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  Through the burning sensation of hands scraped raw by thirty feet of rough-barked roots, Bernard’s thoughts automatically returned to the dilemma of retrieving the saws. That morning he had loosely bound them together with a leather thong, wrapped them in a canvas bag which he cinched at the top, and tied them to the rucksack. As they dislodged during his stumble, the ties at the top may have come undone and the saws would have spilt themselves halfway down the side of the mountain and halfway across it. Would he risk his life to scramble down the steep side of the ravine to retrieve them, or proceed with his plan without them?

  Either seemed like a pointless proposition — to carry out his plan of separating the two halves of the tree without a saw, or risk life and limb in the pursuit of a senseless task, for the prospect of finding one much less all three saws on the mountainside was as likely as finding the proverbial needle in the haystack. He cursed his luck and then cursed his own ineptitude. For a long while he sat frozen with derision, unable to carry on with either task. Then, it started again. The music floated out from within him; it began as a low vibrato that twinned his beating heart then rose out of the lower registers into a full crescendo of sounds. It lifted him from his dire mood and cleared away the self-scorn, but did not take him into the skies as it did the first time he entered this forest. Overhead the noisy cries of a pair of goshawks were beyond the realm of his hearing, but the unbelievably fast swooping of the raptors became part of the symphonic display.

  These aerial guardians helped him to make a decisive move — he would carry on without the saws. In the rucksack he had packed a large Bowie knife in case he was required to hunt for his dinner or defend himself against a hungry predator. A knife like this has a blessing all its own; like the bald eagle it finds its quarry, quickly kills and carves only for the necessity of survival. This hand-knife he had owned for as long as he could remember, even as a small child. He remembered vaguely his first father putting it into his small hands without a word. Now he knew it would complete the job he came to do. There was no way he could guess how long cutting through jagged layers of ancient timber would take, but if it took a month to accomplish the task, he thought to himself, then I will stay a month. I will stay as long as it takes.

  Bernard opened his pack to inspect the contents. In it he had provisions for three days, a pot, a water canteen, the hunting knife, a sleeping bag, rope, and a tarp. As long as he made it down the ravine without losing any more items, he was assured that he was well provided for and could survive any length of stay on the mountain. The light was fading fast and the young man was exhausted from his near brush with death, but he gathered up his pack and went in search of a suitable place to set up camp. That night, in his sleeping bag under the hundred million stars, he slept soundly. There was no music. No flying — just soundless, motionless, and formless sleep. In the morning he was the most rested he had felt in many, many months.

  By the time he found his way down to the creek, this time without incident, he was well aware that a Bowie knife might be insufficient to complete his mission. But he was determined to do it, like a wild animal disposed to chew its own leg off to escape a trap. Once he came face to face with the giant tree, however, his resolve faltered. It was larger than he remembered and without his saws the task before him seemed insurmountable. He walked around and around it, examining the fracture from every angle. The diameter of the tree at its greatest width was more than twice his height, but at the fissure it was merely to his chest, and most of it was separated. What held the two pieces together was a thick untidy mass of outer bark and about twenty of the nearly eighty layered rings of decade growth.

  Bernard took out his hunting knife and placed its edge along the line of an outer ring and drew it straight across. The circle was so large that his knife ran along its arch for quite a length before cutting into the rough layer of bark. The cut ran deep where the timber was soft, nearly pliable. Water from the running creek had soaked into the splintered edge of the tree and the inner wood was now swollen and spongy where it was exposed. A ripple of relief coursed through his body like the large wake of a boat sailing across a placid lake. He struck the blade back into an attached section of the tree and felt the soft timber yield to the knife point.

  As if he had struck gold, he took to his task like a man possessed. The music was ever present now in his inner ear. The lilting turns and the melodious escapades inspired his rhythmic sawing and cutting motions and kept him apace for three days, only stopping briefly at intervals to sharpen his knife on a leather strop, drink from the creek, and eat a hurried meal of dried meat and bread. At the end of each long day he was chilled to the bone from standing thigh-deep in the creek, but under the stars each night he slept soundly, lulled into a dreamless slumber with the sensation of oblique excitement and sheer hopefulness.

  On the fourth day he began to ration his food; on the fifth he did not eat. On the sixth day he neither ate nor slept, for the task was nearing completion and the temptation to work through the night to remove the last shreds of splintered bark was overwhelming, even in his famished and nearly depleted state. Working for the next three days like a crazed and maniacal soldier lost in the jungles of foreign enemy territory, he survived on the thin hopes of victory, working slowly but efficiently as the layers of timber came away in equal parts to the layers of skin on his hands, feet, wrists, thighs, knees, ankles, which worked in a disembodied, mangled frenzy alongside the sawing motion of his knife, and his chattering teeth.

  Then the blade sliced through the final bit of unwanted wood and jimmied against a hairy sinew of bark. With all the might he had left in his embattled body, he leaned against the tree segment and rolled it back and forth in its place, working the fissure in the log until it seemed amenable, at least nominally acquiescent, to becoming free from its attachment. The stringy fibrous bark of the tree clung with every ounce of its reluctant hirsute sinew, until finally the two parts separated and the upper half rolled a few minor feet until it found its equilibrium again in a new resting place in the deeper waters.

  He fell back on to the creek bank and collapsed with utter fatigue. His whole body burned as if it were a deserted ship tossed in a fiery and hellish sea, lashed against molten lava rocks, and broiled by biting winds driven by the devil himself. But beneath the excruciating pain he felt a dull euphoria lodged in a crevice of relief. Was it a feeling of accomplishment, or something more transient, like release? All he knew was that the job was done. He allowed himself to eat again and the sustenance was welcome, like the softness of the timber which was its saving grace, and for this he desperately thanked the flowing waters, aware that without the proximity of the river and its role, his task would have been impossible.

  Bernard’s slow return to his truck after his ordeal in the deep of the forest was as sluggish as the snow that evening. It dusted the ground without gusto, its fervor spent by the lofty wind that blew it all around and refused to let it fall. His careful and consistent pull-up and stabilize-before-moving-on pattern of climbing the side of the mountain was time-consuming and arduous, but the extreme patience and equanimity required of the young man was equal to his resolve. Exhausted and aching to a point of paralysis, the thought of returning to the sanctuary of his humble cabin on the lake was the essential vision formed and held firmly in his mind with a clarity only surpassed by purpose.

  He had been in the forest at this point for nearly three weeks. In that period he had partaken of provisions for just three days, supplemented sparely by edible vegetation found along the forest floor: wild alpine strawberries and elderberries, brown field mushrooms, wild asparagus and leaves of geranium, clover, and cranesbill. They sustained him through the rigors of his exodus from the woods. Retrieving the timber in the spring thaw would be a terrifying challenge, both exhilarating and overwhelming. The alternative of returning with logging tractors and forklifts was tempting, but the thought of the ruthless machines
, with their cumbersome, unwieldy, and dispiriting bulk, entering that sacred temple was beyond contemplation, even if they could reach that elusive uncharted ravine. He would stay with his plan to complete the second stage with the aid of Mother Nature — with the assistance of the weather and the elements, the alignment of the stars and seasons — and the purity of heart and spirit. What did not kill him would sustain him.

  It was the longest winter the young man had ever experienced. Not since he had broken his arm in an ice-fishing incident four years earlier had he ever suspended his woodworking projects. Through that long frozen winter where his arm seemed unwilling to set and heal, he could not complete normal tasks other than stacking firewood with one hand. That was the most interminable winter, until now. His studio stood jarringly silent and empty, but no work could commence until he had retrieved the fallen timber and the familiar spirits embodied in it. Occasionally their permutations crept into his sleep with dreams of a disembodied metaphysical reality. The mundane world of his waking moments was reinvented into a formless and timeless landscape.

  The comforting solace and protectiveness of the music was like a mother’s hand on a sleepy child’s head. The powerful twinned feelings of love and encouragement were cradled in the form of that symphony. As the blankets of snow came down layer upon layer over the wintry backdrop, the young man’s internal landscape slowly became ever more vivid. By the time spring finally emerged through the long cold march of winter, the visions and auditory dreams reached a climax. The dreams came to him at once multi-faceted and crystalline, their brilliance and emotional power overwhelming him to a point where joyful tears spilled over from his eyes unrestrained even before they were opened.

  Then suddenly the scenery changed. One cold early spring morning a warm sensation embraced him on awakening. The faint scent of juniper and pine needles lingered like the fragrance of a woman’s perfume in the air. The smell itself was the first tentative harbinger of spring and he knew at once that he could finally plow a path through the snow drifts from his cabin to the road. With chains already on his truck tires, the roads would make themselves available with some effort and caution. At first light, he set his father’s canoe into the bed of the truck, along with provisions for a prolonged stay in a wild terrain and cold weather gear to protect against certain sub-zero temperatures. He made his way upriver slowly.

  The minor roads were still sheathed in a thick blanket of snow and the truck struggled mightily at several points to make its way through the icy obstacles, wheels spinning and slipping hopelessly. His persistence paid off when he finally made his way to the junction of the main highway. A snow plow had been employed recently there and the truck, laden as it was with the heavy wooden canoe and his camp gear, was soon sailing along at a steady but controlled speed, bringing him closer and closer to his destiny.

  Bernard was grateful for the progress however slow it had to be, and although it set him back several hours, he estimated that he would be able to reach Solpetrière, the deserted old loggers’ camp, by nightfall. There was no chance of him entering the forest in the dark of night at this time of year, as he had done previously. He would have to make a bed somewhere that night in the old camp and take his chances in the morning. As the truck inched its way through the icy unplowed streets, he could make out in the near distance the steeple of an old church against the pale crimson and gray-blue sky.

  When he pulled up to the entrance of the derelict old church, in the headlights he caught sight of a small animal, a muskrat scurrying for cover under the boards of the entrance. He smiled to himself, relieved to know that spring had definitely arrived if animals were out and about hungrily making up for the lean months of their winter hibernation. He turned off the ignition and dropped the lights down so as not to disturb the shy residents any further, leaving the low fog lights on as he stepped out of the truck to inspect the structure of the entry porch and check the door to see if there was any chance of taking refuge in the building for the night.

  The boards of the landing were splintered and rotted away over the many years that the church, the whole town as a matter of fact, had stood empty. He trod very carefully where he could see the timber had maintained its integrity above the floor joists beneath. The small portico roof above his head had lost most of its tiles either to vandals or the weather he could not tell, but the gaps had caused water to come through and eat away at the floorboards. Inside the church would be no different. The ceramic roof tiles were a luxury in these parts and it was no surprise that some enterprising individual had stripped the building of its valuable parts for re-use or re-sale. The simple fact that it was a church did not seem to restrain the thief; he was thorough in his desecration of this tired old house of God. The entry lamp was gone and the doorknobs wrenched from the double doors.

  Where the door handles once had been, Bernard put his fingers through the holes and pulled the doors open towards him. The truck’s fog lights now threw an eerie yellow glow into the empty cavern of the church. Several broken wooden chairs were left upturned in the corners and what was formerly the pulpit was now a desultory heap of rubble, covered with a light layer of ice and snow that had come through the gaping hole in the roof overhead. Behind the dust heap was a large gothic arched window, the clear glass panels adorned with a random spiral of cracks which created a sinister spider’s web backdrop to the ruined interior.

  The temperature in this abandoned church was only a few degrees above the outside, but he determined it was better to be under shelter in case the weather changed. A set of stairs below the great arch of the window appeared to descend to a lower level at the back of the church. Even better, he thought, more protection against the elements. From his truck he retrieved his sleeping gear and a flashlight and now cut out the fog light. The immediacy of the pitch blackness engulfed him and for a moment he stood stock still, letting his eyes adjust to the dark and looking skyward to see if any stars had escaped the cover of the clouds. There were none.

  His electric torch lit a way through the cavernous interior with its narrow tunnel of luminosity. The stairs were wholly intact and unlike the rest of the building in relatively good shape, as if they had been overlooked in the assault on the rest. The staircase made two left turns as it descended into the basement of the church. With the slight illumination afforded by the flashlight, he could see that there was a small room, perhaps a study, down below and at the bottom of the stairs stood a door that led out to the back of the lot, which sloped downward to a rear exit at a lower level. There seemed to be little else in this room, except a writing desk and a chair also in fairly good condition. Perhaps they were brought here at a later date, he wondered to himself, after the building had been ransacked?

  Then the focused beam lit upon a tall, heavy but bare timber bookcase, its worn shelves sagging on several levels, the black paint on the backing board peeling and suspended with cobwebs in random corners. Several large rusted nails secured the bookcase to the thick stone wall behind it, and yet the whole structure stood at a tangent. He turned and dropped his sleeping gear onto the desk and settled into the chair. He contemplated laying out his sleeping bag in the small space between the chair and the bookcase, and then he noticed on the floor beside the bookcase evidence of scraping on the stone that showed the case had at least once been moved sideways. But the dust had settled over many years to obscure the mark, and it was only by virtue of the torchlight that he could see the phantom scrapes. He flew up suddenly and placed both hands at the top of the bookcase and with all his strength released the nails from their once-permanent places in the stone with one powerful pull that shattered the cobwebs and caused a copious amount of dust to rise unceremoniously into the darkness. The backboard splintered as he wrenched the case sideways and it fell in a heap beside the gap that was left by its absence.

  Shining his light on it now, he saw that a low narrow doorway led into a small chamber, perhaps a closet
or pantry. A cot was leaned against the far wall. On an adjacent wall was a small window barely wider in both dimensions than a man’s hand, with its glass concealed by a wooden panel. Looking back to the cot, he noted the woolen blanket covering the mattress of the cot. Whoever used it last made sure it was carefully made, a small pillow positioned at its head and the blanket tucked neatly under the mattress. The wool was adorned with several large moth-holes and faded to a dusty grayish-blue but it still maintained a quaint and inviting quality to the grateful traveler. Bernard settled his sleeping bag over the cot and placed the torch on the floor so it cast a flood of light across the low ceiling and reflected down again. The exposed stone walls gave him the impression he was in a fortress or some medieval castle. He brought his hand up against it, felt the slight residual warmth, and understood why the room was so comfortable.

  The timber panel across the window shut out the light and unwanted intrusions from the outside world. It was nailed to the frame of the window at several points but with his pocket knife, he was able to pry it off with minimal effort. In the darkness this small window provided no view of what lay beyond, but he guessed there would be a southern or southwestern aspect which allowed the stone wall to absorb the sun’s warming rays. With the panel still on the floor below the window he returned to the bed, turning off the flashlight with one hand as he laid his body down. As his head landed resolutely upon the swell of the small pillow, he closed his eyes and waited the few minutes for them to adjust to the darkness before re-opening them. A luminescent ray of moonlight found its way through the small window and opened out a vista to him as he drifted toward sleep.