Clear Cut

The drive took six hours, and it wasn't as bad as he'd thought it would be. Carter had good maps, and he'd learned to read them with a keen eye when he was still a kid, so the navigation wasn't an issue. He liked his car -- it was one of the newer ones he'd had, only seven years old -- and he didn't mind driving. He was still nervous, though.

Edward Blake, his agent, was the one who'd arranged for this book deal in the first place. When Edward had heard about what had happened with Shannon and the divorce, and that Carter wanted to separate himself from the whole scene that he and Shannon had been such a big part of for the past seven years, Edward had suggested that Carter think about writing a book. It would keep him away from Shannon, give him something to do that was also a source of income. Edward had worked out an advance and made the arrangements for him to spend time on the site. There were moments when Carter wondered if Edward was either trying to save Carter's life or trying to make up for some major sinning he'd done in a previous life of his own.

He was kind of unclear on exactly how Edward had managed to set this up. Something about having gone to college with the Big Company's owner -- Carter could never remember the name of the company and always thought of it like that, in capital letters -- and the guy owing Edward a favor. Carter couldn't see how it was any big favor for this guy, who was probably raking in the cash, to order a contractor under his hire to let Carter hang out with him for a few weeks and annoy the crap out of his crew.

Not that he was going to try to annoy them -- no way, considering he'd be out there with them, one little fish in an ocean full of sharks with chainsaws and power equipment. But it certainly seemed inevitable. He knew Edward had billed him as an ''ex-environmentalist,'' which was a lie in ninety-nine countries out of a hundred, and that Edward had told them that he was ''writing a book about the conflicts between environmentalists and loggers,'' which was a lie in fifty out of a hundred. Carter took a deep breath and let it out. He was just going to have to do the best he could to stay out of their way, while still interviewing them and finding out as much as he could. And living in their digs.

Great.

But okay, this was fine. He could do this. If he could leave Shan, he could do anything.

The directions seemed sketchy, but it turned out they were pretty accurate. When he'd first read them he'd thought that 'Take the right onto the dirt road' was going to result in hours of him being lost, but it turned out there was only one right, so it worked out okay. Carter hoped that this was the first of many things he was worried about that would turn out fine.