The Choiring of the Trees - Donald Harington [151]
I’m glad that they haven’t killed you, and I don’t think they ever will. The glade and all of us are waiting for you.
Your friend, Latha
It was almost, Nail reflected, as good as getting a letter from Viridis. He considered that the letters Viridis was writing to me must have taught me how to write a good letter, or even infected me with some of Viridis’ way with words. But his main reaction to the letter was one of shock: that I should mention the very spot, the waterfall, where he had considered hiding, where indeed he thought about “living and dwelling.” If I had discovered the spot, wouldn’t other people discover his hiding-place? Not necessarily, because I had accidentally stumbled upon that trail whose beginning was almost concealed in the remotest corner of his highest pasture. The glen (and now I have to admit I was wrong: it was not so much a glade as a glen) is hard to get to, and it was the most secluded spot I’d ever been in, myself, and Nail knew it didn’t lack anything he’d find in Colorado.
But what had I meant, he wondered, about his father? I realize I didn’t word that part too well. I shouldn’t have left it open like that, as if his father was already dead, not just on his way to the hereafter. Nail wanted to ask Viridis what she knew. Had she heard anything about his father dying?
And he got a chance soon: Viridis came for another visit. Once again they leaned across the table, meeting their lips above the dividing-board, and greeting, and sitting, and then Nail said, “I had a letter from Latha. Bless her heart. But why do they let me have her letter and won’t let me have yours?”
Viridis smiled. “I suspect her letter wasn’t nearly as bawdy as mine.”
“Bawdy? You mean you used blackguardy words?”
“Blaggarty?” She laughed. “What kind of blaggarty word is ‘blaggarty’?”
“Black-guardy,” he pronounced it more carefully. “Aw, it just means smutty, you know. Dirty.”
“My letters to you are very white and clean, but also very lurid.”
“I wish I could read them.”
“I’m saving them for you,” she said. “I’m saving everything for you.”
“It won’t be long,” he said.
Her eyebrows went up. “How long?”
Nail glanced at their tablemates, a couple sitting a few chairs away and engrossed in each other. Bird wasn’t paying any more than his usual bored attention. Nail whispered, “Probably next Saturday night.”
“Really?”
In a normal voice he asked, “Viridis, what did Latha mean in her letter when she said she was sorry about my dad? He’s not left this world yet, has he?”
“No. Did Latha say that? He’s very ill and ought to be in the hospital, but he won’t go. I think the only thing keeping him alive is he wants to see you again.”
“He’ll see me soon,” Nail whispered.
She whispered too: “No, Nail, his house is the first place the lawmen will watch for you.”
“I’ll find some way to see Paw,” Nail reaffirmed.
“And me?” she said. “Will you find some way to see me?”
“I’ll see you,” he said, and realized it sounded as if it were just a polite leave-taking, and he didn’t mean it that way. He said it again as if he really meant it: “I will see you.”
“You were going to draw me a map, remember?”
He smiled. “No need of that. Just ask Latha.”
“She knows?”
“Tell her she knows.”
Viridis laughed. “I love the way you put that: ‘Tell her she knows.’ We would all like to be told that we know.”
“Be told, then, that you know.”
“Thank you. Now, here is something you should know.” She lowered her voice to the point he had to watch her lips and try to keep one eye on Bird. “One mile southwest of The Walls, beyond the swamp, is a great big old sycamore tree. The newspaper mentioned it in connection with that awful story about how they demonstrated the bloodhounds on poor Ernest. That’s the tree Ernest climbed to avoid being bitten by the dogs, but it’s where they treed him and caught him. That’s how I know about it, and that’s how I found it. It’s the only sycamore tree in the neighborhood, and it’s so tall you’ll see it silhouetted against the night sky, so you can’t miss it, even if