The Mountain Creature of the Appalachians

Each of us began to complain by the sounds of our grunting and stirring around underneath the wet leaves.  Our attention proved to be misplaced as suddenly appearing before us, no more then ten feet were two of the creatures.  The huge one actually charged toward Mike as he attempted to sit up to take a snapshot.  The creature had his mouth open and with a gurgling, growling sound, made an angry swipe, breaking some of the laurel limbs.  The limbs knocked Mike’s camera from his hand and brushed his forehead just enough to scratch him above his left eye.  The creature then took another swipe at Mike; however, missed him as Mike fell backward onto me. 

Now, I had totally been motionless and somewhat shocked and then without thinking I pulled out my revolver and fired a shot into the air.  At the sound of the firing of my gun, the creature turned and ran.  They were gone as suddenly as they had appeared.

I began to struggle to free myself from Mike who was lying on top of me.  He was very slow to move and was lying on top of my head and upper torso.  At that point I became uneasy that he might be hurt. “Mike, are you alright”, I asked?  He finally began to move which enabled me to sit upright.  “I, I think so, how did, what did he do” he mumbled?  “Don’t you remember”, “he took a whack at you, did he hurt you”, I inquired?  He answered, “I don’t think so”, as he raised his body up and then stated, “I was too busy trying to get out of his way.”  “Oh Gosh Mike, you’re bleeding”, I directed.  “Where”, he frowned.  “Just above your left eye”, I told him.  He immediately raised his hand and swiped his forehead.  “Don’t appear to be too bad, I think I’ll live”, he commented. “He hit me didn’t he Tom”, he said.  I told him that I thought he had been hit by one of the limbs lying at his feet. Although his face was still white from fear, he said, “That was a close call, wasn’t it, Tom?” I answered him with a quick “Yes” and I supposed we should consider ourselves lucky. Mike was quick to let me know that that he never intended to hide there among the leaves in wait for them again!  I couldn’t help but to laugh aloud at him. 

Then he asked me, “Tom, did you shoot it?”  “I don’t think so, I was trying to shoot up into the air”, I said.  I looked up above us at a limb, which appeared that a slab of it had been blown off one side of the laurel bush.  “Look there Mike, I shot the tree”, I stated with relief.  He asked, “Would you have shot him if he hadn’t run?”  “Well, I certainty wouldn’t have laid here and not defended us”, I protested.  I let him know that my first intent was to scare it off and if I had seen it trying to hurt him I would have fired at him.  Mike responded, “He was trying to hurt me, didn’t you see that?”  “Yes, but you fell back on me and once I had managed to fire my gun he was gone from my sight”,  I  declared.

We finally settled down and both just sat there in silence, looking out into the forest, not saying a word. Each of us reviewing in our own minds what had taken place, was the activity that we shared for the next several minutes.  After collecting ourselves, I turned to Mike to ask him if he was able to take a picture?  Immediately, he looked down and said, “Where’s my camera?” 

I crawled from the leave bed and stood where the creature had been as it made his attempt to strike at my friend and there Mike joined me once again saying, “Where’s my camera?” We both started looking around and for a while finding nothing.  Mike then looked to the right of the path just beyond the laurel bush and his eyes fell upon it on the ground.  There it laid, in several pieces near the stump of a tree.  “Tom, if I did get a picture, it’s ruined, the film has been exposed”, he sadly stated.  The camera was demolished and we could only hope that we had some good shots from the first