The Order of the Poison Oak (6 page)

Except he wasn’t angry. I saw that now. He was crying. And that just made me feel about a thousand times worse. The thing he had most feared about trying to get a girlfriend—that he would totally embarrass himself in front of her—had come true with a vengeance.

“Oh, Gunnar!” I said. “I am so,
so
sorry! Can you ever forgive me?”

He didn’t forgive me. Tears streaming down his cheeks, he turned and ran from the boathouse. He slammed the door in my face, and I didn’t blame him in the least.

* * * * *

I had screwed up. I knew it, and Gunnar knew it. Still, I also knew that he’d forgive me eventually. He had to. He’d done something to me a few months earlier that was almost as stupid, and
I’d
forgiven
him.

Even so, I figured I’d give him a day or so to cool off. I still hadn’t talked to Min since we’d had our little spat three days earlier—by now, she
had
had enough time to cool off—so I asked her to meet me down at the secret cove after lights-out. After all, we had plenty to talk about: not just the stuff about Gunnar, but also my encounter with Web the night before, looking up at the stars, and the even
more
interesting encounter with him in the camp showers.

I got to the cove first—I’d put my kids down in almost no time. (Who knew? It turns out I was a master camp counselor after all!)

This time, I didn’t climb up on the big granite rock. I waited on the beach. But as I waited, I noticed that the rock did remind me of something after all (and not just the Rock of Gibraltar). It looked like a deflated wedding cake.

A few minutes later, I heard the crunch of footsteps in the dark.

“Min?” I said. She’d been frosty with me for a while now, so I was a little worried that she’d still be miffed.

“Russel!” she said excitedly. “Hey!” She almost skipped out toward me. But that meant she’d forgiven me, right?

“You seem happy,” I said to her. “What’s up?”

“You’ll never believe it!” she said. And then she spoke the horrible words that I knew I would remember until the day I died: “Web and I hooked up!”

Chapter Seven

So Min and Web had gotten together. How was this possible? I knew Min was bi, but I’d never known her to be seriously hot for a guy before. I saw now that this was why she’d been so eager to be his partner those first few days, and why she’d been so insistent a couple of nights before that he wasn’t gay (big-time
duh!).
As for Web, the question in my mind had been whether or not he liked
me,
not whether or not he liked guys in general. Talk about putting the conditioner before the shampoo!

“Wow,” I said to Min, that night in the cove. “That’s great. I’m happy for you.”

“Really?” she said. “Because I know you liked him too.,,

“No. I mean, yeah, I’m a little disappointed. But hey, if he’s straight, he’s straight. And if he’s straight, well, I’d rather have him hanging out with you than with Lorna.” Lorna was one of the other counselors, a real cheerleader-and-headband type.

Min smiled. “Thanks, Russel.” Then she happened to glance back toward camp.

“What?” I asked.

“Huh? Oh, nothing.”

“Are you meeting Web tonight?”

“No! Well, maybe. But I don’t have to leave just yet.”

“Go on,” I said.

Her face brightened like a halogen lamp. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks, Russel! You’re fantastic!”

And before I could say anything else, she turned and bounded off into the darkness like an eager puppy.

* * * * *

On the way back to my cabin, I ran into Gunnar.

“Hi!” I said. “How you doin’?” What I really meant was, Have you forgiven me yet?

“Hi,” he said. “I’m okay.” What
he
really meant was, No.

One of my best friends had hooked up with the object of my affections, and my other best friend was so mad that he was barely even talking to me. I was not having a good week.

* * * * *

That Friday, we took the kids on another all-camp hike. We went south along the water on something called the Waterfront Trail, which mostly followed the shoreline of the lake. There was still a haze in the sky from those distant forest fires, but the real fog was in my mind, from the fact that I felt so at odds with my two best friends and I had no idea what to do about it.

We’d been walking for thirty minutes or so when I came upon Otto on the trail. My kids were overtaking his. For the time being, I was hiking right behind him.

“Hey,” I said.

“Oh, hey!” he said, turning to me. Somewhere in the branches overhead, a crow cawed.

For the record, ten-year-old boys don’t have a lot of patience or tact, especially when it comes to passing other kids on a trail.

“Hey!” I said to my kids. “No pushing! If you guys want to pass someone, wait your turn.”

Sure enough, my kids actually waited their turn.

“Hmm,” Otto said. “I guess things are better with your kids, huh?”

“What?” I said.

“When we talked before, you said you were having trouble.”

“Oh, yeah.” I
had
been having trouble with my kids. But not anymore. Things were so good, I’d almost forgotten about my problems before. “Well, that was good advice you gave. It worked. Thanks.”

Up ahead, our kids were stopping and gathering around a ramshackle old cabin by the edge of the lake. It had to have been built and abandoned years ago, and now the roof had mostly fallen in. It looked like a game of Jenga after the blocks had collapsed. In the long grass alongside the cabin, there was the scattered rubble of a fallen stone chimney, and even a bent and rusted metal trough of some sort.

“What is it?” one of Otto’s kids asked him.

“Kepler’s Homestead,” he said. “Built by one of the early lake settlers. It’s over a hundred years old.”

There was just enough of the front of the cabin left standing that you could step inside for a few yards. So of course, all our kids immediately wanted to go in. They sounded like a bunch of squeaking mice.

“No!” Otto said. “It’s not safe. And I don’t want anyone getting any ideas about coming back here alone.”

“What would you do?” Ian asked.

“Kick your butt. And then call your parents and have them come take you home. Trust me, you’d be in
big
trouble, and your parents would
not
be happy.”

“What’s
that?”
said one of Otto’s kids. He was pointing beyond the cabin, out across the lake.

We all looked.

There was gray smoke billowing up from behind the wooded hills on the opposite side of the water. It was the kind of smoke that could only be coming from a forest fire.

I had known there were fires burning somewhere—I’d seen the haze in the air for days now. But I hadn’t known they were so close to camp. I’m not sure what was different here—the angle from the Waterfront Trail or the fact that the lake was so much narrower here, barely a quarter mile across.

But even with the new view, it was impossible to know exactly how close that fire was, or even how big it was. It could have been burning right on the other side of that hill, or maybe it was miles and miles away and the smoke just made it
look
close. And it could have been the smoke of an isolated little fire already burning itself out—or maybe it was the result of some great conflagration burning out of control.

“It’s nothing,” Otto said at last. “Let’s keep going.”

“It’s
not
nothing!” Ian said. “It’s a fire!”

“Way on the other side of the lake,” I said. “We’re perfectly safe here. And look, the firefighters are already putting it out.” Sure enough, there were helicopters approaching, no doubt preparing to dump water on the blaze. Why hadn’t I noticed the copters before? I guess I had, but I’d assumed they were tourists out sightseeing.

“But what about the trees that are already on fire?” one of Otto’s kids asked. “Won’t they die?”

“Not the grown ones,” Otto said. “Their bark is special. When trees get really old, their bark develops these fire-retardant properties. It protects them from fires.”

“It does not!” Kwame said.

“Yeah, it does.”

“But they’ll still be hurt, won’t they?” one of Otto’s kids said.

“No,” Otto said. “They’ll survive.”

“But they’ll still feel pain!” another kid said.

“No,” Otto said. “They’re trees. Trees don’t feel pain.”

“They do so!” Ian said.

“No!” Otto said, losing his composure at last. “They
don’t!”

I may not be the smartest guy in the world, but even I could tell that Otto and the kids weren’t just talking about trees. They were burn survivors, and in some strange way, Otto and those kids were really talking about themselves.

I looked at them, staring out across the lake in silence. Every single one of them was transfixed, like he was seeing a ghost, which I guess they kind of were. One way or another, they’d all seen that fire up close (well, except for Julian with his acne conglobata—but he was watching that fire pretty intently too).

I looked at Otto. Now even he was being hypnotized by the smoke. I was the only one not spellbound by the sight. So I figured I should say something. But what? Part of me didn’t want to intrude on their moment, except it didn’t seem like a good moment. It felt like they were scared, stuck in place, unable to move forward. But it also didn’t seem right just to say,
Okay, guys, time to push on!
like I was pretending what was happening wasn’t happening at all.

In the trees overhead, the crow cawed again.

And suddenly, I had an idea.

“The Lenape Indians have a legend about fire,” I said to the whole group. Otto glanced at me, curious as to what I was up to, but the kids were all still staring across the lake.

It all started back when there were just animals on the Earth,” I went on. “Before humans—before seasons, even—back when the weather was always warm. But then, one day winter came, and snow fell for the very first time. At first, the animals liked it, but as it continued to fall they began to get cold. So they met together to figure out what to do. And in the end, they decided to send one of the animals to the distant home of the Creator, to ask him to stop the snow.”

I looked around. The kids were still staring across the lake, but they seemed to be listening to me too (well, except for Ian, who was now busy kicking the stones from the collapsed fireplace).

I had to think hard to remember the rest of the story. I was pretty sure it was even better than the one Web had told me about Hercules and Leo the Lion.

“The animals were going to send Owl to see the Creator,” I said, “but they worried that he’d get confused in the daylight. And they couldn’t send Coyote, because they figured she’d get distracted. So they decided to send the most beautiful of all the animals, Rainbow Crow. Because back then, the crow had feathers with all the colors of the rainbow, and a singing voice that was the most beautiful of all the birds’.

“Rainbow Crow agreed to go see the Creator, and flew high up into the sky, above the snow and wind and clouds and moon and stars. He flew for three days, and finally he reached his destination. But the Creator was too busy to see the crow. So Rainbow Crow started singing, and the sound was so beautiful that the Creator stopped what he was doing and came to Rainbow Crow and said, ‘By singing that song, you have given me a great gift. Now I want to give you a gift. ‘What shall I give you?’

“Rainbow Crow said, ‘Please, Sir, it is so cold down on Earth. I would like you to stop the snow.’

“The Creator said to the crow, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do that, because the snow has a spirit of its own, as do the wind and the winter. But I can give you a gift to use against the cold. I can give you the gift of fire, and that will keep you and the other animals warm.’

“So,” I continued with my story, “the Creator picked up a stick and put it into the sun, setting it on fire. Then he gave it to Rainbow Crow, saying, ‘Unfortunately, I can only give you this gift one time, so hurry back to Earth before the flame goes out.’”

As I was talking, I looked around at the kids again. They weren’t just listening: now they were hanging on my every word—even Ian, who had stopped kicking the stones. I knew that it wasn’t because I was such a great storyteller. No, it was because they were scared and they wanted something from me and my story, even if I still wasn’t quite sure what that was.

“So Rainbow Crow took the Creator’s flaming stick in his beak,” I said, “and started flying the three-day journey home. But as he flew, ashes from the fire blew back into his feathers, turning them black with soot. And as the fire burned, the smoke blew into his mouth, and his voice became cracked and hoarse.

“Eventually, Rainbow Crow made it back to Earth, and he shared the fire with the other animals. With it, they melted the snow and became warm and happy. But Rainbow Crow was sad, because by now his fantastic rainbow-colored feathers had turned black and his beautiful singing voice was gone. He wasn’t Rainbow Crow anymore. Now he was just Crow. So he flew to the top of a tree where he could be alone and cry.

“Now, up in the heavens, the Creator heard Crow crying and felt his great despair, and so he came down to the bird. ‘Why are you so sad?’ the Creator asked.

“‘I’m sad,’ Crow said, ‘because I was once beautiful, but I’m not anymore. I once had a great singing voice, but now I don’t. I am no longer Rainbow Crow, but just Crow.’

“‘What you did for your people took great courage,’ the Creator said. ‘And as a reward, I have given you those blackened feathers, and a different kind of singing voice. They are my gift to you—the gift of freedom.’

“‘Freedom?’
Crow said. ‘How are these things the gift of freedom?’

“‘You have saved your people from the cold,’ the Creator said. ‘But soon there will be a new threat facing the animals. Soon humans will come to Earth, and they will take your fire and try to be master of everything. But they will never master you. Humans won’t hunt you for food or feathers, because now your meat tastes of smoke and your feathers are black. And they won’t capture and cage you, because now your voice is coarse. You will always be Rainbow Crow, and you will still be beautiful, but it will be a secret beauty, one that others will not see unless they look very carefully.’ And sure enough, when Crow looked down at his black feathers, he saw that, in a certain light, they still shone with all the colors of the rainbow.

“And so Crow returned to the other animals. And to this day, only a very few humans can see the secret beauty of the freest of all the animals, Rainbow Crow.”

When I finished, I looked around at the kids again. Those distant helicopters still sputtered and the lake still gurgled, but the kids themselves were absolutely quiet.

It was funny. When I’d started the story, I’d just been thinking it was a nice, distracting little story about fire. But now that I’d finished, I saw that it was the perfect story for these burn survivor kids, about how they were all Rainbow Crows too, with hidden beauty. For a second, I thought of saying something about this. But I didn’t know how to express it without sounding stupid. So instead, I said, very quietly, “Let’s get moving, okay?”

Still without a word, we started down the trail again. And then—and this couldn’t have gone better if I’d planned it!—the crow began to caw. Every kid stared up at that bird, no longer hypnotized by the distant forest fire but by the crow, and by my story.

Finally, Otto said to me, “Is that a real Indian legend?”

“I think so,” I said.

“Where did you hear it?”

“In this novel about the American frontier. It really stuck with me.”

“It’s beautiful.” Was it my imagination, or was Otto a little choked up? I looked over at him, but I was seeing the scarred side of his face, so I couldn’t tell what his expression was, what he was thinking.

“I liked your music,” I said. “The other night around the campfire? That was beautiful too.”

“Oh,” Otto said, and he looked down at the ground. “Thanks.”

Now I did know what he was thinking, because scarred face or not, Otto Digmore was blushing.