Whispering Woods

Sometimes, I heard the woods whisper.

I heard them whisper for the first time two years ago. I was inspecting the bulldozer line for what would be my stock fence, the fence that would keep my herd of goats from going into the woods to eat what they shouldn't. The twigs and unmasked clay crunched beneath my feet as I marched its length. Overturned trees and shrubs laid at all angles, exposed roots grasping at the passing breeze. Crickets chirred, hidden in the greenery. Words came to me, unbidden, from the edges of my perception:

broken

dead.

I shook them off. Mere sentimentality, conjured by the woods that clawed back from a major hurricane now laid low by human intervention. I'd only pared it back by a mere twenty feet--enough to meet the government-mandated clear area for a new fence line--but the wound extended the length of my acreage. Shortly after, having found the result sufficient, I called the fencing crew and told them that they could start working.

The crew worked swiftly, completing a tight, sturdy field fence topped with barbed wire in only five days. As they worked, the crickets, the tree frogs, the squirrels, and even the crows, constantly were chirring, croaking, chattering, and cawing. Cawing, cawing, cawing. I knew the sound well, having heard it almost constantly for several weeks, but there was nothing I could do about it.

I provided the crew with a large bonus for their efficient work. The foreman thanked me, a grim smile on his face.

"I had to promise them that they'd be done by Saturday," he said. "You wouldn't have had a crew left on Monday. Not with the voices."

"Maybe they heard the submarine base," I said lightly, trying to end the job on a positive note.

The foreman looked skeptical, but he made a sound that may have passed as a laugh. "There's no coast for three hours from here."

"There used to be a woman who lived here, in a trailer just over there. See where the booger light was?" I pointed in the direction of a large pole toward the back of the property that would have once held electrical hookups. "She said that there were times that she could barely sleep because of the submarine base under the house. She said that she could hear buzzing and the sound of attack plans being made."

This time the noise passed more of a resemblance to a laugh. Rough hands folded the cash and placed it in his shirt pocket.

"Crazy lady. What happened to her?"

"I honestly have no idea," I said. That was true at the time. "She lived here during the Gulf War, so I guess invasions were on everyone's mind then."

The bare dirt gradually covered over with fine grass runners and the suggestion of wild strawberries. The honeysuckle and beautyberry seemed to murmur their appreciation over the heavy wooden posts where corners stood. By the following spring, the natural order seemed mostly to have been restored. A thick growth of dog fennel had emerged at the border of the new pastures, with the occasional dewberry and blackberry vines and yaupon sapling peeking out their heads. Brush and small pines had closed the gap a bit, reducing the ten feet of clear space on the outside of the fence to eight. In the morning, when I went to milk my does, I could barely hear the whispers on the breeze:

growth.

new.

alive.

And so it was, alive. Spring rains created an explosion of green in the woods. Ferns and wild violets spread to the very edge of my garden before succumbing under the wheels of my cultivator. Perhaps I had thrown down the gauntlet, but I remained oblivious to what I was truly hearing. All I knew was that if the trees stayed on their side of the fence, I would remain on mine. An uneasy silence grew between us.

The spring rains and humid June weather gave way to July's scorching heat. The goats spent most of their time crowded around troughs, water buckets, and in their run-in sheds. Even the Bahia grass struggled, sending up early seed heads. The summer hay supply dwindled and failed. None would replace it until the next cutting. I went to Dan's place almost daily, following morning chores, to cut brush. We would cut enough brush from various places on his farm to fit in the back of the Suburban, and then I would feed it as long as it lasted. Eventually, even the untamed areas of Dan's forty acres were pruned to their limits. I would need to start on my own acreage.

The following day, I armed myself with tree loppers and a small hand saw. I opened the back gate to my fence, the gate that led to the forest. Thorny branches tugged at my t-shirt as I passed through. I walked a straight line down the field fence that separated my stand of trees from that of my neighbor, leaving cuttings of yaupon, privet, and pine on the ground for me to pick up. Although I didn't go that far, several more acres were between me and the back fence that separated me from the rest of my neighbor's property.

Hurt!

Stop!

Go!

I closed my eyes and wished the whispers out to the cornfield. They weren't real. They were just paranoid imaginings brought on by wind that rustled through the foliage. Twigs had always pulled my hair--how many times had I needed to put it back into order when looking for chanterelles, pushing my way through undergrowth, tripping over roots? Why were these things new, just because I was out here cutting brush for my goats? They simply weren't. I felt a ripple forming under my feet as I paused to open the gate to the safety of my yard beyond. I stepped backward to swing the gate toward me, my arms still loaded with the brush I carried. The ground surged under my feet, sending me into the field fence to my left. Rusted barbed wire tore my cheek, just under my eye.

go

Go

GO!

I did. I dropped the brush into my yard and pulled the gate shut behind myself. I threw the brush to the does before going into the house to tend to my wound. Only my recent tetanus booster kept me from racing into town and babbling my story about vicious trees to the emergency room staff. I could imagine the whispers now: "she hears trees yelling at her. Didn't the other one hear submarines? They're both crazy!" "The other one" may have been crazy, but I certainly wasn't. Trees were just trees. Walking, talking trees existed only in the movies. Trees couldn't hurt you.

Once I was back at the homestead, things didn't seem quite so cut and dried. I swore I could hear the threat behind the tree frogs' song at twilight. When I went to the back gate to cut another armload of brush for the goats, I found that honeysuckle had entwined with it. The breeze that blew past me carried outrage with it, as I cut the gate open with my loppers. I stayed to my fence between the pasture and the woods, where the trees were smaller and less densely packed. I returned with another armload of brush without incident. I knew that they were only waiting.

The following day, I moved the bucks--Knight, Leland, and Hero--from the center pasture, where they had overwintered, to the far one, at the end of the property. It had lain fallow since the new fence had gone in. There, they had access to thick stands of blackberry vine, young pines, and privet, giving respite to their current pasture that now consisted of almost bare ground. The thick brush encased the woods surrounded by the new fencing. I had planned for this pasture to be this year's winter pasture, to reduce the demands I had on hay. Better to have it grazed away before its time than to see all this good fodder go uneaten. They way it looked, the bucks had enough brush to keep them fat even without grain until the cooler weather came.

August brought with it the unsettled weather that populates our storm season. During one such storm, I heard a crash, loud even through the thunder that rattled my small home to the ends of the tie-downs that barely seemed to be holding it in place. Thick branches pelted the roof, cast around like twigs by the wind. It was too dangerous to go outside, to make certain that the goats were still safe in their enclosures and that the chickens hadn't been freed from their coop. The following morning revealed the source of the crash: a massive pine, previously struck by lightning and mostly dead, had toppled over my fence. By the grace of God, it had missed my chicken coop and my garden by only a few feet. The air was still as everything caught its breath. Waiting.

I had no means of removing the tree myself, so I called the tree removal service before starting my morning chores. I gathered my eggs from the nest box and let the chickens into their yard as we discussed the situation, arranging for the fallen tree and the tree it had broken to be removed. They recommended that I identify any others that might need to come down, just to prevent accidents such as this one from happening again. They kindly made time for me the following day, as I had does that normally browsed in that enclosure. After I finished my chores, I took the roll of pink flagging tape and my loppers out beyond the fence once more. Almost immediately, the tree frogs began to chir their warning

go go go.

Small branches began to sway, caught by an absent breeze. Sweat that had nothing to do with the summer heat began to roll down my back.

"Look," I said. "I'm coming in whether you like it or not. I'm going back no more than 100 feet, no more of a distance that one of you who falls could damage my home or my fences or my livestock. I promise that I won't have any young or healthy trees cut, okay?"

I worked quickly, marking the trees that could be a threat to my home and to my animals. The woods seemed mute with rage. Leaves rustled and branches whistled as they swung at me. It took me an hour to concede defeat. I returned to the cottage with only three trees marked. I cleaned and dressed my wounds, then went about my business of the day. I began what would be a long process of moving the cut logs from the woods after the removal company left. I ended the day exhausted but satisfied with the grim knowledge that at least three of my assailants would provide me with warmth in cold winter months, once the wood had seasoned.

No bucks came to greet me when I brought the morning grain. I filled the buckets, anyway, reassured that they were getting enough to eat by browsing. The three bucks had already made significant inroads toward the center of the brush, where the spreading canopy of the hardwoods created shelter from the heat. My confidence changed to unease when the evening came and still, no bucks ran to greet me. The grain remained uneaten in their buckets. I walked the perimeter of the fence, but found no holes dug by predators, no sign of blood or fur. Neither did I hear any sounds of distress. It was impossible that they had been stolen, not with the locks on the gates and the LGDs in the pastures. I turned on the phone's flashlight and peered down the cleared lane. Did I dare enter during the darkness? I did, for a short distance. The light shone off the white of Hero's flank as he reclined in the distance. Two darker lumps that I assumed to be Leland and Knight lay near him. The bucks, apparently, had decided to get some early slumber. I took the grain with me as I returned to the cottage.

It was not slumber. When I returned to the pasture, the bucks had still not eaten their grain. I found them where they lay, tongues extended, now bloated. Leland's mouth was still clenched around a mouthful of wilted leaves. A handful of wilted cherry leaves can kill a goat in seconds. Mine had consumed at least that many, from a tree that I would have sworn did not exist just weeks before. Numb, I dragged their bodies to a non-wooded area where they would be concealed by tall dog fennel. I called Dan, who called some friends. The men all arrived before the heat of the afternoon, armed with chain saws. By dusk, all of the hardwoods were cleared from the pasture. The bucks rested under a thick covering of branches, and I had another pile of firewood that would eventually make it to the drying shed.

kill

death

die

the trees and crickets and tree frogs and coyotes screamed as I went about my evening chores. "What did you think would happen!" I yelled back. "You killed my bucks!"

The livestock guardians barked, howled, and fought throughout the night, but even their mighty efforts could not stop the carnage. All of my does, all but one of their beautiful kids, all lay still in my pasture when I awoke. The guardian dogs lay mingled between them, fallen where they had tried to defend their charges. Along the remains of my fence lay fallen trees, where predators had been allowed to enter. The trees encroached into the pastures and well into my yard. I collapsed to the ground, seated, staring at the wreckage. As I sat, large limbs fell from the encroaching trees, crushing the quail cages beneath them.

I rose from where I sat and pulled my cell phone from my pocket. For the remainder of the morning, I called as many loggers as I could, finding the ones who would be quickest to reach me, no matter the price. The trees and their minions were all but silent once again, mere murmurs creeped through the air around me.

The loggers arrive in three weeks, the absolute soonest that we could arrange. In the morning, if I am still here, I will go to Dan's to await their arrival--assuming that I live to see the morning. I don't dare leave at night. I hear the bobcat crying in the distance and the coyotes' howls and know that both are closer than they seem.

Even now, I can hear the rustling of the leaves as the trees reach for my cottage. Tree limbs, thudding. More fence line, falling to the rippling ground.

I hear the trees.

They are no longer whispering.