Eight Toes
As retold by Charles Edge of West Virgina
Now there was these moonshiners. They lived in a long dark hollow called Duncan fork of West Virgina. They were a large family. It consisted of a great grandfather, his wife, and 12 or 14 of their offspring along with the wifes and husbands. All or most of them lived in Duncan fork and raised corn and sold moonshine. The time was around the late 1920s and early 1930s.
It is said that it started with one of the uncles seeing something, while returning from making a delivery. The deliveries were always made after dark. While coming back across the mountain and the fork he heard a loud scream. When he stopped he saw a large animal of some kind on the opposite side of the hill. He said it wasn't a bear or anything he had seen before. When it started to come towards him he shot at it. But it didn't seem to have any effect. It just howled and ran away.
It was shot at many times but that didn't scare it away. They started calling it Eight Toes because when its tracks were found,they always had eight toes. Eight on each foot.
Now the grandfather was bringing a load of suger across the hill, the thing suddenly jumped front of his horse and swung a paw at him. It missed him and he took off as fast as his horse could go. When he got home that night,there were four deep cuts across his horse's side and a 50 pound bag of suger had been torn open. The Grandpaw said he'd shot at it with his pistol, but didn't know if he'd hit it or not, the way his horse was jumping around.
The Grandma told him that the thing had been sent to punish them for the things they were doing. You see there had been 3 lawmen killed on Duncan fork the day the thing jumped appeared.
There were many accounts of the thing getting after the men and tearing up their stills, while they were either making moonshine or hauling stuff in to make it. But it never seemed to bother the women.
One time she and another woman were going to draw water from the well late at night when it stood up behind the well houseing. She said it was at least 7 to 8 feet tall and stood and walked away on two legs like a man.
About two years after the thing was first seen, the law finally did get in to smash the stills in the head of the hollow after loses on both sides. The thing was not seen near the Fork after this. However people still say if you do wrong Eight Toes will get you in the end!
