On Brown's Mountain, my father and I built our house out of slab lumber. When the sawmill was busy, Mr. Pucket, the man who ran the rip saw, would give my Dad the slabs just to get them out of his way. Slabs are mostly bark, but there's enough good wood in them to use as flat boards, provided you don't want anything fancy. And since all we wanted were four walls and a roof to keep the wind off our backs and the rain off our heads, we were thankful.

Brown's Mountain was the official name of the place, but most folks who lived in the area called it Ghost Mountain. I never asked why, and I don't remember anyone ever offering an explanation. The two-lane blacktop that circled the mountain had been built by the logging companies but was taken over by the county after the mills closed down. To get the timber down to the mill at the base of the mountain, the loggers had cut a road across the mountain that connected with the paved road. It was on this road, almost at the top of Ghost Mountain, that Dad and I built our slab home on three acres of good land.

Dad had befriended Jim Brown, the largest landowner in the area, and thus he was privileged to buy the prime land. This event was lucky for me, since my Dad and I didn't see eye to eye on the practice of drinking. Dad drank, but Jim didn't drink. So when I wasn't in school or doing chores, I was with Jim hunting or working in his cornfields.

Looking back, I now know that Jim wasn't tall enough to touch the sky – but he had certainly seemed tall enough back then. I can't remember him ever wearing shoes and, to my knowledge, he never struck another person. My fondest memory of Jim came at the end of a cold winter's day. We were returning from a failed hunt. Not a single rabbit to show for three miles of hill tramping and six hours of braving below-freezing temperatures. When I expressed my disappointment, Jim smiled and touched my shoulder with his huge hand. "Boy, a good day is one spent in good company."

Jim always put things differently than my Dad did. Back then, I didn't understand why this was so. Today, I know that Jim spoke from the heart, while my Dad spoke his mind. This would be the last summer I would get to spend with Jim. He would die in his sleep late that fall – and I can't imagine God taking Jim in any other way.

Had I known that my time with Jim was so short, I would have stayed and helped him shoe the mules instead of taking off on my own to explore a cave I'd recently spotted. But I had to explore the cave alone, because there was no way Jim would ever squeeze his ample frame through the small opening.

I reached the cave early in the morning and set about exploring. Jim had said it would be damp and hard to see in, not worth the effort. After about twenty minutes in the dark…

An Angel Named Zabar is a collection of short stories about a guardian angel. He's understanding and helpful, but it's not healthy to come between Zabar and his work. My Friend Zabar is the first story in the series when Bob Miller meets Angel Zabar at the ripe old age of eleven.