I've been fishing the same bend of little mill creek since I was a teenager.
It's a slow meandering stretch of water that runs several miles from where it leaves
the Mulberry River, where I go its remote.
Most people don't have the patience to get there, and that's why I like it.
Out there, the only sounds you hear are the water rolling over the gravel and the cicadas
buzzing around in the heat.
It was a scorcher the day I'm remembering.
Mid-July, with the kind of humidity that makes your shirt stick to your back on the short
walk from your front door to the truck in your driveway.
I parked my old Silverado where I usually did, and then hiked in with a small tackle box,
a can of worms, and a cooler slung over my shoulder.
My plan was simple.
I had to catch a mess of smallmouth, maybe a cat or two, and then camp the night on the
gravel bar or just inside the tree line.
I'd done it dozens and dozens of times before.
The creek there was low from a dry spell, and that made the deep bend perfect.
Dark pools undercut banks were the fish like to hole up.
I spent a good two hours pulling them in, one right after the other.
As it got later, the sun dropped behind the ridge just right, turning the water in front
of me into pure gold.
It was one of those afternoons that just feels right.
You know the ones I mean.
The kind that you're going to pull out of your memory when you're really old, and when
you do, you will feel it all over again.
Knowing this, I breathed deep and watched the gold ripple on the creek water, just drinking
it into my memory.
After a little bit, I did start thinking that maybe it was time to set up camp, and that's
when I noticed something strange.
I walked up and down the creek a little bit, looking for where I wanted to set my camp.
I usually did not set camp up first thing because, well, sometimes the best place I find
for my camp is not near the best place I find to fish that day.
I did that one time, and I came back to an almost empty campsite, as unlikely as it
had been.
Someone had found my camp, assumed it was abandoned, I hope, and they decided to take everything,
my tent, my bed roll, everything.
Down to the kindling I had split.
So I go walking, and about 30 yards downstream, where the creek shallows out into a wide,
pebbly stretch.
I saw a strange mark in the gravel.
At first I thought maybe it was just where a log had been washed up and shipped it around.
But the more I looked, the more what I saw didn't sit right.
It was a drag mark.
Two of them, actually.
Deep furrows cutting across the gravel bar and then disappearing deep into the tree line,
and whatever had made them, had been very heavy.
We're not talking about some deer carcass tumbling downstream.
These were steady and deliberate marks, as if something had hauled a very big weight
against the flow of the creek.
Curiosity got the better of me.
I crouched down beside the marks.
They were about three feet apart, with odd little crescent-shaped gouges along the edges.
Almost like claws or fingertips had been dug down into the stones, as whatever it was,
dragged its load.
The tracks led straight off the bar, deep into the tree line, where the ground there turned
soft and dark.
Now, I grew up hunting and trapping, like a lot of other men in the area.
I know the sign of coyotes hauling a kill, or a bear dragging a deer.
This was not that.
It was too neat, very deliberate.
I told myself it was probably just a hog or a big cat.
Still, I couldn't shake the itch in my brain about it.
Something was off.
The grass was starting, and the light was fading fast, and I knew I didn't have much
time.
So, like an absolute fool, I grabbed my flashlight and followed the trail into the woods.
The canopy there swallowed me up fast.
The further I went, the quieter and the darker it got.
No birds, no frogs.
Even the creek noise faded behind me into silence.
But the drag marks kept going.
A pichello incline across a mat of pine needles, and into a little hollow that was maybe 50 yards
from the water.
That's when I smelled it.
It hit me like a rotten punch straight to the face.
It was a mix of carrion and damp, moldy earth.
I gagged a little, clamped my hand up for my nose, and I swept the light way ahead of me.
That's when I saw the clearing.
It was maybe twenty feet across, ringed with young pines and littered with bones.
Not just deer bones either.
There were ribs, femurs, and skulls from all kinds of forest critters.
I saw raccoon, possum, possibly even some coyote skulls, and what looked like a hog.
All of them were piled and scattered around like some kind of weird feeding ground.
But what stopped me cold was a femur, half buried near the base of a stump.
That was much bigger and thicker than any deer leg I'd ever seen.
It looked human.
I felt the hair on my neck rise.
That was the first woman I thought I should leave right now.
I turned to go back the way I came.
And that's when I heard the splash.
It was distant, faint but unmistakable.
Something heavy had stepped into the creek.
Then there was another splash.
Then another.
They were slow and deliberate.
Coming closer and closer in a direct b-line for my position.
Perhaps I could have went out ninety degrees deeper into the woods in a way from what was coming.
But a very strange curiosity kept me right there.
I killed my light, crouched low.
My heart thudding so hard I was sure that whatever was coming my way would be able to hear it.
Then I heard it again.
Not the water this time, but the sound of footsteps, first on wet stone.
Not the four-legged shuffle of a bear or a hog.
These were definitely two-footed bipedal steps.
Heavy, spaced apart.
Just like a man waiting upstream.
Only I knew it wasn't a man.
It couldn't be.
I crouched there in the darkness for what felt like several minutes, but was probably maybe
twenty or thirty seconds, straining to listen.
The splashing had stopped, and now the forest had gone completely silent again.
And then from somewhere just beyond the tree line, where the creek gravel met the trees.
I heard a low, guttural huff.
It was deep and resonant, sort of like a bull exhaling through a barrel chest.
The deep huff cycled three more times, with a long pair of seconds in between.
That was as if it was drawing in more breath between each one.
The huffs were measured, even, and forceful.
That's when I knew it could smell me.
It knew I was there, and it wasn't curious or afraid of me.
In fact, I felt it was warning me.
The sound of the huff seemed to hang in the air forever, deep, primal, and close.
I'd been in the woods most of my life, and I'd never heard anything like it.
It wasn't a bear's chuff for a deer's snort.
This was heavier, deeper, and it was meant to let me know.
It knew I was there, and that I was standing in a place I did not belong.
Every instinct I had screamed for me to turn tail and run.
But the thought of crashing through that brush blindly, and noisily, with whatever it was,
so close, that didn't sit right either.
I needed eyes on it.
I needed to know what it was, and where it was before I moved.
So I stayed there crouched, breathing shallow and slow, listening for movement.
At first there was nothing.
No water, no brush, not even the faintest rustle.
Then, soft as a breath, came the sound of wet gravel shifting one step, then another
slow, deliberate, coming closer.
Then the footsteps were muffled, telling me it had left the creek area and was now in
the trees.
It came to within about ten yards of me, and came no closer.
Instead it began to pace back and forth, just beyond the hollow area where I was crouched,
moving parallel to me.
I heard each heavy footsteps as it hit the ground.
Every few seconds it would stop, and I would hear that deep huff, it would roll out into
the darkness again.
Low, measured, like it was sniffing and checking the air in between.
I had left my 357 back with my main supplies.
That's something I never do.
I had been lulled that afternoon into the beauty and the quiet of the area.
Yes, I do know better.
Before you start preaching, I absolutely know better.
But when I started walking and looking for a camp place, I had zero intention of going
very far, and not into the woods.
But I'm not the only man to fail to see into the future, to plan for it, and to mess
up.
All I had on me was a six-inch filet knife on my belt, and a mag light that suddenly felt
more like a heavy liability than a tool.
My hands were slick with sweat, and my heart was pounding so loud I was sure it would give
my position away.
After a few minutes I lulled myself into believing it must have moved on.
I wasn't hearing the huffing or any footsteps.
Then, just when I thought it had moved on, a branch snapped.
I called sharp, no more than 30 feet to my left.
My froze.
I turned slowly to look.
A shape moved between the trees.
Big, too big for a deer.
It ghosted from trunk to trunk, silent to smoke, but every so often I'd catch a real glimpse
of it.
A hulking mass moving in the fading light, there, and then gone again.
Then I saw it was circling me.
I eased backward slowly as I could, trying not to crunch the pine needles under my boots.
My plan was simple.
Get back to the creek, follow it downstream, and put as much distance between me and whatever
this was stalking me as much as I could.
But plans don't mean much when you're not the one in control.
I hadn't thudded into the ground barely a foot from where I was crouching.
Heavy enough to send a small spray of soil across my boots.
I jumped back, barely stifling a curse.
When I aimed my light, I saw it.
A large river rock, bigger than a soft ball, it was now half buried in the dirt.
That thing circling me had thrown it.
And it wasn't guessing where I was.
That stone landed just mere inches from me.
That was a very accurate throw.
That thing is accurate with it saying, "Make no mistake."
It simply miscalculated the force needed to put that throw to reach me and make contact.
And it was just miscalculated by a few inches.
It missed me only barely.
I can't imagine if it had hit me, or made a headshot.
I wasn't waiting for another one to come.
I turned and started backing down the slope toward the water.
My light was off, stepping quickly, but carefully.
This was not the time to stumble or twist or break my ankle.
My heart was racing now, and I could feel that thing shadowing me.
Branches moving close enough I could hear them.
I think crack of wood now and then, but always just out of sight.
But it was close.
When I broke through the tree line and I saw the glint of light on the creek from the slowly
rising moon, I nearly sobbed with relief.
I figured if I could get into the shallows and follow the water downstream, I might just
lose that thing.
I was halfway to the bank when I heard the sound that darn near stopped my heart.
Two foot steps, then three, then four.
There was no rush in the steps I heard.
That thing knew right where I was and how to get to me.
Those foot steps were coming straight for me.
Nice bun, flicked my flashlight on and swept it across the clearing.
Nothing there, just trees and brush and darkness.
I swung the beam back the other way, and that's when I saw it.
It was standing about twenty yards away, half hidden behind a sycamore as wide around
as a truck tire.
The light caught just enough to paint a picture that I will never forget.
A massive barrel-chested figure, easily seven and a half feet tall.
Its shoulders nearly brushing the lower limbs.
The hair was dark and matted, hanging in coarse sheets over muscles that move like coiled
rope beneath.
And the face.
Well, God help me.
That face was not like an apes.
It was much closer to hours.
With a heavy brow, deep set eyes, glowing faint red in the light beam, and a mouth that
was pulled into something that wasn't quite as snarl, but was not far from it.
It blinked once, slow and deliberate, and it stepped out from behind the tree.
I don't remember making the decision to run.
My body must have made it for me.
I bolted for the creek, stumbling over rocks and roots, splashing into the shallows hard
enough to nearly lose my footing.
Behind me, branches cracked, loud, fast, and closing the distance.
I tore downstream the water, dragging at my boots, heart hammering in my throat.
Then it all stopped.
No footsteps.
No crashing.
Just the sound of the creek in my own racket breathing.
I turned, gasping, and scanned the bank with the flashlight.
Something empty, silent.
I stood there for more than a full minute, shaking, waiting for it to come, charging out
of the trees.
But it didn't.
But I know it was there, somewhere in the darkness, watching.
And then faint, but unmistakable, came that same low, just deep huff.
This time it wasn't as close.
It was distant, maybe a hundred feet back.
And that's when I knew.
That huff was a warning.
It was showing me the boundary, the line I was not to cross again.
Well, I wasn't going to test it.
I have only a vague memory of scooping up my gear.
I didn't stop moving until I was back at my truck.
I don't even remember the hike back.
I barely have a memory of throwing my gear into the bed of my truck, then peeling out
of there with the windows down, and my heart feeling as if it was trying to punch its way out
of my chest.
When I told this story to someone that I loved and trusted, they listened.
Then they told me the area there is known for that kind of activity and pointed out things
like devil's canyon trail, devil's canyon waterfalls, then Sasquatch's cave and other things
nearby where I was.
I mean, yeah, I had heard those names my whole life.
But they were just names.
They didn't mean anything to me.
It was no different to me than something like the Mulberry River.
I don't think the Mulberry River is full of Mulberries or has its banks aligned with Mulberry
bushes.
I don't think Hurricane Creek is one big hurricane or that a hurricane ever went down
that creek.
I don't think wire road is full of wires.
So I never once thought that devil's canyon waterfalls or anything else was full of
devil's.
You see what I mean?
But now I know it was probably all referencing Sasquatch in the area probably over the last
century or two.
I now pay more attention to those kinds of names for places because what happened to me
was between those areas and the Mulberry River.
So yeah, there might be something to it.
I'm going to send you the Google shot of the area just so you know.
I have never been back to that part of the creek, not once, probably never.
I now fish on other creeks.
Creeks that don't lead to places with the words like devil and Sasquatch in them.
But there are times late at night when the winds write, "I swear to you, I can still hear
that sound in my head."
That heavy, deliberate huff.
And I remember what it felt like to stand in a place that didn't belong to me.
When I crossed a boundary, I didn't know was there.
[ Silence ]