Worms to my way of thinking aren’t really all that appetizing.  It is not so much the flavor as it is the texture.  They, the worms, should never be chewed.  They are gritty when chewed.  They must be swallowed whole, like spaghetti.   

Fish on the other hand have a somewhat less fastidious dietary preference than I do.  Thus, being a fisherman, I was bent over and in the process of turning over a large flat rock in search of some nice, fat, juicy wigglers to use as fish bait when I first became aware of him.

Sounds as such are really not all that much to be concerned with unless it is a train whistle blasting in your ears moments before it removes your automobile from its path while you are still in the drivers seat, thus giving you good reason for singing, “nearer my God to thee,” or perhaps a raging bull elephant trumpeting his displeasure moments before he smashes you flatter than a crepe suzette.

But there I was catching worms when I first heard the creature. 

At first I thought some poor soul was having an asthma attack.  You know what I mean.  A terrible gasping and wheezing and then a thrashing about in the weeds, then more gasping and wheezing.  I had never heard such an agony of sound and the hair stood up on the back of my head as though it too was fearful of whatever was making that dreadful noise.

The sound grew louder as whatever was making it drew closer.  Gasp, wheeze, choke, more thrashing about.  The weeds and small saplings crashed and clattered together in a frenzy of movement.  It was quite obvious that whatever was making the insidious racket was in terrible and insufferable agony.

On one hand as you can imagine I was of a mind to seek the thing out to see if I could relieve its suffering, but then on the other hand I wanted to flee. 

My quandary was solved when out of the weeds along the shoreline staggered the strangest creature I have ever seen. 

            I hesitate to tell you what I saw that day for fear you will think me mad but please  I beg you, before you pass judgment on me hear me out and then, if that selfsame judgment be harsh at least I will have rid myself of the terrible burden I have carried these many long years.

Yes, there among the rushes at the shore was a creature few men have seen for  there was a fish!  Yes, that is right, a fish!  But you must know that this was no ordinary fish but a fish like I had never seen before or since.

It was huge, five feet long at the very least.

He, (I was to eventually learn from obvious reasons that it was a male,) he floundered there in the shallow water at the shoreline unaware of my presence.

Gasping and wheezing, wheezing and gasping, he lay there on his side until he was able to drag himself a little further into the water using his fins as poor hands.   It was slow work and I stared from my concealment, mesmerized by the creature’s behavior.

I was expecting to see him throw himself into the stream to swim away and was the more puzzled when he thrust his head beneath the surface.  I could see his body shake in a paroxysm of convulsions and then he lifted his head again with a great sigh.  Again he thrust his head under the water’s surface and I could see his chest expand and again he raised his head.  From where I stood concealed I could see relief in the creature’s eyes.

Surprised!  You ask if I was surprised?   In my long life I have never seen such a sight.  It was obvious that what I was watching was one of those rare oddities of nature, a freak if you will.  What I had discovered that day on the bank of the river was a fish all right but a fish that had never learned to swim!  That’s right, there, mere feet from me was a swimless fish!

Finally, after refreshing himself the creature made his way back up onto the shore and disappeared in the weeds and the thick foliage that grew there.

This was such a strange sight that for several days and weeks I went back on a regular basis to spy on the creature from concealment.  Though I was curious I didn’t want to frighten the beast.  I must admit I watched it with no small amount of pity and some small feelings of compassion.

I have never been what one would consider a strong swimmer so you might say I understood his fear.  

What agony of spirit the creature must have been suffering.  Imagine if you will its lonely existence separated as he was from his own kind, unable to converse in his own tongue for it has always seemed obvious to me that fish have a language. 

Oh what a lonely existence.  He lived on land and visited the river, that which should have been his natural habitat, briefly to gasp the life giving fluid into his lungs and then back to his exile.  Oh what a tragedy was being played out before my eyes.

One day I followed him, careful so as not to make my presence known and thus was how I discovered his place of hiding,  a hollow tree, where he curled up to sleep amidst old spider webs and dry beetle dust.

Imagine what an existence this poor, poor fish lived there on the shores of the river.  A lonely outcast from his own kind, grubbing for worms, splashing around in the shallows for crayfish and the occasional frog.  At least that is what I thought until one day I saw him eat.

It was early morning and I was surprised to see him already on the stream but in a position I had never seen before.   He was lying between two large logs that partially dammed the river at that point.  There he lay with only his eyes and nose above the water’s surface and it was quite obvious that he was intent on his task whatever it might be.

As luck would have it the river was forced between those two logs and every fish that passed that way had to migrate between them.

Curious, I watched and then I was shocked for as I watched a large carp, perhaps eight or nine pounds started to swim that swift channel.  There was a lunging movement, a splash and the carp was gone, engulfed.  I was at first surprised but then I was filled with repugnance for I realized that, due to its handicap the creature had become that most odious of creatures, a cannibal, an aberration.

The carp only whet the creature’s appetite.  I watched as a mallard hen and seven little ducklings swam down the stream to travel the same dark route.

I hope you will forgive me but now, where once I had felt pity, that emotion was replaced by a sense of repugnance and deepest revulsion.

As time passed I noted a marked scarcity of small game in the immediate area where at one time there had been an abundance of rabbits and raccoons and the like it was now rare that I saw anything where the beast hunted.  It was obvious that he had a voracious appetite.

I also noticed that the beast no longer splashed and floundered in the river but now he made his way quite nicely, venturing into the forests and woodlands of our region.

Strange as it might seem his fins were no longer so much like fins as they were crude but efficient hands and legs.  Yes, strange as it might seem, what I am saying is that the creature was evolving and evolving into a formidable creature.

Several times I had noticed that Darwin, yes, that is what I called him; Darwin, was watching me and in that gaze was something calculating, almost sinister; something that sent chills up my spine.

Almost a year passed and one day as I made my way down a familiar forest trail that I had used many times before I stepped over a vine and something, I know not what caused me to look closer and it is well that I did for I was terrified by what I saw. 

That vine, so natural and yet somehow out of place was part of a well laid trap, a trigger device designed to?  Yes, designed to do what?  I glanced around and there, almost over my head, delicately poised to fall was a heavy log, a log large enough to kill a deer, or, and with the thought I carefully backed away, a man.

Darwin, that poor fish that I had studied with pity, was a killer of a high order with a mind that could conceive a trap which could crush a man’s skull so that he could, and I tremble at the thought, be eaten.

Then one day my faithful old dog, my companion of many years, old Poop, dissappeared.  At first I thought that old Poop had wandered off but days passed and he didn’t return. 

It was about a week later that I was deep in the forest when I saw Darwin again.  I was shocked, overwhelmed, and if you do not mind my saying so, I was terrified by the change that had taken place in the creature.

What I saw skulking through that shaded woodland was like nothing I had ever seen before.  Stooped in form with heavy brows he moved as a hunter.  His eyes were constantly moving and no longer did he flounder his way clumsily along but now he moved with a lithe animal stealth.  In one large rough hand he carried a heavy club but the thing that took my breath away was the skin that covered his shoulders.  Now I knew what happened to my dog, my faithful old dog, Poop.

Time comes and is gone.

Events fill our days.

Life goes one.

There were rumors about a strange beast that roamed the woodland and streams.  It was seen and as swiftly, gone.  Hunters told of shooting at some shadowy thing but no one knew for sure.

Ten years passed and there were rumors also of hunters and fishermen vanishing without a trace.

 Another ten years passed.  I was no longer a young man but I still enjoyed a nice mess of bass occasionally and thus it was that I found myself back in that place where I had first seen him.

I had learned by living in close proximity to a creature that would kill me and eat me if he could.  Yes I had learned to be very observant and thus it was that I saw him.

He was lying in the shallows in perhaps two feet of water. 

He was old, very old.

On the shore nearby lay that stout club and a pile of skins that he had covered himself with.  Obviously he had been in the process of bathing, really a very civilized thing to do when you consider it, and he had fallen.  

Unable to rise again he had drowned.

Carefully I approached the still form and picking him up I carried him into the forest and buried him. 

He is there still, my old friend, Darwin.

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There were mulberries, strawberries and raspberries, walnuts and butternuts. Wild asparagus was Growing there as was watercress, gooseberries and wild grapes.

Pheasant, duck and goose thrived aplenty as did rabbits and squirrels, turtles and of coarse frogs for that delicacy, frog legs.

Fish? I should say there were fish. Catfish, bass, bluegills and bullheads, as well as pike, carp and redhorse for fish patties. Oh yes, and we ate crawdad tails, it takes a lot of crawdad tails to make a meal but it was worth the labor because they were just like little fresh water lobsters.

And oh yes, there was wild honey for the taking.

One of the things we always enjoyed in the spring of the year were the morels, the most delicious mushroom in all the world.

The morel is, of all mushrooms, the easiest to identify due to its sponge like appearance.

Mama would fry up a big batch of morel mushrooms for supper along with some fried smallmouth bass crisped to a golden brown with a salad of wild greens spiced with watercress. That would be followed by a big wedge of whatever pie was in season, perhaps rhubarb with a honey glazed crust.

Now I want you to know, that was a meal to remember.

I told you all of that so I could tell you about the time I was gathering morels on one of the many small islands near our island home on the Fox River.

I was walking along through tall grass when I stepped over a log and landed right smack dab on a big old snake.

For a moment there I couldn’t breathe but that didn’t keep me from moving plenty fast. I should say I jumped backwards to the top of that log a lot faster than it takes to tell about it.

Snakes have never bothered me but coming on that big fellow the way I did and considering his size and all I must admit to some surprise and perhaps just a tad of fright ’cause that snake was heart stopping big.

After a few minutes when my breathing and my heart settled down I realized that the snake was a harmless bull snake but it was big, even for a bull snake and I guessed it to be all of ten feet long at the time.

Two things surprised me about that snake. One was that bull snakes were rarely seen on the islands preferring the high lands on the mainland and the other thing was that it hadn’t moved? Even with my rudely stepping on it the way I had the snake just lay there, not any movement other than a nervous little twitching of the tip of it’s tail.

And then I realized that the snake was dead.

But what had killed it?

What had happened in that quiet spot on that little island?

I could see that the snake had bled from several slight wounds, none serious enough to kill such a formidable adversary but then I looked closer at its head and there I saw the cause of its death.

Something had bitten through the snakes head, probably piercing the brain.

I carefully glanced over the battle ground. That a battle had taken place was evident by the crushed grass and there, in a small spot of black earth, just as sure as if the animal had signed its name was a single, small footprint. It was then that I noticed something else, a pungent musky odor, unmistakable to anyone who has smelled it once, mink!

From what I could see the mink had approached the log from the small end. It had leaped to the log and loped its length as it had probably done many times in the past for mink are creatures of habit, routinely retracing their tracks every few days.

That day a surprise awaited the mink for when it leaped off the log it probably landed on top of that old bull snake just as I had, surprising the both of them.

Reading the sign it was obvious the snake had thrown three coils of its powerful body around the mink but the mink, desperate, fighting for its life, had lunged, carrying the two of them rolling across a large anthill which had been crushed in the struggle.

Hundreds of carpenter ants were frantically working to repair the damage but there, still quite obvious and easy to read were the three grooves made by the snake’s body.

This was an unequal struggle, sure to end in the mink serving as a meal except for one thing, the mink was a scrapper and not about to say quit.

Lunging, fighting for its life, the mink had obviously, with waning strength, bitten the snake’s head, piercing the reptile’s brain.

Dead snake, live mink, such is the way of nature.

I laid the snake alongside the log and made a mark where its tail and its head were so that I could return and have an accurate measurement as to the snake’s size.
When I returned the next day the snake was gone, probably dragged off by a scavenging possum but I was surprised when I measured the distance between those two marks on the log. Eight feet nine inches, more than twice as long as I was tall at eleven years of age.

The crushed anthill was entirely repaired, all that was left were my memories, I have them yet.

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On this particular day I am late getting started. As the new day dawns, animals, large and small, usually seek lay ups where they can rest in anticipation of their evening feed.

I tell myself that it is unlikely that I will see much but you never know, and after all, I need the walk.

As I enter the state forest on a little used jeep trail two whitetail does cross the road and effortlessly hop over a four and a half foot tall woven wire fence.

Oh to be able to move like that, almost floating, as if giving the lie to that whole gravity thing.

A movement at my left periphery causes me to glance in that direction. There, approaching the does is an eight point buck, all of his attention on the lovely ladies.

The girls are having none of it.

Coquettes, teases, they waggle their tails at him as if to say, “in your dreams big boy!” As they move away. The buck follows the does into thick cover, giving new meaning to the old saying, “hope springs eternal.”

As I continue my walk down the narrow track three hen turkeys strut across the road not far from me prospecting for any tasty tit bit that might present itself. They will eat almost anything, insects, seeds, acorns, the occasional snake, they hunt and peck.

A mob of toadlings hop in the road. They are intent on going everywhere. Some go this way, some that, while some just sit. Chaos reigns.

Perhaps they are like humans in this lack of direction or perhaps humans are like toads?

A movement at my feet and I stop to watch a cobalt blue wasp waggle her way down a hole she has excavated for the purpose. She was carrying something, an insect or some hapless spider.

What is the spider thinking?

That it is alive is sure for it is to serve as fodder for the wasp’s voracious larva after they hatch. Does the spider know? Does it feel?

I lift my eyes and am surprised to see a bear. Lush black coat glistening, he, for it is obviously a male, about two hundred and fifty pounds, stands sideways, watching me, one front leg lifted, ready to flee or charge in an instant.

Clever creatures bears, processing all of that information.

At the distance it is difficult to see his brown, red flecked eyes but I know what is there, an incredible intelligence, calculating, interpreting, all as his senses drink in sight, smell, sound.

One moment he is there and then he is a memory.

I stand there in the trail awash in a hormonal stew of endorphins. I am afire with an intense sense of life and joy.

I walk.

I praise God.

Then I see her, or perhaps I should say I sense her. A gray fox. Her tracks are there in the trail. Delicate, almost catlike, she strolls along intent only on moving to… where? How do I know she is a she and not a he? Well, she squats to pee. Not always a sure sign but I am sure that this is a vixen.

Further along I come to a demure, ladylike assortment of fox scat. Some tiny grayish feathers in the blood black scat indicate that just perhaps she has dined on a quail. Lucky fox, unlucky quail.

As I approach the blacktop road that will lead me home I hear the cluck of turkeys. I slow my approach. There in the road are six hen turkeys. They see me but are not alarmed. They strut like sweet little dinosaurs, velociraptors, they move ahead of me, always maintaining that safe distance. Smart birds.

Imagine turkeys being five or six feet tall, the darned things would eat you!

Turkeys behind me I come across another mob of baby toads. My goodness they are all over the road. As before there is no direction. Some sit immobile in the road like little fat toad Buddha’s. They sit among the remnants and grease spots of other little toads that have gone wherever it is that deceased toads go.

I try to shoo the toads off the road but they defy my efforts and shout little toad obscenities at me. Herding toads is just like directing some people, fruitless and a waste of time and effort

A car is coming.

I stop shooing toads and try to assume a somewhat normal, if not dignified posture so that I will not be mistaken for a stooped over, arm waving lunatic cavorting and dancing in the road.

Too late, I was seen before I heard the car.

As the car moves slowly past the driver hurriedly rolls his window up and stares at me with an expression mixed with curiosity, concern and fear.

Split, splat, splut, cute little toads are transformed into cute little bufotenine laced grease spots under the tires of the automobile.

Idiot toads be darned!

A six inch long juvenile pygmy rattlesnake has met the same end as the stupid toads. This section of blacktop is not conducive to long life for the local wildlife.

A caravan of fire ants excavate the snake’s body, mining it for any and all nutrients.

I use a twig to lift the deceased snake to the side of the road and lay it on the trail of ants. Four or five ants sting me for my troubles and as their way of saying thanks.

I will check back tomorrow and there will be nothing left but the little snaky skeleton.

Hey, What a day!

This then is trail talk.

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Don, a fire spotter for the U.S. Forest service was hiking down a little used trail in an area seldom visited by man in one of those vast wilderness areas of Montana.  As he came around a bend in the trail he spotted a young black bear moving in his direction on the same trail.

The bear, a two year old otherwise known as a long yearling was completely unaware of Don’s presence as the man stood in the trail with his hands on his hips wondering what the bear would do when it discovered that it was not alone.

Huckleberry season was at its height and the bear was obviously sated with the delicious fruit and was probably headed for another berry patch.

Yard by yard the distance shortened between bear and man.

Don was now almost overwhelmed with curiosity wondering just how close his fellow traveler would come before it learned of his presence.

Mr. Bear just kept on picking them up and putting them down, drawing closer by the minute with never a care in the world.

Altogether too soon less than ten feet separated them and blackie still had not looked up.

“Up ’til then I hadn’t worried much,” Don later exclaimed, “At a distance that bear just didn’t look all that big, certainly not big enough to do me any harm but from about ten feet on I began to worry a little. 

At that distance he seemed to grow some! 

At a distance of three feet I decided I better do something or that bear was going to walk between my legs and riding a bear was not something that I wanted to experience right then. 

I looked down and yelled, ‘Where the hell do you think your going?’

          It is hard to conceive of a situation where a bear could be more completely surprised.”

As Don told this tale he laughed so hard at the memory that tears ran down his cheeks.

“You know, that bear must have fair been scared out of his wits.  One moment he was heading my way and the next he was headed in the other direction.  His feet were a blur as he seemed to hang there in mid air trying to get some traction and when his feet did finally hit the ground he let out a loud ‘Oooff’ that could have been heard for half a mile. 

That bear stuck to the trail for half a mile, it was by far the best footing for fast and his tracks were a good ten feet apart the full distance but the funniest thing was that while that bear was still in mid air, swapping ends like he had been jerked wrong side out, the scare was just too much for him.

          At a distance of about thirty inches he came uncorked and let loose about a gallon of  huckleberries . 

Why shucks, I was plastered blue from my waist to my ankles with used huckleberries!”

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My father had not told me where we were going but I follow this silent man expectantly with a sense of wonder.

We move silently.

Some snow, in fact most snow, makes for noisy walking.  Sometimes it crunches under foot, other times it squeaks, but it is seldom silent.  That night one of those rare silences pervaded all.

Later, as the temperature dropped there would form on top of the snow a thin crust of ice, then, no more stillness, each step would herald our passing.

All I can see is my father’s dark sillouette, black against the blacker forest around us.

Suddenly he stops and lifts his right hand, in that almost universal signal for, “stop!”

I stop.

He motions to me with his hand again, open hand held extended, palm down, parallel with the ground.  He raises the hand, lowers it and repeats the gesture indicating that he wants me to hunker down where I am, to become still with the night.

I hunker down and become still.

Silently he moves away.

I peer into the darkness and I watch through slitted eyes as he approaches a small clump of scrub oak.

He stops and is still. 

He drops to the ground on hands and knees.

If I didn’t know what I was seeing he could have passed for some silent predator, which for the moment he had become.

All was still.

The air was electric with shimmering tension so obvious it could almost be seen.

Minutes passed, minutes that seemed like hours.

Movement.

He was returning and I stared in wonderment for he carried two cock pheasants to feed his growing family.

As we stood there in the darkness something dripped to the snow turning the surface black.

Blood.

Never since have I witnessed a more primal hunt than such as I witnessed on that long ago winter night along the Illinois Fox River of my youth.

The pheasants had gone to roost, secure in the knowledge they were safe from a prowling fox but, poor pheasants, they had failed to reckon on the greater predator, my father.

In the somewhat myopic vision of the mind I can see him yet, silent, still, standing there in the darkness.  Yes, I see him in shadow form; that was my father.

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It has been many years ago but it is permanently etched into my memory.

I was preparing to transport an African spotted leopard to another location when quite suddenly I found myself flat on my back with an angry leopard on top of me.
Leopards are efficient killers.

They bite their victim’s neck and skull and at the same time those powerful hind legs are working like pistons, raking deadly hooked claws into vitals in an endeavor to eviscerate their prey.

Only a blink in time, a single moment, a tick of the metronome of my mind, and I shouted, “Kill him!”

My partner blew the leopard off me with a ten gauge, double barreled shotgun.

Sounds sort of dull doesn’t it?

That was a captive leopard. He was not accustomed to the kill.

A wild leopard is quite another thing.

For his size the leopard has been long considered one of the world’s deadliest predators. Silent, stealthy to the extreme, powerful, efficient, he is quite capable of killing a man twice his weight and carrying his victim into the top of a thorny acassia tree and lodging it there in a fork to ripen in the hot African sun and then, over the following few days, visiting the site until the remains are rendered down to scattered bones and a few piles of blood blackened piles of scat in the long grass.

Gives new meaning to the term, “going to waste.” Doesn’t it?

This then is the African spotted leopard.

Koyei Leselies is a friend and a brother. A chief of the Maasai people and head ranger of the Maasai Mara game preserve in Kenya, Koyei earned his kudos when as a young man in traditional fashion he went forth and killed an African lion that had been predating the tribe’s cattle.

Armed with nothing but their traditional weapons, spear, short sword and a cowhide shield, they pursued Simba Kali, The savage lion.

It is ingrained into the Maasai as youngsters that it is better to die than to run away. So they faced the big cat and killed him and sang their victory songs.

Koyei was mauled but carries the scars proudly. His friend was gutted and died when they were carrying him back to their village.

I just received the following e-mail from Koyei.

Greetings my friend Charles,
Two weeks ago a leopard attack our sheep at night. When my brother and I tried to kill him we are both injured. We are in need of financial help to get treatment at hospital. Can you help us?
Joseph Koyei
P.O. box 590
Kiserian, Kenya

I immediately sent an e-mail back to him concerning the extent of his wounds and whether or not they had killed the leopard.

(You must understand that the Maasai are masters of the understatement which might be obvious by his answer.)

Dear friend Charles,
I have slight fractures and some claws went to inside my head and hands and they suspect I have some internal bleeding that needs medical care.
Yes sir, we killed the leopard. We are doing.
Your friend, Joseph Koyei

If you are interested in helping Koyei and his brother you can send an email to me at charlestowne111@juno.com
Even the smallest donation will be appreciated.
God bless you and yours,
Chaz

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The bear was totally oblivious of my presence and there we were, no more than ten or fifteen feet apart when he opened his eyes and saw me.

That bear had an expression on his face that was priceless, and what a time to be without a camera,

And just in case you are wondering, when surprised a bear can move extremely fast.
This bear was extremely surprised.

He swapped ends and made a mad dash for the woods moving so fast it seemed that his feet weren’t touching the ground and as he was moving he was getting lighter with each bound due to the stuffing being scared out of him, if you know what I mean.

He had another surprise in store for him.

As he fled he glanced over his shoulder at me and ran full tilt into a small longleaf pine tree about six inches in diameter.

That tree shook with the impact and the bear was knocked backward onto his broad bear bottom.

He shook his head and sat there somewhat befuddled for a moment staring at the tree and then wandered off without another glance in my direction. It was very obvious that his tree encounter had made him forget all about me.

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God, how much I wanted to hear your voice, to feel your presence, but… there was nothing, only silence.

Oh yes, there was the sun on my face, and shimmering, glistening, sparkling on the waves that bathed the shore at my feet.

I glanced at the toe of my left shoe and there, sitting demurely, was a crimson damsel fly and you do know; she was beautiful.

Yes, crimson, a deep brilliant, living, deep, deep red, she sat there.

You might ask how I know she was a she but she must be a she, otherwise why would she be called a “damsel” fly?

She sat there, multifaceted eyes sparkling in the sunlight, her lacy, delicate, gossamer wings still for that moment.

I sat, waiting. What was I waiting for? You might ask. Well, I hesitate to say it lest you think me mad, but I was waiting to hear the voice of God.

Nothing.

Silence.

God, I was waiting, where were you?

I glanced at the damsel fly. She, it, he, honestly I don’t know, but it sat there, beautiful, gemlike, glorious, magnificent, and yet very much a damsel fly.

God, I am waiting.

The damsel fly turned and silently lifted its wings and flew to my knee and sat there staring at me.

Darned damsel fly distracted me from my quest. How was I supposed to know when God made His appearance if I am watching a damsel fly?

Suddenly I was at peace. For some strange reason, I don’t know why, a sense of calm swept over me.

The damsel fly lifted into the air and hovered in front of my face and then, swiftly, it darted away.

I walked away, disappointed that God had not spoken, but then I thought, that damsel fly, beautiful creature that she was, could God possibly speak through her?

After all, when you think of it, all of nature testifies of God’s glory, even a little jewel-like damsel fly.

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