Dinner With The Family

 

            Ralph had taken a quick trip down to the park at Concrete to check out a kid who was making waves at the park among the visitors. Some of them thought he was cute, but not all of them did.
            Sometimes he stacked the trash cans in the lady’s room. He liked to play peekaboo with the kids. He hid anything that a guy left hanging around loose. Then they had to turn the place upside down to get their belongings back. That was Benny. He got just enough positive feedback to keep it up and not take the complaints seriously.
            Ralph sat around on the beach, sort of cloaked, until Benny showed up. Benny was burying somebody’s shoes in the pebbles, for a laugh. His laugh, of course.
            “I bet you’re Benny,” said Ralph, when he saw what the kid was doing with the shoes.
            “Oh, hi. Pretty much Pops,” said Benny.
            “I can see that you’re a guy with a lot of energy,” said Ralph. “Some people I know asked me to come and see if I could find out what all the excitement is about around here. Seems like maybe it has something to do with you.”
            “Really?” said Benny, feigning disbelief.
            “So, who are you anyway, Pops?  Why’d they send you?” said Benny.
            “You’re young. So, I’ll just tell ya. I’m Ralph. Some call me the king over the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. Now, that’s not what we call the forest. Yeah, I know. But, my human friends call it that.”
            “Oh,” said Benny, just then perceiving whose nose he had been tweaking.
            “Yup! That’s how it looks, kiddo,” said Ralph.
            “Sorry, um, Ralph,” said Benny.
            “This is what I’ve got in mind Benny. I want you to dig those shoes back up and go put them right where you found them. I see they are a female’s shoes. Hmm!” Ralph rumbled a bit here and gave a the kid a summing up kind of look.
            “Then I have a proposition. I’d like you to come home with me for a couple of days. Meet the family and we’ll talk it all over,” continued Ralph, watching the kid for any reaction.
            “I’ll go!” said Benny! “You bet!” Then he kind of scooped the pink size 8 runners out of the pebbles with his big right foot, grabbed them and took off. He set them right beside the tent where he had found them, associated with some girl scouts or some such. The girl never knew that her shoes had left her for a jaunt down by the river. Some mysteries remain mysterious.
            It’s not that great of a trip on foot from Concrete to the Home Clearing somewhere off Highway 20 up in the park. Forest Keepers have advantages over us when it comes to travelling on foot. They are smooth and fast! Fantastic muscle tone, apparently.
            Ralph and Benny moved along the banks of the Skagit until they just about got to Marblemount, then they took a hard right into the forest. Nobody pays any attention to large brownish creatures in the river. Could be bears! Could be moose? Who cares? Not anybody cruising up or down SR 20 at highway speeds.
            Now, Benny had never been this far away from Concrete, so he was all excited. The forest was different here, deeper and steeper. It was altogether more legit, in his eyes, which were shining like stars.
            “When we get there, you’ll meet my Firekeeper, Ramona, Twigg the boy and Cherry the baby girl. Then there are two friend Pumas. Berry and Bob. They aren’t what people call tame, but they are good boys, and they won’t hurt you!” Ralph told Benny, to prepare him. “Then there is Maeve, the Raven.”
            “My mother died,” said Benny. “My father died before I was born. I’m mostly alone.”
            Ralph nodded and they kept walking. “Oh, you’ll meet the Raven soon enough, she always welcomes me home. I don’t know how she knows, but she does.” They walked deeper and deeper into the forest. The trees got bigger and the path darker.
            Benny looked skyward in alarm, when someone croaked “evermore!” very loudly and came barreling down out of the sky. It was someone with wide shiny black wings, who landed on Ralph’s left shoulder with a thud. This was not like hanging out in the county park with human visitors to tease. It was a whole bunch more interesting!
            “Hi Maeve,” said Ralph. “This is Maeve, Benny. She’s friendly too.”
            “Hullo,” said Benny, very impressed.
            “Who’s the kid, Ralph,” said Maeve. “Never saw him before. Might be a spy!”
            “Oh knock it off, Black Leg. The kid’s alright,” laughed Ralph.
            And that is how they arrived at the Home Clearing. Ralph and Benny stepping along the last section of trail, with Maeve bobbing along like a roosting chicken on Ralph’s shoulder.
            It was evening. The kids and cats had eaten their dinners and were running around one last time before bed, waiting for Ralph’s return. Ramona was sitting, serene and composed on one of those logs around the fire, facing the opening in the trees where he would appear. Her brow was unwrinkled. She was peace personified. The firelight showcased her beauty.
            As Ralph and Benny walked into the clearing, Benny noticed Ramona and stumbled because he had forgotten that he had feet to pay attention to. He hadn’t realized that the mother and Firekeeper he was to meet would look like that. The boy was smitten.
            Ralph is very good at reading the writing on the water, which he did, and he grinned a little. She had had that effect on him too once, in a pool of water in the moonlight.
            “Benny, here is Ramona,” said Ralph. “Ramona, this is Benny. He’s from Concrete!”
            “Hello Ramona,” said Benny weakly.
            “Oh, I’m glad to meet you Benny. Are you two hungry? I have saved a lot of fish for you,” she said.
            “We haven’t snacked on our way here, Ramona,” said Ralph, "yes, we are hungry."
            So they had dinner together there by the fire. Even though Benny caught and ate fish all the time, he had never had it cooked over a fire. He liked it very much.
            Twigg and Cherry came near the fire to meet Benny, a stranger to them. Berry and Bob came to check him out also. They smiled their enigmatic cat smiles and just watched him with golden eyes.
            The children and the cats went to bed. Ramona followed soon.
            Ralph told her, “Benny and I will sleep old style out here by the fire. We have to talk.”
            They sat out there as the fire died down to coals and the stars began to wink at them from way up above the tree tops. The moon peeked into the clearing for a while and then moved off on its appointed path.
            An owl inquired of the night, a few times. The mice shuddered in their sleep, staying carefully underground.
            The wind came by and took a look at the clearing and the fire and decided that everything looked fine, then slipped off to the north, as the wind will do.
            They talked of many things and made some decisions.
            “What I have in mind is this, Benny. I need a smart guy like you to keep an eye on things in the park. You know that park better than even the rangers or the visitors. You’ve always been there. It would be useful to me if you wanted to take up the position of a kind of guardian over Rasar park and the little town of Concrete. Then we could get together and talk once in a while. You could come and have dinner with us!” said Ralph.
            Sleepy Benny said, “I can do that Ralph. You bet, and I will too.”
            “I’ll knock off the funny stuff, Ralph,” said Benny.
            “Good deal,” said Ralph. And in a minute they were asleep there under the great deep sky, sleeping as their ancestors had before them.