Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang Read Online Free PDF

twelve. He remembered the day, hot and still like this day, he thought, and Grandfather Wiston had been straight and strong. At the knob his grandfather had paused and touched the massive bole of a white oak tree. "This tree saw the Indians in that valley, David, and the first settlers, and my great-grandfather when he came along. It's our friend, David. It knows all the family secrets."
           "Is it still your property up here, Grandfather?"
           "Up to and including this tree, son. Other side's national forest land, but this tree, it's on our land. Yours too, David. One day you'll come up here and put your hand on this tree and you'll know it's your friend, just like it's been my friend all my life. God help us all if anyone ever lays an ax to it."
           They had gone on that day, down the other side of the knob, then up again, farther and steeper this time until once more his grandfather paused for a few moments, his hand on David's shoulder. "This is how this land looked a million years ago, David." Time had shifted suddenly for the boy; a million years, a hundred million, was all the same distant past, and he imagined the tread of the giant reptiles. He imagined that he smelled the fetid breath of a tyrannosaur. It was cool and misty under the tall trees, and below them the saplings grew, with their branches spread horizontally, as if to catch any stray bit of sunlight that penetrated the high canopy. Where the sun did find a path through, it was golden and soft, the sun of another time. In even deeper shadows grew bushes and shrubs, and at the foot of it all were the mosses and lichens, liverworts and ferns. The arching, heaving roots of the trees were clothed in velvet emerald plants.
           David stumbled and, catching his balance, came to rest against the giant oak tree that was, somehow, his friend. He pressed his cheek against the rough bark for a few moments, then he pushed himself away and looked up through the luxuriant branches; he could see no sky through them. When it rained, the tree would protect him from the full force of the storm, but he needed shelter from the fine drops that would make their way through the leaves to fall quietly on the absorbent ground.
           Before he started to build a lean-to, he examined the farm through his binoculars. Behind the house, there was a garden being tended by five people; impossible to tell if they were male or female. Long-haired, jeans, barefoot, thin. It didn't matter. He noted that the garden was not producing yet, that the plants were sparse and frail. He studied the east field, aware that it was changed but not certain what was different. Then he realized that it was growing corn. Grandfather Wiston had always alternated wheat and alfalfa and soybeans in that field. The lower fields were flooded, and the north field was grown up in grasses and weeds. He swept the glasses slowly over the buildings. He spotted seventeen people altogether. No child younger than eight or nine. No sign of Celia, nor of any recent use of the road, which was also grown up with weeds. No doubt the people down there were just as happy to let the road hide under weeds.
           He built a lean-to against the oak, where he could lie down and observe the farm. He used fir branches to roof the shelter, and when the storm came half an hour later he stayed dry. Rivulets ran among the garden rows below, and the farmyard turned silver and sparkly from this distance, although he knew that closer it would simply be muddy water inches deep. The ground was too saturated in the valley to absorb any more water. It would have to run off into Crooked Creek, which was inching higher and higher toward the north field and the vulnerable corn there.
           By the third day the water had started to invade the cornfield, and he pitied the people who stood and watched helplessly. The garden was still being tended, but it would be a meager harvest. By