From: brian herzog
Subject: Re: hmmmm...
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 18:34:28 -0800
> On Sun, 25 Oct 1998 20:42:23 -0500, Jen wrote:
>
> Anybody ever tell you that you give great hugs?
Hmm. Funny, thing, that. See, I went camping one day, out in yellow stone national park. I was with a boy scout pack, of about twelve guys, and we were having a great old time, whittling pointed sticks and starting fires and cooking hot dogs and stuff. Well, we made camp somewhere off into the mountains, you know, and crawled into our tents for the night, feeling really great about nature and things in general.
But then it started to rain. And it rained hard. At about eleven pm, I heard Timmy from two tents down yelling for his bunkmate Todd. It sounded kind of funny, so I flipped up the window flap, braved the rain, and looked down the row - to see Timmy with his head stuck out of the tent's front door screaming at the top of his lungs - and I couldn't be sure because of the rain, but it looked as if there were tears coming down his face, too.
So, since this looked pretty serious, I pulled on my boots and rain shell, and went over to see what was going on. Timmy told me that Todd had gone out about ten minutes before, to pee, but hadn't come back yet. He'd taken a flashlight, though, which Timmy was watching as Todd entered the tree line. Timmy said the beam of light moved towards the tree line, entered it for about five feet, stopped, and then made the usual gyrations it would make when someone was trying to hold a flashlight and unzip their pants at the same time.
It settled down after a few seconds, presumably while Todd was peeing, but then suddenly swung up and around facing away from camp, then sharply directly upwards for a second, and then Timmy could tell the flashlight fell to the ground, but wasn't able to see it at all after that. With the noise of the rain, though, no sound of what was going on out there could be heard. Timmy thought that Todd might have slipped on some mud while he was peeing and slid down a hill, or finished and decided to go off and explore something, or he didn't know what else. Being responsible, though, we had to find out where Todd was.
So, I, Timmy, and the two guys from the tent between us got our night and rain equipment on and ready, and followed Timmy to the spot where he saw Todd's beam of light go into the trees. The rain was still coming down hard, and had washed away any footprints Todd might have left, so we just fanned out to search the area for him.
After about fifteen minutes someone found Todd's flashlight sunken in a pool of water at the base of a tree, and even though the switch was still in the "on" position, it wasn't giving off any light. Now we were starting to get worried, because Todd was nowhere to be found, and there still was no trace of him.
We did find a slight indented rut in the ground leading down a hill away from the tree, which almost formed a slide, so we thought Todd might have slid down that and couldn't make it back up the wet slope. I told Timmy to come with me, and while the other two guys remained at the top of the slide, we carefully and slowly picked our way down, looking for any sign that Todd might have went that way. After about fifteen feet the muddy slide flattened out, but it was so dark that we couldn't even see the top of the hill, and only barely hear the shouts of the guys up top. Timmy and I began to wander the immediate area, thinking that if Todd did slide down backwards or something, he might have been knocked unconscious if he hit a tree or rock.
We pushed back the tall grass and bushes with sticks, and check around the bases of nearby trees. By this time, we had all but given up calling out Todd's name, because you almost had to be on top of someone to hear them, even at a full yell, because of all that rain.
On the northern side of the slide, away from our camp, we found a rather big rocky outcropping, that appeared to lead back up to the top of the hill. It seemed like the only possible way of getting back up the hill in the rain, so we started to climb it. After only about two steps, though, I realized that I was looking into the mouth of a cave formed by the rocks, and that there was a boot laying off to one side. We picked it up and knew instantly that it was Todd's, because he's the only one in the pack that wears those stupid Nike Pathfinder hiking boots. Now, though, we knew that something was really wrong, so we cautiously entered the cave, being sure to search every inch with our flashlights first before moving forward.
The cave veered to the right about twenty feet in, and that's were we found Todd's head. With his hair being so wet and the dirt sticking to it, it looked like a rock until Timmy kicked it and it rolled forward. We both let out a scream that echoed off the walls ahead and behind us, because by now we were far enough in that the noise of the rain was dying off. Both of us cut our screams short, though, because it occurred to each of us simultaneously where we must be - in a bear's cave.
That scream was sure to wake them up, if they were asleep, and tell them exactly where we were. And from the look of Todd, we were in serious trouble. We started to slowly back out towards the mouth of the cave, but Timmy knocked his head on a low overhang and fell forward.
The shock of just touching something unexpected scared him, so he tried to shoot right back to his feet, but hit his head again on another low overhang that he had rolled under, and knocked himself out cold.
The thud that his head made when it hit the rock was sickening, and before I even made it over to him I could smell the blood from the cut. I tried to pick him up, but the cave was too small to really get him on my shoulders, so I started to drag him behind me by his foot. The closer I got to the opening of the cave the louder the rain got, so I didn't know a bear was in pursuit of us until Timmy's foot was yanked out of my hand, almost pulling me over, too. I instinctively shined the light back, catching the bear in the full beam, which startled it for a second. In the edge of the beam, though, I could see that Timmy's left arm, which the bear must have grabbed, was severed from his body, and that he was bleeding like crazy.
The bear recover from the sudden brightness quickly, though, and leaped for me. Luckily, the light must have blinded it more than it thought, because his leap took him too high and his head conked the ceiling. His momentum was still enough to carry both of us out of the cave, and when we hit the wet underbrush and pooled rainwater outside, I slipped out from underneath him and managed to stand up.
The bear was really pissed now, and stood up on his hind legs and let out this huge roar, which, although it was muffled by the downpour, still scared the shit out of me. Knowing that I could never out run it, though, especially in this rain, I picked up a thick stick and charged him, holding the stick like a lance, and trying to keep the flashlight beam in his eyes. Of course, I was moving at little more than a fast walk, more slipping than running, and the bear easily swiped the stick away as I got close to him. With his other paw he reach out and managed to wrap it behind me, pulling me into him, probably to bite my head off.
My arms were still outstretched, though, so all I could think of to do when my face got buried in his fur was to drop the flashlight and try to squeeze him, hoping to knock the wind out of him or something. And much to my surprise, after a second of me squeezing, he did in fact stop roaring, although I felt his other paw close around my back. After another second, though, he suddenly released me, and I slipped off him backwards, but he caught me before I fell all the way away from him. He just held me there motionless for a second, while, I thought, he was getting his sight back before he tore me apart. But, instead, the bear looked down at me and said "Anybody ever tell you that you give great hugs?" Take care.
Brian
