As Linda drove Euchre Creek Road and climbed in elevation, sleet turned to snow. She parked her car at the cabin, bundled up in a couple layers of clothing, donned the rubber boots, and clomped through the snow toward the grove. About an inch of snow had accumulated and everything was quiet like only a quiet produced by falling snow can produce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Linda entered the grove and the snow stopped falling on her. She wandered around, making her way to her favorite tree a ragged, lightning-split, half charred Sitka Spruce that seemed to evince wisdom if you stood in front of it long enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She sure could use some right about now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Linda heard a crackling behind her. She turned around and beheld a tall, dark-skinned man with long black hair wearing black from head to toe: ball cap, duster, boots. He was elderly in the face but not in the body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were no traces of snow on him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In all her years visiting the grove, Linda had never met another person outside of the Christmas decoration event. She stepped back, frightened. She said hello.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The man said hello back and reached out his arm to shake her hand. She took it and felt a powerful but gentle grip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He introduced himself as Albert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI’m from the Euchre Creek band of the Tututni tribe. This valley was our home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Linda relaxed a bit. \u201cI’ve read about your history and displacement,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe’re all gone. But some of what we were is still around.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI don’t understand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI can save the grove.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Linda looked at Albert. She instantly believed him. She told him to tell her how.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFollow me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As Linda drove Euchre Creek Road and climbed in elevation, sleet turned to snow. She parked her car at the cabin, bundled up in a couple layers of clothing, donned the rubber boots, and clomped through the snow toward the grove. About an inch of snow had accumulated and everything was quiet like only a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6594,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","category-meditations","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6593"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10363,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6593\/revisions\/10363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}