bueno bob
04-21-2005, 02:14 AM
So I went camping once...
*********************
I was about 56 miles out of fucking everywhere, up in the mountains, alone. Planned on being up there for, oh, 4 days, probably; brought a little bit of my own food, just for emergencies. A knife. Flashlight. Sewing kit. Change of clothes. Sleeping bag. Cigarettes & coffee. A lighter. And a CD player, which was a rare occurance, considering I don't usually take anything out in the wilderness with me modern, but Black Sabbath had just put out Cross Purposes and I couldn't stand the thought of leaving it at home - so sue me. But I didn't take anything else. I found a pretty good, uninhabited place, close to a fresh river, figured if worse came to worse, I could always fish, but I was planning on hunting (rabbits - not the greatest form of nutrition, but I was only planning on being there for 4 days and you can generally survive on rabbit that long without having much health concern, plus I had my fallback rations).
No vehicle, I got dropped off and hitchhiked and walked most of the way out there. Now, the weather took a pretty significant turn for the worse when I arrived (what else is new?), so I set up a makeshift shanty for cover, but a fire was pretty much out of the question for the first two days, because the rain just wouldn't quit. I was doing alright though - fish were plentiful and it was easy pickings, but rabbit hunting was damn near out of the question since nothing would burn. Doing OK...the weather finally broke on the morning of the 3rd day, but it was too late to do any rabbit hunting, so I pretty much wrote that off.
Now - if you're interested, I can tell you how to catch, kill, and skin a rabbit, but I'll avoid that and get to the heart of the story instead.
Over the last three days, I had had a creeping suspicion that I wasn't entirely alone out there - mostly it was a gut feeling, but I just kinda felt it was best to stay up and sleep in randomized shifts; don't know why, but if I get a gut instinct when I'm up in the woods alone, I generally follow it. Better to do it and not be sorry that you didn't later, you know.
So it came around to being the afternoon of the 3rd day, and I had a fire going, was starting to work on my dinner, and I had the headphones on, listening to some Sabbath. Of course, wouldn't you know it, I picked that time to NOT be attentive and NOT have my knife anywhere near me.
The next thing I know, there's a hunting knife up to my throat and I've got a wad of my hair in somebody's hand. Needless to say, this isn't exactly turning out to be the best of all possible afternoons at this point and I've just been caught on the wrong side of the jump. From what I can smell, he reeks of weed and alcohol. Not a pleasant combo, but I figure I may be able to reason something peaceful with him if he's high enough and the booze isn't overriding his high.
"Just move. Just try it," he says. I told him I wouldn't, but he was free to take whatever he wanted, naturally. I told him that I didn't have any identification or money, though, but my food and supplies were his. "What I want you to do is fight me," he says. He sounds relatively young, maybe a couple of years older than me, and by the sense of his height and weight I've been able to discern, I figure I could probably take him on a straight on, but of course this isn't a straight on - I've got a knife to my throat and am at a pretty big disadvantage.
So I told him that I didn't want to fight him, but he was in charge and I'd do whatever he wanted me to, so long as we avoided myself getting killed in the process (in those exact terms). Now, apparently this must have struck him as amusing because he hesitated a bit - a BIT, but not enough for me to be able to safely retaliate (not yet, at any rate). He asks what I'm doing up there, and I told him I was just getting back to nature. I told him if I was in his neck of the woods, I could vacate within three minutes and he wouldn't have to see me around any more.
About this time, he increases his pressure and draws blood across my throat, although he hasn't cut it yet, not deeply enough to concern me anyway. I tell him that he's drawn blood and ask him if that's his intent - again reminding him that I didn't mean to intrude onto his territory nor to cause him any grief.
Amazingly enough, he actually drops the knife and walks in front of me, sheathing it. "Sorry, man, I was just fucking with you, honest," he says. I'm not sure what to expect at this point, so I just kinda play it off all cool, no worries, the whole bit. He doesn't introduce himself, but offers his hand. Now, I'm still a good 20 or 30 feet from my knife, and even though I'm almost convinced I could take him in a knife fight if it came down to it, I'm not convinced that I can get to it before he gets to me, so I accept his hand and introduce myself as "Jeff". I invite him to share my dinner, but he turns it down and seems really out of sorts about what had just happened.
Like I said earlier, he looked very much like a...mountain man version of James Hetfield. I found that strange and made the assumption that, even if he wasn't all quite there, he was definitely out here in the field with someone else...he looked entirely too young to be living off the grid on his own, and not intelligent enough to be able to pull it off by himself, anyway.
Anyway, he apologizes for cutting my neck up, and I tell him that's it's OK, no worries, not so bad at all. So he says he's going to leave, and I ask him again if he wants me to bail out. "No," he says, then growls "but maybe I'll check in on you again, mother fucker," and storms off.
At this point, I know I've got problems, and probably big ones. I'm not familiar with the area, and while that's not a horrible disadvantage, it's one I'm not entirely comfortable with, either. It's getting on in the afternoon, which means it's gonna be night, soon, and that's going to make my progress out of there REALLY hard (bear country, mountain lion country...etc, etc, etc). But I've got a good feeling that he isn't leaving far and not for long, also, so I'm feeling pretty well good and fucked at this point. Looks as if I'm travelling by night and there ain't gonna be much I can do about that, so...best to make the most of it.
I wait for about 30 minutes, because I know damn good and well that he's off hiding from a distance, watching to see if I bolt or not. So I wait. I wait one of the longest 30 minutes I've ever waited. Moreover, he's standing up wind, the dumb shit, and I can smell him waiting. He gets convinced that I'm gonna stay the night out and leaves after a while...and I give him time to make a little distance yet and then I say "fuck it", leave all my shit behind except for my knife and a pillow sack I converted into a carry-all bag and bust the fuck out of there with the sun going down.
I've got damn near 60 miles worth of trek ahead of me and I'm in the worst possible spot to be at come nightfall. But...better the devil you know, so off I go.
I've gotten about an hours worth of lead by the time night's down in full and I'm pretty certain he's found my site abandoned. If he's stupid enough to follow me through the dark, well, I'll deal with that when I have to, I figure.
I'm keeping close by the river, which is both a mistake and a necessity - I need it for the direction sense, but if anything's coming down to drink or fish at night (bear, etc), I'm gonna be a sitting duck for the most park, but the upswing I have on any bears is that I'm travelling at a downhill decline, and bears don't do very well running downhill at all because most of their leg strength is in their hind legs - they know damn well that going downhill at full speed will send them ass over teakettle real quicklike. I can pretty much outdistance any bear enough to convince it to give up it's chase; one small victory.
Of course, this lunatic is on my ass, too, and probably making better time than I am, so I get the notion to find a good, solid tree, climb it and wait, just in case, with a big ass rock to keep me company.
Well, in due course of time, I hear him coming up, but I'm far enough up to have him miss me entirely - he's not looking in any treetops for me, that much I'm sure of. He's got a bow and arrow with him and seems to be pretty winded. I hear him growling shit about gutting that mother fucker and so forth...couldn't quite make it all out...
So I wait...and then...
POW.
No blood, so there was no permanent damage I'm sure, but he was clean out cold. I figured he earned it. Busted the bow and arrows, tossed his knife in the river and made haste without looking back.
Luckily enough, mother nature decided to cut me some slack, because I didn't encounter anything for the rest of the night and into the following morning. Eventually I hit the road and hitched my way out of there and back to civilization. Told the police about what had happened, they said they'd look into it (didn't even take an official report of the incident), but I never heard anything further about it.
So there ya go.
*********************
I was about 56 miles out of fucking everywhere, up in the mountains, alone. Planned on being up there for, oh, 4 days, probably; brought a little bit of my own food, just for emergencies. A knife. Flashlight. Sewing kit. Change of clothes. Sleeping bag. Cigarettes & coffee. A lighter. And a CD player, which was a rare occurance, considering I don't usually take anything out in the wilderness with me modern, but Black Sabbath had just put out Cross Purposes and I couldn't stand the thought of leaving it at home - so sue me. But I didn't take anything else. I found a pretty good, uninhabited place, close to a fresh river, figured if worse came to worse, I could always fish, but I was planning on hunting (rabbits - not the greatest form of nutrition, but I was only planning on being there for 4 days and you can generally survive on rabbit that long without having much health concern, plus I had my fallback rations).
No vehicle, I got dropped off and hitchhiked and walked most of the way out there. Now, the weather took a pretty significant turn for the worse when I arrived (what else is new?), so I set up a makeshift shanty for cover, but a fire was pretty much out of the question for the first two days, because the rain just wouldn't quit. I was doing alright though - fish were plentiful and it was easy pickings, but rabbit hunting was damn near out of the question since nothing would burn. Doing OK...the weather finally broke on the morning of the 3rd day, but it was too late to do any rabbit hunting, so I pretty much wrote that off.
Now - if you're interested, I can tell you how to catch, kill, and skin a rabbit, but I'll avoid that and get to the heart of the story instead.
Over the last three days, I had had a creeping suspicion that I wasn't entirely alone out there - mostly it was a gut feeling, but I just kinda felt it was best to stay up and sleep in randomized shifts; don't know why, but if I get a gut instinct when I'm up in the woods alone, I generally follow it. Better to do it and not be sorry that you didn't later, you know.
So it came around to being the afternoon of the 3rd day, and I had a fire going, was starting to work on my dinner, and I had the headphones on, listening to some Sabbath. Of course, wouldn't you know it, I picked that time to NOT be attentive and NOT have my knife anywhere near me.
The next thing I know, there's a hunting knife up to my throat and I've got a wad of my hair in somebody's hand. Needless to say, this isn't exactly turning out to be the best of all possible afternoons at this point and I've just been caught on the wrong side of the jump. From what I can smell, he reeks of weed and alcohol. Not a pleasant combo, but I figure I may be able to reason something peaceful with him if he's high enough and the booze isn't overriding his high.
"Just move. Just try it," he says. I told him I wouldn't, but he was free to take whatever he wanted, naturally. I told him that I didn't have any identification or money, though, but my food and supplies were his. "What I want you to do is fight me," he says. He sounds relatively young, maybe a couple of years older than me, and by the sense of his height and weight I've been able to discern, I figure I could probably take him on a straight on, but of course this isn't a straight on - I've got a knife to my throat and am at a pretty big disadvantage.
So I told him that I didn't want to fight him, but he was in charge and I'd do whatever he wanted me to, so long as we avoided myself getting killed in the process (in those exact terms). Now, apparently this must have struck him as amusing because he hesitated a bit - a BIT, but not enough for me to be able to safely retaliate (not yet, at any rate). He asks what I'm doing up there, and I told him I was just getting back to nature. I told him if I was in his neck of the woods, I could vacate within three minutes and he wouldn't have to see me around any more.
About this time, he increases his pressure and draws blood across my throat, although he hasn't cut it yet, not deeply enough to concern me anyway. I tell him that he's drawn blood and ask him if that's his intent - again reminding him that I didn't mean to intrude onto his territory nor to cause him any grief.
Amazingly enough, he actually drops the knife and walks in front of me, sheathing it. "Sorry, man, I was just fucking with you, honest," he says. I'm not sure what to expect at this point, so I just kinda play it off all cool, no worries, the whole bit. He doesn't introduce himself, but offers his hand. Now, I'm still a good 20 or 30 feet from my knife, and even though I'm almost convinced I could take him in a knife fight if it came down to it, I'm not convinced that I can get to it before he gets to me, so I accept his hand and introduce myself as "Jeff". I invite him to share my dinner, but he turns it down and seems really out of sorts about what had just happened.
Like I said earlier, he looked very much like a...mountain man version of James Hetfield. I found that strange and made the assumption that, even if he wasn't all quite there, he was definitely out here in the field with someone else...he looked entirely too young to be living off the grid on his own, and not intelligent enough to be able to pull it off by himself, anyway.
Anyway, he apologizes for cutting my neck up, and I tell him that's it's OK, no worries, not so bad at all. So he says he's going to leave, and I ask him again if he wants me to bail out. "No," he says, then growls "but maybe I'll check in on you again, mother fucker," and storms off.
At this point, I know I've got problems, and probably big ones. I'm not familiar with the area, and while that's not a horrible disadvantage, it's one I'm not entirely comfortable with, either. It's getting on in the afternoon, which means it's gonna be night, soon, and that's going to make my progress out of there REALLY hard (bear country, mountain lion country...etc, etc, etc). But I've got a good feeling that he isn't leaving far and not for long, also, so I'm feeling pretty well good and fucked at this point. Looks as if I'm travelling by night and there ain't gonna be much I can do about that, so...best to make the most of it.
I wait for about 30 minutes, because I know damn good and well that he's off hiding from a distance, watching to see if I bolt or not. So I wait. I wait one of the longest 30 minutes I've ever waited. Moreover, he's standing up wind, the dumb shit, and I can smell him waiting. He gets convinced that I'm gonna stay the night out and leaves after a while...and I give him time to make a little distance yet and then I say "fuck it", leave all my shit behind except for my knife and a pillow sack I converted into a carry-all bag and bust the fuck out of there with the sun going down.
I've got damn near 60 miles worth of trek ahead of me and I'm in the worst possible spot to be at come nightfall. But...better the devil you know, so off I go.
I've gotten about an hours worth of lead by the time night's down in full and I'm pretty certain he's found my site abandoned. If he's stupid enough to follow me through the dark, well, I'll deal with that when I have to, I figure.
I'm keeping close by the river, which is both a mistake and a necessity - I need it for the direction sense, but if anything's coming down to drink or fish at night (bear, etc), I'm gonna be a sitting duck for the most park, but the upswing I have on any bears is that I'm travelling at a downhill decline, and bears don't do very well running downhill at all because most of their leg strength is in their hind legs - they know damn well that going downhill at full speed will send them ass over teakettle real quicklike. I can pretty much outdistance any bear enough to convince it to give up it's chase; one small victory.
Of course, this lunatic is on my ass, too, and probably making better time than I am, so I get the notion to find a good, solid tree, climb it and wait, just in case, with a big ass rock to keep me company.
Well, in due course of time, I hear him coming up, but I'm far enough up to have him miss me entirely - he's not looking in any treetops for me, that much I'm sure of. He's got a bow and arrow with him and seems to be pretty winded. I hear him growling shit about gutting that mother fucker and so forth...couldn't quite make it all out...
So I wait...and then...
POW.
No blood, so there was no permanent damage I'm sure, but he was clean out cold. I figured he earned it. Busted the bow and arrows, tossed his knife in the river and made haste without looking back.
Luckily enough, mother nature decided to cut me some slack, because I didn't encounter anything for the rest of the night and into the following morning. Eventually I hit the road and hitched my way out of there and back to civilization. Told the police about what had happened, they said they'd look into it (didn't even take an official report of the incident), but I never heard anything further about it.
So there ya go.