Catch a Fallen Star
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"Writers must stir people’s consciousness about the ghastly destruction that the timber industry is committing against our forests," Dorothy replied. "Are you aware that more than five million acres of the Amazon Rain Forest are being butchered each year and that worldwide, forests are shrinking by more than seventy-eight million acres per year, an area larger than Georgia or Michigan? If it weren’t for groups like SOT, RAN, and Greenpeace, the U.S. would be stripped of its old growth timber. Look at Alaska, where the lumber companies have scarred the Tongas National Forest by clear-cutting nearly half of its available rain forest." She paused before declaring, "I want to be a writer who awakens the public’s awareness to these tragic slaughters." "Wow. That’s an enormous amount of passion bottled up for a short story," he said. "Loren, don’t you knot up with anger when logging companies butcher trees, one of our most cherished resources, as though they were hedge bushes?" "No. I don’t," Billy Ray replied with a shrug. "Louisiana Pacific manages timber farms all over the South and every twenty-five years or so, they harvest stands of trees for the mills and replant the land with seedlings. To me, wood is like cotton." "My God!" Dorothy exclaimed, running her hands through her hair. "Corporate America has brainwashed you Southerners. Cotton is planted and harvested annually on the same land. When they harvest timber in the west, it takes years for the trees to grow back. In Montana, a fir tree requires nearly a hundred years to reach maturity. Most never make it because of pestilences such as budworms, engraver beetles, and Tussock moths. The mentality that a tree is planted one year and harvested the next is the reason the forests continue to shrink. As the world’s forest acreage declines, people lose because less carbon dioxide is changed to oxygen, increasing the greenhouse effect, and precious animal habitat is destroyed, elevating the probability that more animals will become extinct. Don’t these things disturb you?" "While trees may be allies in our struggle to maintain the environment, we need them as a commodity so we can build homes and fill them with furniture," he said. Dorothy closed her eyes and bowed her head. Billy Ray placed his hand over his mouth to conceal a smirk. Maybe I should ask her if she awakens each morning to Joyce Kilmer’s poem "Trees." I doubt that would win her as a friend; most likely, I would lose a writing partner. When she raised her head, Billy Ray’s face appeared somber. Dorothy clasped her hands in her lap and scowled at him for several moments. "Maybe it’s hopeless, you and I as writing partners," she said, crossing her arms. "What story plot would you like us to develop?" "I propose a mythological character who sets off to gain wealth, but during the quest a wicked sorcerer plummets the protagonist into the jaws of hell. The hero struggles against demonic forces to return to his homeland and claim the gold." Dorothy was shaking her head as Billy Ray was talking. "I don’t like it," she said when he finished. "Why Dorothy, I’m shocked that you don’t embrace my plot with open arms," said Billy Ray, grinning. "I guess I have portrayed myself as narrow-minded," she snickered. "With a suitable writing partner, your plot would sail, although that is not me." Her eyes took on a starry gaze. "When I was young, I often fell asleep reading Joan of Arc. My dreams were about me leading a cadre of soldiers to liberate France." A sad look veiled her face as she continued, "Now France is an enemy, as are the United States, Japan, and Brazil. It’s the trees who weep to be rescued." "If we adopt your plot, the protagonist will be a Dorothy-like woman, waving her sword overhead, who leads her converts – attired in Dolack T-shirts, frayed jeans, and Birkenstocks – to combat the chainsaw massacrers." "Yes." Dorothy’s eyes blazed with fervor.
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About the Book
Both a vivid psychological portrait and a tale of adventure, Catch a Fallen Star traces the journey of Billy Ray Smith, a lost soul who learns the meaning of love and sacrifice. At the story’s outset, Billy Ray is a stardom-seeking professor whose life is an elaborately maintained sham. He falsifies research data to climb the academic ladder, marries for money, and then cheats on his wife by sleeping with students. Billy Ray’s greed and lust are driven by memories of his father, a cruel man who disrespected women and believed in looking out for one person alone – himself. But in spite of Billy Ray’s faults, his compassion for outcasts of every stripe is extraordinary – from interracial couples to lesbians to homeless people. Haunted by his mother, who taught him that he should be honest and kind, unlike his father, and motivated by his own feelings of empathy from having suffered as a child, Billy Ray decides to flee his old life when his misdeeds finally catch up with him. Billy Ray ends up becoming the ultimate outcast – a fugitive from the law. After faking his death, he takes on the identity of Loren Buyers, a stranger whose death Billy Ray witnesses in New Orleans. As a university student in Montana under the name of Loren Buyers, Billy Ray’s life is transformed by Dorothy, a passionate writer and environmentalist, who teaches Billy Ray that real love requires sacrifice.
About the Author
T. Roney Whiddon was born in Spring Hill, Tennessee and lived in Arkansas and Nebraska during his earlier years. He received degrees from Nebraska Wesleyan University and the University of Montana. Currently, he teaches at the University of Montana and lives in Turah. The author enjoys writing and outdoor activities.