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.