Encounter, Part One

The owner of this here website, my nephew, Big E, said to me, he said, Unc why don’t you share your stories of the people of the woods on my site. I says, Why, you already wrote yer book bout some of it? He says, Tell it in your words. Well, to be honest, I was a little confused as to what site he was talking about. I mean we all had a camp site we would go to, to camp out but I didn’t figure that wuz the site he wuz talkin bout. It took him awhile but he splained it all to me taught me to use this here gadget. And, some time it took. Well, a few months later here we are. Just in time too. He just got his site live and it looks purdy good too. His nephew did an awesome job getting it together. Big shout out to Alter Gravity Studios. Bravo!!! Anywho, Ill get on here when my time allows and tell ya all my experiences.

So, the first time I had an encounter, that made me think thar was something out thar, I was when I was a young’un. I grew up on a large farm in East Tennessee. Hit was tucked away in a valley between two mountains. A nice creek flowed through the property with several springs around. A railroad was just above the pasture. Separating the open fields from the mountains. Coal trains was all that ran this rail. The mountain behind the property was loaded with caves. Me and my brothers explored them several times. One in particular was very large and went for miles it seemed. The batteries in our lights would always go dim because of our long stay exploring. I don’t believe we ever found the end. With all the springs, creek and pastures, wildlife was abundant on that property.

Well, anywho, we was all sitting on the porch one afternoon after a day in the baccer field, when we heard the most terrifying scream. More like a screech than a scream. Hit was very loud. Now we heard panthers scream all the time in that holler and screech owls too, and this was no panther or owl. Pap said he had never heard such a noise in all his life. Same with me. I hadn’t heard that sound before. It was a distinguished sound. I have researched animal sounds but haven’t found anything that sounded like it. Anywho, that screeching went on for about 15-20 minutes. Not a continuous sound but about every minute or two hit would do it. Pap was concerned about it so he wanted to go check it out. He went inside and got his trusty ol 38 Smith & Wesson, and me and my older brother went with him. We made it up to the railroad and it screeched again. It sounded like it was about halfway up the mountain. So we headed up. I had been up that holler many times before. Hit would take a good hour to get to the top. When we got in the woods a few hundred feet, we heard what sounded like someone chopping with an axe but slower. We stopped and listened but it quit, so we went on. We climbed all the way up and never saw anything. After we rested awhile we headed back down. After a little while, we heard it again. This time it was below us. Well I’ll tell you, I had never seen my dad as concerned as he was that day. He cautiously  hurried us back home Hopin we didn’t see what was makin that blood curly sound. Thankfully, we never did see it. Pap wouldn’t let us squirrel hunt for the longest time after that. That was in the late 50s. Hit wasnt long after that an old timer that lived down the road claimed he saw a large hairy man drinking out of a spring behind his barn.

Well, after ponderin onit for awhile, I think what we heard was,  he either was injured or it was some kind of call for another. That turned out to be an interesting summer. By the time that summer was over, I would come to know what hit was.

Loud Knocking