The Monster of the Swamp

A big swamp met the back edge of our farm.  A finger of that swamp came up a small valley and nearly severed about thirty acres off one corner of our place, but the finger was narrow enough to put a little causeway, with a culvert for drainage, across at one point which kept that thirty acres a viable part of our farm. The swamp was about a half mile across in most places, sometimes extending up to a mile across, and running nearly twenty miles south to southwest; gradually narrowing into a small river that joined a much larger one some 25 miles or so southwest of our farm.

Anyhow, for the most part, our farm ran for approximately one half mile back from the county road to the swamp and along approximately one half mile of the county the road. Except for small areas lost to the swamp, we farmed a full quarter section.

The main part of the swamp was forested with tamarack, the occasional patch of spruce, now and then an oak, and some elms along the edges, but it was inaccessible, except in winter, and then only if there had been plenty of freezing weather before snow fell and insulated the muck. If you could get back to it, there was actually a noticeable stream running through the center of the swamp, and had you wanted to put up with the mosquitoes in the summer, you could probably have taken a very small light weight canoe down this stream (There was one place near our house where you could have gotten to it.) for miles and miles of meandering slow moving water way.

Some enterprising soul discovered that from the air the whole thing looked like a beautiful forest with a stream running through it and it was repeatedly sold, in ever decreasing lot sizes, to people from Chicago and Milwaukee desperate for a refuge from the city. I suppose that wasn't even illegal as long as they never promised them dry land!

But for several years the swamp harbored a monster! A ravenous, senseless, insatiable killing machine. This monster might strike anywhere, at any time, and for no discernable reason. Deep water and tangled tree roots served to keep it pretty much to the edges of the swamp, but within its domain it was a cruel and capricious god. No petty creature was safe. A kid with a BB gun can make the worst alien monster seem tame and reasonable by comparison.