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Across town, to the great relief of Elizabeth, Moocher and Fluffy immediately hit it off. Johnny had initially calmed them, of course, then simply let nature take its course. Within minutes Moocher sat quietly beside Fluffy's carrier on the back seat of the Tempo, in which Fluffy lay peacefully.
Johnny found that Elizabeth had to give him directions to reliably drive from town to the Goth place, though even by moonlight he recognized much that he saw and was gradually reconstructing his childhood understanding of the area. "I recognize this place too!" he frequently said, with growing excitement.
Other traffic disappeared and roads narrowed and degenerated from pot-holed asphalt to pot-holed tarred stone, until they were finally driving on an old, narrow dirt/gravel path. The drive to the Goth cabin was a dream come true, he was traveling back to a happy time in his life, a time when he and his parents lived happily together and his whole family spent entire summers in a magic place. Johnny looked forward to seeing everything in the daytime, though his night vision was much better than that of a normal human.
In the moonlight, the dark shapes of hundreds of huge rotting tree stumps dominated the landscape. Johnny viewed the remains of each old stump painfully and with sudden pang of guilt. He was employed at a box factory, where the remains of many such trees were used. He had always been a conservationist and against logging old-growth forest, but it had been years since he had seen the devastation it caused first-hand.
They drove past numerous short side roads that fanned out over the valley; these were now deserted and overgrown with brush, alien weeds, and stunted saplings. Massive trucks and other logging equipment had once used these paths to cut and remove fallen giants; the stream was far too small to float the great logs, even at spring thaw. An old sign at the entry of one of the side roads read ‘Fenster Logging’, reminding Johnny and Elizabeth of the night’s disturbing events, while confirming that Fenster had gotten rich through the rape of this land.
Down through the valley floor flowed a lively stream, doggedly followed by the little dirt road. Even with his enhanced vision he couldn’t see it very well, but through his open car window Johnny could hear the dancing waters, and the clatter of stones being washed gradually towards the distant sea, along with choruses of peeping spring frogs. Memories came flooding back; as a child he and his friends had spent many happy hours in the stream.
Occasionally the road crossed the stream by means of stout appearing but alarmingly ancient wood-timber bridges.
Johnny could remember exploring many of them as a child, with Dooley and with Black Hawk, his closest Tribal friend. Johnny could almost feel the cold, clear water rush over his feet. Through the car window came damp spring air, pungently rich with the musky odor of earth and life, and the mysterious rotting stuff that snags and collects under old bridges.
There were only a few more miles to go, but the dirt road seemed to go on forever, with Johnny constantly swerving to avoid the deepest ruts and largest rocks. Elizabeth marveled at his ability to do so, given only the limited illumination offered by moonlight and the old Tempo’s dim headlights.
At last they encountered a final fork in the road. An old weather-beaten wood sign announced that the Tribe's Reservation was located up the left road-fork, which appeared to be overgrown with bushes, while the rusty old Goth mailbox identified the right fork, which quickly terminated at a stout wooden gate that blocked the Goth driveway. Johnny’s driveway, now that Mort was gone.
Johnny climbed out of the car and stepped towards the fence. Everything was as he remembered it as a child, though everything now seemed a bit smaller. Not much smaller though. Gigantic old growth forest towered beyond the log fence, dwarfing the Tempo and humans.
Something was just outside the fence that didn’t belong though. Silently sitting among Fenster’s rotting stumps were a dozen monstrous shapes that Johnny didn’t recognize. He recovered a flashlight from his glove compartment and turned it on the mysterious objects, and was shocked to discover enormous flat-bed trucks, cranes, bulldozers, and machines with massive grasping jaws and cutting blades in the front.
“Fudge; that’s logging equipment!” he cursed.
“I didn’t even notice them earlier,” said Elizabeth, who had joined him. “No wonder the Tribe is up in arms. Fenster obviously means to cut down your forest as soon as he can.”
As Johnny stepped towards the gate to unlatch it, an abrupt swish-thunk sound stopped him short, as an arrow suddenly appeared in the log next to the latch.
“Stop,” said a voice authoritatively from the darkness. It was a voice that Elizabeth recognized.
“Black Hawk!” she said loudly. “It’s me, Elizabeth. And this is Johnny Goth.”
An excited murmuring broke out all around them, from the shadowy forest. From the direction of the first voice a husky young man in Tribal police uniform stepped into the moonlight, bow in hand, staring intently at Johnny. “Is it truly you?” he asked, in a hushed voice.
“It is I, White Wolf, returned to my Tribe and my good friend Black Hawk at last,” announced Johnny loudly.
“Aiiiiii,” cried Black Hawk joyfully, as he dropped his bow to the ground and dashed full-tilt with open arms at Johnny, almost knocking him to the ground. As the two laughing men stood locked together, arms around each other, a dozen more braves broke from the trees and piled onto Johnny and Black Hawk, hooting, whooping, laughing and crying with joy.
Suddenly a silver haired giant strode from shadows. The Tribe braves quieted and parted in deference to him, clearing a path to Johnny, who had been knocked to his knees, but was grinning widely as he looked up at the newcomer. The huge man reached down and grasped Johnny under his arms and lifted him high above his head as though he were a small child.
“Wolf Cub!” cried Two Bears, in a booming voice.
Johnny Smiled. No one had called him Wolf Cub in fourteen years.
Around them, braves shouted, danced and laughed anew. Two Bears shook Johnny playfully, spun several times around with Johnny held high, and then dropped him into his huge arms for a titanic bear-hug. The hug went on and on, the great muscles of the arms of Two Bears rippling in the moonlight, Johnny’s legs swinging, his feet dangling off the ground.
Finally Two Bears released him and stood Johnny before him, holding him by both shoulders and stooping down to look him in the eye. “Welcome home, Johnny Goth. It is so very good to see you here, after all these years.”
“It is very good to see you, Great Two Bears.”
“But you were with each other just a couple of hours ago at the library,” noted a puzzled Elizabeth.
“The library?” asked Two Bears, puzzlement also in his voice.
“Recall that Elizabeth had trouble at the town library tonight with a man named Skunk, and a sheriff named Barns,” explained Johnny.
“I was rescued by Johnny and Dooley, and also by you, Two Bears,” said Elizabeth. “Don’t you remember? Are you all right? We thought you went to Dooley’s place to rest.”
“And to meet Dooley’s friend Ned,” added Johnny.
Two Bears smiled. “Ned, of course! You see Elizabeth, this is the first time that Johnny is here on his home ground. It had to be here that I would greet him properly.” He looked at Johnny silently for a few moments, before returning his attention to Elizabeth. “Don’t worry Elizabeth, everything is all right. Yes, Johnny?”
Johnny smiled and nodded his head. “Yes, Elizabeth. Right now I’m just glad to be home. Can we go to the cabin? It has been a very long day.”
Johnny and Elizabeth returned to the car and drove slowly up the driveway, escorted by most of the braves at first, but they gradually disappeared into the trees, presumably to resume their guard duty, except for Two Bears, who walked behind the car, grinning.
Johnny was himself grinning ear to ear, eyes bright and taking everything in as it was illuminated by headlights; each precious tree, bush, and stony square foot of driveway
.
At one point, Johnny stopped the car, got out and walked into the trees, and ran his hands over the trunks of several of them. He paid particular attention to the smiley-face tree. Instead of rough, normal bark, his questing fingers encountered the smooth curves of grinning faces. “Dooley!” he exclaimed. He returned to the car still grinning and resumed the trek up the driveway.
“So, you remembered those trees with the faces and so forth on them?” asked Elizabeth.
“There are many more now than when last I was here.”
“You have been gone far too long, White Wolf,” remarked Two Bears, as Johnny climbed back into the Tempo.
Elizabeth knew better than to ask for an explanation.
At last, they were at the cabin.
Johnny shut off the car, got out, and stood silently, taking it all in, the sights, the sounds, the smells, and the memories. In the moonlight before him stood the huge old log cabin of his youth, while behind and around it towered giant trees, and above everything else the black bulk of Goth Mountain reached up into the moon-lit night sky.
It almost seemed like one of his dreams, but it was real. He closed his eyes and extended his thoughts, reaching out to it all, feeling everything around him, Goth Mountain, the Tribe, the Holy Forest, and its secrets. It was all here, all real. He could feel it in him and around him; the powerful life-force of the forest and Goth Mountain.
Elizabeth stood beside Johnny, watching him, trying to figure out all that was happening. She was fascinated with Johnny, and by what she had become involved with, but she felt increasingly frustrated. For almost two years she had given everything she had to these people, and they had accepted her and become her friends.
But only to a point. There were many secrets here that she couldn't even guess at, that much she knew. Johnny was one more great mystery, though a nice handsome one.
Two Bears was intensely watching both her and Johnny, she noticed, his gray eyes seeming to look inside her. What was the Tribe hiding from her, she wondered? What were they all hiding?
“Good night, cubs,” said Two Bears, as he unlatched and opened the cabin door for his young friends. “We will talk long tomorrow.” As Johnny and Elizabeth stepped inside, the big shaman silently stepped away and disappeared into shadow.
****