Story as written is true and happened in 1950, in Itawamba County, Mississippi.
I will try to relate to you a horrible experience that happened to me a long, long time ago. My youngest son, Lloyd, L.D. Walters, a neighbor that owned a small country store near my house, and I had planned a hunting trip to "Bull Mountain Bottom". Now Bull Mountain Bottom is a few miles east of Fulton, Mississippi, and was a well known squirrel haven and the little bushy tailed rodent was what we were after.
Due to work schedules, the only day we could go was the day after Saturday. Early in the morning we loaded all the paraphernalia into Lloyd’s car. Of course we loaded Ole Terry, this country’s most famous squirrel dog of all time. He was a ring-necked dog with many bloodlines included, but as good a tree dog as any hunter could want. We were soon on our way with Ole Terry, our guns, bullets and a few cigarettes to smoke as we trudged our way through the swampy wilderness of Bull Mountain bottom.
After a while we drove down the hill and into the bottom. Once we were well into the bottom, on Highway 78, Lloyd steered the car off a high levee into the swampy low land. We got out and started walking south with our guns loaded and ready to shoot. It wasn’t long before Ole Terry began to tree here and there and we were killing squirrels as we moved along.
The day was cloudy and we never were able to see the sun. We continued to push our way through the heavy undergrowth to the next tree where Ole Terry was barking. When we were able to find the last squirrel Ole Terry had treed it was nearly dark and time to go home. So L.D. said "Lloyd, which way out of this place?" Lloyd, replied "This way" and we started walking according to Lloyd’s idea. We walked and walked and it kept getting darker and then the rain started.
It seemed we had walked five miles through the very worse part of the thicket when Lloyd, stopped and said: " I’ll just tell you, I don’t know the way out from here." It was now pouring down rain and I said "No bottom is big enough to hold me all night." So we trudged on through the briars some more, trying to walk sheep fashion. Once Mr. Walters was walking out front with his double barrel shotgun on his shoulder. It was so dark you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face and he stopped. Lloyd walked into him and that there double barrel went quite a ways down Lloyd’s throat.
The rain had turned cold and I persuaded them to stop and build a fire. We burned all our handkerchiefs to get the fire started but once we got it going we piled logs and brush on it until we had a hot fire, but the rain continued. Now Lloyd was in WWII and had learned some survival things and set about to make a waterproof lean-to for him and Ole Terry. He was so mad at us he didn’t invite us to share the lean-to and he started smoking two cigarettes at a time so he would run out and not have to share. I wasn’t about to let a dog have a dry bed while I was out in the cold rain so I just kicked him out and crawled in the lean-to over Lloyd’s objections. The rest of the night we could hear Ole Terry treeing coons, opossums, and other unimaginable things but we sure wasn’t going to him.
It would be hard to tell you of what all we endured during that wet and cold night. The big horned owls and bobcats screamed at us all night. It seemed that our fire had excited everything in the big thicket to become active (or so we thought).
At one point hunger took over so we dressed a couple of those squirrels and attached them to a stick. We cooked them for as long was felt we should and tried to eat them. However, half cooked squirrel is not too appetizing, but Ole Terry didn’t mind it. We stayed with the fire until first day light, then again made an effort to get out.
We had believed all the time that the car was north but with the rain and clouds, we didn't know which direction was north. After walking for a long time we came to a flowing creek. We guessed it to be running south, se we went up stream about three or four miles and finally came to our car.
We found out that our wives had suffered as much as we had. When I didn’t return to Pontotoc that night, my wife got neighbors together and they went to Tupelo to Lloyd’s house to call in a search party. I think that while there, they had planned a mass funeral for us. They could not believe we were still alive and yet didn’t come home out of the rain.
One thing for sure: If I ever hear of another man getting lost, I will spend my last ounce of energy to find him.
It was just that bad.
Janie Moser 06/15/07
As written by
W. M. Baldwin,
Pontotoc, Mississippi
