Flaming Tree

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  This time, the watcher knew, it was different. Ruth would push Kelsey over, and perhaps she would manage somehow not to fall herself. The man began to run toward the mound of wet, slippery rock.

  As he climbed, he shouted above the noise of wind and sea. Ruth heard him and paused in her progress along the ridge. When she turned and saw him she laughed again, triumphant. The high pitch of her voice carried to the man above the tumult.

  “You couldn’t stay away! You had to come back—I knew you would. You never guessed that I saw you that other time, Denis. You looked down at us and then you went away. So I hated you. The only one I ever told was Marisa, and she kept still about it. But you’ve been punished enough, and you’ll make up for everything by helping me now. You know what must be done, Denis. You know, just as you knew that day when I put a stick of wood in your hands at Flaming Tree and told you what must be done about France-sea. You’ve always understood. You’ve always done what I needed, Denis. You can’t help yourself!”

  She was right—he had never been able to help himself, though he always knew the blame was hers. He held out his arms and ran along the ridge, reaching out toward her. It was easier to balance when he ran, and in a moment he had wrapped his arms lovingly about his sister. The hard impact of his body gave her no chance to resist as he deliberately flung them both outward into space together, their arms still clasped about each other. Only the wind and ocean screamed, and there was no sound of their fall to be heard above the sea’s uproar.

  Denis, at last, had taken responsibility for his own actions.

  Kelsey clung to the ridge, trying to peer down through flying spray to where water churned in the cauldron below, and nothing living—or dead—could surface in roiling black water. They might already have been swept out to sea. She was trembling too hard to stand, and she could only crouch on the spine of the ridge, trying to gain an inner equilibrium so she could move again.

  The wind paused to hold its breath and in the comparative hush she heard someone shouting her name. Her attention had been riveted on Denis and Ruth, and she hadn’t seen the other man until now. Tyler had climbed the rock until he was just below her.

  “Come down to me, Kelsey,” he directed. “You’re all right now. Take my hand and I’ll help you the rest of the way.”

  The strong clasp of his fingers about hers steadied her, and she could move again. Together they inched their way back, and when solid ground met their feet, Tyler held her, kissing her wet face over and over, stilling her trembling.

  After a moment of clinging blindly to each other, they started back through the trees. Tyler’s arm was about her, but her shivering started again when they reached his car.

  “Don’t shake so, Kelsey. It’s over now. The whole nightmare’s over, darling.”

  But it wasn’t over. There was still Jody, and the awful thing Ruth had shouted out there on the rocks.

  “What about Jody?” she asked when they were in the car and on their way.

  “He’s fine. I reached Elaine on the phone, and she said Dora had brought Jody to the inn. He started to talk, Kelsey—he was really saying a lot of words. Whatever he said frightened Dora. I guess she didn’t want anyone to hear him, so she took him to Elaine—her one friend around here. I asked your aunt to get Dora calmed down and then send them back to the house.”

  “How did you know where we’d be?”

  “Denis came to get me before I finished phoning and he sounded desperate. He told me that you’d gone with Ruth, and there was just one place she’d take you. So we couldn’t have been far behind you. Kelsey, Denis did what he had to do.”

  She knew that was true. In the end he’d had tremendous courage.

  When they reached the house Dora met them in the living room, anxious and questioning. She told them at once that Jody was with Ginnie, and he was all right.

  Tyler went off to make his grim phone calls to the park rangers and the Coast Guard, and then rejoined them in the living room.

  Since Kelsey wouldn’t go to her room to change, he brought a coat to put around her. Then he sat beside Dora and told her as gently as he could what had happened. Once more she seemed to summon an inner strength, and she listened, sitting stiffly upright, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. Dora didn’t speak until Tyler was through.

  “I protected them for too long. Though I didn’t know until a little while ago what really happened out at Flaming Tree. Perhaps I didn’t want to know.” Her voice was steady and her eyes tearless. When Dora cried, it would be later, alone, and she would let no one see her suffering. The General would have taught her this stoicism. “Of course I am guilty too. I loved my daughter too much. We’ve all paid for that—most of all my son.”

  “Can you tell us what happened at Flaming Tree when Francesca died?” Tyler asked.

  For an instant Dora’s voice broke, then she steadied herself and went on. “Francesca knew about that time when Ruth persuaded Denis to go with her to Nepenthe. She’d seen us all there, but she did nothing until after the interview with you, Tyler. She saw a chance to be paid for her silence, and she roused your curiosity enough to agree to the interview. Afterwards Ruth went out to the ranch to see her, not knowing that you had been there the day before. Francesca understood by that time that she’d get nothing from you, Tyler, so she put pressure on Ruth—and really frightened her. Denis went there with his sister that day, and I think Ruth terrified him into the action he took.”

  Dora’s voice had steadied until it was as if she spoke mechanically, suppressing all the emotion she would not display.

  “All they intended in the beginning was to scare Francesca into keeping still. Ruth sent Jody outside to pick up kindling while the grown-ups talked. But everything got out of hand. Francesca must have been at her nastiest, and Ruth took the sort of action her father might have chosen. Francesca had to be stopped—for good. My daughter never accepted the fact that she was guilty of murder. Even though she put the weapon into Denis’s hand, and gave him her will to act. She believed herself innocent of wrongdoing because others were always to blame. Denis knew that he was used, so he felt innocent too—helpless in Ruth’s hands.”

  The knife was innocent, Kelsey thought, remembering Olga.

  “How much of this did Jody see?” Tyler asked bleakly.

  For the first time, Dora found it hard to continue. “That was the awful part. He saw it all. He came in the door with a basketful of twigs and branches, and he saw his uncle being urged on by his mother. He saw Francesca killed. Both frightened him into saying nothing. She told him that she and Denis would be hurt if he talked. So he kept still and suffered terrible nightmares during that time—until the whole thing was ready to burst out of him.”

  “Oh, God!” Tyler’s anguish grew acute. “Did she take him out to Point Lobos that day to—to—”

  “She took him on a picnic,” Dora said grimly. “That was all she could accept in her conscious mind. In her way, she loved Jody, and she never faced the part of her that didn’t love him. That day, Denis was afraid of what she might do, and he went after them. He watched from a safe distance where Ruth wouldn’t see him. He told me this only a day or so ago. When Ruth and Jody fell together because of Jody’s larking, he went to the edge and looked down. He saw them on the ledge below, and really believed they were dead. So he came away, feeling safe for the first time since Francesca died. But he didn’t dare tell anyone until he finally told me. Then I knew that the story Ruth had told me about arriving at the ranch after Francesca was dead was all a lie.”

  The same lie she had been told, Kelsey thought.

  “Afterwards,” Dora finished, “Ruth wouldn’t see Denis or talk to him, and he didn’t know what to do. Of course I had no idea then of what was really wrong.”

  For a few moments no one was able to say anything. Then Dora spoke directly to Kelsey.

  “I have no excuses left for myself. I was just as weak as Denis. Ruth asked me to make the telephone call that day
on the hall phone, hoping to catch you. She wanted to frighten you into leaving. When you first came, she thought she could have you report to her and keep you under her control, since Tyler told her so little. But you weren’t cooperative and she was afraid of the time when Jody might begin to talk. Ruth took those beads from Tyler’s desk and told me to leave them in Denis’s office as a warning. Denis was getting a little out of hand, perhaps even interested in you, Kelsey, so she wanted to remind him that he had killed Francesca. Once Denis might have escaped her if he’d married Ginnie, but Ruth broke that up too—and made him think it was Tyler’s fault.”

  Another lie at Ruth’s door, Kelsey thought.

  “What about Jody talking?” Tyler asked.

  “I didn’t know he could manage this until I heard him today. He was trying so hard—words that sounded like ‘flaming’ and ‘tree.’ And he said, ‘Ma’ and ‘Denis’ and ‘blood’ quite clearly. I had to stop him somehow, so I took him out in my car before anyone could overhear him, and I went to Elaine. She’s always sensible and she’d been my friend for a long time. But he’d stopped trying to talk by the time we got there. And then you phoned, Tyler, and told me to bring him home. Somehow I knew that everything was over. I suppose in a terrible way I was relieved, and I’m glad they escaped—Ruth and Denis. There wasn’t any other way. That’s all I have to tell you.”

  Dora rose with a quiet dignity that became her, and went out of the room.

  Neither Tyler nor Kelsey moved for a moment. Then Kelsey said, “The truly evil one in all this was the General. I suppose evil can breed evil unless it’s turned around.”

  Tyler stood up. “Come with me to see Jody. It’s time I behaved like a father.”

  When they reached Jody’s room, Ginnie seemed to understand, and slipped away. Perhaps she’d heard enough from Jody to know that they must see him alone.

  He sat in his chair, straps in place, and his eyes were round with terror as his father came in. Tyler went to him at once, and sat down close, taking Jody’s hands in his.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “You needn’t be scared and worried anymore. We know everything you wanted to tell us. We know what happened at Flaming Tree, and it’s all right for you to talk about it anytime you want to. Do you understand me, Jody?”

  “’Stand,” Jody said, and began to cry quietly.

  “That’s good—crying,” Tyler went on. “I’ve been crying some too. We’re going to talk a lot now, and you can say anything you please. I’ll listen, and so will Kelsey, and we’ll all help each other, Ginnie will help too, when she’s been told. Jody, you remember what happened to my parents when I was your age and they died? We’ve talked about it before. So now you’re going to learn how to live with that, just as I had to. Sometimes it will be pretty hard, Jody, but it will get better—I promise you. There’s something I have to tell you. Something bad. Today …” Tyler stopped and took Jody from his chair to hold him in his arms.

  Kelsey too went quietly out of the room and joined Ginnie down the hall. These were words to be spoken only between father and son. Full healing would take a long time for Jody, both emotionally and physically, but now in his father’s hands, it would begin. She had been right about Tyler Hammond the very first time when she’d seen those soaring geese at Marisa’s and had thought he must be a sensitive man. All along he had been fighting demons too awful for him to handle.

  She talked to Ginnie for a little while, though not about all that had happened. Then she left her and went toward the stairs. As she started up, Tyler caught up with her and covered her hand on the rail with his own. She looked down with tears in her eyes.

  “Thank you for my life today,” she said. “In so many ways.”

  “Thank you for mine. In just as many. And most of all, Kelsey, thank you for Jody’s. Maybe now there’s hope for something better ahead. If we give it a little time.”

  She leaned over the rail and kissed him gently. Then she ran up the stairs to her room. She didn’t want him to see her own private joy that couldn’t be expressed right now.

  In her room she began to get out of wet clothing. Sounds came in from the balcony—sounds of wind and ocean still roaring wildly. She closed the door with a firm click. She didn’t want to think about water and wet black rocks.

  There was so much to do, and as soon as she was dry again she would go to Jody and his father. And begin.

  Note to My Readers

  Why did I write about Jody and the particular treatment he was given? This grew from personal experience because of a tragic happening in my own family.

  Nearly four years ago my grandson, who was only nineteen, tried to commit suicide with carbon monoxide. He was taken to a California hospital, and my daughter flew out from Long Island, not knowing whether he would be alive by the time she reached him.

  Michael was in a deep coma, and doctors told her that he would never be anything more than a “vegetable.” Because many so-called vegetables had made a recovery, we did not accept this verdict and give up. We decided instead to make every effort to save him, and brought him home to private care.

  We knew that Carlton Fredericks, long a pioneer in the field of nutrition, had worked as a consultant on brain-damaged patients. He was able to help us in conjunction with a medical nutritionist, and the treatment was begun.

  Improvement was gradual, barely discernible at first, until something dramatic happened. After about six weeks of talking to Michael, reading to him, playing music tapes and television, but getting no response we could be certain of, he suddenly laughed at a funny story told by a nurse. Now we knew he was there.

  Today Michael speaks clearly, using difficult words, and he understands complex ideas. One of my favorite incidents occurred when he overheard a meaningless conversation nearby. After the talk stopped, he said, “That was uneventful.” His mother asked what he meant and he said, “Nothing happened.” This was not the thinking of a “vegetable.” Physically, he still has a long way to go, but since he has never stopped in improving, we will continue to hope and try.

  The treatment given Jody in my novel is much the same as that which helped Michael—though Jody was less seriously injured. Now, at this writing four years later, my grandson is in an institution that employs trained therapists and has a fine reputation for helping brain-damaged young people. Nevertheless, we feel that more could be done. It is sad that so many medical authorities who lean heavily on drugs have closed their minds when it comes to the nutritional approach.

  If there is a “message” I have tried to convey in this novel, it is that we must never stop seeking for alternative and supplemental help, no matter how grave the problem. New answers are always coming in.

  PHYLLIS A. WHITNEY

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I will long remember the beauties of the Monterey Peninsula, with its rocky seacoast, white sand beaches, and windshaped cypress and pine. I enjoyed the little town of Carmel, not only because it is unique, but because of its ceative and friendly residents, who were generous in offering help and hospitality.

  Margaret Pelikan of the Carmel Public Library and Dorothy Steven of the Monterey Public Library helped invaluably with introductions and research materials.

  I appreciated the hospitality offered by Michael Stanton of the Normandy Inn, where I stayed, and which appears in this story in another guise.

  Linda Rockwell became my “foreign correspondent,” sending me pictures of Nepenthe and other spots I had visited and wanted to write about, as well as answering endless questions. She also introduced me to Linda Stephenson, whose beautiful home in Carmel Highlands I adapted for my book.

  Ann Yost’s enthusiasm and involvement with Robinson and Una Jeffers brought them excitingly to life for me at Tor House.

  Here at home, Chuck Anderson, teacher, writer and filmmaker, loaned me books and counseled me on the creating of documentary movies.

  While my settings are real, none of the characters in Flaming Tree exist outside of
my imagination.

  A Biography of Phyllis A. Whitney

  Phyllis Ayame Whitney (1903–2008) was a prolific author of seventy-six adult and children’s novels. Over fifty million copies of her books were sold worldwide during the course of her sixty-year writing career, establishing her as one of the most successful mystery and romantic suspense writers of the twentieth century. Whitney’s dedication to the craft and quality of writing earned her three lifetime achievement awards and the title “The Queen of the American Gothics.”

  Whitney was born in Yokohama, Japan, on September 9, 1903, to American parents, Mary Lillian (Lilly) Mandeville and Charles (Charlie) Whitney. Charles worked for an American shipping line. When Whitney was a child, her family moved to Manila in the Philippines, and eventually settled in Hankow, China.

  Whitney began writing stories as a teenager but focused most of her artistic attention on her other passion: dance. When her father passed away in China in 1918, Whitney and her mother took a ten-day journey across the Pacific Ocean to America, and they settled in Berkley, California. Later they moved to San Antonio, Texas. Lilly continued to be an avid supporter of Whitney’s dancing, creating beautiful costumes for her performances. While in high school, her mother passed away, and Whitney moved in with her aunt in Chicago, Illinois. After graduating from high school in 1924, Whitney turned her attention to writing, nabbing her first major publication in the Chicago Daily News. She made a small income from writing stories at the start of her career, and would eventually go on to publish around one hundred short stories in pulp magazines by the 1930s.

  In 1925, Whitney married George A. Garner, and nine years later gave birth to their daughter, Georgia. During this time, she also worked in the children’s room in the Chicago Public Library (1942–1946) and at the Philadelphia Inquirer (1947–1948).

  After the release of her first novel, A Place for Ann (1941), a career story for girls, Whitney turned her eye toward publishing full-time, taking a job as the children’s book editor at the Chicago Sun-Times and releasing three more novels in the next three years, including A Star for Ginny. She also began teaching juvenile fiction writing courses at Northwestern University. Whitney began her career writing young adult novels and first found success in the adult market with the 1943 publication of Red Is for Murder, also known by the alternative title The Red Carnelian.