Into the Woods--Snippet 2

* This is a work of fiction.

....They made their way to a larger creek that the red, clay washout that they were following went through and the young boy ran quietly up ahead hoping to catch a beaver at work, but there were none to be seen. He made his way back to the older man who had stopped to pick up an arrowhead, but he did not stop near him, but instead kept going. He made it back to the crest of the cattle road he had just run down and wished so badly that the Indians were still there and that they still did their war dances loudly enough to be heard from his granddad's house. He looked behind him to ask the older man about the Indians, but didn't see him anywhere. He turned quickly and ran down the embankment and then was struck with amazed terror at what he saw.

   The boy watched with wild eyes at the man that stood before him. He did not fully recognize him, but he wanted to. He had known him just ten minutes earlier, but he was not the same man. He had become something that was all arms and legs driven by a deep, guttural sound that came from some other place than his body. He had been transformed into a woodland beast who happened to look like the boy's granddad.

  The older man looked at the young boy and began to tremble and shake. He moved slowly towards a nearby tree and put his beast-like claws around it and screamed and squealed until the veins shot out of his neck and stained his face a scarlet red. The boy watched in an awestruck terror, but couldn't take his eyes off the older man or the tree. The tree quivered under the earth-shattering grip of the old man. Then in a flash of light, the old man ripped the tree out of the ground and raised it in the air; shaking it to show what his power had done. And then as if the beast had been a vapor, it once again became a granddad and the boy trembled with delight.

  "Think you could do that, Pokey?"
  "Maybe."
  "Well, are ya' Okie tough or not?"
  "I think I am."
  "Thinking and being ain't the same. Now pick you out a tree, Pokey."

  The young boy looked around at the trees that surrounded him and tried to pretend that he also knew how to pick out a descent enemy....

Let me know what you think,
   David