We, the wife and I, live at the base of Longs Peak on the boundary of Roosevelt National Forest and Rocky Mountain National Park. There's a little cluster of houses up here at the end of the dirt road and the Mailbox tree is about 3 miles down a ways on the road towards Pinewood Springs. At the end of our road not too far up is the Forest Service Fire Tower. A Ranger Station and our closest Law Officer. There's a few deserted mining towns and two ghost town ruins all within about 10 mile radius of our place. Hikers and Day Trippers are all over the place in the summer. I've had to kindly but firmly remove a few rock climbers of our cliff shelf every season for the last 50 years and my grandfather's great chore before then. I've had a stray .30-.30 come through the kitchen window once and imbed itself into the wall.
There's elk, Mule deer, and Cougar all around us. Racoon rule the known world and I've got a barn owl with a six foot wing span and a very territorial attitude. And there's usually two or three mules stabled in the barn.
But our greatest inhabitant issue is a couple of, what you might call Bush Vets, who show up on the back twenty from time to time. These are older gentlemen, kinda stuck in the past, still in Viet Nam in their minds, still soldiers, who come up and camp along the southern shelf break line along the mountain. I guess the woods makes them feel more at ease. They've got a two acre parcel of DLM space that they procured permission to hunt on. It's about 4 miles or so up the mountainside another 500 feet up in elevation, from our place. According to Fed law, they can't build a structure on it but somehow they got an old school bus up there and a single axle camper. Theyre always around there during the spring thaw all through til autumn. There's no power or water but the road is clear and with a little effort you can lug the jug and there have been some enterprising folks who will climb a light pole and "tap in". A street light on a dirt road. Ahh, Colorado. Gotta love it.
So this brings us to our story. Our nearest neighbors are two nurses on the west of us and the next house is about a half mile away, then the trees. It's about 10 at night and theres a gun shot outside coming from behind the house. Our yard carries on for about 600 yards then the trees close in. Go back another 400 yards and it's the Natl Forest boundary.
There's been occasion when hunters have come up fairly close but never at night. Shot one, then snother, then after a few minutes three, one right after the next, all coming from the back yard. My son was visiting so, he , I, and my wife all got up to see and as we headed through the house to check there came a huge thud on the back door then another followed by obvious moaning and wailing.
The house is from the days before the Natl Forest, about 130 years old, and we have Predators al Domain Laws here that our land can be protected from intruders both two legged and four legged. I keep an H&R .45-70 in the back clapboard. And I opened the door rifle in hand to
find one of those old army fellows laying across the back porch deck sprawled out with an AR15 in his hands. He was babbling incoherently staring up into space. But the awful part was the blood. Blood was all over our porch speckled red over the stairs coming up to the porch and his back was torn all too pieces. It looked like several African lions had ripped into him. His shirt and jacket, both BDU camo had been ripped to shreds and his skin and muscle tissue as well. He was clwed worse than anything I have ever seen before. Maria called 911 immediately and an ambulance and Ranger came up from Estes Park. In the meanwhile we got him wrapped up and in the house. Set him onto the kitchen floor and elevated his feet. Maria and Buddy got the trauma kit out and started bandaging his shredded back and I went out into the back floodlights illuminating the yard. I followed the bloodtrail, his bloodtrail, all the way to the boundary. Something, by the looks of the torn branches and bramble, had chased him through the woods all the way up to our backdoor.
When the Ranger and the ambulance arrived, they got him stabalized and transported him down into Pinewood where he was airlifted to Longmont St Luke's Presbyterian hospital. The whole time all he kept mumbling out was "Wrong Wrong."
The Ranger, my Son and I walked all of our property line trying to make heads or tails out of the swath of broken limbs he had run through. Too big for Puma or Black Bear and there' hasn't been a Grizzly up here in a mellinium. Even still this swath was too big for one anyways.
All decided we'd look more in the daylight. The Ranger took a statement from everyone and left. We battened down the barn, and the house, stoked up the hearth and settled in to an uneasy restless night.
The next morning, I and my Son went out into the back and all the broken branches, the blood splatters, the ripped down limbs, were all completely gone. Like it never even happened. My back porch was clear. No mess. No nothing. We just looked at each other. Now I knew something strange something unexplained was going on.
County Game Fish and Wildlife agent showed up with the Ranger about 10 am and we all went back into the rear boundaries looking searching. But no trace of anything was there. The Ranger gave us a perplexed expression and shook his head. The torn up bush vet fellow got patched up at the hospital but was too unstable to give any statement. Lost alot of blood and was in for some serious skin reconstruction .
All the Ranger said was he must of made something mad and it tried to take him. The county man wrote down Bear Attack.
But me, I'm not so sure.
I've seen dancing lights on the hillside. I've heard screams and wails from the trees. But nothing has ever chased anyone out of the woods or damm near ripped them to shreds before. I never saw the bush vet again or his partner. After a year or so the Forest Service went into the deep and hauled out the School bus and the Camper. All kinda settled back to normal. But once in awhile we'll be in the back yard or coming to or from the barn and you just sorta feel someone or someone is watching, ....waiting.... licking it lips.