Okay, welcome to the podcast. I don't do this much anymore, but
I'm going to talk for just about forty five seconds. This podcast has two
has three stories. The first two are fine for anybody to listen to their
family friendly. The third one is a story I wrote. There are three
or four words of profanity in the story. They're really not that bad,
they're kind of funny. But I want to warn you ahead of time.
Listen to the first two and if profanity offends you, don't listen to the
last one. Y'all ready for three good stories? All right, here we
go. Here's a good bigfoot story. It's a bigfoot kind of I think
it's bigfoot dog man, but it's not very long. Here we go.
I grew up in the small town of Spotsville, Kentucky. As a backwoods
kid. I did everything one does when you have no social media for entertainment
and aren't scared of the mud. Back then, Spotsful was a small neighborhood
community and it still is. It's situated on the Green River, and it
boasts two Baptist churches and no grocery stores. And legend has it that there
are catfish the size of school buses in that river. My childhood home was
unique in that it sat on the tallest hill in Spotsful, overlooking the river.
A large bay window offered a panoramic view of it and the town that
sat along its banks. That little burgh has a few claims to fame,
but as a third generation resident, I was shocked when the new kid in
town told me about a legend that I wasn't familiar with, the Spotsful Monster.
The original story is very interesting. It's been covered in the national media,
and it's written about in several books, one of which was written by
a son of that family. They still live in the area and they hunt
Bigfoot. While sheare their story, he's talking about Barton Nunley. I don't
know if you guys are familiar with Barton Nunley's channel. Just look it up.
Let me tell you how to spell his name. Barton's a great guy.
I met him at the meet and greet in the LBL a few couple
of maybe a month or so ago, and he's a super super nice guy's
real high energy guy. He's very passionate about this research stuff, and his
YouTube channel is great. I watch a lot of his stuff and it's really
good anyway. Barton Nunley. It is spelled ba r t O N last
name Nunley in you n n E l l Y look him up. If
you just put that name in the search bar, his channel will come up.
Back to the story. I've read about it, and I've watched several
poorly made YouTube videos on the topic going back to the late two thousands and
early two thousands and ten. They're mainly shots of empty fields and dirt roads,
most of which are near my house. Over time, my initial interest
in the topic waned and I moved on. I never forgot about the insane
story of the Spotsful Monster, though, but there is only so much time
you can devote to that sort of stuff. I wasn't giving that much thought
that night that I was walking the dog. He was a good dog,
but Lord have mercy, you'd think that it was gold that he was carrying
around in his bowels, the way he went about finding just the right spot
to deposit it. I was impatient, as a preteen at the time,
with even less patience for a dog's per snickerty bathroom demands. I wanted to
get back to watching TV, and I was sharing my frustration with this dog,
not that he was listening. When I glanced up and I saw a
tall, white, hairy, human like animal standing under a street light five
yards away. I can't even imagine how long I stood there, slack jawed
and frozen in place. This thing was a good seven feet tall. My
fearless protector of a dog was oblivious to what stood before us. After a
minute of locking eyes with me, the beast turned and continued across the road.
I didn't wait around. The dog was done for the night. Whether
he knew it or not. Any deposits he hadn't already made would have had
to wait until daylight. As far as I was concerned, I don't know
what I saw that night. I'm still not sure if I believe in Bigfoot,
although I love the stories. Whatever that thing was, I'll admit to
one thing. I don't linger outside at night anymore. And where I used
to look out that big picture window at the beautiful scenery in my part of
the world, I now stare out in fear of seeing that thing again coming
back to find me. Okay, this is a really credible story because he
doesn't know if he even really believes in Bigfoot, and he's seen something that
could be considered Bigfoot, which I think is admirable for him to say that.
Most people see a dark spot in the woods and they go out and
make a YouTube channel about Bigfoot. Now this guy's being real honest about it.
He's like, I don't know if I believe in Bigfoot, but I
saw some weird one night under a street light. Can't explain it. Don't
know what it was, but I know what I saw. I think he
said it was five yards away. I don't think he means physical yards,
you know, like five yards would be twenty five feet. Wait, five
to fifteen feet. I got the yard. I did my math wrong.
Five yards is fifteen feet. I don't think it was fifteen feet away from
him. I think it was five properties down, five yards down, That's
what I think. I don't think it was that close to him. But
this was a great story, and I like his honesty. And his name
is Jack and he lives in spots for Kentucky. Anyway, I'm just rambling,
but I just admire this story. I admire these people who send in
and they say they've seen something but they're just not really sure what it was.
To me, that makes a story even more interesting. And don't forget
to look up Barton Nunneley's YouTube channel. Maybe I can find it. Put
a link in the description Barton Noneley, and there's something else behind that.
He calls his channel something I don't know. I just get notifications and I
get to watch this stuff every now and then. I like Barton. Barton,
if you're listening, it was great to meet you at the meet and
greet. You have a great channel. So anyway, thanks to the writer,
Jack, I really appreciate it. Let's go to another one. All
right, this is a story about a wind to go. I don't think
I've ever gotten a story that someone claims is true about a wind to go.
This this should be great. I'm reading this cold. I haven't read
this. Neilma just sent this to me. I'm gonna read it to y'all
and I'm going to be as surprised as you are with what we read.
But here's what he writes. My family owns land in the Boston Mountains of
Arkansas, close to a place called Fort Douglas and another one known as Mount
Levi. Fort Douglas was a trading post back in the eighteen hundreds, and
Mount Levi was a settlement until the nineteen forties when everyone moved closer to town.
My family has deer hunted and camped on that land since I was a
child. My uncle was as close to a frontiersman as I have ever known.
He made the rules at camp, and his number one rule was that
we all be back at the cabin as close to sunset as possible. In
addition to this, we kept a camp fire going at all times. My
uncle set out Coleman lanterns all along the back and sides of the cabin,
and he hung them along the front porch. He owned a big propane lamp
that he kept burning throughout the night as well. Nighttime was a favorite time
for my brother and me. That was when uncle would tell us stories about
Count Dracula and werewolves and Frankenstein. I realized now that he was exciting our
fear instinct to keep us from wandering off by ourselves. At bedtime, a
large cover was placed over the window and the doors were locked and heavily secured.
We didn't have to ask why there were horrible inhuman screams outside. It
could have been big cats, but as kids, we assumed that monsters were
the reason for the extra security. Our belief in that theory was cemented in
the night when something screamed so loud that it shook the walls of the cabin,
and then it sounded like something was laughing as it vanished into the night.
Big cats wouldn't make that sound. Now. Years came and went until
two thousand and nine when a tornado came through and damaged the cabin so badly
that we had to quit using it. We didn't stop hunting the land,
though quit staying at the cabin. Time has a way of erasing memories,
even the memories of a creature that screamed so loud that it rattles walls and
lives like an escaped lunatic in the night. We forgot about while we stayed
inside the cabin at night when we were kids. So by the time I
took my friends Nicki and Andrew out there to do some raccoon hunting, I
didn't give a second thought to the screaming creature. I was hunting a big
jug headed walker hound named Jake. He weighed in over to one hundred pounds,
and standing on his back legs, he could look at a six foot
man square in the eye. That night, I sent Jake on his way
down a creek that runs through the property. According to my tracker, he
was six hundred and sixty yards out when he came to a dead stop and
started barking at something. And then we heard a high pitched scream like a
metal on metal before Jake started running back toward us, who was half Lakota.
SEUs said we need to leave. Why, I asked. I was
a little confused by her demeanor. It wasn't like Nicki, But then I
heard the panic in her voice when she said, when Jake gets back,
we need to get the hell out of here. I didn't have time to
question her further. At that moment, Jake ran past us and jumped into
the big dog box. He was shaking like crazy and whimpering like a terrified
child, and no amount of coaxing could get him to come out. Let's
get the hell out of here now, NICKI demanded, as she grabbed me
and Andrew by our arms and began pulling. I let her drag me to
the truck, but I kept asking her what was wrong, And as we
got into the cab, we heard that awful metallic scream again, this time
it was closer. I guess whatever was making that sound was in the tree
line ahead of us. What's wrong? I asked NICKI one last time.
I'll tell you later, That was all she said. Once we got back
to the house and Jay got put up and fed, I asked her again
what had shook her up. She climbed up into Andrew's jeep before finally answering
me, brother, you've got a skin walker or a wind to go creeping
around on your land. I'll not be back there at night, and I
suggest that you don't go there until it's taken care of. And with that
they drove off and left me standing there, deep in my faults. My
most recent encounter with the creature was a month or so ago. My fiance
and I took our four year old daughter up there for a picnic lunch on
a Sunday afternoon. We had finished eating our sandwiches and we're sitting back and
relaxing in the warm sunlight when something caught my eye. There was an old
lane that we had brushed hog between some trees, and in that lane and
making its way toward us in a strange zigzagging motion was a large humanoid,
semi transparent being not more than one hundred and fifty yards from us. I
nudge my fiance and pointed it out to her and she could see it too.
About then an old friend who was a longtime member of our deer camp
showed up, and then the thing hid and we lost track of it.
After that, it never appeared again. And I know that Steve Lily is
a fictional character, but this is one time when I wish he was real.
If he and his crew wanted to show up and take care of things,
that'd be fine with me. Man, that story is so spooky to
me. And he was joking about it at the end, but I know
what he's saying. I don't know. Can a skinwalker or a wind to
Go be killed? I know in the Wild Hunt book a curse to the
wind to Go. Those guys were killing them right left. Those things were
tough to kill in the book. That's a fictional book. It's a made
up story, but still it's based on some of these legends. This was
a great story, and it's a first Windigost story I've ever gotten that I
can remember. I don't think I remember ever getting another Windy go story.
But I appreciate this man sending it. That was so good. Set in
the mountains of Arkansas, Boston Mountains of Arkansas, close to a place called
Fort Douglas. I don't know where that's at. I lived in Arkansas for
fifteen years, but I lived in the flatlands over in the north northeast corner
of Arkansas, so I wasn't familiar with the I would guess this is northwest
or north central Arkansas. I don't know what an interesting story. Thank you
to the writer. Okay, here's the story that I was telling y'all at
the beginning of this podcast at number one has some adult words in it.
Here's how I got this story, and I'll make this really short. First,
I wrote this story, but I wrote it from a guy telling me
a story not long ago. He's a friend of a friend who my friend
has been telling me. Man, you got to hear this guy's story.
It's pretty crazy. He says he still sees these things. I said,
Okay, well, if we ever run up on him, he can tell
me a story. A couple of weeks ago, we ran up on this
guy and he goes, Man, tell him that story, that bigfoot story
you've been talking about. Oh, I don't want to tell him that story.
Yeah, tell him? All right, Well i'll tell him. I
said, hey, let me put a mic on you. Now, I
don't want a mic on me. I said, can you write it down
for me? No, I don't want to write it now. I said,
okay, Well I'll try to remember it and i'll write it when I
get back. Is that okay, Yeah, you can do that. You
can die. Now here's the thing. He's never going to listen to this
podcast. I don't think he even has the Internet. I don't think he
has a cell phone or anything. And so since he is probably not going
to listen to this, I'm gonna tell you all this now. I don't
believe a word of the story. I think it's made up. I don't
believe a word of it. But it is a great story. And so
I remembered it and I wrote it, and now you're going to hear the
way I wrote it. So I hope you enjoy this. My old lady
stays on on me all the time about not getting things done around the house.
It seems that I can't even catch a break. I used to go
to drives when she was on a terror by me being lazy, no radio,
no other sounds than the wind blowing through the car window. I'd stay
gone for two, maybe three hours. Now i'd get back, she'd accuse
me of stepping out on her. I never did that. Hell, she'd
kill me if I did that, and I don't want to die when it's
too cold. I'd just go to work and piddle, even if it was
a Saturday or Sunday. I had the scheme worked out with a buddy who
would call me when he got a text from me. We need you get
the plant, he'd say over the phone. Well, I held the phone
an inch from my face as she could hear it. Then he would make
up some sort of thing going wrong with the weekend crew and throw in some
technical jargon to make it sound legit. Something she wouldn't understand. But it
gave me an ironclad reason for me to get out of that house so I
wouldn't have to endure her incessant complaining. I'll be there as soon as I
can, I would say, and I'd hang up. Now, this guy
didn't even work with me. He and I had been friends since we were
kids, but I couldn't hang out with them anymore because my old lady didn't
like him. We'd hang up and he would go back to his peaceful weekend
after that phone call with his family, and I'd go to work and i'd
just sit in the parking lot for a while and read a book. Then
i'd drive around town to burn another hour or two. Then it was back
home, where i'd have to sit with her in the den watching some TV
show that I wasn't even interested in until I went to bed. I would
have gone straight to bed when I got home, but she said married people
don't do that. Married people were supposed to watch TV together. She was
a night all. She stayed up till four am every day and she'd sleep
until two. I'd get into bed about ten pm. It's normal time to
go to bed for a man who has a job, and I'd have to
listen to that loud TV playing down the hall in the other room and made
it hard to go to sleep. But I'd eventually go to sleep, only
to be woken around four am when she came to bed with that yaping dog
of hers. Now she's had that dog for years, and you'd think that
dog knew me, but every morning that dog would jump up to sleep with
her, and it would start barking at me, like I was an intruder
in my own house. I think it wanted me to get up so it
could have the warm spot. I left when I got up, made coffee.
Hell, it's my bed that I paid for, and I couldn't even
sleep past four in the morning in my own bed because of a damn dog.
I have always been thankful for the escape of sleep, though it's the
only piece I get other than the times I make up reasons to get out
of that house. We lived in a house that belonged to her father and
she inherited it. The house was built on a place that had four hundred
and eighty acres, but she sold most of that off when her father died.
Now we have about eighty acres left. It is a pretty place,
and I keep it up pretty good. There are a lot of things I
wouldn't do around here, but she insists on the damnedest things that have nothing
to do with the land. But to her credit, it does make the
place look better. For the last few months, I've gotten away from leaving
the house to get away from her her accusations of me running around on her
got so bad that she was threatening a divorce for my infidelity. Now I
knew I wasn't seeing anyone else. Hell, I'm an old man with a
gut and having lost half of my hair. I don't know what woman she
thinks would take up with me, and being unfaithful to anyone else not in
my nature. I have thought about it, but I could never do that.
I figured she'd put a private investigator on me to see where I was
going. I wasn't worried of her catching me with another woman, but I
was afraid that she'd find out that I was driving around, or pulling up
to a bar for a few beers, or sitting in the plant parking lot.
I don't think finding out all those seekers would have been a cause for
divorce, but I did not want her to know my secrets. I had
to save them for later in case I decided to use those tactics again to
get away from her. Since I was a kid, I have loved reading.
I don't read anything smart, mostly cheap fiction with an occasional biography.
Once a year, I would go off on the tractor back in the woods
on our place, and I'd sit and read for hours while she thought I
was back there doing something useful, like cleaning brush up or doing some dirt
work. The tractor seat got to where it was putting my legs to sleep,
so I started hiding a lawn chair in the front bucket, and I'd
sit back in those pines and I'd read until my eyes got tired. I
never worried she would catch me back there doing nothing when I said I was
doing something. Hell, she never left the house unless she went shopping or
to get her hair fixed, or to meet up with her Canasti club and
play cards. I knew that was one place I could go and be safe
from the constant henpecking that she was so good at delivering. It was summertime
and it was a bit warm when I started my selfish excursions into the pines.
I figured I had the spring and summer left of my retreats before it'd
be too cold to sit outside and read, at which time I would have
to come up with another way to avoid her wrath. But I had three
months, and I was creative with my methods of infidelity. My brush clearing
project would have to last and not raise even the slightest suspicion. When I
got back to the house, and when the sun dipped low, I would
run my hands around in the dirt and I'd wipe some on my hands and
my shirt and occasionally on my face. I'd stop at a stream that flowed
most of the year, and I'd make it look like I'd been sweating by
slinging water around my neck and up on my armpits. She never called on
and I think she was happy I was doing some work without having to nag
me about it, even though it was the hot time of the year.
I had a number of spots back there where the trees and brush hid me
from the sun. The shade dropped the temperature a few degrees and made it
bearable to sit for hours at a time. There were two places in particular
back there that were my refuges. One I had cleared with the tractor early
in the spring, and the other was a natural area clear of trees and
brush. It's an area about twenty feet or so in diameter, and it
was perfectly shaded with a bed of pine needles that I thought of as my
reading room carpet. I liked both spots, but I wound up spending most
of the summer in that natural spot where the pines skipped. On the hottest
afternoons, it was still fairly cool enough that I didn't sweat too much,
And when I first started sitting in that spot, it struck me that the
little opening in the pines was put their own purpose. It was too neat
and almost organized, like a man had made it that way years before.
But that couldn't be the case. When they plant pines, they cover all
available ground to get as much return as they can when they cut them twenty
years later. Had this area been on the edge of the pines, it
would have made sense to be used as a turnaround spot for equipment, or
maybe something more technical to the pine growing methods of which I knew nothing about.
But not knowing for sure because I could not see where the spot was
from above. This clearing was more than likely in the center of this crop
of pine trees, and it made no sense that an open area would be
there. The pine needles were arranged in a way that didn't match the forest
floor in other areas, like it had been manipulated to be neat and organized,
But who the hell would do that? It had to be natural.
So I stopped thinking about that, and I resigned myself to enjoy the peace
of it all and be thankful that I got to use it for what I
was using it for. In all my sixty six years, I had never
been so at peace with myself in the world around me. A steady hiss
of the wind pushing through the green pine needles above, the sounds of wildlife
in the area songbirds and squirrels, and the cool, breezy evenings there on
the hottest days. It all made it a place of nirvana for me,
And on more than one occasion in the spring, I watched box turtles walk
across the thick pine straw, going wherever they go to mate or lay eggs.
Once one of those long, black, roped up chicken snakes slithered directly
under my chair in between my feet, on its way to its next meal.
I guess, and possums and deer and raccoons have ventured close to the
clearing, just where I could see them, staying at the edge and making
their way to wherever they go. And when wildlife approached, I never moved.
Neither the turtles nor the snakes paid any attention. To me. The
fast animals never jumped or ran away. They just kept to themselves, and
I did the same. It was as if I had blended in with the
woods and they had no fear of me. And that made me feel wonderful.
And I longed for the critters to return so that I could see them
again, and they often did. In October, after I had been going
back there once or twice a week for my solitude since the spring, the
old lady was on a terrible rant about me calling the utility company about our
high utility bills. You call them and tell them they're charging us too much.
You call them today and you get that dune. He said. It
was important to me to keep the peace, and I knew the answers to
give her to shut her up, But on this day I had had it
with her, and I retorted with you got a damn phone in your pocket,
why don't you call the sons of bitches yourself. She wasn't used to
me biting back like that. Her lip puckered, and she turned and she
ran down the hall. She went back to the bedroom and flopped herself on
the bed with that dog yapping at me, and then she threw herself and
buried her face in a pillow and performed a theatrical and mournful fake cry.
It was typical behavior. On the rare occasion that I did jump back in
her shit, I paid at zero attention and headed for the tractor, yelling
at her through the back door that I was going back to the pines to
get some work done. And I slammed the door, and I heard her,
Yep, the poor thing. You think i'd have whooped her with a
stick. Yeah, you can dish it out, but you can't take it,
I was saying as I walked out to start my John Deere. I'm
pretty sure I threw in a few assholes and motherfuckers as I climbed up on
that tractor and started that diesel engine. Under the seat sat the latest novel
I had been into, and I pulled it out and slid it under my
arm and went straight to the sweet spot in the middle of the pines.
By the time I unfolded my lawn chair, it was six in the evening,
and that gave me two and a half hours of bliss until it got
dark, and then I would have to get back to the house. The
mosquitoes would eat me up when the sun went down, or I would have
stayed out there, passed dark. I shook off the anger from the argument
before, and I took a few deep breaths. I had just enough time
to finish this one, which always made me happy, and looking forward to
the trip tomorrow to the bookstore where i'd pick up another paperback. This afternoon
was going to be peaceful if it killed me, and it almost did kill
me. I placed a chair in the middle of my little haven. I
parked my butt in it, and I leaned back just a little, and
I opened the book and I laid it in my lap. I did a
few breathing exercises I had watched someone do on the internet to relieve the stress
that I was still feeling. After the fifteen minute ride back to my spot,
when the residual roar of the diesel had left my ears, I heard
the fall breeze wash through the pines, and a pack of crows squawked in
the distance. Other than that, there was no sound from anywhere, especially
an over dramatic female who didn't get her way. The last three chapters of
this action novel were waiting, so I flipped the book over and I traveled
into another world. It was about thirty minutes before dusk when I came up
for air. I get that way reading these action novels. Once I started
a chapter that has a lot going on, I just drift away and lose
track of time. After walking around the clearing twice to stretch my legs,
then I did a few knee bench to work out the stiffness in my knees.
I sat back down and I looked at everything around me. The October
breeze was still blowing, and I had gotten used to the sound while reading.
I listened to it, and I focused on it so I would remember
it. One more chapter to go, and by that time it would be
time to go home. I had time this excursion perfectly. At some point
I had become so relaxed that I think I dozed off. It must have
been a deep sleep, because when I woke up it was dark. Frogs
and night bugs were chattering away, and I looked at my watch and it
was a little past eight. It gets dark at seven. I thought I
must have slept for more than two hours. Well, I wasn't worried about
it. The tractor was just a few feet into the trees be easy to
find without a light. There was no rain in the forecast for the next
week, so I decided to leave the chair right where it was. I
hadn't finished the book, though, and that bothered me some, but I
could finish it in the bathroom tomorrow morning. When I did my business.
I slapped the back cover closed on the book and was about to stand up
when I felt something was wrong. I was almost half up out of the
chair when I raised my head, and in front of me silhouetted against the
light of a half moon, with something in the shape of an animal,
A huge animal twice as tall as me, with a big head and sloping
shoulders that ran straight from its head to the outside of its arms. Now
I didn't freeze in place. I jumped the hell straight back and hung my
legs in some part of that chair. I flopped over backwards and my legs
were in there. With that chair hung all over my legs. I wanted
to start kicking and get away, but damn chair had me in a bine.
I couldn't see well enough to know which way to move to get untangled,
so I laid there thinking the chair would keep that thing away from me,
but it didn't. One slap from this creature that I think was meant
to connect with me hit the chair, and the chair sailed off into the
pines. At least my legs were free, so I started scooting back,
trying to get away, but it was pointless. That thing snatched me up
by the legs started dragging me off. Screaming wouldn't have done a bit of
good. Nobody was around to hear me, so I kicked and fought as
well as any man could who's being drug through the pine thicket by an unknown
monster. And just when I thought it was all over for me, it
dropped me. I was spitting dirt and leaves and pine needles out of my
mouth while trying to get up and run, which I did, and I
ran straight into my tractor that was right after leaning into the great escape run.
I was about to perform damn near knock me out. I know I
was bleeding from somewhere after that, but in situations like that, you don't
stop moving. The impact had dazed me some and I needed to get my
bearing so I wouldn't run into that tractor again. And while I was doing
that, I looked up and that monster was just standing there. He wasn't
making a move after seeing that I had just stood there looking at it,
still only seeing the outline of this thing in the dark. It was harder
to see now that the angle I was seeing him was straight on and not
with the benefit of him being back lit by the moonlight. I guess I
could call this moment a standoff, But a standoff is when two figures were
staring at each other and getting mentally ready to do battle. There wasn't going
to be a battle here. I was staring at the creature, waiting on
him to kill me. Maybe I would have rather seen it coming than get
it from behind while I ran through the woods, running through brier and into
pine trees. But he didn't kill me though. Instead, in one swift
motion, he bent over and he raked a water pine needles into the air
and straight at the tractor. Then he pointed at it with his other hand.
What the hell was he doing? Was he pissed at the tractor?
I was thinking that I had no clue until he stomped over to me and
shoved me into that damn tractor again like I was a rag doll. Now,
I'm pretty sure that's when the cut on my chin opened up and started
bleeding, but I wouldn't even know that until I got back home. He
shoved me again in the direction of the tractor, and that's when I let
out a string of cuss words that would embarrass a convict, because at that
point I knew what he wanted. He wanted me on my tractor. I
just wanted him to stop pushing me that way. He stepped forward like he
was going to do it again, and I stepped into him, and I
cocked the right hook back up. Motherfucker. I said, I know what
you want. Now, you ain't gonna push me again, and he stopped
and mid shove, and he had let me crawl up in the seat.
The key in that tractor never left the ignition as long as I owned that
thing, so I reached down and started the engine. I didn't have to
fumble for the key. I had to lean forward to feel for the headlights,
and when I found them, the woods all around me lit up and
I could see this thing better. Good lord, it was the ugliest thing
I had ever seen, and it stumped and directly in front of me were
two more of the smaller ones, and it hit me that the creature that
had been dragging me and shoving me around had breasts. So I think it
was a mama. It wasn't a he. None of them moved, their
expressions didn't show anger. At that point, I didn't get the undercurrent that
they wanted to hurt me. They just wanted me gone. I pushed the
throttle forward a little, and the engine wound up just a bit. It
was enough that when I released the clutch, it slowly backed out that was
probably twenty yards from where I was to a place I could turn around and
go forward. And the whole time I kept my eye on all three of
those ugly things. And I backed into a couple of pine trees on my
way out with the scraper I had attached to the back, But in a
few seconds, I was turning the wheel and moving forward. I looked behind
me and nothing was following. So I poured the fuel of that little diesel
and I threw it into a higher gear and I got home as fast as
I could. I raced across the road to the shed, and I shut
off the diesel and I closed the doors. I walked up to the back
of the house, and I saw my old lady standing under the light in
the back of the porch with her arms folded. That damn dog came off
the porch yapping at me, and I wanted to kick it through a gold
post, but that wouldn't have done any good. I just walked by it
and looked up at her again with a sire of feeling in my stomach.
The lies began to form in my head immediately, and when I got to
the top step, I let them fly. Look. I was piled up
some brush to burn, and a limb flipped back on me and knocked me
in the chin. Right about then, I slid off in a low spot
and almost lost that tractor. Damn, I wouldn't want one of these things
to roll over on me. I've heard of that happening. Anyway, I
was stuck and it took me two hours to dig that thing out. But
here I am. I'm okay. The woods are looking better, and your
sisters will be happy that I've been taking care of y'all's pines. Probably bring
more money when y'all sell them. I'm glad to know you were concerned.
I'm going in to get a shower, is there anything to eat on the
stove. She didn't say a word, nothing but hate, staring at me
and her face as I walked by with my pack of lies spewing like it
really happened that way. Nothing was new with that, so I headed straight
for the bathroom. I undressed and threw my clothes in a trash bag to
burn later. Because I knew she'd be aching about getting the blood out of
my laundry, might as well skip that by getting rid of these things.
I looked at my face in the mirror, and my chin had a good
gash running horizontal, but it had stopped bleeding and it would not need to
be sewed up. My arms were scratched up pretty good from being dragged through
the pine thicket, but other than that, I was in pretty good shape.
I showered, and I hit the bed, and I fell straight to
sleep, and I never once woke until six the next morning. It was
Saturday. The next day. After I had a cup of coffee, I
went straight back to my spot. There was no way those things would still
be there, and I was not worried. Hell, I had been there
all summer, a couple times a week, and I had never seen them.
This time, I rode back on my four wheeler. It's a lot
faster than that tractor, and I thought maybe I might need to go fast
just in case. On the way out, I had a few decisions to
make, and I'm I ate every one of them. First, I was
not going to tell anyone what had happened. I figured a few of my
friends laughed at me behind my back with my overbearing wife and all that.
Last, I was going to try to figure out what had whooped my ass
in the dark pines the night before. The first thing I saw was my
chair hung way up in a tree. I think they were mad at the
chair and they threw it up there, or maybe it went up there when
it slapped it off my legs, I don't know. I wrote that chair
off, and I figured out by another one my book was not in the
clearing, but after walking the perimeter, I saw it intact a few feet
in the woods, and I picked it up. I laid it on the
four wheeler. After walking back and forth across the pines that I told you
earlier looked like they were laid out in an organized fashion, and I had
concluded that this must have been a place they bedded down the day before was
the only time I had ever been out there in the dark, so I
figured I had just not been there when they were around. If they had
been around, they didn't reveal themselves, and my theory was that I had
just overstayed my welcome, and when they came up on someone sleeping in their
bed, they had finally gotten pissed off and ran me out so much so
that I would not come back, and they were dead on on their tactic.
There was no way they were going to ever catch me back there at
night again, so I came up with a plan. Most people would never
go back to that place at all. Some people might even sell their whole
property like that and get as far as they could away. But those times
of solitude in those pines was such a good thing for me that I decided
to try to live with them. This month is May in twenty twenty four,
and I've been heading back to my spot to read since the end of
March, and I have had no trouble, probably because I don't stay back
there after dark. He keeps asking in a nasty way, why I keep
buying sacks of apples and plums and sacks of corn at the farmer's market.
What the hell are you doing with all that food? And why don't I
ever see it after we get home? Stuff like that. In my secret
place, I find corn shucks and peach pits lying about in the pine needles.
I leave them treats once a week. A couple of times I've stayed
a little too long, and I hear the little one somewhere off in the
woods making their quiet chatter. I don't mind monsters living on our place.
Maybe they don't mind that I pull up a chair and read a book now
and then in their bedroom. Thank you for tuning in and listening to this
podcast. I appreciate you like you would not believe. I hope you can
join me on another one. There's another one right there on your screen.
Click it if you want to hear more. And with that, I guess
we'll see you guys on the next podcast. Thanks Amelia.