A LIGHT IN THE TREES

PART ONE

It’s Christmas Eve a few years back and I’m shopping for presents for my wife and kids in a Flying J truck stop near Idaho Falls, Idaho, choosing among an array of camo hoodies, American eagle-themed insulated cups, Duck Dynasty ball caps, saw-back hunting knives, and heavy-duty jumper cables. Poor holiday planning has put me in a jam. I’m bound for my home in Montana, hours away, and I’ve already been on the road for a full day since leaving California, where I had business. The weather turned desperate when I reached Utah -- blowing snow and black ice, jackknifed semis in the ditches, far-off police lights revolving red and blue -- and my muscles are so cramped from vigilant driving that picking up items from the shelves is painful. I suppose it’s just as well. There’s not much in stock here that my family will cherish. A lamb’s-wool steering wheel cover? Tire chains?

I call my wife, who’s waiting for me at home, and tell her I screwed up.

“I bought a few things. I expected this,” she says. She pauses to let me admire her omniscience. “The problem is we still need a Christmas tree. Maybe you could get one on your drive.”

“Everything’s closed. I’m in a truck stop.”

“The kids will want one. Aren’t Walmarts open late? Just try, Walt.”

”Sure,” I say. “I’ll try.”

By the time I’m off the phone I have a plan, a way to redeem myself for my Yuletide carelessness. On one of the racks I saw a folding saw, on another some coils of nylon rope. I’ll cut my own tree and lash it to the car. I even know the perfect place. An hour north of here, the two-lane highway mounts a plateau and enters a dense wilderness that runs to the western boundary of Yellowstone Park. The woods there were devastated years ago by an infestation of deadly beetles that caused the US Forest Service to replant the area with seedlings that have yet to grow to their full height and many of which have dropped pinecones, creating smaller trees. As shapely as trees from a commercial nursery, they stand in endless dazzling rows, like tombstones in a veterans’ cemetery, and I’ll have thousands of them from which to choose. Harvesting one may even help the forest, and I certainly won’t be noticed while I work;