by Edward Abbey
SUBVERT THE DOMINANT PARADIGM.
The Earth First! troops lined up across the narrowest portion of the land bridge, the stem of the wineglass, from the yawning abyss on the north to the dozing chasm on the south. For anchormen at either end of this human chain they had Gordon the Body and — yes! none other! — Oral the Moral, the spy, the snitch, the snoop, the spook, young handsome lowbrowed lovestruck broad-shouldered ex-virgin missionary Oral Hatch in person.
The aging journalist watched from his safe secure position on a shelf of rock above the west end of the Neck. He munched an apple, scribbled notes, lifted the glasses hanging from his neck and admired the Princess Erika in her chains, her flattened waist, her countervailing upthrust bosom, the defiant smile on her moist ruby-red beestung lips. Lordy lordy! he muttered, and groaned aloud like a man in pain. He was in pain, knowing feeling suffering that ache like a toothache where man has never yet found teeth. He forced himself to alter the direction of his observation, elevated the binoculars a half degree and studied the opposition at the far end of the Neck. He could not recognize the two shadowed, dusty figures on the bulldozers but beyond and above, on the high ground where the yellow pickup had halted, he saw Bishop Love in full beefgrower’s costume — i.e., tight gabardine pants, the shiny Tony Lama boots, the belt with jeweled rodeo buckle, the belly-bulging shirt with its pearly snap fasteners, the leather vest, and surmounting all a silvergray Stetson with three-inch rolled brim and high tapering pinched crown. The Bishop’s face, shaded by the hat, could not be seen except for one cleft chin jutting into sunlight and a whittled matchstick, for toothpick, stuck smartly into a wide and grinning mouth. J. Dudley Love, of course, rancher, miner, construction king, Bishop of Hotrocks, Landfill County, Utah — who else?
A shit-green government pickup appeared, pulled beside Love’s truck and stopped. The BLM rangerette emerged, Virginia H. Dick in badge and gun, Mace and Mag-light, purple Vuarnet sunglasses and swollen nut-brown uniform. Staring at the scene below, she leaned on Love. His arm slipped around her midriff, hand cupping the ranger’s portside mammary. She raised her face to his, he tipped back his hat in the traditional touching gesture of the Hollywood cowboy and kissed her full spang on the lips. Love, love, love; l’amour, l’amore, el amor, liebe liebe liebe; like anxious sheep the words bleated through the old journalist’s balding head. He cringed with envy. Oh my, he thought, why ain’t I doing that? With her? Well maybe not with her, but with her. That one wrapped in chains, the tree-hugger with her startling Viking eyes, her sweet très elegant fine-featured rosy face, that black mane of hair that hung from crown to croup —! Jesus, Joseph, Mary and God!, the cruelty of life and desire. He fondled his manly organ, such as it was, and remembered the days of his youth.
NATURE: LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT ALONE.
A flashing strobe light rose above the eastern horizon, like a white star blinking. Then the black A-frame and little red spider lights, the mast and boom and high-slung dragline bucket came in view, rocking back and forth against a haze of dust, a maze of rattling chains, banging cables, clanking gears, crashing shoes, mad electrical pandemonium. The largest mobile land machine on planet Earth was stomping forward, step by step, toward the Neck of Eden, a half-hundred terrified young eco-denders, the five helpless, idealistic, rebellious women strapped by linkages of cast iron to the ancient massive trunk of old Eden’s arboreal matriarch. The ground resonated.
DEFEND YOUR MOTHER.
God, the reporter whispered to himself, as the flat yellow bulk of the G.E.M.’s engine room began to rise over the skyline, this is tremendous. This is terrible. This is magnificent. This is beyond the power of reportage to communicate, of photographs to limn, of newsprint to portray. Beyond the power of the heart to accept. For a moment he was tempted to rush down the slope, flinging his pen, notebook, cheese, lager to the ground, and lock elbows with Earth First! He considered and he thought better of it and remained where he was, safely out of the line of fire.
RESIST MUCH, OBEY LITTLE.
Walt Whitman said that.
Pinyon jays, brown towhees, a mountain bluebird and a sparrow hawk flew before the oncoming machines. Rabbits, horned lizards, king snakes, ground squirrels, a badger, a kit fox, a ringtail cat, emerged from their burrows in the trembling, shaken earth, perched upright for a moment on the edge of their homes and gaped in wonder at the iron dinosaurs bearing down upon their lives. Gaped for a moment and fled, scampering across the Neck, between the legs and through the line of the body chain, and on to the illusory safety of the mesa beyond. A few of the small furry creatures, blind with panic, slipped off the edge of the bridge, becoming airborne like angels, before disappearing into the embrace of eternity.
As you do unto the least of these, so do ye unto me.
God said that.
The women at the tree stared at the yellow monsters expanding before them. Standing tall as they could inside the taut chain, they waited, they braced themselves, they clenched each other’s hands, they murmured words of power for one another’s hearts.
Mary Sojourner said, Look at those tin bastards. They ain’t got a chance against us, girls. Not a fuckin’ chance.
The Hayduchess said, They’s big but I seen bigger. You know the rule, ol’ buddies: big machines, teensy-weensy wienies. The bigger the muscle machine the tinier the love muscle. Whoever’s runnin’ that walkin’ dragline probly has a poodle’s pecker. Dill pickle for a dong, I know the type, I seen ‘em before many a time. Needledicks.
Kathy said, I’m sure glad Seldom’s not here. He’d be looking for a skirt to hide under.
Susan said, Scared or not he’s always doing that.
Ain’t that the truth.
Erika the sea-captain’s daughter said, Lad-eese, mein guten kamerads, vat effer comes now to eat us up, I tell you ziss I luff you more zan any man I effer luff, even more zan I luff my Oral darlink. Kazzy, Soosin, Mary, Duchess, I luff you one and luff you all, my darlinks, my swede-hearts, my splendid hero lad-eese off Amerika, may Nephi and Moroni bless you one and all.
Well thank you, Erika honey, the Hayduchess said, that’s spoken like a true princess. A true Mormon princess.
We love you too, Erika, said Mary Sojourner.
All for one and one for all! cried Susan Smith in a moment of adrenalized jubilation.
Amen! cried Kathy Smith.
The Mitsubishis came grumbling close, snorting through their blowholes, tracks clacking, ‘dozer blades gleaming as they plowed the dirt, tore loose the living shrubs, crushed the homes and children of gopher, chipmunk, cottontail, vole, mole, bannertail mouse and kangaroo rat, ripped up the sod, scraped off the bunch grass and flowers, the wild buckwheat and the wild ricegrass. And then they came to the living juniper in the center of the Neck and its five living women obstructing the middle of the right-of-way (as they call it), and the tractors halted. Close; much too close. Engines panting. Stack lids bobbing. Fine red sand streaming down the concave sheen of the blades, projected above the women’s heads.
Back that thing off! the Hayduchess shouted.
Grinning, the operator reversed his machine a couple of feet and lowered the blade to the ground. Letting the motor idle, he opened his dinner pail. His partner did the same. Neither bothered to descend from their leather thrones. Munching baloney sandwiches, each sipping hot coffee from a Thermos bottle, they waited. Waited for the “authorities” to appear and solve the situation.
GOD BLESS AMERICA LET’S SAVE SOME OF IT.
The flags flew in the desert air: the stars and stripes of the U.S.A., the red, white and green of Earth First!, the black banner of anarchy, the black and red of the Monkey Wrench Gang, the pink and gold of the Bonnie Abbzug Garden Club, the red on white of Hayduke Lives!, the Seldom Seen Marines, the Doc Sarvis Guerrillas.
But none of those celebrated personages was anywhere in sight. Earth First! was on its own.
The two pickup trucks descended onto the Neck and stopped behind the bulldozers. Bishop Love got out a
nd approached the chain of bodies barring passage; Ranger Dick spoke a few more words into her radio and joined him. Knowing better than to ask for a leader, the ranger addressed the mob as a whole.
“Hi, kids. Nice to see you all again. I’ll give you five minutes to disperse peacefully.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “Then I’m calling the BLM police, the Coconino County sheriff’s deputies, and the Arizona Department of Public Safety. This is an illegal assembly; you have no permit. Also —”
“Don’t forget the Search and Rescue Team,” the Bishop said. He grinned at the human chain from the deep dark shade of his cowperson’s hat; only his sunglasses and the yellow carnotite gleam of his teeth were visible to his audience. “When my boys get here we’ll have some action quick.”
“No jurisdiction here,” Ranger Dick said, softly and aside.
“Don’t worry, Ginny, they all been deputized in Coconino County. Them boys mine got all the jurisdiction they want anywhere in Utah, Arizona, Nevada or Idaho. I seen to that personally.”
“Also,” the ranger went on, “you people are obstructing traffic. This —”
“Traffic?” asked the panpipe player. “Traffic? What traffic? There’s not even a road here.”
“Looks like a road to me,” Bishop Love said, grinning his broad and genial County Commissioner’s grin. “Sure looks like a mighty fine highway to me. ‘We shall make straight in the desert a highway for the Lord,’ ” he quoted. “Whatcha mean, young fella? If this hain’t a road it sure as hell is a road-way. This here’s our legal authorized duly sanctioned mine access right-of-way road and by God —” His voice rose in pitch to a sterner level, the voice of a construction company executive and mining company board chairman. “— by God we mean to open this here roadway today. Now.” Temper rising rapidly, the Bishop stepped forward. “Out of my way, punk. Move.”
“No,” the player replied. “We won’t. We won’t move.”
“We shall not be moved,” Mary Sojourner yelled.
The Hayduchess began to sing:
We shall not be
We shall not be moved
“Oh shut up!” Love bellowed, turning his attention to the women at the tree. For the first time he seemed to notice the heavy chain drawn around their waists. “Now what in the name of Holy Moroni you call this. You ladies out of your minds? Goldang green bigots again. Tree-huggers. Toadstool worshippers. Rock lovers. Fern feelers, posy sniffers, weed kissers, what the hell is this? Padlocked? What?” Bishop Love glared up and down the line of staring faces. “Where’s the key to this lock? Huh? Who’s got the key?”
No answer.
“Ginny, you got any bolt cutters in your truck?”
“Calm down, Dudley,” the ranger said. “Remember your valves. You take your digitalis today?”
“Yes, Ginny, I took my digitalis today, goddamnit.” The Bishop made an effort to ease his internal pressures. In a gentler tone he repeated his query.
“No,” she said, “I don’t carry bolt cutters.”
“Hacksaw?”
“No hacksaw.” She returned to her radio. “But I’ll get them.”
“Stop wavin’ that flag in my face,” the Bishop growled at a six-year-old girl waving an American flag in his face. The little girl began to cry. The girl’s mother said something unkind to Bishop Love. The Bishop turned away, red with anger.
We shall not be
We shall not be moved
The Bishop glared at the singing women chained to the juniper. “Ought to get out my cannon and shoot that padlock off,” he snarled. But he didn’t dare do that; the padlock hung on the chain between the two Mrs. Smiths, only six inches or so from the hip of either. “Or take this here ‘dozer, knock that tree over with you goldang Communist environ-meddler ladies still locked to it.” He didn’t dare do that either; if anyone got killed the Law would hear about it and maybe try to pin the blame on him.
The women grinned at Bishop Love, singing:
We shall not be
We shall not be moved
“Doggone morons.” The Bishop glanced at his watch, then at the police. The two DPS helicopters had landed on a native pad of slickrock at the west end of the Neck, cutting off any retreat by the Earth First! demonstrators. A dozen men in S.W.A.T. team camouflage, armed with riot shotguns, tear gas launchers, helmets and face shields, emerged from the machines, stooping under the whirling rotors as they formed a skirmish line across the sandstone bridge. On the east end of the Neck appeared the county sheriff’s four-by-four patrol units and prisoner-transport vans, and an assortment of Jeeps, Blazers, Rams and Broncos from Love’s Search & Rescue Team. The men got out, loaded down with clubs, flashlights, ammo pouches and deadly semi-automatic firearms. Behind the deputies and search & rescuers, rising higher and higher into the dusty blue, advanced the Super-G.E.M. — that gadget so large, so outsize, it seemed to violate the proportions of the landscape. That is, it loomed above the horizon like a walking tower of yellow iron, a misplaced factory building seven stories high from Youngstown, Ohio, an invader from Mars reenacting the War of the Worlds. The strobe light flashed atop the 110-foot mast, diamond bright; the red eyes blinked on the summit of the 285-foot boom and A-frame, warning signals to low-flying aircraft. And it rocked as it walked, shaking from side to side on the irregular terrain; the powerhouse roared like a cannibal dynamo, Moloch the insatiable; and the 130-foot gigantic steel shoes — still unseen, still below the horizon — rose and fell, rose, cranked forward, descended with a crash, heaved mightily and hoisted twelve thousand tons of iron eighty inches above the surface and propelled the entire mass another fourteen feet forward. Fourteen feet at each step, onward and forward at maximum cruising speed of nine hundred feet per hour, or one good English mile about every six hours. Between the shoes, at each cycle, the round “tub” or base of the machine dropped upon the ground, leaving a series of overlapping circular imprints stamped into the desert earth. The trail resembled that of a dying dinosaur, unable to lift its butt from the ground, dragging itself toward extinction with awkward but heroic effort.
The Bishop staggered around the juniper on his high-heel cowperson boots, glaring in turn at each white ovaloid sunburned face and at the saddle-brown black-eyed moon-shaped Mongoloid face of the part-redskin Hayduchess.
“Don’t know you, woman. Who’re you?”
“The name’s Georgia, Love, and I’m twice as mean as a wolverine. Got the rag on and I’m touchy as a she-bear with cubs. Ought to floss your teeth, man, or keep your mouth shut, one or the other.”
“Ain’t we the sassy female though. Listen, lady, when I need advice from the likes of you I’ll —”
“— Ask for it, sure. I know a good dentist at Navajo Mountain, Love. Her name is Horse. Mrs. Crazy Q. Horse. Uses vise-grips and a bumper jack, all work guaranteed. You been chewin’ carnotite again?”
“What the hell you talkin’ about, woman?”
“There’s a funny blue glow on your gums. You got a mouth like a Gila monster’s. Smells like it too.”
The Bishop turned away in sullen fury. Glanced again at his watch. Nodded at Ranger Dick.
The ranger cleared her throat, addressed the line of arm-linked protesters. “All right, folks, time’s up. Break it up now, I mean right now, or I’m calling in the riot squad.” She waited for response.
The forty or fifty Earth First!ers shifted their feet uneasily, some casting a backward look over the shoulder at the DPS team behind them, others staring in wonder and horror at the advancing, growing, ever-advancing ever-growing figure of GOLIATH on the eastern skyline. The breeze slackened; the flags wilted, the placards sagged.
“No?” said Ranger Dick.
“No!” shouted Erika. “Vee shall not be moofed. Vee shall neffer be moofed. Eart’ First! Last! Always!”
Ragged cheers rose from the barricade of bodies.
The ranger spoke quietly into the mike of her radio. The Special Weapons and Tactics team removed their nameplates and badges (sure s
ign of trouble), lowered face shields, drew skull-breaking batons from their belts, stepped forward onto the Neck of Lost Eden’s mesa. The deputy sheriffs and deputized search and rescue team advanced from the other direction, smiling with pleasure. The survey crew stood looking on, holding hammers. The two bulldozer engineers closed their lunch buckets and revved their engines, spouting black smoke into the clear air. The motorized drill rigs, half-cab dump trucks and oversize road graders pulled up ahead of the Super-G.E.M., parked in the brush, and disgorged their crew of operators, oilers, blasters, swampers. Six-packs of Coors appeared, here and there a pint or quart of other potables. This looked like more fun than a Teamsters’ picnic.
A murmur of discontent swept the line of obstructionists. Waving their flags, banners and placards, they shouted earthy slogans, referred to the Bill of Rights (always in questionable taste) and directed a number of personalized insults at Bishop Love, the Bureau of Land Management, the Syn-Fuels Corporation, the Federal government in general, the nuclear power and weapons industry in particular.
Ranger Dick pulled an electrical bullhorn from the front seat of her shit-green BLM pickup truck. “Take it easy, people, please. Please cooperate with the peace officers please and nobody will get hurt. You are going to be arrested but you will be treated fairly if you cooperate. Do not attempt to resist arrest, that is a felony, a very serious crime. Upon arrest you will be taken to the sheriff’s buses for transport to Fredonia. If you refuse to walk to the buses you will be handcuffed and carried, so please cooperate with the police officers.” She continued to speak into the mouthpiece of the bullhorn, reading from a slip of paper in her free hand. “Upon arrival in Fredonia you will be arraigned before a justice of the peace on various misdemeanor charges, at which time you will have the opportunity to post bond or in some cases be released on your own recog … recognizance. Mothers! please restrain your children, please!” she added in a sharper tone, as three kids about eight or nine years old broke ranks, ran to the Mitsubishi and slapped at the ‘dozer blades with cardboard placards. Flies swatting a tank. “Mothers? Fathers? Whose children are those, please? They’re going to get hurt. Take them away from the bulldozers, please,” she screamed, voice rising toward the soprano, “or we’ll be forced to take action.”
