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Circling
- TCU Press
- Chapter
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-23Circling A lesson learned while coon hunting “When you are lost in night woods,” my father said, pointing about us, “you can’t just guess at a line: one leg’s shorter, you’ll circle. You must walk in a set direction, picking a tree, one farther on, and on, until you have strung out tree after tree in a straight line to some place better than where you are.” “But in the dark?” I questioned him. “There’s always enough light for that, but don’t you trust the stars and moon— they move.” He asked if I understood. I nodded and looked at the dark trees. “Then find your way back to the truck.” “But it’s getting late, I’m hungry, I don’t know what direction to start.” “That is the direction. Now go!” He pointed to the wall of woods. I lunged into the underbrush in the direction he had pointed, forgetting utterly his advice, no tree different from another, crashed and plunged until I knew that I was lost and circling. I could see nothing but dark trees, hear nothing but my terrified run and the thrashing of my heart. The stars spun wildly overhead, the moon bounced across the sky. (continues) -24He let me wander, stumbling, calling his name until the woods stilled and I crouched, wet and cold, like some wild abandoned thing waiting for him to find me. “You did not pick a tree,” he said as I followed him out of the woods, “you did not hold a direction.” I stepped in his moon-cast shadow, long leg, short leg, resisting the circle until the stars fell into place and the rising moon stood still. ...