We marched for another couple of hours before entering a grove of singing trees. Their vibrations were like laughter, like the tittering of small children just beyond sight in the woods.
“No longer the siren’s call,” Juan Thrombone said to Gerin Reed, just ahead of me.
“Now they’re laughing at Papa Shortribs,” Gerin replied. He loved making fun of Bones only slightly more than Juan liked being made fun of.
The white firs seemed to gather around us. Behind us the wall of trees was impassable while ahead was always open and even beckoning.
And then we were in the open grove of the young sequoias. The first deep note of the Bellowing Trees sounded. All of us half-lights, even Gerin Reed, were struck still. Bones smiled and indicated with his hands that we should sit.
No one complained. We’d been walking for a long time, and that deep note had taken what little energy we had left. Bones passed around a water bag that was made from deerskin and filled with a tea brewed from the leaves of the singing trees. It was the best thing I had ever tasted, clear, sweet, and somehow dense. Juan’s teas always brought vigor and a sense of well-being.
“Today is the day that your lives begin,” Juan Thrombone intoned.
These words combined with the power of his thoughts and the high-pitched laughter of the white firs behind us. Then came the reverberations in the damp and grassy earth. It was far beyond any lecture Ordé preached. Those were ideas held in a voice that captivated and elated. But Bones’s talk was a symphony that by turns amazed and frightened us. No one of his audience of four could sit still. We couldn’t stop fidgeting there on the ground; every now and then one of us would grunt or laugh.
He retold the story of blue light, saying that it was “no more than a seed in the history of a forest.” He told the story of the great redwood and her death. About how he saved her seedlings so that the world would still have music.
“And now we must begin the work of the world,” Bones said in a hushed tone. Everything else went quiet too: the trees, the earth, even the low continual chatter of my senses and the history of my life inside my mind. All that was left was me hearing his words.
“In Dreamer’s dreaming the world falls apart,” he said. “But of faith and future there is no clear sign, only the blunt clubs of death and love, of fire and freezing, and the highest and lowest animal — man.”
A low moan issued from my chest. My three companions also sang.
He had stopped talking, but I listened still. His words washed over me again and again. The words turned to images. Fires and men who walked like dogs, slithered like snakes, who killed for death and not survival. I saw an army of trees holding back the tides of killing man-animals. And I heard the music of death in the ears of Grey Redstar, and I almost laughed his laugh and felt his glee.
“Rise” came a voice.
Whether it was Bones or one of his puppy trees, whether it was word or thought, I was not sure. But I stood along with the murderer, the one-eyed ex-detective, and the cuckold. We walked together into the presence of the greatest creatures the world has ever known.
They welcomed us with deep bass notes that trailed off into one another. A different color was set off in my mind with each note, and the ground, which was flat, seemed to undulate beneath my feet. We were all staggering and squinting at Bones, who led us.
I realized then that these trees of Juan Thrombone’s were a company of gods. They were only whispering right then so as not to demolish our small group. Bones was one of them. I had become so familiar with his laughter and jokes that I’d half forgotten his true nature.
The journey between the trunks of those trees was like walking through an earthquake. Halfway through I was sure that I wouldn’t make it, that I would fall and be consumed by the roots I could feel reaching up and tickling the soles of my boots.
Then we were on the other side, and it was over.
Out of the presence of divinity and onto a grassy field about a hundred yards in diameter. A plateau looking out over a panorama of California forest. The sky was completely covered in high clouds, and a breeze was the only sound.
My heart was thumping and sweat poured down my face.
We were all silent and scared.
“Damn!” Mackie said at last. “What was that?”
“The heart,” said Juan Thrombone. He held up both hands, clenching them into fists and releasing again and again in way of instruction. “The throbbing heart of life. Where the blood of our souls goes for cleansing before the day begins.”
“Why did you bring us?” I asked.
“I’ve already told you.”
“But there aren’t any trees here to tend.”
Instead of answering, the little man walked to the right, all the way to the edge of the field. We followed.
Down the slope there was another clearing that was at the base of a small waterfall. The fall was no more than a trickle, its water slapping down dark mossy rocks into a large stone cistern.
“It’s like a big bucket,” Gerin Reed said.
“What’s it for?” asked Miles Barber in a rare show of curiosity.
A herd of white-tailed deer wandered around the field beneath the stone water tower. A few were licking the water spilling down the sides.
“Gather your buckets,” Bones said to us. He pointed to a small patch of bushes a few feet away.
I was the closest. Nestled under the bushes were four rough-hewn wooden buckets fitted with covers made from a thicker version of the fabric Addy made for our clothes and with handles made from the same material. There was also a long pole, maybe eight feet long, that had a flat wooden disk attached to one end with wooden dowels.
“Come on, come on,” Bones urged.
We each grabbed a heavy bucket and followed Bones down the steep slope toward the deer and water tower.
One or two were startled to see us approaching, but they didn’t bolt. When Bones stepped down among them they took turns nuzzling him with their snouts in greeting. He scratched ears and thumped on their sides. He crooned to them and they seemed pleased.
When the greeting was over, Bones rummaged around behind the water tower and came out with a ladder made from tree-fabric rope and thick branches. He set it up against the side of the stone container.
“Ho, Last Chance,” he cried. “Climb up there and make yourself useful.”
As I scaled the rickety ladder, the deer became agitated. They ran back and forth with excitement. Some even reared on their hind legs with anticipation.
Upon reaching the last rung, I could see down into the big container. It was at least nine feet deep. The sides were blackened, but the water was crystal-clear.
“Pass up the first bucket, Miles and Miles,” Thrombone said.
The deer were running back and forth across the small clearing, stopping at the end of each circuit at the cistern before dashing away again.
The heavy bucket was passed up, and I removed the thick green fabric cover. It had certainly been used as a chamber pot, but it also contained tree needles, bark, and fist-sized globs of thick golden tree sap.
“Pour it in,” Bones said. “Pour it all in.”
I emptied the contents as well as I could into the water and then I submerged the bucket, washing out whatever was stuck to the sides.
“Now hand it back down! Come on! We don’t have all year!”
I was passed up all four buckets in succession. After they were all emptied, I was given the long pole and told to agitate the water as though churning butter. I’d never used a churn before, but I’d seen it done on TV.