A stranger in the bushes

They say it all happened in the spring of 1864, Adair County, Iowa, somewhere near the river, the Middle River. the eastern part mostly, where mulberry bushes and other such got to be profuse back then, thick as a bramble mask. One hundred and more of the county’s finest men were somewhere below the Mason-Dixon, fighting beneath a Union flag. Up north there was an Indian war. The time and place was primed for dark and abundant fear, the kind that send people home to hole up.

That kind of fear grew out of depredations reported by pioneer farmers or their wives, who wandered out back in the face of dawn to tend the animals only to discover the animals required tending no more—bloody and slain by a monster who’d obviously ran them down before pouncing and ripping them apart hideously.

Farmers in Jefferson and Harrison townships warned others about the fearful slaughter, but this monster did his dastardly work at night, thus avoiding the pioneer farmers.  

The beast itself was first seen along the Middle River in Harrison Township, a harrowing sighting, people reported, because none of the witnesses had any idea what the animal could be exactly—big as a donkey, people said, red kind of, and behind him in a bloody wake far too many slaughtered cows and pigs.

For reasons known only to the beast, he rather quickly picked up his things and moved, now to Jefferson Township, where the depredations included colts, calves, sheep, and more hogs. The people of Adair County were daily more distressed.

Then, the first dramatic sighting: Womenfolk were out gathering gooseberries when they quite silently came upon the beast, sunning himself on the dead branch of a tree maybe twenty feet off the ground. At that moment, he offered one of the women the first glimpse during his stay in Adair County. She and the others retreated quickly, but the woman who laid eyes on the beast said only that the river monster was bigger than any dog she had ever seen

The men organized a hunting party to flush him out of his lair in the bushes, and they did—but he avoided their attempt to end his depredations. Eventually, he simply disappeared once more, but only after helping himself to forty pigs, some of which were 100 pounds.

Now listen to the end of the story in the history of Adair County. It’s too good not to quote:

After this he was seen no more, nor, we believe, heard from,

but the fear that he might be still lurking in the timber was for a long time the cause of alarm and annoyance and deprived the good people of Middle River country of many-a gooseberry pie. The animal was probably what is known as the American panther.

 They were likely right, but this “American panther” goes by as many as eighty names, the most familiar of which is, likely, puma or pooma or pyuma—all of which are acceptable pronunciation. Apparently, the American panther is not proud about what he’s called because he goes by jaguar and mountain lion and, literally, at least eighty other names. That’s right—8-0.

 Just once in a while—maybe once every dozen years or so, a mountain lion, a puma, a jaguar, finds their way into our world, wandering far, far away from home to scare the pants off of you or me or cousin Al, if Cousin Al doesn’t shoot him first.

 For the record, as far as I know, not a one has shown up in Harrison Township, Adair County, Iowa, either—not a one. But, then it’s likely nobody bakes gooseberry pies any more either. It’s a shame really.

 But every once in a while they do show up, usually young males looking for love; so, the next time you’re enjoying walking along a thick hedge, vigilance is nothing to sneeze at.