The Myth of Wile E

Ships' Masts After a Cannonball Fight

By morning it was sunny. Birds sang, squirrels nyukked it up like Stooges, butterflies flitted in that drunken way of theirs. Nature had decided to pretend "last night" never happened.

I ventured out to survey the damage. Hailstones were piled up in the shadows and dissolving in the sun, giving the ground the appearance that it was emerging from mothball storage. My cucumber plants sulked, offended by ice in July. But the Long Trailing Zucchini, resilient as starlings, seemed to have grown another foot overnight.

A haze hung in the air, accompanied by that smell you get when you put damp logs in a fireplace. I tried to follow the smoke to its source, but smoke, like journalists, can be cagey about sources. In a panic I checked on my favorite apple tree, which was probably one of the oldest in the whole valley. I'd always loved its huge lower branches that arced almost to the ground and back up again, inviting you to climb, and its wide trunk that twisted around like a gently wrung towel. Fortunately the tree had been spared, though hail had knocked a depressing number of tiny apples all over the ground. I made a mental note to pile them up on the farm stand and call them "baby apples" or something. Word is, juvenile food was all the rage with foodies; "baby beets" and "baby carrots" and "baby greens" were presumably the veal of vegetables. Maybe "baby apples" were just one PR campaign away from becoming a Thing, too.

The smoke trail eventually led me up the road to Murphy's Christmas Tree Farm. Over the years, paint had worn off its sign, leaving the mysterious " URP    IS MAS   EE  ARM," which looked like some kind of cipher. The place had been abandoned for decades. The only clue to its past was the oversized trees still lined up in formation like an army practicing maneuvers. Whatever the trees were fighting for, I hope they won.

As I approached the sign, I startled a trio of chickens who ran and flapped in three different directions as if I might be an axe murderer or something. Which, when you think about it, is not a totally unreasonable concern if you're a chicken.

The question was: Why were there chickens in the woods?

Then, to my surprise, I saw the hunting party, who had a little campsite set up in a clearing. At a cook-fire, the mother was frying eggs and sausages in a cast-iron pan. The dog was staring at the sausages, dancing from paw to paw and wagging his tail so desperately that his entire body wagged. The mother shooed him away, and he slunk off into the woods, mopey as Eeyore. The father was on a cell phone, talking rapid-fire, pacing. The kids were busy cleaning a big pile of giant mushrooms, wiping dirt and pine needles off the stalks one mushroom at a time, and placing them in large baskets. They were these spotted, pudgy, pinkish-tan things—the mushrooms, I mean—that looked like they belonged in a storybook about elves. At least a dozen baskets were arranged near a pop-up camper that was almost entirely camouflaged with pine boughs.

The mother saw me first. She was not happy to have a visitor, maybe because I hadn't called first and there was no telling how long I'd be staying. When I approached with a friendly wave, she shouted something to her family and started gathering up the cookware. I thought she said something about a "gadget."

All eyes turned to me, wide and worried. The father got off the phone and spoke urgently to the kids, and soon they were grabbing the baskets of mushrooms and carrying them to the camper. Then the father called out, "Pesha! Pesha!" and whistled at the trees like he was hailing a cab.

Apparently I'd come at a bad time. I asked where they were going in such a hurry. I asked if I could help.

The father spoke loud and fast, but I didn't know what he was saying. He sounded angry, or afraid.

Then the older girl said something to me that sounded like, "You, gadget." She shrugged, apologetic.

"What?" I said.