Startled in the wilderness

Brad tells of a story of when he is a young boy of 14 fishing and away from civilization where his Dad, pretending to be a bear, jumps out of the bushes and scares him to death.  In his own words, "I was so scared I dropped my rod with a fish on it in the sand and had run across the whole pond and into the forest on the other side before I heard him (Dad) laughing behind me."  I too, have a similar experience.  After my freshman year at BYU, I went home to Seattle and worked for the summer during which I dated a boy named Eric. On one of our dates, Eric took me fishing with him in Carnation, Washington. Now, before I go on with my story, let me tell you that before I married Brad, I was not much of an outdoors-woman. I'm not even sure that you could say that I am so outdoorsy now, other than the fact that I will accompany my family for a 2-3 day camp trip every summer. I go with them because my kids LOVE camping and because Brad does everything...okay, I can put up a tent and help cook sometimes, but he does most everything. So I am not much of an outdoors person now and was even less so at the young age of 19. When it came to the great outdoors I was VERY GULLIBLE. Eric fished for a few hours while I watched him fish and attempted to catch some fish of my own, but caught none. That sounds like a great date, doesn't it? After the fishing we were walking back to the car. We were out in the forest, no houses around, no people around, just Eric and me. While we were walking, we heard some noises in the bushes. Eric stopped and listened and then started walking as quietly as he could beside me. I was thinking, "This must be pretty serious if we are having to walk so quietly," and I began to get a little nervous. Eric then turned to look behind me and yelled, "Run Chelsey!" and sprinted forward as fast as he could. Of course, I thought the worst, "lions and tigers and bears, OH MY!" and ran as fast as my legs would carry me only to run straight into a laughing Eric. Ha, ha! VERY FUNNY! Well, this last Sunday Brad got the kids pretty good too. With the Brad here to help me tell it, here's the story:

One Sunday evening, we were going through the kids' summer clothes trying to decide what to keep for next year, what to give to DI and what to throw away. It took a long time and at the end of the project the kids were all wound up and acting crazy running and screaming and running and screaming like the little monsters they are all through the house. Brad has this theory of cold shock that he likes to employ with the children since beating them seems to have no affect. They get 10 seconds to find some shoes and then out the door they go for a run in the cold. In Boise it was around the block snow, rain or shine but usually in the dark and here we have settled on a run out to the second cattle guard (it's about 1/4 mile down the road) and back. No flashlights or coats are allowed as the purpose of this exercise is to frighten or freeze them into submission and then hopefully bed. When Brad can't find a place to hide in the house where the kids don't sound like they are being broadcast over a PA system he finally has enough and kicks them out.  While only about 7:30 PM, it was totally dark and the kids were not thrilled with the exercise since they haven't had to do it for a while and there is an active pack of coyotes that roams our pastures at night, not to mention the bears, mountain lions and hobos from the train tracks. "Better run fast then" he says to them, "if you don't want to get eaten by something out there." We live on an old ranch so we have no neighbors, just 200 acres of open fields surrounding us and we have seen everything from bull elk to beavers around our house. I thought Brad might be merciful given the actual danger out there and have them do something else, but he ranted and raved to the point they were willing to take their chances outside. So off they went into the dark with Jake throwing a fit in the house because he wasn't allowed to go along to suffer a possible gruesome death out in the dark with his older brothers and sister. That didn't last long either because Brad opened the door and Jake bolted into the night after the other kids screaming "WAIT UP!!" As they disappeared into the darkness Brad thought of how crafty the older ones have gotten lately (sneaking out of the basement window to play outside for example when they are supposed to be locked down there until they clean up their toy mess) and considered the possibility that they would just hang out by the cars for a bit and return

suitably submissive and ready to be good boys and girls. So he pops out the other side of the house and sneaks around to do some reconnaissance of his own.  Once out there he did find, or hear rather, that they were on their way back from the cattle guard. Since he was already out set up well for an ambush he decided to tuck himself up next to a big tree in the darkest shadows and wait for their return. It was dark enough that he couldn't locate them except for their voices as they got closer and eventually Jakey's little flashing Buzz Light Year shoes as they jogged back toward the house.  Brad lately has been honing his coyote calling skills ever since our first cat disappeared.  He has great aspirations of avenging poor Tom's death once winter comes around and the wild dogs are more susceptible to getting suckered into a rifle range.  As the kids approached he made a few coyote calls and sees Jakes little flashing shoes stop as the whole bunch stops dead in their tracks realizing their worst fear is upon them. Jordan at this point takes charge with a frantic "RUN FOR IT!!" So here they come full tilt running through the dark with visions of bared teeth and a ferocious pack of dogs on their track right toward Brads little tree blind hiding space. They slowed a little through the cedar fence but the flashy flash of Jakes little shoes let him know they were headed right at him. At about 20 feet he let out a few more calls which only kicked up their pace and then finally jumped out of the trees snarling and screaming right as they got to him. At this point half the kids reeled so violently to get away from what ever terror had materialized in front of them that they fell down and several were hysterically crying by this point.  All the while Jordan was still coaching them on to run to safety.  Kenzie was the first to actually recognize her cruel father and almost screams at him between gasping breaths, "DADDY WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE, THERE IS A PACK OF COYOTES CHASING US!!" Now Brad almost falls over as he sees that Jordan is the only one who realized where those coyote calls had actually come from and that the whole thing was one of daddy's mean jokes. And so he grabbed as many little hands as he could, pulling them back to their feet and runs the rest of the way to the house yelling incoherently about killer coyotes and managed to come out a hero in the whole episode.

What Brad must have looked like when he jumped out behind the tree to scare the kids.