The Killer Panther
Posted: November 15th, 2010, 11:24 am
Talking of Panthers. Here is a true story I wrote about 20 years ago. Thought ya'll might want to read it.
The Killer Panther
One warm summer afternoon in nineteen-sixty-four, my cousin Billy asked if I wanted to go camping with himself, his brother Danny, and my uncle Jack. As strange as it sounds, my uncle Jack was two years younger than I. He was the baby of ten children. Camping and fishing were things we boys did frequently. It gave us a chance to explore different places and a chance to use our .22 caliber, single shot rifles on unsuspecting, but eatable birds, armadillos, and wild hogs that roamed the creek and woods behind my grandmother’s house just outside the city limits of Perry, Florida. In those days, it was common for a boy of ten to receive his first rifle.
Billy said we would be going to a place he called the “Saw dust pile.” It was somewhere we had never been, but Billy said we would like it because there was a big pile of sawdust to play on. The sawdust pile was an old sawmill that had been closed many years earlier. There was a large watermelon field close by, and there was also a creek so there would be plenty of cat fishing. With all this natural bounty backed up with a few cans of sardines and pork and beans, we could look forward to a fine feast around the camp fire.
Billy was older than the rest of us. He was a teenager already. He would be fourteen pretty soon. We were proud that a teenager would let us hang around like Billy did. He did however; take twisted pleasure in scaring the life out of us ever chance he got. While we gathered around a campfire, he would tell stories of wandering ax murderers, escaped mental patients, and other things terrifying to a twelve-year-old. Billy had a sick sense of humor, and it would soon catch up to him.
After a fine supper of sparrows roasted on a stick over a fire, sardines, and swiped watermelon, Billy began to set up his scary story for the evening. “Did you hear about the killer panther that killed those cows down the creek?” he started. “They say it’s as huge as a bull, and it’s a vicious man-eater that hunts at night around water!” “Where did you say it was seen last?” Jack asked, not really wanting an answer. “Near Rocky Creek, and it killed a couple of boys swimming down there two weeks ago,” he answered, without hesitation or any hint that his answer could be made up.
“They say the thing stinks, and that’s the best way to tell if it’s around, by the smell of rotten meat. When the panther smells people, it lets out a terrible yell. Cause it hates us!” “You don’t think it’s come this far up the creek, do you” I asked. As I asked, Danny said, “If he comes around us, we’ll fill his behind full of lead so fast he’ll never stop running!” We all laughed at Danny’s statement, building up the courageous attitude we would need to survive a night in the woods with a killer panther.
The laughter helped, and we continued to joke about how we would handle the panther if it should stumble onto us! Secretly, however, we were all scared stupid. I think even Billy was a little nervous by nightfall, because if he tried to scare us, there was a possibility that a bullet from one of our hastily fired rifles may end up flying in his direction. As night wore on, and our oversized campfire burned, we would go off in pairs, fully armed with rifles locked, hammer back, and safety off, to find firewood to fuel the controlled blaze. By this time, walking the creek and checking the bush hooks we had set for catfish before dark, was out of the question. As we walked through the pitch-black creek bottom, any sound or movement was instantly answered with nervous whispers or a premature shot from the rifle.
By midnight, the four of us were so worked up that our eyes we’re the size of tennis balls, and felt just about as fuzzy, but there would be no sleep this night. We were all quietly hoping Billy would voice a reason for calling the trip off so we could all go home to safety and our own beds. We didn’t say anything out loud, of course. Our preteen machismo prohibited that. Just as we thought Billy was going to say, “pack up,” the wind turned and started blowing across the watermelon field. During harvest, dozens of damaged, smelly, rotting melons had been piled at the edge of the field. Our noses and nervous imaginations were slapped with the pungent smell of, what else but rotten meat!
Then, out of the night came a sound that filed us with terror. The repeated screams seem to come from all directions at once. Sounding very much like a woman’s desperate cries for help. Fear incited us to run around in circles, grabbing our weapons in a hurried rush. Bullets flew in every direction, one after another, and when we ran out of rounds, we resorted to rocks, sticks, and finally watermelon rind. We were surrounded by the evil creature.
The closest safety would be our grandmother’s house. Her house was a mile down the darkest creek trail in the world, but we didn’t care, we ran for it. Being taken down at a full gallop was much better than standing still and just waiting to be eaten. We ran as fast as we could, falling down, tripping over limbs, and tripping each other, hoping a small sacrifice would give us a valuable lead, but each of us that fell or was given up for sacrifice, got right back on our feet and ran for dear life! Reaching the safety of my grandmother’s back porch, we made the rest of the night in relative safety on the locked, screen porch.
The next morning we rose early to slip off the porch before anyone knew we had been scared off the creek the night before. We returned to the scene of the previous night, and found the campsite looking as though there had been a great battle. Bullet holes were in all the surrounding trees, bushes, and the ground, but no footprints, no bodies, no blood, nothing! What had happened? Billy suggested that the panther was so fast that he dodged all the rounds fired. Danny agreed to such a reasonable explanation, but Jack said he didn’t care what it was, let’s just pack up our stuff and get home. He could still smell the panther and he might be hiding somewhere.
“Wait a minute!” I said, “Do ya’ll smell that?” “Smell it! It’s just rotten watermelon!” “You’re right.” Danny agreed. It’s funny how smells and sounds seem so much different in the security of daylight. “But what about the screams we heard?” Jack quickly responded, “I don’t know, but I’m getting nervous in this place.” Billy affirmed that we should leave, and we were more than willing to follow his lead.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a hair-whitening scream broke the morning silence from above and behind us! “Oh God! He’s got us!” screamed Jack in an octave higher than a girl’s voice, and we all ran for it again, but this time we headed straight for the creek and knee-deep mud. Piling into the creek, screaming for our very lives, we struggled for the other side and distance from the Killer Panther. Everyone knows that cats are afraid of water.
As we scrambled up the far bank, Billy turned around to see if the panther was close. “Dang it!” he muttered. We all looked back just as the Screech Owl flew down from the tree, and flew off across the watermelon field. The four of us stood silent, covered with mud, eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep, mouths agape at the unbelievable sight. The screams we heard the night before were from an owl. A Screech owl! A stupid bird had scared the wits from all of us, and ran us into the creek. We looked at each other with disbelief at the final result of the night’s events. As our laughter erupted and we crawled through the mud up the bank, we could still hear the owl's cries echoing in the distance, mocking us.
“Let’s go kill that thing!” I said, picking up my rifle and collecting spilled rifle shells scattered around the ground for the task. “No, let’s leave it alone and just get our stuff before we get in trouble for being here.” That was Billy’s final word. He wouldn’t let on, but the bird really scared him too. He was so embroiled in his own story that he actually believed it was the killer panther.
All the way home, Billy was quiet as we three other boys joked and kidded each other about being such chickens. After we got home, I asked Billy when we were going camping again. Mumbling something under his breath, he walked into the house without really answering. Danny later said Billy’s pride was hurt. He was a “tough guy.” The one who we looked up to, and he knew it. He seriously thought we now saw him as a fake, or worse, a coward. We didn’t feel that way about Billy. I suggested we tell him, but we couldn’t figure out how to say it.
The whole problem resolved itself a few days later. While Billy was in the house, we quietly packed our camping gear, and piled it on his front porch. I hollered for Billy to come to the door. Then we sat down on our gear waiting. Billy came to the door and saw us, sitting there, grinning from ear to ear. His laughter was the signal we all wanted to hear. As he came down the porch steps, we all patted him on the shoulder and laughed at our last adventure and the comical situation resulting from his scary story. Billy laughed too, promising he’d never try to scare us again with stories of killer panthers, and ghosts, or at least he’d never tell stories so believably that he would fall for them himself.
The Killer Panther
One warm summer afternoon in nineteen-sixty-four, my cousin Billy asked if I wanted to go camping with himself, his brother Danny, and my uncle Jack. As strange as it sounds, my uncle Jack was two years younger than I. He was the baby of ten children. Camping and fishing were things we boys did frequently. It gave us a chance to explore different places and a chance to use our .22 caliber, single shot rifles on unsuspecting, but eatable birds, armadillos, and wild hogs that roamed the creek and woods behind my grandmother’s house just outside the city limits of Perry, Florida. In those days, it was common for a boy of ten to receive his first rifle.
Billy said we would be going to a place he called the “Saw dust pile.” It was somewhere we had never been, but Billy said we would like it because there was a big pile of sawdust to play on. The sawdust pile was an old sawmill that had been closed many years earlier. There was a large watermelon field close by, and there was also a creek so there would be plenty of cat fishing. With all this natural bounty backed up with a few cans of sardines and pork and beans, we could look forward to a fine feast around the camp fire.
Billy was older than the rest of us. He was a teenager already. He would be fourteen pretty soon. We were proud that a teenager would let us hang around like Billy did. He did however; take twisted pleasure in scaring the life out of us ever chance he got. While we gathered around a campfire, he would tell stories of wandering ax murderers, escaped mental patients, and other things terrifying to a twelve-year-old. Billy had a sick sense of humor, and it would soon catch up to him.
After a fine supper of sparrows roasted on a stick over a fire, sardines, and swiped watermelon, Billy began to set up his scary story for the evening. “Did you hear about the killer panther that killed those cows down the creek?” he started. “They say it’s as huge as a bull, and it’s a vicious man-eater that hunts at night around water!” “Where did you say it was seen last?” Jack asked, not really wanting an answer. “Near Rocky Creek, and it killed a couple of boys swimming down there two weeks ago,” he answered, without hesitation or any hint that his answer could be made up.
“They say the thing stinks, and that’s the best way to tell if it’s around, by the smell of rotten meat. When the panther smells people, it lets out a terrible yell. Cause it hates us!” “You don’t think it’s come this far up the creek, do you” I asked. As I asked, Danny said, “If he comes around us, we’ll fill his behind full of lead so fast he’ll never stop running!” We all laughed at Danny’s statement, building up the courageous attitude we would need to survive a night in the woods with a killer panther.
The laughter helped, and we continued to joke about how we would handle the panther if it should stumble onto us! Secretly, however, we were all scared stupid. I think even Billy was a little nervous by nightfall, because if he tried to scare us, there was a possibility that a bullet from one of our hastily fired rifles may end up flying in his direction. As night wore on, and our oversized campfire burned, we would go off in pairs, fully armed with rifles locked, hammer back, and safety off, to find firewood to fuel the controlled blaze. By this time, walking the creek and checking the bush hooks we had set for catfish before dark, was out of the question. As we walked through the pitch-black creek bottom, any sound or movement was instantly answered with nervous whispers or a premature shot from the rifle.
By midnight, the four of us were so worked up that our eyes we’re the size of tennis balls, and felt just about as fuzzy, but there would be no sleep this night. We were all quietly hoping Billy would voice a reason for calling the trip off so we could all go home to safety and our own beds. We didn’t say anything out loud, of course. Our preteen machismo prohibited that. Just as we thought Billy was going to say, “pack up,” the wind turned and started blowing across the watermelon field. During harvest, dozens of damaged, smelly, rotting melons had been piled at the edge of the field. Our noses and nervous imaginations were slapped with the pungent smell of, what else but rotten meat!
Then, out of the night came a sound that filed us with terror. The repeated screams seem to come from all directions at once. Sounding very much like a woman’s desperate cries for help. Fear incited us to run around in circles, grabbing our weapons in a hurried rush. Bullets flew in every direction, one after another, and when we ran out of rounds, we resorted to rocks, sticks, and finally watermelon rind. We were surrounded by the evil creature.
The closest safety would be our grandmother’s house. Her house was a mile down the darkest creek trail in the world, but we didn’t care, we ran for it. Being taken down at a full gallop was much better than standing still and just waiting to be eaten. We ran as fast as we could, falling down, tripping over limbs, and tripping each other, hoping a small sacrifice would give us a valuable lead, but each of us that fell or was given up for sacrifice, got right back on our feet and ran for dear life! Reaching the safety of my grandmother’s back porch, we made the rest of the night in relative safety on the locked, screen porch.
The next morning we rose early to slip off the porch before anyone knew we had been scared off the creek the night before. We returned to the scene of the previous night, and found the campsite looking as though there had been a great battle. Bullet holes were in all the surrounding trees, bushes, and the ground, but no footprints, no bodies, no blood, nothing! What had happened? Billy suggested that the panther was so fast that he dodged all the rounds fired. Danny agreed to such a reasonable explanation, but Jack said he didn’t care what it was, let’s just pack up our stuff and get home. He could still smell the panther and he might be hiding somewhere.
“Wait a minute!” I said, “Do ya’ll smell that?” “Smell it! It’s just rotten watermelon!” “You’re right.” Danny agreed. It’s funny how smells and sounds seem so much different in the security of daylight. “But what about the screams we heard?” Jack quickly responded, “I don’t know, but I’m getting nervous in this place.” Billy affirmed that we should leave, and we were more than willing to follow his lead.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a hair-whitening scream broke the morning silence from above and behind us! “Oh God! He’s got us!” screamed Jack in an octave higher than a girl’s voice, and we all ran for it again, but this time we headed straight for the creek and knee-deep mud. Piling into the creek, screaming for our very lives, we struggled for the other side and distance from the Killer Panther. Everyone knows that cats are afraid of water.
As we scrambled up the far bank, Billy turned around to see if the panther was close. “Dang it!” he muttered. We all looked back just as the Screech Owl flew down from the tree, and flew off across the watermelon field. The four of us stood silent, covered with mud, eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep, mouths agape at the unbelievable sight. The screams we heard the night before were from an owl. A Screech owl! A stupid bird had scared the wits from all of us, and ran us into the creek. We looked at each other with disbelief at the final result of the night’s events. As our laughter erupted and we crawled through the mud up the bank, we could still hear the owl's cries echoing in the distance, mocking us.
“Let’s go kill that thing!” I said, picking up my rifle and collecting spilled rifle shells scattered around the ground for the task. “No, let’s leave it alone and just get our stuff before we get in trouble for being here.” That was Billy’s final word. He wouldn’t let on, but the bird really scared him too. He was so embroiled in his own story that he actually believed it was the killer panther.
All the way home, Billy was quiet as we three other boys joked and kidded each other about being such chickens. After we got home, I asked Billy when we were going camping again. Mumbling something under his breath, he walked into the house without really answering. Danny later said Billy’s pride was hurt. He was a “tough guy.” The one who we looked up to, and he knew it. He seriously thought we now saw him as a fake, or worse, a coward. We didn’t feel that way about Billy. I suggested we tell him, but we couldn’t figure out how to say it.
The whole problem resolved itself a few days later. While Billy was in the house, we quietly packed our camping gear, and piled it on his front porch. I hollered for Billy to come to the door. Then we sat down on our gear waiting. Billy came to the door and saw us, sitting there, grinning from ear to ear. His laughter was the signal we all wanted to hear. As he came down the porch steps, we all patted him on the shoulder and laughed at our last adventure and the comical situation resulting from his scary story. Billy laughed too, promising he’d never try to scare us again with stories of killer panthers, and ghosts, or at least he’d never tell stories so believably that he would fall for them himself.
