Oklahoma Rocks

A favorite Mark Twain quote of mine is: “I can remember everything from my childhood, whether it happened or not”

Being a ten-year old boy isn't a hard job. Being the 14 year-old brother of a ten-year old boy, must be measurably more difficult.

When I was a kid (A smaller kid, as the jury is still out on my exact maturity level) my family spent several summers in Oklahoma where my father grew up by Grand Lake in the Northeast part of the state. My Grandfather and Great Aunt lived on opposite sides the lake. I spent ample time at both places, occasionally annoying all in attendance. Behind my Great Aunt's house, was a dark mysterious forest. My brother and I built a fort in that forest. We cut a narrow path where we eventually built the fort. Then, a small circle of ground was cleared where we hold court for the faithful subjects of our new kingdom, like a toad or gopher that happened by. We found an old crate for a table and large rocks for chairs. I'm guessing my brother did most if not all of the work, but since he lives 1300 miles away I'll take the credit for now.

The sun was getting low when we started our walk toward the fort that day. We would usually race each other to the fort from the road. With the path only big enough for one person, whoever made it to the opening first would win. That was always my brother. This time as we were walking down the road to the entrance, I had another one of my great ideas. I was just a step or two ahead of him when I yelled, “Race ya!” A few quick steps later and I was nearing the entrance still slightly ahead of him. With a precision stiff-arm technique he received a little nudge so I could maintain my advantage as I got to the opening. Another infamous quick right turn and I was on the path. I reached the fort first and my chest swelled in victory. I looked around to see if my brother was close behind. He wasn't. I strained my eyes to look back up the trail, but did not see him. Was he lying in wait to ambush me? Did I knock him over when I nudged him and cause him to fall or something?

Crack!!! Something hit a tree-branch nearby. Something kind of big. “Steve?”, I asked. Nothing. I tried again, but silence was my answer. I started to go back up the trail.

Thunk! There was a micro-moment of realizing I ran into something and then blackness. I was knocked out cold! When I awoke it was completely dark out. I could see stars though the trees as well as right in front of my eyes. How long was I out? One, maybe Two, hours? I don't know. I stumbled back to the house in darkness. Several people were chatting and laughing and such around the fire pit. I made it to the patio where everyone was and it got really quiet. Suddenly a couple screams cried out, like I was an alien or something. My Mom ran up and grabbed me and hauled me into the bathroom. The side of my face was covered with blood and I didn't even know it. She sat me up on the edge of the sink to clean me off. The biggest scream of the night was when I looked to my left and saw my face in the mirror. It was covered with black, dried-up blood and some new red glistening stuff just beginning to stream down. The screamer of course was me!

The first loud noise I heard in the trees was a rock hitting a tree near me that my brother had thrown. The “thunk” was not a tree branch hitting my forehead it was good sized rock, also thrown by my brother. A remarkable shot through the trees to say the least. He saw me drop like a sack of steam. After a quick inspection of my limp body, he decided that he had killed me. Knowing they would find the body sooner or later, he just went back to the house and played it cool. Since I was generally the type of kid no one minded not having around at times, I wasn't noticed as missing for all this time. I had no idea what had happened to me, my brother could have gotten away with it had he just been quiet. But, he 'fessed up to what he had done. That made a world of difference to me, knowing that I wasn't the one in trouble for once.