Time Forgotten

Around the bend and far away, the sound of tapping made my day. I knew what it meant and where it was but I had no idea time was what it was. There was a sound. Men wrenched as if in pain. They had seen people who screamed before, and while it was not a pretty sight, it was, the way of forgotten time. Stone pierce flesh and stick in bones and shreiks of misery wafts over the forest still. Sounds, like morning smoke glides over the canopy. Animals shift ears this way and that.


A horrific yell as someone runs away, bloody hairless, and dying. A yip another yip then silence. Long red hair waved from a dirty fist. Slobbers run off a lip. Teeth, yellowed, sprout bits of meat from a rabbit's back — breakfast. A big grin. Forgotten this time was not. A hunter found a body, scalped and all, whose hair had been red and put up with a bow. Now askew and splattered with rain and blood and a face gnawed on by wolves, no doubt.

Packs of wolves patrol the night and smell the air to taste any food. Alive or dead it doesn't matter, wolves eat anything. Fire they fear but it is not well known that a wolf will kill from spring to home and drag the body a mile away to feast. One pine torch would do and that is easy to fix but most neglect safety so close to home. Once, in forgotten time, an animal trail, much used, ran from Lexington to Ithaca and beyond to Fort Jefferson. From there to Fort Greenville, home to wild animals and Indians. Ithaca, before it was platted in 1832, was a trading post on the trail used by travelers between Lexington and Forts north. Here, at the trading post, was the last stop for one young settler for as he left, he was followed – south.

Days later, he was found, along the trail. near Fort Lanier. His rifle was badly bent – probably used as a club. His knife and tomahawk were gone. The goods he had traded for at the post in Ithaca were gone. Blow flies scoured his naked skull where his long curly hair hung days before.