The Ancient One (4 page)

For an instant, she regarded him with unmistakable tenderness. Puzzled, Kate pondered this. Then Aunt Melanie’s jaw tightened and she asked, “But why steal my mail, Frank? What good does that do?”

“Some of the boys thought, well . . . They thought it might put things off. I tried to talk them out of it, but they wouldn’t listen.”

“Whatever are they thinking, Frank? The injunction starts on Monday whether I get my mail or not. The crater’s off limits. There’s no way to change that now.”

Jody raised his head and started to say something, when Frank suddenly cut him off. “That’s right,” he agreed. “No way to change that now.”

Aunt Melanie eyed him suspiciously. “What aren’t you telling me?”

The crystal blue eyes peered at her. “Nothing, nothing at all. I just wanted to warn you that you’re best off staying at home for the next few days, until this whole thing blows over.”

At that moment, Chuck and Chuckles came waddling up the driveway, quacking proudly in duet. They hopped up the stone step and walked single file between Jody’s legs. While Chuck continued on his way across the porch, Chuckles chose to linger momentarily by the boy’s left boot. Jody, watching Frank’s face, paid no attention until, with a loud quack of satisfaction, the duck made an unceremonious deposit of greenish-brown matter on his toe.

“Hey!” the boy exclaimed, kicking the duck down the step. Quacking and fluttering in protest, Chuckles quickly collected himself and started to waddle back toward the mailbox. Hearing Kate’s snickering, Jody glared at her. Then he turned back to Frank and declared, “I’m leaving.” Thrusting his hands in his pockets, he wheeled around and walked off.

Frank lingered on the porch, studying Aunt Melanie closely. He started to speak, hesitated, then shook his head, spraying some water from his rubberized hat. He turned away, moving off into the rain. Soon he was nothing more than a misty shadow.

Slowly Aunt Melanie closed the door, leaning heavily on the handle of her stick. The normal ruddiness had drained from her cheeks. Facing Kate, she said simply, “Something’s wrong.”

IV:
L
OST FROM
T
IME

Not until supper had been prepared, eaten, and completely cleared did Aunt Melanie choose to speak again. Kate had been waiting, it seemed endlessly, for the silence to break. She had hardly tasted her salmon.

Laying her thin hands firmly on the dining table, a wide slab of richly grained fir resting against the kitchen wall, Aunt Melanie drew in a deep breath. “You’re about to get your wish.”

Before Kate could respond, Aunt Melanie reached for a weather-beaten roll of paper resting on the row of teacups above the table. With the mud-stained paper in one hand and her walking stick in the other, she started down the hall toward the living room. “Come,” she said distractedly. “We’ll light the fire first. Bring the pie and the plates.”

Soon the fireplace was crackling and orange-tinted shadows flickered across the walls. The room seemed very different to Kate now that the sun had gone down. Firelight now played upon its contents, coaxing out textures and colors less visible in the harsher light of day. Facing Aunt Melanie, she asked, “What’s wrong?”

Aunt Melanie didn’t answer, but began to unfurl the roll of paper. Using her walking stick to hold down one end and two plates to anchor the other, she flattened it across the knotted spruce table.

It was a map of southwestern Oregon. Amidst the many shades of green that indicated national, state, or private forest lands, Kate could see dozens of winding river canyons flowing westward to the Pacific Ocean. Between the coast and the rugged chain of mountains that ran forty or fifty miles inland, there were several small towns. Kate found herself searching for the name Blade.

“There,” said Aunt Melanie, pointing to one black dot, about ten miles inland from the coast, surrounded by a wide swath of green. “That’s us.” Moving her finger in a wide circle around the spot, she added, “Most of this area’s been logged at least once,”

“What’s this?” asked Kate, pointing to a place a few miles east of town marked Cronon’s Crater. A large blue lake sat in the middle, ringed by densely packed contour tines that were broken only by a single high waterfall spilling into a rugged river canyon.

“That’s the crater Frank and I were talking about. It’s called Cronon’s Crater by the mapmakers.” Aunt Melanie paused, weighing her words carefully. “But I call it Lost Crater.” She swung her eyes toward the fire. “Why it had to appear just now, I’ll never know.”

“I don’t understand,” Kate said. “That crater must have been there for ages.”

Aunt Melanie turned from the fire, light from the coals still playing on her face. “Not so long, really. In geologic terms, I mean. It’s what’s left of an ancient volcano that appeared, oh, maybe eight or nine million years ago. Then, about seven thousand years ago, it exploded so violently that the summit collapsed completely, leaving nothing but the huge crater—technically, a caldera—that you see there on the map.”

She reached toward the abalone shell of peppermint candies that had been pushed to the edge of the table and then, thinking the better of it, withdrew her hand. “Got to cut back on those,” she muttered. “Such a bad habit.” Her gaze fell to a cozy gingerbread house that had rested on the bookshelf behind her rocking chair since Christmas, and her eyebrows suddenly lifted. Pinching one of the striped peppermints from the row upon its roof, she said somewhat sheepishly to Kate, “But first I have to finish these or they’ll go stale.” She popped it into her mouth. “Now, where were we?”

“The crater. You were starting to say why it’s such a big deal.”

“Oh, yes,” said Aunt Melanie, biting into the peppermint with a hearty crunch. “You’ve got to understand something first. Lost Crater is so steep it’s literally un-climbable. It rises a good three thousand feet from the forest floor, much of that straight up. The only way anyone’s even known there’s a lake inside is from aerial photographs. But since the crater is almost always filled with fog, even those are rare.”

“What’s all this got to do with the loggers?” pressed Kate, increasingly exasperated. “I still don’t get it.”

“You will, dear. You see, everyone assumed the lake filled the crater completely. And who’d be foolish enough to try to scale those slippery walls to find out? For most people, it’s been just a blank spot on the map, not even worth a second thought. The kind of place Scotsmen call
the Back of Beyond.”

She pointed to the map. “See this big waterfall coming out of the crater? The mapmakers didn’t even bother to name it, even though it’s one of the biggest around. A few of us call it Kahona Falls, after the old Halami name, but for most people it doesn’t even exist.”

Her finger traced the crater’s steep contours. “Nobody even takes a hike up there. There’s never been a road, not even a trail, that goes the whole way.” She smiled almost imperceptibly. “At least none that anyone knows about.”

Aunt Melanie’s eyes, dark as the bark of rain-washed cedar, concentrated on the girl by her side. “It’s a forgotten place, Kate. Lost. Lost from time.” She sighed, running her left hand along the shaft of her stick. “Until now.”

Kate leaned forward. “Why until now?”

The earrings clinked gently as Aunt Melanie shook her head at the thought. “Just two weeks ago,” she began, “a Forest Service technician happened to be flying over this part of the forest, doing an aerial survey. On the spur of the moment, he decided to fly over the top of the crater, hoping to see the lake. Turned out, he was in luck. The fog in there was a lot thinner than usual, and he had a good view inside. What he saw was—well, amazing.”

“What did he see?”

Aunt Melanie’s eyes moved to the pie dish. “How about some huckleberry pie, before it gets cold?”

“No thanks, I . . .” Kate’s words trailed off as she saw Aunt Melanie reaching for the dish. “Okay, sure. I can’t say no to that. So what did he see?”

“These huckleberries I found right out back. Two kinds, in fact. One red, the other purple. Got to learn their names someday.” She slid a hefty slice over to Kate, allowing the corner of the map that had been held down by the plate to curl inward. As she took a heaping forkful from the pie dish for herself, the old woman’s face crinkled in a smile. “Still as tart as the day I picked them.”

“Aunt Melanie! What did he see?”

“Well,” began the white-haired woman, pointing at the map with her fork, “there was, in fact, a lake. But to his surprise, it filled only half of the crater. The rest of it was very dense, very old forest. A hidden forest. As he circled closer, he could see some true giants, the kind of trees that make foresters salivate, lots of them bigger than twenty-five feet around. Took pictures of everything, he did, or nobody would have believed him. There were Douglas firs, spruces, cedars, and—most precious of all—a large grove of ancient redwoods.”

Suddenly Kate understood. “And the loggers want to cut them all down?”

Aunt Melanie nodded gravely.

“But I thought the crater’s impassable. You said yourself there’s no road up there.”

“Only because there wasn’t any reason to build one. That’s all changed now. Just before you arrived, a few of them—led by your friend Billy—put a Jeep road up there. Not all the way to the top of the rim, but high enough to get inside if they blasted a hole through the rock,”

Kate dropped her fork onto her pie plate. “They’re really going to blast their way in?”

“They already did,” declared Aunt Melanie. “Yesterday.” She rose and moved around to the window. “The only thing left for me to do was get a lawyer in Portland to file for an injunction.”

“A what?”

“A court order, one that stops them from entering the crater or cutting anything in there until it’s determined whether to make the place into a park.”

Kate nodded. “So that’s what was in the envelope.”

“That’s right. Copies of the injunction filing. And we got it. The call came right after you left for the post office. It takes effect Monday morning, first thing.” The fire surged brightly as a pocket of resin exploded, shooting glowing embers into the air and over the hearth. Aunt Melanie kicked one back toward the fireplace and returned to her rocker. “I can’t believe they thought that stealing my mail would change anything.”

“They must be pretty desperate.”

“So desperate they might try anything,” said Aunt Melanie, tilting her head pensively. “The way Frank was so quick to agree with me out there, did you see? He wants me to think there’s no problem. He’s probably trying to protect me, the old fool. Afraid I’ll get hurt. But I can see right through him. They’re up to something, I’m sure of it.”

“But what?”

Aunt Melanie shook her head in frustration. “I wish I knew. All I know is this discovery is like manna from heaven for the loggers. Most of them are out of work. The last mill in town is ready to close. The trees from the crater would keep them employed for another year or so, delaying the inevitable at least a little while longer.”

She glanced toward the fire. “It’s a natural human instinct, Kate, to try to keep your old way of life from changing. I really feel for them. They’re proud, independent people, the kind you can depend on. Even Billy. It’s hard not to like folks like that.”

“Including Frank?”

Caught off guard, Aunt Melanie blinked, her eyes moist. “Yes,” she said quietly, “including Frank.” She cleared her throat. “And to answer your next question, we were friends once. Special friends. He’s—we were—well, that was a long time ago.”

“And the red-haired kid?” asked Kate. “He doesn’t seem so likable to me.”

“Oh, Jody. He’s not so bad, really. He’s had a hard time since his parents died last year. Worst crash in years, out on Highway 26. Before that happened, he was one of my best students—smart, sensitive, curious—though you’d never know it now. Frank’s his grandfather, and agreed to take him in after the accident.”

“Frank’s a brave man,” said Kate under her breath.

Aunt Melanie pushed a hand through her untamed white curls. “That he is. He’s one rare human being. One of the few in this town willing to stand up and say that the old ways have to change, that there are no simple answers. Not everyone may agree with him, but they all respect him enough to listen.”

She continued rocking, the repeated creaking of the chair punctuating the steady sound of rain drumming on the roof. “Everybody knows that those big trees are good for the air, the water, the soil—and even for fighting disease. But not many people know that the trees in the crater could be the oldest untouched forest in the world. And the northernmost stand of redwoods ever found.” Her eyes seemed to shine with a faraway light. “And something more.”

“More?”

“Yes,” continued Aunt Melanie, leaning forward in the chair. “The Hidden Forest—the whole crater, really—was well known to the Halamis five hundred years ago. It was their most sacred place of all. Since they left, it’s been totally undisturbed.”

“Lost from time,” said Kate, remembering the phrase.

“That’s right,” agreed her great-aunt. “There’s no map anywhere that tells what you might find up there.” Her face half lit by the dancing flames, she hesitated, then said in a voice so low it was barely audible: “Except one.”

As Kate watched wide-eyed, Aunt Melanie reached across to the spruce table, pressed firmly on the center of one of the knots, then pulled out a small secret drawer. Within it lay a single square of white paper, tattered around the edges, labeled
Lost Crater,
Kate recognized the handwriting at once.

“You made that?”

Aunt Melanie made no answer. Slowly, carefully, she took the paper and laid it on top of the larger map. “Yes,” she said at last. “I made it.”

“But how? I thought you said no one’s ever been up there.”

The dark eyes gleamed. “Except the Halamis.”

“But they disappeared centuries ago.”

“That’s right. They left something behind, though. Songs and stories about their way of life, their beliefs, their prophecies. Whatever disaster wiped them out—no one knows for sure what it was—a few of them survived somehow. They blended in with some of the other native peoples who settled this area later. But still they managed to keep their wisdom alive. For hundreds of years, every child with some Halami blood has learned the sacred chants word for word, then passed them on faithfully to the next generation.”