CHAPTER 5: Silvercreek

The bus parked in the lot of the run-down Silver Spur Hotel on the edge of Silvercreek. There were four other passengers, but Grace was the only one disembarking. The driver handed over her bag and she thanked him, gave him a fiver. He studied the tip as if it were his first. “Appreciate it, Miss,” he said.

Grace rolled her bag gingerly around rainwater-filled potholes into the lobby. There she stopped short as the wind slammed the door shut behind her.

Jackson Armstrong was leaning against the front desk, chatting with the clerk, an older woman with a kind face and short brown hair. The woman was saying, “David and Carlos have left town; Anders is heartbroken.” Jackson nodded, then they both turned and stared.

Grace’s face flushed with angry memories. She took a breath and rolled her luggage forward. “Mr. Armstrong,” she said, in a measured voice. She smiled politely and offered her hand.

“Ms Newman,” he said, his big, calloused paw enveloping her soft, slim hand. His brown eyes were flecked with green, his skin weathered from the elements. He wore a thick sheepskin coat and smelled of cold air and sawdust. He studied her like she was from another planet. “Call me Jackson,” he said. “Jack works too.”

“Please, call me Grace,” she said, ending the handshake a second too soon. “The last time I saw you, a mob was chasing you. Did they catch you?”

“And beat me up? Nah,” he said. “The protesters tossed insults and left, but the kids hung around. They’re curious. Spent half the night talking over pie and coffee at Denny’s. We got a few email threats after, but mostly the Yellow Ribbon’s been fielding questions.”

“Do you have time for pie and coffee after I check in?”

“Actually,” he said, “I thought you’d prefer to stay with us.”

“Thank you, but no, I have a room here.”

“There’s no better place to learn about timber and our town than at the mill and our home. We’d be pleased to have you as our guest. Let me help you with your bag,” he said reaching for the handle.

His big hands were crisscrossed with thin ribbons of white scars. Like he’d personally done battle with every tree in the forest, thought Grace as she fought with him for the handle. “I’ve got it,” she said.

He let go and she nearly toppled backwards. He reached out and steadied her, hid a grin as she straightened up. “Elaine,” he said to the desk clerk. “Ms Newman will be staying with us.”

“10-4, Jack,” said Elaine.

On his way out the door, he leaned in and whispered, “So we don’t put you out, Elaine, invoice the mill; we’ll pick up the tab.”

“Jack,” she whispered back. “You don’t have to, but it’s appreciated, thanks.”

Grace wondered what they were discussing. “Give my best to Ethan,” he said.

“Back atcha, Jack,” replied Elaine. “Kiss the baby for me.”

“This way, Ms Newman,” he said as he donned his dark brown cowboy hat banded with a tan ribbon with white dots and stripes. He strode out to and across the parking lot with Grace following like a duckling in the rain. She rolled her suitcase around puddles—there were lots of puddles.

On the far side of the lot was a white Ford 350 with an extended cab and a magnetic sign on the door advertising ARMSTRONG MILL.

Jackson reached for her bag and this time she let go. He placed it on a tarp laid across the back seat of the cab while she studied the initials E.L.F., etched and rusting into the rear wheel well on the passenger side.

She hung onto her backpack and he offered his hand, but she didn’t take it. She took hold of the grab handle and pulled herself up and into the spotless cab fitted with a CB radio. He cleaned his truck for my visit, she thought, feeling a pang of guilt over the mud her boots carried in.

He got in the driver’s side. “So, welcome to Silvercreek, Ms Newman,” he said as he turned over the engine.

“Please, call me Grace,” she said. 

“I will,” he said as he merged onto the main road. “Happy to show you the sights while you’re in town,” he said. “You remember that big computer company exec who died hiking last year? That’s the peak where it happened, over there on your right.”

Gruesome, she thought. “Interesting,” she said. “Tell me, how many mills in the area?”

“Just two,” said Jackson. “Masters Logging and ours. Hundreds of lumber, plywood and pulp mills in Washington, Oregon, Northern California and Idaho have closed in the last thirty years—six in this state in the last five. Contraction. Or maybe it’s shuttin’ down ’round our ears.” He chewed his lip. “Didn’t see that coming,” he said.

“Oh, come on,” she said. “You must have seen it coming. The Timber Summit was in ’93.”

“1993,” he laughed. “Yesterday! People have been on the Olympic for 14,000 years, been using trees ever since. A mill’s been in Silvercreek since 1865—not long in the scheme of things. Sure, we’ve had bad times—sometimes prices tank—but overall, things always got a little bit better. This time? Well, they just keep getting worse. End of life as we know it?” He drove in silent frustration.

“But isn’t fighting just postponing the inevitable? Once you cut the last of the forest, the last 10% of old growth, you’ll all be out of work anyway.”

He tilted his head, checked his mirrors and pulled over to the side of the road, parked under a rocky ledge. The exposed roots of a tree tangled around boulders above them, hugging the rocks like lovers.

He turned off the engine. It was beyond quiet on the empty road. He turned to her. “How do I explain this?” he asked. “No one’s cutting the last of anything, Ms Newman, Grace. One fifth of North America’s softwood reserves are Doug fir, the most productive softwood timberlands in terms of volume per acre. My family owns, free and clear, over 25,000 acres of Site 1 land, good land, 1,000 board-feet-to-the-acre-per-year land. Mostly Doug fir, 150-200 feet tall. Our management plan is 70-year cycles. 25,000 divided by 70 gives us 357 acres to harvest annually. Using a stumpage value of $500 per thousand board feet, the basic math is 70 x 357 x $500 for a potential stumpage value increase, continual growth, of $12.5 million per year.”

Grace sucked in her breath.

“Abundance,” he said. “Praise the Lord, we’ll be here forever. This is the very definition of sustainability. That is our business model.”

He paused, then said quietly, “There is no reason for poverty on this planet but that it benefits the few that many remain in need—a very different business model. Calculated theft of communal wealth or just bad policy?”

He shook his head and wondered, Bad policy written by the incompetent or the corrupt?

To Grace, he said, “Between private and public land harvests, we could keep dozens of mills running smoothly while reducing fuel load to keep the towns safe. If allowed, we can create opportunity and prosperous people. We’re loggers and proud of it.”

He took a breath, looked out the window into the dark forest across the road.

He turned to her “It’s simple,” he said. “Deny us access, over-regulate us so we spend most of our time fighting lawsuits and fires instead of harvesting trees, we can’t run our mills efficiently or contract to sell lumber. We can’t hire and issue paychecks and then the town dies—if it doesn’t burn first. Simple as that.”

“But,” she said, “eco-tourism—”

“Has its place,” he said. “Look, I read what you wrote about celebrating the Timber Summit, that friggin’ train wreck. Raging socialists from Portland with some of the eco-anarchy crowd from Eugene mixed in. The Clintons’ famous public-private partnership brand of crony capitalism, plus tons of PhDs just itching to supervise broad scale top-down management, paid for by taxpayers. Few in that room had their livelihoods at stake. Nothin’ on the table except other people’s lives, other people’s hometowns. You know,” he said, “the Constitution was designed to protect natural law and us from people giving away our rights.”

“But,” she said, “the science says—”

“The science!” he laughed, with stats racing through his mind. A chunk of the Olympics, millions of acres. A third is Forest Service, most with harvest history, planted to high-density Doug fir on a planned silvicultural pathway that anticipated pre-commercial thinning, commercial thinning, and eventual final harvest. How, he thought, do I explain this to her?

“The Northwest Forest Plan,” he said, slowly “reduced Forest Service production levels by about 75% in three states. On the Olympic, it’s closer to 100%.”

Effectively abandoned, he thought, mismanaged dense, unthinned acreage. Roads have been removed, inaccessible. Between wind, insects and disease, these unstable forests will experience disturbances, fire. Unchecked that has consequences for federal and state acreage and those of us that live adjacent. How do I explain this to her?

He said, “These unmanaged lands will burn, not if, when—”

“But,” Grace interjected, “it’s so wet up here. Fire’s not really a threat, and—”

“Perfect storm circumstances—fuel, drought, wind and ignition—have occurred in the past,” he said. “It’ll do so again. Frequent fires are generally east side events while infrequent large fires are more likely on the coast. By infrequent, I mean several hundred years and stand replacing events hence the presence of Douglas fir. Wind is the more frequent disturbance on the coast—every 10 to 30 years—and it is true that significant blow down can lead to bark beetle outbreaks and forest fires if left untreated and dry summer conditions follow with east winds and lightning.”

He studied the leather cover on the steering wheel. “Look, this attitude is deadly. We can cut trees forever if you let us. Use it or lose it. Let us work lightly over a large scale, forever, sustainably. Forestry and old school liberal capitalism are both sustainable. It’s a beautiful thing.”

“Perhaps you’re mistaken,” she said.

He laughed. “Yeah, I just live here. What do I know?” he asked and was silent, thinking, Miserable policy decisions made in big cities by people without a clue; preservationists closing off access to public land making it impossible to harvest our private lands; thousands of skilled workers lost. Our social contract destroyed. Consolidation, automation, infrastructure built over two centuries collapsing around us—we’re losing the ability to manage an area this massive. How do I explain this to her?

He voiced none of this but said, “Lock it up! Instead of transforming all that wealth into taxable income, adding to the US Treasury, our wealth is lost to firefighting and providing ever-greater services to the ever-growing poor.”

He shook his head, ran his hand over the stubble on his chin. Front lines of a war, he thought. Should just give up—hate to but just might have to leave this place.

Jackson put the key in the ignition but didn’t turn it. “Kids are growing up poor all over America surrounded by lands of inaccessible wealth,” he said. “Their parents are supposed to be thankful for the paycheck every time they put their lives at risk fighting fires on unmanaged land! Hell, in New York and Seattle they complain about the smoke. Now if that ain’t shit, I don’t know what is.”

Jackson went silent. He turned the key, listened to the engine for a moment, checked his mirrors and then slowly pulled back onto the road.

They traveled in stony silence for what seemed like forever. Grace sat, her eyes fixed on a dent in the glove compartment. Man, she thought. I sure wish I were in that nice, quiet hotel room right about now.

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Silvercreek’s town square is a thick green rectangle of overgrown grass at the base of a fat, lush cedar, surrounded by storefronts last updated in the 1980s. Blue and white and barn-red paint, steeply-sloped rooflines with a touch of gingerbread, hint of a Scandinavian heritage.

FOR RENT and GOING OUT OF BUSINESS signs hang in the windows with two closed storefronts for every open one. Flyers for rallies, garage sales and charity bake sales paper telephone poles and community bulletin boards.

From the window of Jackson’s truck, Grace considered the sentiments of the locals as expressed in bumper stickers slapped on the backsides of their muddy pickups:

THE ONLY TRUE WILDERNESS: THE SPACE BETWEEN AN ENVIRO’S EARS.

SEQUOIA CLUB: KISS MY AX.

EVERY DAY IS EARTH DAY FOR A FORESTER

HUG A LOGGER; YOU’LL NEVER GO BACK TO TREES.

HUNGRY? UNEMPLOYED? EAT A SPOTTED OWL!

A neon sign glowed in a pawnshop window and hungry looking twenty somethings, with their matted hair spilling from Bob Marley hats, hung around outside a CBD shop. Grace recognized them from California. Come North to plant, trim and guard the new crop of the West, she thought.

Clusters of loggers rotated through the bar and hardware store. They wore caps advertising Caterpillar, Husqvarna, International Truck, work boots and heavy jeans held up by wide red suspenders over gray hickory shirts, their tans going as far as their rolled-up sleeves.

On a side street in Silvercreek, around the corner from Billy’s Burger, sat a fat doublewide trailer set on blocks next to the river after which the town was named. Over a bright yellow door, the wind gently rocked a Douglas fir sign, the words YELLOW RIBBON ALLIANCE carved into it, the grooves carefully painted in forest green, two yellow bows painted on each side.

Jackson parked the truck. “This is it,” he said, turning off the engine. 

A girl, about six, sat on the wood steps. Her long, blonde hair was matted, her pinched face smeared with dirt, her pale blue dress torn and filthy.

Jackson walked up the steps past the child. “Hi, Dana,” he said.

Grace stooped down. “Hi, sweetheart,” she asked softly. “How are you?” The girl brought her head up slowly. There was no sparkle in her eyes, no joy. She took Grace in with one unseeing glance and turned away. Grace straightened up as a man’s voice boomed from the Alliance office.

“Look, Ginnie,” he said, “I ain’t gone to the retrainin’ classes ‘cuz I can’t pay for gas no more. I called and called. They say unemployment’s in the mail, but, well, I ain’t got it. I’m flat broke, friggin’ A.”

“I’ll see what I can do, Sam,” said a woman’s voice. “Come back in an hour?”

The yellow door opened and a thin man with a face weathered well beyond his years stomped out. “Hey, Jack,” he said as he picked up the little girl and placed her on his skinny hipbone.

“Hey, Sam,” said Jackson.

Grace watched Sam walk away, muttering gently to the girl who snuggled against his shoulder, sucking her dirty thumb.

“Grace?” Jackson asked, holding open the yellow door.

“Sorry,” said Grace, turning to him. The office was stuffed with beat-up desks and file cabinets topped with stacks of paper, a torn leather couch mended with duct tape, two laptops, a printer and an old copier, an even older fax machine. Local and world maps covered one dark paneled wall and a bulletin board on another was buried under thumbtacked meeting announcements and news clippings.

A pretty, strawberry blonde in her late twenties leaned against the desk. A gold cross dangled on a chain between her breasts over a long tawny cashmere sweater worn over dark woolen leggings and brown leather boots; a thick brown leather belt cinched around her tiny waist. A tan bow with white stripes and spots—the same ribbon banding Jackson’s cowboy hat—was pinned to her sweater. Ginnie flashed a dazzling smile at Jackson. His shoulders relaxed and he grinned back and Grace realized it was the first time she’d seen him smile, a nice smile.

“Grace Newman,” he said. “Reporter, L.A. Tribune. Virginia Anderson, Ginnie, Executive Director, Yellow Ribbon Alliance.”

Ginnie offered Grace her hand. “Welcome to Silvercreek,” she said warmly. As Grace shook Ginnie’s hand, she thought, So this is the person who planted all those timber industry people in the audience at UCLA to direct questions at Jackson.

Jackson sat at one of the desks and sorted mail. “Jack,” said Ginnie, “you don’t have to do that.” He ignored her.

Ginnie offered Grace a seat on the battered leather couch. “So,” said Ginnie, “I read some of your articles. Polychlorinated biphenyls in the Great Lakes. Persistent Organic Pollutants swirling around the globe and landing in the Arctic. Terrifying. Think all this focus on CO2 is distracting us from the real pollutants?”

“Might be,” said Grace.

“Your article on the reduction of oil production off California—well, let’s just call that ironic, shall we? You’ve written on cattle ranching, fishing, certification programs including the lobster certification mess, and, of course, a whole lot on timber and us here in spotted owl country.”

Grace couldn’t tell if Ginnie was impressed by her journalistic range or being sarcastic. She let her continue without comment.

“So, this piece is for The Trib, right?”

“Yes,” said Grace. “A feature piece.”

“Deadline next week?” asked Ginnie.

“Nope,” said Grace. “This will take at least ten days.”

“Good,” said Ginnie, patting reports on her desk with her left hand and Grace noted the gold wedding band on her ring finger. “I assume you’ve read it,” said Ginnie, holding up a thick document, “but just in case, I pulled a hard copy of the Northwest Forest Plan, aka Option 9, pounds of pure bureaucratic bliss. Key passages highlighted for your reading pleasure. For example…” She flipped to tables and highlighted text in Appendix A and read:

All 24.455 million acres of Forest Service, BLM, and other federally-administered lands within the range of the northern spotted owl are also allocated to one of three watershed categories.

“The Forest Service is an agency of the US Department of Agriculture, USDA,” she said. “BLM, the Bureau of Land Management, is a Department of the Interior agency. Pretty much covers it, right? Add in watersheds—which is pretty much any land that slopes—and we have 24.455 million opportunities to sue. Fun, huh? You’ll find the federal, state and county laws, management plans for the layers of government we deal with, court rulings, commentaries and whatnot under Key Resources on our website. Also, Presidential Executive Orders. Presidents usually signal where they stand via executive orders—preserving trees or cutting trees. Doesn’t matter, Executive Orders generally end up in court for violations of the National Environmental Protection Act, NEPA, the National Forest Management Act, NFMA. Nongovernmental Organizations, NGOs, file lawsuits under the Endangered Species Act, the ESA.” She shook her head. “Delivers tax dollars and contributions to the NGOs and on we go, another round. Of course, the foundation for all this, the original ‘science’, is the 1983 FEMAT report.”

Ginnie held up a 1,000-page document by the Forest Ecosystem Management Assessment Team, FEMAT. She dropped it on her desk.

“Multiple agencies from four federal bureaucracies, wrote this monster,” she said. “BLM’s all in, plus Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service. From the USDA, the Forest Service weighed in, of course. Then we have the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, in the muddle and, from the Department of Commerce, we have NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and NMFS, the National Marine Fisheries Service. Toss in the social economy—the NGOs, academics and lawyers making a living via conflict campaigns over social issues. That’s a lot of fingers in this fat pie.”

Jackson made a sound of disgust in the corner. “The money spent on this!” he said. “They study into oblivion so bureaucrats can regulate us to death. Paralysis by analysis. There are more scientists, lawyers, bureaucrats and conflict junkies living off US forests than loggers by what? A factor of a hundred? No way in hell we can deliver enough tax dollars to cover it all. This once-great source of wealth is now an economic bloodletting for the US Treasury.”

Ginnie nodded. “Everything’s stored in the archives section of our website, but,” she said, pointing to a bookcase full of reports, “we also have hard copy, including the latest docs on owls, murrelets, goshawks, salamanders, slugs, and snails. I highlight and add notes as I read, should you find that helpful. The latest controversy focuses on the barred owl, a native species in the eastern and southern states. Since the 1900s, it’s been expanding its range north and west through Canada’s boreal forests. It hit the Pacific Ocean in the 1970s and headed south, ran smack into the territory of the ESA-protected spotted owl so now government’s deemed it an invasive species in the Pacific Northwest.”

“Turns out that’s a death sentence,” said Jackson as Ginnie handed Grace the Draft Barred Owl Management Plan. Post-its fluttered from the edges of its 304 pages like yellow feathers. “Have you read it?” she asked.

“The press release, yes. Scanned The Plan, so, thanks. I’ll dive in,” said Grace, taking the document and placing it in her backpack.

Ginnie pointed to a poster on the wall. “There are 39 owl species native to North America, six within the wood owl genus Strix, including the barred owl and the spotted owl. Page 16 tells us government’s been killing barred owls since 1986, but now they’ve proposed various alternatives, from doing nothing to 30-year culls of half a million to—per Alternative 3, Table 3-9, page 75—killing over 900,000 barred owls, including any hybrid offspring, sparred owls—in an effort to stop those with striped markings from breeding with their cousins with spotted plumage.”

“To maintain the genetic identity of the spotted owl,” laughed Jackson. “The Plan disallows lead bullets and condemns loggers but makes no mention of dope growers operating on government forestlands. Dope Inc uses rat poison to protect its crop and it’s killing critters like boar, big cats, birds of prey and leaching into our water.”

Grace had read UK and Canadian studies on anticoagulant rodenticide poisoning of raptors, with almost 100% of barred owls and almost 90% of great horned owls suffering from toxic contamination. The words floated through her mind: extensive and persistent contamination of the avian trophic transfer pathway, globally.

Grace could feel Jackson’s anger. “Now all these government contractors will be traipsing around in the woods at night, equipped with thermal imaging and these new quiet guns. Dope growers will be the first to sign up since they’re out there already!” He shook his head in disgust. “It’s an absolute scandal.”

“Page 106, Table 3-29,” said Ginnie, “Lists species that may be affected by killing barred owls, those that compete with them for food and those that are their prey, implying a beneficial result from the culling.”

Jackson added, “Conspicuous by its absence is a budget for taxpayers and there’s no mention of the impacts of  the removal of hundreds of thousands of barred owls. After all, everything has its place and everything is food for something else, even when it’s toxic!”

Ginnie smiled. “That reminds me, have you had lunch, Grace? One of the city council members wants to join us. OK with that?”

“Of course,” said Grace.

“Jackson? Lunch?” said Ginnie. Grace read more than a simple invitation in her voice.

“No, gotta get back to work. I’ll lock up.” He handed Grace his card. “Text me when you need a ride.” The phone rang and he answered it. As the door closed behind them, Grace could hear his husky voice in the wind. “Good afternoon, Yellow Ribbon. Jackson here. How can I help?”