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My wife and I are originally from
Cincinnati. However, for the past thirty

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years we've traveled all over North America
with our camper and boat and enjoyed the

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beauty and the bounty of this beautiful
continent. We always make it back to

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Cincinnati for the holidays with our children
and grandchildren, but the rest of the

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year we spend on the road.
In nineteen ninety nine, we were in

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a community in Alaska where we liked
a salmon fish and to hunt cariboo.

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We always gave ninety nine percent of
our cats, along with two cariboo that

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we took there once to the locals. The meat was more than we could

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eat, and the indigenous people appreciated
the extra food. It earned us some

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lifelong friendships. You couldn't imagine our
joy when on this year one of the

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young tribe members offered to take us
to one of his spots to fish,

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a place where few outsiders have ever
been. It demonstrated his trust in us,

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which was a great honor. The
sight was nothing short of amazing.

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It was everything our young friend had
promised, and the wide stream, nestled

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between two small mountains and surrounded by
woods, was no deeper than our knees.

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The water was crystal clear with a
sandy bottom, and it was teeming

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with salmon. Two other members of
the tribe were there when we arrived.

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They recognized us and offered a friendly
wave. The eight large bears were also

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enjoying the abundant salmon. But our
friend told us not to panic. Don't

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bother them, and they'll leave you
alone, he said. He explained that

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they too were fishing for salmon and
chasing us off would require too much energy.

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And then he said, but if
they grab one of our fish,

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just cut the line and start over, or they will go after our catch.

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Just let them have it. There's
plenty more fish out there. We'd

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been fishing for two hours and everyone
was catching enormous kings. The bears were

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having a good day as well.
We were all having a great time when

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we heard a roar from across the
creek. Two of the other fishermen left.

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They didn't even gather their catch.
The bears all stopped fishing and ran

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into the woods away from the sound. Our guide said, we have to

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go now. I must have given
him a defiant look, because he added,

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we need to leave now and leave
the catch. We sensed the urgency

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in his voice and we knew there
was danger present, so we followed him

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back to his truck. He didn't
speak a word until we were back on

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the main road, and I noticed
that he kept checking his rear view mirror.

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What's going on? I kept asking, was it a bear? What

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made that noise? And why did
the other bears run off? The suspense

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was killing me, but he would
never answer. Finally, once we were

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on the main road, he said, Kushtaka. What in the world is

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Kushtaka? I asked. I could
see that he was clearly upset to even

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speak of it. He paused for
a minute and gathered his words before saying,

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you do not live in this land, and you should not know all

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of its secrets. But Kushtaka is
he who rules over all the land.

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He paused for a minute, and
then he continued, He lays claim to

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all and requires tributes from us to
hunt and fish his land. That is

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why we left our catch. If
we hadn't done that, it would have

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brought bad luck to our people and
we would have faced his anger. He

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refused to speak any more about it, and when he dropped us off at

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the small campground outside of town where
we had made camp. He told us

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to be ready to go by eight
am tomorrow, and then he left.

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We spent the night trying to envision
exactly what Kushtaka was. Was it a

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bear or some sort of monster.
Years later we learned that Kushtaka is called

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the otterman. At the time,
we never would have come up with that

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in any way, shape or form
or fashion. Over the next four days,

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our guide took us to more commonly
fished and therefore more crowded areas.

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He refused to take us back to
his honey hole, but on the fifth

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day we told him we were going
to go out on our own. We

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found our way back up to the
secret spot where the bear had returned and

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were feasting on the fatty fish.
There were no other fishermen around. Jesse

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and I concealed ourselves in the thick
brush along the creek and waited as the

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bears walked within feet of us,
not even giving us a second look.

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At four pm, the roar bellowed
again, sending the bears fleeing into the

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bush and leaving the stream for Kushtaka. Once the bears were gone and everything

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settled down. Three enormous creatures,
a huge male, a female with sagging

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breasts, and a younger male walked
into the creek and began to grab fish.

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They'd shoved the belly of one fish
into their mouths and eat the eggs

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with one hand while reaching down into
the water to grab another fish with the

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other. Their mouths seemed to stretch
from ear to ear. The bodies were

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completely covered in hair except for their
faces and the palms of their hands,

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and their large black eyes were set
further apart than a human's. Their noses

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gave the appearance of being smashed into
their faces. Their foreheads sloped back to

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conical heads. We couldn't see their
ears for all the hair. They stood

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in the middle of the creek,
knees bent and scooped up the salmon with

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large hands that were attached to arms
that extended below their knees. Eventually,

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they squatted or sat down in the
creek and used their arms to guide the

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fish into their lips, and after
they took one large bite from the fish's

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bellies, they'd cast them aside and
grabbed the next one. More fish bodies

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floated past us than we could count
The male stood nine feet tall, and

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it was at least five feet across. His hair was black. Gray was

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mixed in throughout his hair, but
mostly concentrated on his chin and chest.

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The female was more of a reddish
brown. She stood two feet shorter than

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the male, and the hair on
her breast was much more sparse than on

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the rest of her body. She
wasn't nearly as broad as the male.

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The juvenile was quite a bit smaller
than either of the adults. He was

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the same size as our young Indian
guide and covered in deep brown hair.

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Remained focused on the salmon for quite
some time. They only stopped eating to

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defecate or urinate. Even then,
they didn't get out of the water,

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which might be the reason their stool
is never found. I brought my thirty

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five millimeter camera and I managed to
snap off two whole thirty six exposure rolls

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of film unnoticed. The rushing water
masked the clicking sound of the camera shutter.

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A storm was approaching, and when
the wind kicked up we retreated.

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We were unobserved. I couldn't wait
to see how our pictures turned out.

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We drove straight to a little store
to have them developed. That is how

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it was before digital cameras, laptops
in the Internet. Jesse and I had

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just spent two hours observing three animals
that were thought to exist only in myth

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or at best, rarely seen from
the Patterson Gimlin film. Most evidence was

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footprints. But now we had solid
proof that these animals exist and we could

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give them the protection they need.
As we watched, we'd heard them vocalizing

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with each other. There was a
mix of clacking and popping sounds made by

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their lips and teeth, combined with
purring and cooing. They even had a

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language that sounded like Chinese or Japanese. Three days later, when we went

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to pick up our pictures, we
were heartbroken when we were handed an empty

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envelope. We decided it didn't matter, though we were already planning our next

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trip to the creek. We would
get more pictures. Two elders were standing

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by our truck when we walked outside. They asked us to join them for

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a ride in their beat up suburban, and we excitedly jumped into the back

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seat. When a ride was off, it usually meant that they were going

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to show us something special, and
in the past they'd taken us to see

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several secret tribal areas, including burial
grounds, totem poles, and some drawings

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on cliffs and rocks. That day, there wasn't much conversation on the trip

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other than a little small talk.
We drove for half an hour along dirt

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trails and creek crossings until we arrived
in an old log cabin that looked like

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it had been abandoned. The roof
was peeled back, the windows were knocked

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out, the door was missing.
A few outbuildings looked like they had been

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bulldozed over. It had been left
to nature, and nature was greedily taking

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it back. We pulled up to
the cabin and the two elders got out

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and went to sit on a couple
of big rocks, and they waited for

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us to approach them. Before the
chief began to speak. We know of

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your curiosity, and we worry about
your lives as well as the lives of

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our people when you leave. Your
photos were destroyed, but we cannot stop

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you from going back to take more. I want you to know everything that

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will occur if you do. This
cabin belonged to a family from the Lower

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States, he said, gesturing with
his hand. They wanted to live off

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the grid, as they put it, to teach their children how to live

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off the land. They lived here
for a couple of years, and they

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were well liked by our people.
We shared many of our traditions with them

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to help make their lives easier.
To continue. The story was becoming difficult

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for the chief, and the other
elder took over. The father had constructed

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a smokehouse for the salmon he had
taken that year, and the bears toward

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apart, stealing most of their catch. This led to concerns that there would

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not be enough food to get through
the winter. They drove to town and

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bought several boxes of ammo for the
hunting rifle. The next week, he

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returned to town to buy more salt
to cure the meat from a huge moose

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he had harvested. He told us
then that he was afraid the bear would

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return. The old man lowered his
head and thought for a moment before he

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continued. We listened to his story
about his moose hunt and about all of

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his concerns, and we realized that
this might be kushtaka. We advised him

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to leave a quarter of the meat
out further away from the house, but

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he said they had taken enough and
he wasn't giving up any more. That

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night, he had strung cans with
rocks in them to alert him of the

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meat thieves, and sure enough,
that night he heard something and ran out

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to chase it offer to shoot it. We know he hit something from the

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blood that trailed into the bush and
the large footprints we found along the trail.

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By this time, the chief regained
his composure and continued the story.

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We grew concerned a couple of days
later when we did not see him or

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his family back in town. They
never came back. Several of our tribe

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drove up there to find his cabin
torn open like you see it now.

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All the other buildings had been beat
down to the ground, and there were

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kushtaka footprints all over their home site. We found the father curled up right

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over there. He pointed to an
old mountain hemlock tree. He was clinging

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to life, but twisted and beaten. His body was covered in blood and

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his legs were broken, and we
later learned that he'd suffered internal damage.

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We rushed him to town, where
he was taken by helicopter to anchorage for

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treatment. He kept muttering they came, They came, and they took my

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wife and daughter. He never said
anything else, just those same words.

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Over and over. State troopers came
to investigate, and they questioned us.

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They asked us if he could have
killed his family, and we didn't believe

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that he could have. The troopers
concluded that it must have been a bear

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that did all that damage. Again, the chief stopped and shook his head.

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But we knew better. We are
of the land and of the water.

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We could see the tracks and the
claw marks on the building. We

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followed the blood trail before the troopers
destroyed the evidence. We saw where the

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injured kushtaka ran toward the river.
We saw where it had fallen several times

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before it was picked up and carried
by other Kushtaka. We did not venture

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further. We did not want to
risk the consequences of trespassing on kushtaka land.

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The chief's eyes filled with tears as
he said the wife was nowhere to

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be found, nor was the daughter. Our stories tell of many times when

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kushtaka would come to our villages and
take women and children. The chief told

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us that he had driven to the
hospital to visit the man, and he

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found him curled up in his bed, repeating. They came. Over the

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next five years, the chief made
that same trip every year, and then

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some of his family from the Lower
forty eight came and took the father home.

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The chief told us that he felt
responsible for what happened because he knew

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that it was Kushtaka when the father
first came to town for the AMMO,

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but he didn't tell him about the
beast, and he said he should have.

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Several hunters from our village came up
missing that year, and half of

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our dogs disappeared. He said they
were dragged away in the middle of the

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night. Koshtaka came to take his
revenge, and just like he took his

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revenge on the father for shooting one
of his own. He let him live,

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but he broke his legs so he
couldn't walk. He could only lie

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there and watch. Hearing this story, Jesse and I began to think about

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what would happen if we had taken
those photos and then showed them to the

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wrong people. This peaceful slice of
heaven would be overrun with people trying to

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kill or capture one and the people
who would pay dearly for it would be

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the local tribe. We decided to
leave the Kushtak up beat. We made

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a few more trips up there and
tried to earn the tribes trust again,

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but it was never the same.
The community never showed the trust that they

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once had. They were always nice
to us and respectful, they just didn't

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share stories or traditions with us ever
again. We never returned to the God's

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honey Hole after that. We saw
the Guide a few times, but he

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always turned and walked the other way. He never spoke to us again.

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Jesse and I eventually decided never to
return to the village. We'd lost the

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joy we once felt by being there, and there was a costly lesson and

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trust mmm.