I have a couple short stories in the works set in the piney woods around the Houston area. One story, entitled “Predators and Prey”, features a homeless teenager who is forced into working for an illicit animal breeder hidden in the forest. The other story, for an upcoming music based anthology, features a mismatched couple in the piney woods: a young man who loves his small town Texas roots and a young woman who can’t get out fast enough. Both stories came together somewhat organically, growing from a lifetime of memories of the piney woods of East Texas.
My grandparents acquired a piece of property in the piney woods north of Houston, Texas, between New Waverly and Willis, before I was born. In pastures cut from stands of pines my grandfather kept a dozen or so white-faced Hereford cows. As my grandparents aged, they needed help. My parents moved to the property as caretakers for my grandparents and for the property. I visited the “ranch” frequently as a child and as an adult, bringing my own children to visit their grandparents and great-grandparents.
The piney woods are “lovely, dark, and deep” and full of who knows what.
People, who relinquish all claim to the word “humane,” drive from the city and drop unwanted pets there. Puppies, kittens, pregnant dogs, and pregnant cats are common sights on the roads, wandering after being dumped.
When they wandered onto the property, my mother sometimes collected puppies and kittens to take to the local animal shelter. When walking, she protected herself from dangerous, roaming dog packs by carrying a cattle prod.
However, people don’t only dump domestic pets. Sometimes they dump exotic ones.
Once on a walk with her dog, my mother spotted something large and black in the distance. She turned and walked the other way when she realized the that the creature she had seen was a crouched feline in hunting mode that was far bigger than a housecat. Not something she wanted tangling with her dog.
After spotting the “black panther,” she asked her neighbor, a retired doctor, if he’d seen anything strange, like a large black animal, recently. The retired doctor replied, “You mean that black panther? Yes, I’ve seen it.”
Now, there aren’t supposed to be “black panthers,” really melanistic jaguars or leopards, in the piney woods. In fact, a man was ridiculed in the news for claiming he saw one. Tigers aren’t supposed to be wandering neighborhoods in Houston either. Yet the sight of a tiger in a Houston neighborhood makes the news fairly regularly.
Who knows what non-native animals hide in those forests!
“Predators and Prey” can be read here: https://redneck-press.blogspot.com/2024/10/predators-and-prey-fiction-by-nm-cedeno.html