Speaker 1: I grew up in rural Alabama, in the small town
Speaker 1: of Northport. And I say town, but that may be
Speaker 1: stretching it. It was fourteen miles from my childhood home
Speaker 1: to the closest red light. Tuscaloosa was a major city
Speaker 1: and Northport was a stepchild. In nineteen seventy eight, there
Speaker 1: was not a lot to do on rural Highway sixty
Speaker 1: nine North. The summers were hot, but the fall brought
Speaker 1: on every young man's dream of hunting the big buck
Speaker 1: that ate all the peas during the last growing season.
Speaker 1: My job at twelve was the defender of my grandmother's garden.
Speaker 1: I had a carte blanche on any night to eliminate
Speaker 1: any deer we caught rating the pea patch, regardless of
Speaker 1: what hunting season it was, and God helped the game
Speaker 1: warden who dared question my Pentecostal grandmother on her war
Speaker 1: on deer or any other four legged creature who ate
Speaker 1: what she sweated to grow. I became exceptional with a firearm,
Speaker 1: having spent a lot of time practicing at two hundred
Speaker 1: and three hundred yards with my rifle my grandfather bought
Speaker 1: me for Christmas when I was eight. I preferred a shotgun, though,
Speaker 1: due to the massive undergrowth in the woods surrounding our land.
Speaker 1: So in nineteen seventy eight, when the deer have ravaged
Speaker 1: my grandmother's peace so badly, she made it clear to
Speaker 1: me to put my skills to good use or face
Speaker 1: dire consequences. Back then, I had none of the fancy
Speaker 1: stuff that you see now. I had no camo, no
Speaker 1: tree stand, no deer year in debate them in it
Speaker 1: was just me in a pair of quiet sneakers, my rifle,
Speaker 1: and my best friend to help me. Together, we weighed
Speaker 1: our options for where best to funnel the deer in.
Speaker 1: We decided on a place about three miles from my
Speaker 1: grandparents' farm. We'd have the best chance to see them
Speaker 1: along a well worn trail that extended into the woods
Speaker 1: for at least eight miles. It passed by a small
Speaker 1: pond that no one ever visited but us. The woods
Speaker 1: were all pines along the roadside, but deeper in they
Speaker 1: transitioned back to oak and black gum. My pine was
Speaker 1: cut periodically, but the hardwood has stood for one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty years or more. Some of those trees are
Speaker 1: five feet at the base and well over one hundred
Speaker 1: feet tall. We got started early for us on a
Speaker 1: cool Saturday morning in September. Bama was playing later, so
Speaker 1: we wanted to be back in time to see the game.
Speaker 1: We let out for the hardwoods down by the creek.
Speaker 1: We planned on taking the long way, but after about
Speaker 1: an hour of walking, my best friend wasn't so keen
Speaker 1: on wasting his Saturday helping me have a place to
Speaker 1: sleep and eat. We stopped where we were and decided
Speaker 1: to hunt from a makeshift blind that we threw together
Speaker 1: on the spot. It wasn't much more than a couple
Speaker 1: of limbs and some well placed leaves, but it gave
Speaker 1: us some concealment. It also gave us a great view
Speaker 1: of the forty acre valley below us, and we were
Speaker 1: perched along an old game trail, high up on a
Speaker 1: natural ledge about two hundred feet above. We sat there,
Speaker 1: four feet apart with our rifles, something to drink, and
Speaker 1: a lot of AMMO for what seemed like hours. We
Speaker 1: traded off taking naps, but our butts were getting sore
Speaker 1: and our legs were starting to fall asleep. We were
Speaker 1: serious about our mission, but I wasn't any happier about
Speaker 1: spending my Saturday out there than my friend was at
Speaker 1: eleven That morning, I saw something moving in the valley
Speaker 1: at my one o'clock. It was just a brownish blur
Speaker 1: four hundred yards out and two hundred feet below me.
Speaker 1: I tapped my friend and pointed it out. He gave
Speaker 1: me the thumbs up and trained to scope on it.
Speaker 1: Before I could lift my rifle, twenty codies came racing
Speaker 1: out of that same direction with their tails between their legs.
Speaker 1: They weren't chasing anything, and they weren't fighting. They were
Speaker 1: in a full out run for their lives. I could
Speaker 1: think of only one thing in those woods that would
Speaker 1: cause this behavior, and I wanted no part of it.
Speaker 1: Years earlier, my grandfather and some neighbors had hunted a
Speaker 1: two hundred pound mountain lion that laid waste to some
Speaker 1: pretty vicious dogs they sent after it. Several had shot
Speaker 1: at it, but no one got it. Now a twelve
Speaker 1: year old boy and his buddy were going toe to
Speaker 1: toe with it. No thanks. I didn't want to run.
Speaker 1: I had visions of catching this thing out in the
Speaker 1: open and dropping it once and for all. I'd be famous.
Speaker 1: I guess I could have mounted it and been the
Speaker 1: big hunter. For a while, my buddy tapped my arm
Speaker 1: and said, you see that oak at the break in
Speaker 1: the pines, by that old dead stump, look through your
Speaker 1: scope just above it. The whole time I was straining
Speaker 1: to find it, I was steadying myself to take a shot.
Speaker 1: Finally I z rode in on it. But it wasn't
Speaker 1: a big cat. It had a face. Three hundred yards
Speaker 1: from us was something between an ape and a human
Speaker 1: that looked like he'd been pumping iron on steroids. He
Speaker 1: was down in the push up position and he was
Speaker 1: staring back at me. I could see his eyes plain
Speaker 1: as day, and his lip would curl up and he
Speaker 1: sniffed the air. Yeah, he sniffed the air. He was
Speaker 1: trying to wind us like a hound dog will do. Definitely,
Speaker 1: he went from prone to squatting, and he moved unbelievably fast.
Speaker 1: I don't think he realized I had spotted him yet.
Speaker 1: He was still trying to remain covert. My buddy's feet
Speaker 1: started trying to run, but its brain hadn't caught up
Speaker 1: with him yet. I was trying to keep him from running,
Speaker 1: and trying to explain that we weren't going to outrun
Speaker 1: that thing. All the while that pack of codies was
Speaker 1: bearing down on us. They were less than one hundred
Speaker 1: yards away, and I had no idea how they were
Speaker 1: going to take to discovering us there. Meanwhile, I made
Speaker 1: a fatal era no hunter should ever make. I had
Speaker 1: taken my eyes off the hairy thing by the stump
Speaker 1: to give my friend his due. He didn't cry or scream,
Speaker 1: but a slight panic over whether to choose to fight
Speaker 1: or flight had definitely set in. I just wanted to
Speaker 1: get out of there without running into whatever that thing was.
Speaker 1: Seconds passed and the codies came running straight at us,
Speaker 1: like I knew they would. But my only thought was
Speaker 1: that thing below and where it was now. I have
Speaker 1: cherished every day of my life since that moment. That
Speaker 1: was the day that I could have died, and it
Speaker 1: would have been no one's fault but my own. Because
Speaker 1: of the many arrows that followed we ran. We picked
Speaker 1: flight over fight. The chase was on. We were two
Speaker 1: and a half miles from the house and a mile
Speaker 1: and three quarters to earshot of people working on our farm.
Speaker 1: It began in a frenzy fueled by youth and farm living,
Speaker 1: the hard work that we put in every day helped
Speaker 1: our strengthen stamina. I assumed if we turned into an
Speaker 1: area of dense timber that we could out maneuver it.
Speaker 1: I was wrong. For the next mile we played a
Speaker 1: guessing game of which damn side of us it was
Speaker 1: going to be on. We heard footfalls on either side,
Speaker 1: and I convinced myself it was my heart beat pounding
Speaker 1: in my ears. I knew there was a small gully
Speaker 1: coming up that ran for about one hundred yards or so.
Speaker 1: It was about ten feet deep and twenty feet wide
Speaker 1: in places. I made up my mind that I was
Speaker 1: going to do my best impression of Customs Last Stand
Speaker 1: right there. We hit the wash with me and the lead,
Speaker 1: thinking that we would get to the other end, where
Speaker 1: there was one hell of a twelve foot climb out
Speaker 1: we could get back up to the top. We'd equal
Speaker 1: the odds on size, and then with that thing in
Speaker 1: the wash below, we'd fill it full of holes from
Speaker 1: the safety above. We reached the end, but it was
Speaker 1: so muddy and slimy there was no way we were
Speaker 1: coming out that way, and I turned and searched for
Speaker 1: a spot where I could grab some roots and climb out.
Speaker 1: I found it and made a quick work of getting
Speaker 1: out of there, and then I grabbed my buddy and
Speaker 1: helped him up. We were exhausted and breathless, and we
Speaker 1: sat there for a moment, thinking we'd gotten away. And
Speaker 1: then suddenly I looked up and there it was, less
Speaker 1: than sixty yards from us. It had been pacing us
Speaker 1: the whole time. That was the first, real, honest to God, look,
Speaker 1: I got it. This creature. He was seven feet tall
Speaker 1: and weighed full hundred pounds, and he was pure lean muscle.
Speaker 1: You could plow a lot of corn with a mule
Speaker 1: belt like that. He had a metallic smell of old
Speaker 1: blood mixed with rotten meat. He was breathing slow and
Speaker 1: with a purpose. And there he stood for us to see.
Speaker 1: Was he an ape, a man? Or was it a bigfoot?
Speaker 1: I had no clue, and I knew nothing about bigfoot
Speaker 1: at that time. He had a thick brow, but his
Speaker 1: nose was skinnier than a Neanderthal. His hands were huge,
Speaker 1: and his breastbone was thick. Large joints connected his limbs,
Speaker 1: and the muscles at the top of his legs stood out.
Speaker 1: His lights and pecks were well defined, and he was
Speaker 1: covered in coarse hair that reflected light like an old
Speaker 1: hound's furwell sometimes, and the mouth didn't fit the creature whatsoever.
Speaker 1: It protruded because of the teeth, giving the impression that
Speaker 1: it came out a few inches more than it should out.
Speaker 1: We were taking all this in when something in the
Speaker 1: back of my mind told me that he wanted us
Speaker 1: to focus on him. Footfalls were coming from somewhere behind us,
Speaker 1: and it broke through the dumbfounded trance that we were in.
Speaker 1: We heard limbs breaking too close to us, and I
Speaker 1: turned to get a glimpse of his buddy doing his
Speaker 1: best to hide behind a tree one hundred yards from us.
Speaker 1: And he was smaller and had a lighter coat. But
Speaker 1: beyond that, I couldn't say. I had enough of being chased.
Speaker 1: I decided that people were going to know which one
Speaker 1: of these things ate me, because he'd be the one
Speaker 1: bleeding the most. Put all your bullets into him, was
Speaker 1: all I whispered to my friend while I fired on Johnny,
Speaker 1: come lately behind us. My friend opened up on the
Speaker 1: big one. I laid down a line of fire that
Speaker 1: knocked huge chunks out of the tree that he was
Speaker 1: hiding behind, and then I turned and fired on the
Speaker 1: big one too. He was running down the wash. It's
Speaker 1: time to go, I shouted, and we did a hundred
Speaker 1: yard swap out, run cover, run, cover. We'd stop every
Speaker 1: so often to listen and catch our breath, and then
Speaker 1: we'd go right back to it until we had the
Speaker 1: big barn in sight. We hit the long gravel road
Speaker 1: and walk from there, and we decided before we got
Speaker 1: to the house that this was a story that we'd
Speaker 1: never tell anyone, not if we had any hope of
Speaker 1: every deer hunting again. For months, we didn't go back
Speaker 1: out there, and every time we looked in that direction,
Speaker 1: we would decide to play football or something, anything but
Speaker 1: go into those woods. I managed to put it all
Speaker 1: in the back of my mind, and as the years
Speaker 1: have passed, I haven't given it much thought, mainly because
Speaker 1: I no longer go in the woods. So there I
Speaker 1: was eighteen months ago, and I was sitting in my
Speaker 1: yard waiting for my dog to go to the bathroom
Speaker 1: in my neighbor's yard at twelve thirty in the morning,
Speaker 1: when a fear I haven't known in years ran up
Speaker 1: my spine. I live across from a three thousand acre
Speaker 1: protected wilderness area. I recognized immediately that I was being stalked.
Speaker 1: I was being hunted, and their eyes were on me,
Speaker 1: watching my every move. I walked back inside and got
Speaker 1: my pistol. I came out and pessed on my mailbox post,
Speaker 1: all the while shouting at the woods. I been running
Speaker 1: for forty three years, and I ain't gonna do it
Speaker 1: no more. Make no mistake, these things mean you harm.
Speaker 1: I do not subscribe to the theory that they are harmless,
Speaker 1: because they are not. Back in nineteen eighty four, my
Speaker 1: family lived on a farm on the edge of town
Speaker 1: in the heart of Kentucky. The house sat on a
Speaker 1: hilltop with a big black barn behind it in a long,
Speaker 1: narrow valley. Beyond that, the house set well above the
Speaker 1: roadway and even higher above the valley. The valley sat
Speaker 1: even lower and was surrounded by woods. I was sixteen
Speaker 1: and feeling pretty low. My girlfriend had just called me
Speaker 1: on the phone and broken up with me after two months.
Speaker 1: She didn't even give me a reason. It was February,
Speaker 1: but the weather was beginning to show signs of spring
Speaker 1: after a long winter. The temperature was somewhat in the
Speaker 1: mid forties, and there were only a few patches of
Speaker 1: snow here and there. I needed to get away and think,
Speaker 1: so I headed for my favorite spot, and for me,
Speaker 1: that was the woods. I spent a great deal of
Speaker 1: time there, and sometimes with friends, but usually alone. My
Speaker 1: father had left my mother when I was young, so
Speaker 1: the male role models in my life were my two uncles.
Speaker 1: They taught me to hunt and fish and to appreciate
Speaker 1: the beauty and wonder of nature. In those woods, there
Speaker 1: were a couple of gas right guys, and looking back,
Speaker 1: I really missed those times that we spent together. I
Speaker 1: walked down to the bottom of the valley, like I
Speaker 1: generally did. I was deep in thought about why my
Speaker 1: girl would break up with me, and I wasn't paying
Speaker 1: attention when I heard a thumping sound. It was something
Speaker 1: solid hitting the grass covered ground. I looked around and
Speaker 1: saw a rock about twenty feet from me rolling uphill.
Speaker 1: I figured it was either my sister or my brother
Speaker 1: playing a trick on me, so I turned to look
Speaker 1: back the way I came, expecting to see one of them,
Speaker 1: and I scanned around looking, but they weren't there. As
Speaker 1: I turned to my left, still looking for my siblings,
Speaker 1: I saw a twenty foot patch of snow with four
Speaker 1: human shaped footprints in it. It was a little unnerving
Speaker 1: to see the footprints because first, whoever made these prints
Speaker 1: wasn't wearing shoes. It wasn't freezing out, but it was
Speaker 1: still cold. Walking in the snow would have made it
Speaker 1: feel even colder. Second, these prints were huge. I walked
Speaker 1: over and compared them to my boot. They were nearly
Speaker 1: twice as long as my foot and much wider, and
Speaker 1: the stride was a lot longer than I could have made.
Speaker 1: I was still examining the footprints when I heard another
Speaker 1: rock hit the ground, and I turned in the direction
Speaker 1: of the sound, and I saw the rock twenty feet away,
Speaker 1: rolling downhill. This time it was bigger than the first,
Speaker 1: roughly the size of my fist, and I knew immediately
Speaker 1: it couldn't have been my brother or sister. I was
Speaker 1: far older and stronger than them, and I doubt I
Speaker 1: could have thrown it from any possible hiding spots. I
Speaker 1: then thought it might have been one of my friends
Speaker 1: who lived close. I knew Tommy was out of town
Speaker 1: visiting relatives, and Scotty had been in bed all week
Speaker 1: with a bad case of the flu. They were the
Speaker 1: only ones who ever came over, so I looked around again.
Speaker 1: Who was throwing rocks at me? The tracks probably should
Speaker 1: have sent me running home, but I honestly thought someone
Speaker 1: was playing a prank on me. My uncle's taught me
Speaker 1: that tracks made in the snow will expand when they melt,
Speaker 1: so I figured it was just a joke. I walked
Speaker 1: forward with a lot of confidence. You better knock it off.
Speaker 1: I'm throw rocks too, I said. Another rock was chucked
Speaker 1: at me, and this time I saw it in mid flight,
Speaker 1: so I knew it was coming from the left corner
Speaker 1: of the woods, near the property line. It was two
Speaker 1: hundred feet from me, and I thought whoever was throwing
Speaker 1: these rocks must have a pretty good arm. Another rock
Speaker 1: landed ten feet to my right. I was getting angry now,
Speaker 1: so I walked over and picked it up before it
Speaker 1: stopped rolling. It was a little bigger than I would
Speaker 1: have normally wanted to throw, but in my frustration, I
Speaker 1: threw it back. Then I screamed an insult at whoever
Speaker 1: this was for good measure. My throw was way off
Speaker 1: the It hit the ground well short of the tree line,
Speaker 1: so I looked around for another rock to throw. I
Speaker 1: found a few in the grass between the patches of snow,
Speaker 1: so I picked one up that fitted my hand better.
Speaker 1: This time. It hit a tree just inside the woodline.
Speaker 1: Then I saw a movement eighty feet to my left,
Speaker 1: in the nearest section of trees. It was a lot
Speaker 1: closer to me than where the rocks were coming from.
Speaker 1: I only got a glimpse, maybe four or five seconds
Speaker 1: at most. Most of it was obscured by the thick
Speaker 1: brushing trees. I saw a dark upper portion of a
Speaker 1: massive right shoulder blade and a huge moving arm about
Speaker 1: seven feet off the ground. Also, I saw what looked
Speaker 1: like thick legs as it ran behind a tree. It
Speaker 1: was completely covered in reddish hair that bounced as it
Speaker 1: disappeared into the trees. I was nearly awe struck. Its
Speaker 1: movements were so graceful and fluid. It was completely different
Speaker 1: from how a deer or a human would move. Now
Speaker 1: I knew immediately it wasn't a bear or a cougar.
Speaker 1: It was too large. Both bears and cougars are extremely
Speaker 1: rare in Kentucky, and neither of them throw rocks. I
Speaker 1: barely had time to register what I was seeing when
Speaker 1: another rock landed five feet from me. It came from
Speaker 1: the same direction as the others. Then I heard heavy
Speaker 1: footfalls in the woods from that same direction. There were
Speaker 1: definitely more than one of them. To say I wasn't
Speaker 1: terrified would be a bold faced lie. I knew I
Speaker 1: had to get out of there. I was alone and unarmed.
Speaker 1: The nearest house was over half a mile away, on
Speaker 1: the other side of the valley and flanked by thick trees.
Speaker 1: I knew the elderly couple who lived there. They were
Speaker 1: nice people, but they wouldn't have been able to hear
Speaker 1: me even if they were outside, which they rarely were.
Speaker 1: My house was over three quarters of a mile away.
Speaker 1: My mom and siblings had been inside watching TV when
Speaker 1: I left. At that moment, I forgot all about my girlfriend.
Speaker 1: Survival was my priority. I wanted to run, but I
Speaker 1: remembered what my uncles had told me about predators. Never
Speaker 1: turn your back on them, and running will kick in
Speaker 1: their instinct to chase. Fear turned into anger as I
Speaker 1: picked up as many rocks as I could find and
Speaker 1: started throwing them back towards the woods as fast as
Speaker 1: I could. I at least a string of obscenities and
Speaker 1: foul language as I did all the while moving backwards
Speaker 1: a few dozen paces at a time. Years later, during
Speaker 1: my time in the military, I learned to call that
Speaker 1: a tactical retreat. More rocks are being thrown back at
Speaker 1: me now, and from two different directions. I switched targets
Speaker 1: back and forth as I slowly made my way back
Speaker 1: down the valley. Locked in combat with an unseen enemy.
Speaker 1: I was out numbered and out gun but I kept
Speaker 1: throwing and moving and cussing and cursing. I doubted the
Speaker 1: cussing helped me, but it made me feel braver. It
Speaker 1: was probably only five minutes before I felt the hill
Speaker 1: under my feet, but it felt like hours. That meant
Speaker 1: I was closer to the relative safety of home, and
Speaker 1: by now those creatures had stopped throwing rocks at me.
Speaker 1: My accuracy had dropped off dramatically by then, anyway, and
Speaker 1: I scanned the woods once more for movement and listened
Speaker 1: for sounds. I didn't see or hear anything, and exhausted
Speaker 1: and sweating like i'd run a marathon, I took off
Speaker 1: my coat and stood there for another five minutes before
Speaker 1: I felt it was safe enough to turn and high
Speaker 1: tailor at home. I didn't tell my mother and siblings
Speaker 1: what had happened. I didn't want to scare them. The
Speaker 1: next day I told one of my uncles, who brought
Speaker 1: his shotgun over and slept down into the valley with me,
Speaker 1: to retrace my steps. I showed him the tracks in
Speaker 1: the snow. There were huge gouges in the hard dirt
Speaker 1: where the rocks and landed. We walked into the woodline
Speaker 1: where I had seen the one running. That's where I
Speaker 1: compared the size and height of the trees to the
Speaker 1: spot where I saw the shoulder and the arm. This
Speaker 1: thing must have been massive, but we didn't find any
Speaker 1: tracks there. We left the area, but not before I
Speaker 1: noticed that my uncle was being unusually quiet. After we
Speaker 1: got back to the house and well away from my mom,
Speaker 1: he told me that he'd had a strange experience there
Speaker 1: many years before. My eldest uncle served in Vietnam. He's
Speaker 1: a quiet man who rarely shows his emotions or gets upset.
Speaker 1: When he came home from the war, he couldn't wait
Speaker 1: to get back into his beloved woods where he could
Speaker 1: hunt and fish, And then he finally got the chance.
Speaker 1: It was a bit sweet experience. It isn't an easy
Speaker 1: transition from life of daily combat back to a peaceful
Speaker 1: civilian existence. The woods of Kentucky looked nothing like the
Speaker 1: jungles of Southeast Asia, but the oppressive feeling of the
Speaker 1: dense vegetation and the limited visibility are similar. It took
Speaker 1: him quite a while to get over the nagging fear
Speaker 1: of someone waiting behind every bush to kill him. Slowly,
Speaker 1: he worked his way back to his favorite fishing spots.
Speaker 1: Once he was comfortable, he began to hunt again. One day,
Speaker 1: he was out hunting squirrels alone with his twenty two rifle.
Speaker 1: He was also carrying a revolver in his hip holster.
Speaker 1: He walked for hours and saw a few squirrels that
Speaker 1: they were too small to trouble with. When he decided
Speaker 1: to take a break, he sat down under a large
Speaker 1: tree on top of a heavily wooded ridgeline. From there,
Speaker 1: he had a clear view down into the nearby holler.
Speaker 1: He'd been sitting there for about ten minutes when he
Speaker 1: saw movement below. He only saw bushes moving, but he
Speaker 1: suspected it was a deer. It was too early for
Speaker 1: deer season, but knowing their paths might help him decide
Speaker 1: where to build a stand. Later, he decided to go
Speaker 1: down check it out. He got up and slowly made
Speaker 1: his way down to the holler. The trees and underbrush
Speaker 1: made it impossible to get a clear view of whatever
Speaker 1: was moving around, but he found a little path that
Speaker 1: had made whatever it was. He knew it wasn't a deer.
Speaker 1: It looked almost like a small bulldozer had made the path,
Speaker 1: like six deer had walked inside by side. He never
Speaker 1: seen them move that way, and plus, the vegetation looked
Speaker 1: like it had been smashed aside and pulled out of
Speaker 1: the way. He didn't find any tracks, but it was
Speaker 1: clear that something heavy had walked through here. He told
Speaker 1: me he should have left right then and there, but
Speaker 1: he was young and curiosity got the better of him.
Speaker 1: He moved forward, pondering what kind of critter could make
Speaker 1: such a path. Was it a bear? No, Black bears
Speaker 1: aren't much whiter than a deer. Besides, he'd never seen
Speaker 1: a bear in this part of the state. Cougars and
Speaker 1: mountain lions came to mind, but he quickly ruled them
Speaker 1: out as well. Suddenly there was a loud crash, like
Speaker 1: a tree breaking under a great strain, and it echoed
Speaker 1: across the holler. Then the woods grew early quiet. There
Speaker 1: were no birds chirping, no bees buzzing, no squirrels or
Speaker 1: any other animals making any sounds. Alarmed, and reverting back
Speaker 1: to his military training, he quickly veered off the trail
Speaker 1: and hid down among the tall grass on his belly.
Speaker 1: He lay there in the silence for several minutes, wondering
Speaker 1: if his mind was playing tricks on him. He was
Speaker 1: about to move away when he heard a sound that
Speaker 1: I was familiar with. First there was a thump several
Speaker 1: yards away, and then another one a little closer. He
Speaker 1: looked up over the tall grass and he saw a
Speaker 1: rock coming in his direction. He crawled away, hoping that
Speaker 1: that would throw his attacker off his position, and it
Speaker 1: almost worked. The next rock landed farther away, but it
Speaker 1: was adjusting for his movement. He decided that this thing
Speaker 1: must be a human. He couldn't think of anything else
Speaker 1: in Kentucky that could throw rocks. With his rifle and pistol,
Speaker 1: my uncle felt reasonably assured that he was safe, so
Speaker 1: he stood up and he called out. He doesn't remember
Speaker 1: what he said, but it was something to the effect
Speaker 1: of asking them not to throw rocks. At him, but
Speaker 1: no one answered. He then told them that he was
Speaker 1: armed and he expected to get an answer, or at
Speaker 1: least hear them leave, but he got neither. He began
Speaker 1: to make his way out of there. Like me, he
Speaker 1: walked backwards, with his eyes scanning for threats. He moved quickly.
Speaker 1: It was too late to worry about being quiet. Whatever
Speaker 1: it was, it knew exactly where he was. Another rock
Speaker 1: hit the ground at his feet and bounced into his
Speaker 1: right leg. It didn't hurt him, but it startled him greatly.
Speaker 1: He didn't lose his cool. He pulled his rifle up
Speaker 1: and scanned the area in a quick three sixty. He
Speaker 1: was still convinced it was people, so he threatened to
Speaker 1: shoot if another rock was thrown. Well, something moved in
Speaker 1: the bushes, but he couldn't see what it was. It
Speaker 1: had to be a human. He wasn't prepared to accept
Speaker 1: any other alternative. He kept backing up and moving his
Speaker 1: head from side to side, and then an incredibly loud
Speaker 1: growl broke the silence and reverberated through his chest. He
Speaker 1: said he'd never heard anything like it before or since.
Speaker 1: At this point, my uncle knew two things. It was
Speaker 1: very close and it wasn't. Human instinct kicked in. He
Speaker 1: fired into the bushes, shifted position, chambered another round, and
Speaker 1: then he fired again. He doubted he hid anything, but
Speaker 1: he was hoping to scare it off. And then another
Speaker 1: rock flew at him. It landed a little further away
Speaker 1: than the last, but that was enough. He turned and
Speaker 1: bolted for a nearby grove of trees. It didn't offer
Speaker 1: much shelter, but it was better than nothing. He pulled
Speaker 1: at his pistol and sat there for maybe an hour,
Speaker 1: waiting for another confrontation. His nerves were on edge. He's
Speaker 1: not a religious man, but he said he did a
Speaker 1: lot of praying that day. But nothing more happened, and
Speaker 1: soon the sounds of the woods returned to normal, as
Speaker 1: if nothing had ever happened. He was feeling foolish, and
Speaker 1: he made his way back to the ridge and looked
Speaker 1: over the air one more time. He didn't see anything unusual,
Speaker 1: and gladly went home empty handed. He didn't tell anyone
Speaker 1: else about his experience for a long time. He didn't
Speaker 1: think anyone would believe him. Eventually, he told his brother later.
Speaker 1: He told me, in a way, my uncle and I
Speaker 1: bonded that day, we both had a strange experience that
Speaker 1: we couldn't explain. At least, he'd been armed with throwing
Speaker 1: rocks back at something that's throwing rocks at me. Probably
Speaker 1: wasn't very smart, but it seemed like my best option
Speaker 1: at the time. Fortunately, neither of us has seen anything since.
Speaker 1: Now that I'm older and perhaps a bit wiser, I
Speaker 1: don't think that whatever was throwing rocks at us was
Speaker 1: trying to hurt us. I think it was warning us
Speaker 1: to get out of the area. At least that's my
Speaker 1: two cents worth. You can believe whatever you choose to believe.