The Fort

And the battles fought

Very few people ever walked through the part of the forest where the boys had built their fort. It was their private sanctuary.

They had built the fort over the course of one summer. They built it out of small logs tied together with rope. One of the boys, Sammy, had a hatchet they used to cut tree branches and chop off the small branches protruding from the logs. The hatchet was also used to carve the tops of the logs into points as in those log forts they saw on TV.

Preston had a shovel the boys used to dig the logs into the ground and Phil liberated a spool of rope from his father’s garage which they used to tie the logs together. Inside the fort they built a platform upon which the boys could stand and look out over the walls of the fort to spot any potential imaginary Indians who no doubt would some day attack the fort.

Rifles and pistols were carved out of sticks to use to kill the imaginary Indians. To complete the fort, a long wooden pole was planted in the middle of the fort atop which was fastened one of Donnie’s old t-shirts that happened to include the colors red, white, and blue.

After the summer of the fort’s construction Donnie got a real BB gun for Christmas so the next summer the battles fought at the fort were a little more real. Thankfully, no Indians were killed although the squirrel population suffered several fatalities.

The next summer both Preston’s and Phil’s families moved away and Sammy spent much of the summer in the hospital. Donnie was the only soldier left and the battles were no fun anymore. Instead of bringing his BB gun to the fort he brought a book or two he checked out of the library. It turned out the fort was a delightfully quiet place to read.

For several summers the fort was abandoned and there were no longer any battles. Quite a few years later Sammy took his girlfriend Patricia out to the forest to show her the fort. Although a couple of the fort’s walls were sagging, the fort was still in reasonably good shape. Donnie’s t-shirt was still atop the flagpole.

The viewing platform was still intact and sturdy. Sammy took Patricia up to the platform and they made out. They returned to the fort several times to make out and eventually they both lost their virginity right there in that fort.

After that summer Sammy and Patricia never went back to the fort. But eight years later, just a couple of months after their divorce, Sammy went out to the fort one lovely spring afternoon. He was already distraught over the divorce but his heart sank even further when he saw that the fort had been completely demolished. Nothing was left standing, not even the flagpole. There was just a big pile of logs.

Apparently, the Indians finally showed up.

Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved. This is a work of fiction. Writings by White Feather

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