DTB Fort

Some of my favorite memories from the DTB club were building our forts. It seems that we built one at every reunion between the ages of 7 and 15. Not only that, we built forts at other places - including several different spots around my neighborhood. In the first drafts of the Narrows Escape, I had the family reunion take place in the White Mountains of Arizona, totally separated from the hike. When I changed location, I changed the fort too to match the new setting. Of course I pasted the old scene among my deleted scenes files in case I ever wanted to use it again. Here is the original:

             After completely examining their fort, they began exploring the surrounding area. They hadn’t gotten very far when the rain started falling again.

“Not again!” exclaimed Devin. “Why does the rain always have to ruin our fun?”

“Should we go back?” asked Brady. “Maybe we can work on our book some more!”

“But we did that all afternoon!” complained Devin. “I didn’t come all the way to Arizona to read and write. We can do that at home.”

“We can always wait it out inside the fort,” suggested Trey, ducking back inside their retreat.

Devin and Brady followed him in. They had to stoop over slightly so as not to bang their heads on the “roof,” but there were plenty of branches to sit on. Devin was pleasantly surprised at how well the roof was doing at keeping the light rain out. There were only a few spots where the water was seeping through.

“Hey, we’re pretty good builders,” he said proudly.

“You mean architects,” corrected Trey.

“What’s the difference?”

“Architects sounds more professional,” said Trey.

“Well I’m just glad we don’t have to go back,” said Devin. “In fact, we can hang out here instead of in the camper every time it rains.”

To pass the time, they played Tic-tac-toe by using a stick to scratch in the damp earth. They were running out of dirt when Devin heard a voice calling out from the other side of the river.

“Shh! Quiet! Someone’s coming!” hissed Devin.

The three boys sat silently, without moving, listening to the drumming of raindrops against the tree, and the gurgle of water from the nearby creek. Devin could feel his heartbeat pounding as they waited for the threat to pass.

“Brady! Devin! Trey?” the voice repeated.

“It’s my dad,” announced Brady. “I better go find out what he wants.”

Brady carefully climbed up the wet branches to the lookout post. As he disappeared from view, Devin heard him call out, “Hey Dad, over here!”

Brady lowered himself back into the clubhouse. Several seconds later, Uncle Darrell followed – though a bit more cautiously. He was wearing his familiar red jacket and his favorite cowboy hat. The three boys’ coats were slung over his left arm, dripping wet from the rain.

Once inside, Uncle Darrell had to stoop over almost double to keep from hitting his head. A low branch still knocked the hat off his head anyway. He carefully placed it on again and gladly accepted Brady’s invitation to share his branch. Then he passed out the coats.

“This is a nice set-up you have here,” Uncle Darrell said admiringly, as he inspected the makeshift roof. There were still only four or five drips.

Not bad at all, Devin decided. I’ll bet Steve and Shane couldn’t do any better themselves.

They quickly gave Uncle Darrell the “tour” – which they were able to do without even getting up. They then humbly accepted the praise he heaped on them for their craftsmanship.

"This is great!" Uncle Darrell repeated with a wide grin. “Your fathers and I used to build forts like this all the time in the orange groves and fields behind our house. We would spend hours and hours pretending we were Roy Rogers, fending off bandits and Indians.”

“Roy Rogers? Who’s that?” asked Devin, wondering if he was related to Buck Rogers from the twenty-fifth century – one of his favorite TV shows.

“My dad still has all his old Roy Rogers stuff in a box in our garage,” Trey explained. “He was some old cowboy.”

“Not that old!” laughed Darrell. “But I almost forgot. I was supposed to find you to make sure you guys weren’t getting all wet. Aunt Doris was afraid you were going to catch pneumonia or something, but you’re all much drier than the rest of us.”

“So we can stay?” asked Brady hopefully.

“I don’t see why not,” Darrell replied. “I’ll just go back and tell them what a masterful job you guys did.”

“All right!” exclaimed Devin, extending his hand so Brady could slap it.

Uncle Darrell left the way he came, and the three boys remained in their fort, playing games until the rain stopped.