Category Archives: Tale of Toliver Grubb

A campfire tale of a group of Scouts on an adventure weekend in th

Prologue – Tale of Toliver Grub

The Forest Ranger was quite comfortably settled in the wicker high back chair on the small porch of  his cabin   He was almost dozing,  when bolted awake by the low growl of a working chain saw in the woods.  He was alert and listening for a fixed direction. No one operated a chain saw in his forest but the men of the forest service, it could not be them. They would have been given headquarters authorization and reported to him.

He rose quickly from his chair and walked around to the back of the cabin to get a better fix on the sound.  It wascoming from the southwest toward the paved town road.  Perhaps a mile or so away, sound travels in a quiet forest.

The ranger broke into a trot to quickly close the distance between him and the working saw.  In  fifteen minutes he was on a rise looking down into a glade at a man and a woman who had just cut down a beautiful white birch., and were proceeding to cut it into two foot lengths.

He thought, “to decorate their fireplace no doubt.”

She was carrying the logs to a hatch back car, parked just off the road with the motor running.  An unbridled fury rose up in the ranger’s  throat as he removed his shirt and pants revealing a camouflage pattern jump suit of faded green and gray.  Removing a cap of the same color he crouched low and slid among the trees down into the glade.  He   took a position behind a large rhododendron.

He heard the woman call from the car, “ Hurry, let’s go before someone comes along and sees us.”

“Relax, this is a lonely road and they’ll never miss one tree.”

A  shadowy figure rushed out,  just as the woman reached the car and almost out of sight. His rage at its peak, grabbing a cut log, he brought it down hard on the head of the poacher.  The blow crushed his skull and drove him to the ground.  A smooth cat like motion and the camouflaged  figure was again hidden behind the thick rhododendron.

The woman walking back, seeing her man on the ground, rushed to him kneeling,  calling his name.  Suddenly, a dark shadow  was above her with the raised cut log.

“ Why,” she screamed

A menacing guttural reply, “You killed my tree – so you die.” as h crushed her skull with a blow to her forehead.  He stood up, calmly looked around with a satisfied smilr,  picked up the remaining cut logs, turned off the chain saw carried the logs  to the car, and deposited them in the back.  He returned to picked up the female, carried her to the car and put her in the front passenger seat.  Then returned for the man, carried him to the car and placed him behind the steering wheel.  He closed the hatch, reached in the drivers window to put the car in drive.  Even without a foot on the gas,  he had no trouble steering the car into the center of the road, and releasing it.

The road was straight for a half mile, with a slight down grade before veering to the right.  The shadowy assassin watched  the car go down  the road and finally crash into the trees a where the road turned.The avenger returned to the stump of the birch, took some of the top branches and used them to sweep the area before slipping back into the woods.He retrieved and donned his uniform shirt and pants, and resumed his identity as theForest Ranger.