Only a Hut in the Mountains

CHAPTER ONE

DAY ONE

Two came. A girl in her late teens but he thought he might be wrong. As he gets older it’s harder to read age in the young. She arrived with a lad. He was nineteen, which the old one knew because the lad said so. He seemed to need a sure age to stand upon or hide behind.

They weren’t together in the ways of today. Hadn’t met until the last hour on the trail, met as the sun went to its rest. A good time to share the way. Night gathers quickly in the mountains. So another voice adds comfort to the weary end of a long day.

The old one heard them before he saw the glow of their lights. Sound travels far when the trees fall behind and the hard rock faces bounce the words across the high open spaces. They stumbled as their torches threw shadows over rough ground. River rolled-stones, scattered across a glacial terrace by an ancient river long lost to time, slowed their way. They had walked a long trail. But will their journey continue? Will it be walked in a good way?

Tonight his fire will warm them. But will it spark old memories that reveal the tides of the ancestors of long ago? Will they be open, or will they listen but not hear, look and not see, nod agreement without understanding or commitment?

Unanswered questions. So many seeking, yet how many quicken to the flame? It’s a good time to meet and share. All are welcome to stay!

‘What do we call you?’ asked the lad softly, in a mannered way, when the meal was done.

Capable walkers these two, thought Koro. Threw a meal together so quickly, and for three. A bit of this and a bit of that with little discussion. Exhaustion seems to simplify need.

‘Call me Koro if you wish. I even answer to Grandfather for we are all kin. But I ask you to hold your name close. There is no need to speak it here. Even if offered I’d probably lose it somewhere. On this trail, if you stay, I’ll give you another name to carry for a while. It will be of this place and time. It will show itself in the weave we create together.’

Keeping her head low the young woman smiled but did not catch Koro’s eye. She saw possibilities within the old one’s words. Putting her name aside might help her let old baggage go, painful stuff labelled in another time. Beneath these stars her world of hurt seemed less real. But would it ever go away?

Her hair was so dark it glistened in the dancing light of the flames. It seemed determined to go into wild disarray no matter how often she swept her fingers over it. Good health glowed in her olive skin. Although quite short she looked trim and fit and had clearly revelled in the long walk. But her attractive, alert face was masked by a cloak of sadness through which she offered a tentative smile.

Outgoing and damaged, been living rough, was Koro’s thought as he looked beyond her carefully constructed cover. She knew why she was here, but would she stay? Some gathered strength from these mountains and found the courage to take up their lives again. Others did not. In the end it was always up to them.

The young man sat close to the fire and fed it carefully with selected bits of wood. Without hesitation he had assumed the role of fire keeper. Men seemed to do that, perhaps answering a call that echoed down the ages, the need to create and tend the flame. When helping prepare the meal, his contribution had been thoughtful, precise, measured and swift. Glimpses of a bright, disciplined mind shone through.

When a flame flared, Koro was drawn to the flash of light across the lad’s fair hair. It was longer than was common in those his age. Crew cuts and the shaved look usually held sway. This athletic young man, so tall and strong, would cover a lot of ground in a day.

He seemed confused by Koro’s suggestion that he might go or stay, that the decision was his and his alone. Behind his youthfulness and quiet, polite way Koro saw vulnerability and strength, openness in some things and a heavy cloak that covered talents well hidden. He sensed a crisis within a spirit driven by an all-consuming purpose. This one’s arrival was totally unexpected. No word had been sent ahead. That had never happened before. Many had come and some had stayed but the

Trail Walkers always sent them. Mystery moved here, reached depths the old one failed to fathom. Time alone would reveal more. That’s if he decides to stay.

Putting those thoughts aside, Grandfather began to speak quietly to the fire. His audience of two settled to listen.

‘We are Star People; we are all children of the universe. My people once honoured that, but now it’s easy for our Maori folk to forget when the city lights block out the heavens and the Moon is lost to the night’s haze. Smoke, dust and pollution stand between. We are Star People even if that seems lost to us. Remembering is of both the mind and the blood. It is forever so. There is hope in that.’

The young couple looked at each other wondering what prompted the old one’s words. Then the lad looked at the darkening sky and saw the Moon rising behind the jagged outline of distant peaks and smiled.

‘Have you star stories to share, Grandfather,’ he asked with a warmth in his voice, ‘old stories that belong to your tribe? That really interests me.’

‘Aye, but also stories laced with the new. A scientist passed through the other day, a rock man. Stopped for a cool drink from the spring and sat where you are now. He was tracking a fault line, tracing the earth’s stretching and heaving over millions of years. An earthquake expert. A very excited young man filled with a passion for stone. He overflowed with words so I drank them in for they tasted of truths taught by my elders many years ago.

‘He spoke of new understandings with great enthusiasm. Said when the universe began there were only a few kinds of stone and now there are over a hundred. He called these stones elements and said they were recorded on a special list. Gave it a strange name; some kind of period table I think. It’s probably an American term. They use periods all the time where we use full stops,’ he said, as he paused to chuckle.

‘That young man called this amazing event the evolution of new families of stone. That made sense to me. When we look around and read a bit we soon discover new families are appearing all the time. New families of birds and deer, trees, fish and spiders have arrived over millions of years. I knew he was right. If it weren’t so there would only be one kind of tree, bird and fish and then where would we be? Moreover, I remember my dad chose a ram of a different kind to mate with our sheep to make what he called crossbreeds. So we are into this change thing too.

‘The rock man’s words were so exciting I wanted to jump up and dance. We have always known that everything has a family. How can anything be if it is not begotten? There is always a beginning followed by a heap of begetting right down the line. Now a scientist was speaking of new stone children born since Creation, new families branching out of the old.

‘I hungered for more. Seeing my need the geologist said the rocks around us were constantly changing but so slowly we couldn’t see it happening. He said uranium, that atomic stuff that buzzes, would one day lose its song and become silent, which would mean it was now lead. Imagine that, a birthing that takes hundreds of millions of years.’

‘Grandfather, how can a stone have a family? It seems so solid, so unchanging.’ asked the young woman in a tentative voice.

Koro took his beautiful stone amulet from around his neck and handed it to her. Then left the fire and returned with two other stones that he gave to the lad.

‘Which stones is the hardest?’

‘They look the same,’ he said, quietly, ‘both are green and shine in the light of the fire. I’d need something sharp to test them.’

‘Sure, try this,’ Koro said, giving him a sharp, stone chip.

The lad smiled when the first stone was easily scratched and other was harder to mark.

Regaining his amulet from the girl, Koro said, ‘This carved piece is so hard it was cut with diamonds. Should we call it a grandparent stone?’

Both looked confused. The lad slowly prodded a smouldering log end to shift it deeper into the flames then looking up said, ‘I see the softest as the child, the parent next in hardness and the carved piece as the grandparent. If my suggesting is right I suspect you will add other dimensions that go beyond hardness.’

Koro’s smile and a slight nod of the head was his silent agreement.

‘But Grandfather, how did the three generations come into existence? How did the soft child stone become the harder parent and then the grandparent?’ she asked, engaging the old ones eyes for the first time. Her hesitation was slipping away.

‘Ah! The secret lies in the fault line the young rock man is tracking. When a band of child stone, which we call serpentine, is caught in an alpine fault line, the change begins. There, in that shattering, earth splitting place, mountain moves across the face of mountain to create mighty earthquakes. As our Earth Mother writhes to shift and shape the land anew, the soft stone grows stronger. The rock man said the grinding pressure of stone on stone twisted the crystals into each other to make it tougher and harder. Over hundreds of millions of years a soft child stone becomes a parent and then a grandparent. Amazing story, hey?’

‘Wow! So your rock man was a geologist. That’s my dad’s hobby. But, Grandfather, did he say how fast the mountains move? I love to know that kind of stuff, it’s neat.’

Koro smiled as he felt her mask slip further to reveal a young woman beginning to lift her head and seek his eyes with growing ease. I hope she stays awhile was the thought he held fast in his heart. Once met it is sometimes hard to part. So much at stake here, so much pivoting on a few days.

‘Yes! It’s fascinating. He reckoned they move about as fast as your fingernails grow.’

‘As fast as my fingernails! Awesome! Far out! They never covered good stuff like this at school. Maybe they did but I took off too soon, lost my way on the streets. Whatever. But isn’t that pretty gentle and slow? You say the fault lines split the earth and create massive earthquakes that can destroy cities. How come when it’s all so slow?’

‘Aye, it seems very slow. Nail clippers deal to fingers and toes regularly but what if you let them grow for two or three years? If we cut off a little bit every two weeks that’s going to be quite a lot in a year.’

‘At two millimetres every two weeks that’s fifty-two millimetres a year,’ offered the lad, ‘that’s about five centimetres a year and fifteen centimetres in three years. About the length of my hand from finger tips to wrist.’

‘That’s gross! Imagine trying to eat with huge talons and walking with clawed feet.’

Koro laughed at her reaction. ‘You would never get your shoes on. Forget your fingers and feet, just keep the clippers handy. Remember we are out of human time in this. Think of mountain-time, of hundreds of millions of years and then do the sums.’ With those words he turned to the lad who was clearly onto that task.

‘At only three centimetres growth a year instead of five, because we might have got the nail growth wrong, in one million years a mountain might move three kilometres but after one hundred million it has gone 300 kilometres further. Impressive numbers but hard to take in,’ he offered, with a gentle chuckle when he saw her shudder in amazement.

‘Is this true Grandfather?’

‘If I knew the distance in miles I might be able to say. Can you do the sums for me?’ he asked turning to the master of instant multiplication.

‘About one hundred and eighty miles would do.’

‘That’s a long way even in miles. It rings true. A book on the Great Alpine Fault in the island in the south says some mountains have travelled hundreds of miles over three hundred million years. So what’s the message?’

‘Cut my fingernails regularly and attend to my toes,’ was her laughing response.

Koro chuckled. He was delighted by her playful answer. Deep hurts needed to be uncovered. He could only help if there was confidence and goodwill.

‘Everything around us changes be it fast or slow,’ continued Koro with a broad smile that acknowledged her interest. ‘Change is the first rule of the universe, the first rule of life itself. Do not fear change. Meet change with hope.’

They sat in silence while the lad tended the fire. The clear, star lit sky spoke of a cool night with a frost likely at dawn because of the camp’s height.

‘Young woman, I sit in the warmth of this fire, look out to the stars and know the trail you walked today was one of courage. You ventured into the unknown. Young man I know nothing of your story but say again that you are very welcome. I speak of this before you take your weariness to the comfort of sleep. Before that rest I would mention other families.

‘In my world we also see family in feelings. The children of hatred might be called anger, envy, contempt, jealousy, aggression, abuse and deceit. The children of love are known as kindness, compassion, nurture, forgiveness, affection, tenderness and abiding friendship. These are also of our journey. And so is the pain of the past that seems beyond healing.’

‘Grandfather, the cluster around hatred intrigues me. You came to that from the lovely story of the stone in the fault line. If I see hatred as a stone caught in a fault line, where immense pressures constantly multiply and exacerbate its power, I am overcome by the sense of an endless cycle of mindless violence.’

‘Breaking the cycle is the key, my young friend. Remember love exists to hold the balance. You have opened caverns into rivers of pain, which run very deep. Unfortunately they are too powerful to visit this night. Hold them close until the right moment. Now we all need rest.’

‘Just a moment Grandfather, I have a quick question that will keep me awake unless I have an answer. What does exacerbate mean?’

‘Sorry,’ said the young man