Jun 21

I realized that what I was looking at was a face

A listener writes “I believe the year was 1989 may have been 88 though. It was in December a couple days after Christmas. I was backpacking into the Big Cypress Preserve in south Florida for a 3 day hunt. This trip was unusual to start with as I would be going with another person named Bob, yes his real name. Most of the backpack trips I did solo as most in Florida wish nothing to do with such activities in the swamps. I proffered hunting in the vehicle restricted areas or designated wilderness areas as some are called. Ever since my first hunting experience in Florida with all the buggy riding riding rednecks with a shotgun in one hand and a beer in the other. Always felt more comfortable where they were not.

Bob was retired and I had no work until after the first of the year. It had been dry for a couple years and the water tables were low. This I knew because of earlier hunts in the Bonita and golden gate areas where many of the areas with water over them were dry and navigable by foot. I chose that area because 2 earlier attempts were thwarted by the amount of water down there.

Bob and I began our pack in mid morning. The trail in was a mix of mud and exposed cap rock winding it’s way in through hammocks and cypress ponds with scattered islands of pine and palmetto bush.

We were about a mile and a half in when I came upon a footprint. A bare footprint in mud in the trail. It wasn’t exceptionally large, about the same size as my footprint and I wear a 12 so I figured about a 13. I stopped and looked at it as Bob caught up to me. We stared at it for a minute then discussed the possibility of perhaps one of the natives from the reservation may be on a quest or something like that. And we moved on. Over the next couple hundred yards through this hammock we would see one sometimes two together. When we got to the end of the hammock, I looked back along the trail. The trail was littered by dead falls and blow downs. The only place this person stepped in the trail was where there were no downed trees for them to walk along on. The first odd thing I noticed.

A short time later as we were skirting the edge of a cypress pond I came upon the second oddity. Someone had taken a dump right at the waters edge. It looked like people poop to me and I was looking for the toilet paper pile or ashes where they burned it as I do. But none was there. It was a pretty fair pile to. I said something to Bob about the natives having no manners. It was right below a large log at the very edge of the water and was not all that old. Bob insisted it was from a constipated hog. There were no hog tracks or tracks of any kind there. Meaning who or what did it, did it from on the log.

Not far from there we found a small pine island where we would set up our camp. The day was running out so we ventured out no more. We set out early unburdend by the weight of our packs scouting where we would set up for the evening hunt. There was a large hardwood hammock not that far from the camp. And even though game sign was very little, I decided that would be as good a place as any for the afternoon hunt. We left and proceeded to seek out some of the pine islands and see if we could drive a deer or boar out to finish out the morning.

Bob chose a location on the other side of our camp for his afternoon. We had lunch and parted ways to return shortly after dark to camp.

The winds were light and I posted myself on the down wind end of the hammock which consisted of a mixture of oaks and cabbage palms filled with plenty of deadfall and ferns. I made myself comfortable and waited the next few hours out in vain as nothing stirred. When shooting light was gone I got up and moved back to the trail. It was now completely dark. I began working my way back towards camp with the aid of the ever popular mini mag light that I carried. As I worked my way along the trail I heard a slight noise of movement from within the hammock. I stopped and looked in the direction and shined the light into the area but could see nothing.

This happened a few more times over the next couple hundred yards. Each time I could see nothing. I checked behind me but nothing there either. There had been no sign of bear in the area so I thought maybe I was being stalked by a panther. The days were mild but the nights were cool so I took the light weight jacket I had taken with me and twisted it up and tied it around my neck just in case it was a panther and it got the jump on me I would have some protection from the bite at the back of the neck that I knew it would strike for. This continued all the length of the hammock of about a half mile. When I reached the end of it, it didn’t seem to follow me out into the open area between it and the cypress head that I would work around back to camp.

It was about a 30 yd clearing or so and I crossed and turned back to listen for a minute before proceeding around the cypress to the island. I didn’t hear anything for the rest of the quarter mile or so to camp. I could now see the fire as Bob had returned and had it going already but I wasn’t ready to drop my guard yet so I kept a steady pace that I could still be quiet enough to hear.

After reaching camp I informed Bob that I had been stalked back to camp by what I believed to be a panther. He dismissed it as I thought he might but I left my side arm strapped to my waist just in case.

We had dinner and were sitting there discussing the lack of events for the day. Decided we were only going to hunt for a couple hours at daylight and then head out. The area just seemed void of game. The night was cooling down quickly so I picked up a couple more logs and put them in the fire. After a couple minutes the flames were up much higher and I stood up and turned my back to it to warm it up a bit.

I stood there gazing across the grass to the cypress that was behind me about 20 some odd feet away. As my eyes began to adjust to the dark I could make out the tree line and start to see the silhouettes of the trees. I noticed what I thought to be an owl perched precariously on the side of one a couple trees in. I stood there looking at it for a moment thinking how odd. And as I looked I realized that what I was looking at was a face. I could now see the reflection of the fire in the eyes. Like 2 fireflys side by side and the outline of a body just standing there behind the tree. In the dim firefight I could make out a nose and the scraggly hair around the outline. It was way to large to be any panther or any bear that I had ever seen in south Florida.

I stood there for a moment just staring at this crazy whatever it was. Bob said something to me but I don’t recall what. I reached down to my holster and popped the hammer strap loose to my ruger Blackhawk as I said to Bob grab your flashlight. I stood there staring at this thing waiting for Bob as I said there is something on that tree in front of us. I didn’t want to take my eyes off of it but the silence from Bob got the best of me and I looked at him. He was sitting there peering over the fire I said Bob where’s your flashlight. He looked at me and then looked for his flashlight. As he picked it up I turned my head back around and it wasn’t there anymore. It was gone. Silently without a sound it was gone.”

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