Night in a tree stand

The story

I can only remember one time in my life where I could not control fear. One time where I truly felt uncontrollable fear. The fear that makes you cry and tremble. The fear that makes you lose control. No one but my best friend ever believed what I had experienced was true. My family didn't believe me. My now wife didn't believe me. I don't know if you would even believe me. I don't care. I'm past the point of not telling my story for fear that I won't be believed.

Please understand that I grew up in the middle of nowhere. The closest people to me where my grand parents who lived just down the road from us and my best friend John's family who lived right next door. There were several other homes in the area within walking distance, but far enough apart that you really couldn't call them next-door neighbors. I learned to hunt, fish, shoot, and survived in the woods at an early age. My father had grown up in the country, moved to attend college, and met my mother. My mother was the opposite of my father. She grew up in the city. She taught me art, science, and how to cook. I had the best of both worlds growing up.

I played multiple sports in high school but decided to join the Army Reserve after I graduated. I graduated with honors from basic training and AIT and enrolled in a local college afterwards with plans to study computer engineering. At college I entered ROTC. I graduated from college and completed BOLC (basic officer leaders' course) for the army. I returned home only to be deployed to Iraq where I served for a year.

As a second lieutenant in Iraq, I was in charge of a platoon of soldiers. We were good at what we did and command took notice, putting us on missions and patrols that were most likely to see action. I loved it but after a year the adrenaline had worn off and the being shot at and seeing things explode feet from you began to fatigue my men and me. In the end, because we were good at what we did, we all went home, bruised, battered, and tired but alive to our loved ones.

I had managed to keep up on my computer engineering skills while in Iraq and had landed a job with a company two hours from where I grew up. I came home in August and the job wasn't going to start till mid January of the following year so I had some time to relax and unwind. I was still living with my parents until the job started and fall meant one thing. Hunting season. Specifically bow season, which was something I missed the last two years because of my training and deployment.

I eagerly unpacked my hunting clothes and gear from the attic where my mother had stored them and woke up early one September morning to head into the woods to scout for a hunting spot for that upcoming season. As I walked out the front door with my backpack full of gear on, I noticed John and his father standing in their backyard around the pen in which they kept chickens. John was bigger than me. He wasn't college educated, but he was good with his hands and worked in construction. He was living with his parents while he was building his own house in his free time on some land he bought a few miles away.

"Morning," I said as I lumbered with my gear to where they were standing.

"What's up, brother," John replied with a half smile?

"Just heading out to do some scouting for bow season."

I could see the pen door was open and they were both looking at it inquisitively. John's dad was slowing moving it back and forth and playing with the latch as if to test the door itself.

"I don't know," John's dad said puzzled. "The latch is too high for a raccoon unless they climbed the wire fence and opened it."

"I've seen them do some crafty things and they are smart," replied John to his dad before turning to me. "It's the second time in two weeks someone or something has gotten into the coupe. Took a chicken last week and two last night. It might the damn town kids who ride their ATVs on the paths back in the woods all the time or it might be raccoons. Either way we're going to have to lock the pen with a pad lock