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“Ah,” he says, and we go silent.
“Legend has it he also told his roadhouse audience where it was,” I go on, still looking at the map. “There are conflicting accounts about it, but the general consensus is that he shoved a bag full of coins and jewelry into the hollow of an oak tree next to a big rock, within hearing distance of a waterfall, and near a stand of evergreen trees. He also claims to have planted a second oak tree at the spot, so he could find it again when he went back.”
“He planted an oak tree in a forest to serve as a marker?” Levi asks. “In a forest full of oak trees?”
“Look, I didn’t make the plan,” I say. “No one’s ever claimed that Phineas and Obadiah were smart, just that they were vicious and greedy.”
Levi reaches over me and over the maps to grab a printed picture. It’s blurry and faded — clearly the printer wasn’t quite up to the task — but it’s good enough.
On it, there’s the stump of a massive tree — R.I.P. Glenda — the trunk chopped into three-foot lengths. Next to it, two smaller trees suffered the same fate.
“Or it’s aliens,” I say.
“Always an option,” Levi agrees, still looking at the picture. “You know, June, I think you might be onto something, but how the hell did you think of this in the first place?”
“I got really into local history when I was nine or ten,” I admit. “You know, a standard ten-year-old girl interest.”
“Was that the year you wore a pioneer dress for Halloween?” he asks, sliding me a glance.
Levi remembers my Halloween costume?
“Technically it was a peasant blouse from Goodwill and an old hippie skirt that my mom had, but there was a bonnet,” I say.
“The bonnet’s what I remember,” he says. “Mainly, I remember showing up at your house because Silas and I were supposed to take you trick-or-treating, but instead your parents were furious at him for egging someone’s car so I ended up going back home.”
I laugh, nervousness tightening the pit of my stomach at the reminder that they used to take me trick-or-treating. If that’s not a kid sister thing, I don’t know what is.
“I don’t know how he never dragged you down with him,” I say.
“Oh, he tried,” Levi says. “He tried all the time. I just never wanted any part of it.”
Of course Levi was the one teenager who peer pressure never worked on.
He nods at the papers strewn across the floor.
“What next?” he asks, and I put the laptop back on the floor, then lean my elbow on my knee and my chin in my hand.
“I hadn’t quite gotten that far,” I admit. “I’d say we should keep track of everyone going into the forest and detain anyone with a chainsaw, but that’s impossible, right?”
“I doubt that anyone going into the forest with a chainsaw is signing a trail register,” he confirms.
Then he leans forward, studying a map. His knee brushes mine. I don’t move a muscle.
“Logging records,” he says. “If they’re available, at least. They’re looking for trees that were already full-grown two hundred years ago, right?”
“So we should skip anywhere that’s been logged since 1830,” I say.
He’s silent a moment. Then he sits up, looks at me.
“You keep saying we,” Levi says.
My heart thuds like a clumsily dropped basketball.
“Yes,” I say.
He pushes himself to his feet and stands, brushing his palms together.
“This is a Forest Service problem,” he says. “Strictly speaking, I shouldn’t have even told you about it.”
“But you already did, and I helped,” I point out, still on the floor. “Listen, I can help you look up records, and go through old maps, and maybe we can take a hike and visit some of these trees—"
“No,” he says, suddenly curt.
“Come on.”
“June, this is my project, not our project,” Levi says, his voice quiet but hard.
“Until this morning you thought this was vandalism, for Pete’s sake—”
“This isn’t a discussion,” he says. “We’re not working together.”
I close my mouth and glare, angry and baffled because two minutes ago, it felt like we were working together, and now he’s abruptly shutting me out of the most interesting story I’ve come near in months and I have no idea why.
“What the hell?” I ask, the most eloquent thing I can come up with.
Levi swallows and glances away before he answers.
“It’s Forest Service business,” he says, not making eye contact. “It could get dangerous. I don’t know. I never should have involved you.”
“In the past month the most interesting thing I’ve done was write a puff piece for Aluminum Quarterly about exciting new alloys that’ll give soda drinkers a more pleasing pop top experience,” I say, also getting to my feet.
We stand there for a long moment. He looks at me again, face unreadable.
