Lead-sled-stretched-gray-smoke-ring skies with intermittent misty drizzle at an ever-steady 43.7° Fahrenheit (6.5° Celsius). These are the weather conditions in the Hillsboro – Forest Grove (Oregon) area at 11:22 on Sunday forenoon, December 17th, 2017. In the ground-floor, taupe-painted, supplementally-warmed-via-a-wall-mounted-infrared-heater-panel den of a two-car-garage suburban home on North 28th Avenue in the town of Cornelius; a 47-year-old Caucasian father takes a second gulp from his mug of coffee while half-sunkenly [sic] ensconced in a chestnut-brown, genuine-leatherette recliner. The wide flat-screen TV is on; an NFL pregame show is airing.
“Will this upcoming Week 15 tilt with the [Tennessee] Titans at Levi’s Stadium make three wins in a row for the suddenly surging [San Francisco] 49ers?” Suddenly surging? Oh, please! Cease with the ridiculous hype.
George thinks aloud: “Too little, too late. Just postmortem academic exercises now. Toe-tag ’em.”
His dark-haired, abstruse-T-shirt-with-black-jeans-and-white-sneakers, 13-year-old son, Erik, stealthily emerges in the one-small-window-with-mini-blinds-downwardly-closed room. “Well, you never know, dad. Didn’t you say ‘it’s never over until it’s over’ just three weeks ago?” He remembered.
“They don’t have enough games remaining on their schedule, son. Losing their first nine games ended any realistic chance of them making the playoffs. And losing to the [Seattle] Seahawks was the final nail in the coffin. Stick a fork in them; they’re done for this season. Not even an in-his-prime Joe Montana could save them now.”
“Darn it!” Erik pouts.
An end-of-the-first-quarter score from a game in the Eastern Time Zone appears on the lower margin of the recently dusted 57” x 33” (145 cm x 84 cm) rectangle: Green Bay 7 Carolina 7. Sevens. The strange magic of mysterious prime number 7. Should I demonstrate it to him? Oh, why not?
“Son, do you know the decimal equivalent of one seventh?” Why on Earth is dad asking me that?
“Uh, let’s see … It’s point-one-four-something. Am I right?”
“Yes, you most certainly are. It starts with .14 – fourteen. And what is fourteen in NFL score terms – well, most often?”
“Two touchdowns with two extra-points,” Erik ventures.
“Precisely. And what two digits do you think follow .14, son?”
“No idea, dad. I don’t have that pocket calculator or my smartphone on me; they’re both up in my bedroom.”
“Two then eight – twenty-eight, which is equal to what, son?”
“Four touchdowns with four extra-points,” Erik answers more assuredly.
“Right again, son. You’re two for two. Now, what pair of numbers conclude the string of six digits? I’ll give you a hint: this final duet does not include any of the previous four numbers. Now I have greatly increased your chances. So, which two are they?” Woah! Only dad thinks up such stuff. He should submit material to Jeopardy.
Erik begins to ponder his dad’s numerical proposition. Two touchdowns, then four touchdowns, then six touchdowns. Or, is it eight touchdowns? Which one? Six touchdowns with all extra-points made would be 42. But, 4 and 2 have already been used in the decimal sequence: .1428. The pattern must keep doubling the previous pair. Yeah, it must be eight touchdowns with all successful extra-points: 56. Yep, numbers 5 and 6 are ok; they haven’t been used yet.
“Need some more time, son?” 5-6 – the last duo.
“No, dad, think I’ve got it. Eight touchdowns with eight extra-points would be fifty-six. So, is one seventh equal to .142856?” Ipso non facto [sic] Oh, this imperfect septiminal [sic] life. Hope this doesn’t cause him to lose faith in perfection, like it did for me when I discovered this back in … oh, what year was it? Forgot.
“So very close, son; it’s actually equal to point-one-four-two-eight-five-SEVEN, which repeats over and over for infinity. Fifty-six would have made too much of a nice and orderly sextet pattern; thus, the maverick number 7 stamped itself on the end of the string.” Maverick?
“Ok, dad,” Erik sighs resignedly.
“Well, enough fractional math, son. Hey, how about a hike later? The rain looks to be wrapping up around noon. The [Oregon] Coastal Range is already clearing according to this radar site.” [looking at his Samsung Galaxy S8 smartphone]
“Yeah, sure, dad. Which area?”
“I was recently tipped off about this cool area called Enright, son. It features an abandoned railroad – there are even disintegrating railcars on a decade-ago-deserted siding – in a heavily wooded valley. The tracks are slowly being reclaimed by nature; plants have sprung up along and between the rails and ties, but it is still walkable. There are even some tunnels. So, we’ll bring some flashlights. What is your sister doing? Do you think that she would want to go, too?” Gosh, sure hope not.
“Of course, daddy!” cerise-brunette, purple-and-pink-bloused, chartreuse-sweatpants-donning 11-year-old Julia trumpets from the hallway door. Need to bring pepper spray, just in case.
“Great,” George replies. “What about your mom? Could you go back upstairs and ask her, darling?” Doubt she’ll want to go; Barb[ara] burned-out on hiking years ago. What year did we see that black bear? 2013? Or, was it 2012? My memory sure is starting to get rusty. / Mom is not going to want to go. Dad should already know that. Just hope that she allows me to go. Want to get out of this house today. So bored out of my gourd. / Bet mom says ‘No.’ Why is Julia so excited to go hiking with me and dad? She probably just wants to annoy me. Or impress dad with her elementary botany knowledge. Or both. Bleh.
And just as all three had surmised, George’s wife politely declines. Half-Guamanian Barbara is actually looking forward to several hours of quiet novel-reading time alone.
At a precipitation-less, though considerably dank, 11:55 AM, the Moskeys’ 2015 silver Honda Odyssey rolls down and off the still-oil-stain-less concrete driveway. Seventeen largely conversation-less minutes later, the minivan is passing Wilkesboro Road on Oregon Route 47 North. The narrow, rectangular, forest-green street sign compels George to think of his younger brother. Never would have guessed that teetotaler Ross would end up in this country’s moonshine capital – Wilkesboro, North Carolina – of all places. And somehow I ended up in Cornelius, Oregon. And there’s a Cornelius in North Carolina and a Wilkesboro in Oregon. What are the odds of that for a pair of brothers from Ames, Iowa? A problem for a quantum computer.
Soon they are whizzing westward on two-lane, light-traffic Oregon Route 6. The foothills and low mountains become visible as the road splits the left-side copses and right-side bogs. After a dip to southwest, the highway leads the Odyssey northwestward. It is still overcast, but it seems a little lighter as they traverse the evergreen-Douglas-firs-and-leafless-deciduous-trees foothills.
“How much farther?” Erik barks from the rearmost left-side seat. Please be under 45 minutes.
Julia, who is sitting in the front-right passenger seat, studies a map on her LG G6 smartphone as they pass a redwood-plank-sided Glenwood Store & Park. “Thirty-point-seven miles [49.4 km] and sixty-nine minutes,” she proudly proclaims. Ughh …
“Wake me up when we’re at the trailhead; I’m going to take a nap,” Erik retorts.
And Erik does just that seven minutes later.
Julia acts as the navigator as they weave through the increasingly dense, much-more-mountain-esque woodlands.
At an eerie-remote-feeling 1:29 PM, George pulls the minivan off smooth-but-unpaved Tin Shack Road onto a briefly wide section of shoulder. Hope the van will be ok here. James [a coworker] said that he didn’t get ticketed or broken-into. Fingers crossed.
“Ok, sleepyhead, we’re here,” George announces rearward.
Erik slowly re-awakens. “This is the trailhead?” No signs. Doesn’t look legit. Where exactly are we?
“An unofficial one, son. It will reduce a whole-day hike to a half-day length. We’ll get to Tunnel 36 much faster. And, fear not; this shortcut is all on public land, so we won’t be trespassing on any private property.” But, should we really be hiking on it?
They disembark; put on their coats, caps, gloves, and backpacks; chomp down some energy bars; drink some Alpenaide®; and begin scaling the hillside on a faint deer trail. The incline is quite steep for the first 400 feet (122 meters). The threesome is huffing and puffing. They can see their exhalations hanging in the almost-calm, damp, chilly air. Whew! What a workout! Hope I don’t have a heart attack out here. / What has dad got us into? / Hope dad truly knows where we are.
“Dad, how far is it to Tunnel 36 from here?” Julia enquires as the trail flattens and widens on the southern side of a ridge. Isn’t it on her map app?
“Right at 2.2 miles, [3.54 km] my dear. It’s level to downhill from here. The worst of it was the beginning.” But, we’ll have to come back the same way. Sure hope the descent is gradual.
The trio marches on in silence through the ferns and western hemlocks with George leading the way and Julia betwixt. They suddenly hear the roar of an invisible-to-them jet airliner directly overhead. Sounds a little low. Hope they make it into PDX [Portland International Airport] ok. Wonder whence it took off. Southeast Asia most likely. Probably a [Boeing] 747 or an [Airbus] A380. Wonder if anyone on that airplane is thinking about [Samuel] Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape. [a one-act play] ‘Crap’s Last Crap, o muy constipado’ [‘or very constipated’ in Spanish] What a silly bilingual thought. Meta-mentality amok. / Dad sure seems lost in his thoughts. Wonder what he is thinking about. Numbers? / Feeling a little tired now. Hope it’s not much farther. Wonder what in the world Erik is thinking bout. His crush? Don’t think that Sally likes him. Should I tell him? No.
They soon find themselves in a nascent glen heading northeast on an old logging road. They descend alongside trickling Clay Creek in silence. In thirteen Sitka-spruces-identified-by-Julia minutes, they arrive at the confluence with Salmonberry Creek, turn left (downstream), and begin following the overgrown railroad tracks westward towards only-two-houses-now-and-not-much-else Enright.
It isn’t long before they come upon a railroad switch in which the earth under the branch line has washed away. All that remains are the two steel rails dangling across the creek sans ties. Glad we don’t have to cross that. / Yikes! Sure would hate to have been on a train on that section of tracks when that washout occurred. / Bet that I could make it across there by walking on all fours.
After a score of weaving-through-western-red-cedar-saplings paces, their destination appears: Tunnel 36. Excellent! We’re right on track. Literally. / Wonder if sis is going to be too freaked-out to enter it. / This looks creepy! But, I can’t let them know that I’m scared.
“Ok, guys, time to get those flashlights out,” George declares after stopping just before the eastern portal.
Seventy-seven wondering-how-this-opt-in-adventure-will-transpire seconds later, the familial triplet enters the dark, cracked-stone-lined tunnel. They walk slowly, maintaining the same single-file order. George aims his flashlight beam at the tracks ahead; Julia, down at her and George’s shoes; Erik, down at his shoes, but occasionally at the craggy ceiling.
“Everyone doing ok?” George checks.
“All good back here,” Erik quickly blurts.
“I’m doing fine, dad,” Julia softly whispers.
Suddenly there is a flapping sound. Something airborne is approaching them. Then there is an unnervingly loud shrill. Think we just ruined a nocturnal winged creature’s afternoon respite. / I’m sure that it’s just a startled bird – not a Phantasm Sentinel. / Oh, no! What is that? A cave-dwelling phantom of some kind? Yikes!
George and Erik scan the upper portion of the tunnel with their flashlights. Julia, who is very frightened, advances forward with her head down and bumps into her dad’s lower back, which causes her to drop her purple flashlight.
A no-longer-in-a-good-mood adult big brown bat flutters over their heads. And then out of the tunnel. Woah!
“What was that, daddy?” Julia asks while gasping.
“Just a very beneficial, insect-eating bat, my dear. Nothing more than a common bat – not a vampire. We’re ok. It has no interest in us.” Why did dad have to say the word ‘vampire’? Wish he wouldn’t have. / Sis seems spooked.
Erik notices that the beam of Julia’s fallen, 4.5-volt, plastic flashlight is shining on an anomalous 4” x 5” (10.2 cm x 12.7 cm) rock face four feet (1.2 meters) above the ground on the northern tunnel wall. He walks over and touches the beige flat stone. It gives slightly. He then pries at the edges with his thin-gloved fingertips. The thin slab of siltstone is soon carefully removed, exposing a compact cavity. Inside there is a folded-in-sixths, autumn-squash-yellow-with-mineral-deposit-laden-rainwater-stains, heavyweight-matte sheet of paper. He extracts and unfolds it. A secret recipe?
“Is it a treasure map, son?” George asks. And then briefly chuckles.
Unfazed, Erik begins reading the tidily penned script aloud.
“To whomever the finder be, I have always been fascinated with Japanese haiku and archaic English words. Thus, I have combined the two. On the reverse are six 5-7-5-metered poems. Hope you enjoy them. As for me, think I will be moving along now to other frontiers; been traipsing around Earth long enough now with these old osteoporotic bones. Sincerely, Karen Renner Nerak.” [12/17/2011]
Erik then turns the limp-from-dampness sheet of paper over. He studies the haiku poems, of which each is inset into one of the six blocks created by the fold lines.
#01292011
Trig wench falls for knave | Tocsin thrice in this taiga | Dark cordwainer’s bane
#02252011
Coxcomb fore cutpurse | Perchance moil for naught methinks | Magdalen hies yon
#04152011
Fishwife ere fizgig | Gallant forfends espousal | Allwayes a doxy
#07152011
Rapscallion rover | Lief portaging jade to jakes | Nothing nay nithing
#08312011
My leman seaman | Mister Iron Horse Scapegrace | Apt cicisbeo
#10192011
Prithee somewhither | Peradventure fare swoopstake | Maugre wist wanion
“Well, son, are you going to read the haiku to us?” George prods as he glances down the tunnel.
“Dad, maybe it’s best for each of us to read it ourselves back in the van.” Wonder what it says. / Strange that Erik won’t read it to us.
“Well, do you guys want to continue to Enright to see the decrepit railcars and the old steam-locomotive water tank?” George surveys. Outright Enright.
“I think this was the event of the day, dad,” Julia opines. “We can go back now.” Enough of this scary tunnel.
“Yeah, we can always come back some other day and see those things, dad,” Erik concurs. So glad he said that.
And with that, the troupe of three begin to march back out of Tunnel 36. The trip back to their minivan is without incident. And, much to the relief of George, there is no citation or damage to their utilitarian vehicle.
Once everyone is back in their previous seat, George begins reading the six aforementioned haiku poems to himself. Boy, there’s a boatload of archaic words alright. Will have to look them up on an internet dictionary later. Some of these look a little racy. Maybe shouldn’t let Julia hold onto this sheet of paper for too long. I just know that she will go to an online translator on her phone. And then I’ll never hear the end of it from Barb. Need to think of a plausible reason why she shouldn’t hold onto it for more than a minute. Wonder who this Karen lady is. Or was. Is she still alive? Probably some eccentric. Need to research this later. Erik will want to, too. Hmmm …
“Ouch!” George exclaims. “My fingers are stinging and tingling. I think there is a corrosive substance on this paper.”
“Really?” Julia asks surprisedly. Dad just doesn’t want her to see it. I’ll play along.
“A hyper-acidic chemical compound must have leached onto the paper, dad.” Thanks, son.
George quickly refolds the 8½” x 11” (21.59 cm x 27.94 cm) sheet and stuffs it between the sun visor and headliner. He then promptly drives the minivan onto the road, making a tight U-turn. They begin heading back the same way that they came.
“Dad, I could put my gloves back on and safely read it, right?” Julia proposes. She’s smart … and persistent – just like her mom.
“Darling, we’re already rolling. It’s unsafe for me to try to retrieve it while driving. We’ll let it dry out up there on the way back to the house. It may even be safe to touch barehanded then.” Can tell that dad doesn’t want me to read it. But, why? What does it say?
Seventy-three minutes later, George slows their window-wrapped shuttle and veers right for a Shell gasoline station with a Food Mart just before where Oregon Route 8 breaks away from Oregon Route 6.
“Restroom and/or snacks, anyone?” George announces like a Greyhound bus driver.
“Yeah, I gotta pee,” Erik replies. He gets up to exit.
“I’m fine,” Julia states. This is my chance.
George and Erik are soon inside the small convenience store.
Julia then carefully and discreetly removes and unfolds the sheet of paper with gloves donned. She quickly snaps a high-resolution photo with her cell phone. Then refolds and replaces it, and doffs her gloves. Yey! Got it. Will decipher those poems after dinner.
They would return safely. Julia and George would independently get the haiku translated. George’s online research would reveal that Karen went missing in late December of 2010, and that she was a never-married English teacher at Clatsop Community College (Astoria).
“Fizgig!” George overhears while walking past Julia’s closed bedroom door at 10:20 PM.