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Have you ever had one of those
periods in your life where everything fell apart

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all at once. For me,
it happened in the winter of nineteen eighty

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eight. Right after New Year,
I found out my boyfriend was cheating on

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me. A week after that,
I lost my job, and then a

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few days before my birthday in February, my grandfather died. Since I was

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no longer gainfully employed, it was
expected that I leave for home at once.

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Well. I was fine with that, except that the absence of employment

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also meant the absence of income.
I didn't have the money to pay for

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the plane ticket, and there were
no trains that could take me from Saint

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Louis to nowhere. The thought of
riding a bus for sixteen hours when a

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car ride would take six was also
more than a little stomach churning. Unfortunately,

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that meant driving my nineteen seventy seven
International Scout too all the way home

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in January, with a massive blizzard
building out west that was threatening to dump

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a foot of snow all over the
roads i'd be traveling. I loved that

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old Scout. It was ugly as
hell and about as reliable as gas stations

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sushi, but it was mine.
I bought it second hand when I was

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sixteen and newly licensed. It carried
my belongings from Willard Springs to Saint Louis

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when I moved there out of high
school, and to be fair, I

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had to stop in Fort Madison,
Iowa for repairs, and then I got

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all the way to Hannibal, Missouri
before another mechanic was required. It didn't

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help that I'd chosen to follow the
river all the way down. It added

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extra miles in undue, wear and
tear on the old girl. But somehow

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the scout and I made it.
Of course, that was the middle of

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summer, and now five years and
a lot more miles later, I would

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be making the return trip in a
possible snow storm. I got the call

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about Granddaddy Friday afternoon. The funeral
was planned for Monday, the first,

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my birthday. I didn't argue or
complain. If a man died on Friday,

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he was buried on Monday, three
days. That was the rule back

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then. The only option was to
go home with one bag of clothes in

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a small toiletry case. I headed
for Willard Springs. It really is in

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the middle of nowhere. It's the
kind of town where you grow up,

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but you don't stay. Those who
do stay ei their own farms, or

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love off food stamps and government rations, or they serve. The serving options

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range from food to gasoline. I
didn't see myself as one of those people.

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My grades weren't good enough to pursue
a degree, but I wasn't about

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to waste my life fighting off drunken
advances at Dooley's Corner tap, handing out

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greasy plates of food at Fat Mattie's
Catfish Cafe, or stocking cigarettes behind the

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counter at the corner gas. It's
the life I got anyway, albeit in

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a different location. But I did
accomplish one thing. After five years of

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school, I had an associate degree, and at that rate, I fully

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expected to have my bachelor a year
or so before I retired. It was

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mid afternoon when I left for home. How I managed to arrive is beyond

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me. A four hundred mile road
trip with Scout is not my idea of

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pleasure. She grumbled and belched ugly
black smoke, and hissed menacingly from under

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the hood the whole trip. Twice
I pulled over to eat, just so

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she could have a rest. Each
time I turned off the ignition. I

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was sure she would never start again, but I couldn't make myself push the

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old girl any harder than was necessary. I paid her for her efforts with

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gasoline, motor oil, ana,
freeze, and all of which she had

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a gluttonous appetite for. It must
have been nearly ten o'clock when I pulled

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into the barnyard where I grew up. There was a light on in the

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kitchen, but the rest of the
house was dark. I guessed that Mom

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and Dad had left the light on
for me. They would have been in

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bed two hours earlier. Why didn't
mind They were already old when they had

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me. I was a menopause baby, and my other siblings were all grown

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or nearly so when I came along. Old people tend to go to bed

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early and rise with the sun.
Old farmers get up early and eat breakfasts,

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and feed the animals and milk and
gather eggs and work on whichever piece

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of equipment happens to be broken at
the moment, and then when the sun

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finally decid to get up, they
shake their fists at it for being lazy,

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and then they start their day.
I turned off the engine and stuck

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my keys into my jeans pocket and
patted the dashboard. Thanks Scout for getting

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me there, and I grabbed my
bags and I went inside. There was

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a note on the table for Mom, telling me there was a plate of

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food in the fridge for me,
and that she and Dad would see me

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in the morning. I set the
plate of meat loaf, potatoes, and

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cream corn on the table, and
I rooted around until I found a bottle

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of root beer. It was the
first quiet moment I'd had since the phone

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rang that morning. Between figuring out
how much money I could afford to spend

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and what clothes I needed to bring, and worrying about Scout's ability to get

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me there, I hadn't let myself
think about my grandfather. My mother's father

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was the reason everyone called me Shadow. From the moment I was old enough

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to walk where he went, I
went. His house was across a wide

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gravel road from ours, so he
walked over and had breakfast with us most

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mornings when he left, unless I
had to go to school, I went

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with him, and the adventures we
had together were worth a lifetime of memories.

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We'd go down to the river to
Scout for good fishing spots, or

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we'd wander around out in the woods
checking for signs of deer. In Turkey,

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he bought me my first fishing pole
and my first BB gun. He

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taught me to drive as soon as
my legs were long enough to reach the

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pedals. Most farm kids learned that
skill early, but it was my grandfather

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who taught me. He'd taken me
into town for coffee at Fat Mattie's or

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for a strawberry soda at the County
Creamery, and if he got up to

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leave and I didn't immediately get up
to follow, he'd turn and say,

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come on, Shadow, And the
name stuck. When I moved to Saint

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Louis. He was the one that
I called every night. He always seemed

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to know when I needed money and
things would get tight, and I'd open

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my mailbox to find a check from
Granddaddy with a note that read, don't

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tell your Mama. Over time,
the conversations grew shorter and the calls became

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less frequent. I settled into my
life, and he got over not having

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a shadow to follow him around anymore. The last time we spoke was on

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his ninetieth birthday. That was in
September. I'd sung Happy Birthday to him

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and asked if he'd gotten his card, and he bragged about it being the

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best birthday card he ever got,
like he always did. We talked about

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my latest bartending job, and he
mentioned that Dooley's was looking for a bartender.

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If I ever wanted to move back
the fish or Biden, he said,

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in that slow country boy voice of
his. Old Ted Cassidy didn't quite

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the fishing partner you are. I
haven't fished since I left home Granddaddy.

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I told him, well, that's
a shame, was his quiet reply,

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with an awkwardness I couldn't quite explain. I said, well, I got

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to get ready for work. It's
Saturday and the place will be busy tonight.

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And then I told him I loved
him, and he returned the sentiment.

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I suppose, knowing that the last
words he heard me say where I

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love you, Granddaddy, should have
been a comfort, But instead I was

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beating myself up for not calling him
at Christmas. I blamed my ex for

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that. We were at a stage
right before a breaking up, when every

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conversation was an argument. I should
have recognized the signs of a man who

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had moved on, but I was
naive. A couple of weeks later,

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when I discovered the real reason for
all the fighting, I hated him now.

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I hated him even more. Had
I not been preoccupied with that relationship,

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I would have I had one more
conversation with Granddaddy. I finished my

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supper and went up to my old
room, and I crawled into bed and

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wiped the tears on my pillow,
and I fell asleep. We spent the

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next two days making arrangements, and
as we ran around to the funeral home,

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the cemetery, in the florist's shop, the house filled with well meaning

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relatives, friends and neighbors. The
kitchen table overflowed with cakes and pies and

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casseroles. Lying the counters, Mom
was forced into a continuous repetition of how

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she had gone over to check on
her father when he didn't come over for

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breakfast that morning. She found him
lying face down on the living room floor.

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His rifle was lying beside him.
At first, she thought he'd killed

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himself, but there was no blood
or any bullet holes. The corner suggested

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that perhaps he'd taking his gun out
to clean it and was returning it to

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the safe when his heart gave out. No one questioned that theory. After

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all, the man was ninety years
old. He was taken to the morgue

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and the gun was placed back inside
the safe. It was a nice funeral,

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isn't that what everyone says? He
looks so natural? Another meaningless platitude.

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How on earth could anyone ever think
a man lying flat on his back

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inside a velvet line black metal case
draped in roses and lilies could be in

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his element? I will never know, he will be missed. That was

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one I couldn't argue. The dinner
afterwards, like all funerals in our family,

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was filled with laughter and stories of
a young Barton O'Connor, followed by

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more tales of older man that I
knew. Again and again. People talked

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about the tall tales he used to
invent. No one could spin a yarn

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like Bartie. His sense of humor
and wit were sharp and mildly self deprecating.

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He loved to good laughed almost as
much as he loved a good scare.

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More than one local hunter confessed that
his stories about the woods surrounding our

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farm kept them from wandering on to
our property in search of the elusive trophy

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buck. Others agreed that Grandaddy had
them all convinced that this land was haunted

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by demons and spirits or inhabited by
monsters. Someone pointed out Granddaddy's genius in

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keeping his hunting spot to himself.
It was the same with the river that

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meandered through the far western pasture on
Granddaddy's side of the road. We all

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fished his favorite spots with him at
one time or another, but not one

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person could remember a time when they
felt brave enough to wander out there alone

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again. It was a testament to
Granddaddy's genius. By Monday night, I

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was emotional and physically exhausted. Enough
of our relatives had followed us home to

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prevent the possibility of finding a comfortable
seat anywhere in the downstairs. I went

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up to bed, but the noise
of more memories shared from a half a

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dozen conversations below me permeated my room
to the point that I gave up and

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wandered back down. Are you okay, dear mom asked me when she saw

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me slinking down the stairs. I
nodded mutely, Correctly judging my lost expression,

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she came over and whispered into my
ear. If you really want to

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escape, and you're not uncomfortable with
the idea, your grandfather's house is empty,

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you can go over there and have
the whole place to yourself tonight.

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I must have given her a startled
look, because she quickly added, of

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course, if it bothers you,
no, I said, a little louder

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than I meant to. I think
that's exactly what I need. Well,

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well, then she said, with
a smile, why don't you go up

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and grab your bag and slip down
the backstairs and out the back door.

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She didn't have to tell me twice. Nobody locked their doors back then,

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even if they were never coming home
again. I stepped through the door into

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the living room and flipped on the
overhead light. It smelled of cleaning solutions

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and burnt coffee grounds, a trick
used to remove the offensive smell of death

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from an enclosed space. Mom,
in her eternal frugality, had apparently reduced

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the heat inside the house to a
mere sixty degrees. My first act was

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to rectify that, because I was
in no mood to build a fire in

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the Ben Franklin stove in the corner. There was a dark stain on the

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rug that covered most of the floor
that was suspiciously human shaped. I assumed

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that Mom, no matter how hard
she tried, was unable to remove the

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last remaining evidence of Granddaddy's occupation.
I should have been repulsed. At the

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very least, it should have sent
a chill down my spine. It didn't.

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I went over to the worn brown
leather sofa and I sat down.

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A second later, I laid my
head down. Good night, Granddaddy,

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I said, And moments later I
was sleeping. A long, baleful howl

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shattered my dreams and sent me into
a bolt upright position. And for a

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minute I was confused by my surroundings. I wasn't in my little Saint Louis

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apartment, nor was I in my
big, comfortable bed over my parents' kitchen.

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The curtain moving gently in the flowing
of the heat from the vent directly

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below it drew my attention, and
I was instantly aware of my location.

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My eyes shot down to the blot
on the carpet. What was that?

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I asked the on the floor.
I didn't expect it to answer. If

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it had answered, I probably would
have had another stain on the sofa to

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clean. But Somehow it felt comforting
to know that Granddaddy, however, ethereal,

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was there with me. I was
debating the possibility of looking out the

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window when another howl, this one
closer and strangely menacing, echoed through the

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house. I haven't been back home
in years, so I can attest to

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the situation today. But back then
wolves were considered extinct in that part of

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the country. Yet that was the
closest creature I could think of that could

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howl like that, And if it
was a wolf, it must have been

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a massive one. I had just
determined to walk over and look out the

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window when something hit the side of
the house with enough force to shake the

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furniture. My next thought was to
arm myself. Granddaddy's gun safe was standing

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on the short piece of water that
framed the wide opening between the living room

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and the dining room. Now jumped
catlike from the sofa to the middle of

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the floor, and again, ignoring
the fact that I had landed on my

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grandfather, I made another long leap
to the safe. It was no surprise

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to find it open. Grandaddy never
locked it, and whoever had replaced the

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rifle hadn't bothered to do so.
Either. I grabbed the two forty three

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Winchester and a handful of bullets from
the box on the shelf. To my

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shock, when I broke down the
gun to load it, there was already

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a bullet insid. Never in my
life had I known my grandfather to leave

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a bullet and a gun safety or
no safety. When he put a gun

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away, it was empty. At
the window, I gently slid the curtain

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aside so I could see out.
The sky had paled enough to extinguish the

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dimmer stars, but not to the
point of allowing a detailed vision. The

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security light that stood between the house
and the barn helped a little, but

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00:17:03,679 --> 00:17:07,559
it was old and didn't give off
as much light as I would have preferred.

207
00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:12,119
Something moved between the barn and the
equipment shed. I was sure it

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00:17:12,200 --> 00:17:18,359
was a person. No animal would
walk on two legs. I wished it

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00:17:18,400 --> 00:17:22,599
had been an animal. For all
their ferocity, animals don't strike the kind

210
00:17:22,640 --> 00:17:26,480
of fear in my heart that people
do. If it had been a wolf

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00:17:26,519 --> 00:17:30,720
and I had shot it, I
might have face to find, but not

212
00:17:30,839 --> 00:17:37,119
a murder charge that gives the advantage
to the criminal. I'd probably get off

213
00:17:37,160 --> 00:17:42,079
on self defense, but only after
an extensive investigation and a lot of undue

214
00:17:42,200 --> 00:17:48,200
press. If I was faced with
a need to pull the trigger on a

215
00:17:48,359 --> 00:17:52,799
human being, no matter how much
danger I felt myself to be in,

216
00:17:52,440 --> 00:17:57,119
I had better be damn certain it
was worth knowing I'd taken a life and

217
00:17:57,200 --> 00:18:03,000
putting myself and my family through the
inevitable circus and possibly spending the rest of

218
00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:08,720
my life in prison. These were
the thoughts that drove me to the telephone.

219
00:18:08,799 --> 00:18:14,440
I picked it up and called my
mom. Five minutes later, Dad

220
00:18:14,519 --> 00:18:18,359
was running across the road with his
rifle, ready to do battle, and

221
00:18:18,400 --> 00:18:22,480
as soon as I saw him,
I stepped out onto the porch. I

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00:18:22,559 --> 00:18:26,880
was pointing toward the equipment shed.
When he reached the house, he turned

223
00:18:26,920 --> 00:18:30,599
and headed in that direction. I
ignored his hand signal to stay where I

224
00:18:30,799 --> 00:18:34,920
was, and I jumped down off
the porch to follow. He stopped short

225
00:18:34,960 --> 00:18:40,039
of a little lane that separated the
two buildings and glanced over his shoulder.

226
00:18:41,440 --> 00:18:45,680
After pinning me with a look of
exasperation and following it with a look of

227
00:18:45,759 --> 00:18:48,880
resignation, he motioned for me to
head over to the other end of the

228
00:18:48,920 --> 00:18:55,359
shed while he began a slow,
silent step paused walk toward the backside of

229
00:18:55,400 --> 00:19:00,440
the buildings. My eyes scanned the
small fenced and pasture as I moved as

230
00:19:00,519 --> 00:19:03,960
quickly and as silently as I could
get to the back of the shit at

231
00:19:04,000 --> 00:19:10,839
the other end, everything else was
still. Dad was already coming around the

232
00:19:10,880 --> 00:19:15,319
far corner. When I peeked around. We shrugged our shoulders. Neither of

233
00:19:15,400 --> 00:19:19,400
us saw a thing. I took
one more long look at the tree line

234
00:19:19,440 --> 00:19:22,720
on the opposite side of the pasture, and I shivered at the feeling of

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00:19:22,839 --> 00:19:27,640
being watched. The look on Dad's
face told me that he felt the same.

236
00:19:29,519 --> 00:19:32,279
After a few minutes, he turned
and walked back to the house.

237
00:19:33,160 --> 00:19:37,079
Are you sure it was a person? He asked me. Did you hear

238
00:19:37,119 --> 00:19:41,880
those howls earlier? I asked in
reply, what howls? He asked.

239
00:19:42,440 --> 00:19:48,960
I couldn't believe he didn't hear them. Neither our house nor Granddady sat especially

240
00:19:48,039 --> 00:19:52,960
close to the road. But they
were no more than three hundred yards apart,

241
00:19:52,599 --> 00:19:56,720
and those howls were loud, and
he would have already been out in

242
00:19:56,799 --> 00:20:00,880
the morning milking cows when I heard
them. Rather than answer, I said

243
00:20:02,480 --> 00:20:06,839
it was a person. They were
upright? Well, come on, then

244
00:20:07,039 --> 00:20:11,119
he said, Mom's got breakfast cooking, get your stuff and come back over

245
00:20:11,160 --> 00:20:15,920
to the house. The sheriff stopped
by later that morning at Dad's request.

246
00:20:17,680 --> 00:20:21,319
He and Dad walked around the barn
and the equipment shed, and then wandered

247
00:20:21,359 --> 00:20:26,359
around out in the pasture and along
the tree line. They didn't find anything,

248
00:20:26,000 --> 00:20:30,119
no footprints, no piece of evidence
the culprit may have dropped, and

249
00:20:30,200 --> 00:20:34,920
no proof that I had seen anything. Dad told him about the house that

250
00:20:36,000 --> 00:20:40,559
I had heard, but that he
hadn't, and together they decided it was

251
00:20:40,599 --> 00:20:44,759
all a bad dream on my part, brought on by the sorrow of my

252
00:20:44,839 --> 00:20:49,160
grandfather's loss and the long drive home
and the exhaustion of planning and executing a

253
00:20:49,200 --> 00:20:55,960
funeral. Well, I was hurt. Grandaddy would have never dismissed my story

254
00:20:56,119 --> 00:20:59,279
like that, but there was no
point in arguing, so I let it

255
00:20:59,319 --> 00:21:04,000
go. Every day at noon,
Dad came in for lunch. Mom switched

256
00:21:04,039 --> 00:21:07,920
on the little television that was wedged
into the corner of the counter, and

257
00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:12,960
they quietly watched the news while they
ate. This had been their routine my

258
00:21:14,240 --> 00:21:18,559
entire life. Well, today I
joined them at their meal, and they

259
00:21:18,599 --> 00:21:22,079
surprised me with a piece of cake. It was a piece of cake someone

260
00:21:22,119 --> 00:21:26,319
had brought for the funeral, and
it had a candle in it. Happy

261
00:21:26,400 --> 00:21:30,480
late Birthday. Mom said, you
thought we forgot, didn't you. Well,

262
00:21:30,519 --> 00:21:33,920
no, I lied, But it
wasn't like it was the most important

263
00:21:34,000 --> 00:21:40,279
item on the list. There was
a group chuckle in an awkward silence.

264
00:21:41,119 --> 00:21:45,559
Dad lit a candle and they sang
Happy birthday to me. I dutifully blew

265
00:21:45,599 --> 00:21:49,279
out the candle and I thanked them, and Dad pulled a card out of

266
00:21:49,279 --> 00:21:53,079
his shirt pocket and he tossed it
across the table at me. It's the

267
00:21:53,079 --> 00:21:57,839
best we could do, he said
apologetically. Dad, I didn't. I

268
00:21:57,880 --> 00:22:03,079
didn't know what to say. Honestly, didn't expect anything. So a card

269
00:22:03,240 --> 00:22:06,799
was more than I could have hoped
for. When I opened it, I

270
00:22:06,839 --> 00:22:11,279
got the surprise of a lifetime.
And closed was a check for a thousand

271
00:22:11,359 --> 00:22:18,039
dollars. We know you're struggling and
losing your job and all. Mom started,

272
00:22:18,160 --> 00:22:22,119
but trailed off when she realized how
close she was to venturing into the

273
00:22:22,200 --> 00:22:26,559
land of judgment. It'll help pay
a few bills till you get back on

274
00:22:26,640 --> 00:22:30,559
your feet, Dad explained on mom's
behalf. And since it's your birthday.

275
00:22:30,640 --> 00:22:34,680
It's a gift, he held up
his hand at my attempt to protest.

276
00:22:36,200 --> 00:22:40,000
It's a gift, he reiterated,
you won't have to pay it back.

277
00:22:40,079 --> 00:22:45,160
Okay. I was more than grateful
at that moment. I was overwhelmed.

278
00:22:45,880 --> 00:22:52,279
The thanks I uttered didn't begin to
cover it. I'm going over to Granddaddy's

279
00:22:52,279 --> 00:22:55,359
house in a bit. Mom said, do you want to come over with

280
00:22:55,440 --> 00:23:00,359
me? Help go through a few
things. I nodded my head kind a

281
00:23:00,400 --> 00:23:06,519
sardonic smile. That was my eternally
pragmatic mother. No time to grieve,

282
00:23:06,599 --> 00:23:11,359
no need for melancholy, no point
in extravagant displays of emotion. Do what

283
00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:15,359
has to be done in a timely
manner, into the best of your abilities,

284
00:23:15,759 --> 00:23:19,279
and above all, keep right on
marching to the beat of the clock

285
00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:25,880
until your own grave opens up and
swallows you whole. But first dishes.

286
00:23:27,240 --> 00:23:33,000
We crossed the road to Granddaddy's house
against a biting wind. What had the

287
00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:37,160
weather man said? I was too
busy blowing out my birthday candle to pay

288
00:23:37,240 --> 00:23:44,000
much attention. I concentrated trying to
remember the storm they'd been calling for since

289
00:23:44,039 --> 00:23:48,079
Friday had stalled over Western Kansas.
I think he said it would be another

290
00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:52,200
day or two before it hit us. I should have been packing my bag

291
00:23:52,319 --> 00:23:57,279
and hurrying back to Saint Louis before
it hit, but maneuvering the Scout through

292
00:23:57,279 --> 00:24:03,240
a heavy snowstorm wasn't going to be
easy. I couldn't stay until it passed,

293
00:24:03,599 --> 00:24:07,799
but i'd still be driving on snowpack
and ice covered roads with nearly ball

294
00:24:07,960 --> 00:24:11,119
tires. At least I have the
money now to buy Scout a new set,

295
00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:15,160
I thought to myself. Maybe I'll
go in tomorrow and get her some

296
00:24:17,960 --> 00:24:22,680
Mom flashed a scolding look at me. When we got inside Granddaddy's house,

297
00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:26,880
it was nice and warm because I
had forgotten to turn the heat back down.

298
00:24:26,599 --> 00:24:30,359
I'm sorry, I muttered. Well, at least we'll have a nice,

299
00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:36,160
warm workspace, Mom said, as
she walked over and dropped the dial

300
00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:41,119
on the thermostead of good five degrees
for a little while. I grumbled,

301
00:24:41,519 --> 00:24:48,039
what's that nothing, Mom. Granddaddy's
house was unique in that it was a

302
00:24:48,079 --> 00:24:52,279
floor plan of a cabin, but
with none of the beauty of exposed beams

303
00:24:52,319 --> 00:24:57,119
and weathered timber. The entire house
consisted of a living room, dining area,

304
00:24:57,160 --> 00:25:00,720
and kitchen, two bedrooms, and
a bathroom on the main floor with

305
00:25:00,799 --> 00:25:07,119
a loft overhead. We headed up
to the loft. It was Grandaddy's office.

306
00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:14,559
An oversized, elaborately carved writing dusk
dominated the middle of the room and

307
00:25:14,640 --> 00:25:18,960
looked out of the big picture window
on the farm. Matching wooden cabinets,

308
00:25:19,079 --> 00:25:23,119
each with a dozen drawers and a
pair of doors, behind which were half

309
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:27,519
a dozen cubby holes. Sat on
each side of it. There was an

310
00:25:27,519 --> 00:25:33,400
old velvet upholstered Queen Anne's style setti
along the railing that bordered the stairs,

311
00:25:34,279 --> 00:25:40,880
and in the corner was a leather
recliner that matched the sofa downstairs. When

312
00:25:40,920 --> 00:25:45,880
Granny died, Grandaddy built this house
and moved in, leaving the massive farmhouse

313
00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:48,119
across the road from my mom and
dad to move into with their brood of

314
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:55,319
children. My siblings remembered a time
when Granny and Grandaddy lived in the farmhouse,

315
00:25:55,559 --> 00:26:00,480
but for me, this was the
only world Granddaddy ever occupied. I

316
00:26:00,519 --> 00:26:04,680
walked over and sat down at the
executive chair, and I began opening drawers.

317
00:26:06,359 --> 00:26:11,240
It was the usual selection of bills, invoices, magazines, and letters.

318
00:26:11,319 --> 00:26:15,720
My Dad had long ago taken over
the running of the farm operation and

319
00:26:15,759 --> 00:26:21,920
Granddaddy still dabbled here and there,
but none of the paperwork was important enough

320
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:26,680
to bother keeping. Along one wall
of the room there were half a dozen

321
00:26:26,720 --> 00:26:30,799
filing cabinets. Unlike the rest of
the furniture, they were metal and cheaply

322
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:36,880
made. I walked over and slid
open the top drawer of the first cabinet.

323
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:42,960
Folders containing old documents and tax forms
intermingled with large envelopes containing photographs.

324
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:48,599
Why side, this is going to
take a while. At four o'clock,

325
00:26:48,759 --> 00:26:52,640
Mom said that she needed to get
home and start supper. Do you want

326
00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:57,359
to stay and keep working, she
asked hopefully. I glanced down at the

327
00:26:57,359 --> 00:27:02,759
piles of folders and envelopes in front
of me. I'd managed to go through

328
00:27:02,759 --> 00:27:06,920
the first two cabinets that afternoon,
pulling out what I thought should be taken

329
00:27:06,960 --> 00:27:12,119
over to the house immediately and leaving
that which could wait. Photographs were my

330
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:18,000
top priority. Maybe just a little
longer, I said, at least until

331
00:27:18,039 --> 00:27:22,480
I finished this cabinet. I closed
the drawer I was working the one,

332
00:27:22,519 --> 00:27:26,759
and slid open the bottom drawer.
All right, then Mom said, come

333
00:27:26,799 --> 00:27:32,559
back over at five and I'll have
supper ready for you. I nodded my

334
00:27:32,680 --> 00:27:37,720
ascent without looking up. I was
staring down into a drawer full of hardcover

335
00:27:37,799 --> 00:27:41,599
note books. The first one was
wedged in so tight that I was afraid

336
00:27:41,640 --> 00:27:45,160
i'd damage it before I got it
out. I had to pull it up

337
00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:49,160
one side and then the other and
jiggle it back and forth, but eventually

338
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:56,240
it gave way. The cover was
scoffed and damaged from where the letters DM

339
00:27:56,359 --> 00:28:00,400
were written with what looked like a
felt tip pie in the bottom right hand

340
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:07,160
corner. The spine gave an arthritic
groan as I opened it to see Grandaddy's

341
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:15,880
bowl meticulous handwriting on the yellow stained
pages. January seventeen, nineteen fifty six.

342
00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:22,799
I heard them howling again last night. I asked Lollly this morning if

343
00:28:22,799 --> 00:28:26,720
she'd heard anything, but she said
no. I think I might get a

344
00:28:26,759 --> 00:28:30,519
telescope, one of those spy scopes
like Sea Captain's jews, and put it

345
00:28:30,599 --> 00:28:34,680
up in the attic. The west
windows should give me a clear view of

346
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:38,519
the woods along the river, so
I'm pretty sure that's where they're living.

347
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:42,880
I can go up there at night
after Lily goes to bed and watch for

348
00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:48,200
them shadow. I nearly jumped out
of my skin at the sound of my

349
00:28:48,279 --> 00:28:52,960
father's voice calling me from the bottom
of the stairs. Yeah, I said,

350
00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:57,599
I've come over to take you home, Now come on down. Well

351
00:28:57,640 --> 00:29:02,759
confused, I stood up up and
walked over to the railing. Dad was

352
00:29:02,799 --> 00:29:04,920
standing at the bottom of the stairs, staring up at me with an angry

353
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:11,119
expression on his face. He glanced
accusingly at the book in my hand,

354
00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:15,720
and then, in a fraction of
a second, the look disappeared. I

355
00:29:15,799 --> 00:29:18,920
stared back at him for a moment
before he said, you've done enough work

356
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:22,720
for one day. Your mother's getting
supper ready. You need to go help

357
00:29:22,759 --> 00:29:26,599
her. You can finish this work
later. Now, there's nothing here so

358
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:33,680
important that it can't wait. His
excuses and explanations were coming at me so

359
00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:37,480
fast that there was no time to
reply well. Finally, when he paused

360
00:29:37,519 --> 00:29:41,640
for a breath, I said,
but Dad, it won't be dark for

361
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:45,400
another don't argue with me. I
was so shocked by the tone of his

362
00:29:45,559 --> 00:29:49,480
voice that I didn't bother to go
back and replace the book or close the

363
00:29:49,599 --> 00:29:55,799
drawer. I walked down the stairs
and followed him out the door. It

364
00:29:55,839 --> 00:29:59,680
wasn't until I got home that I
realized I was still carrying the book,

365
00:30:00,319 --> 00:30:04,359
I took it up to my room. There wasn't much to making supper that

366
00:30:04,559 --> 00:30:10,359
night. People had brought enough to
feed us for a month. Mom had

367
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:12,960
already put some of it in the
freezer and was busy dividing some of it

368
00:30:14,119 --> 00:30:18,960
into cool whip and margarine bowls to
send home with my siblings. When I

369
00:30:18,079 --> 00:30:22,480
came in, the food's warming in
the oven. It's Italian, she told

370
00:30:22,519 --> 00:30:26,640
me. I think there's some frozen
Italian bread in the freezer on the porch.

371
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:32,000
Can you go grab two loaves for
me. I went out to the

372
00:30:32,039 --> 00:30:36,759
screened in porch, where a standing
deep freeze stood next to a chest freezer.

373
00:30:37,559 --> 00:30:41,599
I was busy rummaging through the first
one when I got the distinct feeling

374
00:30:41,680 --> 00:30:45,559
that I was being watched again.
I spun around it and stared into the

375
00:30:45,599 --> 00:30:51,079
woods that edged our back yard.
It was too dark to see anything inside

376
00:30:51,079 --> 00:30:56,359
the tree line, but I swore
I heard something snort. Stupid city girl,

377
00:30:56,440 --> 00:31:00,799
I chatted myself, It's just a
cow. Ours was a dairy farm

378
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:07,279
cattle. Chuff and snort all the
time. You're being ridiculous, I set

379
00:31:07,279 --> 00:31:11,240
out loud as I turned and continued
to look for the elusive bread. A

380
00:31:11,319 --> 00:31:18,359
branch breaking behind me spun me back
around. It happened so fast that I

381
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:22,920
wasn't sure what I saw, and
all these years later, I still can't

382
00:31:22,960 --> 00:31:26,920
say for certain. It was a
large black silhouette with a pair of red

383
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:32,680
eyes, or it was a place
in the trees that looked like a silhouette

384
00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:37,799
before the wind moved a branch and
obliterated it. The eyes, well,

385
00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:42,160
maybe they were from a reflection off
of something. I turned around and found

386
00:31:42,200 --> 00:31:45,680
the bread, and I went back
in the house. What's with Dad,

387
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:49,480
I asked, as I sat the
loaf on the counter. Oh, you

388
00:31:49,599 --> 00:31:56,400
know your father. He's always overly
protective, she answered, dismissively, protective

389
00:31:56,480 --> 00:32:01,079
of what I demanded. I'm a
grown woman, Mom. Despite the confidence

390
00:32:01,119 --> 00:32:06,319
in my voice when I spoke those
words at twenty three, I didn't feel

391
00:32:06,359 --> 00:32:10,880
like a grown woman. Mom recognized
a shadow of doubt in my eyes,

392
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:15,759
and she said, you're our baby
shadow. You'll never be a grown woman

393
00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:21,240
to us. It's the price you
pay for being born last. And she

394
00:32:21,359 --> 00:32:24,920
patted my cheek as she spoke.
It's not my fault I was born last,

395
00:32:25,319 --> 00:32:30,000
or argued, with all the petulance
of a five year old Dad came

396
00:32:30,039 --> 00:32:34,839
in then and went to the sink
to wash his hands, and we fell

397
00:32:34,960 --> 00:32:38,839
silent in his presence, but he
didn't seem to notice. The kitchen door

398
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:44,680
opened again and my oldest nephew walked
in. Because I was born so many

399
00:32:44,799 --> 00:32:50,200
years after my siblings, Dereck was
actually a year older than me. He

400
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:52,640
had followed in the family business,
and that he worked on the farm with

401
00:32:52,759 --> 00:32:58,279
my father and brothers. But unlike
his father, though he had not yet

402
00:32:58,319 --> 00:33:01,200
purchased his own land, nor did
he show signs of ever doing so.

403
00:33:02,640 --> 00:33:07,160
Everyone else in the family assumed Derek
was waiting for Dad or old Granddaddy to

404
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:12,400
die to receive a piece of the
family form before settling down and starting his

405
00:33:12,480 --> 00:33:17,440
own operation. Well, I had
my own opinion. Derek spent every Saturday

406
00:33:17,519 --> 00:33:22,680
night out at the hideaway on County
Road r drinking and dancing and looking for

407
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:27,880
a piece of taale to bring back
to his mobile home in town. He

408
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:31,160
was enjoying his youth and he wasn't
going to let a little thing like making

409
00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:36,079
a living get in his way.
Hey, shadow, he said, with

410
00:33:36,119 --> 00:33:38,400
a nod of his head. I
thought you'd be heading back to Saint Louis

411
00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:44,240
by, Now, were you just
out back? I asked, ignoring his

412
00:33:44,359 --> 00:33:49,440
statement. He screwed up his face
and he said, no, Why,

413
00:33:50,279 --> 00:33:52,240
I thought I heard something out there
when I went out to the back porch.

414
00:33:52,319 --> 00:33:57,720
I told him, well, it
wasn't me, Yeah, probably just

415
00:33:57,799 --> 00:34:01,240
the wind. It sounded like a
enough excuse, But I knew Derek.

416
00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:06,839
He was a practical joker from the
word go. There was no doubt in

417
00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:09,880
my mind that he was the one
out there breaking twigs and snorting like a

418
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:14,800
bull. I wasn't about to let
him see that. It disturbed me,

419
00:34:14,920 --> 00:34:19,639
so I made myself busy opening the
Italian bread and putting it on a cookie

420
00:34:19,639 --> 00:34:23,920
sheet to bake. By the time
Mom had supper on the table, all

421
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:28,920
of my siblings and their spouses showed
up, bringing with them the rest of

422
00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:32,800
my nieces and nephews. As we
sat around the table, gorging ourselves on

423
00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:38,920
lasagna and baked zdi and a white
assortment of other casseroles and side dishes and

424
00:34:39,079 --> 00:34:45,000
pies and cakes, the conversation turned
to the division of my grandfather's belongings.

425
00:34:46,079 --> 00:34:51,639
After fifteen minutes, my mind felt
numb, my plate was empty, and

426
00:34:51,679 --> 00:34:58,119
my belly was full. So I
excused myself and I went upstairs. Granddaddy's

427
00:34:58,159 --> 00:35:01,039
journal was lying on the bed where
I I'd left it. I picked it

428
00:35:01,159 --> 00:35:07,000
up and reread the opening sentences.
In nineteen fifty six, Mom and Dad

429
00:35:07,039 --> 00:35:12,639
were married and had already produced all
of my older siblings, but they hadn't

430
00:35:12,679 --> 00:35:16,960
moved into the farmhouse yet. They
didn't do that until after my grandmother died

431
00:35:17,000 --> 00:35:23,119
in nineteen sixty one. I stared
up at the ceiling. It was a

432
00:35:23,119 --> 00:35:28,960
big, rambling old farmhouse, with
a half a dozen small bedrooms on the

433
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:32,199
second floor, and a walk up
attic that could have easily made it into

434
00:35:32,239 --> 00:35:37,960
another bedroom, or even a recreation
room if anyone had been so inclined.

435
00:35:37,719 --> 00:35:43,320
I used to play up there when
I was little. The boxes and trunks

436
00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:49,480
full of old family memorabilia and covered
with dust were an endless source of fascination

437
00:35:49,679 --> 00:35:54,360
for me. I remembered the rocking
chairs and dressers, setties, and side

438
00:35:54,400 --> 00:36:00,159
tables, all half draped in old
sheets, like ghostly room reminders of past

439
00:36:00,239 --> 00:36:07,599
generations. I had remembered finding a
case with a telescope in it. Excitedly,

440
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:10,320
I had set it up with a
plan to sneak back up there.

441
00:36:10,360 --> 00:36:15,639
That night and watched the moon,
But to my great disappointment, it wasn't

442
00:36:15,679 --> 00:36:20,000
that kind of telescope at least,
I wasn't able to make it work that

443
00:36:20,119 --> 00:36:23,280
way. Instead, I turned it
toward the woods and then into the river.

444
00:36:24,119 --> 00:36:29,360
Looking through that scope from my attic
perch, the river didn't seem so

445
00:36:29,519 --> 00:36:34,679
far away, but I knew better. I was probably eleven at the time,

446
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:38,199
and I'd already made many a long
walk down there to fish with Granddaddy.

447
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:45,400
The full moon that night brought the
silvery waters to life. Movement caught

448
00:36:45,480 --> 00:36:49,960
my eye, and I zeroed in
on two figures wading in without a stitch

449
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:54,519
on. When they began to turn
and splash each other, I recognized them

450
00:36:54,559 --> 00:37:00,280
as my youngest older brother and his
fiance. They broke up shortly after that,

451
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:06,199
so she never became his wife.
Embarrassed to be watching something I knew

452
00:37:06,239 --> 00:37:09,559
shouldn't be, I turned and put
the telescope back in its case and forgot

453
00:37:09,559 --> 00:37:14,760
about it after that. Well,
now I wondered if it was still up

454
00:37:14,800 --> 00:37:19,920
there. Voices below me rose and
fell in muted tones and bursts of laughter.

455
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:22,440
Mom and Dad would be coming up
to bed soon, but there was

456
00:37:22,440 --> 00:37:28,119
no telling how long the rest of
them would stay downstairs and visit. I

457
00:37:28,199 --> 00:37:30,519
doubted anyone would give a second thought
to me going up to the attic,

458
00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:36,800
but for now I wanted it to
be my secret, my last little adventure

459
00:37:37,000 --> 00:37:43,519
with Granddaddy. I walked quietly down
the long hall that separated the front bedrooms

460
00:37:43,559 --> 00:37:46,880
from the back and ten feet from
the inn. The hall jogged around the

461
00:37:46,920 --> 00:37:52,679
corner that closed off the attic stairs. The door opened with a long,

462
00:37:52,840 --> 00:37:57,480
whining moan. I reached up and
flipped on the light switch at the base

463
00:37:57,519 --> 00:38:01,559
of the stairs, and the two
lights above cast long shadows down onto the

464
00:38:01,639 --> 00:38:07,800
steps as I slowly began my climb. Then I suddenly felt like a complete

465
00:38:07,920 --> 00:38:13,599
fool when I realized I was narrating
this entire event and my head like a

466
00:38:13,679 --> 00:38:17,360
Nancy Drew novel. Stop it,
I told myself with a cheeky grin.

467
00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:25,400
Upstairs was exactly as I remembered it. Discarded furniture was covered in dusty blankets,

468
00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:30,519
and boxes and trunks lined the walls
under the eaves or were stacked in

469
00:38:30,519 --> 00:38:36,000
the middle of the long room.
I walked immediately to the west wall and

470
00:38:36,199 --> 00:38:40,159
searched for the case I remembered from
my youth. It was there, stuck

471
00:38:40,199 --> 00:38:45,360
between the wall studs under the window. I pulled it out and brushed it

472
00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:51,519
off. It was a cylindrical case
that opened at one end, and the

473
00:38:51,559 --> 00:38:58,079
telescope and tripods slid out easily.
Age had stiffened the joints that allowed the

474
00:38:58,119 --> 00:39:01,840
tripod legs to spread and support the
telescope, but I managed to get it

475
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:07,960
set up. It didn't take long
to find the river, and, like

476
00:39:07,079 --> 00:39:12,159
that night a dozen years earlier,
the moon was full and cast a bright

477
00:39:12,239 --> 00:39:15,960
glow on the water. I scanned
up and down the banks, wondering what

478
00:39:16,119 --> 00:39:21,599
it was. My grandfather had been
looking for thirty years earlier, when he'd

479
00:39:21,639 --> 00:39:27,360
sat up there in the middle of
the night shadow. My mother's voice drifted

480
00:39:27,440 --> 00:39:31,519
up the attic stairs were far more
pleasant than my father's had been at Granddaddy's

481
00:39:31,559 --> 00:39:36,719
house. Yeah, Mom, I
called back. What are you doing up

482
00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:39,840
there, honey? Oh, just
reminiscing, I said, with all the

483
00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:45,400
melancholy my voice could muster. Well, if you get anything out, can

484
00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:49,199
you remember to put it back?
You used to leave that place mess when

485
00:39:49,239 --> 00:39:52,559
you were a kid. Yeah,
Mom, I will. I was grateful

486
00:39:52,639 --> 00:39:58,000
that she couldn't see me rolling my
eyes. Mom was right. I was

487
00:39:58,039 --> 00:40:01,559
always going to be her baby.
I looked back through the telescope at the

488
00:40:01,679 --> 00:40:07,760
river bank. Although there was nothing
of any real interest there, I had

489
00:40:07,760 --> 00:40:12,880
to admit that it was a beautiful
scene. It had snowed since Christmas,

490
00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:15,960
and there had been a few warm
days, so there were only a few

491
00:40:15,039 --> 00:40:20,719
patches of white here and there.
Time had darkened them to a dull gray

492
00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:23,840
during the day, but at night, with the moonlight bouncing off of them,

493
00:40:23,960 --> 00:40:29,920
they glistened like new. As I
watched, a rabbit shot out of

494
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:34,480
the underbrush and crossed one of the
patches at high speed. For a brief

495
00:40:34,559 --> 00:40:38,320
second, I chided myself for disturbing
it, before remembering that I was too

496
00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:44,320
far away for it to know I
so much as existed, much less to

497
00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:50,960
be frightened of my presence. Then, in a moment of suspended reality,

498
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:54,960
it was there, scooping up the
writhing rabbit and bringing the poor thing to

499
00:40:55,079 --> 00:41:01,159
its mouth, and oh my god, I cried. It froze, lifted

500
00:41:01,199 --> 00:41:07,719
its head and sniffed the air,
and with deliberate, menacingly gradual control,

501
00:41:07,400 --> 00:41:13,079
it turned its gaze to the attic
window and locked eyes with me. Red

502
00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:17,719
glowing eyes. I jumped back and
slid across the floor, knocking over the

503
00:41:17,760 --> 00:41:22,840
telescope in the process. A deep, penetrating fear like nothing I had ever

504
00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:28,400
felt before. It gripped me.
My heart beat at my chest like a

505
00:41:28,519 --> 00:41:34,079
crazed convict seeking release from a cell. I couldn't catch my breath, and

506
00:41:34,199 --> 00:41:39,360
sweat blossomed on my skin and sent
chills through my body. My mind raised

507
00:41:39,400 --> 00:41:45,039
through every conceivable scenario that justified the
word that kept forming, but nothing made

508
00:41:45,159 --> 00:41:51,960
sense from that moment forward. I
doubt anything has ever made since Again,

509
00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:55,840
even as I raised a trembling hand
to my mouth to prevent the word from

510
00:41:55,960 --> 00:42:04,119
escaping, I said, werewolf Shadow? As if my heart hadn't already suffered

511
00:42:04,199 --> 00:42:08,320
enough abuse in the last few seconds. Hearing my name spoken so sharply from

512
00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:15,079
directly behind me sent it into another
round of furious palpitations. Dad, I

513
00:42:15,199 --> 00:42:22,159
said, as I scrambled to get
up and run into his arms. Uncontrolled

514
00:42:22,239 --> 00:42:27,199
sobs shook my frame. As he
wrapped me in a powerful hug, He

515
00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:31,480
stroked my hair and gave me gentle
reassurances that it was all going to be

516
00:42:31,599 --> 00:42:37,480
okay. I couldn't imagine how anything
was ever going to be okay again,

517
00:42:37,960 --> 00:42:42,039
but it was a comfort to hear
him say it, Dad, I think

518
00:42:42,079 --> 00:42:45,039
I saw a shh, he said, when I couldn't finish my thought,

519
00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:51,280
I know, I know. No
you don't, I tried to argue,

520
00:42:51,679 --> 00:42:55,320
Yes, I do, he answered, and then I understood he did know.

521
00:42:57,159 --> 00:43:01,360
He knew exactly what I had seen. I pulled back and looked into

522
00:43:01,400 --> 00:43:07,480
my father's face. His dark eyes
stared compassionately into mine while he allowed me

523
00:43:07,639 --> 00:43:14,280
to adjust to the reality of what
had just happened. A thousand words passed

524
00:43:14,280 --> 00:43:20,440
through my mind that they all refused
to organize themselves into intelligible sentences, choosing

525
00:43:20,519 --> 00:43:25,039
instead to dissipate before I could say
them. With tears running down my cheeks,

526
00:43:25,039 --> 00:43:30,800
I buried my face in his chest
and again I asked, did I

527
00:43:30,840 --> 00:43:36,719
see a werewolf? No, Baby, you didn't, he promised. All

528
00:43:36,800 --> 00:43:40,760
logic was gone at this point.
How could he know what I saw?

529
00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:45,320
If he thought I didn't see a
werewolf? Did he think I saw something

530
00:43:45,360 --> 00:43:50,400
else? What else was out there
that he thought could scare me? So

531
00:43:51,440 --> 00:43:55,960
clearly he was lying to me.
Maybe he was placating me. Maybe my

532
00:43:57,079 --> 00:44:00,400
father was a werewolf too, or
maybe that thing out there dining on a

533
00:44:00,480 --> 00:44:07,280
rabbit was my grandfather. Grandaddy always
did like fried rabbit, But that thing

534
00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:12,440
was eating the rabbit raw you.
Lately, I heard my father speak my

535
00:44:12,599 --> 00:44:15,639
given name through a haze that made
him feel like he was a million miles

536
00:44:15,639 --> 00:44:21,519
away. I doubt he'd used that
name more than a half dozen times since

537
00:44:21,559 --> 00:44:25,000
I was six years old. Now, listen to me. What you saw

538
00:44:25,119 --> 00:44:30,800
wasn't a werewolf, not really.
Were Wolves are mythical creatures that change when

539
00:44:30,840 --> 00:44:35,639
the moon is full. I turned
my head to look at the window,

540
00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:39,480
accusingly at the moon. That thing
out there is what they call in Michigan

541
00:44:39,719 --> 00:44:45,280
a dog man. I laughed at
that. The absurdity of a thing that

542
00:44:45,519 --> 00:44:49,719
terrifying being called a dog man was
enough to bring me out of my shock.

543
00:44:50,679 --> 00:44:53,480
I pulled back from my father.
Then he led me over to a

544
00:44:53,519 --> 00:45:00,000
fragile looking chair that matched the city
in Granddaddy's office. Yanking off the day

545
00:45:00,039 --> 00:45:04,519
dusty sheet that covered it, he
pressed me down into it. I was

546
00:45:04,559 --> 00:45:08,280
momentarily immersed in a dust cloud,
and I fell into a coughing fit that

547
00:45:08,440 --> 00:45:14,039
ended with a sneeze. Not too
far from here, they call it the

548
00:45:14,039 --> 00:45:16,960
Beast of Bray Road. He continued, Now, I don't know what they're

549
00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:22,000
really called, but I can assure
you they're not werewolves. It doesn't matter

550
00:45:22,039 --> 00:45:27,159
if the moon is full, or
if it's daylight or dark. They always

551
00:45:27,199 --> 00:45:30,960
look like that they, I said. When it occurred to me that my

552
00:45:31,079 --> 00:45:37,760
father was speaking in plural, he
paused a moment, considering what to say,

553
00:45:37,480 --> 00:45:43,440
and then he shrugged and said,
yes, they tell me, I

554
00:45:43,519 --> 00:45:50,719
said, flatly, understanding my request. Dad began his story years ago,

555
00:45:50,880 --> 00:45:54,559
before your grandmother died and they still
lived here. Your grandfather told me about

556
00:45:54,559 --> 00:45:59,719
them. I didn't believe him at
first. He was always such a great

557
00:45:59,760 --> 00:46:02,679
story teller, you know. I
figured it was another one of his yarns.

558
00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:07,519
And then your grandmother got cancer and
diet and he decided to build a

559
00:46:07,559 --> 00:46:12,480
house across the road and give this
house to us. Well, back then

560
00:46:12,559 --> 00:46:19,079
it was just one farm, Parker
O'Connor Dairies didn't exist. I had my

561
00:46:19,199 --> 00:46:22,960
own farm where your brother lives.
Now, well I know all this,

562
00:46:22,280 --> 00:46:28,880
I interrupted, Of course you do, he said. We moved in here,

563
00:46:28,920 --> 00:46:31,840
and it wasn't long before I began
to hear them howling. That's what

564
00:46:31,960 --> 00:46:37,000
you heard last night. I knew
immediately that it wasn't something I was familiar

565
00:46:37,039 --> 00:46:42,119
with, so I asked Bartie.
I asked your grandfather what he thought it

566
00:46:42,280 --> 00:46:45,760
was. And that's when he showed
me his notebooks. I know you were

567
00:46:45,760 --> 00:46:51,159
reading one today. I saw you
holding it. Now. There are things

568
00:46:51,159 --> 00:46:54,880
in the woods around this farm shadow
things no one should ever have to encounter.

569
00:46:55,960 --> 00:47:00,920
My immediate reaction was to take your
mother and your siblings and moved back

570
00:47:00,920 --> 00:47:05,400
into the old farmhouse. But that
would have meant telling her now. I

571
00:47:05,480 --> 00:47:08,320
knew if she found out what's out
there, she would never leave your grandfather

572
00:47:08,400 --> 00:47:14,280
here alone. I knew he was
never going to leave this land has been

573
00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:19,000
in his family for generations, and
that meant that we had to find a

574
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:22,880
way to stay here and keep ourselves
safe. Keeping others away was easy.

575
00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:28,679
Barty had been doing it for years, with all those scary stories he was

576
00:47:28,719 --> 00:47:34,679
always telling. But you kids were
another story. The boys were the hardest

577
00:47:34,679 --> 00:47:38,079
to deal with. Your sisters never
ventured out into the woods much, but

578
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:43,639
your brothers loved fishing and hunting.
In all the years they were growing up,

579
00:47:43,679 --> 00:47:46,559
your grandfather and I were always keeping
a close eye on them. It

580
00:47:46,639 --> 00:47:52,320
wasn't easy. And then you came
along. You weren't like Jenny and Kate.

581
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:55,760
You wandered into the woods when you
were two years old, and we

582
00:47:55,800 --> 00:48:00,519
had a time finding you. I
was sure one of those things had got

583
00:48:00,519 --> 00:48:05,679
a hold of you, and well
he let that thought drift away. Well

584
00:48:05,679 --> 00:48:09,159
that was when your grandfather began to
devote himself to you. You were always

585
00:48:09,199 --> 00:48:14,360
one for attention, so it wasn't
all that hard to do, the worst

586
00:48:14,360 --> 00:48:17,000
part was when you wanted to go
down to the river with him. He

587
00:48:17,119 --> 00:48:21,679
was going there looking for signs of
their return, but you wouldn't let him

588
00:48:21,719 --> 00:48:27,079
go alone. I looked at him
quizzically, and I ask their return.

589
00:48:28,519 --> 00:48:31,360
They're not here all the time,
shadow. They tend to show up in

590
00:48:31,400 --> 00:48:36,239
the fall, and then they're gone
by late spring. I don't know where

591
00:48:36,239 --> 00:48:38,719
they come from or where they go, but it doesn't matter. When they

592
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:45,000
leave, something else comes. My
head was spinning. Now something else.

593
00:48:45,800 --> 00:48:50,840
There was something else out there that
can make those things leave. What do

594
00:48:50,880 --> 00:48:57,119
you mean something else? I ask
those I know the name for several In

595
00:48:57,280 --> 00:49:02,440
fact, they're called bigfoot. I
hissed, then uttered a brief oh.

596
00:49:02,719 --> 00:49:07,880
When it occurred to me that I
had just seen a werewolf and therefore had

597
00:49:07,920 --> 00:49:12,760
no right to doubt the existence of
Bigfoot. Yeah, he said, and

598
00:49:12,800 --> 00:49:15,840
that's not all that's out there,
but those are the two worst. Although

599
00:49:15,880 --> 00:49:20,760
I have to admit the Bigfoot seemed
to play by the rules. They're almost

600
00:49:20,840 --> 00:49:24,079
human in their behavior. So sta
out of their territory and don't interrupt a

601
00:49:24,119 --> 00:49:29,960
hunting expedition. Announce your presence when
you enter the woods if you think they're

602
00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:32,320
around, and if you hear tree
knox or get something thrown at you,

603
00:49:34,119 --> 00:49:39,840
just walk calmly and deliberately out of
the woods. It was all so insane.

604
00:49:40,360 --> 00:49:45,519
I felt suddenly exhausted from all the
information that was being heaped on me,

605
00:49:45,800 --> 00:49:51,760
convinced I had just stepped through some
type of portal into an alternate reality.

606
00:49:52,400 --> 00:49:54,760
I held up my hands and I
said, Dad, stop, this

607
00:49:54,840 --> 00:50:00,519
is too much. He looked at
me sympathetically and thought for a moment,

608
00:50:00,920 --> 00:50:05,360
and then he said, you're right. Come on, let's go to bed.

609
00:50:05,960 --> 00:50:08,559
We'll go into town tomorrow and have
coffee. We can talk more about

610
00:50:08,599 --> 00:50:14,840
it. Then obediently I followed him
down the stairs, feeling as though I

611
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:19,360
was re entering reality. When I
stepped onto the hardwood floor of the hall.

612
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:22,760
He took me to my bedroom and
tuck me into the bed before turning

613
00:50:22,760 --> 00:50:30,280
out the light, whispering a gentle
good night and closing the door. Falling

614
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:36,159
asleep proved to be easy. Staying
in that state was another matter. As

615
00:50:36,159 --> 00:50:39,400
soon as I drifted off, my
dream showed me images of a werewolf chewing

616
00:50:39,440 --> 00:50:45,360
on a rabbit that sometimes turned into
my grandfather. Other times the werewolf became

617
00:50:45,400 --> 00:50:51,199
my grandfather and the rabbit was my
mother. Once I drepped that I was

618
00:50:51,239 --> 00:50:55,320
walking through the woods and something began
to chase me, I nearly escaped it

619
00:50:55,440 --> 00:51:00,280
until it reached out and grabbed my
red riding hood and jerked me backwards,

620
00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:06,800
and each time I woke drenched in
sweat and trembling. After several attempts,

621
00:51:06,840 --> 00:51:09,079
I sat up in bed and stared
out the window, hoping and praying for

622
00:51:09,119 --> 00:51:13,800
the sun to come up, fearing
that it might never do so again.

623
00:51:15,800 --> 00:51:20,039
The next morning, Dad was sitting
at the kitchen table when I came down.

624
00:51:21,199 --> 00:51:24,159
I half hoped that he wouldn't be
there. If he was out in

625
00:51:24,239 --> 00:51:29,800
the barn doing his normal morning chores. Then I could relegate all that happened

626
00:51:29,840 --> 00:51:35,159
the night before. Tonightmares brought on
by all that heavy Italian food i'd eat,

627
00:51:35,239 --> 00:51:38,119
and at dinner, your father says
you and he are going to spend

628
00:51:38,159 --> 00:51:44,320
the day together. Mom said,
I detected a mild tone of disapproval in

629
00:51:44,360 --> 00:51:49,880
her voice. She likely would have
preferred for me to accompany her across the

630
00:51:49,960 --> 00:51:54,000
road to go through more of Grandaddy's
belongings, not the whole day. Deb

631
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:58,880
Dad said, we'll be back by
noon and you can have her for the

632
00:51:58,920 --> 00:52:01,920
rest of the day to finish your
work at your dad's house. Well,

633
00:52:01,960 --> 00:52:07,400
Mom sighed and said, no,
don't rush home on my account. Jenny

634
00:52:07,400 --> 00:52:10,000
and Kate are coming over. They
can help me. We'll leave the office

635
00:52:10,000 --> 00:52:15,400
for Shadow, but we can get
the bedrooms done anyway. Dev Dad said,

636
00:52:15,480 --> 00:52:20,840
hesitantly, we still don't know for
sure who was lurking around the house

637
00:52:20,880 --> 00:52:23,880
the other night. Promise me you
won't go over until Jenny and Kate get

638
00:52:23,920 --> 00:52:29,559
here, and promise me you'll take
a gun with you. When Mom gave

639
00:52:29,559 --> 00:52:34,440
a dispensive huff, he added,
promise me or Shadow and I won't go.

640
00:52:36,400 --> 00:52:38,800
If I hadn't seen what I saw
the night before, if my dad

641
00:52:38,840 --> 00:52:43,679
hadn't told me what he did.
Hearing him talk about what happened the day

642
00:52:43,719 --> 00:52:46,360
before, as if it wasn't just
a bad dream on my part. May

643
00:52:46,440 --> 00:52:52,920
have made me smile, but I
did see, and he did tell the

644
00:52:52,000 --> 00:52:57,360
thought of my mother wandering across the
road alone was like being punched in the

645
00:52:57,440 --> 00:53:00,960
gut. It occurred to me that
she did exactly that. The day my

646
00:53:01,039 --> 00:53:07,199
grandfather died, I felt as though
I was going to vomit. Let's go,

647
00:53:07,320 --> 00:53:10,760
shadow, I heard Dad say.
I realized he had been saying it

648
00:53:10,800 --> 00:53:15,519
for a few seconds, and I
shot him a startled glance, and then

649
00:53:15,599 --> 00:53:21,679
looked pleadingly at my mother shadow.
Dad said again, honey, what's wrong?

650
00:53:21,800 --> 00:53:24,760
You look sick? Mom said,
She reached over and put her hand

651
00:53:24,800 --> 00:53:30,559
on my forehead. She's fine,
Let's go. Dad's voice was beginning to

652
00:53:30,599 --> 00:53:36,679
show impatience. I looked back at
him with wide, terrified eyes. My

653
00:53:36,840 --> 00:53:40,440
hands were visibly trembling. For a
few beats of my heart, I was

654
00:53:40,519 --> 00:53:45,079
frozen into place. We can't go
anywhere, I thought, we have to

655
00:53:45,119 --> 00:53:50,519
stay here and watch over Mom and
my sisters. What was wrong with my

656
00:53:50,719 --> 00:53:54,239
father that he couldn't see that?
He stared hard back into my eyes and

657
00:53:54,320 --> 00:54:00,880
somehow managed to communicate that we had
to leave. I'm fine, I said,

658
00:54:00,000 --> 00:54:04,920
turning back to my mother, we
won't be gone long, and something

659
00:54:04,960 --> 00:54:07,840
inside me that I didn't know I
possess, lifted me to my feet and

660
00:54:08,000 --> 00:54:13,920
dragged me out the door. Once
we were in the truck, I knew

661
00:54:13,960 --> 00:54:17,719
I could speak openly, and I
unleashed my anger on my father. How

662
00:54:17,719 --> 00:54:22,320
can you leave mom at home like
that? You know she's going to go

663
00:54:22,360 --> 00:54:25,519
over to Granddaddy's all by herself,
and even if she waits for Jenny and

664
00:54:25,599 --> 00:54:29,519
Kate, how can you let the
three of them go over there alone?

665
00:54:30,119 --> 00:54:34,039
And then another thought occurred to me, How could you have let me go

666
00:54:34,199 --> 00:54:38,679
over there to stay the night?
That wasn't my doing? He answered sharply.

667
00:54:39,440 --> 00:54:44,440
I never would have let you go
over there by yourself, especially after

668
00:54:44,519 --> 00:54:52,239
Barty he broke off Barty. What
I demanded? After Granddaddy died? Did

669
00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:57,679
those things kill him? I searched
my memory. It didn't make sense.

670
00:54:58,239 --> 00:55:01,599
The corner said he died of a
heart at Mom said she thought he killed

671
00:55:01,679 --> 00:55:06,519
himself, but there was no blood. I saw one of those things tearing

672
00:55:06,599 --> 00:55:09,960
to a rabbit like it was a
piece of overripe fruit. If one killed

673
00:55:09,960 --> 00:55:15,840
my grandfather, then there definitely would
have been blood. How did Granddaddy die?

674
00:55:15,239 --> 00:55:20,280
I asked, he wasn't killed by
a dog man, if that's what

675
00:55:20,360 --> 00:55:25,400
you mean, not directly anyway.
It wasn't a satisfactory answer, and Dad

676
00:55:25,480 --> 00:55:30,239
knew it, so he continued.
I think the corner had it right.

677
00:55:30,679 --> 00:55:36,159
I think his heart gave out.
Dad stopped as if he were gathering his

678
00:55:36,320 --> 00:55:42,199
thoughts, and I waited. He
took a deep breath and exhaled. In

679
00:55:42,239 --> 00:55:45,920
all the years that we've been dealing
with these things, we've never had one

680
00:55:45,960 --> 00:55:50,719
approach the house. They've come as
far as the barn before. Over the

681
00:55:50,840 --> 00:55:54,480
years, we've lost a few chickens
in an occasional calf, the dogs that

682
00:55:54,559 --> 00:55:59,199
you thought ran away when you were
a kid, barncats and the like,

683
00:55:59,559 --> 00:56:02,280
but they never came all the way
to the house. Well, the barns

684
00:56:02,280 --> 00:56:07,039
are close enough, I interjected.
Our barns weren't so close to our house,

685
00:56:07,119 --> 00:56:12,840
but Granddaddy's barn and shed were.
I pointed that out. Well,

686
00:56:12,880 --> 00:56:16,079
that's true, but your granddaddy never
kept live animals in his barn or shed.

687
00:56:16,719 --> 00:56:22,880
They never came anywhere near those before
last fall. All that changed,

688
00:56:22,920 --> 00:56:28,199
though with Bigfoot it's different. They
slapped the side of the house and look

689
00:56:28,239 --> 00:56:31,719
in your windows. I even had
one that was preoccupied with following me around

690
00:56:31,800 --> 00:56:36,760
and watching me doing my chores.
One year. I knew it was there,

691
00:56:36,800 --> 00:56:39,320
but I don't think it knew I'd
seen it now. Dog Men are

692
00:56:39,360 --> 00:56:46,039
different. They lacked the curiosity that
creates incidental human interaction with them. Dad,

693
00:56:46,039 --> 00:56:51,280
what are you some kind of expert? I shot, suddenly feeling an

694
00:56:51,400 --> 00:56:55,920
unreasonable anger toward all his sudden knowledge. No, he exclaimed, No,

695
00:56:57,199 --> 00:57:01,920
I'm not the closest person I ever
knew to being close to an expert on

696
00:57:02,039 --> 00:57:06,960
any of these things. Was your
granddaddy. And even he didn't know much.

697
00:57:07,760 --> 00:57:10,679
All either of us knew was what
he observed over the years. And

698
00:57:10,760 --> 00:57:15,159
what I'm telling you is what I
think, and you can take it and

699
00:57:15,239 --> 00:57:21,000
do with it whatever you want.
And you think it's perfectly acceptable to leave

700
00:57:21,119 --> 00:57:24,239
mom back at the house, knowing
full well she's probably already walking over to

701
00:57:24,280 --> 00:57:30,199
Granddaddy's right now. Accused she won't
go, he said, how do you

702
00:57:30,400 --> 00:57:35,920
know does she know about these things? Well, of course not. Do

703
00:57:35,960 --> 00:57:38,440
you think she would have let you
go over to your grandfather's house alone at

704
00:57:38,519 --> 00:57:44,639
night if she did? She doesn't
know, But he was struggling to find

705
00:57:44,679 --> 00:57:51,599
the words. Finally, he said, she seems to realize she has an

706
00:57:51,719 --> 00:57:55,480
understanding. I guess you'd say that
when I say not to do something,

707
00:57:55,519 --> 00:58:01,079
there's a reason she won't go.
We'd come to the end of our gravel

708
00:58:01,159 --> 00:58:06,800
road and turned on to the highway, and to the left was Willard Springs.

709
00:58:07,159 --> 00:58:10,679
But we turned right. Where are
we going? I asked, We're

710
00:58:10,719 --> 00:58:16,360
circling back around. I'm taking you
down to the river. I fell silent,

711
00:58:16,480 --> 00:58:22,760
as a million memories of a million
drives with my grandfather following this same

712
00:58:22,920 --> 00:58:28,079
route flooded my mind. At the
next gravel road, we made another right

713
00:58:28,159 --> 00:58:32,039
turn, and a mile down we
turned left onto a secondary gravel road that

714
00:58:32,119 --> 00:58:37,719
took us over the river. It
curved back around and followed the path of

715
00:58:37,760 --> 00:58:40,320
the water for half a mile before
forking off to the left again and up

716
00:58:40,360 --> 00:58:45,360
a hill. We reached the top
where an old cemetery stood watch over the

717
00:58:45,440 --> 00:58:52,440
valley. They seemed to like cemeteries, dead said. The road twisted around

718
00:58:52,480 --> 00:58:55,519
again, following the ridge back down
to the river bed, where we crossed

719
00:58:55,559 --> 00:59:00,280
again. At this point I knew
we were on the side of our farm.

720
00:59:01,079 --> 00:59:06,480
All the land from the opposite bank
over was O'Connor and Parker Land.

721
00:59:07,519 --> 00:59:10,840
If we got out and walked,
we'd end up at Granddaddy's barnyard. And

722
00:59:10,880 --> 00:59:15,159
when Dad turned off the truck and
got out, I realized that was exactly

723
00:59:15,199 --> 00:59:21,360
what we were about to do.
He pulled a rifle case from behind his

724
00:59:21,519 --> 00:59:27,039
seat. He unzipped it and removed
us thirty thirty from his coat pocket.

725
00:59:27,079 --> 00:59:30,000
He produced a handful of bullets.
He put seven in the tube and then

726
00:59:30,159 --> 00:59:36,920
added one more in the chamber.
Let's go, he said. The water

727
00:59:37,079 --> 00:59:39,360
ran fast in that part of the
river, but I knew that we were

728
00:59:39,360 --> 00:59:44,320
heading to a spot where rocks jutted
up out of the water, close enough

729
00:59:44,360 --> 00:59:49,159
together that we could cross over without
getting our feet wet. At least I

730
00:59:49,199 --> 00:59:53,280
hoped we could. I hadn't come
prepared. The sky was gray overhead,

731
00:59:53,320 --> 00:59:59,039
and it hadn't snowed since Christmas,
and I was grateful for that. It

732
00:59:59,199 --> 01:00:02,599
meant the waterf would be low,
but I was already beginning to see signs

733
01:00:02,639 --> 01:00:08,519
of the impending storm. The air
was damp enough to form micropillets of sleep

734
01:00:09,400 --> 01:00:15,719
and we approached the crossing point and
Dad went first. He easily navigated the

735
01:00:15,840 --> 01:00:22,079
rocks despite their increasing slipperiness. And
then he turned and watched as I followed,

736
01:00:22,559 --> 01:00:24,880
and I struggled and nearly fell in
once, but I got across.

737
01:00:27,280 --> 01:00:30,719
We walked along the river on that
side for a few hundred yards, and

738
01:00:30,760 --> 01:00:37,280
stopping periodically to look at the tracks. Most of them I recognized rabbits and

739
01:00:37,400 --> 01:00:42,920
raccoons, and possums, a set
of coyote tracks, and a ground hog

740
01:00:43,199 --> 01:00:47,679
had all visited the river recently.
There were other tracks that I didn't recognize.

741
01:00:49,159 --> 01:00:52,400
They looked canine, but there was
something different about them. For one

742
01:00:52,440 --> 01:00:55,920
thing, they were huge. If
they belonged to a dog, I couldn't

743
01:00:55,920 --> 01:01:01,440
imagine how big it had to beuly
I could. My mind went back to

744
01:01:01,519 --> 01:01:06,719
the attic and the rabbit being scooped
up by the creature that was absolutely big

745
01:01:06,840 --> 01:01:12,360
enough to make those tracks. Last
fall they started coming up to the house.

746
01:01:12,639 --> 01:01:16,199
Dad told me as we walked.
He was speaking quieter now, and

747
01:01:16,239 --> 01:01:21,719
with the wind blowing, I had
trouble understanding him. I had to concentrate

748
01:01:21,800 --> 01:01:25,599
hard on his words. They'd never
done that before. They come to the

749
01:01:25,639 --> 01:01:30,679
barn to take livestock. But you
already said that, I interrupted impatiently.

750
01:01:31,679 --> 01:01:37,079
Yeah, well, last fall they
started coming to the house, not all

751
01:01:37,079 --> 01:01:39,400
the way up to it, but
definitely to the house yard. You saw

752
01:01:39,440 --> 01:01:45,400
one around the barn. I stopped
dead in my tracks. Dad stopped too,

753
01:01:45,599 --> 01:01:51,400
and turned and asked me what was
wrong. I seriously felt as though

754
01:01:51,440 --> 01:01:54,440
I might faint. Now, I've
never fainted in my life, but at

755
01:01:54,440 --> 01:01:58,760
that moment, that was exactly what
I thought I was going to do.

756
01:02:00,440 --> 01:02:04,599
Dad, I said quietly, I
didn't just see one in the barn yard,

757
01:02:05,000 --> 01:02:08,360
and I didn't just hear one howl. We locked eyes, and I

758
01:02:08,480 --> 01:02:15,639
said something hit the house that night. Confusion played across his face. Now

759
01:02:15,639 --> 01:02:20,800
I have since come to understand that
my father had never considered a house slap,

760
01:02:20,960 --> 01:02:24,880
as he called it, to being
anything but bigfoot behavior. He stood

761
01:02:24,880 --> 01:02:30,400
there for a moment and then started
walking again. I had to hurry to

762
01:02:30,480 --> 01:02:35,039
catch up with him. Well,
your grandfather said he was seeing them around

763
01:02:35,039 --> 01:02:38,400
the house, but he never said
anything about slapping to me. He got

764
01:02:38,440 --> 01:02:43,239
into the habit of going out on
to his porch and firing his rifle two

765
01:02:43,320 --> 01:02:47,239
or three times at night. It
seemed to keep him away. I think,

766
01:02:47,400 --> 01:02:51,920
judging by where they found his body
the night he died, that he

767
01:02:51,960 --> 01:02:54,480
had gone to the door to fire
his gun, and when he opened it

768
01:02:54,559 --> 01:02:59,679
there was one on the porch.
He slammed the door shut and well,

769
01:03:00,159 --> 01:03:02,880
I think the shock of seeing one
so close caused him to have a heart

770
01:03:02,880 --> 01:03:08,199
attack. Dad, you don't know
that, I retorted, Well, yes

771
01:03:08,280 --> 01:03:12,960
I do, he answered. I
saw your mother come running out of the

772
01:03:12,960 --> 01:03:15,440
house, and I knew something was
wrong. We met in the middle of

773
01:03:15,440 --> 01:03:20,039
the road and she said that he
was dead. She went on to the

774
01:03:20,079 --> 01:03:22,679
house to call nine one one,
and I went on over to your grandfather's.

775
01:03:23,320 --> 01:03:28,920
There were tracks all around. It's
been warm here these last couple of

776
01:03:28,960 --> 01:03:32,599
weeks, and the ground's pretty soft. I see. I didn't know what

777
01:03:32,679 --> 01:03:37,280
else to say. We were working
our way back up to Granddaddy's house.

778
01:03:37,880 --> 01:03:42,039
It was a path that I could
walk in my sleep if I had to.

779
01:03:43,159 --> 01:03:45,800
The snow was starting to come down
a little harder now. I was

780
01:03:45,840 --> 01:03:50,639
wishing I had on a pair of
car hearts instead of the fancy winter dress

781
01:03:50,719 --> 01:03:52,880
coat I'd brought for the funeral.
And when Dad put his hand on my

782
01:03:53,039 --> 01:03:58,360
arm to stop me, I looked
at him, and he placed his finger

783
01:03:58,440 --> 01:04:03,840
against his mouth ate silence. We
listened. I didn't hear anything, and

784
01:04:04,039 --> 01:04:10,480
apparently neither did he, so we
started walking again, but this time I

785
01:04:10,519 --> 01:04:15,519
heard it too. Our path divided
an open grass meadow from a patch of

786
01:04:15,559 --> 01:04:21,440
woods. Something was definitely moving inside
the trees. We stood and listened for

787
01:04:21,559 --> 01:04:29,320
a moment. Nothing moved, so
we continued another fifteen steps, and we

788
01:04:29,400 --> 01:04:33,199
both stopped at the sound of footsteps. Dad motioned for us to keep walking.

789
01:04:34,599 --> 01:04:40,159
We were halfway between his truck and
Granddaddy's house. At this point,

790
01:04:40,199 --> 01:04:45,159
our direction didn't matter. I found
myself staring wide eyed into the dark recesses

791
01:04:45,199 --> 01:04:50,599
of the underbrush and saplings, waiting
for something monstrous to suddenly appear and run

792
01:04:50,679 --> 01:04:56,880
out of the woods and attack us
both. Dad had fallen slightly behind me,

793
01:04:56,960 --> 01:05:00,280
as if to watch my back.
I wanted him next to me,

794
01:05:00,400 --> 01:05:03,800
with one arm around me to protect
me. I reasoned that it would be

795
01:05:03,840 --> 01:05:08,800
foolish for him to hold me at
that moment. He needed his hands free

796
01:05:08,840 --> 01:05:15,119
to fire his weapon if he needed
to. Fifteen more steps and our world

797
01:05:15,440 --> 01:05:19,519
shook with an earth shattering howl,
not from our right, where the woods

798
01:05:19,559 --> 01:05:25,320
were, but from the grass meadow
to the left. We stopped dead and

799
01:05:25,360 --> 01:05:30,920
looked at each other for a single
moment, go Dad said. I responded

800
01:05:30,960 --> 01:05:33,800
by stepping up my pace and walking, but not running, as fast as

801
01:05:33,840 --> 01:05:39,239
I could to get to my grandfather's
house. On both sides of me.

802
01:05:39,360 --> 01:05:43,639
Now, I heard the sounds of
footsteps. Blades of grass cracked to my

803
01:05:43,760 --> 01:05:47,599
left, while twigs and branches crunched
to my right. They're pack animals,

804
01:05:47,719 --> 01:05:54,360
I heard my mind say, wolves
are pack animals. We were being hunted.

805
01:05:55,079 --> 01:05:58,199
I wanted to say that to my
father behind me, but I couldn't

806
01:05:58,239 --> 01:06:02,440
find the necessary air to form the
words. My lungs were already struggling to

807
01:06:02,480 --> 01:06:08,599
gather enough oxygen to keep me in
motion. A quarter of a mile,

808
01:06:08,880 --> 01:06:13,960
I guessed I was a quarter of
a mile from my Granddaddy's house. The

809
01:06:14,039 --> 01:06:17,079
long grass to my left waved and
arched, but I didn't know if it

810
01:06:17,159 --> 01:06:23,119
was the weight of some horrible monster
or the increasing wind that was now carrying

811
01:06:23,239 --> 01:06:27,880
enough snow on it to limit my
vision. I was grateful that Dad was

812
01:06:27,920 --> 01:06:30,760
behind me with his gun. No
matter what, if we had a gun,

813
01:06:31,039 --> 01:06:36,360
I felt like we had the advantage
two hundred yards. I told myself,

814
01:06:36,800 --> 01:06:41,800
if we can get to Granddaddy's house, we'll be safe inside. We

815
01:06:41,800 --> 01:06:45,360
can lock the doors, we can
barricade ourselves in. We can use the

816
01:06:45,360 --> 01:06:49,199
phone and call for help. We'll
be all right in a minute, Dad,

817
01:06:49,400 --> 01:06:54,639
I called over my shoulder. I
heard the pounding of his footsteps in

818
01:06:54,719 --> 01:07:00,000
answer. Another one hundred yards and
we'd be safe, I could say.

819
01:07:00,079 --> 01:07:02,760
See the barn and the shed.
There was the porch of the house,

820
01:07:03,159 --> 01:07:08,760
and we were almost there. Another
fifty yards we were going to be Okay,

821
01:07:09,519 --> 01:07:12,760
keep up, Dad, I yelled, we'll make it. I could

822
01:07:12,800 --> 01:07:17,480
hear his heavy breathing behind me.
I entered the barnyard and broke into a

823
01:07:17,559 --> 01:07:21,800
dead run. Now I took the
stairs of the porch and two steps and

824
01:07:21,880 --> 01:07:26,079
threw open the front door and turned
to let my father in. Behind me,

825
01:07:26,920 --> 01:07:32,760
he wasn't there. A cold,
empty silence filled the world. Snow

826
01:07:32,920 --> 01:07:38,679
was coming down in twisted angles on
angry bursts of wind, but I heard

827
01:07:38,800 --> 01:07:43,360
nothing. It's funny how the world
turns gray and the dead of winter.

828
01:07:44,239 --> 01:07:49,239
Insanely, I remembered that it was
February third, truly the dead of winter.

829
01:07:50,920 --> 01:07:56,039
The sound of a gunshot somewhere between
me and the river brought me back

830
01:07:56,079 --> 01:08:00,280
to my senses. He wasn't with
me, but he was still alive.

831
01:08:00,119 --> 01:08:04,719
I couldn't fathom why he hadn't come
with me. Was he drawing them off

832
01:08:04,760 --> 01:08:09,960
of me? Had he instinctively run
back to his truck while I had chosen

833
01:08:10,000 --> 01:08:14,199
the safety of my grandfather. There
was no time to think of that.

834
01:08:14,320 --> 01:08:18,479
Now I had to get to my
dad. I flew back down the porch

835
01:08:18,520 --> 01:08:24,399
stairs and across the road. Scout
was sitting right where I'd left her five

836
01:08:24,479 --> 01:08:28,640
days earlier. I hadn't even tried
to start her in all that time.

837
01:08:29,279 --> 01:08:31,479
I carried my keys in my pocket
at all times, and for that I

838
01:08:31,600 --> 01:08:36,479
was grateful. Her door squealed as
I opened it and slid into the driver's

839
01:08:36,560 --> 01:08:41,039
seat, and my hands shook as
I fumbled to put the keys in the

840
01:08:41,079 --> 01:08:46,000
ignition with the temperament of an old
man screaming at the neighbor's kids to get

841
01:08:46,039 --> 01:08:51,239
off as long, she whined to
life. Oh thank you Jesus, I

842
01:08:51,319 --> 01:08:56,920
cried as I threw her into gear
and nearly went airborne, crossing the road

843
01:08:56,960 --> 01:09:01,560
into my grandfather's barnyard. The path
I'd run to get to his house was

844
01:09:01,600 --> 01:09:06,039
barely wide enough to drive Scout down, but I didn't care. In a

845
01:09:06,079 --> 01:09:11,119
few places, I found myself mowing
through the grass, but it didn't matter.

846
01:09:12,560 --> 01:09:16,600
As the trail turned and ran alongside
the river, something stood up in

847
01:09:16,640 --> 01:09:23,920
the grass and glared malevolently at me. It had the head of a wolf

848
01:09:24,479 --> 01:09:28,640
and eyes that appeared to glow from
some inner source, and a mouthful of

849
01:09:28,840 --> 01:09:32,960
lethal looking teeth. I was so
busy staring at that thing that I didn't

850
01:09:33,000 --> 01:09:38,880
see the other one on my left
until it slammed its body into Scout's side.

851
01:09:39,119 --> 01:09:43,399
The first one burst into action as
they both began to run alongside us,

852
01:09:43,399 --> 01:09:46,399
as if to hurt us along well. I knew I couldn't cross the

853
01:09:46,520 --> 01:09:51,199
river in Scout where we'd crossed earlier. There was a place a little further

854
01:09:51,319 --> 01:09:56,000
down where the bottom was rocky,
but it meant driving into the water that

855
01:09:56,159 --> 01:10:00,000
might be a foot deeper more.
I had no choice. I had to

856
01:10:00,039 --> 01:10:05,600
find my father. Two more shots
rang out as I approached the crossing point.

857
01:10:06,279 --> 01:10:10,840
It was my dad. He was
firing at the two dog men who

858
01:10:10,840 --> 01:10:16,239
were attacking me. Relief was immediately
replaced by panic as I saw a third

859
01:10:16,439 --> 01:10:20,960
come out of the woods and head
straight for him. I gunned the engine

860
01:10:20,960 --> 01:10:26,000
and managed to get between them and
the nick of time, and Dad wrenched

861
01:10:26,000 --> 01:10:29,640
open the door and jumped in.
Where did you go? I screamed at

862
01:10:29,680 --> 01:10:32,640
him. I had to draw them
away from you. He yelled back,

863
01:10:32,920 --> 01:10:39,479
now, go, go go.
I pushed scouts accelerator to the floor as

864
01:10:39,520 --> 01:10:43,520
we hit the water and the snow
was coming down at a blinding rate.

865
01:10:43,600 --> 01:10:47,520
Now get to my truck. We'll
take it back, Dad yelled, the

866
01:10:47,640 --> 01:10:54,199
hell we will. I'm not stopping, I exclaimed. We got out onto

867
01:10:54,239 --> 01:10:59,439
the road and scouts rear end fishtail
behind us. I thought for a second

868
01:10:59,600 --> 01:11:03,159
about her ball tires, but it
was too late. Now I chosen my

869
01:11:03,359 --> 01:11:06,560
path and we had to follow it. And by the time we got to

870
01:11:06,640 --> 01:11:11,880
the primary gravel road, I felt
comfortable enough to slow down a little.

871
01:11:13,239 --> 01:11:16,760
Nerves and fear kept me from going
too slow, but Scout's tires wouldn't let

872
01:11:16,760 --> 01:11:21,359
me go any faster. The main
highway was covered in snow, but we

873
01:11:21,520 --> 01:11:26,359
managed to crawl along to our gravel
road, and as we pulled into the

874
01:11:26,359 --> 01:11:31,199
barnyards, Scout heaved a sigh and
died. I loved that old truck.

875
01:11:31,680 --> 01:11:38,359
She was ugly as hell, but
she was mine. Mom and Dad decided

876
01:11:38,399 --> 01:11:43,800
that I should inherit Granddaddy's truck.
I couldn't have been happier. It was

877
01:11:43,840 --> 01:11:46,680
only a couple of years old and
had about as many miles as a ninety

878
01:11:46,760 --> 01:11:50,600
year old man who never went any
further than the local cafe for a cup

879
01:11:50,640 --> 01:11:56,199
of coffee could put on it.
It was an ugly moss green, but

880
01:11:56,479 --> 01:12:00,720
I didn't care. It was mine. Dad made me promise to never tell

881
01:12:00,800 --> 01:12:05,479
Mom what had happened. Our official
story was that he had gotten stuck in

882
01:12:05,520 --> 01:12:10,560
the water and I tried to pull
us out with Scout. It was too

883
01:12:10,600 --> 01:12:14,880
much for the old girl, and
she gave out. There was a long

884
01:12:15,079 --> 01:12:17,800
argument out in the hay barn where
no one could hear us, during which

885
01:12:17,840 --> 01:12:24,319
I insisted they sell that farm and
move away from there. Dad refused to

886
01:12:24,479 --> 01:12:29,199
entertain the possibility, and I had
to accept that they were never going to

887
01:12:29,279 --> 01:12:33,640
leave that place. In the end, he assured me that it was all

888
01:12:33,680 --> 01:12:38,960
going to be okay. He would
always be there to protect Mom and my

889
01:12:39,079 --> 01:12:44,279
brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews. Because I wanted to believe him,

890
01:12:44,600 --> 01:12:50,560
I accepted his word as law.
I drove away that cold February morning,

891
01:12:51,039 --> 01:12:56,920
and except to come home when first
Mom and then he died, I never

892
01:12:56,960 --> 01:13:02,640
went back again. I know coward
like most people who discover that monsters are

893
01:13:02,680 --> 01:13:06,760
real. I've made it my mission
to learn as much about these things as

894
01:13:06,800 --> 01:13:12,399
I can, but I do it
through books in these days the Internet.

895
01:13:13,239 --> 01:13:16,359
I don't go out in the woods
because I never want to feel hunted again.

896
01:13:18,880 --> 01:13:27,000
Hunted Part two, Keeper of the
Woods written by Neilma Finn. Derek

897
01:13:27,079 --> 01:13:30,600
came to see me a month before
my mother died. Although he's my brother's

898
01:13:30,640 --> 01:13:34,920
son, Derek is a year older
than me, so our relationship was like

899
01:13:35,000 --> 01:13:41,760
that of cousins more than aunt and
nephew growing up in my hometown of Willard

900
01:13:41,840 --> 01:13:45,399
Springs. We were close, but
he graduated high school and spent a year

901
01:13:45,439 --> 01:13:51,640
away at college before realizing that an
advanced education wasn't for him. He came

902
01:13:51,720 --> 01:13:56,760
home at the end of the spring
semester and began working on my father's farm

903
01:13:57,039 --> 01:14:00,880
in time to wish me a fond
farewell as I packed up my International Scout

904
01:14:00,920 --> 01:14:05,560
and moved to Saint Louis, Missouri. I don't really know why I chose

905
01:14:05,600 --> 01:14:11,279
Saint Louis. Chicago would have been
a more logical place given our location.

906
01:14:12,439 --> 01:14:16,119
Minneapolis would have made sense as well. I think I felt like they were

907
01:14:16,159 --> 01:14:21,479
not far enough removed from Willard Springs. Big cities like New York and la

908
01:14:21,640 --> 01:14:27,199
were too far removed. Saint Louis
felt right, and here I've lived for

909
01:14:27,279 --> 01:14:31,520
the past forty years. At the
time of Derek's visit, I had been

910
01:14:31,600 --> 01:14:38,079
home exactly once. That was when
my grandfather died. I was blessed to

911
01:14:38,159 --> 01:14:42,520
have good and loving parents in a
large, closely knit family, but my

912
01:14:42,720 --> 01:14:48,000
universe centered around Granddaddy. I followed
him wherever he went and mimicked his every

913
01:14:48,079 --> 01:14:53,920
move and did my best to model
myself after him. My name is u

914
01:14:54,000 --> 01:14:58,880
Lalley Jane, after my granny,
who died before I was born, but

915
01:14:59,000 --> 01:15:04,039
it was my granddaddy who gave me
the nickname Shadow. It was a surprise

916
01:15:04,119 --> 01:15:09,520
to hear Derek's voice over the intercom
that morning. When I heard the door

917
01:15:09,560 --> 01:15:14,199
buzzer, I assumed one of my
fellow tenants had accidentally locked him or herself

918
01:15:14,239 --> 01:15:17,840
out and was looking for someone to
open the door for them. Good Lord,

919
01:15:17,920 --> 01:15:21,039
Derek, what are you doing all
the way down here in Saint Louis?

920
01:15:21,279 --> 01:15:25,920
I cried as he swept me up
in a big bear hug that pulled

921
01:15:25,960 --> 01:15:29,960
me off my feet. I had
business down here, so I thought i'd

922
01:15:30,039 --> 01:15:34,319
stop in. He lied, business, Yeah, right, what business could

923
01:15:34,319 --> 01:15:40,159
a dairy farmer have four hundred miles
from home? I chilted, Well,

924
01:15:40,159 --> 01:15:43,800
maybe I just wanted to see my
favorite aunt, he offered, as he

925
01:15:43,840 --> 01:15:46,960
followed me across the little entry hall
into the living room of my apartment.

926
01:15:48,119 --> 01:15:51,840
I lived in an old building,
complete with all the character and charm of

927
01:15:53,039 --> 01:15:58,960
arched doorways and French doors, and
old fashioned phone niches and outdated electricity,

928
01:15:59,079 --> 01:16:04,439
plumbing and relation systems. But it
suited me after all these years. Feeling

929
01:16:04,479 --> 01:16:09,800
a bit melancholy, I said,
Oh, I don't know. He put

930
01:16:09,840 --> 01:16:15,279
a little too much effort into his
nonchalance. I felt a tinge of suspicion

931
01:16:15,439 --> 01:16:18,760
creep over me, but I let
it pass and offered him coffee. When

932
01:16:18,800 --> 01:16:23,399
I came back in with his cup, my two cats had taken up residence

933
01:16:23,479 --> 01:16:28,840
on the sofa beside him. One
was glaring at him suspiciously, as if

934
01:16:28,920 --> 01:16:32,800
demanding an explanation for his presence,
while the other was busy batting at his

935
01:16:32,960 --> 01:16:38,359
hand in an effort to force him
to pet her. Are they planning on

936
01:16:38,520 --> 01:16:42,079
eating me here? Or do they
have a den somewhere that they'll drag me

937
01:16:42,159 --> 01:16:45,960
off to, he asked, as
I handed him as coffee. Callope,

938
01:16:46,000 --> 01:16:50,760
Calypso, get down, I scolded, Well, they ignored me. Sorry.

939
01:16:50,760 --> 01:16:55,119
They're my watchcats. They like to
play good cop, bad cop.

940
01:16:55,720 --> 01:17:00,439
Calope there distracts visitors with her overly
friendly attitude, while Calypso works out a

941
01:17:00,479 --> 01:17:06,239
strategy for immediate expulsion if the need
arises. I don't think I've ever seen

942
01:17:06,279 --> 01:17:12,880
such large cats in my life.
Derek stroked Kellope's back and gave an oof

943
01:17:13,000 --> 01:17:16,560
when she jumped out onto his lap. Wow she's heavy, he said.

944
01:17:17,399 --> 01:17:21,920
They're rag dolls. I explained,
they're not the largest breed of cats,

945
01:17:21,960 --> 01:17:27,239
but close to it. I think
Maine coons are bigger, and maybe one

946
01:17:27,319 --> 01:17:30,840
or two other breeds. They're actually
the friendliest breed I know of. Most

947
01:17:30,920 --> 01:17:36,239
rag dolls think they're dogs. While
I sat down in my favorite oversized chair

948
01:17:36,279 --> 01:17:41,560
next to the little gas fireplace and
opened my arms for Calypso to jump into

949
01:17:41,560 --> 01:17:45,720
my lap, and with both of
us now securely pinned to our seats by

950
01:17:45,760 --> 01:17:49,840
twenty pounds of overly affectionate fur,
I ask again why Derek had come so

951
01:17:50,039 --> 01:17:55,399
far for a visit. Well,
you know, Grandma isn't well, he

952
01:17:55,479 --> 01:18:00,199
began, after a moment of consideration
as to how to proceed. His statement

953
01:18:00,319 --> 01:18:05,159
left me feeling cold inside, and
I responded accordingly, Yeah, Derek,

954
01:18:05,239 --> 01:18:09,640
I know. Just because I never
go back there doesn't mean I don't keep

955
01:18:09,680 --> 01:18:13,039
in touch. I talked to Mom
and Dad at least two or three times

956
01:18:13,039 --> 01:18:16,800
a week, and they come here
a lot, especially since you boys have

957
01:18:16,920 --> 01:18:21,279
taken over the dairy business. A
lot of the city people don't realize that

958
01:18:21,399 --> 01:18:27,239
farming is a business the same as
manufacturing. Over the years, my family

959
01:18:27,279 --> 01:18:30,319
has gone a bit further than selling
milk to companies who package it under their

960
01:18:30,359 --> 01:18:35,880
own names. Parker O'Connor is its
own label. However, I left that

961
01:18:35,920 --> 01:18:41,840
world when I was eighteen. My
knowledge of dairy farming is rudimentary at best,

962
01:18:41,920 --> 01:18:45,880
and my memories of growing up on
the farm feature creeks on hot summer

963
01:18:45,000 --> 01:18:49,800
days and my mother's vegetable garden and
the elusive blue ribbons offered at the county

964
01:18:49,880 --> 01:18:57,399
fair, and snow covered hills and
hollers through which snowmobiles were driven. Nevertheless,

965
01:18:57,439 --> 01:19:00,239
I'm proud of my family, even
if I don't fully understand their passion

966
01:19:00,359 --> 01:19:05,760
for milk production. Sitting across from
Derek, now, I was painfully aware

967
01:19:05,840 --> 01:19:11,760
that he wasn't here to talk butterfat
and protein content of milk with me.

968
01:19:12,800 --> 01:19:15,399
There were questions in his eyes for
which I was sure I had the answers,

969
01:19:15,479 --> 01:19:20,439
but that I wasn't entirely sure I
could provide. I wasn't accusing you

970
01:19:20,520 --> 01:19:25,800
of anything, he said, calmly. I was just saying that she isn't

971
01:19:25,840 --> 01:19:30,880
well. He softened his voice even
more and continued, Now, I know

972
01:19:30,039 --> 01:19:34,319
you love Grandma and Grandpa. You've
been a good daughter to them, even

973
01:19:34,399 --> 01:19:40,399
from so far away. They brag
on you all the time. Grandpa never

974
01:19:40,399 --> 01:19:45,439
fails to mention how you came home
from Granddaddy's funeral and enrolled yourself full time

975
01:19:45,479 --> 01:19:48,199
in college, and you worked hard
at it. He gave me a crooked

976
01:19:48,239 --> 01:19:53,159
smile before saying, and we all
know how hard you had to work.

977
01:19:53,640 --> 01:19:58,520
School was never your forte Well,
shut up, I laughed, relaxing a

978
01:19:58,560 --> 01:20:02,880
bit. Grandma and Grandpa are proud
of you, he said. Who would

979
01:20:02,880 --> 01:20:06,920
ever ever have thought anyone in our
family would go so far that they'd actually

980
01:20:08,000 --> 01:20:13,119
become a professor at a university.
He said this with an easy grin.

981
01:20:14,239 --> 01:20:16,960
Well, I'm not a full professor
yet, I corrected, I've only just

982
01:20:17,079 --> 01:20:23,279
recently achieved the rank of associate professor. You know, Tomato, Tomato,

983
01:20:23,560 --> 01:20:28,119
It's still more than anyone expected.
Again, he shot me a lazy grin

984
01:20:28,520 --> 01:20:31,840
from you. Anyway, I picked
up a pen from my side table and

985
01:20:31,920 --> 01:20:35,439
I threw it at him. The
tension was slithering out of the room.

986
01:20:36,279 --> 01:20:40,600
Well, thanks for not brating me
about that. And to be honest,

987
01:20:40,640 --> 01:20:44,960
I feel guilty not being there.
I hope that my smile hid some of

988
01:20:45,000 --> 01:20:49,560
the self loathing I felt for my
cowardice. We spent the next half hour

989
01:20:49,640 --> 01:20:55,720
making small talk and catching up on
the happenings of Willard Springs. It was

990
01:20:55,800 --> 01:20:59,920
nice having Derek there. My own
brothers were all grown up when I will

991
01:21:00,159 --> 01:21:03,439
born. My sisters were too.
Now I was closer to him than I

992
01:21:03,520 --> 01:21:10,359
ever could have been to my siblings. Suddenly Derek asked what happened that week

993
01:21:10,399 --> 01:21:15,560
after Granddaddy died? And there it
was a shot in the dark, unexpected

994
01:21:15,600 --> 01:21:20,359
and painful. All the tension flooded
back in. Well, how much do

995
01:21:20,439 --> 01:21:25,880
you know, I countered. I
know that I hear things in the woods

996
01:21:25,920 --> 01:21:29,880
when I'm working in the barn.
I know that whatever's out there howling is

997
01:21:29,920 --> 01:21:34,199
too big to be a wolf.
I know that calves disappear and Grandpa blames

998
01:21:34,199 --> 01:21:39,039
it on cootes. And I know
we have fewer barn cats in our neck

999
01:21:39,079 --> 01:21:43,279
of the woods than on any farms
anywhere else. And I know that I

1000
01:21:43,319 --> 01:21:48,319
don't hunt anymore. You don't hunt, that statement said at all? What

1001
01:21:48,439 --> 01:21:54,439
have you seen? I asked.
He was silent for a moment, debating

1002
01:21:54,479 --> 01:21:59,359
how much more to say. All
right, I have seen something, actually

1003
01:21:59,399 --> 01:22:02,920
more than one. Did you talk
to your grandfather about it? I asked,

1004
01:22:03,600 --> 01:22:09,920
No, he exclaimed indignantly. I
don't want to scare him. I

1005
01:22:10,000 --> 01:22:14,880
burst into laughter at that, and
it left him sputtering nonsensical words until I

1006
01:22:14,960 --> 01:22:19,359
interrupted with your grandfather has known about
those things since long before you and I

1007
01:22:19,439 --> 01:22:25,760
were born. The expression knocked him
over with a feather. Overused as it

1008
01:22:25,800 --> 01:22:29,159
may be, was exactly what I
was sure I could have done to him

1009
01:22:29,199 --> 01:22:33,399
at that moment. No, how, you can't be serious, he stammered.

1010
01:22:34,000 --> 01:22:40,039
I was tempted to go find a
feather. How do you know my

1011
01:22:40,199 --> 01:22:44,359
story of the house that I'd heard
while staying at Granddaddy's house on the night

1012
01:22:44,399 --> 01:22:48,279
of his funeral, and the figure
I'd seen lurking around the barns unfolded between

1013
01:22:48,319 --> 01:22:54,199
deep sighs and long pauses. He
pointed out that my father would never have

1014
01:22:54,319 --> 01:22:58,520
called the sheriff, much less agreed
with him if he already knew what was

1015
01:22:58,560 --> 01:23:02,800
out there. I suggested that he
did that for my mother's sake, and

1016
01:23:02,880 --> 01:23:06,439
she didn't know what my father and
grandfather knew, and he would have done

1017
01:23:06,439 --> 01:23:12,600
anything necessary to keep her from ever
finding out. I stood up then and

1018
01:23:12,680 --> 01:23:15,119
went over to the far wall of
my living room, where several floor to

1019
01:23:15,199 --> 01:23:19,479
ceiling bookshelves sagged under the way to
too many books, and from a lower

1020
01:23:19,560 --> 01:23:25,800
shelf, I removed one of my
grandfather's journals. A few days after I

1021
01:23:25,880 --> 01:23:29,600
arrived home from his funeral, they
were delivered to me with a note that

1022
01:23:29,760 --> 01:23:34,239
said for safe keeping, love Dad. I handed the journal to Derek.

1023
01:23:34,880 --> 01:23:43,359
He opened it and began reading January
seventeen, nineteen fifty six. I heard

1024
01:23:43,359 --> 01:23:47,399
them howling again last night. I
asked Loally this morning if she'd heard anything,

1025
01:23:47,439 --> 01:23:51,239
but she said no. I think
I might get a telescope, one

1026
01:23:51,239 --> 01:23:56,399
of those spy scopes like a sea
captain Ughs's and put it up in the

1027
01:23:56,479 --> 01:24:00,279
attic in the west window. Derek
stopped reading and I began to laugh.

1028
01:24:00,840 --> 01:24:04,399
What are you laughing at? He
said, I don't know how I did

1029
01:24:04,439 --> 01:24:08,880
that. I said, there are
two dozen journals on that shelf, and

1030
01:24:08,920 --> 01:24:12,880
that's number two or three. I
just reached down and grabbed one. But

1031
01:24:12,960 --> 01:24:15,760
that's the very first one I read
too. Well, what are these,

1032
01:24:15,920 --> 01:24:19,760
he asked, flipping the book over
in his hand. What does the DM

1033
01:24:19,880 --> 01:24:26,640
stand for? I explained how I'd
found the journals while cleaning out the office,

1034
01:24:27,199 --> 01:24:30,560
and Granddaddy had kept a record going
all the way back to the middle

1035
01:24:30,600 --> 01:24:34,600
of nineteen fifty four, when he
first heard the howling. He recorded every

1036
01:24:34,680 --> 01:24:40,720
date, every sound, every animal
taking or missing, and every thought he

1037
01:24:40,800 --> 01:24:45,600
had about them from July twenty seventh, nineteen fifty four, to September twenty

1038
01:24:45,600 --> 01:24:50,439
two, nineteen seventy five. Most
of the entries were no more than a

1039
01:24:50,479 --> 01:24:57,399
couple of sentences, stating things like
I heard them last night, or bullet

1040
01:24:57,439 --> 01:25:01,840
is missing he was a good dog. The more detailed entries were descriptions and

1041
01:25:02,000 --> 01:25:09,039
behavioral observations. As for the d
MS, I can only guess. I

1042
01:25:09,159 --> 01:25:15,079
concluded, why did he stop in
nineteen seventy five. Derrick asked, I

1043
01:25:15,119 --> 01:25:18,039
don't know. Maybe there are more
note books. Maybe he was beginning to

1044
01:25:18,079 --> 01:25:23,079
see things that scared him too much. I offered, do you think it

1045
01:25:23,159 --> 01:25:29,680
had anything to do with Julianna Denison? Derec wondered aloud, Julianna Denison.

1046
01:25:30,399 --> 01:25:33,079
Now I had to think for a
moment. The name sounded familiar, but

1047
01:25:33,199 --> 01:25:36,640
I couldn't put a face to it. And then it hit me, Oh,

1048
01:25:36,680 --> 01:25:41,479
you mean Matt's old girlfriend, the
one he was engaged to but never

1049
01:25:41,560 --> 01:25:45,119
married. You know, I liked
her. The memory of seeing the two

1050
01:25:45,159 --> 01:25:49,560
of them skinny dipping in the river
that night flooded back to me. Whatever

1051
01:25:49,640 --> 01:25:57,039
happened to her? Shadow, Derec
said harshly, not understanding his sudden anger.

1052
01:25:57,319 --> 01:26:00,000
And I stared back in shock.
And seeing that I was at a

1053
01:26:00,039 --> 01:26:05,000
loss, he said, don't you
remember Uncle Matt almost went to jail for

1054
01:26:05,079 --> 01:26:12,079
her. Well baffled, I shook
my head. Julianne and Denison disappeared one

1055
01:26:12,159 --> 01:26:15,800
night when she and Matt were on
a date. They found her body all

1056
01:26:15,840 --> 01:26:18,960
tore up. Now, how can
you forget something that gruesome? It was

1057
01:26:19,000 --> 01:26:23,840
the biggest news ever to hit Willard
Springs, and Uncle Matt was damn near

1058
01:26:24,039 --> 01:26:29,760
charged with killing her. Dear God, I did remember. I remembered seeing

1059
01:26:29,800 --> 01:26:32,920
them in the water in the moonlight, and I remember them splashing each other

1060
01:26:32,960 --> 01:26:39,279
and laughing. I remembered them coming
together in an embrace, and I remember

1061
01:26:39,319 --> 01:26:43,479
her turning and heading for the shore
and disappearing in the woods and screaming.

1062
01:26:44,159 --> 01:26:48,600
I remembered it all. How could
I have forgotten? It was the night

1063
01:26:48,640 --> 01:26:51,920
I had slipped up to the attic
to play with the telescope when I was

1064
01:26:53,039 --> 01:26:57,720
ten, and somehow I'd managed to
block it all out. But now the

1065
01:26:57,760 --> 01:27:01,399
images came flooding back to me.
I could hear the distant screaming and pleading

1066
01:27:01,439 --> 01:27:05,920
for mercy. I could see Matt
running into the brush and coming out again

1067
01:27:05,960 --> 01:27:10,720
and yelling for her. And he
swept up his jeans and he pulled them

1068
01:27:10,720 --> 01:27:13,560
on as he ran for his truck, and I heard him pull into the

1069
01:27:13,560 --> 01:27:17,640
barnyard. I heard him running into
the house and my dad calling the police,

1070
01:27:17,880 --> 01:27:24,640
or was it my grandfather? Shadow? Shadow Derek's voice was coming from

1071
01:27:24,680 --> 01:27:29,119
somewhere far away. I looked up
and saw his face inches for mine.

1072
01:27:29,840 --> 01:27:32,760
His lips were moving and sounds were
coming from his mouth, but I couldn't

1073
01:27:32,880 --> 01:27:39,520
understand them. I felt sick.
Suddenly, I pushed Calypso off my lap

1074
01:27:39,600 --> 01:27:42,560
and shoved Derek away, and I
ran down the hall to the bathroom.

1075
01:27:43,479 --> 01:27:46,039
By the time I was through,
I was wishing I'd eaten more that day.

1076
01:27:46,720 --> 01:27:51,319
It would have been easier than the
constant wretching. When I finally collapsed

1077
01:27:51,359 --> 01:27:56,199
onto the bathroom floor, certain I'd
never be able to stand up again,

1078
01:27:56,800 --> 01:28:02,840
I dissolved into loud, ugly sobs. Fifteen minutes later, Derek knocked on

1079
01:28:02,920 --> 01:28:09,479
the door, shadow, are you
okay? No? I was not okay.

1080
01:28:10,039 --> 01:28:14,199
I couldn't accept the image of Julianna
Denison, except to see a rabbit

1081
01:28:14,319 --> 01:28:17,560
running across a patch of snow and
being swept up by a monster that until

1082
01:28:17,600 --> 01:28:24,600
that moment I never could have believed
existed. What was worse, A fraction

1083
01:28:24,720 --> 01:28:29,359
of a second before it sank its
teeth into the soft fur, the rabbit

1084
01:28:29,520 --> 01:28:33,640
turned into Juliana. I pulled myself
back to my feet and I opened the

1085
01:28:33,680 --> 01:28:39,680
door, and Derek's worried face loomed
over me. His hands came up to

1086
01:28:39,720 --> 01:28:43,760
support me as I began to sway
a bit and gently. He led me

1087
01:28:43,840 --> 01:28:46,279
back to my chair in the living
room, and then disappeared down the hall

1088
01:28:46,359 --> 01:28:51,520
to return with a glass of water. I took it gratefully and sipped gingerly

1089
01:28:51,640 --> 01:28:57,840
for several long minutes before I was
able to speak again, and Derek listened

1090
01:28:57,840 --> 01:29:01,760
in mortified silence as I just the
scene I'd witnessed that night when I was

1091
01:29:01,840 --> 01:29:05,760
a child. I told him that, as far as I knew, the

1092
01:29:05,800 --> 01:29:12,199
telescope was still intact, and then
I remembered that Dad had interrupted me the

1093
01:29:12,279 --> 01:29:16,159
night I saw the dog man,
and I didn't replace it. If Mom

1094
01:29:16,279 --> 01:29:19,920
was the one who found it later, it would likely have been tucked back

1095
01:29:19,960 --> 01:29:25,000
into a little space under the window. But if Dad went back up the

1096
01:29:25,039 --> 01:29:29,079
stairs that night, he may have
gotten rid of it to prevent any more

1097
01:29:29,319 --> 01:29:33,479
unwanted incidents. We'll see, he
said, when I get back. I'll

1098
01:29:33,520 --> 01:29:38,840
go there first thing. And look
why, I asked, what would you

1099
01:29:38,920 --> 01:29:43,680
do with that little monocular? It's
over forty years old. You'd be better

1100
01:29:43,720 --> 01:29:46,479
off buying a new one, a
better one, And then I paused and

1101
01:29:46,520 --> 01:29:53,239
nodded, you'd be better off staying
away from the subject altogether. I can't,

1102
01:29:53,439 --> 01:29:58,399
Derek answered flatly, I understood,
and I hated it, but I

1103
01:29:58,520 --> 01:30:03,279
understood. After that, we sat
in silence, and Derek spotted a short

1104
01:30:03,319 --> 01:30:08,880
plastic pole on the coffee table and
picked it up to dangle the attached feather

1105
01:30:09,000 --> 01:30:14,000
and bells over the cat's heads.
They danced around and batted at it,

1106
01:30:14,079 --> 01:30:16,840
and then at each other. And
MY eyes were fixed on the cats,

1107
01:30:16,920 --> 01:30:21,079
but my mind had me trapped in
an attic, staring out a window and

1108
01:30:21,159 --> 01:30:27,439
seeing something that couldn't be. It
could have been an hour before Derek spoke.

1109
01:30:28,000 --> 01:30:31,840
It could have been two hours.
The cats had long since lost interest

1110
01:30:31,960 --> 01:30:35,640
in the dangled feathers, so I
doubt it could have been less. And

1111
01:30:35,720 --> 01:30:41,119
finally he stood up. I had
been so deep in thought that his movement

1112
01:30:41,199 --> 01:30:45,000
startled me. Are you leaving?
There was an actual fear in my voice,

1113
01:30:45,079 --> 01:30:49,199
for which I was ashamed, Yeah, he said, slipping into the

1114
01:30:49,319 --> 01:30:55,399
jacket that he draped over the chair
earlier. It's getting late. Why don't

1115
01:30:55,439 --> 01:31:00,439
you stay, I pleaded, much
to myself, disgusted. I'll come back

1116
01:31:00,479 --> 01:31:03,520
tomorrow, he promised. How about
I come and take you to breakfast.

1117
01:31:04,359 --> 01:31:09,640
I thought about that for a minute. Tomorrow felt like a long drive across

1118
01:31:09,640 --> 01:31:14,319
a frozen tundra away, but he
was right to leave me. I needed

1119
01:31:14,359 --> 01:31:19,920
the time to process these new memories
to understand them. Okay, I acquiesced,

1120
01:31:20,319 --> 01:31:24,960
but not on farm time, I
quickly added, I don't get up

1121
01:31:25,000 --> 01:31:30,600
before seven am. Look at you, lazy bones, he teased. It

1122
01:31:30,640 --> 01:31:35,680
was still early on Saturday afternoon.
When Derek left, I felt restless and

1123
01:31:35,840 --> 01:31:41,039
uncomfortable, so I decided to head
over to my office on campus, where

1124
01:31:41,039 --> 01:31:45,960
I had access to the new tool
called the World Wide Web, and there

1125
01:31:45,000 --> 01:31:48,439
I searched for an hour to find
all that I could about the death of

1126
01:31:48,520 --> 01:31:54,920
Julianna Denison. The Internet was still
young back then and not nearly as helpful

1127
01:31:55,119 --> 01:31:59,319
as it is today, and in
the end I relented and walked over to

1128
01:31:59,359 --> 01:32:04,000
the library, where I scanned through
microfish images of old newspapers until I found

1129
01:32:04,079 --> 01:32:12,199
what I was looking for. The
headlines were harsh and accusatory. Local man

1130
01:32:12,279 --> 01:32:18,279
accused of killing fiance while swimming read
the first The article relayed the story of

1131
01:32:18,359 --> 01:32:23,680
how Matt had taken Juliana down to
the river to spend some time alone with

1132
01:32:23,760 --> 01:32:28,640
her and talk about their wedding plans
for the following summer. There were several

1133
01:32:28,720 --> 01:32:32,720
quotes from friends whose names I recognized, and who declared Matt's innocence and his

1134
01:32:32,800 --> 01:32:40,000
inability to commit such a heinous crime. The second paper, with a headline

1135
01:32:40,319 --> 01:32:45,000
woman attacked and killed in the woods, fiance held for questioning, was more

1136
01:32:45,039 --> 01:32:50,479
of the same. This time they
interviewed Granddaddy, who adamantly stated that it

1137
01:32:50,560 --> 01:32:56,119
had to be a wild animal.
No man could do to another human being

1138
01:32:56,199 --> 01:33:00,399
what had been done to that girl's
body. I flipped the several more articles,

1139
01:33:00,439 --> 01:33:05,079
each revealing a little more about the
autopsy, the match release based on

1140
01:33:05,159 --> 01:33:11,000
the autopsy results, and a search
for large predators in and around the river

1141
01:33:11,119 --> 01:33:16,439
that ended fruitlessly. The last article
declared her death to be a direct result

1142
01:33:16,560 --> 01:33:21,800
of wild dogs, all of which
it said were rounded up and euthanized.

1143
01:33:24,239 --> 01:33:30,800
Juliana's obituary showed a face that I
barely remembered. They had obviously used a

1144
01:33:30,840 --> 01:33:34,680
school picture. Her hair was long
and dark brown and parted in the middle,

1145
01:33:34,760 --> 01:33:40,840
with two metal hairbows holding it back
from her face on each side.

1146
01:33:40,960 --> 01:33:45,199
Her pale eyes were heavily made up
in the electric shades of blue that were

1147
01:33:45,239 --> 01:33:49,039
popular at the time, and she
was wearing a short sleeved light net turtleneck.

1148
01:33:50,159 --> 01:33:56,359
I stared at her with little sympathy. I never liked her, Unlike

1149
01:33:56,479 --> 01:34:00,319
us, she wasn't a farm kid, and for that she looked down on

1150
01:34:00,439 --> 01:34:04,399
us. She lorded her college degree
over us, as though it was somehow

1151
01:34:04,520 --> 01:34:10,119
made her better. My mother always
acted awkwardly in front of her, and

1152
01:34:10,199 --> 01:34:13,920
my dad always found an excuse to
work on something out in the barn when

1153
01:34:13,960 --> 01:34:19,079
she was there, and Granddaddy stayed
away altogether. Despite this, the thought

1154
01:34:19,199 --> 01:34:24,399
of her being torn to pieces by
one of those creatures living in our woods

1155
01:34:24,520 --> 01:34:28,800
was disturbing, and I suppose that
no one should have to suffer that sort

1156
01:34:28,840 --> 01:34:32,439
of fate. I had the librarian
print out copies of all the articles I

1157
01:34:32,560 --> 01:34:39,039
found, and I took them home
with me. Derek and I had been

1158
01:34:39,119 --> 01:34:44,520
staring into our cups of rapidly cooling
coffee for too long. The din of

1159
01:34:44,520 --> 01:34:48,520
people talking and dishes being cleared,
and servers rushing past with plates of food

1160
01:34:48,560 --> 01:34:54,960
and bacon sizzling on the grill somewhere
beyond the lunch counter created miles of distance

1161
01:34:55,039 --> 01:35:00,239
across a little formica top table at
which we sat. Neither of us could

1162
01:35:00,239 --> 01:35:04,960
think of a thing to say.
It seemed impolite to march into the topic

1163
01:35:05,039 --> 01:35:10,720
that dominated all of our thoughts,
but because it was all either of us

1164
01:35:10,720 --> 01:35:16,079
could think about, it left us
incapable of any other conversation. I gave

1165
01:35:16,239 --> 01:35:21,640
up. Tell me your story,
huh, I wondered if Derek had fallen

1166
01:35:21,680 --> 01:35:27,920
asleep into his own thoughts that he'd
forgotten I was there. Oh yeah,

1167
01:35:28,159 --> 01:35:32,600
well, he began with the impeccable
timing that only a server can have.

1168
01:35:33,039 --> 01:35:38,560
Ours approached the table at that moment
to refill our cups and assure us that

1169
01:35:38,640 --> 01:35:43,039
our food would be out momentarily.
I thanked him with a smile and then

1170
01:35:43,159 --> 01:35:46,560
turned back to Derek and waited.
He took a deep breath and blew it

1171
01:35:46,600 --> 01:35:53,000
out slowly. His eyes wandered to
the window beside us. Rain was falling

1172
01:35:53,039 --> 01:35:57,800
at a steady pace. Outside.
Derek wasn't fond of rain, but I,

1173
01:35:57,880 --> 01:36:01,600
on the other hand, am a
complete pluvial file. Remember that time

1174
01:36:01,640 --> 01:36:05,520
we all decided to canoe the Saint
Croix and we got all the way down

1175
01:36:05,560 --> 01:36:10,239
to Hinckley before we realized we didn't
have a way to get back to our

1176
01:36:10,319 --> 01:36:15,960
vehicles. It was a diversion,
but at least he was talking and we

1177
01:36:15,000 --> 01:36:19,439
had to call Grandpa and Granddaddy to
drive up and get us. He was

1178
01:36:19,520 --> 01:36:25,560
laughing. Now it sounded nice,
and then it started raining before they got

1179
01:36:25,600 --> 01:36:29,880
there. We had to turn the
canoes over and huddle under them for shelter.

1180
01:36:30,000 --> 01:36:33,119
We should have stayed at the gas
station and had them pick us up

1181
01:36:33,119 --> 01:36:36,800
there, I said, smiling back
at him. Or we could have paddled

1182
01:36:36,800 --> 01:36:42,600
back up stream like I wanted to. And poor Ben, we had to

1183
01:36:42,600 --> 01:36:45,079
make him wait there with our canoes
while we walked to a phone booth.

1184
01:36:45,640 --> 01:36:49,399
And then we got back and he
was throwing a fit about somebody tossing rocks

1185
01:36:49,439 --> 01:36:57,800
at him. Derek grew silent again
as realization dawned across his face. Tell

1186
01:36:57,840 --> 01:37:02,079
me your story, Derek said again. We had to wait in silence for

1187
01:37:02,119 --> 01:37:06,199
a minute while our server, with
his unbearable timing, placed a plate of

1188
01:37:06,239 --> 01:37:10,239
eggs and bacon, and a plate
of biscuits and gravy, and a plate

1189
01:37:10,279 --> 01:37:14,560
of pancakes in front of Derek,
and a bowl of fruit and gorilla topped

1190
01:37:14,560 --> 01:37:18,239
with yogurt in front of me.
You're going to starve to death eating like

1191
01:37:18,399 --> 01:37:23,640
that, he chatted. And you're
gonna get old and fat eating like that

1192
01:37:24,119 --> 01:37:30,479
I retaliated. It was a familiar
banter that helped us both relax. Derek

1193
01:37:30,560 --> 01:37:33,159
shoved a piece of bacon in his
mouth and he grinned, at least I'll

1194
01:37:33,159 --> 01:37:39,560
get old, and then, without
further prodding, he began, It's been

1195
01:37:39,600 --> 01:37:43,000
going on for so long, to
be honest, that I can't put a

1196
01:37:43,079 --> 01:37:46,840
start date on it. I think
I've known since high school, maybe earlier,

1197
01:37:46,880 --> 01:37:51,760
that something wasn't right in our woods. Something isn't right in any of

1198
01:37:51,800 --> 01:37:57,159
the woods around there, you know
how. Granddaddy never let us hunt alone

1199
01:37:57,239 --> 01:38:00,159
in the woods, but used to
slip in there when we didn't know.

1200
01:38:00,119 --> 01:38:03,720
I was sure there must be some
trophy buck roaming around in there, and

1201
01:38:03,760 --> 01:38:06,560
I was just as sure as I
was going to be the one to bring

1202
01:38:06,600 --> 01:38:12,079
it in. And I honestly don't
know what I would have said to Grandaddy

1203
01:38:12,159 --> 01:38:16,079
if I had. There were times
in those woods when I seriously felt like

1204
01:38:16,159 --> 01:38:20,279
I was being stalked. For the
longest time, I thought it was Grandaddy.

1205
01:38:21,199 --> 01:38:26,239
I kept expecting him to mention it
in the middle of some family dinner,

1206
01:38:26,520 --> 01:38:30,960
but he never did, and after
a while I convinced myself that it

1207
01:38:30,039 --> 01:38:33,239
wasn't him. But for the life
of me. I couldn't figure out who

1208
01:38:33,600 --> 01:38:39,399
or what it might have been.
It was always the same. I'd be

1209
01:38:39,520 --> 01:38:44,359
walking and everything would go silent,
like a predator was close by, and

1210
01:38:44,399 --> 01:38:47,520
then I'd hear footsteps around me.
Not stop and look around, but I

1211
01:38:47,560 --> 01:38:53,399
never could see anything. It was
always so damn quiet. No birds,

1212
01:38:53,439 --> 01:38:58,039
no squirrels, no insects, nothing. And then I'd start walking again and

1213
01:38:58,079 --> 01:39:01,960
I'd hear footsteps again. Sometimes a
stick or a rock would get chucked at

1214
01:39:02,000 --> 01:39:05,960
me. That was always when I'd
get too spooked and I'd walk out.

1215
01:39:06,800 --> 01:39:12,319
But whatever was out there always walked
out with me. But when i'd get

1216
01:39:12,359 --> 01:39:15,399
to the road, it never came
out of the woods with me. Or

1217
01:39:15,479 --> 01:39:17,600
if I was down the river and
once I crossed it, it would stop

1218
01:39:17,680 --> 01:39:23,159
following. I guess that started all
the way back in high school. But

1219
01:39:23,199 --> 01:39:28,319
I can promise you there are times
even today when I go into those woods

1220
01:39:28,560 --> 01:39:31,560
that I feel something is watching me, Something doesn't want me there, and

1221
01:39:31,680 --> 01:39:36,880
something is chasing me out where.
You're lucky there, Derek, I said,

1222
01:39:38,279 --> 01:39:43,560
those were probably the Sasquatches. He
leaned in suddenly and he said,

1223
01:39:44,159 --> 01:39:48,159
do you believe in bigfoot? I
thought it was a ridiculous question. Of

1224
01:39:48,199 --> 01:39:53,239
course, I believe in bigfoot.
I've read all of grandfather's journals, and

1225
01:39:53,279 --> 01:39:58,880
I've had countless conversations with my father
about the behavior he'd witnessed and the signs

1226
01:39:58,920 --> 01:40:02,720
he'd recorded. Although I didn't see
a bigfoot in the woods that cold winter

1227
01:40:02,880 --> 01:40:08,319
day, what I did see told
me that if they can't exist, then

1228
01:40:08,399 --> 01:40:13,079
sure as hell a bigfoot can.
As quickly as he leaned in, Derek

1229
01:40:13,199 --> 01:40:17,159
withdrew, he didn't wait for my
answer. It wasn't a sasquatch or a

1230
01:40:17,159 --> 01:40:21,600
bigfoot that I saw last spring,
he said. I was turkey hunting.

1231
01:40:21,800 --> 01:40:26,680
There was a big time that i'd
been watching. I couldn't believe my luck

1232
01:40:26,720 --> 01:40:30,239
when I managed to call him in
on that first day. God, it

1233
01:40:30,319 --> 01:40:33,319
was frustrating watching him duck in and
out of the brush. I was waiting

1234
01:40:33,359 --> 01:40:39,199
for a clear shot. He'd stepped
behind the bush and there was a sudden

1235
01:40:39,239 --> 01:40:43,359
movement and feathers went everywhere, and
the damn thing was gone. It was

1236
01:40:43,479 --> 01:40:48,600
just gone. Derek's face mirrored his
astonishment as his hands came up to wipe

1237
01:40:48,640 --> 01:40:54,600
the air like a giant eraser.
I was so shocked that I think I

1238
01:40:54,720 --> 01:40:58,000
must have yelled or something, and
the next thing I knew, I was

1239
01:40:58,039 --> 01:41:01,319
looking at the crown of a head
sticking up from behind the bushes. It

1240
01:41:01,439 --> 01:41:08,159
kept standing until its eyes were visible. The color drained out of Derek's face

1241
01:41:08,279 --> 01:41:13,039
at the thought of what he'd seen
that day. Those eyes were like two

1242
01:41:13,119 --> 01:41:16,319
coals of fire, staring right into
me. He looked at me as if

1243
01:41:16,319 --> 01:41:19,960
he were waiting for me to argue
with him. But how could I when

1244
01:41:20,000 --> 01:41:25,720
I remembered so well that horrible feeling
when a pair of similar eyes pinned me

1245
01:41:25,840 --> 01:41:32,279
from an impossible distance away, and
he continued and its teeth, its canines

1246
01:41:32,319 --> 01:41:36,319
were massive. I could see the
fear washing over him at the memory.

1247
01:41:38,000 --> 01:41:41,399
Those bushes had to be at least
as tall as me, at least six

1248
01:41:41,520 --> 01:41:44,520
feet, But when it rose up, I knew it had to be well

1249
01:41:44,560 --> 01:41:47,239
over that I was down on the
ground looking up, but I could still

1250
01:41:47,279 --> 01:41:53,720
see its head over the bushes.
Derek was beginning to tremble. His face

1251
01:41:53,800 --> 01:41:58,920
glistened with sweat as his skin paled
to a waxy white, and tears welled

1252
01:41:59,000 --> 01:42:03,079
up in his eyes. I sat
silently while he pulled himself back together,

1253
01:42:03,560 --> 01:42:06,520
and he took a bite of food
and he chewed it with his thoughts.

1254
01:42:08,159 --> 01:42:12,159
I began to wonder again if he'd
forgotten I was there, And then he

1255
01:42:12,199 --> 01:42:16,199
looked up and abruptly asked, why
did you leave so suddenly after Granddaddy's funeral.

1256
01:42:17,279 --> 01:42:20,960
Well, that caught me off guard. Something happened, didn't it.

1257
01:42:21,239 --> 01:42:25,399
I mean, that day, after
you heard those howls, and after you

1258
01:42:25,479 --> 01:42:30,560
found the notebooks, after you saw
it kill the rabbit, something else happened,

1259
01:42:30,600 --> 01:42:34,319
didn't it. It was like a
strange game of live chests we were

1260
01:42:34,359 --> 01:42:39,840
playing. The white Queen would question, and the black knight would withdraw.

1261
01:42:40,399 --> 01:42:44,600
The black rook would speak, and
the white bishop would counter. I could

1262
01:42:44,640 --> 01:42:48,199
almost hear a distant, primordial drum
beat keeping time, or maybe it was

1263
01:42:48,319 --> 01:42:55,359
my heart. Yes, something happened. He held his breath as I told

1264
01:42:55,439 --> 01:42:58,760
him how my dad had taken me
down in the woods to show me the

1265
01:42:58,800 --> 01:43:02,000
signs of the dog men, and
possibly to look for an indication that the

1266
01:43:02,000 --> 01:43:06,920
Bigfoot were returning. If they were
coming back, he'd said, then the

1267
01:43:06,960 --> 01:43:13,279
dog men wouldn't be leaving again until
late fall. And then we were attacked.

1268
01:43:14,119 --> 01:43:18,199
Attacked, he cried, you were
attacked, Uh, yeah, I

1269
01:43:18,239 --> 01:43:23,560
assured him. We parked his truck
on the river, and were walking the

1270
01:43:23,600 --> 01:43:28,560
farm road up to Granddaddy's house when
we were suddenly surrounded by them. Well,

1271
01:43:28,600 --> 01:43:31,960
I marveled at how calm I managed
to sound. I wasn't feeling it.

1272
01:43:33,119 --> 01:43:38,359
Visions of Juliana and the rabbit were
racing through my mind, and now

1273
01:43:38,399 --> 01:43:43,479
they were accompanied by the sounds of
grass and dead leaves and crystallized patches of

1274
01:43:43,560 --> 01:43:47,199
snow being crushed under massive paws.
Well, how did you get away?

1275
01:43:47,359 --> 01:43:55,159
He cried, causing a disproving stare
from some nearby diners. That was one

1276
01:43:55,239 --> 01:44:00,800
question I wasn't certain how to answer, how did I get away? The

1277
01:44:00,840 --> 01:44:05,039
better question was who followed me out? My father had insisted that he was

1278
01:44:05,119 --> 01:44:09,800
never with me, and as soon
as he was certain that those creatures weren't

1279
01:44:09,840 --> 01:44:14,319
going to follow me, he turned
the other way. He had chosen to

1280
01:44:14,399 --> 01:44:17,399
die rather than to let them get
me. But I know there was someone

1281
01:44:17,520 --> 01:44:23,560
or something behind me. I heard
footsteps, I heard him breathing, I

1282
01:44:23,600 --> 01:44:28,359
felt his presence, And yet I
know when I turned around at the door,

1283
01:44:28,439 --> 01:44:31,640
the barnyard was empty. If it
wasn't my father, who could have

1284
01:44:31,720 --> 01:44:35,640
disappeared like that? If it had
been a dog, man, would I

1285
01:44:35,680 --> 01:44:41,520
still be alive to tell the tale. Over the years, I've entertained the

1286
01:44:41,640 --> 01:44:45,279
idea that it was the ghost of
my grandfather seeing me to safety, or

1287
01:44:45,359 --> 01:44:50,319
perhaps it was a sasquatch. My
father was fond of saying that they had

1288
01:44:50,439 --> 01:44:57,239
rules. Stay out of their territory
and don't interrupt a hunting expedition. Announce

1289
01:44:57,239 --> 01:45:00,960
your presence when you enter the woods
if you think there are around, and

1290
01:45:00,039 --> 01:45:04,479
if you hear tree knocks or get
something thrown at you, walk calmly and

1291
01:45:04,600 --> 01:45:10,560
deliberately away. Maybe they felt that
the dog men were breaking the rules,

1292
01:45:10,600 --> 01:45:15,720
and their retaliation was to prevent them
from turning me into a meal. Dad

1293
01:45:15,760 --> 01:45:20,680
said they always returned in late winter
or early spring. Wait, this time

1294
01:45:20,720 --> 01:45:27,079
it was me who drew the disapproving
stairs from the other customers. What Derek

1295
01:45:27,199 --> 01:45:31,359
yelled back? People were staring openly. Now we must have looked like a

1296
01:45:31,359 --> 01:45:35,039
couple of looney tunes, yelling back
and forth at each other and jumping at

1297
01:45:35,039 --> 01:45:41,039
every word. I might have laughed
if not for the sudden realization that Derek's

1298
01:45:41,079 --> 01:45:45,479
story didn't make sense, It didn't
follow the rules. Did you say you

1299
01:45:45,520 --> 01:45:51,199
were turkey hunting, I asked,
Yeah, what about it spring Turkey season?

1300
01:45:51,560 --> 01:45:56,640
Isn't it in like April? It
was the last week in April.

1301
01:45:56,680 --> 01:46:01,520
Why Having never read the journals and
not realizing that his grandfather was as close

1302
01:46:01,600 --> 01:46:05,920
to an expert on the subject as
a man could be, Derek couldn't have

1303
01:46:06,039 --> 01:46:11,239
known that by April the dog men
should have been gone, or that they

1304
01:46:11,279 --> 01:46:15,680
shouldn't be coming back until the end
of summer. Did it look like a

1305
01:46:15,720 --> 01:46:20,159
dog, I asked, Well,
not exactly. It looked almost like a

1306
01:46:20,239 --> 01:46:25,520
I don't know it was really dog
like. It was more like a mandrel,

1307
01:46:26,439 --> 01:46:29,399
you know, one of those big
monkeys with the weird red nose and

1308
01:46:29,479 --> 01:46:34,439
white Did it have ears? I
interrupted, what I guess, so I

1309
01:46:34,479 --> 01:46:42,159
don't really remember. They weren't obvious. No, I guess not confused by

1310
01:46:42,159 --> 01:46:45,319
my obsession with the ears. Derek
finally asked, what difference does it make?

1311
01:46:46,600 --> 01:46:50,680
It makes all the difference in the
world, I said. Dog men

1312
01:46:50,880 --> 01:46:57,319
generally look like well dogs. I
mean, I've read a few instances where

1313
01:46:57,359 --> 01:47:00,560
people thought they might look like their
high ena, but for the most part

1314
01:47:00,880 --> 01:47:05,399
they have a caneine appearance. I
thought you were describing a dog man,

1315
01:47:05,880 --> 01:47:10,960
but it's the wrong time of year. Derek and all of Granddaddy's journals and

1316
01:47:11,079 --> 01:47:15,119
everything. Dad has told me.
The dog men leave the areas sometime in

1317
01:47:15,199 --> 01:47:18,479
late winter or early spring, and
they don't come back until the Bigfoot leave

1318
01:47:18,560 --> 01:47:23,920
at the end of the summer or
the beginning of the fall. Juliana was

1319
01:47:24,000 --> 01:47:28,279
killed in mid September. Right,
I pointed out, well, He nodded,

1320
01:47:28,880 --> 01:47:32,079
Well, that means the Bigfoot had
already moved on. Granddaddy and Dad

1321
01:47:32,119 --> 01:47:36,439
had a theory that these things are
all migratory. They kept records of what

1322
01:47:36,479 --> 01:47:42,279
they saw and when they saw them. I suspected I was speaking too quickly

1323
01:47:42,359 --> 01:47:45,840
for Derek to take it all in. Come on, we need to go

1324
01:47:45,920 --> 01:47:50,359
back to my place. I'm not
saying it wasn't doglike, he was saying.

1325
01:47:50,399 --> 01:47:56,079
As I jumped up and signaled to
our waiter. I was already throwing

1326
01:47:56,199 --> 01:48:00,119
cash on the table when he arrived. Derek shot a moreful glance at his

1327
01:48:00,199 --> 01:48:05,079
barely touched food and following me out
the door. I was trying not to

1328
01:48:05,159 --> 01:48:10,199
run the two blocks back to my
apartment in the rain. It was uphill

1329
01:48:10,239 --> 01:48:13,920
all the way, and I could
hear Derek huffing behind me. Too many

1330
01:48:14,000 --> 01:48:18,000
biscuit and gravy breakfasts. I muttered, slow down, he yelled, and

1331
01:48:18,039 --> 01:48:24,720
I ignored him. At my apartment, I had to stop and dig my

1332
01:48:24,840 --> 01:48:28,560
key out of my pocket, and
then I fumbled it and I dropped it,

1333
01:48:28,960 --> 01:48:32,039
and it bounced off the cement,
stooping into the mud. We both

1334
01:48:32,039 --> 01:48:35,600
had to crawl around on our knees
and the shrubs to find it, and

1335
01:48:35,760 --> 01:48:42,319
fortunately we were already so wet that
it didn't matter. At my apartment door,

1336
01:48:42,439 --> 01:48:45,640
Derek wrenched the key from my hand
and opened it for me with a

1337
01:48:45,640 --> 01:48:48,560
look of disdain. He wasn't about
to let me draw up another key.

1338
01:48:50,520 --> 01:48:54,920
I led the way across the living
room to a set of French doors that

1339
01:48:55,039 --> 01:49:00,239
opened into a small glassed in sun
room that I had turned into my office.

1340
01:49:00,560 --> 01:49:03,840
Fall semester had just begun, and
I already had a stack of papers

1341
01:49:03,840 --> 01:49:09,600
to grade. I pushed them aside
and pulled a small chair from the corner

1342
01:49:09,840 --> 01:49:14,079
over so that Derek could sit beside
me, and then I reached into the

1343
01:49:14,079 --> 01:49:18,159
bottom drawer of my desk and withdrew
a large d ring binder. It was

1344
01:49:18,199 --> 01:49:24,840
full of notebook paper and sheet covers
filled with type pages or diagrams in them,

1345
01:49:25,239 --> 01:49:30,680
and several drawings. Sections were separated
by tab sheets, all of which

1346
01:49:30,720 --> 01:49:34,479
had seen better days. I opened
the binder and began to flip through it

1347
01:49:34,600 --> 01:49:40,119
tab by tab until I reached the
section I was looking for. The first

1348
01:49:40,159 --> 01:49:45,680
page of that section was a heading
sheet that read descriptions and depictions. I

1349
01:49:45,720 --> 01:49:50,039
turned to the second page. It
had only one word, typed in three

1350
01:49:50,079 --> 01:49:58,960
inch tall capital letters, Bigfoot.
The next page was a type description copied

1351
01:49:58,960 --> 01:50:02,920
from my grandfather's journal, and below
it was another description that my own father

1352
01:50:03,000 --> 01:50:10,079
had given me via the telephone.
The next page listed a variety of descriptions

1353
01:50:10,159 --> 01:50:14,600
pulled from the books of those brave
enough to put into print their belief in

1354
01:50:14,720 --> 01:50:19,800
a creature assumed to be mythical by
the general population. I turned the page

1355
01:50:19,840 --> 01:50:25,880
again to stare into the first of
a dozen or so artist's renditions of the

1356
01:50:25,920 --> 01:50:31,239
big hairy beast. What you saw, I asked Derek, as Calypso jumped

1357
01:50:31,279 --> 01:50:36,399
into my lap. Did it look
like any of these? He was already

1358
01:50:36,399 --> 01:50:42,199
shaking his head before he even began
to look, and page by page he

1359
01:50:42,239 --> 01:50:45,159
looked at the drawings. Then he
shook his head. No, I told

1360
01:50:45,199 --> 01:50:51,239
you it wasn't a bigfoot. That
I saw the next page said dog man,

1361
01:50:51,560 --> 01:50:56,920
where the first had said bigfoot.
What about these, I asked,

1362
01:50:57,000 --> 01:51:01,199
turning the pages with a dog man
drawings on them. Derek took his time

1363
01:51:01,279 --> 01:51:08,000
looking through these pictures. Included in
them were drawings of werewolves by artists like

1364
01:51:08,119 --> 01:51:13,680
Frank Frazetta, but I didn't mention
that to Derek. He studied each image

1365
01:51:13,720 --> 01:51:17,279
and shook his head and then turned
the page. I skipped over the next

1366
01:51:17,319 --> 01:51:23,520
several pages. They were all creatures
that my father and grandfather believed to exist

1367
01:51:23,560 --> 01:51:27,600
in the woods and along the river
banks around the farm, but I highly

1368
01:51:27,680 --> 01:51:32,119
doubted any of them would be what
Derek had seen. They included creatures like

1369
01:51:32,239 --> 01:51:36,880
pug wodgies, they were easily eliminated
by the mere fact that they stood only

1370
01:51:36,920 --> 01:51:43,520
three feet tall, and ghosting demons
that I dismiss for a variety of reasons.

1371
01:51:44,479 --> 01:51:48,560
And finally I got to the last
section. It was labeled unclassified.

1372
01:51:50,159 --> 01:51:55,760
There I flipped to the drawing and
Derek drew in his breath. That's it,

1373
01:51:56,039 --> 01:52:00,359
he cried, That's exactly what I
saw. My heart fell into my

1374
01:52:00,520 --> 01:52:08,399
stomach. Derek had identified a Gugwy
Gugwi, he asked, reading the name

1375
01:52:08,479 --> 01:52:13,319
under the drawing. What does that
mean? It means face eater, I

1376
01:52:13,359 --> 01:52:16,840
said, and you, my dear
nephew, may be the only man ever

1377
01:52:16,920 --> 01:52:23,560
to have gotten that close to one
and lived. Derek lifted several pages of

1378
01:52:23,640 --> 01:52:28,000
the binder at the top corner and
let them slide over his thumb back into

1379
01:52:28,039 --> 01:52:32,760
place. What is all this?
He asked, dumbfounded. I couldn't answer

1380
01:52:32,840 --> 01:52:38,680
him. Did he not understand that
he had been face to face with something

1381
01:52:38,800 --> 01:52:44,239
even more terrifying than a dog man? Had he failed to see exactly how

1382
01:52:44,279 --> 01:52:49,680
close his life had come to being
over His face registered no shock, His

1383
01:52:49,800 --> 01:52:55,520
manner betrayed no level of concern.
He did nothing more than sit there and

1384
01:52:55,680 --> 01:53:00,479
stare at the pages. I reasoned
that perhaps he was emotion incapable of dealing

1385
01:53:00,520 --> 01:53:05,720
with the magnitude of the situation,
or maybe he'd simply lost his ever loving

1386
01:53:05,840 --> 01:53:12,239
mind. Shadow What are these?
His voice brought me back to the moment.

1387
01:53:13,520 --> 01:53:16,640
I had to gather myself before I
could speak, and finally I managed

1388
01:53:16,640 --> 01:53:23,720
to explain the binder. Shortly after
I got home from Granddaddy's funeral, Dad

1389
01:53:23,760 --> 01:53:28,199
sent the journals to me. I've
had them for I stopped, and I

1390
01:53:28,279 --> 01:53:32,479
calculated the time that had passed thirteen
and a half years. I guess.

1391
01:53:33,880 --> 01:53:39,239
At first, I kept reading them
over and over again. I guess I

1392
01:53:39,279 --> 01:53:43,560
thought I was going to memorize them, and then I realized the information in

1393
01:53:43,600 --> 01:53:47,880
them needed to be sorted and categorized. That's when I started making this binder.

1394
01:53:48,720 --> 01:53:53,239
Well what are all these other things
in here? He asked, flipping

1395
01:53:53,319 --> 01:53:58,600
back to the pages showing creatures that
he'd probably never heard of. At one

1396
01:53:58,640 --> 01:54:01,760
time or another, either Grandy or
Dad had seen all of these creatures,

1397
01:54:02,279 --> 01:54:05,760
and most of them they didn't have
a name. For the ones that Dad

1398
01:54:05,800 --> 01:54:12,199
saw, I was able to work
with him to identify some only Granddaddy saw.

1399
01:54:12,279 --> 01:54:15,760
So they're not much more than an
educated guess I actually have this to

1400
01:54:15,840 --> 01:54:21,520
thank for my livelihood, what Derek
asked, How do you mean? When

1401
01:54:21,560 --> 01:54:26,880
I came back here, I had
resigned myself to a life of bartending and

1402
01:54:27,039 --> 01:54:30,880
waitressing. Jobs weren't hard to come
by, and the tips were good.

1403
01:54:30,439 --> 01:54:34,840
But then those journals arrived. I
was so obsessed with them. I spent

1404
01:54:34,920 --> 01:54:40,319
every minute that I could at the
library, researching and reading and learning.

1405
01:54:41,279 --> 01:54:44,680
I was sitting at a coffee house
pouring over one of those books when a

1406
01:54:44,720 --> 01:54:48,800
man approached me and asked if I
was enjoying his book. Derek's brow shot

1407
01:54:48,880 --> 01:54:53,680
up and I laughed, Yeah.
He was the author of the book that

1408
01:54:53,760 --> 01:54:57,840
I was reading. So we got
into a deep conversation on the subject,

1409
01:54:57,880 --> 01:55:00,800
and though I wouldn't tell him why
I was so f fascinated, he was

1410
01:55:00,880 --> 01:55:05,479
impressed by how much I knew and
suggested that I consider it as a profession.

1411
01:55:06,319 --> 01:55:12,520
I had no idea people actually made
mythological studies of profession. But here

1412
01:55:12,600 --> 01:55:18,479
I am today. Wow, Derek
whispered in amazement. I had no idea,

1413
01:55:18,680 --> 01:55:24,079
Derek, how did you get away? I asked. The question was

1414
01:55:24,199 --> 01:55:29,119
burning holes in my brain. If
he decided to dance around the subject.

1415
01:55:29,159 --> 01:55:31,520
I might have picked up that binder
and smacked him over the head with it.

1416
01:55:32,119 --> 01:55:36,399
But instead he gave me an answer
so simple that it didn't make sense.

1417
01:55:38,399 --> 01:55:43,359
Something tried to steal its food.
Okay, we have to stop this

1418
01:55:43,399 --> 01:55:46,880
hole staring at each other in disbelief. Nonsense, I said, even as

1419
01:55:46,960 --> 01:55:51,560
I stared at him in disbelief.
Straight talk from here on out. Okay,

1420
01:55:53,319 --> 01:55:56,760
all right, that's a deal,
he said. Then explain to me

1421
01:55:56,880 --> 01:56:00,640
how something tried to steal you?
I said no, no, not me.

1422
01:56:00,840 --> 01:56:06,800
The turkey two seconds and I was
already staring in disbelief again. It

1423
01:56:06,880 --> 01:56:12,439
took that time. I was after
remember he said, oh, oh,

1424
01:56:12,479 --> 01:56:16,600
of course, the disbelief faded away. Something tried to take it from him.

1425
01:56:17,960 --> 01:56:23,000
I was sitting there on the ground, staring up at that thing,

1426
01:56:23,640 --> 01:56:27,520
and it was staring down at me, and I knew I was gonna die.

1427
01:56:27,720 --> 01:56:30,199
I can't explain how, but I
knew I was going to die.

1428
01:56:30,359 --> 01:56:34,399
It's like when a person bleeds out, except it wasn't blood being drained from

1429
01:56:34,439 --> 01:56:39,960
my body. It was hope.
It took a step toward me, and

1430
01:56:40,039 --> 01:56:43,439
I thought, well, this is
it. And then I heard this sound

1431
01:56:43,600 --> 01:56:47,279
like something crashing through the brush.
And it turned around and I heard growls

1432
01:56:47,319 --> 01:56:53,960
and snarling like nothing I'd ever heard
before. Trees were breaking, and bodies

1433
01:56:54,000 --> 01:56:57,720
sounded like they were being thrown around, and something in the back of my

1434
01:56:57,840 --> 01:57:00,960
head screamed at me to run.
I ran. I turned, and I

1435
01:57:01,039 --> 01:57:05,560
ran out of there faster than I've
ever run before in my life. I'd

1436
01:57:05,560 --> 01:57:10,119
parked my truck on the other side
of the river, but I didn't wait

1437
01:57:10,159 --> 01:57:14,359
to get to the rock path to
cross it. I splashed into that cold

1438
01:57:14,399 --> 01:57:18,239
water, gilly poncho and all,
and I waited across. I figured I

1439
01:57:18,279 --> 01:57:23,399
was either going to be torn apart
by that thing he jetted his finger at

1440
01:57:23,439 --> 01:57:28,680
the picture in the binder, or
be pulled under by my poncho. Drowning

1441
01:57:28,800 --> 01:57:31,960
seemed like a better option. Well, thank god I chose a fairly shallow

1442
01:57:32,000 --> 01:57:36,079
spot to cross. We had a
lot of rain last spring. I really

1443
01:57:36,119 --> 01:57:41,439
could have drowned. I drove out
of there like a lunatic, and I

1444
01:57:41,479 --> 01:57:45,520
haven't been back since. It took
all the desire to hunt right out of

1445
01:57:45,640 --> 01:57:51,600
me. Why did you think it
was trying to steal its food? I

1446
01:57:51,640 --> 01:57:57,079
don't know. It was just the
impression I got. He said, Did

1447
01:57:57,119 --> 01:58:00,520
you see what it was fighting?
I asked, well, Derek thought for

1448
01:58:00,560 --> 01:58:04,720
a minute and then said no.
I imagine it was a dog man or

1449
01:58:04,760 --> 01:58:11,239
a bigfoot. Bigfoot maybe, I
answered, as I flipped through the pages

1450
01:58:11,319 --> 01:58:15,640
of the binder to a sheet that
folded out. It was a line graph

1451
01:58:15,760 --> 01:58:19,720
showing the active seasons for each of
the creatures. Dog men would have been

1452
01:58:19,760 --> 01:58:26,720
gone by then. Derek ran his
finger across the graph, examining the rising

1453
01:58:26,800 --> 01:58:31,680
and dipping lines in their coordinating dates. He traced the red line indicating dog

1454
01:58:31,800 --> 01:58:36,520
Man activity, and then went to
the blue line for Bigfoot. And after

1455
01:58:36,560 --> 01:58:41,279
that, he ran his finger down
the left hand column looking for the word

1456
01:58:41,439 --> 01:58:46,439
Gugwe. Where's the Gugwi line,
he asked when he didn't find it,

1457
01:58:46,439 --> 01:58:50,560
It's not on there. I told
him they don't have a season. The

1458
01:58:50,600 --> 01:58:56,680
only way I can tell based on
Granddaddy's notes and what Dad says. The

1459
01:58:56,720 --> 01:59:00,560
only way to tell if they're in
the area is lack of signs from anything

1460
01:59:00,600 --> 01:59:04,399
else. Even the Bigfoot and dog
Man are afraid of these things, and

1461
01:59:04,439 --> 01:59:11,079
they're not afraid of anything. Derek
added, gunfire, I corrected, you

1462
01:59:11,119 --> 01:59:15,960
can sometimes chase them away with gunfire. Derek spent the rest of the morning

1463
01:59:16,159 --> 01:59:20,600
studying the binder in journals. I
gave him a notebook so he could take

1464
01:59:20,640 --> 01:59:25,880
some of his own notes. Once
I was sure that church was out and

1465
01:59:25,920 --> 01:59:30,479
my parents were back home, I
excused myself to go feed the cats.

1466
01:59:30,520 --> 01:59:33,520
From the other room, I called
my dad and I told him everything.

1467
01:59:34,239 --> 01:59:38,359
It came as no surprise that he
was angry, but I thought it would

1468
01:59:38,439 --> 01:59:42,239
be better to tell him over the
phone while Derek was four hundred miles away

1469
01:59:42,239 --> 01:59:45,359
from him. It would give him
time to calm down before he killed him.

1470
01:59:47,279 --> 01:59:53,479
That afternoon, Derek headed back to
Willard Springs a wiser man. He

1471
01:59:53,560 --> 01:59:58,119
promised to call and let me know
if he survived his grandfather's fury. Now

1472
01:59:58,159 --> 02:00:01,479
that my father had a new Cocain's
spard er one who was on site,

1473
02:00:01,800 --> 02:00:06,720
I felt a great weight lifted off
my heart. I wasn't completely at ease.

1474
02:00:08,479 --> 02:00:12,319
My mother's health was failing fast.
I knew it was a matter of

1475
02:00:12,359 --> 02:00:17,039
time before I'd have to make the
long drive back home. That was Sunday,

1476
02:00:17,199 --> 02:00:23,039
September nine, two thousand and one. Two days later, the world

1477
02:00:23,079 --> 02:00:28,600
would change, and all thoughts of
bigfoot, dog men and gugwy were replaced

1478
02:00:28,640 --> 02:00:33,279
with the thoughts of terrorism, war
and retribution. I didn't speak to Derek

1479
02:00:33,359 --> 02:00:40,800
again until October. I went to
church on Sunday, October seven, two

1480
02:00:40,800 --> 02:00:45,119
thousand and one. I've never been
a devoted church goer. I read my

1481
02:00:45,199 --> 02:00:49,239
Bible and I pray a lot,
But getting up on Sunday morning and putting

1482
02:00:49,319 --> 02:00:54,840
on an ice dress and then driving
halfway across the town to the Baptist church

1483
02:00:54,880 --> 02:00:59,199
of my choice had always seemed to
take a back seat to finishing the stack.

1484
02:00:59,239 --> 02:01:02,760
Of papers on my desk that had
to be graded. That was before

1485
02:01:03,039 --> 02:01:11,199
September eleventh. Sunday, October seventh
stands out in my memory for two reasons.

1486
02:01:11,960 --> 02:01:15,640
That was the day that George W. Bush announced that we had begun

1487
02:01:15,760 --> 02:01:20,640
military action against Al Qayeda. It
came over the radio as I was driving

1488
02:01:20,680 --> 02:01:26,279
home after stopping for a bite to
eat, and every house I passed was

1489
02:01:26,319 --> 02:01:32,119
flying an American flag. Grocery stores
had American symbolism painted all over the front

1490
02:01:32,119 --> 02:01:36,800
windows. I had a few students
who decided to quit school and join the

1491
02:01:36,840 --> 02:01:43,840
military. A couple of them eventually
came home in caskets draped in those American

1492
02:01:43,920 --> 02:01:48,319
flags. We were a proud country
at that moment. Race, gender,

1493
02:01:48,560 --> 02:01:55,279
religious beliefs, and most of all, political affiliation were of no importance.

1494
02:01:56,319 --> 02:02:00,680
Being an American was the order of
the day, the only order of the

1495
02:02:00,800 --> 02:02:06,399
day. My second reason for remembering
October seven, two thousand and one was

1496
02:02:06,439 --> 02:02:11,600
the phone ringing when I got home. I knew it was my father.

1497
02:02:12,399 --> 02:02:15,600
I had only recently begun carrying a
cell phone and was reluctant to give the

1498
02:02:15,680 --> 02:02:20,039
number out to anyone. My parents
had it, of course, but they

1499
02:02:20,079 --> 02:02:25,920
were old fashioned and I wabbled across
the room under the onslaught of two giant

1500
02:02:25,920 --> 02:02:30,279
balls of fur who seemed intent on
tripping me in their need to say hello,

1501
02:02:30,279 --> 02:02:33,840
I'm here. Don't hang up,
I cried into the receiver when I

1502
02:02:33,880 --> 02:02:39,640
finally got to the phone. You
need to come home now, is she

1503
02:02:40,560 --> 02:02:45,159
I couldn't bring myself to say the
words. She's still with us, but

1504
02:02:45,239 --> 02:02:47,920
I can't promise she will be for
more than another day or so, So

1505
02:02:48,119 --> 02:02:53,439
hurry put her on the phone,
Dad, I need to hear her voice.

1506
02:02:54,079 --> 02:02:58,119
My own voice was shaking. Now, oh baby, she won't just

1507
02:02:58,199 --> 02:03:01,479
do it, please Dad. There
was a sigh on the other end of

1508
02:03:01,479 --> 02:03:06,199
the phone and the sound of the
receiver being placed on the table. A

1509
02:03:06,199 --> 02:03:11,279
few minutes later, I heard the
extension being picked up in the bedroom and

1510
02:03:11,359 --> 02:03:15,199
my father's voice in the background,
saying, she's on the phone now,

1511
02:03:15,640 --> 02:03:20,159
Mom, I said, trying hard
not to let her hear my tears.

1512
02:03:20,920 --> 02:03:27,520
Shadow. I will never forget her
voice that day. It was so weak,

1513
02:03:27,880 --> 02:03:31,920
so unlike my mother's voice. My
heart shattered in my chest. I

1514
02:03:32,000 --> 02:03:36,359
love you, Mom, I choked
out. I love you too, Shadow,

1515
02:03:36,760 --> 02:03:42,000
she whispered. There was a moment
of silence. I didn't know what

1516
02:03:42,039 --> 02:03:45,399
else to say. I was terrified
that my father would pull the phone away

1517
02:03:45,399 --> 02:03:49,800
from her, even if it was
only to hear her breathe. I didn't

1518
02:03:49,800 --> 02:03:54,920
want to let go. And then
she said, I know, baby,

1519
02:03:55,159 --> 02:03:59,600
I know. Hold on, mom. I croaked. This time. I

1520
02:03:59,640 --> 02:04:04,119
was completely incapable of stopping the tears. I'm coming home. I know,

1521
02:04:04,319 --> 02:04:11,159
baby, she repeated, I know. A second later, my dad's voice

1522
02:04:11,319 --> 02:04:15,760
came back over the receiver. He
said, she's asleep now, Shadow,

1523
02:04:15,039 --> 02:04:18,520
Now hurry home. I'm on my
way Dad. I'll be there as soon

1524
02:04:18,520 --> 02:04:24,760
as I can. I hung up
the phone and called my department head.

1525
02:04:25,359 --> 02:04:29,239
We knew this was coming, so
we already had a plan. I had

1526
02:04:29,239 --> 02:04:33,079
only to let her know that it
was time. An adjunct was prepared to

1527
02:04:33,119 --> 02:04:38,840
step in and cover my classes for
the next two weeks if necessary, and

1528
02:04:38,880 --> 02:04:44,920
Doctor Witherspoon offered her condolences and wished
me a safe trip. My next call

1529
02:04:45,119 --> 02:04:48,439
was to Brad. He owned the
bar where I called myself a bartender for

1530
02:04:48,479 --> 02:04:53,840
the last time before going to work
at the college. A single parent with

1531
02:04:53,920 --> 02:04:57,880
a young daughter, he'd often depended
on me to watch her on the nights

1532
02:04:57,920 --> 02:05:02,119
when I wasn't scheduled. Peyton loved
my cats, and whenever I had to

1533
02:05:02,159 --> 02:05:06,199
go away, I could always depend
on Brad and Peyton to come and take

1534
02:05:06,239 --> 02:05:11,039
care of them for me. And
then I went into the bedroom and I

1535
02:05:11,119 --> 02:05:15,039
packed. An hour later, I
had dropped my spare keys at the bar,

1536
02:05:15,119 --> 02:05:18,880
and I was driving north to Willard
Springs. The last time I had

1537
02:05:18,960 --> 02:05:26,119
driven home it was in my old
nineteen seventy seven International Scout too. I

1538
02:05:26,159 --> 02:05:30,720
loved that old truck. She was
ugly as hell, but she was mine.

1539
02:05:30,880 --> 02:05:33,960
She died up there, so I
came home in my grandfather's Ford truck.

1540
02:05:34,800 --> 02:05:39,119
I was determined to take better care
of it than I did the Scout.

1541
02:05:40,119 --> 02:05:43,680
As a result, it lasted right
up until the turn of the century,

1542
02:05:43,720 --> 02:05:46,520
when I finally broke down and bought
a brand new one, the first

1543
02:05:46,560 --> 02:05:53,680
brand new vehicle I ever owned,
for my thirty sixth birthday. And now

1544
02:05:53,800 --> 02:05:58,520
as I drove, I struggled with
the overwhelming fear. I couldn't let it

1545
02:05:58,600 --> 02:06:02,359
stop me to get there, I
had to see my mom one last time.

1546
02:06:04,399 --> 02:06:09,159
I arrived at mom and Dad's a
little before eleven PM that night.

1547
02:06:09,800 --> 02:06:14,600
It hadn't occurred to me that anyone
would be awake. Even more surprising,

1548
02:06:14,880 --> 02:06:17,840
the house was full, and I
entered through the front door to see Kate

1549
02:06:17,880 --> 02:06:23,359
and Jenny in the living room sitting
on the sofa together, arms wrapped around

1550
02:06:23,399 --> 02:06:28,159
each other. My brother Greg was
sitting with them in a chair across the

1551
02:06:28,239 --> 02:06:31,479
room. As I made my way
down the center hall to the kitchen,

1552
02:06:31,720 --> 02:06:36,800
I counted a dozen nieces and nephews, some sitting on the stairs and others

1553
02:06:36,920 --> 02:06:42,640
gathered in the side parlor, a
few sitting around the big oak table in

1554
02:06:42,680 --> 02:06:46,479
the dining room. Each of them
in turn raised their heads and nodded to

1555
02:06:46,520 --> 02:06:50,439
me. At the end of the
hall, I entered the kitchen to find

1556
02:06:50,479 --> 02:06:55,880
my oldest brother Mike sitting at the
kitchen table nursing a cup of coffee,

1557
02:06:55,920 --> 02:07:00,560
with his wife Penny sitting beside him
and gently rubbing her hand up and down

1558
02:07:00,640 --> 02:07:04,319
his back. Matt was there too, with his head bent. His wife

1559
02:07:04,359 --> 02:07:12,199
was at the sink washing dishes.
Derek was leaning against the counter drinking his

1560
02:07:12,239 --> 02:07:16,000
own cup of coffee while his wife
dried the dishes for Penny. He looked

1561
02:07:16,079 --> 02:07:21,359
up and set a soft hay shadow. The others turned to me. Then

1562
02:07:23,000 --> 02:07:27,520
they each got up and gave me
a warm hug, whispering quiet statements of

1563
02:07:27,600 --> 02:07:30,800
relief. At my arrival, I
looked around the room, but I didn't

1564
02:07:30,800 --> 02:07:36,159
see my father anywhere. Is she
again? I stumbled on the question.

1565
02:07:36,680 --> 02:07:42,600
I couldn't say those words, I
couldn't think about them. She's still here,

1566
02:07:42,920 --> 02:07:46,439
Mike said, Dad and Ronald are
upstairs with her. Go on up.

1567
02:07:47,359 --> 02:07:51,119
I met Dad on his way down. He pulled me into his arms

1568
02:07:51,159 --> 02:07:55,439
and let me have a good cry
before leading the way up to the bedroom.

1569
02:07:56,319 --> 02:07:59,319
He said it would be better if
I could get the tears out first,

1570
02:07:59,479 --> 02:08:03,920
for mom sake. He must have
been right about the tears. When

1571
02:08:03,920 --> 02:08:07,000
the door opened, I saw my
mother's frail, shrunken frame in the bed,

1572
02:08:07,520 --> 02:08:11,319
and I doubt I would have been
able to hold up if I hadn't

1573
02:08:11,319 --> 02:08:16,159
got some of the emotion out of
me first. Ronald, another brother,

1574
02:08:16,359 --> 02:08:20,239
stood up and motioned for me to
take his chair, but I lifted my

1575
02:08:20,359 --> 02:08:24,680
hand in a refusal gesture, and
I climbed tenderly into the bed next to

1576
02:08:24,720 --> 02:08:30,640
her. Both my father and my
brother made to deny me that right,

1577
02:08:31,000 --> 02:08:35,479
but one look from me told them
there was no point in arguing. Hey,

1578
02:08:35,560 --> 02:08:41,279
Mom, I whispered into her ear, watery blue eyes opened and a

1579
02:08:41,399 --> 02:08:48,279
face creased with age. Dark purple
patches stained the wells beneath them. Her

1580
02:08:48,359 --> 02:08:52,319
cheeks, once full and painted in
delicate shades of pink, sank inward,

1581
02:08:52,439 --> 02:08:58,960
now in ashen tones, and she
broke into a smile. Hello, my

1582
02:08:58,079 --> 02:09:03,840
baby, she answered, in a
voice so weak it was barely audible.

1583
02:09:05,199 --> 02:09:09,439
I wanted to feel my mother's arms
around me at that moment, more than

1584
02:09:09,479 --> 02:09:13,840
I wanted to breathe, but I
knew it couldn't be. I didn't dare

1585
02:09:13,000 --> 02:09:18,720
to so much as brush against her. She was too delicate and too brittle,

1586
02:09:18,800 --> 02:09:22,319
and too close to death. All
I had was her presence, and

1587
02:09:22,399 --> 02:09:28,239
I knew I wouldn't have that for
long. I watched in her silence for

1588
02:09:28,319 --> 02:09:33,000
a few minutes before she spoke again. I know, shadow, she said,

1589
02:09:33,479 --> 02:09:37,079
repeating the words she'd spoken to me
earlier in the day. I wonder

1590
02:09:37,239 --> 02:09:41,319
if she did know, if she
ever could know how much I missed her

1591
02:09:41,399 --> 02:09:48,119
already. Then she turned and stared
deep into my eyes, and with more

1592
02:09:48,239 --> 02:09:52,640
force and deliberation than I thought she
could have mustered, she said, I

1593
02:09:52,720 --> 02:09:58,279
know. I spent the rest of
the night taking my turn with the rest

1594
02:09:58,359 --> 02:10:03,920
of my family at Mom's bedside.
For the most part she slept, and

1595
02:10:03,960 --> 02:10:07,640
once she opened her eyes and lifted
a finger as if to point at her

1596
02:10:07,760 --> 02:10:11,359
dresser, and I looked over at
it, but I had no idea what

1597
02:10:11,439 --> 02:10:16,960
she was asking for. Another time, she opened her eyes and looked as

1598
02:10:16,000 --> 02:10:20,640
if she might say something, but
she didn't. I couldn't say if her

1599
02:10:20,720 --> 02:10:26,520
last words were I know, as
far as I was concerned, they were,

1600
02:10:26,520 --> 02:10:31,159
but I wasn't. Always in the
room, none of us spoke about

1601
02:10:31,159 --> 02:10:37,479
our time with her, choosing instead
to guard those moments within ourselves. At

1602
02:10:37,520 --> 02:10:41,399
first, we'd leave the bedroom and
wander downstairs for another cup of coffee or

1603
02:10:41,399 --> 02:10:46,279
a can of soda, and each
successive visit became more and more wearing,

1604
02:10:46,439 --> 02:10:52,199
until we finally began to pick spots
along the hallway where we'd collapse into private

1605
02:10:52,279 --> 02:10:56,840
reflection until we were called to go
sit with her again. We visited her

1606
02:10:58,039 --> 02:11:01,600
in groups of two and three except
for Dad, and some time in the

1607
02:11:01,720 --> 02:11:07,199
night we all reached the unspoken agreement
that his time with her should be his

1608
02:11:07,319 --> 02:11:13,279
own. I found myself staring at
the tall window outside their door that marked

1609
02:11:13,319 --> 02:11:16,680
the end of the hall. It
looked out over the front of the house

1610
02:11:16,720 --> 02:11:20,760
and down into the barn yard,
and from the floor all I could see

1611
02:11:20,000 --> 02:11:24,800
was the black velvet mat glistening with
stars, until the sun began to rise.

1612
02:11:26,079 --> 02:11:31,840
Little by little it brightened into a
deep blue, separated from the earth

1613
02:11:31,920 --> 02:11:37,560
below it by long fingers of pink
and gold. How could something be so

1614
02:11:37,760 --> 02:11:43,159
beautiful when the whole world is ending, I asked myself. At that moment,

1615
02:11:43,359 --> 02:11:48,720
the bedroom door opened and my father
stepped out. She's gone, he

1616
02:11:48,880 --> 02:11:54,880
said. His eyes were red,
and I detected a slight tremor in his

1617
02:11:54,079 --> 02:12:01,359
voice, but he was otherwise stoic. Mom would have been proud. Funerals

1618
02:12:01,760 --> 02:12:05,840
are for the living. I don't
know who said that. I can only

1619
02:12:05,920 --> 02:12:11,119
heartily agree. They make those first
few days before the reality of loss sing

1620
02:12:11,319 --> 02:12:16,600
sin, and the senses are dulled, and go by so much faster.

1621
02:12:16,800 --> 02:12:20,840
My mother was no longer with us, and what did she care now if

1622
02:12:20,840 --> 02:12:26,560
her mouth stretched done naturally wide across
her face, or if the mortician overdid

1623
02:12:26,560 --> 02:12:31,359
the makeup. It was her children
who stood at the casket and wished they'd

1624
02:12:31,399 --> 02:12:37,520
done a better job. The funeral
was much the same as my grandfather's or

1625
02:12:37,560 --> 02:12:45,800
anyone else's funeral I'd ever been to
one hundred faces passed before me. Platitudes

1626
02:12:45,840 --> 02:12:50,920
were served in abundance and answered with
copious amounts of gratitude. Hands were shaken

1627
02:12:52,000 --> 02:12:56,079
and stories were shared, and people
laughed and people cried. One second I

1628
02:12:56,199 --> 02:13:01,479
was staring into my father's stricken face
as he announce that my mother had ceased

1629
02:13:01,520 --> 02:13:05,640
to exist, and the next someone
was pushing a plate of food into my

1630
02:13:05,680 --> 02:13:09,840
hands and telling me what a nice
service it was. The dinner was held

1631
02:13:09,880 --> 02:13:16,199
at the church, but our family
all congregated at the house afterward. Seven

1632
02:13:16,279 --> 02:13:20,520
children, all but one of whom
had married and produced their own offspring,

1633
02:13:20,039 --> 02:13:24,920
and who were now counting grandchildren meant
that the house was overflowing with people.

1634
02:13:26,920 --> 02:13:30,800
I was surprised to realize that more
than half of my relatives came from out

1635
02:13:30,840 --> 02:13:35,439
of town. Eighteen years earlier,
when I had fled Willard Springs, it

1636
02:13:35,479 --> 02:13:39,960
was a novelty, and now it
seemed that most of my nieces and nephews

1637
02:13:41,079 --> 02:13:46,359
lived elsewhere. How are you holding
out? I hadn't heard my father slip

1638
02:13:46,439 --> 02:13:50,600
up beside me. I'd been too
busy staring around the room trying to figure

1639
02:13:50,640 --> 02:13:54,560
out who belonged to who. Okay, I guess, I answered with a

1640
02:13:54,640 --> 02:13:58,399
sigh. I could have mentioned that
it would be nice to find a place

1641
02:13:58,439 --> 02:14:01,760
to sit, but there would have
been no point. How are you doing,

1642
02:14:03,119 --> 02:14:07,119
he grunted his answer. How long
are you staying? He asked,

1643
02:14:09,079 --> 02:14:11,359
I don't know, Dad, a
few more days, I guess. Doctor

1644
02:14:11,399 --> 02:14:15,960
Witherspoon said to take as much time
as I need. But I think it

1645
02:14:16,000 --> 02:14:18,880
would be better to get back to
my students before the adjunct makes too much

1646
02:14:18,880 --> 02:14:24,720
of a mess of my lesson plans
stay to the weekend anyway. It was

1647
02:14:24,800 --> 02:14:30,920
offered as a suggestion, but it
felt more like a plea. What are

1648
02:14:30,920 --> 02:14:33,319
you going to do now? Dad? You don't farm anymore. There's no

1649
02:14:33,439 --> 02:14:39,239
reason to stay in this big old
house. I thought about moving into your

1650
02:14:39,239 --> 02:14:43,239
granddaddy's house. No one's lived there
in years. He glanced down at my

1651
02:14:43,319 --> 02:14:48,039
horrified expression and put his arm around
my shoulder. Don't worry, it was

1652
02:14:48,239 --> 02:14:54,520
just a thought that should tear the
place down. Really. He muled over

1653
02:14:54,600 --> 02:14:58,720
that thought for a minute, and
then he said, none of this younger

1654
02:14:58,800 --> 02:15:03,720
generation is interest in farming. Derek
and Ben are the only ones, and

1655
02:15:03,119 --> 02:15:07,600
Mike doesn't do much anymore. He
and Penny like to travel, and Derek

1656
02:15:07,720 --> 02:15:13,319
runs his operation and Ben handles Ronalds
and Matt's still active, but it's only

1657
02:15:13,479 --> 02:15:18,880
because his boys don't farm. And
again there was a pause. We had

1658
02:15:18,920 --> 02:15:22,600
an offer on the dairy, and
I think I'm gonna take it. I

1659
02:15:22,680 --> 02:15:30,039
knew our little regional operation was struggling
under the onslaught of modernization, but the

1660
02:15:30,079 --> 02:15:35,079
thought of never seeing a gallon of
Parker O'Connor milk in the store again left

1661
02:15:35,119 --> 02:15:39,880
a hole in my chest. I
had to remind myself that Saint Louis is

1662
02:15:39,880 --> 02:15:43,319
beyond the reach of Parker O'Connor,
and that I had therefore not seen a

1663
02:15:43,359 --> 02:15:48,359
gallon of that milk in decades.
Maybe you could come to Saint Louis and

1664
02:15:48,520 --> 02:15:54,520
stay with me for a while,
I suggested, hopefully. No, shadow,

1665
02:15:54,600 --> 02:15:58,199
I can't do that, he said
solemnly. If I could have closed

1666
02:15:58,239 --> 02:16:03,439
my ears to his next statement,
I would have. It wouldn't have done

1667
02:16:03,479 --> 02:16:07,279
any good, though I knew what
he was going to say. Someone has

1668
02:16:07,359 --> 02:16:13,600
to stay here and keep the woods. It's hot in here, was the

1669
02:16:13,640 --> 02:16:18,960
best response I could offer. I
walked away from him. Then It wasn't

1670
02:16:18,000 --> 02:16:22,960
hot inside. It had, in
fact cool considerably over the last several hours,

1671
02:16:24,000 --> 02:16:28,880
which made the house a cozy retreat
from the impending bad weather. I

1672
02:16:28,920 --> 02:16:33,040
had a vague memory of the weather
man predicting the frost. It meant that

1673
02:16:33,239 --> 02:16:37,079
no one was on the porch when
I stepped outside and finally found a seat

1674
02:16:37,200 --> 02:16:41,879
in the swing, But much to
my chagrin, Dad followed me, as

1675
02:16:41,920 --> 02:16:46,520
did Derek. I don't see why
you have to keep the woods, I

1676
02:16:46,559 --> 02:16:50,319
stated angrily to my father, because
there are things out there that can hurt

1677
02:16:50,360 --> 02:16:56,239
people. Dad argued, don't worry, Shadow, he has me. Derek

1678
02:16:56,319 --> 02:17:00,799
offered, you don't need to be
involved in this either. Sat at him.

1679
02:17:01,440 --> 02:17:05,440
Tears were welling up in my eyes
as the same cold fear that I'd

1680
02:17:05,440 --> 02:17:11,280
felt when I saw the dog man
attack Scout washed over me. Aunt Shadow.

1681
02:17:11,159 --> 02:17:15,360
I looked down at a little girl
in a pink dress with a white

1682
02:17:15,399 --> 02:17:20,479
cardigan who had suddenly materialized in front
of me. I had no idea whose

1683
02:17:20,559 --> 02:17:24,559
child she was, despite the dozens
of senior pictures that my mother had sent

1684
02:17:24,639 --> 02:17:28,200
me over the years, and that
I tucked faithfully into an album on my

1685
02:17:28,280 --> 02:17:33,520
bookshelf, and despite the hundreds of
family photos she'd brought to the Saint Louis

1686
02:17:33,559 --> 02:17:39,600
with her on the many visits depicting
images of laughing children and loving parents.

1687
02:17:39,239 --> 02:17:45,479
I have never been able to separate
one from the other. Parker Jeans are

1688
02:17:45,559 --> 02:17:50,319
strong. We all have my father's
dark eyes and his short, square nose

1689
02:17:50,479 --> 02:17:56,479
with the slightly flaring nostrils. We
all have the obstinate, clefted chin and

1690
02:17:56,559 --> 02:18:01,680
his full lower lip. We all
have chestnut earls and ears that stick out

1691
02:18:01,719 --> 02:18:05,920
a little too much. We're not
the most handsome family, but no one

1692
02:18:05,959 --> 02:18:09,680
would call us ugly, no more
than anyone could deny a Parker when they

1693
02:18:09,719 --> 02:18:13,840
see one. And the little girl
in front of me was a perfect specimen

1694
02:18:15,000 --> 02:18:20,280
of Parker Jean's in action. What
sweetheart, I ask, A shame that

1695
02:18:20,360 --> 02:18:24,559
I didn't know her name. Please
don't cry, she said, as she

1696
02:18:24,600 --> 02:18:28,479
climbed into the swing and wedged herself
between me and my father. Once she

1697
02:18:28,600 --> 02:18:31,600
was comfortable, she put her hand
in mine, and she smiled at me.

1698
02:18:33,360 --> 02:18:37,680
I guessed her to be around six. Why do they call you shadow,

1699
02:18:37,000 --> 02:18:43,319
she asked, Well, I guess
it's because I followed my grandfather around

1700
02:18:43,360 --> 02:18:46,440
when I was your age, like
his shadow. I told her. Her

1701
02:18:46,479 --> 02:18:50,440
hand was warm in mine. It's
moments like that when I missed, never

1702
02:18:50,520 --> 02:18:54,079
having had children, on my own. I think I would have been a

1703
02:18:54,079 --> 02:19:00,879
good mother. Is he your grandfather, she asked, pointing at my and

1704
02:19:00,920 --> 02:19:05,280
then, ignoring my father's frustrated huff, she added, mine is Mike.

1705
02:19:05,200 --> 02:19:09,959
I looked up at Derek, then
realizing that this could be his daughter.

1706
02:19:11,000 --> 02:19:16,479
No, sweetheart, he's my daddy. My grandfather was Granddaddy O'Connor. He's

1707
02:19:16,520 --> 02:19:20,680
not a father, she said,
indignantly. He's a grandfather. We laughed

1708
02:19:20,680 --> 02:19:26,440
at her logic. He's my grandfather, Derek told her. But Grandpa Great

1709
02:19:26,719 --> 02:19:31,639
is aunt shadows daddy, just like
he's Grandpa Mike's daddy, and I'm your

1710
02:19:31,760 --> 02:19:37,520
daddy. How come he isn't your
daddy? She asked, Well, if

1711
02:19:37,559 --> 02:19:41,159
Grandpa Great is your daddy, then
Grandpa Mike couldn't be your grandpa. I

1712
02:19:41,239 --> 02:19:46,600
tried to explain, Well why not? We all looked at each other,

1713
02:19:46,719 --> 02:19:50,159
knowing that this conversation was going to
take a while. Why don't you go

1714
02:19:50,239 --> 02:19:54,680
play and I'll explain it later,
Derek said, But Daddy, go on

1715
02:19:54,879 --> 02:20:00,600
kinsey, he said. She slid
off the swing and crossed her arms,

1716
02:20:00,639 --> 02:20:03,200
and with her head down and her
lower lip out, she stalmped away.

1717
02:20:05,120 --> 02:20:11,639
She has the Parker personality, I
laughed, the shadow Parker personality. Dad

1718
02:20:11,639 --> 02:20:18,159
and Derek said simultaneously. I gave
them both an exasperated look. I was

1719
02:20:18,200 --> 02:20:22,479
still watching Kinsey as she approached her
cousins in the yard. When Derek said,

1720
02:20:22,959 --> 02:20:26,760
Grandpa's teaching me everything I need to
know about the woods. I closed

1721
02:20:26,760 --> 02:20:31,840
my eyes. And when he's gone, I'll be here to watch over things.

1722
02:20:31,680 --> 02:20:37,799
And when you're gone, I asked, I'm never leaving. He laughed,

1723
02:20:37,280 --> 02:20:41,440
but at the sight of my angry
face, he added, well,

1724
02:20:41,600 --> 02:20:46,639
I should be around for another fifty
years or so anyway. I couldn't argue

1725
02:20:46,639 --> 02:20:50,360
with that. My father was sitting
beside me, well into his eighties,

1726
02:20:50,399 --> 02:20:54,799
and he didn't look a day over
sixty. My brother Mike looked older than

1727
02:20:54,920 --> 02:20:58,639
him. He was still spry and
active, and I was sure still driving

1728
02:20:58,680 --> 02:21:03,000
down the river every day to look
for signs. I felt a chill run

1729
02:21:03,120 --> 02:21:07,680
up my spine at the memory of
the last walk I took with him.

1730
02:21:07,760 --> 02:21:11,399
It would help if you send us
your binder, Dad said, gently,

1731
02:21:11,799 --> 02:21:16,319
at least a copy of it.
I made a mental note to finally purchase

1732
02:21:16,360 --> 02:21:22,959
a home computer. I needed to
digitize everything anyway. If I bought a

1733
02:21:22,000 --> 02:21:26,440
printer to I could make the copies
at home and send the whole thing off

1734
02:21:26,920 --> 02:21:31,680
and then take my time entering everything
into the computer. I wasn't about to

1735
02:21:31,719 --> 02:21:35,840
take it into work and have the
department work study printed off for me.

1736
02:21:37,600 --> 02:21:41,120
I was an expert in mythological studies, but that didn't mean I was supposed

1737
02:21:41,120 --> 02:21:46,360
to believe in them. And then, realizing how easily I had accepted their

1738
02:21:46,479 --> 02:21:52,159
plans, I said, you wouldn't
need that binder if you just stay away

1739
02:21:52,200 --> 02:21:58,120
from the woods shadow. My dad
groaned. I knew I sounded ridiculous,

1740
02:21:58,159 --> 02:22:01,159
but I was afraid. I was
afraid that my father was going to wander

1741
02:22:01,200 --> 02:22:05,440
out there and run into the same
thing Derek had, but this time there

1742
02:22:05,479 --> 02:22:11,360
would be no other beast to steal
a turkey and inadvertently rescue my father.

1743
02:22:11,239 --> 02:22:16,559
I couldn't lose another parent, not
yet. I turned my attention back to

1744
02:22:16,600 --> 02:22:20,479
the children playing in the yard.
They were in the midst of a serious

1745
02:22:20,559 --> 02:22:26,440
game of tag. I was thinking
how wonderful it was to see children play.

1746
02:22:26,000 --> 02:22:30,360
Even as early as two thousand and
one, that was becoming a rare

1747
02:22:30,520 --> 02:22:35,239
sight. All of their Parker faces
were flushed and glowing, and most of

1748
02:22:35,280 --> 02:22:39,879
them were still in their dress clothes
from the funeral, but they were all

1749
02:22:39,920 --> 02:22:45,719
in disarray. I noticed torn and
grass stained pants, and rumpeled tops and

1750
02:22:45,879 --> 02:22:50,440
ad scuff shoes. Once a neatly
platted hair was coming loose, and there

1751
02:22:50,479 --> 02:22:54,159
were more than a few ribbons and
neckties lying on the ground around them.

1752
02:22:54,920 --> 02:22:58,120
And I glanced around and I looked
for Kinzie. There were several girls in

1753
02:22:58,159 --> 02:23:03,040
pink dresses, but I didn't see
her among them. I wondered if she

1754
02:23:03,079 --> 02:23:07,600
had gone inside. I need a
drink, I said, standing up,

1755
02:23:07,920 --> 02:23:11,159
you guys want anything, I'll take
a cup of coffee, Dad said,

1756
02:23:11,959 --> 02:23:18,120
Derek shook his head. No.
Inside the house was a maze of people,

1757
02:23:18,159 --> 02:23:20,920
but I managed to make my way
to the kitchen, where I made

1758
02:23:20,959 --> 02:23:24,479
myself a glass of fruit beer and
poured a cup of coffee for Dad.

1759
02:23:24,360 --> 02:23:28,959
Penny was standing at the sink doing
dishes as quickly as they were being returned,

1760
02:23:30,000 --> 02:23:33,639
and still not managing to keep up. Jesse, Dereck's wife, was

1761
02:23:33,680 --> 02:23:39,760
on the drying detail. Have you
seen Dereck, Jesse ask as I filled

1762
02:23:39,799 --> 02:23:43,079
my glass with ice. He's outside
talking with me and Dad. I told

1763
02:23:43,079 --> 02:23:48,120
her, can you ask him to
find Kensey? I don't want her playing

1764
02:23:48,159 --> 02:23:50,879
with the other kids until she's changed
out of her dress. Well, I

1765
02:23:50,879 --> 02:23:54,920
think she's inside somewhere, I said. She was on the porch with me,

1766
02:23:56,040 --> 02:23:58,479
and I wasn't sure. I wanted
to tell her that she'd been playing

1767
02:23:58,520 --> 02:24:03,319
with the other kids already, but
there was no point lying. And then

1768
02:24:03,360 --> 02:24:07,000
she went out to play in the
yard. But I didn't see her before

1769
02:24:07,040 --> 02:24:11,079
I came in, so I think
she came back inside. Oh okay,

1770
02:24:11,399 --> 02:24:15,680
Jesse said, with a sigh,
I'll find her. She put down her

1771
02:24:15,760 --> 02:24:18,680
towel and headed down the hall in
search of her daughter, and I took

1772
02:24:18,719 --> 02:24:22,719
the coffee and the soda outside.
Hey, if you see your daughter,

1773
02:24:24,000 --> 02:24:28,239
let her know her mother wants her, I told Derek. Typical of a

1774
02:24:28,280 --> 02:24:31,959
man. He nodded, and then
immediately dismissed the request. Look, if

1775
02:24:33,000 --> 02:24:35,680
we had that binder here with all
the information you have in it, he

1776
02:24:35,760 --> 02:24:41,559
began. That binder isn't static,
you know, I interrupted. I add

1777
02:24:41,639 --> 02:24:46,079
to it and update it constantly.
Well, I realized that, but if

1778
02:24:46,120 --> 02:24:50,600
we had it here, a copy
anyway, it would be a great reference.

1779
02:24:52,159 --> 02:24:56,000
You have Granddaddy's journal, so all
we have of the notes Grandpa made

1780
02:24:56,040 --> 02:25:01,799
since he died. I rolled my
eyes and grunted my displeasure. There was

1781
02:25:01,879 --> 02:25:05,520
no point arguing with them. At
least, if they had the binder,

1782
02:25:05,639 --> 02:25:11,639
Derek would have more knowledge. Dad
wouldn't need it. Much of the information

1783
02:25:11,799 --> 02:25:16,600
in that binder came from him.
I looked at Dad then, and I

1784
02:25:16,639 --> 02:25:22,719
recognized his age. Time is relentless. It never slows, it never stops,

1785
02:25:22,719 --> 02:25:26,760
and it never waits. The future
is a blind alley who knows what

1786
02:25:26,920 --> 02:25:31,000
lies beyond the next minute. And
when my parents came down for a visit

1787
02:25:31,120 --> 02:25:35,879
earlier that year, my mother was
as healthy and active as ever. A

1788
02:25:35,920 --> 02:25:39,559
few months later Dad called to tell
me that she had had a heart attack,

1789
02:25:41,159 --> 02:25:46,319
and today we buried her. I'll
send it, I conceded. There

1790
02:25:46,399 --> 02:25:52,799
was no point in arguing. The
screen door swung open. Jesse came outside.

1791
02:25:54,440 --> 02:25:58,440
Derek, have you seen Kenzie,
she asked. We all turned to

1792
02:25:58,440 --> 02:26:01,399
look at the children playing in the
yawn. I thought she went inside,

1793
02:26:01,600 --> 02:26:07,520
I reasserted, she isn't there.
I looked all over. Jesse's voice denoted

1794
02:26:07,559 --> 02:26:13,040
worry. Well, she's around here, somewhere, Derek told her. But

1795
02:26:13,239 --> 02:26:16,799
even as she said the words,
we were all moving off the porch and

1796
02:26:16,879 --> 02:26:20,559
into the yard, Hey, Derek
yelled to the kids, has anyone seen

1797
02:26:20,719 --> 02:26:26,799
Kenzie? A boy of about thirteen, said, she went off that way,

1798
02:26:26,159 --> 02:26:31,120
pointing toward the barn. None of
us spoke as we all headed to

1799
02:26:31,239 --> 02:26:35,840
the barn, but we were all
beginning to worry. Dad muttered something about

1800
02:26:35,920 --> 02:26:41,600
history repeating itself. I was reminded
that I too had wandered off to the

1801
02:26:41,639 --> 02:26:46,360
barn when I was young. I
held on to the prospect of another positive

1802
02:26:46,360 --> 02:26:52,159
outcome at the barn. Dad slid
open the wide door, and he called

1803
02:26:52,159 --> 02:26:56,760
her name. I walked around the
far end and started into the pasture,

1804
02:26:58,200 --> 02:27:03,879
and beyond it were the woods.
Derek turned and looked over toward Granddaddy's house

1805
02:27:03,920 --> 02:27:07,559
in the woods behind it. Jesse, go inside and check the house thoroughly,

1806
02:27:07,840 --> 02:27:11,559
Derek told his wife. And make
sure you check every room, even

1807
02:27:11,639 --> 02:27:16,600
the attic. Jesse turned and ran
back to the house. And have everyone

1808
02:27:16,719 --> 02:27:22,239
help you, he called after her. Dad, I whispered softly, You

1809
02:27:22,319 --> 02:27:28,040
don't think He looked at me hard, willing me not to finish the sentence.

1810
02:27:30,000 --> 02:27:33,840
Derek, who had finished the sentence
in his own mind, sprang into

1811
02:27:33,920 --> 02:27:37,600
action. Can I use the ATV? He asked, He's on the hook

1812
02:27:37,600 --> 02:27:41,920
in the barn. Dad answered,
and then he said, I'll go with

1813
02:27:41,000 --> 02:27:46,200
you. No, it was my
voice I heard, but I couldn't believe

1814
02:27:46,239 --> 02:27:50,319
it was me speaking. You stay
here and make sure no one else goes

1815
02:27:50,360 --> 02:27:54,079
into those woods alone. I'll go
with Derek. I was pretty sure I

1816
02:27:54,120 --> 02:28:00,680
had lost my mind. Nothing short
of rescuing Derek's daughter would have ever driven

1817
02:28:00,760 --> 02:28:05,319
me back into those woods. No
shadow, he began. Don't argue with

1818
02:28:05,479 --> 02:28:09,159
me, Dad, I'm younger and
more agile than you. I doubted that,

1819
02:28:09,399 --> 02:28:15,239
but it sounded like a good argument. I marched off to the barn

1820
02:28:15,680 --> 02:28:20,680
and I hopped on to the back
of the ATV. Derek guided us recklessly

1821
02:28:20,840 --> 02:28:26,799
down the tractor path that separated the
pastures from the hayfields. As he maneuvered

1822
02:28:26,840 --> 02:28:30,719
across the ruts and around the corners, I kept my eyes open for signs

1823
02:28:30,760 --> 02:28:35,000
of a little pink dress and a
white cardigan. At the woodline, he

1824
02:28:35,120 --> 02:28:41,319
turned and slowed down considerably, searching
along the undergrowth. We traced the edge

1825
02:28:41,319 --> 02:28:43,639
of the woods all the way to
the gravel road that split the property in

1826
02:28:43,799 --> 02:28:48,079
half, and on the other side, we drove slowly along the trees until

1827
02:28:48,079 --> 02:28:52,440
we got to the river. We
both called her name repeatedly, and we

1828
02:28:52,520 --> 02:28:58,639
listened for an answer, but the
constant putter of the ATV's engine drowned out

1829
02:28:58,760 --> 02:29:03,559
most sounds at the river. Derek
turned off the ATV. We're gonna have

1830
02:29:03,680 --> 02:29:09,399
to walk, he said. I
was suddenly aware that neither of us had

1831
02:29:09,440 --> 02:29:13,200
a gun, But what if,
what if my daughter's out there? He

1832
02:29:13,280 --> 02:29:18,600
cut me off. He was right, guns or no guns when needed to

1833
02:29:18,639 --> 02:29:22,319
find Kinzie. It was late afternoon, we didn't have much daylight left.

1834
02:29:24,239 --> 02:29:28,360
I looked down at my feeble shoes
and was suddenly glad that my little black

1835
02:29:28,479 --> 02:29:31,639
dress had been in the dry cleaners. It meant that I had to bring

1836
02:29:31,760 --> 02:29:37,600
dress pants and pennyloafers, otherwise I'd
have been standing there in kitten heels.

1837
02:29:39,159 --> 02:29:43,159
The sound of two more ATVs buzzing
down the road had us turning to see

1838
02:29:43,200 --> 02:29:46,360
my dad and Mike coming toward us. They pulled up and climbed off their

1839
02:29:46,440 --> 02:29:52,120
vehicles, and Dad gave Dereck a
rifle and handed me a nine millimeter glock.

1840
02:29:52,079 --> 02:29:58,079
I took it and stared helplessly.
We've got everyone else looking around the

1841
02:29:58,159 --> 02:30:01,600
house and the yard, Dad said, as he and Mike checked over their

1842
02:30:01,639 --> 02:30:05,200
own weapons. If they find her, they're to fire three shots. And

1843
02:30:05,239 --> 02:30:09,479
then he looked at me. Do
you think you can handle this thing?

1844
02:30:09,680 --> 02:30:13,840
He said, I hadn't fired a
gun in years. I respect the rights

1845
02:30:13,879 --> 02:30:18,319
of others to own guns, but
I'm not a gun owner. I've watched

1846
02:30:18,360 --> 02:30:22,399
all the movies, and I've had
all the day dreams where I take a

1847
02:30:22,440 --> 02:30:26,680
pistol in hand and lock and load, and tie a scarf around my forehead

1848
02:30:26,120 --> 02:30:30,520
and dip my fingers into the mud
and run them across my cheeks and say

1849
02:30:30,559 --> 02:30:35,280
something cool like let's roll. That
isn't how this played out. I stood

1850
02:30:35,280 --> 02:30:39,000
there trembling until my father took back
the gun and told me to stay close

1851
02:30:39,040 --> 02:30:43,959
to him. It wouldn't have taken
down the things that live in these woods

1852
02:30:43,959 --> 02:30:48,799
anyway. Three shot faces turned to
stare at Mike. He blinked at us

1853
02:30:48,840 --> 02:30:54,520
as if he assumed that we knew
what he knew, and then he said,

1854
02:30:54,040 --> 02:31:01,120
you can't be serious. Everyone knows
evil lives here. Mike got the

1855
02:31:01,159 --> 02:31:05,639
cool line shadow, and I are
going to head this way, Dad said,

1856
02:31:05,799 --> 02:31:09,600
choosing not to waste time discussing the
things that Mike did or didn't know.

1857
02:31:11,559 --> 02:31:13,520
You two head down along the river
bank till you get to the rock

1858
02:31:13,639 --> 02:31:18,840
path, and then circle back toward
the farmhouse and cover the woods behind it,

1859
02:31:18,319 --> 02:31:22,520
and keep your eyes on the pastures. We'll meet you on the other

1860
02:31:22,680 --> 02:31:30,120
side. I was quickly beginning to
realize how utterly useless I was. Mike

1861
02:31:30,159 --> 02:31:33,799
and Derek headed down the bank,
while Dad and I headed into the woods.

1862
02:31:33,760 --> 02:31:39,959
Ten feet in had already felt like
night. The dense trees overhead were

1863
02:31:39,040 --> 02:31:45,799
like weights pressing down on us.
Every step was a cracking twig or a

1864
02:31:45,840 --> 02:31:50,760
crunching leaf, and I felt eyes
on us. Whether they were predatory or

1865
02:31:50,840 --> 02:31:56,399
squirrels, I couldn't say. Fear
and anxiety were playing havoc with my senses.

1866
02:31:58,079 --> 02:32:03,399
We should have brought flashlights. I
was burt. Sh was Dad's response.

1867
02:32:03,479 --> 02:32:09,200
He had stopped walking and held up
his hand. I stood silently beside

1868
02:32:09,280 --> 02:32:13,079
him, and I listened for whatever
he was hearing. It was a moment

1869
02:32:13,159 --> 02:32:18,479
before the reality set in and I
heard nothing. Dad looked at me and

1870
02:32:18,600 --> 02:32:22,280
raised his eyebrows as if to say, well, we've come thus far,

1871
02:32:22,680 --> 02:32:26,479
and he began walking again. I
stayed close to him, remembering that day

1872
02:32:26,559 --> 02:32:31,280
a dozen years ago when I thought
he was behind me, but he wasn't

1873
02:32:31,639 --> 02:32:37,680
that wasn't going to happen again.
The undergrowth of woods was varied. Patches

1874
02:32:37,719 --> 02:32:41,719
of low growing plants popped out of
the leaf matter. In places, empty

1875
02:32:41,799 --> 02:32:48,200
limbs lay scattered around in varying stages
of decay. Bunch berries with their red

1876
02:32:48,239 --> 02:32:52,879
fruit gathered at the base of trees, and moss covered rocks angled outward.

1877
02:32:54,040 --> 02:32:58,399
As we climbed the terrain upwards away
from the river, we stopped and stared

1878
02:32:58,440 --> 02:33:03,520
at a pair of saplings that were
snapped in two eight feet off the ground

1879
02:33:03,600 --> 02:33:07,079
and bent together to form a perfect
X. I looked at Dad and he

1880
02:33:07,120 --> 02:33:11,680
nodded. Are they still here?
I ask, as quietly as I could.

1881
02:33:13,760 --> 02:33:18,399
He pointed to another ex formation that
had been knocked down. When the

1882
02:33:18,440 --> 02:33:22,760
sasquatch leave, he whispered, the
dog men come and push over their markers.

1883
02:33:24,879 --> 02:33:30,159
We continued. My feet were beginning
to hurt inside my shoes. Night

1884
02:33:30,280 --> 02:33:33,040
was approaching, bringing with it a
chill that was settling in my bones.

1885
02:33:35,120 --> 02:33:39,600
I remembered again the overly jolly weather
man saying something about a frost. Was

1886
02:33:39,680 --> 02:33:46,520
KINSI cold? Was she alive?
Dad? I finally said, we can't

1887
02:33:46,559 --> 02:33:50,360
continue to be this quiet? How's
kinsy? Going to know we're out here

1888
02:33:50,399 --> 02:33:54,639
looking for her. Well, it's
better than them knowing she's out there waiting

1889
02:33:54,680 --> 02:34:00,079
for us, he answered, and
we moved on. When we crossed at

1890
02:34:00,120 --> 02:34:03,440
the gravel road, we looked at
the setting sun in dismay. Time was

1891
02:34:03,559 --> 02:34:07,840
running out. I don't know how
long we'd been walking, but I guessed

1892
02:34:07,920 --> 02:34:13,399
had taken an hour to get to
where we were. My feet were crying

1893
02:34:13,440 --> 02:34:16,120
and my muscles were aching, and
I made a mental note to get a

1894
02:34:16,120 --> 02:34:22,639
gym membership when I got home,
if I got home. The woods on

1895
02:34:22,680 --> 02:34:26,559
this side were much the same as
the other crosses and rock piles, many

1896
02:34:26,600 --> 02:34:31,920
of which had been desecrated, and
warned us that we were not alone,

1897
02:34:31,959 --> 02:34:37,479
that we were not the Apex predators. Dread pushed me closer to my father.

1898
02:34:39,360 --> 02:34:45,360
Something snapped behind us, and Dad
swung around rifle raised. I mimicked

1899
02:34:45,360 --> 02:34:50,040
his motion, but I didn't see
anything following the barrel of the gun.

1900
02:34:50,079 --> 02:34:54,639
I squinted to see what was making
my father draw in his breath, and

1901
02:34:54,680 --> 02:35:01,520
a pair of eyes glowed malevolently fifty
yards from us. Instinctively, I turned

1902
02:35:01,559 --> 02:35:05,799
and put my back to my father, scanning the opposite direction for signs of

1903
02:35:05,879 --> 02:35:09,760
being surrounded. There was another pair
of eyes at my three o'clock. I

1904
02:35:09,920 --> 02:35:16,840
nudged Dad with my elbow and pointed
dog men, I asked, and her

1905
02:35:16,879 --> 02:35:22,879
eyes. He whispered, I don't
think so. His body pushed against mine

1906
02:35:22,920 --> 02:35:26,239
as he began to back through the
woods, and slowly I moved forward,

1907
02:35:26,639 --> 02:35:33,159
acting as our eyes so that we
didn't fall over any logs. And then

1908
02:35:33,360 --> 02:35:39,399
there was that howl. It was
louder than anything I ever remembered hearing,

1909
02:35:39,959 --> 02:35:43,280
louder even than the howls that woke
me all those years ago in my grandfather's

1910
02:35:43,280 --> 02:35:50,520
house. It shook my breastbone and
threatened to burst my heart. And Dad

1911
02:35:50,559 --> 02:35:54,319
turned then and began to move quickly
through the undergrowth. I almost had to

1912
02:35:54,319 --> 02:35:58,440
break into a run to keep up
with him. We were heading directly back

1913
02:35:58,520 --> 02:36:03,360
to the house. Now was he
giving up? Was my father as big

1914
02:36:03,399 --> 02:36:07,319
a coward as me? And then
he made a sharp turn to us right,

1915
02:36:07,360 --> 02:36:11,639
and he walked along the ridge line. The drop off was no more

1916
02:36:11,680 --> 02:36:16,879
than twenty feet, but the rocks
and brambles and dead trees made the thought

1917
02:36:16,920 --> 02:36:20,799
of falling into the gully a miserable
prospect. I had no idea where he

1918
02:36:20,959 --> 02:36:28,040
was leading us. I could only
follow. Dad was used to wandering these

1919
02:36:28,159 --> 02:36:33,079
woods. He was wearing hiking boots. He changed into his denims and flannels

1920
02:36:33,280 --> 02:36:37,559
as soon as we got back from
the funeral. In my white dress shirt

1921
02:36:37,600 --> 02:36:43,399
and purple mole hair cardigan and penny
loafer shoes, I was no match for

1922
02:36:43,559 --> 02:36:48,040
him. All around us I heard
heavy breathing and low growls, but we

1923
02:36:48,120 --> 02:36:54,600
pressed forward. And then it happened. One minute I was behind my father,

1924
02:36:54,760 --> 02:36:58,440
doing my best to keep up with
him, and the next I was

1925
02:36:58,520 --> 02:37:03,799
tumbling over the edge. I'd gotten
too close and stepped wrong and turned my

1926
02:37:03,879 --> 02:37:07,879
ankle and lost my balance, and
thorns gouged at my clothing and tore at

1927
02:37:07,920 --> 02:37:13,879
my skin, while rocks and dead
branches pummeled my body. It was part

1928
02:37:13,120 --> 02:37:18,159
barrel roll and part free fall.
As I bounced off the outcroppings and exposed

1929
02:37:18,280 --> 02:37:24,319
roots, there was no way to
stop myself shadow I heard my father's voice

1930
02:37:24,319 --> 02:37:28,200
call from the top of the hill. I hoped that he wouldn't fall as

1931
02:37:28,239 --> 02:37:33,280
well. When I heard his footsteps
crashing through the brush looking for a path

1932
02:37:33,399 --> 02:37:39,040
down to where I was, I
rolled to a breathless stop a foot from

1933
02:37:39,079 --> 02:37:43,719
a down tree, moss covered and
rotting. It must have been lying there

1934
02:37:43,760 --> 02:37:48,760
for ages. The bend of the
trunk created an arch barely big enough to

1935
02:37:48,799 --> 02:37:52,399
crawl under, and I stared into
the space, aching with the knee to

1936
02:37:52,440 --> 02:37:56,639
recapture the wind that had been knocked
out of me. A pair of dark,

1937
02:37:56,680 --> 02:38:03,799
frightened eyes stared back. Kinsey,
I said, She answered by placing

1938
02:38:03,840 --> 02:38:09,200
her finger on her lips and then
pointing upward. There was a moment of

1939
02:38:09,280 --> 02:38:13,680
understanding then, and I knew what
I would see. When I looked up.

1940
02:38:15,840 --> 02:38:18,959
My blood froze in my veins.
My mind screamed not to look,

1941
02:38:20,000 --> 02:38:24,239
but my eyes wouldn't listen. Standing
ten yards away on the other side of

1942
02:38:24,280 --> 02:38:28,600
the fallen tree, staring over at
me, was the largest creature I have

1943
02:38:28,719 --> 02:38:33,159
ever seen in my life. It
must have been eight feet tall, but

1944
02:38:33,239 --> 02:38:37,239
I was on the ground looking up, and from that position it looked much

1945
02:38:37,319 --> 02:38:45,200
taller. Amber eyes pierced me as
it opened its mouth to bear its canines

1946
02:38:45,239 --> 02:38:50,200
at me. They were as long
as my index finger, if not longer.

1947
02:38:50,920 --> 02:38:54,040
It didn't have ears, not that
I could see, but it did

1948
02:38:54,079 --> 02:39:00,200
have a snout. I knew instantly
what I was looking at. And if

1949
02:39:00,239 --> 02:39:03,559
you told me once that he knew
he was going to die, because all

1950
02:39:03,639 --> 02:39:07,399
hope drained from his body. Until
that moment, I couldn't fully understand what

1951
02:39:07,520 --> 02:39:13,159
he had meant. Now, however, I was going to die. I

1952
02:39:13,239 --> 02:39:16,360
knew there would be nothing to prevent
that. Perhaps it's where I drew the

1953
02:39:16,399 --> 02:39:22,399
courage to think I would die.
But maybe my death would allow Kensey to

1954
02:39:22,520 --> 02:39:26,920
live. Kensey, I said,
without taking my eyes off the beast,

1955
02:39:26,799 --> 02:39:31,799
how could I explain what I had
to say? It took a step toward

1956
02:39:31,879 --> 02:39:35,680
me, and I glanced up reflectively, and I warned her, it's coming

1957
02:39:35,760 --> 02:39:39,680
this way, and when it gets
here, she whimpered, baby, listen,

1958
02:39:41,120 --> 02:39:43,840
when it gets here and it grabs
me. I glanced at her,

1959
02:39:43,879 --> 02:39:48,600
now, making sure that she was
paying attention. You need to run.

1960
02:39:50,319 --> 02:39:54,159
You saw where I fell from right, She nodded her head. You need

1961
02:39:54,200 --> 02:39:58,399
to get there. Great Grandpa is
up there, and he'll take you home.

1962
02:40:00,040 --> 02:40:05,120
The creature was moving ever closer.
I laid as still as I could,

1963
02:40:05,479 --> 02:40:07,879
and no matter how desperately I wanted
to run, I knew I had

1964
02:40:07,920 --> 02:40:11,440
to lie still and let it take
me, or Kinsey would not live.

1965
02:40:13,680 --> 02:40:18,120
It leaned over the tree and sniffed
deeply off my scent. I don't know

1966
02:40:18,159 --> 02:40:20,799
if they have the ability to smile, or what a smile would mean if

1967
02:40:20,840 --> 02:40:26,319
they did, but that's what it
looked like. This thing was doing something

1968
02:40:26,360 --> 02:40:33,200
in my scent was pleasing to it. In the nano seconds it had taken

1969
02:40:33,280 --> 02:40:37,600
me to fall, to hear my
father charging after me, and to recognize

1970
02:40:37,680 --> 02:40:41,959
my grand niece, and to acknowledge
the beasts, and to accept my death,

1971
02:40:41,440 --> 02:40:46,399
my mind raced. I was sitting
in the lounge at the College Eves,

1972
02:40:46,520 --> 02:40:50,079
dropping on a conversation between two of
my colleagues from the science department.

1973
02:40:50,879 --> 02:40:58,520
They were discussing pheromones and fear.
Someone had written a paper on predators playing

1974
02:40:58,559 --> 02:41:01,879
with their prey. It had something
to do with making the meat taste better.

1975
02:41:03,959 --> 02:41:09,920
Was this monster trying to scare me
into being a better meal. Even

1976
02:41:09,959 --> 02:41:13,840
as I began to stand up,
the sound of gunfire erupted from my left.

1977
02:41:13,479 --> 02:41:18,559
My father was firing his gun.
No, I screamed, it would

1978
02:41:18,600 --> 02:41:22,520
go after my dad. I couldn't
lose both parents in the same week.

1979
02:41:24,120 --> 02:41:28,319
They were all I had. I
got to my feet and faced my opponent,

1980
02:41:28,799 --> 02:41:33,559
and it leaned down at me,
mouth gaping, and hissed. Its

1981
02:41:33,600 --> 02:41:37,360
fetid breath in my face. Long
claws or raked the top of my head

1982
02:41:37,360 --> 02:41:41,559
as it grabbed a handful of my
hair and lifted me off the ground.

1983
02:41:41,440 --> 02:41:46,479
I grabbed its arm and held on
with both hands as I mentally willed Kenzie

1984
02:41:46,520 --> 02:41:52,159
to run. As I dangled there, three more gunshots split the air.

1985
02:41:52,879 --> 02:41:58,319
It pulled me close, and it
opened its mouth wide. I could have

1986
02:41:58,399 --> 02:42:01,879
counted the teeth if i'd had time. I kicked at it with my feet,

1987
02:42:03,120 --> 02:42:07,840
hitting it in the chest and stomach, and suddenly, from somewhere behind

1988
02:42:07,879 --> 02:42:13,959
the monster, another round of rifle
fire exploded. Voices were screaming, and

1989
02:42:13,040 --> 02:42:18,959
Dad fired several more rounds. Now
I felt myself being flung away like an

1990
02:42:18,079 --> 02:42:22,879
unwarning toy, and my ribs cracked
against the tree and my wrists snapped,

1991
02:42:24,159 --> 02:42:30,879
But I was conscious Kenzy was what
might heter Now. The monster was turned

1992
02:42:30,920 --> 02:42:33,760
around and staring up the hillside at
the two men who were firing down on

1993
02:42:33,879 --> 02:42:37,799
it. Bullets were hitting it,
but none of them seemed to penetrate,

1994
02:42:39,719 --> 02:42:45,120
and then one struck its neck and
blood spurted in a long arc across the

1995
02:42:45,200 --> 02:42:50,520
little holler. I ran. Then
I had to get to Kenzie. A

1996
02:42:50,559 --> 02:42:54,399
bellowing roar like a shock wave washed
over me and nearly brought me to my

1997
02:42:54,520 --> 02:42:58,120
knees. But there was no time
to look back, no time to assess

1998
02:42:58,239 --> 02:43:05,639
the situation. I kept running.
I was reminded of Derek's story. Something

1999
02:43:05,760 --> 02:43:09,040
had tried to steal its meal.
It had turned and fought, presumably to

2000
02:43:09,120 --> 02:43:13,280
the death, for the right to
the turkey. My nephew would certainly have

2001
02:43:13,360 --> 02:43:18,879
provided more meat than the bird had, but this thing was territorial. Owning

2002
02:43:20,120 --> 02:43:24,399
what it earned was more important to
it than allowing something else to encroach on

2003
02:43:24,520 --> 02:43:28,360
it. What it view me the
same way. Was it following me to

2004
02:43:28,440 --> 02:43:35,000
retain ownership, or was it fighting
off the interlopers. I reached my father

2005
02:43:35,319 --> 02:43:41,079
almost as soon as Kinsey did.
We didn't need to speak. I knew

2006
02:43:41,200 --> 02:43:43,399
he was going to stay there and
fight it off if it came our way.

2007
02:43:45,520 --> 02:43:48,559
My job now was to get my
grandniece to safety. A scream like

2008
02:43:48,680 --> 02:43:52,959
nothing I'd ever heard before echoed through
the woods. As more gunfire pelted the

2009
02:43:52,959 --> 02:43:58,399
behemoth. Kensey stopped. She tried
to turn around and look back, but

2010
02:43:58,399 --> 02:44:03,079
I wouldn't, and fires shot up
my leg. With every step, my

2011
02:44:03,120 --> 02:44:09,040
wrist ached and breathing hurt and my
head hurt, but none of that mattered.

2012
02:44:09,000 --> 02:44:13,799
This was my reason for existence.
My parents had me so late in

2013
02:44:13,840 --> 02:44:18,920
life that I could be here on
this day to keep Kinsey safe, to

2014
02:44:18,000 --> 02:44:24,559
keep her from seeing the carnage behind
us. Another scream assaulted us. This

2015
02:44:24,680 --> 02:44:28,520
time it belonged to a man.
I didn't have to turn and look to

2016
02:44:28,559 --> 02:44:35,879
know what was happening. He was
being torn to pieces. Tormented cries mixed

2017
02:44:35,920 --> 02:44:41,799
with sounds of bones being crunched and
bullets being fired. My knees faltered and

2018
02:44:41,840 --> 02:44:46,840
I found myself falling face forward to
the ground. There were three men behind

2019
02:44:46,879 --> 02:44:50,399
me, my father, my brother, and my nephew, and I love

2020
02:44:50,479 --> 02:44:54,639
them all. There was no hoping
it wouldn't be this one or that.

2021
02:44:54,520 --> 02:45:01,360
At that moment, I knew there'd
be another funeral soon. Kinsey cried,

2022
02:45:01,959 --> 02:45:05,920
I will never forget the expression on
that poor child's face when I looked up

2023
02:45:05,920 --> 02:45:11,440
at her. In an instant,
all innocence was gone and her childhood was

2024
02:45:11,559 --> 02:45:15,959
lost forever, Because Dear God,
forgive me, I had let her turn

2025
02:45:16,040 --> 02:45:20,799
around. More gunshots rang out.
The beast was screaming again, but this

2026
02:45:22,000 --> 02:45:26,200
time I heard real pain coming from
it, and I was glad. I

2027
02:45:26,239 --> 02:45:31,360
wanted it to die. I wanted
it to perish slowly and with as much

2028
02:45:31,440 --> 02:45:35,879
agony as my father and brother could
put on it. I managed to get

2029
02:45:35,959 --> 02:45:39,479
up on to my knees, but
it was as far as I was going.

2030
02:45:39,280 --> 02:45:45,159
Every breath was stabbing pain in my
side. My ankle was swelling rapidly,

2031
02:45:45,680 --> 02:45:50,200
and bruises were forming everywhere. All
I could do was turn around and

2032
02:45:50,280 --> 02:45:54,600
watch. And Kenzy climbed into my
lap and I held her face to my

2033
02:45:54,799 --> 02:45:58,559
chest while she cried. I couldn't
let her see what I was seeing.

2034
02:46:00,479 --> 02:46:05,559
Derek's body was draped over the log
Kinzie had hidden under, and Mike was

2035
02:46:05,600 --> 02:46:09,319
advancing on the beasts, emptying his
gun into it. With every step.

2036
02:46:09,399 --> 02:46:13,840
Dad was moving down the hill toward
it, ready to take his turn.

2037
02:46:13,520 --> 02:46:18,040
He couldn't fire yet. Mike was
too close, but he knew it would

2038
02:46:18,040 --> 02:46:22,000
only be a few more steps before
he too would open fire and accept his

2039
02:46:22,159 --> 02:46:28,639
fate. The monster stood and roared
its fury at the sky, enraged by

2040
02:46:28,680 --> 02:46:33,239
the pitiful man creature whose bullets had
somehow managed to penetrate and spill its blood.

2041
02:46:35,239 --> 02:46:39,520
Our greatest moments, our saddest moments, our worst moments, why do

2042
02:46:39,639 --> 02:46:46,559
we always remember them in slow motion? What could not have lasted more than

2043
02:46:46,639 --> 02:46:52,959
thirty seconds felt like hours. Mike
moved ever closer to the beast than Dad

2044
02:46:52,959 --> 02:46:56,840
closed in as well, and the
beast erupted with one last mighty roar,

2045
02:46:58,440 --> 02:47:05,120
and it fell. The longest moment
I remember came when my father and brother

2046
02:47:05,399 --> 02:47:09,120
approached Derek. From my perch on
the hillside, I saw Dad's hand reach

2047
02:47:09,239 --> 02:47:15,799
down and feel for a pulse.
Mike stood frozen in place, waiting and

2048
02:47:15,840 --> 02:47:20,520
praying for an answer he knew he
wouldn't get, and Dad dropped his head

2049
02:47:20,799 --> 02:47:24,799
and the two men cried. I
felt my own tears begging for release,

2050
02:47:24,920 --> 02:47:31,559
but something inside me refused to set
them free. My memory beyond that point

2051
02:47:31,680 --> 02:47:37,239
is vague at best. I remember
Kenzie and I being helped onto the back

2052
02:47:37,280 --> 02:47:39,879
of an ATV, but where it
came from or who was driving it,

2053
02:47:41,040 --> 02:47:45,879
I couldn't say. Derek's body was
brought back to the house, but again

2054
02:47:45,959 --> 02:47:50,719
I have no idea how or by
who. Someone called nine to one one.

2055
02:47:52,000 --> 02:47:56,319
Kenzie and I were taken to the
emergency room via ambulance. Jesse rode

2056
02:47:56,319 --> 02:48:03,319
with us. I was great when
the EMT told her to stop asking me

2057
02:48:03,559 --> 02:48:07,959
questions. He said, my ribs
were probably broken and talking was painful.

2058
02:48:09,680 --> 02:48:15,000
He was right. Speaking was agony, more so because I had no idea

2059
02:48:15,040 --> 02:48:20,479
what to tell her than from the
physical pain it cost. She deserved answers.

2060
02:48:20,879 --> 02:48:26,360
Her husband was dead, her youngest
child was in shock. The medical

2061
02:48:26,399 --> 02:48:30,959
bills I received tell me that I
was in the hospital for two days.

2062
02:48:31,479 --> 02:48:35,440
I had multiple injuries that included cracked
ribs, a broken wrist and ankle,

2063
02:48:37,040 --> 02:48:41,719
multiple contusions, and a mild concussion. In the end, they bandaged me

2064
02:48:41,840 --> 02:48:46,239
and gave me a prescription for the
pain and sent me on my way.

2065
02:48:46,040 --> 02:48:52,799
I was too heavily medicated to attend
Derek's funeral. I wasn't there. When

2066
02:48:52,879 --> 02:48:58,440
Kinzie told her story, I got
it second hand from my father. She

2067
02:48:58,600 --> 02:49:01,479
said that she was mad because she
wanted to sit with aunt's shadow, but

2068
02:49:01,559 --> 02:49:05,799
her dad made her go play with
the other kids. When the other kids

2069
02:49:05,840 --> 02:49:09,959
wouldn't play with her, she decided
to go out to the barn to see

2070
02:49:09,000 --> 02:49:13,120
if there were any new kittens to
play with, and while she was searching,

2071
02:49:13,399 --> 02:49:16,840
she heard a whistle. It came
from behind the barn, so she

2072
02:49:16,920 --> 02:49:22,280
went out there to investigate. That
was when she saw what she thought was

2073
02:49:22,280 --> 02:49:28,000
a big dog that she followed across
the pasture and into the woods. It

2074
02:49:28,079 --> 02:49:31,479
wasn't until the dog stood up on
two legs that she realized her mistake.

2075
02:49:33,719 --> 02:49:39,040
Children have no real relationship with time. They haven't had to answer to it

2076
02:49:39,120 --> 02:49:43,399
yet, not the way that we
adults do. She didn't know how long

2077
02:49:43,479 --> 02:49:46,600
she was out there, or the
exact order in which the events occurred,

2078
02:49:48,079 --> 02:49:52,079
and she only remembered being afraid and
knowing that she had to hide. She

2079
02:49:52,239 --> 02:49:56,000
was in her third hiding place when
I fell down the ridge and I found

2080
02:49:56,040 --> 02:50:01,639
her. The police s had come
that night. They were taken down into

2081
02:50:01,639 --> 02:50:07,200
the hollow where Dereck was killed,
but the body of the beast was gone.

2082
02:50:07,280 --> 02:50:11,840
They suggested it must have been a
large feral dog, after all,

2083
02:50:11,079 --> 02:50:18,280
Kinsey had described it as such.
My father chose not to argue. Mike

2084
02:50:18,319 --> 02:50:20,879
would have objected, but Dad put
his hand up to silence him, and

2085
02:50:20,920 --> 02:50:28,520
that was enough. Despite all my
grandfather's safeguards, my entire family was aware,

2086
02:50:28,920 --> 02:50:33,840
had always been aware that something wasn't
right in the woods. Matt was

2087
02:50:33,879 --> 02:50:37,479
the first to admit it. He
talked about the night Juliana had died.

2088
02:50:39,239 --> 02:50:45,639
He had always stubbornly declared that he
had seen nothing, but that wasn't true.

2089
02:50:45,799 --> 02:50:48,440
What he saw when he went into
the woods looking for her was more

2090
02:50:48,479 --> 02:50:52,319
than he could describe, and he
had to run from the scene. And

2091
02:50:52,559 --> 02:50:58,520
like me, he berated himself for
his cowardice. If he'd been brave,

2092
02:50:58,760 --> 02:51:03,840
maybe Juliana could have been rescued.
My father assured him that he couldn't have

2093
02:51:03,920 --> 02:51:09,120
saved Juliana any more than he and
Mike could have kept Derek alive. It

2094
02:51:09,159 --> 02:51:13,239
was little comfort to Matt, but
it allowed my other siblings to open up

2095
02:51:13,239 --> 02:51:20,079
and tell their own stories. None
were as horrifying as MAT's, but all

2096
02:51:20,079 --> 02:51:26,159
were enough to make believers of everyone. My father, at least was happy

2097
02:51:26,159 --> 02:51:30,559
to think that my mother had never
known nor had to worry about the well

2098
02:51:30,559 --> 02:51:35,840
being of her children. In that
respect, that theory was disproven. When

2099
02:51:35,879 --> 02:51:39,319
my sister Jenny brought my breakfast up
to my room a few days after Derek's

2100
02:51:39,399 --> 02:51:45,040
funeral. I was sitting in a
chair by the east window. I had

2101
02:51:45,040 --> 02:51:48,120
been allowed to come home from the
hospital only on the condition did I not

2102
02:51:48,280 --> 02:51:52,319
walk up and down the stairs,
so I was essentially trapped in my room,

2103
02:51:54,479 --> 02:51:58,040
being able to sit at the window
and soak in the sunlight. Was

2104
02:51:58,079 --> 02:52:03,600
a little compensation for my carceration.
And Jenny put the tray of food on

2105
02:52:03,680 --> 02:52:07,120
the table beside me, and she
helped me adjust my seat so I could

2106
02:52:07,120 --> 02:52:11,559
transfer it to my lap, and
then she sat down and asked how I

2107
02:52:11,719 --> 02:52:16,120
was feeling, and she checked my
temperature and fussed over me in her big,

2108
02:52:16,200 --> 02:52:20,680
sisterly way. I in turn,
picked at the plate of fried eggs

2109
02:52:20,680 --> 02:52:24,120
and bacon and toast and took a
few SIPs of orange juice before giving up

2110
02:52:24,159 --> 02:52:30,040
and settling for hot coffee with a
splash of cream, just like Grandaddy used

2111
02:52:30,079 --> 02:52:35,280
to drink it. I have something
for you, she said, after tucking

2112
02:52:35,360 --> 02:52:41,239
one of her mother's crocheted blankets around
my shoulders. She reached into a pocket

2113
02:52:41,239 --> 02:52:45,719
of her apron and pulled out an
envelope. Kate and I found it in

2114
02:52:45,760 --> 02:52:50,159
mom's jewelry box yesterday, and she
handed it to me and written on it

2115
02:52:50,280 --> 02:52:56,799
in mom's precise handwriting, was my
name. I looked up at Jenny questioningly,

2116
02:52:58,600 --> 02:53:03,959
and she shrugged and said, I
guess you'd better open it. It

2117
02:53:03,040 --> 02:53:09,600
was a letter that read shadow when
you decided to move so far away at

2118
02:53:09,639 --> 02:53:13,920
such a young age, I won't
deny that I was both hurt and worried

2119
02:53:13,000 --> 02:53:18,479
for you. I couldn't understand why
you would make such a decision. Your

2120
02:53:18,479 --> 02:53:22,959
father will tell you, if he'll
admit to it, that I did a

2121
02:53:22,000 --> 02:53:26,200
lot of crying those first couple of
years. I'd hope that one day you

2122
02:53:26,239 --> 02:53:31,479
would decide to come home, And
when your granddaddy died, I was sure

2123
02:53:31,479 --> 02:53:35,639
that you would. I wouldn't let
anyone else move into his house because I

2124
02:53:35,680 --> 02:53:39,479
believe that one day you would come
back and move into it yourself. All

2125
02:53:39,520 --> 02:53:45,879
these years, I've kept it up
for you, waiting and hoping. I

2126
02:53:45,920 --> 02:53:48,920
also wondered if the day would come
when you would regret not being here.

2127
02:53:50,559 --> 02:53:54,680
I saw the sorrow you felt for
not being with your granddaddy when he died,

2128
02:53:54,760 --> 02:53:58,200
and I worried that you might someday
feel the same guilt for not being

2129
02:53:58,239 --> 02:54:01,159
here for me and your father.
And then last spring, while I was

2130
02:54:01,200 --> 02:54:05,799
putting in my garden, I began
to feel as though someone was watching me.

2131
02:54:05,760 --> 02:54:09,280
I looked around, but I couldn't
see anyone, so I attributed it

2132
02:54:09,319 --> 02:54:16,479
to an overactive imagination. A few
days later it happened again, and a

2133
02:54:16,479 --> 02:54:22,000
few days after that, and a
few days after that. Something had happened

2134
02:54:22,040 --> 02:54:26,319
to Derek in the woods a couple
of weeks before that. He wouldn't say

2135
02:54:26,399 --> 02:54:31,000
what, or even admit that anything
did happen, but I saw the change

2136
02:54:31,000 --> 02:54:37,639
in him. A grandmother always knows. Yesterday, it all began to make

2137
02:54:37,680 --> 02:54:43,079
sense. I was standing at the
kitchen sink, snapping beans and getting them

2138
02:54:43,120 --> 02:54:46,120
ready to can when I happened to
look out at my garden. You can't

2139
02:54:46,200 --> 02:54:52,840
imagine what I saw, or maybe
you can. I don't know if that's

2140
02:54:52,879 --> 02:54:56,840
the reason you've left, but after
your granddaddy's funeral, I'm sure that's what

2141
02:54:56,879 --> 02:55:01,879
has kept you away. I want
you to know Shadow that I know,

2142
02:55:01,840 --> 02:55:09,799
I understand. In fact, I'm
glad these woods are not safe. Love

2143
02:55:09,440 --> 02:55:16,920
Mom. I looked up at Ginny
in shock. She took the letter and

2144
02:55:16,959 --> 02:55:22,000
read it herself. We agreed not
to tell our father that our mother had

2145
02:55:22,040 --> 02:55:26,840
been aware of the monsters in our
woods. He had taken too much comfort

2146
02:55:26,879 --> 02:55:31,879
in thinking that she'd never known.
I was reminded of the night when Mom

2147
02:55:31,000 --> 02:55:37,520
died. She pointed toward her dresser
once that's where her jewelry box sat.

2148
02:55:37,440 --> 02:55:41,200
She was telling me then that the
letter was there. And I tucked the

2149
02:55:41,280 --> 02:55:48,200
letter into my pocket of my robe. Three weeks after that, I was

2150
02:55:48,280 --> 02:55:52,000
packing my bag to leave when Kinzie
came into my room. By then,

2151
02:55:52,159 --> 02:55:58,479
all of her scratches and bruises had
mended. I, on the other hand,

2152
02:55:58,639 --> 02:56:03,360
still bore quite a few yellow and
purple marks on my body. My

2153
02:56:03,520 --> 02:56:05,639
right hand was in a cast,
and my left leg was in a boot,

2154
02:56:07,000 --> 02:56:09,920
and there was little to do for
my ribs except to ice them periodically,

2155
02:56:11,040 --> 02:56:15,799
and I had long since quent doing
that. I'd been warned to stay

2156
02:56:15,840 --> 02:56:20,079
in bed and not drive until I
was fully mended. I don't know if

2157
02:56:20,120 --> 02:56:22,840
that was due to the headaches I
was still having from the concussion, or

2158
02:56:22,840 --> 02:56:28,280
if driving would somehow mean my bones
would take longer to heal, but I

2159
02:56:28,360 --> 02:56:33,479
wanted to go home. Kensey climbed
up on the bed and watched me quietly

2160
02:56:33,600 --> 02:56:37,079
for several minutes, and I smiled
at her, and I asked how she

2161
02:56:37,280 --> 02:56:41,000
was doing. Fine. She said, Daddy says, you're leaving today.

2162
02:56:43,000 --> 02:56:46,920
Yes, I answered, I have
to get back to my job. You're

2163
02:56:46,959 --> 02:56:52,280
a profess, You're a profess.
She was struggling with the word I'm an

2164
02:56:52,319 --> 02:56:56,959
associate professor. I said for her, Yeah, that's what Daddy said.

2165
02:56:58,159 --> 02:57:03,840
She agreed. Why can't you you
profess here? I looked at her then.

2166
02:57:03,639 --> 02:57:07,360
Her dark eyes were full of pain
that her young life should never have

2167
02:57:07,520 --> 02:57:13,920
experienced. Well, there aren't any
schools around here for me to profess at,

2168
02:57:13,120 --> 02:57:18,040
I answered, honestly. Daddy said
you'd say that, but he said

2169
02:57:18,079 --> 02:57:24,799
I should say thank you anyway.
It hadn't struck me immediately, but when

2170
02:57:24,840 --> 02:57:28,879
it did, it was like a
lightning bolt of realization that shot through me.

2171
02:57:30,079 --> 02:57:33,799
I stopped packing clothes and I stared
at the wall for a minute,

2172
02:57:33,920 --> 02:57:39,040
trying to make sense of her use
of the word daddy. Why was she

2173
02:57:39,079 --> 02:57:43,600
speaking of her father in the present
tense? For the briefest moment, I

2174
02:57:43,639 --> 02:57:48,680
thought maybe Derek was still alive,
that I had imagined or maybe dreamt all

2175
02:57:48,719 --> 02:57:54,319
of this. But I knew better. I'd seen his body. I had

2176
02:57:54,319 --> 02:57:58,000
a cast on my wrist and a
boot on my leg to remind me Derek

2177
02:57:58,200 --> 02:58:05,319
was dead. You mean your grandfather, don't you, I suggested, thinking

2178
02:58:05,360 --> 02:58:11,200
that perhaps she had subconsciously substituted Mike
as her father figure. No, Daddy,

2179
02:58:11,520 --> 02:58:18,479
she insisted, He also said that
I should give you this message.

2180
02:58:18,559 --> 02:58:22,879
She cocked her head and screwed up
her face as she mentally went over the

2181
02:58:22,920 --> 02:58:28,840
words before saying them. He said, he'll keep the woods now. Now

2182
02:58:28,920 --> 02:58:33,959
what does that mean? Aunt Shadow? Driving back to Saint Louis, I

2183
02:58:35,000 --> 02:58:39,840
heard Kenzy's little voice say over and
over again, he'll keep the woods now.

2184
02:58:41,360 --> 02:58:46,200
It came at such a shock that
I was at a loss for words

2185
02:58:46,239 --> 02:58:50,239
to answer her. I had to
stop the sudden flow of tears before I

2186
02:58:50,239 --> 02:58:54,040
could even find my voice to do
so. In the end, I told

2187
02:58:54,079 --> 02:58:58,479
her that he was going to watch
over the woods and keep us all safe

2188
02:58:58,479 --> 02:59:03,079
from the monsters from now on.
It was the best answer I could give,

2189
02:59:03,879 --> 02:59:09,120
and I suppose it was the truth. Dad drove down to Saint Louis

2190
02:59:09,159 --> 02:59:13,920
the following spring to spend a week
with me. He'd aged drastically in the

2191
02:59:15,000 --> 02:59:18,760
months since Mom died. I suspected
that it would be the last time I

2192
02:59:18,840 --> 02:59:24,159
saw him, and with Derek gone, there was no reason to give him

2193
02:59:24,200 --> 02:59:28,399
the binder. He suggested that I
turn it into a book. I didn't

2194
02:59:28,440 --> 02:59:33,719
have the heart to tell him that
I was already working on that. I

2195
02:59:33,760 --> 02:59:37,920
took him to breakfast at my favorite
little cafe down the road to celebrate the

2196
02:59:37,959 --> 02:59:43,159
sale. Of the dairy business.
We took in a Cardinals game and we

2197
02:59:43,200 --> 02:59:46,360
watched the Legend of Boggy Creek on
DVD, and we laughed at the end

2198
02:59:46,399 --> 02:59:52,799
when Bobby Ford was attacked in the
yard. The attack itself wasn't funny,

2199
02:59:52,840 --> 02:59:56,040
but if you stop the video at
the right moment, you can see through

2200
02:59:56,079 --> 03:00:00,799
the eye holes of the monstrous masks
to the face of the man the costume.

2201
03:00:01,079 --> 03:00:05,159
Dad told me that he hadn't seen
any activity of any sort since the

2202
03:00:05,239 --> 03:00:11,440
previous fall. What didn't surprise me, Derek was always a man of his

2203
03:00:11,520 --> 03:00:15,600
word. When it was time for
him to go, he hugged me.

2204
03:00:16,520 --> 03:00:20,520
I didn't want to let go.
We must have stood there for a good

2205
03:00:20,600 --> 03:00:26,719
fifteen minutes, hugging and crying.
On July twenty seven, two thousand and

2206
03:00:26,840 --> 03:00:33,479
two, exactly forty eight years after
my grandfather made his first journal entry,

2207
03:00:33,079 --> 03:00:39,200
my father died peacefully in his sleep. For once, the funeral was uneventful.