by Ann Eriksson
The flip line resisted. A spray of needles scraped across my helmet and I knew I’d reached branches. The manoeuvre from trunk to the limb above my head sapped my remaining strength. I straddled the branch, lungs heaving, and anchored the climbing rope with a length of webbing, then collapsed back against the trunk, panting, clothes drenched in sweat. Below a dozen faces tilted heavenward, watching.
I could see Paul’s body, hanging in mid-air, two body lengths above me, a body length out, his face the colour of ash, shirt soaked crimson with blood. The shaft of the bolt pointed skyward from the centre of a glistening red stain. A wounded swan. I couldn’t rest. From here on up, the lineman’s technique would no longer work, the branches too numerous. I had to free climb through the thick canopy, without a rope, setting anchors with webbing and carabiners for safety as I went.
“Paul,” I shouted.
No response. No movement, no flicker of life, nothing to tell me he could hear. If only I could fly. Bile rose from my stomach into my throat. I spat, then swallowed the foulness. My goal: his hammock; my purpose: to find his rope and belay him down. Paul had fallen more than ten metres before his tangled line arrested his descent. His second mistake in two days. He had failed to use a safety lanyard to tie himself in. His third mistake—and a shock for me: Paul, the most safety conscious climber I knew, wore no helmet. His head was bare.
Free climbing was easier, safer than spurs and a flip line, but my short arms and legs restricted my reach, my progress slow. As I crawled my way upward, I recalled a film Paul showed me of orangutans travelling through treetops, smooth as flowing water. “One limb at a time,” he explained. “Like a mountain climber. Never less than three points of contact with the tree.”
When I reached Paul’s gear, I tied myself in, looped his rope through a carabiner with a figure-eight knot, and took his weight. I unclipped his rope at the anchor webbing and dropped the loose end to Marcel. Marcel belayed from below and together we lowered Paul to the ground. I prayed the rope would not snag, but it slipped smoothly through my gloves. His body descended like a lead weight on a string. A dozen arms cradled him to the earth and bore him away, a centipede gliding on a bevy of legs along the forest floor. I slumped back against the tree trunk. Grief burst from me in great heaving sobs.
“Faye?”
I gulped air, fighting for control, the safety rope gripped in my gloves.
“Faye, it’s Grace. You need to come down.” My mother peered up from the ground, too far away to see her face. “Stop crying and come down.”
I wiped tears from my cheeks with my sleeve at my mother’s order. I dismantled Paul’s hammock, folded his gear into it, and lowered the bundle to the ground, then rappelled myself down. At the moment my feet hit the duff, Paul was on his way to the PCF yard in Terry’s four-by-four. Grace waited for me at the base of the tree. She helped me out of my gear and together we ran the trail. By the time we reached camp, an emergency helicopter kilometres away was lifting off the tarmac next to Roger Payne’s trailer in a whirlwind of dust and pebbles. Nobody at camp could tell us if Paul was alive.
I collapsed to the ground, a helpless sack of muscle and bone. Others sat in shocked silence around the clearing. Esther and Sue embraced, sobbing into each other’s hair.
“We need to find out where they took him.” Grace laid her hand on my arm. “Come.”
I lifted my head and considered the dubious band of activists, young and old, male and female, liberal and traditionalist, in the valley for selfless reasons. Why? To save a few big trees from the chainsaws? To protect a future they valued for their grandchildren? Paul might never have grandchildren, let alone children. I dropped my head into my hands. All I saw was the image of the crossbow bolt, the blood, his swaying body.
A warm hand settled on my shoulder. “You are a brave and strong woman, Faye,” came Mr. Kimori’s serene voice. “But you are not Buddha. Come.”
He cradled my elbow and urged me to my feet, then led me to a cedar at the edge of the camp and positioned me in the shade of the tree. He arranged my arms doll-like, out from my sides, palms rotated to face the sky. “Look up,” he whispered as he stepped back, arms folded.
I did as he asked; the striations of stringy red bark drew my gaze up the ladder of droopy limbs and into the canopy where swags of green foliage blocked the sky. “What?” I asked, confused.
“Shin rin yoku.” He opened his arms, palms up. “Tree shower. Close your eyes. Listen to the breath. Let the tree rain peace and calm upon you.”
I did as he asked. The sharp fragrance of the cedar mingled in my nose with the stink of my own sweat. What peace? Rage tore through me. My eyes flew open and I whirled to meet the kind-hearted gaze of Mr. Kimori. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t.”
I strode across the clearing to a stack of placards and grabbed one from the top of the pile, not bothering to read it. “Screw process.” I spat the words out to no one in particular. “To hell with the law.” Without a backward glance, I strode up the trail.
Rainbow caught up with me at the road, breathless and panting, and fell into step beside me. Halfway to the blockade, she grabbed my sleeve and pointed back. Mr. Kimori, Grace, Esther, Mary with Cedar, and the others followed. Marcel towered over them all, waving a placard of his own.
Esther’s voice rose in song, strong and fine, a refrain that I recognized from my childhood. “We are peaceful, angry people. We are walking . . . for the forest’s life.”
Marcel handed his placard to Grace and pulled out his flute. Grace’s high soprano joined with Esther. I turned back up the road and marched on, feeling the anger but not the peace.
Rainbow tugged on my hand. “Let’s sing too, Dr. Faye,” she pleaded. “Please.” The words wedged in my throat, but when Rainbow’s sweet voice rang out, “we are singing for Paul’s life,” I took her hand in mine and stepped forward. I sang my heart out.
Our song and our collective resolve faded as we neared the blockade. The road seethed with people, police cruisers, buses, and logging equipment. A dozen or more armed officers in flak jackets dragged, carried, or led protesters from the road to waiting school buses. Two constables worked with bolt cutters and hacksaws to cut chains off protesters locked to the gate. A half-dozen reporters and photographers recorded the drama with cameras, microphones, and video equipment. Billy and his family, wrapped in button blankets and eagle feathers, drummed and chanted from the roadside while behind the cordon of police officers, a crowd of loggers screamed insults and jeered when a new line of activists stepped in to fill a gap in the human barrier. The drums grew louder, the heckling stronger as the officers cleared the road again and again.
A logger sprinted from behind the police line and attacked a protester. He jabbed at the man’s shoulder with his fist. “Scum, fucking traitor.” The victim was Chuck, face blanched with fear, his assailant a stranger to me, not easily seen in the disorder. The police shepherded the attacker back behind the line, but he turned and raised a finger. “You deserve what you get,” he hissed, then elbowed his way through the crowd.
We followed Esther and Grace onto the road, linking arms to form a human chain. An officer stepped forward and faced us. “In case you didn’t get the message”—he waved a sheaf of papers in the air like a fist—“this orders all persons having notice of this Court Order be restrained and enjoined . . . any person impeding logging operations in the watershed, blockading the road to the upper valley, or standing within a metre of the roadway, will be arrested and charged with contempt of court for defying an injunction.” He rolled the papers into a tube and stuffed them in his back pocket. “Here’s your chance to avoid incarceration,” he yelled. “I’m going to count to ten and we’ll arrest anyone left on the road. We’ve got buses enough for the lot of you. One . . . two . . .”
No one moved. I glanced left to see Grace, head held high, three over, Mary at her side with Cedar in a sling. To my right, Sue and Chris, Terry, Marcel, Mr. Kimori. Where was Rainbow? Four,
five, six. She hadn’t left my side the entire march from camp. I scanned the crowds, spotting her the same time I heard her. She screamed from the ditch where she struggled with a police officer, kicking her feet at his shins.
“Mary,” I yelled. “Get Rainbow.”
Eight. Mary tightened her grip, drawing her neighbours in closer.
Rainbow’s voice shrieked over the beat of the drums, “Let me go, let me go.” I released my arms, but before I could run for her, Grace stepped forward and left the road. She spoke with the officer, picked up the weeping child, and whisked her away. Ten.
15
The main piece of evidence in my trial consisted of a segment of video. A cordon of uniformed officers advanced toward a blockade of protesters. The camera panned the line and zoomed in on the individual activists. It lingered on each one, my face, my profile unmistakable. My arrest a far cry from heroic. My recollection of the conversation with the officer went like this.
“What have we here? A tree-hugging dwarf? Where did they find you?”
When I didn’t answer, he continued, “You are under arrest for criminal contempt of court. Are you going to walk, fly, or do we have to carry you?”
I slid to the ground. The next thing I knew I was hanging head down, pinned between the man’s holster and elbow; the butt of his gun dug into my ribs.
I grunted in pain. “You can’t do this.”
“Our rules now, shorty,” he replied.
“I object to the logging of this ancient rainforest,” I yelled, “and the destruction of the habitat of all living creatures on this land.”
“Tell that to the judge.”
The officer carried me toward the buses. From my compromised position, I saw Roger Payne watching from a group of loggers and forest company officials at the side of the road. His eyes widened at the sight of me.
“Loser.” A bearded man in a plaid shirt and dirty work khakis next to Roger yelled. “Freak, ever work a day in your life?” Roger elbowed the man in the chest and turned away.
The officer deposited me at the door of the bus. “Have a seat.” I pulled my cell phone from my pocket, not sure who to call to find out about Paul or if there’d be a signal. “I’ll take that.” The officer leaned over and held out his hand.
“I’d rather not.”
“You’d rather. Remember what I said, our rules.”
The police arrested thirty-eight people on the road that day and transported us to the detachment in Duncan for processing. When I filed through the door with the others, I found Grace arguing with a uniformed clerk at the reception counter. Cedar, in diapers and a sweater, sat on the countertop in the crook of her arm, while Rainbow stood on a stool beside her, head resting on her forearms.
“Thank goodness.” Grace hurried over. “I tried to explain about Paul. They won’t listen.” Rainbow jumped from her perch and wrapped her arms around my waist, face buried in my clothing.
At the mention of Paul, my knees buckled and I clung on to Rainbow, not sure if I could stand without her support. “Have you heard anything?”
“They’ve taken him to Victoria,” Grace said. “I called the hospital. But they won’t give any information.”
The accompanying officer pressed his hand between my shoulder blades. “You need to move into the offices there.”
I peeled Rainbow’s arms free. “I’ll see you later,” I assured her and followed the man into the room.
“I’ve phoned your dad,” Grace called after me. “He’ll find you a lawyer.”
One by one, the forest defenders were charged with criminal contempt of court, fingerprinted, photographed, and ushered into the segregated cells at the back of the detachment, bare barred rooms each with a single toilet, doors casually ajar. Mary stood up from a bench in the corner and hurried over when she spotted me.
“Where are my kids?” she cried. “They ripped Cedar right out of my arms.”
“Grace has them.”
The woman’s face relaxed, then clouded over again. “And Paul?”
“Don’t know.”
“I’m scared . . .”
“Faye Pearson?” A voice interrupted from the doorway. An officer beckoned. “You’re wanted.”
The officer escorted me to a small room at the back of the detachment where I found Sergeant Lange seated behind a wooden desk. He offered me a chair.
“I’ll stand,” I said, not wanting to suffer the difficult silence as I negotiated the climb into the chair.
“Suit yourself.” He leaned forward, elbows on the desktop. “You said you weren’t mixed up in this protest.”
“I wasn’t.” I paused. “Until this morning.”
“You’ll have to take the consequences, but I want to know about your partner, Paul Taylor.”
“What do you know?” I gripped the edge of the desk. “Is he . . . ?”
The sergeant’s face softened. “He’s not dead.”
I fought back tears. “Thank God,” I blurted out. “How badly is he hurt?”
“Hard to tell. I talked to intensive care in Victoria. They’ve removed an arrow from his shoulder. They figured it was fired from a high-powered crossbow.”
“Bolt.”
“What?”
“An arrow for a crossbow is called a bolt.”
“Whatever you say.” He watched me curiously. “Your crossbow, I presume.”
“The stolen crossbow,” I corrected. “Was the bolt rubber-tipped? It shouldn’t have penetrated. The bow might not be ours.”
“Right. I’m sure there’s an army of folks walking around in the forest carrying crossbows.” He tapped his pen on the desk. “I don’t know about the rubber tip. I’ll check it out. You scientists work in a dangerous field. Weapons, shootings, vandalism. Why would anyone shoot your partner with a crossbow?”
“They mistook him for a tree-sitter?”
“Mistook? He wasn’t a tree-sitter?”
“No. We were collecting data.”
“On?”
“Marbled murrelets.”
“Which are?”
“Seabirds that nest in old-growth trees.”
“Don’t you study insects?”
“I’d like legal advice.”
He waved me out. “We’ll need a statement.”
After two hours in the cell, we were freed, without bail, on our own recognizance, instructed not to leave the province, and told to expect court notification of a trial date by mail in the next week. I didn’t hesitate to sign the paper shoved in front of me at the front desk stating I agreed not to return to the protest, the alternative being automatic jail. Paul was my first priority.
I stepped into the crowded lobby of the police department where a second busload of protesters waited for processing. I spotted Grace across the parking lot through the window, her back turned; she was in conversation with a person I couldn’t see. The officer behind the desk handed over my phone.
“Your husband’s outside,” he said.
“I don’t have a husband,” I answered.
“Boyfriend. Brother.” The officer turned back to his work and mumbled. “Whoever he is, he’s gotta be here to see you.”
Confused, I stepped outside, the fresh air welcome after the claustrophobia of the lock-up and the reek of accumulated human drama. I picked out Grace again across the parking lot in the milling crowd. A man stood next to her; the scene before me difficult to digest. Grace turned and her face brightened when she saw me. My mother touched the man’s shoulder; he swung around as Grace called out, “Look who’s here.”
From my vantage point on the station steps, I gazed at a person so like the image I saw in a mirror I felt lightheaded. A prominent forehead and square chin on a head and chest too large for the length of the forearms. Short bowed legs that stopped far too soon under a shelf of a bum. Stubby hands and fingers. Except my hair was straight, white-blonde, and fine as horsetail, his dark and cropped above the ears and wound into curls as taut as fiddleheads. I recognized
the glasses balanced on a broad, flattened nose, and the neat half-beard familiar from his photos. His face lit up with anticipation as he walked toward me. I didn’t know whether to turn back inside and lock myself in a cell or go to him and merge together like a scene in a crazy science fiction movie.
“Faye?” I heard Grace say. “It’s Bryan. Don’t stand there. Say hello.”
Sap, dirt, and blood covered my clothes. I hadn’t seen a mirror for days, my last shower a bucket of cold water over my head behind a clump of salal a discrete distance from the creek. I stepped forward, conscious of myself swaying in the same waddling gait as he, arms not swinging far enough, hips rocking from side to side. He moved easily, his body toned and athletic, stomach flat, face fine-featured, and when he drew closer, his grey eyes gave the impression of kindness and intelligence.
“What are you doing here?” I blurted out.
“Didn’t you get my emails?” he said, smile fading from his face.
“The signal’s been weak,” I answered, my tongue uncooperative. How had I come to be standing on the steps of the Duncan RCMP detachment with another dwarf?
“I had a conference in Vancouver. I got directions from the university to your camp,” he explained. “The people there told me where to find you.” His face opened in a wry smile. “The dangers of internet dating. They never tell you about their criminal record.”
I grimaced. “I’m sorry, Bryan.” I wiped my hand on the back of my pants and held it out. “You sure picked the worst time.”
“It’s all right,” he answered and took my hand in his. “I’m happy to meet you, Faye Pearson.”
“I have to get my samples, and then I have to drive to Victoria to find Paul.” Grace listened patiently to my desperate appeal while Bryan waited in his rental car; Mary, the children, and Marcel in Grace’s station wagon. Grace had offered them a bed for the night in Qualicum.