The Giant Forest - COMPLETED - True to life adventures of preteens.

Keep Secrets from Those Closest to You

Bart and Prissie had gone to great effort to be self-sufficient. There is a false sort of security when we think we can get by on our own, sacrificing the effort to learn to get along with others. The Hermon's enjoyed their independence. They gathered all their own food, clothes, a roof over their heads, warmth ... Bart and Prissie could take care of all those things. Finding Artie. They realized they needed help. And they were not afraid to ask for it.

"I need to make the trip to town."

"Oh, Bart. It's been so long since we've been to town. Gracious. It's been so long since we've talked to anyone. You know what they think of us. Why would they even want to help us? We've never been any use to them."

Bart had a secret he had been keeping from Prissie. Strange as it may seem that even after they had been together for nearly 70 years ... or more, they, maybe it was just Bart, still felt the need to not tell one another everything.

"Priss. I gotta confess to you."

"What is it?"

"I've been seeing someone."

"Yeah, I know."

"What?! You know?!"

Prissie had a secret, too. She knew that Bart had been hiding something from her. But she wanted to respect his desire to at least appear fully capable of taking care of himself and them. "Silly men!" she would say to herself.

"Sometimes when I am out hunting I run into some fellas from town."

"Yeah, Bart. I know. It's okay."

"I am sorry I didn't tell you."

"It's okay. Now, you'll just have to wonder what secrets I have been keeping from you."

"You have secrets, too?"

Prissie smiled widely, winked at him, "You'll never know, will you?"

People who keep secrets from their loved ones often suspect their loved ones of keeping secrets as well. Bart regretted that he hadn't been more open with Prissie.

"I think I need to ask my friends for help."

Bart surprised himself, yet felt relief at the same time when he admitted out loud that he needed, wanted help from others.

"I am surprised you haven't asked them to help before now. Go! I'll take care of the kids. We need to find Artie. We need to do everything possible to find him ... " Prissie choked up. Tears welled up in her eyes.

"I'll get my stuff and leave right away."

Within minutes Bart was out the door. He grabbed his winter coat and his satchel. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and grabbed a box of ammo. He looked at the post where Artie hung his coat and was relieved to see the coat wasn't there.

"I hope the boy is staying warm."

The door slammed shut on its own. Bart had put a homemade spring on the door and beamed with pride at his 'invention.' He had read about the spring someplace. Invented in England he recalled. But he had made his own. When the door slammed shut Bart was reminded that he could do some things on his own, but not everything.

Prissie peered out the window and watched as Bart disappeared into the forest. Bart didn't look back. He walked much quicker than his years would or should have allowed him. Bart may have been in his 70s but he had the vim and vigor of perhaps someone in their 40s.

Bart couldn't run faster than a deer. But he had the stamina to stay in the chase till the deer could run no more. When hunting deer, Bart would out endure his prey. He would chase them at his quickest and unforgiving pace. When his prey was exhausted and could run no more, he would creep up close enough to be sure he wouldn't have to waste a shot.

The first time Bart caught a deer this way he had chased the deer deep into the forest and away from their homestead. He had to carry the deer on his shoulders back home. "I may be long on wind, but I am pretty short on brains," he thought to himself. From then on he made every effort to keep circling around his future meal in order to kill it as close to home as possible.

"Stupid I am," he said to himself, "But not endlessly stupid."

He didn't anticipate he would need his rifle so soon while on the hunt for Artie.

Bart was startled. He heard the crack of a fallen limb crushed under the weight of something walking nearby. It was a loud crack indicating a large animal. Indeed the crack was larger than any he had heard before. When you live in the woods you learn to tell the size of a nearby unseen animal by the sound of the rustle it makes in the brush. A human might intentionally make a similar sound. Only a large animal could make such a loud noise. Bart shuttered to think of how large the animal might be.

Normally animals will creep through the forest quietly enough to go undetected. Hungry animals, fearless animals, desperate animals didn't care what sound they made.

Bart unstrapped and loaded his rifle in one motion. He couldn't be sure which direction the sound came from. His only hope was that it didn't come from behind, the direction from where Prissie and the kids were.

He heard another crack, a crunch, followed by the sound of tree limbs scraping the side of an animal then whooshing behind.

Not ten paces ahead Bart saw the animal that had been causing the ruckus as it stepped out from its cover and looked straight at Bart.

It didn't do for Bart to look straight ahead. He had to look up to see into the eyes of the beast that he had come upon.

He was scared when he didn't know what was making the rustling sounds in the woods. Now that he knew, he was even more scared.