Prophecy (10 page)

“John, don’t!” Romona cried.

“Stop him, Isely!” Rob pleaded.

“Kelso!”

The air was alive with clanging metal, the onlookers

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fading back in horror and disbelief. The buzz saw lunged and the ax swung in a wide arc, both men spinning and dodging, widening their arena of combat. The lumberjack was on the offensive; Hawks used his weapon defensively, deflecting and lurching as the chain saw sliced past his head.

With a resounding blow, the buzz saw collided hard with the ax head; Hawks was knocked off balance, stumbling backward, hitting the ground. The lumberjack leaped toward him, but Hawks’s foot caught him firmly in the chest, thrusting him backward into the air. Hawks sprang to his feet and streaked after him, shrieking in a bloodcurdling war cry as he spun the ax overhead. The lumberjack fell back against the hood of a car and Hawks flew at him, pinning him with the ax handle pressed hard against his neck. The lumberjack was helpless now, his eyes bulging as Hawks pressed harder.

“That’s it!” Isely warned. “Let him up!”

“Drop the saw!” Hawks shouted.

“Drop it, Kelso!” Isely commanded.

But the lumberjack would not. Baring bis teeth, he snarled like an animal, his knee suddenly raising between Hawks’s legs. Hawks’s entire body shuddered, but he held firm, baring down harder on the ax handle. The lumberjack kicked upward again, and Hawks was weakened.

“Stop them!” Maggie cried.

The lumberjack summoned all of his strength and kicked a third time; the impact was crippling and Hawks spun away. He struggled to regain his footing, but the lumberjack kicked out, his boot sinking into Hawks’s stomach. Hawks doubled up and the lumberjack kicked him in the face. The impact sent him sprawling backward and the lumberjack leaped for Mm. Hawks rolled and sparks flew as the chain saw hit rock where, a moment ago, Hawks’s neck was. They rolled on the ground now, Hawks trying to fend off the chain saw with the ax handle. But the handle

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splintered into matchsticks, and suddenly all movement stopped. Hawks lay immobile, his eyes wide and staring up into the lumberjack’s as the chain saw lowered to just inches from his Adam’s apple.

“Call it!” the lumberjack snarled. “Your head or those trees!”

“You destroy this forest, and this forest will destroy you!”

“You got it!” the lumberjack shouted. The chain saw lowered until it skimmed flesh.

“Stop!” Rob cried as he ran forward. “Stop it! Get off him!”

“Get up, Kelso!” Isely shouted.

“Tell him to open the chain!” the lumberjack yelled.

“Open it, Hawks!” Isely demanded.

“No!” Hawks bellowed to his people. “Don’t open it!”

“I want to kill him!” screamed the lumberjack.

“Open it!” Rob shouted.

“No!” Hawks cried.

Rob turned to Romona. Her eyes were wide with fear.

“Open it!” Rob shouted at her. “Open it, goddammit! What the hell does this prove?”

“That they are murderers!”

“Don’t open it!” Hawks screamed.

“Murderers!” Romona shrieked at Isely.

“No!” Rob shouted to Romona. “It doesn’t prove a damn thing! This blockade is against the law! These people have a right to go in there! You stopped them! You raised a weapon! This man will die here and it won’t prove a goddamn thing!”

The buzz saw skimmed a line of red on Hawks’s neck. Romona’s eyes were swept with fear.

“Whoever has that key,” Rob declared in a near sob, “is guilty of murder!”

“Don’t open it!” Hawks cried as a stream of blood trickled from his neck.

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“I’m killing him!” the lumberjack shouted.

In a sudden movement, Romona ran to one of the other Indians, ripped a key chain from his belt, and raced to the padlock.

“No!” Hawks yelled.

She unlocked the chain, throwing up her hands to show she had done it. Suddenly there was silence. The chain saw went quiet. No one moved. The forest was filled with an awesome hush.

The lumberjack still lay atop Hawks, glaring into his eyes. Then he spat on him. Hawks lay unmoving. Then the lumberjack slowly stood, straddling him in triumph.

“If there wasn’t a white lady here,” he snarled through his teeth, “I’d piss on you.”

Then he turned and walked back to his car, the other lumberjacks following him. Their car doors slammed one at a time.

“I’m sorry about this, Hawks,” Isely said quietly. “Truly, I am.” Then Isely walked to his car. “Mr. Vern?” he said, looking to Rob. Rob stood close to Hawks, gazing down at him. He could feel what the man was going through.

“Are you all right?” he asked Hawks quietly.

Hawks did not reply. Nor did he move. The lumberjack’s spittle was still on his face; there was a rip in the skin on his neck where blood was quickly clotting. Rob also saw something else. There was moisture at the corners of Hawks’s eyes.

“There’s nothing to be done here,” Isely said to Rob.

Rob slowly nodded and walked to the car. He moved in beside Maggie, whose eyes were fixed on the Indian woman. She had her back to them, her forehead bowed against a tree. Maggie knew she was crying.

“I’d have given anything for that not to have happened,” Isely said to Rob. “I just … didn’t really think he’d fight.”

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“Let’s go,” Rob mumbled.

The two yellow cars of the Pitney Paper Mill pulled slowly forward, over the chain, and drove into the forest.

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7

The drive from the blockade to Mary’s Lake passed in silence; Rob, Maggie, and Isely were numbed by the sudden and unexpected violence that had occurred. Isely had made a weak attempt to justify his persistence in running through the blockade-something about the Indians being willful children, needing to be disciplined. It fell on unreceptive ears. Rob and Maggie refused to respond.

They reached the lakeshore near evening. There was a fine mist on the surface of the water; swallows swooped low in silent aerobatics. The glass-smooth water was dappled by the mouths of hungry fish as they, too, sought what the birds were after. Mayflies, an insect delicacy that was served up only once a year.

Rob had read of the mayfly when he was a first-year biology student, and it had had a lasting impact on him. For the life cycle of the mayfly was unique in the evolutionary plan. After incubating for twelve months in the mud on the lake floor, these tiny, gossamer insects had just one night to live. On that night they hatched from their eggs and swam upward, preyed upon by the fish as they sought the safety of the water’s surface. Those that made it quickly sprouted wings and took to the skies, devoured by the birds as they struggled up toward the light of the moon. The few that survived would meet high in the sky, their bodies touching, male to female, and in the moment of touch, fertilization would occur. By

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morning they would fall dead upon the water’s surface, the convulsions of their death agony expelling their eggs. The eggs would slowly drift downward, sinking into the mud on the lake floor. There they would sleep for twelve months, waiting for their one brief night of awareness.

When Rob had first read of this life cycle, it had raised speculation that he had never been able to resolve. The mayfly came and went, asking nothing, taking nothing, living and dying in the brief moment that nature had intended. Were there, in the course of those twelve hours, youth and old age? Was knowledge gained? Could it be that, because of their size, their minutes were like hours, their hours like years? Could man himself, seen through the eyes of some greater creature, perhaps be perceived as living and dying in the blinking of an eye?

As Rob stood beside Maggie at the shore of the lake, he was reminded of these questions. Perhaps it was man’s need to question that was the source of his torment. Were there no questions, nothing would go unanswered. Perhaps his own life was the same as the mayfly’s, with no more purpose, beyond that which he invented, than to perpetuate life itself.

“Look at the birds,” Maggie whispered.

“Mayflies,” Rob answered. Then he took her hand and they stepped into the small rowboat that Isely had left for them. He had left a car as well, so they could be free to move from the cabin to town or throughout the forest at any time they wished. Were it not for the violence at the blockade, it all would have been ideal. But Rob and Maggie felt wounded now. Perhaps irreparably so.

Their small outboard motor hummed as the boat cut a wedge in the unbroken surface of the water; the birds dove around them, and fish jumped from the water, unaffected by their intrusion. Before them, in the middle of the lake, stood a small island, the pinnacle of an aquatic mountain that barely broke the surface and supported a small grove of pine trees. On

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the island stood a single cabin. It was small, made of logs and mortar, with a front porch that led onto a dock, which was illuminated by a flickering signal light.

“Looks nice,” Maggie said as their boat inched through the water. But, in fact, it did not. It looked isolated and foreboding. The cabin was silent and dark, as though it had been uninhabited for years.

“Hold out that oar, okay?”

She followed Rob’s directions, keeping the boat from bumping the dock. They tied the boat and sat for a moment in silence. It was so quiet, they could hear each other breathe.

“We’ve got to snap out of this,” Rob said quietly.

“I know.”

They stepped out of the boat; the shuffling of their feet on the dock resounded in the air around them.

The sky was streaked with orange; a pale blue backdrop was sneaking into gray. The moon was faint and almost full, hazed behind a tangle of mayflies, rising in a cloud above the lake. Rob paused and looked up at them before entering the cabin.

“Well. This isn’t bad,” Maggie said with relief. Rob quickly moved to a kerosene lantern. It lit with a hiss and they gazed at each other across its stark, white light.

“Look at the fireplace,” Rob said.

It was made of stone and occupied one entire wall.

“Wow,” was all Maggie could say.

“It’s not bad, Maggie. The place is really nice.”

She forced a brave smile. “It really is, isn’t it?”

“It’s beautiful.”

Rob explored the cupboards and found that someone had taken great pains to see that the cabin was well stocked and comfortable for their arrival. There was everything there that they could possibly need. Canned goods, hammer and nails, an ax, candles and matches, a first-aid kit, even a game of Scrabble. There was a new couch and chair in front of the fireplace, a freshly cleaned gas stove, an old-fashioned icebox with a block of ice in it, and large jugs of

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bottled water standing on the sink in the kitchen area.

The entire cabin was just one large room, but the kitchen area was lower than the living room, and the sleeping loft above it created a half ceiling. Maggie climbed the narrow, stairwell to the loft and found a double bed with a down comforter, tucked just beneath the eaves. It looked welcoming, and calmed her apprehension. She walked to the loft railing and looked down at Rob.

“No bathroom?” she asked.

“Guess not.”

“Yoiks.”

“Too rugged?”

“Nah,” Maggie responded bravely.

“No light switches up there, are there?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Guess we go native.”

“Guess we do.”

“You up to it?”

“You bet.”

They paused.

“Margaret?”

“Yes, sir?”

“It’s going to be nice.”

“I know it will.”

They both set to work; Maggie unpacked while Rob lighted another kerosene lantern, then started a fire in the gargantuan fireplace. There were two canoe paddles, mounted like crossed swords above the fireplace; Rob took them down, fearful that the flames might lick upward at them. With his experience as a Public Health inspector, he knew this place could go up like tinder.

“What about dinner?” Maggie called from upstairs.

“Well … we’ve got canned goods, and Mrs. Isely’s cherry pie.”

“I don’t think I feel like eating Mrs. Isely’s cherry pie.”

Rob paused, catching sight of a fishing pole standing in the corner. “How ‘bout fresh trout for dinner?”

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“Don’t I wish.”

“Want some?”

“You bet. And some baked potatoes.”

“Will you clean them?”

“The baked potatoes?”

“The fish.”

“What fish?”

“The fish I’m going to catch.”

Her face appeared over the loft railing. He held up the fishing pole and disappeared out the front door.

Maggie spent a long moment gazing down into the main room of the cabin. The fire was blazing now, the thick logs hissing and crackling, filling the air with the scent of pine. She went downstairs and unpacked her cello, bringing a chair to the center of the room where she would be warmed by the fire’s glow, While Rob found peace in his way, she would find it in hers. She tightened her bow and tuned the instrument with light finger picks on the uppermost parts of the strings. Then she began to play. The sound filled the small cabin, its gentle mood edging out the tension of the day.

Standing outside on the dock in twilight, Rob could hear her music, and it filled him, too, with a sense of peace. It wafted from the open cabin door and floated out across the lake, seeming to stretch to the very peaks of the distant mountains. He knew he was a fortunate man. Privileged in every way. He wondered why he took so little time to appreciate it.

Far across the lake, along the shallows of the distant shore, the silhouetted figure of a large, four-legged animal moved silently as it grazed. It paused and raised its head, as though listening to the music. Rob could see that it was a moose. There was a calf beside it; it, too, gazed toward the source of the odd, musical sound. Rob wished that Maggie could see it, and was about to call her when suddenly a fish hit the end of his line. It was a small salmon, surging and leaping, quickly tiring as Rob brought it in and raised it to the dock. Hooking a finger beneath its gill, he held it