Nicky ran to catch up as Clete followed a trail of matted-down needles, bouncing from rock to rock like a mountain goat. Her new boots seemed to float over the soil. Whether it was the footwear, or the cool, clear evening, the gloom that had found her on the boat had evaporated.
“Look, those hemlocks and spruce there, growing in a line. See how their roots are raised? They all grew up from a decaying log.”
“A nurse,” Nicky filled in as she threaded the blankets of moss down toward a stream.
“That’s right.”
They reached a bright yellow bridge spanning the stream. “My dad and I built this last year,” Clete said, running his palm over the glossy wood. Nicky noticed how clean her hands were compared to his. His cuticles rose like small suns along the pink of his nails. “This is yellow cedar. Tlingits use it for carvings.”
“Like the tree in the valley I can see from my window. The tall one that the Three Guardsmen take care of.”
“You don’t forget anything, do you?” he said, looking back at her.
“It reminds me of wood my dad gets for his guitars,” Nicky continued. “Is this what you were chopping?”
He shook his head. “That was red cedar. Logs float up on our beach in the big fall storms. They’re left over from the log rafts, back in the eighties when people were clearcutting for the pulp mill. Dad likes the smell, and Mom likes the colors in the stove. Blues and purples and greens from the saltwater.” He stared across the water toward the mountains. “All that fluffy bright green stuff you see—those are alders, which grow in after a clearcut. This whole area was harvested—by Americans, Russians, or whoever.”
He picked a few salmonberries, dropping the yellow, orange, and red clusters into his bowl. The surface of the stream reflected the white cloud cover through the trees. A fin shattered the image. Then a few more.
“Fish!” she exclaimed. Then she saw hundreds of them, pushing upriver, just beneath the surface. Strips of charcoal skin peeled off their sides, revealing chalky flesh beneath.
“Pink salmon,” he remarked. “It’s just a small run.”
“That’s what we’re eating tonight?”
He laughed. “I told you, no one eats humpies except tourists. And also my grandma, sometimes. She asks me to catch the first humpy by hand, then serves it boiled with sliced onion. That’s a Tlingit tradition. Pink salmon come back to the rivers after only three years—that’s why they’re the smallest and first to return.”
She focused on the fish so he couldn’t see how his laugh hurt her. “Do they come back every year?”
“Sometimes the humpies come back a year early. Those are called jack salmon. They’re bright and fast, and we always try to catch them. The rest make babies and die,” he said matter-of-factly.
“That’s grim,” she said, thinking of salmon chasing smaller fish in the ocean, growing fat before returning to this stream to lay eggs.
“Not really. It’s why the trees in the rainforest are so big. They eat the fish.”
“Carnivores,” she said, remembering Sven on the ferry.
“Exactly. You have to be careful here. Don’t ever go into the woods alone.”
“Because the trees will eat you?” Nicky joked. “Now they talk, and eat, just like a bear?”
Clete inspected a berry, then ate it. “My grandmother wouldn’t even let us say that word. She says they’re like brothers to humans, and like to be left alone. Never look one in the eyes, that’s the rule. We’re all connected. And never say their name out loud. Out of respect.”
A few drops of rain pinged on Nicky’s hood. A shiver ran through her as she peered at the tree-covered mountains across the water.
“Sven said that if Jackson Cove wasn’t careful, they’d lose their trees, and that would mean losing their fish.”
“He’s right,” Clete said. “If town votes to cut down Sky River Valley, the salmon won’t be able to spawn in Sky River, which has the biggest run on the island. The fish need the trees as much as the trees need the fish. Instead of seeing the Old Yellow Cedar and the rest of the valley out your window, you’ll see houses. Maybe even a Walmart. And fishermen like Sven will be going elsewhere to catch salmon.”
“And if town votes not to sell the land to Sven’s brother?”
Clete started across the bridge and up the hill. “Who knows? Maybe there won’t be people left to see the view. C’mon. There’s more I want to show you.”
The trail curved between trees with trunks straight as the limestone columns in front of the hospital in Danville. Soft green hemlock needles brushed against her cheeks, leaving her skin moist with droplets of rainwater. Moving among the trees reminded Nicky of being in Uncle Max’s cornfields just before fall harvest dried. She and Josie would run with her mother along the furrows, arms outstretched as they charged through the corridors of tawny stalks. Then they’d go to the orchards and spend hours picking Red Delicious and Granny Smiths. Her mom would have already called in to the hospital to get coverage in the ER—she always planned ahead. Setting their bushels on the kitchen counter and searching the drawers for peelers, her mom would tie on her apron, covered in wild daisies. The three of them would eat Turkey Hill with chocolate syrup before filling the kitchen with the smell of ground cloves and cinnamon and nutmeg as they made applesauce and strudel and apple butter.
She almost ran into Clete when he stopped in front of her, staring up at a tree with long strips of gray bark. He buttoned his coat, flipped up his collar, setting his hand against the bark. Far above, needles waved in the sea breeze.
“Ready?” he said, looking at her.
“For what?” she said, not knowing what to expect. Then he closed his eyes, and leaned into the tree, as if he were trying to push it over. His nostrils flared. The pink of his nails turned to white. Then his eyes snapped open.
“I can’t do it,” he said.
“Do what?” Nicky asked, confused.
“I was asking the tree if I could be let in. But she’s stubborn. You try.”
Her eyes swept the forest. “Me? What can I do?”
“You’re right,” he said. “This hemlock’s too dense. There’s a spruce over here, who might be more welcoming.” He walked over to a tree with scaly purple bark, with thick, tangled roots at the base. “This one’s not so stubborn. I also think she’s sleeping.”
Nicky looked at Clete, then peered up into the branches, which extended like spokes from the trunk and were heaped with moss.
“This is silly,” she said, reaching out to flick the bark with a fingernail. “I can hardly tell the difference between a hemlock and a spruce in the first place.”
Clete nodded seriously. “Hemlock bark looks like bacon. Sitka spruce, like this one, has bark that’s more like potato chips, or dragon scales. Red-purple. You might have to pinch the tree to wake her. Like this.” He pulled off a shred of bark, letting it drop into the moss. “Then pretend you’re a stethoscope—you know, those things doctors use to listen to your heart.”
“I know what a stethoscope is,” Nicky said. “My mom was a doctor.”
Clete blanched. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” she said, moving toward the tree. “Just tell me what to do.”
He stood beside her. “First, close your eyes. Then think of pushing everything inside you, all your happiness, your hope, and your sadness into this spruce. Then see what happens.”
“What could happen?”
“For me, it’s like the bark gets gummy, and I begin to feel an electricity in my arms.”
Nicky exhaled and shut her eyes. If her mother could see her doing this, surely she would laugh. Trees can’t feel, Nicky-love. That’s all from your fantasy books. It makes no sense at all.
As she planted her feet in the moss, positioning her body, she thought of her sister at the table that same morning, setting her slippers on the hardwood as she argued with Clete. Then she thought of Edward Tulane at the bottom of the sea, how he was discovered by a fisherman, who took the rabbit home with him, setting Edward on his shoulder as he walked about town. “Who dreams up these wonderful worlds?” her father would ask. Her mother would only shake her head, answering back, “Someone way out of touch with reality.”
Nicky pushed her body forward, leaning her weight into the tree. Why not, for the smallest second, allow herself to believe in a world where trees could talk? Where they knew you, and even spoke of you, sending signals through their roots….
At first there was nothing. Just the firmness of the bark. She found herself pushing harder, driving her feet into the earth, unwilling to give up. A flicker began in her shoulders. It grew into a tingling that spread through her hips, then swooped up the back of her neck, lighting her up from the inside.
She shut her eyes harder. The bark began to give. Before she knew what was happening, a sheet of purple rushed by in front of her, like pavement beneath a car. It felt like she had left the world behind her and was drawing deeper into a dream she knew from a long time ago. Her hair was aflame, and her chest lit up with a cool blue light as she realized she was looking through the spruce, at the back side of the bark. She could see veins running through it, tracks left by moisture or insects or sap—she didn’t know which. Just as she was about to move, to explore this new world, she felt hands on her shoulders, pulling her back. “Nicky!”
Clete stood there in front of her, his eyes wide. She still wasn’t entirely inside herself. She tried to make words. “Hey!” he said. “What happened? What did you feel?”
“I could see.” She breathed. “I could see inside the tree. Things were moving. I could even see behind the bark. I mean, I was inside.”
“Wow,” Clete said. He rubbed his fingers together. “That—was incredible. We need to go to Sky River Valley. You need to see the grove, and the Three Guardsmen and the Old Yellow Cedar. There are mushrooms there, they’re just starting to come up.”
“What about the, you know—bears?” she stammered.
“I’ll bring spray,” he said, starting back along the trail. “Soon—we need to go soon. Tomorrow, even.”
“Sunday? That’s usually our family day,” Nicky said. And it was, the four of them walking into town for ice cream, or visiting Uncle Max and fishing by the pond. Nicky stealing away to walk to the top of the ridge and wander the hedgerows. All of them making pizza in the evening.
“I’m family. Tell your dad we’re going for a walk. I know he doesn’t want you back in the valley. But we need to do this.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because soon it’s going to be dump trucks and chainsaws and excavators!” he cried. “Don’t you see? Lars Ruger has been going around town making all sorts of promises. If this vote doesn’t pass, he says his mill will close. The supply stream of old growth from Prince of Wales Island is drying up. My father says if we’re cutting, it has to be in the fall. They don’t want to waste time.”
“Why is everything happening so quickly?”
“Because people need the jobs. And they need to cut before the fall storms, and also before the sap starts running in the trees. That way the logs will keep longer in the lumberyard and will be easier to mill.”
“We just got here,” Nicky said. “Like, yesterday.”
“You got here at a crazy time,” Clete said as he crossed the bridge, picking up the bowl of salmonberries from the railing. “Before the virus, no one thought this could actually happen. Now my dad says it needs to happen if Jackson Cove is going to survive.”
“Just—stop for a second,” Nicky said, running along the boards to catch up with him. “I’ll go,” she said, “into the valley. But first you need to stop pretending that the trees need me, or have some message I need to hear that will make some big difference.”
“Nicky, what just happened there?” Clete asked.
She thought about it, and couldn’t answer.
“It’s taken me years to get that far. It took you, like, ten seconds.” He tapped his boot against the moss. “If town votes to keep the land, then Lars will shut the mill. That’s a fact. If that happens, then my dad says we’ll need to move to Oregon, where he can get work either on a logging crew or in a mill. Mom would have to leave her job at the newspaper. We’ll need to sell our place on the island, probably to some rich folks in Seattle, and this home that my dad and I built will be lost. That’s what’s happening here, and not just to my parents. It’s eighty percent of the people here who depend on the mill in one way or another.”
Nicky thought of the sweet little handmade cabin she had glimpsed from the top of the hill. She couldn’t imagine anyone else living in it. She had only just arrived—now her cousin might disappear?
“So—which would you rather have happen? The mill shut down, or lose the valley?” she asked him.
“I told you,” Clete said. “I kind of agree with your sister. Those trees are my best friends. I’d rather leave the Old Yellow Cedar, the Guardsmen, and the rest of them than see that valley get cut.”
Nicky stood there, trying to imagine that space between the two mountainsides slashed clear, just a thatch of limbed branches.
“Nicky, listen to me,” Clete said slowly. “I’m done trying to convince you. Tomorrow morning I’m going to skiff in, and we’re going to walk up to Sky River Valley. Then you’ll see for yourself why the trees need you, and stop asking so many questions. No one else knows this, but believe me, it’s true.”
Nicky looked back at him. “Sorry. It’s just a lot.”
“I know,” he said as he turned back toward the cabin and started up the hill. “We’re just running out of time. Tomorrow you’ll see what I’m talking about.”