the month.”

  “Helen is a good woman,” Dale said, and Justy wondered if Jake or Juan knew about the night calls she made to Dale.

  “It gets to be so confusing,” Juan said. “You get all these city types going back to the land, or whatever they call it.” He pulled at the corner of his black mustache.

  “It don’t feel right,” Kyle said, “seeing the land go to people who ain’t even lived here a winter, lived through the rain.”

  They walked away from the logging pictures and back toward the contest area. Country music came from the speakers near the stage, and a woman in a thin blue dress danced, her hands caressing the air. Her bare feet stirred up a small cloud of dust while six men sitting at a picnic table wearing cowboy hats watched her.

  Where the ax contest had been, a tiny man with a gigantic beard was checking the oil in his chain saw. He started the engine and laid the blade into a redwood log, making small cuts into the upended chunk of wood. A hand-carved sign leaned against another log: “Chainsaws for Jesus.” Jeff and Mamie walked toward the Colbys, and Mamie and Dale said hello.

  Harris leaned toward Jake, beer in hand, and said over the sound of the saw, “Get a load of this guy.” He shook his head, a smirk riding the top of his beard. He smelled heavily of the tarweed odor. Dale took a step back, and Kyle cocked his head at Harris. Jake kept his face blank.
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  “He comes from Oregon. Says he was out falling one day when he gets this vision, light through the trees and everything.” While Harris talked, Mamie played with her stringy brown hair and seemed to be watching something in the distance.

  “Says Jesus came to him in the woods and told him to become a chain-saw artist. The guy falls to his knees and asks Jesus what he should carve, and Jesus? He tells him to make fish and bears and Indian heads. I figure he’ll be carving your mug sometime soon.” Harris indicated Jake with his finger and laughed.

  “What a crock,” Jake said. Dale and Mamie met each other’s eyes for an instant. The man continued, the chain whirring. A small group of people gathered to watch him. Within a few minutes, a tree began to emerge from the wood, a redwood, complete in miniature.

  The Colbys and Juan started to walk away, and the Harrises followed them. Harris kept laughing and said, “You know, Jesus was a carpenter.”

  Lacee and Micah joined the group, Caleb and Sky Harris behind them, all of their skin pink with the day’s sun. The tattooed man walked past and said hello to Harris. Then the Harrises headed together toward the beer booth.

  “What you been up to?” Jake asked Micah and Lacee.

  “I went swimming,” Lacee said, and Justy ached for the river.

  “I’ve been hanging out with Caleb and Sky,” Micah said.

  “Harris’s kids?” Jake asked. “That guy,” he went on, talking to Juan and watching Harris. “He’s got that JW wife, and everyone in this county knows he’s a grower.”

  “I know, I know,” Juan said, shrugging.

  “Sky and Caleb are nice,” Micah said.

  Dale patted him on the shoulder. “We better head home,” she said, not looking at Jake. Juan took stock of the silence and said his good-byes. Dale started walking to the Willys.

  “We’ll be home after a while,” Jake called. Dale didn’t look back.

  ***

  “Justy. Wake up.” Dale shook her from rivered sleep and she sat up, blinking. The deer had been standing at the mouth of the Eel again, watching Justy and wanting her to do something she didn’t understand. Ochre’s stone had rolled from her hand and she slid her fingers along the sheets, searching for it.

  “Come on,” Dale whispered. Justy followed her into the living room. She squinted against the kitchen light and saw that it was eleven-thirty. Dale wore a long-sleeve shirt and held out pants and a lightweight sweater for Justy, who slipped into the clothes. Justy could hear the truck running. Outside, the moonless night wore its darkness like a dream, and they entered it.

  Dale turned on the headlights. Justy watched the road roll in front of them as if it were a map to all the confusion. The truck hit the asphalt and Dale took the old road. Justy sensed the Eel on their left, far below them. Somewhere down there at the place called the Hermitage, Ochre was sleeping in his tipi, probably dreaming of how colors came alive with water. The old road took them through the curved night until they reached the first houses of South Sequoia.

  Dale slowed and Justy began searching for Kyle’s truck in any of the driveways. She wanted to see into those houses, see what love meant in those squares. Many of the buildings were boarded up, the logging families having moved on in search of other work.

  Justy scanned the night, her eyes rays of hope for Jake and Kyle. She wished for Ochre’s stone and felt undone because she hadn’t found it. Dale drove through the south part of town, on past the full parking lot at Hilltop. The Willys rolled on, down through the redwoods, through the tall darknesses lining the road, past the Drive-Thru Tree entrance, on through town and the fairgrounds. Dale drove into the now-dormant festival and turned off the headlights and the engine. The night loomed closer while their eyes adjusted. The engine clicked and cooled. In front of them, cables led from the top of a fifty-foot pole to the ground, holding it in place.

  In the morning, the tree-climbing contest would take place and men would scramble up the pole, looping their way upward, chain saws dangling down their backs. Justy was sure Kyle would be the fastest, even at his age, hugging the tree to his body, digging his caulk boots into the wood. High climbing was a dying art, he’d told Justy, and she thought he’d be able to shine tomorrow, even if the contest wasn’t the real thing.

  The tree before her stood lonely, and the cables holding it in place seemed the work of a magnificent wood spider, come to spin a giant web for the unknowing. Dale got out and walked to the pole. She placed her palms against the fuzzy cedar, leaned her forehead on the bark and breathed in the scent of the tree. Justy felt Dale draw in the things that drove the men, and maybe even try to bring back some of that original night with Jake so many years before. Dale took breath after lung-filling breath until Justy felt dizzy with her indecision. The river called to Dale, but she wanted to make sure Jake was all right.

  The sharp, sweet cedar incense filled the cab as Dale drove north on Highway 101 for a mile and then took the dirt road to the Grange hall. The Willys rounded a corner and the headlights revealed a full parking area. Dale pulled in next to the truck farthest from the hall and cut the engine. They sat in the relative dark and listened to music coming from the building. Dale rolled down her window, and Jake’s fiddle courted the night. The song burst out as someone left the hall, the sound carrying sharp and twangy through the open door.

  “Please go look,” Dale said. Justy walked toward the hall. After a few steps, she looked back and saw Dale hanging her head out the truck window, face open to the sky and Jehovah beyond. Justy walked to the back of the building, feeling strange, knowing that the bones Jake and Kyle had dug up and repositioned were a few feet farther back in the darkness. People sat on benches, smoking and talking. Justy smelled the distinct odor of tarweed and knew some people were doing pot. No one noticed her as she moved to the picture window and looked into the hall. Jake and Kyle played with a group of musicians, all of them clean-cut and pale-skinned. Juan and Helen danced gracefully to the two-step, smiling into each other. Sunshine and Nolan were tucked into the corner of the room, and Justy saw Ochre standing next to them, talking to a kid his age Justy didn’t know. When the song ended, Jake laid his fiddle down and headed to the kitchen-bar area at the back of the room. She saw him talk to D.J. for a minute before Harris tapped Jake on the shoulder.

  When Justy saw Jake and Harris walking toward the back door with beers, she headed down the steps into the redwoods that separated the Grange hall from the new cemetery. She slid into the tree shadows and waited. A few headstones caught rays of light. Jake and Harris stopped near the closest grave. Justy could barely see them, so she closed her eyes and listened.

  “What is it that you want, Jeff?”

  “Well, I’ve been thinking. You got all that land you watch over, and hardly anyone ever comes to look at it.”

  “Your point being?” Jake took a long drink.

  “If you were to let somebody grow out there, you could take a cut without even lifting a finger.”

  Justy didn’t like Harris’s voice. It was too slow for her, as if he were talking from the dream world.

  “It ain’t my land, Harris. You know that.”

  “Ay, that’s the beauty, Jake. If a bust ever happened, you just say you don’t know who’s been growing.”

  Jake remained silent and Justy could tell Harris was shifting his weight from one leg to another.

  “I know you could use the money, man.”

  “I ain’t interested.” Jake’s voice had a tinge of razor in it.

  “It’s cool, Jake. But why don’t you think it over?”

  Harris clunked past Justy back to the hall, and she pressed closer to the tree. Jake sat, leaning against one of the headstones. He drank, long, deep swallows, and then leaned his head into his hands.

  Two songs wafted into the night, and Justy listened to Jake drink, feeling him tumble over what Harris had said. The grave of Ro
se Gaines sat underneath Jake, and he didn’t want to do work next winter that involved people in her condition. The earth smelled newly disturbed and Justy leaned forward. Jake’s face was open to the sky, just like Dale’s in the truck. The beer bottle sparkled in a ray of light from the hall.

  The music humped around them, and Justy thought she heard Jake talking. She took quiet steps closer but only enough to hear his voice, not the words themselves. She sensed it was a sort of a prayer, the alcohol allowing Jake’s tongue to loosen. The part of her that was him ached, wanting him to be so much more than what he was, wanting a piece of the world that was his own. Jake wanted to stick his hands into the earth and know the dirt that collected under his fingernails meant home and not just hard work.

  “Jake,” a woman’s voice called from the porch. Jake stopped his murmuring and remained motionless.

  “Jake. You promised me a dance.” Her words blurred through the night. “Jake.”

  Justy heard her walk back into the hall. Jake looked at the bottle in his hand and then flung it into the further darkness. The glass broke against a tree, clattering to the ground. The arc of its flight reminded Justy of the pennies and the day she’d stopped talking. Jake stood, and Justy again pressed herself to a redwood, feeling the shaggy bark on her palms as he walked past her, up the steps and inside.

  She looked around to the dark trees reaching higher, the pale headstones sinking eventually under. Her mouth opened and she felt a surge to let it all fall away from her, every single word and phrase she carried for them. But they refused to leave her, and she thought about a Christmas tree with ornaments that couldn’t be removed. Someday, she promised herself the words would swim from her, spiraling away, bone outward.

  Two Saturdays later Joella called and asked if Dale wanted to go out in service that afternoon. Dale said yes and felt the nerve birds fly in her stomach. It was easier to try talking to someone outside of Sequoia about God’s Truth. Speaking to people she knew only somewhat made her even more shy. Micah sat on the couch beside Lacee, who was reading Catch-22. Occasionally he glanced down at the Watchtower in front of him. Dale went into the kitchen and began cutting flour into a cube of butter. She was making crust for a pie and Justy’s stomach gurgled at the thought. Jake was down at the barn, playing music for the photographs. Justy didn’t know where Kyle was, but she hadn’t heard either his motorcycle or his truck. He might be out taking a walk, “soaking in more nature,” as he called it. Justy wanted to go with him; she wanted to know as much as she could.