WEBVTT

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I live in the marsh. My
house sits up on the stilts right at

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the edge of where the trees stop
growing and the marsh grasses take over.

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Beyond that is the river. It
isn't a big marsh, maybe only a

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mile or two long. Once the
river bends downstream, the trees move back

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in and come right up to its
banks. But here where I live,

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there's an open marsh, only a
few trees scattered here and there. It

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makes it so that I have to
get into my flat bottomed boat and push

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through the reeds and rushes if I
want to run my trotlines. When the

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rains come in the spring or any
other time of year, of the ice

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jams in the winter, the river
comes right across that marsh a lot deeper

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than it normally would, and it
floods all the way into the woods behind

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my house. For that reason,
I don't keep a vehicle parked here at

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my house. I have a truck, but I keep it over at Miss

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Harrison's house for when I need it. She owns the farm on the other

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side of the woods, and I've
known her all my life, and she

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don't care. She keeps the keys
in case she needs to move it or

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use it for something I don't need
it myself. Very often, when I

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run my trout lines, I generally
head right up on the river to Benson's

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Fish Market to sell what I caught. I don't need a truck for that.

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The market sits right on the river. My boat has a motor that'll

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get me there as long as I
stay close to the bank. I can

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trade fish for gas, and they
provide enough of anything else I need right

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there at the market. And mainly
I buy a powdered creamer for my coffee,

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cigarettes and my favorite candy bars.
I only need the truck when I

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have to go do some real shopping
for other things like coffee and cann goods

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and corn meal and flour and sugar
and lord. It may not seem like

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much of a life for most folks, but it cuts me fine. I

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never was good at making conversation.
Television never interested me much. I got

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a portable radio that I played a
little too often. It keeps me broke

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for having to replace the battery so
often. That's about the only entertainment I

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ever enjoy. No one bothers me
here, and I don't bother nobody it's

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quiet and peaceful. At Thanksgiving and
Christmas, I go to my brother's house

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for dinner, and most of their
kids and grandkids are loud and obnoxious.

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The television plays too loud, and
my sister in law complains too much about

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the way the kids act and how
loud the TV is, which makes me

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wonder why she doesn't just turn it
down and tell those kids to behave I

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have one niece that I like,
though, and she checks in on me

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every now and then. She has
one of those pocket phones that she never

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sits down, and that irritates me. She drives all the way down here

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when she can get through, or
she walks through the woods to get to

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my house, which is a good
hilf a mile, and then rather than

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have a good visit, she sits
out on the porch and whinds and complains

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because she can't get good service.
Well, I tell her all the time

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to leave that blasted phone home when
she comes, but every time she shows

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up she's got it with her.
If she didn't bring me such a healthy

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supply of Snickers bars, I tell
her to stop coming all together. But

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I do like my Snickers bars,
and it does my heart good to know

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that I've got one family member who
cares enough to come all the way out

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here to check on me. A
month ago, Bren, that's my niece,

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was sitting out on the porch watching
something on the screen of her phone,

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and I caught a little bit in
piece of what it was saying.

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It was talking about bigfoot. Now
that's a topic I can talk about all

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day long because I've seen them.
Now, I know better than to tell

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most people about that. They come
down here to my home and throw me

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in the back of one of those
paddy wagons and haul me off to the

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funny farm if I did. But
here was Brn sitting right in front of

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my porch, listening to some feller
tell how he's been chased through the bayou

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by one What is that you're listening
to? I asked her. Well,

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it's a YouTube channel about bigfoot encounters. She said, oh. I answered,

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oh, I know, Uncle don
She said, you don't believe in

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those things, but I do.
I love this channel even if you don't.

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You gotta love these stories. I
studied her for a minute, and

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I wondered if I should tell her
what I knew. I mean, that

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poor girl has to walk through the
woods to get to me. She might

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not want to do that anymore if
I started talking. I had to think

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hard on whether or not I wanted
to give up such a good supply of

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Snickers bars, and finally I decided
that it wouldn't hurt. She said she

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believed, But it's easy to say
that when you don't have any proof one

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way or the other. I never
said I don't believe, I finally said,

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as I looked sideways at her to
gauge her reaction. There's things in

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these woods that people don't know about, like what she asked, in a

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voice that was almost hesitant as mine. I stared out across the marsh,

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to where the river reflected sunlight like
a great, big gold coin on the

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surface. I knew I'd started something, but there was still time to back

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out if I wanted to. But
did I really want to? Uncle,

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don tell me what you know?
I guess I wanted to, because I

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said, I know there's creatures in
these woods. I gestured over my shoulder

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toward the trees on the other side
of the house, and I know that

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sometimes they come here, they try
to get in. I watched her eyes

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open wide and the colored drain out
of her face. Her mouth worked for

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a few seconds, like she wanted
to say something but didn't quite know how.

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I let her stew like that,
half hoping I'd piqued her interests,

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and half hoping I'd scared her into
changing the subject. Are you telling me

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that I walked through sasquatch infested woods
when I come to see you? She

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said, I had to be careful
here. There was a time when the

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answer would have been a straightforward yes. But in the last few years I

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hadn't seen no bigfoot. I still
had something trying to get into the house

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at night. Sometimes when I'd get
back from running my trout lines, there'd

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be signs around the house. But
to say I'd seen bigfoot or anything indicating

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that's what it was any more recently
than five years ago, wellou would be

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a lie. And what I've been
seeing, well, theyre just ain't a

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name for that. I gave myself
time to think about what I was going

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to say next. There was no
point scaring her too bad. Uncle,

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don have you seen any recently?
Now? Not recently? A fool would

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have known that wasn't going to satisfy
her. So when she started in asking

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more questions. I settled back and
smiled the way. She turned off that

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blasted pocket phone and tucked it away, and then I began my tail.

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Now you know your daddy and me
grew up on this place, I said.

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She nodded, well, even when
we was kids, there were things

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around this place. It didn't make
much sense. She got up off the

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wood stump I'd set up on the
porch for a makeshift stool, and she

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came over and sat beside me on
my glider. It squealed a little at

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the added weight before resuming the gentle
back and forth motion that I was gliding

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it through with my feet. We
were twelve before we got our first glimpse

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of those culprits. I continued.
Back in the nineteen fifties, when I

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was a kid, this old cabin
was where we spent our summers. My

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daddy had bought the land for Miss
Harrison's daddy and spent a whole summer building

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it up on stilts to keep it
out of the water. I was seven

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and my brother Steve was ten the
first time we spent the night out here.

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The cabin wasn't quite done yet,
so Daddy found a small rise in

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the marsh grass and set us a
tent up. Being young boys, Stevie

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and me wanted to sleep out under
the stores. The mosquitoes nearly drained us

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dry before we gave up and got
inside the tent with Mom and Dad.

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That must have been around midnight.
By one o'clock, we were ready to

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leave the tent and get into daddy's
nineteen fifty one suburban and go home.

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Thankfully, it was a dry summer, so we'd been able to drive it

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right up to the house. There'd
be plenty of times in the coming decades

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when that was not possible. It
all began when we were awakened by some

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thing hitting the tent. Now this
wasn't little tapping sounds or even something as

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minor as acorns. Whatever was hitting
the tent was the size of baseballs,

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and each hit sounded with a muted
thud as it sent the canvas walls flying

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inward. Every hit brought a cry
of fear from us kids. Daddy kept

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telling us to hush, but there
comes a point when the terror out weighs

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of common sense. We were on
that side of the scale. Mama was

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having a hard time of it.
Too. She kept her hand pressed to

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her mouth to prevent herself from screaming
and pushing us boys over the edge.

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But one look into her eyes,
even inside that dark tent, it was

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obvious that she was as scared as
us, maybe even more. I guess

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I was too young to remember how
the whole night went. But when the

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sun came up, we crawled out
of that tent and we found hedge apples

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all around us on the ground.
Well, Daddy mumbled something about their the

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weren't no hedge trees being anywhere around
us. Mama didn't hesitate. She started

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packing up camp. We ate breakfast
back at the house that morning. Brand

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broke in then and told me that
her daddy had already told her that story

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before, and she never did believe
it. Even if she did, it

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never occurred to her that the camp
he was talking about was my place.

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Now. I could see the questions
forming in her mind as she sat and

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waited for me to tell her more. Yeah, this is the place.

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I guess you never put two and
two together, me living here all these

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years, with your grandparents dying before
you were born. She nodded at me.

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Now I'm going to be flat out
honest with you, After that first

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night in the tent, I never
thought my daddy would ever come back here.

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It was a bit of a surprise
to me and your daddy when we

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moved in for the summer the following
year. That's when I explained to her

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how the camp was close enough to
town that we could live here all summer

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and my daddy could still get up
every month and drive to the mill and

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work. Well. After a few
weeks we got overworrying what might be out

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in those woods, ready to chuck
some more hedge apples at us. The

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kids are that way. Curiosity trump's
common sense every time. Mostly the woods

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behind the house were swamps. Like
I said, between me and the river

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is a marsh. That's a whole
lot of exploring for two little boys to

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do, and by the end of
that first summer we knew every inch of

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it. Over the next few years, we made this area our kingdom,

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and we played cowboys and Indians and
Robinhood and pirates and explorers. We fought

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rattlesnakes and grizzly bears and evil sheriffs
and greedy princes, and captured ships and

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battle lines all around us. Cabin
and not once did we see or hear

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anything that would remind us of that
first night in the tent. It was

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the summer after I turned twelve before
we had anything happen that brought back the

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memories of those hedge apples. We're
far enough south that summer can be miserable,

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being pretty much surrounded by water.
There's always more humidity in the air

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than oxygen, and the mosquito swarm
into the big hole, hordes of vampire

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colonies that sweep you off your feet
and fly away with you to a place

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where they can drink your blood without
having to fight off the big ones.

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For that reason, me and Stevie
always slept on the screened in front porch

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where there was a bit of a
breeze. I still like to sleep out

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there when it gets too hot.
Daddy and Mama had a bed in the

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back room with windows on two walls
to keep them cool at night. It

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must have been early August, and
we knew that our time here and what

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we always called the river House was
running out. In another week or so,

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we'd have to head back to town
and get signed up for school.

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And Stevie was fifteen by then.
He knew he'd be getting his driver's license

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come the end of school year,
so he was looking forward to going back

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and getting started. I didn't see
the rush. If it was up to

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me, we'd live at that river
house year round. But it wasn't up

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to me. I was resigned to
my fate. But I wanted one last

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adventure. So one night, while
we were laying out there on the cots,

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I told Stevie that we should sneak
out of the house and go down

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to the river. Now. I
love my brother. He's always been exactly

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the kind of big brother he should
be. He looked out for me when

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we were kids, and he kept
the bullies off my back. I was

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a scrawny, wiry kid with a
cock eyed walk due to my spine not

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being completely straight. He had a
lot of bullies to chase away. But

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when it came to doing anything risky, it was always me who started it,

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and it was always him who said
we shouldn't ought to do that.

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It wasn't me, So I wasn't
too surprised when he said I should roll

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over and go to sleep, and
he wasn't too surprised when I told him

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I refused to do that. It
took a little coatsing and begging, but

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he finally sat up on his cot
and yanked on his shorts and t shirt.

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I jumped up as soon as he
did, and was already waiting at

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the door by the time he got
his shoes on. He stopped to tie

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his, and I never did.
It was a dry summer, which meant

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we wouldn't need a boat to get
down to the river. There were high

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spots in the marsh, and if
you know the path, and we knew

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it by heart, you could walk
all the way down without too much trouble.

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I stepped in a muck hole once, but I got free without losing

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my shoe, and Stevie turned down
the wrong path right after that, so

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we got a little off track.
But it wasn't long before we were down

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there on the river bank, throwing
rocks in the river and watching the moonlight

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dance off its surface. We're here, Stevie finally said, now, what

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do you want to do? I
hadn't thought that far ahead, and since

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we didn't bring the oat down,
we weren't going to go out in the

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water. But I had a foot
covered in mud and I needed cleaning,

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and it was a hot night.
Let's go skinny dipping. I said,

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you'd have thought Stevie, being the
reasonable one who never took chances, that

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he'd have said no way, But
he didn't. Instead he went to shucking

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off his clothes. I shimmied out
of mine, and we were waste deep

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in river water in no time.
The moon was full enough and reflecting off

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the water enough that we could see
pretty well all around us. The trees

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at the edge of the marsh were
dark, and the marsh grass was high

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and held its secrets, but there
in the water it was almost like daylight.

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We got to playing and splashing and
having a good time until we lost

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track of time, so I don't
know how long we'd been down there when

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the first big splash happened in the
water. Donnie, look over there,

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a big fish jump, Stevie cried. I spun around to look where he

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was pointing, in time to see
another big splash. This time we were

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both looking right at it when it
happened. We knew immediately that it wasn't

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a fish. It was a rock, and someone had thrown it there.

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We both turned and looked back at
the bank, thinking our daddy had got

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up and found us gone. We
knew we were in trouble, but Daddy

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wasn't standing on the bank. There
was no one there. Another big splash

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of water flying up at us when
another rock landed right in front of both

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of us. It must have come
from the bank, but we didn't see

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anyone. I looked over at Stevie
and his eyes were as big as mine.

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We were both remembering another night when
hedge apples was thrown at us.

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I don't mind admitting that I was
a bit scared now, and we could

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see the roof of the cabin from
where we were, but that was no

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comfort. In fact, it was
the opposite. We were painfully aware of

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just how far from home and from
safety that we were. Stevie started moving

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toward the bank, and I thought
he must have been crazy. I wasn't

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about to get close enough to find
out what unseen creature was attacking us.

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We'd gone to the drive in the
weekend before and came to camp for summer

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and seen invisible invaders, And as
far as I was concerned, there was

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a Martian hiding in those reeds and
it was going to catch us and eat

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00:17:26.799 --> 00:17:30.279
us like a catfish. Where are
you going, I screamed, I'm going

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home. Stevie yelled back from the
bank, where he was already grabbing up

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his clothes and shoes. Well.
I took one more look around at the

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black tree line, the deep shadowy
pockets of the marsh, and the narrow

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bank before screaming, wait for me. We started back up the path to

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the house. That it did run. Stevie was older than me, and

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he didn't have to deal with a
crooked spine. It wasn't long before his

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outline vanished into the marsh grass.
And my heart was pounding by then,

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and I felt my legs getting weak, like they didn't want to do what

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I was telling them to do.
Behind me, I heard what sounded like

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a bulldozer tearing through the grass.
Stevie, I screamed, hold on.

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I could still hear my brother somewhere
ahead of me. He was running and

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grunning and maybe even crying, but
I couldn't quite place where he was.

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I could hear what was behind me, too. It was breathing deep and

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making funny mumbling sounds, and I
was having trouble breathing, like the wind

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had been knocked out of me.
Now I opened my mouth to yell from

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my brother again, but the words
would not come. I lost the will

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to fight right about that, and
slowly, as if someone had forgotten to

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wind the clock, I began to
stop running until I was standing still in

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the path, and I dropped my
shoes at my feet. All around me

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I could hear funny, grunting noises. I was surrounded. There was more

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than one. Please don't let it
hurt, I prayed when I accepted that

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00:19:06.440 --> 00:19:11.079
I was about to die. At
that moment, the reeds in front of

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me burst open and Stevie stepped through. He grabbed my arm and jerked me

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forward, and the sounds around us
got louder and closer, but Stevie never

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let go on my arm As he
dragged me back to the house. We

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reached the rise where the tall grasses
died away and Daddy's suburban sat parked in

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the yard, and the loud scream
of the screen door popped and the sound

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echoed across the marsh as we looked
up and saw Daddy come out onto the

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steps with a shotgun in his hand. He fired around into the air and

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we turned to see what he was
shooting at. That was when we saw

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it. It looked like a giant
man with long arms all covered in hair.

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It stopped right at the edge of
the tall grass and looked at me

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and Stevie menacingly, like it wanted
to eat it us. But somehow it

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knew it wasn't gonna win against that
fire stick in my Daddy's hands. Well,

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we stared back at the strange beast. What is that thing? We

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00:20:11.240 --> 00:20:17.240
both said at the same time.
We'd never seen anything like it outside of

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a gorilla we saw once at the
Saint Louis Zoo. But this thing looked

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00:20:21.680 --> 00:20:25.960
more like a man than a gorilla. It wasn't walking bent over on its

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hands. It was standing upright and
walking on two legs. It stared at

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us, and we stared back at
it. Daddy raised his gun again,

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and the damn thing turned around and
disappeared into the grass so fast we couldn't

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rightly tell which direction it went.
Daddy might have seen it from his vantage

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00:20:45.759 --> 00:20:49.000
point, but me and Stevie couldn't
tell. But we could hear other animals

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moving in the grass too. I
was a scrawny kid, so that grass

279
00:20:53.559 --> 00:20:57.960
always seemed taller to me back then. But the truth is, my brother

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was a head take than me.
Even he couldn't see where those things were,

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And later we decided they surely had
to go down on all fours to

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disappear like that. Now, seven
years later I went to the movies and

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I saw that Patterson film. It
was the first time I ever heard the

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word bigfoot that I can remember.
It didn't look quite like what we saw

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that night at the river House,
but it wasn't that far off either,

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And all of that happened here.
Brent asked it, sure did, I

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00:21:32.480 --> 00:21:36.960
answered, Did your daddy ever tell
you that story before? No? She

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00:21:37.160 --> 00:21:41.079
said, I don't guess he ever
would have. We never talked about it

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00:21:41.119 --> 00:21:45.000
again, He and I, Uncle
don Why did you stay here if those

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00:21:45.039 --> 00:21:51.160
things are here? I didn't quite
know how to answer that question. What

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00:21:51.240 --> 00:21:55.160
could I say? Over the years, those things have come right up to

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00:21:55.200 --> 00:21:57.680
the house and banged on it more
times than I care to count. They

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00:21:57.799 --> 00:22:02.319
used to stand on the edge of
the woods sometimes where we could see him,

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But after that first night they never
seemed all that threatening. We had

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00:22:07.599 --> 00:22:11.160
guns on us everywhere we went for
a while. Mama wanted to sell this

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00:22:11.319 --> 00:22:15.079
place, but Daddy insisted this was
his property, and there wasn't no smelly

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00:22:15.160 --> 00:22:21.200
apes gonna chase him out. Once
I got out of school, I started

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spending more and more time here.
Daddy died first, and Mama followed soon

299
00:22:26.279 --> 00:22:30.440
after. Stevie was a career soldier
who didn't marry till late in life,

300
00:22:30.920 --> 00:22:34.599
and I figured once he came home
and got married and started having kids,

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00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:40.200
he'd want a place to bring him. Stevie never wanted anything to do with

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00:22:40.279 --> 00:22:45.720
this place. It became mine by
default. Those things always stayed out in

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00:22:45.720 --> 00:22:48.920
the woods and the marsh grass and
always give him plenty of room. I

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00:22:48.920 --> 00:22:53.720
guess you could say we got used
to each other. For lack of a

305
00:22:53.759 --> 00:22:59.319
good answer, I shrugged my shoulders
and Brin studied the floorboards on the porch

306
00:22:59.400 --> 00:23:03.359
for him, and then looked out
across the marsh to the river. And

307
00:23:03.400 --> 00:23:07.319
then she looked right at me,
and she asked what happened to them?

308
00:23:07.640 --> 00:23:12.680
I didn't understand her question at first. When I sat there staring at her

309
00:23:12.759 --> 00:23:17.599
with a blank look on my face. She said, you said, not

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00:23:17.839 --> 00:23:22.680
lately? Where did they go?
Yeah? I did say that. I

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00:23:22.759 --> 00:23:25.759
leaned my head back, looked up
at the ceiling, wondering if I should

312
00:23:25.799 --> 00:23:30.200
tell her more I was at that
crossroads again where I didn't know if I

313
00:23:30.240 --> 00:23:34.200
wanted to say more or not.
I guess someone should know. These new

314
00:23:34.240 --> 00:23:40.319
things ain't nowhere near as respectful of
boundaries as the Bigfoot were. They come

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00:23:40.359 --> 00:23:42.559
to the house at night, but
they scratch at the screens and claw at

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00:23:42.599 --> 00:23:45.400
the boards in a way that makes
me think they're trying to figure out a

317
00:23:45.480 --> 00:23:49.400
way in, and when they figure
it out, there won't be much I

318
00:23:49.440 --> 00:23:52.519
can do to stop them. They're
not as big as the Bigfoot, but

319
00:23:52.599 --> 00:23:56.400
I think they're a lot meaner.
When I was a kid, there was

320
00:23:56.440 --> 00:24:02.319
a man around town they called Shorty. Fellers always around town like to pick

321
00:24:02.359 --> 00:24:06.240
on him. Well, one day
they cornered him and they were really going

322
00:24:06.319 --> 00:24:10.759
to give him what four There were
five of them and one of Shorty,

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00:24:10.960 --> 00:24:14.880
But when the last punch was thrown, it was Shorty who came out on

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00:24:15.079 --> 00:24:18.960
top. Now, my daddy told
me to learn from that. He said,

325
00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:21.680
it ain't the size of the dog
in the fight, Signe, it's

326
00:24:21.680 --> 00:24:25.799
the size of the fight and the
dog. Well, I think these things

327
00:24:25.880 --> 00:24:30.160
have a lot more fight in them
than those Bigfoot. Ever, did I've

328
00:24:30.200 --> 00:24:33.720
seen them lately? They stand out
at the edge of the trees, and

329
00:24:33.759 --> 00:24:37.359
they watched me with eyes so angry. I can feel their hatred. I

330
00:24:37.440 --> 00:24:41.799
was scared of the Bigfoot when I
was a kid, but I got over

331
00:24:41.880 --> 00:24:45.279
that. I'm scared of these things
now, and I think I always will

332
00:24:45.319 --> 00:24:52.799
be in the end. I looked
at Brent and I said, nobody really

333
00:24:52.839 --> 00:24:57.599
knows. I'm sitting here on my
porch tonight and writing this all out in

334
00:24:57.759 --> 00:25:03.720
my notebook. I hope if someone
finds it, they'll read it and know

335
00:25:03.880 --> 00:25:07.880
what happened to me. I won't
be here to tell em. Those things

336
00:25:07.920 --> 00:25:11.960
are standing out in the grass and
they're watching me, and the sun is

337
00:25:11.039 --> 00:25:15.039
going down, and once it gets
dark, I doubt I'll have much longer

338
00:25:15.119 --> 00:25:19.039
to live. Please God, don't
let it hurt