Any Cabin In A Storm

 

            It was raining in the foothills of the Cascade Range. The further he hiked up the trail the heavier the rain came down. He thought that maybe if he kept going he would emerge above the rainstorm. But it was not to be.
            It was windy too. Bursts of wind blew rain in his face. Water ran down to the tips of fir branches, dumping it right in the middle of the trail. It was getting cold, and what passed for daylight in these conditions was rapidly fading.
            This whole exercise began to feel extremely foolhardy. He began working on plan B, or plan C. Plan B involved finding a nice place to shelter. Plan C amounted to finding any kind of shelter. Both plans finisheded with hiking back down the trail and going home in the morning.
            He didn’t carry a tent. It wasn’t that kind of hike. He carried water, which seemed ironic at this point, and four Fuji apples, a jar of natural peanut butter, and crackers. He had two big bars of dark chocolate too. That was it, besides a flashlight, and a large folding knife. He had his phone of course. Oh, and a lighter.
            Joe was near the Great Forest, but not actually within its confines. Its location is a little hard to pin  down anyhow. He continued walking uphill. Water ran eagerly down the trail, heading ultimately for Puget Sound. It had a long way to go, and it wanted to get started, evidently. His socks inside his boots were getting wet. His jacket was soaked, his wool beanie did its best, but it was wet too.
            In the last bit of gray daylight, Joe saw something promising off to his right, somewhat below the trail. It appeared to be a manmade structure of some kind. He saw ragged tarpaper covering what appeared to be walls, and maybe a roof. It had to be a cabin left to rot away in the forest.
            “Well, shelter is shelter,” thought Joe. He turned off the trail, walking carefully over the thick layer of forest duff and leaves, hoping not slide to the cabin on his butt. He made it without falling.
            It didn’t look like much. The roof seemed intact. A rusty stovepipe poked crookedly out of the roof. The tarpaper curled in shreds. “When did they even do that?” thought Joe. The single window was mostly broken out. The door hung open. There was a large granite boulder on each side of the single step.
            Joe didn’t see the very large Raven sitting in one of the firs, with rain running down her feathers, watching him. Her black eyes blinked, and then she rose into the stormy wind and rain.
            He stepped inside, hoping that the floor wouldn’t collapse under his feet. If it had he might have fallen all of a foot, but it held.
            Looking around inside, Joe saw two wooden chairs, one intact, one having only three legs. There was a very rusty stove attached to that stovepipe. The door to the stove was missing. Joe laughed. “How does that happen?" But maybe he could make a fire and wait out the storm. He might even be able to dry his socks!
            He couldn’t hope to start a fire with anything outside, so with his knife, he began shaving some bits off of mostly dry broken chair. Using his lighter and a crumpled paper towel from his pocket he got a small fire going. When it looked pretty steady, he broke up the rest of the chair up and added it to the fire.
            He knew he was going to have to go outside and find a big branch or something. The chair fire wouldn’t last very long.
            Leaving his pack inside the cabin, he took his flashlight out to look for fuel. There is always deadfall in a forest, so he was successful in bringing in two large dead branches. He was able to break the smaller ends of the branches into pieces. He had no way to cut the heavier ends. He thought maybe when the time came he would just stick the ends in the fire and inch them forward as they burned. It would be smokey, he knew that.
            So, the storm blew, the rain fells, and Joe, sitting in the one chair, barefoot, with his socks arranged on his backpack before the fire and steaming, got very drowsy. Then he remembered he had food and water. He drank some water, ate a chocolate bar, and basically went to sleep sitting upright.
            An hour later, something woke him. After the shock of seeing where he was wore off, he noticed a horrible smell. It had not been there before. This was new. It smelled like rotten blood, and dog, along with a strong hormonal pong.
            “What the hell?” said Joe.
            “Hell, indeed,” said the dark figure crouched further into the cabin, maybe where a bed had once stood. The stench seemed to be stronger in that direction.
            “You’re kidding me,” said Joe, with a very sick feeling in his stomach. “You don’t exist.”
            “Wanna try me and see?” said the dark smelly thing. Its eyes glowed a dull yellow over there in the dark, and it snickered.
            “I was here first,” said Joe. “Why don’t you pack up and leave?”
            “I’m here to eat your liver, stupid, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
            “My liver? Are you nuts? Do you know you stink?” said Joe, putting his socks and boots back on, just in case he got a chance to make a break for it.
            Several things happened in quick succession. The shaggy dog raised itself to its full height, heading for the man in the chair.
            The man in the chair grabbed his pack and sprinted back out into the rain.
            The burning ends of the big branches fell out of the stove, still burning.
            The talking canine nightmare stepped on the burning branch and commenced screaming.
           Joe ran one way, and the injured dogthing ran the other, further downhill, howling like a jilted Banshee the whole way.
            When Joe got back up to the path, someone was already there.
            “The Raven said you needed help,” he said. “But you seem to have done alright on your own.”
            “Did I?” said Joe. “I hadn’t gotten that far yet. Who are you? Are you real too? Or have I entirely lost my mind,” said Joe.
            “I’m as real as this mountain. People call me Ralph, I’m sort of in charge around here, more or less, depending,” said Ralph, with rain sheeting off of his deep brown hair and dripping off of his nose and beard.
            “I don’t like those darn dogs,” said Ralph. “He’s darn lucky he ran off so quickly.”
            Behind them, downhill, the cabin burst into flame, totally involved. It lit up the whole area, so that Joe could finally see Ralph, all nine feet tall of Ralph.
            Joe laughed a little hysterically, but hung in there OK. “Hey! You are real! I heard you guys really like apples. I happen to have some. Could I offer you an apple, Sir?”
            “Why, yes! I would like an apple, say what’s your name?” said Ralph.
            “Joe. Humans call me Joe,” said Joe, a little breathlessly, pulling the apples out of his bag and handing them up the Ralph’s enormous hand. “How about some peanut butter?”
            “Sure, I’ll take your peanut butter,” said Ralph.
            “I guess I’ll head on downhill, Ralph,” said Joe.
            “Nice to meet you,” said Ralph.
            “You too, Brother,” said Joe.
            As Joe headed on down the trail, Ralph couldn’t help but notice that Joe had a long tail hanging out of his jacket, and pointy ears popping out of his beanie.
            “Well, I’ll be! I’ve never seen one of those,” said Ralph. “I can’t wait to tell Ramona!”

            Subsequent to all of that, though it didn’t happen instantly, the cabin burnt to the ground, leaving only the two boulders and the rusty doorless stove to prove that anyone had ever been there.

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