Trees Are Where You Find Them

A first-person narrator from a small Oregon timber town recounts escalating tensions between local loggers and a newcomer who plans a pulp mill that would strip the valley. An elderly, reclusive neighbor insists on preserving his stand of trees and warns that a pulp operation would devastate creeks and wildlife. Heated barroom bargaining follows, during which the neighbor refuses to sell and proposes an extraordinary condition — offering Martian treasure as leverage to stop the mill — a bizarre pact that turns a local land dispute into an uncanny wager with stakes beyond the valley.