Speaker 1: Now one of your putting. I got a string going
Speaker 1: on here. Something just killing my dog. Something killed your dog,
Speaker 1: my dog. We're flying through the or over the tree.
Speaker 1: I don't know how it did it, Okay, damn, And
Speaker 1: I'm really confused. All I saw is my dog coming
Speaker 1: over the fence, and he was dead once you hit
Speaker 1: the ground. Like. I didn't see any cars. All I
Speaker 1: saw was my dog coming over the fence. Say, what
Speaker 1: are you putting? We got some wonder or something crawling
Speaker 1: around out here? Did you see what it was? It was?
Speaker 1: It was seeing enough. I'm out here looking through the
Speaker 1: window now and I don't see anything. I don't want
Speaker 1: to go outside. Jesus quiet, you better hello, get Theboddy
Speaker 1: out here when I'm out there. I thought of a
Speaker 1: mention about ten nine. I don't know eat him out there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm walking write head.
Speaker 2: So I want to talk to you about something a
Speaker 2: little different today, something personal. Actually, a few months ago,
Speaker 2: I had this idea rattling around in my head. You
Speaker 2: know how that goes, an image that won't leave you alone,
Speaker 2: a scene that keeps playing on repeat when you're trying
Speaker 2: to fall asleep. For me, it was this picture of
Speaker 2: a man a history professor standing in his dead father's cabin,
Speaker 2: holding journals that were over two hundred years old, journals
Speaker 2: that described something impossible, something that would change everything he
Speaker 2: thought he knew about the world. And I thought to myself,
Speaker 2: what if I tried to write that story?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: Look, I've been researching Bigfoot for almost forty years. I've
Speaker 2: interviewed close to a thousand witnesses. I've heard stories that
Speaker 2: would make your hair stand on end. But other than
Speaker 2: my second book, Born Wild Coda's Odyssey, I'd never really
Speaker 2: tried my hand at fiction before. So I sat down
Speaker 2: and started writing. What happened next surprised me. The story
Speaker 2: just kept growing. What started as maybe a short piece
Speaker 2: turned into something much bigger. The character started talking to me.
Speaker 2: Elijah Stone, this revolutionary war veteran leading an expedition into
Speaker 2: the unknown, Marcus Stone, his descendant, discovering the family secret
Speaker 2: two centuries later. The creatures themselves ancient, watching patient in
Speaker 2: ways we can't begin to understand. Before I knew it,
Speaker 2: I had a five part series on my hands. I
Speaker 2: posted part one over here last week. If you haven't
Speaker 2: heard it yet, I'd recommend going back and starting there.
Speaker 2: But today We're continuing with part two, and let me
Speaker 2: tell you things are about to get intense. The expedition
Speaker 2: has crossed into forbidden territory. Now they've made first contact.
Speaker 2: They've established this fragile piece through gift exchanges. But one
Speaker 2: of them is about to make a terrible mistake, a
Speaker 2: mistake born out of fear, and fear has consequences in
Speaker 2: these mountains. As we approach the holidays, I've got something
Speaker 2: special planned for you, guys. I'm rolling out several bonus
Speaker 2: episodes over the next few weeks. All five parts of
Speaker 2: the Bigfoot Journal series will be available. Think of it
Speaker 2: as my gift to you for sticking with me all year.
Speaker 2: Now here's where I need your help. This story has
Speaker 2: grown into something I believe might make a great book,
Speaker 2: but I might be a little biased, so I would
Speaker 2: really love your feedback. What do you think about the story?
Speaker 2: Does it work? Does it pull you in? Are there
Speaker 2: parts that drag or parts you want more of? You
Speaker 2: can email me directly at Brian at Paranormalworldproductions dot com,
Speaker 2: or even better, click the link right here in the
Speaker 2: show notes to leave me a voicemail. Tell me what
Speaker 2: you think, tell me what's working. Tell me what isn't.
Speaker 2: I may even play some of those voicemails during future episodes.
Speaker 2: I mean that I want to hear from you. Your
Speaker 2: feedback matters. All right, Enough talking, Let's get back to
Speaker 2: seventeen ninety nine, Back to the mountains, Back to Elijah
Speaker 2: Stone and his men. They've just received forgiveness from the
Speaker 2: creatures after Jim's terrible mistake. But forgiveness doesn't mean safety,
Speaker 2: and the expedition is about to split in two. Some
Speaker 2: will turn back, some will press forward. Not all of
Speaker 2: them will survive what comes next. This is the Bigfoot Journals,
Speaker 2: Part two, April eighth to fifteenth, seventeen ninety nine. Lenapee Territory.
Speaker 2: They came out of the forest like ghosts. One moment,
Speaker 2: we were alone on the trail, the horses plodding through
Speaker 2: morning missed. The next moment, seven lenape hunters surrounded us,
Speaker 2: their faces painted for war, their weapons raised. The horses spooked.
Speaker 2: Jim's mayor nearly threw him, and Zeke skilled reared so
Speaker 2: violently that my nephew had to grab the saddle horn
Speaker 2: with both hands to stay mounted. Only Sam seemed unsurprised,
Speaker 2: his hands raised and empty his voice, calling out in
Speaker 2: a language I didn't recognize. Henry stepped forward, adding his
Speaker 2: own words and yet another tongue. The lead hunter, a
Speaker 2: man of perhaps thirty with scars that spoke of battles survived,
Speaker 2: responded sharply, his hand on the knife at his belt.
Speaker 2: He wants to know why we're here. Henri translated. He says,
Speaker 2: white men always bring harm, whether they mean to or not.
Speaker 2: Tell him we mean no harm to his people. I said,
Speaker 2: we seek only the macing. Henre hesitated. Captain, tell him,
Speaker 2: Henri spoke. The effect was immediate. The hunters exchanged glances,
Speaker 2: and I saw several of them make signs against evil.
Speaker 2: The lead hunter, whose name Henri told me later, was
Speaker 2: Hunting Bear, step back, his hand moving from his knife
Speaker 2: to the medicine pouch at his chest. You are fools,
Speaker 2: Honri translated. He says, to turn back while we still can.
Speaker 2: We cannot turn back. More rapid exchange, Hunting Bear's face
Speaker 2: shifted through expressions I couldn't read anger, fear, something that
Speaker 2: might have been respect. Finally, he lowered his weapon and
Speaker 2: spoke at length. He will take us to their village.
Speaker 2: Henry said, to speak with the elders. He says, if
Speaker 2: we are determined to die, we should at least understand
Speaker 2: what will kill us. We followed them through the forest
Speaker 2: for half a day, climbing into territory that grew wilder
Speaker 2: with every mile. The Lenape hunters moved through the trees
Speaker 2: like shadows, appearing and disappearing in ways that made me
Speaker 2: question whether they were entirely real. The village was smaller
Speaker 2: than I expected, perhaps fifty people in all, living in
Speaker 2: long houses arranged around a central fire pit. Women and
Speaker 2: children watched us pass with expressions of curiosity and suspicion.
Speaker 2: Men sat smoking pipes, their eyes tracking our movements with
Speaker 2: the patients of those who have seen everything. Hunting Bear
Speaker 2: led us to the largest longhouse, speaking briefly with a
Speaker 2: young woman at the entrance before gesturing for us to
Speaker 2: follow him inside. The interior was dim and smoky, lit
Speaker 2: only by a small fire burning in a pit near
Speaker 2: the center. Animal skins covered the walls, and the smell
Speaker 2: of tobacco hung heavy in the air. At the far end,
Speaker 2: seated on a raised platform covered in furs, sat the
Speaker 2: oldest human being I had ever seen, Gray Owl. They
Speaker 2: called him a man of such advanced age that his
Speaker 2: face had collapsed into a map of wrinkles, his eyes
Speaker 2: clouded by cataracts that should have rendered him blind. But
Speaker 2: when he looked at us, when he looked at me,
Speaker 2: I felt seen in a way that defied explanation. He spoke,
Speaker 2: and on retranslated he says he knows why we've come.
Speaker 2: He has been waiting for men like us for many years.
Speaker 2: Reading I asked, hoping we would not come, knowing we would,
Speaker 2: The old man gestured for us to sit. We arranged
Speaker 2: ourselves on the packed earth floor, uncomfortable and out of place,
Speaker 2: while Gray Owl studied each of us in turn. His
Speaker 2: gaze lingered longest on Sam, and something passed between them,
Speaker 2: recognition perhaps, or understanding. Then he began to speak. What
Speaker 2: followed was the most remarkable conversation of my life, and
Speaker 2: retranslated as best he could, though he admitted afterward that
Speaker 2: some concepts had no equivalent in English. I will record
Speaker 2: here what I understood, knowing that much was lost in
Speaker 2: the transition from one language to another. The messing gray
Speaker 2: Owl told us were not what we thought, not spirits,
Speaker 2: not gods, not demons. They were simply old, unimaginably old.
Speaker 2: They were here before us On retranslated. They were here
Speaker 2: before the first people crossed into this land. They watched
Speaker 2: us come, they will watch us go. Are they animals,
Speaker 2: Thomas asked. Gray Owl's laugh was dry and papery, like
Speaker 2: leaves rustling in autumn wind. Are we animals? We eat,
Speaker 2: we sleep, we mate, we die. But we are more
Speaker 2: than animals. So are they? Then? What are they? The
Speaker 2: first people? The elder brothers, they walked the forests when
Speaker 2: the forests were young. They remember when the great ice
Speaker 2: covered the land. They remember what came before I leaned forward.
Speaker 2: Have your people fought them? We've heard stories of war.
Speaker 2: The old man's expression darkened. He spoke for a long time,
Speaker 2: his voice dropping to a whisper. And I saw some
Speaker 2: of the hunters at the edges of the room make
Speaker 2: signs against evil. There was war on retranslated slowly generations ago.
Speaker 2: My grandfather's grandfather fought in it. Many warriors went into
Speaker 2: the high places to drive out the macing. Most did
Speaker 2: not return what happened to them. Some were killed, some
Speaker 2: were taken, some came back changed. They would not speak
Speaker 2: of what they saw. They lived apart from the village,
Speaker 2: and when they died. Their bodies were burned so that
Speaker 2: whatever touched them could not spread what touched them, Josiah asked.
Speaker 2: Gray Owl looked at the former reverend for a long
Speaker 2: moment before responding, understanding. Henry translated. They came to understand
Speaker 2: the macing, and that understanding broke them. The fire crackled
Speaker 2: in the silence that followed. Outside, I could hear children playing,
Speaker 2: women singing, the ordinary sounds of village life. But inside
Speaker 2: this smoky longhouse, nothing felt ordinary anymore. Why did they hide,
Speaker 2: I asked, If they're as powerful as you say, why
Speaker 2: have they retreated into the deep wilderness. They have not retreated.
Speaker 2: They have allowed us to spread. There is a difference.
Speaker 2: But why Gray owl, milky eyes seem to look through me,
Speaker 2: into me, beyond me. Because they are patient, because they
Speaker 2: have seen people's rise and fall for longer than we
Speaker 2: can imagine. Because they know that this, he gestured broadly,
Speaker 2: encompassing the village, the forest, the world is temporary. We
Speaker 2: are temporary. They are not. He reached into the firs
Speaker 2: beside him and produced something small and dark, a stone
Speaker 2: pendant carved with symbols I didn't recognize. He held it
Speaker 2: out to me. Take this on retranslated, wear it where
Speaker 2: they can see it if they find you. When they
Speaker 2: find you, show them this. It may buy you time,
Speaker 2: time for what to decide if you're worthy of continued life.
Speaker 2: I took the pendant. The stone was cool and smooth,
Speaker 2: heavier than it should have been for its size. The
Speaker 2: symbols seem to shift in the firelight, though that might
Speaker 2: have been my imagination. What do these symbols mean? They
Speaker 2: mean that you are known to us, that you have
Speaker 2: been warned, that you have chosen to enter their territory
Speaker 2: despite the warnings. Gray Owl's lips twisted into something that
Speaker 2: wasn't quite a smile. They may respect that, or they
Speaker 2: may not. With the messing you, one never knows. I
Speaker 2: slipped the cord over my head and felt the pendant
Speaker 2: settle against my chest. It was warm, now, warm, like
Speaker 2: a living thing. They've been watching us, I said, since
Speaker 2: we entered the mountains, the footprints, the structures, the sounds
Speaker 2: at night. Yes, what do they want to know? What
Speaker 2: you are? To decide what you will become? Gray Owl
Speaker 2: leaned forward, his ancient face, suddenly fierce. You are being tested, soldier,
Speaker 2: every step you take, every choice you make. They are watching, learning, judging,
Speaker 2: judging what, whether you are worthy, worthy of what. The
Speaker 2: gray owl had sunk back into his furs, his eyes closing.
Speaker 2: The audience clearly over. Hunting bear appeared at my elbow,
Speaker 2: gesturing toward the exit. We left the village at dawn
Speaker 2: the next morning. The lenape watched us go with expressions
Speaker 2: I couldn't read, pity perhaps, or the grim acceptance of
Speaker 2: those who know their watching dead men walk. As we
Speaker 2: mounted our horses, gray Owl appeared at the edge of
Speaker 2: the trees. He raised one hand in a gesture that
Speaker 2: might have been farewell or might have been warning. Then,
Speaker 2: from somewhere deep in the forest, a wood knock echoed
Speaker 2: three times, just like every night before. Gray Owl smiled.
Speaker 2: They're listening, he said, and these words needed no translation.
Speaker 2: They know what you seek. They have marked you now,
Speaker 2: for good or ill you are marked. We rode out
Speaker 2: of the village and back into the wilderness, and behind us,
Speaker 2: following at a distance we could feel, but not see,
Speaker 2: something watched us go. Marcus set down the journal and
Speaker 2: walked to the window again. The sun was setting over
Speaker 2: the mountains, painting the sky and shades of orange and red,
Speaker 2: beautiful terrifying, the same mountains his ancestor had ridden into
Speaker 2: two hundred years ago, seeking answers to questions that haunted him,
Speaker 2: The same mountains his father had walked into again and
Speaker 2: again year after year. What had his father found out there?
Speaker 2: Marcus touched his chest, feeling for something that wasn't there.
Speaker 2: Then he remembered the pendant, the one from the trunk.
Speaker 2: He'd set it aside when he started reading, focused on
Speaker 2: the journals themselves. He went back to the table and
Speaker 2: found it among the other artifacts. The stone was dark
Speaker 2: and smooth, carved with symbols that matched Gray Owl's description.
Speaker 2: When he picked it up, it felt warm. He slipped
Speaker 2: the cord over his head, the pendant settled against his chest,
Speaker 2: and for just a moment, a fraction of a second,
Speaker 2: he could have sworn he heard something in the forest
Speaker 2: outside a knock three times and stay tuned for more
Speaker 2: sasquat yatta see, we'll be right back after these messages.
Speaker 2: But when he went to the window and listened, there
Speaker 2: was nothing, just wind in the trees and the last
Speaker 2: light of day fading from the sky. He went back
Speaker 2: to his father's chair and picked up the next journal.
Speaker 2: April fifteenth to twenty eighth seventeen ninety nine, deep in
Speaker 2: the mountains. Two weeks of hell. That's the only way
Speaker 2: I can describe what followed our meeting with the Lenape.
Speaker 2: Two weeks of constant surveillance, nocturnal terrors, and psychological warfare
Speaker 2: that shredded our nerves and tested our sanity. The forest
Speaker 2: changed around us, older trees, denser canopy, perpetual twilight even
Speaker 2: at noon, the sun a distant memory above, layers of
Speaker 2: leaves so thick that rain took hours to filter through
Speaker 2: to the ground. The silence was profound, not peaceful, but oppressive.
Speaker 2: Our own breathing seemed too loud, our own heart beats
Speaker 2: seemed like violations. And everywhere, always the feeling of being watched.
Speaker 2: Eyes in the darkness, something moving at the edge of vision.
Speaker 2: Turn to look and find nothing there. Turn away and
Speaker 2: feel them again, pressing against the back of your skull
Speaker 2: like fingers. The men dealt with it in different ways.
Speaker 2: Jim grew more aggressive, his hand never far from his rifle,
Speaker 2: his eyes scanning the trees constantly. He snapped at small
Speaker 2: provocations and argued with Thomas over nothing. The war had
Speaker 2: trained him to respond to threats with violence, and the
Speaker 2: formless menace surrounding us gave him no target. Thomas retreated
Speaker 2: into his scientific documentation, filling notebook after notebook with observations
Speaker 2: and measurements and theories. His earlier arrogance had given way
Speaker 2: to something like desperation, a need to categorize, to explain,
Speaker 2: to force the unknown into frameworks he could understand. His
Speaker 2: hands shook when he wrote, and his voice cracked when
Speaker 2: he spoke. Will Harper's behavior disturbed me most. He'd always
Speaker 2: been peculiar, but now he seemed to be drifting into
Speaker 2: another world entirely. He sketched constantly, filling page after page
Speaker 2: with images he wouldn't show anyone. He stared at the
Speaker 2: forest with an expression that wasn't quite fear. It was
Speaker 2: more like hunger, like recognition. They're showing me things, he
Speaker 2: said one night, when I found him sitting apart from
Speaker 2: the fire, his sketchbook opened on his knees. When I
Speaker 2: closed my eyes, I can see them, see what faces, places,
Speaker 2: Things that were here before his eyes when they met
Speaker 2: mine were too bright, too intense. They want me to understand, Captain,
Speaker 2: they want me to see. I didn't know what to
Speaker 2: say to that. I still don't. Josiah prayed constantly, his
Speaker 2: lips moved without sound, the words of scrip or supplication
Speaker 2: running through his mind like water through a channel. I
Speaker 2: don't know if it brought him comfort. I don't think
Speaker 2: he knew either. Solomon carved small wooden figures, faces and
Speaker 2: shapes emerging from the wood under his skilled hands. Some
Speaker 2: were human, others were not. He wouldn't explain what he
Speaker 2: was doing, just kept working, the shavings falling around his
Speaker 2: feet like offerings. Sam watched. That's all he did. He
Speaker 2: stood at the perimeter of our camps and watched the
Speaker 2: forest with an expression I couldn't read. Sometimes I thought
Speaker 2: I saw him nod, as if in response to something
Speaker 2: no one else could hear. And every night the terrors came.
Speaker 2: The knocking started around midnight, always midnight, as if the
Speaker 2: creatures had a sense of time. It began slow, one knock,
Speaker 2: then another, then a third, then built in frequency and intensity,
Speaker 2: until the forest rang with the sound of wood on wood,
Speaker 2: like war drums, like the heartbeat of something vast and terrible.
Speaker 2: Then the howls. I have heard wolves, I have heard
Speaker 2: mountain lions, I have heard the screams of men dying
Speaker 2: on battlefields in ways that should not be possible. None
Speaker 2: of it prepared me for the howls that echoed through
Speaker 2: those mountains. They started low, a rumbling that seemed to
Speaker 2: come from the earth itself. Then they rose, climbing through
Speaker 2: registers that shouldn't exist, reaching into the skull and touching
Speaker 2: something primal, something that remembered being prey. The first few nights,
Speaker 2: we built the fires high and clutched our weapons and
Speaker 2: waited for attacks that never came. By the end of
Speaker 2: the first week, we had learned to simply endure. The
Speaker 2: attacks weren't coming. The creatures didn't need to attack. They
Speaker 2: were breaking us by other means. Physical evidence of their
Speaker 2: presence accumulated around us. Rocks thrown into our camps at night,
Speaker 2: landing with enough force to shatter cooking pots, Branches torn
Speaker 2: from trees and scattered like warnings. Equipment moved examined while
Speaker 2: we slept. Once I woke to find enormous footprints in
Speaker 2: the soft earth, not three feet from where my head
Speaker 2: had rested. Something had stood over me while I slept watching. Deciding,
Speaker 2: I touched the pennon at my chest. It was warm,
Speaker 2: the smell came next, a musk unlike anything I had encountered,
Speaker 2: wild and earthy and somehow wrong. It preceded their approaches,
Speaker 2: warning us they were near. We came to dread that smell.
Speaker 2: Though there were nights I was almost grateful for it.
Speaker 2: At least it told us when they were close. On
Speaker 2: the fifteenth day, they killed one of our horses. The
Speaker 2: animal broke free, and the chaos of a particularly intense night,
Speaker 2: the knocking reaching a crescendo, howls coming from every direction.
Speaker 2: We heard it scream. Horses scream, you know, when they're
Speaker 2: terrified enough, when they know they're about to die. The
Speaker 2: sound is almost human. Then silence. We found what remained
Speaker 2: in the morning. I will not describe it in detail.
Speaker 2: The nightmares are vivid enough. Without committing the images to paper,
Speaker 2: I will say only this, The destruction required strength beyond
Speaker 2: anything human, beyond anything I had thought possible. The horse
Speaker 2: had been torn apart, not eaten or not entirely eaten,
Speaker 2: torn apart, as if in anger, as if in demonstration.
Speaker 2: They're showing us what they can do, Sam said, looking
Speaker 2: at the remains with an expression of grim recognition. They
Speaker 2: want us to understand Thomas examined the scene with trembling hands,
Speaker 2: his scientific detachment crumbling. These wounds weren't made by any
Speaker 2: animal I can classify, he said. The sheer force required
Speaker 2: this was done by hands, enormous hands, not hands, Solomon said, quietly,
Speaker 2: not like ours? Then what? Solomon didn't answer. He just
Speaker 2: looked at the small wooden figure he'd been carving, a
Speaker 2: figure with long arms and broad shoulders and a face
Speaker 2: that was almost human but not quite. We buried what
Speaker 2: we could of the horse. It seemed disrespectful to leave
Speaker 2: it there, though I couldn't have explained who we were,
Speaker 2: showing respect to the animal, the creatures that killed it,
Speaker 2: our own sense of decency. Praying at the edges that night,
Speaker 2: the knocking was quieter, almost gentle, as if they were
Speaker 2: waiting to see how we would respond. We didn't respond.
Speaker 2: We sat around our fire and stared into the flames
Speaker 2: and tried not to think about what would happen when
Speaker 2: the creatures decided to stop playing with us. Because that's
Speaker 2: what it was, play a cat with a mouse, a
Speaker 2: child with an insect. They could kill us anytime they wanted,
Speaker 2: They demonstrated that, but they weren't killing us why they're deciding,
Speaker 2: Sam said, as if reading my thoughts, watching to see
Speaker 2: what we'll do, what we're made of? What should we do?
Speaker 2: Nothing voice was flat certain. We keep moving. We show
Speaker 2: them we're not afraid, even though we are. We demonstrate
Speaker 2: that we're worth the trouble of keeping alive. And if
Speaker 2: we failed that test. Sam looked at the darkness beyond
Speaker 2: our fire. Somewhere out there, something was watching us, something
Speaker 2: ancient and patient and utterly alien. Then we won't have
Speaker 2: to worry about anything anymore. Marcus closed his eyes and
Speaker 2: leaned back in the chair. His body was exhausted. He'd
Speaker 2: been reading for how long now three days? Four? Time
Speaker 2: had lost meaning in his father's cabin, the hours bleeding
Speaker 2: together in a haze of ancient words and mounting dread.
Speaker 2: But his mind wouldn't stop, couldn't stop. The narrative had
Speaker 2: taken hold of him like a fever, filling his thoughts
Speaker 2: with images of vast forests and watching eyes and creatures
Speaker 2: that existed at the edge of human comprehension. He thought
Speaker 2: about his own life, his comfortable career, his reasonable apartment
Speaker 2: in Chicago, his sensible routine of lectures and research, and
Speaker 2: the occasional dinner party with colleagues who discussed history like
Speaker 2: it was something dead and distant. All of that seemed
Speaker 2: impossibly far away. Now another life, another person. Here in
Speaker 2: his father's cabin, surrounded by his ancestors' words, Marcus was
Speaker 2: becoming someone else, someone who understood why his father had
Speaker 2: spent his life watching the mountains, someone who felt the
Speaker 2: weight of inherited responsibility settling onto his shoulders. He opened
Speaker 2: his eyes and looked at the remaining journals for more,
Speaker 2: and the letters, and the portfolio of drawings and whatever
Speaker 2: was in that small carved box he hadn't opened yet.
Speaker 2: How much worse was it going to get? He already
Speaker 2: knew the answer. He'd read enough accounts of expeditions gone wrong,
Speaker 2: the Franklin Expedition, the Donner Party, the countless disasters that
Speaker 2: littered the history of American expansion. He knew how these
Speaker 2: stories a ended with death, with horror, with knowledge that
Speaker 2: no one should have. But he kept reading because he
Speaker 2: needed to know, because his father had needed him to know,
Speaker 2: Because some burdens, once accepted, can never be set down.
Speaker 2: He picked up the next journal and turned to the
Speaker 2: first page. April twenty eighth, through May tenth, seventeen ninety nine,
Speaker 2: Shawnee Territory. We descended from the high mountains into the
Speaker 2: Ohio Valley, and the world changed around us. The oppressive
Speaker 2: forest gave way to rolling hills and river bottoms. The
Speaker 2: air grew warmer, heavier, thick with the smell of spring growth.
Speaker 2: Birds sang again, cardinals and thrushes and mocking birds. Sounds
Speaker 2: so normal they seemed almost alien after weeks of terrible silence.
Speaker 2: But we knew better than to relax. The creatures were
Speaker 2: still out there. We could feel them watching, even in
Speaker 2: this gentler country. They'd followed us down from the mountains,
Speaker 2: or perhaps they'd been here all along and we simply
Speaker 2: hadn't noticed them before. Henry navigated us into Shawnee Territory,
Speaker 2: his knowledge of the region proving invaluable. The Shawnee had
Speaker 2: no love for Americans. Treaties had been broken, promises betrayed,
Speaker 2: land stolen in ways that bred legitimate grievance. I did
Speaker 2: not expect a warm welcome. I received worse than I expected.
Speaker 2: The warriors who found us were young and angry, their
Speaker 2: faces painted in patterns I didn't recognize. They surrounded us
Speaker 2: without warning, appearing from the underbrush like the hunters they were.
Speaker 2: Their weapons were a mix of traditional and modern tomahawks
Speaker 2: and muskets, bows and rifles, but their intent was unmistakable.
Speaker 2: We were trespassers, and trespassers in Shawnee country often didn't leave.
Speaker 2: Henry spoke quickly, his hands raised, his voice carrying tones
Speaker 2: of respect and urgency. The warriors listened without lowering their weapons.
Speaker 2: One of them, a man with scars running down the
Speaker 2: left side of his face, stepped forward and spoke in
Speaker 2: rapid Shawnee. He wants to know who sent us on, retranslated,
Speaker 2: and why we travel with the dead. The dead, that's
Speaker 2: what he said. He says, we smell like the dead.
Speaker 2: I didn't know how to respond to that, but before
Speaker 2: I could speak, Sam urged his horse forward. Tell him
Speaker 2: we seek the old enemies, he said. Tell him we
Speaker 2: know what lurks in the high places. Tell him we've
Speaker 2: been marked on. Rehesitated, then translated. The effect was immediate.
Speaker 2: The scarred warrior's face went pale beneath his paint. He
Speaker 2: stepped back, making a gesture I'd seen before among the lenape,
Speaker 2: a sign against evil. Then he spoke rapidly to his companions,
Speaker 2: and suddenly their weapons were lowering, their postures, shifting from
Speaker 2: threat to something more complex fear. They were afraid of
Speaker 2: us or of what we carried with us. They'll take
Speaker 2: us to their chief, Henri said to Cornstalk's son. I
Speaker 2: knew that name. Cornstalk had been a great Shawnee leader,
Speaker 2: murdered by American soldiers while under a flag of truce.
Speaker 2: His son, who had taken his father's name and honor,
Speaker 2: was said to be even more formidable and far more
Speaker 2: hostile to Americans. We followed the warriors through the valley
Speaker 2: for three days. They didn't speak to us, They barely
Speaker 2: looked at us, but I noticed them watching the forest
Speaker 2: around us with expressions of barely suppressed terror. They knew
Speaker 2: what followed us, and they wanted nothing to do with it.
Speaker 2: Cornstalk's son received us in his village, a substantial settlement
Speaker 2: on the banks of a river. I didn't recognize. He
Speaker 2: was younger than I expected, perhaps forty, with the bearing
Speaker 2: of a warrior and the eyes of a man who
Speaker 2: had seen too much. He looked at each of us
Speaker 2: in turn, his gaze lingering on the pendant around my neck.
Speaker 2: Then he spoke, you are fools. Henre translated. He says
Speaker 2: that entering the territory of the old enemies is not
Speaker 2: bravery but suicide. We have no choice, I replied, We
Speaker 2: must understand what they are. Cornstalk's son laughed. It was
Speaker 2: not a pleasant sound. You think you can understand them.
Speaker 2: My grandfather's grandfathers fought a war with the wild people.
Speaker 2: Generations of warriors went into the mountains to drive them out.
Speaker 2: Most did not return. What happened to them. Some were
Speaker 2: killed in ways that warriors should never be killed. Some
Speaker 2: were taken. We do not know where or why. Some
Speaker 2: came back, but they were no longer warriors. They were
Speaker 2: broken things that wore the shapes of men. He rose
Speaker 2: from his seat and walked to the edge of the fire.
Speaker 2: The war lasted longer than anyone can remember. Both sides bled,
Speaker 2: both sides learned, and in the end we made an agreement,
Speaker 2: not peace. They do not know peace as we understand it.
Speaker 2: They stay in the high places. We stay in the valleys.
Speaker 2: Neither crosses into the other the's territory, and stay tuned
Speaker 2: for more Sasquatch ot to see. We'll be right back
Speaker 2: after these messages. But We've already crossed, I said, yes,
Speaker 2: and they have noticed. He turned to face us, his
Speaker 2: expression grim. When you cross that boundary, you invited consequences,
Speaker 2: not just for yourselves, but for all humans. The Old
Speaker 2: Enemies do not distinguish between tribes. A human is a
Speaker 2: human to them, pray or competition or curiosity. But never
Speaker 2: can we mean them no harm. That does not matter.
Speaker 2: You have entered their home. You have seen what should
Speaker 2: not be seen. They will decide what to do with you,
Speaker 2: and their decisions are not our decisions. I thought about
Speaker 2: the horse, the way it had been torn apart, the
Speaker 2: demonstration of power that served no purpose except intimidation. They've
Speaker 2: been testing us, I said, watching, evaluating. Yes, what are
Speaker 2: they looking for? Cornstalk's sun was silent for a long moment.
Speaker 2: When he spoke again, his voice was softer, almost regretful.
Speaker 2: My grandmother told me a story. Once a warrior from
Speaker 2: our village went into the mountains long ago, seeking the
Speaker 2: old Enemies. He wanted to prove his courage to earn
Speaker 2: glory by facing the unfaceable. He was gone for a
Speaker 2: full turn of the moon. When he returned, he was changed.
Speaker 2: His hair had gone white, and his eyes were different, older, deeper,
Speaker 2: as if he had seen ages pass in those weeks.
Speaker 2: He said, the old enemies had shown him things, the
Speaker 2: world before humans, the world after humans, the world as
Speaker 2: it truly is beneath the skin of what we see.
Speaker 2: He said they had judged him worthy of that knowledge,
Speaker 2: and that knowledge had nearly destroyed him. What happened to
Speaker 2: him He lived another forty years, never took a wife,
Speaker 2: never joined another war party, never left the village. He
Speaker 2: spent his days sitting by the fire, staring at nothing.
Speaker 2: When he died, his last words were, they are still watching.
Speaker 2: They will always be watching. The fire crackled between us. Outside.
Speaker 2: I could hear the sounds of village life, children playing, women, cooking,
Speaker 2: dogs barking, normal sounds, human sounds, but underneath them, barely audible.
Speaker 2: I could hear something else, wood knocking three times, far
Speaker 2: away but unmistakable. Cornstalk's son heard it too. His face tightened.
Speaker 2: They followed you here, he said. They're at the edge
Speaker 2: of my territory watching. I'm sorry, don't be sorry. Be careful,
Speaker 2: he stood abruptly. I'll give you a guide, swift hawk.
Speaker 2: He'll take you to the boundary of their lands beyond
Speaker 2: that you're on your own. Why help us Americans your enemies,
Speaker 2: you're not my enemies, your fools walking into death. There's
Speaker 2: a difference, he almost smiled. Besides, if you die in
Speaker 2: their territory, it's not my concern. If you die in mind,
Speaker 2: it becomes a political problem. We left the village at dawn,
Speaker 2: with swift Hawk as our guide. He was young, perhaps
Speaker 2: twenty five, and terrified. He wrote at the front of
Speaker 2: our column, with his shoulders hunched and his eyes constantly moving,
Speaker 2: scanning the forest for threats he couldn't see, but knew
Speaker 2: we're there. We traveled for five days through increasingly wild country.
Speaker 2: The Ohio River fell behind us, and the mountains rose again,
Speaker 2: different from the alleghenies, older, somehow, more worn down by time.
Speaker 2: And all the while the creatures followed us. We didn't
Speaker 2: see them. We didn't need to. The signs were everywhere,
Speaker 2: footprints in the mud, structures in the trees, the smell
Speaker 2: of musk on the wind, and all wa always the
Speaker 2: knocking in the night. Swift Hawk grew more agitated with
Speaker 2: every mile. He barely slept, he barely ate. His conversations
Speaker 2: with anri grew shorter and more clipped until finally he
Speaker 2: stopped speaking entirely. On the fifth day, he halted his
Speaker 2: horse at the edge of a ravine and refused to
Speaker 2: go further. This is the boundary on retranslated. Beyond this
Speaker 2: point is death. The ravine stretched across our path, a
Speaker 2: natural barrier, perhaps fifty feet deep and twice that wide.
Speaker 2: On the far side, the forest seemed different, darker, older,
Speaker 2: somehow more alive. They're waiting on the other side, swift
Speaker 2: Hawk said through nri I can feel them, so could I.
Speaker 2: De pendent at My chest was warm, almost hot, and
Speaker 2: the air seemed thick with watching eyes. Thank you, I
Speaker 2: said to swift Hawk. Till Cornstalk's son were grateful for
Speaker 2: his help. Swift Hawk looked at me with something like pity.
Speaker 2: May your deaths be quick on retranslated. Then he wheeled
Speaker 2: his horse and rode away without looking back. We watched
Speaker 2: until he disappeared into the forest, his hoof beats fading
Speaker 2: into silence. We were alone, well, Thomas said, his voice
Speaker 2: brittle with forced cheerfulness. I suppose there's nothing for it
Speaker 2: but to press on. Sam was already urging his horse
Speaker 2: toward the ravine, looking for a way down there's a
Speaker 2: path here, he called, looks like it's been used recently
Speaker 2: by what. He didn't say. He didn't need to. One
Speaker 2: by one we began the descent into the unknown. Marcus
Speaker 2: woke with a start. He'd fallen asleep in the chair again.
Speaker 2: The journal opened on his chest. The fire burned down
Speaker 2: to cold ashes. His neck ached and his back protested
Speaker 2: as he straightened, trying to remember where he was. The cabin,
Speaker 2: his father's cabin, the journals, the creatures. He stood and stretched,
Speaker 2: his joints popping outside. The sky was gray with pre
Speaker 2: dawn light. How many days had he been here?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: Five? Six? He'd stopped counting. The journals consumed him. Every
Speaker 2: time he tried to stop to eat, or sleep, or
Speaker 2: simply think about something else, the narrative pulled him back.
Speaker 2: He needed to know what happened next. Needed to know
Speaker 2: how Elijah and his men fared in the forbidden territory.
Speaker 2: Needed to know whether his ancestor survived what was coming.
Speaker 2: He already knew some of them didn't survive. The outline
Speaker 2: hinted at it. The tone of Elijah's writing suggested it
Speaker 2: two deaths at least, maybe more, But which ones? Jim
Speaker 2: with his battle hardened skills and fierce loyalty, Thomas, with
Speaker 2: his crumbling certainties and trembling hands, will Harper, drifting into madness,
Speaker 2: his own nephew Zeke, too young and too eager for
Speaker 2: what lay ahead. Or maybe Sam, the one who'd been
Speaker 2: waiting twenty years for this, the one who'd already been marked,
Speaker 2: already been examined, already been allowed to live. Maybe he'd
Speaker 2: finally learn why Marcus made coffee and forced himself to
Speaker 2: eat some of the dried fruit from the pantry. Then
Speaker 2: he went back to the chair, picked up the journal,
Speaker 2: and continued reading.
Speaker 1: Di in s