A Forest of Memories

          We followed the bright red trail through a jungle of anticipation. Leaves and twigs grabbed at my arms and legs. “What if it kept running?” I asked my Grand paw. He looked at me with his wise, sky blue eyes and laughed. “With a shot like that she’ll go down sooner or later.” Although he too looked a little worried about finding the creature in this thicket.

            My great grandmother was the kindest woman I’ve ever known. At the age of four, I was her second great grandchild. Even though my Nana said she loved all her grandchildren equally, there was no fooling anyone that I was her favorite. “He’s got that Smith way about him”, she would say. I can remember her telling me the stories of when her husband (L.C. Smith) had hard times on the farm, and she had to help pick cotton. Her rough worn hands Proved as evidence. Some days, she would gather all her great grandchildren up, and we would build forts in her living room, pretending to ward off soldiers or dragons that had escaped from the patch of forest behind her house.

            He zipped through my Nanas yard, almost hitting me and knocking over the sandcastle I had spent many laborious hours on. My distant cousin was a mean, selfish, brute with an ego to big for his twelve year old body. He stomped across the yard fix his grip on my shirt, his red hair seemingly on fire. With his other hand he grabbed the remnants of my sand castle and thrust it in my face. Then he started yelling at me for making a sand castle in “his riding space.” He pushed my down, scraping my knee. As a seven year old, I had taken too much from him. Don’t cry Tanner, now is not the time. Now is a time for vengeance. I popped up from the ground, buzzing with rage. My cousin started laughing. In his fit of laughter I saw an opening. His face was bent at just the right angle. Whack! I saw red. I wasn’t sure if it was my rage, my cousin’s hair, or the sea of blood gushing from his nose. Before he could assess the situation, I ran to the woods.

            My grandfather’s snow white hair blew in the rough winter wind. It was my eleventh birthday. He had taken me out to the patch of woods behind my Nanas house to teach me to shoot. He loaded his old blued and scratched western style revolver. Previously, he set up glass bottles on old tree stumps. He showed me how to aim, and how to control my breathing. I took his gun and set a bottle in my sights. I pulled the trigger. Such force exploded from the barrel, creating a swirl of fire and ferocity. The bottle shattered into bits of light in the winter sun.

            That sunset created the most magnificent display of colors I had ever seen. I had spent all day in the clouds of a sixteen foot tree stand. The wind chilled my bones. I turned to the sound of something moving in a thicket behind me. “This is it”, I thought to myself. I slowly raised my rifle. It was a present from my grandfather on my fifteenth birthday. I sat motionless in the ephemeral rays of the sinking sun. It was going to get dark soon. Suddenly, a Doe steeped out to my left. She sniffed the air and stared right at me. My heart leapt. She finally lowered her head. I held my breath, willing my shaking limbs to be still. I aimed for her heart. BOOM! She ran. She ran into the forest. The forest full of memories.