Free The Pines by Robert Dunbar Page A

funny though.”
    Incredibly, the heat increased. Soon they passed a stand of scrub cedars, a welcome break from the pines, but the gnarled trees looked drained, blighted. Webbed with vines, they seemed to huddle together against the surrounding conifers. “Oh my God.”
    Casey turned back. “What is it?”
    Stretched between two cedars was a huge cobweb, a small bird lodged firmly in its center. There came the barest hint of a breeze, and the desiccated creature swayed in a sad parody of flight.
    Alan leaned closer to the web. “Is anybody home? You know, I bet there could be spiders out here as big as a house.” The laugh didn’t quite come off. “What’s that noise?”
    “Catalpa.” Casey pointed to a twisted tree among the pines, the source of a whispering rattle. “The bean pods are dried out from the heat.”
    “They’re not the only ones,” muttered Jenny as she moved away from the web. The straps chafed her shoulders, so she slipped the pack off and sat on it. “Who’s got water?”
    “You know, if that spider is really big, he’s liable to creep down and…carry off Amelia!” Alan pounced on the child and tickled, and she collapsed in laughter and squeals.
    “Stop it, Alan. You’re scaring her.”
    “She doesn’t look scared to me, Jenny.”
    “Look, Sandy, you’re not the one that has to sit up with her when she has nightmares.”
    “Well, if she has one to night, I’d be only too—”
    “Say, Casey,” Alan interrupted loudly. “I meant to ask you before—I see a lot of these trees are all black at the bottom. They burnt or something?” He smiled to himself. Casey, a sort of perpetual grad student, could usually be cued to provide a safe, distracting lecture, and they clearly needed one.
    Nodding, Casey turned away from the cobweb and, with a motion that seemed almost a caress, drew his large hand across a pine trunk. “Dwarfism might have something to do with fire,” he said, fingering a bit of scabrous bark. “Or it may be the soil.” His voice stayed calm and measured as he knelt in the sand. “Here—take a look.” Pinching out a piece of turf, he held it up.
    As he dutifully inspected the plant, Alan saw that it grew everywhere around them—he even stood upon it—and he’d never noticed. Leave it to Casey.
    “You could scour pots with this stuff.” Jenny kicked at a loose patch of lichen.
    “The glands—the red spots—are sticky,” Casey pointed out, “for trapping insects.”
    “I wish they’d trap some of these.”
    He gave her an indulgent look. “There’s an almost complete lack of nitrogen in the soil.” Pausing for them to appreciate that, he smiled his slow smile down at Amelia as the child fearfully examined the pale bit of mossy green. At nine years old, she seemed a nut-brown miniature of Jenny, the dark eyes, now lined and nervous in the mother, adding an unusual depth to the child’s face. “That means the plants have to eat bugs to live,” he explained.
    Jenny sighed laboriously at the lecturing drone.
    “It’s going to be a long week,” Sandy muttered.
    “This place…” A note of awe entered Casey’s voice, and he stood up, brushing damp sand from his sweating legs. “Think about it. A forest this size in the middle of the most heavily industrialized state in the Union!” He shook his head in wonder.
    Grinning to see his taciturn friend so animated, Alan nudged Sandy.
    “What’s really incredible is that nobody even realizes it’s out here. What do people see from their cars? Trees on the side of the road—just the tip of the iceberg! Most people have to think, a few yards in, there’s another road or some houses. They can’t grasp it! Can’t conceive of—”
    “Ugly. Ugly little trees.” Jenny stood up and pinched sullenly at the sides of her binding jeans, while Alan helped her struggle back into her pack. “Trees should be pretty. You look at these, and all you’re aware of is their miserable little struggles to