By LATHERN HULL TnHunting.Com Wild Boar Field Staff June 29, 2006

I was deep in the northern Tennessee mountains, letting my dogs blow off some steam in the off-season. I was further from the truck than I thought I was when it started getting dark. I had heard my dogs, over an hour earlier, running the "ghost" boar. I heard a shreaking of one of the dogs, then the other, then silence.

Worried about my last two remaining boar hounds, I rushed to the place where I had heard them screaming in their last dying breath. My blue tick-walker cross, "Foghorn," was lying dead from a deep gaping tusk wound to his neck. Bandit, my half red bone, half black and tan, was still alive but fading fast.

I threw bandit over my shoulders and started for the truck, trying everything I could to save my ol' best friend, but he was just too heavy. I had to lay him down beneath a rock shelter where he might be safe until I could return with help.

Off I went. I hated to leave him, but it was the only chance he had. Dark was quickly approaching and it would be a miracle if I made it the three miles out with only little light left. Leaving my flashlight in the truck, I had only planned to be out for a few minutes, but time had gotten away from me.

At only about a mile away from Bandit, I heard the most awful sound: The sound of my good friend and companion being attacked by the evil thing that once had been prey to my dogs and was now the predator.

Dark found me about one and a half miles from the truck. I was having to feel my way through the dark woods like a blind man. With each careful step, I had to feel for the ground and hope I had not wandered too close to the edge of one of the many cliff faces that laced the valley my dogs had met their fate in.

Somewhere behind me, I could heard the rustling of dead leaves and the breaking of sticks. I knew what was coming. The old stories I had laughed at when I was a child were coming true. Grandpa always told of the "ghost" boar that could not be bayed by dogs and could not be killed. They always said it had tasted human flesh. It was the devil, not a boar, that so many dogs over the years had been a victim of.

Now I could smell the rank, musky odor of this mountain devil. I was trying to find some kind of tree to get into, but the dark had found me useless. Standing very still, trying not to make any movement, I could now hear his breathing. My only protection was my trusty hunting knife, but I knew it would be no match for his razor-sharp tusks. I had already saw what they could do to flesh and bone. I knew what was coming. He was now hunting me; after all these years, I had become the hunted, and judging by the track I had seen where my dogs had met their end, no boar could be that big.

I knew it was time to fight: Me against the evil that claimed the valley. If it were to win, my death would be a good death, and so it would be with him. My knife whipped out of its sheath as I whirled to face the dark beast that awaited me . . . . . . .

To be continued?

Email the author | Discuss it on our forums