Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 18:17:04 -0700
From: borischen <borischen@zoho.com>
Subject: Camping in Kentucky 9

Chapter Nine.

Our morning started like normal. The conversation soon switched to the
topic of food. To be honest by now I had totally forgotten it was
Thanksgiving Day. Lee brought it up.

"So what are we having for Thanksgiving supper?" He asked after finishing
his bowl of oatmeal.

"I never gave it much thought. You have any ideas 'cause I don't." I
replied.

"I did bring a package of turkey slices I found at the camping store in
Dayton."

"My, aren't you the good boy. Did I tell you about the grief I got from my
mother for missing the family get together today?"

"No, never mentioned anything about your family before. You in trouble
'cause of me?"

"She doesn't know you exist. I just said it was a hunting trip to a private
ranch in Kentucky."

"Hmmm. I wish I had a family to turn down a free meal invite." Lee
responded.

"What about your uncle?" I shot back.

"He's gone every fall to Florida 'til spring. He's been doin that since I
was 'bout eleven. I'd spend most of the winter alone up here, he set up a
charge account at the market up the street, they sort of kept an eye on me,
but I was by myself every winter. I kept out of trouble, that's how this
place got so well laid out, I spent about ten years of my life building
it."

"Wow, alone all winter at age eleven? In some states that'd be considered a
crime."

"Yeah, well this is small town Kentucky. Since I always ate, always
attended school, got decent grades and stayed out of trouble nobody ever
noticed really. My uncle wasn't too well known locally, kinda like a hermit
with a nephew stuck living with him."

"Huh, really different from my kid-hood."

"Yeah, I suppose it was. So what about turkey slices, maybe some fish and
some of your wine for supper then?" Lee had successfully changed the
subject away from his childhood once again.

"Sounds like a plan but I got nothing to fish with, you?" I said looking
him in the eyes.

"Got that covered, an age old solution to fishing while campin'." He said
with a wink.  ---- We cleaned up after breakfast then hiked to the creek
where we turned right heading south. After about fifteen minutes of hiking
on what looked like a rarely used trail paralleling the creek we came to an
old rusty half fallen down barbed wire fence which you just stepped over,
then continued our trek.

"That's the south property line, now we're on state lands but there's never
anyone out here." We continued for about another fifteen minutes following
the trail uphill gradually, sometimes right next to the creek, sometimes
about twenty feet away. We crossed another smaller creek with some water
flowing in it, there was a large tree limb laying over the creek to
balance-walk across, then we kept going south.

We arrived at a small lake, maybe a five hundred foot oval surrounded by
heavy woods. There was a beaver lodge sticking up near the middle. The sun
shone down from above, it looked like man had never laid eyes upon this
before, it was unspoiled, peaceful and beautiful. Lee pulled out a Pocket
Fisherman from his leg pocket, a tiny plastic toy looking fishing pole
setting it on the ground. We moved around the edge of the water looking for
anything to use as bait.

I rolled a tree limb over and held up two large earthworms waiting for Lee
to notice, which he eventually did, growing a large smile. It was starting
to warm up more in the sunshine. I unzipped my sweatshirt exposing my bare
smooth chest and stomach, he noticed and stared for a few seconds then
looked away.

Lee cast several times as far as he could, it was a trick to keep the hook
from snagging something. It took about ten minutes when he caught a small
catfish and tossed it back. Next time was a small crappie which also got
thrown back.

On his tenth cast he caught something with a fight in it. He struggled with
the little reel and short one foot long plastic rod but eventually landed a
really nice crappie, biggest one I think I ever saw, easily fill my pan
with two fillets.

We hiked back, he strung the two fish he caught on a short piece of nylon
rope and hung it over his shoulder. This time we followed another path not
along the creek, heading more to the north-west.

"How deep you think that lake is?" I asked Lee.

"Years ago I swam that with face mask just to get an idea what's in it, I
saw a place that looked like about twenty feet, the bottom is sandy but
there's a bunch of tree limbs on the bottom, it's easy to get a fishhook
snagged in there so you gotta use a bobber or say bye to your line."

"What you catch there?" I asked, sort of again.

"Blue gill, crappie, trout, perch, catfish, that crappie we caught is about
as big as they get." The subject got switched back to him being the tour
guide as he led our march back to camp, the dirt footpath climbed up a
gradual incline.

It rose up to the top of the valley walls but we turned staying on the
ridge passing another less wooded valley on our left side - to our west. It
seemed to take a while, a long hike. I was getting really thirsty, we
really never spoke aside from his occasional tour guide comments about
views we were passing.

Suddenly we started downhill and by the time we got to the bottom some
things started to look familiar, we'd entered Lee's Valley at the far south
end by the furthest target stand. We stayed along the firing range entering
the clearing from the south end, he dropped the fish on the largest boulder
in the outer ring of the fire pit.

Lee got out his cleaning gear, I started chopping the limbs into smaller
pieces, maybe six feet long, now that I knew we had an axe!

At one point I think Lee got tired of watching me struggle with the axe, he
walked to his tent, got his pistol, came over by me, gently pressing me in
the center of the chest to move me back a bit, then shot several rounds
into the limbs fracturing them making it much easier to chop into firewood.

When I pulled my fingers from my ears you could still hear the last shot
echo in the distant hills and woods.

I noticed the sun was about halfway from straight above to the horizon, my
guess was it was about 4pm. I was hungry, I think he was too. The fish was
ready to cook, Lee disappeared into his tent to get some canned food for
our Thanksgiving meal.

I lit the stove to start heating water. Then came the fish fillets, four of
them. They were too large to cook more than two at a time in my small
pan. We opened a can of corn and made some instant mashed potatoes too.

While we were eating I started to get chilled and mentioned it to Lee, he
pointed at the sky, I saw it was cloudy now and getting dark early too. By
5pm we almost needed to light my lantern. By 6pm it was totally dark
out. We finished our really decent dinner, turkey slices, fish, corn,
potatoes then three glasses of wine each. I hadn't seen any booze near him
so far this trip, but I had two bottles of wine and my leather flask was
full too. Why take chances?

Our conversation turned to work again, which was fine with me.  We didn't
know the same people but I think he thought that because I worked in the
development lab I had some inside track on company gossip and secrets,
which I didn't. I was just another slave like him, but I got paid probably
three times what he got but mistakes I made could cost the company
millions. Other than that I was just a replaceable slave like him but I
kept that to myself.  ---- As the wine flowed and the conversation got
louder he touched me more and more, slapping me on the shoulder if I made
him laugh. We sat close to each other on the log nearest my tent, like last
time. Almost the same exact spot as our last encounter.

A couple times during our meal and talk time he laid his right hand on my
left knee-thigh. I was letting him take the lead again not knowing exactly
how far he wanted to go. Maybe it was something we should discuss.

Each of us took turns peeing in the same spot as last trip. We peed in a
low spot by a large oak tree so we didn't need to worry about standing in
someone else's urine. It seemed to work. Our pee spot was about 11 o'clock
in the clearing right near the exit trail.

Around 10pm we were both getting sleepy and drunk, we'd finished off a
whole bottle of wine and a few sips from my flask.

When I was telling him about my time at college I noticed he was really
quiet, I looked over to see his head bobbing, he'd been asleep for a while.

I got to my feet, paused to stare at him lit by the lantern in front of my
tent on a large rock, he looked totally gone. This time I decided to leave
him be, so I went to bed in my tent deciding not to wake him. We had a long
day, did lots of work, I'm sure he was as tired as I was. My legs were sore
from the long hike we took, I bet we covered about six or more miles today
over rough hilly rocky terrain.