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Tom and I were heading to the Shawnee Forest, Buck ridge to be exact. Buck Ridge was our favorite place to go within the Shawnee Forest. We would take our boys and 1 girl and anyone else who wanted to come into the forest with us to spend a day, an evening, or even days within the National Forest. There was always something to do in the Shawnee and time never was allowed to be boring while we were there. If we weren't Fishing, Swimming, Cooking, or just listening to the children play, then we would watch the natural life within the forest. Sometimes we would go down to the waterline and just look for secret places of spiders, beetles, or just crabs for pastimes.
This time we were going to spend about a week deep within the National forest and stay within our travel trailer. I took along my 12 gauge shotgun never actually thinking we might really need it with us. We got there on Friday about noon, set up our tickets for the out camp's booth and we began to set up for the night. With our travel trailer we had already had our main camp stuff placed out side where we needed it the most, and most of the outside stuff was already outside where it was needed.
We set up our towel clothesline for there would be towels after we had been swimming. We set those up between two trees and then I set up the table making a nice homecoming look in the forest. We were ready to cook our lowly dinner of hamburgers and buns and chicken parts on the outside stove by 6:00 p.m. By 8:00 p.m. the night was dark and still and our fireplace in the woods was going high and by nine o'clock we were ready for roasted marshmallows on the fire. By ten o'clock we were preparing the beds for the children and everyone was waiting around by the fire and telling stories to scare the kids to sleep, so they would sleep better.
At 12:00 p.m. I was ready to go to bed and Tom was still outside by the fire. So, I began to get ready for bed. Soon, Tom tired of staying up by himself and came to bed with me. We didn't talk much then, but we were more than ready for the bedtime hours. Tom had put my 12 gauge by my bedside and it was very much out of the way with everything we had packed up to take with us. There was no way in the world that I could reach the 12 gauge if we needed it. We had the dogs tied up outside the camper as well and they were snuggled as far under the camper as they could get. I am telling you this because you have to realize we were deep within the Shawnee forest, but there were people out there with us in tents camping out for the weekend.
There was a Church group just above us in tents and those children had no protection other than the ones the tents gave to them. Well, we were sound asleep and enjoying it when we heard the most bloodcurdling scream outside our camper doors. I wanted Tom to go outside and look around. I felt sure there was a woman being slaughtered outside the camper doors, but no he said, "We weren't going to go outside those doors, not for nothing." We were not going outside those doors no matter what.
All of our children were safe with us and that was what counted. But we wouldn't go outside. Well then, I said "get out the shotgun." I said, "We might need it." And he said "no" again. Well by golly that scream came again and we just lay there and listened to it, but He would not go outside the doors. So the night time passed us by. In the morning, there was no sign of anything that we had heard. We looked for footsteps, listened to campers for any signs of anything going on. No one family left the camp that day. And for us we just decided to stay a little tighter within our own camp circle. Tied the dogs a little closer to the camper and enjoyed our camping stay within the Shawnee forest.
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