The Legend of Great Bear Warrior

Halloween is a couple days away, and it goes without saying that I'm stoked about it. It's not like some holidays; Christmas has presents, Easter has ham, and Independence Day has horrible sunburns and fireworks, but none of those days have the spookiness factor like Halloween does. I like scary stories, horror movies, and all things autumnal in general, so the days leading up to the end of October get me hyped on candy corn and spooky tales of the occult and supernatural. When I think of scary stories, and especially ones I had a hand in, I think back to my time in high school.

Not specifically as scary as Miguel in a Mountain Dew box, but that happened too.

I had a classmate that was a little gullible, so one day I made up a story about a Native American warrior whose ghost still haunts the land and kills any white person he sees. The story has been polished over the years, and it goes like this:

Many years ago, before the white man came to this land, there was a warrior named Great Bear. He protected his tribe from all threats and dangers, and he was held in high regard by all that knew of him. One day, though, settlers came with their guns and took the land from Great Bear's tribe. His people were murdered, and the land they once hunted on and lived in was made into cattle ranges and town steads for the whites. 

This angered Great Bear greatly, and he sought to reclaim what rightfully belonged to his people. He sneaked into the US Calvary base, established to protect against tribal incursion, under the light of the moon, and he scalped five me in their sleep-- just like they did to his people. The other cavalrymen caught him in the act, and they began to fire upon him. Great Bear, in defense, hacked through another three men until he finally bled out from many bullet wounds and perished. Superstitious because of his reputation, the cavalrymen buried Great Bear under a tall tree in hopes that he would not rise again for revenge.  

Great Bear's soul cried to the spirits of the mountain, and the mountains heard his call. He wished vengeance against the ones who harmed the land and his people, and his anger and bloodlust morphed his furious and tortured soul into the beast of his namesake. To this day, on moonlit nights in the Owens Valley near the tall tree, his soul, half man and half bear, wanders the land in search of white men to prey upon and mercilessly slaughter for the sake of his people.

My classmate wasn't sure if I had made it up or not, so I played along and told him it was all true for most of that day until I cracked and admitted it was all bullshit. I wanted to keep the joke going, though, so I made a webpage on a free web building site with "real historical accounts" of the Owens Valley. I'd made a few pages with some boring factoids that people know about the area, but then threw in a page about "The Legend of Great Bear Warrior" that nearly mirrored the story I'd made up. I thought there would be no way anyone could be gullible enough to fall for a free-build website saying that a story I admitted making up was actually true, but sometimes life has a sense of humor.

I pretended to stumble upon the website one day at school, and my classmate asked what was up when he saw my surprise. I told him the story was online and it must be true (because you're not allowed to lie on the internet, of course), and he freaked out. He lived in Fort Independence, where the cavalry outpost was and Paiute reservation is now, so he was really skittish walking around in the middle of the night for a couple weeks. Every movement in the brush became something more sinister than just a rabbit, and every tree had a Native American warrior werebear ghost underneath it.

Pictured: something probably RIGHT BEHIND YOU RIGHT NOW 

He figured out that the website was farce after awhile, and he called me out for being a nerd with too much time on my hands to go so far as to make a website for a joke. I mean, he was right, but living in Independence, California, allowed for a lot of free time. 

So if you find yourself in the area this Halloween, with a bright quarter moon shining through the bare trees swaying in the wind, just remember there's probably nothing to fear maybe and that there might not be a bloodthirsty angry spirit wanting to rip your face off.

Happy Halloween!