Trust a Tree

A long-legged traveler in a brown coat strode gracefully along the uneven path. The way was rough and narrow, riddled with molehills that sunk beneath his boots in the soft, sandy earth. He had been long on the road, his grubby pack and weary flesh bearing testament to many nights a victim of the icy morning dew. But tonight he was making for a little village, huddled, he had been told, just a few miles on in the middle of this vast flatland. Oh, to sleep warm again on a mattress! Picking up his pace, he crushed another mole tunnel with a twinge of regret for the innocent creature’s hard work. He knew what it was to be thwarted. Hadn’t he traveled long enough without seeming to advance a step? The grassland was treacherous in that way; one could gaze at the horizon forever and yet seem to walk in place, for there were no landmarks to gauge the distance to the setting sun.
The traveler looked instead at his boots, proceeding steadily below his knobby knees. He kept his eyes to the ground and did not see the clouds that raced him in the darkening sky—raced and overcame him easily. When the bloody light that burnished his boot tops to gleaming copper was instantly snuffed, he supposed it no more than the sudden setting of the sun. Indeed, he fell into such exhaustion as he plodded forward that even the wind, beginning to howl and stream through the grasses, setting them whispering like a dirty rumor, had no more effect than to cause him to fasten the highest button on his coat. Oblivious, he kept desperately on, fending off the cold and weariness with thoughts of the comfort ahead.
The gathering storm broke upon him with a violent blast of thunder, laced through with fiery veins of lightning. Neither warning growls, nor advance flickers had bled the heat from this mighty eruption of sound and energy. It cracked the clouds and sent the rain thundering down, hard and cold as a murderess’s tears. The traveler, soaked and trembling, felt the powerful rumble echo in his chest and looked up at last. Far off on the southern horizon he could see the amber flickering of the town, its windows alight against the sudden darkness. A sheet of lightning spread against the sky, silhouetting in a halo of white the massive form of an oak. The thickness of the trunk was balanced by the mighty, spreading limbs, twisted serpents hissing and writhing beneath the fingers of the wind. The traveler was caught by the power of this giant, alone and unexpected in the perfect flatness of the land. He closed his eyes and found the tree, etched in light, dancing on his eyelids. For an eternal second he was aware of nothing but the oak, until the crash of thunder set him trembling once more.
In terror, he realized his vulnerability and was unable to move. He felt every lanky bone in his body extend and stiffen, freezing his frame into a lightning rod of immobile flesh. Here I stand, he thought, the highest point on this God-forsaken, monotonous turf, with a storm directly above. Oh, what a fool I am! Get down, fool, for God’s sake, get down!
But his body would not obey his mind, and he stood as rooted as the oak, unable to shrink away from the violence above. His hair lifted gently from his head, reaching upward, almost like a hand was caressing his head. He thought of his mother and opened his mouth to scream.
The lightening was faster. Thunder joined it, with a blast to rupture eardrums, peel bark, and collapse tunnels. Crackling with agonizing heat, it struck the tallest object in all the surrounding miles of bleak, flat prairie. It seared to the heart, cauterizing vessels and shattering limbs. The old oak hissed, cracked, and smoked under the torrents of rain. The traveler, falling at last to his knees, smelled charred greenwood as he pressed his cheek into the muddy earth and wept.

As a gray morning filled the air with light mist, the traveler stumbled wearily into the town’s only inn. His clothes were invisible under a thick layer of mud, for he had crept like an insect on his elbows and toes all through the tumultuous night, too frightened to rise while the clouds still crackled and boomed above him. The townsfolk were moving about their business, gathering at street corners to peer through the mist to the broken form of the giant oak. They stared at the traveler as he lurched through the door of the inn.
An hour later, bathed and dry, the traveler grabbed the inn wife’s thick wrist as she served him a bowl of porridge and steaming peppermint tea.
“Please, ma’am,” his voice was rusty with long disuse, and he cleared his throat hastily. “On whose land does that mighty oak sit? I must thank them; the tree saved my life last night and was struck in my place.”
The woman looked startled, but replied, “All the land surrounding this village belongs to the mayor’s family. His old great-aunt, the matriarch Madam Rose, will be in for her morning tea and ginger cake in a few minutes. She’s always had a great fondness for that tree, Madam Rose.”
After a short time, the door swung open to admit a wizened, dignified old woman. She could have been the spirit of the oak itself, for her skin was as deeply scored by time as the bark of its mighty trunk, and her eyes filled with the same steadiness as its patient limbs. In age it had grown tall, while she had bent to the earth, but their presence was the same—commanding, wise, and utterly beautiful.
“Madam Rose,” the traveler said, rising and offering his seat beside the window. “We have not been introduced, but I must thank you for your tree. It gave its life in place of mine last night, and I am deeply in debt to you.”
The old woman turned slowly toward him and fixed him with an unreadable stare. Her lips, however, were clearly frowning.
“In my debt, young man?” she said, and her voice was rich and musical, untouched by age. “What have I done for you that you should say so?”
“Why, you own the tree that saved my life!” he cried. “I would have been the target of the lightning had the oak not been blasted in my stead.”
“I do not own the oak.”
“Oh,” said the traveler, furrowing his brow. “I was told that your family owned the land that—“
“No one can own the tree, anymore than they can own you. It is its own.”
The traveler frowned, then his face changed subtly and he backed away. “Well, then, I ought to be thanking the tree itself,” he said, with a brittle lightness to his tone.
“Fool boy!” she said sharply, causing him to stop. “The tree has done nothing for you. It has not died for you. It has simply died, and that is all.”
“I am sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you, Madam. But I have been on the road a long time, and fancy that I have forged a bond with nature. So many times it has acted on my behalf that I cannot help believing that it looks kindly on me. Rabbits have come meekly to my traps when I was nearly starved, and unexpected springs been found when I am parched. Last night a mighty tree died in my place, and I would be a fool not to be grateful. But you are right on one part; my gratitude is not to the owner of the tree, but to the tree itself. It is to nature that I owe my salvation.”
With those words, the traveler picked up his pack and bolted to the door, eager to give thanks immediately to the still-smoking trunk pillar, all that remained of the spreading giant. Madam Rose sighed so deeply that the inn wife bustled over in alarm.
“That young man wasn’t bothering you, Madam, was he? A strange one, that’s for sure!”
“A fool, and he will die of it,” muttered the old woman.
The inn wife clucked and shook her head. “That’s dark talk for a fresh morning, Madam Rose. But here, I’ve got your ginger cake steaming.”

Kneeling before the charred remains of the oak, the traveler spoke aloud his thanks. He was certain that the dwindling life rising in the spirals of smoke understood his gratitude and was pleased. Shifting, he pulled something hard from under his knee. His fingers found it too smooth to be a stone, and instead of casting it away he held it up to the light. It wasan acorn, its ruddy chin pointed down under a hard, hatched cap of darker brown. Scanning the earth around the base of the tree, the traveler saw numerous little life-bundles, still safe from the world within their delicate walls.
As he gathered them into his pack, he spoke again. “I will plant your progeny in my travels. In gratitude for the life you have given me, I will continue the life of your line.” He spoke formally, for the oak seemed royalty. When his pack was filled with acorns, he took one last look at the fallen giant and then turned his back and strode on. His long legs took the miles easily, and with every mile he left behind an acorn, gently buried in soft, sandy soil.

A long-legged traveler stood, laughing, beneath the stormy sky. His hair that had once been brown was gray, but he wore the same ragged brown coat and carried the same pack. As thunder growled hungrily from the massing clouds, the young boy at his side looked up in fear.
“Grandfather, we shall be caught in the open in the middle of this storm,” he whimpered, clutching at the old man’s hand.
The traveler raised his grandson’s hand to the heavens and laughed harder as his gray locks began to stand on end, drawn toward the electricity of the storm.
“Don’t be afraid, my boy. We are loved by nature, and nature looks after us. Once, when I was young, I was caught in a storm and saved when a tree, not unlike that one over there, was struck by lightning in my place.” He waved his free arm toward the inky branches of a nearby elm, its leaves snapping in the breeze like royal pennants. “Enjoy the excitement of it all, dear boy, for we have forged a bond with nature, and she will not see her beloved harmed.”
The boy still trembled as above him peals of thunder sounded one after another, so close that they seemed welded at the seams to become one everlasting roar. The hair rising on his head made him think of his mother, soothing his sweaty neck on a hot July night. He closed his blue eyes as the lightning struck; closed them with the silhouette of the elm, straight and tall, etched on his lids in blinding white.
It seared to the heart, cauterizing vessels and shattering limbs. The elm’s branches danced to the piping of the wind. The trunk stood strong and enduring, oblivious to the smell of charred flesh as it pressed its roots into the dark, moist earth.