Page 5 of Liberated By the Logger

With a tired sigh, I lift the bolt cutters off my shoulder.

Mister Lorax’s eyes widen in alarm. “You can’t cut down this tree or the one up ahead. I made certain of it. The trees are one with the land and need to remain that way.”

“Dude, we cut nothing that isn’t a threat to humans or the wildlife,” I say, trying to reason with the guy. “Clearing them out makes room for fresh growth. This tree needs to come down before the parasite inside of it infests other neighboring trees. Do you want more trees to die?”

He shakes his head with defiance. “We must preserve all life, including the insects that live within them.”

With a roll of my eyes, I clamp the bolt cutters on the chain and cut the lock clean off. The chain spills around the guy’s feet. The tree hugger looks in shock at his chain on the ground like I performed some magic trick.

I motion with my hand for the guy to follow me. “Come on. I’ll give you a ride down the mountain.”

The tree hippy stomps his foot on the wet earth like a disobedient child. “No! I can’t leave her.”

“Leave who?” Is there someone else here with him?

“Her!” He motions at the diseased tree I freed him from. “If I leave, you’ll take her down.”

“Nobody is taking down anything in this weather. It’s too dangerous. Now you either come with me willingly or I’ll drag you out.”

The stoner’s face puckers in anger. “Fuck you.”

Fine. We’ll do this the hard way. Whatever gets my men to safety faster.

I grab the dude by the front of his jacket, yanking him with me. He’s a wiry man, all stick legs and scrawny arms. He tries to fight me, but he’s no match for my strength.

When you grow up in these mountains, working the land from sun up to sun down, you develop a different toughness, one built on brute strength and determination. Considering I’m a sixth generation logger, I’ve got a sextuple dose of steely grit in my veins. No one on my crew fucks with me without getting yeeted off the mountain. And this deluded nuisance is no exception.

The tree hugger uses his gangly nature to lean forward with his arms out in front of him before dropping to a crouch, slipping out underneath his jacket.

Hippy boy bounces on his toes with his fists in the air like he’s some twiggy version of Rocky Balboa. “Ha! Suck it, you logger bitch. I’m not leaving this mountain.”

With a frustrated growl, I toss the vacated coat on the sodden ground and stalk toward the idiot. I’m not above knocking some sense into the fool for being a safety risk to me and my men.

When he sees me coming at him, his eyes bulge. He quickly backpedals into the bug infested tree, hitting it with enough force to knock loose a baseball bat size limb. It falls right on the top of the dude’s dome with a thud, splintering apart. The tree hippy’s eyes go cross before he falls, face first into the mud with a splat.

Awesome. Just what I need—a dead person and a crime scene investigation on my work site. That will go over great for future contracts with the Colorado State Forestry Services.

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I curse. “Someone check to see if this moron still has a pulse.”

Nathan—my crew’s choker setter—bends on one knee in front of our tree lover. He rolls the unconscious man face up, pressing two fingers against the side of his skinny neck.

After a hot second, Nathan looks at me with a shrug. “He’s fine. Just out for the count.”

Good. “Makes transporting him a ton easier. Wade?”

“Yeah, Brose?”

“Take the jackass to the hospital, will ya?”

“Sure thing.” Wade grabs the tree hugger under his armpits while Nathan grabs him by his ankles. The two of them walk the unconscious man to the bed of the company pickup truck before tossing him in the back like a sack of flour. The dude lands with a hard thunk, groans but doesn’t wake.

While Wade and Nathan drive down the mountain in the pouring rain, I address the rest of my crew.

“Show’s over. Head on back to headquarters and clock out for the day. If the weather reports are correct, this storm is only going to get worse.”

They don’t argue with me when lightning spider-webs across the sky. Shit is turning wicked fast. We need to get off this mountain—pronto.

Like any good logging superintendent should, I wait for my men to gather their equipment, load the trucks, and drive off before heading for my vehicle.