Сергей Огольцов – Rascally Romance. The Vagabond Cherub (страница 4)

Taking the above into account, it was only this morning, while readying a bottle of spring water for the pending trek, that I took a closer look at the tree, to report back to you in my next email.

Indeed, one millennium isn't enough—to grow that big. The giant's lower branches, with their sweep, would easily pass for century-old trees, but no alternative to growing horizontality has forcibly reshuffled their cards.

The enormous trunk, upholding this entire grove, easily measures about forty meters in circumference. True, there's a crevice in its base, where the stream of water from the queer spring flows into (isn't that where the secret of the tree's longevity lies?). And the gap is perfectly large enough for a rider to enter, if he bends close to the horse's neck…

I, too, entered the tree through the same crevice, but on foot, to find myself inside a twilight grotto. The light seeping in from the outside—through the entrance and the opposite exit—brought only the meager remainder of light from the dense shadows beneath the centuries-old canopy.

The chill, unwelcoming dimness filled the air… Scattered around were chunks of flat stone—a sparse causeway, allowing one to reach, without sinking into the soil, the slightly off-centered box of a massive barbecue, made of weathered sheet steel, welded clumsily. The rusty rods of the thick reinforcement legs sank into the water-soaked floor…

Uneven layers of melted wax, bristling with the remains of countless candles, filled the box to the brim and, spilling over the edges, froze in smooth streaks along its sides…

Like a Cenozoic insect slathered in the resin of pine cordaites… but the seas are too far away, and there's no chance of turning into a treasured piece of amber… so it stuck there, acting a grill.

From the dreary dampness of the interior prompted to leave and return to the warmth of a clear morning.

So I did, loaded myself with the trekking gear, and strode away, sending a farewell glance to the celebrated Platanus, aka Sycamore, smirking at the hideous knife wounds. The deed of seekers for immortality by marring any landmark that comes their way, with their initials, dates, and symbols, currently in fashion among the damn dimwits.

The marks from older scars crept higher, pulled up by the bark, to about five or six meters. The topmost ones, inflicted on the tree a couple of centuries ago, had blurred, tangled by the silent passage of time into patches of vague outlines across the uneven ripples of bark, slowly dragging the idiots’ labor lost upward, toward inevitable oblivion…

~ ~ ~

The prospect of retracing (albeit downhill) the path that two days earlier had led to the long-lived celebrity somehow didn't appeal to me. A trek along the ridge of "tumbs" (as they call the rounded mountains in Karabakh, stretching in undulating, smooth chains of ridges covered with grass and forest, unlike the taller "lers", whose bare rock peaks jut into the sky) seemed far more tempting.

Such a maneuver would eliminate the need to descend into the Karmir Shuka valley, from where I'd have to trudge back uphill to the village of Sarushen.

For all the reasons just outlined, I turned onto a barely discernible path that curved right up the steep slope—without the slightest idea whether my cunning plan was even feasible.

However, if there is a path, it will eventually lead somewhere. I'd wager that any common sense would uphold the idea behind this conclusion.

So I walked, not knowing where, inhaling the delicious aroma of the mountain herbs, admiring the motionless waves of tumbs bathed in the sun and the vast expanse of the soft green haze, all in anticipation of the unlimited beauty and the boundless view’s immensity that would spread out in all directions when I’d climb up the crest of the ridge.

And the infinity, of course, didn't disappoint, and with its unique inexpressibility, it put to shame the most refined of Turgenev-Bunin's epithets, as well as the most exquisite brushstrokes of Saryan-Aivazovsky…

Against this incomparable backdrop, the path merged into a narrow road, climbing from nowhere up the slope of a nearby tumb, from whose forest descended the tiny—at such a distance—specks of a pair of horses, two people, and a dog…

We met about ten minutes later. The horses scraped the rocky road with the tops of three- and four-meter-tall young trees, their branches cut off—the thick ends of their whips tied to the backs of the draft animals.

Two boys, seen over by a burly gampr, were transporting home a supply of energy-bearing heat for the winter.

A little deeper into the forest, I encountered another group of woodcutters: three horses, the same number of men, but no dogs. We greeted each other, and I asked how I could reach Sarushen along the tops of the tumbs.

The man, wearing a once-red shirt that had been bleached white for years, his skull, jutting from the collar, in tightly stretched skin brown from the sun, replied that, having heard of that path, he'd never walked it himself. He added though, that in about three hundred meters I'd meet an old man with one eye who was chopping there, that’s who should know for sure…

Having walked the distance prescribed in the instructions, I prepended as many meters more, but still the sound of an axe was not heard; the old man must have been taking a smoke break, or dozing, or, maybe, he was munching on his bread and cheese, his back to the road…

Long before reaching the top of the tumb, the road disappeared, spilling into half a dozen paths. I chose the steeper one, but it soon vanished without a trace…

All around me was a dense, untrodden mountain forest, where walking on foot isn't enough, and, out of good old, genetically ingrained habit, you grab onto tree trunks (the further you go, the more often). I admit, despite all its health benefits, this type of recreation, is pretty tiring.

Then I thought about it deeper and rejected the idea of a head-on storming the summit, opting instead for a flank approach, combined with gradual ascent, in the hope I wouldn't miss the saddle to pass onto the next tumb in their chain.

(… having a plan is a great relief; you stop racking your brain and just go along, mind pleasantly free.

Yes, I agree that things don't always go according to plan. However, that's not a big deal. You stop to figure out—no, this isn't going to work, I need to do something else.

You make a new plan, and—off you go. The upside is that your head is free again.

However, I wouldn't advise whistling: what if you're on a reconnaissance mission? And anyway—you never know… Money, for example, can be whistled away. There's a saying along that line…)

And suddenly a strange sense of change washed over me. The familiar sounds of the summer forest had vanished somewhere, a vague twilight dimmed the light, erased the not too frequent sunny patches piercing down to tickle the moss on the roots, or swing lying on the leaves of bushes between the trees…

What's going on, man? Is there clouds gathering, like, a flash mob, or something?

Casting a quick glance around, I spotted the cause: instead of giant beech trees—with sparse undergrowth of occasional beech saplings around their bases—I was midst a dense thicket of similar trees, their crowns converging at a height of four to five meters into a leafy mass impenetrable to the sun's rays. This added an uncanny otherworldly echo to the phenomenon of natural growth.

After all, we all have that childish fear of running into a wood goblin or a stray kikimora, instilled in us by cartoons…

Then something compelled me to look around and lock eyes with the gaze of an animal, intently studying… a jackal? A dog?… Ah-ha!… Oh, no!… Look at that broad tail… A fox, of course, or maybe a vixen… still young, never encountered hunters…

‘Hello, Fox. I'm not a Prince. And I'm not young. Go on to your destination.’

I moved on, dodging long strands of web, avoiding thorny bushes whenever possible, and pushing through where I had no choice. The Fox kept up…

I wonder who started this malarky, and why, about animals being unable to withstand the human gaze? Just stare at them, as if to say, ‘I'm a famous actor! From a circus dynasty! Try moving just a hair, and I'll tame you in all respects!’ And they at once would humbly avert their eyes.

But no way! Total nonsense!…

So we walked on. Sometimes, to demonstrate my advanced culture, like a well-mannered fellow traveler, I'd turn to him with a passing remark, out of politeness. But he remained silent. At some point, I untied my backpack and pulled out a piece of bread.

At first, he seemed unsure how to approach it, but then he gobbled it up in two gulps flat, like a junky boa constrictor with a Tempo Dust container–the guy’s preferred substance at doing drugs–never taking his eyes off me.

Or perhaps you're making plans to hunt the donor? Don't afterburn, partner, we don't need to rush…

And only when ahead there widened a sunny clearing the beast begin to glance to sides and soon faded into the wood thicket. Farewell, Young Fox of the Young Forest!