Atlantis Chronicles: Prince of The Olympics

Jordan Jackson returned the hand radio to its place on his belt, then hustled after Tony Sartonni. Tony was smaller than his older brother, Gene, but every bit the woodsman. He had reached his stride on the lowlands and did not want to slow as the trail started uphill out of the valley.

“Tony!”

He turned and waited as Jordan caught up to him.

“Your dad says that he can’t get a hold of Gene, but he’ll keep trying. It also means that I don’t have a GPS reading. We’ll have to find him the old fashioned way. Bad news is, we’ll have to leave the

trail pretty soon. Long Creek branches off the Elwha pretty soon, and heads south. No telling how long we’ll have to follow it.”

“It’s not like Gene to ignore a call.”

“I know! Let’s get up there!”

X

The going had been slow through the steep, wet terrain. The mosses and lichens covered nearly everything, making every step an opportunity to slip or fall. There was sign of Gene’s passing, hours

ago, but Tony was setting a fierce pace. With each rise, he half expected to see his brother on his way toward them. Over that last rise, the valley spread out a bit more, with only gentle waterfalls, a much more gradual slope, and a whole lot of close trees. Tony took the opportunity to turn on the speed.

“Ranger base. Come in Ranger base. Over.” It was Jordan from behind him. Tony was heading straight upstream, flanking Long Creek on the south bank.

“Ranger base here. Over.”

“Big Gene, it’s Jordan. We’ve just entered the bottom of the canyon where Long Creek and Carrie Creek meet up. Keep your ears on. Over.”

Tony was well out of range of hearing the conversation. Through the trees he could see that the creek widened out at the top of the little valley they were in. There was a rocky clearing littered with sand, boulders, rocks, water, and, in this case, debris. Over the north end of the wide part, was an eight foot high pile of branches, logs and boughs. A single rope dangled from a center log, laying loose toward the northern bank. Tony splashed in to follow the rope. It lead to a young fir, fallen into the valley toward the log jam, fresh roots exposed. Tony skirted the fir, looking and calling for Gene among the branches.

“He is here!” It was an unfamiliar voice.

Tony scrambled onto the bank and found Gene, muddied, bloodied and wet with his head in the lap of a hiker.

“Is he okay?”

Gene was not moving. The hiker was getting up. He carefully laid Gene’s head down, as he moved himself out of the way.

“Gene! Can you hear me?” Tony dropped to his brother’s side, and began looking for a pulse.

“He is alive and bre-a-thing.” The hiker offered.

“He is unconscious. Is there a head or neck injury?”

“N-n-no. I-I do not believe that there is.”

“What happened, then?”

“I do not know. I was walking the ridge, when I . . . heard. . . He was in great pain!”

“Gene?” It was Jordan’s voice.

“We’re at the foot of the toppled fir. He’s here!” Tony found a welt on Gene’s head, but nothing to really worry about.

“Dang it, Gene! This is a rookie mistake!” Jordan growled as he climbed onto the bank of the creek.

“Jordan! Call Dad! Figure out how we can get him down the mountain. Then, See if you can figure what happened here. Our ‘witness’ was late on the scene too.”

“Gotcha!” Jordan grabbed his radio, skirted the tree, and started hollering into the radio.

“Now, Gene, why are you unconscious? Is it loss of blood?” Tony muttered to his brother. He examined Gene’s neck.

“You seem to have no head or neck injury.”

“He was injured here and here.” The hiker indicated his own right armpit on down to his right buttock. Tony had Gene’s shirt unbuttoned in a moment. As they gently rolled Gene over, keeping the spine intact, the purple and blue bruises across the torso and back were plain to see, despite the blood.

“Jordan!” Tony hollered.

“Yah?”

“Tell Dad! We’ve got possible back trauma! And, probably some broken ribs, and internal bleeding!”

“Roger! Did you hear that, Big Gene?”

Tony noticed that Gene’s arm had fallen into another pool of blood. “Where’d all this blood come from?” Tony looked all over, but saw no lacerations. He and the hiker eased Gene back into his original position, keeping his head and neck straight. This time, Tony was cradling Gene’s head. Tony, then had the hiker fetch a blanket out of Gene’s backpack, half buried under the fir, then wrapped it tight about his brother. The hiker watched as Tony wiped mud from Gene’s face while telling him that he would be okay.

“Tony, we’ve got the Coast Guard chopper coming down on us! ETA is fifteen!”

“Good!” He bellowed back at Jordan. He then turned to the hiker.

“Well, sir, thank you for helping my brother here. Did you hear the tree fall from the ridge?“

“No, I heard nothing, but I felt his pain.”

“W-well then, how long have you been here with him?”

“I do not know for sure. Maybe the sun was not at its zenith yet. Maybe, there.” He pointed out the path of the sun in the sky, finally ending at ten or eleven by Tony’s reckoning.

“Wow! A few hours. You must be tired.”

“No. He is strong. Also, the tree is freshly died.”

Tony could only stare at that comment.

“Sorry.” The hiker muttered, flushing at his awkward words. He put his chin in his chest. He looked to be in his early twenties with a very slight build. There was not yet a hair on his chin. Tony would call him a bleached blond, but his eyebrows were white also. His eyes were large and a light gray color. His clothes rather defied description. They were khaki in color, but Tony could not tell what they were made from. His backpack looked to be made of the same material.

“Sorry! I’m Tony Sartonni. This, is my brother, Gene. What‘s your name?”

“M-m-mann’n.”

“Mr. Manning, It was very lucky for both of us that you were up here today. Where were you heading, anyway?”

“I am just hiking about the park.”

“Alone?” Manning nodded.

“Sorry to tell you, Mr. Manning, especially since you saved the day, and all, but everyone within the park boundaries are expected to stay on the trails. I know that because my brother, here, is a ranger, as

was my father. You are also asked to never hike alone. As you can see in Gene’s case, it’s not a good idea. Besides, I have heard some strange stories . . . ” There was a long silence as Tony was mentally reexamining one of those strange stories that he had heard from his dad. Jordan stormed around the tree.

“Come on, Tony. Can I help you get him ready to transport? They’ll be here soon.”

“Yeah, Jordan. We need to be really careful with his torso. Mr. Manning, could you carry his feet?”

Both men looked around, but saw no sign of the hiker that had been beside them just moments before.

The low thrum of the climbing chopper, just becoming recognizable, returned their attention to more urgent matters.

“Two Weeks Later”

The sound of the chain saws from Jordan’s work crew cut through the fog as Tony and Gene finally arrived at the familiar alpine valley. Gene was grateful for the gentler terrain. He was surprised at how

quickly out of shape he was after his short stay in the hospital, and a couple of weeks off. Tony had made sure that the hike was easy, with plenty of stops for Gene to catch his breath. Jordan came over immediately to check on Gene.

“Hi, Gene! How are you holding up?”

“I’m sweatin’ like a turkey on Thanksgiving morning. Say, you guys sure took that jam down quick.” All that remained of the log jam were four long logs that were still being butchered into rollable pieces. These were being rolled to higher ground.

“Well, Gene, it’s like you said, one day’s work for a crew of ten! Hey, I found something of yours.” Jordan led them over to where the fir had been. “It was under the tree. Looks like a branch practically ripped it in two.” He handed Gene the remains of the hand-held radio that Gene had carried on his belt. The top third had been crushed and dangled loose on a couple of wires.

“And then there was this.” Jordan turned and crouched on a knee. He pointed out a few distinguishable lines of what had been a pool of blood among the saw dust.

“It looks like you marked this place with your blood. Did they find where you had been bleeding?”

“No, I know it doesn’t make any sense. The doctor said that he found internal blood, but there were no major lacerations on any organ, nor did he see the scar tissue of a tear. There was evidence of two

fractured vertebrae, four cracked ribs, a punctured lung, but all of them, and the accompanying internal bleeding- healed as if the injuries had happened months ago.”

“He said,” interjected his brother, Tony, “that due to the remoteness of the accident, and the description of those injuries, you probably would not have survived them.”

“And yet,” Gene continued, “here I am! Well along the road to recovery. I’m hiking and only two weeks later!”

“Good!” replied Jordan. “So, Gene, how did it happen? What do you remember?”

“The last thing that I remember was standing right here, tightening my hand wench. I had stopped a couple times to inspect the wench’s rigging, like a good little ranger. The log in the jam was beginning

to move, and the fir showed no sign of a problem.”

“That one tree in the log jam that your rope was around had an intact root system. We needed to pull the whole jam down and dig it out of there.” Jordan shook his head. “So, does anyone talk about this

mysterious miracle worker?”

Tony broke an awkward silence. “We have. We agree that we disagree about him.”

“Huh? What does that mean?” Jordan asked.

“It means that Tony would like to hunt him down like a dog. I, on the other hand, owe him my life, and would do practically anything to keep that from happening.”

“I never said that he did anything wrong, Gene. I just said that I am very curious about him. I would like the chance to talk with him about what happened- knowing what I know now.”

“Tony, can you imagine, If I survived that accident, and if I still had the use of my legs, I’d be facing months in a body cast, then I’d be going through years of physical therapy. Every step I’d take would

have searing pain as its reward. I am thankful he did whatever he did. I can’t imagine the pain he’s saved me from.”

“But how did he do it? What are the costs to you? I need to know more.”

“It’s a gift, Tony! Every breath is a gift!” replied Gene.

“Okay! Sorry I asked!” Jordan stated as the argument thinned. “Now, before you canonize, or condemn, this guy, I have one more thing to show you both. Follow me. Actually, one of the insurance guys pointed this out to me when they were up last Thursday.” He led them about 30 feet toward the creek bed.

“Okay, what do you see?”

At first, Gene and Tony saw nothing, then they began to notice fir needles and cones all over the area indicated. Jordan then moved them twenty feet down stream. There they found the same abundance of fir needles, cones, plus the sawdust from the chain saws.

“Oh, my gosh!” was what came out of Gene. “The tree fell twice!”

“What does that mean?” asked Tony.

Jordan looked toward Gene. “Are you gonna tell him? Or do I have to?”

Gene walked them back to the spot where he had been standing two weeks prior. “I was standing here, working the wench.” He then pointed toward the area with just needles and cones. “When the tree

fell, that is where it landed first. The roots were just there, while I was here. It fell there- that’s all one straight line! The tree had to have fallen on me!”

“That’s absurd!” shouted Tony, “Maybe one branch! I sure didn’t notice any . . .”

“Hold on, Tony. Let him finish.”

“Then,” Gene continued, “Something must have moved the tree from its first fall, at least the top of the tree, to where it was when Jordan’s crew chopped it up this morning.”

“Well, what’s strong enough to do that?” asked Tony.

“In nature,” Jordan stated, “Any force with the power to move a fallen tree would definitely not leave the needles and cones on the river bottom. High winds would scatter the needles and cones down

wind. Rain would have washed them all away.”

“An earthquake could move the tree down slope.” said Gene.

Jordan shook his head. “Nothing else, including the log jam, showed any evidence of any shaking. Besides, I checked it out with the US Geological Survey last Friday. Nothing above 2.1 in the last two weeks.”

“So what does this all mean?” Tony asked.

“It means that your Mr. Manning moved a six ton tree to get to Gene and to heal him.” Jordan replied. “I don’t know about you, Tony, but I want a guardian angel like that when my time comes.”