Brute Force

Some people say that you have to see it to believe it. At the moment when legend becomes reality in a first person sense, that is when some of the greatest memories are born. When the foundation of beliefs are created by facts and testimonies, blending together to create some of the greatest, passed down story telling one can encounter. Especially when you get to relive the story for yourself. What you're about to read is a rendition of a story that was told to me, then confirmed by my own testimony. It's been a story told and re-told by myself to my own children and friends around the campfire.

brute-force: Noun

Pronunciation: (US): /bɹut ˈfɔɹs

Definition: Savage, senseless violence; also, sheer strength. Although this expression is also used literally to mean exceptional physical power, the figurative sense reflects the origin for the word, "brute", which comes from Latin brutus, for “heavy, stupid, unreasoning."

   There used to be a time when one day out of the year, I would wake up in the morning and stretch out my arms, yawn for that big breath of air and be excited with anticipation for the ENTIRE day. Some of you might think, that sounds like Christmas day or graduation day... For me, it was the last day of school and that meant summer break was upon me.

   I cherished the days of summer in my late elementary years and my early middle school years. Being the oldest of my siblings and the most obeying one of my brothers, my parents would pawn me off on my grandmother for the entire summer, which was always a privilege. It was the only time I had the chance to bond with my uncle. It was a time I became enlightened and adventure became the course of nature for the next two months.

   My grandparents were loggers. They own hundreds of acres in the Blue Mountains in northeast Oregon. My first time ever being invited up to their property for the whole summer was in 1995. My uncle was in his prime back then. He was in his early twenties then, always hanging out with his buddies who he'd recruit for my grandparents to run the chainsaws. There were three cabins on their property and my uncle always stayed in the little cabin. I usually always had to sleep in the main cabin where my grandparents stayed, but this year my uncle had invited me stay with him in his cabin. This was the summer that set an entire belief into existence in my life. The transition of a fairytale into a belief.

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   Mid-summer in 1995, when work was in full swing, my uncle and his friends were beginning to pack up for the day. I had been taught that summer how to choke logs for my grandpa who ran a bulldozer at the top of the road. My uncle and the crew had fallen several trees down the ravine. I was finishing up, choking up the last of the logs while my grandpa drug them up the hill. Night was beginning to creep in and I could hear my uncle and his buddies starting their 4-wheelers to head back to their cabin. I was starting to worry that I was going to be left behind and forced to go back to my grandparents cabin. They ended up heading back before I could finish, leaving me with my grandpa, who was tired and ready for bed.

   My grandpa asked me when we were done if I was going back with him or if I was going to walk back to my uncle's cabin. I had no flashlight and wasn't really familiar with the trails. Being only 11 years old, but at the age where you want to be seen as a tough, brave young man, I told my grandpa I was going to head over to my uncle's cabin and that I'd be alright. He sensed I was nervous but didn't want to rain on my parade, so he pointed me in the direction to my uncle's cabin and told me to scream for help if I needed it.

   As he headed in the opposite direction on his bulldozer, I headed through the trees toward my uncle's cabin on a thin, dark trail with a blurred sunset peeking through the trees. I didn't want to get stuck out there, lost and scared, so I had decided to jog.

   About halfway to the cabin I realized I couldn't hear the bulldozer anymore. I started to think I went too far or took a wrong turn on a different trail. Maybe my grandpa had shut off the dozer, or he went over a hill? I needed to tell myself something logical or I'd have started to freak myself out. I knew there were bears in the woods, and cougars. Mountain lions and bobcats too. I had seen a bob cat the summer before this one and watched it climb down a tree and head right for me! I wasn't ready for that again.

   I had continued to walk at a fast pace, making noise with sticks to help myself keep it together. The last thing I wanted was to get back to my uncle's cabin and need to change my underwear because I had seen eyes peek at me from the bushes!

   Finally, I started to hear talking and laughing. I had begun to worry myself to death. I knew I had found the cabin. They had started a fire and were already pounding beers. I'd be pounding sodas and making Marshmallows if I could just get there.

   My uncle had seen me clumsily come walking out from the bushes, "What took you so long? We were starting to think you got snagged by Bigfoot!"

   "What? Bigfoot? He's not real," I said back at him as I laughed it off, reaching for the cooler to snag a soda.

   "Really? Sit down, let me tell you a story," he said as he threw on a dead, dry pine bow. I'd heard Bigfoot stories before, thinking it was just a legend. The embers from the fire flurried into the night sky. The moon peeked through the clouds, setting the stage for a perfect ambience upon the fire pit. His buddies all stood in their pinesap ridden jeans, encircled around the fire. The orange glow flickered on all their faces. They'd all heard the story before, but I was about to become educated.

   My uncle had taken a long gulp off of his beer and let the last, little foamy bit, drip down his scruffy chin. He crushed the can with his right hand and tossed it into fire. With his free hand he lit up a cigarette and gazed straight into the fire, as if to tell the whole story right to the flames themselves. Each of the other guys all stood a few feet away from the fire, beer in one hand, the other hand in their pockets. Each one gazed directly into the fire as well, mesmerized and entranced by the flames. I noticed the light, flickering from their eyes as I sat between them, marshmallow stick cocked in my hand. I inspected each guy, looking at them. I realized everyone was serious.

   I had put my marshmallow over the flames as it dangled clumsily. I was nervous about the vibe in the air. It felt like all eyes were on me, but all eyes were really on the fire.

   After a long drag from his cigarette, my uncle began by asking, "have I ever told you about how these shingles got messed up?" He pointed up behind him to the cabin. Illuminated by the orange glow from the fire, I glanced at the two gaps in the wood shingles on the roof which stood almost three feet above my uncle's hand.

   "I don't think so. Did a tree fall on the roof?" I asked as I shoved a crispy, burnt marshmallow into my mouth. I washed it down with a drink of my soda.

   "No..." My uncle smiled at me with a mysterious look in his eyes. He took a long drag of his cigarette. My eyebrows furrowed as I loaded several marshmallows in a row into my stick. This was gonna be interesting I thought.

   My uncle nonchalantly worked another beer out of the cooler as I maneuvered my marshmallows over a red hot coal. He started in with...

   "It was a night like this one, except It was raining though. I was up here helping your grandpa plant some trees up above his cabin. We had just finished planting a couple hundred trees that day and I wanted to get back over here to the cabin before it started to really storm. That whole day while I was helping your grandpa, I felt like I was being watched. Your grandpa felt the same way. This was back when Sailor was alive..."

   My uncle took another drag of his cigarette and a pull from his beer. Sailor was my uncle's pitbull who died the summer before. I started to think about earlier when I had been walking to the cabin, sunset disappearing in front of me. I felt like someone or something had been out there, watching me too.

   "...Sailor was sniffing around real hard that day. He could smell something was out there. Something different than he was used to smelling..."

   (Something other than sniffing butts) I had thought.

   "...That night the rain had started coming down pretty hard. Whatever was out there that day watching us had Sailor worked up. Once we got back to the cabin, he just wanted to hide under the bed.

   I cooked up some hot dogs over the fire in the wood stove since it was raining that night. Whatever was out there had the dog pretty spooked because he even turned down a hotdog..."

  I by then, at that point, had pretty much lost my appetite for burnt sugar and threw my stick in the fire with the remaining few marshmallows on it still. (Could Bigfoot really be out there?) I had thought to myself. (Was Bigfoot out there watching them?)

   I had taken a slam from my soda and walked up to the fire a little closer. My uncle looked at me and continued on.

   "...After I ate and feel asleep that night from listening to the rain, I woke up to Sailor whining under the bed. I sat up and the rain was at a full downpour. I asked the dog "what is it boy?" Just then I heard a loud thump on the wall. I jumped up out of bed and walked over to the window. I looked out the window and it was pitch black outside. Couldn't see nothin'..."

   "What was it?" I had asked him. He had reached over to the wood pile between two trees where the firewood was stacked. He grabbed a piece and tossed it on the fire.

   "...Something threw one of these logs at the cabin..."

   The guys around the fire had all looked at each other with widened eyes and smiled at each other. I swallowed hard, thinking about what he had just said.

   "...After a couple minutes, Sailor started barking at the door. I thought about going outside but grabbed the axe instead and sat down on the bed. Then I heard another thud on the wall. I didn't know what the heck was going on or what was being thrown at the wall. Sailor was barking and growling at the door..."

   By this time, I had thought to myself that it was a prank, but my grandpa wouldn't do that kind of thing...

  "...Then things got really freaky. Whatever that was started to shake the entire cabin and lifted it up off of the foundation blocks. I lost my balance and fell down to the floor. Finally I opened the door with the axe in my hand and Sailor jets out the door.

  I grabbed a flashlight from the table and took my axe out with me. Sailor chased it out into the woods and I yelled at him to get back. I had shined the light over to the wall and saw the firewood chunks that were tossed at the wall on the ground by the cabin. And there were several wood shingles from the roof on the ground..."

   I had looked up at the roof right then which was glowing in the flames, and thought to myself, (that's like ten feet off the ground!) The cabin has a loft with beds at each end. The eaves were pretty high up.

   "...You're grandpa agreed with me the next day, that a bear might have been able to shake the cabin and reach the roof, but why would a bear throw firewood at the cabin. It had to be Bigfoot. Whatever it was, outran Sailor. Whatever it was, had the ability to lift thousands of pounds. Talk about brute-force!"

   That night after the story, I had been so jumpy and paranoid. The guys had all teased me and kept throwing things at the wall and saying "uh oh, it's Bigfoot!"

   My belief in Bigfoot had turned from legend to reality. But it wasn't until a couple weeks later that same summer, after the logging had been over, that something happened to me that had set things in stone.

   I was outside of my grandparents cabin shooting garbanzo beans with a slingshot. I had an aluminum can harnessed to a stick in a bush about 25 feet away or so. I was had been shooting toward a hill in the distance that flattened out to an old logging road. The road was about 150 feet away.

   I had reached into the bag of beans for some ammo one last time. I brought the slingshot up to my eyesight, closed one eye and lined up my target ahead... That's when I had focused past the can and seen a tall, dark figure standing on the old logging road. I had dropped the slingshot down and opened both eyes. My heart had sunk and my arm hairs shot straight up like metal shavings stuck to a magnet. I had looked at the dark, hairy figure which has been looking right back at me. I had froze. It had been watching me shoot my slingshot.

   Just then, after about 5 seconds of eye contact, it had turned toward the hill and took three or four big, long strides straight up that steep hill with extreme ease. It had disappeared into the trees and my jaw had dropped. Was that Bigfoot?!

   The first thing I had done was run to find my uncle. I told him what I had seen and started to accuse him of wearing a suit. He had denied it of course... And I had believed him. That was Bigfoot and he and I had both known it.

   To this day I still get chills thinking about that moment I made eye contact with it. I tell this story to my kids because I believe it's important to keep an open mind about the things in nature that we don't understand. New species are discovered everyday. Eventually, the truth will emerge... And maybe you might find a legend mold right into a belief before your own eyes.

   Thank you for reading, be blessed.