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passenger side door, pulled out the rifle. She kept it pointed at the ground.
     
        "Back off," she said to the man approaching her.
     
        "Just back off."
     
        The other one laughed and started to move toward her.
     
        "Honey, you're a sight! That damn gun's bigger than you are."
     
        She raised the rifle, and they could all hear the click as she took off the safety.
     
        "I said back off. Just get in that truck and clear out. I'm Mrs. Kendricks and that tree doesn't get touched. You hear me?"
     
        The one with the paper in his hand froze; the other one threw one arm up in mock fear, but he kept moving, kept grinning. Deliberately she aimed toward the truck, and the crack of the rifle was startling in its loudness. The beer can flew, spinning off the hood.
     
        "Shit!" the one with the paper said, and turned from her.
     
        The other stopped where he was; a dark, mean look spread over his face.
     
        "You crazy or something? Put that damn rifle down!"
     
        "The left front tire next," she said, aiming again. When the man started to move toward her, she swung the rifle to cover him.
     
        "Or maybe a guy on my land threatening me." He stopped.
     
        "Come on! Let's get the hell out of here!" the other one called. He paused at the tree long enough to jerk down the line; he heaved it inside the truck, then yanked open the door on the driver's side and climbed in.
     
        Slowly, with obvious reluctance, the second man took a step backward, then wheeled and strode to the truck and got in the other side.
     
        "And tell Chuck Gilmore that if he tries something like this again, I'll come after him. And next time I'll shoot anyone who puts a foot on my property, not just a can.
     
        Tell him!"
     
        She did not start to shake until the truck was gone, until the trees stopped sending the echoes of the truck wheels and engine back and forth, as if examining them, until silence had returned, more palpable than she could remember.
     
        When her shaking eased, when it was no more than a slight tremor that raced through her, making her heart pump harder for a second, relaxing again, she walked slowly to the ancient fir tree and touched the trunk, as if to reassure it. In her head her grandfather's voice murmured, "Feel it, girl. You can feel the life blood racing up if you try." She never had felt that, but she felt something that had no name. She knew better than to stand at the foot of a mammoth tree and look straight up; that invited vertigo. But she looked up now, up past the patterned bark, so deeply cut, cleanly cut that surfaces reflected light plains separated by deep valleys and chasms, up higher to where the bark became a continuous gleaming wall, and finally into the darkness of the canopy that was so dense little light could penetrate, and nowhere was there a glimpse of sky beyond. It was as if the world ended in the top of the tree.
     
        She became light-headed and had to turn away from the tree, this time to gaze at her land, her private forest. Her enchanted forest, she had called it many years ago as a small child; her grandfather had agreed soberly that that was exactly right. From here it was downhill all the way to the houses, neither of them visible. On this side of the road her grandfather had helped his father clear out the deep woods to make room for the remaining trees to stretch out and grow up. He had kept it cleared until old age and fragility had stopped him, and then she had taken over the chore. This side was clean, no undergrowth of whips and saplings, no brambles, not even huckleberries, although brambles and huckleberries crowded the road on the other side. Here the trees were spaced park like and they were all giants: firs, spruces, some alders and cedars, a few vine maples because Grampa had liked their color in the fall. Down farther was the grove of black walnut