Cycluran
Full Member
Last Year, about this time, my relic-hunting buddy and I were deep in Mississippi woods, on leased hunting land. Late in the day, we found a flat-topped ridge where it seemed some Wisconsin soldiers had been during the war. I'd just found a state seal coat button when we heard some cane breaking a couple hundred yards away at the end of the ridge, in a thicket.
We kept hearing the noise and, thinking it might be our first black bear sighting, or maybe Bigfoot(we were delirious from the day's heat and actually contemplated how we would greet the missing link), we cautiously hunted our way toward the end of the ridge, our hearts beating harder and harder as we grew close to the noise.
At about fifty feet my buddy's machine hit a tree and the rustling suddenly stopped. Everything stopped. It was silent, and it was getting dark fast. We stood there motionless, barely breathing for at least 5 minutes. Tired, hungry and three miles from the truck, I gave up waiting for whatever it was to move again and started marching straight toward the thicket.
After a few stomps, "BIGFOOT", all 300+ pounds of him, wearing old Army fatigues, white sneakers and totin' a Garrett, suddenly leapt a mighty 6 inches into the air and to the right, from a crouched position, and began bounding down the side of the ridge; snapping cane and saplings, snagging briars, grunting like an ox and dragging his headphones behind until they detached.(I've still gottem'.)
He was falling down every 10 or 12 feet and, when he tried to jump the creek at the bottom of the ridge, he slammed full body into the far bank so hard it knocked the wind out of both ends(we heard it). He got his bearings quickly though, crawled up the bank, leaving his shovel in the creek(got that too) and, gasping for air, lumbered his way hastily into the dark woods, sticking to the bottoms.
He seemed to be heading in the general direction we were, so we casually followed his freshly cut trail and, along the way, picked up his reproduction Confederate canteen with a broken strap. It was empty, but smelled like cherry Cool-Aid. I stopped and said to my buddy under my breath, "Do you know who that big guy was? Smell this. That was the Cool-Aid man." To which he whispered, "Oh Yeaaah". We chuckled and heard what must have been his car door shutting somewhere out there in the darkness. He fired up what sounded like a Caterpillar tractor and then his headlights faded away through the trees.
I hoped he was alright, besides the scratches and bruises. It sure scared us when he lunged out of that cane. I know he probably didn't have permission to be where he was, but we didn't care about that. Thankfully, that particular encounter didn't involve someone shooting at us. Not far from there, someone had, but that's another story. ~dHb
We kept hearing the noise and, thinking it might be our first black bear sighting, or maybe Bigfoot(we were delirious from the day's heat and actually contemplated how we would greet the missing link), we cautiously hunted our way toward the end of the ridge, our hearts beating harder and harder as we grew close to the noise.
At about fifty feet my buddy's machine hit a tree and the rustling suddenly stopped. Everything stopped. It was silent, and it was getting dark fast. We stood there motionless, barely breathing for at least 5 minutes. Tired, hungry and three miles from the truck, I gave up waiting for whatever it was to move again and started marching straight toward the thicket.
After a few stomps, "BIGFOOT", all 300+ pounds of him, wearing old Army fatigues, white sneakers and totin' a Garrett, suddenly leapt a mighty 6 inches into the air and to the right, from a crouched position, and began bounding down the side of the ridge; snapping cane and saplings, snagging briars, grunting like an ox and dragging his headphones behind until they detached.(I've still gottem'.)
He was falling down every 10 or 12 feet and, when he tried to jump the creek at the bottom of the ridge, he slammed full body into the far bank so hard it knocked the wind out of both ends(we heard it). He got his bearings quickly though, crawled up the bank, leaving his shovel in the creek(got that too) and, gasping for air, lumbered his way hastily into the dark woods, sticking to the bottoms.
He seemed to be heading in the general direction we were, so we casually followed his freshly cut trail and, along the way, picked up his reproduction Confederate canteen with a broken strap. It was empty, but smelled like cherry Cool-Aid. I stopped and said to my buddy under my breath, "Do you know who that big guy was? Smell this. That was the Cool-Aid man." To which he whispered, "Oh Yeaaah". We chuckled and heard what must have been his car door shutting somewhere out there in the darkness. He fired up what sounded like a Caterpillar tractor and then his headlights faded away through the trees.
I hoped he was alright, besides the scratches and bruises. It sure scared us when he lunged out of that cane. I know he probably didn't have permission to be where he was, but we didn't care about that. Thankfully, that particular encounter didn't involve someone shooting at us. Not far from there, someone had, but that's another story. ~dHb
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