Free Speak to the Earth by William Bell

record?” Bryan shot back. “Making a fool of herself?”
    The kitchen was silent. With a sigh, Walter got up and replenished the two mugs. He sat down again and stirred his coffee slowly.
    “Long time ago,” he began in a low, almost expressionless voice, “this whole area used to be my peoples.’ Well, us Nootkas lost the land and we’re all scattered now. Some of us still believe the spirits of our ancestors don’t go away to some kind of afterlife like the Christians talk about. Me, I think the ghosts of the dead stay near the living. My ancestors’ spirits are walking over there on Big Bear and Salmon, Flower Pot Island, Vickers Island. We got different names for those places in our language. The spirits are still walking in the old forests, along the creekbeds and the beaches.”
    Walter blew on his coffee and took a drink. Bryan waited.
    “Now the tree-cutters are gonna drive them away from their ancient lands for good. I worry sometimes, wondering where they can go.”
    Bryan thought for a moment before he said, “Do you think the spirits will leave if only a few trees — you know, the real big ones — are harvested?”
    Walter smiled. “Interesting word, that. ‘Harvested.’ Like them guys are ploughing up potatoes, knowing next year they can come back and there’ll be a new crop ready for them to take. An ancient rainforest isn’t a field of wheat. You don’t ‘harvest’ a thousand-year-old tree. If you cut it down, you cancel it for good.”
    “Yeah, I see what you mean,” Bryan admitted, wondering once again what there was about the way Walter talked that made things so clear.
    “I hope you won’t take no offence, Bryan,” Walter said gently, “but maybe you don’t know what I mean. Some people think they can go into a forest, take the trees they want, leave the slash and bark and the timber that don’t pay lying around, and nothing changes. They think the forest is just like it was before they came. Only a few trees are missing. They don’t know. The whole thing — sea, sky, forest — it’s all connected.”
    Walter joined his thumbs and index fingers to form a circle. “They’re all one. Change part of it, it’s all changed. We know that, us first peoples. That’s why, in all our bands, all our nations, the circle is a main symbol.”
    Walter held up his mug, took a sip, looked atBryan over the rim.
    “You remember the time last spring when you fell out of the boat?”
    Bryan laughed softly. “I sure do.”
    “You heard the whales.” It was not a question.
    How did he know? Bryan thought. Ellen was the only person he had told. “Yeah, I heard them.”
    “I hope you won’t take offence, my friend. You heard them singing, but you don’t know yet what they were telling you.”
    “You … This is weird. You think they were
talking
to me?”
    “I think everything in nature — bear, eagle, raven, even trees — they all talk to us. The earth speaks, but nowadays not too many of us listen any more. Far as I can tell, whites have never listened.”
    Before Bryan could answer, the phone rang.
    “Bryan? Zeke Wilson. I’m calling from the station. Listen, Bryan, I feel really bad about what happened today. With your mom and all. I … I just wanted to call and tell you they’re processing Iris right now, and she’ll be released in about an hour.”
    “Okay, Zeke.”
    “And, Bryan, I won’t get a chance to talk to her. Will you tell her how sorry I am?”
    “Sure, Zeke. I’ll let her know.”
    Bryan hung up, then told Walter what Zeke had said.
    “He’s okay, Zeke is. For a cop.” Walter stood and drained his cup. “We’ll go pick her up.”
    “I’m not going,” Bryan said. “I’ll wait here.”
    Bryan felt pinned by Walter’s gaze. “Okay, then.”
    “Walter, can I ask you something?”
    “Don’t see why not.”
    “Well, considering the way you feel — you know, the stuff we were just talking about — how come you’re not in the movement with