"It moved. I know my ranch, Pete. I know every goddamned inch of it. If a
gopher sets up in the field, I know it. That tree wasn't where it was supposed to be. I
figure it was the backhoe that forced its hand. Ain't no tree in the world that can
resist a chainsaw, but this one broke up two. When I brought up the backhoe, I
planned to dig up the ground around it, pull it up by the roots. That's their
weakness, you see? The tree had to move to survive." His shoulders slumped. He
was a man realizing how his mistakes drove him to disaster. "If I had killed it
outright, I wouldn't be in the fix I'm in now. The way I see it, it's my knowing that a
tree can move that did it."
"Did what?"
"Got them chasing me. I knew their secret. Not all trees are the same. Some are
alive like no other tree, and they're intelligent. They have a secret to protect, and
they will kill anyone that knows it."
Pete stabbed at his notes, highlighting an exclamation mark. Bolton was right.
Jamieson was absolutely batshit crazy. The man needed much more than a lawyer,
he needed psychiatric help. Pete took his leave from Jamieson with promises that
he would be out soon. Pete prided himself on doing what his clients truly needed in
the long run. In Jamieson's case, he'd soon reside behind bars of a different sort. Oh,
the bedraggled man's story made a strange kind of sense, but sometimes psychotic
breaks came with their own internal logic. He could tell that Jamieson was smart
and well educated, but that only meant he was better equipped to form a rational
and logical story. One that, when viewed from a distance still undeniably broke
from reality.
At home he called his friend, Dane Lambert, at Texas Tech in Lubbock. Dane
was very interested in meeting Jamieson, but it was a long drive to Hobbs, New
Mexico. He couldn't clear his schedule for another two days. Even worse, the
Sheriff's office had contacted the FBI since they were concerned about domestic
terrorism. You can't make bombs with herbicide, but until the FBI straightened that
out, the usual methods for quickly getting a client out of jail wouldn't work.
Jamieson was stuck in his cell, probably trapped in his false but terrifying vision of