Death Canyon (14 page)

The council, Jake felt, had fallen under the sway of the idea that all growth is good growth. They were afraid that rejecting the proposal would leave the town behind the Joneses. Aspen, Park City. They wanted to keep up, to be a destination with the best and most modern facilities.

Jake knew this plan couldn't be sustained forever.

How long would a fishery last if all the fishermen remained in
the first stage of the hierarchy and always caught as many fish as they could?

Jake knew such an ecosystem would be doomed. A functioning fishery, community, or society needed participants with different ideals. It needed healthy debate. Decisions had to be made through negotiation between individual principles, not influenced by a constant pressure to get bigger, better, and faster.

The council members were principled and opinionated and Jake knew that, but they had disregarded those things in their decision. And for what?

It was a scary thought to Jake, who feared that if this continued, man would keep trying to perfect Jackson Hole until all its perfection was gone.

Jake tiredly wiped his hand over his face and tuned back in to Begaye, who nervously brought up one other point before bidding Jake good night: the council had become aware that Jake was in jail, though they didn't know why.

Great
.
Really helps my credibility.

Worse yet, the council always had the option to vote him off.

Insisting he wasn't the leak, Begaye finally let Jake off the phone.
It was probably someone at the police station who told another councilperson.
Gossip always annoyed Jake; it was a reckless transgression motivated only by the selfish desire to have someone pay attention to you.

Jake's mind turned for a second to the development issue again as he searched for some stowed-away knowledge regarding property law and administrative procedures, but he quickly shut that inquisitiveness down, as he could sometimes do. The day had just been too long and too frustrating. Instead, images of Noelle—her smile, her skin, her body—ushered him to sleep.

“This came for you, sir.” The proselyte, Sam, was nervous as he approached the Shaman, who was sitting alone, looking like he was stewing over something. The Shaman didn't respond. Sam placed the envelope on the desk and slunk from the room.

The Shaman opened the letter, took a quick glance, and crumpled it, then closed his eyes for a second to calm down. Serenity eluded him. Visions of a woman were projected on his eyelids by his mind's eye. The woman was lying in a pool of her own blood, horribly mutilated, motionless. That woman was his mother.

Twenty minutes later, Sam entered the main lodge of the camp for the first time. He was ecstatic. In only a few days among the others, it had become clear to him that being invited to the lodge was quite an accolade for a proselyte.

Proselyte
was the name given to new members, and the proselytes
were rarely invited into the central cabin—that was an honor generally reserved for the votaries, the members closest to the Shaman. Sam had been told that from time to time, when a proselyte had shown extraordinary courage or commitment to the cause, the Shaman would invite them in, allow them to participate in the meeting, and personally thank them for their dedication.

Sam was still learning the ropes, although he had followed the Shaman's underground podcast for ten years, until it unexpectedly disappeared.

When he first heard the Shaman's voice, Sam was a small fish. Making efforts that were merely a drop in the bucket while this collection of rogue superheroes was out changing the world. If they believed that an area should remain undeveloped, they protected it themselves. They didn't waste valuable time lobbying and negotiating with big business like Sam had. They simply fought for the land that they were entitled and destined to protect.

Now, Sam was finally there, at the main community and the hub of all the action. The Shaman's cabin. Camp Bodhi. Shuffling inside with a few others, he found himself thinking that the cabin was not exactly what he'd expected. He knew the Shaman was a devout nature worshipper like the others, but there were no dream catchers or totems. The cabin looked like an old tool shed. The mostly bare walls displayed farming equipment, a few rusty machetes, two rifles, and two wooden spools, one each of barbed wire and razor wire.

The votaries sat on whatever they could find, milk crates and old wooden stools, and settled in. Having wasted a moment taking in his surroundings, Sam lost his opportunity at a seat and so he sat down on the wooden floor. The men and women in the cabin talked quietly among themselves in a way that reminded him of the pre-bell murmurings in high school. These students, however,
wore long, matted hair and dirty clothes in place of prep school uniforms and tight haircuts.

It wasn't long until the Shaman stood. There was nothing particularly impressive about his appearance. The man was of average height and thin, but his frame featured long, sinewy muscle. Much like the others, he wore a hodgepodge of old, worn-out clothing. Unlike most of the men, though, his hair was clipped short and he had a clean-shaven face. His appearance suggested a man around thirty-five when in reality he was older.

He walked toward the center of the single-room cabin, causing the small crowd to turn their bodies to face him. Sam spun around on the floor and watched. The leader turned back to address the crowd. Before he began, Sam noticed his hands trembling. He was seething.

When he spoke, his voice was quiet, consistent, and calm—but with a sharp edge that belied the fire within him: “Good morning.” Some in the crowd replied with their own muttered “good morning,” and there were a few nods and claps, but most stayed silent, too focused on listening to formulate a response.

Sam had counted more than fifty votaries. They conformed to the Shaman's every whim.

“How many of you joined me because you were tired of useless protests?” Everyone in the cabin raised his or her hand, including the Shaman, who nodded as he did so. A few cheered or whistled.

He was playing to the crowd. Sam hadn't expected such a pep-talk tone to the meeting.

“How many of you get
really pissed off
when you think of our elected officials discarding the letters you have sent them about the fate of our irreplaceable environment?” Now more people cheered. The Shaman's voice grew louder.

“Today,” he continued, directing those standing to take their seats
again by slowly lowering both of his hands, “you all have an opportunity to take action in the truest sense of the word. To our south, near the mighty Snake River, Parrana wishes to turn preserved land into a condominium development.” Nods of affirmation. The Shaman held out his palm, extending his skinny fingers as if motioning for someone to stop. His voice got quiet. An airy whisper. “Before I continue, if you wish to protest gutlessly in the town square again as some of you did last night, I request you to leave this lodge now.” No one moved toward the exit, although some shifted around uncomfortably in their seats to try to identify those who had apparently disappointed their leader.

“Good. I'm impressed with your courage. As some of you may know, the town of Jackson—that spineless political amoeba with jurisdiction over this proposed development—voted last night to allow the developer to continue unimpeded toward its goal of destroying our wilderness.

“The time for argument and negotiation has now passed. I have one task for all of you: I want you to do what it takes to prevent this gluttonous developer from working on, or even setting foot on, this land. There is no time to coordinate lockouts or to search out and disable their equipment. No, instead, I want you to make every contractor or construction, no,
destruction
worker think twice before he sets foot on that land. Use our supplies”—he motioned toward the razor wire—“use whatever you can find here. And if you need funds for this mission, please see Ryder after we adjourn. There is no spending limit for this task.” The Shaman pointed to a man in the cabin's corner who held a backpack.

“I don't expect a coordinated sabotage—I expect you to go out
tonight
and take care of this. I leave it up to your imagination as to what types of deterrents you will use—but the message must be
clear: Mother Nature will not be raped for profit. When she cannot defend herself, we are her defenders!” The crowd cheered. The Shaman stepped out of the center of the room and walked toward the banker, Ryder.

Sam watched and listened.

“Well done, Shaman,” Ryder said, setting the backpack down on the cabin's floor and unzipping it. A line of votaries had queued up.

“I trust that our new recruits have been screened for loyalty before sending them out on such an important mission?” the Shaman said quietly to Ryder.

He nodded. “Of course, sir.”

The Shaman stood by while Ryder distributed the money in the backpack and the crowd started to filter out. Some of the votaries made eye contact or nodded to him, hoping to impress him, form a personal bond. Very few actually spoke to their leader. They were afraid.

As Sam passed, the Shaman smiled. Sam smiled back and nodded, too, noticing that he was the only one who had been lucky enough to elicit a friendly response. And he was just a proselyte—the only one invited to the meeting.

As Ryder handed over Sam's spending money, he spoke to Sam: “Please wait here for just a few moments. The Shaman would like to speak with you.” As he moved toward the door, Sam looked over his shoulder toward his leader to see that the man was watching him.

Two others, one male and one female, remained in the cabin with Ryder and the Shaman. Sam knew them to be the high votaries—the Shaman's closest advisers. The woman quickly went to the wooden door, shut it, and locked it. Then the high votaries, the Shaman, and Ryder formed a small circle in the center of the room, the Shaman pulling over an old bar stool for the woman. She sat next to him.

“As you all know, destiny has led me down a new path,” the Shaman said. Sam looked around to see the others nod. He was clueless. “I have always looked to Nature with a humble and subservient eye. I can imagine no greater purpose for any one of the earth's creatures than protecting her. When I was much younger, I formed our sister organization, EcoAmicae, to lobby government officials, to convince corporate leaders and the public to treat our earth with the respect that she deserves. These methods were effective and our voice was heard around the world. Eventually, though, I realized there was no getting through to some people, to some organizations, with dialogue and rhetoric. Big business was raping the earth and feeling no remorse. Moreover,
we
could make them feel no remorse.”

The Shaman's face turned graver, his voice quieter. “At that point, I had a decision to make—either abandon the cause, something I
believed
in, or change the tactics of the organization to deal with those that carelessly destroyed the world. As a somewhat intelligent man”—the Shaman smiled at the group, rolling his eyes, a rare glimpse of spare warmth within him—“I knew that to conduct the type of missions I had in mind would erode the credibility of EcoAmicae—the credibility I had worked so hard to attain within the scientific and political communities. If EcoAmicae were perceived as an extremist rebellion, it would lose its effectiveness. You all know what happened, of course: I formed the nameless organization under which we meet today.”

The four remaining members nodded knowingly, urging the Shaman to continue.

Where is this going?
Sam thought.

“Now, although I am incredibly impressed with our little militia, I find that another change is necessary. As leaders, we know that we have limitations to what we can accomplish. This development,
for example—we may stop it, but we cannot stop the
idea
of it by simply booby-trapping one site. No, we need to engender a realization in the public that Nature is not something we take from or use, but rather, she is a goddess to whom we should dedicate our lives to praise and protect. We need to remind the citizens of this earth that if they trespass on sacred ground—that is, if they
use
the earth rather than worship her, they will be punished by her.”

The Shaman stood up from his seat and rubbed his smooth face anxiously with his hand. Sam sensed that the group, besides Ryder, didn't grasp the importance of what he was telling them. The Shaman spoke again.

“Are any of you familiar with the study of eschatology?

“Christians, for example, believe that the world will end in a Judgment Day,” the Shaman continued. “They believe that at some point in time, God will descend on the earth to choose which humans have led a devout life and which humans have not, and thus will be sentenced to eternal damnation. This could be described as the Christian eschatology. Eschatology is the study of the end. That is, the study of what certain groups believe will be the end of the world.