Growing up in central Florida. My interest in our Florida sasquatch or skunk cape
began when I was eleven years old. It was at the right age for
an impressionable young mind. In early nineteen seventy four, there was a rash
of bigfoot or skunk ape sightings all over Florida, and this fueled my imagination.
Even some of my friends told me of experienced they had while camping and
seeing the skunk ape or sasquatch. My best friends and I would tell the
scariest stories and scare the bejeebis out of each other. I was with my
boy Scout troop camping at a Scout camp on the edge of Okalla National Forest.
Years later I would learn that there were also many reports of sightings within
a few miles of this area, as well as a couple of strange encounters
of my own that I couldn't explain at the time. My best friend Tim
and I were the youngest kids on the troop camp out. After nightfall,
the older kids decided to hike to a small general store two or three miles
away. Tim and I weren't interested in doing that, so we sat around
the campfire and told each other scary stories to get each other riled up,
especially a frightening incident out in Oklahoma where campers were torn to bloody ribbons by
a monstrous bigfoot with long, sharp fingernails. Well, unbeknownst to us,
scout Master Bruce, who was also the Church of Youth pastor, heard us
loudly carrying on. He came up and told us, boys and y'all quit
fooling around and help out with the kp wash the pots and pans from supper,
take two buckets down to the picture pump and fill them up with water.
Saying back then that I was naive would be an understatement, because I
did. I hadn't noticed that. As soon as we grabbed the pails to
fill up, scout Master Bruce immediately disappeared. The old iron hand crank pitcher
pump was about fifty yards away, maybe less, but the distance at night
seemed like a mile for Tim and I. The pump needed to be primed
badly, which took a lot of work. There was a jug of stale
rust water next to the pump that I poured down the chef of the pipe
to prime it, and after much cranking of the old iron handle, the
water began to flow. Finally, Tim and I were filling up the buckets,
and the nearby bushes started to rattle and come to life. And then
there were loud grunts. Maybe it was a wild hog or bear, or
even a bigfoot with long fingernails. I grabbed the buckets and told Tim in
a trembling voice, I think we have enough water. And we scurried back
to the camp like squirrels on a hot pavement. As Tim and I were
washing pots and pans, scout Master reappeared, laughing. He let us know
that it was him rattling the bushes, But the story of our trip to
the picture pump became Troop folklore. It was retold by my Eagle Scout Awards
ceremony by the former Scout Master Bruce, who came back for the occasion and
repeated my famous quivering line, I think we have enough water. Another story.
It was in the mid nineteen nineties after I got out of the Army
and returned home to Florida. But this time nearly all of my friends had
moved elsewhere. I was between jobs and I wasn't really liking being around people,
and I took trips out of the Ocala Forest and I hiked alone.
I was starting to notice things in the woods that did not seem natural,
like a tree top twisted off. One afternoon, I was at home and
I was lounging around. My Dad comes in the room. Dad grew up
in New Jersey and had a tough childhood, but severed and became someone who
could endure hardships but still keep his sense of humor. At the same time,
he had a moral and ethical standard, and he went to church twice
a week and always looked out for other people, and he could fix and
repair anything. My dad was my role model, but he would not stand
for any foolishness. Dad knew about my interests for the Exclusive Cryptid and he
came in the room and he said, very seriously, my son, I
need you to promise me one thing. He would not tell me what he
was making me promise until I agreed to it, whatever it was going to
be, and this meant that he was deadly serious. I was thinking that
he was going to tell me to stay out of jail. He had previously
said that if I ever went to jail that he would not bail me out.
Well, I love my dad, and I knew that his advice was
always sound, so I relented and agreed to do whatever he asked me.
He said, about these big hairy things, I want you to promise me
that you will never go chasing after them. Well, I was stunned and
speechless, so he repeated the request and I said, yes, sir,
I promise. My dad passed away ten years ago. I never did ask
him why he made me promise that, but he said it was such conviction
and such seriousness that I know he had a good reason, which I will
never know the truth. Growing up in the South, when your father tells
you to do something as serious as he was, you don't question him.
He was a tough old Korean War veteran, and I had no doubt that
he could still whip my bottom if he had the notion. I believe that
I have kept that promise, but I did not think at the time that
those big hairy things might find me. Ten years later, I got a
job working for the Florida Park Service. I was working at a preserve on
the edge of the Everades in South Florida. At first, there was no
available residence at the park, so I had to live in town, and
after a year the park acquired property as part of the Everglades restoration project.
The parcel had a few abandoned trailers, and with a little work, I
would get my small retreat in paradise, including the frogs, the mosquitoes,
and the alligators. It was a bit out of my way. It was
about eight miles from the main area of the park where I worked. It
was accessible after going down a two mile road grade that would sometimes flood in
the summertime, but it was solid enough to get through. I moved into
an abandoned double wide trailer that did not take much work to make habitable.
I thought that it was actually very spacious inside. I think that it was
bigger than the apartment where I now live. It looked a bit mysterious that
the front door was gone, having been ripped off the frame mall section of
wall. But I found another door, and I rebuilt the wall in the
frame, and I salvaged other parts from other trailers nearby, and I had
a new well pump installed, and it made a decent place to live.
The electric company reinstalled a meter, so I had electricity, and I had
no telephone except my primitive cell phone. If I stood by the kitchen window,
I might get a signal. Otherwise, to make a phone call,
I had to drive two miles down a dirt road to the paved road.
In front of my trailer was a large canal. It was dug out decades
ago to help drain the everglades, and later on it would be filled in
as part of the Everglades restoration. But I would live here for two years
until that happened. Behind my trailer was a retention pond, and at night
in the summer, the noise made by the peeping frogs was deafening. And
beyond that was a cypress swamp. I found another abandoned trailer in the woods
that was collapsed and it had fallen down. And there was an abandoned house
with stories that the former owner buried a fortune that no one had ever found.
There was even a tale of a forming Cuban insurgent camp that I was
trying to find. The Remains of wildlife abounded. A Florida panther was seen
by a co worker. Black bears were common, and occasionally I had to
chase an alligator off the road in order to pass. Another time, I
had to stop in the road to pick up a baby soft sealed turtles who
had recently hatched, and I put them in the canal. I was keen
on spotting baby turtles on the roadway. There was a hawk nest in a
pine tree outside my trailer, and she would wake me up at dawn.
I didn't need an alarm clock to get ready for work. I loved my
non human neighbors, and I would occasionally say good morning to them, although
they did not reciprocate. I saw more water moccasins than I care to count,
and we seemed to agree not to bother each other. At first,
everything seemed natural for the outdoors, but as the months went on, I
noticed a few things that seemed a bit off. Things in the back of
my pickup truck sometimes moved around at night, which I blamed on the raccoons.
One night, I got a quick glance of something large and hairy that
went by my big picture window. I thought that it was probably a bear.
Another time, I woke to a thud that hit the side of my
trailer. I supposed that it was an owl that impacted the side, or
that it was just a dream. On a very still and quiet night.
I swore that I heard voices in the distance, but they were too faint
to hear what they were saying. I figured that it must be fishermen on
the canal, or maybe campers. About every week I would borrow the riding
lawn more from the shop and mow the grass around my trailer. I noticed
that on the east side that faced the Cypress Swamp, the grass seemed flattened
down, and I never had to mow that area, especially not under the
awnings of the two large picture windows. I only used the blinds on the
windows to keep out the sunlight from heating up the inside. No one else
was supposed to be out there, so I felt no need to close them
at night. But I found it odd that I never needed to mow the
grass under those large windows. Not only did the grass seem to be beaten
down, but there was a game trail that went from them straight back into
the Cypress Swamp. November rolled around and I was off work the next day,
so I was looking forward to sleeping late. At about four thirty am,
I got up to get a drink of water. I walked into the
kitchen and it was dark, and it was quiet. I checked the front
door and it was closed up tight. Everything was good, and I went
back to sleep. I woke up late that morning, later than usual,
and the sun was high up in the sky and it was sunny but breezy
outside, but the breeze was blowing inside my trailer, and I woke up
to a draft. I got up and the front door was wide open,
swinging on the hinges, and there was a faint musty smell in my trailer.
I didn't think that was unusual because it was old and moldy with the
occasional mice. I didn't know how the door opened by itself, though,
and I sat out loud. I don't mind if you visit, just close
the door when you go. I never woke to another door opening again.
There was a nearby citrus grove of tangerine trees. Since the park acquired the
property, the trees were now abandoned and wild. This winter, they had
a bumper crop of fruit. And one of my coworkers had emigrated from Central
America as a youth to escape the Civil war that killed many of his friends
and family, and besides being one of the hardest working people I know,
he was an expert at survival due to his background. The saying among us
was that he could find food in a parking lot. Well, one day
he came back to the park workshop with a bushel full of tangerines, and
I thought that he went a little overboard, picking more than would probably be
eaten. But that evening, when I went back to my trailer, I
passed by the tangerine grove and I spoke out to the treeline of the cypress
swamp, you better take some fruit before my coworker and all the tourists get
at it. The next week, I asked my coworker if he was going
to get any more tangerines. He said that he had gone back and all
the tangerines had been picked clean. He said, those darn tourists must have
taken it all. I did explore around a lot, and I still hadn't
found any hidden treasure or stash. I did find where the former Cuban insurgent
camp used to be the only thing that was left was the concrete slabs of
the former buildings. The government cleaned that place up really good. One evening,
at sundown, I walked outside my trailer about one hundred and fifty yards,
I heard a loud scream erupt The volume in length was about fifteen seconds,
and it was more than anything I had ever heard. No, it
was not a Florida panther. We were familiar with the Florida panthers and I
had one scream at me the first month that I was on the job.
That scream was terrifying and it curled the hairs on my arms, and I
decided that my evening walk was over one of the invasive plants in the area,
or the Brazilian pepper trees. The limbs are like rubber and they don't
easily lop off, and they don't snap off. Even using a machete is
difficult with the elastic limbs bouncing back. The park purchased several sharp, sweetish
axes to chop the limbs from the trees. It also takes constant chainsawing,
and they grow so thick that they will take over an area and nothing else
grows through their thick canopy. We worked most of the day to cut a
pathway inside the canopy where we could get to the tree truck to cut and
spray, and sometimes on hands and knees to get through the thick brush.
Imagine my amazement when I found a tunnel that went right through the Brazilian peppers,
about one hundred yards in the length. One end of the tunnel ended
at the canal, with the entrance slightly hidden so a passerby would not notice.
The inside of the tunnel had a seven foot ceiling, and the branches
were not cut, but they were snapped off and made to a carpet of
branches on the ground. There were no branches to duck under, which was
impossible, and the far end of the tunnel ended at the beginning of the
Cypress swamp, and it was pa to go from Cypress swamp to canal without
walking out in the open. It was a very nice pathway, and it
was the area where the scream had come from. Well. I decided that
whoever my unseen neighbors were, I must have been very entertaining for them,
crawling under my trailer to fix a leaking pipe, having to do various odd
jobs, and sometimes quite poorly, and on the side of the roof of
the trailer. They don't have TV, so I must have been the main
attraction. Maybe they thought of me as their pet. One November night,
when the moon lit up the whole area. I was sitting in the living
room watching TV and with my back to those big windows that faced the Cypress
Swamp. I think it was around eleven PM at night and I was watching
a weird sci fi show, Cleopatra twenty five twenty five. Suddenly on one
of the back windows was a loud sound of fingernails tapping tap, tap tap.
The sound was unmistakable. Thoughts came to mind if times passed when I
was misbehaving as a child and Mom would tap on the window at me.
Maybe the visitor wanted me to change the channel. I ran outside to face
the intruder and I got to the other side of the trader, but I
didn't see anything, only a pretty moonlit night with frogs serenading in the retention
pond. Was I the victim of a ding dong dash? I decided that
whatever it was had a good laugh watching me run outside in my boxers and
my boots. Maybe that was their objective. I bought a decent sized queen
mattress for my bed. Unfortunately I didn't have a frame for it, so
the mattress was on the floor. It was a warm spring night and I
had just a single cotton flannel blanket for covering, And in the middle of
the night, something grabbed my legs on the calves above my ankles, and
it slid me from the bottom end of the mattress onto the wooden floor blanket
and all. I was not roughly handled, and I was not hurt at
all. It was like a friend pulling a practical joke on me, but
it was startling. I didn't look behind me. I didn't want to know
who or what it was. I figured that if they wanted to kill me,
they would have done so quickly and brutally or quietly. They could have
eaten me and I would have never known. So I decided that if I
showed humor and laughed it off and I might de escalate the situation. So
I laughed, and I crawled back into bed, and I rolled back up
in my blanket. And then it happened again in the same way. Well,
I crawled back in again and again, and I was pulled out of
bed the same way five times that night. I looked back on the final
time, but I did not see anyone. These incidents might make me pause
and think. Many people would attribute this to the sasquatch behavior, but I
never got a good look at any of the night visitors. I didn't see
who was tapping on the window, and I didn't see who pulled me out
of my bed. And I kept my promise to my dad and I did
not go chasing after these things. Sometimes you have strange neighbors, and I
just left it at that. It all came to an end when a Category
four hurricane came through. It ripped off the side of my trailer. I
tried to repair it, and I hammered the wall back together, but I
never found my water heater. That meant I had to take cold showers for
a few months until I moved out. It is possible to take a cold
shower in the Everglades in January, just do it in the evening while the
pipes were warmed up from the sun. The park was fixing up another ranger
resident. So it was time to move to a sturdier building anyway, and
this was right where I worked, so I could walk to work less the
mosquitoes prevented it. But there was one more strange incident. When I left
the trailer for the final time to move into my new house. I left
a deer knee joy bone in the grass outside of the front door of the
trailer. I thought, I don't need this for anything. And a few
months later, when I walked out the door of my new residence onto my
driveway, I felt something under my boot and I looked down, and I
was surprised with what I found. It looked like the exact same deer bone
that I had left in the front yard of my trailer, but my trailer
was eight miles away. I moved five hundred miles north in twenty and thirteen.
I was back down south for a visit last January, but after a
succession of hurricanes and floods, the area looks completely different. And the rider
signs off, and that's a This is a single guy living out in the
Everglades by himself, working for the park service man. What a life?
What a life? Is a young guy just out on his own doing his
own thing. But he did have a bunch of strange things going on in
this place, and it is some interesting stuff. And what do you guys
think? Was it the skunkp messing with him or was it some other person
messing with him? As far as getting pulled out of a bed. I
don't think any animal on the planet is just gonna grab you by the ankle,
jerk you out of bed, and then leave just for fun, unless
it's another human or a bigfoot. What do you guys think? Appreciate the
story? The writer did a great job right in it. Let's go to
another one. Okay, here's a story that you guys. Give me a
comment. Let me know what you think. Is this a skinwalker or just
a shape shifter? What is this this guy encounters in this story. Let's
get into his story right here we go. This isn't my story, but
it was told to me firsthand by a close army buddy some years ago.
His name is Benton. The military frowns on us talking about sensitive material outside
of our unit. Well, most of the time we would swap stories around
the campfire pit in the summer, but on those chilled winter nights, we'd
be inside a medium army temp huddled around a lightly glowing potbell eat stove.
Well, these were some of the only safe havens we had to get some
of the crazy encounters off our backs. But this story didn't come from around
any campfire, and neither was it burnt around a potbell eat stove. It
couldn't wait for that late Saturday night, I was alone, sitting in my
Barracks dorm room, enjoying a scary movie and a night away from a thunderous
and rudely loud Nco club. The handle on my door jiggled a half a
second before a soldier pled in. It was Woodsey. He was another army
buddy. Woodsey would be Robbin if Benton was Batman. And to me,
Woodsey looked sort of like a Pringle's Potato Chip guy minus the smirk, and
he spoke like a Harvard professor, and I would bet that he was at
least that smart. And Woodsy was funny, unpredictably funny. His jokes would
knock you over because he always kept that straight professor face that never let on
where or when or if a punchline was coming. There was a slightly stretched
pause that waited for some kind of explanation from him. But yet there he
stood, awkward and uncomfortable, with his butt against the door in hands seeming
to clench the doorknob behind him. If nothing was said, then there's a
code that Woodley was violating. You don't just go barging in a soldier's room
without a warning. I mean a soldier could have company, or a card
game going on, or anything that could require more than a split second to
get things squared away before letting anyone in. Still, Woodsy just stood there,
all poker faced. Well, that was eerie to me, and I
knew then that this was no joke. I could hear that his breathing was
slightly labored, and glimpse of TV light only lit fractions of his poker face,
which would normally be frustrating. And I wouldn't mind that if he'd do
something anything that gave me a sign that he was all right. You could
stab the tension in the air with a bayonet, and I could feel him
about to say something, so I fought to hold my own tongue and wait.
I could taste the words, come on, man, get it out,
ready to dive out of my mouth and become spoken impatient words. But
he beat me to it. Benton's acting funny, he said him and I
had a little bit too much to drink, and we both figured it was
a good time for him to learn to ride a motorcycle and take my motorcycle
out for its first solo spin. So he jumped on the bike, and
after my quick lesson and how to make it go off, he went into
the night. Well he was gone for two hours, and I was a
little worried that he had wrecked my bike, but I gave him the chance
to get it done on his own. Then he staggered into our room,
all scratched up and dirty, and all he kept saying was go get the
sergeant. I told you this was odd, said Woodsy as he went silent
and wait for some response for me. Okay, so did he crash the
bike, I asked, leaping to my feet. He could have a concussion.
I'm not sure what a concussion looks like, said Woodsey. He's acting
strange, though, that's for sure, and he's saying things that we wouldn't
want anyone else to hear. I've seen at least a couple of men crack
wrestling to hold this stuff in, only to succumb to an explosive episode of
diarrhea of the mouth, which would end in a visit and an escort to
mental hygiene, never to return to our section, but be replaced with a
new boot. Well, we didn't want Benton getting a visit, so off
to his room. We trotted before anyone else picked their head in his room
and got an ear full of ship talk if they weren't prepared to carry I
thought we were too late as we approached and already a jar door to Benton
and Woodsey's room. But sure, Sugar, Benton was sitting up at the
foot of his bunk, even more disheveled than Woodsey had described. Man,
are you all right, I said. Benton began his attempt to answer my
question, but the words were snatched away by dry heaves. His bedroom bucket
was at his feet, which confirmed that he had been doing this a while.
I don't think so, Serge, I don't think so, he replied,
as water began dripping from his mouth. Woodsy and I jumped back at
the same time, and Benton exploded into a full round of dry eaves.
He waved us to close the door tight as he wrapped and wiped his mouth
with his bdu shirt. I'm waste deep this time, Sorge, I am,
Benton stated. He then looked at me square in the eye, and
he spoke again, You'll be signing me into the crazy house. You'll say
I'm crazy for this one. Well, Benton paused, with his glazy eyes
fixed on me. Well, I was motionless, and I caught his gaze
and hanging on the edge of whatever had him so out of sorts, and
I reached back and I made sure his door was closed fully unlocked. Well,
tell me what you can, Benton, I coaxed. Well, Benton
gathered himself and he began his explanation, and he started by looking directly at
Woodsey. I am going to be a good motorcycle rider someday, he said,
with a grin. Well, that light in the mood a bit,
but it just won't be on your motorcycle. Woodsey. You wrecked my bike,
didn't you, said Woodsey. I didn't really crash it, he said,
but I did trash it pretty good good, And Benton clammed up and
wait for Woodsy's response, And as if on Q, Woodsey did, okay,
So what do you mean by trash, he asked, and Benton went
into what happened. Well, I was doing good. I was up shifting
and down shifting and clutching and all that, and I went down custra hill
around and up the backside where there wouldn't be any traffic. Everything was going
fine, and then I felt the urge to puke. I figured i'd stay
on the bike and let the vomit blow behind me. And when I let
it blow, I closed my eyes. I guess it's natural function of the
human body when you blow gritch to close your eyes, but it was terrible.
I felt like I was in a car wash of vomit, and it
was blowing all back in my face. When I could finally get my eyes
open, I was already in a grove of fir trees, and branches were
whipping me in the face, and I was sure I could maneuver around the
trees and get back on the road, but I ended up in a ditch
and everything went black. I don't really know how long I was in that
ditch, but that bike must have flung me through the handlebars like a marble
through a wrist rocket. I was still hanging on to a bent handlebar when
I came to. I scanned the darkness until my night vision kicked in.
There was no way I was going to pull this bike out of that ravine,
and so I pushed it with my feet until it blended in and was
all covered with leaves and dirt. There want anybody to steal it. I
grabbed roots and limbs and I made my way up the ravine. It wasn't
easy wearing sandals on my feet, but I finally got up to the road
and a car came by after half an hour, but I was too embarrassed
and ashamed, and I acted like I was just out for a walk,
and the car passed by, and I wouldn't see another car until later in
the night. I could see shapes of things in front of me, but
they were all hazy looking because the night miss must have begun to move for
And in the distance I saw something white, and within a few minutes I
was close enough to read it. It said the fort Riley Buffalo Corral.
Do not enter. Well. I look both ways on the road, and
I was thinking on a way to get back, and I saw the two
big hills to climb in both directions. Right and straight in front of me
was the field and it was the shortest distance for me to get back.
Here. I was going to have to cross the field the Buffalo Corral.
It was the shortest shrout, but not the safest because there are buffalo in
there, and buffalo do not put up with humans. However, I figured
they did sleep fairly sound on cool nights, but there were still buffalo I
knew this was a risky move, and I even knew this in my drunken
condition, but there was no turning back now that I had this in my
head. I grabbed the fence and I began to climb, thanking god it
had not been electrified, and I climbed into the old like a wrestler climbs
into a ring. Inside the pen, everything felt different. There was a
heavier mist inside the gate, and an eerie separation and a different vibe.
My vision was impaired greatly by the mist, and it was so dark that
I had to walk in this weird sort of sideways crouch with my arms spread
out, feeling for anything in front of me. After one hundred yards,
the mists started to lighten and I could see just a little better, and
I had made it up a hill and I was heading to the center of
the corral. The air felt warmer here and the mist turned a fog which
was easier to see through. And by this time I had to be close
to the herd, but I couldn't see them around me, and I stopped
and I looked a little closer, and through the patches of fog, I
realized I was at ground zero. Those hulking beasts were all around me and
grunting in their sleep and blowing short towers of steam with ea each of breath
through their noses. I got so close to one that I could see the
big male's eyes open briefly and then close as he went back to sleep.
He had not realized what I was, and that was a streak of luck,
I guess. So I kept moving and creeping around the monsters and admiring
how massive and beautiful these creatures were, and thankful that they apparently were tired
from the day. I kept moving while the buffalo remained calm and sound asleep.
On top of the hill. It was muddy, and with each step
there was a sucking noise from my sandal. I heard another sound just like
that behind me, and at first I thought that it was an echo in
the fog, but that didn't make sense to me, and I wondered what
was walking behind me. Maybe it was a bison. So I kept walking
and listening, and then I stopped, and whatever was making that sound kept
walking, and it was gaining on me. It was not an animal on
four legs. This thing was on two feet. So my pace quickened to
gain some distance, and the noise was still gaining on me. The bison
still surrounded me, but they were sleeping like babies. I didn't have another
place to hide other than behind one, so I duck down and I became
very still. My heart was in turbo mode, and it thumped in my
ears, drowning out the sound of the footsteps that were surely approaching. And
I waited, and I let my heart settle, and I listened, and
I couldn't hear the sucking sounds of whatever was following me, so I thought
maybe I was safe. It was so quiet that I didn't even hear the
sleeping bison around me breathing. A few feet down the hill, I saw
the largest bison in the group. He had to be Even though my vision
was bad due to the fog, I had not seen a bigger one than
this one. Obviously, he was the big boss male. I wanted to
get to that big one, because whatever was following me surely wouldn't risk waking
this monster up. So I crept slowly down the slope and I got behind
him. He never showed any sign of waking, and I admired his massive
figure. As I duck down below the ridge of his back for a moment,
there was a break in the fog and a clear patch of air that
I had not seen since being in the Buffalo Corral. His silver dollar eyes
were wide open, and he was watching every move I made, expecting him
to erupt in anger and plow me into the mud. I was surprised that
my presence seemed not to bother him at all. Was this beast tamed well?
I didn't know, but since he didn't seem disturbed, I moved closer
and tried to blend in better with him and hide. The closer I got
to this creature, the less I could hear. Like all the night sounds,
and there weren't many, seemed muffled as if I had hearing protection on.
While I was finally closer that I thought I was out of sight in
my pursuer, and without touching the bison that I was so close to,
I listened for anything approaching. Now I felt like I was in a sound
proof room, or that I had earplugs in because I couldn't even hear the
natural noise that happens in my ears. Was this animal soaking up all the
sound around me. As afraid as I was. This was so odd to
me. And then I heard a buffalo hoff. There was an immediate and
distinct sound, a huff, and then an exil. I raised my head
instinctively, and I was getting ready to run because I thought I had awakened
the buffalo and that I had crossed the boundary between just a guy walking through
a field to something that annoyed the bison. I knew how they reacted to
those threats, and I stopped and stood still, and I got ready for
the rampage. But this huge beast just lay there, following me with his
eyes and not moving. So I stood up and I found myself staring into
one big buffalo eye again, and I was faced to chest with that I
can only describe as a half man and half buffalo. From the waist down
it was human and the chest to the head was a full on massive bison,
with the exception of human arms and hands where a bison's front leg should
be. Its head was enormous, with dark curly hair on top and down
the back of its neck, and the human parts of the creature seemed to
be brown or black, but there was no way to know it was so
little light Around its waist was an animal skin, loincloth or skirt. This
thing was a First Nations man and half bison. It huffed two shots of
steams from its nostrils and lowered its human hand to me and pointed and gave
me the unmistakable motion with its hand for me to leave. Well, I
didn't need time to figure out what he was trying to tell me, so
I backed away slowly for ten or twelve yards. I turned away from this
weird creature, and then I took long strides heading out of that field.
Well. I heard it behind me, pacing me in an effort to push
me faster. It maintained a persistent pace behind me, and twice I could
feel it gaining on me, pushing me harder, and I would switch to
a try to let it know that I fully understood that I was to get
out of there. To me, it seemed like forever getting across that field
to the road, and I wondered if I had taken off in the wrong
direction, because I should not have taken so long. But eventually I saw
the lights of a couple of cars passing by on the main road. The
third car pulled over as I stepped to the edge of the road. I
felt lucky they had seen me, and a woman's face peered through the open
glass with a smile. The driver poked his head next to hers and said,
few more hours than you'd have beaten the dare. He was referring to
the legendary stories of drunk soldiers that had been picked up by the MPs after
making it through the Bison Corral on a dare from their buddies. Ah,
this wasn't a dare, I said. I wrecked my friend's bike over there
on the mountain, and this was the fastest way back to the base.
I did make it all the way through alive, though. Well, jump
on in, said the driver. I assume you're heading back to Custer Hill,
right, yep? I said, man. Was I glad they had
stopped to give me a hand. They opened the door for me and I
jumped in the back seat before they could change their mind, and before they
pulled away, I was looking out into the field through the fog, and
it had diminished a bit, and I was wondering how close the buffalo man
had been. When I finally reached the road, I couldn't see anything there,
and I turned my attention back in front of me. Looks like someone
followed you. It's a good thing you stayed ahead of it, said the
woman in the passenger's seat. Well, I yanked my head around to look,
and sure enough I could make out the enormous head of a large male
bison through the fog, and steam was expelling through its nostrils. Its head
turned and its eyes followed our departure until it was out of sight. Ah,
that thing wouldn't have hurt him, said the driver. I think the
bisoner used to dumbasses walking around through the area. Where do I need to
drop you off? I paused him minute and finally said one hundred and twenty
first Signal Battalion, I replied, Headquarters Company, the first building on the
top of the hill on the left. After they headed this way, we
didn't talk much until they dropped me off. Benton gave us more thoughts on
that night. There were only his opinions on what this thing was. He
was never the same after that. You might say, well, he was
drunk and he was seeing things, or maybe you might say that he made
up the story to take the attention off the expensive bike he had wrecked.
We'll never know for sure, but in the years that I served with him,
I never heard him tell a tall tale either before and never again after
that night. All I can say is this is exactly what he told Woodsy
and I that night. There are other odd things that happened on that base,
and I can only think that the natives who still live in the area
know about these things, but they're just not talking about it. Okay.
As the first for this channel, a buffalo man's story, I've never heard
one, but it was very interesting and the way the story happened was kind
of funny actually, But I enjoyed it and I appreciate the writer. Thank
you very much for sending it. You guys, comment in the comment section
what you think this was? Was it a shape shifter? What do you
call him? A skinwalker, spirit walker, whatever those Native American things are.
I don't know what do you all think it is? Give me a
clue. Thanks again to the writer. Is a great story, all right?
That'll wind things up for this podcast. I hope you guys enjoyed it
and we will catch you on the next one. Thanks and see you next time.