“You won’t?”
“No. Whose deal?”
The women looked accusingly at the men. “You’re both chicken,” Susan said. “All big talk and no action. You afraid we’ll be licked? Afraid we might be arrested? Beat up? Have to go to jail? Well I’ll tell you guys what I think: I think it’s important to make a stand whether we win or lose. There’s one thing worse than being defeated and that’s not making any fight at all. Seems to me, Doc, I used to hear you say those very words.”
He nodded, looking at his white strong clean physician’s hands. “You’re right, Susan.” He went on, quietly, head down, as if talking to himself. “The megamachine means slavery. Submission to slavery is the ultimate moral disgrace. Live free or die. Death before dishonor. Code of the eco-warrior, creed of the free, motto of the noble in spirit. Quite true, Susan. It’s nice to win — or so I’ve heard. But win or lose, the important thing is resistance. Defiance. Rebellion. Better to die on our feet than live on our knees. Quite so.”
“So?”
“So I won’t be there with Erika. Won’t be at her side or even somewhere in the ranks behind her. Include me out.”
“You big hairy silver-tongued coward.”
“My heart will be with you.”
“Yeah, your heart, seems to me we’ve heard that line before somewhere.”
Doc bowed his head in shame. Seldom Seen Smith stared out the porthole into the darkness, wishing he were elsewhere. Bonnie felt embarrassed. All were embarrassed. Bareassed ignominy.
“One more game,” Bonnie said, changing the subject.
“It’s late,” Kathy said. “I’m sleepy.”
“Just one more. Potluck pot. Everything on the table and high card takes it all.” Before anyone could object she gathered everybody’s pile of chips, coins and bills to the center of the table. Not that anyone had much to donate but the good Doctor Sarvis. He watched glumly, saying nothing. Bonnie grabbed the deck, shuffled the cards briefly, prepared to deal. “One card is all you get and one card is all you need.”
“Wait a second,” Kathy warned. “Cut!”
“Right,” growled Doc. “Don’t forget to cut the fucking deck.”
“So all right already.” Smiling cheerfully, with emphatic cheerfulness, Bonnie slapped the deck down before Kathy on her left. No one objected. Kathy made a double cut. Bonnie restacked the deck — not meaning to — exactly as it was before. Everybody watched. Nobody said a word. “And here we go!”
She cracked the cards out one by one, each with a smart professional snap! of crisp and brilliant pasteboard. A ten of hearts for Kathy.
“Big ten!”
A two-eyed jack for Susan.
“Jack o’diamonds, jack o’diamonds, don’t I know you of old? / You rob mah po’ pockets of a-silver and gold. …”
A queen of spades for Seldom. “The black lady! We’re moving right along, folks, moving right along and I think I see a pattern here and I think I like its looks.”
She dealt the king of hearts to Doc. “Yeah! Big red cowboy! See what I mean, folks? Now watch this.”
Holding the deck in her left palm, she rubbed the back of the top card with her right thumb, rubbing in the magic. Facing upward, eyes closed, she said, “Everybody watch close now. Don’t want to hear any whining later. Got my mojo workin’, got my mojo workin’ …” She whipped off the top card — “Voilà!” — and slapped it down, face up. “Ace!”
She opened her eyes. Three of clubs.
Doc raked in the pot.
Smith watched with morose resignation. “Doggone that young J. Oral. Goldang useless FBI men. Ain’t never around when you need them.”
27
Behold G O L I A T H!
We stand for what we stand on.
The flags rippled, the banners flapped, the placards rattled in the breeze.
EARTH — LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT!
No compromise in defense of Mother Earth.
The vultures watched from overhead, circling and soaring, dreaming and waiting, all the time in the world. The midday sun flared with plasmic hydrogen, joyous and fierce. A flock of pinyon jays swept across the Neck, one hundred feet from rim to rim, two thousand feet straight down on either side. Down, down, down and down, a vertical fall in spectacular relief, through the gulf of space before sandstone walls where only the nests of swallows clung, to the shattered rock below.
Getting even is the best revenge. (The only revenge.)
Love your Mother. Be true to the Earth. Be eco-centric not egocentric. Bio-centric not homo-centric. Terra primum. Wo ist die schrauben-schlussel Bande? ONWARD TO THE PLEISTOCENE.
Recorder music floated on the air, thin and plaintive as the sound of a Japanese bamboo flute. Laughter, singing, nervous and excited talk, rose beyond the music.
The Earth First! warriors waited, more girls than boys, more women than men, more young than old. Indeed, many were children; some still babies in their mothers’ arms; a few still curled in fetal slumber in the womb. Most except the unborn wore plain sturdy outdoors clothing, ready for scuffles, rough stuff, police arrest, dragging and clubbing and jailing.
IF WILDERNESS IS OUTLAWED …
Not yet visible but coming closer minute by minute were the bulldozers, the front-end loaders, the dump trucks, the road graders. Dim in the distance sounded the vast electrical uproar of the walking dragline: the G.E.M. of Arizona: GOLIATH.
Hearing that baleful roar — that scream full of bale — the affinity groups went into huddle, like high-school football teams confronting Michigan State. Heads bowed together, arms on shoulders, hips jostling hips, they shared and augmented their fragmented courage, broke the spiritual bread and drank the communion wine of love, reviewed tactics, recalled the nature of the ideal. Which is: not necessarily to be realized in our time but to serve, to serve forever, as a guide to the perplexed. The ideal not as goal but as reference, a steadfast Northern star for the human heart and mind.
… ONLY OUTLAWS CAN SAVE WILDERNESS.
The Syn-Fuels survey crew was present, three roosters and a chick, patiently hammering in stakes for the third time in the same place in three weeks. Fast as the crew drove them in the Earth First! commandos yanked them out and flung them over the rim: pink ribbons flying, the stakes vanished.
“You punks will pay for this,” the crew chief howled, “you’ll pay through the nose.” A Syn-Fuels cameraman stood nearby with movie camera, recording the event, acquiring evidence. Or attempting to do so; his subjects were masked in bandannas and sun goggles and large hats with floppy brims; the boys wore Mother Hubbards over their T-shirts and bluejeans; the girls were dressed as Indians, feathers in their headbands, warpaint on their cheeks, black masks across the eyes. Another Boston Tea Party.
The police and police rangers had not yet arrived but even now the whock whock whock of approaching helicopters could be heard.
* * *
SYN-FUELS GO HOME. EURO-TRASH GO HOME. BACK TO BRUSSELS WITH GOLIATH. SAVE OUR GRAND CANYON. WHOSE LAND IS THIS ANYHOW?
The banners flew, the flags rustled, the paper placards snapped and popped and crackled, held aloft by proud little boys and pigtailed bright-eyed brave little girls. The messages, however, would not appear on your home viewing screen. Why not? Because the “media,” though invited, had once again failed to appear. Why? Such decisions are made discreetly, quietly, by a few important people meeting on the golf course, in the boardroom, at lunch in the Brown Palace in Denver, at the Biltmore in Phoenix. A few brief phone calls to the appropriate TV, radio and newspaper bureau chiefs settled the matter. After all, some events make worthy news and some do not. Another orderly protest demonstration against racial segregation in South Africa, for example, comfortably carried out on the campus of Berkeley or Stanford or Harvard or Yale ten thousand miles away, troubles no one, causes no embarrassment to anybody, allows all involved to look good, feel virtuous, risk nothing. But let a bunch of hairy redneck rabble in some wasteland western American state in
terpose their living bodies between the industrial megamachine and a little patch of free country, open space, old-growth forest, natural nature, wildland and wildlife, and the horror runs deep through the hierarchy of upper management. That kind of subversion (non-commercial) cannot be accepted; will not (anti-business) be tolerated; has to (propopulist) be most severely punished both legally and — in so far as possible — illegally; and last but categorically imperative, shall not be encouraged through the power of example by publicity in any form. As in any well-ordered oligarchy, not only the event itself must be suppressed but all news of it as well.
Therefore the “media” did not appear.
Except for one exception; the old gent, the buzzard-beaked freelancer from wherever he was from, that lean and hungry beatnik bard with notebook and ballpoint pen (his “software”), he was there, skulking among the sandstone boulders on a high point at the far west end of the Neck where he felt safe from any danger of violence, flying missiles, tear gas grenades, police apprehension, or harsh language. Equipped with plenty of Brie, French bread, two golden apples and a six-pack of Foster’s Lager, he squatted at ease in the shade of a little hackberry and waited for the action. Binoculars ready. Binoculars already in use, in fact, as he surveyed the vast panorama before him, watching the helicopters in the sky, the yellow machinery rumbling up the road, the police vans and police buses behind the machines, and of most interest to him, the centerpiece of the organized resistance.
DEFEND YOUR MOTHER.
At the throat of the Neck, halfway from end to end and side to side, on the centerline of the projected roadway, stood a massive matriarch of Utah juniper, thick as an elephant’s hind leg and tall as a giraffe, a shaggy splendor of a tree about nine hundred to a thousand years old. (The juniper is a hard, tough, dense, slow-growing and fine-textured plant, all-enduring and perdurable.) Before the bulldozers could pass through and the G.E.M. approach, this tree would have to go. The surveyor had already marked it for destruction with pink Day-Glo flagging and a red slash of spray paint.
NO PASARAN. VENCEREMOS. VIVA LA TIERRA.
Five women stood with their backs to the tree, facing the oncoming enemy. On the left stood Mary Sojourner, the handsome and gentle lady from Flagstaff, Arizona; she had a smile on her lips, a joint in her teeth, a fresh sunflower in her dark brown hair. On the right stood the Hayduchess, Georgia her name, a broad bulky powerful female from nobody knew where, chomping on a dead cigar. At Mary’s side stood Kathy (“Mrs. Seldom Seen”) Smith and beside the Hayduchess was Susan (the other “Mrs. Seldom Seen”) Smith. Both looked brave, beautiful, frightened, vulnerable — that incomprehensible cryptogamy of spirit and protoplasm, water and courage, electrified nerve endings with culturally inspired entelechy, the invisible and indivisible union of incompatible codependent symbiotics.
Where was Sheila — Mrs. Smith Number Three? Not present. She had remarried the old man after the ambiguity charges were dismissed (following Volume #1) but did not approve of public protest demonstrations, cared even less for going to jail. She had two small children to care for, a tree-nursery business to manage, a home to keep up in a respectable Bountiful neighborhood.
Nor was Bonnie Abbzug-Sarvis anywhere in view. She had betrayed her friends Kathy and Susan, despite promises, and her absence was duly noted. No Abbzug, said the former. I notice that, the latter replied. I can’t believe she’s not here, said Susan. But she’s not, Kathy said. Maybe she’s sick. Morning sickness? Maybe; or maybe she’s late again. I can’t believe that Bonnie’d let us down. Me neither — but looks like she done exactly that. Well … Doc’s not here neither, not to mention you-know-who himself, the intrepid wild-water river guide, peak bagger, bronc rider, mule wrangler, dude handler, calf-roper, All-American cowboy he-man hero type. That’s my husband you’re a-puttin’ down, Mizz Smith. Don’t I know it — mine too. Yeah. Ain’t he somethin’ though. He’s somethin’ all right, but what? You know what I think, Kathy. What’s that? I think when it comes right down to the nitty gritty that women are braver than men. You two are catchin’ on, the Hayduchess said; men like to fight but only when they think they’re gonna win. Men are great fighters, said Mary Sojourner, but lousy losers. They never was much good at this kind of thing, said Hayduchess, this passive resistance thing, I mean. That’s right, said Mary; put a man on display, in public, friends watching, he thinks he has to get violent, make a fool of himself, clobber somebody, hurt people, make a bloody awful mess. Are we gonna go limp when they arrest us? Kathy asked; or walk to the bus on our own legs? It’s up to you, honey, the Hayduchess said; they’re gonna have to carry me — all two hundred pounds; I’m gonna tie up as much manpower as I can as long as I can. Me too, Mary said; make the bastards work, make ‘em earn their overtime by God. Well, mused Kathy, I suppose you’re right — but I think I’ll walk; more dignified. Me too, Susan said; I don’t want to be dragged by the heels over a mile of stones and blackbrush and prickly pear.
What do you say, Erika?
The young woman in the middle of the group smiled at the sky, showing her dazzling teeth. I sink I hug ziss tree so hard zay neffer make us part.
They’ll break your fingers if they have to, the Hayduchess said. I know these cops. They get mad, they’ll break your fingers one by one until you let go. And then charge you with resistin’ arrest. Believe me, girls, I know these types. Christ, Erika, you forget already how that maniac Love tried to bury you with his bulldozer?
I no forget. But ziss time zay find zee Druid in zee juniper iss root to rock, eh? The Svenska maid smiled skyward like Saint Bernadette awaiting the holy visitation. Zay take me zay muss take tree also.
Brave words, dearie. But don’t forget: no violence. No violence to them, no violence to ourselves. You understand?
I no forget. Like Saint Joan at the stake, Erika rattled her iron bonds and watched for the Visitant, listened for choral voices. But heard instead the clanking treads of the crawling Caterpillar tractors, saw the rising dust clouds. Mary Sojourner took a deep breath. Kathy and Susan glanced at each other for comfort, reassurance, courage and re-encouragement.
The Hayduchess spat out her soggy stub of a cigar. Gordon! she barked. Gordon! — get over here.
The young body builder, half naked as always, bronze as a California beach boy, gleaming with sweat like a shellacked gymnasium god, glanced their way. Wearing nothing but his ragged cutoffs, his golden beard, his running shoes, the mighty four-foot monkey wrench slung on his belt, he jogged toward the five women tow-chained to the juniper. His grotesque, exaggerated, redundant muscles rippled like pythons under the golden skin. Smelling of body grease, stale sunscreen oil, seminal fluids and decayed spermatozoa, he approached the martyrs, his triceps biceps pectorals writhing.
God, thought the Hayduchess, what a hunk of funk. And bunk.
Yeah? What’s the matter, Georgia?
Chain’s coming loose. Take it in another couple of links. We’re sweating off a pound a minute here.
Do you good. But Gordon did as he was told. Picking up the steel chain tensioner that lay on the ground, he hooked its two ends to the long chain that bound the five women to the great tree. All right, ladies, everybody exhale. Suck in your tummies. The women pressed themselves still harder against the trunk of the juniper, drew in their stomachs, shut their eyes. Gordon pulled the lever to the closed position, cinching the chain tighter, and slipped a loop of wire over the end of the handle. Key, he said, who’s got the key?
The Hayduchess gave him the key.
Gordon unlocked the padlock, where it sagged now on the chain, and relocked it three links to the right: three links tighter. Chained by the waist against the hairy-barked bole of the tree, the women were free to operate their arms and legs — to hug and embrace or to scratch and kick — but could not budge themselves to left or right; they felt and looked like excresence of juniper made human flesh.
Okay, said Gordon, now who wants the key?
Throw it over the rim, said Mary
Sojourner; we’re not leaving here till we all lose ten pounds.
Laughing, the naked body sculpture faked the toss.
Wait, screamed Susan.
Don’t worry, the boy said. He tucked the key into the little watch pocket of his shorts.
Here they come, warned the Hayduchess.
A yellow pickup truck appeared at the far east end of the Neck and stopped. Beyond, two Mitsubishi bulldozers — Gog and Magog — uprooted trees and shoved them aside, pushed boulders off the right-of-way. Not far behind the bulldozers although out of sight below the rise of the land an infernal roar, the thumping of an iron tub, the clank and screech of cambered gears, announced the advance of the G.E.M. of Arizona, the Super-G.E.M., the 4200-W Walking Dragline earth-moving machine. Him. Her. It. The Thing. The Dragon. GOLIATH from GOLGOTHA, the giant from the place of skulls. Tyrannosaurus.
All right everybody! the Hayduchess shouted, anarchist taking charge, everybody join up. Link arms. Face the yellow Caterpillars. Have your flowers ready. Children, join your parents. Women, shield your men. Everybody smile. Hank, Willy, Maisie — get out those flags. Joey, load that camera.
DOWN WITH EMPIRE, UP WITH SPRING!
The crawler tractors moved out upon the Neck, following the survey crew as those four bedeviled workers marked the route with handheld flagging. Their stakes had long since been pitched over the cliff, each and every bundle, every single one. Not that the bulldozer operators actually needed guidance; the Neck was truly a neck, a narrow bridge of rock and sand connecting the plateau called Island in the Sky to the roadless mesa called Lost Eden. The surface of the Neck, though roughly level, was littered with boulders, embossed with humps of underlying rock, scattered with living trees and shrubs — not only juniper but a few pinyon pines, hackberrys, scrub oak thickets. Approaching side by side with little room to spare on either hand, the two tractor engineers stood in their cabs to gain a clear view. Twenty feet to their left, twenty feet to their right, lay the edge of the world, the verge, the brink, the terminus, the drop-off to utter ruin far below. The operators pulled bandannas from hip pockets, wiped dusty goggles, then still uncertain of their safety pulled down the goggles and let them hang on straps about their necks.