Falling From Grace (7 page)

Terry slipped the phone into his backpack and surveyed the waiting group. “I got the word,” he announced. “We're to have the blockade up by dawn tomorrow. They're sending in a half-dozen loggers, a couple of yarders and of course the trucks later in the day.”

“Will we get arrested?” a red-haired woman dressed all in lime green Gore-Tex asked.

“Not yet,” Terry answered. “The company needs a court injunction against us. Our lawyers in Victoria will deal with that. Our goal is to stop the trees coming down, one day at a time.”

Paul nudged me and whispered, “See, they have lawyers.”

“How about tree spiking?” a young man in dreadlocks, standing not far from us, addressed the crowd. A piercing glinted in his eyebrow. “How about monkey wrenching? It's all they'll listen to.” A current of discord surged over the crowd and a few people yelled out their agreement. I didn't like the way this meeting was going.

A huge man rose to his feet, big shouldered and well over six feet. “No. No tree spiking. No harming people or property,” he said in a booming Québécois accent. ‘I'm here for peaceful protest, eh. I am against logging, not loggers.”

“Marcel's right,” Terry said. “No reason to think the blockade won't work. It has in the past. Remember Clayoquot.”

Several people nodded. One woman yelled out, “I was there!” Excited chatter broke out.

Terry raised his hand for silence. “Remember, our group advocates non-violent civil disobedience. Violence of any kind will not be tolerated”—he addressed the speaker with the head of dreadlocks—“Cougar, if you feel you can't abide by the rules, I will have to ask you to leave.”

Cougar scowled and crossed his arms. I could see his right hand tucked in his armpit, middle finger extended. An involuntary shiver ran down my spine.

“And”—Terry turned to the group—“in case you didn't read our conduct policy before you left Victoria, no alcohol and no illicit drugs. Tread with respect on this park. Be a credit to us, not a liability. Okay.” He raised his voice and his arm in the air. “Are you ready for tomorrow?”

“Yes,” they cheered in response. The whistles and clapping that followed reminded me of a pep rally at a high school football game.

Terry called for silence. “Unless you have questions, get a sound sleep and see you at five
AM.
We have trees to save.”

After dinner I carried a cup of hot chocolate to the edge of the clearing and settled on a log. Paul was off with Mary and the children to find space, I hoped, in one of the new tents. The camp bustled with activity like a nest of ants. People scurried around with armloads of equipment, talking and yelling to one another. A trio of young adults kicked around a multicoloured crocheted Hackey Sack on the gravel bank. I longed for peace and quiet, Paul and I alone with our routines. The tall Frenchman, Marcel, spotted me and waved, then wove his way between the sea of tents, stepping across lines and tent pegs, leaping over logs, more nimble than I would have guessed for his size.

“I'm Marcel,” he said and offered his hand, as large as four of my own, the palm yellow and calloused. “The little girl she say to call you Dr. Faye.”

“Faye's fine.”

“Faye it is,” he said and sat beside me. Up close, I could see a stubble of coarse black hair on his chin, his teeth stained with nicotine. He offered me a chocolate chip cookie. “I'm addicted.” He pulled his pocket open to reveal a half dozen more. “Better than smoking.”

“Trying to quit?”

He nodded. “I smoke my first cigarette when I was nine. Ma mère she tell me the smoking would stunt my growth, eh.” The log shifted beneath us with the force of his laugh and I steadied my mug to avoid a spill.

“How tall are you?” The top of my head reached no higher than his belt.

“Six foot five,” he said. “Ma mère, she is four foot ten.”

Technically a dwarf.

“Seven kids, three of us over six feet. Can you believe I was preemie?”

“No, I can't.” I bit into the cookie. Crumbs dry as dust cascaded down the front of my jacket.

“You and me. We're the ones responsible for average.”

“What do you mean?” I brushed the crumbs onto the ground for the night cleaning crew of deer mice.

“Human statistics. Without tall ones like me, the average for people would measure the height of ma mère. And without small ones like you, average would be six foot or more. I tell people who give me a hard time about my height, without me, the human race would be nothing.” He roared with laughter again. “Seriously”—he hung his arms in mock despair between his legs—“you don't know how hard it is to get a girl when you are big as me.”

“They don't know what they're missing,” I teased.

He held out his hands, one large enough to span my entire back, fingers like sausages. “I give excellent massage.”

“Where are you from?”

“Quebec. A village in the Gaspé. I live in Montreal for years while I take a master's degree in philosophy at Université de Montréal. For the last fifteen year, I live in Newfoundland.”

“Teaching philosophy?”

“No, I study the philosophy of resource extraction. I worked fishing.”

“Fine use of a degree,” I said.

“Shameful, oui.” He stretched, arms extended like maple limbs. “No more. The fish, they are all gone. The cod, the halibut, the shad,” he said. “A tragedy.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I try to prevent the same thing from happening to these magnificent trees.” He gestured around the grove. “They speak to me, these trees. For once I feel small. I was too late for the fish. I must help these trees.”

“I guess you'll get your chance tomorrow.”

He slapped his knee. “Oui. And that means Marcel must sleep.” He heaved himself off the log, towering above me. Without warning he bent, lifted me off the ground, and squeezed me to his chest.

“Marcel, put me down,” I sputtered, nose full of beard. “Don't,” I ordered once my feet touched solid ground, “ever pick me up again.” I felt like I was chastising the Friendly Giant.

“Okay,' he said. “Je m'excuse, eh? You remind me of ma mère. Your blue eyes, they are like hers.”

I walked to the riverbank in search of solitude. The rains had swelled the river, the current swift and strong, and the shoreline had retreated up the bank. My favourite rock was almost submerged, so I settled on a sandy spot at the edge of the trees. Dusk was falling, the perfect time for wildlife viewing, but I wasn't hopeful with the amount of noise coming from the camp. I wondered what my father, Mel the mathematician, would think of Marcel's analysis of average. Scientists discarded outlier data—measurements falling outside the normal range of variation—as suspect and unreliable. I expected Marcel already knew the scientific term for average was
mean
.

I jumped when Paul plopped down beside me. “I've been looking all over for you,” he said. “Would you take Rainbow?”

“Where?” I answered.

“In your tent.”

“What?” I stammered, unsure I'd heard him right. “What for? She's happy enough with her mom. That tent's too small for three of—”

“Two.”

“What do you mean? Two. Where are you going?” His eyes slid from mine and I realized what he wanted. “But . . . what about . . .”—I groped for a name—“What about Tessa?”

He shrugged. “Will you?”

I didn't answer. He didn't know what he was asking.

“Please,” he pleaded, touching my shoulder. “I'll owe you. Big time.”

A few minutes after he left, Rainbow stomped, crying, into the tent and threw her sleeping bag onto the spot vacated by Paul. Eyes red-rimmed and swollen, her words caught in her throat as she ranted.

“I h . . . hate him,” she declared. “I'm n . . . not inviting him to my b . . . birthday. And if he ever gets m . . . m . . . married . . . . . . I'm not c . . . c . . . coming to his wedding and my . . . my mom stays . . . r . . . right here with me.” She stabbed the floor of the tent three times with her index finger.

I helped arrange her bedding, not bothering to assure her Paul would move on soon enough. “I need to sleep, no talking.” I felt oddly motherly as I tucked the edge of the bag around Rainbow's chin. My lecture about peace and quiet was unnecessary; she rolled away, chest still heaving with her anguish. I hesitated, then patted her thin back, struck by the feel of the sharp edges of bone under the shabby cotton
T
-shirt she wore for pyjamas.

• • •

The protesters
rose before dawn and I listened from the tent while they fixed breakfast and headed out for the road, Rainbow a motionless lump beside me. Her bare feet stuck out from the top of her bag and, worried she would suffocate, I zipped the bag open. I dressed, crawled outside, and made myself a cup of tea. Paul and Mary were still asleep, their shoes tucked under the tent fly.
So much for her convictions about trees.
Before making the long drive to Duncan to talk to the company, I decided to try an area upriver where I'd had intermittent success receiving a cell phone signal in the past. I was in luck, the signal weak but adequate, I punched in the number for the
PCF
office and listened to it ring. When the receptionist answered, I explained my situation.

“If you leave your phone number, someone will call,” she assured me.

“I can't be reached by phone. Can't I talk to anyone in charge?” I said.

“No one's in.”

“Can I make an appointment?” I said, irritated at the runaround.

“I'll have someone call you,” she repeated.

“You can't call me,” I yelled into the phone before hanging up. “I'm in the middle of freaking nowhere.”

Furious, I hooked up my laptop and pounded out an email to the company
CEO
, another to Roger, but it seemed futile, my last few pleas to them had gone unanswered. An email from Bryan appeared in my Inbox. I opened it to find another picture of him and his dog, Mercy. I rolled my eyes; I'd have to compete with a dog if I got involved with this man. He wore boots, khakis, and a hard hat, a rock hammer in one hand.
Dear Faye: I'm in the Badlands in southern Alberta hunting for fossils for an archaeological outfit
.
How's the research coming? I'd like to hear more about your high-flying career. In person?
I groaned. I should tell him to give up. I hit Delete, shut off the laptop, and headed for home.

I calmed down on the walk back to camp, only to find Rainbow outside the tent, crying and lacing up her boots.

“They left me behind,” she sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve, leaving a smear of snot on the cuff. “I want to save the trees too.”

The camp was deserted; Paul's tent empty, the camp quiet for the first time in days. The stream bubbled along, the breeze rustled through high branches. A winter wren chirped from a huckleberry.
Chit chit
.

“A wren.” I pointed at the bird, hoping to distract her, but she was already marching down the path to the road. “Whoa, where are you going?”

“I have to save the trees.” She didn't stop.

I ran up and caught her by the arm. “I can't let you tromp around out there alone.”

“They left me.”

I regarded her pinched face, flushed from crying, jaw set like the Rock of Gibraltar, fists clenched by her sides.

“Do you know the way?”

She stretched out her arm and pointed her finger up the trail.

“And then where?”

Her shoulders slumped and a pitiful sob shook her body. My heart dropped and I sighed, mourning the lost hours of solitude. “Come on,” I said, nodding back toward camp. “Let's have breakfast and I'll take you to your mother.”

The parking area was empty when we reached the trail-head. My car was nowhere to be seen. “Looks like Paul took my car,” I said, annoyed. I glared up the road, then back at the trail. Above, the sky was clear and blue through the breaks in the canopy, the sun warm. “Want to walk?” I asked.

Rainbow's face brightened.

I walked, Rainbow did anything but. She skipped, ran, twirled, hopped, and sashayed. She squatted to examine a banana slug crossing the road, poking her finger in the thick gluey trail of slime. She picked a fireweed from the ditch and smelled it. Every dozen steps or so, for no apparent reason, she would jump straight up in the air and waggle her feet back and forth. Her constant motion made me dizzy. And she talked.

“What's this?” She pointed to a pile of dried dung at the side of the road.

“Bear scat,” I answered.

“What's scat?”

“Shit.”

She poked at it with a stick, flipped it over, and peered into the woods.

“It's old,” I explained.

She threw the stick into the ditch and skipped on. “Do you have a dad?”

I considered saying no. Other than the biological imperative of most male mammals to sire and nourish offspring, Mel hardly qualified. On my thirteenth birthday—a Pearson right of passage, the magic doorway to the mysteries of adolescence— Mel took me out for lunch. He didn't want to go, a fact I gleaned from an eavesdropped argument between Mel and Grace in the living room the night before my birthday while I did homework in the kitchen.

“It's not the same,” Mel said.

“Of course, it's the same,” Grace countered. “She's your child too. No different than the boys.”

“Come on, Grace. She's not like the boys. What am I supposed to say to her,” he said. “I have no idea what she'll go through as a teenager.”

“Tell her . . . tell her you love her.” I could hear the exasperation in Grace's tone. “She's waited for this day since you took Patrick to lunch six years ago. We've always talked about the birthday lunch with Dad. Don't disappoint her.”