The Ivory and the Horn

The Forest is Crying

Two pairs of footsteps, leather soles on marble floors. Listening to the sound they made, Dennison felt himself wondering, What was the last thing that Ronnie Egan heard before he died? The squeal of tires on wet pavement? Some hooker or an old wino shouting, "Look out!" Or was there no warning, no warning at all? Just the sudden impact of the car as it hit him and flung his body ten feet in the air before it was smeared up against the plate glass window of the pawn shop?

"You don't have to do this," Stone said as they paused at the door. "One of the neighbors already IDed the body."

"I know."

Looking through the small window, glass reinforced with metal mesh, Dennison watched the morgue attendant approach to let them in. Like the detective at Dennison's side, the attendant was wearing a sidearm. Was the security to keep people out or keep them in? he wondered morbidly.

"So why—" Stone began, then he shook his head. "Never mind."

It wasn't long before they were standing on either side of a metal tray that the attendant had pulled out from the wall at Stone's request. It could easily hold a grown man, twice the 170 pounds Dennison carried on his own six-one frame. The small body laid out upon the metal surface was dwarfed by the expanse of stainless steel that surrounded it.

"His mother's a heavy user," Dennison said. "She peddles her ass to feed the habit. Sometimes she brings the man home— she's got a room at the Claymore. If the guy didn't like having a kid around, she'd get one of the neighbors to look after him. We've had her in twice for putting him outside to play in the middle of the night when she couldn't find anybody to take him in. Trouble is, she always put on such a good show for the judge that we couldn't make the neglect charges stick."

He delivered the brief summary in a monotone. It didn't seem real. Just like Ronnie Egan's dead body didn't seem real. The skin so ashen, the bruises so dark against its pallor.

"I read the file," Stone said.

Dennison looked up from the corpse of the four-year-old boy.

"Did you bring her in?" he asked.

Stone shook his head. "Can't track her down. We've got an APB out on her, but..." He sighed. "Who're we kidding, Chris? Even when we do bring her in, we're not going to be able to find a charge that'll stick. She'll just tell the judge what she's told them before."

Dennison nodded heavily. I'm sorry, Your Honor, but I was asleep and I never even heard him go out. He's a good boy, but he doesn't always listen to his momma. He likes to wander. If Social Services could give her enough to raise him in a decent neighborhood, this kind of thing would never happen...

"I should've tried harder," he said.

"Yeah, like your caseload's any lighter than mine," Stone said. "Where the fuck would you find the time?"

"I still should've..."

Done something, Dennison thought. Made a difference.

Stone nodded to the attendant, who zipped up the heavy plastic bag, then slid the drawer back into the wall. Dennison watched until the drawer closed with a metal click, then finally turned away.

"You're taking this too personally," Stone said.

"It's always personal."

Stone put his arm around Dennison's shoulders and steered him toward the door.

"It gets worse every time something like this happens," Dennison went on. "For every one I help, I lose a dozen. It's like pissing the wind."

"I know," Stone said heavily.

***

The bright daylight stung Dennison's eyes when he stepped outside. He hadn't had breakfast yet, but he had no appetite. His pager beeped, but he didn't bother to check the number he was supposed to call. He just shut off the annoying sound. He couldn't deal with whatever the call was about. Not today. He couldn't face going into the office either, couldn't face all those hopeless faces of people he wanted to help; there just wasn't enough time in a day, enough money in the budget, enough of anything to make a real difference.

Ronnie Egan's lifeless features floated up in his mind.

He shook his head and started to walk. Aimlessly, but at a fast pace. Shoe leather on pavement now, but he couldn't hear it for the sound of the traffic, vehicular and pedestrian. Half an hour after leaving the morgue he found himself on the waterfront, staring out over the lake.

He didn't think he could take it anymore. He'd put in seven years as a caseworker for Social Services, but it seemed as though he'd finally burned out. Ronnie Egan's stupid, senseless death was just too much to bear. If he went into the office right now, it would only be to type up a letter of resignation. He decided to get drunk instead.

Turning, he almost bumped into the attractive woman who was approaching him. She might be younger, but he put her at his own twenty-nine; she just wore the years better. A soft fall of light-brown hair spilled down to her shoulders in untidy tangles. Her eyes were a little too large for the rest of her features, but they were such an astonishing grey-green that it didn't matter. She was wearing jeans and a "Save the Rainforests" T-shirt, a black cotton jacket overtop.

"Hi there," she said.

She offered him a pamphlet that he reached for automatically, before he realized what he was doing. He dropped his hand and stuck it in his pocket, leaving her with the pamphlet still proffered.

"I don't think so," he said.

"It's a serious issue," she began.

"I've got my own problems."

She tapped the pamphlet. "This is everybody's problem."

Dennison sighed, "Look, lady," he said. "I'm more interested in helping people than trees. Sorry."

"But without the rainforests—"

"Trees don't have feelings," he said, cutting her off. "Trees don't cry. Kids do."

"Maybe you just can't hear them."

Her gaze held his. He turned away, unable to face her disappointed look. But what was he supposed to do? If he couldn't even be there for Ronnie Egan when the kid had needed help the most, what the hell did she expect him to do about a bunch of trees? There were other people, far better equipped, to deal with that kind of problem.

"You caught me on a bad day," he said "Sorry"

He walked away before she could reply.

***

Dennison wasn't much of a drinker. A beer after work a couple of times a week. Wine with a meal even more occasionally. A few brews with the guys after one of their weekend softball games— that was just saying his pager left him alone long enough to get through all the innings. His clients' needs didn't fit into a tidy nine-to-five schedule, with weekends off. Crises could arise at any time of the day or night— usually when it was most inconvenient. But Dennison had never really minded. He'd bitch and complain about it like everybody else he worked with, but he'd always be there for whoever needed the help.

Why hadn't Sandy Egan call him last night? He'd told her to phone him, instead of just putting Ronnie outside again. He'd promised her, no questions. He wouldn't use the incident as pressure to take the boy away from her. Ronnie was the first priority, plain and simple.

But she hadn't called. She hadn't trusted him, hadn't wanted to chance losing the extra money Social Services gave her to raise the boy. And now he was dead.

Halfway through his fourth beer, Dennison started ordering shots of whiskey on the side. By the time the dinner hour rolled around, he was too drunk to know where he was anymore. He'd started out in a run-down bar somewhere on Palm Street; he could be anywhere now.

The smoky interior of the bar looked like every other place he'd been in this afternoon. Dirty wooden floors, their polish scratched and worn beyond all redemption. Tables in little better condition, chairs with loose legs that wobbled when you sat on them, leaving you unsure if it was all the booze you'd been putting away that made your seat feel so precarious, or the rickety furniture that the owner was too cheap to replace until it actually fell apart under someone. A TV set up in a corner of the bar where game shows and soap operas took turns until they finally gave way to the six o'clock news.

And then there was the clientele.

The thin afternoon crowd was invariably composed of far too many lost and hopeless faces. He recognized them from his job. Today, as he staggered away from the urinal to blink at the reflection looking back at him from the mirror, he realized that he looked about the same. He couldn't tell himself apart from them if he tried, except that maybe they could hold their drink better.

Because he felt sick. Unable to face the squalor of one of the cubicles, he stumbled out of the bar, hoping to clear his head. The street didn't look familiar, and the air didn't help. It was filled with exhaust fumes and the tail end of rush-hour noise. His stomach roiled and he made his slow way along the pavement in front of the bar, one hand on the wall to keep his balance.

When he reached the alleyway, it was all he could do to take a few floundering steps inside before he fell to his hands and knees and threw up. Vomiting brought no relief. He still felt the world doing a slow spin and the stink just made his nausea worse.

Pushing himself away from the noxious puddle, the most he could manage was to fall back against the brick wall on this side of the alley. He brought his knees slowly up, wrapped his arms around them and leaned his head on top. He must have inadvertently turned his pager back on at some point in the afternoon, because it suddenly went off, its insistent beep piercing his aching head. He unclipped it from his belt and threw it against the far wall. The sound of it smashing was only slightly more satisfying than the blessed relief from its shrill beeping.

"You don't look so good."

He lifted his head at the familiar voice, half-expecting that one of his clients had found him in this condition, or worse, one of his coworkers. Instead he met the grey-green gaze of the woman he'd briefly run into by the lakefront earlier in the day.

"Jesus," he said. "You... you're like a bad penny."

He lowered his head back onto his knees again and just hoped she'd go away. He could feel her standing there, looking down at him for a long time before she finally went down on one knee beside him and gave his arm a tug.

"C'mon," she said. "You can't stay here."

"Lemme alone."

"I don't just care about trees, either," she said.

"Who gives a fuck."

But it was easier to let her drag him to his feet than to fight her offer of help. She slung his arm over her shoulder and walked him back to the street where she flagged down a cab. He heard her give his address to the cabbie and wondered how she knew it, but soon gave up that train of thought as he concentrated on not getting sick in the back of the cab.

He retained the rest of the night in brief flashes. At some point they were in the stairwell of his building, what felt like a month later he was propped up beside the door to his apartment while she worked the key in the lock. Then he was lying on his bed while she removed his shoes.

"Who... who are you?" he remembered asking her.

"Debra Eisenstadt."

The name meant nothing to him. The bed seemed to move under him. I don't have a water bed, he remembered thinking, and then he threw up again. Debra caught it in his wastepaper basket.

A little later still, he came to again to find her sitting in one of his kitchen chairs that she'd brought into the bedroom and placed by the head of the bed. He remembered thinking that this was an awful lot to go through just for a donation to some rainforest fund.

He started to sit up, but the room spun dangerously, so he just let his head fall back against the pillow. She wiped his brow with a cool, damp washcloth.

"What do you want from me?" he managed to ask.

"I just wanted to see what you were like when you were my age," she said.

That made so little sense that he passed out again trying to work it out.

***

She was still there when he woke up the next morning. If anything, he thought he actually felt worse than he had the night before. Debra came into the room when he stirred and gave him a glass of Eno that helped settle his stomach. A couple of Tylenol started to work on the pounding behind his eyes.

"Someone from your office called and I told her you were sick," she said. "I hope that was okay."

"You stayed all night?"

She nodded, but Dennison didn't think she had the look of someone who'd been up all night. She had a fresh-scrubbed glow to her complexion and her head seemed to catch the sun, spinning it off into strands of light that mingled with the natural highlights already present in her light-brown hair. Her hair looked damp.

"I used your shower," she said. "I hope you don't mind."

"No, no. Help yourself."

He started to get up, but she put a palm against his chest to keep him lying down.

"Give the pills a chance to work," she said "Meanwhile, I'll get you some coffee. Do you feel up to some breakfast?"

The very thought of eating made his stomach churn.

"Never mind," she said, taking in the look on his face. "I'll just bring the coffee."

Dennison watched her leave, then straightened his head and stared at the ceiling. After meeting her, he thought maybe he believed in angels for the first time since Sunday school.

***

It was past ten before he finally dragged himself out of bed and into the shower. The sting of hot water helped to clear his head; being clean and putting on fresh clothes helped some more. He regarded himself in the bathroom mirror. His features were still puffy from alcohol poisoning and his cheeks looked dirty with twenty-four hours worth of dark stubble. His hands were unsteady, but he shaved all the same. Neither mouthwash nor brushing his teeth could quite get rid of the sour taste in his mouth.

Debra had toast and more coffee waiting for him in the kitchen.

"I don't get it," he said as he slid into a chair across the table from her. "I could be anyone— some maniac for all you know. Why're you being so nice to me?"

She just shrugged.

"C'mon. It's not like I could have been a pretty sight when you found me in the alley, so it can't be that you were attracted to me."

"Were you serious about what you said last night?" she asked by way of response. "About quitting your job?"

Dennison paused before answering to consider what she'd asked. He couldn't remember telling her that, but then there was a lot about yesterday he couldn't remember. The day was mostly a blur except for one thing. Ronnie Egan's features swam up in his mind until he squeezed his eyes shut and forced the image away.

Serious about quitting his job? "Yeah," he said with a slow nod. "I guess I was. I 'm mean, I am. I don't think I can even face going into the office. I'll just send them my letter of resignation and have somebody pick up my stuff from my desk."

"You do make a difference," she said. "It might not seem so at a time like this, but you've got to concentrate on all the people you have helped. That's got to count for something, doesn't it?"

"How would you know?" Dennison asked her. No sooner did the question leave his mouth, than it was followed by a flood of others. "Where did you come from? What are you doing here? It's got to be more than trying to convince me to keep my job so that I can afford to donate some money to your cause."

"You don't believe in good Samaritans?"

Dennison shook his head. "Nor Santa Claus."

But maybe angels, he added to himself. She was so fresh and pretty— light years different from the people who came into his office, their worn and desperate features eventually all bleeding one into the other.

"I appreciate your looking after me the way you did." he said. "Really I do. And I don't mean to sound ungrateful. But it just doesn't make a lot of sense."

"You help people all the time."

"That's my job—was my job." He looked away from her steady gaze. "Christ, I don't know anymore."

"And that's all it was?" she asked.

"No. It's just... I'm tired, I guess. Tired of seeing it all turn to shit on me. This little kid who died yesterday... I could've tried harder. If I'd tried harder, maybe he'd still be alive."

"That's the way I feel about the environment, sometimes," she said. "There are times when it just feels so hopeless, I can't go on."

"So why do you?"

"Because the bottom line is I believe I can make a difference. Not a big one. What I do is just a small ripple, but I know it helps. And if enough little people like me make our little differences, one day we're going to wake up to find that we really did manage to change the world."

"There's a big distinction between some trees getting cut down and a kid dying," Dennison said.

"From our perspective, sure," she agreed. "But maybe not from a global view. We have to remember that everything's connected. The real world's not something that can be divided into convenient little compartments, like we'll label this, 'the child abuse problem,' this'll go under 'depletion of the ozone layer.' If you help some homeless child on these city streets, it has repercussions that touch every part of the world."

"I don't get it."

"It's like a vibe," she said. "If enough people think positively, take positive action, then it snowballs all of its own accord and the world can't help but get a little better."

Dennison couldn't stop from voicing the cynical retort that immediately came into his mind.

"How retro," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"It sounds so sixties. All this talk about vibes and positive mumbo-jumbo."

"Positive thinking brought down the Berlin Wall," she said.

"Yeah, and I'm sure some fortune teller predicted it in the pages of a supermarket tabloid, although she probably got the decade wrong. Look, I'm sorry, but I don't buy it. If the world really worked on 'vibes,' I think it'd be in even worse shape than it already is."

"Maybe that's what is wrong with it: too much negative energy. So we've got to counteract it with positive energy."

"Oh, please."

She got a sad look on her face. "I believe it," she said. "I learned that from a man that I came to love very much. I didn't believe him when he told me, either, but now I know it's true."

"How can you know it's true?"

Debra sighed. She put her hand in the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out a piece of paper.

"Talk to these people," she said. "They can explain it a whole lot better than I can."

Dennison looked at the scrap of paper she'd handed him. "Elders' Council" was written in ballpoint. The address given was City Hall's.

"Who are they?"

"Elders from the Kickaha Reservation."

"They've got an office at City Hall?"

Debra nodded. "It's part of a program to integrate alternative methods of dealing with problems with the ones we would traditionally use."

"What? People go to these old guys and ask them for advice?"

"They're not just men," she said. "In fact, among the Kickaha— as with many native peoples— there are more women than men sitting on an elders' council. They're the grandmothers of the tribe who hold and remember all the wisdoms. The Kickaha call them 'the Aunts.' "

Dennison started to shake his head. "I know you mean well, Debra, but—"

"Just go talk to them— please? Before you make your decision."

"But nothing they say is going to—"

"Promise me you will. You asked me why I helped you last night, well, let's say this is what I want in return: for you just to talk to them."

"I..."

The last thing Dennison wanted was to involve himself with some nut-case situation like this, but he liked the woman, despite her flaky beliefs, and he did owe her something. He remembered throwing up last night and her catching the vomit in his garbage can. How many people would do that for a stranger?

"Okay," he said. "I promise."

The smile that she gave him seemed to make her whole face glow.

"Good," she said. "Make sure you bring a present. A package of tobacco would be good."

"Tobacco."

She nodded. "I've got to go now," she added. She stood up and shook his hand. "I'm really glad I got the chance to meet you."

"Wait a minute," Dennison said as she left the kitchen.

He followed her into the living room where she was putting on her jacket.

"Am I going to see you again?" he asked.

"I hope so."

"What's your number?"

"Do you have a pen?"

He went back into the kitchen and returned with a pencil and the scrap of paper she'd given him. She took it from him and quickly scribbled a phone number and address on it. She handed it back to him, gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, and then she was out the door and gone.

Dennison stood staring at the door after it had closed behind her. The apartment had never seemed so empty before.

Definitely flaky, he thought as he returned to the kitchen. But he thought maybe he'd fallen in love with her, if that was something you were allowed to do with angels.

He finished his coffee and cleaned up the dishes, dawdling over the job. He didn't know anything about the Kickaha except for those that he saw in his office, applying for welfare, and what he'd seen on the news a couple of years ago when the more militant braves from the reservation had blockaded Highway 14 to protest logging on their land. So he had only two images of them: down and out, or dressed in khaki, carrying an assault rifle. Wait, make that three. There were also the pictures in the history books of them standing around in ceremonial garb.

He didn't want to go to this Elders' Council. Nothing they could tell him was going to make him look at the world any differently, so why bother? But finally he put on a lightweight sportsjacket and went out to flag a cab to take him to City Hall, because whatever else he believed or didn't believe, the one thing he'd never done yet was break a promise.

He wasn't about to start now— especially with a promise made to an angel.

***

Dennison left the elevator and walked down a carpeted hallway on the third floor of City Hall. He stopped at the door with the neatly lettered sign that read ELDERS' COUNCIL. He felt surreal, as though he'd taken a misstep somewhere along the way yesterday and had ended up in a Fellini film. Being here was odd enough, in and of itself. But if he was going to meet a native elder, he felt it should be under pine trees with the smell of wood smoke in the air, not cloistered away in City Hall, surrounded by miles of concrete and steel.

Really, he shouldn't be here at all. What he should be doing was getting his affairs in order. Resigning from his job, getting in touch with his cousin Pete, who asked Dennison at least every three or four months if he wanted to go into business with him. Pete worked for a small shipping firm, but he wanted to start his own company. "I've got the know-how and the money," he'd tell Dennison, "but frankly, when it comes to dealing with people, I stink. That's where you'd come in."

Dennison hesitated for long moment, staring at the door and the sign affixed to its plain wooden surface. He knew what he should be doing, but he'd made that promise, so he knocked on the door. An old native woman answered as he was about to lift his hand to rap a second time.

Her face was wrinkled, her complexion dark; her braided hair almost grey. She wore a long brown skirt, flat-soled shoes and a plain white blouse that was decorated with a tracing of brightly coloured beadwork on its collar points and buttoned placket. The gaze that looked up to meet his was friendly, the eyes such a dark brown that it was hard to differentiate between pupil and iris.

"Hello," she said and ushered him in.

It was strange inside. He found him self standing in a conference room overlooking the parking garage behind City Hall. The walls were unadorned and there was no table, just thick wall-to-wall on the floor and a ring of chairs set in a wide circle, close to the walls. At the far side of the room, he spied a closed door that might lead into another room or a storage closet.

"Huh..."

Suddenly at a loss for words, he put his hand in his pocket, pulled out the package of cigarette tobacco that he'd bought on the way over and handed it to her.

"Thank you," the woman said. She steered him to a chair, then sat down beside him. "My name is Dorothy. How can I help you?"

"Dorothy?" Dennison replied, unable to hide his surprise.

The woman nodded. "Dorothy Born. You were expecting something more exotic such as Woman-Who-Speaks-With-One-Hand-Rising?"

"I didn't know what to expect."

"That was my mother's name actually— in the old language. She was called that because she'd raise her hand as she spoke, ready to slap the head of those braves who wouldn't listen to her advice."

"Oh."

She smiled. "That's a joke. My mother's name was Ruth."

"Uh..."

What a great conversationalist he was proving to be today. Good thing Pete couldn't hear him at this moment. But he just didn't know where to begin.

"Why don't you just tell me why you've come," Dorothy said.

"Actually I feel a little foolish."

Her smile broadened, "Good. That is the first step on the road to wisdom." She put a hand on his knee, dark gaze locking with his. "What is your name?"

"Chris— Chris Dennison."

"Speak to me, Chris. I am here to listen."

So Dennison told her about his job, about Ronnie Egan's death, about getting drunk, about Debra Eisenstadt and how she'd come to send him here. Once he started, his awkwardness fled.

"Nothing seems worth it anymore," he said in conclusion.

Dorothy nodded. "I understand. When the spirit despairs, it becomes difficult to see clearly. Your friend's words require too much faith for you to accept them."

"I guess, I'm not sure I even understand them."

"Perhaps I can help you there."

She fell silent for a moment, her gaze still on him, but she no longer seemed to see him. It was as though she saw beyond him, or had turned to look inward.

"The Kickaha way to see the world," she finally said, "is to understand that everything is on a wheel: Day turns to night. The moon waxes and wanes. Summer turns to autumn. A man is born he lives, he dies. But no wheel turns by itself. Each affects the other, so that when the wheel of the seasons turns to winter, the wheel of the day grows shorter. When the day grows shorter, the sweetgrass is covered with snow and the deer must forage for bark and twigs rather than feast on its delicate blades. The hunter must travel farther afield to find the deer, but perhaps the wolf finds her first."

She paused, sitting back in her chair. "Do you see?"

Dennison nodded slowly. "I see the connection in what you're saying, but not with what Debra was trying to tell me. It was so vague— all this talk about positive energy."

"But the energy we produce is very powerful medicine," Dorothy said. "It can work great good or ill."

"You make it sound like voodoo."

She frowned for a moment as though she needed to think that through.

"Perhaps it is," she said. "From the little I know of it, voudoun is a very basic application of the use of one's will. The results one gains from its medicine become positive or negative only depending upon one's intention."

"You're saying we make bad things happen to ourselves?"

Dorothy nodded. "And to our sacred trust, the earth."

"I still don't see how a person can be so sure he's really making a difference."

"What if the child you save grows up to be the scientist who will cure AIDS?"

"What if the child I don't get to in time was supposed to be that scientist, and so she never gets the chance to find the cure?"

Dorothy lifted her hand and tapped it against his chest. "You carry so much pain in here. It wasn't always so, was it?"

Dennison thought about how he'd been when he first got into social work. He'd been like Debra then, so sure he knew exactly what to do. He'd believed utterly in his ability to save the world. That had changed. Not because of Ronnie Egan, but slowly, over the years. He'd had to make compromises, his trust had been abused not once, or twice, but almost every day. What had happened to Ronnie had forced him to see that he fought a losing battle.

Perhaps it was worse than that. What he felt now was that the battle had been lost long ago and he was only just now realizing the futility of continuing to man the frontlines.

"If you were to see what I have to work with every day," he said, "you'd get depressed, too."

Dorothy shook her head. "That is not our way."

"So what is your way?"

"You must learn to let it go. The wheel must always turn. If you take upon yourself the sadness and despair from those you would help, you must also learn how to let it go. Otherwise it will settle inside you like a cancer."

"I don't know if I can anymore."

She nodded slowly. "That is something that only you can decide. But remember this: You have given a great deal of yourself. You have no reason to feel ashamed if you must now turn away."

She had just put her finger on what was making the decision so hard for him. Futile though he'd come to realize his efforts were, he still felt guilty at the idea of turning his back on those who needed his help. It wasn't like what Debra had been saying: The difference he made didn't have far-reaching effects. It didn't change what was happening in the Amazon, or make the hole in the ozone layer any smaller. All it did was make one or two persons' misery a little easier to bear, but only in the short term. It seemed cruel to give them hope when it would just be taken away from them again.

If only there really were something to Debra's domino theory. While the people he helped wouldn't go on to save the environment, or find that cure for AIDS, they might help somebody else a little worse off than themselves. That seemed worthwhile, except what do you do when you've reached inside yourself and you can't find anything left to give?

Dorothy was watching him with her dark gaze. Oddly enough, her steady regard didn't make him feel serf-conscious. She had such a strong personality that he could feel its warmth as though he was holding his hands out to a fire. It made him yearn to find something to fill the cold that had lodged inside him since he'd looked down at Ronnie Egan's corpse.

"Maybe I should get into environmental work instead," he said. "You know, how they say that a change is as good as a rest?"

"Who says you aren't already doing environmental work?" Dorothy asked.

"What do you mean?"

"What if the dying trees of the rainforest are being reborn as unwanted children?" she asked.

"C'mon. You can't expect me to believe—"

"Why not? If a spirit is taken from its wheel before its time, it must go somewhere."

Dennison had a sudden vision of a tenement building filled with green-skinned children, each of them struggling to reach the roof of the building to get their nourishment from the sun, except when they finally got up there, the smog cover was so thick that there was nothing for them, They got a paler and paler green until finally they just withered away. Died like so many weeds.

"Imagine living in a world with no more trees," Dorothy said.

Dennison had been in a clear-cut forest once. It was while he was visiting a friend in Oregon. He'd stood there on a hilltop and for as far as the eye could see, there were only tree stumps. It was a heartbreaking sight.

His friend had become an environmentalist after a trip to China. "There are almost no trees left there at all now," he'd told Dennison. "They've just used them all up. Trees clean the environment by absorbing the toxins from carbon dioxide and acid rain. Without them, the water and air become too toxic and people start to die off from liver cancer. China has an incredibly high mortality rate due to liver cancer.

"That's going to happen here, Chris. That's what's going to happen in the Amazon. It's going to happen all over the world."

Dennison had felt bad, enough so that he contributed some money to a couple of relevant causes, but his concern hadn't lasted. His work with Social Services took too much out of him to leave much energy for other concerns, no matter how worthy.

As though reading his mind, Dorothy said, "And now imagine a world with no more children."

Dennison thought they might be halfway there. So many of the children he dealt with were more like miniature adults than the kids he remembered growing up with. But then he and his peers hadn't had to try to survive on the streets, foraging out of trash cans, maybe taking care of a junkie parent.

"I have a great concern for Mother Earth," Dorothy said. "We have gravely mistreated her. But when we speak of the environment and the depletion of resources, we sometimes forget that our greatest resource is our children.

"My people have a word to describe the moment when all is in harmony— we call it Beauty. But Beauty can find no foothold in despair. If we mean to reclaim our Mother Earth from the ills that plague her, we must not forget our own children. We must work on many levels, walk many wheels, that lives may be spared— the lives of people, and the lives of all those other species with whom we share the world. Our contributions, no matter how small they might appear, carry an equal importance, for they will all contribute to the harmony that allows the world to walk the wheel of Beauty."

She closed her eyes and fell silent. Dennison sat quietly beside her for a time.

"What... what advice would you give me?" he asked finally.

Dorothy shrugged. Her eyes remained closed.

"You must do what you believe is right," she said. "We have inside of each of us a spirit, and that spirit alone knows what it is that we should or should not do."

"I've got to think about all of this," Dennison said.

"That would be a good thing," Dorothy told him. She opened her eyes suddenly, piercing him with her gaze. "But hold onto your feelings of foolishness," she added. "Wisdom never comes to those who believe they have nothing left to learn."

***

Dennison found an empty bench when he left City Hall. He sat down and cradled his face in his hands. His headache had returned, but that wasn't what was disturbing him. He'd found himself agreeing with the Kickaha elder. He also thought he understood what Debra had been telling him. The concepts weren't suspect— only the part he had to play in them.

He felt like one of those biblical prophets, requiring the proof of a burning bush or some other miracle before they'd go on with the task required of them. If he could just have the proof that he'd made a real and lasting difference for only one person, that would be enough. But it wasn't going to come.

The people he helped continued to live hand to mouth because there was no other way for them to live. Caught up in a recession that showed no sign of letting up, they considered themselves lucky just to be surviving.

And that was why his decision was going to have to stand. He'd given of himself, above and beyond what the job require, for years. The empty cold feeling inside told him that he had nothing left to give. It was time to call Pete and see about that shipping business. He wasn't sure he could bring Pete's enthusiasm to it, but he'd do his best.

But first he owed Debra a call: Yeah, I went and saw the elder, she was a wonderful woman, I understand what you were saying, but I haven't changed my mind. He knew he'd be closing the door on the possibility of a relationship with her, but then he didn't feel he had even that much of himself to give someone anyway.

He dug a quarter out of his pocket and went to the pay phone on the corner. But when he dialed the number she'd given him, he got a recorded message: "I'm sorry, but the number you have dialed is no longer in service."

"Shit," he said, stepping back from the phone.

An older woman, laden down with shopping bags, gave him a disapproving glare.

"Sorry," he muttered.

Flagging down a cab, he gave the driver the address that Debra had written down to accompany her bogus number, then settled back in his seat.

***

The building was a worn, brownstone tenement, indistinguishable from every other one on the block. They all had the same tired face to turn to the world. Refuse collected against their steps, graffiti on the walls, cheap curtains in the windows when there were any at all. Walking up the steps, the smell of urine and body odor was strong in the air. A drunk lay sleeping just inside the small foyer.

Dennison stepped over him and went up to the second floor. He knocked on the door that had a number matching the one Debra had written down for him. After a moment or two, the door opened to the length of its chain and a woman as worn down as the building itself was looking at him.

"What do you want?"

Dennison had been expecting an utter stranger, but the woman had enough of a family resemblance to Debra that he thought maybe his rescuing angel really did live here. Looking past the lines that worry and despair had left on the woman's face, he realized that she was about his own age. Too young to be Debra's mother. Maybe her sister?

"Are you... uh, Mrs. Eisenstadt?" he asked, trying the only name he had.

"Who wants to know?"

"My name's Chris Dennison. I'm here to see Debra."

The woman's eyes narrowed with suspicion. "What'd she do now?"

"Nothing. That is, she gave me some help yesterday and I just wanted to thank her."

The suspicion didn't leave the woman's features. "Debra! she shouted over her shoulder. Turning back to Dennison, she added, "I've got lots of neighbors. You try anything funny, I'll give a scream that'll have them down here so fast you won't know if you're coming or going.

Dennison doubted that. In a place like this, people would just mind their own business. It wouldn't matter if somebody was getting murdered next door.

"I'm not here to cause trouble," he said.

"Deb-ra!" the woman hollered again.

She shut the door and Dennison could hear her unfastening the chain. When she opened the door once more, it swung open to its full width. Dennison looked down the hall behind the woman and saw a little girl of perhaps nine coming slowly down the hallway, head lowered, gaze on the floor.

"I thought you told me you were in school yesterday," the woman said to her.

The girl's gaze never lifted. "I was."

She spoke barely above a whisper.

"Man here says you were helping him— doing what, I'd like to know." She turned from her daughter back to Dennison. "Maybe you want to tell me, mister?"

The girl looked at him then. He saw the grey-green eyes first, the features that might one day grow into ones similar to those of the woman he'd met yesterday, though couldn't be her. The discrepancy of years was too vast. Then he saw the bruises. One eye blackened. The right side of her jaw swollen. She seemed to favor one leg as well.

His training kept him silent. If he said something too soon, he wouldn't learn a thing. First he had to give the woman enough room to hang herself.

"This is Debra Eisenstadt?" he asked.

"What, you need to see her birth certificate?"

Dennison turned to the woman and saw then what he hadn't noticed before. The day was warm, but she was wearing slacks, long sleeves, her blouse buttoned all the way up to the top. But he could see a discoloration in the hollow of her throat that the collar couldn't quite hide, Abrasive or not, she was a victim, too, he realized.

"Where is your husband, Mrs. Eisenstadt?" he asked gently.

"So now you're a cop?"

Dennison pulled out his ID. "No. I'm with Social Services. I can help you, Mrs. Eisenstadt. Has your husband been beating you?"

She crossed her arms protectively. "Look it's not like what you're thinking. We had an argument, that's all."

"And your daughter— was he having an argument with her as well?"

"No. She... she just fell. Isn't that right, honey?"

Dennison glanced at the girl. She was staring at the floor again. Slowly she nodded in agreement. Dennison went down on one knee until his head was level with the girl's.

"You can tell me the truth," he said. "I can help you, but you've got to help me. Tell me how you got hurt and I promise you I won't let it happen to you again."

What the hell are you doing? he asked himself. You're supposed to be quitting this job.

But he hadn't turned in his resignation yet.

And then he remembered an odd thing that the other Debra had said to him last night.

I just wanted to see what you were like when you were my age.

He remembered puzzling over that before he finally passed out. And then there was the way she'd looked at him the next morning, admiring, then sad, then disappointed. As though she already knew him. As though he wasn't matching up to her expectations.

Though of course she couldn't have any expectations because they'd never met before. But what if this girl grew up to be the woman who'd helped him last night? What if her being here, in need of help, was his prophetic sign, his burning bush?

Yeah, right. And it was space aliens who brought her back from the future to see him.

"Look," the girl's mother said. "You've got no right, barging in here—"

"No right?" Dennison said, standing up to face her. "Look at your daughter, for Christ's sake, and then tell me that I've got no right to intervene."

"It's not like what you think. It's just that times are hard, you know, and what with Sam's losing his job, well he gets a little crazy sometimes. He doesn't mean any real harm..."

Dennison tuned her out. He looked back at the little girl. It didn't matter if she was a sign or not, if she'd grow up to be the woman who'd somehow come back in time to help him when his faith was flagging the most. What was important right now that he get the girl some help.

"Which of your neighbors has a working phone?" he asked.

"Why? What're you going to do? Sam's going to—"

"Not do a damned thing," Dennison said. "It's my professional opinion that this child will be in danger so long as she remains in this environment. You can either come with us, or I'll see that she's made a ward of the court, but I'm not leaving her here."

"You can't—"

"I think we'll leave that for a judge to decide."

He ignored her then. Crouching down beside the little girl, he said, "I'm here to help you— do you understand? No one's going to hurt you anymore."

"If I... he said if I tell—"

"Debra!"

Dennison shot the mother an angry look. "I'm losing my patience with you, lady. Look at your daughter. Look at those bruises. Is that the kind of childhood you meant for your child?"

Her defiance crumbled under his glare and she slowly shook her head.

"Go pack a bag," he told the woman. "For both of you."

As she slowly walked down the hall, Dennison returned his attention to the little girl. This could all go to hell in a hand basket if the wasn't careful. There were certain standard procedures to deal with this kind of a situation and badgering the girl's mother the way he had been wasn't one of them. But he was damned if he wasn't going to give it his best shot.

"Do you understand what's happening?" he asked the girl. "I'm going to take you and your mother someplace where you'll be safe."

She looked up at him, those so-familiar grey-green eyes wide and teary. "I'm scared."

Dennison nodded. "It's a scary situation. But tell you what. On the way to the shelter, maybe we get you a treat. What would you like?"

For one long moment the girl's gaze settled on his. She seemed to be considering whether she could trust him not. He must have come up positive, because after that moment's hesitation, she opened right up.

"For there still to be trees when I grow up," she said. "I want to be a forest ranger. Sometimes when I'm sleeping, I wake up and I hear the trees crying because their daddies are being mean to them, I guess, and are hurting them and I just want to help stop it."

Dennison remembered himself saying to the older Debra, Trees don't cry. Kids do. And then Debra's response.

Maybe you just can't hear them.

Jesus, it wasn't possible, was it? But then how could they look so similar, the differences caused by the passage of years, not genetics. And the eyes— the eyes were exactly the same. And how could the old Debra have known the address, the phone number—

He got up and went over to the phone he could see sitting on a TV tray beside the battered sofa. The number was the same as on the scrap of paper in his pocket. He lifted the receiver, but there was no dial tone.

"I... I've packed a... bag."

Debra's mother stood in the hallway beside her daughter, looking as lost as the little girl did. But there was something they both had— there was a glimmer of hope in their eyes. He'd put that there. Now all he had to do was figure out a way to keep it there.

"Whose phone can we use to call a cab?" he asked.

"Laurie— she's down the hall in number six. She'd let us use her phone."

"Well, let's get going."

As he ushered them into the hall, he was no longer thinking about tendering his resignation. He had no doubt the feeling that he had to quit would rise again, but when that happened he was going to remember a girl with grey-green eyes and the woman she might grow up to be. He was going to remember the wheels that connect everything, cogs interlocked and turning to create a harmonious whole. He was going to remember the power of good vibes.

He was going to learn to believe.

I believe it. I learned that from a man that I came to love very much. I didn't believe him when he told me, either, but now I know it's true.

But most of all he was going to make sure that he earned the respect of the angel that had visited him from the days still to come.

Dennison knew there was probably a more rational explanation for it all, but right then, he wanted to believe in angels.