Around the bend and far away, the sound of tapping made my day. I knew what it meant and where it was but I had no idea this time was what it was. 

There was a sound. Men wrenched as if in pain. They had seen people who screamed before, and while it was not a pretty sight, it was, the time forgotten.

Flintstone pierce flesh and stick in bones, with shrieks of misery wafting over the forest still.  Sounds, like morning smoke, glides over the canopy above. Animals shift their ears this way and that locating the unseen spot in the forest.

A horrific yell as someone runs away, bloody hairless, and dying. A yip another yip and silence. 

Long red hair waved from a dirty fist. Slobbers run off a lip. Teeth, yellowed, sprout bits of meat from a breakfast of rabbit's back.

Forgotten, this time was not. a face gnawed on by wolves, no doubt. A hunter found a body, scalped, whose hair had been red and put up with a bow. Now splattered with rain, and a face gnawed on by wolves. Packs of wolves smell the air to taste any food — alive or dead it doesn't matter, wolves eat anything. 

Fire they fear but it is not well known that a wolf will kill and drag the body a mile away to feast. One pine torch would do and that is easy to fix but most neglect safety when so close to home.

Once, in forgotten time, an animal trail, much used, ran from Lexington to Ithaca and beyond to Fort Jefferson — from there to Fort GreenVille, the land was home to wild animals and Indians. 

Ithaca, before it was platted in 1832, was a trading post on the trail used by travelers between Lexington and Forts up north. Here, at the trading post, was the last stop for one young settler. He was followed. 

Days later, his body was found near Fort Lanier. His rifle was bent — he probably used it as a club. His knife and tomahawk were gone and the goods he had traded for at the post in Ithaca were gone. Blowflies scoured his naked skull where his long curly hair hung days before.