The year is 1969 in the summer on the banks of the Brazos River. Camp Grady Spruce is hosting 18 young YMCA Scouts and 2 supervisors. The Texas Hill Country is rocky and full of valleys and slopes, especially toward the shores of a river that begins in the Texas panhandle and flows all the way to the southern border to Mexico. The Brazos wilderness is rough but beautiful. By early afternoon several boys have noticed something bizarre. From up above, there’s a rocky ledge. They notice an animal of some kind. Some of the kids think it’s a wolf, others, a bear, and still others swear it’s a gorilla!

Young David Cleaver, and a buddy decide to satisfy their curiosity and climb a tree that will bring them to the same height as the outcropping of rock ledge, and crawl along a limb to get onto the top! From there they spot movement, and in their fascination without so much as fearing for their safety, they run full speed after the elusive figure. David remembers the narrow path and after making a turn runs into what he thought was a tree stump, that was hairy?

He falls backward, stunned for a few seconds until he realizes what he actually collided with! An ape-like creature standing tall and built solid. David crab crawls backward in horror and his friend screams, terrified by this unreal sight! The hairy man, as the locals call it, some call it the “Brazos Man” let’s out a huge mind-numbing roar that sends both boys scurrying over the rocky trail back down the hill toward camp! When they crossed the river to Camp Grady Spruce, they excitedly tell all there what happened but are met with skepticism, besides, the Apollo Mission is simultaneously landing two US astronauts on the moon, and that has everyone pre-occupied.

This incident would set the stage for lifetime of investigations by David Cleaver, who is drawn time and again, back to this area in pursuit of solving a lagend that has visited upon the Brazos River region for two centuries. He will encounter evidence again and again as time goes on. As a grown man, he and a girl friend camp out in roughly the same area. After setting up a campfire and a tent, they settle down for the evening when a series of thrashing noises from a distance begin and then come the blood curdling screams from out in the thicket too dense to make any clear sighting from.

First comes the initial cry, followed by another behind them and another. There are three distinct sources of individuals making these howls. It seems they are triangulating the location of David’s campsite. Although he and his girlfriend are aware that their camp is being circled, no further incident occurs. They get little sleep that night, and, in the morning abandon further plans to stay another night. David notes entire and partial foot prints along the muddy banks of the Brazos that could not have been made by any hikers or visitors as he and his girlfriend were alone.

There is a nearby area that many of the rural resident’s call, “Ape Mountain” where the hairy man and others call the “Hugo Monster” dwelled, terrorizing a local town not far away. According to legend, a genuine mad scientist and Frankenstein Monster scenario occurred, with a torch carrying crowd of vigilantes to boot! It seems that a German scientist had taken up residence on the mountainside and made a laboratory out of a cave. The townspeople, wary of the reclusive German, began to think that he, in some way, had a connection with the Hugo Monster, or maybe more than just one!

After a series of scary events where the creature came down from the mountain and encroached upon the small town, the people organized into a posse, carrying torches and rifles! They located the German scientist’s cave entrance and dynamited it shut, thus trapping the unfortunate man! There he would remain sealed by fallen rock and debris after the blast! Did this stop the unknown Hill Country cryptid? No, as to this very day there are sightings even in towns where they have been seen rummaging through dumpsters and even the school cafeteria trash drawn by leftover food. David believes that all over America, in small towns in rural areas that these cryptids just as coyotes, raccoons, and even pumas infringe on human communities, so do these enigmatic beings who make their visitations from deep in the woods!