WEBVTT

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My grandfather passed away seven months ago. He was ninety four years old.

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He had gone fishing on one of
his favorite streams and he happened to fall

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in. He seemed to be all
right after he made it home, but

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he ended up taking the pneumonia and
he passed in the hospital bed five days

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later. It was the only time
in his life he had ever slept in

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a hospital bed, and probably the
last place on earth he wanted his life

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to end. He lived his entire
life on a piece of property that his

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grandfather had staked and claimed in northwest
Idaho. So my great great grandfather was

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born in eighteen seventy four. He
didn't start putting this place together until about

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nineteen oh one, but he left
home in Missouri in eighteen ninety four.

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My family wasn't big on remembering and
revering when members of my family did what

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all that. I know that I've
learned through my own research and reading,

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and I wasn't particularly interested in doing
any of that until my grandfather passed away.

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It was while I was cleaning the
personal things from his house after he

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had passed on, that I found
a thing that aroused my curiosity. I

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was always fond of my grandfather,
though I never did get to see him

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as often as I would have liked. My father chose not to stay on

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the property when he became old enough
to marry and settle down. We moved

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to Billings and that is where I
grew up, but I would spend vacation

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weekends with my grandfather, especially after
I was no longer required to go on

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family vacations. They would go somewhere
they thought would be interesting, and I

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would go and stay with Papa for
a few days. He would tell story

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upon story, and I liked hearing
every one of them. So it came

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as a real shock and surprise to
me when I was going through his things

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that I found a platte of acreage
that had been created when he had built

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his house. He had been dated
off a certain amount of property at the

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time, and the platte showed just
where his house would be on the property

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that surrounded it. His father had
also chosen not to stay on the place.

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Papa had come back to it when
he was ready to set up housekeeping

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with my grandmother, but the platte
did show where his grandfather's original house was

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until I had seen it on the
platte. I had never known anything about

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where my great great grandfather had lived. It had never been mentioned, I

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guess because no one ever thought it
to be important since it had been so

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long ago, and I had never
thought to ask about it. Like I

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said, our family didn't talk a
lot about familial ancestors, and that is

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something I regret more and more the
older I get. But finding this plat

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knowing where my grandfather's grandfather lived what
stirred a real interest in me just to

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go and see if I could find
any ruins that might remain. I can't

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tell you why it had become important
to me, but it had. I

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had driven a jeep fourwell drive,
so the next morning I put a few

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things I thought might be useful into
the back of it, and I took

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off. I loaded an axe and
a shovel and a machette, things of

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that nature. I didn't know what
conditioned the old place might be in,

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but I imagined that if there was
anything to find still, it would almost

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have to be overgrown. So I
drove through some very rough terrain for nearly

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forty five minutes. My papa owned
a rather large track of real estate,

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but not as large as you might
be imagining. It was just so rough

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that in many places I had to
creep the jeep along, and in several

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places it would have probably been faster
walking than it was driving. But I

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finally came up on a stand of
trees that didn't look like the others that

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I had passed. These trees looked
more organized. Well that's not a great

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way to say it, but everywhere
else trees just seemed to grow wherever,

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but these seemed different. Since it
was right about where I thought the original

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home place should be, I stopped
and had a look around. The trees,

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for lack of a better word,
formed a perimeter, and once you

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went inside past the trees, it
was more or less hollow. That didn't

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mean that everything was neat and tidy. It was terribly overgrown with bushes and

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nettles and vines. But even so
there was no way to walk forward until

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a path had been chewed out.
But there weren't any other trees, and

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I was glad I had thought to
bring him a chetty, and I went

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back for it. For more than
an hour, I swung and chopped and

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hacked until I took a swing and
the machete blade hit something so solid that

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it rang back through my arm so
stingingly that I dropped the blade. I

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thought I had hit some sort of
boulder. It was a rock, all

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right, but not a large one. It was a collection of rocks that

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had been mortared together with mud and
clay. I just knew that I had

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found the chimney to my great great
grandfather's house. But as I moved limb

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after vine, the rock structure just
kept going. It wasn't the chimney I

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had found, but instead I had
found the house. My papa's grandfather had

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built his entire house out of stone, and I had finally found it.

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I cut where I could, and
I inched along until I tripped over more

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rocks, and I went sprawling into
the bushes that obscured any and everything from

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being seen. Now that I knew
the rocks were there, I could see

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them, and I followed them with
my hand and used them as a guide.

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I had my hands on the front
steps of the place. I ducked

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under the vines that were growing everywhere, and he walked my way up the

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steps, and there were four of
them. I was exhausted. I was

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sweating like a hooker in church,
and I was bleeding from a thousand scratches.

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But I was also very excited,
and once I was through all the

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tangle, I could see that the
house was still relatively in good condition,

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at least from the outside. The
trees had protected the bushes and vines so

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that they could grow to immense heights
and thickness, and the bushes and vines

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had protected the house all of these
years. There was no furniture of any

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kind on the porch, of course, but I sat down on the rock

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surface, and I imagined that I
was sitting there with my ancestor, as

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he used to sit there when he
was tired, like I was. I

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looked up and behind me, and
I saw that there was a window.

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There wasn't any glass in it,
just a wooden shutter to cover it that

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could be swung open to let the
air and the light in the house.

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I nudged it open. I was
afraid it would fall because of how old

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the hinges were, but it held. What fell was about a thousand half

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eaten acorns that some animal had packed
ratted away in between the window shutter and

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the house. I opened the window
further, and I looked inside. The

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place was a total mess. Vines
had grown up through the floorboards, the

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furniture had been gutted down to the
frames for nest over the past hundred or

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so years. Cabinet doors hung by
threads or had fallen off the walls completely.

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But the mantelboard above the huge stone
fireplace sat there in such a pristina

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condition that it would have just been
hung the day before. I crossed the

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porch to the front door, and
I pulled down on the latch, and

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of course it refused to give.
I gave the whole door a push and

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found that it had swelled and warped
over time until it was seated firmly in

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place inside the doorway. I could
have kicked at it until it gave way

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or splintered, but I really didn't
want to destroy anything if I could help

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it. And I walked back over
and waded into the piles of acorns,

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and I pulled myself up into the
window with as much care as I could.

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I lowered myself inside, and I
had no idea how solid the flooring

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was, and I didn't want to
jump down, only to drive myself through

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the wood. Many times I had
wondered about the possibility of snakes or the

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hurtful kinds of spiders that might be
living in the house, and especially under

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it. I didn't want to get
wedged half in and half out of the

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floor where they could get it in
me and I wouldn't be able to run.

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I slid on down and found that
there was some give to the boards

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of the floor, but all in
all it was fairly solid. The window

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let in some light, and one
light there was underneath all those trees and

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bushes, but it was still dim. I looked and found one more window

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in the main room and one in
the kitchen, and I opened them both

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and I could finally see rather well. There were a lot of cobwebs and

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dust, but underneath all of that
you could tell that at one time it

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had been a very cozy and unique
home. It was empty by and large,

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but at one time it had been
an nice house. And I eased

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through the rest of it, and
there was only two other rooms, and

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they were in similar condition to the
main room. I looked and saw nothing

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that would have been worth picking up
and keeping as a memento of my visit.

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I had known there would be nothing
as I looked around, but it

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would have been special to have spotted
an old white and I for something like

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that. I was getting tired of
breathing the dust and droppings from animals that

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had been dead for a hundred years, but I sat down on the hearth

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so that I could take a last
moment to wonder what it had been like

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for my grandfather's grandfather to have sat
in this very room. And past the

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evenings, I didn't know when or
if I would ever get to come back

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to this place, so while I
was here, I wanted to make the

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most of it. After some time, I decided that it was time to

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go, and I still had the
jungle out in front to navigate myself through,

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and then the kidney rattling drive to
make before I got back and returned

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to work that I had left unfinished. And I suppose I scooted forward a

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little as I was standing up,
and I heard and felt a stone rattle

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or grind, as if it was
loose from its housing. I turned so

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that I could make sure that it
was sitting as it was supposed to be.

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But nature might claim this old house, but I wanted to leave the

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house itself in much the way that
I had found it. But when I

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looked, I saw why the stone
had been loose. It had been intentionally

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left that way. Instead of seeing
dusty and crumbling jake leg mortar around the

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edges of where the stone would have
been firmly seated, there was a cast

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iron rim around the whole thing.
It was only then that I noticed that

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the edges of the stone had been
chiseled away to make it more or less

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rectangular in shape. I quickly picked
up the stone and set it aside.

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Dark and completely lined with iron,
was a box. The stone had only

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been the lid camouflaged as well.
I guess this was my papa's grandfather's version

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of a safe or a safety deposit
box. I was a little afraid to

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reach down inside hole. It was
as dark as the dungeon in there,

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and I didn't know that something may
or may not have made its home in

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there. But I shifted around and
allowed just a little bit more like to

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fall onto it, or into it, I suppose would be a better way

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to say it. I could see
that something was down there, but I

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couldn't see just what. When I
finally put my hand down there, I

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went as deep as my elbow before
I finally felt something besides iron sides.

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I bumped it and I felt it
move, and I took a deep breath,

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and I pulled out a wooden box, not so much larger than a

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cigar box, a bit deeper and
a bit longer, but roughly the size

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of a cigar box. I wanted
to see what, if anything was inside

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of it after all these years,
but I knew that if I did and

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something was in there, I would
get distracted. I set the box aside

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and tried to see if anything else
was down in the small vault, but

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I couldn't see anything. And I
retrieved the stick from the porch and I

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began swishing it and prodding it around
down in the hole, and I felt

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the stick hit nothing, and I
heard it slap against nothing but those iron

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sides. Whatever was in the wooden
box was going to be the prize to

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take from this trip. And I
replaced the stone and made sure that it

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looked just right, and then I
collected the box and I went outside again

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through the window. This was my
third time doing that, and I was

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glad I wouldn't be doing it again. And I could never have made a

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career out of being a cat burglar. Dawn windows are too hard to crawl

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in and out of, but I
very much wanted to sit down on the

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stone porch and see what I held
in my hands, but I crawled back

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down the steps instead. I picked
up my machette and made my way back

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out of the tangle until I could
once again see the trees. It was

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easier getting out compared to what it
had been going in, but not by

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much. I walked to the jeep
and I threw the machete in the back

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and planted myself behind the steering wheel
with the wooden box in my lap.

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I kept reminding myself that even if
nothing was inside of the box but ruined

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scraps of something in the skelter remains
of insects, the box itself was an

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incredible find, especially given how I
found it, But truthfully, I wanted

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to see something amazing inside of it. I wasn't even thinking about stacks of

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antique money or deeds. No one
in my family I had ever heard about

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had been wealthy, but I wanted
there to be something. One of the

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small nails that was holding the latch
onto the box had completely rusted, away,

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so I was careful upon opening it
in case the latch just fell away.

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I didn't want to lose any part
of my find. The first thing

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I saw was a very badly cracked
photograph of a fairly young man standing behind

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a plain looking woman that was wearing
a light colored dress. It was mounted

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on something as thick as cardboard,
but it was more rigid. It reminded

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me of the photos that you always
see in the Civil War documentaries. But

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underneath the photograph laid a handkerchief that
had yellowed with age, and when unfolded,

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you could see that originally it had
been white. Someone had embroidered a

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capital A onto it in very fine
curse of stitching. My first thoughts were

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whose name had started with the letter
A, and whilemast's handkerchief so important to

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my ancestor. I turned the photo
over carefully and saw that it read a

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faint script Leander and Amelia Munroe,
wedded seventh May eighteen ninety three. My

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last name is Munroe, and my
family's middle name is Leander. I was

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looking at the only photograph that I
was aware of of my great great grandparents.

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I knew this to be a prize
that I had been hoping I would

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find or I thought I knew that, but then I saw the sack of

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papers laid neatly in the bottom of
the box. I pulled at the corner

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of the first sheet and it broke
off in my finger tips. I was

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so mad that I was going to
have to wait to find out what was

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on the papers, but I couldn't
take the slightest risk of destroying them just

207
00:16:32.039 --> 00:16:34.559
to try to read them. So
I put everything back in the box and

208
00:16:34.639 --> 00:16:40.200
I made myself focus on getting back
to my grandfather's house in one piece,

209
00:16:40.759 --> 00:16:45.600
and once there I could learn what
was on the papers. The way back

210
00:16:45.679 --> 00:16:48.639
to my Papa's house was rougher than
I had remembered, even though it had

211
00:16:48.639 --> 00:16:52.799
only been a couple of hours,
but I finally made it back. The

212
00:16:52.879 --> 00:16:56.399
rest of my family. My parents
and my wife were going to come and

213
00:16:56.519 --> 00:17:02.200
help with the clean out. For
now, I was just glad that I

214
00:17:02.240 --> 00:17:04.720
had come for the day or two
to work without them, because he gave

215
00:17:04.720 --> 00:17:10.839
me some time to myself with the
contents of the box. Unless I was

216
00:17:10.920 --> 00:17:15.039
taken completely by surprise by what was
inside, I will tell them all about

217
00:17:15.079 --> 00:17:19.359
finding it when I saw them,
but for now, whatever was inside was

218
00:17:19.400 --> 00:17:26.519
all mine to spend time with.
My Papa had a work bench of sorts

219
00:17:26.559 --> 00:17:30.319
and a spare bedroom of his house. It's where he used to work on

220
00:17:30.440 --> 00:17:34.079
and tweak all of his fishing gear. On that bench sat one of those

221
00:17:34.119 --> 00:17:38.640
big magnifying lenses with the light bulbs
set in the housing so that everything you've

222
00:17:38.680 --> 00:17:45.519
looked at was very large and bright. And jewelers used them for watch repair

223
00:17:45.559 --> 00:17:49.480
and such, and Papa used his
for tying flies. He used it a

224
00:17:49.519 --> 00:17:55.160
lot during the last twenty years of
his life. I moved all of his

225
00:17:55.279 --> 00:17:59.279
bits and Bob's a site so that
I could have a clear and clean place

226
00:17:59.400 --> 00:18:02.480
to look at. It was in
the box, and with a lot more

227
00:18:02.559 --> 00:18:06.480
care than earlier, I lifted the
papers from the box and laid them on

228
00:18:06.519 --> 00:18:10.880
the bench so that I could see
them plainly. There weren't many sheets,

229
00:18:10.920 --> 00:18:15.240
but he had written them pretty full, and the first page was the hardest

230
00:18:15.240 --> 00:18:18.279
one to read it, seeing that
the lower and the stacke went the more

231
00:18:18.319 --> 00:18:22.880
sheets were protected somehow, But with
the light and the big lens, it

232
00:18:22.960 --> 00:18:30.200
wasn't so terrible reading what he had
written. He wrote about him taking work.

233
00:18:30.440 --> 00:18:36.000
Soon after he and Amelia had married. They both took jobs. He

234
00:18:36.039 --> 00:18:40.119
was cutting timber to be used in
the making of cross ties for the railroads,

235
00:18:40.160 --> 00:18:44.880
and she was working as a chambermaid. They were living in Shelby,

236
00:18:45.039 --> 00:18:48.920
Montana, after they had gone west
from Missouri. He said that every time

237
00:18:48.960 --> 00:18:52.880
he would go into town, all
anyone wanted to talk about was where the

238
00:18:52.960 --> 00:18:59.039
latest big gold strike had been found. I guess Leander got the edge,

239
00:18:59.039 --> 00:19:02.359
and he told him that he was
going to go and give looking for gold

240
00:19:02.400 --> 00:19:06.319
to try. They hadn't been married
a year yet, but he was going

241
00:19:06.359 --> 00:19:08.200
to leave her and see if he
couldn't find a way for them to live

242
00:19:08.240 --> 00:19:15.000
without working themselves to the bone every
six days out of seven. If Amelia

243
00:19:15.160 --> 00:19:19.519
argued about his leaving, he didn't
write that down. And to the east

244
00:19:19.559 --> 00:19:25.480
and north of Shelby was still where
a good many Blackfoot Indians made their home.

245
00:19:26.359 --> 00:19:30.920
Relations weren't at all that great between
them and white people. But Leander

246
00:19:30.960 --> 00:19:33.759
didn't have anything against any Indian,
and he doubted that he would run into

247
00:19:33.880 --> 00:19:37.680
any anyway, And if he did, surely they wouldn't have a problem.

248
00:19:37.720 --> 00:19:41.039
With one man out in the woods
washing a few pans of dirt and a

249
00:19:41.119 --> 00:19:48.839
creek, he told Amelia that everyone
finding some gold, there wasn't any reason

250
00:19:48.920 --> 00:19:52.359
why a bit of it couldn't be
theirs. And so he gathered a few

251
00:19:52.400 --> 00:19:56.720
things and set out to get rich, and Amelia stayed behind, and she

252
00:19:56.839 --> 00:20:03.599
kept working. He traveled until it
seemed that he was walking nearly uphill all

253
00:20:03.640 --> 00:20:07.680
the time, and that was where
he had wanted to go. He wanted

254
00:20:07.720 --> 00:20:11.119
to be close to the Canadian border. He traveled until he had gone two

255
00:20:11.160 --> 00:20:15.680
weeks without seeing another soul, and
that was when he figured he was alone

256
00:20:15.799 --> 00:20:19.000
enough, and he started trying to
make his fortune. He wrote that he

257
00:20:19.039 --> 00:20:23.039
had panned and dug test holes for
many days before he found the first bit

258
00:20:23.079 --> 00:20:26.559
of color, and after he found
that, he began to see it more

259
00:20:26.599 --> 00:20:30.960
and more often, not much,
just a few flakes now and then,

260
00:20:32.720 --> 00:20:36.160
and wants a little nugget about the
size of a sweet pea, but mostly

261
00:20:36.279 --> 00:20:41.119
dust. He said that after a
month he had almost enough to fill a

262
00:20:41.200 --> 00:20:44.799
thumble, but the knowledge of that
gold was out there hadn't left him,

263
00:20:44.799 --> 00:20:48.839
and he kept on looking all through
the remainder of the spring and through the

264
00:20:48.880 --> 00:20:53.279
summer months he worked. He said
in his writings that the only time he

265
00:20:53.400 --> 00:20:57.759
stopped his search for gold was when
he finally slept or checked the trap that

266
00:20:57.839 --> 00:21:03.200
he had fashioned fort fish. He
caught some small animals from time to time

267
00:21:03.240 --> 00:21:07.960
in a steel trap, and he
fished the rest of the time, and

268
00:21:07.079 --> 00:21:11.559
that's what he lived on, sleeping
when he had to and eating when he

269
00:21:11.599 --> 00:21:15.279
could. Everything else was all about
finding a way to give more to his

270
00:21:15.400 --> 00:21:19.079
wife than a future as a maid, and he wanted her to have a

271
00:21:19.160 --> 00:21:25.119
life of ease and to be free
from worry. Once he returned, he

272
00:21:25.160 --> 00:21:29.759
wrote that he had started to notice
some frost in the mornings, and so

273
00:21:29.759 --> 00:21:33.400
far he had been living in a
lean to made from a sheet of canvas

274
00:21:33.400 --> 00:21:37.519
that he had brought. It had
worked well enough during the warm months,

275
00:21:37.559 --> 00:21:41.200
but with fall approaching, he would
have to do it differently or he would

276
00:21:41.200 --> 00:21:45.079
have to return home. There wasn't
a way to survive the cold months with

277
00:21:45.119 --> 00:21:48.880
the little that he had, and
he wrote that even though he desired to

278
00:21:48.920 --> 00:21:55.319
see his dear Amelia again very badly, he dreaded going back and showing just

279
00:21:55.400 --> 00:22:00.559
what a failure that he had proven
himself to be. Demated that his accumulated

280
00:22:00.640 --> 00:22:06.519
goal to weigh less than half a
pound far from enough for his wife to

281
00:22:06.559 --> 00:22:11.119
abandon her work. He wrote that
even when he could see ice formed on

282
00:22:11.160 --> 00:22:14.880
the edges of the stream, he
was working, and he was still trying

283
00:22:14.920 --> 00:22:17.920
to find a way to stay and
work until he had made a success of

284
00:22:18.039 --> 00:22:22.839
himself. He was fearful that if
he went back was so little to show

285
00:22:22.920 --> 00:22:29.279
for his efforts, his wife would
think lowly of him, he wrote.

286
00:22:29.319 --> 00:22:33.759
And when he had finally resigned himself
to going back, he packed up what

287
00:22:33.880 --> 00:22:37.640
few belongings he had so that he
could leave. The following morning, he

288
00:22:37.680 --> 00:22:41.759
wrote in the saddest words of how
he lay there, regretting his having to

289
00:22:41.839 --> 00:22:47.119
leave, so much so that he
was unable to sleep. And he wrote

290
00:22:47.160 --> 00:22:51.119
that he had laid there and he
heard the sound for the first time.

291
00:22:52.480 --> 00:22:56.359
That he had been in that place
or near it for almost six months,

292
00:22:56.359 --> 00:22:59.599
as far as he could tell,
and he had heard many things, but

293
00:22:59.640 --> 00:23:02.640
he had ever heard anything of the
likes of what he had heard. That

294
00:23:02.839 --> 00:23:07.519
night. He sat up, and
he listened more intently, and even crawled

295
00:23:07.559 --> 00:23:11.839
outside of his lean to shelter so
that he could hear better. And it

296
00:23:11.960 --> 00:23:15.519
came to him again on the breezes, and once every three or four minutes

297
00:23:15.559 --> 00:23:19.440
it would begin as a rumble,
like someone breathing with their lungs full of

298
00:23:19.480 --> 00:23:25.400
the cold, but much louder,
and then it would increase in volume and

299
00:23:25.519 --> 00:23:30.640
pitch until it became a keening,
the kind of keening that humans can't make.

300
00:23:30.200 --> 00:23:36.799
Only animals that are in pain make
those types of sounds. He wrote

301
00:23:36.839 --> 00:23:38.559
that he picked up his knife in
his axe, and he wanted to be

302
00:23:38.599 --> 00:23:42.640
able to defend himself if he needed
to, but he was prepared to put

303
00:23:42.640 --> 00:23:47.200
the animal out of its misery if
he found it and saw that it would

304
00:23:47.279 --> 00:23:52.559
be for the best. But he
searched in the darkness for nearly two hours

305
00:23:52.720 --> 00:23:57.000
and walking a few steps and then
listening for the whaling. The last time

306
00:23:57.000 --> 00:24:00.759
he heard it he almost ran all
the way back to his shelter. The

307
00:24:00.839 --> 00:24:06.519
sound had come from only a few
feet away, and in the darkness caused

308
00:24:06.519 --> 00:24:10.640
by the night in trees. He
had brought himself very close to the animal

309
00:24:10.720 --> 00:24:15.519
without even knowing it was there.
He stood trying to know what he should

310
00:24:15.519 --> 00:24:18.400
do next, and he wrote that
he could hear it breathing. He knew

311
00:24:18.440 --> 00:24:25.079
he was very close, and he
was very afraid a bear was what he

312
00:24:25.160 --> 00:24:27.880
had been assuming this animal would be. But when he moved a branch so

313
00:24:29.000 --> 00:24:33.000
he could see what he saw laying
there. Was nothing resembling a bear or

314
00:24:33.039 --> 00:24:38.279
any other kind of animal he had
ever heard of. It lay there under

315
00:24:38.319 --> 00:24:45.039
the cedar bows, breathing shallowly.
It was looking back at my ancestor with

316
00:24:45.200 --> 00:24:49.039
large eyes filled with fear and pain. He wrote that if this thing could

317
00:24:49.079 --> 00:24:53.079
have, it would have either run
away or assaulted him. But it didn't

318
00:24:53.079 --> 00:24:59.160
either because it couldn't. But he
wanted to stand there and simply marvel at

319
00:24:59.200 --> 00:25:03.079
the sheer size of the beasts.
But once he saw the wound, that

320
00:25:03.160 --> 00:25:07.759
was where his attentions gathered. Now
this thing lay there half again, as

321
00:25:07.799 --> 00:25:11.039
long as any man, and was
covered head to heel with a coarse,

322
00:25:11.160 --> 00:25:15.920
matted hair or fur. And when
it would snarl from the pain, he

323
00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.880
could see two massive rows of blunted
yellow teeth surrounded by thick, swollen lips.

324
00:25:21.960 --> 00:25:26.680
It was brutish looking, but it
was also helpless. It had thighs

325
00:25:26.799 --> 00:25:30.799
the size of a man's waist,
but a large section of a tree limb

326
00:25:30.880 --> 00:25:36.559
was buried into one of them.
Only a few inches of it was visible,

327
00:25:36.640 --> 00:25:38.799
but that part looked as big around
as the handle of a shovel.

328
00:25:40.960 --> 00:25:45.319
And the part that protruded pointed downward
towards the thing's huge and grotesque feet.

329
00:25:45.880 --> 00:25:49.599
He knew part of that limb had
been driven in and also upward into the

330
00:25:49.680 --> 00:25:56.440
thing's thigh. Heaven alone knew how
deeply it went, or what calamity had

331
00:25:56.440 --> 00:26:00.359
befallen this thing for it to have
been injured so terribly. And my grandfather's

332
00:26:00.400 --> 00:26:06.000
grandfather wrote that if this beast was
ever going to walk again or even live,

333
00:26:06.559 --> 00:26:11.279
that stob had to be removed.
But what he didn't know was how

334
00:26:11.319 --> 00:26:17.119
the thing would react if that stob
was touched or pulled on. One swipe

335
00:26:17.200 --> 00:26:21.920
from either of those massive arms could
recommend snack, and God help the fool

336
00:26:21.960 --> 00:26:26.559
who let his head get caught between
both of those enormous hands. But the

337
00:26:26.640 --> 00:26:32.160
thought of turning around and allowing this
creature to die crossed his mind, but

338
00:26:32.279 --> 00:26:37.079
his conscience would not permit him to
do that. He wrote that he felt

339
00:26:37.119 --> 00:26:41.039
the fool by asking the thing if
it could any way understand him when he

340
00:26:41.079 --> 00:26:45.680
spoke, because he knew that it
was only an animal of some bastardized variety.

341
00:26:45.519 --> 00:26:49.839
And the beast snarled and then relaxed
again as the pain overwhelming it once

342
00:26:49.920 --> 00:26:55.759
more. Leander told the beast that
he would return in short order. Was

343
00:26:55.839 --> 00:27:00.880
supplies to help, and he knew
that the thing did not understand, but

344
00:27:00.960 --> 00:27:03.519
he felt better for leaving the animal
with the knowledge that he would be coming

345
00:27:03.599 --> 00:27:08.279
back. He would have preferred taking
the thing to where the shelter was,

346
00:27:08.359 --> 00:27:12.640
but that was out of the question, and he doubted that three men could

347
00:27:12.680 --> 00:27:18.880
have budged the creature. Being as
all of his things had been packed away

348
00:27:18.920 --> 00:27:22.200
for what was to have been his
departure, Lander thought it best just to

349
00:27:22.240 --> 00:27:26.839
move the shelter to the creature.
Now that he knew where the animal was,

350
00:27:27.319 --> 00:27:30.240
he knew that it wasn't so far
from the stream. He had been

351
00:27:30.279 --> 00:27:34.880
working for months, and to find
the creature he had walked in a variety

352
00:27:34.920 --> 00:27:40.960
of patterns, and now he walked
in a straight line back for his belongings.

353
00:27:41.880 --> 00:27:45.480
Once back, he laid all that
he owned off to the side,

354
00:27:45.480 --> 00:27:49.480
and he stared at the beast.
His better two shirts were in his pack,

355
00:27:51.039 --> 00:27:53.519
so he removed the one from us
back and tore it into a few

356
00:27:53.640 --> 00:27:59.079
strips as best as he could.
His eyes never left the eyes of the

357
00:27:59.079 --> 00:28:03.880
beast, who stared constantly at Leander. It was slow, easy movements.

358
00:28:03.880 --> 00:28:08.440
He eased himself between the creature's long, thick legs and he touched the wound

359
00:28:08.480 --> 00:28:15.160
as gently as he could. The
creature howled, but Leander would not move

360
00:28:15.200 --> 00:28:21.599
his hand. The creature eventually calmed, as if in resignation of what was

361
00:28:21.640 --> 00:28:26.079
going to happen. He had a
canteen full of water, but there wasn't

362
00:28:26.119 --> 00:28:30.079
an endless supply, and he decided
washing the wound beforehand would be a waste,

363
00:28:30.759 --> 00:28:34.359
and he wrote that he patted the
thigh of the uninjured leg until the

364
00:28:34.400 --> 00:28:41.960
creature breathed more easily, and then
closed its eyes. Having no idea if

365
00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:47.759
the creature would gush its life blood
and expire or grab Leander and a fit

366
00:28:47.839 --> 00:28:52.000
of pain and rage, he began
to pull out the limb that was stabbed

367
00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:56.079
into the thing's thigh. He pulled
more than half a foot of bloody wood

368
00:28:56.079 --> 00:29:00.000
from the leg, with the creature
bellowing and hirling the whole time, but

369
00:29:00.119 --> 00:29:04.839
it never raised a hand in protest. And when the stab was out,

370
00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:10.000
Leander washed the wound and bound it
tightly with the strips he had made from

371
00:29:10.039 --> 00:29:14.200
his shirt, and he wrote that
the hole should have been sown closed,

372
00:29:14.200 --> 00:29:18.160
but he had neither the light nor
the material to do that, And once

373
00:29:18.200 --> 00:29:22.640
he had bandaged the leg, he
poured some of the remaining water into the

374
00:29:22.759 --> 00:29:26.519
thing's mouth for it to drink.
And it was lying very still in an

375
00:29:26.519 --> 00:29:32.359
effort to control the pain, and
Leander took his canvas and spread it over

376
00:29:32.400 --> 00:29:37.680
the creature as a blanket. Fever
was still a threat, and he would

377
00:29:37.759 --> 00:29:41.480
ward it off if he could.
Only when he saw that the animal was

378
00:29:41.559 --> 00:29:45.640
sleeping did he retrieve one of his
shirts, and sitting back against a tree,

379
00:29:45.680 --> 00:29:51.160
to watch over the beast. For
four days he tended to this thing,

380
00:29:51.920 --> 00:29:55.400
and bringing it water to drink,
and bringing it fish to eat when

381
00:29:55.400 --> 00:30:00.920
he could trap one, and cleaning
the bandages and redressing the wound. He

382
00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.599
did all of this in silence,
and he wrote that he had tried talking

383
00:30:04.640 --> 00:30:08.319
to it the first day, but
that only served to confuse and enrage the

384
00:30:08.359 --> 00:30:14.720
creature. So each day, when
his nursing details were completed, he would

385
00:30:14.720 --> 00:30:18.839
sit and study the small amount of
gold that he had collected. The thing

386
00:30:18.880 --> 00:30:23.039
would lay there and watch Leander sift
the goal from one palm to the other,

387
00:30:23.799 --> 00:30:27.599
And on the fifth morning, after
having found the creature, Leander awoke

388
00:30:27.680 --> 00:30:34.079
to find that this monstrous animal was
gone. How anything that size could move

389
00:30:34.160 --> 00:30:40.359
so silently was a complete wonder.
But it had. But it hadn't just

390
00:30:40.599 --> 00:30:45.319
left. It had left and come
back and left again, all while Leander

391
00:30:45.440 --> 00:30:52.160
was totally unaware. Atop the canvas
that had served as a blanket for the

392
00:30:52.240 --> 00:30:57.200
creature were more than a dozen stones, made up mostly of gold. Some

393
00:30:57.519 --> 00:31:02.759
weren't much larger than apples, but
a couple were the size of a man's

394
00:31:02.920 --> 00:31:07.000
fist or larger, and when the
trash bits had been cleared, he had

395
00:31:07.079 --> 00:31:12.920
more than twenty pounds of gold.
For more than two hours, Leander's searched

396
00:31:12.960 --> 00:31:18.519
for the creature, but not even
a track could be found. He assumed

397
00:31:18.519 --> 00:31:25.240
that the creature considered its debt repaid, and further contact was needless. My

398
00:31:25.359 --> 00:31:30.559
grandfather's grandfather began the journey home feeling
quite wealthy in a way that had nothing

399
00:31:30.599 --> 00:31:36.240
to do with the gold he was
carrying. Eventually, he used his reward

400
00:31:36.359 --> 00:31:41.880
for the assistance to purchase this property
in Idaho. I do not know if

401
00:31:41.880 --> 00:31:45.720
Amelia or anyone else ever heard how
Leander came upon the funds to begin his

402
00:31:45.839 --> 00:31:49.880
life here, but judging by the
way it was written. I have to

403
00:31:49.920 --> 00:31:56.200
believe this was something he kept to
himself. I debated long about sharing this

404
00:31:56.480 --> 00:32:00.160
story with you, and I've shown
the papers to one in my family.

405
00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:07.119
They have seen the photograph and the
handkerchief, but not his words. Those

406
00:32:07.160 --> 00:32:10.079
words I will keep to myself,
the way I believe he kept the story

407
00:32:10.119 --> 00:32:15.440
to himself. I was able to
go back to the stone house one more

408
00:32:15.480 --> 00:32:20.720
time before all the work was completed
at Pap Paul's place. I wasn't expecting

409
00:32:20.759 --> 00:32:25.680
to find anything additional, and unfortunately
I was right. I found nothing more.

410
00:32:25.880 --> 00:32:30.319
Even though I prodded and jiggled every
stone that I could put my hands

411
00:32:30.400 --> 00:32:35.279
on. I wanted there to be
more to the story. I wanted to

412
00:32:35.319 --> 00:32:38.279
hear his thoughts on what he believed
the creature to be. And now we

413
00:32:38.400 --> 00:32:43.160
call them bigfoot. Most of us
want to see one, even if they

414
00:32:43.200 --> 00:32:49.319
would be terrified. At the time, my grandfather's grandfather did more than see

415
00:32:49.319 --> 00:32:52.599
one, and while he may not
have been friends with one, a partnership

416
00:32:52.599 --> 00:32:58.359
had been formed with one, if
only for a short time. I would

417
00:32:58.359 --> 00:33:01.680
have enjoyed hearing what Leander would have
said to those who were certain that no

418
00:33:01.799 --> 00:33:07.039
such creature exists. Maybe the very
few and rare times that one is spotted

419
00:33:07.160 --> 00:33:13.920
now is because my grandfather's grandfather saved
the life of one, and maybe that

420
00:33:14.039 --> 00:33:19.559
act of kindness allowed a species to
continue. I like to think about it

421
00:33:19.599 --> 00:33:22.519
in that way. I think Leander
would also