Riding the Flume (8 page)

“I know I read about it somewhere,” she mumbled, thumbing through the scrawled pages. She headed down the mountain in the direction of the dogwood tree.

“What's the matter!” Charlie nearly ran into her as he careened downhill. “Are you hurt?”

Francie looked up. “Dogwood,” she said, pointing to three small trees covered with creamy white blossoms. “Carrie said there was dogwood growing beside Old Robert's cabin. She opened the diary and began to read. “ ‘It's a beautiful place—surrounded with wildflowers. Dogwood grows all around, and monkeyflower, and a stunning bunch of phlox where the sun shines most of the day. You wouldn't expect to find that one in the woods—not enough light except in that one place.' ”

Francie looked around the clearing. Though the sun
had dropped below the tops of the trees, there were the yellow monkeyflowers and pink phlox blooming still. But blackened logs lay all atumble as if some giant hand had scattered them like a child's building blocks. A pile of stones at one end of the clearing was partially covered with vines. “What happened to the cabin?” she whispered.

“Burned down.” Charlie pointed to the pile of stones. “Even the chimney fell,” he said. “It must have been some blaze!” He looked up as if trying to imagine the flames licking the tops of the trees.

“What do you think happened to Old Robert?”

Charlie's answer was the one that had occurred to Francie as well. “Maybe he was caught inside,” he said. “He hasn't been seen around here in years—at least that's what I heard.” He walked around the perimeter of what was once a small cabin, kicking charred pieces of wood out of the way and staring down as if he were looking for some sign of the old man.

But Francie quickly stepped outside. “Let's go look for the tree,” she said quickly. Somehow it felt wrong to be there, as if she'd been standing on someone's grave.

“I
t might not be around here at all.” They had gone over the pass, which was merely a low dip between two peaks. The forest was thick and obscured both the tops of the mountains on either side and the view ahead. Charlie was ready to start back. “If we don't, we'll never get home before dark,” he said.

“You go,” Francie answered. “I'll just look for fifteen more minutes, and then I'll come.”

Charlie watched her in silence. His eyes clouded with a mixture of concern and impatience, and she knew he was thinking of Carrie. She gave him a push. “Go on. I'll probably catch up with you before you get back to the meadow.”

She turned away from him to follow a path that was even fainter than the one on the other side of the pass, but before she had taken five steps he was beside her.

“Uncle James would never forgive me if anything happened to you,” he said. “We go on for fifteen minutes, and that's all.” The firmness of his step as he moved ahead of her said he would not listen to arguments.

“We'll see,” she whispered, glad he'd decided to come. But if Charlie heard her he gave no sign.

Francie could see bits of blue sky through the trees, so she knew that out in the meadows and in town it was still afternoon. But here in the forest it was evening—getting darker by the moment. She could hear the contented twitter of birds settling down in the high branches. Squirrels had stopped their scampering and were curling up in their secret holes. With a start she realized that they had moved into a young sequoia grove—the trees were big, but not any bigger than the cedars and pines that shared their space, and they hadn't even developed the shaggy red bark of their mature years. But they were sequoias, and where there were young trees, there must be a mother tree to have cast the seeds.

Francie felt her heartbeat thudding in her throat. The tree
must
be around here. It had to be. Ahead, the path seemed to disappear into a blacker darkness—a protected hollow of the forest where night had already descended or the mouth of an enormous cave.

Charlie's footsteps slowed and then stopped, and she stopped beside him, staring into the darkness. It wasn't a hollow at all or the blackness of night or a cave. They were
looking at the largest sequoia tree they'd ever seen—it filled their vision, blocking everything beyond it from their sight, even the late afternoon sunlight.

“Oh, my God,” Charlie breathed, taking a step back. “Talk about a giant.”

“ ‘The Emperor of Trees,' ” Francie whispered, quoting Carrie. She put her hand on her hat to hold it on her head and arched back to see the top, but it was hidden by the smaller trees clustered around it. She moved forward, step-by-step, in silence. Her heart was thudding in her chest and she would hardly have been surprised if the tree had spoken in some huge rumbling voice like an earthquake. This couldn't be real. They must be in some fantasy story.

She reached the tree and, feeling like a tiny elf in a fairy tale, climbed up onto one of the huge buttresses to touch the red fibrous wood. The tree was old beyond imagining. The centuries had cracked and broken the bark until it was shaggy and as full of crevices as the mountainside itself. One enormous fissure was big enough for her to walk into like a cave, and yet compared to the thickness of the tree it was only a small groove. Dark streaks twenty feet above her head showed where a forest fire hundreds of years before had scarred the outer bark. But it was still alive, still growing. She leaned back against the trunk, letting the tree cradle her between its enormous bark ridges. She thought about the tree stump whose rings she'd been counting. “This one must be thousands of years older than
that,” she murmured, stroking her hand down the ridge next to her arm. “Think of what it has seen.”

Charlie was pacing out the circumference of the trunk. “It's more than one hundred feet around!” he shouted. He scrambled up onto the buttress beside Francie, standing with his hands on his hips as he used to do when they were children and played king of the mountain. “This must be the biggest tree in the entire world!”

His eyes were sparkling and he looked the tree up and down as if he were measuring himself against its bulk. “What would it take to bring this one down I wonder.”

“What?” The word came out as a small yelp and Francie stood up straight. “What did you say?”

Charlie looked down at her, but he appeared to be seeing something far away. “Bill Weaver is our best faller, and Jim O'Hara is almost as good, but I'd bet they couldn't make the undercut for this monster by themselves. We'd need a whole team of fallers working in shifts.” He turned back to the tree. “We'll have to add another length of saw to the biggest one we've got to cut through, and even then . . .” He clapped his hands together and jumped down from the buttress. “But by gum, I'm willing to try!”

Francie stared at him, feeling cold dread move up her arms. Goose bumps rose on her skin. “You're not going to cut this one down,” she said quietly. “This is Carrie's tree.”

Charlie swung around. “Don't be stupid, Francie. This
is all lumber company land. Of course we'll cut it down.” He grinned at her. “If we do it, we'll be famous!” He struck a pose with his arm up as if he were showing his muscles. “The team that brought down the biggest tree on earth!” He turned back to the tree. “If it doesn't shatter it could probably supply the wood to build an entire city!”

“No!” Francie stood up on the buttress. “You can't cut it down. It's probably the oldest thing in the world. It was growing before . . .,” she stuttered, trying to think, “before Moses, before Abraham.” She could feel tears welling up in her eyes and she shook them away. “How can you even consider it! This is Carrie's tree!”

Charlie held up his hands. “Calm down. We haven't cut it down yet.”

Francie gathered up her skirts and jumped off, landing lightly just beside him. “Charlie, if you tell anyone about this tree Carrie will come back and haunt you. I'll haunt you. I'll . . .” She searched her mind, trying to think of something that would stop him.

“Okay, okay.” Charlie grinned at her. “I get the point.” He took off his hat, smoothed his hair back, and replaced the hat on his head. “But the lumber company will find this tree eventually It's only a matter of time.”

Francie felt the blood rush to her face. “They won't! It's been here for thousands of years. Carrie knew about it six years ago and nobody else found out. The only way they'll know is if you tell them!”

Charlie snorted. “If you're crazy enough to believe that, then the next thing we know you'll be trying to ride the flume.” He kicked at one of the cones scattered at the base of the tree and tiny sequoia seeds scattered everywhere. “They haven't been up this way yet because the trees in the rest of the basin are easier to reach. As soon as the company has cut them all, they'll go for the smaller stands and the ones that are harder to get to.” He glanced up at the tree. “And they'll come here.” He looked down at her, and she thought she could read sadness in his eyes. “They've almost cleared the rest of the basin, Francie,” he said softly. “It won't be long. I know what I'm talking about.”

Francie sighed. He was right and she knew it. She leaned up against the base of the old tree and crossed her arms. Then she stood up straight. “But the diary said this tree belongs to Carrie. Old Robert left it to her in his will. It doesn't belong to the lumber company. So even if they find it, they can't cut it down.”

Charlie was shaking his head again. “Old Robert was a crazy hermit. He probably didn't know what he was talking about. If the lumber company owns the land, then they own the trees, too.”

“If!” Francie pointed her finger at him. “If the lumber company owns the land. But maybe they don't. How do you know?”

“They own the whole basin and all the land around it. Everybody knows that. They bought it all just after the government opened up the land for sale.”

“That's what everybody says,” Francie countered. “But how do you know it's true?”

Charlie sighed. “It's all on record at the land office down in St. Joseph. Go down and take a look if you don't believe me.” He squinted up at the fast darkening sky. “If we don't get going it'll be midnight before we get home and Uncle James will have my skin and yours, too!” He turned and headed down the path toward Connorsville.

Francie went past him, stamping her feet with each step. “ ‘Go down and take a look,' ” she mumbled. “How can I get to St. Joseph to take a look? Should I just tell my father I'm taking the stage tomorrow? Do you think he'll let me borrow his horse?” She grunted. “Not likely.”

Charlie chuckled. “Well, you'll just have to take my word for it, then,” he said.

Francie turned to him. “Do I have your word you won't tell anyone about the tree?”

They walked on in silence for a moment. “I reckon,” Charlie answered finally. “But as soon as anyone gets wind of it, I'm going to be sure I'm on the team to bring it down. That'll be something to tell my grandchildren about.”

Francie looked back. Charlie's head was up and his eyes
were shining in the dim light. Lewis Granger would cut down the tree for the money the lumber might bring. But Charlie would do it for the glory. She bit her lip and looked away. Money and glory. How was she ever going to stop them?

B
y the time they got back to the road leading into Connorsville, the first stars were showing in the sky. “We're never going to make it back in time,” said Francie, “unless we run.”

Charlie looked at her doubtfully. “Run all the way back to town? You'll never be able to do it. At least, not in that skirt.”

Francie knelt on one knee and began untying her heavy walking boots. “You can't tell Papa.” She looked up at him. “Promise?”

“Well . . .”

Francie slipped her boots off, stuffed the stockings into them, tied the laces together and slung them around her neck, so they hung down her back. She unpinned her hat and put it into the cloth bag with the diary. “I can't be late. If he gets worried, Papa might not let me come to the
woods ever again,” she said. She lifted the hems of her ankle-length skirt and petticoat and tucked them into the waistband of her apron so the skirt hung only to her knees. “You've got to promise.”

Charlie's eyes widened, watching her. “If Uncle James saw you like that he'd never even let you out of the house again!”

“So do you promise?” The seconds were slipping away.

Finally Charlie grinned. “I promise,” he said. Suddenly he grabbed his hat off his head and took off down the road. “And I'll beat you back to town,” he called back to her. His boots kicked up dust with each stride.

Francie ran after him, praying that nobody she knew would come down the road at this hour. Her boots flopped against her back. The road was smooth, without many pebbles, and she could feel the cool dirt as she dug in with her toes. She held the cotton bag with the diary close against her side. The trees were turning from green to gray in the dusk, but overhead the sky still glowed blue. She let her breath find an even rhythm and relaxed her shoulders even as she increased her pace. Charlie didn't have much of a lead, and she was closing the space between them with each stride.

When she passed him, he only grunted. She grinned at him. “Hurry up,” she said between breaths, and moved smoothly on ahead of him. The coolness of the evening brushed her skin as she ran, and she could smell the scent
of wood smoke in the air. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, remembering how much she used to love racing with Carrie and Charlie. It was one of the few times she could beat them, even though she'd been so much younger.

In ten minutes she was on the edge of town, on the hill above the hotel. Across the street she could see that the lights were on in the kitchen and dining room. “Please let me be on time,” she whispered, sitting down in the grass at the edge of the road to put her shoes and stockings back on. She wasn't even breathing that hard.