Our Lady of the Forest (31 page)

Two of Ann's sentinels moved silently forward with a distinctly martial air. Their manner prompted Richard Devine to put a fretful hand to his temple. He had a patrician's gesticulations; the hand to his temple, though liver-spotted, was elegant and debonair. I see, he said. And you've brought along a crowd. Something like a medieval army.

Well observed, said Carolyn. Though it's hard to miss five thousand people.

The other Richard, who was implike and stumpy, a thirtyish retainer with a crescent of red hair—a friar's ringed pate, thought Carolyn, on a classic victim of male-pattern baldness—took from his jacket a neatly folded map and began to unfold it meticulously. This, he said, is a company map. But everything on it can be verified with the county. And we thought you might want to have a look.

Pilgrims were now making dashes through the creek, walking the log, and boulder-hopping. Richard Devine watched with what Carolyn divined was a mock and artful anguish. He peeked under the hand at his brow, grimaced, and peeked another time. I'm afraid they're trespassing, he said, wincing.

The map will show that, said Richard Olsen. Everything on the other side of the creek is Stinson Timber land.

Which we wouldn't mind, added Richard Devine. Except that you've got enough people here to fill a football stadium. Plus you've plowed a trail through our holdings. There's serious damage to the undergrowth and a considerable amount of garbage.

I hear what you're saying, answered Carolyn. Your issues are excessive littering and modest environmental damage. So let me assure you we'll pick up our garbage. A committee will be appointed right away to police your property thoroughly. And now that we have a trail established, there won't be any new undergrowth damage. We can organize trail supervisors, we can keep our people to the path.

But up where you have your religious meetings, Richard Olsen said. All of these people disperse out there. Fan out. Fill the woods. That's where the damage is occurring.

Extreme damage, said Richard Devine. We made an inspection of the site this morning. For us it's tantamount to devastation. The erosion and plant loss is significant. And there are also sanitation issues. We're not sure our woods can recover.

In the grand scheme of things it's a small area, said Carolyn. You own, what, ten billion acres? Why not give five acres to Mother Mary?

It's an ecosystem, explained Richard Olsen. Things in it are contiguous. Interrelated. Mutually dependent. There's a ripple effect from five acres.

Spare me, said Carolyn. You're Stinson Timber, not the Sierra Club. It's lost timber you're worrying about, so cut the enviro-babble.

Timber for profit, said Richard Olsen, is not inherently evil, is it? We're also stewards of the land.

Stewards of the land, said Carolyn. The last time I checked you were Stinson Timber. The biggest devastators of land in the state. Owners of ten thousand poorly planned clear-cuts you keep hidden behind locked gates. But from the air, you know what? Everyone can see. In between bites of their airplane food. Your land is completely defoliated. Vietnam after the air force got through. Your land looks utterly and completely tragic. Stewards of the land. Stewards of the land. If you're stewards of the land I'm Julia Roberts. Talk about Newspeak! War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Stinson Timber is steward of its lands. I don't want to hear more lies.

Richard Devine clutched his forehead again like someone with a dawning migraine. My God, he said. Let's stick to the point. The only issue in front of us is trespassing. Trespassing plain and simple.

From your point of view, said Carolyn. By the way, where's your coterie of lawyers? Hiding behind the trees?

We don't need lawyers, said Richard Olsen. We just need calm. And common sense.

Carolyn raised her electric bullhorn. Pass the word back among the others! she called. We're going to take a short break right here! A ten-minute break! Pass it back!

I'm glad to hear, said Richard Devine, that you feel we can resolve this in ten minutes.

We can totally resolve this, Carolyn said. Because I know exactly how to speak your language. Your language—obviously—is cash.

What we want to talk about is trespassing, said Devine. I take that back. We don't want to talk about it. We're just asking you not to do it.

And you're asking us not to because you think we do damage. And damage can always be mitigated, right? Offset with cash on the barrelhead, right? So look—my people will call your people. And we'll work things out, we'll get to it. It's just that for now—guess what?—we're here. And no one really wants to go home. No one exactly wants to stop. They all came out here because Mother Mary is making appearances on your land. Is that something you can blithely ignore? The fact that the Virgin is appearing on your property? Doesn't a phenomenon such as that make “trespassing” somehow trivial, irrelevant? Open your eyes to reality. There's five thousand people backed up behind me who are bent on crossing this bridge.

Point well taken, said Richard Devine. Nevertheless: no trespassing on our property. And I'm sure that with your bullhorn there you can suppress reluctance on the part of your followers to conform to the state's no trespassing law. These are religious people, after all, not hooligans or rabble-rousers. Despite the behavior of those people over there on the other side of the creek.

Wow, said Carolyn. Unbelievable. I mean I don't think you're even hearing me. I can see you're going to make this difficult. So let me try another approach. Bear with me while I start all over. Now I'm betting in the pocket of your deluxe fancy raincoat is a very small and elegant cell phone and I'm also betting that you can hit one button and be in touch with your CEO or with the vice-president in charge of trespassing issues or with the department of access approval forms or with whoever actually makes decisions and I want you to get that person for me and put she or he—I know I'm not grammatically correct—put her or him on the line.

The decision's been made. It's a moot point now. There's nobody for me to call anymore. Except, maybe, the sheriff.

Carolyn smiled. Let me page him, she said. She raised the bullhorn and glared at her adversary. Sheriff Randolph Nelson, she said. Paging Sheriff Randolph Nelson.

She lowered the bullhorn and shrugged with loose ease. Wherever we go we bring him, she said. The sheriff likes to tag along with us.

How convenient, answered Devine.

They fell into waiting. Carolyn sat beside Ann, against a rock. The immense flock of pilgrims squatted in the trail, perched on logs, leaned against trees, ate, sang, and prayed. Father Butler remarked to Father Collins, You were absolutely right about the weather out here, it's clammy underneath this canopy, I'm chilly and a little damp. But, said Father Collins, the forest is truly marvelous. I feel when I'm here the presence of God. You do? said Father Butler. All well and good. As long as you're not seeing Our Lady.

The sheriff blustered into view with two straight-faced deputies in tow: three men carrying firearms. What's the trouble up here? he asked. There's five thousand people in these woods.

The trouble, said Carolyn, is that guy there with the ironic name of Richard Devine. You'd think that with a name like Devine he'd see the light or something.

Devine handed the sheriff his card. We're trying to do something simple, he said. We're trying to put a stop to trespassing.

The sheriff gave the card a cursory perusal, then handed it back absentmindedly. There's five thousand people out here, he said. Approximately five thousand people.

Precisely the problem, answered Richard Devine. If it was five rather than five thousand, that would be dramatically different. We probably wouldn't much notice or care. But five thousand? That's another story. A difference not only in degree but in quality. We can't allow them on Stinson land in such utterly devastating numbers.

Nelson rubbed his chin, befuddled. He hung his thumbs from his belt buckle, a habit, zipped his jacket and unzipped it. This is a bad situation, he said. You've got your five thousand people here who want to get through to where they're going and set against them me and my deputies and some state patrollers in shiny shoes and that's what we've got to try and stop them. Now if each of us handcuffs one of these people and drags him forcibly out of the woods that still leaves four thousand nine hundred eighty-five to swarm right past us and across the creek, in other words I don't have the logistical capability to enforce your property rights.

In other words, put in Richard Olsen, the mob rules.

Sheriff Nelson frowned at him. These are Christian people, he said. It's not like they want to spike your trees.

No matter their religious affiliation, said Olsen, they pose a danger to the ecosystem here. They threaten the health of this forest.

And, Richard Devine added, while you yourself may not have at hand the means to enforce our property rights, this girl certainly does.

He gestured toward Ann the way a ringmaster gestures at the sequined girl who will put her head in the lion's mouth. Ann had endured the entirety of the debate with her eyes cast down, her face in her sweatshirt hood, but now she looked up at the company factotum with his crown of distinguished silver hair, his ruddy geriatric face. She could do it, said Devine, looking back at her sternly. A few judicious words from her, spoken into that electric bullhorn—a few words from her would resolve this matter. And if she won't comply, won't cooperate, arrest her when she steps across that bridge. That, sheriff, would settle it.

And start a riot too, Nelson replied. Can you imagine me dragging this girl through the woods past five thousand of her followers?

Talk about bad PR, added Carolyn. On top of everything else.

Richard Devine began to knead his fingers. It occurred to Carolyn that he had arthritis, that no place in the world was worse for arthritis, a November morning in the sodden rain forest, frost in the metacarpal joints, mildew in the phalanx bones. You should have brought your gloves, she said. Your cashmere fur-lined gloves.

It's not funny. I have arthritis. I'm not so young anymore.

We'll pray for you, Ann answered quietly. For an end to your arthritis suffering.

Devine let a scoffing chortle escape. My hands especially, will you? he asked. And a special plea for my finger joints?

Somewhere in the forest, far to the rear, a considerable number of pilgrims were singing. The sound of it was ethereal, enchanted, it might have been mere wind in the trees or a distant band of woodland dryads who were also exceptional ventriloquists. Ann stood straining to discern it. She could not quite make out its tone, celebratory hymn or funereal dirge, canticle or lamentation, chant or elegy. But its faint hue seemed aimed at her or came to her as if aimed. As if to her ears privately, a choir of nymphs or angels. I'm called by the Mother of God, she said. I'm called into her presence now. I beg you to let us pass.

Richard Devine blew into his palms, sharp, whistling gasps. Come again? he asked.

Our Lady has blessed and chosen you, said Ann. She's chosen your forest for her appearance. She's calling to you this way.

Who are you to speak for her?

Just a girl. No one else.

What makes you think I should listen to you?

I speak in the name of Our Lady, our glory, our life, our sweetness, and our hope.

She stepped forward. She put her small hand on Devine's right arm. She's like, she said, a light in the forest. A beacon of hope in the woods out here. She's Our Lady, God's love, calling you. Calling to you through me.

Richard Devine removed her hand as though it were a small lizard. Come on now, he said. I guess I appreciate your… spirituality. Your zeal and passion for what you believe. But in my book this is plainly psychotic. I don't mean to be insulting, really, but maybe what you need is to see a psychiatrist, get some help, some counseling.

That
is
insulting, said Carolyn. You should apologize to Ann.

Sheriff Nelson shot her the
Be Quiet!
look with which she was already familiar. It implied, she knew, the depth of his revulsion, and even in these current circumstances, demanding, as they did, her undivided attention, she found herself pondering her femininity, wondering if greater sexual allure might alter the sheriff's sentiments. That was Ann's unspoken advantage—her obvious, unearned beauty. Her unblemished skin, her thin little legs, her hard little no-sag breasts. Genetic-luck-of-the-draw features, totally undeserved. Carolyn had never been like that but had acquired, rather, a set of learned wiles that were ultimately a paltry substitute. She had always yearned to be naturally beautiful while knowing, too, that this sort of yearning was humiliating, small, pathetic, misplaced, and starkly, completely embarrassing. I'm ugly, she thought, and it doesn't help me. Not really ugly. Just not attractive. Life is completely unfair.

The sheriff said, We'd better do something. And do it quick. Because these people are going to cross this creek one way or the other, I feel that.

You do something, said Richard Devine. Because I'm finally just exasperated with it. And you're the law around here.

This isn't the Wild West, said the sheriff. I'm not the law, I'm law
enforcement.
When I can, that's what I do—enforce. But I can't enforce the law right now. Not right now, in these circumstances. If you want to give some prior warning, put up signs, make things clear, let people know ahead of time—all right, we can probably make that stick. Probably. No promises. You all have a history of letting people in, deer hunters in particular. But I guess we could arrest people on account of prior warning. You'd have to get your message out. You'd have to let people know, No Trespassing, and give them time to get used to it. Maybe we can agree on twenty-four hours? Twenty-four hours of getting the word out, plenty of advance work, legwork? So people know a line has been drawn? People know you're serious? The land can be posted with No Trespassing signs. You get your signs up, make announcements. Twenty-four hours sounds right.