A Chance Meeting and a Question Answered

 

Marble Creek camping in Mt. Baker Snoqualmie National Forest

💚

 
            Sometimes Ralph has a day when he will revert to his earlier, wandering days. It works well because he does need to walk perimeter once in a while. It’s orderly. The locals like to see the boss out on the trail checking things out. It makes them feel secure.
            It’s a good way to meet visitors, even if the visitor doesn’t know it. If it’s a film crew he usually just leaves them to get on with pretending to see him and imagining that every sound they hear is surefire evidence of his presence. Sometimes he gives them a little “evidence” just to be friendly. He knows most of them by name and reputation.
            That nonsense is either amusing or kind of a drag for Ralph.
            Sometimes, while drifting around the great forest, he will come upon someone or a group who are just there to be in the forest. Maybe they just want to feel the massive quietness and presence of it all. He often feels that he and they are alike in many ways, but he is hesitant to reveal himself for fear of frightening them. He can’t tell by looking upon a person what they have heard about souls such as himself. Have they been preloaded with fear, or not?
            One day, when the weather had settled a bit, the sun was shining and the temperature was in the 50s, he was strolling near the river, but further upstream than he usually went. It was an area that sometimes attracted campers. There was a nice sandy area near the water which was a good place for tents. And there was a tent right there on the stretch of sand. Two youngsters were sitting together on a log of river driftwood, enjoying a small fire.
            It was a young man and a girl. They had to have carried everything quite a distance. There was no way to get a car near this spot. No place to run off to quickly either.
            Ralph decided to see if he could share a little cross-species cheer with these two kids. He felt like chatting. He’d been alone all morning.
            Standing some distance off, he became visible and waited to gauge their reaction.
            “Hey, um, look over there, Mark,” said the girl, nodding toward Ralph and grabbing the boy’s arm. “I’m afraid to look again. Is it there?”
            “I see him too. Be cool,” said the boy. “I don’t think escape is on the menu.”
            “I’ll just look at the ground,” said the girl. Really, she closed her eyes.
            “Lizzie, if he wanted to hurt us, we’d be dead already,” he whispered. She nodded.
            Mark raised his hand and sort of waved toward Ralph. He was also gauging a reaction.
            Ralph, encouraged, raised his great right hand and approached slowly. He knew the girl was afraid of him.
            “Greetings,” said Ralph in his low basso rumbly voice. “Welcome to the Forest.  I seem to be the head Forest Keeper around here. Welcome in the name of all the bugs, beasts and birds!” Then he smiled his best smile.
            Lizzie looked up, all astounded. “You talk?” she said, looking directly at him for the first time since he had arrived.
            “Thanks. I didn’t know you guys spoke English, I thought you were real, but not speaking English. I’m kinda speechless myself, right now,” said Mark.
            Ralph wandered up closer and settled onto another nearby log.
            “Well,” basso profundo again, “I just kind of picked it up from hanging around you people and listening. It seemed useful. Say, I have a talking Raven too. She talks way too much, by the way!”
            Lizzie said, “but all I’ve ever heard about you forest people is terror. Everyone is so afraid!”
            “Yeah, I know. Usually people are afraid if they see me, or any of us. I blame the TV producers. I guess fear is a good money maker,” said Ralph. “It’s true that there are some angry ones among us. But they don’t hang around down here.”
            “It’s good to meet you,” said Mark. “This is pretty darn neat!” He grinned like a happy little kid.
            “Well, I don’t want to barge in on your camp. I’ll leave you. Have fun. I’ll put the word out to the bears to leave you alone. They can get a little pushy and greedy sometimes.”
            “Hey, what’s your name,” said Lizzie as he was rising to leave.
            “That’s a bit of a long story, but they call me Ralph out here, those who speak.”
            “Goodbye, Ralph,” said Lizzie. “We will never forget this! Thank you for meeting us! And for being so nice!”
            Ralph turned back for a moment and gave the girl a big wink, then he continued to walk back into the forest, happy at how well the meeting had gone. As he slipped in between the big firs a sort of mist rose up between them and him.
            Ralph was thinking about something for lunch as he walked along. That cheered him up even more. It had been a great morning so far in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. One of the best. Ralph loved to dispel fear.
            Soon he noticed that he was not alone on the trail. Some small creature was “trailing” him. Looking back he saw that it was that Plaidie who had claimed Mike Dingle’s hoard underground.
            Ralph stopped and looked down at him, wondering what the little being had in mind.
            “I saw you passing Sir,” said Matthew the Plaidie, “I just wanted to thank you again. Most everyone hates us and distrusts us.”
            “Nobody likes an overly sharp trader,” said Ralph.
            The Plaidie wrung his hands and looked sadly up at Ralph.
            “It’s because we are so small, and nobody thinks we are real. So many of us got used to just getting what we could no matter how,” said the wee person.
            “Hey, I have a question for you,” said Ralph.
            “Ah, do ya?” said little Matthew, looking more shrewd than he had a moment before.
            “Yeah. How did you and Mike and the rest of you end up here in the forest, anyhow?” said Ralph. “Pretty far from your home, eh?”
            “Well, now, Sir. That would be telling, wouldn’t it? But I guess I owe you one, in truth,” said Matthew.
            “Lay it on me Matty O’Dingle. I’m headed home for lunch,” prodded Ralph with a grin. “Talk while I walk. Let’s keep moving.”
            “Truth is Sir, that you are not the only onliests to make use of a wee portal. The fact is that we hopped into a handy bit of a hole when being pursued for crimes not of our own, Sir, back at home on our island and the end of it was in yon burrow where Mike kept his gold and all. It was quite a surprise. But the sorrow of it was that it collapsed behind us, and we couldn’t get back. So here we are, for the foreseeable!” yelped Matthew as they traveled along together, he having a devil of a time to keep up and talk at the same time.
            The Plaidie stopped then, breathless, watching Ralph’s big feet disappear among the mighty trees.
            “That explains everything,” said Ralph over his shoulder.
            “As I live and hope to breath, that is the very truth,” Matthew O'Dingle whispered, with a regrettably duplicitous look on his little wrinkled brown face.