Page 5 - lw3265

port come from so far east. If it really a loud commotion in the corral, and the north end of the lake and had turned
were a Sasquatch, how did it get there? men reached the spot just in time to see around and were driving back toward
Did it somehow manage to swim the the great winged creature flying away, Babbitt .... The lake is narrow at this
Detroit River from Ontario to Michigan outlined with terrifying clarity against point. My wife looked back and saw
and travel unseen through the thickly- the moonlit sky. A count of the live- something coming from the north that
populated area around Windsor, Detroit stock revealed ten horses missing! looked like a high powered motor boat,
and Dearborn? It is wildly unlikely that Major Bell says this happened in 1883 the way it was splitting the water. We
the creature could have wandered all and that Chico Lopez immediately sold were driving about 35 miles an hour and
the way from the Pacific Northwest. out and left the country. this shark-like monster had gained on
Are they native to the area but have The spread was bought by a Don Fe- us so that by the time we stopped, which
never been seen because of their natural lipe Rivera, who viewed the monster with was just a minute or two later, it was
shyness? Or have they been sighted by a refreshing commercial zeal. He planned even with us. The road at that time was
persons who either refused to believe to capture the thing and sell it to all of half a mile from the lake shore
their senses or merely kept quiet for a circus and is said to have signed a and quite high above the water. The sun
fear of ridicule? contract with the Sells-Floto show, which was shining on the mountain east of
The Sasquatch may not be limited to promised to shell out $25,000 for such the lake but not on the water, which
the North American West. Occasionally an unusual attraction. made the lake almost transparent; we
a report will filter up from the wild, One day while searching, Rivera ac- could see the bottom. This shark-like
forbidding Barranca del Cobre country tually found the beast. It was resting on monster stopped in the most lighted
of Mexico of a tribe of wild men, half the shore. At the sight of the man it took spot, and then all of a sudden it started
ape, half man, living in the forested fright and began waddling back to the straight from us at a great speed for
depths of the great canyon. safety · of the water. The brave Don about 100 yards, and there it whipped
Felipe ran alongside firing at it with his to the left and submerged. We watched
Probably Y the most fearsome being .44 Frontier Colt revolver. He said later this happen three times, then it · dis-
ever recorded in supposedly rational that the bullets hitting the creature rang appeared around the point into deeper
America was the awesome monster said as though striking armor plate, and the water. We are sure we watched it for
to have lived for generations in Lake next day he returned and picked up his all of 10 or 15 minutes. It must have
Elizabeth, California, until along about slugs, which had been flattened by the been 45 to 50 feet long and its back
1890 when it flew away forever. impact. stuck up above the water at least four
This creature reportedly was at home Rivera described it as about forty-five or five feet when it was swimming fast.
on land, under water, and in the air- feet long and as large as "four ele- We think in our own minds that it was
a triple-threat monster if there ever phants," with a bulldog head, six legs, feeding on the mud hens which were
were one. Apparently it was there when and enormous wings which it kept folded plentiful on the lake at that time ....
the first Mexican settlers entered Cali- along its back. Sometime later the mon- We think we had the best look at this
fornia. According to Major Horace Bell ster was seen flying away and the folks 'monster' that anyone has ever had. . .. "
in On the Old West Coast, no one would around Lake Elizabeth were never There you are, folks-a straightfor-
settle in the valley, in spite of the fertile · bothered again. ward account of the sighting of some-
soil and ample water, because of the UST AS INCREDIBLE, but with thing that shouldn't be, but is.
monster. J much more evidence to attest their It may be that in a few years scien-
In the 1830s a Don Pedro Carillo is existence, are the huge marine monsters tists will actually be able to authenticate
reported to have taken up a grant of land said to be living in at least two lakes in this monster. The lake's input has been
in the area but three months later, after the western United States. diverted for irrigation, they say, and the
building a house, barn and corral, aban- Scotland, with its famed tourist trap, lake is getting lower and lower. It may
doned his new hacienda because of the the Loch Ness Monster, has nothing on become entirely dry in time, and perhaps
supernatural being. Major Bell quotes Nevada. For decades sightings of a tre- some naturalist with more curiosity than
him as saying, "Conditions there made mendous something swimming around in is normal will resurrect its bones from
me prematurely old." Lake Walker have been reported. Local the dried mud of the lake bottom.
Sometime after 1855 another settler Indians have age-old legends about it. Lake monsters are reported in many
took a chance. Chico Lopez moved in, In fact, so familiar has the monster be- bodies of water in western Canada and
bringing another Chico-last name Vas- come to residents of Hawthorne that the down into Montana and Idaho. Payette
quez, said to be a brother of the notorious high school athletic teams there call Lake in Idaho, some miles north of Boise,
outlaw Tiburcio Vasquez-as foreman. themselves "The Serpents." has a particularly active monster which
Major Bell quoted from a manuscript A tale, represented as an Indian has been sighted often by vacationers,
supposedly written by a Don Guillermo legend and published in the Mineral . campers and fishermari.
Embustero y Mentiroso, who related an County Independent-News of February So-next time you are driving by a
incident which happened while he was 3, 1965, holds that early Indians were western lake, or through the northern
visiting the ranch. California forests, be alert. You might
being eaten by the monster. Finally they see something very interesting.
Vasquez rode up to the ranch house decided to kill it, whereupon the creature
greatly excited about something in the surfaced, signalled for a powwow, and But keep your mouth shut. It'll be
lake. Everyone immediately saddled up struck a bargain with the redskins .. He just as bad as if you had sighted a
and dashed to the shore. When they ar- would eat only white men from then on flying saucer. No one will believe you.
rived, they heard a thunderous whistling if the Indians would promise not to kill
roar from a thick growth of cattails and him. Messenger to the Indians
could smell the foul breath of the beast. Indian legends and old wives' tales (Continued from page 15)
Then they made out the silhouette of make interesting reading, sure, but
a tremendous monster, as large or larger there's nothing like an eyewitness. And a man named Wyatt. According to a
than a great whale, with enormous bat- I have one. I have in my files a letter letter Captain Bankhead wrote Com-
like wings which it flapped periodically from a couple who formerly lived in stock's brother-in-law, Judge Wakeley of
as though trying to arise from the mud. Babbitt, near Hawthorne. They raced the Omaha, on January 29, 1868 the killing
It churned the water to a froth with monster in their car but quit when they had taken place January 14. "After some
what appeared to be huge flippers or saw it was winning. Then they stopped conversation between the parties in the
legs. and watched the creature cavort in the Trader's Store of ·this Post, the nature
The men fled in terror-as who water. The letter is reproduced below of which has not transpired, Comstock
wouldn't?-and returned the next day almost in full, except for their names: shot at Wyatt three times, all balls tak-
with a squad of armed cowboys. But the "It was the latter part of April, 1956, ing affect [sic], from which he died in
beast could not be found. just as the sun was dropping behind the a few minutes."
Sometime later the Lopez livestock be- mountain on the west side of the lake. Shortly after the shooting Comstock
gan to disappear. One night there was My wife and I had driven to the extreme was arrested by military authorities and
was sent down to Hays under armed
38
Old West