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A Secret From The Past

Out Back

By John Sloan

He couldn’t remember the word for it. It was one of those deals in which there was an image within an image, and you had to look really close to see the second image.

He equated it with seeing both the forest and the trees. When the second image finally dissolved into sharp focus, he couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t seen it before. Obviously, he just hadn’t looked. The second image was an old home site.

While hunting turkeys in the area, he had seen the small clearing. He’d noticed the sawn stumps. He’d occasionally sat on them and rested. The clearing was not much more than an acre in size, and was a prime spot for feeding spring turkeys and for deer as well. He’d found the abandoned mineral lick. At least, he figured that’s what it was. It never dawned on him that it was actually the spot where an old smokehouse had once stood. Decades before, salt had dripped from the meat and as the smokehouse had slowly disappeared over time, a salt lick of sorts had formed. That was just one of the secrets of the clearing.

He didn’t know what was different about this day or why the clearing’s secrets suddenly decided to reveal themselves. It was cooler and wetter than usual, and his wool sweater felt good. He’d hiked into this remote location on the family’s old farm to scout for turkeys. Spring was fast emerging and most of the trees were already green. Turkey season was only a week away.

As he crossed one corner of the clearing, he tripped. He didn’t fall, just tripped. Surprised, he looked into the knee-high grass to see what had caught the toe of his boot. It was a log. One end of the log was notched. Scuffing around in the grass, he found another log. Slowly, like the darkness falling away as the sun comes up, he could see the outline of the old cabin.

It wasn’t much, maybe 12 feet square. But why was it here? There was no apparent water close by, nor any cleared fields. Why here? Who built it and when?

He took a seat on one of the half-hidden logs. His spring scouting trips often turned up mysteries, but typically they involved the animals he hunted. He was frequently puzzled by why a trail went where it did or why turkeys or deer did this or that. But this was a different kind of puzzle. This land had been in his family for three generations, finally becoming his as the last living heir. And not once had anyone ever mentioned this old home site. Come to think of it, he’d never heard anyone say anything about this corner of the property.

He sat silently for some time, his eyes scanning the clearing and the treeline around him. Who could have stayed here long enough to put up a cabin and a dadgummed smokehouse? And what about a water source? Could the small seep at the edge of the clearing once been dug out and utilized? What meat did they smoke? It just about had to be wild game.

He sat in silent contemplation, his mind conjuring up scenarios that might fit. Outlaws on the run? A distant relative, maybe an outcast no family member wanted to speak of? A new family? An old trapper? Or were the turkeys and deer that still inhabited the area the keys to the secret? Was it a hunter’s cabin and smokehouse? Smoked turkey was a delicious thing, and a deer ham smoked slowly with hickory wood would last a long time.

He sat patiently, waiting for an answer he knew would never come. Of all the possibilities, though, he definitely liked the hunter’s-cabin idea the best. It was comforting to think that other hunters had come to this place before him. Maybe they had called turkeys in on this very spot, and cooked and smoked them to a golden brown.

Overhead, clouds began to gather and thunder grumbled. Rain was coming…or was that a cabin door banging shut behind a turkey hunter as he headed out across the clearing? D

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