turning it so Sal could get the full impact.
He bent over, looking closely, caught the significance. “Holy Shinola on a bagel.”
CHAPTER FOUR
His sixth trip to the mine at the end of July, Jolly carried a hammer, pry bar and a double serving of apples, cookies and buttered bread. Hung around his neck, a half-gallon tin of well water, a little cloudy from the minerals in the ground under the homestead. The equivalent of hose-water.
Under yet another cloudless pale blue sky, the 12-year-old had his path up the now well-worn trail seared into his brain. No need for markers. His black high tops knew the way all by themselves.
A north wind, common in summer on the South Oregon coast, moaned in the treetops, but Jolly felt none of it. Ground level was calm, hot and what in the winter was ankle-deep mud had become hardpan.
Country kids do such things without parental hovering. Instead of “Come in when the street lights go on” – the order of suburban parents across the U.S.A. -- “Be back by dinner time,” the rural directive on these long summer days. For starters, there are no street lights.
Jolly couldn’t whistle worth beans, but he did anyway. The only similarity to the songs he pushed out between pursed lips was in his head.
Dropping his blue kerchief to the ground beside the boarded-up mine entrance, Jolly backed away a dozen feet, sat on the ground, knees under his chin, and stared at the splintered wood.
“What next?” he said aloud, already knowing the answer. He was hesitating not because he didn’t know what he planned to do, rather building up the courage to do it.
“What if’n there’s critters in there? Or dead bodies or sumthin’?”
Letting loose with a few bars of “Yankee Doodle,” the whistle sounding more like the trill of a blue jay, Jolly stood, dusted off the back of his jeans, pulled the pry bar from his worn leather scout bag with the fringe that his pops made for him to take books to school and straightened his back.
“Ain’t no time like the present, moms would say.”
Jolly pushed the pry bar into the hole catching the hook on the edge of a board and yanked hard.
He fell backward, the boards, as one, squealed on rusty hinges and the entire wall of dry-rotted lumber pulled away from the mine entrance like a barn door.
“Holy chriminy!” Jolly yelped as he tried to retain his balance as he tipped backward, feet pedaling to keep him upright.
But it was the raspy voice that sent his heart into overdrive.
“Whatcha doin’ here, boy!”
“You Irish?” Amos asked.
“Them’s my roots, so pops says.”
“Could tell by all that red hair. Ain’t no one got red hair like the Irish. Ceptin’ maybe the Albanians. Lots of them have red hair, too.”
Jolly looked at the old man with the leather face, crumbled like note paper. “How ‘bout you, Mister Amos?”
“Don’t rightly know any more. Mind’s goin’. Can’t remember lots of things. Scottish, I think.” The voice was harsh, quivered like a reed in a strong breeze.
Amos sat on a log stump. Jolly on the ground with his back to the mine door.
“You scared the pee out of me, Mister Amos, don’t mind tellin’ you.”
A cackle laugh. “No one’s been up this way fer a long time.” His rheumy eyes squinted in the strong sunlight. “Not fer a long, long time.” Leveling his gaze on Jolly, “What made ja come this way? Why you here?”
Jolly poked the pry bar into the sandy ground and traced a circle then an X. “Just ‘splorin’.” Pointing northeast, “My moms and pops and me live that way.”
“Just ‘splorin’. Your folks don’t worry none about you being up here?”
“Don’t know. I pretty much can go where I like during summer and there ain’t no school, jus’ as long as I’m home by supper.”
Amos mulled that over for a second, “Ain’t you worried ‘bout me? What’s to say I won’t strangle ya and eat ya for dinner?”
Jolly laughed. “Well, no disrespect intended, but I’m pretty sure I can outrun ya, Mister Amos.”
“Ain’t no doubt ‘bout that, boy. ‘Sides, you’re too skinny to eat. I’ve seen squirrels with more meat on their bones. ‘Ceptin’ those feet of yours. You got some pretty big feet, boy. Yep. Could have three, maybe four meals just your feet alone.”
Both laughed, then fell silent.
Amos squeezed his eyes near closed and looked directly at the sun. “Best be gettin’ home, boy. Your moms is probably settin’ the table right about now.”
Looking up. “Yessir, she probably is.”
Standing, brushing his pants, Jolly stuffed the pry bar and hammer back in the book sack, balled up the blue kerchief and shoved it down next to the hammer.
“Is that what I think it is?” Sal asked.
“Sure looks like.”
Lightfoot was puzzled. “Okay, let me see.” He walked to the desk and eyed the photo. “Mean something to you?”
Turning the photo back toward me, I traced the symbol.
“We saw these a year ago. It’s one of the symbols found in a clay egg hanging around the neck of what we called Tree Men.” To Sal, “Can you call up the rest of the symbols and especially those definitions of what they all mean?”
Sal pulled out his iPhone, punched up some numbers that I assumed was the link to his computer server and within a minute had the entire tree astrology. Just as quickly, he connected to the computer on the hutch behind the desk and printed it out.
| Ogham Symbol | Letter | Ogham Name | Tree Name | Tree Symbolic Meaning |
|
|
B | Beithe | Birch | Beginning, Renewal, Youth |
|
|
L | Luis |
Rowan
|
