#2 Old Father Remembers a Hairy Man Sighting

(A story to be read to your children.)

Little Brave, not one to check his words, shared the story of the hairy man (woman) that had followed him along the trail. He did not tell his grandfather about the tiny fawn he’d snatched from under its mother’s nose. The warmth of the gentle being, he could almost feel in his arms still.

     Its ears flicked away huge mosquitoes while the whole time its enormous brown eyes seemed to beg, “Why won’t you help me? Can’t you please get rid of these awful pests?” Actually, he had several times puffed out a stream of warm air at them, when several landed on the shiny, wet nose.

     Today, Strong Hand, Little Brave’s grandfather, was quick with his words. In the past, when these two sat together by the fire, few words passed between them. Today was different.

     Strong Hand kept his eyes to the high, distant hills and tall trees while he pressed his grandson for information about the bigfoot or Hairy Man.

     “Did you see its face, young one?”

     “No, old father, I didn’t. First I saw of it, it was walking away.”

     Strong Hand shuffled his feet, bent and kneaded a swollen ankle. He dipped his chin constantly as he stroked the ankle through the soft deerskin, high-topped moccasin. The old man’s grey hair was free, unbraided, spilling onto his chest and almost to his waist in back.

     “You know, Little Brave, I’ve seen this being two times when I was your age and a little older.”

     Little Brave knew this and waited to hear the story again. A story  his grandfather had told him many times before. For it was a fact that these beings make a deep hard impression on a human. It can seem to be just a dream in the remembering and telling of it.

     Little Brave knew this well. He still woke at night while safe in the family’s tepee thinking of the female Hairy Man that he saw.

     The old man shivered. Little Brave took his blanket from his own shoulders and draped it lovingly across the well-muscled shoulders and arms of his mother’s father.

     “Go on, old father, tell me more.”

     The elder smiled and touched a hand to Little Brave’s knee. He knew the boy could recite both sightings in full detail; the stories he knew so well. He loved this child that let him indulge the adventures of his youth.

     “The warm spring rain had finally stopped. I decided to run to the little creek not far from camp. I had it in my mind to spear a fish for the evening’s meal. It was late in the day. Running as fast as the trail would allow, I rounded the last bend in the trail and came to a jarring halt. There before me, its back to me, on its knees, a Hairy Man; he was drinking from the stream. His hand cupped, he dipped from the creek the cool water. He was a scraggly stinking thing and massive in size!”

     The old man, coughed, chewed his bottom lip and continued, “He, and it was a he.” He smiled, dipped his chin at his grandson to let the boy know that he recognized it as a he from observing its privates.

     “He must have heard me as I crunched the gravel when I stopped suddenly because he swung his head, as big as a large bear head, around and caught sight of me. Next he was on his feet, facing me, hands clenched. Well, you know the story. I turned and streaked like blue lightening back to my mother’s skirts!”

     They both chuckled. The blanket slid from the old man’s shoulders from the jostling laughter. Little Brave again arranged the blanket across his old father’s shoulders.

The End