I
WAS FORBIDDEN TO go alone to Splinter Run, but the rain that fell overnight tempted me to ignore my father’s order. Meadowlark calls pulled me over the dips and rolls of the Oklahoma prairie. A quarter mile away I could see the Washita River, trailing coffee-colored ripples through the freshly washed prairie green. Splinter Run had been named by my father when he first came to this land years before. He said the creek split the prairie like a splinter split your skin. I gazed across the foaming water to my favorite thinking spot on the opposite bank. The rising sun behind me highlighted something I had not seen there before. Curious, I leaped the narrow run and bent over the object. It took only a couple of seconds to recognize what it was. It was a bone. Sunk in the soil between tree roots, the end of the bone stuck out from the imprisoning soil only a halfinch or so. It must have been freshly uncovered by the recent runoff. I dug around it with my fingers until I could get a grip on it and pull it free. It was slightly curved, slender, about six inches long with knobby
ends. “Probably a coyote,” I said to myself. But I had seen many coyote bones and this bone wasn’t quite the same shape. Pa would know. I tucked the bone inside my apron pocket and started for home. That evening after supper, Pa sat outside relaxing. I slipped out, sat at his feet and pulled the bone from my pocket. “Pa? I found this beside Splinter Run today. It’s not a coyote bone is it?” He frowned at my admitted disobedience but took the bone in his calloused fingers. The last lingering daylight was settling over the land in liquid pools. There was just enough light to see. He looked at the bone, turned it over, and laid it beside his foot. “This isn’t from a coyote or a fox. Could you find the spot again?” I could tell he wanted to say more. His lips were pressed tightly together to keep the words imprisoned. I didn’t remark on his expression, only answered his question. “Sure. It was stuck between two roots of the cottonwood at the run.” “I want you to show me where you found this. And Zephyr, you know I don’t want you to go near that creek without telling someone where you are.
