Dan left wondering who were the saints and who the whores in this little scenario.
5
The hill was steep through the second-growth trees, but it leveled out after four hundred yards or so when they came to the edge of the old growth. The trees stood like inscrutable old men guarding their prehistoric past, the larger specimens some ten feet in diameter. They formed the upper story of the forest. Below them were smaller redwood trees, stunted under the canopy. In places there was a second layer of shorter trees. These were hemlock-graceful evergreens with drooping tops, not as large as the redwood giants but adapted by nature for growing in the shade. Underneath them were the broad-leaves, tan oak, black oak, and where it was wet enough, alder. These wide-leaf species reached out for every ray of sun that might slip past the upper layers.
''If industry is giving us money, they must have something to gain by it.' It was the first thing she'd said since they began their descent. Dan had to admire her persistence.
'I guess.'
'Well, do you know?'
'Look, if I could spill my guts'-he gave her an appreciative look, he hoped without any disrespect-'you'd be the logical choice.'
'You know you're sexist.'
He stopped. 'Where I come from, I was paying you a compliment-not making a pass.'
They looked at each other.
'Do you have any serious complaints about my compliments?' he asked.
Without answering, she walked on.
They were in the old growth now. A thick layer of clover grew like green carpet over the forest floor. There was little sign of wildlife under these massive trees although Dan supposed their noisy passage through the fern and wild rhododendron would scare into hiding whatever was present. They walked where they could, taking the path of least resistance until they came to something odd: no trespassing signs nailed to the trees at forty-foot intervals.
'I wonder if this is Metco or Amada land,' he said.
'No way to even guess without a compass and a map. Even then I doubt we'd figure it out.'
'Don't you guys go on spy missions to guesstimate who owns what?'
'Those 'spy missions,' as you call them, are overrated,' she said. 'We look from the air more than the ground.'
They walked quickly as they talked, weaving in and out of head-high ferns, clawing their way through brush, all the time marveling at the trees, whose massive trunks seemed to belong in a land of giants.
'What's this?' Dan was eyeing a fallen tree with a no trespassing sign nailed at its center.
'Somebody has cut off the limbs.'
'Which makes it impossible to climb over…' They began walking alongside it, thinking they would go around. Quickly they came to another no trespassing sign. 'These guys are serious,' he said.
After a good one hundred feet they came to a second tree, lying parallel with the first, so that as the first began to taper to six or seven feet in diameter, a second thick log began.
'This is outrageous,' she said. 'This was done deliberately. How did somebody get a permit to cut these trees?'
'They don't need a permit if they're not selling them or making lumber of them.'
'You're right,' she said. 'It's one of the many flaws in the system.'
'It's a token gesture to private property rights.'
After a similar distance they came to yet another fallen tree.
'It's like someone was building a barrier,' she said. 'Help me look for a thick branch we can bring over.'
She began looking for a piece of wood; Dan followed her.
'Every second that goes by, I become more convinced that maybe that chopper did land out here in the woods,' he said.
'So you think somehow-'
'I don't know what to think. If you'd told me that this would be out here, I'd have thought you were nuts,' he said.
'Let's climb over this and find out what's going on.'
''I've heard you're quite the Alaskan wilderness woman.'
'Yeah? Where did you hear that?'
'In the courthouse hallway, where the news is on time every time.'
'Same place I heard you've been a very unhappy man ever since your wife died.'
'You heard I drink too much.'
'That too. Here's a log, let's go.'
She helped him lift a gnarled, eight-foot limb as thick as a man's thigh.
They carried it to where the nearest barrier log narrowed to its smallest diameter and leaned it up against it.
'You climb, and I'll push.'
'I think I can manage,' she said.
Maria was still in her business suit and climbing in the long skirt would be difficult. As if reading his mind, she hoisted the skirt up her thighs, revealing the knit portion of her panty hose. To hold the skirt in place, she refastened her belt. Her thighs were hard and well-shaped.
He made it a point to study the barricade, trying to estimate its age. Foliage growing around the log indicated that it must have been on the ground for some months, or even longer.
She began climbing up the branch, using smaller branches as handholds. In a minute she was atop the log. Dan followed easily, though he had physically lost something since Tess's death and his own sporadic exercise schedule. To enable Maria to scale the second log, Dan interlaced his fingers so she could step in his hands. Putting her palms atop the log, she hoisted herself up in one smooth motion. It was impressive.
'You adroitly avoided my question about Alaska by bringing up my somewhat checkered reputation.'
'I didn't think you'd notice. It's ten feet to the ground and they've stacked about a billion branches like the worst windfall you've ever seen. Let's concentrate on getting through here.'
Dan reached up and grabbed a big knot where a branch had broken off. His foot slipped and he struggled just slightly to climb the second log. When he got to his knees, he saw the situation was bleak. Branches were piled perhaps eight feet high, some large, some small, but nothing that they could walk on for any great distance. Sinking into the loosely piled branches could result in an injury or at the very least a quagmire that would be nearly impossible to get through. Beyond the piled branches the forest was once again thick with head-high ferns.
'I have an idea,'' Maria said as she began walking down the log toward a small grove of hemlock growing at the barrier. 'We can jump to the first of those trees, climb a little higher, then get in the next tree by pulling its branches close enough to jump to its trunk. Do that a couple of times and we should be beyond the man-made windfall.'
'A couple of squirrels,' he said. 'Only one of those squirrels weighs about two hundred twenty-five pounds.'
She went first, literally leaping into the six-inch diameter tree and moving nimbly through the thick branches to the relative security of the trunk.
'We did this when I was a kid,' he said. 'It was more fun back then.'
A branch snapped and she moved a few inches down to the next, swung around the tree, and climbed to a point where the tree was very flexible. Using her weight, she leaned the small hemlock into the next one over, grabbed its branches, and easily stepped across the chasm.
He pondered the gulf to the first tree and the flimsy branches that he would be grabbing.
Either he jumped or she went on without him. He reached out, grabbed a branch, and tried pulling the tree to him, but at this height it was too stout to move. He took a deep breath and jumped, grabbing the branches. With
