Chadwick Rye

Evening sunlight spilled through the forest canopy, dappling the wooden porch with golden patterns that shifted and danced with the gentle summer breeze. Old Man Holloway rocked steadily in his handcrafted chair, its cedar frame polished to a soft gleam by decades of use. A half-whittled block of pine rested in his weathered hands, curls of wood gathering around his boots like pale question marks.

I sat cross-legged on the worn planks beside him, my fishing pole forgotten against the porch railing. We’d returned from the creek hours ago with a respectable catch of brook trout, but I wasn’t ready to head home. Something about the quiet companionship of the old man drew me like a moth to flame, especially when my head buzzed with questions that my parents were too busy to answer.

“Mr. Holloway,” I began, picking at a splinter in the porch floor, “have you ever been camping? Like, real camping with a tent and everything?”

The old man’s hands paused mid-carve, a smile crinkling the weathered landscape of his face. His eyes, still startlingly blue despite the clouds of age that had settled over them, seemed to look beyond the forest edge to somewhere distant in time.

“Samuel Jenkins,” he said, my full name emerging unhurried from his lips, “I’ve done more than just camping. I’ve lived under the stars for months at a stretch.”

I straightened, my ten-year-old imagination immediately ablaze. “Really? Where? Was it scary? Did you see bears?”

Mr. Holloway’s chuckle rumbled like distant thunder. “One question at a time, young scout. The mind can only wander down one path at once if you want to notice all the details.”

He set his whittling aside, brushing wood shavings from his faded overalls. “My first real wilderness living wasn’t by choice. Winter of ’52, when the great floods cut off the northern settlements. I was working timber then, barely older than your brother Robert.”

I leaned forward, elbows on knees, chin cupped in my hands. Robert was seventeen and barely acknowledged my existence except to tousle my hair or steal the last pancake at breakfast. The idea of Mr. Holloway at that age seemed impossible, like trying to imagine our ancient oak tree as a sapling.

“Our camp was supposed to last three weeks,” he continued. “Then the rains came. Bridges washed out. Supply routes disappeared under water higher than this porch roof. Twelve of us stranded with provisions meant to last half our number for half the time.”

“What did you do?” I whispered, already picturing dramatic rescues and heroic survival.

“We lived,” he said simply. “Built proper shelters from the timber we’d cut. Fashioned fishing spears from straight branches. Learned which plants could fill our bellies without poisoning us.”

His fingers, gnarled like tree roots but still surprisingly nimble, returned to the wooden figure emerging from the pine block. I could now see it taking the shape of a bird, a hawk or eagle perhaps.

“Were you scared?” I asked, the question that most preoccupied my thoughts whenever I imagined myself in dangerous situations.

Mr. Holloway’s rocking slowed, his expression thoughtful. “Fear’s a curious thing, Samuel. There’s the kind that paralyzes, makes you small and frozen like a rabbit caught in open ground. That’s the useless kind, the kind that can kill you.”

The knife made a delicate cut along what would become the bird’s wing.

“Then there’s the other kind. The fear that sharpens your senses. Makes you notice things you’d miss otherwise. The subtle movement of animals in underbrush. The way clouds gather before a storm. The thousand tiny warnings nature provides if you’re paying attention.” He nodded slowly. “That kind of fear, respectful fear, kept us alive.”

I digested this, comparing it to my own experiences with fear: dark basements, schoolyard bullies, the time I’d gotten lost at the county fair. None seemed comparable to surviving in wilderness for months.

“Did you ever sleep in a real tent, though?” I persisted, returning to my original question. “Like the ones in the Wilderness Explorer catalog?”

This provoked a full laugh, his head tilting back like a howling wolf. “Those canvas mansions? With aluminum poles and waterproof floors?” He shook his head, amusement dancing in his eyes. “No, Samuel. When we camped, we used shelters we made ourselves. Lean-tos of branches and bark. Snow caves in deep winter. Once, during my time with the Conservation Corps, we slept under nothing but blankets beneath the stars for six weeks straight.”

“Weren’t there bugs?” I asked, horrified at the thought. Mosquitoes were my summer nemesis, turning campouts in our backyard into itchy ordeals.

“Of course there were bugs,” he confirmed. “And rain. And cold nights. And creatures rustling in darkness beyond the firelight.” He leaned forward slightly. “That’s the difference between camping and what most folks do nowadays. Real camping means meeting nature on its terms, not bringing your living room into the woods.”

I frowned, considering the air mattress and battery-powered lantern I’d begged for on my last birthday. “So you think the stuff in my Wilderness Explorer catalog is silly?”

His expression softened. “No, Samuel. There’s no wrong way to begin a relationship with wild places. Those tools might be your first steps. Just don’t mistake equipment for experience.”

The whittling knife flashed as he carved delicate feather details into the wooden bird’s wings. Silence settled between us, comfortable as an old quilt, while I pondered his words. A red-tailed hawk circled lazily over the meadow beyond his cabin, its cry piercing the evening calm.

“Mr. Holloway,” I ventured after a while, “why do you live all alone out here? Don’t you get lonely without television or internet?”

His eyes followed the hawk’s graceful spiral. “Who says I’m alone?” he asked, gesturing toward the forest surrounding his small cabin. “I’ve got more conversations happening around me than in any internet chatroom.”

I glanced skeptically at the silent trees. “The trees don’t talk.”

“Don’t they?” He raised one bushy eyebrow. “They’re speaking right now if you know how to listen. That old oak by your shoulder is telling stories that started before your great-grandparents were born.”

I turned toward the massive tree whose branches stretched protectively over one corner of the porch. Its bark was deeply furrowed, hosting constellations of lichen and moss.

“What’s it saying?” I asked, not entirely sure if he was teasing me.

Mr. Holloway closed his eyes briefly, his rocking chair creating a gentle rhythm. “It remembers when this valley held more deer than people. When passenger pigeons darkened the sky for days during migration. When children like you could wander from sunrise to sunset without crossing a single road.”

Something in his voice made me believe him, at least a little. I reached out to touch the oak’s rough bark, trying to imagine all it had witnessed.

“Is that why you stay? To hear the trees?”

“Partly,” he admitted. “But mostly I stay because this is where I can be most fully myself. Some folks need noise and movement and constant newness to feel alive. I need stillness to hear my own thoughts.”

The wooden bird was taking its final shape now, details emerging with each precise cut of his knife. I watched, mesmerized by how something so lifelike could emerge from a simple block.

“One more question, Mr. Holloway,” I said, knowing my mother would appear soon to call me home for supper. “What’s the most amazing thing you ever saw while camping?”

This time his pause was longer, his eyes distant with memory. The rocking chair creaked gently, marking seconds like a heartbeat.

“Dawn at Eagle Peak,” he finally said. “September of ’67. I’d climbed through the night, using just moonlight. Wanted to see sunrise from the summit. Got caught in fog so thick I couldn’t see my own hands.”

His voice dropped to a near whisper, pulling me closer.

“Just before dawn, the wind shifted. Suddenly, the fog peeled away like a curtain being drawn back. There I stood, above a perfect sea of clouds stretching to every horizon. Islands of mountain peaks rose through the white expanse. And then the sun breached the edge of the world.”

His hands stilled completely, the wooden bird temporarily forgotten.

“Every cloud turned golden, then pink, then colors I don’t have names for. Light moved like something alive across that vast ocean of mist. And I stood there, the only human witness to this cathedral of sky and cloud and light.”

The silence that followed felt sacred somehow. I didn’t dare break it with another question. Instead, I watched as he returned to the present moment, his gaze focusing on the wooden bird in his hands.

“Almost finished,” he murmured, making a final delicate cut. He held the carving toward me. “What do you think?”

It was a perfect red-tailed hawk, wings spread in flight, every feather detailed with astonishing precision. I reached for it hesitantly, surprised when he placed it in my palm.

“It’s amazing,” I breathed, turning it carefully to admire every angle. “How did you learn to make something so real from just a block of wood?”

Mr. Holloway smiled, satisfaction warming his weathered features. “By paying attention, Samuel. By noticing details others miss. I’ve watched hawks for seventy years, how they tilt their wings to catch thermals, how they fold them when diving, how each feather has its purpose.”

In the distance, I heard my mother’s voice calling my name, the sound carrying clearly through the evening air.

“You’d better run along,” Mr. Holloway said, nodding toward the path that connected his cabin to our house at the edge of the forest. “But take this with you.” He closed my fingers gently around the carved hawk. “A reminder to look closely at the world.”

I clutched the wooden bird carefully. “Thank you, Mr. Holloway. Can I come back tomorrow? I have more questions.”

His eyes crinkled with genuine pleasure. “Questions are always welcome here, Samuel. They’re how we learn to see beyond what’s directly in front of us.”

As I scrambled down the porch steps, my sneakers kicking up dust in the golden evening light, I held the hawk carving against my chest like a treasure. Behind me, the rhythmic creak of the rocking chair resumed, Mr. Holloway settling back into conversation with his ancient trees and the approaching twilight.

Tomorrow I would bring my notebook, I decided. A question collector needed proper equipment, after all. And Mr. Holloway seemed to have answers worth preserving, carved from experience as carefully as he’d shaped the wooden hawk from raw pine.

The forest path home seemed somehow different, more alive with possibility, as if Mr. Holloway’s stories had awakened something previously invisible. I wondered what else I might learn to see, if only I asked the right questions.