28
“Goose, come in... Goose, you got your ears on?... Goose, where the hell are you?”
“I’m here, this is Goose, sorry, got caught up in a 10-2.”
“Switch to bravo.”
“Okay, I’m here.”
“It’s time.”
“Copy that, give me three, over.”
“You get all your business handled?” asked Bill, as Miles walked into the workshop.
“Yep, did it like the mathematician.”
“What does that mean?”
“Worked it out with a pencil.”
“Gross dude, you know I chew on those.”
“Tastes like chicken.”
“Alright master chef, let’s do this already. Everything’s in those two bags by the door, just gotta grab all the hardware and we’re set.”
“Is Paul coming?”
“Yeah, he’s going to meet us up top. Load these up and I’ll make sure we aren’t forgetting anything.”
“You mean like our safety net?”
“Yeah, like that.”
The infiltrators slipped in undetected. Word was, that the construction would be gearing back up soon. It was now or never. The plan had been rehearsed in triplicate, radios were darker than the waning moon, the rest would be hidden under the cover of silence.
Each climbed a tree of the triangle, a strap locking in their progress as towlines brought up the tail. Once their tie-downs were in position, they pulled up the high-tensile canvas platform and clipped it into Bill’s custom designed spring anchors. It was essentially a triangular trampoline, each connection offering flexibility as the trees sway in the wind, forty feet up.
Next came the lightweight pyramid that some tipi-making friends of Yohan stitched to spec, it was tied independently of the floor by ropes that hung from above, stout enough to clip into, just in case. Three bags of supplies hanging in the trees, razor wire wrapped around the stairwells, a bunch of other tactical amenities were in place, but we gotta suspend some disbelief for later.
Bill had been working on SkyFortress for a month, it was his baby, so he needed to be there for the technical difficulty of her maiden voyage. Paul was recruited for his complete fearlessness of heights, he wasn’t a 1491er, he’d jumped in with the CatBirds, but we’re all in this together. Miles however, was not, he was only here for the art installation, and once it was complete, he hugged his brothers and climbed the rope ladder to the ground.
When you put up a treesit, it’s not always surrounded by the fuzz right away, sometimes you’ll go months with clear enough access to switch out your roster and deliver food, but eventually the moment will come when whoever’s up there, stays up there. They had enough MREs to last a couple weeks of isolation, the tent was designed to catch rainwater to replenish their six gallon, a BioLite to burn coffee, and plenty of books to keep from going completely crazy.
Paul was livestreaming every morning, as much to keep himself busy, as to keep everyone else afloat of the suspended progress. There was no heavy equipment in sight, but you could hear it in the distance, especially from the trees, it’d be a good vantage point once it was time for all that. The little patch of woods was on the side of a hill that ran along the next waterway to be crossed. It was the perfect spot for the sit, because a cherry picker couldn’t get enough footing to extract them, they would have to come up the trees.
This was neither reservation nor national forest, it was what the colonists refer to as private property. A family ranch, had been for generations, and when they refused to trade their way of life for money, a judge approved its seizure through eminent domain. But how could this be? They were good hearted white Americans, not the dirty Indians whose family was on the original deed. Not quite ready to bend over for the pipe layers, they agreed to let a camp full of natives defend their property rights, talk about complicated.
This was obviously a point of conversation around camp, and contention for some, but most believed that stopping the pipeline, was stopping the pipeline, regardless of how it happened. Plus, it granted them a legal land to stand on, literally. The confiscated easement was only a hundred and fifty yards wide, so with the permission of entitlement, the cops couldn’t stop the support team from standing by, not legally anyway.
It was a hike from camp, but Miles made it twice a day, as much for moral support as food distribution. He had to be on high alert as he clipped the picnic basket to the towline, he was trespassing on stolen territory and Ranger Smith could pop out from a bush at any time. Lots of protectors made it out to cheer for the home team, it was a festive gathering most of the time, music, jokes, and radio games occupied the airwaves of cabin fever. Miles also moonlit as the postmaster, delivering fanmail and gifts to and from the sky, he became the guy to see if you needed to speak with the other side.
The spirits seemed to be high up there, they had cards and chess and snacks, and frybread. The weather was optimal, there was a ukulele and a kazoo, it was a slumber party on a trampoline, everything was smooth, except where was the action?
The expected reinstatement had been authorized, they were clear to cut, but no movement had happened on any of the monitored worksites. It was in the pipeline’s best interest to cross the water before the next stoppage, but some campers theorized a countertactic of waiting out the treesitters as resources were diverted from more pressing actions.
There were more theories and rumors than there were protectors, it could be a little much to put it all together, but within each team was a solid foundation of intelligent design, one that enabled clear and concise strategic planning. Each group had what you could think of as a leader, someone responsible for keeping the instrument in tune, but decisions were made by consensus. Selam’s more immediate duty was to attend the daily meeting of other trusted representatives, to share and discuss intel, and actions, and then to brief her crew with the most up to date rumors available.
Some of the misinformation was simply the gossip of uninformed idiots, but there was also the undertone of possible infiltration. Sowing distrust and discrediting the truth had been top priorities of the counterintelligence at Standing Rock, no reason to assume it would be any less here, probably more.
Camp had grown a bit since Miles arrived, some curious faces had joined the foxhole, a few seemed to be asking a lot of questions that any normal person would have answered before they came out. Like, the very most basic details of camp, and of the pipe’s progress, and past actions, and other interrogations that even Miles had known from a hilltop dirthouse, like they were compiling a dossier or something.
Plus, they dressed too... too much like squares pretending to fit in with an eclectic blend of dirt hippies and tree ninjas, like how their matching jackets were brand new from L.L. Bean, not pieced together layers of thrift shop donations.
They seemed like cops, even though they were younger than Miles, and eventually they mentioned having been in the navy. So that explains the authoritarian bravado, except there were other vets at camp, and across the board they were here to defend against threats foreign and domestic, they’d lost faith in America after everything they’d seen abroad, and they were not willing to let multinational corporations take over their homeland.
So these folks were nothing like that, still gung-ho Americans as a flag hung flipped in the mess hall, still capitalist and colonial minded, still had faith that the government and oil companies would work something out and do the right thing, and that they probably weren’t that bad after all. The more they talked, the sketchier they seemed. When asked why they were here, the response held no water, though Miles remembered his own ill received answer to the same question.
There was no real policy for handling infiltrators, the consensus was to let them stay and help out, but be mindful of sensitive information. They were outsiders, at a camp full of outsiders, and while the average Water Protector shared a particular vibe that could not be counterfeited, even Miles, they couldn’t discount the fact that the resistance is going to attract all walks of black sheep, as those who don’t fit in anywhere within the system, look for a home outside of it.
Ambrose wanted to send them up a tree, they couldn’t be too sneaky from up there, and they would be just as unproductive as any vetted climber, at least until the standoff began. It was a fun idea, but SkyFortress was its own top secret, Paul had only received clearance through his connection with Miles, and still wasn’t hip to to all the bells and whistles.
Bill had carefully crafted every aspect of the sit, planned for most feasible scenarios, his sleeve of tricks wasn’t even fully known to all of 1491. Miles had been helping him in the workshop, testing the components of the rig, and then everything that went into installation, he was by far the second most informed of its operation. He was Bill’s ground guy, and for more than just food, he maintained radio contact and was at the ready to institute additional defensive protocols from Bill’s grab bag of good times. Like when Bill paged Miles for assistance after a week of being up, there was a situation.