Torched Page 10

  He helped me to my feet and led me, unresisting, to the sheltered part of the sit. I wondered how long it would take to get used to the feeling of the safety line always tugging at the small of my back. He had already rolled out my sleeping bag. I stretched out on the hard wood, only slightly softened by a pad, thinking I could never get comfortable enough here to sleep.

  That was the last waking thought I had for more than three hours.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The smell of cooking woke me. I sat up, still groggy, and pushed my hair out of my eyes. It felt stiff and matted. Coyote was bent over the tiny propane stove, stir-frying vegetables. Using my fingers like a comb, I tried to straighten my hair. I must have been getting used to being in the tree-sit, because my first thought was not to wonder how high up I was, but how bad I looked.

  “I made lunch,” Coyote said. He carried a plate to me with broccoli, green beans and carrots in teriyaki sauce, served over brown rice studded with fat, brown cashews. We ate in silence. I wondered what Marijean would think if she could see me now, wearing dirty jeans and no makeup. She probably wouldn’t recognize me. Out here, I really wasn’t Ellie at all, but Sky.

  Once Coyote touched my arm and pointed at a chipmunk scampering along a branch just below us. I still felt his touch long after the chipmunk was gone. Every time he said something to me, or shifted position, or even breathed, I was exquisitely aware of him.

  After we finished, Coyote poured two inches of water from a gallon jug into a tub and added a few drops of soap. He washed the dishes and I dried, both of us kneeling on the hard wood, our backs to the trunk. It felt weird, like we were playing house. After we were done, Coyote simply poured the water over the edge. When he saw my raised eyebrows, he said, “The soap is biodegradable.”

  It was afternoon now, and even under the shelter of the tree’s branches it was hot. Feeling self-conscious, I turned my back to Coyote and unbuttoned my long-sleeved T-shirt, leaving just my blue camisole top. “I like that blue, Sky,” Coyote said. “It matches the color of your eyes.”

  Hoping my blush didn’t show, I picked up the binoculars again. How was I going to do everything—everything!—with him only a few feet away at most? In the close confines of the sit, our bodies constantly brushed as we moved around each other, leaving my skin humming.

  When I raised the binoculars, I saw that in the middle of the clear-cut ridge a patch of trees had been left alone. “Is that one of the sits?” I asked, pointing at a blue speck high in a tree.

  Coyote nodded. “Yup. That’s Jack Rabbit.”

  “If we’re the only things standing between them and a clean sweep, Stonix must be pretty impatient to get us out. What’s going to stop them from trying to force us down?”

  “We’re too high for them to get at us easily. They have to be careful—if one of us fell, they’d have a wrongful death law-suit on their hands and a ton of negative publicity. Speaking of which, time to make some phone calls.” Coyote disconnected the cell phone from the car battery and paged back through numbers recorded in the memory. “A voice crying in the wilderness,” he said to me as he waited for someone to answer.

  I didn’t know where the quote came from, but after a while, I saw what he meant. To judge from the rhythm of Coyote’s one-sided pleas, he was getting nothing but voice mail. Without sounding rehearsed, he repeated the sins that I saw through my binoculars. I watched as a huge fir was pulled down a hill-side and loaded onto a truck that could hold only three of the mammoth logs. Despite what Coyote thought, it seemed impossible that what we were doing was really going to make a difference. While I listened to him, I used my binoculars to pick out four more sits, although one was so far away, I couldn’t be sure that’s what it was.

  Finally, there was a break in Coyote’s smooth flow. Someone must have actually answered the phone. He was silent, listening to whoever was on the other end.

  “But even the Forest Service admits that some of these trees are over seven hundred years old,” he finally sputtered.

  I put down my binoculars and watched his face darken.

  “These trees are the linchpins of an entire ecosystem. And they’re going to turn them into toilet paper and two-by-fours.” There was another pause, then Coyote clicked off the phone. “People can’t see past the ends of their noses,” he said, his voice shaking with anger.

  “Maybe the problem just seems too big. Maybe people figure there’s no way that what one person does can make any difference, so why bother?”

  He picked up his binoculars, his green eyes glittering. “I’d rather try and fail than not try at all.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “Do you want some wine with dinner?” Coyote asked from the little area that served as a kitchen.

  “Um, sure.” A couple of times Laurel had tipped some of her wine into my water glass, but that was about it. My parents were far more careful about me drinking than smoking pot. They said alcohol had led to a lot more accidents and stupid decisions than pot ever would. But I wanted to seem grown-up and casual in front of Coyote.

  “Are you sure you don’t want any help cooking?” I asked.

  “I’m not going to make you go out on a limb,” Coyote said, and laughed when I made a face at his bad joke. “Besides, it’s just a camping meal. Add boiling water, stir and let sit until it’s reconstituted. You’ll see why I’m suggesting the wine.”

  Camping meal or not, it tasted pretty good to me. I kept eyeing what was left in the pot, making sure I wasn’t eating more than my share. “Was it hard calling all those people today when the only person you talked to didn’t seem to really care?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t matter if it’s hard. We still have to do it.” He sighed. “If we’re lucky, eventually a few people will hear about what we’re doing, and they’ll wonder, ‘Why do these guys care so much that they’re willing to live up in the trees?’ And once we make them think, I think we can win.”

  “How did you get involved in MED, anyway?” I tried to take another sip of wine, then realized my mug was empty. I had been so focused on Coyote that I didn’t even remember drinking it.

  As he refilled my mug, Coyote said, “I like to ski and snowboard and hike. Cedar used to work part-time at the REI downtown. One day there weren’t any other customers and we started talking about how the Earth is changing. What he had to say made a lot of sense.” He drained the last of his own mug and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “It’s like everyone can see the world’s getting screwed up more and more, but no one will do anything about it. But when Cedar saw I was serious, he invited me check them out. I told you about my first action. And my first protest was outside the Federal Building. We dressed up like the species that were being killed by the logging near Eugene.”

  Wine tasted a lot better than I remembered. I tipped some more into my mouth and asked, “What did you go as?”

  “I rented a beaver costume from the Oregon State University Store. Blue was a rare wildflower—she made it out of tissue paper. Hawk has this fantastic hawk mask. We held a mock funeral procession. Cedar got up and gave the eulogy. The cops started taking our pictures and writing down information about us. They wouldn’t even let us into the Federal Building, like we weren’t citizens, like we didn’t have rights. Right after that, I did my first tree-sit. And I got involved in a few heavier things, like the Hummer dealership.”

  While he spoke, I realized I was nodding along with each word, stupidly, like one of those bobble-head dogs people put in their rear car windows. I looked down at my mug—now miraculously empty again—and resolved to act as normal as possible. My cheeks felt weirdly numb. Coyote had put his plate down, so I pulled the pot over to me and scraped up the last bit of casserole with my spoon.

  Coyote ran his tongue over his teeth. “I’m going to brush my teeth. Care to join me?” The question, and the thought of Coyote’s mouth, made me want to squirm. The whole day he had treated me like a friend and nothing more.

&nbs
p; He got a toothbrush from a shelf while I retrieved mine from my backpack. I found that I could tolerate our perch if I never stood up but simply scooted from place to place.

  Instead of facing a mirror, I faced him, watching him make funny faces as he brushed, wondering what my own face looked like. When we were done, Coyote stood up and spit over the side. While he walked around the sit as easily as if we were on solid ground, I also noticed how often he checked and rechecked the ropes that kept us attached to the platform and the platform attached to the tree.

  I spit into a cup and crawled forward to dump it over the edge while lying flat on my belly. As I did, I noticed that day was giving way to night. Already the floor of the forest was in shadows.

  Coyote cleared his throat. “You’re probably pretty tired. Do you want to go to sleep?”

  “Yeah, um, sure.” I had never slept in the same room as a guy before, much less in a tree. My thoughts flashed back to a conversation I had with my mother a few days earlier. She had come into the living room and pressed something small and square with sharp edges into my hand.

  “Here,” she said. “You’ll probably need these where you’re going.”

  It was a stack of a half dozen condoms.

  “Laurel!” I shrieked.

  “Don’t ‘Laurel!’ me. I see the way you look at Coyote. I know you like him, and I do, too. If anything happens between you two, you need to protect yourself.”

  “God, Laurel, I already took that family living and sexual health class at school. Remember—you had to sign the paperwork.”

  “You were lucky to have that class. They didn’t tell us anything when I was in high school. Not about birth control, not about VD. That’s why I couldn’t get pregnant. I caught something from some guy. I didn’t even feel sick, but a few years later, I found out it had messed me up inside. That’s why you always have to make the guy wear a condom. Always.”

  I had nodded and hidden the condoms in a sock on the very bottom of my backpack. But it was clear Laurel needn’t have worried. Coyote’s lack of interest was killing me.

  “It’s so clear tonight,” he said as we both moved to the side of the sit that held the sleeping bags. “Let’s sleep without the tarp.”

  After he took it down, we both stretched out on our sleeping bags with our heads pointed toward the trunk. I lay on my back, looking up at branches above me and the stars above that. I had never known there were so many stars.

  Having slept half the morning away, I now found myself wide awake. Coyote’s breathing was slow and even, so I tried to get comfortable on the thin foam mat with the still-unfamiliar feeling of the bulky harness around my waist and between my legs. I resigned myself to a long night.

  Then Coyote reached out and put his hand on my arm.

  “Listen,” he said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I felt Coyote’s touch all through my body. “What? Are the loggers sending someone up to get us?”

  He pushed himself up on his elbows. “The silence. Can you believe the silence?”

  He was right. The night was so empty of sound that my ears hummed. At my house, sandwiched between a major thoroughfare and I-5, there was always the faint drone of cars, even in the middle of the night. That and the ticking of the clock in the living room, the whoosh from the heater on cool nights, maybe the low murmur of the clock radio Matt liked to keep tucked under his pillow to help him sleep.

  Coyote’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “I was listening to this guy on NPR one time. He travels all over the world, recording the sounds of the outdoors, and he said there are only a handful of places he can go now and not hear something man-made, like a plane or a car.”

  “Do you like the silence?” I rolled onto my side. He did, too, so that we were facing each other. “I don’t think I’m used to it yet.”

  “It makes me feel . . .” Coyote started, and then hesitated. “. . . I don’t know, outside myself, you know, perched up here, surrounded by nothingness. It’s like I don’t exist anymore.”

  “And that’s good?”

  “Sometimes. Don’t you ever get tired? Don’t you ever get tired of trying to figure out what you should do, who you should be?”

  His words pierced me. “More than you might think,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.

  “Have you ever played that game Truth or Dare?” Coyote’s voice was soft, intimate, although he could have shouted every word and no one else would have heard.

  I recited the rhyme from middle school. “Truth, dare, double dare, fire, kiss, electric chair?”

  Coyote smiled. “I think I learned it ‘double-dog dare,’ but yeah, that’s the one.”

  “Yeah, I’ve played it. A couple of times. Once the dare was to throw a Frisbee on the lawn of our crabby neighbors.” And once at a party I ended up in a closet with Jeff Appelbaum, though I didn’t tell Coyote that.

  “Do you want to play now?” In the soft light, I couldn’t read his expression.

  “Sure.” It was probably a mistake, but I didn’t care.

  “I’ll go first,” Coyote said. “It’s only fair. Since I suggested it.”

  “Okay,” I said, and took a deep breath. “Truth or dare?”

  “Truth,” he said.

  My eyes had adjusted to the lack of light, but still I couldn’t read his eyes. I hoped that the plywood was so solid that he couldn’t feel the fine tremble washing over me.

  “Is there a girl you like in MED?”

  Coyote’s answer was a long time in coming. “Yes.”

  So there is someone else. An ache expanded in my chest. Even though I didn’t know which girl it was—Liberty, Meadow, even Blue—I found myself hating them all. I couldn’t tell exactly where Coyote was looking, just that he was looking away from me. He probably knows that you like him. He knows that you like him, and he pities you for being so stupid.

  “Okay, your turn,” I said, trying to keep my voice light. Like this really was a game.

  “Truth or dare?”

  “Dare,” I said. I didn’t want to tell him anything that was true. Especially not how much it had hurt me to hear his answer.

  “I dare you to stand on the edge of the platform.”

  “All right.” Anger rushed into me, anger that I had laid my heart bare with my stupid question. If he wanted to test my courage, then let him.

  I stood up, pushed down my sleeping bag and without hesitation took one step, then two. There was no tug at my back, and I wasn’t even sure if my harness was still connected. I couldn’t see the edge, but it didn’t matter.

  Suddenly Coyote’s hands were on my waist. He was standing right behind me. “Hey, hey, be careful,” he whispered into the hair above my ear. “Are you even looking where you are going?”

  “I chose dare,” I said, trying to keep my voice from trembling, “not truth.”

  “Then sit down, because you’re done with your dare. And it’s your turn again.” Coyote tugged my back until we were both sitting on top of the sleeping bags. “And I’ll tell you my answer. It’s dare.”

  I told myself I didn’t care if Coyote’s heart belonged to someone else. Suddenly I needed him to want me, even if it was only for one night.

  “I dare you to kiss me.”

  I heard how my voice trembled and knew he heard it, too. He didn’t say anything. He gazed at me for a long time, his eyes shadowed by the darkness. Suddenly, I wished I could take back my words, stuff them back into my mouth.

  Coyote reached out his hand. His cool fingers traced from the tip of my chin to underneath my ear, before loosely gathering the hair at the nape of my neck. He leaned forward. I closed my eyes and felt his lips touch mine, surprisingly warm and soft.

  And then we were as quiet as the night that surrounded us.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Later, in the darkest hours, before we finally pulled the open sleeping bags over us, I asked Coyote, “What about the girl you said you liked in MED?”

  The thou
ght of her had never left the back of my mind, even when Coyote kissed my lips, my ear, my neck, even when his fingers ran down the length of my spine. Which girl was it? It was probably Liberty, and that thought alone drove me crazy.

  Coyote let out a startled laugh. “I meant you,” he said. “Didn’t you know that, Ellie? When I first saw you in your parents’ living room, I knew. Why do you think I sat by you at dinner?”

  “But what about Liberty? She sat so close to you that night.”

  “Liberty’s one of those people who thinks if she can’t have something, no one else can, either. I told her months ago that I didn’t feel like that toward her. The weird thing is, I’m pretty sure that by always rubbing up against me, she’s just trying to get Hawk to notice her. Liberty always has a secondary agenda.”

  “Oh,” I said weakly.

  He pushed himself up on one elbow and kissed the tip of my nose. “That’s what I like about you,” he whispered. “You’re real.”

  You’re real. His words made me shiver.

  “Are you cold?” he said. “Let’s see if we can warm you up.”

  Eventually, I must have slept, although when I jerked awake later, I didn’t feel rested. A faint, watery light was already filtering through the forest. Moving slowly, I eased myself out of the shelter of Coyote’s arm. We had slept with an unzipped sleeping bag over us, our two camping pads laid next to each other. My eyes never left his face as I inched away. His lips drew together, then relaxed and opened. He looked young, innocent.

  Coyote’s words—“You’re real”—still echoed in my head. How long would I be forced to live high aboveground before someone did or said something that the FBI could take action on? At that moment, I wished they had put me in a sit with anyone else but Coyote—Cedar, Hawk or even Liberty. Each was intimidating, but they were most likely to give the evidence the FBI wanted. But Coyote? Even if he said something about violence, which I couldn’t imagine him doing in the first place, I didn’t know if I could bring myself to turn him in.