T. Boyle - A Friend of the Earth

It was past nine when he woke. Something had crossed the stream not fifty feet from where he lay, something big, and it startled him out of a dreamless sleep. The first thing he thought of, even before he fully recalled where he was or why, was Sierra. He checked his watch, listened again for the splashing-it was a deer, had to be; either that or an FBI agent — and pictured her dangling her big feet over the arm of the mopane easy chair, reading The Catcher in the Rye under the dull, staring gaze of the kongoni head in Ratchiss' living room. She wasn't here tonight, and she wasn't going to be present-ever again-for any nighttime activities of any kind. He was determined that she was going to have a normal life — or as normal a life as you can have living under an assumed name in a museum of African memorabilia in an A-frame in the hind end of nowhere. She was going to go to school, learn about the Visigoths and prime numbers, go to dances, acquire a new squadron of evil friends, experiment with pot and booze, become passionate about affectless bands, debate meat-eaters, rebel and recant, have her nose ring reinserted and drive a convertible at a hundred and ten. In five years-four and a half, actually-she could even have her identity back.

As for Teo, there was never any question of his participating in anything like this, not for real, not anymore-he was Earth Forever rs poster boy now, the big fund-raiser, and he couldn't afford to get caught in a covert action. He could chain himself to nuclear reactors and tree-sit and preach and publish all he wanted to, but his tire-slashing days were over. "Really, Ty," he said, working the corkscrew with the sun flattening his face and the butt of the wine bottle clenched between his thighs, "you understand why I can't risk any extracurricular activities anymore, don't you?" The cork slid from the bottle with a wet oozing pop of release. "But I envy you, I do."

And Andrea. She'd paid her fine, like Teo, and gotten off with probation for the Siskiyou incident-she hadn't assaulted anybody. And who knew it was her in that turd-brown car? Or at least that's what Teo was thinking. Maybe they'd let her back in, maybe Fred could do something… "About the kidnapping. Or abduction, or whatever. The Sierra thing."

Tierwater watched her. She'd tugged the brim of the baseball cap down to keep the sun out of her face and it immobilized her hair as she sliced cheese and portioned out the wine. She didn't say anything, but Tierwater could read the look on her face. Second thoughts. She was having second thoughts.

"Look," he said, "there's no reason I can't do this myself. How hard can it be? In fact, I insist. I know the drill. I know the trail out of here better than either of you." Andrea looked up. The brim of the cap threw a shadow over her face. "Right, lion?"

"I don't know," she said. "I don't feel right about it." That was what she said, and she might even have meant it, or thought she meant it, but she was already looking for a way out of the whole mess, whether she realized it or not. "You sure you want to do this by yourself, Ty?"

She'd asked him twice. Once over the wine and duck sausage, and then when she bent to kiss him just before she and Teo packed up and left.

"It's all right," he told her. "Hey, the Fox always worked by himself, didn't he?"

But now it was dark, and he was alone, and something was splashing in the creek. When he'd fallen asleep, it was on a scoured pan of granite just above the high-water mark, in a place where the spring floods had scooped out a hollow in the rock, and he lay there as if in the palm of a sculpted hand, the water continuously butting up against it and rushing by with the white noise of infinity. A minute passed, and then another. Whatever it was that had wakened him was gone now. He listened for a minute more to be sure, then pushed himself up and flung the pack over his shoulder. Before he knew it, he was weaving through the debris of the clear-cut, his footsteps muffled by the sweatsocks stretched over his boots, a gibbous moon showing him the way with a light as pale and cold as the ambient light of a dream.

(And what was I carrying in that pack? The tools of my new trade. Pipe wrench, socket wrenches, gloves, wire cutters, hacksaw, flashlight, plastic tubing and plastic funnel, a couple of granola bars, bota bag, sheath knife, matches. I was equipped to wreak havoc, no excuses, no regrets. The least of those machines was worth fifty thousand dollars, and I was prepared to destroy every working part I could locate — but subtly, subtly, so they'd see nothing amiss and run their stinking diesel engines till they choked and seized. I only wished I could be there to see it happen, see the looks on their faces, see the trees I d saved standing tall while the big yellow machines spat and belched and ground to an ignominious and oh-so-expensive halt.) Tierwater scouted the 'place twice-no one and nothing moved; the silence was absolute — and then he slipped on the black cotton gloves and began servicing the machinery. He hit the shovel loader first, unscrewing the filler cap on the manifold as Andrea had showed him, neatly inserting the plastic tubing and then pouring cup after cup of sand (or decomposed granite, actually) into the funnel. It sifted down and into the innards of the engine with a soft gratifying swish, and it was that sound, the sound of sand in a plastic tube, that he would forever identify with nightwork — and revenge.

He went to each of the vehicles in succession, working not only on the engines but on all the lubrication fittings he could find, and when he was done with the heavy machinery, he turned his hand to the two trucks. Tinkering, tapping, murmuring directions to himself under his breath, he lost all sense of time. When finally he thought to check his watch, he was amazed to see it was past three in the morning. He had to get going, bad to get out of there and head down the moonlit trail that would take him back home to the safety and anonymity of his bed, and already he could see ahead to the next day, a late-afternoon drink at the bar, his ears attuned to the buzz of drunken conversation ebbing and flowing around him. Sabotage? What do you mean, sabotage? Where? When? You're kidding. Now, who would do a thing like that?

The night breathed in, breathed out. He stood there looking up into the nullity of the sky, and for a long moment he didn't move at all. What was he feeling? Satisfaction, yes, the special charge that comes of knowing you've done your best, the true sweet exhaustion of a job well done, but something more-anger. He was angry still. This was nothing, the smallest pinprick in the web of progress, the death of a few machines-maybe, if he was lucky, of a logging company. But what about the trees? What about all those artificial pulpwood trees in the Penny Pines Plantation an hour down the road? They were there still, weren't they, and until they were gone, eliminated, erased from the face of the mountain, there was no forest here. No forest at all.

He found himself walking. Not down the path, not toward the cabin and Andrea and his bed, but toward the place where the planted pines ran on as far as the eye could see. The air was cool-temperature in the low sixties, or fifties even — but he was sweating as he walked, and even as he sweated he stepped up the pace. Fifty minutes later he was in the middle of the plantation, down on his knees in the dry, yielding, friable dirt, and in his hands, the matches. There was the sudden sizzle of the struck match, the bloom of light as he touched it to one of the random heaps of shorn branches, and then the quick fingers of flame racing through the desiccated needles. He watched it take, watched the first tree explode in violent color against the black of the night, and even as he ran, even as he fought down the pain in his knee and the screaming of his lungs, the world at his back was transfigured, lit so spontaneously and so brightly it was as if the sun had come up early.