White Pine
by
F. J. Mackelroy
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Smashwords Edition
White Pine ©2010 by F. J. Mackelroy
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I leaned against the white pine trunk and looked across Black Lake, trying not to think of losing Laura. Everything hurt when I thought of my wife. I had refused to attend the farewell celebration for the astronauts with all the other loyal and patriotic spouses, so Laura was insisting on coming out to the wilderness to see me one last time before she left for Mars.
Mars! What a terrible joke! I had been blind and stupid; during her months of training I hadn't believed she would really leave, but finally I was forced to believe it now. My wife, who had once been perfectly happy to live with me and study the geology of ancient riverbeds now thought she had to go to another goddamn planet to be fulfilled! It was insane. So here, away from the city, away from Laura, here on this long white beach, I was doing my best not to think of her.
This area near the Straits of Mackinac was a second home to me, and rich in history. A hundred years ago my great grandfather joined other farmers and immigrants and worked here as a lumberman during the winter. Each year when the crops were harvested and the snow started to fall, he'd pack his things, hitch up the team, and travel north to cut the white pines which covered much of the lower peninsula of Michigan.
They cut down the trees, used teams and big wheels and sleds to haul the logs to the rivers, sent them downstream to the mills, and left the slash to rot. It burned instead. The summer came, the drought, and square miles burned, whole counties burned, for days and weeks, until a swath was seared across the state, until the topsoil turned to ash and blew away.
Only a few trees, bent or deformed trees, like this one, this white pine, managed to escape the slaughter. It leaned now, dark and tall and wider than my shoulders, out over the water, undercut by winter-driven waves. I stood next to it, running my hand over the dark rough bark.
I forced my attention back to work. I earned my keep for the summer by maintaining the grounds of an estate. Today I was trimming underbrush and snags around the beach. The old white pine had several broken branches that trailed in the water, catching weeds and tangle. I pulled out the ax, hefted it, and started cutting dead branches.
The blade bit clean, exposing pale fragrant wood. I told people I came here because it was a good place to write up my research on improving the growth of white pines, my attempt to repair some of the damage my grandfather and the others had done to the land, to relieve some small portion of the guilt. Large parts of the northern half of the state had been turned to desert in the name of progress when the pines were cut. I hated the kind of progress that meant destroying the things that connected us and kept us whole. But I sometimes feared the success of my own research, knowing the way good new ideas could be turned against nature, or even be destructive in their own success.
Other times I could admit my other reasons for being here, reasons a lot less noble. I'd come here on the run, leaving town early, just so I'd be the one who left first, so it would seem like I was the one who decided and took control. She was so busy with training that it didn't really matter to her. I was already torn apart by all her schedules and procedures and the plans. I couldn't stay in town and watch her leave.
She insisted she loved me. Even though she would be gone for over a decade, she said she still loved me. It was more than just the time. After the series of disasters in the desert, even though NASA had taken control again, even with the moonbase success and all the Mars work, space travel still seemed suicidal. I felt so damn helpless. Sure, the trip and her research were heroic and wonderful and so on, but who wants to be in love with a missing heroine.