Free Speak to the Earth by William Bell Page A

Mom?”
    “Well, between you and me, I guess I had a couple of brushes with the cops a few years ago. I learned to steer clear of cops as much as I can.”
    As he went out the door he added, “Maybe you got something there, though.”

FOUR
    I ris asked about her brother as soon as she entered the house, and Bryan told her what he knew.
    “Thank God he’ll be able to use his arm again,” she said, hanging up her poncho and shrugging out of her sweater. “Walter told me Jimmy was all right but — you know Walter — no details. I had nightmares all the way home that Jimmy had lost the arm. I’ve seen that happen in some of those logging accidents.” Bryan’s mother raked her fingers through her damp hair. “Well, I’m going to have a bath and get to bed. I have to be at the supermarket at eight tomorrow.”
    “You want some hot tea or something, Mom?”
    “No, thanks, dear. Just my nice comfortable bed. It’s been a long day. What were you up to?”
    Bryan knew then that Walter hadn’t told his mother that they had been out to the river. She didn’t know Bryan had seen her picked up and thrown into the police van.
    “Well,” he began, “as a matter of fact, Mom —” and he quit when he saw the tiredness and stress in her face.“Umm,” he began again, “I just, you know, got my work done at home and hung around.”
    “That’s nice,” she said. And she dragged herself down the hall to her bedroom.
    The next morning, Bryan woke early to the smell of toast and the scrape of a kitchen chair — his mother was having breakfast. Sitting up, he stuffed his pillow behind him, and leaned back against the wall and thought about what Walter had said the day before.
    Although he respected his neighbour and had a lot of affection for him, Bryan could not buy all that talk about ghosts and spirits. A forest is a forest, he thought, not a spirit-land or a museum. It’s pretty, sure, but a tree is a tree.
    When he heard his mother leave, he got up, showered, dressed and began to prepare breakfast for the two guests. Kevin and Otto entered the kitchen all set for another day on the picket line, Bryan observed, dressed like real live outdoorsmen in their designer active wear, carrying backpacks with Greenpeace logos on them.
    “So how’s your mother?” Kevin asked, pouring syrup on a stack of pancakes.
    Bryan stood with his back to the two men, ladling batter onto the frying pan. “She’s fine, thanks.”
    “Glad to hear it. We really admire her commitment, right, Otto?”
    “Not too many like her around,” Otto said.
    “And we’re glad to be staying with kindred souls, soto speak,” Kevin continued. “Know what I mean, Tom?”
    “Tom?” Bryan flipped the half dozen pancakes and turned to face the men.
    Kevin smiled. “Remember the fence?”
    Bryan laughed. “Yeah.”
    “So how about it? Are me and Otto in among kindred souls, like I said?”
    “Well, not completely.” Embarrassed, he turned to the stove again. “My uncle isn’t exactly a tree-hugger.”
    “Really. That’s too bad. Has a different view, does he?”
    “Sort of.”
    “How about you, Tom?”
    “I’m what you’d call neutral.”
    “Really. Well, I’m disappointed to hear that. Yes, sir. Oh, well.”
    “That Indian next door in the trailer,” Otto said. “Is he in the movement?”
    “He’s Nootka,” Bryan said. “He doesn’t like to be called Indian.”
    “Whatever. Is he in the movement, then?”
    Otto’s voice seemed to push too hard for Bryan’s liking. “I don’t know,” he said. “Anybody want more pancakes?”
    “Not me,” Kevin answered, gulping down the last of his coffee and pushing back his chair. “I’m done.”
    Otto rose, too, and began to pull on his jacket. Both men picked up their gear and went out the door.
    That night Ellen came over for dinner, and when his mother got home — later than usual because she had dropped by the hospital to take some magazines and snacks to Jimmy — Bryan and