The road up the mountain seemed longer than usual. With each mile behind me, the anticipation grew stronger.
Thoughts of an old friend flashed in my minds eye. Buck Moore was an old man when I'd known him.
A character and true mountain man, we'd worked in a local sawmill together before I was called to a grander adventure in Southeast Asia.
He and his brother Snooks had been grizzly hunters in their youth with stories that sent chills up my young spine and set the tone for my own adventurous spirit.
I remembered the day I returned from overseas. The mill owner had welcomed me back with open arms.
"Old Buck is down at the millhouse, he'd said, go on down there and give him a hand".
I walked through the door or the old gray clap board building as Buck was finishing the first cut on a huge lodgepole log.
Buck looked up from his position at the control levers and without a blink, reached in his pocket for the denim polished tobacco can that rested there.
He'd roll a smoke as the log returned to the ready position, never taking his leathery hand from the lever.
The rolling was done with one hand and I always marveled at that...I wasted a couple of pounds of tobacco over the years trying to learn too.
I'd grabbed the first board as it fell onto the conveyor and carried it to the appropriate stack.
When the last board from that log was stacked, Buck walked down the dusty isle and offering a strong hand in greeting looked me right in the eye. "What brings you back to this God forsaken place?"
He smiled and a twinkle of light flashed in his steel gray eyes as he cast a glance toward the distant mountains... I didn't have to answer. Buck knew better than I did.
Topic: The Way West...a bowhunting journey. (Read 50077 times)
