#116 "The Black Panther Betrayal" Online Book, cont.

Wayne Folston said the animal was black so if it were a panther, it was a black one. After our brief investigation failed to produce anything, we decided to take a break. Wayne got another beer from the cooler, and I got another Pepsi. Then we headed to his hunt club, Three Rivers. It has 115,000 acres with 500 members and a waiting list. I saw why there was a waitig list: We viewed about 25 deer from the truck. I saw a cottonmouth on the sand road, got out, and shot it with my Ruger .22 target pistol, making only one shot. Wayne got out too and asked, "Where'd you hit it?" He looked at the snake and answered his own question, "In the head, of course."
After practicing literally thousands of shots at home, I had become a good shot. I owed it to the dogs to be able to protect them from a coiled rattler or cottonmouth. There are three species of rattlers in the area. As we drove around Three Rivers Hunt Club, it became obvious that a big drawback was that the club had several paved county roads going through it. Thus, there is a lot of poaching by the public on the club property. Almost all clubs do a lot to increase the food supply for all the animals. They grow food plots, and put out grain, corn, and minerals. All wildlife benefits including the species that are not hunted. Wayne commented that the club members try to train the deer to run if they see a vehicle stopping. That didn't seem to be a difficult task because the deer in Florida are very wary compared to those in Virginia, probably because of the hunting done from vehicles. Wayne told me about a lesson he had to give a deer: "We had a doe who would stand right by the road and stare at you when you stopped. You can guess what was going to happen to her - someone was going to pop her. So one day when she was standing by my truck, I took out my 30/06 and put the scope right on the top of her left ear. I pulled the trigger and just creased her ear. She never lollygagged around again after I stopped the truck!"
Of course that may sound too "violent" to the pansies who live in their heads and never get out in the woods, but Wayne Folston acted like a man and did the right thing. We worked our way back to Perry and his truck at Hardee's, deciding to call it a day. Wayne headed north to Tallahassee, and I turned east toward the Santa Fe River. I stopped in Tenille, just east of Steinhatchee for gas and food. I had not eaten for twelve hours. Wayne had offered me some of his lunch out in the woods, but I did not want to take any. I started talking to the clerk at the store, and she said, "I've seen black panthers." She was stunned when I told her that the professionals in the field and the published field guides maintained that there was no such animal. She related her story: "I was fourteen and was walking along the Fenholloway (which is now the most polluted river in America thanks to a pulp mill and the corruption in Florida). I happened to look up, and there was a black panther looking at me. He slipped away. Why, my great-uncle was chased around and around his house in Lake Butler (only about ten miles from where I live) by a black panther!"
"Right. I get reports of black panthers being there."
"Well, that was a long time ago."
"Can I talk to him?"
"No, he's dead, but his wife is alive."
"Is she still operating?"
It was a poor choice of words, but I was exhausted and hungry.
"Yes, but she's 62 or 63."
"Well, that's only ten years older than me. Can I talk to her?"
"I'll get her phone number from my mother tomorrow and call you. Thank you for talking to me."
"Thank-you!"
I never heard from her.
*
*
Bullets From Two-Guns: Yesterday, I was clearing brush by the pond with my loppers. I was working on a clump of ground vines when I looked over at a depression in the ground about six feet away. In the depression was a big, old cottonmouth sunning himself. He was so old, he was solid black on top. I slowly backed away and got my bow and quiver of arrows about forty yards away. But he was gone when I returned. Animals and possibly a human will suffer tremendous pain because I have been deprived of my target pistol which would have been tucked under my belt if the Stouts hadn't perjured themselves in court.
Tasha took Rusty, a rescued Rhodesian ridgeback with no ridge, to the vet. He examined Rusty carefully and took X rays, finding a detached kneecap in his right front leg. "That could only have been done by a vehicle," Doctor Stephen Shore said. "That would make sense, because when we rescued him, his brother had just been hit by a car and killed. Rusty was right next to him,"Tasha told him. The two ridgebacks were just puppies, and their owners were apparently migratory crop pickers. They had left the two puppies to fend for themselves and had been gone over a week when we took Rusty. I checked around their house and back porch and there was no food or water. I took a picture of Rusty's dead brother, which the vultures were eating, and left it at their front door. I left a message too: "Murderers!" I would notice Rusty not using his right front leg as the years passed. Recently, I saw that he would keep the leg up for a week or so. The vet prescribed medication for him.