The man on the Big Bay horse thought of the beauty of this place as he passed along the road. The huge leaf-covered limbs of the trees formed a natural, overarching, canopy-covered avenue.

The host of flowering plants, the fresh water, and the wonderful oxygen-saturated mountain air along this near wilderness track created an incredible and wonderful incense that richly filled the senses and charged the heart of the forest rider.

Along the creek, the sounds of the water flowing in the tumbling deep blue streamwere multitude. Some were the mere tinkling sounds of tiny wind chimes; others bubbling, some booming, more crashing cymbals in the back of the orchestra countered by deep kettle drum thumping and boisterous gurgling. The slight kerplip of drippings blended with the constant, urgent, got-to-get-on rushing of the powerful water — the wonderful performance of a beautiful backwoods symphony.

This year, as spring had come into full hot summer, he had seen catfish brought out of the creek that wound head to tail around the inside of a wooden washtub.

Hunk, with his homemade three-pronged gig, had already been gigging in the creek for frogs. A few times, so far, this summer, he had brought Sarah brimming buckets full of the most tender, delicious frog legs in the world.

She was the consummate backwoods chef, and the result of Hunk's gig trips and Sarah's expertise with a cast-iron skillet, lard, and salt always resulted in a repast fit for a king.

He thought of how well a man and his family could live in this country, even now when times were hard; only the lazy need go hungry.

All summer long, the berries came on: blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, huckleberries, gooseberries, and tiny wild strawberries. Then the apples! Some so sweet they tasted like they were pumped plumb full of brown sugar juice, and some so sour they'd make a pig squeal. There were wild crabapples to mix in with the jams and jellies to set the jell. This was God's good country.

Pawpaw fruit, hickory nuts, black walnuts, white walnuts, or butternuts as some called them. The most delicious chestnuts in the world: beechnuts and hazelnuts. Not a few of them but tons upon tons of them — an overabundance of God-given bounty.

Ahh, and then the harvest! Squirrels made fat on the bounty of the forest — huge red fox squirrels and sleek gray squirrels. Floured or rolled in eggs and cornmeal and fried, either kind made the best breakfast gravy in the world.

Fresh venison — deer with that strip of tenderloin along the backbone stripped out and sliced into sections and then split into butterfly tenderloin steaks. Sarah dipped them in brown flour and fried them in a skillet with a little lard and just the right amount of salt. Browned! Lush, succulent tawny brown they came out, cooked to a delicious tan clean through and so tender they came apart with your fingers. Or she would bake the whole tenderloin smothered in onions and great big quarters of cabbage laid on top.

Bear meat! She'd clean the fat off for rendering and bake the meat with wild onions and whole potatoes served up with hot fresh cornbread and butter. A feast that satisfied a man's appetite, forged strong bones and layered them in sinew, and filled his blood with super fuel to power the machinery.

Then there was fried rabbit with mashed potatoes and greens: poke greens, dandelion greens, turnip greens — you name it!

Onions, about the size of a black walnut, boiled and smothered in homemade butter served up with fresh pork. Fat hog meat sweetened by the thousands of pounds of sweet chestnuts, hickory nuts, beech nuts, and acorns they fed on as they ran free in the woods. Meat that melted in your mouth and served with shoestring beans, cornbread, and delicious cooked or raw sweet onions and more potatoes. What king could want more?

Sometimes the big man wondered if the eating was the best part of all this — or was it the smelling? As it wafted along the side of the mountain, the aroma of Sarah's cooking was enough to make a man want to quit plowing or cutting timber way too early of an evening. Ah, but he waited, and then in the end, the eating sure made the waiting worthwhile. The sights, sounds, and smells of the country were enough to make one's heart swell.

Then there were the intangibles. The know-how to preserve all that bounty for winter — drying, smoking, salting, pickling, jarring, and jelling. Primitive frontier knowledge passed down from Mom and Dad, Grandpa and Grandma, from one generation to the next.

Here, there were totally unique things — things that bound a man to the land. There's something about the mountains that got hold of his heart, his very soul. Also, there was a sustaining something that lent a great deal of security to one who had loved ones planted beneath the shelter of the giant protecting arms of the forest within a stone's throw of him. It is something that gave him deeper roots than the newcomers in the land.

As the horse picked out the trail in the oncoming twilight, he thought to himself; he had much to be thankful for. When his grandpa had come here in the last century, he had to slip around the country with both eyes and ears open just to keep his hair. In fact, some of his kin hadn't slipped around quite well enough. Some were buried here in hallowed ground. Others had simply not come home. No one ever found where they had fallen. Finally, the fight between the red and white man had ended.

Then another war had come and gone. Next came the recent war like none before in this part of the world — a war among neighbors, a war that should never have happened, a war that pitted the country against itself. Now that war had been over for quite a while, and the country, at least in some places, was beginning to heal.

For the most part, folks could travel around the country on their business without fear. There were a few outlaws in the country, but they mostly didn't interfere with much, generally fighting among themselves, mostly robbing and killing one another. When they stepped out of line and got out of their little circles, the law was harsh — so harsh, in fact, that a lot of felons didn't spend much time in jail, if they got that far. Other than the scoundrels combing the country to try and steal by scandalous purchase what a man had rightfully come by, it was a fairly peaceful place to live.

With it getting on to evening, the big man had only stopped for a couple of minutes at Hawks Place, and now, from somewhere behind the high walls of the forest, an early ranging owl inquiringly let out a whoo into the coming darkness, and a friend, or maybe a relative, sent a whoo back.

Late for getting home, sparrows and finches flitted about like small windblown leaves, almost invisible now against the deep darkening forest. More heard than seen, they sought the inner branches of the evergreens and rhododendron for a safe hideout for the night. Somewhere behind him, a whip-poor-will sounded into the twilight. Off toward the hollow to his left, a rain crow with its beautiful long coo called for his mate, heavenly music on such a beautiful night.

Ahead, just at the end of sight, in the branched over-tunnel road that he followed, appeared a small dark spot in one of the snaking tracks of the wagon road. Mr. Rabbit stood on his hind legs, looking like a coffee pot with long upright ears from this distance, turning his head and sniffing the air, trying to make up...