The Great Outdoors

"Why are you so cruel to your brother?" I asked, concerned. Landon had just finished tying his brother to a tree because he was tired of getting random punches on the arm from him.

"You'd understand, if you had a brother as annoying as him!"

Pausing, I tried to understand. "But Landon," pointing to an ant hill that was very close to his annoying brother's bare feet, "you've tied him right under an ant hill! What if they stir up and crawl up his legs?"

Landon laughed impishly.

Lonnie squinted in the sunshine, squirming. He tried to loosen the tied ropes but his brother had triple knotted the ropes, the ends were well outside of his reach. He finally gave up and started screaming hysterically for someone to come help untie him.

"Don't worry! We'll bring you some bread and water in a few hours..." Landon taunted, still far too entertained by his brother's predicament.

"Hours?! Luke, how can you be friends with a torturer like him? Somebody, anybody, help! The ants are gonna' eat me alive!" He screamed dramatically but then he hung his head down pathetically.

Hearing my name, jolted my attention. "Landon, please just untie him now before we both get in... you know... trouble."

"Oh, you're no fun, Luke!" He glared at his little brother. "Alright, alright! Stop your blubbering! Promise you won't rat us out and I'll untie you now before them ants bite you all over. Promise?"

Lonnie stopped yelling. "Yeah, yeah, I promise. I won't tell nobody what you done. Untie me from this tree!"

"You mean to say anybody what you did."

Lonnie glared back at me. "It's Saturday. No schooling me on Saturdays!"

Landon untied his brother and Lonnie flopped down on the dirt, happy to be free. He was always covered in dirt. At the end of the day his clothes always seemed to have dirt and grass stains. Their mother was used to working the stains out of clothing. "Boys will be boys," she would always say. She would just roll her eyes at the pile of dirt that would fall from their jean pockets. "And thank God for vacuums and laundry machines!"

On Saturdays, she let them roam the property. The family had inherited a large estate many years ago. Being able to explore the woods, climb large rocks, and build forts was the greatest form of entertainment for her sons and their friends who came over to play.

"It's hot out!" Lonnie stood up and slugged his brother on the back. He smiled broadly. Before Landon could retaliate, Lonnie dashed away, "Race ya' to the river!"

Lonnie took off as fast as a jackrabbit in the direction of the river. He was quicker than Landon and I. We raced after him, but he made it to the river well before us. By the time we made it to the river edge, Lonnie had already flung off his clothes and was swimming around in the refreshing cool water. Landon and I made it to the river.

“I’m gonna use the rope swing!” Landon swung wildly and dropped into the water, making a big splash.

I dipped my foot into the water to see how cold it was.

“C'mon Luke! Don’t be a chicken! It feels good!” Lonnie was watching me now.

I stripped down to my boxers and jumped in. It did feel amazing. Refreshing. For a split second my heart felt as if it skipped a few beats. Smiling, I felt happy.

Landon splashed his younger brother and then tried to wrestle him in the water but he was too slippery.

Landon rolled his eyes, then had an idea. “Hey, I know what we could do!” Swimming down stream, he popped back up, “We could swim this way and go canoeing,” he waved us both in his direction.

I shrugged and Lonnie didn’t say anything but followed his older brother. The canoe was old. It looked like it had a hole in one side that someone had patched up.

Landon pulled it into the water and the three of them got in. There were only two paddles.

“I’ll paddle in the back, so I can steer us,” looking a me, “and you paddle in the front, okay?”

“What about me?” Lonnie asked.

“In the middle, goofy! You’ll be the gator bait. If we see a gator, you’re the first to go!”

“There ain’t no gators here!”

“Wanna bet?”

Lonnie shivered for a second and got into the middle of the canoe. “Where have you seen a gator before?”

“In the lake. Where the river flows into the lake, I saw one. One day when I was with Grandpa.” He grinned. “He asked me if I wanted to be a gator wrestler one day.”

“You’re lyin’ bonehead!”

"Am not, little punk! Shut your mouth before we dump you overboard!"

We were picking up more speed now. Paddling was easy because we were flowing down stream. There was a light breeze that made me shiver and goosebumps rose on my arms. The day felt perfect. Sunshine glimmered through the cyanope of trees. We passed a large magnolia tree that was in full bloom. It smelled so refreshing. I opened my eyes after inhaling deeply, having noticed something edible.

"Look, those are blackberry bushes!" I spotted.

Landon tried to stop the canoe by plunging the paddle down, but it was a bit difficult. The canue tipped over and the three of them fell out.

"Grab it! Flip it over!" Landon ordered.

Grappling awkwardly, they managed to pull the canoe to the steep river bank. Climbing up the exposed tree roots on the river bank, they made it to the blackberry bushes. They tore into the berries as if they were little savages, like they had been starved for days. The berry juice ran down their faces.

"Yummy... Oh, they're so good!" Lonnie grabbed another handful of berries, "Good eye, Luke!"

A hawk flew by, high above them.

Lonnie shook his hand at the hawk, trying to look menacing. "You can't have them, these berries are all for us!"

"That hawk could care less! He's hunting for meat, not these berries..."

"Meat? Like a rabbit or rat?"

"Yeah, probably... Hey, maybe we could build a trap one day and catch a rabbit and roast it over a fire!"

Lonnie's eyes lit up. "Yeah, that'd be loads of fun!"

I didn't really feel excited about the idea of killing an animal, but I just kept silent. "Maybe we could build a fort today... Remember that one time, when we built that fort out of palmettos?"

"Yeah, it blew over after a storm hit… We could try it and make a stronger fort this time though." Landon nodded, with one last bite of berries.

I was glad they were thinking about building a fort instead of killing animals, which made me queasy to think about. "We'd have to go back to the shed and get some hatchets, rope, and maybe a tarp or something."

"Let's go!" Lonnie just liked action and movement, so of course he was game for almost anything.

They hopped back into the canoe and headed upstream back to where they had jumped into the river. Everywhere they went, it was always a race to get to the next place. This time, Landon beat Lonnie and I to the shed. Rummaging through the tools, he pulled out several hatchets, some dusty rope and Lonnie spotted a brown tarp on top of a shelf.

"Luke, you stand here. I'm gonna have to climb up on your shoulders to reach that."

Crouching down, Landon climbed up on my shoulders. I was a bit unsteady at first, but lifted him up so that he could reach the top shelf.

"Almost got it..." He pulled at the tarp but it was wedged under some other things that were stored up there. He gave the tarp one final tug, and it flew down, and so did he. "Ummphh." He hopped up quickly as if he were a bouncy ball. "I'm fine!" He snatched up the tarp, "I think this is all we need but it never hurts to have a machete too!" He grabbed a rusty machete. Swinging it through the air, I stepped back, because he'd swung it just a little to close to my head for my comfort level.

"Hey, watch it!"

"It's not too sharp, I don't think it would hurt too bad..." He touched the blade with the tip of his index finger.

"Okay, but let's chop the palmettos, not my limbs, please," I smiled politely.

Landon furrowed his brow, rolling his eyes, "I gotta' hand it to you, sometimes... you're like an adult or something. It's a bit disgusting, really…"

"I am still a kid. But.. one day... we'll both be adults..."

Landon grimaced as if I had used a foul word, "Yeah, don't remind me! Adults have to worry about working every day and taxes! It's like slavery."

"Yeah, no wonder Peter Pan didn't wanna' grow up."

"Exactly, he had the right idea! But honestly, I don't understand why Peter Pan didn't use a machete like this one..." Landon sliced through some overgrown weeds in the yard. He hit a dandelion stem and the seeds lifted into the air.

Lonnie held the three hatchets. I was tasked with holding the large tarp and Landon kept swinging the machete around as if he were trying out for the part of Indiana Jones himself.

"Where we gonna' make the fort?" Lonnie asked.

Landon paused. "On high ground. Can't make it in a ditch, otherwise if rain comes the water will just wash into the fort."

"Makes sense," I agreed. "What about where the blackberry bushes were?"

"That seems good. There were lots of pine trees over there too," Landon walked faster in that direction.

I was surprised that he didn't counter with a different idea because sometimes Landon just wanted to be the one who came up with all the ideas.

They quickly made it back to where the blackberry bushes were.

"We'll need to cut down three thin pines. I think a teepee fort will be best," Landon grabbed one of the hatchets from Lonnie's arms.

The three boys started hacking away at separate pine trees. Pine chips flew all over the place.

I knelt down to smell the pine sap. "Hmmm. Smells so good," I couldn't remember the last time I'd smelled pine sap.

"Ughh. I got some sap on my hands..." Lonnie scrunched up his nose at the sap that was sticking to his hands.

"Rub your hands in the dirt. It'll dry the sap and then you can wash your hands off in the river." Landon said in a matter of fact tone, as if it was a common experience he'd had many times before. Sure enough, it was something he had experienced countless times.

Landon hacked on the other side of the pine tree. A few moments later, he said, "Timber, timber! Watch out!"

The pine tree fell to the ground with a thud. He cut the pine needles at the top off. "That's probably ten feet long," he looked at the pine tree that I was still working on chopping down. "Here... I'll help you get that one down too and then we can help Lonnie, otherwise we'll be here all day waiting on him."

"Not true!" Lonnie growled like a little wild bear cub. "I'll do it all myself!"

"Lonnie, you have to cut in the same spot, around the tree..." Lonnie had chipped away at the tree but had made very little progress.

"Oh geez, whatever! You do it then. I'm starving," and threw his hatchet down and skipped off to wash his hands in the river.

"Look guys! It's a cannibal in the woods!" Lonnie had tried to clean his hands but they were still grubby and sticky from the pine sap.

"Huh?" Landon looked through the woods.

It was a man walking, with his arms full, of what looked like, sleeping bags. "That's no cannibal," I just laughed.

"It's just dad," Landon said as if he was disappointed.

"Hey guys! Brought you some things.” He dropped down three sleeping bags and set a large picnic basket full of food on the grass. "Your mother wanted to send you some food. And I figured you guys might be..." He eyed the teepee that they had erected with the three pine trees and twine tying them together at the top. He continued, "I figured you were building a fort and that you might want to spend the night in it! That's why I brought the sleeping bags."

I hadn't thought about the idea of sleeping in the fort all night. Swallowing, "I'll have to call and ask my parents about that."

"Of course!" Landon and Lonnie's dad nodded. "Here, you can call and ask to see if they're okay with it." He handed me a cell phone. I called, and of course, my mom said that was fine. She asked if I needed anything but I said no because I figured I'd have everything I needed at Landon and Lonnie's house. It wasn't the first time I had had a sleepover at their house, but it would be the first time ever camping out in a fort. The idea of it felt exciting.

"Hey, if you want, I can help you get the tarp wrapped around the trees." Their dad sure was a nice guy. He seemed to understand their wild hearts far too well. Almost as if he remembered what it was like to be a young boy with the longing for adventures and building forts.

Lonnie tore into the basketful of food. His dad looked over his shoulder at him. "I think someone is going through a growth spurt!"

"Think I'll be as tall as you, dad?"

"Probably taller, bud! Especially if you eat like that, son," he laughed as his young son mangled a sandwich packed full of lunch meat and cheese. Lonnie tore off the crust and flung the pieces away from him as if they were liver or spinach fragments.

"Dad, gotta a lighter?" Landon asked his dad, even though he knew that his dad always had a lighter in his pocket. His dad liked smoking cigars. He pulled out a vintage heavy-duty metal butane flame lighter.

"What ya thinking? A campfire?"

Landon just smiled because his dad had read his mind.

"Ya'll better go get some sticks or dry logs, if you want a fire and some dead pine needles." He finished wrapping the brown tarp around the teepee fort, tying the tarp with the leftover twine.

Landon and I foraged further into the woods, searching for dead branches. There were lots of oak branches everywhere.

"You dad is so cool, Landon! If I was home, my parents would both probably tell me to do more homework or chores."

Landon smiled. "Yeah, the old man is pretty cool."

I smirked. In my head, I was thinking that their dad didn't seem that old at all. He seemed younger and more robust, at least compared to most dads I had observed.

"Can you keep a secret, Luke?" Landon stopped walking in the woods for a second.

I nodded, "Yeah, of course."

"One time..." Landon looked behind his shoulder to make sure Lonnie hadn't followed them, "Well, one time, my dad let me try his cigar." His eyes lit up like the end of a cigar flame.

"No way, really? How was it?"

"Not amazing. But I guess I just felt like a man cause' he let me try it."

"And did your mom know... or Lonnie?"

"Heck no! Are you crazy? My mom wouldn't have been okay with that at all. And Lonnie... that blabber mouth... of course he couldn't know! The first person he'd tell would be mom... and then dad and I both, we would never hear the end of it! Already my mom hates it when my dad smokes his cigar. She doesn't like the smell of it, I guess..." He paused. "But moms… I guess there's just somethings they'll never understand quite right..."

"Like what?"

"Like man stuff... cigars... guns... knives... survival... wet dreams..."

"Wet dreams?" I stopped, as I had never heard of this term before.

"What? You don't know..." Landon trailed off for a moment, amazed at my ignorance.

"Yeah, a wet dream is where if you make a fort outside and sleep in a tent and if you are too close to the river you might roll into the river and wake up all wet in the morning!" He grinned.

"Oh, but couldn't that happen to a girl, too? How is that man talk?”

He laughed, "I was kidding! It means something different but I'll tell you later. It was something dad told me about when we was talking about man stuff one time..."

I just shook it off. It reminded me of a few months ago when my dad had given me a stick of deodorant. He had told me that it was time to start wearing deodorant, especially to school. I had felt a bit awkward but there was no other 'man stuff-kind-of-conversations,' that I'd had with my dad, which made me confirm even more that Landon's dad was really pretty cool. My dad didn't smoke cigars or carry a lighter at all. The thought of my dad helping build a fort outside was a foreign concept to me as well. Landon and I walked back to the teepee and dropped down the large armfuls of sticks and pine needles.

"You better have left us some food, Lonnie!" Landon snarled at his brother.

"Don't worry... I left you the crusts of the bread." He giggled.

Landon lifted the basket lid and confirmed that his brother was only joking. There were still plenty of sandwiches in there.

"Want one?"

I nodded. "Thanks."

Their dad had found several rocks and had made a circular fire pit with them.

"I'll light it!" Landon hopped up.

Within seconds, the lighter flame had ignited a great campfire. There was always something mesmerizing about fires.

Watching the flames, fires had a way of calming us all down.

"Well boys, ya'll enjoy the night camping out here and if ya'll need anything, well the house will be unlocked as always."

Without a kiss goodnight or anything, he just tousled both his son’s mop top heads and disappeared into the dusk lit evening.

Part of me was in shock that he was okay with leaving us to man the fire without adult supervision. I remembered how laidback and chill their dad was and it made more sense.

“We’re gonna have to eat all that food in the basket tonight because if we leave food in there, then raccoons will come while we’re sleeping.”

“I saw s’more stuff in there!” Lonnie licked his lips.

“We can make skewers with palmetto stems… see?” Landon used the machete to cut the palmettos and he even cut off the serrated edges so they didn’t poke themselves when roasting the marshmallows.

“I wonder who was the first person to come up with the idea of s’mores?” I wondered aloud.

“I don’t know but they are brilliant!” Landon had added two layers of chocolate to his s’more and happily had his mouth full.

Lonnie had rolled out one of the sleeping bags. He’d tucked himself in and was facing the fire from the teepee entrance. Lonnie fell asleep first. Landon and I stayed awake for much longer, watching the fire and telling stories.

Before we went to sleep, the fire was almost out, there were just a few embers left, softly glowing. The teepee wasn’t quite as big once all three of us were laying down inside of it. Because we were taller, our feet hung out the front of the teepee entrance. Lonnie was snoring away, curled up like a chipmunk.

We fell asleep. Hours had gone by, but it felt like minutes. There was a horrible sound of splintering of trees and then a huge crash, not far from their campsite. The three of them sat straight up.

“What the?” I started to say.

Lonnie interrupted, “That was crazy loud!”

“Could it be Bigfoot?” Landon unzipped his sleeping bag and hopped out to investigate what could have made such a loud noise. He walked past the fire pit, which only had a small bit of smoke rising from one last stubborn ember. “Heck nah, man… no wayyy!” He looked back at me. “Come check this out guys! You’ll never guess what just crashed into the river!”

Lonnie and I followed him to where he stood and gaped with a wide open mouth in disbelief.

I rubbed my eyes because I didn’t believe my eyes. “A school bus?”

“Hurray! No more school!”

Landon rolled his eyes. “Lonnie, we don’t even ride the bus to school, mom takes us, you dork!”

“Yeah, but some kids ride the bus, so maybe they’ll get to stay home now that the bus is ruined…”

Sure enough the bus did appear to be crushed in a lot of different places and it was stuck right across the river. It smelled of electrical smoke and gasoline.

“I can’t believe it! Can you see if anybody is on board it?” I craned by neck, looking to see if anyone was in the driver’s seat.

“It’s Sunday. Why would a bus be out and about on a Sunday?” Landon scoffed.

“Great question!” I quickly acknowledged. “I think we should see if we can make sure that no one is hurt inside.”

Landon and Lonnie had already started toward the bus. By the time they made it to the front door of the drivers side, the door burst open.

A wild-eyed man jumped out of the bus, gasping, he tried to hide his face from the boys.

“Are you okay?” I yelled at him.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he ran off, up the riverbank, and disappeared through the woods.

Landon opened the bus and climbed in awkwardly. Making it inside, he came back a few minutes later. “There’s nobody else in there. No kids or anybody. Weird, huh?”

“I think we should go tell your parents now though.” The responsible part of me couldn’t help but make an appearance.

Lonnie nodded. “Yeah, let’s go back to the house. I need to go poop anyway. Toilets sure come in handy. Camping’s nice and all but…”

We hiked back to their house. Lonnie ran straight to the bathroom because he couldn’t wait any longer.

Landon and I sat down at their kitchen table. Their parents were sitting at the table, enjoying their morning coffee in the quiet of the morning.

“What brings ya’ll back so early?” Their mom asked.

“They’re probably hungry for breakfast,”their dad answered.

“Actually, there’s was an accident!” Landon looked at his parents with a very serious expression.

“What happened?” Both of his parents had set their coffee mugs down because their attention was focused on what he would say next.

“Early this morning, a loud crash through the trees woke us up. Turns out, a school bus sailed right through the trees and into the river!”

“Tell them about the driver!” I nudged his arm.

“There was only one guy in the bus. The driver and he jumped out of the bus when we were close by the door. He looked desperate to get away as quick as he could. We asked if he was okay but he disappeared and didn’t say nothin’! Crazy, huh?”

Before his parents could respond, a cop car pulled into the front driveway. Two officers got out of the car. One knocked on the front door.

“Law enforcement here. We want to make you aware that there is a wanted criminal on the loose in this area. If you see any signs of him, alert law enforcement immediately.”

“Do you have a picture of the guy?”

One of the officers pulled out a picture.

“That’s him,” Landon had caught a glimpse of the photo from behind his father’s back. “That’s the guy that crashed the bus into the river!”

“Seriously, son?”

“Yeah! It looks just like him to me, right Luke?” He looked at me for validation.

I stepped out of the doorway to look closer at the photo. “Yeah, it does look like him, alright.”

The officers asked a few more follow up questions and then they left quickly.

“Of all nights you boys could’ve been camping…” Their dad shook his head.

“Welp… hope they find the criminal. Why on earth you think he would try to get away in a school bus, what an idiot!” Landon exclaimed in unbelief.

“Could’ve been the only vehicle nearby…” I offered.

“Maybe.”

Lonnie had finished using the bathroom and had come out to the kitchen. He had happily helped himself to a generous bowl of Captain Crunch cereal.

Later that day, they received a call, informing them that the wanted criminal had been found and arrested. To the boys disappointment, the school bus would be excavated from the river and repaired.

“Yeah, that bus would have been such a cool fort, or hang out place, too!” Landon seemed the most disappointed. “We could’ve called it The Criminal Bus!”

I laughed, “At least we have the too-small-teepee-fort still.”

“Yeah, we’re gonna need to make it a bit bigger for the next camp out, so our feet don’t hang out of it when we’re sleeping!”