The Ash in the Orchard -- second excerpt

Not far from the shade of the orchard, Kevin stood at a bend in a small stream, while the basket lay on the grass nearby. The water flowed as it had for centuries, smoothing jagged rocks into lumps like small, petrified eggs. He examined a place where the stream had worn away the soft earth in its path, leaving a resilient shelf of clay. With his toe he nudged a loose stone into the water, and the resultant ripple spread unevenly as the current swept it along.

He picked up one of the apples and held it like a baseball. He tossed it repeatedly into the air, each time catching it gently with both hands. Once, it slipped form him and fell to the ground, and when he retrieved it the skin was dirty but unbroken.

The stream rode high along its bank, and Kevin knelt in the grass just a few inches above the water. Gripping the apple firmly, he reached into the stream, letting the current rinse it clean. When he withdrew his hand, the fruit glittered like an ornament. He wiped a thumb over the skin, chasing a bead of water along the curve until it dripped to the ground. As he turned the apple back and forth, his reflection distorted across the surface as it would on a sheet of foil. He brought it close to his face and stared at his image. His breath left no steam on the apple, as it might have on a glass or mirror, and he returned it to the basket without taking even a tiny bite. Instead, he sat in the grass, picked up a small handful of stones from the bank, and pitched them one after the other into the undulating stream.

When he had finished he rose to his feet, collected the basket, and wandered back among the apple trees. He found Mike walking slowly from tree to tree, scanning the branches and looking carefully over the ground.

“I was trying to find your tree,” Mike said.

“Over there,” Kevin answered, pointing to the opposite end of the field. Together they crossed the orchard until they came to a tall tree, blackened like a column of soot. Mike stood beside the stricken trunk and knocked on it with his fist, and the wood echoed like an empty barrel. He tugged at one of the lower branches, and it creaked as though, with only a little more effort, Mike could tear the limb away. As he shook the branch, large flaked of bark drifted from the trunk, fluttering to the ground like a discarded skin.

“I think it’s dead,” he said.

“That’s where I got them,” Kevin protested, pointing to a brittle-looking branch.

“Are you sure?” Mike asked. “How could anything grow here?”

“I don’t know. I just found them.”

Later Mike and Kevin stood at either end of the driveway, each with a baseball glove on his left hand. They tossed a ball between them, but Kevin missed the ball almost as often as he caught it.

“What makes them gold?” he asked, retrieving the ball from the bushes.

“Could be something in the soil,” Mike called. “I’ve never heard of it before.”

“Mom said you’d ask somebody at college,” Kevin pressed as he threw the ball again.

“I know someone who might be able to help.”

“What should we do with them?”

“The college might buy them, I guess. They’re yours, aren’t they?”

“Should we sell them?”

“I don’t know,” Mike admitted.

Mike introduced the woman as Dina Ferguson. She stood over six feet tall, and her short, red hair outlined her face like a corona. Her eyes darted about as though scanning for prey, and with each step she thrust her heel against the ground as if she intended to engrave her passage upon the earth. She held a copy of Otto Eismann’s Atypical Plant Phenotypes of North America, which she described as the definitive work on the subject. She stared fixedly at the section of apple in her hand, a little wedge of sunlight. Even sitting at the table, she towered over Samantha.

Absently Dina thumbed through the book. “Bizarre coloration is well known among plant life,” she explained. “1954 saw a crop of pale blue squash in Friedens, North Dakota, and the leaves of the Ozark Maple have been known to change color several times during the week of the summer solstice. Are you aware that the ‘fruit’ are actually the ovaries of the plant?”

“Ovaries?”

“And the seeds are the ova. The whole purpose of the fruit is to inspire some creature to transport the ova far from the plant, thereby reproducing it.”

“But gold?” Samantha asked warily.

“My theory is that the tree has adapted to produce a fruit especially attractive to man’s materialistic nature. He sees the golden apple and must have it.” Her eyes swept the room. “Michael tells me that there were five.”

“I cut one,” Samantha returned, indicating the wedges scattered about the table. “Kevin has the others.”

“You let him run around with them?”

“Well,” Samantha said, “he found them.”

“But they’re rare specimens.” She cleared her throat. “Where is the orchard?”

“He only calls it that because a few apple trees grow there. It’s more like a field, really.”

Dina appeared uninterested in the distinction. “Who cultivates it?”

“No one. They just grow.”

“Oh,” said Dina as she eyed the apple sections. “You understand of course that I can’t make a determination here. I’ll have to take it with me.”

We have apple trees. Anything about apple trees I move towards.My wife has a store called Apple Hollow.I have tryed to grow then here in Ok., for the last 15 years.To many diseases, cedar rust, fire blight, etc.I still love apple trees.

I would never pass up a science fiction story or book. My friend Robert F. Young wrote science fiction and fantasy (among other things). He was compared favorably to Ray Bradbury. He was published regularly in Galaxy, Bluebook, many pulp magazines of the period and at least once in Playboy. In addition he has several anthologies in hardback. Disney presently owns one of his time travel stories. Robert passed on some years ago.

Your work compares to his. He would have enjoyed your writing I am sure.

I am a high school drop out and in no way will I critique fiction, or presentation. Some technical subjects, non-fiction I might.

Your story puts me in mind of another title; 'Golden Apples of the Sun.' Bradbury I think.

180

I have read some Robert F Young Stories (recommended by "you know who") and I think this compares favorably to his writing

His writing is available online (via Google) if you are interested ,orrix

I was very attracted to the title since I grew up in an orchard myself, playing there as a child, working each summer with my extended family. I found your writing took me back to that dreamy past of my own memories...thanks!