By: Corynne Nuckols
It was a late summer evening in 1939. It was hopefully nearing the end of this long economic recession and Bobby Dean was done. His little 8yr old body was worn out. A long day of fishing, caring for the chickens, playing and then listening to his favorite half hour children’s radio show at his friend Jimmy’s house had made him tired. Jimmy’s home was almost a full mile from Bobby’s place on the edge of town but Jimmy’s parents were the only ones in the tiny Southern Illinois town where they lived that had so far managed to get a nice big radio. Bobby was usually found over there at least once a week, sitting on the living room floor with his friends listening to their program.
It was getting dark and a heavy fog was starting to come in. Bobby knew that he could wait and get a ride home in an hour or so with Jimmy’s father when he got home from work but Bobby wanted to go home now. He didn’t want to wait for a ride and he’d done the walk many times before anyway, just never alone at night. Bobby reasoned that even though it was dark and getting foggy, it was still just a straight road down to his mailbox and then a left up his driveway to the front door. While he was only an 8 year old boy, he was mature for his age and capable. He was physically strong for his size, with thick wavy black hair, an always ready grin and large amber colored eyes with thick lashes. He was already a good fisherman. He collected wild edible plants when they were in season, was learning to hunt and he already cared for all of his momma’s farm chickens on his own which helped to supplement their meals during these lean recession years. He made up his mind to go, said his goodbyes and left Jimmy’s house for home.
As Bobby walked along the darkening road, he looked forward to getting home. His Uncle George and Aunt Mildred were visiting this weekend and he wanted to see them some more. His father had died when he was just a baby and he was an only child, so the only real father figure he had in his life was his Uncle George. But he sighed when he thought of his Aunt Mildred. She wasn’t so bad he guessed with a sniff but she always looked like she’d just eaten something really sour. Not exactly welcoming. Oh well, he thought. He was still happy to see them.
Bobby tripped and stumbled slightly, which woke him from his distracted walking. He began to take a good look around at the heavy swirls of fog, trying to watch his footing while making sure he stayed on the mixed dirt and gravel road. Looking around him, he began to think that the fog was rather odd looking. It looked like swirling tendrils, moving around and undulating like snakes. It almost looked alive to him. He swore he could hear softly whispering voices and louder, heavy raspy breathing coming thru the darkness at him from inside the fog.
Bobby took a deep breath, figuring that he was probably just scaring himself. His momma had said once that people could scare themselves silly over nothing sometimes, so he thought that maybe that was what he was doing. He felt relieved when he saw the large stand of wild blackberry bushes along the side of the road. He knew that meant that he was about halfway home. He decided to stop walking for a minute and he turned around slowly and carefully, trying to calm himself as he looked intently around him at the thick, twisting ropes of fog. He could see both lighter and darker colored swirls moving in the fog around him. He caught his breath as he looked directly behind him.
Was there a spot there that was darker than the rest? Lower? Was it moving purposely in the opposite direction of the rest of the fog? Was it following him?!? The hair on the back of his neck stood up and his spine felt an electric charge. Without another thought he whirled around and took off running as fast as he could go, and he was a fast runner. His heart pounded and his breath burned in his lungs as he sprinted down that road towards the safe haven of his home and momma.
Bobby saw his mailbox pop into view and he kicked gravel up in a spray as he turned left to careen headlong down his dirt driveway. He never stopped moving when he saw his porch steps suddenly looming up In front of him. He simply leaped up the three shallow front porch steps and ran straight thru the shut screened porch door with a loud crash. He twirled around, slamming shut and locking the solid wooden interior door that had been standing open behind him. He slid down the door to lay on the floor trying to get his breath back.
His mother came running and stood in the kitchen doorway looking over at him in shock. “What on Earth is the matter with you Robert Dean? You know we’ll have to pay to fix that now!” Bobby tried to explain but couldn’t get any air in to do anything except wheeze while his momma stood there and yelled at him for breaking the screened door. His Uncle George and Aunt Mildred had been sitting in the kitchen with Momma talking at the table, drinking coffee. Mildred didn’t say anything as she looked in the room at him but she had that perpetually disapproving look on her face while she listened to her little sister scold her young son.
George was frowning too as he got up and walked into the front room. But George had a concerned look on his face as he stood looking down at Bobby, watching him relearn how to use his lungs. “Maudie,” George interrupted as he turned his head to look back at his sister-in-law. “I don’t know for sure what happened, but I don’t think he did this on purpose. The boy got spooked by something. I know you’re mad about the broken door but we can’t do anything tonight anyway, since it’s too dark. Let’s just let Bobby get calmed down. We’ll get him to bed and tomorrow when there’s light we’ll talk about what happened and work on fixing that door together. It should be an easy fix anyway. Right Bobby?” George said as he turned back around and looked down at his young nephew again. Bobby got enough breath to stand, nodded thankfully and said “Yes sir, thank you Uncle George. I promise I’ll help fix the door tomorrow. I’m sorry Momma. Goodnight Momma, Aunt Mildred.” He went to wash up and got into bed in his upstairs bedroom. He had a hard time drifting off and when he finally did, he ended up sleeping much later than usual the next day. It was the sound of several new male voices and the kitchen door slamming shut as the men left that finally woke him. Thru the open bedroom window he heard general murmuring and a man’s voice distinctly say “get the hunt organized” as the men got into their cars. They were gone before Bobby could get to the window to see who they were.
He thought it was odd as he got dressed that no one had woken him up to work on the front door yet. Especially if there had been visitors to the house already. He figured that he and Uncle George would have to measure the door and then go into town for new screen so it might take them awhile and he had other chores to do too. He knew he’d upset his momma last night, but at the time, he had really thought that he had seen something spooky in that fog. In the light of morning, he decided that he must have simply made something up. Well, he hadn’t meant to mess up and he wanted to make sure Momma knew that he was sorry.
He walked down the stairs and into the kitchen. The three adults were once more alone. They were sitting at the table drinking coffee again, talking in subdued tones. They stopped talking and watched him as he walked into the kitchen and sat down at the table. “Morning Momma, Uncle George, Aunt Mildred. Are we gonna fix the door today Uncle George?” Bobby asked as he looked at the three adults gathered around him. George took a sip of coffee and just said, “when you’re done eating Bobby. Can’t work on an empty tank. No rush.” “Aren’t you gonna eat Momma?” Bobby asked. Momma answered back that they had eaten already. She hugged him hard, then got him a plate full of still warm breakfast, a big glass of fresh milk from their cow and told him to eat. He did, but he was feeling uncomfortable. No one was acting right today and Momma just kept hugging him. Even Aunt Mildred was being nice.
The adults all resumed talking quietly while waiting for him to finish his meal. When he was done, George sat his coffee down on the table and cleared his throat. “Bobby, I don’t want to scare you son, but I want you to open the front door and take a look out at the porch. I want you to tell me what you see.” Bobby looked at the three adults in some confusion but he did as he was told. Getting up from the table, he put his dishes into the sink, went to the front door, opened it and looked out. The adults followed him to the door, watching him. The oppressive fog from the night before was gone and it was now a beautiful day with the yard bathed in warm, golden sunlight. But as he stepped out onto the porch and looked down at the porch floor, the hair once again rose on the back of his neck.
He could tell that there had been a lot of visitors to his house that morning because of all of the bootprints in the dust. But there was also a circle of dust that had no bootprints. There, inside that circle of dust at the top of the porch steps, were 2 well-formed unmistakable paw prints that could only have come from a huge mountain lion.
As he turned around to look at his momma’s pale face, he stopped, frozen, his mind reeling, his mouth hanging open. His wide, shocked eyes focused on a large set of deep claw marks that were imbedded into the right side top corner post of the porch railing for the steps. The claw marks were at a height that had been even with his neck as he had leapt up the steps on his wild run thru the front door last night.