When my parents died in the fall of 1905 I got a few folks worried about me. The folks over at the church tried to get me hitched up, I was 19 after all, almost past my prime in those days. But wasn’t ready yet. I was at loose ends. Thought about going out west to see my brothers, or even up north to the shipyards in Baltimore- heard you could get a good job there. But I wasn’t ready to leave this mountain just yet.
Months later I was out hunting. It was midsummer, hotter n hell as they say. The deer had thinned out a lot by then, but the rabbits.The rabbits were thick as thieves in the woods. In those days we didn’t have much, if you wanted to eat you had to go out and get whatever you could. I had one fairly big one in my sights. I can still see it in my mind. But something spooked it right before I let go of that arrow… and it took off. I followed it for a bit until I got to that grove of China thicket down by the creek at the bottom of the mountain. Do you know the one around when the road connects to the highway? Down in the hollow there. There’s huge stand of the stuff. Dense as midnight in there.
I followed the rabbit in. Not sure even now why I did. But like I said, it was midsummer, hot. I hadn’t had meat in a week and that rabbit sounded tasty to me. I figured if I chased the rabbit through the china ticket I’d push it up on the road and into the field across from it. Be easier to get a good shot in then.
But funny thing, the more I kept pushing into the stand, the further I went, let further away from the outside I felt I was getting. The grove got taller, the china closer together, it got dark and smelled like mildew. I could not see more than a few feet in front of me. The forest closed in on me. That damn bamboo grew so thick it blocked out the light on the floor. I get lost not ten feet into that thicket.
I had completely lost track of that damn rabbit when suddenly, I fell. The ground gave way and I tumbled into the stream. I wasn't too sure where the road was by then. I should have crossed it. So I scrambled up the other side of the stream. I could see sunlight and that open field on the other side. I figured I would follow the stream back to the road.
But when I got out of the ticket into the open field I could not figure out where I’d come out of. There was no sign of the road. Just a big clearing. The sun was still beating down, blinding me after the dark of the China. So I figured I’d just come out further down. I saw that at the edge of the field was a series of rocks, like going up the mountain. I thought maybe I had really gotten turned around in there, come out the way I went in. But I didn't recognize the rocks either.
Still, I figured if I could climb up the rocks a little I could get my bearing. By this point I figured I was suffering from some sort of sunstroke or something. Made me forget where I was. So I went across the field up to the rocks. I was about half way up when I heard voices. Back then weren’t too many people about these parts and it didn’t do you any good to just blunder on. Might have been revenuers or something for all I knew.”
“What are revenuers?” Riley didn’t mean to interrupt the old man, but he thought this might be important.
“Moonshiners. Ill mannered types. So anyway I crept around the rock until I could see down in front of me. To my surprise there was the road. Although it wasn’t a part of the road I could remember. It was more a dirt path in the woods. There in front of me were about 3 or 4 men, most sitting, but one standing. Then off to the side was the strangest thing I’d ever seen- a bear wearing a jacket and a wide field worker’s hat. But it wasn't no bear I had ever seen; it had light grey fur and long ears. In fact the more I looked at it, the more I thought it was some sort of rabbit...
But it wasn’t. It couldn’t be; it was as tall as the man standing. It had to be a bear. The four men did not seem to see this huge animal behind them, so I figured it was best to be cautious. I carefully got my bow off my shoulder and pulled out an arrow. I figured I’d come down from the rocks slowly; ready to shoot the bear if I had too. As I pulled the arrow tight I heard a loud voice from behind me.
“Best put that away stranger.”
I froze, turning around a little to see who had said that. Standing behind me, with a drawn bow was a jet black rabbit as big as a man.
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