Riding the Flume

by Patricia Curtis Pfitsch

“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.

  She put on her hat and was arranging her skirt when Charlie came up beside her. “You’re still the fastest runner in town,” he said, bending over to catch his breath. “Next Fourth of July you should enter the footraces. I bet you could even beat Buck Murphy.”

  Francie chuckled, imagining the shocked looks if she showed up at the starting line. “Father would never let me enter,” she said.

  Charlie slapped his hat back onto his head. “I could have done better without my boots, though. Are we late?”

  “I hope not,” Francie answered, starting down the hill.

  They crossed the street and went around behind the house to the kitchen door. “Mama?” Francie pushed the door open and went in.

  Her mother turned from the stove. “There you are,” she said. “Supper’s almost ready.” She looked into the pot and made a face. “In fact, it’s more than ready.” Then she took a closer look at Charlie. “My goodness! What happened?”

  Francie glanced at her cousin in the light from the kerosene lamp on the kitchen table. Lines of dirt streaked his face, and the back of his Sunday shirt was dark with sweat. “Oh,” she said quickly, not looking at her mother, “it was warm this afternoon, and we walked a long way.” She wiped her own face and wondered if she looked as hot as he did.

  “I see,” her mother answered.

  Francie and Charlie exchanged a glance, and then they both looked at Francie’s mother. She was scooping potatoes and carrots into a serving bowl, and Francie wondered exactly how much she did see. “Can you stay for supper, Charlie?” her mother asked.

  Charlie had taken his hat off when he came into the kitchen. Now he settled it firmly on his head. “Thank you, Aunt Mary, but I’ve got to get back to camp. Morning comes early on Monday.” He gave her a peck on the cheek. “I’ll sure come another time, though.”

  Francie took off her hat and hung her shoulder bag on a hook by the door, feeling the weight of Carrie’s diary as she did so. “Thank you for taking me walking with you, Charlie,” Francie said. She wanted to remind Charlie of his promise not to tell about the tree, but she couldn’t with her mother right there in the kitchen.

  “Anytime, cousin,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to be with such a refined lady as you.” He flashed her a wicked grin and was out the door and down the steps before Francie could say a word.

  Francie’s mother frowned at his retreating back. “What did he mean by that, I wonder?”

  “Pay him no mind,” Francie answered, trying to look calm. “He’s just teasing.” She picked up the bowl of vegetables. “Should I put these on the table?”

  “Please,” her mother said. “And then run over to the hotel and get your father. I told him he might as well get some work done since this pot roast was taking so long to cook.” She gave Francie a significant look. “He’s been there all afternoon.”

  And won’t know how late you came home. Francie added the unspoken words to herself. It wasn’t any accident that Mama’s pot roast took longer than usual to get done. “Thank you, Mama,” Francie said, giving her mother a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll go get Father.”

  “Well, it’s about time,” was all her father said when Francie knocked on his open office door. She watched him go through the familiar routine, closing the ledger and placing it on the shelf with the others, slipping on his suit coat, brushing off imaginary lint, carefully closing and locking the door. “Good night, Herbert,” he said, nodding to the desk clerk as they passed through the lobby on their way out.

  “Did you and Charlie have a nice afternoon?” Father asked as they walked across the quiet street.

  “It was lovely,” Francie answered, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. Could she tell him about the tree? Would he know whether it belonged to Carrie? She took a breath. “Father?” Her heart was beating so loud she thought he must be able to hear it.

  “Yes?” Her father opened the front door and motioned for her to go in ahead of him.

  “Thank you for letting me go with Charlie.” She bit her lip. She couldn’t do it. Not yet. What if he refused to keep it secret?

  “You’re welcome,” her father said, looking at her. His eyebrows were raised in an unspoken question, but then he turned and went on into the dining room. “Help your mother serve the supper, Frances.”

  Supper was almost over before Francie decided she would either have to ask the question or burst with the effort of keeping silent. She put down her fork and wiped her lips with her napkin. “Father?”

  “Yes?” The look he gave her was distracted.

  “Can a person own a tree?”

  He frowned. “Of course. We own the trees in front of our house and the ones on the front lawn of the hotel.”

  Francie tried again. “That’s not what I mean. Could a person own one of the sequoias?”

  Her father looked at her and then at her mother as if asking for an explanation. Her mother lifted her shoulders slightly and shook her head. “The lumber company owns most of the sequoias,” he said. He folded his napkin and placed it by his plate. “Why do you ask?”

  Francie swallowed. “Did Carrie own a sequoia tree?”

  Her father’s face fell into the cold, blank expression it wore whenever Carrie’s name was mentioned. “I don’t know what you mean, Frances. Of course Carrie never owned a sequoia. How could she?” His voice shook with sudden anger. “What a ridiculous notion!” He pushed his chair back from the table and stood up.

  “Wait. Please.” Francie turned to her mother. “Old Robert gave Carrie one of the sequoias. Today Charlie and I found it on our walk. It’s huge, the biggest tree in the world.” Her parents were staring at her, openmouthed. Francie looked from one to the other, knowing she was talking too fast. She wasn’t making sense, but she couldn’t stop. “It’s Carrie’s tree. Old Robert left it to her in his will. I know it’s hers—Carrie said so. It’s in her diary.”

  The last words fell into profound silence. Francie watched her mother’s hands begin to tremble. “Her diary?” her mother whispered. “You found Carrie’s diary?”

  Francie nodded. “It was . . . in her room.” She found she couldn’t quite give away Carrie’s careful hiding place.

  Francie’s father grabbed at the tabletop as if to keep himself from falling. Abruptly, he sat back down in his chair. He opened his mouth but then shut it again.

  Without saying a word, Francie got up from the table. She walked into the kitchen,
got the diary from the shoulder bag, and came back into the dining room. Her steps seemed as loud as gunshots in the quiet room.

  “Here it is.” She placed the little book in the middle of the table; the dark blue leather looked almost black against the white cloth.

  Her parents stared at it. Then her mother turned her head away. “I don’t want to read it,” she whispered. She was trembling, and she clenched her hands into fists in her lap. “I can’t bear it.”

  Her father cleared his throat. His face was white, but his hand was steady when he picked up the book. “We looked for it after she . . .” He stopped and cleared his throat again. “But we couldn’t find it.” He looked at Francie. “Have you read it?”

  Francie looked at him, and for an instant she thought she saw such pain in his eyes that she wanted to cry out. But then it was gone. She wondered if she’d imagined it. “I’ve read parts of it,” she said. “It’s like—”

  But her father interrupted, and his voice was sharp. “What about the tree?”

  Francie jumped, startled by his anger. “It’s the last entry . . .” and her voice faded away, remembering the mention of the White Mountain walking tour. He shouldn’t have to read that. “Here.” She reached over and took the book from her father’s hands.

  When she opened it, her mother stood up, pushing her chair back so fast it screeched across the wood floor. “I can’t listen,” she said. She held her napkin to her face and almost ran from the room. In a moment Francie heard her feet on the stairs. Then in a trembling voice she knew would still sound too much like her sister’s, she read Carrie’s last entry.

  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.

  She looked up. Her father sat with his head in his hands; his elbows rested on the table. She wondered if he was crying. “Father?” She reached out, but as she touched his arm he jerked back, away from her.

  “And what was your question?” His eyes were red but quite dry. “Could Carrie own that tree?” He shook his head. “Old Robert was a little crazy when it came to the mountains.” He smiled, but to Francie it looked more like a grimace. “He used to walk around town shouting about how the lumber company was ruining the mountains. Once he even called down the wrath of God on Thomas Connor.” He rubbed his hand across his eyes. “I’m sure he thought he was doing something noble in giving Carrie a tree, and from her words . . .”

  His voice broke then. His breath came in a half sob—quickly cut off. With a jerk he stood up and paced over to the sideboard. With shaking hands he began arranging the salt and pepper shakers, the china cups, and little knick-knacks in a line. He picked one up—a delicate china shepherd girl in a light blue dress—and looking fixedly at it rather than at Francie, he continued.

  “Your sister was a fanciful child, as her words show. And Old Robert might have truly believed that he was giving her one of the sequoias, but the lumber company owns all that land.” Carefully he placed the china girl in line with the others. “Lewis Granger graciously let the poor man live there, but I’m quite sure his cabin was on lumber company land.”

  Then, still without looking at Francie, he walked out of the room. In a moment Francie heard the front door open and then close again, and she knew he was going back to the hotel.

  She sat in the quiet with Carrie’s diary in her lap. “I shouldn’t have told them,” she whispered. “They’re still too sad.” She blinked away her tears. Her father wouldn’t come back until late—he might even work all night. Nothing more would be said about Carrie or about the tree. And especially nothing would be said about the diary. Ever.

  She picked up the book and held it to her cheek. This was all that was left of her sister. She opened the book at random and read another entry.

  Nov. 30, 1887. It is snowing, and the last of the loggers left a few days ago. There will be no more tourists until spring. Charlie begged his mother to let him stay the winter with us, but the answer was no, as it is every year. So he has to go back to St. Joseph and go to school. Poor Charlie. I would much rather do the lessons Mama makes for us after the hotel closes for the winter than have to leave the mountains and go to school. Winter is one of my favorite times in the mountains—everything is so quiet. As if I am the only person awake in the entire world. After a snowstorm, lam like Eve walking alone through God’s creation. Mine are the first footprints ever to mark the new fallen snow.

  The next sentence was heavily crossed out—Francie stared at it until her eyes burned, but the words were lost forever. And then Carrie had written the last sentence in an even more scrawled hand than usual.

  Papa has FINALLY given me permission to go out. I will take Francie with me. I will be Adam and she can be Eve—we will discover the world together.

  Her name, written in Carrie’s diary. Francie smoothed it with her finger, as if by touching her name she could somehow touch her sister. She thought she might even be able to remember that day—the snowflakes flying thick, landing on her lashes. The warmth of Carrie’s mittened hand holding hers, keeping her from falling as they stomped through the snow, making footprints.

  Francie blinked. Her lashes were wet, and it took a moment to realize that they were wet from tears and not snow. She shut the book with a snap. She was just now beginning to discover Carrie’s world and she had to do it alone.

  She began clearing the table, breaking the silence with the clink of dishes, the clatter of silver as she tossed knives, forks, and spoons into the empty vegetable bowl. She pumped water in the big kettle, and thumped it down onto the stove. She tossed a few more pieces of coal from the coal bucket into the stove and let the iron lid clang down. At least, when her mother crept downstairs in the middle of the night, she’d find the dishes already washed, dried, and put away.

  After she went up to her room, she opened the secret hiding place in the wardrobe and placed the diary inside. “I need you, Carrie,” she whispered, smoothing the soft leather cover. She lowered the false bottom and closed the wardrobe doors. “I don’t think I can do this by myself, and there’s nobody here to help me.”

  It wasn’t until she was in bed and drifting toward sleep that her father’s words came back to her. “I’m quite sure his cabin was on lumber company land.” He hadn’t said, “Robert’s cabin was on lumber company land.” Somehow, the way he’d added, “I’m quite sure” suddenly sounded to Francie almost as if he wasn’t really sure at all. But before she could examine that thought more carefully, she was asleep.

  • Chapter Eleven •

  “Three thousand, two hundred and fifty-one. Three thousand, two hundred and fifty-two,” Francie said and put her finger on the tiny circle of wood in the exact center of the old stump. “Three thousand, two hundred and fifty-two.” She said it again out loud even though there was nobody else in the basin to hear her—only the squirrel who kept scurrying up the trunk to check on her and then scrambling down whenever she made a face at him. Did trees feel? Could they think? Did this one have any idea what was happening when Bill Weaver or whoever was the faller made that first chop with his ax into its bark?

  She looked to the north and with her eyes she followed the path that wound through the basin, the same path that yesterday had led her to Carrie’s tree. How old was that one? Would they cut it down, too, with as little care as they had for this one? She knew they would, if they found out about it. She closed her eyes and said a little prayer
that Charlie would keep this secret. He was good at keeping secrets—hadn’t Carrie said so in her diary?

  The cotton shoulder bag was lying beside her in a puddle of soft gray fabric that outlined the shape of the diary inside it. She had been going to keep it in the hiding place, never take it out again. But somehow, she couldn’t. “Not yet,” she whispered. She slid it out of the bag, and then searched around until she found the pencil she’d decided at the last moment to bring. She opened the book to Carrie’s last entry, and then turned one page.

  June 16, 1894.

  Her hand was shaking; she put the pencil down and wiggled her fingers. Then she began again.

  Dear Carrie

  Today I finished counting the rings on the old sequoia stump, the first one they cut in Connor’s Basin. It was three thousand two hundred and fifty-two years old. I shall write Mr. Court a letter telling him. I haven’t seen any of his articles because Father takes the newspaper to work with him. I think he does it on purpose, so I can’t read them. He’s letting me count the rings on the stump, but he won’t let me say anything against the logging.

  • • •

  She stopped, read the words she’d just written, and then smoothed the page with the side of her hand. If she were alive, Carrie would be furious to find her sister writing in her diary. But now . . . Francie bent her head and finished her first entry.

  Someday soon I will climb Connor’s Peak. Like you, Carrie.

  She lifted her head again, an idea bubbling inside her. Suddenly she couldn’t write fast enough.

  In fact, I will go to all the places you went. I’ll write about what I see. It won’t be what you saw, because of the logging. But I’ll try to imagine it the way you saw it.

  That’s all for now.

  Love,

  Francie

  P.S. Please don’t be mad at me for writing in your diary.

  Francie closed the book, feeling a little silly. It wasn’t as if Carrie could actually read when Francie wrote, could know what she was thinking. She sighed. “I wish she could read it and answer and tell me what to do.” The squirrel had been sitting on the top rung of the ladder, watching her. At the sound of her voice he dropped his acorn and disappeared over the side of the stump. She leaned over the edge to watch him scamper down. “Why don’t you tell me what to do,” she called after him.