vignette ~ Zeke's Place

The war was coming closer. Tommy Whelton had stumbled into town, scratched and bleeding, to tell the council that everyone had to leave. The bad guys had found their way through Anchor’s Pass and now were only six miles away.

Zeke Potter had been at The Post when the word spread around, and he left immediately for his parent’s house. Even though they had been killed two years ago, 17-year old Zeke had done a good job of managing the place -- planting and tilling the small harvest plot, keeping the two goats and Millie the cow happy, and repairing the small house when something went wrong.

Zeke liked living there, at the edge of the forest, but had known this day would probably come. He even had taken the time to prepare a pack in case he needed to leave abruptly. He opened the pen so the goats and Millie could fend for themselves, then grabbed his pack and headed into the woods -- the opposite direction from Anchor’s Pass.

Zeke had been in the woods so many times as he was growing up. He knew how to get to Lookout Point, how to navigate Cooley’s Cavern, and most important, how to find old man Geary’s hide-away.

He figured everyone had forgotten about Geary. The old man had flipped crazy when his wife and baby girl had been killed all those years ago. He had gone off and most people assumed he’d just totally left the area. But Zeke knew different. One day Zeke‘d gone off tracking a deer and had followed it into a box canyon. The entrance to the canyon had been cleverly hidden by nature, and if it hadn’t been for the deer tracks, Zeke would have missed it entirely.

First he noticed the stream and small pond, then he saw the chickens. Then Geary had popped out of nowhere, with a gun in his hands, and had scared Zeke nearly to death. Since Zeke had only been thirteen at the time, and scrawnily unthreatening at that, Geary had listened to his explanation, then under threat of severe torture, had extracted a promise from Zeke to never tell anyone his place was in that canyon.

Zeke never had told anyone about the experience, after all he was a man, or rather a boy, of his word. But when he found out the whole story about Geary, he felt sad for the guy, and kept his mouth shut because he felt Geary deserved his privacy.

But now it was time to go to Geary, let him know what was happening, then head on past the canyon. Zeke hadn’t really explored much past that canyon, but from Lookout Point there was forest in all directions except toward Anchor’s Pass, so Zeke figured he could head out and keep away from people for a pretty long time. He knew how to hunt, how to fish, how to identify healing plants, and even how to swim if it came to that.

It took two hours to get to the hidden entrance to the box canyon, even with Zeke moving quickly. He estimated there was about three hours of sunlight left before the high canyon walls turned everything to shadow. He got through the entrance, then about fifteen minutes beyond, everything thinned out enough to take a breath.

“Geary,” Zeke shouted. “Geary, it’s me ... Zeke.” There was no response and Zeke continued on, knowing Geary would be aware of his every movement. When he approached the pond, he called out again, but there was only silence. Wondering if he was on the verge of death, Zeke continued past the pond, past the tall boulders and scrub brush until he could see Geary’s small shack.

“Hey Geary. It’s me, Zeke. I’ve come with news of invaders.” You’re the only invader I’ve seen Zeke could just hear Geary yell at him. But something about the quiet felt wrong. Zeke listened carefully for any hint of danger; he sorted through the smells he was breathing; he turned slowly in place, eyeing every foot of ground trying to figure out what wasn’t right.

Finally he moved from where he stood, checking out first the left side of the shack, then the right side. And that’s when he found the answer. Geary was dead. He, or his skeleton rather, was sprawled out in the side yard where a cougar or something must have taken him down. His clothes were tattered, torn, and scattered, and looked like they’d gone through several seasons that way so it had been awhile since it happened.

He thought about burying the remains then decided he’d better just leave things the way they were. That way when someone else came along, they would have no inkling Zeke had been there. He bowed his head and said some honest words, then turned back to his task.

Geary had built the shack right up against the back canyon wall. There was actually a wide front porch on the thing, and a solid-fitting door. Zeke went inside and was astonished at how homey everything was. There was a neatly-made bed on the left, with pegs for hanging things on the wall at the headboard, a number of furry fox skins scattered across the stone floor, a small table on the right side with a stone fireplace in the back. Cooking pots and several utensils were lined up on a small shelf next to the fireplace.

This’ll work Zeke thought as he put his pack down. I’m not going to change anything outside, but I’ll make myself at home inside. He spent the rest of the day carefully walking around outside, seeing if there was anything to eat, and trying to discover the secrets of the place.

It wasn’t until the third day that Zeke discovered the biggest secret -- there was a bolt-hole. Down by the pond, Zeke had found three almost-perfectly-round stones which he enjoyed carrying around in his pocket. Every-so-often, from wherever he was standing in the small shack, he would lob each stone onto the bed, trying to hit the same place each time. He figured it was good exercise getting the hand and eye to work together.

On one try, a stone had hit another one and taken a wonky bounce off behind the bed. Zeke tried to move the bed, found it was bolted to the wall, then crawled under it to retrieve the stone. He probably wouldn’t have noticed even then, except when he reached for the stone, which had rolled up against the wall, he felt something. A rush of air where it shouldn’t be. He took a second look and, by damn, there was something deliberately different here. After carefully searching, he finally noticed the small knob, tucked up behind the bed frame and out-of-sight.

He turned the knob, put his fingernail in the tiny indentation, then gently pulled. A section of the wall fell outward. He noticed there was lots of light as he inched his way into the room. It wasn’t a room, exactly, it was a space about two feet deep and three feet wide snugged right up to the canyon wall. It reminded him of a partially-closed back porch with the fourth wall being rock. But the best thing about it was the six steps which were hacked into the wall at the bottom. At the top of the steps, you could reach yourself over and continue your climb up through a ravine, and be totally hidden from the rest of the canyon. Up and out -- you could make your way to the top of the canyon and be on your way while any interlopers were wandering in circles below. It was brilliant. And the way the shack had been put together, there was no hint of the deception.

It made Zeke feel bad that Geary’s life had taken the turn it had. He’d like to have known this guy -- there were probably an awful lot of tricks and solutions which had died with him. Enough to keep a young boy’s imagination going for a long time.

Zeke climbed on up to the top and checked out the area. Might as well know the layout in case he needed to use it. It looked like he was near the top of a ridge, so he scrambled on up, then stood, taking it all in. It was beautiful, like looking at a sea of green because of all the trees. He sat down and leaned back against one of them, looking toward the sunset and listening to the sough of the wind, to the birds, a chipmunk, a woodpecker. It was all so peaceful, so perfect.

He sat there until the stars came out and a full moon came up. He could see occasional points of light which, of course, meant people. He mentally noted the points so he could identify them during the daylight, then made his way back down to the shack and headed to bed. He didn’t know it then, but he only had another four days before things turned bad.