The Anything Box

'Liesle!' Annie set off in pursuit and I followed, trying to stab somehelpful light along the winding path. I caught up with the two of them on thecreek bridge. They were murmuring to each other, forehead to forehead. Annie'svoice was urgent, but Liesle was stubbornly shaking her head.
'She won't go back,' said Annie.
'Oh, well,' I said, suddenly feeling the altitude draining my blood out ofmy feathery head and burdening my tired feet with it. 'Humor the childtonight. If she has to go, let her duck out in the bushes. She'll be okaytomorrow.'
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But she wasn't. The next day she still stubbornly refused to go that lastlittle way to the Little House. Jerry, her father, lost patience with her.'It's utter nonsense!' he said. 'Some fool notion. We're going to be up herefor two weeks. If you think I'm going to dig a special—
'You stay here,' he said to Annie. He grabbed Liesle's arm and trotted herbriskly down the path. I followed. I make no bones about being curious aboutpeople and things—and as long as I keep my mouth shut, I seldom get a doorslammed in my face. Liesle went readily enough, whimpering a little, halfrunning before his prodding finger, down the path, across the bridge, alongthe bank. And flatly refused to go any farther. Jerry pushed and she doubleddown, backing against his legs. He shoved her forward and she fell to herhands and knees, scrambling back along the path, trying to force her way pasthim—all in deathly panting silence. His temper flared and he pushed her again.She slid flat on the path, digging her fingers into the weedy grass along theedge, her cheek pressed to the muddy path. I saw her face then, blanched,stricken—old in its fierce determination, pitifully young in its bare terror.
'Jerry—' I began.
Anger had deafened and blinded him. He picked her up bodily and starteddown the path. She writhed and screamed a wild, despairing scream, 'Daddy!Daddy! No! It's open! It's open!'
He strode on, past the first boulder. He had taken one step beyond theaspen that leaned out between two boulders, when Liesle was snatched from hisarms. Relieved of her weight, his momentum carried him staggering forward,almost to his knees. Blankly, he looked around. Liesle was plastered to theboulder, spread-eagled above the path like a paper doll pasted on awall—except that this paper doll gurgled in speechless terror and was slowlybeing sucked into the rock. She was face to the rock, but as I gaped in shock,I could see her spine sinking in a concave curve, pushing her head and feetback sharper and sharper.
'Grab her!' I yelled. 'Jerry! Grab her feet!' I got hold of her shouldersand pulled with all my strength. Jerry got his hands behind her knees and Iheard his breath grunt out as he pulled. 'O God in Heaven!' I sobbed. 'O Godin Heaven!'
There was a sucking, tearing sound and Liesle came loose from the rock. Thethree of us tumbled in a tangled heap in the marshy wetness beyond the trail.We sorted ourselves out and Jerry crouched in the muck rocking Liesle in hisarms, his face buried against her hair.
I sat there speechless, feeling the cold wetness penetrating my jeans. Whatwas there to say?
Finally Liesle stopped crying. She straightened up in Jerry's arms andlooked at the rock. 'Oh,' she said. 'It's shut now.'
She wiggled out of Jerry's arms. 'Gramma, I gotta go.' Automatically Ihelped her unzip her jeans and sat there slack-jawed as she trotted down thepath past the huge boulder and into the Little House.
'Don't ask me!' barked Jerry suddenly, rising dripping from the pathside.'Don't ask me!'
So I didn't.
Well, a summer starting like that could be quite a summer, but insteadeverything settled down to a pleasant even pace and we fished and hiked andpicnicked and got rained on and climbed Baldy, sliding back down its snowslopes on the seats of our pants, much to their detriment.
Then came the afternoon some of us females were straggling down the trailto camp, feet soaked as usual and with the kids clutching grimy snowballssalvaged from the big drift on the sharp north slope below the Salt House. Thelast of the sun glinted from the white peak of Baldy where we had left theothers hours ago still scrabbling around in the dust looking for more Indianbone beads. We seemed to be swimming through a valley of shadows that werealmost tangible.
'I'm winded.' Mrs. Davidson collapsed, panting, by the side of the trail,lying back on the smoothly rounded flank of one of the orderly little hills
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near the creek.
'We're almost there,' I said. 'If I get down, I won't get up again short ofmidnight.'
'So let it be midnight,' she said, easing her shoulders back against thesoft crispness of the grass. 'Maybe some robins will find us and cover us withstrawberries instead of strawberry leaves. Then we wouldn't have to cooksupper.'
'That'd be fun,' said Leslie, hugging her knees beside Mrs. Davidson.
'Oh, Liesle!' Jinnie was disgusted. 'You don't think they really would, doyou?'
'Why not?' Liesle's eyes were wide.
'Oh, groan!' said Jinnie, folding up on the ground. 'You'd believeanything! When you get as old as I am —'
'What a thought!' I said, easing my aching feet in my hiking boots. 'Do yousuppose she'd ever be ten years old?' I looked longingly at the cluster oftents on the edge of the flat. 'Oh, well,' I said and subsided on the hillbeside the others. I flopped over on my stomach and cradled my head on myarms. 'Why! It's warm!' I said as my palm burrowed through the grass to theunderlying soil.
'Sun,' murmured Mrs. Davidson, her eyes hidden behind her folded arm. 'Itsoaks it up all day and lets it out at night.'
'Mmmm.' I let relaxation wash over me.
'They're sleeping a long time,' said Liesle.
'Who?' I was too lax for conversation.
'The beasts,' she said. 'These beasts we're on.'
'What beasts?' It was like having a personal mosquito.
'These ones with the green fur,' she said and giggled. 'People thinkthey're just hills, but they're beasts.'
'If you say so.' My fingers plucked at the grass. 'And the green fur grewall around, all around—'
'That's why it feels warm,' said Liesle. 'Don't pull its fur, Gramma. Itmight hurt it. 'Nen it'd get up. And spill us on the ground. And open its bigmouth—and stick out its great big teeth—' She clutched me wildly. 'Gramma!'she cried, 'Let's go home!'
'Oh, botheration!' I said, sitting up. The chill of the evening was like asplash of cold water. 'Say, it is getting cold. We'll catch our death oflive-forevers if we lie out here much longer.'
'But it's so warm and nice down here,' sighed Mrs. Davidson.
'Not up here,' I shivered. 'Come on, younguns, I’ll race you to the tent.'
The moonlight wakened me. It jabbed down through a tiny rip in the tentabove me and made it impossible for me to go back to sleep. Even with my eyesshut and my back turned, I could feel the shaft of light twanging almostaudibly against my huddled self. So I gave up, and shrugging into afleece-lined jacket and wriggling my bare feet into my sneakers, I duckedthrough the tent flap. The night caught at my heart. All the shadow and silverof a full moon plus the tumble and swell, the ivory and ebony of cloudswelling up over Baldy. No wonder the moonlight had twanged through the tent.It was that kind of night—taut, swift, far and unfettered.
I sighed and tucked my knees up under the jacket as I sat on the stump.There are times when having a body is a big nuisance. Well, I thought, I'llstay out long enough to get thoroughly chilled, then I'll surely sleep when Icrawl back into my nice warm sleeping bag. My eyes followed the dark serratedtreetops along the far side of the creek to the velvety roll of the smallhills in the moonlight upstream, the thick silver-furredbeasts-who-slept-so-long. I smiled as I thought of Liesle.