The Man Eater, part one
At one time in the not-todistant past there were Grizzly Bears in Lake County, plenty ofthem.Itwasso bad that the Indians never dared enter the southern end of Clear Lake where the bears were thickest. When they had to go there it was by Tule boat and by water. They feared the Grizzlies to the point they made them bigger than life in their stories and myths. Their fear and respect were so great they even made totems in their honor.
One such monster bear, ‘Reel Foot’ by name, was one of the worst of the worst. On 2 October 1898, the San Francisco Call Newspaper told about a bear that roamed Lake County and ate men. He had finally been killed.
They called him Old ‘Reel Foot’. The Grizzly earned his unusual moniker because, during the years of his roaming, one of the forty-five bullets fired at the bear and were found in his dead carcase, struck his front right paw. Thereafter, that paw-wound caused the animal to roll from side to side as he walked like a drunk four sheets to the wind.
Reel Foot was vicious on purpose. For twenty years the giant bear carried a grudge. He hated hunters, stock men, small children, and anyone that had the misfortune to be in his way. The Grizzly quickly acquired the awesome reputation of being the most blood-thirsty animal ever to travel the hills and valleys of Lake County. It only added to his legend when Reel Foot finally met his match and was killed.
Old Reel Foot was done in by John Copsey, the tallest man in the County. Copsey was also the same man, whose friend the bear killed and ate twenty years before. The Reel Foot killing was no accident. During the twenty years the animal carried out his life of crime, Copsey was on his trail like a bloodhound. Copsey vowed revenge mon Reel Foot for eating his friend` to have his revenge for his friend.
The Grizzly’s first known crime was when Ed Craddock shot him in the foot while the bear had been on one of his raids in Childs’ Valley of Napa County. Craddock was a sheep man. The Grizzly had been killing and eating his sheep in wholesale lots and Ed Craddock set out to stop the marauder.
Craddock’s two hounds were the first to encounter the bear in an open glade at the foot of Sugar Loaf Hill. By the time the Craddock arrived there had already been a good mixup between the bear and the hounds. The fight was over for his hounds and the Grizzly had killed enough sheep to keep a family in mutton for a year.
It happened this way. All Ed Craddock had, at the time he met up with the bear, was a breech loading rifle. When loaded the breech-loader was a wicked weapon. Empty, it was no better than a stick. When Ed caught up with the bear he found his two hounds stretched out on the ground, covered with blood, dying from the bear’s sixinch knife-like claws.
Craddock was so incensed at the sight of his suffering dogs he fired his weapon at the Grizzly. The bullet missed its target and struck the bear in its right ankle bone. Before Craddock could reload his weapon to finish the job, a matter of several long seconds, the Grizzly charged. In the battle that resulted, Ed lost several pieces of his own anatomy.
Ed Craddock, sitting astride his horse and still trying to reload, was a sitting duck for the Grizzly. With one swipe of his good left paw, the bear struck Craddock’s weapon from his hands. He grabbed the offending weapon by the stock in his teeth biting down with such force its teeth marks and the scars on the rifle stock remain to this day. With his hounds dead, no weapon, and the Grizzly about to finish the job on Ed, he had one choice. He spurred his horse and ran for his life. After that and with a damaged right paw, the Grizzly, ever after and for the rest of his life, ‘Reel Foot’ nursed a grudge against all humans.
During the months, that followed Ed Craddock’s narrow escape, sheep died by the dozens. No one could stop the giant Grizzly. Three months later Reel Foot tore apart a Pope Valley hog pen. The six-inch thick pickets of the enclosure, nailed with timber spikes, were swept away by Reel Foot’s huge arms and claws as if they were toothpicks. By the time anyone heard the squeals of the dying hogs, Reel Foot’s belly was full and his lust for retaliation for the Child’s Valley outrage on his right paw was, temporarily, satisfied.
The owner of the hog pen,
Jurd Walters, was a veteran bear hunter. He intended to make short work of the destroyer.
With a gang of men, Jurd and his neighbors set out to hunt the Grizzly. The band tracked the Bruin for three days since Reel Foot’s unusual paw mark trail was easy to follow. Ed Craddock’s gun wound had not only lamed the bear and had given Reel Foot’s right foot a peculiar outward twist so the toes turned almostat a right angle to those of the left foot. By the fourth day the tracks and the bear dropped out of sight near Bartlett Springs.