Walk Two Moons

16 THE SINGING TREE

Gram was released from the hospital the next morning mainly because she was so ornery. Gramps wanted her to stay another day, but Gram climbed out of bed and said, “Where’s my underwear?”

“I guess this cantankerous woman is getting out of here,” Gramps said.

I think fear had made us all a little cantankerous. I had spent the night in the waiting room. Gramps offered to get me a motel room, but I was afraid that if I left the hospital, I would never see Gram again. The boy we had met at the river curled up in an armchair, but I don’t think he slept either. Once he used the telephone. I heard him say, “Yeah, I’ll be home in the morning. I’m with some friends.”

The boy woke me up at six o’clock and said Gram was much better. He handed me a piece of paper. “It’s my address, in case you ever want to write or anything, but I’d understand if you didn’t—”

I opened the paper. “What’s your name?”

He smiled. “Oh yeah, right.” He took the paper and added his name: Tom Fleet. “See ya,” he said.

As we were checking out of the hospital, I asked if we should call my father. Gramps said, “Well, now, chickabiddy, I thought about that, but it’s only going to make him worry. Do you think we could wait to call him when we get to Idaho?”

Gramps was right, but I was disappointed. I was ready to call my father. I wanted very much to hear his voice, but I was also afraid that I might ask him to come and get me.

Outside the hospital, I heard the warbling of a bird, and it was such a familiar warble that I stopped and listened for its source. Bordering the parking lot was a rim of poplars. The sound was coming from somewhere in the top of one of those trees, and I thought, instantly, of the singing tree in Bybanks.

Next to my favorite sugar maple tree beside the barn is a tall aspen. When I was younger, I heard the most beautiful birdsong coming from the top of that tree. It was not a call; it was a true birdsong, with trills and warbles. I stood beneath that tree for the longest time, hoping to catch sight of the bird who was singing such a song. I saw no bird—only leaves waving in the breeze. The longer I stared up at the leaves, the more it seemed that it was the tree itself that was singing. Every time I passed that tree, I listened. Sometimes it sang, sometimes it did not, but from then on I always called it the singing tree.

The morning after my father learned that my mother was not coming back, he left for Lewiston, Idaho. Gram and Gramps came to stay with me. I had pleaded to go along, but my father said he didn’t think I should have to go through that. That day I climbed up into the maple and watched the singing tree, waiting for it to sing. I stayed there all day and on into the early evening. It did not sing.

At dusk, Gramps placed three sleeping bags at the foot of the tree, and he, Gram, and I slept there all night. The tree did not sing.

In the hospital parking lot, Gram heard the song too. “Oh Salamanca,” she said. “A singing tree!” She pulled at Gramps’s sleeve.

“Oh, it’s a good sign, don’t you think?”

As we swept on across South Dakota toward the Badlands, the whispers no longer said, hurry, hurry or rush, rush. They now said, slow down, slow down. I could not figure this out. It seemed some sort of warning, but I did not have too much time to think about it, as I was busy telling about Phoebe.