Nobody Knows Your Secret

68

Jubal Whittaker had been taught the ways of the woods since he was a little boy. He had schooled his grandson from an early age, teaching the boy all the lessons that would serve him well as an older man. He passed on to Skip the importance of secrecy. In this land, a ginseng crop was a target for poachers.

That was why Skip had taken to going up to his land so much. His wanderings had a purpose. Armed with his shotgun, he was on patrol for trespassers looking to steal his precious herb. Today's ginseng harvesters took the whole root, unlike in the early days of gathering.

The old way.

That's how Jubal taught Skip to harvest the plant. Leave one of the 'man legs.' That allowed the plant to reestablish itself. Jubal and Skip were looking to the future and hoping one day that regulations would change, hoping the plant would be saved from extinction.

But because of the high prices folks could get for the herb, poachers had decimated the areas where it grew. They took the root and the neck where rootlets formed. They had even gone into federal parks where the removal of plants guaranteed jail time if the offender was caught. Even with the threat of prison, the plant was in danger. Fewer and fewer were living wild in the mountains that had once been their sanctuary.

Skip was raising his ginseng the way Jubal taught him. And that method of growing took patience. You could not harvest anything for eight to 10 years. Often, the mature plants would start making roots around the neck of the plant. By harvesting the existing root while leaving the rootlets in the ground, the plant survived harvest, and a new root could be grown from the existing plant.

There were grants for wild-stimulated ginseng. Maybe the government would wake up to the potential for this herb as a cash crop for mountain folk. In the meantime, ginseng sites had to be secured, and their locations had to be kept secret.

Secrets.

They kept Skip's crop safe.

He and his grandfather had been tending wide areas of ginseng on the mountain slopes for several years. Jubal had often told Skip that he was a poor man, but he was leaving his grandson a legacy that would one day provide for Skip and his family if he kept the secret and tended the land as his grandfather had instructed.

And Skip had taken those teachings to heart. He spent many days and nights roaming, keeping watch, and on guard, always listening for the hum of an ATV or scanning for holes dug in the slopes.

So far, his vigilance had paid off. He held the secret of his ginseng crop close to his heart like he had held the injured bird. Now, she was free to soar over woods and mountains that belonged to both of them. He promised himself that he would be on the lookout for not only poachers but also for the red-tail hawk.

His mother would just have to trust him. He had never given her any reason to doubt him. He figured his father was now, like always, too wrapped up in the county's troubles to be looking for them at home.

He hoped he had convinced his aunt that he was not up to anything illegal. She had always been on his side. He hoped her curiosity had not been aroused. He knew if she decided to snoop around into his business, no secret of his would ever be safe.