Wooden Whistle

Wooden Whistle

By LuAnn Williamson

           Cold! It had been so cold a few minutes ago, when icy sleet had soaked through their lightweight coats and shoes. But at last she was warm. The survivors had found a small clearing in the forest where the trees had sheltered them from the weather. Better yet, it had sheltered a scattering of fallen tree limbs.

           As she drifted off to sleep, Kate realized they were sheltered in a place called “nature’s cathedral.”

           “I just realized,” she told her daughter who was closest to her, “we are taking refuge in a place called “nature’s cathedral.””

           “What?” Essie’s weary voice asked. 

           “Over the centuries, a giant tree lived its life cycle here, died eventually. Smaller trees sprouted from the stump. The stump decayed, nourishing the seedlings, which grow in a circle around the tree. When the trees get tall, it looks like a cathedral, thus the name.

           Maybe it was the references to the church that caused the dream; maybe it was her subconscious providing a memory to help in the situation. 

           Suddenly she was one of the small children, clustered outside of the tiny country church where she’d grown up. They were waiting for Mister Hazelton, also called the “whistle man.”

           “Is it time yet? Is it the right time?” the children could barely contain their excitement.

           Mr. Hazelton would study the tree, barely grown past a sapling. He had the intensity Katie had only seen in adults, reading the newspaper.

           “The sap needs to be rising,” he said solemnly, with the same intensity of the preacher they’d listen to a few moments before.

           Katie shivered in her new spring coat. Finally, he pulled the pocket knife from the front pocket of his suit trousers. He made a few tentative cuts, before declaring solemnly, “it’s time.”

           Mr. Hazelton sliced a branch, about the diameter of his pinky off the boxelder tree. He counted the children clustered around him, slicing the branch into equal pieces about two inches long. With cuts that were swift and sure, he’d put the pocket knife to work, whittling the twigs into wooden whistles. The old man pocked the blade and handed one each waiting child.

           Kate found herself being shaken awake by a man whose name she didn’t recall. He was one of the fellow survivors. “Your turn to guard,” he said gruffly. He hadn’t said much during the long slog down an unknown mountainside. He handed her the flashlight, the only one that they’d been able to salvage from the wreckage of the private plane. 

“Just use it only when necessary.” She noticed his brown eyes searching her face carefully as if taking stock of her and she didn’t quite measure up.

“You know Morris code?” he asked, a bit less gruffly. Kate shook her head back and forth.

“It’s three quick flashes, three long flashes, three short flashes. Turn yourself about an eighth of a circle and repeat. Only do it about every fifteen minutes or so.”

Katie pulled her cell phone out of her purse. Not only was it in no-bars, no signal status, but it was also showing less than 25% remaining charge.

“Hey,” she told the man, “you can use my cushion.” She pointed to the spot she vacated. She’d been one of the few people who’d grabbed the seats from the airplane as they left.

“Thanks,” he said and he smiled. “For what it’s worth, you were right to grab the seat cushions. They’ve been more useful than I thought.”

She’d dislodged the seat cushions, not as flotation devices, not in the frozen mountains of God-only-knew, middle of nowhere. She thought they’d make good makeshift toboggans. They had, sort of, for short stretches downward. But then someone had to hike them back to the people waiting above.

Alone and not quite shivering in the darkness that seemed oppressive, Kate took stock in the events that had gotten her here. Her husband, Fred, managed to score a flight on a private jet through one of his friend of a friend deals that he seemed to have a genius for arranging. He had a contract with Microsoft and had arranged for her, their two children and three of their grandchildren to catch a ride to SeaTac. From there, it was a quick van ride to Redmond. Kate and the kids would catch a bus to Seattle, with a beautiful ride over Lake Washington included in the trip.

She’d been sleeping in the cozy reclining seats, the comfort of the plush and the sleepiness caused by the motion sickness drugs influenced her into dozing just after they left Omaha airport.

She’d been jolted awake as the small jet slammed into a mountainside. She’d heard no warning sirens or anything else to alert them of possible danger.

As they took stock of the situation they determined, the pilot was dead. Kate’s husband, Bill was injured the worse. Her oldest Grandson, Grayson, had an ankle that was turning purple. But he felt he could watch his Grandfather if they did decide to walk to get rescue.

Her daughter, Essie, had insisted on walking down the mountain to bring up rescuers. Kate had simply wanted to wait by the wreckage. But Essie had insisted. She’s wanted Kate to go with them since Kate had experience in hiking in the mountains. But it was one thing to walk the boardwalks of Big Four Mountain or the carefully groomed trails near Gold Bar; it was entirely another thing to try to hike down an unknown mountain.

           Katie used her flashlight to make the signals. No one had told her how long to hold the intervals to make long and short flashes. She guessed it wouldn’t really matter. She switched on the beam, pointing it to the space she could only approximate was the top of the mountain. She flashed it on and off, then got the idea to just muffle the light with her hand. She used the light directed downward to scan the immediate area between flashes. She walked carefully in as much of an arc as she could around the camp. 

           She saw the low branch just as she got smacked in the face with snow and a stinging whip of branches. She was reaching for the offending branch, intending to snap it off when she realized it was a maple tree.  The scattering of dead leaves at the base confirmed it.  It didn’t look like boxelder, which was supposed to make the best whistles, but it just might work. The first buds opening told her that the sap was running through the tree. She grabbed the multi-function tool from its hidden compartment, stashed in a metal candy tin, inside her purse. The blades were sharp. But mostly it was handy for the tweezers and scissors. Opening the occasional box or stubborn package was just a bonus.

           Kate carefully selected a branch the size of her thumb.

She held it as she carefully made her way to the next location in a lopsided circle around the makeshift campsite. She made a few tentative cuts as she flashed the light.

The first attempts resulted in a dismal failure with the bark ripping instead of slipping off. She threw them aside in disgust. She found a large deadfall branch by almost tripping over it. Quickly, she dragged it into the clearing near the fire to finish drying off the snow. More firewood followed, some spotted by flashlight as she signaled to possible rescuers, some tripped over and once by face planting into the snow. Sputtering and swearing, as quietly as she could, she brushed herself off and went to stand by the fire to warm up. 

Finding a tree that had a space that was bare of snow, she sat down and tried her wood carving again. This time, the bark slipped off smoothly. Mr. Hazelton’s voice echoed in her memory. “For you kids, well more for your parent’s sake, I cut the chamber shallow.” He indicated the direction as he carved the channel for the wind to make a sound. If I cut it any deeper, it would make more noise and your parents would hate me.” He winked as he carved.

Carefully, so carefully, inch by inch, she slipped the bark back onto the carved twig. It ripped a little but she slid it to the bottom where it hopefully it wouldn’t affect anything.

Tentatively, she held the whistle up to her lips and gave a small, cautious blow. Nothing much happened. A vague squeak came out. That’s when she realized that she has failed to carve a hole for the air to come out. The whistles had one, two or even three holes on the top to be covered by childish fingers and make a simple tune.

Kate pushed the point of the knife into the wood over the open area that formed the air chamber. She tried again.  The wood gave a small, muffled whistle. 

With no clear instructions as to who she should wake up to relieve her, Kate kept making her circles in the snow, wearing down a path around the campsite, fetching more deadfall branches, leaving them near the fire to finish drying. Branch by branch she stoked fire, flashes by flashes she signaled to the unresponsive darkness. Bit by slow bit the sky started to lighten. At least now they could know which direction was east. Not that it really mattered.

Slowly the remainder of their party came awake and started stirring. The businessman came over to where she was stoking the fire, just enough to keep it going.

“Have you been awake all this time?” he asked. She didn’t know him well enough to know if that was compassion in his voice.

“Yeah; I’d be awake anyway. Let everybody sleep what little they could.”

“You must be exhausted,” there was probably compassion; just by the way he said it.

“Mostly cold,” she shivered. She pointed to her sport shoes. “At least they aren’t sandals. But I dressed for April in Seattle, not snow in forsaken-middle-of-nowhere.

“Go warm up as best as you can,” he nodded to the fire. “I’ll keep signaling till the sun is up.”

“Let me try something,” Kate pulled the wooden whistle out of her pocket. She took several deep breaths, hyperventilating herself in the process. She put the whistle to her lips and took one more breath. It worked. There was a loud, shrill whistle that rebounded off the mountains in a satisfying echo.

Those people not yet awake, sat up suddenly. “What was that?” was pretty much the question on everyone asked. Kate whistled, three short toots, then three notes as long as she could hold it, then the three short sounds.”

“Hush!” the man said in a commanding voice. “I hear something.”

Everyone in the group heard the sound. It was human voices. A very short time later, they heard an amplified voice saying, “Just stay where you are. We will be coming to you.”

Within a few minutes, the search and rescue party arrived. They were on skis and took stock of the situation. Within a short time, they were airlifted to the hospital in Billings, Montana. In flight, they were lectured by the leader of the rescue group for being so foolish as to leave the site of the accident.

“There’s one thing you can clear up for us,” the strongly built older man said from his seat in the copter. “That whistle we heard. It wasn’t a standard search and rescue whistle. It’s not something you’d find in a survival kit.”

Kate pulled the small object from the pocket of her jean’s jacket, handing it to the man. He pulled off his mittens to examine it. “It’s wood?”

Kate nodded. “Yes. An old man at our church carved them for us. He showed me how. I haven’t done it for years. But I dreamed about it. I had nothing to do during the long night, so I tried making one. Looks like I succeeded.”

Author’s note: Yes, the old man who carved wooden whistles for us did exist. I still have one of them in box of childhood memories.