Frankly, the trust-fund hippies were easier to deal with than the big-hat and pickup-truck brigade. The old cowboy types were forever trying to drive him out of a job—or into a ditch on more than a few occasions. The growing ranks of tree huggers meant job security for a guy who administered trees.
But this was something different. There was an air of tension among the beads-and-dreadlocks set.
The BLM official crunched something between his teeth. A whiff of mint reached Van Kamp’s nose as the official rolled a plastic candy wrapper into a ball between his fingers and tossed it into a garbage pail.
“It’s Greenfield’s people,” the official said. “He’s champing at the bit to settle this mess in Sycamore Canyon and get the fire season rolling before the monsoon rains get the forest too wet to burn. He’s gathering his people here before sending them out to Fredonia, Payson and the rest of the targets.”
“Greenfield … ?” Van Kamp stuttered, remembering his last encounter with the animal-hating prophet.
“How in Hell did he get his people up here so fast?”
The BLM man cleared his throat. He spat the hard candy to the ground where it clattered and rolled into the parking lot. A half-dozen pairs of environmentally conscious eyes immediately bored into the man like death rays of disapproval. He quickly stooped, retrieved his candy and flicked it into the trash.
Relieved of the barrage of glares, the BLM man turned his attention back to his co-conspirator.
“I don’t think these people do much of anything but show up where he tells them to go.”
Van Kamp snorted.
“The last bunch he sent our way had to bicycle their way to Flagstaff from Tucson. I don’t think this crew did that overnight.”
“Well, it’s an emergency, don’t you know,” the BLM man responded. “He probably let them pile into a VW minibus.”
Van Kamp sighed and shook his head.
“To have that kind of power over people …”
“Goddamned impressive, isn’t it?”
The two men admired the flow of people on the sidewalk, many of them summoned by the whim of their colleague. But there was that escalating energy in the air, a buzz of bottled-up antagonism marinated in wood smoke. The hippies, outwardly part of the same tribe, slowly gravitated into two overlapping clusters on the sidewalk.
“Of course,” the BLM man added. “I’m not sure Greenfield’s people play well with others. The local hippies may be tree huggers, but Greenfield’s people are tree fuckers.”
In the door of the coffee house across the street, beneath a sign proclaiming the establishment’s vegan orientation, a man in baggy shorts and a ratty t-shirt wiped mustard from the strands of his wispy beard. With exaggerated relish, he devoured a large and obviously meat-laden submarine sandwich.
A shout rose up, words were exchanged, and a brief scuffle broke out. The sandwich eater smirked and drifted away.
Van Kamp sagged. He glanced at the BLM official, who just shrugged in reply.
“Shit.”
Chapter 52
“Shit,” Greenfield said, unintentionally echoing his co-conspirators just a few blocks away. He gazed across a bobbing sea of heads in Heritage Square, punctuated by a few raised fists, and serenaded by a growing chorus of angry voices.
“We don’t have time for this crap. I didn’t bring our people up here so they can tangle with animal lovers and rednecks.” He paused, tugged at his beard and turned to his younger companion.
“You do think we could take ‘em, don’t you?”
Next to him, Happy, who was known as Henry to his parents, tugged at his own, much wispier, beard. He wore leather sandals, cargo pants and a peach-colored button-down shirt with an unidentifiable food stain on the breast pocket—activist business attire, from head to toe. Activist attire, that is, except for the wild curls of red hair that inspired his nickname; Happy the Clown had been a local celebrity in his upscale California suburb to whom the young Henry had borne a startling resemblance.
“Yeah, we could definitely take the animal lovers—they don’t get enough protein. But the rednecks … The Williams refugees are kind of pissed off …”
Greenfield grunted and scowled.
“Anyway, we don’t have time for that crap. We’re supposed to be making more pissed-off rednecks. Did the Fredonia team get off OK?”
“Yeah, but some of the others. Well—” Happy stuttered, and then stopped.
Greenfield backed a few steps from two women engaging in a pushing contest. One wore a peasant skirt and might, or might not, be a member of his organization. The other wore blue jeans and a blouse that must have shrunk in the wash. Several times.
Greenfield tugged his companion’s sleeve to pull him from harm’s way as the woman in the blouse gave an especially hard shove and sent her antagonist flying. A button from the blouse went flying after her.
”’Well’ what?”
“Well … some of our people are confused about what we’re doing. I mean they’re with the program about burning out the towns, and all.”
“Yeah? So what’s the problem?”
“What’s to keep them from rebuilding? Then this is all wasted effort—risky wasted effort. I mean, we’re all risking getting busted, and it might not do any good. We don’t have enough people to force settlement out of the West.”
Greenfield sighed.
“That’s why our people are so jumpy?”
“Yeah. Well that—and they know we haven’t heard back from Bob, Rena and Sam.”
Greenfield backed a few more steps away from what was now a full-blown cat fight with a growing crowd of spectators.
“Look, don’t worry about Bob, Rena and Samantha. They’re doing important work and they can take care of themselves. You remember how Bob took care of the car dealership don’t you? And have you ever seen Rena back down from anything?”
The younger man shrugged noncommittally.
“Besides, we’re not going to push anybody out ourselves,” the older man’s voice rumbled. “We just start the fires. The army will push ‘em out.”
“The army?”
“Cops, FBI, angry social workers, whatever. This is why we joined up with our uniformed friends. We start the fires, Van Kamp and the other pencil-pushers argue that major parts of the West are too dangerous to live in and they get the wheels turning for a big buy-out of private land—dimes on the dollar because it’s all cinders anyway.”
“Lots of folks aren’t going to like that. They might fight back.”
Greenfield smiled.
“I’m counting on it. Plenty of feds will have doubts right up until the first asshole shoots at them. Hell, you know what happens when you call a cop a jerk—even when he’s being a jerk.”
Happy winced and tugged gently at the scarlet fuzz on his chin.
“Yeah. It’s like waving a red sheet at a bull.”
“That’s right. Their brains will shut down and they’ll make it a matter of pride to turn this entire state into a wilderness preserve. We’ll get our way without doing any heavy lifting past setting the fires.”
The younger man held his tongue for a long moment. He watched the fight, which had now picked up two more participants—another hippy and a cop. The Williams girl in the too-tight blouse was holding her own against all-comers.
“None of them are our people are they?” Greenfield asked.
“Uh … yeah. Two of them.”
“Crap. That’s no good.”
“Bad publicity?”
“They fight like pussies.”
“Umm, another question?”
“Yeah?”
“What if nobody shoots at the feds?”
Greenfield pointed to the fight.
“That doesn’t seem too likely.”
“But if?”
“Well, Hell. You’re a good shot, aren’t you? We’ll make it happen.”
The younger man stood open-mouthed for a moment. He snapped his jaw shut, swallowed
and vigorously nodded.
Greenfield smiled back. He returned his attention to the fight and winced almost immediately.
“Damn it! Can’t any of our people throw a decent punch?”
Chapter 53
At the other end of the crowded square, another argument brewed.
“Hey man,” a lounger said, hunched forward on a low concrete wall, waving a giant burrito with one hand. He spoke loudly to be heard above the sound of the cat fight that held Greenfield’s attention just yards away. Wrap-around sunglasses hid his eyes and masked his expression, but earnestness dripped from his voice. “Cool your jets. All I said was that the fire is a travesty! It’s killing all sorts of wildlife. Think of the animals chased out of their natural habitat!”
Sitting on the same wall close by in a large circle of people, a woman shook her head vigorously. Her hair stuck out in strands under a bicycle helmet.
“You don’t get it. The fire can teach people a lesson about messing with nature. It’s part of the natural cycle of life, and humans interfere with nature at their own risk. But it also clears out the parasitic mammals so the plants can reproduce in peace and reach their natural potential.”
“Hey,” chimed in a woman in sandals and a sky-blue windbreaker. “I get what you’re saying about fire teaching people a lesson, but people are invaders in nature. Animals are just doing their thing.”
“Whoah. You’re forgetting that animals are aggressors against plants. Lots of times they eat plants with no provocation at all.”
“Whoah, that’s bullshit.”
“No, she has a point,” said a long-haired man wearing cut-off shorts and … well … shorts. “Animals do aggress against plants. Plants don’t do anything to them. I think that raises a serious moral issue.”
“But Venus Flytraps eat animals. That’s aggression.”
“They eat bugs. Are bugs really animals?”
“Hey. We all agree that people deserve what they get. Fuck ‘em for building in the forest. But to say that animals deserve the same is—”
“You just don’t fucking get it.”
“Don’t curse at me, man.” The guy in the sunglasses rose to his feet and threw his burrito across the now-agitated circle. “How can you hate animals?”
Yards away, leaning against the brick wall of a building housing a store that sold hiking and camping gear, two men looked on. Both sported well-used blue jeans and equally well-used faces. One wore a cowboy hat that might once have been a specific color, but had long since absented itself from any recognizable part of the spectrum. The other wore a baseball cap with an unreadable logo.
The one in the cowboy hat spat.
“Did those assholes say we deserved to get burned out?”
The fellow in the baseball cap shifted very slightly.
“I think so. I was concentrating on the whole ‘animals are good,’ ‘animals suck’ thing, but I’m pretty sure they said they like forest fires ‘cause they hurt people.”
The two men stood still for a few minutes, watching the nearby debate grow more violent.
“Hell,” cowboy hat said. “I think that deserves some ass-kicking.”
Baseball cap smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes.
“Damned straight.”
The two men broke away from the wall and stepped forward.
Just feet away, the woman in the bicycle helmet turned away from the man she’d just punched and wiped at the splattered food on her shirt. Black beans and red sauce dripped from the fabric.
“Fuck! Is this vegetarian?”
Chapter 54
“Rena.”
The woman gently extended her hands, running her fingers along the wounded ranger’s body, stroking his impassive face. She gently bypassed his eyes, which stared blankly at the sky.
“Rena.”
Her fingers moved back down his body, over his chest, to his stomach. Slowly, her fingertips disappeared under the tattered remnants of his loincloth.
“Rena!”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I was just making sure Ray is comfortable.”
Jason grunted. Next to him, Samantha giggled.
“Yeah. I think Ray is pretty comfortable. Why don’t we all leave him alone so he can get some rest?”
“Wow,” Terry said. He stared at Rena and Ray. “That’s some first aid.”
Bob snickered. The sound became a groan as he jarred his injured shoulder.
“Let’s go folks!” He glanced at the sky. “It’s getting dark. It’s a great time to make camp. Why don’t we scatter so we don’t give anybody a big target to aim at?”
Terry met his eyes.
“Why don’t we get the hell out of here and give them even less of a target?”
Jason pointed at Ray.
“Oh. Yeah.”
Moments later, after a few tugs and nudges from Jason—and one longing backwards look by Rena—the teammates scattered into the darkening brush to seek individual refuges for the night. Or, if they preferred, they sought a refuge suitable for two.
Which is what Jason and Samantha did, a few hundred yards up the canyon, back the way they’d come.
“Wow,” Samantha said. She brushed Jason’s cheek with her hand. “Even when things are tough, you really take charge.”
“Thanks.” Jason took a tentative half step closer to Samantha, gazing past her dirt-encrusted cheekbones into her moist, welcoming eyes. “I take my responsibilities seriously … very seriously.”
She pressed closer to him, and now he felt her nipples tracing little circles through the film of salt, sweat and dust on his chest. The days on the trail with little water and plenty of sweat had taken their toll on her hygiene, creating an almost palpable wall of funk around her—a moat of BO. Now he was inside that wall with her—and she was inside his matching perimeter of stink.
“I never thought I could feel this way about a mammal,” she babbled. “And people are just mammals, right?” She broke eye contact with him. “But you’re better than just another nasty animal. You’re like … like … a mighty oak towering above the forest.”
Slowly, Jason brought his hands forward and gently rested them on her hips. He raised his right hand to her chin and tilted her head up. Her gaze met his once again.
“And you, you’re like a wild doe running free through the forest. You’re my doe—I hope.”
“From you—only from you—that’s so wonderful. Yes, I’m your doe.”
An instant later they were locked in a clinch, lips pressed together. An instant after that, they fell to the ground with a soft thump, which was rapidly punctuated by suppressed yelps as exposed flesh encountered sharp thorns.
Samantha sat up, holding twin branches by the side of her head like a pair of antlers. The two giggled and lurched together again in an embrace.
Yards away, standing half-concealed in the brush, Terry gaped in open astonishment. His jaw opened and closed as if he were trying to speak. Finally, it snapped shut and he turned his head from the scene that had occupied his attention.
He moved quietly up the canyon to find a relatively soft and secluded place to sleep. Through the long hours of the night, Terry would be kept company by very confused thoughts. People, plants, animals, people, plants, animals …
Rena also moved through the night, though with considerably less confusion than her teammate. Stepping quickly from rock to rock and bush to bush, she rapidly outpaced Bob in their hike up the canyon. Looking carefully around her, she began angling across the canyon, and then cut back down, heading back the way she’d come. She passed within scant yards of Terry who, pacing slowly and staring at his feet, continued on his way none the wiser. Rena spared a quick smile for Jason and Samantha wrestling on a mat of reasonably soft vegetation, and then moved on toward her destination.
Ray looked up as she entered the clearing where he lay, near where he was shot. He looked up and groaned.
“Checking on me already?”
Rena pressed a finger to her lips.<
br />
“Ssshh. Sort of.”
Ray squinted through the half-light.
“What?” he whispered hoarsely.
Rena dropped to her knees next to the wounded man.
“How’s your wound?”
“Same as half an hour ago. It hurts like a son of a bitch.”
“Ray, I think we both know what’s going on here.”
The man raised his eyebrows.
“There’s a real connection between us. I felt it during our group discussion of sexuality when you emphasized the sexuality of people.”
Ray managed to blush through his sunburn.
“What?”
“Ssshh.” She touched her finger to his lips. “I really felt it while I was healing you.”
“You gotta be—”
“Ssshh.”
“It was developing between us before, but there’s something magical about the healing process. It’s built a strong spiritual bond between us.”
She dropped her hands to her waist and shimmied out of her shorts. Ray’s eyes widened as her enormous breasts bounced from side to side.
“Hey, not to be ungrateful, but I’m injured. I’m really not up-“
“Ssshh.
Rena patted the man’s groin. He instinctively tried to cross his legs, then winced and grunted.
“Yeah, you’re hurting. That’ll have to wait.”
Ray nodded vigorously.
Rena patted him again.
“That’s OK. I have something else in mind.”
With a quick move, she straddled his chest.
Ray’s jaw dropped.
She moved forward, over his face, before he could speak.
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