He Had Been A Little Evasive

 

On location.

            “You know, the other day I didn’t quite tell the whole story,” said Ralph one day to his friend, counselor, and confidant, Maeve.
            “You surprise me, Boss!” said Maeve. “I’m sure you had a good reason.”
            “I like to think so, Black Leg," Ralph sighed.
            “What story was it?” said she.
            “Oh, you know, I was chatting with my biographer the other day, and she asked me a complicated question. She wanted to know if I really do that thing with bent and twisted branches and repositioned trees, like they show on the videos,” said he.
            “Why is it complicated?” asked Maeve, seated comfortably on his shoulder.
            “Because I, we Forest Keepers, do that, yes, but the investigators always get it wrong.”
            “I’ve seen you do it. You talked a bunch of alder trees into making a house of themselves,” said Maeve.
            “Yeah, but see, there was a good practical reason for that. It wasn’t woo in the slightest,” said Ralph.
            “Some of them do have woo on the brain. Some of them wouldn’t know a woo if it smacked them upside the head,” said Maeve. She was kind of sorting through her feathers at the same time. The talk of fleas had made her itch if she thought about them at all.
            “They don’t know a thing about the songs. That’s one of their weak spots. If you don’t sing those things into place, they just break or die,” continued Ralph. “So when I said it was like a kid’s game, or a competition, well it just wasn’t the whole story. It’s a language done in a song. The bending and twisting are only part of it.”
            A little breeze came through, pausing to listen to Ralph and Maeve for a moment. Then it blew on down toward the Sound.
            “That feels nice, on these hot days,” remarked Maeve, settling her feathers.
            They happened to be sitting by the silver river. Ralph was going to gather some fish for Ramona in a little while. He had her five gallon bucket handy.
            “See, in my case, it was a game, or maybe a prank. But to explain that prank would have turned the whole subject into a joke,” said Ralph.
            “What did you do!” said Maeve.
            “I’m sure you know that Bob and I are cousins, right? Our mothers were sisters. We were raised like brothers, in the same family. Pod, clan, whatever. Bob is younger, so he followed me around doing whatever I said to do.”
            “Ah,” said Maeve.
            “One day I got a grand idea. We were like maybe ten years old. Not babies, little kids, or quite young adults. An inventive age.
            “You wouldn’t be trying something out on the adults, of course,” said Maeve.
            “Actually, that’s exactly it,” said Ralph.
            “I got Bob to help me make about two hundred twig location glyphs. That’s the word the investigators use. I may as well use it. Then we went all through the forest installing these things where everyone would see them. We knew where the families lived of course. We covered valleys and mountain sides.
            “This is what they don’t know, we sang the song of You Must Come over them, with the added message You Must Bring Something Eat. That was a lot of singing, and it had to include when.”
            “Where was this party?” said Maeve.
            “It was more like a calling of the clans, serious business, except it wasn’t. It was monkey business. It did turn into a party, after nobody could figure out who was in charge,” giggled Ralph.
            “Where?” said Maeve.
            “Oso. On that hillside that slid into the river years later. Maeve, I think half the Forest Keepers, kids, moms, grampas and all, in Snohomish County showed up that night. Bob and I came with the rest of them, with our parents and sibs, just as good and sweet as little lambs,” said Ralph.             “No one ever knew, officially, who had called the meeting which turned out to be the biggest gathering of Forest Keepers ever known.
            “However, my father, who had no sense of humor in his whole body, caught up with me the next day. He said my fingerprints were all over this, and not to mock the people ever again. Well, ouch. I didn’t think of it that way, but it was kinda that way.”
            “Do you think Bob tattled on you?” said Maeve.
            “No. Bob wasn’t made that way. My father just untied the knot on his own,” sighed Ralph.
            “You were born to be a leader, Boss,” chuckled Maeve.
            “I guess so,” said Ralph.
            Then he waded out about waist deep into the river with the bucket. He held it down under the surface, so it was convenient for the trout to jump in the bucket. When a couple of dozen had shoved their way into the bucket, he waded back out of the river carrying it.
            “Let’s take these fish to Mona, Maeve,” he said.
            It was going to be a fish night.

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