by Inez Kelley
The word harvested ripped her pleasant mood away. The gray socks hit a half-full laundry basket. He popped the button her hand had rested on a few minutes ago, the dress pants falling past his thighs. She barely registered the hem of his blue boxers through the red haze filling her sight. “You want me to see how the land is improved.”
“Yeah, is that so wrong?”
“I thought this was our time, just you and me, not the Canyon business.”
He pulled on jeans but stopped before they were zipped. “It is. But I thought I could kill two birds with one stone. Just walk with me, let me show you that the property wasn’t destroyed. After that, dinner is just us. I promise I won’t even mention work.”
She popped off the bed, ripping the tie from around her neck. “¡Me cago en Dios carajo! Damn it, Joni, do you know how hard I’ve been working to not talk about the Canyon with you? Now you’re changing all the rules. That’s not fair.”
“Hey.” The zipper whizzed and he reached for her. “It’s not like that. It’s a location thing, that’s all.” He tipped her stiff chin up until he could look into her eyes. “I just wanted to show you something beautiful then spend the next couple house focusing on how beautiful you are. If you’re really against it, then we’ll forget it. The hike’s not worth it. I don’t want to fight tonight.”
“We always fight.” She refused to relax, to melt into the embrace she’d delighted in just minutes ago.
A wicked light sparked in his eyes. “Maybe I want a different type of fireworks tonight.”
“Keep dreaming, Slick.” Narrowing her eyes, she raised her chin. “Fine. We’ll hike. I’m driving. I have a few birds to kill myself. I want to take you someplace first.”
* * *
Air rushed through his hair as Zury took the winding road a few miles above the posted speed limit. Her Jeep might be old but it purred like a stroked cat when she angled off the hard-cap and onto a dirt road. She hadn’t said more than a few words but Jonah could read her mind loud and clear. She wore her thoughts on her face like makeup.
That kitchen kiss had nearly exploded. Her fingers skimming over his skin had revved his heartbeat and powered the blood away from his brain. She’d wanted more, maybe as much as he had, but she’d tensed and pushed him away. It was just a matter of time. Zury Castellano was beautiful and stubborn, with lips like the sweetest berries. Every taste of her mouth was like a drug, luring him deeper into addiction.
Jonah grabbed the windshield frame when she hit a deep rut. She’d insisted on driving but damn, the woman drove like her ass was on fire. “You want to slow down a little?”
“Nope.” The smile she sent him was stiff. “Hang on tight, Slick. It gets rougher from here on out.”
Somehow, he thought that might be true of more than the road. Gritting his teeth against another jarring thud, he fixed his eyes straight ahead. His mind slammed to a screeching halt as he recognized their destination. “We’re trespassing again.”
Zury said nothing. She dropped the Jeep into a lower gear and climbed a steeper rough-cut trail. Behind state-road yellow sawhorses, chanting protesters hefted their signs higher as the Jeep barreled by at too fast a clip. A loading zone burst into view like an unwelcome blister.
Big equipment rumbled like hulking dinosaurs along the road. Two skidders and a backhoe in blaze yellow chewed the dirt as the logging crew milled around. Three different trucks created a mini parking lot beside a torn-up section of earth. A gasoline tank sat beside a mobile trailer, the temporary base of operations for Hawkins in the Black Cherry Canyon.
Dozens of burly men turned to look at them in curiosity, but none approached once a forester called out, “You looking for Shaw? Clocked out already.”
Jonah gave a short wave in return, unable to speak because his teeth were grinding.
Compared to the gorgeous expanse of the Canyon’s untouched forests, he couldn’t deny it was ugly. Sawdust and shed bark covered much of the well-trodden ground, and deep furrows from extra-wide tires marked the landscape. Piles of tree branches and roots rimmed the edge of the clearing. There was a swatch of flattened mud where flatbed trailers and eighteen-wheelers were being loaded with felled logs. The stench of motor oil, gas and grease overshadowed the breeze. Huge spools of steel cable were stacked next to locked metal boxes that he knew housed chains and tools.
She shut the engine off and sat, hands gripping the steering wheel. “This is what logging really looks like.”
“This is temporary.”
“It’s real. This is what your company is doing to the mountains, to the forests. This is what my patrons will look out and see.”
He rubbed a sudden throb at his temple. “It won’t last forever.”
“Long enough. How long will it take the forests to recover? A few years? A drop in the bucket for nature but a death sentence for the Falls.” Dark Spanish eyes locked onto him. “I can’t let that happen, Jonah.”
“You can’t stop it.”
She whirled, chest heaving and face livid with emotion. “I have to try. I want my grandchildren to see what I see today. I want the traditions that have lasted for generations to survive. I want to preserve a way of living that too many people take for granted, one full of fresh air and lightning bugs and gray squirrels. One where magic still exists in a beehive or a fox den.”
He looked up, striving for patience. The clouds were light and puffy. There was a name for them, he knew, but he couldn’t think of anything except he wanted to kiss her into oblivion while strangling her.
Two anti-Hawkins editorials and a growing number of logging protesters had developed while he was away, all fueled by the woman seated beside him. He’d worked his ass off in the past week, countering her arguments in print and putting new information out highlighting the good Hawkins forestry would do. He’d wooed senators and representatives during the day and fought with Zury via news media at night. Interspersed between that, he talked to her, fell under the dulcet charms of her voice through the phone, and struggled with the growing need to taste her mouth again.
How could her passion infuriate him while turning him on? He was starting to feel like a bipolar Jekyll and Hyde.
Lacing his fingers in hers, he squeezed. “The Canyon will come back stronger than ever, I promise.”
“Eventually, maybe. But the Falls can’t close its doors while the forest is torn apart and then regrows. Can you or Hawkins guarantee that the Falls won’t suffer at all?”
No, he couldn’t. But she refused to look past the immediate inconveniences. The Canyon spanned twenty-five hundred acres, and logging had begun the farthest from the Falls as possible. When the time came, if she could just bend a bit and be patient, they’d do their jobs and retreat. There were even some benefits for the Falls.
“Once the logging roads are cut, your hiking and nature excursions will have easier access. I can get one of the foresters to come in and do some guest lectures on silvaculture and forest stewardship, offer classes on species identification, arrange a scavenger hunt thing where the kids collect leaves or something. We can hand out saplings, teach them about why trees are important and why they should be managed. Hawkins will fund the program.”
Delicately arched brows angled sharply above her eyes. “You could do all that without ruining the mountains.”
“I swear to sweet Christ, you are—” He bit back more curses. “Your head’s as hard as hickory.”
“Pot, kettle. Kettle, pot.”
His hands fisted, battling the urge to kettle her pot. She was wrong, too close-minded and frightened of change right now to see clearly. He’d show her that timbering and tourism could coexist if she’d only bend a little.
Bend. His cheeks lost their stiffness as an idea sprouted. He grabbed the windshield frame and hauled his body upward. “Hey, Clements!”
A hard-hatted man covered in sawdust and machine grease looked up from his dismantled chainsaw. “Yeah?”
“Got any hickory handy? I need a thin strip.”
Clements scratched his whiskered chin then disappeared behind the trailer.
“What are you doing?” Zury asked.
“You’ll see.” He let his grin linger as she fumed. If a glare could burn, his entire body would be ash right now but he said nothing, sitting patiently and watching for Clements. The bowlegged sawyer rounded the trailer with a long thin switch in his hand.
Zury’s eyes bugged. “Look, Slick, you might be into kinky sex games, but you come anywhere near me with a switch and I’m loading my gun.”
“Relax. Thanks, man.” He took the scrap from Clements but looked at her. “If I spank your ass, I’ll use my hand and you’ll love it.”
Clements snorted and ambled away, escaping her livid glower.
Jonah handed her the bough. “Bend it,” he told her. She squeezed, bowing the center until she held an arch. “Hickory is tough, stubborn and hard as hell to work with if you don’t treat it right. But it gives, can be bent and shaped into amazing things.”
His voice gentled as he leaned closer and smoothed the front of her hair away from her forehead with his thumb. “You adapted from the city to the mountains, from an only child to a family, grew from a little girl into a beautiful woman. Don’t get so rigid now that you can’t bend.”
For several breaths, she stared at the U-shaped twig in her hands. Then she inhaled, tossed the wood away and keyed the engine. “We better get moving.”
* * *
The plane smelled of too many people crammed into a flying tin can. Eric rubbed his nose and hunkered deeper into his too-hard seat. Beside him, a frumpy couple ignored each other loudly. The woman huffed and heaved, shifting every few minutes. Her slack-jowled husband refused to be baited, snapping the pages of a thick paperback every few minutes. They hadn’t spoken a word since the plane took off but their argument was obvious. And annoying.
He palmed a handful of pine nuts and tossed them in his mouth, enjoying the painless crunch. Bleeding gums and aching teeth were the newest signs his body was giving out. But his mind had never been as sharp or his determination as strong. The canvas bag at his feet held his vegan snacks, his vitamins and his computer tablet. Powering up the latter, he tuned out his seatmates.
The soothing panorama of West Virginia’s mountains bloomed on the screen. Despite having trekked the West Coast’s forests and basked in the grandeur of the Great Sequoias, he found something timelessly appealing in the Appalachian landscape. It drew him in, welcomed him, comforted him. Of course man wanted to destroy this beauty. Man destroyed everything.
A few clicks took him to his files, and he pulled up the newest entry from Zury Castellano. The editorial style article rang through his bones like a symphony, drumming into his soul. She understood. Black Cherry Falls sprayed white foam in the background, but seated on that rocky outcrop, laughing at something off camera, Zury monopolized the frame.
“Good afternoon. We’re beginning our descent into West Virginia’s Morgantown Municipal Airport and should arrive on time. The weather is a glorious eighty-seven degrees, with a southeastern wind at fifteen miles per hour. Please turn off all electronic devices and fasten your seat belts.”
The pilot droned on but Eric tuned him out. The tablet screen smoothed under his finger as he stroked the smile curving her face. “I’m coming, Zury. I’ll save your Canyon.”
Chapter Seven
And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.
Mark 16:17-18 New Revised Standard Version
Kayla Edwards-nearly-Shaw’s property was gorgeous. Zury followed Jonah’s directions and drove straight up to a stone building with louvered vents in the ceiling. He called it a sugarhouse, said Kayla made maple syrup for her home-based company from her own land. Zury’d seen maple syrup boiled many times. The Falls hosted a series of classes called Heritage Keepers. Master craftsmen came and passed on age-old traditions such as loom-weaving, sugaring, basket weaving and soap-making.
The dirt road was rutted and bumpy but passable. The valley unfolded around them and mountain peaks circled them like a cathedral but Zury couldn’t relax. She worried her lip and trailed Jonah along a footpath deeper into the woods. Despite her zeal, she considered herself a reasonable person. She wasn’t opposed to being objective. Was she? Within a limited scope, he was trying. Swallowing her pride, she vowed to herself to give him the same consideration. But she didn’t expect miracles.
Heat baked the foliage and scented the air with a rich, earthy tang. Zury breathed deep, letting the rustling leaves soothe her.
“See this?” Jonah grabbed her hand and pulled her down a sloped ridge to a line of stumps. A familiar pang twisted her stomach. The exposed stubs had weathered but they existed, scars to show that trees once grew there. “It was cut about a year ago. You can tell it was recent but do you see the reforestation already starting to take hold?”
“It’s so ugly. Why didn’t they tear the stumps out?”
“Many of them will naturally sprout a new sapling. Even if they don’t, they prevent soil erosion. They’ll decay naturally. But as they do, new root systems will be taking their place. Forestry doesn’t just happen above the ground.” He squatted and fingered a short, slender shoot with a gentle smile. “This is a poplar. It’ll be years before it’s really recognizable, but it’s growing on its own, without replanting. These stumps were mature trees that were blocking the sun and taking more nutrients from the soil. There aren’t more immature trees in this area because the land simply couldn’t support any more.”
A few paces away, he pointed out a tumbled pile of branches and vines. “Forestry is the only type of manufacturing that uses one hundred percent of the product. Everything from the leaves to the sawdust is repurposed. But the crews often leave several piles like this around to house wildlife.”
He picked up a fist-size rock and hurled it, striking the mound. Four spooked wild turkeys shot out of a bush. Unlike the huge-breasted white Thanksgiving variety, the compact dark birds were able to get airborne in a few wing moves, flying straight for them. Jonah ducked, instinctually crouching into a smaller target.
“Fucking birds,” he muttered.
“Turkeys scare you, Slick?”
“Wasn’t scared.”
“Suuuure you weren’t.”
He smacked a kiss across her mouth. “Hush, woman, you’ll ruin my manly image.”
Her snort was far from feminine. She could eat him with a spoon, and yet it wasn’t just the image of him that enthralled her. He’d called her every night while he was in D. C. and they’d never come close to discussing the Canyon project. Instead he’d made her laugh with outrageous descriptions of the politicians he was meeting, complete with cartoon voices.
Fingers laced together, he guided her across the ridge. The terrain steepened, the lush tree cover thinning to sparser trunks and open meadows. Zury turned her face into the sun, breathing in the tingling fragrance of high summer. It seeped into her bones and loosened her muscles. The picture-perfect setting called for old-fashioned swings and glasses of frosty lemonade.
She darted a glance sideways, watching the sunbeams caress him. He had faint shadows under his eyes. Concern clenched her throat. He’d had a late dinner meeting last night and by the time he’d called, she’d been in bed winding down with some television. He’d flipped channels until he found the same program and they’d watched a Law & Order rerun together, via cell phone, discussing both the portrayed case and the actors. Jonah did a hilarious J
erry Orbach impression but his goodnight had whispered through her bones with a heat no phone line could hide.
“Where are we headed on this little show-and-tell trip?”
“Up there.” He pointed to the crest of the mountain. A massive slab of rock jutted out from the top, bare of any living thing. The giant rock had sprouted millions of years ago when the tectonic plates split. It was dark and chunky, protruding from the forest to peer down like an ancient god. “It’s technically not on Kayla’s property, but you can see all of her land from up there, hers and a lot more.”
Zury shaded her eyes. “I’ve climbed a rock wall but never a real cliff face.”
“Nah, we’re going up the backside. The walking trail’s pretty easy and the view is awesome. It’s about a forty-five-minute walk.” He squeezed her hand, sending her a playful smile. “Matt proposed up here. It’s called Lover’s Leap.”
They paused to cup their hands under a freshwater spring, sipping icy cold water straight from the earth. She flicked her hands, peppering him with droplets and he did the same. The water stung against her heated skin, peaking her nipples into tight buds. They drank their fill then set out again.
The ridge flattened out for several hundred feet, spreading a field of tall grasses and wildflowers in front of them. Yellow dandelions competed with their more mature fluffy white counterparts. Walking into the wind set them straight into the path of floating seedheads. The air was full of white bits dancing like drunken fairies. They spiraled through the meadow, dipped low then swerved up, tossed by the gentle breeze.
“It looks like it’s snowing.” Zury plucked several pods out of Jonah’s hair and off his shirt. He pulled a few from her crown as well but they soon gave up as more replaced the ones they’d removed.
