Flaming Tree

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  Nevertheless, in spite of Dora’s hand on her arm, Kelsey had to make one more attempt. “There is a way you could help, Mrs. Hammond. If you could have someone bring you down to see Jody once in a while, or even bring him up here.… He must miss you, and he doesn’t understand why you don’t come to see him.”

  That brought Ruth’s attention alive again, and she looked at Kelsey, her eyes swimming with tears. “Tyler did take me down, and it was awful. The way he couldn’t move and didn’t know me! I won’t go through that again!”

  “You’re upsetting her,” Dora protested. “Please go.”

  Ginnie had spoken of Ruth’s protected life—a life in which she’d been given whatever she wanted. Nothing terrible had ever happened to her until now. That sort of self-indulgent life had only made her weak and practically helpless. How could she help Jody, when she couldn’t even help herself? But this wasn’t Kelsey’s problem to solve. She accepted the pressure of Dora’s hand and moved toward the door.

  “Besides,” Ruth said, her voice a little stronger, “if Jody should understand fully what happened, do you think that would help anything? He would only blame himself, on top of everything else.”

  “Have you thought that he may understand that right now?” Kelsey asked. “If no one talks to him about it and takes away the blame, that’s pretty awful. What if he thinks you and his father hate him?”

  Ruth stared at her in dismay. The happy innocence of Marisa’s photograph was gone and this woman was experiencing new emotions she didn’t know how to handle. Whether she could learn to cope with them was something else.

  Tyler spoke suddenly from the doorway. “You seem to be upsetting my wife, Mrs. Stewart.”

  Kelsey faced him, and tried to speak calmly as he came into the room. She might as well throw herself into this—she was in more trouble than she could handle anyway.

  “I’ve been telling Mrs. Hammond about Jody’s progress. Perhaps you can bring her down to see him today or tomorrow. That might help toward his recovery, and it might help your wife too.”

  “Anytime she likes,” Tyler said.

  Ruth had given up completely. She closed her eyes and turned her head against the pillow, retreating from everything.

  Tyler spoke to Kelsey again. “Are you ready to leave now, Mrs. Stewart? Shall we get Jody ready and start this foolish expedition on its way?”

  Tyler folded up the wheelchair beside the bed and carried it out of the room, leaving Kelsey to follow as she pleased.

  She caught up with him in the hall, filled with an indignation she needed to put into words, whether they were diplomatic or not.

  “Why is your wife so afraid to live?” she demanded. “Why has she given up?”

  He marched ahead of her as far as the stairs, and then turned to face her, his anger barely restrained. “Mrs. Stewart, have you any idea of the amount of gunpowder that is lying loose around this house? Do you want to be the spark that blows us all up?”

  This sounded worse than anything she’d considered. “I’m sorry. You’ve given me a week to accomplish what I should have months to do. So I suppose I push everyone. I don’t think Jody’s parents are doing much to help him right now—if you must know. I can’t promise not to snatch at every bit of rope that comes my way.”

  The faint quirk that almost resembled a smile touched his mouth. “I’ll accept your apology,” he said, and started down the stairs.

  She hadn’t meant to apologize—just to explain. But he was right about her upsetting Ruth. Whether she liked it or not, she needed to step with a little more caution—though caution had never been her strong suit. If she didn’t speak out, how could anything change? Someone had to.

  When they reached Jody’s room to prepare him for the trip, there was a problem at once with the wheelchair, as Kelsey had known there would be. The back wasn’t high enough to support a patient who couldn’t hold up his head.

  “Perhaps you could put a board in the back?” Kelsey suggested.

  “I’ll get something.” Tyler went off to his workshop on the lower floor. While he was gone, Kelsey held Jody’s hand. Anxiety already showed in the stiffening of his arms as he turned them inward.

  Ginnie busied herself with his various tubes in order to move them with him to the wheelchair.

  “It’s going to be all right, Jody,” Kelsey told him. “Your father will make you comfortable, and the trip will be fun. At Tor House you can show me some of the things you like there.”

  Jody said, “Um,” which was a slightly new sound.

  “How about a smile?” Kelsey said.

  His lips quivered and she knew he was trying. But he gave up at once as his father returned.

  Ginnie helped to move him into the chair, and since he was accustomed to her lifting him, he only moaned a little. They bound him into place with the straps used to secure him in his regular chair. At first his head fell forward on his chest, and then, before anyone could lift it, he raised his head himself and let the pillow and board take its weight.

  “That’s wonderful, Jody!” Ginnie cried. “You’ve never done that before.”

  When they’d wheeled him out to the courtyard, Tyler carried him up the steps toward the garage area and the street above while Ginnie followed with the wheelchair. She wasn’t coming with them since she’d suggested that there might be too many people looking after him, which would only make him feel confused.

  When Kelsey was in the front seat of the car, Tyler lifted Jody onto her lap. She held him with his head against her shoulder and spoke soothingly so that he began to relax.

  When they were on the way, Tyler, as usual, was silent. Kelsey wanted him to talk in order to hold Jody’s attention, and keep him from being afraid of strange movements.

  “Tell me about where we’re going,” she said. “Jody knows, but I don’t. I mean, I’ve read some of Robinson Jeffers’s poems—I remember ‘Roan Stallion,’ and ‘Tamar,’ but I know only a little about him. Aunt Elaine told me that you’re doing a short biographical film on Jeffers.”

  Tyler let that pass, but he was willing to talk about the poet.

  “Robin and Una, his wife, lived in Carmel most of their lives. They met at the University of Southern California, and she must have been exactly the right woman for him—as he was the right man for her.”

  “Wasn’t she married first to someone else?”

  “Yes, when she was seventeen. But when she fell in love with Robin, that was it, though they couldn’t marry for years. As a young man Jeffers had the usual fling, and he never expected to settle down. Una and Tor House changed all that. She helped to give him a purpose and a direction in his life.”

  “What about her?”

  “She was pretty special in her own right, and she recognized his genius and nurtured it.”

  An interest that Kelsey had never heard before had kindled in Tyler’s voice, and she sensed that Jody was listening too.

  “Wasn’t he pretty much of a recluse?” she asked.

  “Yes, and Una wasn’t, so she had to make up for that side of him. She dealt with the outside world, and gave him the quiet and peace he needed for his work.”

  Kelsey remembered what Ruth had said about Tyler’s “obsession” with Jeffers. Perhaps Tyler Hammond had found a kindred spirit in Robinson Jeffers, and surely a creative obsession was not necessarily a bad thing to have. She felt the weight of Jody’s head against her shoulder, and wondered if she too might be growing obsessed by the needs of this broken little boy. A creative obsession, if only she could help him.

  Tyler went on without being urged. “They built Tor House on a prominence that juts out above the beach at Carmel Point. A daughter was born to them before they built the house, but she died on the day of her birth. Later, there were twin boys, Garth and Donnan. They must have all loved the solitary life, with the sea and mountains, and an unspoiled countryside to explore. There weren’t many houses out there then. Una used to search out local legends, and she’d te
ll her stories to Robin, so that some were used in his narrative poems. You’ve read them, so you know how strange and even frightening they could be. Mystical and sometimes hard to understand. He was an original, and people weren’t used to what he had to offer, so he had a long struggle before he became famous.”

  “He didn’t think much of humanity, as I recall.”

  “It was more that he despaired of humanity. He longed to see men save themselves, but he didn’t believe they would.” Tyler glanced at his son, relaxed now in Kelsey’s arms. “I think he’s listening.” He spoke softly, as if afraid to hope.

  “Of course he’s listening—aren’t you, Jody?” Kelsey said, and Jody made his new “um” sound. If only this trip would work for Jody.…

  They drove up a narrow turning road and left the car in a small parking area.

  “Family still lives in one of the houses,” Tyler said. “The main house is open to the public only on tours. Since I’ve been working on a Jeffers project, I have a key and permission from the Foundation to come when I like. There are docents who take people through and they’re remarkably knowledgeable and dedicated.”

  When the wheelchair was ready, Tyler lifted Jody into it with all his paraphernalia, and he was once more secured into place. Kelsey wheeled him through the gate and up a brick walk. On their left stretched a square of well-watered green lawn bordered with plantings. Low stone walls abounded, and there were two stone houses besides the main house and the striking Hawk Tower. One had been a garage, Tyler said, and now housed the visitors’ reception room.

  The air smelled wonderful with its scents of sea, pine resin, and the perfume of sweet alyssum growing in what had been Una’s English garden. There were rose beds as well, and the bright colors of cosmos and other flowers. From the direction of the beach could be heard the endless sound of waves rolling in below the cliff on which the house stood.

  Tyler went ahead to the foot of the tower, and it seemed to Kelsey that Jody was aware of both the tower and his father.

  The great stones rose up almost forty feet—massive, with narrow windows, and a narrow door at the foot. Precarious outside steps built into the stone wound up to a room at the top of the tower.

  “In one of his poems,” Tyler said, “Jeffers spoke of the ‘silence of stone’ as ‘insolent.’”

  “How could he have built it all alone?” Kelsey asked.

  “While the main house was being built, he learned masonry. Una wanted a tower like those she’d admired in Ireland, and he set about to build it for her. He brought all those boulders up from the beach himself, and he rigged a pulley and a slanting plane on which he could roll stones up as the tower grew. There’s a tremendous view of the Pacific coast from an oriole window in Una’s room at the top. I’ve seen a picture of Jeffers standing in that doorway, dressed in his usual open-collared shirt, with gray pants tucked into boots, and a pipe in his hand. He fills the whole doorway, and you can see the letters carved into the keystone over the door.”

  Kelsey looked up at a “U” set over “RJ.” These two who had lived here were coming to life for her, growing so real that it seemed as though they must appear and speak to the intruders.

  “Tones,” Jody said, suddenly and distinctly.

  Tyler looked startled. “Yes—stones. You remember the stones, Jody?”

  “Um,” Jody said.

  His father pressed his shoulder. “That’s very good, Jody.” Tyler looked hopefully at Kelsey who nodded her agreement, and then went on to explain. “Robin and Una were great stone collectors. They brought home special stones from all over in their travels, and friends brought them more. There are hundreds of them, all noted and identified. Jeffers set some of them into the tower inside. There are stones from Ben Nevis in Scotland, from Croagh Patrick in Ireland. Stones from Tintagel in Cornwall, and one from Cecil Rhodes’s tomb in Cape Town. There’s even a bit from the Chinese wall, and from the Great Pyramid of Cheops.”

  “Tones,” Jody said again.

  “Right, Jody—you’re doing fine.” Tyler choked on the words, moved to a loss of control by the effort his son was making, and Kelsey began to feel encouraged. This might really work. Oh God, it had to work!

  “At the top,” Tyler went on, steadying his voice, “there’s a Babylonian tile set in a niche. Jody used to know most of the special stones and where they came from.” Jody made a slight, wriggling movement in his chair, and Kelsey saw that he was smiling, his eyes no longer blank and empty, but really looking at the tower and his father. Even if they were a blur, he could see them. His smile was so special that Kelsey found herself praying that nothing would happen to spoil this new reaching between Tyler and his son. And then, unwittingly, Tyler spoiled it.

  “I remember the last time we came here,” he said. “I remember the way Jody scrambled up those steps—a lot faster than I could manage. I remember—” He stopped, and Kelsey saw that Jody’s smile was gone.

  “You’ll climb them again,” she said quickly. “Think about it, Jody. See it in your own mind. Think of every step in the tower and the way you’re going to make your legs carry you clear to the top. You can’t climb the tower yet, but I’ll bet you can count the steps. You can go up it in your own mind over and over again. After a while you’ll really do it. I believe that.”

  Now he was looking at her, and she knelt on the brick path and began to stroke one leg gently, all the way down to the foot, concentrating on her own healing energy and his need. “It’s this foot—this pair of feet—that will take you up the tower. So think hard, just as you did with your arm. Think all the way down. Can you see my hand—even if you’re not sure you feel it yet. Move your foot just a little, Jody. Stay relaxed. Try, Jody.”

  Her hand moved again along his leg, pressing. His feet in their sneakers were placed against the foot-rests of the chair, and when she reached his ankle, one foot moved slightly—a barely discernible twitch. The foot she was touching.

  “You did it, Jody!” Kelsey cried. “You’ve made a beginning. It will take a lot of work, a lot of trying, and sometimes you’ll get tired and discouraged. But you’ll keep doing a little better all the time. We’ll make it happen.” So much of healing was in the mind, and if Jody could think, he could help himself.

  She looked up to see that Tyler was watching her strangely, but now there was no way to tell what he was thinking—or whether he fully understood what had happened.

  When Kelsey stood up, he led the way beside the stone wall that was a continuation of the west wall of the house. From the wall, they could look over at grasses and wildflowers growing to the edge of the steep dropoff to the beach. The air had grown cooler, and the day was turning gray.

  Tyler noted the change and looked up at the sky. “Jeffers liked gray days, stormy days. He must have felt a kinship with dark weather. I’ve been here during a storm, and I know how the waves crash in and send spray clear to the windows of the house. You can hear it spattering on glass when you’re inside. He listened to the sea—no one has ever written about it more stirringly than Robinson Jeffers. Carl Sandburg said once that Jeffers, like Balboa, had discovered the Pacific.”

  Tyler’s voice could be mesmerizing in its deep tones. Kelsey found herself listening to its sound, as well as to the words, remembering what Marisa had said about his voice.

  They leaned together on the stone wall that Jeffers’s hands had built, and looked out at a distant ship floating past on rolling gray water, barely visible now in thin fog. Kelsey wished Jody could see the vast spread of view, but his chair was too low, and he might not be able to focus on the distant scene anyway.

  Beside her, Tyler stared at the water, still lost in the Jeffers legend, wind stirring his dark hair.

  “One of the poems I always liked was called ‘Night,’” he said. “I remember a few lines especially.

  “‘The tide, moving the night’s

  Vastness with lonely voices,

  Turns, the deep dark-shining

  Paci
fic leans on the land.…’”

  The words seemed to quiver on the air, and she wondered if a ghostly presence heard and relished them. All those “lonely voices” that must still echo in this place!

  Once more she felt a stirring of liking and sympathy for the man beside her. He had known horrible tragedy as a boy, so that scarring memories must linger forever in his mind. Now, with what had happened to his wife and son, his distrust of life would have grown still more. Even to the point where he might be afraid to hope. Because of Kelsey’s absorption in the boy, colored by her own loss, she might have been too hard on the father. The force of this man moved her as nothing had done for so long. Was she, too, coming back to life?

  They walked around to the front door of the main house, and Tyler unlocked it, then hoisted Jody and his chair up the few steps into the living room. A low beamed ceiling and redwood walls made the room seem dark until Tyler switched on a few lights. The furniture was old and comfortable and unstylish. The family who had lived here pleased themselves and their own tastes. There were many pictures on the walls that must have held special meaning for the family. Una and Robin’s books crowded shelves set behind grillwork—the volumes no longer to be handled lovingly. On the western side, small-paned windows looked out at the ocean.

  “They used kerosene lamps and candles for years,” Tyler said. “Stoves kept them warm and did their cooking, so no electricity was put in until the fifties. There wasn’t even a telephone. That’s Una’s desk over there—it used to be a captain’s desk—where she sat doing accounts and writing letters to her many friends. Though they traveled a bit, they had very little active social life. Only a few choice friends came to see them. They were always enough for each other, and the driving force in Robin’s life was his work. Of course when he became famous, Una had to protect his need to be solitary.”

  The “lonely voices” were not only of the sea. And being alone was not always sad. Kelsey had a sense of intrusion into very private lives—as though those two strong spirits must be here still, whispering somewhere in the shadowy room.