by Alexa Davis
The trees were illuminated in the section of woods where I’d seen the harvesting marks. I snuck up as close as I could while staying in the shadows. Luckily for me, the lights were directed down and toward the trees, so I ended up right behind one of the men without him seeing me.
“Parks and Recreation! What are you doing here?” I called out.
The guy in front of me jumped and cursed, peering blindly out into the night. He was staring right at me, but couldn’t see.
“Cut the lights!” another voice yelled. The lights shut off all at once, and I heard multiple people running in the direction of the road. I considered calling the cops, but from what Heidi said, no one in law enforcement or the legislature seemed to care. I took a roundabout route to get back to my campsite. I’d been so pleased with my visibility when I set up. Now, it just made me stick out like a sore thumb to people who I didn’t want sneaking up on me.
Sleep wasn’t my friend for the rest of the night. After a couple of hours of sitting and watching, I packed up camp by the starlight and headed to the bottom of the small ridge I was on top of. It put stone at my back and made it harder to see me with my gray tent against a gray backdrop. I still had a view of the river and would plant the cameras I hadn’t used in the trees to document the animals Boyden had asked me to.
But waiting until daylight so I could check the cameras I’d set up in the forest near the harvest marks was agony. Part of me hoped I had a clear shot of Ranger Eli’s face, so I could take it to the police and be done with him forever. Mostly, I was confused about what they were going to cut the trees down with. I hadn’t seen a single axe, or chainsaw, or any logging equipment. As far as I could tell, it would have been a waste of money to cut down trees by hand. The evidence I’d seen at the other sites showed a full-scale logging operation.
Something wasn’t right about that copse of pines. I ate breakfast and went back to the trees before the sun was up. I’d been up for hours, it was only a short time before sunrise, and the sky had already turned from blue-black to gray. The silhouettes of the trees rose in front of me, and I checked the flashlight, shining the beam into the trees for a moment before sliding it back through its loop on my utility belt.
I made a beeline back to the marked trees and saw the lights were still there. I followed the power cords back to where there would have been a power source. The wide tire tracks and the missing generator made me think an ATV had been used, and whatever “they” were taking would’ve had to fit on the same small vehicle.
I shone the flashlight around until I something I hadn’t expected. Immediately, I called the number for the park, but no one answered. I cursed and tried to figure out what to do. While I waited, I kicked at the fake ferns and fallen sticks that the guys I’d interrupted had used to hide the plants they were growing underneath.
Eli was growing pot out in the woods. When I told him about the harvesting marks on the trees, he’d sent the growers to collect it before it was discovered. I had nothing against marijuana. If the growers weren’t hurting people, I had nothing against people growing and even selling it. It was none of my business. I pushed the covers back down and left the spot as I’d found it, then collected my cameras before the growers found and destroyed them.
I’d found another spot to plant my cameras that would still show any loggers who came into the area and tied my red and yellow trail marking tape around the trees they’d spray-painted their cutting marks on in the hopes of making them hesitate. As I finished, my phone chirped at me from my pocket. I smiled as I looked at the caller ID. The park was calling me. Heidi.
“Well, hello, good looking. How are you this morning?” I asked, glad she couldn’t see my face split in two by my stupid grin.
“Um… Ah, good morning, Mr. Hargrave; this is Eli Burns, of Parks and Recreation, um…”
At his discomfort, I laughed aloud. “Oh, God. I’m sorry, Eli. I was expecting a call from this pretty girl, and you just called at the right time.” I laughed. “Hey, I don’t know why you called, but I tied some ribbons on those marked trees you told me to stay away from. I was hoping that seeing someone had been around might make them walk away from it. I saw you put some lights out, but I figured those might be stolen. You might want your guys to come pick them up. I’m going to be setting up trail cameras on the other side of the river all day.”
“Oh. Well, that’s… that’s a very good idea. Thank you. I’ll see that those lights get removed today.” There was a pregnant silence, where I could feel Eli trying to decide if I was a problem or not. “Mr. Hargrave, I hope you have a lot of luck with your wildlife cameras. I’ll let you go, in case your girl calls.”
“Thanks, Eli. I’ll keep tabs on Honey the fawn at Dr. Seale’s office, and I’ll come around the center when he gets reunited with his mother.”
“Sounds like you have a plan. Have a good day, Mr. Hargrave.”
“You, too, Eli; you, too.” I hung up the phone, shook my head, and laughed. Poor Eli. He didn’t seem a bad sport, after all. His men didn’t have guns with them when I interrupted them. They’d run, instead of trying to fight. They were probably other rangers, looking to make some extra money in tight times for government employees.
There was still the matter of Heidi, though. I hated the way he’d looked at her, the way he’d talked to her. She was stronger than I was, staying in a place where she was treated so poorly. I turned the volume up on my phone so I could hear Heidi when she called. Then I got the first camera secured to a fir tree, facing the lake and my tent. Just in case trouble found me. I climbed down to the ladder from the tree, my hands and jacket covered in sap, and my phone rang.
“Of course,” I muttered as I gingerly held my phone and accepted the call.
“Mr. Hargrave,” said a husky female voice that made me shiver.
“Heidi,” I replied. “First, it’s Logan. Second, good morning, beautiful. I’m serious about the first one though. How can I tell you that I’m interested in getting you out here alone with me if we’re being so formal?”
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone, and I panicked. It was stupid of me to forget that she was shy. Coming on to her wasn’t going to get me anywhere.
“So, you want me all alone?”
“Yes. Preferably with something that will remove sap from my hands. I’m going to assume my jacket and pants are going in the trash when I’m done.”
I heard her laugh on the other end, even though she’d moved the phone away from her mouth. “I will come to you, alone, and I will bring turpentine. Anything else?”
I paused, then added, “Good coffee would be nice, and I’ll pay for the coffee and anything you bring to help me, so make sure you get one for yourself, too.”
“Oh, I’m getting something large and expensive.”
“You should make it fattening, too. I mean, obviously, you take amazing care of yourself. Today is the day to splurge.”
She went quiet again, long enough that I thought I’d dropped the call.
“Heidi?”
“You checked me out.”
I winced. She wasn’t like other women I knew. I had no idea what I could or shouldn’t say to her. “Yes. In the interest of a full, trusting relationship, I must confess that I checked you out. I liked what I saw so much I accidentally called Eli ‘good-looking’ this morning, thinking the call was from you. He wasn’t as offended as I thought he would be.” I heard that laugh again, and when she came back, she was panting. “Are you done?” I asked, but the question just made her laugh more.
“I’m sorry I was late calling. Dr. Seale wasn’t in his office; I didn’t want to call until I had information. Then I talked to him, and apparently there is no news yet.”
“But you’re coming, and you’re bringing me coffee?”
She giggled. “It sounds like the turpentine is more important.”
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
“Stop, you’re going to make me laugh so hard m
y mascara runs.” She giggled again.
“So, I’d get to see you without makeup.”
She snorted derisively. “Fat chance, brother.”
I chuckled. “At least give me your number, so I can text you my coffee order.”
“I’ll text you as soon as we hang up. That way, you don’t have to type it in on your phone with those sticky fingers.” She paused then added, “Did you want some work gloves, too?”
I sighed. “I have them. But I left them in my tent and didn’t want to cross the river again to get them. It’s cold in the morning.”
She chuckled. “I’ll meet you at the information booth at the two-mile marker. That should only be a few minutes’ walk from where you are now.”
“Sounds perfect. See you soon.”
She said goodbye, and I carefully dropped my phone into my pocket. We were far away from where Eli’s buddies would be collecting their plants, I’d have a little time with the pretty girl with the hazel eyes, and Boyden’s cameras were going up without any trouble, beyond some sticky fingers.
I was happier than I’d been in a long time. Some of the things I’d seen out in the world had made me want to retreat from humanity. Heidi was the first person outside my family I’d wanted to reach out to in a long time. It wasn’t that she made me happy. Something about her made me want to be happy. Soon enough, I hoped to find out what it was about her that made her catch my focus so completely.
6. Heidi
When Logan’s text came through on my phone, I felt a thrill of satisfaction I had never experienced. At least, not in my adult life. It was stupid, really, to let my day be brightened by a coffee order from a hot guy. As I stood in line, I realized I probably should have told him no. I scoffed at myself. He’d probably never heard it before.
Yet, when I checked the text, there was no coffee order. Just a note from him.
I’m so glad you called this morning. I learned something about you. You have the best laugh I have ever heard. I just thought you should know.
A second text came through while my heart was melting over the first.
Please, for the love of God, don’t forget the turpentine. That text took almost fifteen tries to even be understandable!
I chuckled and sent back a reminder that I needed his coffee order. I received a one-word reply.
Black
I doubted that was true. It was more likely he was just tired of trying to type. When I ordered his large, black coffee, I asked for cream and sugar on the side, so he could add it if he rethought his choice. My order was called, and I collected the pastries and coffees and headed to the park.
I parked in the visitor’s parking instead of the employees, so no one would see the car and come looking for me on a day off. I dropped a twenty-dollar bill in the fee box and winked at Roz, one of the older ladies who worked the fee booth as a volunteer a couple of days a week to help with our pay freeze.
The park was quieter than it had been the day before. I had the trail to myself as I carried breakfast and cleaning supplies up the hill toward the narrow, winding river Logan said he was working next to. The Neches River was already low, and if the drought continued, I was worried that Logan wouldn’t have any animals to photograph. The downside to working this park and loving it so much was the fear you felt anytime things happened in nature that you knew would hurt the fauna and flora, and you couldn’t do anything about it.
“Hey, there, tall, dark, and sappy, how ya doin’?” I asked as I walked up to the most pathetic model of self-pity I’d ever seen.
“I asked for black coffee,” he said.
I nodded.
He sighed. “That was the sap talking.”
I laughed and reached into the bag from the coffee shop, holding up sugar and a little cup of real cream they’d given me.
“I’m probably going to marry you someday.”
“Oh. Um, okay,” I stammered. I knew he was kidding, but for someone like me, just hearing him say that and knowing it wasn’t true was jarring. “I’ll still need you to pay me back for the turpentine,” I deadpanned, and he laughed.
“I saw that look, by the way,” he chided me. “Don’t assume I’m not serious. I’ve been looking all my life for a woman who’s obviously smarter than me but keeps me because she likes my hair.”
“I do like your hair. I’m jealous, in fact. What does your mother think of it, though?”
He scoffed and shook his head. “She hasn’t seen me in three months because she said if I don’t get it cut, she’ll take her garden shears to it and just snip it off at the hair tie.”
I snickered and offered him a choice between a donut and a raspberry Danish.
“Cruel woman. I can’t touch those with my hands like this!”
“Of course, you can. It’s sap, not poison. You could eat it if you had to. But I wouldn’t recommend it. I mean, smell it. That would be disgusting.” I ripped a piece off the donut and stuffed it into his mouth before he could speak again. “You know, my mother is the reason for my hair being this length, too,” I mentioned casually.
“Mmm. You want your hair longer?”
“No. I’d prefer to cut it. But my mom wants me to be pretty, and so I keep it long for her, and then I braid it every day, so it still isn’t pretty.”
Logan reached out, then turned his hand so his sticky fingers wouldn’t touch it and stroked it with the back of his hand. “I think it’s pretty.”
“Thanks. She means pretty like the women you would want to take pictures of.” I shrugged my shoulders and managed a half smile. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I’d love to take your picture. But the setting I have in mind would require us to know each other a little better.”
I arched an eyebrow at him. “Isn’t that a little cliché?”
“No. It is red-blooded male. You hot, me Tarzan, all the way. I mean, I’d love to take your picture right now, with the breeze on your face, and that glitter of anger/lust in your eyes…” His voice trailed off.
I laughed. “You are something else.”
He nodded, and I fed him another piece of donut. “You need to finish this, because turpentine smells awful, and I can’t risk it spilling anywhere out here. So, your place or mine?”
“My place is two hours away.”
I sighed. “My place then. But, no tour. No bedroom, no funny business,” I warned him.
He crossed his heart and clasped his hands together in thanks, only to cry out in real pain when he tried to pull them apart and they were stuck together. “I’ll even change clothes in my tent and carry the sticky ones with us, so they don’t ruin your things.”
I agreed and we walked the long way around to use the bridge to cross, instead of fording it like he had before. I waited outside while he changed, giggling to myself every time he roared in frustration or pain. He didn’t ask for help though, and I didn’t offer. As hot as he was. I was sure the naked truth was only harder to resist, if he offered. And if he didn’t, then my ego would feel it for sure.
I drove him back to my townhouse, and as he stepped inside, I remembered the prints over my bed. I ushered Logan to the couch and rushed to my bedroom, shut the door, and stood in front of it, glancing around for any other prints I might have forgotten.
“This will go better in the bathroom. Give me your sticky clothes, and I’ll get you enough to wash your hands.” The clothes went into a washtub on the back patio, and I poured the turpentine over them. Meanwhile, I could hear Logan as he finished inside. I walked back into the house, coughing from the overwhelming smell of turpentine, and he held up his hands.
“It isn’t me,” he assured me, sniffing his hands. “Well, most of it isn’t.” He wandered around the living room, taking his time with each piece of art I’d hung on my walls, every knick-knack on the shelves.
“Should I be ashamed of my choices?” I asked.
He shook his head. “You have beautiful pieces,” he assured me. “But none of you, anywhere. None of m
y work, either. I will remedy that once I think I can guess what you’d like best.”
I thought of the art above my bed and cringed. “I have pictures of me, I just don’t put them out,” I blurted. I rushed to the credenza and took out an old album. “The pictures are my story, but they’re… they’re not beautiful, and they’re certainly not art.”
“I’d like to see them.”
I handed him the album, and he opened to the first pictures of a happy bald baby, then a toddler with her first reddish brown curls and tiny, perfect teeth. He turned the page, to a little girl of four, sitting up in a hospital bed, IV and machines connected to her through tubes in her arms.
“My earliest memories are of sitting in the hospital with my mom or my dad by my side. I remember that it hurt, but mostly, I remember how sad and scared they were.”
He turned the page, and there I was, bald again, at eleven. “You were so thin,” he whispered.
“I didn’t get to play outside because my immune system was compromised. No sports, and no friends. Children were cruel because their parents treated me like I was contagious.”
He turned the page again, and I was fifteen, standing in front of my high school. I was in my blue and silver track uniform, standing next to a trophy almost as tall as I was.
“You look great here. God, you were already so beautiful,” he said. “And look at that badass trophy.”
I nodded and sighed. “I won that for taking state. I even broke a record in the 400m.” I glanced at him. “I wonder if anyone ever broke my new time.”
“You never went back?”
I laughed and closed the book, hiding away that one happy moment in a lifetime of birthdays spent in treatment, or sick and trying to recover from chemo. “I was going to have a party once; it would have been my first birthday party. I was going to be sixteen, and I was finally allowed to go to public school.” I cleared my throat. “I had started to run and to carefully control what I ate, convinced I could keep the cancer away. The track coach timed me when I was running one day and demanded I join the team. I went to state. I won, everything. When I got home, the kids I thought had become my friends tricked me to get me alone. They beat me and shaved my head. They said they wanted to see the “real” me.”