I heard this loud scream and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I was on a small platform fifteen feet in the air built in the branches of a giant oak tree on the bank of the Brazos River. The time was 9:00 pm, and the full moon had just come up. I had a small goat tied to a tree fifty yards from where I sat waiting for the mountain lion to come. The goat had been bleating off and on for a hour. After the lion screamed, he was very still. I picked up my Sako 30-06 rifle and started looking around the lion. I thought I heard something behind me and turned around to look. The moon was so bright you could see everything. I watched for a minute and didn't see anything so I turned back to watch the goat. He was gone!

Loyd and Janice, my very close friends, had bought 175 acres of land on the Brazos river close to Glen Rose, Texas. The land was undeveloped and had a lot of thick cedar breaks along the river. Some of the land had live oaks and other trees, and they were going to build their home on a bluff overlooking the river. When they started construction on their house they bought and turned loose fifty Spanish goats on their land to help control the brush. As the house neared completion they noticed their goat herd was smaller each day. Loyd walked up a dry sandy creek bed that ran from the river back into the cedar breaks one day and found the tracks of a mountain lion. Then they realized why their goat herd was getting smaller.

They hired a government trapper to come trap the mountain lion, and he came and set some steel leg traps where Loyd had found the tracks. On the second day, he found one of his traps had done its job. It was tripped, and in it was mountain lion foot. No, just his foot. The lion had chewed his leg off just above the trap's jaws and had escaped. The trapper told Loyd and Janice that it would probably bleed to death, and their lion troubles were over. For two weeks they watched and waited. There no more losses and no more tracks, so they bought fifty more goats.

Eventually their house was finished and they moved in. Then on day, late in the evening, as Loyd and Janice were walking along the river, they heard the loud scream of a mountain lion. It was not far ahead of them, so they turned back and beat a hasty retreat to their house. They talked about the lion that night, wondering it were possible that it could be the same lion. After talking it over that night, they called the trapper and told him they had another lion on their property.

He could not come that week, but said he would be there the following Monday. They noticed that their goat herd was dwindling again, and hoped that it wouldn't take the trapper long to catch this lion. Sure enough, the trapper showed up on Monday. He went down to the creek bed and set his traps. After five days, none of the traps had been visited by the lion. None of the bait had been bothered, but goats continued to disappear. He finally killed one of the goats and used it for bait in his traps, but the lion still didn't come near.

On the sixth day, about six in the evening, he was going down to check his traps and thought he heard something behind him in the brush. At first, he thought was just some of the goats. Then he realized it was following him. He could hear its footsteps on the hard caliche - slap, slap, plop, slap, slap, plop.

This shook him up. He could not see anything through the dense cedar, but the sounds continued. He decided to get back to the house and his pickup. When he got there, Janice was sitting out the patio overlooking the river. She asked him if any of this traps had been tripped.

"No," he said, but would check them again in the morning. With that, he got into his pickup and left.

Just as he was driving off, Janice heard the scream of a mountain lion down on the river just below the house. She went inside and locked the door behind her.

When the trapper reappeared at about ten the next morning, he carried a rifle with him. Janice thought this strange because he had always carried just a pistol on his belt. She saw him go down the bluff to the trail along the edge of the river, and watched as long as she could see him. About an hour later, she heard a shot and thought, "That takes care of the lion. Now our goats will be safe." Then she went about her daily routine of cleaning, making telephone calls, and planning meals.

When Loyd got home from work, he mentioned that the trapper was still there. Janice was surprised to see the trapper's pickup outside and told Loyd that the trapper had arrived at ten that morning. A while later, she had heard a shot and supposed that he had shot lion. She told Loyd that she had been busy since and hadn't thought about it.

Loyd thought they better go down and check on the trapper, so he and Janice walked down the bluff and started following the river to where the traps were set. At the dry creek bed, they saw the trapper's footprints in the sand. Then they found the tracks of a mountain lion - a three-legged mountain lion. Loyd looked at Janice.

"But the game warden said the lion would bleed to death," Janice said.

They were both spooked, but they continued. After a few yards, they saw the trapper's rifle laying on the ground. Loyd opened the bolt, and an empty shell fell out on the ground. "That was the shot you heard," Loyd said.

"But where's the trapper?" Janice asked.

"I don't know, but I don't like this. We're going back." He grabbed Janice's arm and started back to the river. From there, they all but ran back to the house.

Loyd called the Sheriff and told him what they'd found, and the Sheriff said he'd call the game warden and they would be right out.

They got there just at dark, and Loyd took them down to where he and Janice had found the rifle. He showed them the tracks of the three-footed lion and the trapper's tracks. Just beyond where the rifle had been, the sand was all torn up and tracks were impossible to read. The Sheriff said there was no way they could find anything in the thick cedar brush in the dark and they would come back in the morning with a search party to comb the area. As they started back, they were stopped in their tracks by the scream of a mountain lion. It sounded like it was very close. The Sheriff and the the game warden drew their pistols, and they hurried along the trail to the house.

When they got there, Janice saw that all three of them were as pale as ghost. She asked if they would like coffee and told them that she had heard the lion's scream. "Did you see it?" she asked.

The Sheriff told her that they hadn't found the trapper or seen the lion, but that it had very close behind them when it screamed. Janice noticed that the Sheriff's hands were shaking as he drank his coffee. As they left, he told Loyd and Janice that they would be back at first light with a large search party.

Cars and pickups started arriving at daylight. All together, there were about thirty guys, and some of them had their hunitng dogs with them. All of them carried rifles. The Sheriff led the way and told one of the men to put his dogs the trail. They got the scent of the lion right away, and the owner turned his dogs loose. They struck out through the cedar trees.

The Sheriff sent five men to go along the river in case the lion tried to cross over and sent ten men back up the bluff so they could watch the road to the house. The rest of the men and dogs scattered out and started following the hounds.

After traveling some distance thought the cedars, the dogs came out on a high bluff above the river. There they stopped and milled around in confusion. They had lost the scent and the ground was hard caliche, so there were no tracks. The Sheriff wondered if the lion had jumped off the cliff into the water. He couldn't see any other way for him to have gone.

He sent the men back to the house and called off the hunt for the lion. They still had not found the trapper, but the dogs had not found anything that would tell him where the trapper might be. They had pretty well covered all the cedar breaks and along the river. He didn't know where else to look, so he sent the men back to town. He asked the game warden if he had any ideas, and the game warden said he would call and get their small plane to fly over the area to see if anything could be spotted from the air.

Later that afternoon, the pilot told the Sheriff and the game warden that he did not see anything that might give them a clue as to where the trapper might be.

"The only way that lion could have got off that cliff was to jump into the river," the Sheriff said, "But that's against everything I have ever heard about lions."

The sat there, lost in their thoughts, until the Sheriff finally said they might as well go home. There was nothing else they could do that day.

As the days went by, Loyd and Janice started missing goats again. Janice knew that I did some varmint hunting by calling them with a call. She didn't know if I would interested in trying to call a mountain lion, but she telephoned me and told me what was going on. "Loren," she said, "would you come down and see if you can help us?"

I said "Sure, I'll come give it try." I had never called a mountain lion, but it couldn't be much different than calling bobcats or other varmints.

They next day I drove the ninety miles down to Glen Rose. Loyd was at work, and Janice took me to where the dry creek bed came out of the cedars. It had rained in the night and had washed out any tracks. We walked up the creek bed a little ways looking for a good place for me to sit while I called. Finally we decided that if I climbed up a large oak tree on the bank, I could see down into the creek bed.

I didn't want to be on the ground with a mountain lion in such tight quarters. Not that that was scared, you understand -- I just don't like not being able to see very far when I'm calling varmints.

After lunch, I laid down and took a nap. I didn't know how long I might be in that tree that night. After Loyd got home, we ate a sandwich, and I went down to the oak tree and climbed up to a big limb about fifteen feet above the ground. I had my 30-06, my call, and a three-cell flashlight. I sat there for thirty minutes letting everything get quiet, and just at sunset, I started calling.

I was blowing an injured rabbit call. It is a squealing sound. I blew a series of squeals and listened for a while. Then I blew another series and watched for any movement. I didn't see or hear anything, but just as it was getting dark, I heard a loud scream that sounded like it came from right under me. It scared me so bad that I almost fell out the tree. I grabbed my rifle and started looking all around the trunk of the tree, but I couldn't see anything.

I sat there for a few minutes and didn't see or hear anything else. That scream had so unnerved me that I decided I would give up calling for that night. I climbed down out of the tree and started back to the house with very nervous steps.

When I got to the path along the river, I could hear footsteps in the sand following me. Slap, slap, plop, slap, slap, plop. I kept shining the light back along the path, but I couldn't see anything. By this time, I was backing up along the path keeping my rifle pointed back toward the sound the foot steps.

Slap, slap, plop. The hair on the back of my neck was standing up and hands were shaking so bad I couldn't hold the light still. All of a sudden, I tripped over something and the light fell from my hand. It went out as it hit the ground and left me in the dark.

Slap, slap, plop, slap, slap, plop. I pointed my rifle at the sound and pulled the trigger. The noise of the 30-06 was deafening. As the echo of the shot faded away, I lay there on the ground listening. Everything was quiet. I felt around on the ground and found my flashlight, but it would not come on. I got up and made it back to the house without further incident.

Loyd asked me if I had shot the lion. "No," I said, "I missed." That's all I wanted to say about my experience. I sat down at the kitchen table, and Janice put a cup of coffee in front me. I didn't dare pick it up as bad as my hands were shaking. We talked about what to do next.

I said that if I built a small platform in the big oak tree, I could sit on it to call and, if I had to, I could spent the night on it.

Loyd said, "You look a little pale around the gills. Are you all right?"

I finally had to tell them about my run-in with the lion. When I told them about hearing the lion's footsteps and how they sounded (slap, slap, plop), they said that they had heard them, too, and they'd decided it it sounded like that because he only had three feet. The more I thought about this, the more I was inclined to agree with them.

The next morning was Saturday, and Loyd didn't have to work. He and I took some boards and built a platform in the oak tree. Just before sundown, I took my rifle, calls, flash light, and a jug of water, and went to the platform. I settled in for a long stay. The moon was almost full, and I thought if I waited until it got dark and the moon came up, the lion might come to the call better.

I sat there listening to all the evening sounds. The birds were singing their last songs before going to bed. Somewhere across the river, I could hear a dog barking. I saw two ducks come winging in over the river and settle on the water. Then a squirrel barked at me. I figured I was probably in his tree, and he was unhappy about that, but he'd just have to find somewhere else to spend the night. Off in the distance up toward the house, I could hear a goat once in a while. I thought that it was peaceful out there and that Loyd and Janice had really found themselves a nice place.

Well, it was time to shatter that peace, so I blew on my call. If you have never heard a varmint call, it is weird. Lots of people don't like the sound. But it calls in all kinds of rabbit-eating varmints. I would call for a few times, and then stop to listen and watch. After about an hour of this I quit calling and just sat there on the platform. I thought I would wait an hour and then try calling again.

About ten minutes later, I heard a sound right under the tree. It sounded like slap, slap, plop, slap, slap, plop. I shined the flashlight down on the ground where the sound had come from, but there was nothing there. The sound had stopped. I turned and shined the light all around the tree trunk. Nothing. At least he wasn't climbing the tree to get me. I couldn't understand how the sound of those footsteps could have been close and still I couldn't see him. I leaned back against the tree trunk and noticed how hard I was breathing. This wasn't going to be as easy as I had first thought. I'm talking about spending the night on this platform, not calling the lion. It was going to be a long night, but I was sure not going to climb down out of that tree until daylight.

Along about midnight, I heard the lion scream close to the house. Then the goats started bleating in panic. Well, I thought, there goes another goat! Now that he had his goat to eat, I wondered if I could climb down out of there and make it back to the house. No, I thought, better to be safe than sorry. I'd just spend the night up there. I was too keyed-up to sleep any, so I just sat there until morning. It was a long night, and those boards sure got hard, but I stayed there until the sun had been up for an hour before I climbed down.

As I started walking back down the creek bed, I could see the tracks of the lion where he had come up from the river the night before. I wondered if he could be spending the daylight hours on the other side of the river. After all, there were a lot of cedar breaks over there, too. By the time I got back to the house, I had come up with an idea. I told Loyd and Janice, and they agreed to it.

I went back down to the big oak tree an an hour before sundown. This time I was leading a young goat on a rope. I planned to stake him out close to the tree and try to call the lion in to him. As we got to the creek bed where the lion tracks were, the goat started bleating and pulling the rope. I guessed he could smell the lion and didn't want to go anywhere near that smell. The goat kept bleating and fighting the rope. I thought this was just as good as me blowing on the call, so I just sat there and watched for the lion.

Nothing was stirring, and finally the goat settled down. He would bleat every so often, but not like he had at first. It got dark and the moon came up. It was full that night, and I could see almost as well as daylight. I sat there watching and waiting. I was strung as tight as a bow string. My nerves were a wreck after the last two days. With every little sound, I jumped. Then, about at nine, I heard the lion scream. I almost jumped out of my skin. It must have scared the goat, also, because he became very quiet. I picked up my rifle and was ready for a shot. I kept looking down the creek bed where the scream had come from. I glanced at the goat, and he was looking down the creek bed, too. Then I thought I heard something behind me, and turned around and looked behind the tree. I couldn't see anything, and when I turned back to look at the goat, he was gone. He hadn't made a sound, and I hadn't heard anything, but he was gone!

Now, I'm not superstitious, but a three-legged lion that screams, leaves tracks, steals goats, and that nobody can see had got the better of me. Come sunup, I went back up the bluff and, instead of going in the house, I got in my pickup and went home. I called Loyd that evening and told him I wasn't coming back. He was just going to have to get someone else to kill his lion.

Well, that was three months ago, and all of the goats are gone now. The lion still comes each night and screams loud enough for Loyd and Janice to hear him, but they don't go outside after dark anymore. Nothing was ever found of the trapper, and he was listed as missing and presumed dead. Loyd and Janice's dream house has turned into a nightmare house.

Copyright © 2000 Loren Moore
All rights reserved

Born in a oil company camp near Gladewater, Texas, in 1932, Loren Moore married his high school sweetheart, Johnnie Pritchett, in the year he graduated. From there, he moved to Arlington, Texas, where he worked as an assembler at the General Motors plant and stayed until he retired as manager of the paint shop.

Loren writes: "I'm 70 years old and have been married to my wife Johnnie for 51 years. My hobbies have always been hunting and fishing. I'm an uneducated redneck from the piney woods of East Texas. Now that I'm in my old age and do most of my hunting and fishing in my memory, I decided to write about some of my experiences. These stories are about 90% true and 10% fiction. My wife, Johnnie, says they are 10% true and 90% fiction. Maybe they are somewhere in between."

Mr. Moore has recently assembled some of his stories into soft-bound books published by TwinOaks Publishing (pictured here). To purchase one of his books, you can write him at this address.

Reader's Comments

Kudzu Monthly urges our readers to provide feedback for our authors. If you would like to comment on this article, you can enter your comments in the form below. They will be added to this page.