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“Go Dustin, GO!”
The two brothers hit the tree line at a dead sprint, the bigger of the two leading the way while the smaller, more agile figure egged him on from behind.
Itwas the first day of summer break.
Dustin and Wyatt Cook awakened at sunrise to get an early start on their first day of freedom. Stopping to kiss their mom good-bye and pack a few crucial food items from the kitchen pantry, the Cook brothers sprinted through the door and plunged into the great beyond of forest that lay behind their house.
The brothers had been planning this day for several months. Wyatt, the younger of the two by four years, had turned ten in April and was now allowed into the woods with only the
supervision of his older brother Dustin. They saw this as a right of passage, almost a ritual into manhood. Not only did it mean the two boys were free from the watchful eyes of adults, but Wyatt could now perform the sacred act of “swashing”.
Swashing was a technique for moving down Glenwood Creek, the small creek that ran
through the woods and emptied into a large pond at the Johnson Farm about five
miles east of the Cook house. The reason it was called swashing was because it wasn’t exactly swimming and it wasn’t exactly running; it was just swashing. There were spots where the creek opened up and a person could run at a full speed. At some points one might find himself crawling on his stomach through water with sticker bushes looming just inches from his back. Other times a person might have to climb a fallen tree to navigate to the next open part of the creek. Regardless of one’s progression, the journey always ended with the creek spilling into the pond at the Johnson Farm. This is where the swasher had to jump in and swim across to get to the road that led back home.

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