We were deep in rural Tennessee when the rain came. It was light and so quick that the sun was still out, and it danced in the sunlight as we drove. With the rain coming and going, it was easy to imagine we were traveling through different pockets of a land unique in their own secrets. That land was the historic Cumberland Plateau, and we had come to this high wooded country to hunt wild hogs.
“Almost there, buddy,” I said to my 12-year-old nephew, Steven, riding shotgun on his first road trip.
I wondered as my pickup traced the curving back road through the rain—then sun, then rain again—what lessons this hunt would hold. Hunting aggressive game with a young sidekick in unfamiliar woods, I knew, was not for the careless or the faint of heart. Ensuring a safe and successful hunt would take all the discipline I could teach him. But little did I know that the lessons on this hunt in America’s original backwoods would come from him and would force me to confront fears I didn’t know I had. They were deep fears that I had buried and would only be able
