“It’s true,” Rick said. “I grew up in Vermont. It used to be almost entirely covered with trees-till the forests were clear-cut almost a century ago. We used to have white pines reaching two hundred feet in height. Black walnut trunks five and six feet through the middle. Chestnuts spread two hundred feet from one branch tip to the next. And what do we have now? A forest of sticks.”
“I grew up in Michigan,” Doc said. “The great pines that used to grow there disappeared after they were clear-cut. They were replaced-when they were replaced-by oaks and aspens, which are being devoured by the gypsy moths so prevalent now that it’s dangerous to drive during the caterpillar season-the roads are slick with mashed corpses of the larvae. Changing the forest composition totally ruined the ecosystem.”
“And,” Deirdre said, “we haven’t even factored in other human activities that are killing trees and making regrowth difficult. Air pollution. Acid rain. Ozone depletion. The bottom line is that when the evolved, biologically rich ecosystem that created the original forest is destroyed, it’s destroyed forever.”
Ben felt an intense gnawing in the pit of his stomach. “I hear what you’re saying,” he said levelly, “but a man’s life is on the line. We can’t risk a human life to save some trees.”
“Right,” Doc said. “Because we humans are always more important than any other living thing on the planet.”
“I don’t mean that,” Ben said. “But-”
“Ben,” Deirdre interrupted, “can I show you something? It’s just a short walk.”
Ben pushed up to his feet and followed her out of the clearing, Christina close behind. He was happy to leave that scene. It was frustrating and … disturbing. In the extreme.
They had walked barely five minutes when Deirdre began speaking again. “All of the trees in this area are old growth. They go back hundreds of years. Every limb brushing your shoulders is older than you, older than your parents, older than their parents. Some of them are older than Columbus.”
They continued walking. “When WLE Logging first got the rights to cut in this area, they made a public announcement that they would cut no old-growth trees. They got all kinds of great PR-even a pat on the back from the mayor.” She continued walking, touching the leaves on the branches as she passed. “We were relieved. Maybe for once someone would do the right thing without being economically blackmailed. Still, Zak wanted to be sure. So he led a team into the forest.”
She paused, and Ben noticed her lips trembling a bit when she spoke again. “And this is what they found.”
All at once Ben emerged from the forest and stepped into an enormous clearing. It was as if he had stepped onto the landscape of a different planet. Where before, everything had been green, verdant, and alive, now suddenly his surroundings, as far as his eye could see, were barren, bleak, and dead.
It took several moments before the full impact of what he was seeing hit him. His eyes slowly lowered.
“Oh my God,” Christina said breathlessly.
There were stumps on the ground, one after another, an endless sea of severed trunks. Ben thought about counting, but it was impossible. Hundreds upon hundreds of trees had been felled, leaving behind only stumps wider than he could reach. Acres and acres of land had been leveled, flattened. There was no cover, no plant life, no animal life. Nothing green. It was as if an invading army had marched through and destroyed everything in sight.
Ben didn’t need to be a dendrochronologist to know that these trees had been around for hundreds of years. And now there was nothing left but broken branches and dead stumps.
“And,” Deirdre added quietly, “this entire area was clear-cut-in three days.”
Ben knelt down and touched the stump closest to him. “This is something I will write about,” he said. “People should know what’s happening out here.”
“You’re right,” Deirdre said, nodding her head. A single tear dropped from her eye. “I just hope someone is listening.”
Chapter 13
Tess closed the magazine and tossed it onto a sleeping bag. She’d been in this tent for over an hour now, all by herself, waiting. She’d read through that issue of Outdoor magazine three times, and it hadn’t interested her the first time. She’d started talking to herself, subvocalizing animated conversations with everyone she knew. She was going stir-crazy.
Since she’d come back to the camp with Maureen and Al, she’d been treated like a potential leper, shuffled off to the side, isolated. She could understand that they wanted to be cautious, but enough was enough already. How long did they need to get their act together and decide what to do with her? How long could she stand being cooped up in this stupid tent?
Of course there was more at stake than just her personal discomfort. If she wasn’t allowed to circulate, if she couldn’t talk to the members of Green Rage and get to know them, earn their confidence, she was lost. She would never get the information she needed, never be able to crack this case.
She didn’t have forever, either; she knew that. Rudy had been constantly calling her hotel room, asking where the hell she was and what she was doing and where was his story on Bigfoot, anyway? She could blow him off for a while without serious consequences, muttering vague promises about a really big scoop she was tracking, but that wouldn’t last forever. For that matter, neither would her travel advance.
She watched the shadows as they flickered on the outside of the tent. The movement and muffled voices provided her only hint of what might be taking place outside. Some time earlier, the group had assembled and held some kind of meeting. No doubt she had been on the agenda, but she knew she wasn’t the only action item. There was another stranger in their midst, someone else whose worthiness was being judged. And Green Rage had many plans afoot; she had heard enough words like immediately and tonight to realize that some of them were imminent.
Al had asked her to wait in the tent till he returned, but that didn’t mean she had to do it. She could rebel; it’s not like he was her father or anything. Still, she was trying to gain their trust, and she thought the best way to do that was to be cooperative. Earnest. Act as if she was desperate to please them, like she wanted to be one of them more than anything else in the world.
And then a little voice inside her head said, Once you have their trust, you’ll betray it. You’ll take their secrets and smear them across the pages of the National Whisper. Or maybe even a real newspaper. You’ll get your Pulitzer, and they’ll get five to ten.
Tess pushed the voice out of her consciousness. That kind of thinking would get her nowhere. She needed to focus on the task at hand. Which at the moment was waiting.
She was preparing to plunge into Outdoor magazine for the fourth time when Al finally reappeared. He unzipped the entrance to the tent and poked his head through. “We’re ready for you,” he said.
She couldn’t help noticing that he wasn’t smiling.
Tess crawled out of the tent and followed Rick to the circle of stones in the center of the clearing. She saw only six Green Ragers present. The others must have gone elsewhere. Secret mission, she suspected.
Rick introduced Tess to those present and gave her a smidgen of information about their backgrounds. “I’ve told everyone what you told Al and me in the bar about your … background. Why you’d like to join our cause.”
“Good,” she said. She was mentally deliberating on what character she should be playing. She thought it best to seem a little timid, lacking in confidence. Perhaps even a bit in awe of them. “I appreciate that.”