The Forest Prime Evil

by Alan Russell

  I looked for my best escape route. Less than ten yards behind me was another redwood. There was heavy brush around it, enough ferns and sorrel to allow for limited cover. I took a deep breath, then made a dash for the tree, covered about eight of those ten yards without being shot at. At the sound of gunfire, I dove and belly flopped behind the tree. The wind was momentarily knocked out of me, but I was still bullet free.

  I tried not to hyperventilate, tried not to panic. Hunted deer sometimes suffer heart attacks. I could understand why. I chanced some more glances but still couldn’t see anyone. Slowly, silently, I started backing away from the tree. I used its cover to retreat into the scrub. There I moved low to the ground. I darted at quick angles, dashed from one tree to another without drawing any more fire, and finally took up behind the fort of a great, thick redwood.

  For a few minutes, only my eyes moved, but I didn’t see any sign of the sniper. The wise thing would have been to stay where I was, but I no longer felt like one of the hunted. Intuitively, I sensed that my assailant was withdrawing. I wasn’t willing to bet my life on my gut feeling, though. When I left my position, I did so cautiously. My advance was circuitous; I moved backward before beginning on a long curved route toward the road, my progression a series of starts and stops from tree to tree.

  The sniper made it to the road well ahead of me. I heard the distant sound of an engine. Without the need for caution, I sprinted to my truck. Any hopes of a car chase disappeared when I saw her four slashed tires.

  I sat inside the pickup and did a little sweating, a little shaking, and little swearing. Then I tried to figure what the hell had just happened, and why.

  After a few minutes of thought, I was certain of one thing: I wasn’t scared of widow-makers anymore.

  25

  IT WAS A LONG walk out to a spot where my cell phone was finally able to get a connection. The time hoofing it gave me that much more time to consider what to do next. There was a circle of silence surrounding the Green Man’s death. I was convinced the muzzles were in place for a number of reasons, not all of them having specifically to do with Shepard.

  When I called for a tow, the road service dispatcher wasn’t concerned that my truck was on a private logging road. His only worry was that I would have enough “cash money” to pay the driver. I assured him I was solvent. It took an hour for succor to arrive. My knight was about twenty years old, had long hair and a Fu Manchu mustache. Our conversation consisted of him asking me if he could play some “tunes.” It proved to be a long, loud drive.

  I had some tires installed at a service station, then got on the road to Ferndale. The parking lot of the Truth Evangelical Church was more than half full, but it appeared the congregation hadn’t come to have their souls saved so much as their stomachs filled. A church supper was going on in the vestry. I was tempted to join the food line but decided to go to church instead.

  Reverend Sawyer must have had to play his collection plates like tambourines to pay the monthly electrical bills. Floodlights played on the church from all angles. But it was all exterior lighting. I couldn’t see any illumination from within.

  A credit card gained me entrance through the locked doors. Would that heaven’s portals were so easy to enter. I was surprised at how the church looked at night, or at least that night. The wind had picked up and pushed at the stand of pines that stood between the spotlights and the stained glass. The shifting trees caused a kaleidoscope effect. I walked down an aisle of dancing colors, was led forward by rainbow Tinker Bells. Rather than hunt down votive candles, I dispersed the demons by turning on the lights. If a city on a hill couldn’t be hid, then maybe the truth couldn’t be either.

  I poked around, curious about what kind of preaching had been going on for the last month. I searched through hymnals and prayer books, the usual depositories for Sunday programs. This congregation wasn’t different from any other. I found a few old programs, and a few new thoughts. The turn of a lock made me look up.

  She gasped when she saw me. The shrike had returned for its prey.

  “Please sit down,” I said.

  “The lights . . . ” she said, explaining her presence, as if she were the one who didn’t belong. “The Reverend told me to check on them.”

  For a few moments Ruth Sawyer stood there uncertainly, then she did as I asked, even if she did keep a row of prayer books between us.

  I used a Freudian gambit. “Tell me about your parents,” I said.

  “My parents?”

  I nodded.

  “They’re missionaries,” she said.

  “Where?”

  “In Mombasa. That’s in Kenya.”

  “So that’s where you met him?”

  “No. I met the Reverend in Togo. He and his wife, and my parents, were assigned to a mission . . . ”

  “I was talking about the Green Man.”

  At hearing his name, she started.

  Miss Tuntland had documented the Green Man’s tree plantings, but I had been slow to make the connection that he and Ruth had been in Kenya at the same time.

  “He was part of a mining restoration project in Mombasa,” I said. “He planted thousands of trees and worked tirelessly to bring back some ravaged quarry land. I suspect he worked as tirelessly at winning your affections.”

  She opened her mouth, then shut it.

  “The two of you were lovers.”

  She bit her lip very hard. She didn’t wear lipstick, so, when the droplet of blood emerged, it stood out on her pale lips.

  “Not long after the Green Man came to Humboldt County, he participated in a forum with your husband, and there he read from the Song of Solomon. That was his declaration of lust and love. He did it because you were there. He captured you with those sensual words, broke down all your bonds of resolve not to see him.”

  Mrs. Sawyer couldn’t deny it.

  “He was calling you again, calling you to his grove. Your husband knew that.”

  Again, I waited for a denial. But it wasn’t voiced.

  “Your husband must have known the two of you were lovers in the past, must have feared the Green Man’s coming to Humboldt.”

  She slowly nodded her head. “He had heard I was—with child in Kenya,” she whispered, “and knew it was Christopher’s.”

  “What happened to the child?”

  “I miscarried.”

  “How far along were you?”

  “Late. Much later than usual. Five months.”

  She nodded, communicated her shame with her red face and martyr’s posture. Ruth Sawyer didn’t carry a scarlet letter. It was more the green variety.

  “Your parents weren’t understanding, were they?”

  “I sinned,” she said.

  “What did Shepard say about the child?”

  “He had already left by the time I learned.”

  “Where had he gone?”

  “China. He went to do a planting along the Yellow River.”

  “Did you ever tell him?”

  “No.”

  “Were you relieved when you miscarried?”

  “My parents said it was God’s will.”

  I wondered about that, wondered if it hadn’t been the will of some tribal remedy, and whether that had subsequently added to her guilt.

  “Was it God’s will that you marry Reverend Sawyer?”

  For a moment Ruth Sawyer looked troubled, then she firmed her face. “The Lord works in mysterious ways. Just after my—difficulty—was resolved, my parents received a letter from the Reverend. His wife had passed away, and he said it was difficult doing the Lord’s work alone. He said he was lonely.”

  Ruth’s parents would have read between the lines. At the time they were probably frightened. There’s nothing like a pregnancy to make parents realize they don’t have a little girl anymore. They’d probably been afraid that their daughter might get into trouble again.

  “And when they wrote back to Sawyer, they didn’t spare the details of your so-called fa
ll.”

  “They didn’t.”

  “Enlightened of them,” I said.

  Ruth was determined to blame herself for everything. “It was only right.”

  “But Sawyer was still willing to forgive you, and marry you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about you?”

  She looked up for a moment. “What do you mean?”

  “Did you ever forgive yourself?”

  She bit hard enough into her lip to start the blood running again. “I needed to atone for my sins.”

  She had accepted the hair shirt of her loveless marriage, had married a man over two decades her senior. Everything might have been all right if he hadn’t made the mistake of falling in love with her, and if she hadn’t continued to carry a torch for Shepard.

  “You tried to be a good wife to your husband,” I said, “but it was a union that didn’t bring you any happiness. You still loved Shepard. He was different from everyone else. He gave you freedom. He encouraged you to throw off guilt, and upbringing, and fear. He gave you joy.”

  She lifted her head. Her eyes were wise and free once more. Beacons of affirmation. Then, the door swung open. She turned, and the lanterns of her eyes dimmed. The Reverend Sawyer stood there. He looked like an unhappy Old Testament patriarch. “Ruth,” he said. She rose obediently, anticipating a command. “The flock needs tending.” A moment later and Sawyer and I were alone.

  He scowled at me. “I have asked you to leave my wife alone,” he said. “She isn’t a strong woman.”

  “I hadn’t intended to bother her,” I said. “I came to talk with you.”

  Habit made him walk up the aisle. He assumed his position in the pulpit, as if he was ready to lead the church into service.

  “Earlier this week, I got a preview of this Sunday’s sermon,” I said. “You left your tape recorder here. You quoted from Mark, recited a passage where Christ is restoring a blind man’s vision: ‘And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking.’ I’ve studied the church programs of the last three weeks. In each, that passage has been cited.”

  Sawyer tried to bluster. “The miracles of the Lord should not be forgotten.”

  “I see men as trees, walking,” I said, repeating the words. “Is that what you saw?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m trying to reason out a death. I think that subconsciously you are too.”

  The Reverend Sawyer started turning the pages of his large Bible. His paper rustling was overloud. “The Gospels recount forty-seven parables of Christ—”

  “I only have one parable to recount,” I said. “And I’m afraid it’s not written in any holy book.”

  The pages stopped turning.

  “Mohammed said that if you hear that a mountain has moved, believe; but if you hear that a man has changed his character, believe it not.

  “In the past year, everyone says you’ve changed quite a bit. I don’t think that’s true. I think only one thing changed: you were in love, and you were desperate for that love to be reciprocated. It wasn’t. That made you insecure. You fought with a phantom that you labeled a devil. And then that phantom took form.

  “About a year ago, the Green Man announced his intention to come to Humboldt County. His declaration corresponded with your so-called change. You prepared for your devil by starting the Third Day. You raised your voice and attracted a new, rabid following. You showed your wife vigor and resolve, and drew the lines of good and evil.

  “You became a man you weren’t. You defined God and the godless. You made the Green Man, and what he stood for, forbidden. You tried to make your wife have to choose between God and the Green Man. You thought you could keep her that way. But she couldn’t deny her heart. She went for the forbidden fruit. She went to his garden.

  “You knew about that garden. You spied on the Green Man regularly, knew about the ceremonies, knew about his goosepen. The Green Man lived in River Grove not because he was protecting three thousand acres of old growth but because it was so close to your wife.”

  What had Sawyer thought, standing out in the darkness, listening to her screams of passion? I wondered if he had been sickened. I wondered if he had felt shortchanged, saddened that she could never offer that vitality to him, that she couldn’t give that side of herself. I wondered if he had been excited by this woman he didn’t know, or whether the maenad in her frightened him.

  He suddenly looked bent, and old, and sick. His feistiness was gone. He had been defensive not for himself but for her. “I prayed for a miracle,” he whispered, “not once, but many times. I prayed in those woods. And my prayers were finally answered.”

  Had he prayed loudly enough to drown out her cries of pleasure? Had he thought that by turning his back and bending his knees he could live with being cuckolded? He had convinced himself that his prayers had been answered, that an angel had come, but in his heart of hearts he knew that it wasn’t divine intervention he had witnessed. Like the blind man, he had seen men walking as trees.

  He thought that by citing the Bible he could assure me, and reassure himself. “In Genesis we read that angels are God’s providence to man, and can also be the instruments of his punishment. Do you not remember the angels destroying Sodom?”

  “Tell me about your angel,” I said.

  “He dropped from the sky and fell on the worshiper of Baal. In Judges six, verse twenty-five, God tells us that the Israelites planted groves in Baal’s honor, and an angel was sent to Gideon and told him to cast down the altar of Baal and cut down his groves. And Gideon went and did as Jehovah asked.”

  “What did your angel do?”

  “He struck down the idolater.”

  “And what did your angel look like?”

  “Ethereal. There was a nimbus around his head, a celestial light surrounding his flowing mane and beard.”

  “And what happened to this angel?”

  “After he dropped from the sky he stood over the body of the forest devil. I was too afraid to look anymore. I just prayed.”

  “What about later? Did you go and examine Shepard’s body?”

  He shook his head.

  “Did the angel ever see you, or acknowledge you?”

  “No.”

  “And besides your wife, and Shepard, and the angel, did you see anyone, or anything else, that night?”

  He could no longer look in my direction. His hands covered his eyes. I watched him shake his head. I felt sorry for Reverend Sawyer. He had had to confront his own tree of the knowledge of good and evil, had faced the double bind of God and love, and right and wrong. The Green Man hadn’t been the only casualty in the woods.

  I left the church and went to call upon an angel.

  26

  I PULLED OFF THE dirt road but parked well away from the camp. With the moon to guide me, I walked forward. Circle was long concluded, but there were still sounds from the camp, some laughter, the strumming of a guitar, the drowsy chant of voices.

  From the outside, I looked in. I felt like an animal, a predator. A familiar voice caught my attention, and I came in from the darkness. Josh knew my shadow and didn’t want to have anything to do with it. He turned from those he was talking with and walked away. I followed him to his tent, but by the time I got there he had zipped the entrance closed behind him. I’ve had thousands of doors shut on me, but never a tent. I knocked on the fabric. That made for a little rustling and not much else. It was like trying to push into Jell-O.

  “Josh?”

  No answer. I started kicking the tent poles, and that got him out. Maybe his tent had been one of those Red had uprooted. He was mad, and he wanted me to know it.

  “The last time we talked, Stuart, I vowed I’d have nothing more to say to you as long as you persisted in a line of questioning antithetical to the pursuits of this organization. Lone wolf doesn’t make it out here. We have collective goals.”

  “I need you to tell me about the spiking, Josh.”

  Fo
r a strong advocate of free speech, Josh was never too happy to have our discussions aired in public. He motioned for me to follow him. He didn’t stop walking until we were away from the lights of the camp.

  “It was a very emotional issue,” Josh said by way of a whispered explanation. The Sequoia Summer campers had transgressed their word. “We were divided as to whether we should do the spiking. But we finally agreed that, by not acting, we were breaking the greater trust of letting holy shrines fall.”

  “How many of you went spiking that night?”

  “About thirty of us.”

  I asked Josh where they had spiked, and he named the spots, virgin groves throughout the county. He said the ecoteurs had worked in teams. Ecotage is like scuba diving. You’re not supposed to do it alone.

  “Everyone had a partner?”

  Josh hesitated before answering. “Yes.”

  “You didn’t mention spiking River Grove.”

  “We skipped that area.”

  “Why?”

  “For the Green Man’s sake. If the spiking was discovered, we didn’t want him to get blamed.”

  “Whose decision was that?”

  Truculently: “All of ours.”

  “Shepard took precedence over an old-growth forest?”

  Josh shook his head. “We just changed our time frame. A few of us put dibs on it for this fall.”

  “How did you know Shepard wouldn’t be around in the fall?”

  “We knew about his plans. Some of us intended to be a part of them, to be a part of history.”

  “His Green Belt?”