Another Reluctant English Major Adventure!
In the midst of the magnificent Texas Hill Country lies a body of water called Inks Lake, one link in the Highland Lakes chain created long ago by the damming of the historically flood-prone Colorado River (no, not that Colorado River – but another one). It is a popular site for recreational boaters and fishermen, and many camping spaces are available for public use in the adjacent Inks Lake State Park. In addition to these camping spaces, the park boasts a lakeside store where one can purchase snacks, ice, and bait. There is also a well-maintained swimming beach and a playground for the little ones to enjoy. And about three years ago, there was one more thing the park offered - something that was not mentioned by signage nor brochure. It was… a monster. And this is the story of how my humble family and I encountered the beast and lived to tell the tale.
It is my family’s long-standing ritual during the month of July to seek relief from the intolerable heat and humidity of the Central Texas midsummer doldrums by attaching our pop-up tent trailer to our motorcar and joining the waves of sweaty and bedraggled heat-refugees streaming out of the city in search of leafy and shaded campgrounds that offer access to large bodies of cool water (along with clean restrooms and electrical hook-ups). And that particular summer would be no exception. There were five of us who were able to make the trip that time: in addition to myself, of course, were my wife, my son and his wife (my granddaughter “Baby” had not yet been born), and my daughter’s dog, a pretty little brown-haired dachshund. No one could remember why “Mia” was even on this camping trip, since my daughter was unable to join us, but nevertheless, she had tagged along, too.
Our drive through the Hill Country was rather uneventful, and soon we found ourselves pulling into the entrance to the state park. In no time at all we had secured for ourselves a quiet and secluded campsite for our pop-up tent next to a reedy fen alongside the lake, which provided us quick and convenient access to the water for our canoe. We felt lucky to be far from the normal hustle and bustle of the popular camping ground. Our closest neighbors were a young couple with a large, free-roaming black dog who were tenting in a rocky outcrop about sixty feet away, and one enormous Boy Scout troop comprised of approximately 17 overweight adult men in silly uniforms and eighty-three excited teen-age boys who were apparently enjoying, to the dismay of their stunned on-lookers, their National Jamboree (and who were encamped just across the road). But despite all the noise, our little family decided we were going to have fun anyway. And fun we had, that is, until the sun went down the following evening, when the Inks Lake Monster paid us a courtesy call.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It was Friday night, and there was plenty of work to do getting camp set up. We men set about the task of unfolding and cranking-up the tent trailer, while the women started a fire and began cooking the traditional first-night meal of roasted-weenies-on-a-stick and potato chips (nobody likes working hard on a meal on the first night). After enjoying this easy yet satisfying meal, we all sat around the fire telling jokes and stories and admiring the stars while my son casually strummed on his guitar the haunting notes of Stairway to Heaven. It was a beautiful first evening at the lake, but we were all weary from the day’s strenuous activities, so we decided to retire to the trailer early and get a good night’s rest.
At exactly 6:00 the next morning, I was gently awakened by the soothing sounds of Reveille, as generated by the Boy Scout troop’s overly-enthusiastic twelve-year-old bugler, who sounded as if he were standing no more that ten feet from my head. When he mercifully finished, I found myself unable get back to sleep because I am of the age when my bladder and bowels conspire together to make the most important decisions of the morning. They had decided it was time for me to get up, and I had no choice but to obey. And so I was compelled to climb over my sleeping wife, hastily pull on a t-shirt and a pair of cargo shorts, and then try to find my flip-flops in the dim light before making my way out of the trailer as quietly as possible, all the while struggling to prevent, for the sake of my family, a premature and catastrophic release of malodorous flatulence, generated by the six bun-sized kraut dogs I had eaten the previous evening, and that had built up within my intestines during the course of the night. It was approximately 100 yards from the door of my trailer to the nearest outhouse, and it is rather amazing how far that actually seems when one is already way past the crisis point, if you know what I mean. My desperation during the last 50 yards was such that I do not even remember that particular leg of the journey. I must have been a comical sight to the Boy Scouts who lined the path… a grossly disheveled figure with a horrified expression on his face, hastening along in a strangely contorted gait with glazed eyes fixed on the distant latrine. Woe to any unlucky soul who would be blocking my way once I got there! Luckily for all, the restroom was unoccupied.
My leisurely stroll back to camp in the morning sunshine was much more pleasant, but upon my return I noticed something odd. Our usually neat and orderly site was in an unusual state of chaotic disarray! It appeared that, as we were soundly sleeping during the night, someone (or something) had riffled through our food box, scattering snack wrappers and sunflower seeds all around, and our carefully whittled collection of weenie sticks had been licked clean! My initial reaction of bewildered indignation quickly metamorphosed into a sea-surge of excitement! Could we have a mystery on our hands? As the readers of this series know, I fancy myself a bit of a sleuth, and I am able to employ my vast store of trivial knowledge (built up by years and years of reading newspapers and solving crossword puzzles), used in concert with my talent of discerning small details that usually go unnoticed by the common man, in order to solve the many that come my way. I quickly ran to fetch my trusty magnifying glass from the glove compartment of my motorcar, and I returned to the scene of the crime ready to give it a good going-over.
In a matter of minutes, I discovered my first tantalizing clue, though its eerie nature caused my gun-metal-gray ear hairs to stand on end. It was a footprint! Or should I say “paw print”, for it was definitely not human. In fact, it was the print of some sort of clawed beast! And what was worse, a closer examination revealed it to be webbed! I then noticed more tracks of a similar nature, and they seemed to have come from, and to have returned to, the reedy fen where we had parked our canoe. It was as if some foul, slimy beast from the murky depths had crawled onto the shore and made its malevolent way to our camp during the dark of night. I found myself thanking my Creator that we had been protected behind the sturdy aluminum and canvas walls of the pop-up tent as we slept, or else we might all have suffered a violent attack!
Just then, I heard the faint stirrings of the others in my camping party, signaling their imminent awakening, and I made the decision that I would not ruin their weekend by sharing the news and thereby possibly causing a panic. I decided to keep this information to myself for now until I could formulate a plan to fight this monster, so I hurriedly put the camp back in order and swept away all traces of the beastly claw prints. I then restarted the fire and put a pot of coffee on to boil. Sure enough, the others emerged from the tent trailer in various states of morning fog, and I employed my acting skills to their maximum by putting on a happy face and feigning a cheery attitude, all the while wondering if this was the last day on Earth for one or all of us.
Our day progressed as planned, and we enjoyed many sunlit hours of fishing off the canoe, hiking nearby trails, and swimming at the beach. I did not fear a daylight attack by the beast because he had revealed himself to be a nocturnal creature, and so I had a sufficient amount of time to plot a plan of action in the event he paid us another visit that evening. In fact, I became determined to actually encourage a visit, since I had never actually seen a monster from the deep before, and though the very thought of it chilled me to the bone, I had the comfort of knowing that I was not unarmed, for I had my trusty Cutco knife sheathed and strapped to my side. Any beast who dared to threaten my well-being, or that of any member of my family, would soon regret it, for he would surely be given a sharp poke he would not soon forget!
And so I began laying a trap to draw the filthy beast back into our camp. I instructed the one who was to be our dinner cook that evening, in this case my son, that we would be enjoying fried polska kielbasa as our main course (for the evidence from our weenie sticks told me that the foul fiend from the murky depths had a taste for greasy sausage). I was sure that when the enticing scent of our pan-fried dinner reached his hideous nostrils, he would be irresistibly drawn straight into my trap. I would be waiting for him, with knife in hand, and no matter what might happen after that, my family would, at the very least, have a jolly good yarn to tell around our campfires for years to come.
Knowing the monster was nocturnal, I endeavored to delay, as best I could, the start of the preparation of our evening repast until the sun went down. I did this by providing entertainment to the other members of my family in the form of playing all of the principal roles in an impromptu performance of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in a semi-successful attempt to keep their minds off their famished stomachs. Alas, I could hold their attention but for a little while (just until Act IV, scene ii, where the craftsmen are sitting around worrying about Bottom, who hasn’t been seen since the appearance of the ass-headed monster in the forest), but it was enough, for the sun had finally set, and twilight had descended upon us. I called for the fire to be lit, and soon the sweet, smoky scent of the tender kielbasa filets began to waft out over the lake. A growing uneasiness came over me, making me think we should not be waiting long for our uninvited guest to arrive.
In an attempt to calm my nerves, I sat down in my folding chair, picked-up the guitar, and began gently serenading my wife with a tender version of South of the Border, while my son, as he was furiously frying-up the kielbasa, provided back-up harmony on the chorus. My daughter-in-law was quietly writing in her journal by the light of the campfire. Mia was leashed to the picnic table, and she seemed to be enjoying the music as she, too, patiently awaited her evening meal. And it was at this particular idyllic moment – sitting next to a crackling fire, smelling supper frying in the pan, serenading the love of my life – that the black-hearted beast decided to make his move and, unbeknownst to me (as my mind was focused on remembering the seventeenth verse of the song), slowly came creeping up out of the water and began silently slithering on his belly up to the left side of my chair.
Now I believe we should pause the story for a moment to provide a bit of background information that will help explain what happened next. Due to a childhood accident, I do not possess the ability to hear out of my right ear, but I am eternally grateful to my Creator that He saw fit to endow me with a spare one on the other side of my head. And I have been able to function somewhat satisfactorily since then with one exception – I am not able to hear in stereo. As a result, it is extremely difficult for me to distinguish from which direction a sound is coming. I tell you this because Mia was the first to detect the presence of the monster, and she proceeded to provide us a helpful warning by emitting the loudest and most blood-curdling growl ever to come out of the mouth of a miniature canine! At the very same moment, the peripheral vision in my left eye detected a slight movement on the ground in the darkness on my left side, and my audio impairment made it seem that the hideous and alarming growl was coming from that very spot!
In an instant, my adrenal glands went into overdrive and squirted an unexpectedly large and wholly inordinate amount of adrenaline into my lower backside, with the result being that I basically launched from my chair like a 4th of July rocket while letting out an uncontrolled American Indian war whoop, and I landed on my feet directly in front of the menacing water-beast! The last thing I remember before passing out was seeing a huge and horrifying, jet-black, panther-like creature in a predatory crouch (the kind of crouch it would be in just before it springs and rips apart its prey!) And then, as they say, the lights went out.
Moments later, I came to as my face was being licked clean by the tongues of not one, but two overly-affectionate dogs. Sitting up, I discovered that one of them, of course, was Mia. And the other was, much to my surprise, a large, slobbery black Labrador named Bart, the one that belonged to our neighbors in the adjoining campsite! He was the beast! I was stunned by the revelation! It took a couple of minutes for the cobwebs to clear from my head, and after I was helped back to my folding chair, the other members of my family filled me in on what had actually happened. It seems that my plan to entice the monster with the scent of fried polska kielbasa was fabulously successful, and it had the effect of drawing our canine friend from his evening swim straight into our camp. Being the friendly and unassuming chap that he was, Bart was in his “groveling” position that he found useful whenever he begged for a meal. And I found out it was Mia who had let out the shocking growl that had startled me so.
With that, the case of the Inks Lake Monster was solved! I was obviously profoundly relieved that everything had turned out satisfactorily, and everyone was safe. But even though Black Bart wasn’t actually a real monster, in the normal sense of the word, the effect he had on me was the same. And that might have had something to do with our decision to vacation in the mountains of Colorado the following year.
