by Alan Russell
“He said you’d be able to see it from the moon,” said Josh, “from out in space. He described how it was going to go across the entire earth, circle it, you know? He figured it would take about ten billion trees. When he talked about it, you got goose bumps. It was like the earth was a painting, something we could improve upon.”
“Why haven’t you spiked River Grove since his death?”
Josh shrugged. “Political considerations. Maybe, because of his death, we won’t have to.”
“Meaning it wouldn’t be very good PR if just before the election a logger or sawmill worker was injured or killed by one of your spikes.”
“There are those who would tell you that the logging companies have done their own spiking, and caused their own accidents, to get publicity.”
“It wasn’t loggers that went out spiking last month,” I said.
“Like I told you, we spiked as a last resort. The lumber companies love to scream to the media how we’re irresponsible and don’t have any conscience. They like to say we endanger the lives of so-called innocent workers. But do you know how many mill injuries have occurred from our spikings over the years? A handful. It’s a psychological threat more than anything else.”
“I seem to remember a mill worker was almost decapitated a couple of years ago.”
“That wasn’t one of our spikes.”
“But the next one might be.”
“We intend to warn the logging companies before they begin any cutting in the areas we chose to protect. That’s the purpose of spiking, you know. Prevention. We don’t want people to get hurt. We just want to save some trees. We’ve found the timber industry doesn’t care much about their workers, though. If they did, they wouldn’t be shipping all their lumber jobs to Mexico and overseas. It’s not the thought of injuries that bothers them. What hurts them most is when something cuts into their profits. Blades are damn expensive, and so is downtime. It’s easier to replace a man than a blade. That’s their mind-set.”
Sometimes, to get answers, you have to put up with sermons. “Who went out on the spiking expedition?”
Josh shook his head. “No way.”
I worked on getting the answer another way. “Did you rendezvous afterward? Did all of you meet somewhere?”
“No. We drifted back into camp at different times.”
“So you took separate cars?”
“Not all of us. Like I told you, we spiked in tandem. And since some teams were spiking groves near to one another, we rode along together.”
Carpooling to a spiking. But not everyone, I imagined. “There was one among you who spiked alone, wasn’t there?”
I tried to read Josh’s face in the dim light. His facial contortions told me I had hit the spike on the head. But his expression was more forthcoming than his answer. “Don’t ask for specifics, Stuart. You’ve played that game with me before. I only have one answer for you: the majority ruled.”
“I wonder if you ruled for murder,” I said.
The scent of cannabis didn’t guide me this time. It was their voices. From the top of the path I could hear Doc and Teller talking. I didn’t actively eavesdrop, just stood around listening to the sounds of their words more than the words themselves. Their conversation was lazily lobbed back and forth. There were some soft sighs, and some light laughter, and some unhurried talk. There was no speech making, just balloons of thoughts set sailing from one to the other. There is a certain pleasure in listening to friends ramble, and not having to discern double meanings or undercurrents. Friends can speak aloud to each other and not worry about whether they’re making absolute sense, or verbal points.
The big man and the little man were sitting on rocks looking out over the river. I made enough noise so that they heard my approach.
“Roll up a rock,” said Doc. “Or, in your line of work, do you usually crawl out from under one?”
I didn’t laugh, and neither did Teller. Doc suddenly got the idea that I hadn’t come to socialize. In the lengthening silence, he also sensed his presence wasn’t wanted. He faked a yawn, and, when he announced that he had to leave, no one voiced any objections.
I took his place on the rock. I pulled my coat to my frame and rubbed my hands. Teller waited for me to talk. In the interim, he pulled out a joint and lit it. We didn’t face each other but looked out to the river instead.
“Did you go there to kill him?”
“That’s a good question.”
“Do I get a good answer?”
“Why don’t you tell me?” he said, then toked on his joint.
I knew how long his lungs could hold things in, so I went ahead with the talking. “Ashe came to you,” I said. “She told you that the Green Man was selling out. She was upset and didn’t know what to do. You told her that you would take care of everything.
“She didn’t arrive at a good time. You were all ready to go out spiking. I suspect Doc was going to be your partner. It would have been a chance for the two of you to use the climbing gear. But you told him that he couldn’t go spiking with you that night. I don’t know what area the two of you had been assigned, but you ended up at River Grove. When you arrived there, you didn’t immediately find Shepard. The area was supposed to be off-limits to spiking, but you decided to make use of your time. You spiked some trees near his goosepen, using the traditional hammer-and-nail method.
“Eventually, Shepard showed up, but he wasn’t alone. He was preoccupied with his company, which allowed you to slip unnoticed into the woods.
“You didn’t leave, though. You spiked a few more trees. They never even heard you over their lovemaking. You were determined to try and reason with Shepard. You were desperate. If the Green Man came out against Proposition One-fifty. you knew that all you had worked for was in jeopardy.”
Teller nodded. His agreeing didn’t make him look any happier.
“I have four witnesses,” I said, “who can place you near the scene of the murder at about the time it took place. Three men saw you in the woods, or, more accurately, they saw what they thought was Bigfoot. They were drunk, and it was dark, and you were wearing a heavy coat, and gloves, and a ski mask, and chose to communicate with them by pounding on a redwood with a hammer.
“You scared the hell out of them. They fled, and you followed them to the logging road. There, you decided to wait for Shepard. You didn’t do your waiting in the normal way. You decided to while away your time by spiking the redwoods nearest the logging road.
“You were more careful with those trees, thought it more prudent to hide your activities. You pulled your climbing rig out of the Jeep and scaled some of the big trees, peppering them with ceramic bits. But you hadn’t come to River Grove just to spike, or at least not just to spike trees. When Shepard returned from walking his lover back to her car, he passed under one of the trees you were spiking. It was then that you dropped from the tree and struck him.”
Teller responded unemotionally. “How do you know that?”
“My fourth witness. With your white hair and beard, he thought you were an angel.”
“Devil would have been closer to the mark.” Teller reacted calmly, as if he had resigned himself to this moment long ago.
“It was the third tree I scaled that night,” he said, “and each had proved more difficult than the last. I’m a stubborn son of a bitch. Or a stupid one. I guess I don’t know how to give up.”
He flicked the last of his joint out to the river. The water subdued the spark. It didn’t even utter a last gasp.
“My limbs had stopped obeying me. It had been too long since I last used a climbing rig. I had forgotten the rhythm, and I didn’t have the upper-body strength anymore. I was weighted down. The tools of the tree-protecting trade are many, and heavy.
“I felt stupid up there. The belt supported my weight. I hung there, fat, and old, and useless. For what seemed the longest time, I couldn’t move. I was too tired to get down, too tired to even think anymore.
“The w
ind picked up. It was wind enough to move the big tree, wind enough to blow an old fool around like a leaf.
“The lovers passed beneath my tree while I was being blown around. They never noticed me. He was naked, and she was clothed, and they had their arms around one another. Her car was parked several hundred feet away. I prepared for his return, for our confrontation.
“I tried to get my hands and legs to obey me, but my body had gone numb. My tree was shaking, and so was I. The gusts continued to get worse. I could see Shepard coming back, and I called to him, but the wind snatched my voice. I worked on loosening my rig.
“I remember pulling at a catch and beginning to shimmy down. That’s when I lost control of my descent. I fell. He never knew what hit him.”
Teller’s voice caught a little and he stopped talking. Like the wind, I pushed at him.
“And you figured no one would believe a freak accident like that could have happened?”
He nodded.
“So you pulled a widow-maker out of the ground, and tried to disguise the way he really died?”
Teller shook his head. “I panicked,” he admitted. “I was disoriented. I hurt all over. All I could think of was that I had to get up and leave. And that’s what I did.”
“You never examined Shepard?”
“Just for a moment. I saw some blood. That was enough.”
“But you came back later?”
He nodded. “The next morning.”
“How do you explain the widow-maker?”
Teller shook his head, then he sucked on his index finger and chewed hard on his lip. His cannabis hadn’t proved to be lotus leaf enough. “I’ve thought about that quite a bit,” he said. “I’ve had to.
“I figured it was possible he hadn’t died but had broken a leg, or an arm, and might need my help. So much for wishful thinking. Hit and run in the middle of the forest. By the time I came back, it was too late.
“I’ve seen his death in my mind a thousand times. He might have been alive—hurt, not moving. If I had just moved him from that spot, just helped him, the widow-maker would never have struck him.”
Teller answered incriminating questions that I didn’t ask. He had been trying to exorcise his demons for the past month and still hadn’t found the words. Or the explanation.
“You ask me why I didn’t go to the police. Selfishness. Not personal selfishness, at least that’s what I tell myself, but selfishness for the sake of the old trees.”
Teller looked at me. Challenged me to challenge him. “I was going to confess after the election,” he said.
He stroked his long and knotted beard. His face was gray. He looked like one of the old trees in Longfellow’s primeval forest, bearded with moss.
“What time did you return from River Grove?”
“Around ten-thirty. Doc was waiting for me in camp. I had left him without much of an explanation. I went off upset, and returned much worse. Doc reminded me about Methuselah duty. We had planned not to be out very late because of it. I asked him to take my place.”
“Did you tell him why?”
“No. Ashe and I were the only ones who knew about the Green Man and her father. She had begged to go with me, but I wouldn’t let her.”
“Where did she do her begging?”
“Right here. On this spot.”
“Afterwards, did you tell her what happened?”
“No. I didn’t want to implicate her in any way. I only told her not to ask me any questions, and to avoid talking about that night.”
“When did you see Ashe to tell her that?”
“The next day. After I returned from River Grove.”
I considered all that he had told me. Teller must have thought me crazy when I announced, “Eureka!”
27
DEPUTY EVANS AND I drove in darkness. I had called him late the night before and extorted an early-morning ride. I had brought along a flashlight and a gun, and examined both. The deputy wasn’t too impressed with my Saturday night special.
“You call that a gun?”
“Not much of one,” I admitted, “but I didn’t have the foresight to bring a piece along. The triumph of hope over experience. I took this one off of some of your good old boys.”
Evans raised an eyebrow, and I told him the story. It wasn’t the first tale he had heard from me that morning. “You’ve been a busy boy,” he said.
I shrugged, and we didn’t say much else, just took in what scenery we could. On my previous visits to River Grove, it had been dark enough even in the full light of the afternoon. Going there before dawn was a new experience. The ancient forest didn’t look welcoming. The lights from the police cruiser barely penetrated the gloom. It felt like we were traveling into a nightmare.
We stopped where the Green Man had died. “You sure about this?” Evans asked.
I nodded. I didn’t want any cars around, didn’t want anything to make the killer suspicious. Evans was supposed to return at noon. By then, one way or another, I hoped my wild goosepen chase would be over.
“Good luck,” he said.
We waved to each other; then he turned the police car around and drove away. I stood there for a minute and tried to acclimate to the darkness. Halloween in Transylvania didn’t have anything on this setting. It was dark and cold, and I was more than a little afraid. The redwoods were whispering among themselves, and I felt as if I was encroaching. I buttoned my coat and took some deep breaths. Then I started walking, overcompensated for my fears by taking brisk, directed strides. It took me about half an hour to hunt down the goosepen tree where I had almost died. If I was right, there would be another goosepen, and this one wouldn’t be empty. Don McLellan had used three goosepens during his stay in the woods. The Green Man would have known that but wouldn’t have had need for another goosepen until late in the summer. That was why I had been shot at. The murderer had made the connection that there was a second goosepen.
I started my surveying again. In the world beyond the big trees, the sun was rising, but that light wasn’t penetrating very far into these woods. I went from tree to tree, using my light and my system of circles. I looked for two hours before taking a break. What halted my investigation was a sound I first thought was a barking dog. The vocalizations continued, and I crept forward. “Whoo—whoo—hoo—hoo.” The spotted owl was sitting in a canyon live oak. I had a minute’s worth of rapture, then he flew off. Only then did I notice the adjacent goosepen tree.
I walked over, wondered if my luck would hold for two remarkable findings in one day, and shined my light inside the hollowed tree.
There weren’t any bats this time. There was just a weathered backpack. I looked inside and found the Green Man’s green.
I sat in the goosepen and watched the dark gray world turn a little less gray. I had time to kill, so I thought about the circumstances of the kill.
The Green Man had been looking for seed money for his Green Belt. Bull Dozier was a businessman, and he sensed a good opportunity. When Shepard had expressed his ambivalence about the ancient forests, and told him where his true dreams lay, Dozier had acted. The No on 150 campaign had already cost the timber industry millions of dollars. With his tape recorder off, Dozier had suggested they might be able to work together. He would have offered an unofficial contribution to the Green Man’s cause. I also suspected he had proposed a deal whereby Shepard’s seedlings, millions if not billions of them, could be gained from the lumber interests. The Green Belt might ultimately have proven very lucrative, very green to Dozier’s business. Tree planting is a popular venture these days, with lots of groups and interests behind it. The lumber baron had been a not so unlikely believer in the Green Belt. He hadn’t thought of it as a pipe dream, had gone so far as to defend it in my presence.
When the Green Man had died, Dozier had personally come out to River Grove. He had advanced a sizable amount of money to Shepard, and he wanted it back. It wouldn’t have done to have had a large parcel of money found in the wo
ods. Questions of bribery and impropriety would have been voiced. But Dozier hadn’t been able to find the money.
Ashe had seen Shepard with the payoff. That explained her “thirty pieces” reference to her mother. She would have told Teller about the Green Man’s selling out, but Teller wasn’t the kind of man who would have gone to the woods thinking about money. That would have been the last thing on his mind. He would have been fixated on the threat to the old trees, and Ashe’s state of mind. He had seen her desperation, had known that he had to act. Teller and Ashe hadn’t really talked since the night the Green Man had died. Each of them had been afraid for the other. In their own way, all had been bound to silence. Not Dozier, or Teller, or Ashe could talk. They were all holding secrets. I suspected if I scratched much further I’d find other hidden deeds; Dozier’s hand, I was sure, was behind the activities of Red and his friends, at least before he had become allied with the Green Man.
I sat in the golden goosepen. I couldn’t even guess how much money was in the backpack, but I knew it was a lot of trees. I waited in the knowledge that greed is its own best lure.
Faintly, almost imperceptibly, I heard footsteps. A light played on the crevasse. The beam didn’t touch me, but I pushed away from it anyway, stayed enfolded inside the tree. The light and the steps came closer. A head breached the opening.
I put my gun next to his head, and, when I had all of his attention, and then some, I asked, “What’s up, Doc?”
28
HE HAD TOLD ME when we first met that money is “the root of all evil.” I guess I should have taken that as a confession.
I motioned Doc forward with my gun. Almost immediately, he started trying to explain his actions. “There is such a thing as justifiable homicide,” he said.
“I guess I’m going to hear about the science of murder,” I said.
“He deserved to die,” said Doc. “He was corrupt to the core.”
“You didn’t have much reason to like him,” I admitted.
Shepard had scared his Jane away. Doc knew his science, but he didn’t seem to know much about real life. Maybe Jane was his first girlfriend. She was important to him, and the Green Man’s ceremonies had greatly upset her, had driven her from him. He had felt challenged, and jealous, and angry. Those feelings would have come to the fore again when Shepard defied Teller, his father image. Shepard’s decision not to support old growth had threatened all of Teller’s work. In short order the Green Man had hurt the two most important people in Doc’s life. But that wasn’t the reason Doc had killed him.