To Hank Ridley, the old-growth redwoods of Northern California are magical. He grew up camping, fishing, and picnicking in the ancient groves, and now every time he's in them, he still notices the way they smell, so vigorous and full of life, particularly after a rain. When he and Abby Johnson were nineteen, they lost their virginity together at the base of the largest redwood either of them had ever seen, and married three months later. The tree's not around any longer, but over the years other redwoods have witnessed him in action with Caroline, Sue, Francine, Augusta, and on separate occasions, the Caravel twins.

Although these experiences have turned his marriage into a disaster, they have nourished Hank with a powerful romantic passion for redwoods. He hasn't admitted his feelings to a soul, but one night at The Rabbit Hutch he comes close to it, and then it is only after too many beers.

"Picnicking and fucking beneath those tall canopies is the best," he says to Jack, his oldest friend and logging buddy.

"You ought'a know," Jack answers, pulling on his sixth or seventh bottle of Bud.

"Hey, Jack? How long we been logging now? Twelve years?"

"Something like that."

Hank shakes his head, "That's a lot of redwoods."

"Damn straight it is," Jack says. "And shit loads to go."

But Hank wonders about that. Logging redwoods has been going on a long time, and his family has been at it longer than any he knows of. The first in the line was his great grandfather, Isaac, then came his grandfather, Jerome. A year ago, his father, Earl, hung the chain saw up in the garage and retired. And now Hank's two pre-adolescent sons are planning to carry on the family tradition. Somewhere deep within him he suspects the redwoods must be getting "pretty damn thin." No one in the logging community is willing to talk about it, though, unless some hot environmental activists get in their faces with it and tell them things they don't want to hear, like demand for the timber from the ancient redwoods is growing at alarming rates, and that an estimated three percent of these unique trees in the Northwest remain standing. Clear cutting is the big issue.

Both sides arm themselves with various facts and figures, and promises, and are constantly arguing over them, each accusing the other of not having correct information.

Hank is confused about the whole thing. He drinks a bit more than usual that night, and goes home depressed. The next day he cuts down more redwoods, watches them get loaded and hauled away to the mill. Amid a foul stench, he has seen them sliced, diced and pulverized into the most amazing shapes. He's watched wood workers turn them into the finest bowls and picnic tables and fences and decks anyone has ever dreamed of.

Everybody knows they make the perfect roofing shingles.

Hank begins to struggle with an increasingly sympathetic view of the forest.

This worries him for several reasons. Mostly, he is concerned what his buddies will say if he lets on what he's thinking. And if the environmentalists are right, how will his two sons make a living when they grow up? Where will they have picnics when they have their own families? Of more immediate concern to Hank is the possibility that the forests will be wiped out before he is ready to retire. Then what will he do? Where shall he have his picnics? And hi s escapades, if he is still willing and able? He checks around and finds that much of the clear cut lands have been converted to vineyards, surely no place for trespassers. And in the remaining forests, owners are cracking down, hiring security guards to patrol their interests.

With each day, and with each dropping of another redwood marked by the supervisor, another question crashes rudely into Hank's mind. And just as rudely he casts it aside and lugs the chain saw to yet another tree. One day he is sent into the section where a tree-sitting activists 'living.' Just as most every other logger and supervisor and middle manager in the company, Hank's been in here before, though only once, and nearly had words with the woman. "Woman, hell!" Hank muses as he climbs out of the pickup. "She couldn't be more than twenty-two." He begins to prepare the chain saw and recalls the first time he laid eyes on her. he called to him from her perch one hundred eighty feet above the forest floor.

"Morning, Hank." It surprised him that she knew his name. But he ignored her like he was told to do and checked the oil and fuel levels in the saw, checked the tightness of the chain, spun it once around by hand. He was just about to give it a crank, and she
said, "Another day another dollar, Hank?"

Angry, he looked up into the towering redwood, through what seemed to be miles of lush branches sprinkled with sunlight. When he spotted the young and pretty girl illegally sitting on an eight by eight platform on this privately owned land, he started to answer her then remembered his supervisor's warning, "Don't let her get you into a conversation. She'll try to brain wash you is all." So Hank just looked at her through the redwood and muttered to himself, "Fucking hippy!"

That was four months ago.

Today begins exactly the same. "Morning, Hank." He's dying to find out how she knows his name. It's an effort to ignore her, but he's doing his best to mind his own business, concentrating on the chain saw, sharpening its teeth. Then comes that question again, the one that made him angry the last time he was here.

"Another day another dollar, Hank?"

This time he is prepared and shouts back, "This is my work, dammit! I don't need to justify myself to you, or anyone! That's what you do, this is what I do. It's our jobs.

I'm proud to be the fourth generation of Ridelys to harvest these beauties."

"I know you are, Hank," she says. "And you have a right to be. But you're doing it too fast with those chain saws. You're cutting ..."

Knowing she's only going to tell him what he already knows, that he's cutting all of them, he cuts her off, "Why don't you get off your lazy butt and find a real job?"

"Just because I'm not destroying something doesn't mean ..."

He fires up the chain saw to drown her out. Helpless and in tears, she and the rest of the forest listen to him doing his "job."

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

In the middle of the afternoon, the redwood starts to lean, creaking like a heavy door easing open on rusted hinges, only amplified a million times. Gathering momentum as it begins its fall, branches of this tree and others that happen to be in its path are slowly and completely mutilated, snapping and cracking so loud they can be heard for miles....

C A - R A S H! It hits the floor of its forest hard, sending up a cloud of dust and dirt. Dozens of known and unknown species of ferns and fungi and bark are flung every which way. Scores of crushed and upturned herbs quickly die. This particular redwood has been rooted to the spot for one thousand one hundred twenty-six years. Count the rings. At the cut it measures twelve feet across. Hank can practically read it's story. It has survived earthquakes and forest fires for over a millennium, seen things that nobody has seen, danced and swayed through eleven and a quarter centuries of wind and rain, sheltered and fed thousands of vegetable and animal species, generated enough oxygen to keep untold thousands of humans breathing throughout their short lives. And it has prevented soil erosion, keeping the area safe from deadly mud slides and economic disasters. All this it has done, and more. Standing still as a deer, Hank watches the last of the dust settle over this fallen giant. The silence that follows is horrible, even to him. It's like the forest and its critters are in mourning for the ancient redwood, now good for 'X' number of board feet of fencing or something.

"Nice job you have there," the tree sitter calls.

"You've made the Fowler family empire another easy twenty-five thousand."

"I've made it possible for lots of people to build the things they want."

"But have you made them more secure? Improved the prospects for their grandchildren?"

"Who cares?"

"You do, Hank. I know you do."

He tells himself to stop talking to her; he can't win. Besides, it's quitting time, and it's been another bad day. A helicopter will come for the log in the morning. Morosely, he hauls the chain saw to the pickup, stores it in the back and sits on the tailgate. Through the widened gap in the canopy, a satiny band of light streams down to his feet. He's supposed to meet Jack at The Rabbit Hutch in a few minutes, but for now he just wants to sit, stop feeling so moody. Slowly, the sounds of the forest return. The sun begins to slip behind the trees still plenty thick and vibrant with afternoon colors, but not as thick or colorful as yesterday afternoon, he notes. Before the sun actually sinks beyond the Pacific, the forest is nearly dark. Hank hasn't moved an inch. He doesn't feel quite so gloomy, but that anger is still there. The night gradually comes alive, replacing the day with its own particular song, and through it he faintly hears her sobs. She knows he hasn't left. Hank is sure of it. "Hell," he says, "she probably knows everything that's going on in this neck of the woods."

He stays put, and in spite of himself, feels his anger being replaced with sadness. This only annoys him more. What's he supposed to do? he wonders. If he knew how to play guitar a little better than he does, he could maybe make his living with a band. But guitars are made from wood! Everybody uses wood. "It's not my fault!" he calls to no one in particular. He sits awhile longer, trying to think of something he could do that wouldn't have anything to do with trees and is hard pressed to come up with a
single livelihood.

"Shit! This is crazy!" he curses and hops off the tailgate, rushes to the cab and jerks open the door.

Just before getting in, he shouts loud, and this time in a direct line to the treesitter, "The whole world is frigging nuts! Including you!"

"I'm glad you noticed, Hank!" she calls back, sounding too friendly, too nice, too understanding.

Then after a beat, she adds, "It's paradoxical, don't you t
hink?"

He's not sure of her meaning, and at first thinks she is making fun of him. Then he considers that she may only be affirming something he'd rather not know. No matter. It makes him mad again, mainly because she sounds so damn sincere. "Fuck you!" he hollers.

Calmly, with about the kindest voice he has ever heard, she says, "Have you ever been in the top of a redwood, Hank?"

Did he understand correctly? Clearly it was an invitation to come up, but was it also a proposition? It has been so long since he was last propositioned he can't be sure. Over three years!

And it seems about that long since he last made love with his wife. But even if this tree sitter was propositioning him, he can't go up there. Environmentalists will use any means to keep him from doing the only thing he knows to do for money. But, what if
he did go up? Just for a few minutes. Who would know? Nobody. In any case, he would like her to stop using his name.

"How do you know my name?" he calls.

"Come up and I'll tell you."

He wishes she would clarify herself a little better. Well, he'll just have to find out for himself. A deep breath, and back into the woods he goes, leaving the truck door wide open. He skirts the huge carcass of the redwood he killed earlier and makes his way toward the one where the tree sitter has made her home for these past seven months.

He has heard about other activists sitting in redwoods belonging to various different corporations harvesting the ancient forests, some as long as eighteen months. When he reaches the base of 'her' tree, he squats down.

A couple of minutes goes by and she calls softly, "Hank?"

"I'm right here."

"Are you coming up?"

"Thinking about it." He looks up toward that gentle voice. A lit night sky outlines the darkened branches. Starlight flickers down. He quickly and automatically estimates this redwood to be worth more than $40,000.

The things he could do with that kind of money! Like opening a bar, not one splinter of wood in the place. Not even a toothpick. Just concrete, glass, mirrors, plastic and chrome. But everybody loves the warmth of wood. Would anyone come? The question brings a strange smile to his lips. "How do I get up, Treesitter?"

"You can climb trees, can't you?"

"It's been awhile," he admits.

"I'll send down a rope to get you to the first branches."

A moment later the end of a knotted rope dangles at his feet. He pulls himself upright with it, and begins the climb.


***

By the time Hank gets to The Rabbit Hutch, Jack is standing at the bar with a good buzz on. He and a few yuppie travelers are the only ones there. Cutting down redwoods is dangerous work, and the sensible loggers have already gone home for a good night's sleep. But not Jack. He's about the biggest beer drinker Hank knows, and nothing is going to slow him down. Hank gave up long ago trying to talk sense into him.

Looking at his watch, Jack says, "Where have you been?"

Preston, the owner/bar tender, opens a Bud for Hank and slides it to him.

"Thank you, Preston," Hank says and swills half of it in a single tilt. Then he says to Jack, "I've been in a tree."

"Well, I've been in the damn trees, too. But I know when it's time to stop."

"Jack, listen to me. I've been in a tree, not in the trees."

"What for, for Christ's sake?" Preston asks and moves closer.

"You know that tree sitter on the Fowler property?"

"Only from reading about her in Time, or hearing you guys talking."

"What about her?" Jack asks.

"She invited me up this evening."

"No shit?" Jack and Preston say.

Then Jack, "And you went?"

"I did."

Uneasy, Jack shifts positions, and dispositions. He assumes a haughty attitude, one that Hank has never seen before, and slurs, "You could lose your job."

"That beer has gone to your brain," Hank says.

"Yeah? What of it?"

Hank shrugs him off as drunk, and says, "I'll tell you what of it.... If I lose my job, Jack, I'll damn sure know who to come looking for."

It gets quiet for a moment, then Preston asks, "Well, what happened?"

Hank starts the story....

"She sends down this rope for me get up to the lower branches. I've just spent the day hacking down this other giant redwood and I'm pretty beat. But I reach the branches and start climbing. It's been twenty years or so since I've climbed a tree, but it seems just like yesterday. She's talking to me and I'm going over and under branches like I'm a teenager again. It's a beautiful night. Picture perfect. The stars are bright.

A gentle breeze rocks me in the branches."

Preston moves down the bar, opens three beers and brings them back, hands one to Jack and to Hank, and asks, "What kind'a things she's saying, Hank?"

"Well, she's not exactly talking; she=s reading."

"Reading!" both Jack and Preston say.

"Yeah. See, first she asks if I know this poem called 'Song of the Redwood Tree,' or something like that. Course, I don't know poems from caviar. Then she tells me it's by this Walt Whitman guy and starts reading. So, I'm climbing and listening to poetry. The climbing is tricky, though, and I'm not really listening to the words, just the sound of her sweet voice." He stops to drink beer.

"Then what?" Jack asks.

"Well, it takes about thirty minutes, but I finally get my nose up to the edge of the platform. She's leaning against the treetop with this book in her lap, and beside her is a plastic milk crate with a small oil lamp on it. 'Do you like the poem?' she asks. I tell her I don't know a thing about poetry but it sounded real nice.

Then she puts the book into the crate with a bunch of other books and I climb onto the platform. She has about everything up there.

A gas burner, jugs of water, blankets, stacks of writing paper, jars of beans and rice and other things I can't make out, a few five-gallon buckets with lids.

I don't even want to know what's in these. Sitting on one of them is a pair of binoculars. I crawl away from the edge of the platform and ask her what 'paradoxical' means. She says, 'It's when something seems contradictory at first, but is perhaps true.' 'That's what I thought,' I say." Jack won't stop glaring at Hank, so for his
drunk friend's benefit, Hank decides to lay it on thick. "Then I ask her how she knows my name. 'I'll tell you,' she says, 'but first come and hold me.'"

"You're kidding!" Preston says.

"Now, Preston," Hank winks at him, "you know me. When was the last time you heard me lying about a thing like this?" Preston grins and Jack is shaking his head. Hank continues, "Well, this is when it starts getting interesting. She's pretty excited about me being there, and so am I, but I'm nervous, too. We get to messing around on top of her bedroll way up in this ancient redwood, and the whole time she's whispering all these weird things in my ear...."

"What things?" Jack asks.

"Damn, Jack, you're impatient! I'm trying to tell you if you'll listen for a minute. It's not much of anything I can make sense of, anyway, mostly just a bunch of jabber about 'the beauty of trees' and 'ancient forests' and 'elves and fairies,' and stuff. Something about Alice in Wonderland and the rabbit hole. I'm not too interested in what she's saying, but it's hard not to pay attention to her. She has this amazing voice, you know, kind'a soft one second, strong the next, happy, and at the same time sad. But it's more than that, too. All this whispering crap has me hypnotized or something. Well, this goes on for an hour or more, but who's keeping track of time! About the only thing I'm concerned about is where the edge of that tiny platform is. Honest to God you guys, it's the most incredible experience I've ever had." Again Hank winks
at Preston, then continues, "So, she takes out this other book, tells me she wants to read a different poem, a short one by D.H. Something-or-other called 'There are too Many People.'"

Hank sets the bottle down and stands straight to recite the poem....

"'There are too many people on earth

insipid, unsalted, rabbity, endlessly hopping.

They nibble the face of the earth to a desert.'"

Jack gulps downs the rest of his beer and asks for another. Preston points at Hank's bottle. "Not for me," Hank says.

Preston goes for the beer, leaving Hank and Jack standing beside one another like two bulls in a pasture of cows. They glance at each other a couple of times and don't say a word. It seems ages before Preston comes back. Jack snatches the beer and drinks.

"What's 'insipid'?" Preston asks.

Shaking his head, Hank turns away from Jack and says, "I asked the same question. She takes out a dictionary and reads the definition. '"Lacking in qualities that interest, stimulate, or challenge."' I look at her kind'a blank like, and she says, 'Tasteless, Hank.'"

Preston's quietly nodding, but Jack shouts, "Tasteless! I'd'a told her a thing or two!"

"I'm sure you would have," Hank says. "But that's the funny thing about it.

I don't feel the least bit angry. Mostly I'm curious about this girl living up in a redwood tree in order to save it from being cut down. About as calm as anything, I ask her, 'You're saying I'm tasteless?' 'No,' she says. 'I'd say you definitely have qualities that interest, stimulate, and challenge.' 'What do you want from me?' I ask. She snuggles up close and whispers, 'I want you to not cut down another tree.'" Jack turns a full circle at the bar and grabs his beer. Hank continues, "I know what you're thinking, Jack, but it surprises me how easy I let that go by. Under most any other situation, it would piss me off, too. I mean she's talking about my job, the thing I do. I got three kids and a mad wife to take care of. Jesus! Anyway, I just lay there quietly, feeling like a school kid listening to a teacher he's madly in love with."

Jack sucks on the beer. He's acting more sober, but he's still plenty drunk and has that same attitude as before. He uses it to question Hank, "What'd you say when she asked you to stop cutting trees?"

Hank just looks at his friend for a moment, then says, "I told her, 'Wouldn't do any good. If I stopped this minute, someone else would take my place within the hour. The only thing that's going to stop the cutting of old-growth redwoods is for people to quit buying the lumber. Or for the government to protect them, put them on the endangered-species list. And that's not likely, not in our lifetime, anyway.'"

"Damn straight," Jack says.

"So, what are you so upset about then?" Hank asks him.

"You shouldn't'a gone up there."

"If it had'a been you, what would you have done?"

"Nothing. Not a damn thing."

"My ass!" Hank shouts. Jack doesn't say anything, just drinks more beer. Hank then decides to let them in on the truth of it, no matter what Jack thinks.

"Well, I went, Jack. And you wanna know something else, nothing happened. I was lying about the messing around part. She wasn't interested in sex, not with me, anyway. All she wants is to save the fucking redwoods. That's all! I've never met anyone so determined. I feel sorry for her, in a way. I mean, what kind'a chances does she have to save the rest of the redwoods?
Not much. She's up against impossible odds ... and she knows it. But she has this amazing way of looking at ordinary things. I think she is about the bravest person I know." Jack glances at Preston then turns an incredulous eye toward Hank. "Don't look at me like that," Hank says.

Jack leans his head back and looks down his nose. "Like what?"

"Like you have more sense than the whole fucking world, Jack! That's how. And you know something? You don't. I don't. None of us do. These redwoods really mean something to her, like the way my kids mean something to me. I saw it in her starlit eyes and heard it on
her lips. If you had kids, or even a wife, Jack, you might have some idea what I'm talking about.
Pretty damn sad, if you ask me. The whole stinking thing is!"

"Who's asking you?" Jack says, scratching his head.

Hank slaps down a ten and starts to go before he does something he'll regret. Preston says, "Your's are on the house, Hank."

Hank picks up the ten and replaces it with a five. "Thanks, man.

Gotta go. I'm beat."

Jack stops him, "Hey, wait a sec." Turning to Jack, Hank is hoping his friend doesn't say anything stupid. "Take it easy," Jack says. "I just want to know how she knows your name."

"I'll be damned," Hank says. "Forgot all about that. Don't know."

Jack and Preston watch him leaving. On the back of his brown leather belt, they notice H A N K spelled out in big green letters with little redwoods stamped around it.

Hank goes out the door and Jack starts shaking his head. "Damn if he's not losing it!" Preston opens two more beers. "Don't think so, Jack. Not him."

The next morning Hank is in a different section of the forest, preparing his chain saw, trying not to think about the tree sitter. But he can't help wondering how she's doing, who she's hassling today. He's glad it's not him, then again, he would like to see her, talk to her, maybe hear some more poetry.

But talking is what he's mostly thinking about. Just talking. And listening. A smarter girl he's never met. "Girl, hell!" he mumbles. "Why, she's more woman than anyone I know!" For a few more seconds he thinks about her and the two redwoods he's
supposed to cut down today. Suddenly, he throws the chain saw in the back of the pickup, slams the tailgate shut and drives to the road. Instead of the usual right toward The Rabbit Hutch, and home, he hangs a left. Ten miles later, he turns into the section of the forest he was in yesterday. No other trucks around. When he reaches the tree sitter's tree, the rope is hanging down. He starts climbing, making it to the platform in under twenty minutes. No one is there. All her stuff is, but she's gone. Under the binoculars is an envelope with Hank's name scrawled across it. He rips it open and reads....

"I was hoping you'd come back. Sorry I couldn't be here, but there's a big action going down outside of Eugene. Make yourself at home. I should be back in a week at most ... if we don't get arrested. Luv and respect for all living things
Sadie of the Forest.

"A week! She doesn't think...." Hank stops short, noticing a book lying on top of a crate. He lifts it up Leaves of Grass. It's the one she read from when he climbed up here last night.

He lays it in his lap and reaches for the binoculars, looks around at the surrounding tree tops. "Damn pitiful how thin they're getting!" he says. Four generations of chopping down redwoods catches up to him, overwhelming and exhausting him. He needs to relax awhile. Time to take a break. Carefully, he stretches out on the bedroll, opens the book and begins to read this fellow Whitman with one eye, keeping the other on the edge of the platform. And maybe, just maybe, he'll watch over the redwoods for 'Sadie of the Forest' until she returns to her roost.