Power is living while others inevitably perish. Power is cool indifference to their suffering. Power is taking nourishment from the deaths of others, just as the mighty redwoods draw sustenance from the perpetual decomposition of what once lived, but lived only briefly, around them. This is also part of the philosophy of Edgler Foreman Vess.
Through the open window, he breathes in the scent of redwoods, and the molecules of their fragrance adhere to the surface cells of his lungs, and the power of millennia is conveyed there from into his freshly oxygenated blood, pumps through his heart, reaches to every extremity of him, filling him with strength and energy.
Power is God, God is nature, nature is power, and the power is in him.
His power is ever increasing.
If he worshiped, he would be an ardent pantheist, committed to the belief that all things are sacred, every tree and every flower and every blade of grass, every bird and every beetle. The world is full of pantheists these days; he would be at home among them if he were to join their ranks. When everything is sacred, nothing is. For him, that is the beauty of pantheism. If the life of a child is equal to the life of a bluegill or a barn owl, then Vess may kill attractive little girls as casually as he might crush a scorpion underfoot, with no greater moral offense though with considerably more pleasure.
But he worships nothing.
As he rounds a curve into a straightaway flanked by redwoods of even greater girth than any he has previously seen, stark white bones of lightning crack through the black skin of the sky. A roar of thunder like a bellow of rage shudders the air.
Rain washes the smell of lightning down through the night. Two scents of power, lightning and redwoods—electricity and time, fierce heat and stolid endurance—are offered to him now, and he inhales deeply with pleasure.
Taking this county road through the redwoods, along the coast, and reconnecting with Highway 101 south of Eureka will add between half an hour and an hour to his travel time, depending on the pace he sets and the strength of the storm. But as eager as he is to get home to Ariel, he could not have resisted the power of the redwoods.
Headlights appear behind him, visible in the angled side mirror. A car. For nearly an hour, one followed him on the freeway, hanging at a distance. This must be a different vehicle, because this driver is more aggressive than the one on the freeway, closing the distance between them at high speed.
Recklessly, the car—a Honda—pulls around the motor home, into the lane reserved for oncoming traffic, though this is not a passing zone.
There is no other traffic, and they are on a straightaway, but the Honda has insufficient distance to complete the maneuver before the next blind turn in the road, especially on the treacherous rain-slick blacktop.
Vess reduces speed.
The racing Honda pulls alongside him.
Looking down through the windshield of the car, Vess has barely a glimpse of the person behind the steering wheel, because the rain and the high-speed windshield wipers inhibit his view. Nothing more than a suggestion of a deep-red shirt or sweater. A pale hand on the wheel. The wrist is slender enough to indicate that the driver is most likely a woman. She appears to be alone. Then the car moves far enough forward so that Vess is looking down on the roof, and the windshield is out of sight.
They are rapidly approaching the curve.
Vess further reduces his speed. Through his open window, he listens to the shriek of the Honda as the driver accelerates. All the formidable power of that engine seems pathetically weak in these majestic groves, like the angry buzz of a gnat among a herd of elephants.
With so little effort that he would not increase his heartbeat, Vess could pull the wheel to the left, slam the motor home into the Honda, and force the car off the road. It would either roll and then explode or shatter head-on into one of the twenty-foot-diameter redwood trunks.