The Fire in Thunder Hollow
By Dan Barnwell
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About this ebook
The Fire in Thunder Hollow is the second book of the Thunder Hollow series. The owls have prospered under the protection of Brownie, the golden eagle. The hollow is filled with the home trees of the owls.
As the good times continue, the morals of the owls begin to slip. The young are not as well taught about social behavior. They begin to create problems for themselves. Soon, the younger owls have a secret hiding place and a charismatic young leader. The young leader wants to start a new community which would be ruled by him.
When the young owls plans are discovered, they return to Thunder Hollow and settle down, all except the power-hungry young leader. Angry over his rejection, he sets fire to Thunder Hollow, destroying it.
Only a few owls survive the fire by flying away. They fly so far that they cannot find their way home. Brownie, the eagle spendsevery summersearching for them, growing old and discouraged as the years roll by.
The owls, living in a dismal swamp, are losing their memories of Thunder Hollow. Will Brownie find the owls before he dies of old age, or will the owls pay the ultimate price for their rebellious ways?
Dan Barnwell
Born the eighth child in a family of twelve children, Dan Barnwell is a native son of Jacksonville, Alabama. His father died when he was seven years old, leaving his mother with ten boys and two girls. Although they had a small farm, the family struggled for years to survive together. The Barnwell home, however, was full of happiness and hope. Every child believed a better day was coming, because their mother, Alice Barnwell, made them believe. Dan was a dependable source of stories and poems for his brothers and sisters. Each tale carried a positive message. “Keep trying. You will find greatness soon.” Dan still lives in Jacksonville on a section of the property where he was raised. He has written many church plays and gospel songs, as well as some wonderful short stories. In his first book, “The Owls of Thunder Hollow”, he escorted his readers through the childhood of a misfit who finally found his talent and became great. The birds in that story became personal friends of the readers. In this book, Dan uses his amazing storytelling talent to create a family around the reader. This is not an emotional roller-coaster. A person knows that there is no pain at the end of a roller-coaster ride. Not so, this ride. Dan has exposed the pain of love, faithfulness, honesty, and loneliness. He has also created a very real adventure full of great struggle and amazing accomplishment. Dan doesn’t tell this story. He grabs the readers by their minds and jerks them into the middle of it.
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The Fire in Thunder Hollow - Dan Barnwell
CHAPTER ONE –
TALON
As the population of Thunder Hollow increased, the owls seemed to lose their colorful personalities. Individuality is hard to develop for those who live in a crowded area. The best way to get along is to conform to what is accepted as normal. However, there will always be those who are different.
The number of young owls hatched every year had grown from four to eight, then twelve. Mated pairs were setting up homes all along the hollow, both uphill and down. The Old Teacher faced a great responsibility just teaching the young owls the basics of hunting and surviving. The older owls pitched in during the Fall of the year and helped complete the training. Food was usually plentiful during that season, so the young owls had opportunities to learn and gain weight for the coming winter. The old teaching system, though not as efficient as it had been, still worked quite well.
One spring, there was a male owl hatched who was destined to become a legend. He would become one of those birds who would have stories told about him during the long snow-covered winter days when the owls needed something to take their minds off of the cold.
He arrived at the Naming Tree right on time along with the other dozen or so young owls who had hatched that year. His most noticeable feature was that his talons were a glossy black. They also seemed to be extremely sharp. The Old Teacher of that generation named him Talon. With this young bird, it was more of a statement than a name.
Talon learned to hunt immediately. He did not fly around and puff out his feathers to boast when he caught his first mouse. He just swallowed the mouse. When he would catch a beetle or a lizard and the other young owls called, Brownie!
, he didn’t find it necessary to acknowledge their cheers.
After several nights, Talon was hunting with the adult male owls every night. By mid-summer, he was hunting alone. When the young owls of that year were escorted to the banks of Little River and taught how to catch a rabbit, Talon was the one who caught the rabbit.
Talon’s appetite was tremendous. He hunted constantly and grew quickly. He soon had muscles like an adult, especially in his legs. No creature, mouse or rabbit ever escaped his grasp. He would be awake and gone each evening by the time the other owls awoke and he would return long after they were asleep.
Old Teacher insisted that he attend the winter survival lessons she taught. Other than that, he was allowed to roam the forest as an adult. He was quiet and seldom called to the other owls that he happened to pass during the night. If he called at all, he would give a quiet call of Talon
just to identify himself.
The adult owls whispered among themselves about Talon. He was so strong, so quiet, so smart and so solitary. Some worried that his quick growth to adulthood might have fatal consequences during the cold months. Others envied his great strength and intelligence, wishing that they were living in their first summer again, so they could fly along with him during the night hunts. All agreed that Talon was a unique young owl.
One of the things which made Talon such a different bird was not a visible trait. He loved silence, complete silence. That was one of the reasons he left the tree early in the evening and returned late in the morning. Talon liked to find a very quiet place away from every creature to just sit perched on a limb and watch the night come slipping its cover over the hollow. He also enjoyed seeing the forest turn from a dark empty place to a quiet bustling mountain of life each morning. He liked the other owls. He wasn’t a grumpy bird that found fault with them. He wasn’t lonely. He just loved silence.
Winter came, cold and white. The owls were forced to hunt farther and farther from the hollow. There were so many of them now that long flights were necessary. Many of the stronger owls would take off for the riverbank at dusk and hunt all night. They would return just as the dawn was breaking, carrying food for any owl that had failed to make a catch during the night.
One night, Talon found a hollow tree near the riverbank. As the day began to dawn, he cleaned out the hole in the old tree as well as possible. He settled in and spent the day resting there. The damp air near the river caused him to be slightly uncomfortable, but he decided that the tree would be alright for the warmer seasons. At dusk he left the hollow of the tree and flew away. He did not fly in the direction of Thunder Hollow. He flew across Little River. No owl of Thunder Hollow had crossed Little River since Strongshoulders and Brownie had been blown across it during the great storm. Talon was the first owl from the hollow to cross the river deliberately.
Talon found the far side of the river to be a disappointment. The land was flat and swampy. There seemed to be very little room to fly near the ground. The briars were thick and woven together. Although hunting was difficult, food was plentiful. Talon perched above a small opening between the briars and was soon able to catch a large field mouse. He explored for most of the night, and then returned to Thunder Hollow before the darkness was completely gone. One thing had impressed Talon. The far side of the river was a very quiet place. This was the only reason that Talon would return to that damp, tangled land.
CHAPTER TWO –
LAUREL
The winter had not been very harsh as winters go. The snow was never too deep, the air never too cold. The owls all made it through the season without much difficulty. A few died of old age, but that was to be expected. Seven or eight winters is considered to be an extremely long life