I was hunting that day, and just trying to get out of a storm that turned the woods
black in the middle of the afternoon.
I found a blowdown, and I crawled inside to wait the storm out.
I thought I had made a smart decision.
But then something else came into that blowdown after me.
And when the lightning flashed?
Well, I saw exactly what it was.
This happened during both season eight years back.
I was hunting alone in the Hughes River Wildlife Management area in West Virginia.
I knew that piece of ground well.
I'd been hunting it since I was a teen.
Nothing about that day stood out at first.
It was cool, overcast, and the kind of day you expect dear to move a little.
By early afternoon something started to change.
There had been no rain in the forecast, but it was on the way.
The wind suddenly picked up.
I don't mean gradually either.
This came on quick, pushing through the trees hard enough.
It quickly got my attention.
Then the light around me dropped.
Thick, dark clouds were rolling in, low and heavy and fast.
It was like something had sucked all the ambient light out of the woods around me, and it
went from a grey overcast afternoon to feeling like it was close to midnight.
I remember stopping and looking up through the tree canopy.
I remember thinking I should probably go ahead and head out before it gets worse.
So I went ahead and started my walk out, but I didn't get far.
Now the rain really started.
This was a heavy, cold rain that came in, slanting sideways with the wind that was hard behind
it.
It felt almost like sleep hitting me.
It was cold and it stung my skin.
I knew right then this wasn't a storm I could walk through.
This is the kind of storm that brings the ugly stuff with it.
I knew it was still a couple miles to get to my truck, and I was way up in the hills.
For a few moments I was thinking, "Well, maybe I could just keep walking.
At least get down to a lower elevation and wait it out down there."
But that's when the lightning started.
It was striking close.
Being high up and surrounded by trees is really not a good place to be when lightning comes
in.
My pack was on a metal frame.
My compound bow had both aluminum and magnesium alloy in it.
I was nothing more than a walking lightning rod.
Now bright flashes lit the woods up all wide around me, and they were followed almost immediately
by thunder that didn't just roll.
It cracked.
Sharp and heavy.
Like it hit right on top of you.
It was the kind that you could feel in your chest, and I felt it in my boots from the ground
up.
In no time at all this went from being a thunderstorm to being a hot electrical storm.
There's not a lot of shelter in the woods when you're in this kind of storm, but I did
know where a blowdown was, not too far from my current position.
I had seen it again that day on my way up.
I've used it as a waymark for years.
It came down some years back, and I noticed on the way up that day that it looked as if another
hunter had added to it and coated it with pine branches.
But I also noticed the branches looked old and dry, but I took note of it as I moved
up the hill.
I also fleetingly thought it might have been some teens making some kind of a hideout
or fort, and thought no more of it.
This blowdown wasn't much, but I turned, and I made a beeline for it.
By the time I reached it, the storm was in full swing.
The tops of the trees were whipping back and forth.
You could hear limbs snapping somewhere deeper in the woods.
Everything was hitting everything, running in sheets and rivers down the slope.
I got to that blowdown, dropped down, and pushed into what looked like the opening.
Only way in was on hands and knees.
I had to take my pack off, shove it in my bow in first, then I climbed in, working through
the branches and trunks that were laid over each other.
A few feet in, it was a good-sized opening.
A couple of feet from the side of the branch walls, and I could sit up cross-legged, and
I still had room for my head.
Outside the storm raged.
Crack after crack of earth-shaking thunder and flashes of white hot lightning were almost
non-stop.
Rain still came through the blowdown shelter in a few spots and drips, but I counted
my blessings and said it was much better than outside.
I shifted around, set my pack and my arrow off to my right, which was closer to the opening.
I took breath, ready to sit there and wait out the storm.
But that didn't last long until I wondered what I had crawled in, too.
In my hurry, I didn't check first to make sure it wasn't already inhabited by some other
animal.
The smell that suddenly hit me was now a mix of zoo-like smell, mixed with that nasty,
rank rotten smell of a predator's den, where the blood and the fur are there rotting.
I got my pen-lite out and shined it around.
This was definitely something's den, something big lived here.
It relieves and pine needles that repress down in one area across from where I sat.
It was flattened, a long oval.
Looked like something's bed.
Like I said, something big.
I remember thinking this didn't make sense for a bear's den.
It was the first full week of November, and it was still warm enough that a bear might be
outlooking for its last dinner.
But the den didn't have the look or the feel of a bear's den.
But I didn't dwell on it.
Whatever it was, I thought.
It's not here.
And I wasn't planning on staying any longer than the storm was active.
Two or three minutes I was sitting like that.
And then I heard movement at the entrance.
Branches snapping and being pushed aside quickly.
I guess I hadn't heard its approach because of the storm.
I immediately pulled out my 9mm single hole punch.
And before everyone gets all riled up, I am allowed to carry in West Virginia during
bow season.
Well, like I said, this was just a 9mm, and I only carried it for emergencies and/or to ward
off other humans.
And I figured this might be one of those emergencies.
Oh, I got ready, because whatever it was was coming in.
Before I could react, something crawled all the way into the space under that blowdown.
There was a crack at thunder, and almost instantaneous white lightning that lit the world up for
just a fraction of a second.
But it was long enough I saw it.
It was right there in the opening.
Huge, big shoulders filling the whole space, brushing against the sides as it came through
– hair hanging in thick wet strands – the arms, long and heavy, bracing as it pushed itself
to get inside.
I saw its face just long enough to know.
This wasn't a bear, and it wasn't another hunter.
It wasn't anything I'd ever seen before.
This was something that I'd always thought was just a joke.
Bigfoot.
That lightning flashed, and then it all went dark again.
I was in there alone with the bigfoot in the dark.
It came all the way in.
I scrambled with my other hand and pulled out my pen light and flicked it back on again.
That bigfoot had crawled in, and I was staring at a large backside now of brown fur just
a few feet from my face.
Just a second, I thought I had gotten it all wrong.
That wasn't some bigfoot.
That big rounded rump looked like a big brown bear's rump to me.
I could even see the water of you, let's run down the fur.
Now never mind, we do not have big brown bears in West Virginia.
I have seen great big brown bears far too close for comfort on trips out west and up in
Canada.
But the fur I saw shaking from the rump as it moved around looked very much like a bear.
You want to know what panic is?
Imagine being in a very small enclosed space with a very large, aggressive brown bear with
a useless bow and a small nine mill hole punch.
That's when panic sets in.
I didn't move.
I'm not sure I was even breathing.
I kept looking, and that's when I noticed something.
That rump went down to a leg that was on a bent knee, and beyond that knee was a lower leg,
and at the end of that leg was a very large human-like foot at the end of it.
Not a bear after all.
And for just a second, I wished it had been the bear, because then I'd at least known
what to expect.
With my pen light still on, I saw it take another second to get positioned around, and it
turned slightly and plopped down into the flattened bedding area that I had noticed earlier.
I still debate with myself if it knew I was there before it plopped down.
At that time I saw it very clearly for about three seconds in my pen light.
I saw the wide and heavy shoulders, the arms that looked long and dangly but full of muscles.
I saw the way its hip had dug down into the flattened leaves, and the way its hair was
still full of rainwater, wet and clumpy, and I saw that water rolling off the hair.
I took in several things all at once, more than just its size and the hair.
I heard its breathing, and I saw it was staring at me.
The look on its face wasn't easy to read, but I caught a flash of annoyance, which I guess
was reasonable.
But there was also something else that I didn't like when I saw it.
At that second I couldn't name what it was I saw on its face, but I felt it, and it made
my hair stand up.
Now, thinking back, I would say the look on its face was one of not just annoyance and
surprise, but the look someone would get when a great opportunity or a great piece of look
has just dropped into their lap unexpectedly.
The realization that I was sitting in Bigfoot's house had me almost wet myself, and that
look on his face, well, that was something else.
My mind went through everything with lightning speed.
I was too close to use the bow.
No room to draw or even pull up properly.
And how could I do that and keep a light on it?
I couldn't.
And my single hole punch?
Yeah, that might help, and it might just piss it off.
I'd have to get a perfect shot right in the eye socket, because I'm telling you, that
close to it, I saw the size of the skull.
It was huge.
The eyes in the face seem smaller than such a skull would have.
I mean, the bone of the skull seemed really thick.
So the chance of that skull being thick like a bear's and hard to shoot through, I was
willing to bet that chance would be pretty high.
But a shot right through the eye socket, well, that might do the trick and reach right
through to the brain.
Well, it should, anyway.
But what if I was wrong?
What if my single hole punch didn't have a high enough caliber to do what I needed to do
with one shot?
This was a massive creature.
So I'm there, weighing all these options at lightning speed in my head.
Also, I was thinking, could I turn around and back out fast enough?
Now, for a handful of seconds, I had all these thoughts.
The whole time, we kept looking at each other, and every second we did, my hair was rising
up even higher.
I was already thinking that I had to get out of there when the big foot shifted just
slightly, and with its free arm reached out and touched the toe of my booth that was
nearest to it.
It sort of started pinching the toe area.
I wear boots with reinforced toe caps that are very thick, hard leather.
I felt that pinch even through that, and I don't think it was trying to pinch very hard.
It seemed to me it was testing.
I don't know if it was interested in the boot, or just wanted to see what I would do.
Well, that was enough for me.
I kicked at its hand and pushed it away, and quickly rolled and crawled to the opening.
I crawled out of there on my hands and knees, like you wouldn't believe.
I tore out of there.
I left my pack and my bobe behind.
On the way out, I know I felt something grabbed my foot, and I kicked it away and kept going.
I got out, stood up, and I ran faster than the rain and lightning all around me.
I wasn't even sure which direction I was going in.
I realized that, and I stopped, knowing that panic was not my friend.
I was maybe 50 yards down the slope from the blow-down.
I looked up to find the blow-down, to check my direction, to make sure I was going roughly
where I needed to go.
Last thing I needed to do was zero gear on me, was to get lost in those hills.
As I turned around, I saw a very large thing rise up out in front of the blow-down.
My heart stopped.
It was the big foot.
It stood up, and I saw it looking around, until its eyes found me.
My stomach dropped.
Maybe it just wanted to make sure I was really leaving, or maybe it was checking my direction
so it could track and follow me.
There was no way I could know.
I still had my whole punch, but that was all.
I turned and ran down that hill as fast as I could.
I did not look back again.
I was really afraid if I did, I was going to see it right behind me.
That would stop my heart, which would stop my legs, and it would all be over.
I went down once, though, on slick ground with leaves.
I hit those leaves, slid, went down, and tore my side of my hip up really good, because
I landed on stones and sticks.
Now, that's the only time I looked back, and that was when I stood up.
There was nothing following me.
I stood up and breathed in a few big breaths, then I headed down the hill again, this time,
more carefully, and slower.
The thought that got me was that if I had fallen then, and broke my ankle or my leg, I'd
be stuck.
I still had probably two miles to get to my truck.
Meanwhile my phone, my GPS, and all of those things were back at Bigfoot's house.
Then I thought my truck, oh no, my key fob and key ring were in my pack.
I kept them wrapped in flannel so they weren't jingling around in a pocket while I walked.
I guess I'd figure out what to do when I got to my truck.
The storm was still coming down hard, but it was lessening.
I hardly noticed it anymore.
I was so focused on getting down that hill.
Another lightning flash lit up the woods.
I looked up, expecting to see the Bigfoot again so hard, that I thought I did see it shape,
and I thought that every time the lightning flashed.
But then it would all die back to normal light of a dark day, and there was no Bigfoot
there.
But that's how much it was playing with my head all the way down that hill, all the way
to my truck.
When I got to where my truck was parked, I had no phone and no way to contact anybody.
I stood there uncertainly for probably twenty minutes trying to decide what to do.
Was I really ready to walk the miles down those roads, which were, by the way, full of
woods on either side?
I didn't think so.
I was really trying to decide what to do when some other hunters pulled in to that pullover.
I asked them right away if they could call someone for me.
They asked what was wrong.
I told them I'd been ran off by a black bear, and I had to leave my pack and everything behind,
including my keys.
They were a little stand-offish at first when I approached them, but I think they quickly
saw.
I was for real.
One of the guys handed me his phone, and I called up my brother, who thank God I remembered
his phone number.
He lives north of Parker's Burg.
Took him over an hour to get there, but I was so relieved to see him pull in.
The hunters who were all really nice men, they had offered to stay with me until my brother
got there, but I told them no, go on, I'd be fine.
A strange way, as much as I didn't want to be by myself right then.
I also didn't want to have to make talk with people I didn't know.
They were good guys, and I am really grateful to them.
I just didn't want to stand there and talk.
So my brother was of a mind to go get my pack and things when he got there.
I told him to forget it, just get me home.
I said I'd get to the dealership, buy a new fob, then I'd call a locksmith for the house.
I could buy a new phone.
I went down the whole list of how I was going to replace everything.
My brother looked at me like I was crazy.
He said, "Don't be stupid.
Everything of mine was just sitting right up there on that hill."
He had brought with him my nephew, his son, who was around twenty at the time.
My brother was adamant that between three of us we could handle any bear.
And under normal circumstances, I'd say he was right.
I told him at first that I didn't think this was just a regular bear.
It wasn't like one I'd ever seen, and it behaved very differently.
My brother looked at me weird again and then he said, "Come on, knock it off.
Let's go get your stuff."
I really didn't want to go, but I had no choice.
I could not let them go alone, plus only I knew where that blowdown was.
I was also of a very scared mind.
We were going to get up there, and we were going to face that big foot.
Better three of us than two.
Now my nerves got the better of me, and halfway up the hill I stopped.
I told my brother flat out what had happened, did not happen with the bear.
I told him it was big foot.
My brother has since said that when I stood there and told him that, that I was shaking
a little, and I could hardly look him in the eye.
He said he knew then I was for real, because the last time he saw me like that, so scared,
was the night that I had sneaked out of the house, hot-wired my dad's truck, ended up
getting drunk and wrecked it.
I had walked home that night, went to my brother's bedroom window, bloodied and bruised, and
scared to death.
I knew when my dad found out my life was as good as over.
I went to my brother to tell me what to do.
My brother said I was acting the same way that day.
Scared, shaking, trying to get the story out, and I could hardly look him in the eye.
He said that's when he knew I was for real, and he did not laugh when I told him.
He really didn't laugh.
My nephew, however, was standing there, and he made a scoffing, almost laughing snort sound
when I said the word big foot.
My brother just reached out with his left arm and slammed it across my nephew's chest
like a warning to shut up, which he did.
Then I told the whole thing to them, beginning to end.
And nobody laughed that time, not even my nephew.
I knew we were just over a hundred yards from that blow-down, or big foot's house as I
had come to think of it.
The rain had stopped while I was still at my truck waiting, but the ground was still very
wet.
Everything was damp, and the further up the hill we went, visibility lessened from a mist
that was hanging around after the rain.
We went up that hill more like soldiers, and less like a group of hunters.
Me and my brother both served in the military, but my nephew hadn't, but he followed our
lead in directions.
We moved from tree to tree one at a time, slowly and quietly.
I got to within about ten yards of that blow-down, and I was at an angle that I could see the
opening, which was dark.
I saw no movement.
I stayed well to the side, while my brother had gone left to the blow-down line of sight,
quite a ways down the hill.
From there he had swung up to the higher ground behind the blow-down, and came down to the
back of it.
And it's exactly where I indicated the bedding area had been.
While he did that, me and my nephew stayed hard left and hard right of the opening.
Well, out of the line of fire.
My brother got right up to the back of that blow-down, and he fired quickly twice through
the brush, right down to where the Bigfoot would have been bedded if it had been there.
And if the Bigfoot had been in there, he would have surely hit him, and if not, we would
have heard movement yelling something from inside.
But there was nothing but silence.
My brother came around to the front and fired a few rounds into the opening.
Still nothing.
He dropped down and took a look inside with my pen light.
He said there was nothing in there, nothing at all, meaning not even my pack, not my bow,
nothing.
My brother took one look inside, stood up, and his wrinkled nose said everything.
He shook his head and said, "Whatever it was, it didn't seem one bit like a bear's den."
In the end, I reported my bow and my pack is being lost.
I just wanted in case somebody found my pack way out in the wilderness.
I didn't want people thinking I was lost or dead or mounting some kind of reconnaissance
mission for me.
That was eight years ago.
And to my knowledge, nothing has ever been found, not my pack, not my bow.
All that that happened hasn't stopped me from hunting, hunting alone, or hunting alone
in that area.
What it has done has made me more cautious about blow downs, tree downs, caves, overhangs,
cliffs, anywhere an animal could bed down or take shelter.
I don't think Bigfoot is a joke anymore, you can bet on that.
I don't talk about this experience much, either.
You know, I've often heard people talk about what they would do if they walked in and found
someone had broken into their home, or if they came home and found some squatters inside.
All the scenarios, all the things people say that they would do, well, you can guess,
it's pretty bad.
And I agree with them.
Nobody wants to find someone in their house that shouldn't be there.
I know I would do the same.
But I also know that's what I unknowingly did to Bigfoot.
And to this day, I'm still surprised I escaped.
I think the fact that I surprised him might have worked in my favor.
You know, I'm betting when a bunch of Bigfoot get together, they sit around and they'll
tell each other stories of what they would do if they walked in and found a bunch of
humans inside their house.
And I bet those stories are no prettier than what we say we would do if we find someone
in our home.
And yet Bigfoot found me inside his house.
And somehow I'm still alive.
Talk about miracles.
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