The house they finally settled on appeared to have both of what my father and my mother wanted a place to paint away from society and a garden with lots of sunshine; at the realtor’s office, the house seemed perfect for us. My younger brother, Jimmy and I were sold when we heard that place had 6 acres of hillside, a creek and huge trees to play in. We could have a dog; my mother was just glad she wouldn’t have to be worried about us being kid-napped every two minutes.

When we drove down to look at the house, for the first time, the poor condition of the road gave us misgivings; there were deep potholes and places where small creeks ran over the road. However, the scenery in the small valley was beautiful with the acres of Pine trees, here and there studded with a stately Oak. When we'd finally rounded the last pockmarked corner of the road where our house was supposed to be, the trees cleared and we looked down at the house. 

The house, itself, was a one and a half storey building which perched on the hillside, overlooking a small, uninhabited valley of deep green Pines and gnarled, white Oak trees. The front of the house faced the road, and a wide veranda encircled the house, with a slatted shade roof built over it. Just outside the front door was a gravel walkway that stretched from the tiny meadow on the left of the house to the second building. The front 'yard' was comprised of an iris garden and two, tall Pine trees, just beyond the walkway; the garden had steps leading up from the gravel to the driveway. The garden was very much overgrown with weeds and looked as if it had not been touched for years.

We sat looking at the house for a few minutes; I couldn't help noticing the windows were all dark, as if they covered by something. I remembered the realtor saying something about the current tenant was refusing to leave the place... or something like that. My mother suggested to Dad that maybe we'd 'seen enough'. Jimmy pointed up and I could see part of a tree-house constructed high in an oak tree; we kids wanted to get out and take a closer look at the house.
There was another small, two storied building next to the house, not 30 feet away, which Dad claimed as his 'studio' right away; both structures and garden and driveway were set a ways below the dirt road, which ran on past the place on to the other future neighbors

All of the sudden, the front door of the house flew open and a large man, with no shirt on, came barreling out, a long shotgun in his hand. Two huge, white and black pit bulls came out with him, barking madly.  My dad threw the vehicle in reverse and backed up the road, pieces of dirt flying; he turned the car around in a nearby driveway and left in a cloud of dust. The shotgun man yelled something similar to, "get off my property!" and surprised us by firing a volley of gunshots towards our retreating car. He must have been a very bad shot, as nothing even came near us; we could hear the bullets whistling through the trees some way off. My parents were both a little grey in the face as we drove back up the road.

In spite of this unsettling incident, my parents still wanted the house, for the view, the extra building and the quiet; everything else was fixable. We had to wait until escrow closed. The realtor kept us abreast of what was happening in our future home. The police, we were told, were needed to extract the shotgun man and his dogs from the house, and the house's interior was in such a bad state that the owner offered to pay for part of the clean-up, glad to just get rid of it. We bought it and moved in.

Mom found the sunken location of the house a slight problem right away; anytime someone drove past, no matter how slow they went, a substantial cloud of dust would lift into the air and slide freely down the hill towards our front door. Having an open screen door would be impossible. Oddly, the dust was the catalyst to our meeting Dynamite Dave.

The third day we been in our new house, a loud car came rattling down the road at a pretty fast clip. I heard my Dad yelling outside; running out the front door, my mother behind me I stood on the porch and saw my father walking back down the driveway towards the house, looking slightly browner than normal. On further examination, we saw he was covered in a fine layer of dust; the car and driver were long gone.

"So, that was the dynamite man, again?" Mom asked him, as he came up to the porch. My dad coughed and went inside to wash. He spent most of that afternoon hammering something in the garage. The next day, Mom took us to the grocery store in 'town', some miles away. When we returned, along the dirt part of our road were placed several signs, freshly painted in bright orange and blue. They all read 'SLOW - 5 MPH'. Dad met us at our door, his smile full of self-assured satisfaction.

"Well...what do you think?", he asked, pointing at the largest and last sign, by the beginning of our driveway. Mom said they looked nice, and that she hoped people would heed them. Besides Dave and Jerry, two other families lived down the road from us: Roger and his wife, Celia, at the end of the road, and further down was Roger's sister, Jane, whom I never saw the entire time I lived there.

My brother and I were busy planning out how to renovate the partial tree-house that someone, who had lived here before us, had started, in the large oak tree that spread partly over the road. It was a perfect tree for watching cars go by or to look out for wildlife. There was even rumor of deer and an occasional coyote to spot in this green-grey, rocky valley. We kept a pair of Dad's old binoculars up there and a picture book of birds. We were sweeping the tree-house out when we heard the Jeep.

The far-away rattling started when we were still up there; it was Dave=s car. Peering down through the leaves, we saw a dark, forest- green Jeep rumble over the numerous pot-holes below, with two people and a large, black dog in it. The driver we could not see that clearly, as he was wearing an enormous, black, cowboy hat. They went by under us quickly, and the dust rose into our faces like a swirling sandstorm.

"HEY!", I heard my father yell through the cloud, somewhere below. The red tail-lights of the Jeep flicked on and a long screech of brakes sounded. The rumbling motor stopped; the dust cleared away after a moment and we saw Dave getting out of the Jeep; there were no doors to open on the car. He walked around by the back of the Jeep, and put his hand on the head of the silent, black dog.