Ch. 11: Jonah

Hemlock trees are not outstanding in the minds of every citizen in the Southern Appalachians. But in Hemlock, North Carolina, children are taught about them in early grade school. They even play a game in Ms. Oliver’s third-grade class, about the differences between the Eastern and Carolina Hemlock, which concludes by revealing that botanical collectors didn’t even make a distinction between the species until the mid-1850s, and didn’t officially name the Carolina Hemlock until the late 1800s. How wonderful, the children are taught, that the Carolina Hemlock, and the town of Hemlock, North Carolina, became distinct almost simultaneously. The children learn about the unique salamanders, birds, and brook trout that depend on the trees for shade and protection, and their little souls flutter for this tree of their town. It’s as if they are the trees, and the trees are them.

Forest ecology, Leona’s field of choice, recognizes that Hemlocks only represent about five percent of tree species in Southern forests, but they are special on account of their ecological niche, or their role nestled within a system. In a forest system, the Hemlock’s role is in stabilizing the mature forest. Hemlocks are called foundational species, meaning that many other species depend on them. The loss of their shade, the loss of protection their strong canopies provide from snow loads, and the loss of their evergreen branches as animal habitats will create major changes in the functioning of the entire forest ecosystem.

The invasion of the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid began in the 1950s, and had spread slowly until the 1980s, when the sapsucker reached natural forests, infecting threes by the thousands. Folks in Hemlock were keen on protecting the trees, even before growing awareness of an endangered planet began to build nationwide. By the time protecting Hemlocks was a regularly recognized forest management practice, Hemlock, North Carolina was already dedicated to protecting hemlock trees. By any means necessary.

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Jonah deals with his shame by immersing himself in high-performance athleticism, which has required giving up coffee. This morning, like every morning, he had chugged 16oz of room-temperature water just after waking, to shake off the grog and get the bowels moving. Then, he moves fast as a rule, to avoid almost any thought of anything, outside the task at hand. By sunup, he is climbing a grade toward Jonas Ridge, with his music blaring. A decent number of trees up near Hanford’s new development need pesticide treatment, and he wants to see how much help he will need. From what Tom is saying, it sounds like Jonah will have to call in backup. He pulls his truck over at the survey post near the fresh road cut, grabs some survey flags from a toolbox, and moving quickly through the thick woods, begins staking trees. He has to be careful these days about trusting other people with the sprays and equipment. The state had been all over him during Maya’s trial, and so now the thought of bringing in subcontractors just makes him angry. Not that Maya had been a subcontractor. Although he resists thinking about her, the image arises of her donning a hard hat and spray pack, makes him laugh out loud.

The sound of his own voice in the morning woods startles him, and he stops moving to look around him, up and down the trunks of the trees, and down across the dry litter on the ground. And then, he realizes he’s punctured his distraction and fallen into time, and the memories of Maya are before him like so many leaves, violating his equilibrium. He spits on the ground and sucks his breath inward, steeling himself against their assault. The sun is just beginning to offer itself through the vertical bodies of the trees, and he looks right at it.

The worst part was that she had tricked him. She had played with his emotions. The shame is so thick, he feels it almost like the heat that smacks his whole body when he first arrives at the frontline of a forest fire. An all-encompassing, powerful heat that serves as a reminder of how helpless humans are. And to think he fought that fire at Sugar Mountain for four days when he was a bare slip of a teen. She had probably started it like everyone always said. He hadn’t cared, then, but now it all had a new heat. All he had wanted then was to be on the fire squad; he didn’t care where the fires came from. He shakes his head violently, pulling himself back. Right now, he carries no chemical treatment in his truck, not even in the lockable box. So, what if he wants to get to work on these trees? What if he does want to go it alone? He’d have to drive back to HQ, and sign out a tank with Manuel watching, and a camera overhead.

If he’s honest, he does blame himself. He certainly blames her. He feels fine about wherever Tom takes this; that’s for him and his family to figure out. But in these moments, his mind cannot not shake the memory of Maya, tangled up in his sheets, laughing, sleeping, running her toe down the back of his leg. She could have just stolen the chemicals. They were always right there, anywhere that he was. But she had gutted him emotionally, too.

“Piece of shit,” he grumbles into the listening woods. He starts uphill again, his breathing in time with his cadence through the forest. He can see the boundary ahead. He’ll crest the hill and zig-zag back down, up and down until he has sampled the entire area. He won’t get all the trees this way, but he’ll get a decent idea. From the survey flags he’s already positioned, he knows Tom is right: The job will take two, maybe three other people. Fine. He will let Manuel pick. Take the onus off himself.

That’s just it. He doesn’t trust himself anymore. Perhaps before Maya, he had trusted himself too much, and now he has been beaten into a healthy amount of self-doubt. Katie keeps saying that it isn’t one or the other, that it will just take time.

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