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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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upone's story, and I liked hearing
every one of them. So it came

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Until I had seen it on the
plat. I had never known anything

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

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I guess, because no one ever
thought it to be important since it had

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

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Like I said, our family didn't
talk a lot about familial ancestors, and

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that is something I regret more and
more the older I get. But finding

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this plat, knowing where my grandfather's
grandfather lived what stirred a real interest in

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me just to go and see if
I could find any ruins that might remain.

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I can't tell you why it had
become important to me, but it

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had. I had driven a jeep
four wheel drive, so the next morning

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I put a few things I thought
might be useful into the back of it,

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and I took off. I loaded
an axe and a shovel and a

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machete, things of that nature.
I didn't know what condition the old place

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might be in, but I imagined
that if there was anything to find still,

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it would almost have to be overgrown. So I drove through some very

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rough terrain for nearly forty five minutes. My papa owned a rather large track

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of real estate, but not as
large as you might be imagining. It

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was just so rough that in many
places I had to creep the jeep along,

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and in several places it would have
probably been faster walking and it was

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driving. But I finally came up
on a stand of trees that didn't look

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like the others that I had passed. These trees looked more organized. That's

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not a great way to say it, but everywhere else trees just seemed to

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grow wherever, but these seemed different. Since it was right about where I

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thought the original home place should be, I stopped and had to look around.

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The trees, for lack of a
better word, formed a perimeter,

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and once you went inside past the
trees, it was more or less hollow.

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That didn't mean that everything was neat
and tidy. It was terribly overgrown

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with bushes and nettles and vines.
But even so there was no way to

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walk forward until a path had been
chewed out. But there weren't any other

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trees, and I was glad.
I had thought to bring a machette,

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

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and chopped and hacked until I took
a swing and the machete blade hit something

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

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blade. I thought I had hit
some sort of boulder. It was a

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rock, all right, but not
a large one. It was a collection

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

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that I had found the chimney to
my great great grandfather's house. But as

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

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the chimney I had found. Instead, I had found the house. My

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papa's grandfather had built his entire house
out of stone, and I had finally

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found it. I cut where I
could, and I inched along until I

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tripped over more rocks, and I
went sprawling into the bushes that obscured any

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and everything from being seen. Now
that I knew the rocks were there,

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I could see them, and I
followed them with my hand and use them

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as a guide. I had my
hands on the front steps of the place.

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I ducked under the vines that were
growing everywhere, and me walked my

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

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

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a thousand scratches, but I was
also very excited, and once I was

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through all the tangle, I could
see that the house was still relatively in

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good condition, at least from the
outside. The trees had protected the bushes

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

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bushes and vines had protected the house
all of these years. There was no

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furniture of any kind on the porch, of course, but I sat down

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on the rock surface, and I
imagined that I was sitting there with my

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ancestor, as he used to sit
there when he was tired, like I

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

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a window. There wasn't any glass
in it, just a wooden sh shutter

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to cover it that could be swung
open to let the air and the light

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in the house. I nudged it
open. I was afraid it would fall

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because of how old the hinges were, but it held. What fell was

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about one thousand half eaten acorns that
some animal had packed ratted away in between

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the window shutter and the house.
Opened the window further, and I looked

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

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

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

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walls completely. But the mantelboard above
the huge stone fireplace sat there in such

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a pristina condition that it could have
just been hung the day before. I

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

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

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

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firmly in place inside the doorway.
I could have kicked at it until it

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gave way or splintered, but I
really didn't want to destroy anything if I

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could help it. And I walked
back over and waded into the piles of

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acorns, and I pulled myself up
into the window with as much care as

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I could. I lowered myself inside, and I had no idea how solid

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the flooring was, and I didn't
want to jump down, only to drive

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

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

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especially under it. I didn't want
to get wedged half in and half out

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of the floor where they could get
it me and I wouldn't be able to

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

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boards of the floor, but all
in all it was fairly solid. Window

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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it would have been special to have
spotted an old watch, and I for

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

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animals that had been dead for one
hundred years, but I sat down on

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the art so that I could take
a last moment to wonder what it had

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been like for my grandfather's grandfather to
have sat in this very room and pass

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the evenings. I didn't know when
or if I would ever get to come

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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so that I could make sure that
it was sitting as it was supposed to

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

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the house itself. In much of
the way that I had found it.

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But when I looked, I saw
one of the stone had been loose.

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It had been intentionally left that way. Instead of seeing dusty and crumbling jake

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leg mortar around the edges of where
the stone would have been firmly seated,

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there was a cast iron rim around
the whole thing. It was only then

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that I noticed that the edges of
the stone had been chiseled away to make

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it more or less rectangular in shape. I quickly picked up the stone and

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set it aside. Dark and completely
lined with iron, was a box.

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The stone had only been the lid
camouflaged as well. I guess this was

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my Paupall's grandfather's version of a say
or a safety deposit box. I was

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a little afraid to reach down inside
the hole. It was as dark as

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the dungeon in there, and I
didn't know that something may or may not

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have made its home in there.
But I shifted around and allowed just a

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little bit more like to fall onto
it, or into it, I suppose

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would be a better way to say
it. I could see that something was

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

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hand down there, I went as
deep as my elbow before I finally felt

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something besides iron sides. I bumped
it and I felt it move, and

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I took a deep breath, and
I pulled out a wooden box, not

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so much larger than a cigar box, a bit deeper and a bit longer,

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but roughly the size of a cigar
box. I wanted to see what,

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if anything was in sight of it
after all these years, but I

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knew that if I did and something
was in there, I would get distracted.

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I sat the box aside and tried
to see if anything else was down

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in the small vault, but I
couldn't see anything. And I retrieved a

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stick from the porch and I began
swishing it and priding it around down in

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the hole, and I felt the
stick hitting and I heard it slap against

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nothing but those iron sides. Whatever
was in the wooden box was going to

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be the prize to take from this
trip. And I replaced the stone and

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made sure that it looked just right, and then I collected the box and

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I went outside again through the window. Now this was my third time doing

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that, and I was glad I
wouldn't be doing it again, and I

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could never have made a career out
of being a cat burglar. Damn windows

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are too hard to crawl in and
out of. But I very much wanted

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to sit down on the stone porch
and see what I held in my hands,

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but I crawled back down the steps
instead. I picked up my machete

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and made my way back out of
the tangle until I could once again see

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the trees. It was easier getting
out compared to what it had been going

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in, but not by much.
I walked to the jeep and I threw

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the machete in the back and planted
myself behind the steering wheel. With the

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wooden box in my life, lap
I kept reminding myself that even if nothing

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was inside of the box but ruined
scraps of something and the skeletal remains of

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insects, the box itself was an
incredible find, especially given how I found

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it, But truthfully, I wanted
to see something amazing inside of it.

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I wasn't even thinking about stacks of
antique money or deeds. No one in

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my family I had ever heard about
had been wealthy, but I wanted there

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to be something. One of the
small nails that was holding the latch onto

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the box had completely rusted away,
so I was careful upon opening it in

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case the lights just fell away.
I didn't want to lose any part of

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my find. The first thing I
saw was a very badly cracked photograph of

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a fairly young man standing behind a
plain looking woman that was wearing a light

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colored dress. It was mounted on
something as thick as cord, but it

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was more rigid. It reminded me
of the photos that you always see in

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the Civil War documentaries. But underneath
the photograph laid a handkerchief that had yellowed

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with age, and when unfolded,
you could see that originally it had been

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white. Someone had embroidered a capital
A onto it in very fine cursive stitching.

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My first thoughts were whose name had
started with the letter A, and

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why was this handkerchief so important to
my ancestor. I turned the photo over

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carefully and saw that it read a
faint script Leander and Amelia Monroe, wedded

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seventh May eighteen ninety three. My
last name is Monroe, and my family's

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mental name is Leander. I was
looking at the only photograph that I was

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aware of of my great great grandparents. I knew this to be a prize

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that I had been hoping I would
find. I thought I knew that,

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but then I saw the sack of
papers laid neatly in the bottom of the

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box. I pulled at the corner
of the first sheet and it broke off

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in my fingertips. I was so
mad that I was going to have to

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wait to find out what was on
the papers, but I couldn't take the

207
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slightest risk of destroying them just to
try to read them. So I put

208
00:16:23.159 --> 00:16:27.000
everything back in the box and I
made myself focused on getting back to my

209
00:16:27.120 --> 00:16:32.600
grandfather's house in one piece, and
once there I could learn what was on

210
00:16:32.679 --> 00:16:37.799
the papers. The way back to
my Pappa's house was rougher than I had

211
00:16:37.879 --> 00:16:41.320
remembered, even though it had only
been a couple of hours, but I

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00:16:41.320 --> 00:16:45.840
finally made it back. The rest
of my family. My parents and my

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00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:49.840
wife were going to come and help
with the clean out. For now,

214
00:16:49.960 --> 00:16:52.799
I was just glad that I had
come for the day or two to work

215
00:16:52.840 --> 00:16:57.120
without them, because it gave me
some time to myself with the contents of

216
00:16:57.159 --> 00:17:03.919
the box. Unless I was taken
completely by surprise by what was inside,

217
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I would tell them all about finding
it. When I saw them, but

218
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for now, whatever was inside was
all mine to spend time with my pau.

219
00:17:14.279 --> 00:17:18.440
Paul had a work bench of sorts
and a spare bedroom of his house.

220
00:17:18.960 --> 00:17:22.200
It's where he used to work on
and tweak all of his fishing gear.

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00:17:22.319 --> 00:17:26.519
On that bench sat one of those
big magnifying lenses with the light bulbs

222
00:17:26.519 --> 00:17:30.799
set in the housing so that everything
you've looked at was very large and bright.

223
00:17:32.759 --> 00:17:37.160
And jewelers used them for watch repairing
such and Paul Paul used his for

224
00:17:37.240 --> 00:17:41.200
tying flies. He used it a
lot during the last twenty years of his

225
00:17:41.319 --> 00:17:47.319
life. I moved all of his
bits and bobs aside so that I could

226
00:17:47.359 --> 00:17:49.880
have a clear and clean place to
look at what was in the box,

227
00:17:51.559 --> 00:17:55.279
and with a lot more care than
earlier, I lifted the papers from the

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box and laid them on the bench
so that I could see them plainly.

229
00:17:59.440 --> 00:18:03.519
There weren't me sheets, but he
had written them pretty full, and the

230
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first page was the hardest one to
read. It seemed that the lower in

231
00:18:07.720 --> 00:18:11.079
the stack you went, the more
sheets were protected somehow, But with the

232
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light and the big lens, it
wasn't so terrible reading what he had written.

233
00:18:17.880 --> 00:18:22.079
He wrote about him taking work Soon
after he and Amelia had married,

234
00:18:22.519 --> 00:18:27.079
they both took jobs. He was
cutting timber to be used in the making

235
00:18:27.119 --> 00:18:32.279
of cross ties for the railroads,
and she was working as a chambermaid.

236
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They were living in Shelby, Montana, after they had gone west from Missouri.

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He said that every time he would
go into town, all anyone wanted

238
00:18:41.440 --> 00:18:47.079
to talk about was where the latest
big gold strike had been found. I

239
00:18:47.119 --> 00:18:49.720
guess Leander got the itch, and
he told Emilia that he was going to

240
00:18:49.759 --> 00:18:55.039
go and give looking for gold to
try. They hadn't been married a year

241
00:18:55.160 --> 00:18:57.039
yet, but he was going to
leave her and see if he couldn't find

242
00:18:57.039 --> 00:19:02.119
a way for them to live without
working them to the bone every six days

243
00:19:02.160 --> 00:19:07.920
out of seven. If Amelia argued
about his leaving, he didn't write that

244
00:19:07.119 --> 00:19:11.960
down. And to the east and
north of Shelby was still where a good

245
00:19:12.000 --> 00:19:18.799
many Blackfoot Indians made their home.
Relations weren't at all that great between them

246
00:19:18.839 --> 00:19:22.240
and white people. But Leander didn't
have anything against any Indian, and he

247
00:19:22.359 --> 00:19:26.440
doubted that he would run into any
anyway, And if he did, surely

248
00:19:26.519 --> 00:19:30.599
they wouldn't have a problem. With
one man out in the woods washing a

249
00:19:30.599 --> 00:19:36.640
few pans of dirt and a creek. He told Amelia that everyone finding some

250
00:19:36.799 --> 00:19:40.400
gold, there wasn't any reason why
a bit of it couldn't be theirs.

251
00:19:41.079 --> 00:19:44.880
And so we gathered a few things
and set out to get rich, and

252
00:19:44.880 --> 00:19:51.119
Amelia stayed behind and she kept working. He traveled until it seemed that he

253
00:19:51.240 --> 00:19:56.200
was walking nearly uphill all the time. That was where he had wanted to

254
00:19:56.240 --> 00:20:00.920
go. He wanted to be close
to the Canadian border, and he traveled

255
00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:03.440
until he had gone two weeks without
seeing another soul, and that was when

256
00:20:03.440 --> 00:20:07.920
he figured he was alone enough,
and he started trying to make his fortune.

257
00:20:08.240 --> 00:20:11.920
He wrote that he had panned and
dug test holes for many days before

258
00:20:11.960 --> 00:20:15.680
he found the first bit of color. After he found that, he began

259
00:20:15.759 --> 00:20:21.240
to see it more and more often, not much, just a few flakes

260
00:20:21.279 --> 00:20:25.079
now and then, and once a
little nugget about the size of a sweet

261
00:20:25.119 --> 00:20:30.160
pea, but mostly dust. He
said that after a month he had almost

262
00:20:30.319 --> 00:20:33.119
enough to fill a thumble, but
the knowledge that gold was out there hadn't

263
00:20:33.200 --> 00:20:38.240
left him, and he kept on
looking all through the remainder of the spring

264
00:20:38.279 --> 00:20:42.319
and through the summer months. He
worked. He said in his writings that

265
00:20:42.359 --> 00:20:47.559
the only time he stopped his search
for gold was when he finally slept or

266
00:20:47.720 --> 00:20:52.599
checked the trap that he had fashioned
for catching fish. He caught some small

267
00:20:52.680 --> 00:20:56.799
animals from time to time in a
steel trap, and he fished the rest

268
00:20:56.799 --> 00:21:00.480
of the time. And that's what
he lived on, sleeping when he had

269
00:21:00.480 --> 00:21:04.000
to, in eating when he could. Everything else was all about finding a

270
00:21:04.039 --> 00:21:07.920
way to give more to his wife
than a future as a maid. He

271
00:21:08.039 --> 00:21:11.200
wanted her to have a life of
ease and to be free from worry.

272
00:21:11.279 --> 00:21:17.880
Once he returned, he wrote that
he had started to notice some frost in

273
00:21:17.920 --> 00:21:21.960
the mornings, and so far he
had been living in a lean to made

274
00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:26.200
from a sheet of canvas that he
had brought. It had worked well enough

275
00:21:26.279 --> 00:21:29.519
during the warm months, but with
fall approaching, he would have to do

276
00:21:29.559 --> 00:21:33.559
it differently or he would have to
return home. There wasn't a way to

277
00:21:33.599 --> 00:21:37.559
survive the coal months with the little
that he had, and he wrote that

278
00:21:37.640 --> 00:21:42.440
even though he desired to see his
dear Amelia again very badly, he dreaded

279
00:21:42.519 --> 00:21:47.880
going back and showing just what a
failure that he had proven himself to be.

280
00:21:48.480 --> 00:21:53.079
He estimated that his accumulated gold to
weigh less than half a pound,

281
00:21:53.720 --> 00:21:59.319
far from enough for his wife to
abandon her work. He wrote that even

282
00:21:59.359 --> 00:22:02.240
when he could see when the ice
formed on the edges of the stream,

283
00:22:02.759 --> 00:22:04.839
he was working, and he was
still trying to find a way to stay

284
00:22:04.880 --> 00:22:10.680
and work until he had made a
success of himself. He was fearful that

285
00:22:10.880 --> 00:22:14.599
if he went back with so little
to show for his efforts, his wife

286
00:22:14.839 --> 00:22:19.720
would think lowly of him, he
wrote, And when he had finally resigned

287
00:22:19.759 --> 00:22:25.599
himself to going back, he packed
up what few belongings he had so that

288
00:22:25.640 --> 00:22:30.480
he could leave. The following morning, he wrote in the saddest words of

289
00:22:30.599 --> 00:22:33.079
how he lay there, regretting his
having to leave, so much so that

290
00:22:33.160 --> 00:22:37.400
he was unable to sleep. And
he wrote that he had laid there and

291
00:22:37.440 --> 00:22:42.200
he heard the sound for the first
time. That he had been in that

292
00:22:42.319 --> 00:22:47.359
place or near it for almost six
months, as far as he could tell,

293
00:22:47.920 --> 00:22:49.960
and he had heard many things,
but he had never heard anything of

294
00:22:51.000 --> 00:22:53.880
the likes of what he had heard. That night. He sat up,

295
00:22:53.920 --> 00:22:59.200
and he listened more intently, and
even crawled outside of his lean to shelter

296
00:22:59.359 --> 00:23:03.160
so that he could hear better.
And it came to him again on the

297
00:23:03.200 --> 00:23:07.279
breezes, and once every three or
four minutes. It would begin as a

298
00:23:07.400 --> 00:23:11.799
rumble, like someone breathing with their
lungs full of the cold, but much

299
00:23:11.960 --> 00:23:15.640
louder, and then it would increase
in volume and pitch until it became a

300
00:23:15.759 --> 00:23:22.319
keening, the kind of keening that
humans can't make. Only animals that are

301
00:23:22.319 --> 00:23:26.519
in pain make those types of sounds. He wrote that he picked up his

302
00:23:26.599 --> 00:23:30.000
knife and his axe, and he
wanted to be able to defend himself if

303
00:23:30.039 --> 00:23:33.480
he needed to, but he was
prepared to put the animal out of its

304
00:23:33.640 --> 00:23:37.920
misery if he found it and saw
that it would be for the best.

305
00:23:37.759 --> 00:23:44.079
But he searched in the darkness for
nearly two hours, walking a few steps

306
00:23:44.079 --> 00:23:48.039
and then listening for the wailing.
The last time he heard it he almost

307
00:23:48.160 --> 00:23:52.920
ran all the way back to his
shelter. The sound had come from only

308
00:23:52.960 --> 00:23:56.640
a few feet away, and in
the darkness caused by the night in trees,

309
00:23:56.960 --> 00:24:00.839
he had brought himself very close to
the animal without even knowing it was

310
00:24:00.920 --> 00:24:06.359
there. He stood trying to know
what he should do next, and he

311
00:24:06.400 --> 00:24:10.400
wrote that he could hear it breathing. He knew he was very close,

312
00:24:10.440 --> 00:24:15.680
and he was very afraid a bear
was what he had been assuming this animal

313
00:24:15.720 --> 00:24:19.559
would be. But when he moved
a branch so he could see what he

314
00:24:19.599 --> 00:24:25.319
saw laying there was nothing resembling a
bear or any other kind of animal he

315
00:24:25.359 --> 00:24:30.759
had ever heard of. It lay
there under the cedar bows, breathing shallowly.

316
00:24:32.559 --> 00:24:36.839
It was looking back at my ancestor
with large eyes filled with fear and

317
00:24:36.920 --> 00:24:41.039
pain. He wrote that if this
thing could have, it would have either

318
00:24:41.119 --> 00:24:45.680
run away or assaulted him, But
it didn't neither because it couldn't. But

319
00:24:45.720 --> 00:24:49.440
he wanted to stand there and simply
marvel at the sheer size of the beast.

320
00:24:49.960 --> 00:24:53.839
But once he saw the wound,
that was where his attentions gathered.

321
00:24:55.680 --> 00:24:59.200
Now this thing lay there half again, as long as any man, and

322
00:24:59.319 --> 00:25:03.559
was covered head with a coarse,
matted hair or fur. And when it

323
00:25:03.599 --> 00:25:07.359
would snarl from the pain, he
could see two massive rows of blunted yellow

324
00:25:07.440 --> 00:25:12.839
teeth surrounded by thick, swollen lips. It was brutish looking, but it

325
00:25:12.920 --> 00:25:18.720
was also helpless. It had thighs
the size of a man's waist, but

326
00:25:18.799 --> 00:25:23.680
a large section of a tree limb
was buried into one of them. Only

327
00:25:23.720 --> 00:25:27.279
a few inches of it was visible, but that part looked as big around

328
00:25:27.319 --> 00:25:33.839
as the handle of a shovel,
and the part that protruded pointed downward towards

329
00:25:33.880 --> 00:25:37.200
the thing's huge and grotesque feet.
He knew part of that limb had been

330
00:25:37.279 --> 00:25:44.279
driven in and also upward into the
thing's thigh. Heaven alone knew how deeply

331
00:25:44.319 --> 00:25:48.160
it went, or what calamity had
befallen this thing for it to have been

332
00:25:48.200 --> 00:25:53.079
injured so terribly, And my grandfather's
grandfather wrote that if this beast was ever

333
00:25:53.119 --> 00:25:57.839
going to walk again, or even
live, that stob had to be removed.

334
00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:03.759
What he didn't know was how the
thing would react if that dog was

335
00:26:03.880 --> 00:26:08.920
touched or pulled on. One swipe
from either of those massive arms could recommand's

336
00:26:08.960 --> 00:26:12.720
neck, and God help the fool
who let his head get caught between both

337
00:26:12.759 --> 00:26:18.559
of those enormous hands. But the
thought of turning around and allowing this creature

338
00:26:18.640 --> 00:26:23.559
to die crossed his mind, but
his conscience would not permit him to do

339
00:26:23.680 --> 00:26:29.000
that. He wrote that he felt
the fool by asking the thing if it

340
00:26:29.039 --> 00:26:32.599
could any way understand him when he
spoke, because he knew that it was

341
00:26:32.640 --> 00:26:37.440
only an animal of some bastardized variety. And the beast snarled and then relaxed

342
00:26:37.440 --> 00:26:42.880
again as the pain overwhelming it once
more. Leander told the beast that he

343
00:26:42.920 --> 00:26:48.000
would return in short order with supplies
to help, and he knew that the

344
00:26:48.000 --> 00:26:52.920
thing did not understand, but he
felt better for leaving the animal with the

345
00:26:52.960 --> 00:26:56.839
knowledge that he would be coming back. He would have preferred taking the thing

346
00:26:56.960 --> 00:27:00.720
to where the shelter was, but
that was out of question, and he

347
00:27:00.799 --> 00:27:07.279
doubted that three men could have budged
the creature. Being as all of his

348
00:27:07.400 --> 00:27:11.880
things had been packed away for what
was to have been his departure, Lander

349
00:27:11.960 --> 00:27:15.319
thought it best just to move the
shelter to the creature. Now that he

350
00:27:15.400 --> 00:27:19.119
knew where the animal was, he
knew that it wasn't so far from the

351
00:27:19.200 --> 00:27:23.559
stream. He had been working for
months to find the creature. He had

352
00:27:23.599 --> 00:27:27.839
walked in a variety of patterns,
and now he walked in a straight line

353
00:27:27.960 --> 00:27:33.640
back for his belongings. Once back, he laid all that he owned off

354
00:27:33.680 --> 00:27:38.359
to the side, and he stared
at the beast. His better two shirts

355
00:27:38.400 --> 00:27:42.480
were in his pack, so he
removed the one from his back and tore

356
00:27:42.519 --> 00:27:48.319
it into a few strips as best
as he could. His eyes never left

357
00:27:48.319 --> 00:27:52.960
the eyes of the beast, who
stared constantly at Leander. It with slow,

358
00:27:52.319 --> 00:27:57.119
easy movements. He eased himself between
the creature's long, thick legs,

359
00:27:57.160 --> 00:28:03.920
and he touched the wound as gently
as he could. The creature howled,

360
00:28:03.319 --> 00:28:08.759
but Leander would not move his hand. The creature eventually calmed, as if

361
00:28:08.799 --> 00:28:14.880
in resignation of what was going to
happen. He had a canteen full of

362
00:28:14.960 --> 00:28:18.359
water, but there wasn't an endless
supply, and he decided washing the wound

363
00:28:18.400 --> 00:28:22.480
beforehand would be a waste, and
he wrote that he patted the thigh of

364
00:28:22.519 --> 00:28:27.759
the uninjured leg until the creature breathed
more easily, and then closed its eyes.

365
00:28:30.559 --> 00:28:34.960
Having no idea if the creature would
gush its life blood and expire or

366
00:28:36.039 --> 00:28:40.079
grabbed, Leander, in a fit
of pain and rage, he began to

367
00:28:40.079 --> 00:28:45.160
pull at the limb that was stabbed
into the thing's thigh. He pulled more

368
00:28:45.240 --> 00:28:48.640
than half a foot of bloody wood
from the leg, with the creature bellowing

369
00:28:48.720 --> 00:28:52.839
and hireling the whole time, but
it never raised a hand in protest.

370
00:28:53.279 --> 00:28:57.319
And when the sty was out,
Leander washed the wound and bound it tightly

371
00:28:57.359 --> 00:29:02.160
with the strips he had made from
his shirt, and he wrote that the

372
00:29:02.160 --> 00:29:04.920
hole should have been sewn clothed,
but he had neither the light nor the

373
00:29:04.960 --> 00:29:10.759
material to do that, And once
he had bandaged the leg, he poured

374
00:29:10.799 --> 00:29:15.200
some of the remaining water into the
thing's mouth for it to drink. And

375
00:29:15.200 --> 00:29:19.079
it was lying very still in an
effort to control the pain, and Leander

376
00:29:19.240 --> 00:29:25.759
took his canvas and spread it over
the creature as a blanket. Fever was

377
00:29:25.799 --> 00:29:29.960
still a threat, and he would
ward it off if he could. Only

378
00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:33.599
when he saw that the animal was
sleeping did he retrieve one of his shirts

379
00:29:33.599 --> 00:29:38.519
and sit back against the tree to
watch over the beast. For four days

380
00:29:38.559 --> 00:29:44.039
he tended to this thing, and
bringing it water to drink, and bringing

381
00:29:44.079 --> 00:29:48.200
it fish to eat when he could
trap one, and cleaning the bandages and

382
00:29:48.240 --> 00:29:53.079
redressing the wound. He did all
of this in silence, and he wrote

383
00:29:53.119 --> 00:29:56.480
that he had tried talking to it
the first day, but that only served

384
00:29:56.480 --> 00:30:02.920
to confuse and enrage the creature.
So each day, when his nursing details

385
00:30:02.920 --> 00:30:07.400
were completed, he would sit and
study the small amount of gold that he

386
00:30:07.440 --> 00:30:11.680
had collected. The thing would lay
there and watch Leander sift the gold from

387
00:30:11.720 --> 00:30:15.680
one palm to the other. And
on the fifth morning, after having found

388
00:30:15.680 --> 00:30:22.680
the creature Leander awoke to find that
this monstrous animal was gone. How anything

389
00:30:22.799 --> 00:30:27.240
that size could move so silently was
a complete wonder. But it had.

390
00:30:29.400 --> 00:30:34.119
But it hadn't just left. It
had left and come back and left again,

391
00:30:34.240 --> 00:30:41.200
all while Leander was totally unaware.
Atop the canvas that had served as

392
00:30:41.200 --> 00:30:45.920
a blanket for the creature were more
than a dozen stones, made up mostly

393
00:30:45.960 --> 00:30:51.559
of gold. Some weren't much larger
than apple's, but a couple were the

394
00:30:51.599 --> 00:30:56.440
size of a man's fist or larger, and when the trash bits had been

395
00:30:56.559 --> 00:31:02.480
cleared, he had more than twenty
pounds of gold. For more than two

396
00:31:02.480 --> 00:31:06.640
hours, Leander searched for the creature, but not even a track could be

397
00:31:06.759 --> 00:31:11.359
found. He assumed that the creature
considered its debt repaid, in further contact

398
00:31:11.519 --> 00:31:18.440
was needless. My grandfather's grandfather began
the journey home feeling quite wealthy in a

399
00:31:18.480 --> 00:31:23.599
way that had nothing to do with
the gold he was carrying. Eventually,

400
00:31:23.759 --> 00:31:30.880
he used his reward for the assistance
to purchase this property in Idaho. I

401
00:31:30.960 --> 00:31:34.640
do not know if Amelia or anyone
else ever heard how Leander came upon the

402
00:31:34.640 --> 00:31:38.880
funds to begin his life here,
but judging by the way it was written,

403
00:31:40.319 --> 00:31:45.440
I have to believe this was something
he kept to himself. I debated

404
00:31:45.480 --> 00:31:48.920
long about sharing this story with you, and I've shown the papers to no

405
00:31:49.000 --> 00:31:53.400
one in my family. They have
seen the photograph and the handkerchief, but

406
00:31:53.519 --> 00:31:59.960
not his words. Those words I
will keep to myself the way I believe

407
00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:02.960
if he kept the story to himself, I was able to go back to

408
00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:07.240
the stone house one more time before
all the work was completed at pau Paul's

409
00:32:07.240 --> 00:32:14.640
place. I wasn't expecting to find
anything additional, and unfortunately I was right.

410
00:32:15.480 --> 00:32:19.119
I found nothing more. Even though
I prodded and jiggled every stone that

411
00:32:19.160 --> 00:32:22.319
I could put my hands on.
I wanted there to be more to the

412
00:32:22.440 --> 00:32:27.519
story. I wanted to hear his
thoughts on what he believed the creature to

413
00:32:27.599 --> 00:32:31.279
be. Now we call them bigfoot. Most of us want to see one,

414
00:32:31.480 --> 00:32:37.720
even if they would be terrified.
At the time. My grandfather's grandfather

415
00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:42.279
did more than see one, and
while he may not have been friends with

416
00:32:42.359 --> 00:32:45.519
one, a partnership had been informed
with one, if only for a short

417
00:32:45.559 --> 00:32:51.720
time. I would have enjoyed hearing
what Leander would have said to those who

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00:32:51.799 --> 00:32:55.880
were certain that no such creature exists. Maybe the very few and rare times

419
00:32:55.880 --> 00:33:00.720
that one is spotted now is because
my grandfather's great grandfather saved the life of

420
00:33:00.839 --> 00:33:07.400
one, and maybe that act of
kindness allowed a species to continue. I

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00:33:07.559 --> 00:33:12.680
like to think about it in that
way. I think Leander would also