As told by RH Pinkston
Introduction: This was one of the very first scary stories I can remember my dad telling on a camping trip, and to this day it’s still one of my favorites…so naturally I thought it would be the perfect first entry for our Campfire Tales blog page. I can still remember sitting around a crackling orange fire as a little kid, the woods dark and forbidding behind me as my dad spun the yarn. I remember scooting closer to the fire as a new feeling grew in my gut…a feeling sort of like dread, but also full of excitement! What was going to happen next? Did I really want to know? Did I even have a choice?! Whatever you call that feeling, it’s one that humans have probably sought for as long as we’ve sat around campfires telling stories, and it’s one that I hope to share with you all in the upcoming pages of this blog. And so, without further ado, I give you “The TailyPo”. There are lots of different versions of it, but mine goes something like this:
A while back—not all that long ago really—down in a deep wooded hollow that’s just a little closer to here than you might like, an old man lived alone in a rundown one-room cabin. Times had been hard for the man in the city where he had lived before, and he didn’t have a penny left to his name…but what he did have was a big shaggy hunting dog named Beauford and a rusty double barrel shotgun he had found in the cabin closet along with a couple of boxes of paper shotshells. Between the two, he managed to keep himself well fed and well clothed by hunting every animal he could find in the hollow. Deer, rabbits, skunks, squirrels; any and all were fair game for the old man’s stew and wardrobe. Every day was spent traipsing around the woods from dusk until dawn, and every night was spent sleeping soundly under warm fur blankets with a full belly.
As warm Spring days went by and bled into the long hot ones of Summer, the old man caught himself smiling every now and then in spite of himself. By Autumn, he sometimes even whistled a tune as he walked through the woods! Beauford, for his part, very much enjoyed padding about through the fern covered forest floor sniffing for prey and drinking from fresh, cool springs whenever he got thirsty. The hard, sharp days of city life slowly became nothing but faded memories, and for the first time in a long time, they were happy.
Then Winter came, and everything changed.
The deer were the first to disappear. One day they were there by the dozens; the next they were gone. “Strange,” the old man said to his dog. “It’s as though something as scared them off.” Beauford gave him a knowing stare, but was otherwise silent. The other animals quickly vanished, too. After a few chilly days, Beauford wasn’t able to get so much as a sniff of beaver, badger, or turkey. Not even a muskrat! By the time the first snowflakes fell, the old man was hard pressed to trap even the tiniest field mouse. Of course, he had put some stores up for the winter, but they didn’t last long without a way to restock them. As the snow drifts grew outside of the cabin door, so did the man’s hunger.
One day, having nothing else to hunt, the old man decided to lay out some tiny wire traps for the winter red birds that still occasionally happened along the cabin’s window sill. He baited them with a few meager bread crumbs scavenged from the bottom of his pantry then settled into bed with his empty stomach rumbling and a now skinny Beauford asleep at his feet.
Late that night, he was awakened by a strange scratching sound coming from outside the cabin window. He stumbled out of bed, bundled himself in furs and grabbed the shotgun from over the fireplace mantle. Then he and his dog went out into coal black night to investigate. His breath came out in thick white clouds as he trudged through the snow. He could hear the scratching sound growing louder as he neared. When he rounded the corner, he saw a strange, dark creature with a long bushy tail struggling to free its paw from a bird trap. Both the old man and the creature froze and stared at each other.
The creature’s eyes glowed.
Beauford growled deeply, his hackles rising. The creature stood up on its hind legs, it’s glowing eyes narrowing. It seemed much larger than it had a moment before. And those claws…
“Stay back, Beauford,” said the old man, raising the shotgun to his shoulder.
The creature let out a guttural, warbling yowl that grew steadily into a full on shriek the likes of which the old man had never heard before. Then Beauford lunged forward, and the creature raised a claw-studded paw—
BOOM! the shotgun bellowed, and the cabin window shattered. The creature seemed unhurt, but the blast had splintered the window sill and freed its paw from the bird trap. It bounded forward and slashed at the dog, who fell to the side with a whimper. Then it was in the air flying towards the old man, its eyes glowing against the black night, its claws reaching out for soft flesh.
The old man pulled the trigger again and an explosion of fire erupted from the shotgun and lit up the night. The creature fell back, howling in pain and fury, before picking itself up and scampering off into the night.
The man made his way over to the dog. Beauford was breathing heavily, but the cuts didn’t look too deep. “Come on, boy. Let’s get you back inside,” said the man. And that’s when he noticed something long, black, and covered in fur lying serpentine on the white snow. “Well, I’ll be. Looks like we shot that critter’s tail clean off, Beauford!” The man snatched up his prize, surprised by the weight of it, and made his way back inside.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he skinned the meat out of the tail and threw it into a pot over the fire with a little water and salt. While he waited on the meat to stew, he barred the door, boarded the shattered window with a few firewood logs, and reloaded the shotgun. Then he bandaged Beauford’s ribs while the dog softly licked his face.
Delicious smells began to waft through the cabin. When he just couldn’t stand it any longer, the old man poured the stew into bowls, and then he and the dog ate up every last scrap of the creature’s tail meat. They slept deeply that night, their bellies full for the first time in weeks.
The next day, they set about to hunt down the creature, thinking that if its tail tasted as good as it did, the rest of it must be pretty tasty too. The only trouble was, there was no sign of it. None. No footprints in the snow near the cabin window. No blood trail from where it had lost its tail. Beauford couldn’t even get its scent…or was too afraid to follow it if he did. Eventually, the old man gave up and spent the rest of the afternoon fashioning a scarf from the fur of the creature’s tail. The scarf was soft and thick, and as he wrapped it around his neck, he felt warmed against the cold North wind’s bite.
That night, the old man once again lay in his bed with Beauford at his feet. Just as he started to drift off, he heard a scratching sound at the logs covering the cabin window. Then he heard a harsh, raspy voice whisper, “TAILYPO, TAILYPO. GIVE ME BACK MY TAILYPO.” At first, the old man ignored the voice, thinking it had to be his imagination. But soon, the it grew louder and more insistent. “TAILYPO, TAILYPO,” it growled. “I’M COMING FOR MY TAILYPO.”
The old man began to think he had made a terrible mistake by taking the creature's tail. When he could stand it no more, he leapt out of bed, ripped the black fur scarf from around his neck and threw it out the cabin door. “Here it is!” he shouted into the night. “Now leave me alone!” He slammed the door shut, and locked it tight. It was silent after that, and he went back to sleep.
The next day was uneventful. The old man and his dog walked the forest searching for food that wasn’t to be found, and turned-in early once the sun went down. Before snuffing the candle, the old man double checked the lock on the door and made sure his shotgun was propped up within easy reach of the bed. He told himself the ordeal was over, that he had given the creature back what was left of its tail…but he still felt uneasy. He eventually did fall asleep, but it wasn’t long before he was awakened by the now familiar scraping sound against the kitchen window. Then he heard cooking pots rattle against each other in the kitchen. It was inside. The old man bolted upright in bed. He listened hard, but at first heard nothing. Then a voice from within the cabin whispered, "TAILYPO, TAILYPO. ALL I WANT IS MY TAILYPO.”
The old man reached for his shotgun and fired a blast into the darkness, but all he hit was the cabin floorboards. By this time, Beauford was up and growling. “Get him, boy!” the old man yelled. Beauford bounded off the bed after the creature. Pots and plates crashed to the floor as the creature clawed and scraped to get back out of the cabin with the shaggy hound close on its heels. The old man ran to fling open the cabin door and Beauford rushed off into the dark after the creature. The old man saw a flash of glowing eyes and fired off another shot in the creatures’ general direction.
He ran back in to reload his shotgun, but all he found in the closet was an empty shell box. As dawn broke, he waited anxiously on the front porch, but Beauford did not return. An hour passed, and then two, but still no Beauford. By midday, the old man way really getting worried. By sun set, he had given up hope. The moon rose and the stars came out, but the dog never returned. The old man was heartbroken.
That night, he did not go sleep. He waited with dread sitting heavy over him as the now familiar scraping sound began at the cabin window. He pulled the covers high up to his neck as pots and pans clattered and floor boards creaked. Then he heard the same chilling voice, only louder this time. “TAILYPO, TAILYPO!” He looked around frantically, but still saw nothing. Slowly, with shaking hands, he lit the candle on his night stand. There was no one in the room. The old man began to laugh. “That’s it,” he said. “I’m finally losing my mind!” He shrugged it off and finally went to sleep, thinking—hoping—that in the end it really was just his mind playing tricks on him. But the old man’s troubles were far from over.
In the wee hours of the morning, something tugged on the fur blankets of his bed and awakened him. It was still dark in the room, but the old man could just make out the silhouette of something big and furry standing at the foot of his bed. “Beauford?” he asked.
A pair of glowing eyes opened and stared up at him. The old man’s blood ran cold as the creature's voice echoed through the cabin once more, "TAILYPO, TAILYPO. I WILL HAVE MY TAILYPO."
The old man was frozen with fear, knowing that he had no way to give the tail back.
“I…I don’t have your TailyPo!” he called out.
The creature stood up on its hind legs and stared down at the old man’s belly. “YES YOU DO!” it yowled.
What exactly happened next is hard to know. Some say that in that moment, the creature leapt up onto the bed and scratched the old man to pieces…and truth be told, that is the simplest and therefore more likely outcome. But there are others, more optimist folk, who insist that just in the nick of time, good old Beauford burst in through the cabin door and startled the creature long enough for the old man to get away. They say he ran right out of that cabin, through the woods, all the way back to the city—and that he never did complain about city life again for the rest of his days.
Whatever happened, the only thing that’s for certain is nothing remains of that cabin in the woods these days save a moss-covered stone chimney standing alone in a little clearing. But the old timers say that if you listen carefully on a quiet night, and if the breeze is blowing just right, you can still hear the raspy voice of the creature whispering down through the hollow:
“TAILYPO, TAILYPO. NOW I HAVE MY TAILYPO.”
