The pull of the woods
by Bryce Martin

Behind the house at Cave Springs and beyond it was all woods, except for the old man who lived in the really small shack with the dirt floor, the one who boiled fragrant sumac as a tea. My grandfather pronounced it shoe-make. In the autumn the erect clusters of the sumac produced small, fuzzy, brilliant scarlet berries. The clusters have an earthy, unforgettable and not unpleasant aroma. Another common woodsy plant was buckbrush. Brambles took over whole areas. Wild blackberries and strawberries were plentiful. I routinely ran through the bushes, branches and briars as fast as I could go, in unfamiliar territory taking my chances and challenging the woods and all it held. There were thorns, too. I often lost my jousts with the woods. Thorns would catch and hold me running at full speed and I would fly backward or at some odd angle and fall into a head-high thicket or bounce off a hickory tree. My clothes might be ripped and torn nearly off. Once, some large thorns as hard as metal went up my nose, broke off and lodged inside, nearly protruding through the skin. I ran home quickly and Grandma removed them as delicately as possible. She had me lie down and hold a handkerchief over my nose to stem the bleeding. In a few minutes, I had slammed the screen door on my way out and was headed back into the woods. The woods had a combined fragrance of all the things it held, and its wanton perfume lured me back time and time again.
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