The cops will only allow two vehicles at the crime scene. We climb into the back of two four-wheel-drive pickups, hunker down on wheel wells and spare tires. The logging road from the valley is narrow and, at this time of spring, rutted and potholed. Squatting in the box of the truck, gripping the rail and hoping the next bump on the road doesn’t buck me overboard, I’m filled with a nervous excitement, like I get on the way to a fire. But there’s fear too, of stepping into a memory best forgotten. The truck hits a bad uphill stretch and we all brace ourselves. Carl grimaces, his posture tense, his jaw clenched. Behind him, vertigo presses as grey tree trunks and green branches ripple past. Someone yells and points. On the side of the road is the first victim. The frame of the grader is black and still smoking.
The truck ahead of us pulls over but we rattle past.
The Cat is the next casualty, parked downhill on a half-constructed road, its engine shroud blackened and askew. But the dozer is a big chunk of iron and is in better shape than the grader. We thump past, up a long grade, around a corner and into a clearcut on the side of a steep hill. The valley drops away to our left and we have a panoramic view of forest canopy, pocked with clusters of cutblocks like pieces missing from a jigsaw puzzle. In the distance, as though cut out of white paper, is the jagged profile of the Front Range. The truck abruptly slows, throwing us off-balance, comes to a halt in the middle of the clearcut.
Show time. We jump out of the truck box, look around. Centre stage is what remains of the third machine and for a moment there’s a graveyard hush. A feller-buncher is a big piece of equipment. It sits on a metal track, like a tank, has a large engine, an enclosed cab for the operator and a long arm on which is mounted a heavy saw and grapple. This machine is capable of consecutively severing up to a dozen trees before its grapple is full and it must lay the bunch of trees on the ground. In the years I’ve worked with the Forest Service I’ve seen hundreds of these machines, but it takes me some time to make a positive identification. The cab and a good portion of the engine are missing. What remains of the engine shroud has fist-sized holes through it, the quarter-inch steel plate is curled back like burnt paper. The heavy arm lies twisted on the ground. I look past the smoking metal rubble for what I know I’ll find, and when I see it an apprehensive tingle goes up my spine. Spray-painted in fluorescent-orange letters on the branchless lower trunk of a large pine, clearly visible, is the single dreaded word.
LORAX
I’m overcome by a rush of bizarrely conflicting images — a little orange cartoon character popping out of a stump clashes with the frozen, questioning look on Nina’s face. My throat cramps painfully and it becomes hard to breathe. Dark splotches invade my vision and I squat on the dusty clay of the road, rock forward and use a hand to steady myself. Rachet is saying something but his voice is hollow, metallic, as though he’s shouting from the top of a deep shaft, and I close my eyes for a minute. When I look again, Carl squats in front of me, a worried look etched in his face.
“You okay, Porter?”
I nod, take a few deep breaths, stand slowly, rubbing my palms on my jeans. I’m nervous and it shows. Several members of Search and Rescue are watching, waiting to test their first aid skills. The way I’m feeling, I hope they know cpr.
Rachet is frowning. “Perhaps you should head back.”
I shake my head. “I’m fine, just missed breakfast.”
He watches a minute longer, as if I might collapse, then turns his attention elsewhere, begins to organize the searchers. I stand with the men as he gives instructions I barely hear. My gaze drifts back to the tree at the edge of the cutblock, to the bright slashes of orange paint. The killer has chosen as his mascot a character from a children’s book. The Lorax is a furry little guy who laments the cutting of his Truffula Trees by a faceless character named the Once-ler. Naturally, the Once-ler gets carried away and cuts all the trees, pollutes the environment and has a change of heart only when his empire collapses. The moral of the story is clear, but I don’t think Dr. Seuss had this in mind.
Rachet gestures toward the blackened machine, points to a perimeter marked with yellow plastic flagging, like a makeshift volleyball court. The clay within is scorched, covered with a dusting of fine ash. “That yellow line around the machine is the blast zone — we won’t be searching there. Forensics will do that. So don’t cross it. Constable Lutz will give you your flags and then we’ll establish a pattern and begin to search. Remember, take your time, watch where you walk and mark everything foreign to the forest environment.”
This morning, we all look pretty foreign to the forest environment.
“Where do you want my men?” says Fredricks.
“We’ll start here.” Rachet points to the yellow line. “Work our way out.”
Fredricks nods, takes charge of his men, his pudgy face intent and serious. “We’ll split into two groups — one uphill and one down. Standard search pattern. Complete coverage. Try to stay about six feet apart from your neighbour. Get your flags and let’s get started. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Rachet gives me a quick glance as he walks past. I want to follow him, ask him a few questions about this bombing, but I might be pushing my luck. No doubt he’ll want to talk to me later anyway, ask why I’m here. I go to Constable Lutz and get my flags: a dozen yellow and three red.
The feller-buncher sits at the side of the road, midslope in the clearcut. I pick the more difficult downslope area, where the incline is steepest and there’s a thick mat of logging slash. It’s more likely something will be missed here. And I don’t want anything missed.
I line up between Carl and Brotsky. We begin to search.
Close to the blast zone, there are a lot of big pieces. A section of exhaust pipe. Part of an engine shroud, curled like a cinnamon stick. It seems silly to mark such obvious pieces but I mark them anyway and slowly move down the slope.
One step. Scan. One step. Scan.
Farther from the blast zone, the pieces of metal are smaller and less frequent. Pretty soon I go several yards without seeing anything; I backtrack, just to make sure. The logging slash — broken deadwood, branches and treetops — is a foot deep and it would be easy to miss something small. I want to lift the slash out of the way, pile it to the side, but if we started that it would take a month to clear the area. I lift a branch and peer beneath. There’s a small piece of glass down there. I stick a yellow flag in the ground, keep looking. Forty yards farther downhill, the clearcut hits dense timber and I stop. Should I go in? I decide to finish working my sector of the cutblock and start up the hill, six feet to the side of my last pass.
The grade is steep and I stop for a breather, watch the others.
Searchers cautiously pick their way across the green slash-strewn slope, their heads down, a bouquet of flags held at their side. Everyone has developed his own pattern and our tight formation is disintegrating. It’s going to be a long day; we’ll have to go over this slope a few times to make sure none of it is missed. I begin to work my way up the slope.
My hope is that if I focus on what I’m doing I might be able to stop thinking about the last time I was part of a scene like this. But my thoughts drift back and despite myself I begin to compare. The similarity of both incidents has drawn me here so I look for the differences, hoping they’ll somehow make this easier. With Nina, it was winter and the machine was parked close to a logging camp, not on the side of a sunny cutblock in spring. Compared to the blast that killed her, this one was a nuclear explosion. But here at least, no one was killed and this difference is the most reassuring. Then I remember the truck — the missing registered owner — and glance toward the road. The truck is hidden by the swell of the slope. Carl sees me pause, ambles over. “You’re walking kinda funny.”
“New boots.”
He nods, balancing on a log as he opens his jacket. The early morning cool is gone and we’re all overdressed. Clothing has been abandoned all over the cutblock, propped on sticks like deflated scarecrows. A scent of warming pine sap mixes with the smell of burning hydraulic hose. The valley below is a trough of fluorescent green so bright it hurts my eyes and I glance uphill, toward the wreck where Rachet stands and watches. I feel like I’m dreaming.
“You finding much?” says Carl.
“Not for a while. You?”
He shakes his head, gazes toward the edge of the cutblock where the forest has been sheared away, leaving a wall of grey, branchless trunks. I catch flashes of colour as searchers move through the timber. We need another dozen men or we’ll be here for days.
“You think it’s worth searching down there?”
Carl shrugs. “Maybe. I heard one guy found a piece of the engine in the trees, stuck up in the branches. An exhaust manifold I think.”
I look uphill, gauge the distance — a hundred and fifty yards, at least — and wonder how much energy is required to throw a chunk of metal that far. More than is needed to disable a machine. To do that, all you’d have to do is fry a few belts, cut a hose or two. So why use such a powerful bomb? To make a statement? Why after three years of silence?
“You heard anything about what was used?”
Carl hesitates, takes a cigarette from a pack tucked under the shoulder of his short-sleeved uniform shirt like some tough guy from a fifties movie. Carl is a new breed of tough guy: a civil service rebel — The Uncivil Servant. He taps the smoke against his chin. “Not really. Fredricks says they think it might have been some sort of heavy-duty pipe bomb.”
“A pipe bomb?” I find it hard to believe a homemade bomb could do this.
Carl puts the cigarette between his lips. “Yeah, or dynamite.”
“So they don’t know.”
He shakes his head. “They got some experts coming from out east.”
For a moment, we stand together and watch. It could be just another day from the past: Carl and I on a timber harvest inspection. But those days are gone. We’re in a different dimension now and my life has become a bad version of the X-Files. “Why would someone do this?”
“The Lorax?” Carl shrugs. “Who knows? Maybe he’s frustrated.”
“Everyone’s frustrated, Carl. That’s why they invented beer.”
Carl ponders this, takes out his lighter. I motion uphill to where Rachet and another Mountie are talking. Carl pauses, carefully tucks the unlit smoke into his shirt pocket like he’s putting it down for a nap. “No nicotine. Now that’s frustrating.” He takes a deep breath, sighs and looks thoughtful. “This country sure has been opened up in the past few years. Everywhere you look you see cutblocks and roads and wellsites. Not much wilderness left anymore.” He could be a broadcast journalist working for the cbc — he’s got the thoughtful inflection just right.“It’s not like up north,” he says. “This is the East Slopes and when you change something out here, people notice. There’s a population of two million within a three-hour drive and a lot of them come here to recreate. This is their backyard and they don’t want to see pipelines and cutblocks. They just want trees.”
“You think the Lorax is local?”
“Sure — why not?” Carl pulls the cigarette back out of his pocket, lights it up this time. “You should hear some of the phone calls I get at the office.” He takes a deep drag, blows smoke away from me, effects a whiny tone of voice that would be nearly comical if not for the context. “Why are you letting the timber-hungry bastards cut so many trees? Why are there so many log trucks on the roads? When are you going to put more toilets in the campgrounds?” His hand shakes as he holds the cigarette. “I tell you Porter, it’s like working the complaints counter at a goddamn high school cafeteria.”
The CBC was never this lively. “So when are you going to put in more toilets?”
For a few seconds, Carl looks at me like I’m a stranger, an annoying tourist. Then he shakes his head, gives me a dry chuckle as he butts his smoke out against a rotten log.“Never,”he grumbles. “Build more toilets and they will come. We should stick to a gravel pad and a fire ring. They can shit in the bush. That’ll keep most of them away.”
I doubt it. The affluent camper today packs his own toilet, along with his TV.
“If the Lorax is local,” I say, “why all the action up north?”
Carl shrugs. “Easier targets maybe.”
“And why strike here, after three years?”
Carl shakes his head. “I don’t know, Porter. How’d your fire up north go?”
With all the commotion I’d forgotten about the fire. But when Carl brings it up the first thing I think about is Arthur Pirelli’s offer to modify my anatomy — a detail Carl can do without. “It was a cooker. Hell of a spread rate. Grew a thousand acres while I flew around it.”
Carl nods. “I followed it on the Sit-Rep. You peg the cause?”
“Arson.”
“Really?” He looks concerned. “You sure?”
“I found the origin. Another cake pan.”
“So that makes it — what — six fires?”
“Five. We better catch the bastard soon or we’ll run out of trees.”
“Any leads on the firebug?”
“No. Betty Crocker maybe, considering all those cake pans.”
Carl chuckles. “Good to see you can still joke about it.”
“Who’s joking.”
He slaps me on the back and I’m glad he’s here — a friendly face amid the chaos.
“You’ll figure this all out someday, Porter.”
I nod, unconvinced. Carl moves away, stepping with his long moose legs over the logging slash. Rachet glances in my direction and I resume searching. There’s a piece of metal by my boot, a broken piece of some bracket, and I plant a flag and move on. Farther upslope, I catch the intermittent buzz of flies, see something reddish-brown in the mat of green pine needles. Using the tip of my boot, I move aside a branch and find a strip of what looks to be spinal column, about six inches long, ragged bits of rib still attached. I’m hoping it’s a piece of carrion from a wolf kill. Or leftovers from a spring bear hunt.
No. It’s the registered owner. A dull swell of nausea creeps into my throat.
I try to keep my voice casual. “Hey Carl, come have a look at this.”