The Tale of the Last Tree

by Nimdee Books

The Elder was an old odum tree, the last of the great trees. Where her friends had once stood, there were only stumps. But every evening, when the heat went out of the day, the young trees gathered at her roots. “Gather close,” she said. “Tonight, a tale.”
The Wind came laughing through the leaves, and the young trees giggled and settled in. “Which tale tonight?” asked the Elder. “The drought!” called Little One, the smallest young tree of all. “Once there was a drought,” said the Elder. “The Rain was late and far. So the great trees shared one last drop of water, root to root, old to young, all along the line. Nobody was left alone.”
“And the flood?” asked Little One. “The brown water pulled and pulled at the Soil,” said the Elder. “A mother bird sat on her nest in my branches and watched it come. But every root held every other root, and the Soil stayed. The Soil cannot hold herself, little ones. We hold her.”
“The elephant summer,” said Little One, very softly, because it was the favourite tale. The Elder smiled. “The Sun was hot, so the great trees made one green roof to shade the elephants. A calf slept between my roots, and the big elephants rubbed their backs on my bark until it shone. It was the best summer I remember.”
“Why are all the others only stumps?” asked Little One. The Elder was quiet for a long time. “Men came with saws, one tree at a time,” she said. “They painted an orange circle on the next tree to fall, closer and closer to me.”
Little One looked up at the Elder. “How old are you?” “Very old,” she said. “Every year I grow one ring inside my trunk, one for each year I live, and I keep count.” “How many rings?” asked Little One. “Three hundred and eleven,” said the Elder.
Later, when the stars were out, the Wind came back, and this time he did not laugh. “There is a new mark on you,” he said. “An orange circle, painted on your bark. Round like a ring, but painted on, not grown. It is the men’s mark. It means you are next.” The young trees turned to look. There it was, bright in the dark.
All the roots shivered. “Tonight I will tell you a tale that has not happened yet,” said the Elder. “Tomorrow the men will come, and the noise will begin. Do not be afraid. Tell the seedlings, the new little trees who will grow after you, that we were here, all of us, the great trees.” “I will,” whispered Little One.
At dawn the noise began, the whine of the saws. The hornbills, the big birds of the old trees, rose and called out for the great trees that were gone.
The Elder closed her eyes and did what she had always done. She counted, one ring for every year she had lived: three hundred and eleven. Her years were nearly done, but the young trees’ years had hardly begun. She thought of all the rings they would grow, ring after ring after ring, and there were so many. “Little One,” she whispered. “Tell the seedlings.”
The saws came to the old odum, and she fell. Then the noise stopped. The forest was quiet, and the young trees did not speak for a long time. They were too small to cut, so the men left them standing. A stump stood where she had been, with all her rings showing, a tale told in rings for anyone who could read them. At last Little One whispered to the stump the words the Elder had left them: “We were here.”
In the days after, the Rain came thin and tired, for the Rain loves a forest, and there was hardly any forest left. The Soil, with so few roots to hold her, began to crack. One night a crack opened wider than the rest, and Little One reached out a root and held its edge until morning. “We hold the Soil,” whispered the young trees, and they wound their small roots tight around the cracked ground. The cracks were wide and the roots were small, but they held on.
Many years later, the young trees had grown tall, and Little One was the tallest of all. The cracks in the Soil had closed, knitted shut by their roots, and the Soil stayed, held by every root. The Rain came home. And the Wind, who had learned to laugh again, carried their seeds across the land, where they fell and rooted, and tiny seedlings sprouted.
Little One looked down at the seedlings, tiny new trees standing all around. “Gather close,” said Little One. “Tonight, a tale.” Little One began with the elephant summer, the favourite tale, and then told them of the old odum who counted every year. The old odum had been the last of the great trees. But she was not the last tree.
Tell them we were here.

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