"I want to raise the point... again... that we're talking about two entirely different types of forest here. Those giant trees are practically fire proof. Their bark becomes more fire resistant the older they get, and the shade they provide keeps that soil wet. The fire is doing a great job in the old growth, yeah! It can't even burn those trees. But we know what the second growth stands are like, people!" He was a little red in the face. Molly felt tears behind her eyes. She pressed down hard on her cheekbones.
"Once the fire reaches second growth, where the soil is dry and the trees are small, it will accelerate. It will start on the south side of our hill, on the other side of the ridge. That forest has only been around for fifty-odd years! It's been given second chance at life— young growth oaks, firs, and redwoods— they will torch if the fire gets to them. They will. We need you-" he pointed at Vincent Conners, "to deal with this fire before it gets to us. It doesn't make sense to plan to fight it on our side. By then it will be too late. Please don't let the fire raze our ranch and go on to destroy more forest."
He sat down amid applause, rubbing his face with his hands. Molly whooped and Todd slid down in his seat. People sat in their chairs tensely, leaning forward, waiting for the response. Chuck Telus stepped back up to the microphone.
He opened his mouth and closed it again, shifted some papers he had on the podium. From outside came a trill of birdsong that sent a shiver up Molly's spine. The feeling in her stomach was worsening.
"Due to the Minimum Impact Suppression tactics that we are constrained to employ in the State Park—" he said. Molly couldn't bear it any longer.
"You said that already!" she called, her hand cupped around her mouth. "We heard that! What do you have to say about what Jack said?"
He cleared his throat again, not looking in her direction. His glasses were slipping down his sweaty nose. He pushed them back up.
"My response hasn't changed."
The group of people clustered on white folding chairs shifted and rustled in their seats. The sound was not friendly.
"Your response hasn't changed?" she called. "Even knowing that the fire will change speed once it gets to the second growth?"
"We're confident that won't happen. Our fire crews will handle the old growth fire."
Something hot flooded into Molly's face. Vincent Conners approached the microphone again and Chuck stepped out of his way as he grasped it in one large hand.
"Part of what Jack says is true—we haven't been able to attack the fire in the way we want to. The biggest risk are the standing dead trees, since they're the only ones really going up in flames and falling. For our safety, we aren't fighting the fire at the active lines. We have helicopters out, but it's difficult because the canopy is over a hundred feet away from the fire. We just can't get close."
The heat in Molly's face was going to explode out of the top of her skull and then they'd see torching. The whole tent would come down in a blaze. She took some deep breaths.
"Mom," Todd said.
"They're just going to let it burn," Molly said to her son. "I can't believe this. In the name of conservation they'll let it destroy our land." She couldn't stop the tears. She saw Athena watching her, a concerned look on her face, and she stood up abruptly, shaking Todd's hand off of her arm. She hoofed down the aisle, crying all the way. Greta joined her as she left the relative shade of the tent for the flaming sun outside. Molly was shaking so hard that Greta's hand kept slipping off her shoulder as she tried to comfort her friend.
"I'm sorry, Greta, it's just killing me. All this bullshit."
"I know. It's going to be okay."
"How is it going to be okay?" Molly asked. "How in God's name is it going to be okay? Our forests are going to burn down and our buildings will be destroyed. I don't understand how that could possibly be okay."
Greta crossed her arms and looked at Molly. She was several inches taller, blond and large, with a wide, tanned face. Her bones were made for carrying weight. Next to her, Molly was again small and frail. Greta's eyes, too, were harder than Molly's, from years of living with men who didn't take care of her.
"Fine, Molly. You're right. It won't be okay. Does that help?"
"No."
"Then why can't you choose to believe that it will?"
"Its denial to choose to believe what I want to be true!"
"It's the only thing you can do. Sure, yeah, okay... maybe the fire will get as far as the ranch. Do everything you can to prevent it. But once you've taken care of everything inside your control you have to be able to say that even if the ranch is gone, you and Jack and the kids will go on. Catherine will go on. The trees will grow back."
They were only about fifty feet outside the tent entrance. Molly could see people milling around inside, starting to spill out as things wrapped up. Molly saw the heat-whitened sky, the dust on her toes and around her feet, the hawk circling over the next hill. A fire-fighter stood beside one of the bulldozers, staring up at the window.
The same trees wouldn't grow back. They would be killed. Different trees would come, strangers, and it would be years from now before they grew up. The whole thing would be played out again, the destruction of the forest and she coming back to find them, as an old woman. Like Catherine and her logging. What disaster would their be to take the trees down when Molly was stooped and elderly? These terrible cycles! She was powerless.
Greta had downy hairs across her cheeks and chin, so light that they were invisible unless she was lit from behind. They'd sat on Molly's deck so many times, with glasses of wine in the afternoon sun. One of her closest friends, and here she was, offering thin, scaly comfort, a promise of some future stand of trees that would be distant cousins to Molly's beautiful forest.
She started crying again and Greta put an arm around her shoulders. Molly turned and pushed her face into Greta's collarbone.
"I don't know," she said. "I don't know if we will go on."
They drove home not long after; Todd and Jack making small talk while Molly gazed out of the window. She was as still as grass when there is no breeze to move it. She was spent, hot, and tired. She needed oblivion from the hard, thirsty places inside of her. She wanted sleep, a cool place.
They left the highway and the street and swung up the dirt road that led to the ranch's gate. She flinched away from the dust on the trees, the limp look of everything that wasn't made of wood or stone. It had been a hard summer.
Todd tried to talk to her, but she didn't answer him. She was resenting him being here again. There was nothing any of them could do; she may as well be left alone. She would curl up in a hollow in a hillside and let the fire sweep over her too.
They pulled into the driveway and climbed out of the truck. Down the road, Molly could see the vet's truck at the horse barn. Molly thought she'd step into the house to see if Catherine wanted to walk down to the barn with her, thinking that it would be nice for her mother to see Sheila again. It would be a way for Catherine to get out of the house. She kicked boots and sandals out of the way as she entered the house. The shoe pile was getting out of hand.
The house was cool after the unrelieved glare of the sun outside.
"Mama?" she called. Her voice bounced off the walls with a dull echo. The house felt empty, but Rain wandered into the kitchen, humming. "Where's your grandma?"
"She's down at the barn, showing the horse to Sheila."
Catherine! She was stepping back into her old place, taking everything away. Molly couldn't even extend the invitation for her mother to come along, because her mother had taken it for herself. People were always taking what she hadn't offered. Something that was hard and tight inside of Molly shivered into pieces. She gasped for air as heat spread through her body. She slammed her hand on the counter and turned to leave the house again.
"Mom?" she heard Rain call behind her, but she was already gone.
FOURTEEN
"One thing we could do is extend the cleared spaces, just to be on the safe side
," Jack said. He pressed down on the bumper of his truck with one foot, bounced it a few times. The truck was dusty. Beyond time to wash it.
"What about the cattle— have you rounded all of them up?" Todd asked. Jack watched as his son quickly combed his hair out of his eyes with his fingers.
"That too, definitely. I was thinking of tomorrow."
"What's the wait?"
"No wait, I guess. I don't want them penned up too long, but..." he shrugged. "Special circumstances."
The meeting had been a disaster. No solutions, just more smoke blowing, to make a pun. God in his infinite wisdom had invented people like Chuck Telus. It was a mystery. He and Todd were trying not to be too dampened. Trying to get the enthusiasm to keep preparing for something that they should be allowed to prevent. Molly came swinging out of the house. He knew that look— she was enraged. She was rigid and her hands were in fists.
"Uh oh," he said, and Todd turned to look. Jack strolled over to Molly as she reached the road that went down to the barn.
"Whoa, whoa, where are you going, Moll?" he asked, putting his hands out to slow her. She hit them away.
"My mother," she said, spitting the word, "is overstepping. It's time she learned."
"Oh, whoops." Jack said, falling into step beside her. "Can we talk about this for a second?"
She stopped and looked at him.
"Why don't you take some time away," he said. "Get some rest, sleep, go for a swim in the river. Something, but don't go confront Catherine feeling this way."
"What she's doing is not okay."
"What is she doing?"
"This!" She flung her arm toward the barn. "She's in there with Sheila, trying to run the ranch again."
"Okay, listen. You're completely overreacting. We weren't here to take care of Sheila, she's helping out."
"You don't know. This is her way. She's insinuating that we're not taking care of things. It's not her ranch anymore. She needs to leave things alone."
She started walking toward the barn again. Jack glanced up the hill and saw Todd watch them go.
"I know you're afraid of what she thinks," Jack said, his voice low and urgent. "But she hasn't insinuated anything like that and she knows that this isn't hers anymore. How can you be so threatened by her still?"
"She takes over so easily. It's second nature to her. You didn't grow up with her— you'd have to have been there when I was growing up to understand. You weren't there—you can't understand."
They'd been walking and talking and now they were at the barn door. Molly's face was splotched with red. She seemed to be holding her breath as she walked into the dark shade and across the straw, here hands in fists at her sides. Jack stood at the door, helpless. His eyes adjusted slowly to the dark. Over the smoke he smelled the familiar scents of horse and straw.
On the far side of the huge barn Catherine led Lulu, their tall bay mare, by the halter in a wide circle, while the vet squatted in the straw nearby, watching. Lulu was limping even worse than yesterday. Catherine did look very self-assured with a horse, Jack had to admit.
Molly strode toward them, her footsteps muffled by the straw. Jack lingered by the doorway, listening to Catherine's soft murmurs as she encouraged the horse.
"You don't think you could have waited five minutes?" Molly's voice was thin and shrill in the cavern of the barn. Sheila stood up slowly. Outside, a group of starlings left the eaves of the barn and swooped down to the pasture. The silence inside was thick. Molly spoke again. "I'm so sorry to be late, but I was obligated to attend a fire meeting."
"Molly," Jack said helplessly into the air. His voice didn't travel far.
Catherine was still leading Lulu in circles, but slowly. She had her eyes on Lulu's rear right leg.
"You don't need to apologize, Molly." Her voice was light. "Sheila's got a full calendar today. When the meeting went longer than planned, I thought it best to go ahead." She looked at Molly. Even from across the barn, Jack could see the warning deep in her eyes, though her face was mild. Molly wasn't looking at Catherine, though. She was staring at one of the rafters, her hand moving compulsively across her forehead.
Sheila glanced at Catherine and started to say something, but Molly held up a hand and she stopped. The vet had short, brown hair that stood up in tufts, and glasses that she often perched on top of her head. Jack had known Sheila for as long as he'd been at the ranch, Molly and Sheila had gone to school together and Catherine and the old vet, Sheila's father, were old friends.
"This isn't about you, Sheila. Isn't about you, it's her." She pointed at Catherine and Catherine sighed. Jack heard it at the door. "This isn't your ranch, anymore, Mama!" Her voice broke and she may have been crying.
Jack shook his head. He wanted to shake Molly, he wanted to stop the things she said, he wanted her to grow up, he wanted her to be happy. He wanted to float in the creek with her, to wake up and drink the good coffee she made and get the mail and read the paper and feed the animals ranging over the ranch and see her in the cookhouse making cheese and not be anywhere near this old stuff, all this poison that was rising to the surface.
Catherine rose to her full height. "If you think for a moment that I don't know that, you're a lot stupider than I took you for."
She walked to Molly, dropping Lulu's halter. Lulu limped over to a box of grain and started eating. Catherine grasped Molly's face in her hand and pulled it up. Jack was surprised that Molly didn't back away, but in the light he saw the glitter of tears on her face.
"Do you get it? It's yours. No one can take it from you."
Molly did pull away then, crossing her arms over her body and turning to look at Jack in the doorway. She was silent so long that Catherine walked back to Lulu and picked her halter up again. She had to tug hard to get the horse away from the grains, but Lulu reluctantly began trotting in a circle again. Jack would have brought them outside where there was more light, but perhaps they were trying to stay out of the heat.
"I feel," Molly started, in a strained, broken voice. Jack fought the urge to put his hands over his ears. He was fed up with this Molly. He wanted the other Molly back. "I feel like I haven't even had a chance and it already is being taken from me. This forest, those second-growth trees, they'll be eaten up when that fire reaches them, and I didn't do it. I didn't have anything to do with that logging."
Catherine shook her head. "You're right. That was my fault. I lived to regret it. Some of the ones who logged their land would still defend it to the death. I... I hate that I did it, as you well know."
Sheila motioned for the horse to stop and Catherine whoaaed Lulu to a halt, absently patting her on the side of the neck.
"That's what you inherit, when you inherit things on this earth. You get the land because of me and because of your grandfather, and you get the mistakes we made. That's it, that's life. Go save your land, Molly. Do whatever you need to do, but leave us alone, because we're on your side."
Molly stood with her mouth open, clenching and unclenching her fists. Jack watched her, watched the dust in the rafters, and the tension in Sheila's shoulders as she scribbled something on a pad of paper. He was still watching Sheila when Molly suddenly turned and ran. He let her go by him. He didn't even turn.
Nobody spoke for a moment, then Sheila said, "I've written a schedule for the antibiotic I'm going to give you. It's just an abscess, common enough, but it's infected and safer if you give her a round. You'll need to flush it daily with antibiotic fluid as well, Jack." Jack nodded, his hands in his pockets.
"Thanks for coming out," he said. "Sorry... emotions are running high with all this." He indicated the world with his gesture. How many times had he offered that explanation?
She nodded and gathered her things, rifling through her bag for a few plastic bottles of fluid, which she handed to him. He saw that Catherine had taken a seat on an old crate.
"Just call me," Sheila said, "if it doesn't start improving within three days or so."
She left.
Jack and Catherine were alone in the barn with their weariness.
"I don't know why I feel that I should apologize," Jack said.
"No, you're not the one to apologize," Catherine said. "But I've told you, I raised Molly, I'm used to storms." She leaned her head on her hand. "I'm going to need your help getting back up to the house. I think I've overdone it somewhat. Imagine."
Jack patted Lulu and left her with her grains, then went to Catherine and gave her an arm up. They started out the barn door, into the day, up the hill.
"Imagine what?" Jack asked.
"You and Molly may understand one day... what it feels like to lose your strength. I used to run up and down these hills a hundred times a day. Now I come to lend a hand and after an hour of tending a horse I feel I need to get some sleep." She shook her head, leaning hard on Jack's arm. "Makes you sick." She opened one hand and looked at it. "Used to be I had calluses as good as gardening gloves. I could grab almost anything; pull out stumps, haul on weed vines. Came from years of milking goats and wrestling with halters." She sighed. "My hands are soft, now."
Jack wondered if aging was harder for people who had been very strong. Catherine's tenacity was legendary, even among the tough homesteaders of Humboldt County. Everyone knew how she had kept her father's ranch going after his death, when she was only a teenager.
"Something I wanted to tell you though," she said. "Something important. I made so many mistakes with Molly. The thing that she fights with— it makes her... wild, and lovely. If I'm an old goat, steady and giving milk, faithful, well, Molly's a deer on one of these hills. She'll come through, I believe. She's not like us in the way she thinks and does things, but I tried to take it out of her. I shouldn't have done it. You don't need to, either. She'll steer right in her own way." Jack longed for the ocean, for cool things that could envelop you. His head was pounding and his heart was thumping and his throat was thick with ache. He saw his wife; wild, yes, lovely, yes, but she seemed to him like the Stevie Smith poem sometimes, "Not waving but drowning." Oh God.
The Eve Tree: A Novel Page 17
