When two men clash over an alder slated to be cut down, the tree won't be the only thing at risk of falling.
Logan Cook has been logging most of his adult life. It’s a dangerous, hard job, and a devastating landslide accident at the end of last season has got Logan and what’s left of his old crew on edge. He doesn’t blame them. He’d rather not think about that day either. Logan just wants everything to go smoothly this year. He’s got a quota to meet and a group of new, inexperienced loggers to wrangle. The last thing he needs is the band of hippies that have been camping out in a tree on his company’s land. He’s sick of being delayed and the effect it’s having on his team’s already low morale, but Logan’s got a plan to drive the next one out.
Miles Turner has spent the last six years in academia, working on his Environmental Geography PhD. When a summer job offer comes up that gets him out from behind the computer and into the Washington forest, he jumps at the opportunity. Planting trees in areas that have been clear-cut by the lumber industry makes Miles feel like he’s making a real difference. But the head of his University’s environmental advocacy group has a different cause in mind once they get up there—protecting the old growth in the forest from being logged any further—and when he asks Miles to help him, how can Miles say no?
It’s only living up in a tree for a week; how hard can it be?
—EXCERPT—
I. Seedling
August, 2007
Through the bug-splattered windshield, Miles Turner stared at the wooden platform that he was going to call home for the next seven days. As he gazed up at it, tucked into the branches of the massive tree, his nausea rose. The platform seemed higher and more unsound than when he’d seen it last, like an overweight squirrel might send the whole ill-conceived construction plummeting thirty feet to the ground. Miles’ stomach tightened. Why had he agreed to this again?
Sebastian gave the horn a gentle tap from the driver’s seat and Miles jumped. Oh right, that was why: Sebastian Cole, current president of SEED—Students Expressing Environmental Devotion, the University of Washington’s environmental advocacy group—and total stone-cold fox.
Miles attended a SEED meeting early last October on the suggestion of his advising professor, Dr. Hennessey. He suspected she worried about the amount of time he spent alone down in the university’s map library. She wasn’t wrong; Miles got a little too absorbed when he was in research-mode. He tended to let minor things like having a normal sleep schedule, regular meals, or meaningful human interaction slide. He hadn’t even been on a proper date since the first year of his Masters. Miles showed up to the first meeting to placate Dr. Hennessey, but he stayed because of Seb.
Sebastian majored in Environmental Studies—the BA counterpart to Miles’ BSc—and spoke with passionate intensity about everything: big pharma, fossil fuels, GMOs, the meat industry. Every month and every meeting, he rallied SEED to a new crusade. Between his good looks and his fervent conviction, it was easy to get swept up. He led Miles from cause to cause, although he’d resist calling it leadership. Sebastian always went on about how SEED was a collective and he didn’t even like being called the president. Even through the rose-hued haze of his desperate crush, it had not entirely slipped Miles’ notice that Seb loved talking about his accomplishments.
In a final burst of philanthropy, SEED (or rather Seb) decided to give the remainder of their unused year-end budget to a worthy local cause. One person suggested an end-of-year party. Seb’s withering gaze shut that down without a word. Donating to the community garden was Miles’ idea. More specifically, he murmured it quietly under his breath, and then the girl beside him said it louder. He volunteered there sometimes, and he found something infinitely satisfying in growing his own food. Satisfaction warmed his chest that they were getting all one-hundred and twelve dollars and fifty-three cents of SEED’s support.
Still, as Miles and the rest of the SEED crew spent their last moments together picking through the garbage cans on campus for recyclables and compostables, Miles experienced a real pang of regret that they hadn’t just blown the money on a keg. There were few things less romantic than dumpster diving, and the alcohol would have made it easier to pluck up the courage to finally ask the recently-single Seb if he wanted to grab dinner sometime at Emotional Cabbage, the best vegan place in town. Sebastian worked there as a waiter during the school year, and Miles ended up at the restaurant more than he cared to admit. Their smoky tempeh ribs tasted almost like the real thing.
Despite all the factors aligned against him, he nearly managed to ask. Tired, stinking of apple cores and banana peels, Miles maneuvered right next to Seb as they piled the recycling on the pull cart. Pushing his sweaty hair off of his forehead, he steeled himself.
“So, you got any plans for the summer?” his treacherous, cowardly mouth asked instead. The stupidly vague question hung in the air between them for a moment. “I think I’m going to work as a Research Assistant for Dr. Hennessy again.”
For the past three summers, Miles had helped the doctor in digitally converting historical surveying images. A few years ago, when Miles was still an undergrad, the university acquired a massive collection of vintage aerial photos from a donor. They had been used as the basis for some of the geographical mapping in the Stillaguamish Valley, including several invaluable sets that were taken after landslide events.
It provided the catalyst for Miles’ thesis project. Starting in his Masters and continuing through his PhD, he developed modelling software to help predict and prevent landslides. Miles eventually hoped he could find commonalities in the data that would have far-reaching impacts; it could help preserve important natural habitat, and even potentially save lives.
“I’m going back up to aid in the Heritage Reforestation initiative in the valley,” Seb said, his perfect lips turning down at the corners. “Every year I go there and see how those forests are devastated by clear cutting. Do you know that over one-third of Washington’s forests are privately owned? That’s messed up, Mike. What gives them the right?”
“Miles,” he corrected quietly.
“RA jobs are great and all, but I find it hard to sit around when I know I could be making a real difference, you know? No offense.” Sebastian’s dark eyes flashed with fervor, and it was stupidly hot.
“Right,” Miles said, ducking his head, shame surging through him like it had when Seb learned that he was only a vegetarian. Miles couldn’t help it; he just really liked cheese. “That’s great though. It sounds like important work.”
Two weeks later, if anybody asked Miles—and the disinterested HR guy did in the interview—he would have said that he applied for the job with Heritage Reforestation as an adventure. He’d spent the last six years in front of a computer screen, and wanted to get out and really experience the watersheds and topographies he intended to devote the rest of his life to modelling. What better way to do it than planting seedlings in the Washington state wilds?
And that was true enough, but so was the irrefutable fact that he’d followed Sebastian up here.
Miles pictured the two of them growing closer, having meaningful conversations and leisurely soaking up the sun as they bettered a small corner of the planet together. It hadn’t quite panned out like that. The work was rewarding, but also brutal, endless, and mind-numbing: swing the adze, screef the duff, insert the seedling, stamp down the soil, shuffle over ten feet, and repeat for eleven hours.
Miles spent the last nine weeks hunched on steep slopes, hauling around a heavy burlap sack of baby Douglas firs that threatened to capsize him at any moment. They were paid by the tree, and the experienced planters like Seb outpaced the newbies by rows within the first hour. He carried two bags at a time and never seemed to tire. On the other hand, Miles suffered from a sore back, bites from every bug imaginable, a permanent feeling of tree sap stickiness, and fingers that always seemed to be torn up and bleeding. At the end of every day, all he ever wanted to do was curl up on his cot and die.
But he didn’t. Instead, he made an effort to go into the mess tent and play euchre after dinner or sit by the fire and listen to the same three people play the same fifteen songs on the poorly-tuned acoustic guitar they passed around. A fair bit of good weed also made the rounds, but Miles declined it whenever it circled over to him. It wasn’t really him; this wasn’t really him, to be honest. He liked these people well enough—they were passionate, hard-working, and genuinely trying to save the world—but he couldn’t help but feel that he had never quite meshed with all the aimless free-wheeling and painful earnestness that came with the environmental studies territory. He was too analytical and too uptight.
Like any gathering of college students forced into close proximity for long periods with few distractions and fewer inhibitions, a significant amount of casual sex went on in the camp. It sometimes felt like everyone was hooking up except for Miles. He hadn’t seen Seb sneak away from the fire yet, giggling and clutching the hand of a relative stranger either, but they seemed to be some of the last holdouts.
Seb’s tumultuous relationship with SEED’s treasurer, Jubes, proved he was into guys. It had imploded recently and spectacularly. During SEED’s last official meeting, Jubes arrived half-an-hour late and stayed just long enough to hurl the cash box dramatically across the table at Seb. Nobody knew exactly what the inciting incident was, but as the quarters rolled across the lecture hall floor, Jubes stormed back out of the room, loudly proclaiming, “Why don’t you just lighten the fuck up for once in your life, dude?”
Miles was beginning to think Jubes had a point. He anticipated the laidback camp atmosphere would loosen Seb up a little, but Miles wasn’t sure he’d seen the guy laugh once in nine weeks. He had accidentally seen him naked more than a few times in the showers though. That hadn’t helped anything.
He worried, short and weed-thin as he was, that he might simply be beneath Seb’s notice, but Miles had a hunch the real problem was that Seb didn’t take him seriously enough. Sure, Sebastian was always polite to Miles when they crossed paths, and he had finally learned his name. But when it came time to eat dinner, play cards, or make a run into town, Seb exclusively hung out with the planting camp veterans. Like Seb, they were hard-core eco-warriors.
If he wanted a shot at Seb, Miles needed to hunker down and prove his dedication to the cause. It should be easy; it was why he had gotten into Environmental Geology in the first place. A lot of first and second years got burnt out in the program. When you started to learn the actual, irrefutable data behind just how truly and deeply screwed the current state of the planet was, it was hard not to get discouraged. But Miles truly believed that there was a way to harness science and technology to turn things around, to make a difference.
He tried hard to walk the walk. Miles tracked his ecological footprint carefully. He took public transit, he didn’t leave the water running when he brushed his teeth, he replaced all the bulbs in his shitty student apartment with CFLs, and he even started his own compost pile—which stunk up his whole balcony and made him wildly unpopular amongst his neighbors.
Miles cared about the environment, and he could get his hands dirty. He just needed to show Seb that. Coming up here to plant seedlings was a good start, but it wasn’t enough. That was why Miles agreed to stay in the tree.
The majority of the planters ignored it entirely. They worked a rotating schedule: on every day for most of the month with staggered week-long breaks so not too many of them were off at any given time. For the most part, the workers went back into town during their week off, to burn off some steam and blow the money they’d made at the local bars.
But some of the more die-hard members instead took turns in the tree. Apparently, the local logging companies couldn’t cut in a certain radius near civilians for safety reasons, and they didn’t want to deal with the hassle or bad press of removing them when they entrenched. By keeping someone in a tree 24/7, you could thwart logging crews trying to work in the area indefinitely. Even if it was just a small patch, they were saving precious old growth, Seb explained to him when he’d asked if he could help.
For the week leading up to his turn, Miles felt like he suddenly belonged with the veteran planters. It was the first time he’d been on the inside of a clique before, and it was addictive. They invited him to sit at their table in the mess tent and, Gunnar, the camp cook, snuck him extra almond-butter protein bars in his lunch. Celeste, who’d been planting for four summers, showed him how to wrap his fingers in duct tape to prevent the cracks and blisters he’d been plagued with all season. And, last night, Seb threw his arm around Miles’ shoulder at the fire and kept it there the whole evening, until the embers burned low and they had heard three separate, indistinguishable renditions of Redemption Song.
It was all perfect until Miles was actually faced with the reality of doing the damn thing.
Sebastian parked them at a padlocked gate and killed the engine of the camp van, the floorboards shuddering as it settled. Miles couldn’t believe Seb drove the thing at all; the amount of black smoke that it spewed out of the tailpipe seemed like it would offend Seb on principal. It was too far to walk though. Their camp was across the valley and on the other side of the Stillaguamish River. Even taking the lumber roads, it was a good forty-five-minute drive out here.
The ‘No Trespassing’ sign tacked to the chain-link fence was faded and a bit lopsided. Miles recognized the logo at the bottom. Garvy Timber Associates weren’t the largest logging company in the area, but they were certainly one of the more notorious. They made news last summer for causing a landslide that injured a group of hikers and several of their own workers. It was disgusting what some businesses would try to get away with to make a few extra dollars.
Miles used the data from the incident as a case study. It was bad enough that the company’s proposed cut line was at the edge of a known geomorphologically unstable zone. Then, to make matters worse, they went and logged two hundred yards past that and into a groundwater recharge area. His model showed slope failure every single time.
Seb got out of the van and opened the back door, quickly hauling out the jug of water and Miles’ bag. Seb’s hand brushed his as he handed Miles the strap, and another thrill raced down his spine.
“You ready?” Seb asked.
Without waiting for Miles’ answer, Seb pulled his rangy, muscular body over the chain-link fence in a single smooth motion, taking the water container with him. Miles’ own ascent was far less graceful. It involved a lot of grunting, and as a final humiliation, he had to take off his backpack and toss it over before he could pull himself up.
“First time scaling a fence?” Seb asked, nonchalantly. “You never would have made it when we went to disrupt the repairs on the Dry Falls Dam last year. Those were ten feet with barbed wire at the top.”
Miles read about that and secretly thought the whole thing was poorly conceived. The huge concrete and steel hydroelectric dams that dotted the state were often the targets of the radical ecological groups in the region. But the Dry Falls Dam was rock-faced earthfill, not concrete, and it was an integral part of the Columbia Basin Project, the largest water reclamation initiative in the United States. Miles guessed he couldn’t exactly blame Seb for not realizing that.
Beside him, Seb bladed his lower lip with his fingers, letting out a piercing whistle.
“Settle, Gretel,” came the easy call from above. “I heard you the first time. I’m not lost in the forest, I’m in a fucking tree.” Andi’s elfish face peered over the edge of the platform, her blonde dreads spilling over her shoulders. She was one of the only camp veterans who’d been kind to him from the very start, and Miles liked her immensely. “Boy, am I glad to see you two.”
“How was your week?” asked Miles tentatively.
“Long,” she yelled down. “I can’t wait to take a shower. I reek like a grizzly bear’s taint after a wet winter. And trust me, I know what that smells like. We did pheromonal research in our Large Carnivore lab. Just another reason WSU is way better than U-Dub: all the bear balls you can handle, Miles.” She raised an eyebrow suggestively.
Miles could feel the blush creeping out from underneath his collar immediately. He blurted his affinity for hairier men to Andi while drunk one evening, and she maintained an unwavering fixation on that particular bit of personal trivia ever since.
Having succeeded in thoroughly embarrassing him, Andi giggled delightedly. “Just something to think about in the tree. It gets lonely up there,” she teased, then tossed a rope ladder over the side of the platform and descended nimbly.
Her arms and legs were deeply tanned and covered with delicate, intricate henna tattoos that hadn’t been there when she left camp the week before. She shrugged when she noticed Miles looking. “I got bored,” she explained.
That was one of the things Miles worried about. Well, that and plummeting to his untimely death. He brought a few paperbacks up with him to the camp, but he burned through those weeks ago. Seb remained silent about his choice of novels, but Miles was pretty sure he caught him giving Miles’ neat bedside pile of trashy crime thrillers a snide side-eye at least once. Miles supposed they weren’t exactly the most enriching form of literature compared to what Seb usually read.
As if to correct Miles’ dubious book choices, Seb pushed a thick, non-fiction hardcover into his hands this morning before he started up the engine of the van. Miles recognized it; it was Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.
“Thanks,” Miles said, tucking it into his backpack. “I’ve always wanted to read this.” That was technically the truth. Miles had started and put down the book half-a-dozen times over the years. He’d read papers on the history and development of the FAO Soil Taxonomy System that were more interesting. But Miles wanted to like it; it was one of the pivotal works of modern American environmental activism. “You know, I think it actually ties into my thesis project. If you look at the migratory and breeding pattern data of local bird populations you can predict…”
Seb fixed Miles with that same vague look everybody gave him when he got a little too excited about the details of his thesis. The sentence died on his lips.
“It's not all about data, Miles. This book was life changing for me,” Seb said, and then spent the whole ride talking about it—about the lies of capitalist chemical manufacturers and their lobbyists stretching from the fifties right up until today, and about the ceaseless, grinding wheels of the global-industrial complex. Miles drifted in and out, lulled by the sway of the van, the blast of the heater, and Seb’s low, passionate voice.
He was pretty sure he nodded at all the right places, but he was mostly imagining him and Seb snuggled up in bed a few years from now, taking turns sharing important pieces of socio-ecological discourse out of Whole Terrain. Miles would really apply himself to reading Silent Spring this week, and then he and Seb could have a proper discussion about it on the ride back to the camp. The book had to be more entertaining than staring blankly at tree branches for a week, at the very least.
Standing out in the forest on the cool late-August morning, Seb must have felt Miles’ eyes on him. He turned. “This is really vital work we’re doing here.” Under Seb’s full attention, Miles felt his blush spread downward, a little too hot and a little too low. “I’m glad that you’ve finally begun to open yourself up to Gaia’s call.”
Andi let out a cough that sounded suspiciously like smothered laughter.
Miles ignored her. “It’s important to me, Seb.”
“It’s important to everybody. We’ve all dedicated our time here this summer to protect this greenspace. But the loggers are watching, and they’re waiting for us to slip up. They’re going to jump all over cutting this whole area down if you leave even for a second.”
“I won’t,” Miles promised, frowning.
“It’s just the Greenpeace profilers are coming in two weeks,” Sebastian said. A crease appeared between his brows. “And when they come, they are going to find two things: these trees standing and me waiting to greet them. I don’t want anything to jeopardize it. If you’re not sure you can handle it… I mean, I just want to make sure we’re able to show them all the good work we’re doing here—”
“Save your sermon, Sebastian,” Andi interrupted. “The logging company guys are going to be here any minute, and I don’t think they’re in a come-to-Jesus mood. Miles is fine. He’s got it: sit in the tree until you swap off with him in a week. Unfuckupable, right, Miles?”
“Right,” Miles said, trying to sound the exact inverse of how confident he felt.
Andi shouldered her bag, her face sympathetic. “Relax. It’s a breeze, I promise.”
It would have been reassuring had he not known how much tougher Andi was than him.
“You got this.” Andi gave him a quick hug, leaning in close. “And you can do better, honestly,” she said the last part quietly, with a knowing glance at Seb.
“Okay,” he said, without much conviction. Andi was a nice person, but there were a lot of things she didn’t understand.
She bounced back on her heels, giving him a thumbs up. “We’ll see you in a week, Miles!” she called, scrambling up and over the fence with a feline ease that made him jealous.
Perhaps prompted by Andi, Sebastian leaned in to give Miles a hug as well. His was stiff and awkward, but Miles was going to take what he could get at this point. “Remember, don’t come down for anything,” he intoned solemnly one last time.
“I won’t.” Miles meant to reassure Seb with his conviction, but he could hear the tremble in his voice, uncomfortable and weak. “I promise,” he said, and it was only a little better. He ached with embarrassment.
Seb didn’t register it. “See you in a week, man.”
Miles watched Sebastian until the van was out of view, and then he began his long climb up the rope ladder into the tree.
---
Dino, the junior cutter on Logan Cook’s crew, barely made it out of the truck before he started yelling at the foliage. “Morning, Andi! Hope you slept well! I just wanted to tell you I think it’s cool you’re so dedicated to your principals!”
The kid drove up to the site with Logan most mornings. Not because he was a kiss-ass, but because he was so unrelentingly talkative that some of the other guys threatened to strangle him if he rode in the company truck before they finished their coffees. Logan was beginning to empathize.
“Easy, Romeo.” Logan shook his head disparagingly at Dino, wincing at the motion. He drank a few too many beers while watching the game last night, and the shouting felt like an ice-pick slowly sinking into the front of his skull. That didn’t bode well for his upcoming day of standing beside three chainsaws for the next ten hours. Logan pulled the bill of his ball cap further down his forehead.
Dino just shrugged. “Well, when you think about it, we are misunderstood, secretive star-crossed lovers.”
“So secretive that even she doesn’t know,” Logan said pointedly, retrieving his fall-arrest harness and reflective vest out of the backseat of his Ram.
“Hey, you mock me, but she gave me her number,” Dino countered.
“And I’m sure it’s not totally fake. She probably at least gave you the correct area code,” Logan said. “Now, grab your safety gear. You don’t get to ‘accidentally’ leave your hard hat in the truck for the third day in a row so you have an excuse to come back here.”
Dino gave him a sheepish grin. “Right.”
It was Dino’s first summer logging and keeping him focused, safe, and on task was hard enough for Logan without the kid being distracted by their latest visitor from Patchouli Paradise. Besides Dino, most of his guys gave her a wide berth after the first morning, when they were gleefully sprinkled with what she told them was her piss as they walked under the tree to their site. Logan suspected she was using water, but it was hard to convince anyone else of that.
Logan wasn’t sure if the whole thing was some sort of radical environmental statement or just a piece of performance art he didn’t get, like that time he and Rob went down to Seattle and saw that dude dressed like the grim reaper pelting tourists with bars of hotel soap in Olympic Sculpture Park. They’d laughed about it for weeks, Logan sneaking up on Rob while he was doing the dishes or in the shower and playfully menacing him with handfuls of suds while loudly proclaiming he was an artiste.
Loneliness suddenly threatened to swallow Logan whole, and he did what he always did: ignored it and pushed forward. He was good at that at least.
Logan tucked his harness under his arm, trying to balance his clipboard, maps, gear bag, first aid kit, lunch bag, and cup of coffee. That was the biggest pain-in-the-ass of this whole thing. The tree-stand the hippies holed up in was almost on top of the closest entrance to their clear for the season, and it choked up their access.
Since they couldn’t thin out the trees around the gate, they needed to schlep their gear in and out of the bush by hand every single day. Worse, it forced Jim to drive the hauler up and over from the south entrance, a half-an-hour detour that cut into their workable hours. Logan could tell it was wearing on his guys. Hell, it was wearing on him too. This year seemed determined to be miserable.
Logan took a look at his crew as they got ready to start their day. There were a few scattered, unenthusiastic conversations amongst them—about the game, about the storm that was supposed to hit next week, about their plans for the weekend. But there was none of the ball-busting or the laughter he had grown to associate with his job over the last eight years. Everyone was tired.
As a whole, this year’s group of guys—three equipment operators, two cutters and four fellers, including himself—were all good, hard workers, but they weren’t a cohesive unit yet. Logan missed the comradery. He hated to admit it, but he no longer looked forward to getting up every day and doing his job. His heart just wasn’t in it since the accident.
Worse, most of the crew were painfully, dangerously new, not just to Garvy Timber but to logging in general. Only Marty, Jim, and himself remained of the old team. His stomach lurched. He wasn’t sure if it was anxiety, regret, or the hangover. He told himself that experience didn’t insulate you from mistakes. The landslide proved that.
Logan shook his head to clear it. Between lugging their gear and the hippies making them feel like criminals, morale was low enough in his crew. Logan didn’t need to throw the boss acting like a basket-case onto the camel’s back. He grunted, struggling with the lock on the gate.
Logan felt his clipboard being tugged free from under his arm. “Don’t touch my shit,” he snapped, too sharply and loudly enough that it made his head throb anew.
Dino’s face fell. “Geez, dude, take it easy. It just looked like you had your hands full.”
“Sorry,” he mumbled, not quite knowing how to explain. “It’s fine. I’ve got it.”
Logan unlocked the gate, guilty that he’d snapped at Dino and a bit unnerved by the silence. Usually, their visitor had cheerily called them all capitalist scum by now in her bubble gum bright voice. Instead, he saw a man’s head peek tentatively over the edge of the platform. Right. They switched off on Fridays. Poor Dino was going to be devastated.
Logan squinted up at the tree-stand, trying to get a better look at the guy up there now. The sun was too bright, slanting in at just the right angle to make his eyes water and his brain feel like it was going to burst as the light hit his retinas.
“I still say we just cut ‘em out,” Marty grumbled, pushing past Logan.
“Tell you what, Marty,” he said, swallowing bile. “We’re ever sure one of them’s abandoned their post? You can make the damn cut yourself. Otherwise, unless you have several million dollars to fork over for the inevitable lawsuit, I’m going to be a no on that one.”
His mouth watered sourly, his throat clenching. Logan was going to get the crew settled and then he was going to find a nice, private bush to go puke behind. He usually felt better once he had. He hoped that would be the case today, because he felt like shit right now. He was certain he looked it too, if his mother’s reaction this morning was any indication.
She hovered nervously over him when he dropped off Molly, his Irish Setter, to her earlier. Logan originally got Molly as a puppy to help wrangle his chickens and protect the coop from the foxes, coyotes, and bobcats in the area. He even dreamed of training her to set gamebirds for him. The first night it rained, though, she howled miserably, and Logan’s heart couldn’t take it. She’d been a largely indoor dog ever since, spending her nights sprawled out on his sofa and her blissful doggie days with Logan’s mom in the portable that served as Garvy Timber’s home base.
Colleen Garvy-Cook had been going to that trailer for almost forty years. She worked the same job as she did the day she started, first for her own father, and then for her husband, Matt, Logan’s father. They were both gone now. Despite being the sole owner of the business, his mom still showed up every day in a clean white button-up with the company logo embroidered on the breast pocket, dark slacks, and sensible heels to answer the phone, handle the payroll, and settle the bills.
Someday, when she retired, the business would go to Logan. Up until the accident, he was excited about the prospect. But he was in no hurry to see her off, especially now. Logan didn’t know what else his mom would do without Garvy Timber. It was most of the reason he stayed.
“Are you sick? You look sick?” she asked him, pressing her palm against his forehead.
“I’m fine, Ma.”
“He tells me he’s fine when we both know he’s not, huh, girl?” she said to the dog, scratching Molly idly behind the ear.
Logan tried hard not to roll his eyes; he knew his mother’s guilt trips were born out of love.
“Do you want me to cancel my vacation?” she said. His mom made an annual pilgrimage down to Sacramento to visit her sister and looked forward to it all year. “I don’t want to leave you to take care of the business all alone if you’re coming down with something.”
“Don’t you dare,” he said gently. “I’m fine, I promise.”
She frowned, but let it drop. “And how are things going with the tree people?”
He made a so-so gesture with his hand. “No takers yet.”
When it became clear after a few weeks that the protesters weren’t going anywhere, Colleen packed five thousand dollars of her personal savings into a manila envelope and handed it to Logan, asking if he could handle it quietly for them. Legally, they had every right to just call the cops. The protesters were trespassing on privately owned land. But Garvy Timber didn’t need the attention. They’d struggled after the accident, and any more bad press might sink them entirely.
“Are they getting enough to eat?” she asked him. “And are they warm enough? It’s starting to get cold up there at night.”
Those hippies wanted nothing more than to kill their family business, the only thing she had ever known and one of her and Logan’s last ties to his father, and Colleen was worried they hadn’t packed warm enough socks.
He leaned over and kissed his mother on the top of her head. “They’re fine. Your heart is too big, Ma.”
“So now you know where you inherited yours from.” She smiled softly at him. “I’m going to drop Molly back at your house around three so I can get the cab and make my flight.”
“I wish you’d let me drive you,” he said.
“You’re working,” she reminded him. “Are you sure Molly’s going to be okay until you get home?”
Logan ruffled the scruff at Molly’s collar. “I think she’ll survive a few hours by herself.”
“And you’re sure you’ll be okay?”
“Yes, I promise. Give Aunt Linda my love.”
He was glad she wasn’t here now to see him leave a mess of half-digested strawberry Danish in the Washington bush.
The morning only got worse from there. Logan wasn’t even through half-a-dozen trees before Marty started complaining about his felling mate. Marty’s old partner, Don, got his knee badly twisted in the landslide, and he had quietly taken his pension and moved down to Florida with his wife. Marty, who hadn’t experienced a significant change in his life since 1988, had not taken it well.
Marty was often frustrated, tossing barbs at the new guys, but this was the first time Logan ever heard him sound quite so angry. Logan motioned to his partner, Gord, to stop cutting, and jogged over toward the other team’s site.
Marty stormed into the clearing to meet him. “These fucking kids.”
The other greenhorn feller, Jake, trailed behind Marty, looking nervous. Nervous was not a good quality to foster in a new logger; fear messed with your concentration.
“What happened?” Logan said.
Marty stabbed his index finger up toward a Douglas fir. “Tell me what you see in that tree, Cook.”
Logan did a quick scan. About twenty feet up, a huge, dead limb—at least a foot in diameter and six or seven feet long—was caught in the branches of the tree.
“Widowmaker,” Logan confirmed quietly. Widowmakers came by the name honestly. They had to be cleared before you started cutting. Marty’s anger was understandable, if not particularly helpful.
“You’re damn right it is. And this idiot you hired was making a plunge cut beneath it like he didn’t have a care in the world.”
“Sorry. I didn’t see it,” Jake said, shrinking in on himself.
“You wouldn’t have seen it before it smashed open your skull either, but you’d be dead all the same. You can’t afford to make mistakes in this business. You’ll get hurt,” Marty snapped. There was a flash of fury behind his eyes as he turned his gaze to Logan. “Other people’ll get hurt.”
Marty never outright said it, but Logan knew he blamed him for the accident last season. Most of the guys did. As crew lead, it was Logan’s job to read the maps and plan the day. In the end, it was his fault they had ended up on that slope. He swallowed his own anger down and forced himself to keep his voice calm. “You want to work with Gord for the day?”
“I want to work with a professional, Cook, and sadly you're the closest thing around here to that right now.”
Logan shook his head tightly, ignoring the jab. “I'm not working with you and putting the new guys together. You know that’s not safe.”
“Never stopped you before,” Marty said petulantly.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Marty, you work with Gordon, or I send you home right now without pay.” Logan had reached the end of his patience, and there was no way in hell he was going to tolerate a mutiny right now, even from his best feller.
Marty huffed out a hard breath, but he backed down. “Fine,” he said, violently shouldering his chainsaw. “Let's just hope Gord’s not an idiot too.”