Phantom of the Swamp

I can remember the day vividly, although, I was just a small child. I was riding with my grandfather in his old 1965 Ford pickup truck, as we went down to the river bridge on Highway 15 North. Shortly before, my grandfather had received a call about Will Jackson's boat being found empty on the river. Local authorities were at the river preparing to drag the river bend at Yates Crossing for Will's body.

The Pearl River was only a couple of miles from my grandparent's house. I had been on the river quite a few times with my grandfather, so I was familiar with the area. I was also familiar with the stories that my pappaw told about the dangers of the river and the surrounding swamp. While some of the stories sounded farfetched, my grandfather had a way of making them sound very believable to my young cousins and me.

I can remember my pappaw saying, "They won't find Will's body in the river." "Why pappaw?", I asked. "Because, Will didn't drown," he said. "The phantom got him," he went on to say. "Will Jackson has been fishing this river since we were kids. Ain't no way he would drown in this river," pappaw stated.

"You won't let the phantom get us will you pappaw?" I asked scared. My pappaw grinned at me and answered, "No boy, I won't and as long as you act right, you won't have to worry."

My grandfather was right about one thing, they never found Will's body. Of course, this wasn't uncommon. Many people had gone missing over the years according to my grandfather. No sign of a body, they were just gone. As I got older, others would simply vanish with no trace of them at all. There weren't just a few. There were many over the years.

I can remember the stories my pappaw told. I can also recognize the simplicity. What better way to keep grandkids in line than with tales of a dark menacing force within a hand's grasp? Tell a few kids to stay in line or else! It worked. It worked and there was little any of us could do to argue with pappaw. There was little any of us could do to ignore what we knew.

The Old Home Place

My grandparents were everything to my cousins and me. Every Sunday, it was where we met for after-church lunch. During the summer, we would normally spend the weekdays with our grandparents, while our parents were at work. If our parents were going out of town on a trip, then we would jump at the chance to stay with our grandparents.

Many a weekend was spent there doing what normal young kids did. My pappaw had plenty of land for us to wander along and play on. We would normally do the typical kid stuff, playing games like cowboys and Indians or king of the hill on the kudzu-covered ditch bank in front of pappaw and mammaw's house along the highway. We were kids and we had fun there.

One thing for sure is that we minded our grandparents and did what we were told. We pretty much had free rein, as long as we followed a few simple rules. You always treated your elders with respect.

Yes, ma'am and yes, sir and no, ma'am and no, sir. You didn't talk back and you didn't lie. You didn't throw the rocks in the driveway or use curse words. And, no matter what, you didn't go out of sight of the house.

At night, we slept on the screened-in back porch and listened to the various nighttime sounds, as we chattered back and forth. Naturally, our older cousins tried to scare us with the tales that my grandfather had told them before. We heard story after story about every terrible thing in the woods and hoped and prayed that nothing would come to get us in the night.

The Phantom

We had heard about the monster before and believed it to be nothing more than an old wive's tale. Something to make young kids act good is what we reckoned it to be. But it was more than just that. There were nights when we would be at my grandparent's house and we could hear screams and howls coming from the direction of the swamp. It could be best described as hooping and hollering.

One night, as we lay awake my older cousin, Butch, told us about him going with our pappaw to Miss Beulah's house the day before. We all knew that pappaw had received a call from her, and Butch being the oldest, went along with pappaw to her house. We had no idea what was going on at the time. But, Butch told us and what he said shook us to our young core.

It seems that someone or something had torn into Miss Beulah's barn and killed all of her goats. Butch said that when he and pappaw got there, the county sheriff and deputies were there. Barefoot tracks leading into and out of the barnyard made it appear to be just one person. According to Butch, they were very large footprints.

Butch said it appeared to be one person according to the tracks they left in the barnyard. Barefoot tracks. Butch also said he overheard the deputies talking about the phantom or wildman. It was no secret that there was someone or something that would prey on livestock in and around the Pearl River swamp.

Butch was scared and he was shaking when he told us. He said the deputies were talking about a hairy man. Butch said pappaw knew about it and that people had known about it for years. Pappaw had told Butch there was more than just one. When Butch asked how many there was my pappaw replied there was a tribe of them in the swamp and they lived in the caves along the river.

I knew where the caves were. I had been fishing with pappaw on the river and he told me to never get out of the boat when I was down there. There were many times, I had fished on the river within sight of the caves. Although I never saw anything to make me question my senses, there were moments when I felt as though I was being watched.

Over The Years

Time passed and over the years there would be somebody or someone's livestock that disappeared. It had become somewhat of a myth or little more than a legend. Of course, when I was a teenager, there were nights my cousins and I would camp out in the swamp. Along the river, there were many sandbars and that was where we would camp.

At night, as we gathered in the heated glow of the fire, we would hear stuff. It was weird to hear the swamp alive with sound and then everything gets quiet. No frogs croaking, no crickets chirping, no owls hooting. Then the hooping and hollering would start. Sometimes, it would be so close that we could actually feel the thunderous sounds. Needless to say, there were nights when our campout was cut short.

Over the years, my cousins and I would continue to hunt in the swamp and fish in the river. My grandfather had over 600 acres of land that bordered the river and swamp. Years later, the swamp and surrounding area would be merged into the Nanih Waiyia Wildlife Refuge.

The refuge was a huge success and provided hunters access to public land. There were deer, turkey, squirrel, rabbit among other wildlife. The woods were thick and hard to navigate. Most hunters, like myself, would put a boat in at the landing at Yates Crossing and then travel east or west along the Pearl River.

While I was in the military, I hunted the swamp and refuge immensely and took advantage of my time home on leave. Whether it was deer or turkey season, I would be in the swamp. During the summer, I would also be on the river running lines for catfish or bass fishing.

I had a spot along the river to the East from Highway 15, where I deer hunted and most of the time I would travel upriver by boat. My spot was at the headwaters of the Pearl River and was several miles from the landing, where I put my boat in at.

The last several hundred yards there was literally crystal clear water and you could wade the river where it was only about knee-deep. If the river was low you would have to pull your boat behind you, so you didn't bottom out. The drop-off point for me was still about a quarter-mile to my lock-on stand where I would hunt.

Over the years, I had grown very comfortable in the swamp. I would usually be in my stand before daylight and stay all day, coming out only after it was too dark to see or if I dropped a deer. I had become accustomed to being in my stand all day, therefore I would take a backpack with me with my lunch and drinks to get me through the day.

Then It Happened

I took pride in knowing I was prepared for whatever might come my way. However, I simply wasn't prepared for what would happen to me one weekend. It was a Saturday morning in December. The weather was clear, but very cold and just above freezing. I got my boat in the water and loaded my gear and was headed upriver around 4:30 am.

About two miles into my trip there was a spot in the river, where there was a tree that had fallen across the river. It was close to the caves. It was high enough that an aluminum boat could easily pass underneath. As I neared the spot, I was able to see the tree and what I believed to be a black bear on top of it.

As I slowed down, I noticed the bright red eye-shine, and then it simply disappeared. I searched both sides of the river with my light, but couldn't find any sign of whatever it was. I was leary about traveling under the tree with a bear around, but I went ahead, leaning down as the boat passed underneath.

That's when the smell hit me like a ton of bricks. It was the most God-awful smell. Something akin to rotten eggs and a rutting buck. It was nauseating and the smell hung in the cold, pre-dawn air like a thick blanket. I'll never forget the smell and how it literally made me gag and try to hold my breath.

I heard something splash and shined my light to see a piece of wood floating in the water. I looked desperately around to try and see whatever it was that was tearing through the underbrush beyond the bank of the river. The further upriver I went, the more narrow it became. It felt as though the swamp was closing in on me and whatever this thing was it was stalking me.

I could hear it crashing through the palmetto and brambles on my left side. Whatever it was, it was very heavy. I could almost feel it stepping down in the woods. The trolling motor was going as hard as I could push it, but I couldn't move fast enough to get to my drop-off point. My right hand stayed on my 10mm the rest of the way.

I've never been one who was afraid in the swamp. I knew I could recognize just about every sound one could hear in the woods. I could tell what was what and I admit that I was never as scared. I was very nervous as I got out of the boat and grabbed my rifle and my backpack, and headed down the trail to my stand.

I could hear something on my left-hand side as I made my way towards my stand. I would stop to listen and it would stop as well. I was green-lighting my way down the trail and my visibility was limited to just a few yards ahead. Once again, I stopped and it stopped. I thought I could hear it breathing heavy. Of course, there was the awful smell, too.

I finally made it to my stand and was relieved to be up in the tree. At least I had some feeling of security up off the ground. It was just before daylight when I heard the howl. A deep, low, guttural howl that was almost a groaning growl. It couldn't have been more than about fifty yards from my stand. I froze.

I had no idea what was making the howl, but I knew I wasn't there alone. As the sun came up, I could hear this thing walking around out in the trees. It was staying just out of sight of my stand though. I looked through my scope and scanned in the direction that the sounds were coming from. I didn't ever see anything as the sun came up and began to spill into the canopy of the Oak and Cypress trees.

The morning was uneventful. I never saw any deer, which struck me as odd. There was a natural salt lick nearby and the deer normally came in and out regularly. I still hadn't seen anything and had actually thought about getting out of the stand and heading back to the boat. My thoughts kept going back to the events on the way to hunt.

There was an uneasy air about me that morning. Every so often, I would hear a limb break or a heavy thud. There was also the sound of sticks hitting together or perhaps the sound of a tree trunk being struck with a limb or piece of wood. Now and then, I would hear a whistle. Almost like someone was intentionally making bird calls.

Later, I would wish I had gotten out of the swamp when I had the chance. But no, I was hunting a huge buck I had seen on camera and the season was winding down. It was now or never for me and I wrote off the noises to an overactive imagination. There wasn't anything down here in the swamp that could hurt me as long as I had the Weatherby 30.06.

I ate lunch and listened. I never saw any deer until about thirty minutes before dark. The light was beginning to fade, as I saw my first deer the day, a doe. She was flicking her tail and kept looking behind her. I was sure there was a buck who would be chasing. I was hoping it would be the big boy that I had been hunting all season.

All of a sudden, the doe raised her head and looked down into the woods. I put the scope on her and looked in the direction that she was looking and I saw it. It wasn't a buck at all. It was a large, hulking figure looming in the shadows. It was upright and walked on two legs towards the doe.

The doe couldn't see what was stalking her, but she could either hear it or smell it. She was on high alert as the menacing figure ducked behind trees getting close and closer to her. I wanted to yell out and watch her get away, but I was again frozen in fear by what I saw.

I was trying to wrap my brain around what I was seeing. This was something that simply wasn't supposed to exist. I watched it as I sat there. It wasn't an ape, but it wasn't a man. Yet, it was very intelligent. It was a hunter, an apex predator who was hungry and it was hunting. Luckily, the doe was able to run away. I wasn't so lucky still stuck up in a tree.

I honestly couldn't believe what I seeing and then it disappeared. I had spent the past half hour mesmerized by a beast that wasn't supposed to exist. Now, it was getting darker by the minute, and my last sighting of the creature was between me and my boat. The path into my hunting spot was the only way out, as far as I was concerned.

I made a snap decision that I would stay in the stand that night. Once again, the safety I felt high off the ground helped ease my fear just a bit. The temp was dropping fast and there was a full moon on a clear and cold night. In the light of the full moon, my eyes had begun to play tricks on me.

I could see shadows moving through the trees. Once again, I could hear the sounds of heavy footfalls and heavy breathing. And then there was the awful smell. It made me sick to my stomach. The minutes became hours as time dragged on through the night.

When the howling started around 2:00 am, I had become terrified. The closest howls were just a few yards away from the tree that I was in. Then the others began to answer. They were distant, but getting closer. Then everything went quiet. However, daylight was still several hours away.

The knocking began and I could tell they were circling me. Before long, I was totally surrounded. They were communicating through vocalizations. It was almost like a Native American language, but sounded more like gibberish. Almost as though they were arguing.

The best I could tell is there were at least three creatures. The vocalizations were as unique as a human voice. I could tell there was a larger more authoritative creature. The voice was loud and very commanding. For some reason, I didn't believe this was the same creature who had followed me the morning before.

It was almost daybreak when I realized I must have fallen asleep. Was the past 24 hours just a dream? Was it just a figment of my imagination? I knew I had seen something unexplainable and I knew it would stick with me for the rest of my life.

As I climbed down out of my stand, my head was on a swivel. As I walked to my boat, I couldn't help but feel that there were eyes upon me. As I traveled back to the landing, I couldn't shake the feeling of being watched and being studied. As I pulled the boat up to the landing, I stopped and listened to the howls. They had the last word.

It has haunted me to my core and totally changed my belief in the natural world. Perhaps my pappaw was right all along about the phantom. Maybe, there are things in this world that are too scary for us to even imagine. I know what I believe in now. The phantom is all too real and I don't go back into the swamp.