Riding the Flume

by Patricia Curtis Pfitsch

  Without much hope, she threw open the doors of her own wardrobe. She felt the floor, but though it was the twin of Carrie’s in every other way, she could tell immediately that there was no false bottom—instead, the true bottom of the cabinet dropped two inches below the level of the door opening. “Maybe Carrie’s false bottom would fit here,” she said, and knew as she said it that she was right. If she could somehow sneak the board from Carrie’s room to her own, it would slide easily into the floor of her wardrobe and rest smoothly at the level of the door opening. Maybe tomorrow she could try that, but there was no time tonight.

  She heard a slight pop as her mother put her feet on the first step. Jumping up, Francie looked around the room. She could hide the book in the dresser, under her clothes, but sometimes her mother opened Francie’s drawers, putting away mended clothes, and looking for tears to have Josie repair. It was too risky.

  Creaks from the hallway told Francie that her mother was at the top of the stairs and moving down the hallway. Francie looked up. Her wardrobe had a kind of crown of carved wood around the top, and just as her mother knocked on her door, Francie put her foot on the edge of the wardrobe floor, boosted herself up, and dropped the diary down behind the carved panel. It was only a temporary solution, she knew, because Josie dusted up there regularly, but for tonight it would do. It wasn’t likely that her mother would want to check the top of the wardrobe tonight.

  “Francie?” her mother’s soft voice came through the door. “Are you still awake?”

  Francie dropped down onto the overstuffed chair in the corner, grabbed a random book from her bookshelf, and drew a breath to answer. “Yes, Mama. Please come in.” She was surprised to find that her voice sounded firm. It was only her hands that were trembling.

  “You’re not even ready for bed yet!” The surprise showed in her mother’s voice, as she came in carrying a set of Francie’s underdrawers. “Is everything all right?” She went to Francie’s dresser, opened it, and laid the underdrawers on the top of the pile.

  Francie felt her face going hot and was grateful for the lamp’s low light. “I’m fine, Mama,” she said. “I just got involved in my reading.” She smoothed her hand over the cover of the book in her lap.

  “Are there any other clothes to mend?”

  Francie watched her mother finger through the piles of clothes in her drawer and thanked the impulse that made her look elsewhere for a hiding place. “I don’t think so.”

  Her mother looked at the book, and Francie knew her next question would be what she was reading. She must change the subject.

  “I wanted . . .” Her mind churned. “I wanted to thank you for talking to Father,” she rattled on. “He’s allowing me to go to Connor’s Basin after all.”

  “I didn’t talk to him,” her mother said. “You are quite persistent enough on your own.” She smiled. “But he does believe in keeping promises. He’s quite pleased that you feel the same.”

  Francie swallowed, feeling guilt sweep over her. She was deceiving her father. How could she do such a thing? But how could she not find out about Carrie’s note and her diary?

  “I do,” she said, vowing that after this she would never deceive her parents again. Or break a promise.

  Her mother rose. “I hope you’ll go to sleep soon,” she said. “It’s not good for your eyes to be reading in this low light.”

  Francie nodded. “I’m done for tonight,” she said. She rose, kissed her mother good night, and shut the door after her. Then she picked up the book she’d pulled off the shelf—An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

  Francie almost laughed out loud. Would her mother have believed she was sitting up late reading a philosophy book? Not likely!

  • Chapter Seven •

  May 7, 1886. A robin is sitting on a branch directly above my head as I write this—if I had a worm he might come eat out of my hand! It’s so warm today—I will take off my shoes and stockings and go wading in Dead Man’s Creek, even though the water temperature is not far above freezing. Tomorrow I will take the trail that leads up to Connor’s Peak. The weather promises to be fine, and I hope to make the summit before midday.

  May 8, 1886. I did it! I hiked all the way up to Connor’s Peak and back again. Papa was furious, for I didn’t make it home before dark and missed supper. He is terrified that something terrible will happen to me—that I’ll be eaten by a bear. Silly—as if I didn’t know to make noise and scare the bears off. As punishment I was not allowed to eat at all, but I don’t care. The view from the top was food enough for me. The snowcapped peaks beyond were wreathed in clouds and seemed to touch the blue, blue sky—the smell of pine resin was heady perfume. The delicate mountain violets are just beginning to bloom—I think they are my favorite of the wildflowers. Charlie will be so jealous that I went without him, but I wanted to be absolutely alone at the summit. Does God feel like that sometimes—wishing He could be all alone with His creations, without the pesky humans crawling all over the place like stinging ants?

  Francie scowled. It was like Carrie to compare herself with God. Her handwriting was scrawling and spidery—Francie remembered their mother always pointing out how illegible Carrie’s school papers were. Francie ran her thumb along the gilt edges of the little book—the pages were soft, almost like cloth. A part of her wanted to read through the night, and a part of her didn’t want to read it at all. It felt wrong, somehow—as if she were peering into someone’s bedroom window and watching the most private part of that person’s life. Suddenly she wanted to slam the book shut and hurl it across the room. Why did Carrie have to be so incredibly stupid as to get caught in a landslide!

  But stronger than her reluctance and anger was the compulsion to find out about the note and what mystery surrounded it. She felt as if she couldn’t quite catch her breath as she turned to the last page. It was dated Aug. 13, 1888, two days before the landslide. Carrie’s handwriting was even more scrawly than usual, with several ink blots, which seemed to indicate either that she was in a great hurry or that she was very upset.

  Aug. 13, 1888. I saw Old Robert again today. He took me up over the mountain and showed me my tree. My tree! It is enormous, bigger than any other sequoia in the entire valley. Maybe it’s the biggest tree in the entire world! And so old . . . think of the history it has witnessed. I can’t fathom it. It is so, so beautiful . . . a Prince among trees. No, a King . . . an Emperor! And I am the steward. No, I am the knight, sworn to protect my Emperor or die in the attempt! Can Old Robert really give me a tree? He says he can . . . he showed me the will and it looks very official. He says I must not tell anyone about this great gift. But how can I keep silent? I am bursting with the joy and the responsibility. I will tell Charlie—he can keep the secret. And perhaps I should consult with someone who knows about wills. Surely it would be safe to tell Mr. Court. As soon as I can find a way into St. Joseph, I will make an appointment to see him. After the White Mountain walking tour—they’re counting on me to be there for that.

  Francie shut the book with a sharp pop. The White Mountain walking tour. Before the landslide it used to be offered every year for the tourists. People from St. Joseph and from even farther away would come to see the wild-flowers, the sequoias, the deep canyons cut by the river, and the powerful river itself—all the views the Sierras were becoming famous for. Carrie had been allowed to go as a sort of assistant guide, to help the ladies over the rougher parts of the trail.

  They’d brought her sister’s body back—Francie had watched as they’d lifted her off the mule. She could remember the feeling of the splintery hitching post—she’d stood beside the mule, rubbing and rubbing that post with her fingers as she’d listened to the story of what had happened.

  “Mrs. Jenkins spied a clump of that yellow columbine way out on one of them rock outcroppings,” the old guide had said. “I told her it was too dangerous, but she wouldn’t let it rest, she begged Carrie to climb out and get it for her.” The old man rubbed a shaky hand over h
is chin and pulled his hat brim down lower over his eyes. Francie, looking up at him, could see the tears running down his grizzled cheeks. “That silly woman kept pestering her—talking as if Carrie was afeared to try it,” he said through clenched teeth. “I think Carrie tried it just to shut her up. She started out and the whole thing collapsed.” He closed his eyes, as if by doing that he could erase the picture in his mind. “It was only luck we found her body—she was more than half covered with that broken rock.”

  It had been the last of the White Mountain walking tours. No guide had dared to advertise anything so dangerous in the six years since. The tourists still came, but they didn’t go up on White Mountain anymore. Carrie was buried in the mountains she had loved. And, thought Francie, smoothing the soft leather of the diary with her finger, her secrets were buried with her.

  Who was Old Robert? Where was this tree he had supposedly given her? Francie opened the diary once more and looked at the pages. Could she find more clues to this mystery in the diary? It would mean reading the entire book, entry by entry. She closed her eyes. How could she bear to read her sister’s most private thoughts?

  “I must bear it,” she whispered. “For the sake of Carrie’s mystery.” She smiled a bitter little half smile. While she was alive, Carrie was always inventing pretend mysteries. But when she died, she set off a real mystery. How she would have loved to solve it!

  She heard her father’s footsteps walk past the door and then stop. Francie blew out the lamp before her father could knock on her door—no more time now to search. And she wouldn’t see Charlie again until Sunday—if he remembered to come.

  • • •

  On Sunday afternoon Charlie knocked on the Cavanaughs’ door just as he had promised. Francie moved to open it, but her mother motioned her to sit and went to answer it herself.

  “Aunt Mary,” Charlie said, taking off his hat as he stepped into the front hallway.

  “Come in, Charlie.” Francie’s mother gave him a hug and showed him into the sitting room where Francie and her father were waiting. “Sit down and tell us the news.” She picked up her knitting and sat down in her favorite green brocade chair. When she was a little girl, Francie had loved to sneak into the sitting room and run her fingers through the slippery gold tassels that hung from the seat cushions.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Charlie took a seat beside Francie on the sofa. He smiled at her, raising one eyebrow in question.

  Francie nodded her head ever so slightly. She felt like she might burst with the news of the diary, but instead she had to sit quietly with her hands folded in her lap while her mother and father questioned Charlie about his family and friends from St. Joseph.

  “Old Mrs. Andrew died just after New Year’s,” Charlie was saying.

  Francie’s father put down his newspaper and stared at him. “I wonder if that was the same Mrs. Andrew who taught me in school.”

  “Probably was,” Charlie said. “They said she was eighty-six. She came west in the 1850s and she was in her forties then!”

  “I’m amazed she didn’t die long ago,” Francie’s father said, “with the things she had to put up with from her students. She used to tell us we were more of a challenge than the Oregon Trail.” He smiled at the memory, and Francie felt her heart twist inside her. If only he would smile more often.

  She was torn between wanting her father to tell more stories and wanting to go with Charlie to Turkey Fork. Her father had been eight and her mother only a year younger when their families came west, and their wagon train experiences were exciting—she remembered some of the stories she’d heard when she was little. Before Carrie died.

  But the light in her father’s eyes dimmed as quickly as it had come. There would be no more stories now. Francie sighed and surreptitiously poked Charlie.

  “Uncle James,” he said, sitting up straight. “I was wondering if I could take Francie walking up the Connor’s Creek trail. The bluebirds are thick up in there . . . and I think I know where a den of fox pups is. We were talking the other day and she said she’d like to see them.”

  “I would, Father,” Francie said, gritting her teeth against the tone Charlie was using, like she was a little girl who had to be taken care of. The point, she told herself sternly, was to find Turkey Fork. “Please may I go? We’ll be home before dark.”

  Her father looked from Charlie to Francie, and then at Francie’s mother, who took that moment to examine her knitting. He cleared his throat but evidently decided there was no trick. “I suppose you may go,” he said, nodding. He fixed Francie with a stern look. “No climbing or doing anything dangerous. You will obey Charlie. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Father.” Francie gripped the brocaded arm of the sofa to keep herself from jumping up.

  He nodded once more. Charlie put his hand on Francie’s elbow as if he were helping her to rise. “I’ll take care of her,” he said, turning back to Francie’s parents as Francie almost skipped into the hall, grabbed her hat from the rack, and fixed it on her head with a few pins. She hated hats—their wide brims limited what she could see without craning her neck—but she knew her mother would never let her go walking with Charlie without one. As quietly as she could, she opened the middle drawer of the hall table and pulled out an old cotton shoulder bag with Carrie’s diary inside. She’d put it there that morning, sneaking down the stairs with it before anyone else was awake.

  “Yes, sir,” Charlie was saying. “No risks. I promise.” He stepped into the dim hallway, opened the front door, and ushered Francie out into the street.

  • Chapter Eight •

  Francie took a deep breath of the pine-scented air. “Carrie was right,” she said, looking at Charlie. “The smell of the air in the mountains is almost better than food!”

  Charlie raised his eyebrows. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” he said, grinning. “How do you know what Carrie said? Has she been talking to you now?”

  Francie frowned at him. She reached into the bag, which she’d slung over her shoulder, and held out the diary. “I found it. There was a secret compartment in her wardrobe.” She stroked the book’s soft blue binding. “Now there’s a secret compartment in my wardrobe,” she whispered.

  Charlie stopped walking. He looked down at the book in Francie’s hand, but he didn’t take it—and the expression on his face looked as if he thought it might be as dangerous as a rattlesnake. “Did you read it?” He looked up at Francie, but still he didn’t take the diary.

  “Parts of it,” she answered. She touched Charlie’s elbow and he started forward. “How far up Connor’s Creek will we have to go, do you think?”

  He shrugged and gave her sideways glance. “Did you find anything about . . . you know, the secret?”

  As an answer, Francie opened the diary to the last entry and read it aloud as they walked. She left out the date and the part about the White Mountain walking tour.

  “This tree,” Francie put her finger on the diary page when she’d finished reading. “Maybe it’s the secret Carrie was talking about in the note. Can we find it?”

  Charlie looked down at her. “Don’t you think it’s been cut by now? If it’s as big as she says . . .” He didn’t need to finish the thought.

  Francie closed her eyes. “You’re probably right,” she said. “Do you know this man, Old Robert?”

  “Old Robert.” Charlie stroked his chin and smoothed his mustache away from his mouth. “He’s that old hermit who used to live up near Connor’s Pass—Carrie took me to his cabin once. He hasn’t been around here in a long time.”

  “Connor’s Pass—that’s just below Connor’s Peak.” Francie’s heart gave a little jump. Connor’s Peak was the mountain Carrie had mentioned climbing, and, suddenly, Francie wanted to climb it as well, to see the view that Carrie had described in her diary. “Let’s head up that way.” She tucked the diary back into the shoulder bag.

  Charlie scratched his head. “I promised I’d get you back before dark.”

 
“You did not!” Francie turned on him. “You just said you’d take care of me. And besides, that was just so Father would let me go. I can take care of myself.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Charlie tipped his hat and grinned. “If I didn’t know better I’d say you were Carrie.”

  Francie bit her lip. She knew he’d meant no harm by it. “I’m not Carrie, and I don’t want to be,” she said finally, her voice trembling. “Please don’t say that again.”

  Charlie’s smile vanished. He swallowed and pulled his hat down so the brim shadowed his eyes. “Sorry, Francie. Guess I didn’t think.” He moved ahead of her. “If we’re going to make it to Connor’s Pass and back before dark, we’d best get moving.”

  The trail to Connor’s Pass led through the basin—they followed it in silence. The huge stumps towered over them like giant tombstones. It had been a few years since the loggers had been working in this part of the basin and long grasses and brambles had begun to fill in where once there had been bare forest floor. But Francie found she could easily keep up with Charlie’s long strides. Once he turned around, and when he saw her close behind him he raised his eyebrows. He smiled, and Francie thought he was going to say something, but instead he clamped his mouth shut again, turned back, and kept walking.

  After they’d been walking for almost an hour, the path forked. One branch headed on through the meadow, weaving its way around the stumps, and the other went up the hill, into forest. Charlie stopped. “You keep up pretty good,” he admitted, turning to Francie. He took off his hat and mopped his forehead with his shirtsleeve. “Aren’t you hot?”

  She sat on a downed log. “Now that you mention it,” she said, grinning. “You didn’t think I could keep up, did you?”