Point of Law (5 page)

FIVE

I
WAKE UP
even more thickheaded than usual, groggy and dry-mouthed.

The sun is rising to the south of Wild Fire Peak, and the meadow is noisy with birds. My father is already sitting up in his bag. He’s gingerly touching his sunburned scalp with his calloused fingertips. The other campers and protesters, the “Wild Fire Tribe,” are still sleeping off the excesses of dope and rum that had been freely passed around the campfire. As I shed my bag, the sunlight touches my bare skin with a caress despite the cold night air that lingers in the valley. Oso rouses himself from a wool blanket by my side. He’d been curled on it in a huge, tight ball, with his nose a few inches shy of being able to bury itself in the stump of his tail.

Dad and I shake the dew off our sleeping bags, then stretch them to dry on the Land Cruiser’s hood. I pull on a pair of shorts and a fleece vest. After taking care of some urgent morning business in the woods, I set up my tiny stove and spill a little gasoline on the primer. Nearby, Oso pees on the same tree where my father had just relieved himself.

“Guess he’s showing me who’s top dog,” Dad grumbles.

“I don’t think he liked being relegated to the backseat yesterday.”

When I sleepily flick my lighter at the shallow pool of fuel I’d dribbled beneath the burner, flames shoot three feet in the air. I jerk backwards before my hair catches on fire. The sudden motion causes a heavy ache in my skull. The wine and the rum I’d helped myself to around the campfire last night feel as if they’re sloshing like mercury in my brain. For several years now, ever since my brother began his excessive experimentation with substance abuse, I haven’t been much of a drinker.

I glance at my father when I think I hear a grunt or a chuckle from behind me. He’s frowning, but his blue eyes sparkle with amusement.

“I think I’ll do the leading today,” he says. “You’re going to be useless.”

“Bite me,” I say under my breath.

According to my mother, the old man was a legendary drinker in the old days. It fitted with his wild-man image in the stories she told my brother and me. But these days he never drinks to the point that you could tell. The new Air Force frowns on excessive alcohol consumption. And I know that as Dad gets older he’s having a harder time keeping up with the young Pararescue soldiers he commands.

We haven’t even finished our oatmeal when the first car rolls into the meadow from the Forest Service road. Soon it’s followed by several others. Most of them are muddy, oversized pickups with gun racks visible in the rear windows. I guess that they belong to the counter-protesters—I doubt many environmentalists would drive one these diesel-guzzling beasts. Some of the trucks are equipped with oversized tires that even at low speeds chew then spit out the meadow’s grass.

The trucks park haphazardly in the clearing. Some of them appear aggressive in stopping very close to where the Tribe members are waking up and rubbing their eyes as they stare in confusion at the snarling engines. The people who get out of the trucks are, without exception, young to middle-aged men. I remember Kim’s warning from the night before—that things could get ugly—and think that the fact that no women or children have been brought along is a very bad sign. The men look tough when they get out of their trucks. Physical laborers, it appears from the broad forearms and sunburnt necks. Probably construction workers promised work on the new development in the valley.

The majority of them wear what could be a uniform of jeans and work boots and baseball caps, the only concession to individualism in what tobacco or beer company logo is displayed on their T-shirts. They stare at the protesters with what looks to me like a sort of grim amusement, the way a pack of coyotes stare at a herd of sheep.

Only one of the trucks is even remotely new looking—a huge Chevy Suburban painted a glossy black beneath the thin layer of dust the Forest Service road has sprinkled on it. The license plate reads “FSTRNU,” which, after a moment’s thought, I decipher as “Faster than You.” It must belong to David Fast, the notorious developer.
An arrogant prick,
I remember Kim saying. She also called him evil.

The driver of the black Suburban steps out. David Fast is dressed more expensively than the others, in a creased pair of khakis and a white shirt with pearl buttons. He looks around the meadow with a concerned, proprietary air. While the license plate gives credence to Kim’s description of a self-satisfied jerk, his appearance isn’t evil.

He’s a tall man, a little heavy with too much fat and too much muscle. Like an aging football player ten years past his prime. Although he’s probably Kim’s age, he looks a few years older. His graying hair is buzzed short on a handsome head.

Another man looks evil, though. He climbs out of the Suburban’s passenger side and slams the door shut behind him. He does it hard enough so that the echo bangs off the forested hillsides surrounding the valley. The sound reminds me of a bull elk’s territorial bugle. This man has a pumpkin-sized head, no neck, and the powerful torso of a prison weight lifter. The prison part is emphasized because of the tattoos that cover his arms. Even from this distance, I recognize some of the tattoos as a mark of membership in a jailhouse white supremacist gang. And I remember how at the campfire meeting the night before, several of the activists had complained about how Fast’s harassment had only become serious after he’d hired a professional enforcer named Alf Burgermeister, a.k.a. Rent-a-Riot. Someone had mentioned that Burgermeister sells his services to antienvironmentalist causes all over the country. This guy certainly looks like someone who would be called Rent-a-Riot. His menacing appearance is accentuated by the way his head is carefully shaved but for the long, red sideburns that meet above his upper lip.

The men who look like construction workers sit on the tailgates of their trucks or stand around them in the grass, talking, laughing, and watching the Tribe members in the meadow. Burgermeister calls to them in a deep baritone—a sergeant summoning his troops. For a moment I wonder who’s in charge—Fast or his enforcer. The men respond instantly, wandering over to gather around the developer’s shiny truck.

“What are we going to climb today, Ant?” my father asks, ignoring the spectacle around us. “It doesn’t make sense for us to wait all morning for Roberto.”

“I think I’m sticking around to check this thing out. There’s something nasty in the air.”

“I smell it, too. That’s just your brother, on his way,” he says in a rare try at a joke.

It’s a sign that he’s feeling a bit of stress. In my grumpy mood, I find it kind of amusing. This man can jump out of planes at over sixty thousand feet, climb run-out 5.12, fire just about any weapon known to man, run and swim in the worst of conditions for hours at a time, and perform every type of emergency surgery, yet he’s nervous about a reunion with his eldest son. To be fair, though, he should be nervous.

I pour myself some coffee from the kettle I’d placed on the hissing stove and keep watching the meadow. I glare at a new pickup coming into the meadow when it rumbles too close to us. The lone driver, a burly young guy with his sleeves rolled to his shoulders, hesitates while looking back at me. I can almost read his thoughts as he takes in my scrappy beard, scarred face, and the climber’s arms that I’ve folded across my chest. He slows, considering how to respond to the challenge in my eyes, and looks over to see just how far away his friends are. Then he glances at Oso, who places himself between the truck and our camp, and wisely decides to pull to another part of the meadow.

My dad touches my shoulder.

“There’s nothing you can do, Antonio,” he says gently. “We’re in Colorado. Your badge isn’t any good here.”

I answer without looking at him and try to make a joke of my own. “Badges? Don’t need no stinking badges.”

My father clips his rock shoes and chalk bag to a small pack. He shakes his head at me before he walks into the forest and heads in the direction of the canyon. He’s going bouldering, I guess. He’s too cautious these days to solo on the steep canyon walls.

David Fast and his hirelings don’t outnumber the Tribe’s mostly youthful protesters, but they certainly outdo them in intimidation. Their physical presence is bigger. Harder. More confident. After disassembling the stove and washing the dishes in the stream, I walk among the pickup trucks and SUVs with my steaming coffee mug and observe the bumper stickers that attest to membership in antienvironmental organizations such as Wise Use and the Rocky Mountain Legal Foundation. Some are even amusing, saying things such as “Are You an Environmentalist or Do You Work for a Living?” and “The Only Good Trees Are Stumps.” My favorite reads, “Hungry and Out-of-Work? Eat an Environmentalist.”

While the newly arrived men mill around, shaking hands, slapping backs, and trying to get a look at the young hippie girls writhing out of their sleeping bags and putting on their clothes, Kim directs a few of her followers in stringing some sheets between trees. Painted on the sheets are slogans like “Save Wild Fire Valley” and “Stop the Development.” The banners are arranged around a prominent stump that I suppose will act as a speaker’s platform.

As I amble I receive suspicious looks from both sides. None of the environmentalists seem to recognize me from the campfire meeting the night before. Without obvious tattoos and facial piercings, I probably look more like one of Fast’s men, except that I wear sandals, shorts, and a purple fleece vest instead of boots, jeans, and a Jack Daniel’s T-shirt.

I’m wandering near Kim, drawn to her as I had been the night before, and wondering if I should offer to help, when a large white van from a Denver television station bounces up the dirt road and into the meadow. At a gesture from Burgermeister, the construction workers eye the people inside with what can only be taken for menace. They shift themselves slightly to be in the way as much as possible. Slowly, the van works itself through the human obstacle course and stops at the small stage-area Kim is arranging. A middle-aged woman climbs out as Kim hurries forward to greet her.

“Kim!” I hear the woman say as they embrace. “So good to see you again!”

The construction workers snicker and I hear one say something about lesbians.

While glaring at the men nearby, the Denver reporter tells Kim, “They put a couple of logs across the road, trying to stop us from coming in. While we were trying to get around them, some thugs in boots and cowboy hats had a talk with the guys from the Durango station, and they turned back.”

“Damn,” I hear Kim say. She joins her friend in glaring at the counter-protesters. One of the men waggles his tongue at her, then toasts her with a coffee mug, to the amusement of his colleagues. Kim catches sight of me watching them and nods slightly.
See
, her look says,
I told you it was going to get ugly
. Then the two women turn, walking back toward the stage.

It’s evident that Kim is too busy to talk to me, so I walk back over to the Land Cruiser and sit down in my father’s soot-stained camp chair. I watch as Kim continues to organize the small rally. It doesn’t appear that it’s going to be much of a protest—with the road blocked down-valley, Kim is stuck with just the thirty or so protesters already in the meadow.

David Fast does a little organizing of his own. He pops open the back of his gleaming Suburban, revealing a few boxes of donuts, an ice chest, and a huge urn of coffee. His workers gather around as he jokes with them. Burgermeister stands directly beside him, as close as a bodyguard would. But he doesn’t smile at the jokes. Instead he squints angrily at the environmentalists.

After a few minutes Fast takes a heavy roll of canvas from the Surburban’s backseat. With Burgermeister’s help, he carries it over behind Kim’s makeshift stage. There they unroll the canvas and start to string it between two trees right next to where the Tribe’s banner proclaiming “Save the Valley” is hung.

Kim hurries over, probably asking him what the hell he thinks he’s doing. Fast just smiles—maybe even a little apologetically—and ties one end of the banner to a tree’s trunk. His enforcer pulls it tight at the other end while glaring at Kim. I suspect he says something rude, too, because Kim’s back stiffens although she remains in the developer’s face. The canvas reads in neatly printed letters, “Support Local Jobs! Support the San Juan Economy! Wild Fire Resort.”

Kim keeps arguing with him, but Fast never loses his thin-lipped smile. After securing his end, Burgermeister comes to stand beside his boss. Then he reaches out with a thick finger and pokes Kim right in the breastbone. I start to get up. As tightly wound as Kim is, I expect trouble right there. And I’m feeling protective toward her even though she hasn’t really done anything to encourage me.

Fast does something sensible—he grabs Burgermeister’s arm and tries to pull him away. But Burgermeister jerks free. Before I even take a step, Kim spins away and marches back to where the television crew is still setting up. She speaks hotly to the reporter or producer who’d hugged her earlier, but her friend just shrugs and shakes her head. They hadn’t seen it. Kim’s face is red when she walks back to her makeshift stage.

Two people on foot come up the Forest Service road and into the meadow. Even from a distance, it’s easy for me to recognize pretty Sunny and her boyfriend, Cal the Caver. The sunlight glints off Cal’s pierced eyebrows and nose. Sunny’s blonde dreadlocks bounce with each step. Fast sees them, too, and I watch him pause, then start to stride toward the couple with brawny Burgermeister in tow. Cal slows. He looks over a shoulder, back down the road, as if he’s considering running away. But Sunny tugs his hand toward the gathering activists.

Fast intercepts them near the center of the meadow. It looks like there’s a brief argument before Sunny tugs again and leads Cal past the two big men. Fast and his enforcer talk to one another while watching the young couple walk away.
What’s that about?
Both Sunny and Cal glance back at the men nervously.

Then Kim’s voice rings out across the meadow. “Let’s get started,” she says. She calls the Tribe around her makeshift stage and arranges them so that they’re in view of the television crew’s camera but not in its way. I stay where I am, wanting to be able to watch the activists’ backs.