
The sun was just starting to come
up. He was just starting to wake up. He could see just a little light inside
the cave where he and his family slept. This was pleasant and cozy, to drowse there
under the extra large quilt in the big wooden bed with Ramona, who snored
delicately next to him.
But he began to perceive a discordant
sound. Rick was honking his horn. Not just once, but several times, in a little
pattern he liked to do.
Ralph sighed and sat up.
This honking was a signal between them.
It meant Rick wanted Ralph to come meet him at the station. Rick didn’t attempt
to locate Ralph and knock on his cave door. He knew about the alternate nature
of things in Ralph’s domain, the Great Forest. He’d never find that door unless
brought to it.
Ralph nudged Ramona and said
quietly, “Rick wants me. I’ll go see what it is, so he’ll stop that honking.”
“This early? Wow. OK. See you later,”
said Ramona, also quietly. Blue stirred, but settled again and Ralph slipped
out of the door, shutting it carefully behind himself.
The forest was damp and dim and cool
as he made his way up the path to the ranger station parking lot. And, indeed,
there was Rick in the driver’s seat of his Forest Service truck beeping out paradiddles.
“Rick, are you alright? Good
morning. I’m here,” said Ralph. “What’s up?”
Rick stopped honking and piled out
of his vehicle. He stretched and grinned.
“I’ve arranged a meeting. Dexter is
in there. You remember him. He’s a little worried about who you are, and I
thought who better to handle his questions than the man himself,” said Rick. “I
bought two of those Smรธrkages in town last night, to entice you with! Dexter is
making coffee!”
“Sure. Let’s do it,” grinned Ralph.
Inside the office there were two
chairs facing Rick’s desk. One was that big old oak chair for
Ralph, and the other was a regular office chair. The office appeared to
unoccupied, but they could hear Dexter in the kitchen nook getting mugs and
sugar and cream ready on a tray.
“We’re out here, Dexter,” Rick said,
so they didn’t have another fainting episode when Dexter showed up with the coffee
tray.
The two cakes were on the desk already
with some little plates and a knife.
Ralph and Rick sat and waited.
Soon slender redheaded Ranger Dexter
Morten came out of the kitchen with the tray. He sort of kept his eyes down. He
set the tray down on the desk and took his seat next to Ralph’s left side.
Outside the windows, the sun was
coming up for real, and the forest was awakening.
“Dexter, I’d like you to meet my
friend Ralph here,” said Rick.
All 150lbs of Dexter gathered his
courage and looked up. “Hi..,” he said.
All 700lbs, approximately because he’s
never been actually weighed, and 9’ of Ralph sat there looking as friendly as
he could manage. But, it’s always a bit of a shock to meet Ralph nearby. He
held still and didn’t make any sudden movements.
Then, “Hello, Ranger. Good to see
you this morning!” said Ralph in his low rumbly voice.
“Nice to meet you too,” said Dexter,
“Sorry about that first meeting.”
“Nah, it was my fault. I shouldn’t
have walked up on you like that,” said Ralph, agreeably. “Rick said you have
some questions.”
“Let’s have coffee and cake first,”
said Rick.
Rick had both sugar and cream in
his. Dexter just put a lot of sugar in his. Ralph had his black. That’s the
only way he knew to have coffee. He was starting to think about cream and sugar
though.
Rick cut all the sections of the Smรธrkage
apart for convenience, and they all had a very pleasant, but sticky, half hour
eating cake and drinking coffee and talking about nearly nothing.
“Now, Dexter,” said Ralph, “I’m all
ears. Ask away!”
“Well, now that we’ve met and eaten
together, this is going to sound rude,” said Dexter, “but what are you? Are you
a big hairy man, a human, or are you a talking animal of some kind? I mean,
right now, you seem as human as anyone, just look different.
“I never believed that you existed.
I suppose that’s why I fainted before. I’m trying to make sense of it, and I can’t
by myself.”
Ralph pushed his big chair back from
the desk and crossed his right foot over his left knee, lacing his fingers
together over his belly.
“Maybe,” he said, “I can answer you
with an old story my mother told me. I’m sure she got it from her mother, and
onward back into the mysterious, dim, past. This is what we Forest Keepers
believe, though it is probably a myth. But myths are just shortened history, you
know?”
“I think so,” said Dexter.
“It goes something like this,” said
Ralph.
“Long ago, before cities and kings
and all of that, all mankind lived together all over the world in every type of
situation you could think of, in forests, or prairies, on beaches, or wherever.
They hunted and fished for food. There was no farming, but they had the fruits
of the earth when they could get them, berries and such.
“There were no houses, machines, books,
or anything modern and made by the hands of man at all.
“One day, someone like the guy the
Natives of this land call Coyote came bearing the gifts of technology. He
showed people how to build houses and make gardens. He showed them how to keep
animals for captive prey He showed them how to write down their words too.
“This caused a great division among
all mankind. Some, charmed by technology, forgot the ways of the forest and the
rivers and the mountains. Some, fewer, stayed in the forests and the mountains.
Those who made houses and farms and books became softer and smoother as time
went on, and even smaller! After centuries, the Forest Keepers and the Techno
People looked like two different creatures. But once upon a time, it had not been so.”
Ralph sat quietly for a bit, then
he said, “That’s the trouble with myths, isn’t it? No way to know on what level
it’s literally true, or if it’s all a poetic take on what really happened. What
do you think, Dexter? Does that sound like a reasonable myth?”
“It’s like a fable,” said Dexter. “The
story is broken down into little easy chunks. I suppose a scholar would say, if
that was the case, that it showed extreme adaptation. But, at the root of it we
are both mankind.”
“I always thought the story left out
an awful lot about history,” said Ralph. “Even I, a Forest Keeper, knows more
about history than that. But the story kind of works.”
“It works for me, Ralph. It answers
my question. That’s good enough for me,” said Dexter. “I am rather relieved to
know that you’re not some kind of giant talking monkey!”
“I’m happy to have helped,” said
Ralph. “Rick, thanks for the coffee and cake! But I’m beginning to think about
breakfast down at the Home Clearing. Ramona will be looking for me, so I better
skedaddle!
“Hey, Dexter, let’s all get
together, Rick too, one of these days at my place. OK? Ramona would love to
have you over too. I’ll get her to pick a day and all of that!” And with that,
Ralph was out of the door, across the parking lot, and down into the forest. He
slipped out like a huge Ninja and was gone.
“Wow,” said Dexter, the Forest
Service trainee.
“Yep!” said Rick. “You see why it’s
better if we just don’t know a doggone thing about any Bigfoots in our forest.”
๐