Numchucks: The Legend Ch. 14

Chapter 14 (Tracking)

I was at work when I get this phone call from my wife (Sandra) informing me that Phillip and his cousin (Michelle) had runaway, off into the woods. Needless to say I took off and headed towards the house and the woods.

Come to find out Phillip and his cousin were doing school work at the kitchen table. The window they sat by offered an alluring view of the woods. Now Phillip was wood wise. He had been hunting with me several times and the woods he went into were the same once we walked weekly. There was miles and miles of nothing one way and a highway and a town the other.

Numchucks was barking at the end of his chain towards the woods when I pulled up. The usual display when the kids went to play without him. After a quick conversion with Sandra and released ole Numchucks and off into the woods after the kids we went.

Now when you enter the woods you quickly come upon a creek, where you would generally go left along a hillside that took you through miles and miles of wooded terrain. I searched the creek for tracks and found they're crossing and up the hillside. Numchucks was already way off sniffing around ahead of me. He went towards town.

"Numchucks, get back here. They went into the woods not towards town and police and people who would see them." I took Chucks by the collar and led him back to the creek. Now in his mind he must have been thinking, "Oh, Okay...you want to go this way."

Because after hunting and tracking all day in the woods. I mean every inch of this thicket would be impossible. But the main trails and hang outs were checked and no kids. The police were alerted and they came and took a report and began their search. Sandra drove the roads and Chucks and I kept hunting the woods.

It was that afternoon that the kids came home in the back of a county sheriffs vehicle. They had been found in town and brought them home immediately. Then the tale unraveled.

Michelle had been in trouble (grounded) and wanting to runaway to better circumstances. She talked Phillip who was not in any trouble at that time, to go with her cause he knew the woods. He was decked out from head to toe in his camouflage hunting clothes. He even had his survival pack that was a must on our trips out. It was a green army ammo pouch with a zip lock baggy containing, Band-Aids, crackers (which was eaten the first hour) first aid cream, matches (which I found out later they used up a whole book of matches trying to light dew damp leaves for a fire, to cook their sardines) Can of sardines (gone) Pen and Paper. Some hard candies and a Texas annual hunting rules and regulations booklet for that year.

They went across the highway and into town. Michelle's legs were all cut up, her arms too, from running and hiking through the brush of the East Texas thicket. She had on shorts and a short sleeve shirt, poor child looked like she got a hundred lashes with a switch before she got home to get in trouble. They were dodging cars from my understanding by ducking into woods and ditches as cars came and went as not to be seen.

This one elderly black lady saw them trying to hide from cars and drove up and offered them a ride. Now I know some words were exchanged but they took the ride, reluctantly but the lady was convincing and took them home up the street to allow them to use the phone. Offered them cookies and drink and they were off again. This lady called the police and reported it and they zoomed to the location and spotted the kids and brought them home.

I don't recall the full extent of Phillip's punishment. I never spanked him, he will tell you to this day that I demanded him to do pushups. He got to where he was doing 200 push-ups and laughing about them. That's when we went to sit ups. But anyway Sandra and I took Phillip (15) to the county sheriffs office to let Phillip offer to do anything around the station to make up for the time and money the police put out for searching for him.

Now the Sheriff (Bob Green) thought this was cute and even played along and took Phillip on the grand tour of the jail, strolled him along the bars of hardened criminals (Assuming not) while his mother and I waited in the Sheriffs office with snickers and giggles.

A lot of time and worry as well as man power could have been saved if I had listened to Chucks and followed him instead of pull him to where I thought they were. I even think he looked at me with that "I told you so," look.

On a more serious note Michelle, Stacey, Melissa and Grandma (Sandra's Mom (Pat)) lived next door. Me, Sandra, Phillip, Numchucks, Shinkers and Georgie girl lived next to the woods. The escape route. But all that was about to change with the passing of Sandra's Grandmother (Margaret Wisdom). The winds of change had come again.