It was the late summer of 1937, and the rural landscape surrounding the small community of

Paris, Michigan were vast, unforgiving, and deeply isolated.

The dense pine forests of the region seemed to stretch out endlessly, broken only by the

winding cold currents of the Meskigone River. During this era, the woods were not just a place for recreation.

They were a rugged frontier where locals hunted, fished, and survived off the land.

Robert Fortney was an experienced outdoorsman who knew these woods intimately.

He was familiar with the natural predators of the region, the sounds the forest made,

when the storms were approaching, and the specific silence that fell over the trees when something

dangerous was nearby. On this particular day, Fortney was walking near the banks of the river,

enjoying quiet isolation of the afternoon. But as the sun began to dip lower in the sky,

casting long, fractured shadows through the canopy of the pines, the profound silence of the woods

was broken by the rustling of heavy brush. Fortney stopped and turned, and emerging from the tree

line, one by one, were five feral dogs.

Now, during the 1930s, packs of wild starving dogs were a genuine and lethal threatened rural areas.

They were highly territorial, completely unafraid of humans, and operated with a brutal pack mentality.

The animals fanned out. Their heads lowered, their teeth bared, and they began to systematically encircle him.

Fortney, recognizing the immediate life-threatening danger of the situation, raised his shotgun.

He knew that shooting one might not stop the rest from tearing him apart, so he aimed

the barrel toward the sky and pulled the trigger,

hoping the concussive blast would be enough to break their nerve.

The deafening roar of the shotgun shattered the quiet of the riverbank.

The defense mechanism worked, mostly.

...