by Sylvia Nobel
The stairs took a sharp turn to the right and drove upward at an even steeper angle. At this point, the shifting earth and constant erosion had pushed several of the upper steps over the lower ones, reducing the foothold to mere inches.
My heart racing with exertion, I clung to the wobbly handrail and edged a wary glance down the craggy bluff to the valley below. Sheltered in the overhang of lush foliage, I could see where the raging creek had carved a new path and splintered the wooden planks of the bridge, rendering the road impassable except for vehicles with four-wheel drive. And even that might prove daunting. I decided either restoration of the bridge was dead last on the highway department’s list or the road was private and there were no funds available for repair.
The treacherous stairs finally ended and I tramped along a narrow, winding footpath. Ahead, I could make out fragmented portions of perhaps a half a dozen houses, tucked away in the deep folds of the hills.
Several minutes later, the sad remains of a dwelling loomed large before me. Gutted by fire, the house, having slid about ten feet off its foundation, now clung tenaciously to the slope, mirroring the devastation of this tiny community. Like the old Defiance mine, an air of ghostly melancholy prevailed and suddenly the gaping windows looked more like empty eye sockets. “My, my, aren’t we getting fanciful,” I reproached myself, hurrying down the path, unable to resist a backward glance every so often.
I didn’t usually mind being alone. At home in Castle Valley, my house in the desert was miles from town and I never felt threatened but today... It may have been the perception of utter isolation, but most likely I was still jumpy as a result of this morning’s sick prank.
I’d only gone a few hundred yards further when I froze in my tracks and gawked at the most bizarre looking fence I’d ever seen. It appeared to be made up entirely of old, rusted headboards, some tall, some short, some arched, some squared. The whole silly conglomerate was fused together with chicken wire and artistically embellished with an assortment of old tools, kitchen utensils and a cracked wooden toilet seat. Well, this was different. I stopped and snapped pictures from several angles.
Two railroad-crossing markers flanked a dilapidated metal gate, where a sun-faded plaque informed me that I had reached the JUST DUCKY RANCH. Other signs sprinkled along the fence proclaimed SAVE THE ANIMALS! VEGETARIANS DON’T LET FRIENDS EAT MEAT. PEACE, JUSTICE, EQUALITY - SUPPORT THE EVERGREEN PARTY.
I smiled to myself. Clearly, this was Willow’s place. Scaling a final set of steps made from old truck tires and bordered by pink, plastic lawn flamingos wading knee-deep among spiky, purple Irises, I peered across a yard tangled with weeds and cluttered with crude wire pens, rabbit hutches, several tumbledown sheds, and assorted piles of junk. Barely visible amid a thick stand of trees and untamed shrubbery, I could just make out the weathered shingles of a house.
No sooner had I pushed open the squeaky gate than a cacophony of sounds erupted. Flinching, I drew back when at least a dozen ducks, obviously surprised by my sudden appearance, appeared from beneath overgrown bushes and began to waddle and flap in my direction. Several hens hurried to join the procession along with a curious goat and a nubby cream-colored sheep.
They all gathered around, sniffing, grunting, clucking, and I was actually rather captivated by my animal fan club as they followed me towards a tiny, unpainted cottage that was really little more than a steeply-pitched tin-roofed shanty. Above the barnyard clamor, I could hear the tinkle of New Age music wafting out the front door.
This was too good to pass up. I attached the wide angle lens so the photo would encompass not only the petunia-filled wringer washer and crumbling bird bath, but the astounding assortment of cats lounging on junked appliances and frayed, upholstered couches clustered beneath the sagging porch. If houses reflected the character of their owners, I could hardly wait to meet Willow. “Hello?” I called. “Is anyone home?”
The response was instantaneous and my heart plummeted when three dogs burst out the door. Their furious barks turned my insides to jello and I was contemplating a dash back towards the gate when a female voice shouted from inside, “Just stand still and let ‘em sniff you!”
The ducks and hens scattered in a flurry of feathers as the dogs bounded off the porch and began their investigation, which included one of them ramming a damp snout into my crotch.
“Crystal Moon! Don’t be rude.”
I pushed the dog away and looked up to see a short, sturdy-looking woman shouldering open a battered screen door. “Come here, girls,” she bellowed. The dogs immediately abandoned their exploration of me and romped to her side, tails wagging. She patted each of them on the head before shooing the pack inside. “Sorry about that. Haven’t had many visitors up here as of late.”
“No harm done,” I said, swiping moisture from my skirt. “Are you Willow Windsong?”
“Yeah?” There was an unmistakable undertone of suspicion punctuating her tone as she retreated behind the screen door. “If you’re from the loan company, you can tell Mr. Bosco I’ll get a check to him next week.”
So. Willow was having financial problems. “I’m not from the loan company,” I assured her with a friendly smile, moving onto the porch.
“Then who are you?” she asked, edging the door open once more.
As I ran through my credentials for the umpteenth time, I scrutinized the woman’s distinctive appearance. While some of the townspeople had characterized her as merely weird or squirrelly, others labeled her a raving environmentalist wacko whose contentious activities had single handedly bankrupted Morgan’s Folly.
But as first impressions go, she appeared totally non-threatening. More like a middle-aged hippie, although it was difficult to guess her age because her plain unlined face bore not a trace of make-up. She could have been thirty or even forty. Her 1970’s frayed bell-bottomed jeans and wide-collared blouse looked as though they’d come from a thrift shop while the dark roots of her disheveled silver-blonde hair cried out for a touch up.
But it was her eyes that captured my attention. They were two distinct colors and I couldn’t decide whether to look at the brown one or the aqua-blue one. “Ah...if you have a few minutes, I’d like to get your perspective concerning the ongoing environmental debate about the possible re-opening of the mine.”
“I don’t really have time today. I’m trying to get things ready for a rally this weekend.”
I stood firm. After conquering those stairs, I had no intention of going away empty-handed. I assumed my most innocent expression. “Just a few questions. It won’t take long. I promise.”
She rested a forefinger alongside her broad nose and studied me reflectively. “The last reporter I talked to twisted everything around something god-awful. He ended up making me look like some kind of a...a...paranoid idiot.”
With an inward sigh, I reiterated that I had taken no stance and it was my job to listen to both sides of an issue and write an objective piece.
She looked unconvinced. “I’m sure the Pickrell’s and most everyone else in town have already filled your head with propaganda about me. And anyway, it’s the Morgan girl I should be talking to. I called her yesterday. Why isn’t she here?”
I started to tell her, but then remembered my promise not to divulge details of Audrey’s condition. Although with Haston and Jesse having witnessed the seizure I doubted, with the exception of Willow, that there was a person left in town who didn’t know by now.
Without going into detail, I explained that she was under the weather. “But as soon as she’s feeling better, I’m certain she plans to give you a fair hearing before making any decision. And besides,” I continued before she could voice further protest, “as long as I’m here it might be helpful to your cause if you can illustrate why you consider it so important that the mine stay closed permanently.”
She seemed to be assessing my words carefully and the hard light of skepticism in her extraordinary eyes began to ebb. “I want to show you something.”
She led me around the side of the house to a junk-littered, wooden deck that hung precariously over a rocky precipice. Mounted on a tripod near the railing, a telescope stood pointing towards a grove of sun-capped cottonwood trees bordering the creek below. She fiddled with the focus for a few minutes before excitedly waving for me to take her place. “Take a look. See for yourself what will be destroyed if the Morgan girl doesn’t listen to reason.”
Curious, I peered into the eyepiece, but saw nothing but the magnified image of pearl gray branches. “What am I looking for?”
“Don’t you see it?”
“It’s a fine looking tree, if that’s what you mean.”
With an impatient snort, she waved me away, refocused, and then motioned me back, prompting “You see that little bird?”
I looked closer. “You mean the brownish-olive one with the yellow throat?”
“Yes! That’s the Southwestern Willow Flycatcher. Isn’t he magnificent?”
I thought magnificent a bit overblown, but said, “Well, yes, it’s pretty, but...”
“They’re very rare, you know,” she informed me in a tone edging towards reverence. “These beautiful creatures are helpless against the evil encroachment of man into their kingdom. They desperately need our help to survive and sometimes...sometimes it requires drastic action to protect them.”
Convinced of her sincerity, I had a quick flash of the bloody message scrawled on my windshield. “Are you suggesting they’re an endangered species?” I challenged her, lifting my gaze in time to gauge her reaction.
“Absolutely. Did you know there are only a handful of them left in North America?” Her blue eye glittered with passion while the brown one seemed to smolder.
“And the connection to the Defiance would be?”
She shot me a look that verified my ignorance. “The most important thing to a bird, to any animal for that matter, is their food supply.” Her words were unmistakably spiced with scorn. “Food! Food! Food! If the Morgan girl permits the mine to re-open their critical habitat will be destroyed forever.”
“I don’t understand why? It’s a couple of miles from here, isn’t it?”
“Have you been out there yet?”
“Yes, we were just there this morning.”
“Then you saw the devastation. The waste ponds full of toxic acid like cyanide, that can seep down and contaminate the ground water. But that’s not all,” she added with wide-eyed drama. “There will be drilling and blasting and dust pollution. All of these things contribute to the destruction of nesting areas.” Breathless with indignation, she began to pace. “And on top of that, it won’t be underground mining like before. No. Now it will be open-pit.”
“I’m not sure I’m following you. Can’t the birds go live somewhere else?”
She gaped at me as if I was truly mentally deficient. “You really don’t understand, do you?” she said, shaking her head.
“I make no claims to be an expert on the environment. That’s why I’m here talking to you.”
“Well then, you need to be educated.” Beckoning me to follow, she trotted to the back door. “You’ll have to excuse the mess. As I told you, I’m preparing for a demonstration so things are a little disorganized today.”
The rank smell hit me the minute I stepped inside. Was it garbage or animal urine? Probably both. Whatever, I could hardly catch my breath as I surveyed what I assumed was the living room. Disorganized, she’d said. That had to be the understatement of the century. Placards of every shape and size lay strewn about the floor. Stacks of brochures and pamphlets blanketed every stick of furniture, including the wood stove. In the adjacent kitchen, fliers were scattered over the countertops, refrigerator and table. Through a doorway beyond that, I could see file folders heaped on an unmade bed.
She shut off the music and ordered, “Stay,” when the dogs shot to attention and lunged towards me. I hung back while she got them under control and then flinched violently when a gray dove came zooming down from the rafters and used my head for a landing strip.
“Don’t worry. That’s just Lovey Dovey,” she reassured me with a giggle, swiping piles of folded laundry from a chair, then indicating that I should sit. “The poor little thing was almost dead when I found her a few months ago. I nursed her back to complete health.”
“That’s commendable,” I remarked, feeling warmth as the bird hunkered down in my hair. “But, what is she doing?”
“Looking for a place to lay her eggs,” she muttered absently, flitting around the room, whipping up a storm of papers as she gathered up handfuls of literature.
I was aghast. Willow’s love for all nature’s creatures seemed indisputable and perhaps she accepted these activities as commonplace, but I wasn’t too keen on the idea of becoming a nest or a bathroom for Lovey Dovey. “If you don’t mind,” I began, endeavoring to be tactful, “I’d rather she’d do that somewhere else.”
“What? Oh, yes, sure.” She untangled the bird’s feet from my hair, set it on her own head and resumed compiling material, her eyes glazed with preoccupation.
I eased onto the chair and tried to decide whether Willow was really as ditsy as she appeared, or was this all a clever ruse?
“Where did that article go?” she mumbled, fingering through a bookcase stuffed with magazines.
With Willow fully absorbed in her quest, it gave me an opportunity to examine her living quarters. It struck me almost at once that while the walls were hung with photos, plates and paintings of animals and birds, and the window sills crammed with colorful glass miniatures of dolphins, there wasn’t one single photograph of a person.
“So, Willow,” I began, pulling out my pen and notepad, “are there any other family members involved in the animal rights movement with you?”
“What?”
“Is there a Mr. Windsong or any little Windsongs?”
“No.” Her multicolored eyes were beacons of apprehension.
“Isn’t it an interesting coincidence that your name is so perfectly suited to the type of activities you’re involved in?”
“Mmmmm, yes.” The dove’s wings flared out for balance as Willow bent over a battered desk and began rifling around in a drawer.
“What nationality is it exactly?”
Her movements stilled completely and when she turned, her crestfallen expression spoke volumes. “Okay, Ms. O’Dell,” she said softly. “I’m sure you’re gonna be snooping around, so I may as well tell you now.”
My pulse rate shot up a notch. “That you’re name isn’t really Willow Windsong?”
I must have looked expectant because she let out a caustic laugh. “If you’re holding out the hope that I’m some kind of crazy fugitive who’s been on America’s Most Wanted or something, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“So, why did you change it?”
Her smile was sheepish. “When I joined the Evergreen Party my family sort of disowned me.”
“Why?”
“I’d wager if your name was Mrs. Spaulding Canisaw, you’d change your name too.”
“Spaulding Canisaw,” I murmured, searching my memory banks before firing her an incredulous look. “As in Canisaw Chemical Company?”
“My ex-husband.”
I was dumbfounded. The giant corporation was known worldwide and it taxed my imagination to capacity when I tried to picture this rather eccentric woman hobnobbing with the high society set. Yet, she’d apparently given up a life of wealth and luxury to pursue her commitment. And although such a move appeared foolhardy on the surface, I couldn’t suppress a flare of grudging admiration.
I was no less surprised to hear that not only had she left her husband, but also her two teenage sons. “Before you pass judgement,” she cautioned, holding up a finger. “You need to know that I was traveling around a lot and I felt the kids were better off with their father.”
“How do they like your new name?”
“They don’t. But it was an embarrassment for me to even be asso
ciated with my old one, considering those people are to blame for plundering the earth by dumping their toxic waste all over creation and polluting our rivers and oceans.” She slammed a drawer shut and began piling brochures into my lap. “You tell Miss Morgan to read everything. Then she’ll understand why I, and lots of other people in this town, will never allow the mine to reopen.”
I remembered the bitter expressions on the miner’s faces when they’d relayed the pain and adversity suffered at the hands of this woman and, her casual use of the word ‘allow’ compelled me to question her unblinking effrontery.
“I gather you don’t consider your activities just a tad extreme?”
The upward flight of charcoal eyebrows revealed her surprise. “Not in the least.”
“What about the other point of view? The miners feel that your actions are largely responsible for destroying their livelihood. As far as they’re concerned, they are the endangered species.”
“What a load of crap! If we don’t do everything we can to protect these birds and other species, they’ll be gone. Extinct means forever.”
“I understand. But what about the fact that the mine property is private. That means the owner should be able to use it however he or she wishes, doesn’t it?”
“No! The land should be donated as a preserve.”
“Are you suggesting the property be confiscated?”
“If necessary.”
I stared in surprise, thinking that her answer defied logic, but feeling certain that to her it made perfect sense. “But, Willow, do you think it’s fair to punish these men and their families? What about the human cost?”
“That’s their problem. These men and their greedy ancestors have been raping the earth for centuries. Let them get retrained to do something else.”
It was easy to see how her incendiary rhetoric could have spawned the aggravation leading to Grady’s fateful decision, as well as the impasse that now pitted the citizens of Morgan’s Folly against each other.
Several deliberate breaths seemed to restore her composure and she finished in a reasonable tone. “The birds and animals were here first. Remember, it’s man who has ruined the environment, it’s man who should leave and allow God’s creatures to live in peace.”
