I put down my marshmallow stick and nervously began to speak. “Please try to calm down,” I told Royella before turning to Dad. “Listen, Collin and I came up here because we wanted to enjoy the summer with you. But I really hate this whole situation. So can you please just tell us what you’ve been doing?”

“I guess it’s… well it’s complicated,” Dad said, pausing reluctantly.

“But no one’s going to get mad,” I said, encouraging him. When I heard Collin snort, I quickly added, “And if we do, who cares. Isn’t it time for some honesty around here?”

“I think we all want to know what’s going on,” Taylor said, “and I love this place as much as you do. I can start.” She turned to me, unwilling to make eye contact with Dad who sat on her other side. She told us about the time she ran into Royella gambling at Table Mountain, the same story she had once let slip to Collin. She said she didn’t know why Royella had been gambling, but she did know that she had ceased to trust the seemingly devout pastor’s widow after the gambling incident.

The fire danced, flames flickering in the settled dusk and throwing light on Dad’s countenance, his eyes resting on Royella. She looked at her hands.

Taylor continued her story. She had befriended Royella who had suggested that the Foxglove timber could be lucrative. Taylor had gone along with getting a timber quote in order to maintain Royella’s trust and to see what she was planning. She said that she never told Dad because, in the absence of any definitive information to the contrary, he never would have believed that Royella was up to no good.

“Royella,” Dad finally said, “Why get a timber quote?”

“Thanks a lot for that one, Taylor,” Royella said.

“And what about the gambling?” Dad’s voice was soft.

Royella raised her eyes and looked at Dad defiantly. “First things first. I’m not talking about my business at Table Mountain until we discuss the owls.”

“Honestly,” he said, “that was for you.” He held Royella’s gaze.

“Guys,” Collin said as he picked at the crusty lichen growing on the rock beneath us. “Will you just fill us in?”

I sandwiched my marshmallow between two graham crackers and handed it to Taylor, who ate it absentmindedly. Dad and Royella began bickering, each eventually confessing.

Dad had decided he owed it to Royella to earn enough money so that two of them could go somewhere exciting and start fresh. He thought that his unpleasant divorce and the pastor’s legacy made their relationship too difficult in the Sierras. When he became aware that spotted owls inhabited the Foxglove area, he knew that the only source of funds for their new life—the trees that could be logged and turned into cash to finance their adventure—would be valueless if the Forest Service discovered the endangered habitat.

He began searching for spotted owl nests in the national forest surrounding the property, marking the owl-inhabited trees he discovered for the rangers to cut. The pretense of fire safety had successfully covered his underlying motives. Yet, he had no such convenient excuse for cutting down trees with nests on the Foxglove property, as the property was not subject to thinning by forestry workers. Instead, Dad had placed poison in the areas where he found owls. It had been Dad’s poison that killed the owl whose carcass poor little Button had found and chewed.