Excerpt from Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Who ever thought piss fir would be worth s***?

Scout cocked his head at the question.

Rain rolled down Rich's slicker, creeks rushing headlong in the morning dark. Water: always looking for a way to the ocean. Still an hour until dawn. He'd be on the crummy by the time the sun rose, the old school bus jolting along rutted logging roads—just another Monday—but for now, the woods were his. The trail was a tunnel; the deer weren't cropping her back like they used to. Rich's caulk boots were good and damp, flexible. He'd set them in front of the woodstove to warm up last night; the secret was to never dry them out completely or they'd turn stiff as rawhide. Could use a new pair, but it would be cheaper to get them re-spiked.

In his mind, he'd been chipping away at Jim Mueller's price since he'd named it, the notion foolish but irresistible. Timber was a young man's game. At fifty-three, Rich had already outlived every Gundersen on record. Yesterday, Chub dozing against his back, a warm weight, he'd felt a surge of hope so alarming it had taken a moment to realize nothing was physically wrong. Rich's mother had died in her sleep at thirty-six. Valve in her heart just gave out.

He climbed the second ridge and from there it was up, up, up the steep rise of 24-7 Ridge. It would take every cent he had. A hell of a risk on paper. But stopping to catch his breath and looking up at the old-growth redwoods near the spine, the tallest the 24-7 herself, three hundred and seventy feet if she was an inch—the worry evaporated. A monster, the tallest tree for miles, dwarfing even the giants of Damnation Grove. God-damn, he could sing. Scout nosed his knee. Rich sniffed: wet wood, needles rotting to soil.

Smell that, old man? That's the smell of money.

Rich inhaled deeper. He'd never have to work another day for Merle Sanderson, as he had for Virgil Sanderson before him, as Rich's father had worked for George and his granddad for Victor, all the way back for as long as men had felled redwoods.

The one time Rich remembered his dad taking him up here, his dad had stopped at about this spot, hitched a boot up on a fallen limb. There she is. Twenty-four feet, seven inches across. Someday, you and me are going to fall that tree. His dad had just turned thirty, but they'd lived harder and faster in those days, smoked, chewed, drank like mules. When they'd gotten up to the 24-7, his dad had pressed a palm to her bark: fireproof, a foot thick. A week later, he'd be dead, but that day he'd looked out over the ridges, dark with timber, one behind the other like waves in the ocean, breathed it all in. Someday. That breath swelled in Rich's chest now. His whole life he'd wanted her, and here she was.

Jim Mueller was right. Sanderson would have to run roads down into Lower Damnation Grove, if not to the creek itself, then close enough to spit across at the foot of 24-7 Ridge. All Rich would need to do is lay the big pumpkin down and truck her out. That, plus the two hundred other redwoods—close to a hundred million board feet, grand total. Even after the equipment, the crew, the mill taking its cut, it'd be twenty years' salary for a few months' work. Pay the land off free and clear. Rest would be gravy.

Forget her nails, Colleen would bite her fingers off to the first knuckle if he told her he was even thinking about it. Seven hundred and twenty acres. His dad had worked six days a week from thirteen until the day he died and never owned more than a damn truck.

Rich sidestepped down the ridge to Damnation Creek, low this time of year. He cleaned a few dead leaves out of the screen catch at the mouth of their water line, snuffed his nose on his arm, slicker spreading the wet around. He whistled for Scout, sweating by the time the yellow square of kitchen window finally reappeared below like a beacon. Winded, he stopped to catch his breath. Something glinted under the sweep of his headlamp. He stooped, picked it up: a red pinwheel mint in a clear plastic wrapper. Scout butted his leg, looking for an ear rub.

From Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson. Copyright © 2021 by Ash Davidson. Excerpted with permission by Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.