Ray 6

It's hard to convey how much he impacted my life. Besides trapping, he taught me how to make fire without matches, make a temporary shelter to sleep in the woods, how to find and cook Polk Salad, how to catch and smoke fish, how to make knives, deer stands, how to track all sorts of animals. For years, he was my best friend even closer than my good friend Poot, and I looked for any opportunity to get to Steen Hill and hang out with Ray. If we weren't hunting or trapping, we were chewing tobacco on his front porch sometimes talking sometimes just listening to the birds sing and the squirrels bark.

After I got married, I took my new bride by to meet him. We would go by every few weeks. When I went back to school in my thirties, my hunting fell off to nothing, and I went three years without seeing him. So one day during spring break of 1990, I drove out to visit my old friend, and I was stunned to find that his cabin had burned. From the looks of things, it had happened within a few days of my arrival. There was just a big pile of ashes and some foundation stones where his cabin had stood for more years than I know. 

I was in shock not knowing if he were dead or alive. I yelled out for him and walked around looking for tracks or any sign of him and found nothing. That night, I asked Dad what happened to him. He didn't know. I asked Ellis Roberts what happened. He didn't know. I asked Herbert Rusco what happened to Ray Azel, and he said he didn't know. After not finding out anything, a week later I called the Carroll County Sheriff, C.D. Whitfield. He didn't know anything and didn't seem much interested. If anybody knew anything, they weren't saying.

I started driving out at least once a week. Sometimes I would park in front of where his cabin was and sit for hours. I'd take books with me so I could read and not lose study time which I always needed. And I'd pray, yearn, even tack notes to trees. In my mind, he was a missing person, and not just any missing person, but someone I loved. I knew he could survive in the woods, so I took long walks off Steen Hill looking for anything, an old campfire, a shelter like he taught me to make. Tracks in the gully. I never saw or found a trace of him. 

For me, it was like a missing person and a death all rolled up into one. Someone I loved was gone, and I grieved. It took about a year before I finally figured he had moved on and although I wanted to see my old friend, I came to accept the fact that he wasn't around anymore. But I never stopped thinking about him or keeping my eyes open whenever I was in Carroll County.

"So, your saying that is Ray," Andrea, my lovely daughter, said with a smirk on her face.

"It's him. I swear. It's him."

"Dad, you ought to write books."

"You don't believe me!?!"

When she grinned outright, I almost exploded.

"Penny, tell her about Ray. You met him."

"I don't remember Ray," she said to my shock, embarrassment, and anger. 

"Ellis. You know Ray. Tell her I'm not making this up."

"I don't remember any Ray," Ellis said in a monotone voice that made me want to scream.

I looked back at Andrea who still had that smile on her face. That set me off.

"Whose phone is this?" I yelled waving her iphone in the air. "Who took this picture?" I almost screamed tossing her phone on a table. "It wasn't me."

"Zane," Penny snapped at me. "Calm down."

"Calm down. Calm down. I'm not a liar! That is Ray Azel in that picture in the cave."

"Whatever, Dad."

At that, I flew out the door and started pacing back and forth in the driveway. I was confused. On the one hand, I was elated that Ray was alive and still around. But why was he hiding himself from me? That was perplexing. And I was angry that Andrea didn't believe me and Penny and Ellis acted like they didn't even remember him. It was too much, and I was overdosing on conflicting emotions.

The sun was sinking low as I walked to the little family cemetery where Penny's mom resides and where my and my wife's tombstone sits. I sat against a tree and tried to make sense of it all. Then I heard a car coming up the drive. Since it was so late, someone was leaving, going home. My daughter, I presumed, taking her family home to Cleveland. 

The vehicle stopped, and I heard a door open and close. Andrea, I figured. But I didn't look that way. Somebody walked up.

"Poppy," I heard my grandson say. "Bye Poppy."

I turned and hugged him. He's a sweet boy and his extra effort to say goodbye blessed me immensely. 

"Poppy."

"What, son?"

"I believe you."

That started me crying. Zane Turner's innocence and belief in his granddad was at least part of the salve my soul needed.

"Next time we come out here, I'll help you look for Ray."

I began to cry harder.

Then he walked back to the car while I started weeping. They pulled away and the sun finished setting. Soon darkness would find me sitting in the cemetery all alone.