Bigfoot saves a Moonshining Outfit
| The Moonshining Bigfoot This is a story told to me by my grandfather. He was a moonshiner back in the day. We are fourth generation Kentucky hillbillies who have lived on the same range of Appalachian mountains for near as long as most can remember up there. My family has made corn whiskey since before the prohibition, but their production increased considerably after prohibition was passed. That ain’t all that important for this story however, but it is the basis for this story. My grandfather, George Mckitchen, got into the business being taught by his father. Anyways one day he was killing time waiting for the still to do what it was made to do. He wondered quite a ways further than usual, following a little stream he had come upon, that wasn’t always there. You see it had rained a lot in recent days, and what was usually not an area which got a lot of runoff, was getting it then. Perhaps due to a runoff stream becoming overrun, resulting in it creating a stream which normally would not have occurred. So he followed the adlib stream to a point where it fell off a cliff about twenty feet down into a place which would have formed a natural pond, or pit, if not for the fact that on the far end of the pit, was where there was a crack that was about six inches wide, where two rock formations came together almost touching, but not quite. They sat so they formed a V-shape and inside the V-shape was where the pit was formed. The narrow part of the V-shape was at the far end of the water flow. So it came in at the wide part of the pit and exited through the six inch gap that was probably a good fifteen to twenty feet, just slightly lower at the top of the crack, than the distance the water fell back at the wide part of the pit. Grandfather said if he had to guess he would have said that the pit had probably once been full and equal height to the ground surrounding it but when a lot of rain came at once it flooded the area and caused the water to follow the path down off the mountain. When it got to the place where the pit was at, the formation of the rock caused it all to funnel down into the pit which probably pretty quickly, as erosion goes, managed to clean out the loose material in the pit so that it ended up looking like what he saw that day. Keep in mind since the whole thing flooded but only once in a while, that over time circumstances made for when that happened, it caused the walls of the pit which were rock and soil between the rocks, to become slick. The rock that had been made smooth from the millions of years of water erosion made for a terrible hand hold situation. If you were stuck down in there the chances of climbing out would have been unlikely. Everything was simply too slick or smooth. A thin man might have been able to climb up high enough to fit through that six inch crack on the far side of the pit to squeeze out of the mess. However what he found that day was far too big to squeeze out. It was also far too muscle-bound for him to feel comfortable lowering a hand down for it to grab on and get out. Not that he said he was in a hurry to let it out. Grandfather said at first he was terrified by it. So much so that when he first saw it, even though it appeared to be trapped in the pit, my grandfather said he stayed hidden from it. He thought about killing it. They kept firearms with them at all times in case the G-men ever came looking for their still. He said that first day he even returned with the rifle and had the creature in his sights. He could have killed it. Never did that possibility have more likelihood than that first day when he returned with the rifle because it saw him. Grandfather said he looked right down the barrel of an almost new Winchester M-70, and that he could have sat there and put bullet after bullet into the hairy beast. It roared at him but could do little else. He ended up leaving and coming back a third time, this time he brought a sandwich his mother had made for him. He threw the sandwich, inside butcher’s paper, down to the creature and then left because he needed to keep an eye on the still. By the time he had attended to the still his shift was over and he was relieved by another boy about his age who his grandfather didn’t like. So he didn’t say anything and went home. That next day when his shift was to start he brought more food and a container of water in case the creature was finding it hard to get a drink from what water was still retained there after the initial rain run-off had fell away. He didn’t know how long the creature had been down there but he figured it was probably during or after the last rain. If that was the case then it hadn’t been there such a long time but it was probably hungry. He brought a bunch of fruit with his sandwiches this time, and he threw it all down to the creature which did not growl at him this time. He noticed the creature always knew when he was there, after that first time of seeing him. He said he fed the creature for a few days and then decided to get brave and let it out. He said he kept his gun with him the entire time and was very afraid that it might come after him. What he did was tie off some rope and fling it down to the creature. He said that was the first time he was ever close enough to it to smell the animal. It stunk! Of course, it could have been because the creature had been stuck down in that pit for who knew how long? But he didn’t think it had been in there all that long. In any case that was the first time he noticed how bad it really smelled. The closest thing his grandfather could offer was that he said you know how when you first walk into a pet store how the odor hits you? It was like that only the odor was more offensive than that of a pet store. Plus they were outside yet despite being outdoors the odor hit him like the difference between being outside a pet store and walking inside. It was very apparent. He said he planned the whole thing carefully. He approached the pit from a totally different direction than ever before, coming in at a perpendicular line to the direction the water flowed. So he was on a side which meant the creature couldn’t see him. He could not see the creature either which was the only down side to things. Anyway he made sure he had a clear path to run back to the still. Then he brought the rope and his gun, and tied the rope off to a tree and threw it down over the side of the pit. He didn’t wait to see if the creature climbed out. Instead as soon as he threw the rope over the side he ran as hard as possible back to the still. There he waited impatiently to be relieved from his shift. Now I probably should have mentioned that from his very first day out there at the still they had off and on, experienced some strange sounds coming from the woods. Breaking branches were common. Sometimes there was an overwhelming feeling of being watched. On those occasions they attributed it to the feds having men out there to locate the still and then they could come back and close it down in full force a few days later. As such on those days when they felt watched, they would search through the woods looking for any sign there had been someone watching. He said he didn’t know for sure what he would have done if he had come upon a man who was obviously not part of the mountains around there but the orders were to make sure the man didn’t ever have the chance to tell anyone about what he saw. He said he spent a lot of days wondering what he was going to do if he ever did really see a human being spying on their operation. He said he had an idea what he might have done and he was forever grateful he never had to cross that bridge. Despite his making it sound like he would have chosen to kill the spy, I think he was more worried about what would happen when he didn’t kill the spy. My point proven is that he didn’t choose to kill the bigfoot. Which by the way, he said they didn’t have that name for them back then. They were known of, and most folks in the hills (mountains) just called them Harry, Harries, or Big Hairy. I would guess that any spelling would be correct. So they had a reputation of being very shy creatures which if you messed with them enough, could be very violent and unforgiving. Which is a big part of why my grandfather was so hesitant to free the one that was trapped. What if it blamed him for its circumstance? They obviously were not creatures which anyone ever communicated and therefore were likely ignorant creatures. He didn’t know for certain however. He said the one thing he had made up his mind about was he was not going to let the animal starve. He either had to free it, or kill it. Which meant he had some serious thinking to do. He didn’t think there were any of these creatures in any zoos anywhere, but to bring it to a zoo would have meant having to either get his hands on a dart gun with the proper amount of knock out stuff in it, shoot the creature and then get it out of the pit and into a cage all before it woke up. Keep in mind this creature was upwards of eight feet tall. And muscles on it like you see on a horse. He said it had a very thick and wide upper body. He didn’t hang around to see but he figured if the creature climbed up the rope just using its hands he wouldn’t have been surprised. And that’s even though he thought it probably weighed five hundred pounds. Four hundred for sure, but maybe as much as five. It had big, scary canines that told him the animal did eat more than berries and hay. He said it had small eyes in proportion to its large head, almost no noticeable nose and a lot of wrinkles, or more like ridges, on its forehead. There was no hair, or fur, around the eyes and mouth. What really stuck out about it was just how muscular it was; and the shape of its head which wasn’t round but was more like it came up to a ridge in the back of the head. One last thing he said was noticeable about it above other things was that it had a long fur that ran the length of the creature’s long, too long, arms. That it gave the look of like those old scouts in the western movies that had the fringe which ran the length of the guy’s shirt or coat sleeve. So that when he pointed it would fall down and if windy would flow in the wind. One other thing he said was worth noting was the creature’s behavior. After that first day when he had been spotted while holding the gun. That the creature had roared at him. He said it never again made any sort of noise toward him. He did think he heard it when he was at the still or walking to or from it. He couldn’t be sure however because he never saw the creature make the noise he heard, he only heard it roar at him the one time. He said he thought that after throwing down the food that he was no longer considered a threat. He couldn’t be certain of that however and when you’re dealing with your life, you don’t take chances which are not heavily in your favor. He thought throwing down the rope was crazy-stupid but he couldn’t stand the thought of being over there at that still while knowing a creature was starvng to death just a short hike away. Killing it would have likely required multiple shots and he said he had enough experience just killing other animals that he didn’t want to go through all that with this creature. He said he once saw a raccoon shot probably twenty-five or thirty times with a twenty-two before it finally died. Those were all shots aimed directly at the animal’s head or heart. It wasn’t like they were trying to torture it by shooting it in places which were not lethal. No, every shot was aimed to be the last shot, from the very first shot fired. It took that many to kill the animal. On an ironic sidenote raccoons have a spot just above the spot which is right between the eyes, that is capable of being a single kill shot. Be just a quarter of an inch off, and you get a twenty-five shot marathon killing. You have to really enjoy killing to be able to put twenty-five or thirty bullets in an animal. Once you get a certain number of bullets in it however, you owe the animal a death. No matter how many bullets it would take. Reason being is that it is not going to survive in the long run but it might suffer for days before succumbing. Grandfather said he wasn’t even issued thirty bullets. What a terrible thing it would have been to have to leave the animal there suffering while he went back to get more bullets. Like I said however, in the end he chose not to shoot it. In the end he chose to let it loose. What was funny about all that, was that the odor he encountered while sneaking up to throw the rope down. It was that moment he caught a whiff of the creature for the first time. It stank. Really, bad! So after he threw down the rope and ran, he kept thinking he could smell the thing. Seemed like it was there everywhere he went, but especially when he came back to the still that next day. He freaked when he got there because he saw the rope was laying there, all wound up neatly in a circle coil. He asked the boy he was replacing and was told it was there at the still, or rather not far from the still. It wasn’t in a neat order like it was when grandfather saw it. The boy said it was just in a bundle and had just been laying there. Grandfather said he was more than a little freaked out. He said he thought about leaving the forest with the guy he went there to replace but it would have meant explaining why? And then would have resulted in at least a beating and possibly worse. Moonshiners were extremely serious when it came to keeping the secret of the whereabouts of their still. So he didn’t say anything. He also didn’t want to go check the pit, since it was pretty obvious the creature had gotten out. But he couldn’t leave things not known. So after the other boy left, he one more time made the hike over the way to where the pit was located. Even all the while that odor being very faint. He wasn’t even sure he wasn’t imagining it in his mind. He still isn’t sure. What he is sure about, is the creature was long gone. Well, gone anyway. Grandfather said he got a very uneasy feeling which made the hairs on his arms stand up, and he assumed on the back of his neck as well. He didn’t feel like he was being watched until he arrived at the pit. Then he felt watched all the way back to the still. And while he finished out his shift at the still. He even felt like the odor was much stronger after leaving the pit. The next day when he returned to do his shift again, he was warned by the boy being relieved that not only he, but that the other shift before his, had felt like they were being watched or possibly going to be raided at any time. The boy said the place was rank with some kind of stink, most likely a skunk had gotten into a fight that it ultimately lost, but not before shooting every bit of its stinking spray. They heard branches break, the sound of something making its way through the forest, but never saw anything. The odor remained constant but was never noticeably increased in potency. They made searches through the woods in an attempt to see what, if anything, was out there and came up empty every time. He said he spent two or maybe three weeks feeling uneasy but never actually seeing anything. Gossip among the others who did shifts watching the still started turning from how much they could drink while on duty to the noises out in the forest. Plus the odor. Skunk spray starts to get less and less as the days pass. That was proving not the situation every day that passed because it stayed potent. The guys were jumpy, and none more so than Grandfather. He started bringing other weapons with him while doing his watches. He wasn’t the only one either. Most the other guys began wearing holstered handguns as well as the usual rifles. Shotguns were not considered because if you let a cop get close enough for a shotgun to be effective, you had better make sure you kill him because he will be able to identify you. Nobody wanted that so it was strictly rifles and handguns for backup. Grandfather couldn’t get his hands on a pistol but he did have a large bowie knife and an old sword which might have been made just for show, but it was made of steel and had a pointy end on it. Therefore he thought it would do the job if needed. He admitted he looked pretty stupid wondering around those woods wearing a sword but since he didn’t expect to see anybody, why not? Plus he had that nice Winchester M-70 for protection. Even if it wasn’t enough to kill the creature with one bullet, it would certainly slow the animal way down if he hit it in any vital spots. Still at night he had nightmares of the creature chasing him through the forest. He never saw the thing in his dreams, but he felt certain that was what was chasing him through the forest. What else could it be? The nightmares didn’t start until after he had freed the animal. The rope, all neatly bound up, laying there next to the still. That was what he first saw. Then there was the sound of something, perhaps many things, coming through the forest uncaring of the noise they were making. He doused the fire beneath the still and then made a run for it. All the while that stench being very apparent. He made his escape. It was a clumsy, frightened gallop through the mountain obstacles that had him stumbling and falling more than once. He would pick himself up and keep moving but not before hearing some clues as he stood up getting his feet back under himself. He could hear them, someone, running parallel to his position. It was very unnerving because it told him no matter how hard he ran, he could not outrun what was there. Possibly, probably, all along. Then he would wake up in a bed drenched in sweat. It really was starting to eat at him by the middle of that second week. He said by the time it really happened, he was so ingrained with what to do that it was like he had been training for that day all his life. The only difference was he stayed longer at the still than in the dream. It was because he found the situation so surreal that he couldn’t believe it was actually happening. He just sat there at first and didn’t act. Or rather, react. He heard the sound of what must be a large animal crashing through the forest toward his location, or it was a bunch of large animals. It was very much like in his dream. He said that in fact, it was like being reminded of the parts he had forgotten that had happened in the dream. Now he was able to fill in the missing parts, and it was all happening in real life. When he finally decided to act, he had waited such a time that he was forced into doing what he had been training to do in his dreams. There simply wasn’t time to think of doing anything but what was ingrained, and then once he started down that path, everything that came after sort of just guided him along. Of course the first thing he did was to douse the fire under the still. Then he began running the opposite direction of what he heard coming at him. It wasn’t until he heard the first men screaming that he realized what was coming after him was not the creature. What they were screaming about however was another question? Next shots were fired, followed by more screaming and then silence. A few more minutes past and then more of the same, almost in exactly the same sequence. At the same time this was all happening, Grandfather kept moving but also stopping to listen. He said it sounded like every time he moved, something was moving along parallel to him. Then he heard a man holler out to freeze! That man’s voice came from the exact opposite direction he had been hearing the noise that told him he was being paralleled. Grandfather said he looked over to his right just short of ninety degrees and saw a man in a suit with a hat, holding a pistol pointed right at him. Further behind the man, he saw other men in suits making their way down the mountain side. They had guns and were trying to rush but obviously were not mountain-born men. Regardless of the other suits, he had one close enough to shoot him. Grandfather said he did as the man said, and froze. He said he held that way for about twenty seconds, which seemed like ten minutes. Then he heard the man making his way down through the brush coming directly toward him. The man’s position was such that he was barely in Grandfather’s peripheral vision. The next thing he heard was the sound of something striking or running into something else. Flesh meeting flesh but harshly. He never heard a roar, or even a growl. He did hear the man let go an audible “oof” and then the sound of a man tumbling down the mountain side. Grandfather said he used that instance to run! He said he could hear something keeping pace with him but it stayed out of sight the entire way until he came out on the road. Back behind him came the shouts and curses of men who were very excited and quite possibly not very happy. As he heard all that, keep in mind the stench was ever with him. Sometimes he said it was fainter than others, but it was always there. Even then as he walked down the road he thought it was keeping pace in the forest just out of sight. That next day there were all kinds of federal agents and local police out there where the still was located. Obviously they had found the still. The gossip around later on after that day, went that the feds had went out there to bust a still and they got ambushed by something that knocked the crap out of the agents that encountered it. The gossip went that there were footprints of giants out there. That they will never admit it officially but unofficially they actually believe that some giant, or giants, attacked their raiders and was responsible for the broken bones and many bruises endured that day. Men who were there or there and had been injured did not want to talk about what they saw. They also were allegedly unwilling to return to that area for any reason. One of the men claimed he was attacked by an ape which was every bit as big as the great apes in Africa. Since nobody else would speak up to back up his story, it has been dismissed as just giving in to fear, plus being in an atmosphere which would encourage such an illusion, a heavily forested area. The two together were enough explanation for the upper echelon to let it go. Besides, you know how much it costs to send out a platoon of agents to search mountain side? Now add into the mix that the reason you gave the okay for such a search was that you believed the witness that there was an eight to ten foot tall ape running loose in the Appalachian mountain tops protecting moonshiners. How long do you suppose you would have your job as an agent if you did that? After the horde of feds that saturated the mountainside that next day, it fell off to just a few left behind drinking in the Mountain Dew Drop Inn and bar, which is only a bar these days. The rooms mostly rented by the week or month, and then mostly to hookers who service the drinkers. Anyways the bartender there said that after a few shots of house tequila, they began talking about what they had heard from the team that was out there to raid the still. Gossip was that the team was hit by something that looked almost exactly like it had walked off the set of the movie, Planet of the Apes. Only this thing was easily a foot taller, if not more, than any of the apes in the movie. Far more muscular too. According to the table of agents, there was one man who claimed he was thrown twenty or twenty-five feet. He had a broken leg and wrist to back up that story. Footprints also backed up his story but there were no prints deep enough into the mountain side which could have a plaster cast made of them. The agents there at the bar said they wouldn’t be surprised if command had decided not to pursue the matter and taking plaster casts would not have been in that interest. They thought that the testimonies of the agents involved were enough, believable enough, that the bosses decided they didn’t want to get involved in such a war. Then one of the older agents pulled them in tight and began telling them that this was far from the first time the government had encountered these creatures. That they were very smart, and most times getting into a war or battle with them was going to end badly for both sides because they were a given to be experts in their own environment at both being stealthy and at guerrilla warfare, if you will forgive the obvious pun. For the government to win, they would have to bring in such a number of resources that they would have a hard time explaining away the amount of manpower and other resources that would be spent. Remember this is within their own country, so people would definitely want an explanation as to why there was a mini-war going on in the mountains of Kentucky. So they let it go. They didn’t even bother to haul the still out. Neither was it blown up, which was SOP for the feds at that time if they didn’t choose to keep the still for evidence. Nobody ever went back and started up the still again however. It might still be there today, for all anybody knows. Grandfather believes that because he let that creature out of the pit that the day. That the day the G-men came out there to raid the still, that it was the creature, possibly its friends as well, that saved him. He said he didn’t see how just one of them could have done all that happened in such short time; so that he could make good his escape. Anybody who has any experience at all with how the police raid a place, knows that they come in from all sides and are careful to cover all the possible escape routes. The fact that he was able to get away that day was quite a feat. He didn’t know what happened back behind him after he made his initial escape but he does know he was able to walk down the road all the way to home without ever being passed by one of the feds’ cars. That meant they were kept busy back at the still location for probably twenty minutes after their initial announcement that they were there. He wondered if the agent who spotted him and told him to freeze, was okay? He definitely took a hard blow which was what made it possible for Grandfather to begin his escape. He had already decided to freeze and give up when the man was suddenly hit by something, hard enough to send the man tumbling down the mountain side. Grandfather said he went back out to that location one more time in his life. About three weeks after all the commotion had settled down, he bought a bushel of apples and carried them down to the spot where he had first spotted the big hairy ape. He didn’t go near the still. He left the apples, bushel container along with them. He has no idea if they were ever eaten. He said that he hollered into the forest thank you, and then turned and left, never to return again. | |