The Legend of Littlefoot

 Littlefoot fell into my life about a year ago, now.

On my way home from work, I had just turned off of the county road and onto the little one and a half lane road to home, when something either fell or jumped out of one of the trees that canopy over the lane, making it a creepy as fuck tunnel at night.

This did not help matters.

Whatever it was, it was about the size of a large raccoon, but pitch black. Its round yellow eyes flashed like lightning in the reflection of my headlights, and it quickly turned, and (I thought, from the fall and all) limped speedily off the road and into the forest.

Now I know better.

It was fine. It was hopping.

I know that, because the next time I saw it, it was over at the barn. I was feeding dinner about an hour earlier than normal, and it had been eating the leftovers from the dogs' breakfast. Both dogs took off after it, and I could see it heading for the cover of the forest with much alacrity. It has no tail. It has powerful hindquarters.

And it hops like a ginormous bunny.

But it's not a bunny.

Because the next time I saw it, I saw its face.

It was in the fenced in dog yard, eating Fred the cat's food. Fred was extremely annoyed by this and was yowling his displeasure. I turned on the porch light to see what was upsetting Fred and there it was, staring up at me. My brain's first instinct was, "Wow. That's a big ass cat. Ugly, too." It had a pushed-in face like a Persian, and those big, round, yellow eyes staring at me in alarm. The fur is shaggy and black, and the ears are placed like a cat's, but round and small. 

Without blinking, it pivoted, hopped to the fence 20 feet away in three hops, and straight over. It's a four-and-a-half-foot fence. 

I've lived in or spent large amounts of time in forests in both Wisconsin while growing up, or down here in Texas and I have not one fucking clue what that animal is. 

Off and on all summer, something has been pushing in the accordion sides of the window air conditioner on the deck. It wasn't the wind, and it wasn't birds, and it wasn't the dogs, who were semi-suspects until The Pawprint.

Indented into the air conditioner's rigid side insulation are three paw toes, but no pad, like it was purposely and gently reaching to touch it and see if it would give. The toes are elongated, with no claw marks, so it either doesn't have claws, or they are retractable. 

That's when I started calling it Littlefoot; a nod to East Texas legends regarding Bigfoot, who have been sighted in these forests and swamps for generations.

I see Littlefoot every few weeks or so, and it doesn't bother me because it doesn't alarm the llamas. Sure, the dogs bark at it, but they can spend hours at the neighbor's pond barking at turtles, so... 

Last week, when Alec and I went into the big old barn that's been unused since we moved here 14 years ago, Alec had just climbed up into the stately old structure, and he was giving me a hand up into it. This was never a livestock barn, but a hay barn, so it's up on pier and beam with slatted walls. I heard something hit the far wall and looked up to see a tailless black butt shimmying out the top slat of the wall. It's a 12ft side wall and it hadn't climbed- what I heard was the only contact with that wall. By the time Alec turned around, it was long gone. 

About 6ft from the wall is a nest of old hay; a perfect circle about the size of Hercules' nests in the new barn, so much bigger than a cat or possum or raccoon nest. It's Littlefoot sized.

A few nights ago, it was hella windy, and about 12:30a there were a series of explosions and bright flashes down in the forest between the barn and the road, and then the electricity went out. I first called 911 because I was worried about a fire threat with the high winds, then the automated power outage line at the electric co-op that provides our power. 

Unbelievably, an hour later there were two trucks with flashing lights and two guys with chain saws moving the tree that had been broken by the wind and the lights were back on by 2a. 

I had gone out about 1:45a to see what had happened, and caught the linemen right before they left. As their trucks started rolling back down the driveway towards the road, something suddenly appeared out of the underbrush, in hot pursuit of the trucks.

Hercules has a terrible habit of chasing cars and trucks, so I said aloud, "Goddammit, Hercules" and felt a nudge on my leg. I looked down to see Hercules sitting right next to me.

Looking up again, I realized that what was chasing the trucks wasn't just dark-seeming because it was nighttime, it was actually black. And a little shaggy. 

And hopping.

A Small Preview...

 ...of the book I'm currently working on. 

It's just a small preview, because I've just now started on it, but putting it out here in the universe will ensure that I keep at it. 

Anyway, please enjoy.

No Promises: 

Being Smack Dab in the Middle of History and Living to Tell About It.

“Well, shit” Edna said aloud to no one in particular.

Her eyes were still closed, but she could hear the morning birds announcing a new day. Last night, like every night as long as she could remember, Edna had gone to bed and said her prayers before going to sleep. The last months, she’d hinted broadly to God that she’d lived a good long life, and she was ready to go if he was ready to have her. Then, she’d closed her eyes and drifted off…hopeful.

And every morning, upon hearing the happy little chirping and with the hard knowledge that God didn’t want her yet, she’d say, “Well, shit.”

Slowly, she sat up and pushed her feet into her slippers, then stood up, got her bathrobe on, took off the silk bonnet that kept her hair nice, put in her teeth, and started the coffee in the kitchen.

Her little dog danced frantically around her feet, and Edna opened the door and watched the fluffy tiny dog fly out into the morning sunshine, barking as though she was the Queen of the Universe bossing every other living thing into order.

Edna sat at her little table for two in her little house for one, looked out onto her vegetable garden and her rose bushes, and sipped her coffee, smiling.

She knew she was confused a lot of the time, now, and seemed to be living her whole life over again, and while it confounded those around her, it made perfect sense to her and didn’t bother her one bit. She liked living in the past; even the hard bits, because now she knew how they ended, when they ended, and that she lived through them and went on with her business. Even if people she loved hadn’t.

She concentrated now, probing her brain back as far as it would go, and there she was: Mama.

Chapter One: Mama

Mama was the most beautiful woman in the world. Everything about her was small and delicate, except for her eyes, which were violet blue with a hint of desperate fortitude.

Pa had known the minute he saw her that he was in love with her, but it took some convincing before Mama was won over. She thought he was crazy, just plumb crazy.

In rural Oklahoma in 1915, no one had much of anything to speak of, and courting was a simple affair. One evening, while walking Mama home, Pa had stopped and taken her hand, then pointed up into the sky. “See that? That big ol’ moon? That’s mine. I own it, and I’m giving it to you. I ain’t got nothin’ much else to give you and for sure nothin’ that’s permanent, but that moon is regular as can be and I’m giving it to you. Every time I see your pretty face, it’s like the sun rises in my heart, so the least I can do for the gal who makes the sun rise for me is to give her the moon.”

And just like that, he had her heart.

Mama told all her kids that story hundreds of times; sometimes after a very good day, and especially after a very bad one. “Lots of things happen, babies, and lots of things end. But the sun always comes up and the moon always lights the darkest night.”

They were married in the whitewashed church they’d both been baptized in, and Pa proudly carried Mama over the threshold of the weather-beaten three-room house shaded by three giant oak trees. The main center room had a rough wooden table and chairs, a dry sink and counter, and an ancient wood cook stove. Off to one side was the room that would be Mama and Pa’s, and the other side would be the children’s bedroom, housing up to seven at one point.

Outside was a water pump, a chicken shed, a three-sided lean-to shanty barn, and an outhouse, all clustered nervously around the main house against miles and miles of Oklahoma prairie.

Pa had leased the farm, like so many other small farmers, and, with the bravado of love and youth, had visions of supporting a family off of this piece of windy forlorn desolation.

Within a year, Mama gave birth to a son.

The following year, a daughter.

The next year, Edna.

The year after that, a tiny stillborn daughter.

Then another son.

Then a son who lived for a few days before his little light went out forever.

And then, another daughter.

Mama was 35 years old.

In between each baby and during every pregnancy, Mama cared for the other babies, tended the chickens, washed all the clothes, kept the house as clean as she could muster, and cooked for everyone.

Edna remembered her Mama at that big old stove, pale and looking completely wilted with her hair coming undone and sweat dripping from the tip of her perfect nose, cooking mid-day dinner for Pa and the men who’d been working in the fields. By the time the men came into the house, loud and stomping and hungry, Mama had her hair brushed and put up and greeted Pa with a smile that did, indeed, fill the house with sunshine.

 

"American Evolution: Adolescence of a Nation"

 Like "Almost Invisible", this one is also a quick little read, and it takes place on Thanksgiving Day over the course of 75 years. 

Order at Sheri's Site (mystrikingly.com) before November 15th, and you can have it in your hands by this Thanksgiving. Also, please consider joining my Patreon. 

Society changes in tiny ways and in huge leaps every day, and all of that is more normal than not. Think of the huge changes we've seen in the last hundred years. The last fifty. The last ten. Anything is possible. Most things are probable.

The reality is that under stress, people are just as likely to behave well as to behave badly. Yet most "end of the world" stories assume the worst as the fictitious guns-blazing vigilante rides in to save the day either alone or with big-hearted big-muscled back up, all wielding an arsenal to literally die for as their pretend society plunges (oddly immediately) into total chaos.

What about the small ones? The quiet and unassuming souls who have no power to begin with? Where are their life experiences recorded? Are they less important? Less memorable?

When my grandmother was 8, her house didn't have electricity, a telephone, or running water. 

When my mother was 8, she rode the milk route with the milkman because she loved the horse that pulled his wagon.

I remember getting our first color TV when I was about 8, and when my daughter was 8, no one had home computers or video games or cell phones.

Follow four young girls- four generations of a family, through the next few possible phases of American life.

On Thanksgiving Day. 

Backwards.

The heroes make the story books. 

The rest of us make history.