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she’s beautiful, he thought. He’d never seen Gertie like this. Modoc’s showers had wet her hair and dress so that it clung to her, innocently accentuating her small firm breasts. Dancing on Modoc’s huge wide back, she appeared to be floating in space as the beautiful scenery passed around her. Bram felt hypnotized in timeless quietude, with only the sounds of Gertie’s soft humming and Mo’s legs rustling through the underbrush.
    Gertie placed one foot on Mo’s backbone and started to turn, slowly at first, then gradually faster as she gained confidence. One arm rose like a crescent moon above her head. The lace of her dress billowed around her, with the speed of her twirling, ascending. Arms outstretched for balance, she let her head roll back; the centrifugal force flung her hair into one horizontal line as she spun like a ballerina in a music box. Gertie’s momentum, from the height of bliss, became awkward. Suddenly she was dizzy, trying to grab for something solid in the world now rushing by her. She became a marionette whose puppeteer had been suddenly distracted. Bram easily caught her fall into his strong arms. When she saw the concern in his face, her panic and disorientation subsided. Touching the sweat on his brow she put her finger to her lips. Bram had been enthralled, and he held her close, her body heat from the dance causing the now-familiar warmth in his loins. Gertie put her warm sensual lips on his; Bram closed his eyes. This was love of the deepest kind. She was his first love.
    The water looked so inviting. Cryer Lake curved through miles of the great Black Forest. Bram unloaded Mo, lowering everything to Gertie on the ground. Together they carried it to a great old pine tree, where roots ran above ground for a hundred yards in all directions.
    “It’s all yours, Mosie!” Bram cried.
    Modoc bellowed, swatted her trunk on the ground, then headed for the lake. The placid water, whose surface was as smooth as glass exploded as Modoc blasted her bulk against its calmness, throwing a cascade of gushing water everywhere at once. Bram stripped to his shorts. Gertie, in childlike innocence, pulled her dress off, leaving her panties on. Shoes flew in all directions. Hand in hand, screaming and yelling, they dove into the azure water. For an hour the three played. Mo thrashed the water with her head, whipping it back and forth, causing waves to sweep over the children. She danced and bellowed, completely immersed in her pleasure.
    Bram took Modoc into the deep part of the lake where he and Gertie could climb up on her back and use her as a diving platform. Sometimes Mo would gently pick them up in her trunk, depositing them on top of her head so they could dive from a higher place.
    The old pine tree’s needles provided a perfect carpet of shining green for their picnic blanket, and the simple fare seemed like a sumptuous feast. Looking straight up the massive trunk into a multitude of boughs, as Gertie curled up kittenlike against him, he imagined the branches were people as he stroked her hair. He remembered what his father had once told him, “Trees are like people and give the answers to the way of Man. They grow from the top down. Children, like treetops, have flexibility of youth, and sway more than larger adults at the bottom. They are more vulnerable to the elements, and are put to the test of survival by life’s strong winds, rain, freezing cold, and hot sun. Constantly challenged. As they mature, they journey down the tree, strengthening the family unit until one day they have become big hefty branches. In the stillness below, having weathered the seasons, they now relax in their old age, no longer subject to the stress from above. It’s always warmer and more enclosed at the base of a tree. The membersremain protected and strong as they bear the weight and give support to the entire tree. They have the endurance.”
    Bram liked his father’s teachings and he realized that in humans the