drop of a hat. The logging company has people searching for us at all hours of the day. And that’s in addition to whatever Slade and the Cabal might be doing.”
The Cabal, Ben thought. Zak had told him about that, but he had suspected it might just be a fairy tale Zak cooked up to make his situation seem more dramatic. Or just a paranoid fantasy. Well, if it was, it was a shared fantasy.
“Let me introduce you to some of the rest of the group.” Ben saw people emerging from the edge of the forest or out of tents.
“You’ve met Maureen, of course.” Ben nodded in Maureen’s general direction. She looked just the same as before. It was possible she’d changed to a different flannel shirt, but he couldn’t be sure.
“Of course,” Ben said. “One never forgets one’s cellmates.”
“She’s our communications expert. Everything from ham radios to e-mail.”
Rick continued moving down the line. “And here’s another distaff member of the Green Rage team. Deirdre Oliphant. Excuse me,
Ben shook her hand. “A medical doctor?”
She shook her head. “A scientist.” If so, Ben thought she was about as unscientist-looking as anyone he had met in his life. She had long silky blonde hair and a tall hourglass figure that could easily have graced the cover of a fashion magazine. “I’m a dendrochronologist,” she explained.
“Oh,” Ben said. “Wonderful.” He shot a quick glance at Christina. “Should I pretend I know what that means?”
Deirdre laughed. “It’s really very simple. I study trees. My speciality is determining their ages.”
Christina nodded. “Counting their rings and all that?”
“Exactly. Except that it’s a little more complicated than that, especially with the older trees. We have to use other techniques, like extracting core samples, to date trees without cutting them down.”
“Is this speciality greatly in demand?” Ben asked.
“It is with us,” Maureen interjected. “It’s crucial to our work. We can occasionally get government support for preserving old-growth trees.”
“You wouldn’t believe how old some of these trees are,” Deirdre explained. “Beyond these pines is a dense forest of cedars that go back hundreds of years. Of course, there are redwoods in California that go back thousands of years, but for cedars, five hundred years is awesome. Can you imagine? These trees were here when Beethoven was taking piano lessons.”
“Impressive.”
“My holy grail is to find a cedar larger than the current recordholder in Forks, a town a few hours south of here. If I can find that, it could save the forest.”
Ben gazed about, awed by the thought of the living history all around him. It went back to what he was feeling before. Even though he couldn’t explain it, he had a sense of tranquility, of timelessness. Of constancy through the ages.
“The next fellow in line,” Rick continued, “the one doing the Santa Claus impression, is Doc Potter. I think we mentioned him before. He’s our medic and the senior member of the team.”
Ben shook hands with the gentleman, who sported a bushy snow-white beard. Ben guessed him to be in his mid-fifties, considerably older than the rest of the group.
“I’d like to think people whose only goal is preserving forests wouldn’t need a medic,” Doc said. He had an open, avuncular manner that Ben liked immediately. “But experience has proven that we do. This is the seventh Green Rage team I’ve been part of.”
“It must be exciting work,” Christina said.
“Yes, it’s exciting.” He glanced at his compatriots. “Sometimes it’s a wee bit too exciting. You may have heard about the incident in Oregon a few years back. Loggers came in the night, grabbed some environmentalists, dragged them out of their tents. Beat them up pretty badly. And by the time they got to a hospital, one of them had bled to death. Since then, we’ve always had a medic with every away team.”
“Sounds like what you need is a pack of thugs or attack dogs.”
“Don’t think we haven’t considered it,” Rick said. “Unfortunately, we couldn’t keep dogs out here. And Slade has all the thugs.” He took another step down the line. “Let me make a couple more introductions, then we’ll give you a rest. This is the lovely Molly Evans.”
Ben thought Rick’s manner altered as he came into Molly’s presence, although he would be pressed to explain just how. Molly had short bobbed brown hair and a clean honest look. Which pleased him since, if he recalled correctly, she was going to be his ace alibi witness. “You were out in the forest with Zak the night of the murder.”
Molly’s round brown eyes glanced quickly at Rick, then back to Ben. “That’s right. I was with him. We were … um, talking.”
“That’s fine,” Ben said, smiling. No need to embarrass her now. They could get into the details later. “And you’re willing to testify?”
“Can’t say that I’m looking forward to it,” she said honestly enough, “but I feel I have an obligation to Zak.”
“I understand,” Ben answered. “And I appreciate it.”
Rick nudged Ben to the end of the line. “This is our resident radical, Al Billings.”
Ben shook hands with the robust man sporting the red beard and earring. “I thought Zak was the resident radical.”
Rick laughed. “Zak believes in monkeywrenching logging equipment. Al here favors targeted nuclear bombing.”
“That
Al grinned, toothy and earnest. Ben had the impression he had heard Rick’s teasing before and had learned to be good-natured about it. “Rick exaggerates a bit. But the fact is, WLE and Slade and the Cabal aren’t pulling any punches, so why should we?”
“If you try anything too extreme, public sentiment will turn against you,” Ben said.
“Hasn’t that already happened? All our tactics to date have been kindergarten stuff, just pranks-but we’ve already been painted black as night by the loggers and the media. I say it’s time we did something to deserve our reputation.”
“Al is a little high-strung,” Rick explained, “but he makes dynamite gumbo, which is the real reason we keep him around.”
“Have I met all the leaders of the group?” Ben asked.
“Just about,” Rick answered. “All but-” Rick stopped short. Ben saw Maureen shoot him a stern look. “I mean, that’s all.”
“Rick,” Ben said, “you guys are going to have to level with me.”
“You have met all the current leaders,” Maureen explained. “What Rick is stumbling around is that one of our leaders left, just a few days ago. Her name was Kelly. Kelly Cartwright.”
“Why did she leave?”
“Oh, it’s too complicated to explain. And it’s all political. Nothing to do with this case.”
Is that right? Ben wondered. Then why didn’t you want Rick to tell me about her? “Where is she now?”
“I don’t know exactly. I heard she joined some kind of camp in Oregon. I could probably track down an address if it’s really important to you.”
Al interrupted. “Rick, we need to talk.” He glanced at Maureen. “About the woman. She’s here. I’ve got her in a tent.”
“Later.” Rick guided Ben and Christina toward the campfire. He pointed toward the nearest boulder and suggested that Ben sit down. Not exactly a recliner, Ben thought, but he could probably get used to it.
The rest of the group joined him around the campfire. Maureen took the lead in the conversation. “As most of you already know, the new kid in town is Ben Kincaid. He’s a lawyer, a right-minded activist, not to mention a distinguished published author, and he’s agreed to represent Zak in this upcoming trial. He’s represented Zak before; they have some history. He’s also considering doing some writing about our group and the efforts we’re making to prevent this whole forest from being leveled. I want every one of you to give him your utmost cooperation. Anything he needs, he gets.”
