As we prepare to continue our climb past redwood trees the size of clocktowers, I wonder if little Heather will come to respect the forest. To treat it with the dignity it deserves. Or will she be more like her father? Someone who regards it as a playground of raw material ready to be exploited at a moment's notice.
"How old are you?," I ask.
"Seven."
I nod and smile. There's still hope. No one's brainwashed at seven.
We don't make it very far before we stop again. Little Heather has let out a shriek.
"What's the matter?" I ask, turning back around.
"Look at that, Mr. Smokey," she says, practically in a whisper. "Is it dangerous?"
Heather's pointing to a large snake with perfectly cut red, yellow and black bands that's curled like a garden hose in a patch of miner's lettuce.
"That's a king snake," I tell her. "It's a good snake, friendly. It protects us; it eats rattlers."
"Really?" she squeaks.
"Yep. Cool, huh?"
Before she can answer, it slithers through the greenery and beyond our sight.
We carry on up the hill, Heather now in the lead with her hair swinging to and fro across her back. We stop for water every so often, get moving again and repeat the process. We've hiked nearly an hour together, and I'd guess we've covered a mile and a half. My shirt is pretty much saturated with sweat. But I'm feeling a lot better than I did down by the creek. Not just from the workout, but from the unexpected acquaintance I've made and the idea that I'm helping her. She no longer looks scared; she looks more like a kid at camp, or on a field trip.
"Watch out there, kiddo," I say, as Heather is about to careen into a cluster of poison oak. "There's a saying: Leaves of three, let them be. If you walk into that stuff you'll be as pink and puffy as a French pastry in a few days."
We keep right on walking; at a stop in the trail where a tree has fallen, I gather Heather in my arms and lift her to the other side. I'm sure it'd make a funny picture: me with my ratty clothes, natty dreads and pagan views; she in her pretty-as- pink jacket, blond ponytail and young daughter-of-a-multimillionaire future. The caption possibilities are endless, though I'd guess most would play the irony angle. That someone like me, a feral citizen of Santa Cruz County whose life is more or less of his own choosing, could guide and embrace the offspring of a man whom I never met, but is still more-or-less Public Enemy Number One as far as I'm concerned. Still, I shoulder a certain sense of responsibility; after all, I'm an adult with a moral compass most people would consider relatively trustworthy. And when I plop her down on the far side of the log, she tells me "thanks," and her little green eyes twinkle in the growing sunlight. It reinforces my belief that we're all individuals, no matter where we come from or how we're raised. My new friend Heather might be head of Forests Forever, if not the EPA, someday.
Our pace starts to slacken. Not surprisingly, the girl's getting beat. She's been hiking all day—from the highest ridge almost down to the creek, and now back again. I spot a broken branch alongside the path, scoop it up and hand it to her. "A walking stick," I say.
She takes it gladly, clenching the top of it with both hands and digging it into the ground. "What about you, Mr. Smokey?" she asks.
So I grab a sizeable branch of my own off the leafy forest floor and line up right behind. As we proceed onward, I can't help but think I'm dreaming and have become part of a Norman Rockwell painting. Maybe it's a nightmare; I don't know. At least there's not a knapsack tied to the stick. Then I consider tying my down jacket around it—it keeps sliding from my hips—but think, nah, and am inwardly embarrassed by even the thought of it.
When my brief foray into rangerdom ended rather abruptly because of chronic difficulties with authority as much anything else, I tried a series of sales jobs and plunged into a trying marriage, figuring I'd give the real world a shot. It didn't last long, and soon I returned to my activist ways. I got my fifteen minutes in April 1991 as television news stations from near and far came to Big Sur to cover my participation in a "sit in" one hundred and thirty feet up an old-growth redwood. I was the lone remaining holdout, having lasted more than two weeks, and I think the media there favored me for getting them comped food and lodging for such an extended period. Unfortunately for all of us, especially me, the Monterey County sheriff's department eventually had me cuffed and arrested on a dubious trespassing charge, and—my fellow activists being full of passion but with empty pockets—I spent a few days in the slammer before my bail was paid. My soon-to-be ex chose not to visit; I'd strayed too far from home. My bail was actually paid by Christa, whom I hadn't seen or heard from in a dozen years. She still looked fresh and youthful; I soon learned she'd become a hefty-wage earner's wife and also a mother. A toddler boy and a baby girl. When she saw the news coverage her heart lifted, and she was right there with me in spirit, she said. I believed her to a degree, and appreciated that she made the trip from Aspen for whatever reasons. I showered in a public campground where we picnicked and then she drove me to a towing yard in Lucia where my beat-up Corolla awaited. "Keep it up, Clarence, I'll be watching," she said as she powered up the window of her rental before we headed in opposite directions along Highway 1.
Heather and I have been keeping a slow, steady pace, though our conversation isn't much more than grunts and groans for a while. But our little deer trail soon hits the dirt fire road that leads to Crystal Creek Road and its clear-cut hillsides of 10,000 square foot palaces, black bottom pools and the end of the world as I know it.
Before I can stew for the umpteenth time about the plight of these mountains, the road opens into a panorama of blue sky when we near the peak. "We're getting close," I say.
Heather now picks up her gait, and starts to whistle. I'm happy for her, a bit relieved really. I pretty much knew she'd be all right from the time I found her, but there was still that fine trickle of doubt.
When we've almost reached pavement, I hear something.
"It's Dad!" she screams, dropping her walking stick that lands right across my toes. And, sure enough, I hear the cries of "Heather" in the distance.
She looks back at me for the briefest of moments, and I give her a goofy thumb's up.
"Dad!" she yells. "Over here!" She seems to be bursting with energy.
It surprises me how touched I am to see that the girl's nearly home, safe and sound, and I like to think she'll be better off for the morning's experience. With the back of my hand, I wipe a sweaty itch from my cheek, and realize my role in this matter is over and done. I begin to slowly backtrack, keeping one eye on Heather and one eye down the ridge.
She sees me making my escape, and asks "Where are you going?"
"Back home, kiddo. The rescue team will be here for you any minute."
"What about my dad? I want you to meet him."
Out of the question, I'm thinking. But looking at the excited expression on her pale little face, I dart over to her and sink to my knees. Then my hands cap her shoulders and I say, "Just tell him something for me, can you?"
"Sure."
"Just tell him not to mess with the forest."
Heather nods, absently it seems, while fluttering with excitement. I don't know if a word of my request even registers, but I gather myself and stand, releasing my grip. She bounds in place on her tiptoes for what seems a minute as the voice calling her name grows stronger and gets closer.
"You'll tell him?"
"I will Mr. Smokey," she says and reaches out to embrace me. I lower myself and give her a big bear hug. With her head over my shoulder she asks, "What's that?"
"What's what?"
"This? My dad had one of those."
I crane my neck and see that she's grabbed an amulet I keep tied off within the outside pocket of my backpack. It's a fancy trinket, I must admit: a leap frog charm of gold plating that I keep with me. Only when I spot Heather's puzzled expression do I remember when and where I got that thing. And she's right—her father had one. But now it's mine.
"They're really popular little things," I say. "For good luck."
The call of "Heather" rings again in the distance. We glance towards the call's origin and then meet each other's eyes.
"Remember what to tell your dad."
"I know, I know. Not to mess with the forest," she says.
Her voice warms me. I almost want to stick around for come what may, but shake off the thought when I see her yellow-jacketed father approaching through a stand of woods maybe fifty yards away. So I slip away, back to the deer trail and home.