Authors: David Seltzer
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entire structure. Whatever report Robert Vem brought back had to be airtight, documented with an overkill of thoroughness to make up for any doubt about his abilities or experience.
“I hate to tell you this, Rob, but I want you to stay there as long as possible.”
Eight hundred miles away from Shusette, Rob stood in the phone booth and listened, his expression turning more sober as Shusette explained the situation they were in.
“Victor,” Rob broke in, “I want to explain something. I was a little glib a minute ago. When I said the Indians are out for blood, I meant it. They say they’ve killed a couple of people up here.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That’s what people say. And from what I saw, I can see why they say that. I saw real violence.”
“You’re saying you think you’re in danger?”
“I’m saying I’m not terribly comfortable up here. And neither is Maggie.”
“You want protection? I can arrange that.”
“No, that’s not what I want.”
“Tell me what you want. What can I do?”
“I want to leave here, Victor. I want to do the job I came to do, and leave here as soon as I can.”
“If you come back too fast, it’s not going to look good. If you’re not in any real danger, I’d like you to stay there as long as you can.”
Rob didn’t answer.
“Rob?”
“I’m here.”
“Look, if you have to come back, then come back. I’m just telling you that appearances are important right now. If you want, I’ll take over for you.”
“No,” Rob answered with fatigue.
“If you can, give it another ten days. I’ll be satisfied with that.”
“Yeah.”
“Check in with me, huh?”
“Right.”
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Rob hung up and leaned against the wall of the small glass cubicle, his eyes set with despair. More than anything, he hated failure; he had never before so unwittingly set himself up for it. The field survey had been a mistake from the start; he cursed himself for allowing Shusette to talk him into it. It was the appeal to his ego that had made him grab for it; the promise that he could do something that could make a real and permanent difference. Now, by virtue of his inexperience, it was earmarked for failure.
He had promised Maggie that they would leave as soon as possible, but if he did that, he’d be throwing the whole thing away.
As he gazed out toward the street, he spotted Maggie heading into the grocery store. She was wearing boots and a riding jacket, the wind gently lifting her hair. Her arms were loaded with books, and she walked with energy, looking like a girl crossing the street of some small-town college campus. He rarely saw her at this distance; it reminded him of the mornings he used to watch her from the window of their New York apartment. It filled him with sadness at how complicated their lives had become.
The conversation he’d had with Shusette had swept him with fatigue. It made him feel like surrendering. The obsessive treadmill he’d been on for the last four years was suddenly slowing beneath him. There was nothing he could do to alter the course of the planet; he sensed that here more than anywhere. Walking among the towering trees, he had gotten a true perspective of his own size and strength. He was no more than an ant. And he was trying to push over skyscrapers. This job had been a last-ditch, desperate attempt to make his mark, and he was being defeated. They knew in Washington what he had sensed from the start. He had no business here.
“Mr. Vern?”
Rob was jolted by the intrusion; he turned to see John Hawks waiting for him outside the pay phone. The woman, Romona, was there, too. Their expres-
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sions were intense, no more gentle now than they had been at the blockade.
Rob stepped out into the street, feeling apprehensive.
“My name is John Hawks.”
“I remember.”
“We want you to come with us.”
“What for?”
“We want to speak to you.”
“Right here will be fine.”
Hawks saw the fear in Rob’s eyes and was surprised by it. It was rare that a white man gave him credit for equal strength.
“Are you afraid of us?”
Rob paused. “Yes.”
“Because of what you’ve heard?”
“I haven’t heard anything.”
Hawks knew it was a lie. “You haven’t heard we’re drunks? We’re violent? We’re murderers?”
Rob studied Hawks, uncertain of his attitude. He didn’t know if he was trying to reassure or frighten.
“That’s what they say about us, Mr. Vern. They discount our rights by telling these lies.” He moved closer; Rob could smell the dampness of his leather jacket. “We are not drunks. And we are not violent. My people are fishermen, and their lives are clean.”
Rob was uncertain of how to respond. Hawks stiffened, misreading the silence as a threat of dismissal.
“I tell you this not out of choice, but from necessity.”
“Why is that?” Rob asked.
“They’re going to kill me.”
“Who is?”
“The lumber company.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“They have a right to enter the forest-”
“I’m not speaking of the blockade.”
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The sharpness of Hawks’s voice created a silence; the men assessed each other as adversaries.
“Please,” Romona said quietly. “We want you to come with us.”
“Why?”
“No one from the government has come here before. We want you to see who our people are so you can go back and tell them.”
“Look,” Rob said. “I can understand how you feel, but my work here has nothing to do with-”
“Are you deaf like the rest?” Hawks interrupted. He was bristling now, fighting to control his anger. “I was educated at your schools, Mr. Vern. I’m a well-educated man. I’ve studied your laws and I’ve perfected your language, but it did me no good. Your laws do not apply to Indians, and your language is wasted in an Indian’s mouth because you refuse to hear!” He came close to Rob, his face taut with rage. “Why is it you refuse to hear!”
The words hit Rob at the wrong time. He was fed up.
“Perhaps you don’t even hear what I’m saying now,” Hawks goaded.
“Oh, I can hear,” Rob shot back. “But I can also see. You’re surprised that people call you violent…”
“The violence you saw was provoked.”
“By whom?”
“It was necessary.”
“It was suicidal.”
“Hawks’s eyes bore into Rob’s. “Tell me. For what you believe in, are you willing to die?”
Rob backed off, unwilling to escalate any further. “Look, I’m here to study the environment?”
“And what is your concept of the environment? I want to know. Is it dirt? Is it trees? Rocks?”
“Come on, this is-”
“The environment is us!” Hawks declared. “It’s what we’re made of! It’s being torn and mangled, and so are we!”
“My people are sick, Mr. Vern,” Romona said.
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“Their minds are confused. They tremble and fall, and it has nothing to do with alcohol, as the townspeople claim.”
“Tell him,” Hawks commanded.
“I’ve acted as midwife, Mr. Vern. I’ve seen the results of this chaos.”
Rob looked from one to the other, unable to comprehend what they were saying.
“Tell him all of it,” Hawks said.
“Children born dead, Mr. Vern. Born deformed. So badly… .” She faltered. “They must be put to death.”
“What?”
“Children that look more like animals than men.”
Rob was stunned. It was plain by the woman’s intensity that she was telling the truth. But he was unable to make any sense of it.
“We need help, Mr. Vern. Desperately. And no one will help us.”
“The end of our forest is the end of our people,” Hawks proclaimed. “So don’t talk about the ‘environment’ as though it had nothing to do with us!”
In the silence that followed, Rob saw Maggie approaching. As she came close, she hesitated, sensing the tension in the air. Rob held out his hand to her.
“These people want us to go with them, Maggie. There are things they want to show us.”
As they drove through the forest, Romona described to Rob the history and details of the seizures, the stillbirths, and the deformed fetuses. And she told of her own futile quest at the public library to find some explanations. Maggie listened in silence, her heart going out to the young Indian woman. She thanked God that the fetus within her own womb was slumbering safely, and secretly, protected from the tragedies that had befallen these people.
Rob questioned Romona with professional thoroughness, then revealed to her that he was a doctor.
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It caused her to raise her hands to her eyes, concealing tears of gratitude. Maggie reached out to touch her, but Romona withdrew. The gap between their two worlds was too wide to be bridged with a single gesture.
“Have you done experiments with animals?” Hawks asked.
“Some.”
“Of what sort?”
“Routine things. Drug effects.”
“I’ve seen caged animals become sick and die. I’ve seen them turn sick and abort their young. I’ve seen them become crazy and eat their young. This is what happens to a natural creature when it discovers it’s become imprisoned.”
“I’ve seen that, too. But it doesn’t explain what you’re describing. Stress can play a big part, but it can’t cause all this.”
“My grandfather says that when men turn against the forest, the forest turns against men. He says we will all suffer from this profanity.”
They passed a fork in the road and Hawks touched Rob’s arm. “Stop here.”
“Why?” Romona asked.
“They’ll never be back. I want them to see everything.”
Rob pulled the car off the road and they all got out, following a narrow footpath toward the encampment of Hector M’rai.
The trail was a gauntlet of thornbushes that tore into their clothing and scratched their faces. A cloud of blackflies buzzed about their eyes and whined in their ears; Hawks broke through spider webs as he led the way. All of these things were indications to Rob that few people used this trail.
A chilling thought came suddenly into Rob’s mind. A glance at Maggie told him that she was thinking the same. The Indians had been accused of murder, and both Rob and Maggie had witnessed the violence that John Hawks was capable of. They had allowed
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themselves to be brought deep into the forest, where they were defenseless.
“Where are we going?” Rob asked.
“Just ahead,” Hawks replied.
Rob stopped.
“I want to know where we’re going.”
Hawks pointed ahead. “You can see.”
Maggie took Rob’s arm and they moved tentatively forward, stepping into the sudden oasis of beauty, known to the Indians as M’ay-an-dan’ta. The Garden of Eden. Three large tepees stood in a circular compound, surrounding a large fire pit rimmed with stones. A line strung on poles held drying animal skins; an elegant archer’s bow leaned against a tree. In the midst of this embattled forest, it was like an artist’s rendering of Early American history. An oasis where time stood still.
“It’s … beautiful,” Maggie whispered.
“What is this place?” asked Rob. “Is this the village?”
“No,” Romona replied.
“It’s all that’s left of what we once were,” Hawks said. “I wanted you to see this before you see what we’ve become.”
“My grandfather built it. To him, this place is sacred. He lets no one come here.”
Rob moved to the center of the encampment, gazing up at the trees. He could feel the sense of peace that existed here. “I can see what you’re fighting for.”
“We’re not fighting to live in the past any more than you are,” Hawks replied. “We’re fighting for our share of the present. We’re fighting to have the same choices that you have. We’re fighting for everything that you would fight for.”
Rob accepted the words in silence. He recognized in John Hawks the same kind of man that he himself was. The zeal was the same, the rhetoric was the same, the frustration was the same. The only difference was that John Hawks, as an Indian, was denied the right
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to be angry. “What I meant to say was,” Rob said softly, “that this place is very beautiful.”
Romona turned to one of the tents. “A’hns-pahni’-tah, M’rai?” she called. “My grandfather is not well,” she said to Rob. “He, too, has suffered from the katahnas.”
“Y’ahn’ta’tha?” a voice called back.
“A’han-pahni’tah Ki’ythi.”
A tent flap pulled back, and M’rai emerged. He was dressed in buckskin, but also wore a necktie, and his hair was slicked back in a way that Romona had never seen it before.
“N’iyhn-tah?” Romona asked quizically.
“N’ahn-mohn’i’ka,” the old man replied as he smiled. “A’yah’al-mah’nitah.” He moved with difficulty, pulling himself into an erect posture, his head trembling slightly as he attempted to arch it with dignity. His eyes turned to Maggie, and she returned his smile.
“He says he knew he had visitors coming,” Romona translated.
“How did he know?” Maggie asked.
“M’rai knows such things,” Romona replied. It was plain from the way Romona looked at the old man how deeply affectionate she felt toward him. Maggie, too, had an instant feeling for him. There was a gentleness in his smile that made her feel as if she were being embraced.
“Would you tell him,” Maggie asked, “that we’re pleased to be here?”
“He speaks some English,” Romona replied. “I taught him myself.”
“Welcome,” the old man said.
Rob, too, was captivated. But he was assessing the old man with a professional eye. He saw that M’rai’s eyes were dimmed with cataracts, and that the knuckles of his fingers were scorched and burned, possibly from cigarettes.
“These people are from the government,” Romona said to M’rai. “We’re hoping they will help us.”
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“How many?” the old man asked.
“There are two of us, sir,” Rob answered.
“Is that enough?”
Rob chuckled. “Well, we’re working hard.”
“That’s good.”