WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.520 --> 00:00:05.759 For decades, people have disappeared in the woods without a trace. 2 00:00:06.519 --> 00:00:10.279 Some blame wild animals, others whisper of creatures the world 3 00:00:10.359 --> 00:00:14.160 refuses to believe in. But those who have survived they 4 00:00:14.199 --> 00:00:18.679 know the truth. Welcome to Backwoods Bigfoot Stories, where we 5 00:00:18.719 --> 00:00:22.839 share real encounters with the things lurking in the darkness bigfoot, 6 00:00:23.199 --> 00:00:28.239 dog man, UFOs, and creatures that defy explanation. Some make 7 00:00:28.280 --> 00:00:32.320 it out, others aren't so lucky. Are you ready, because 8 00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:34.640 once you hear these stories, you'll never walk in the 9 00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:38.920 woods alone again. So grab your flashlight, stay close, and 10 00:00:39.039 --> 00:00:41.840 remember some things in the woods don't want to be found. 11 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:46.240 Hit that follow or subscribe button, turn on auto downloads, 12 00:00:46.439 --> 00:00:48.399 and let's head off into the woods if you dare. 13 00:01:02.840 --> 00:01:05.239 A few years ago, I started a little tradition on 14 00:01:05.280 --> 00:01:09.680 this show. Every holiday, instead of the usual reports and encounters, 15 00:01:10.239 --> 00:01:13.040 I bring you one long story built for the occasion, 16 00:01:13.840 --> 00:01:17.079 a campfire tale with the lights down. Some of you 17 00:01:17.159 --> 00:01:19.319 have been around for all of them, and I know 18 00:01:19.400 --> 00:01:21.879 because you write me every year asking when the next 19 00:01:21.879 --> 00:01:25.680 one's coming. Well, it's the fourth of July and this 20 00:01:25.719 --> 00:01:28.159 is the one I've been sitting on now. I always 21 00:01:28.200 --> 00:01:31.159 get the same question when these holiday episodes drop, and 22 00:01:31.159 --> 00:01:33.000 I'm going to answer it up front the same way 23 00:01:33.040 --> 00:01:33.799 I always do. 24 00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:35.000 Is it true? 25 00:01:35.719 --> 00:01:38.200 Here's what I can tell you. Everything in this story 26 00:01:38.239 --> 00:01:41.760 could happen. The roads are real roads, even if I've 27 00:01:41.799 --> 00:01:45.640 changed the names. The country is real country, the kind 28 00:01:45.680 --> 00:01:48.920 I've walked my whole life. The way these animals move, 29 00:01:49.400 --> 00:01:52.319 the way they sound, the way a whole mountain side 30 00:01:52.359 --> 00:01:55.400 can come apart when the sky starts exploding. All of 31 00:01:55.439 --> 00:01:58.000 that lines up with forty years of reports from people 32 00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:01.000 who had nothing to gain by telling them. And the 33 00:02:01.040 --> 00:02:03.599 man telling this story sounds an awful lot like a 34 00:02:03.680 --> 00:02:08.400 hundred witnesses I've sat across from, same voice, same reluctance, 35 00:02:09.039 --> 00:02:11.120 same detail he can't let go of. 36 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:12.800 So is it true? 37 00:02:13.240 --> 00:02:16.719 Maybe it is, Maybe it isn't. That's the great thing 38 00:02:16.719 --> 00:02:20.240 about a campfire story. You get to decide. I'm just 39 00:02:20.280 --> 00:02:23.319 the fellow holding the flashlight. What I will tell you 40 00:02:23.439 --> 00:02:26.360 is why I wrote it, Because every fourth of July, 41 00:02:26.759 --> 00:02:29.159 while we're all standing in a field watching the sky 42 00:02:29.280 --> 00:02:32.199 come apart, there's a whole world out in those dark 43 00:02:32.240 --> 00:02:35.120 tree lines that never ask for any of it. And 44 00:02:35.159 --> 00:02:37.360 every once in a while, I catch myself wondering what 45 00:02:37.400 --> 00:02:40.960 that night sounds like from the other side, what it costs, 46 00:02:41.479 --> 00:02:44.319 and who's out there same as us, just trying to 47 00:02:44.360 --> 00:02:45.479 get their family through it. 48 00:02:46.439 --> 00:02:47.520 This one's about two. 49 00:02:47.319 --> 00:02:50.120 Berths on one mountain on the loudest night of the year, 50 00:02:50.719 --> 00:02:55.879 one human, one knot pour something cold, get comfortable. And 51 00:02:55.919 --> 00:02:57.919 if you're listening to this on a porch somewhere with 52 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:01.280 the fireworks still going off down the valley, so much 53 00:03:01.319 --> 00:03:01.719 the better. 54 00:03:02.840 --> 00:03:04.599 This is the fourth of July baby. 55 00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:07.000 My daughter was born at ten till one in the 56 00:03:07.039 --> 00:03:09.919 morning in the front seat of a Ford pickup in 57 00:03:09.960 --> 00:03:13.159 the parking lot of a Baptist church, while a volunteer 58 00:03:13.159 --> 00:03:16.960 paramedic named Dewey held a flashlight in his teeth. Her 59 00:03:16.960 --> 00:03:20.719 birth certificate says July fifth. Nobody in this family has 60 00:03:20.719 --> 00:03:23.680 ever once called her anything but our fourth of July baby, 61 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:26.360 because the Odum brothers were still shooting when she came 62 00:03:26.400 --> 00:03:29.280 into the world, and around wix Mill, the fourth isn't 63 00:03:29.280 --> 00:03:32.280 over till the last shell goes up. That part of 64 00:03:32.319 --> 00:03:35.280 the story I've told one hundred times. It's a good story. 65 00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:38.319 People laugh at the flashlight, and they laugh when I 66 00:03:38.319 --> 00:03:41.840 tell them. The church sign that night said new arrivals welcome, 67 00:03:42.159 --> 00:03:45.680 which is true, in which nobody ever believes until Katie 68 00:03:45.680 --> 00:03:46.400 backs me up. 69 00:03:47.240 --> 00:03:47.800 The rest of it. 70 00:03:47.879 --> 00:03:50.879 I've never told anybody except Katie, and one time my 71 00:03:50.960 --> 00:03:53.039 father in law, who listened to the whole thing on 72 00:03:53.080 --> 00:03:56.439 his back porch, spat off the rail and said, well 73 00:03:57.319 --> 00:04:01.479 that was it. Well, So Josie turned six this summer 74 00:04:01.520 --> 00:04:03.520 and she's starting to ask questions about the night she 75 00:04:03.680 --> 00:04:05.960 was born, and I've been thinking about it more than 76 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:06.919 I have in years. 77 00:04:07.719 --> 00:04:09.400 So here it is all. 78 00:04:09.280 --> 00:04:12.159 Of it, the parts people laugh at and the parts 79 00:04:12.199 --> 00:04:14.840 they wouldn't. I want to say upfront that I was 80 00:04:14.879 --> 00:04:19.000 a skeptic before that weekend, not the loud kind. I 81 00:04:19.079 --> 00:04:21.959 never argued with anybody about it. I just figured that 82 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:25.240 if eight foot animals were walking around the North Georgia Mountains, 83 00:04:25.319 --> 00:04:27.839 somebody would have hit one with a log truck. By now, 84 00:04:28.279 --> 00:04:32.079 that was my whole position, a log truck. I'd set 85 00:04:32.079 --> 00:04:34.519 it out loud at least twice at Deer Camp, and 86 00:04:34.560 --> 00:04:37.040 both times it got a laugh, and both times I 87 00:04:37.079 --> 00:04:41.319 felt pretty smart. I don't say it anymore. Katie's family 88 00:04:41.360 --> 00:04:44.600 has forty acres up Steel House Road, above Dutch Branch, 89 00:04:45.120 --> 00:04:47.439 maybe nine miles out of a town called Wick's Mill. 90 00:04:48.199 --> 00:04:50.439 Her granddad bought it after the war for close to 91 00:04:50.480 --> 00:04:53.319 nothing because you can't farm it and you can barely 92 00:04:53.399 --> 00:04:57.439 log it. It's steep, it's rocky, and the road in 93 00:04:57.600 --> 00:05:01.240 crosses the branch twice on culverts. The county quit maintaining 94 00:05:01.279 --> 00:05:04.959 sometime before I was born. There's an old cabin site 95 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:08.240 with a chimney still standing, a flat spot big enough 96 00:05:08.279 --> 00:05:10.839 for two tents and a fire ring, and about a 97 00:05:10.839 --> 00:05:14.480 half mile up the drainage there's a rock overhang the 98 00:05:14.519 --> 00:05:17.480 family calls the cave house, where Katie's granddad used to 99 00:05:17.519 --> 00:05:18.839 sleep when he was cutting timber. 100 00:05:19.680 --> 00:05:20.920 Her family is camped. 101 00:05:20.680 --> 00:05:22.959 Up there over the fourth of July every year since 102 00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:27.079 the sixties. It's not negotiable. Her mother was up there pregnant. 103 00:05:27.439 --> 00:05:30.319 Her aunt was up there pregnant. When Katie told me 104 00:05:30.360 --> 00:05:32.720 we were going, I looked at her belly, and she 105 00:05:32.759 --> 00:05:36.120 looked at me, and I loaded the truck. Now, before 106 00:05:36.160 --> 00:05:38.600 anybody decides I'm an idiot, let me lay out the 107 00:05:38.600 --> 00:05:42.519 facts as we understood them. Katie was thirty six weeks 108 00:05:42.879 --> 00:05:46.920 first baby. Our midwife, a woman named Carol, who has 109 00:05:46.920 --> 00:05:50.519 delivered half the county and doesn't sugarcoat anything told us 110 00:05:50.560 --> 00:05:54.480 first babies take their time, hours and hours, she said, 111 00:05:54.879 --> 00:05:58.600 sometimes days. The camp is forty minutes from the county 112 00:05:58.639 --> 00:06:02.720 hospital in Ellison. On normal day, Katie's doctor said, if 113 00:06:02.720 --> 00:06:05.399 she felt anything start, we'd have all the time in 114 00:06:05.439 --> 00:06:08.759 the world to drive in. Katie's mother and daddy were 115 00:06:08.759 --> 00:06:11.319 coming up for the day on the fourth itself. We 116 00:06:11.399 --> 00:06:14.480 had food, water, a full tank, and a truck that 117 00:06:14.519 --> 00:06:17.879 had never once let me down. Every single one of 118 00:06:17.920 --> 00:06:21.439 those facts turned out to be worth exactly nothing. We 119 00:06:21.560 --> 00:06:24.319 drove up Wednesday, the first of July, hot as a 120 00:06:24.360 --> 00:06:27.160 skillet down in town, but the camp sits in a 121 00:06:27.199 --> 00:06:29.879 fold of the mountain where dutch branch comes down, cold 122 00:06:29.959 --> 00:06:32.439 enough to numb your feet, and by evening it was 123 00:06:32.519 --> 00:06:36.120 almost pleasant. We set up the wall tent, got the 124 00:06:36.120 --> 00:06:40.000 cots in strung a tarp, Katie supervised from a camp 125 00:06:40.079 --> 00:06:42.720 chair with her feet in the creek, and our dog, Banjo, 126 00:06:43.160 --> 00:06:46.160 a blue healer with a bad attitude and one working ear, 127 00:06:46.680 --> 00:06:49.600 ran the property line like he was getting paid. That 128 00:06:49.680 --> 00:06:54.279 first night was quiet, Whipperwills, the creek one barred owl 129 00:06:54.319 --> 00:06:57.759 way off toward the head of the drainage. Normal mountain quiet, 130 00:06:57.959 --> 00:07:00.680 which isn't quiet at all, but it's the right noise. 131 00:07:01.319 --> 00:07:03.600 You learned the right noise for a place pretty fast, 132 00:07:03.920 --> 00:07:07.680 and Dutch Branch had it that first night. Thursday morning 133 00:07:07.720 --> 00:07:10.519 is when the right noise started coming apart. I got 134 00:07:10.600 --> 00:07:13.360 up before Katie to start coffee, and Banjo was sitting 135 00:07:13.399 --> 00:07:16.560 at the edge of camp, facing up the drainage, not barking, 136 00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:19.959 not growling, just sitting there with his one good ear 137 00:07:20.120 --> 00:07:23.079 up dead, still staring at the tree line like it 138 00:07:23.160 --> 00:07:26.680 owed him money. I said his name, and he didn't come. 139 00:07:27.399 --> 00:07:29.720 That dog has never once in his life not come 140 00:07:29.759 --> 00:07:33.120 when I said his name. He'll ignore Katie all day long, 141 00:07:33.600 --> 00:07:36.480 but not me. I walked over and put my hand 142 00:07:36.480 --> 00:07:39.720 on his head, and I could feel him shaking, fine 143 00:07:39.759 --> 00:07:43.000 little shakes all the way through him, like a wet 144 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:48.519 dog that isn't wet. I looked where he was looking, trees, rhododendron, 145 00:07:49.079 --> 00:07:53.600 the creek. Nothing, you're fired, I told him, and went 146 00:07:53.600 --> 00:07:56.360 back to the coffee. He came and lay down under 147 00:07:56.439 --> 00:07:59.160 Katie's cot and stayed there most of the morning, which 148 00:07:59.240 --> 00:08:00.360 was also not like him. 149 00:08:00.920 --> 00:08:02.959 But dogs have moods, and I. 150 00:08:02.920 --> 00:08:06.560 Had a pregnant wife who wanted bacon around ten, I 151 00:08:06.600 --> 00:08:08.920 walked up the drainage to check the spring box her 152 00:08:08.959 --> 00:08:13.000 granddad built, because that's the chore, that's always the first chore. 153 00:08:13.480 --> 00:08:15.959 And about two hundred yards up I hit a smell. 154 00:08:16.839 --> 00:08:19.480 Everybody who tells one of these stories talks about the smell, 155 00:08:19.879 --> 00:08:22.120 and I used to roll my eyes at that. But 156 00:08:22.199 --> 00:08:25.000 let me tell you what I walked into. It sat 157 00:08:25.040 --> 00:08:27.800 in a pocket maybe thirty feet across, near where a 158 00:08:27.800 --> 00:08:30.639 game trail crosses the branch, and it smelled like a 159 00:08:30.680 --> 00:08:34.159 wet dog and a boar pin and something rotten underneath, 160 00:08:34.679 --> 00:08:37.679 all three at once, thick enough that I actually checked 161 00:08:37.679 --> 00:08:40.440 the bottom of my boots. I did what a reasonable 162 00:08:40.480 --> 00:08:43.240 man does, which is go looking for the reasonable thing. 163 00:08:44.159 --> 00:08:46.559 I walked a slow circle, hunting for a dead deer, 164 00:08:46.840 --> 00:08:49.799 because a carcass would have explained everything. And I found 165 00:08:49.799 --> 00:08:54.240 no carcass, no buzzards, and no drag marks. Ten steps 166 00:08:54.279 --> 00:08:57.480 out of that pocket, the smell was simply gone. It 167 00:08:57.480 --> 00:08:59.919 didn't fade so much as end, the way a smell 168 00:09:00.120 --> 00:09:01.759 end when you step out of a room and pull 169 00:09:01.799 --> 00:09:04.960 the door shut behind you. I checked the spring box, 170 00:09:05.240 --> 00:09:07.720 came back down through the same spot, and by then 171 00:09:07.799 --> 00:09:08.759 the smell had thinned. 172 00:09:08.840 --> 00:09:09.799 To almost nothing. 173 00:09:10.559 --> 00:09:14.039 Whatever made it had been standing there and then it hadn't. 174 00:09:14.799 --> 00:09:17.159 I didn't tell Katie. I told myself it was a 175 00:09:17.200 --> 00:09:19.879 bore because we do have wild hogs in that country 176 00:09:19.879 --> 00:09:22.440 and they stink. And that answer was good enough to 177 00:09:22.480 --> 00:09:26.679 carry me through lunch. Thursday night, the knocking started. We 178 00:09:26.679 --> 00:09:28.600 were at the fire around nine point thirty when a 179 00:09:28.639 --> 00:09:31.159 single knock came down from the direction of the cave house, 180 00:09:31.519 --> 00:09:35.399 wood on wood, loud, one clean strike, like somebody swinging 181 00:09:35.399 --> 00:09:38.960 a baseball bat full strength against a trunk. Katie getsed 182 00:09:38.960 --> 00:09:42.320 a widow maker a dead limb letting go, and that 183 00:09:42.399 --> 00:09:46.200 was a fair guess, because limbs fall all the time. 184 00:09:47.039 --> 00:09:50.440 Then it came again, and then an answer came from 185 00:09:50.480 --> 00:09:54.440 across the drainage farther off. Two knocks, with a deliberate 186 00:09:54.519 --> 00:09:58.559 pause between them. Limbs don't answer each other. Banjo got 187 00:09:58.639 --> 00:10:01.519 under Katie's chair. Katy looked at me across the fire 188 00:10:01.559 --> 00:10:03.840 and asked if somebody was up there, and I said, 189 00:10:03.879 --> 00:10:07.279 probably kids from the odein place messing around. And she 190 00:10:07.360 --> 00:10:09.840 pointed out that the odein place was four miles off 191 00:10:09.879 --> 00:10:12.799 by road, and I said the kids could have walked it, 192 00:10:13.519 --> 00:10:15.320 and neither one of us believed a word of it. 193 00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:18.679 We heard two more exchanges over the next hour, each 194 00:10:18.720 --> 00:10:21.120 one a little farther up toward the head of the drainage, 195 00:10:21.440 --> 00:10:24.000 as though whatever was talking was moving away from us 196 00:10:24.240 --> 00:10:25.799 and taking the conversation with it. 197 00:10:26.679 --> 00:10:27.480 Then it stopped. 198 00:10:28.039 --> 00:10:30.679 The whipper wheels came back, and eventually we went to bed, 199 00:10:31.279 --> 00:10:33.759 where I lay listening to Katie breathe and running the 200 00:10:33.799 --> 00:10:35.720 math on how fast I could get her into the 201 00:10:35.720 --> 00:10:38.759 truck if I had to. That's an old habit from 202 00:10:38.759 --> 00:10:43.039 an old job, and that night it felt like paranoia. Friday, 203 00:10:43.200 --> 00:10:46.759 the third was the day of the tracks. Katie found them. 204 00:10:47.120 --> 00:10:50.039 She'd waddled down to the lower crossing to soak her ankles, 205 00:10:50.320 --> 00:10:52.000 and she called for me in a voice with a 206 00:10:52.039 --> 00:10:56.360 specific pitch to it. Not scared, exactly, but flat and careful. 207 00:10:56.879 --> 00:10:59.279 And when your wife is eight months pregnant and calls 208 00:10:59.320 --> 00:11:03.279 in a flat, careful voice, you cover ground fast. She 209 00:11:03.440 --> 00:11:05.480 was standing on the culvert, looking down at the sand 210 00:11:05.559 --> 00:11:08.480 bar on the upstream side, and there were prints in 211 00:11:08.519 --> 00:11:11.399 the wet sand, five of them clear and a couple 212 00:11:11.440 --> 00:11:15.000 more smudged where the gravel took over. I've tracked deer 213 00:11:15.080 --> 00:11:17.840 and hogs and bear my whole life, and bear was 214 00:11:17.840 --> 00:11:20.759 my first thought before I even got down there, because 215 00:11:20.759 --> 00:11:23.759 that's the reasonable thing again. And a bear's hind foot 216 00:11:23.840 --> 00:11:25.759 honestly does resemble a person's. 217 00:11:26.240 --> 00:11:27.480 But a big boar bear. 218 00:11:27.320 --> 00:11:30.240 Runs maybe eight inches on the hind pad nine if 219 00:11:30.240 --> 00:11:34.000 he's a giant, and he shows claws. These prints ran 220 00:11:34.159 --> 00:11:37.200 seventeen inches. I know that because I laid my boot 221 00:11:37.240 --> 00:11:40.240 in one, and my boot is a size twelve, and 222 00:11:40.279 --> 00:11:42.279 there was room left over at the toe and at 223 00:11:42.320 --> 00:11:46.519 the heel. There were no claws, just five toes splayed 224 00:11:46.559 --> 00:11:48.799 wide with the big toe pressed in deep like it 225 00:11:48.840 --> 00:11:51.840 was doing real work, and the stride between them was 226 00:11:51.919 --> 00:11:56.320 longer than I could manage, even hopping I tried. Katie 227 00:11:56.320 --> 00:11:58.679 watched me hop up that sandbar like a fool and 228 00:11:58.720 --> 00:12:02.639 didn't laugh, which tells you everything about the mood. She 229 00:12:02.720 --> 00:12:05.559 took pictures with her phone, kneeling down with her belly 230 00:12:05.639 --> 00:12:08.440 nearly in the sand, laying her flip flop next to 231 00:12:08.480 --> 00:12:12.240 one for scale. She's the practical one. I was still 232 00:12:12.279 --> 00:12:16.759 standing there, arguing with the ground bear. I said, show 233 00:12:16.840 --> 00:12:19.879 me the claws, she said, somebody messing with us. Then 234 00:12:20.360 --> 00:12:24.320 wooden feet people do that. Nine miles up a dead 235 00:12:24.399 --> 00:12:27.480 end road in the creek, hoping a pregnant woman happens 236 00:12:27.519 --> 00:12:30.399 to come soak her feet. She stood up and dusted 237 00:12:30.440 --> 00:12:34.039 the sand off her knees. Sure we stood there a 238 00:12:34.039 --> 00:12:36.440 minute while the water went on by, And then she 239 00:12:36.480 --> 00:12:38.639 said the thing I think about all the time now 240 00:12:39.000 --> 00:12:41.519 because of how easily she said it, the way a 241 00:12:41.519 --> 00:12:45.080 person comments on the weather. They've always been up here, 242 00:12:45.080 --> 00:12:47.960 you know. Granddaddy used to leave them the last row 243 00:12:47.960 --> 00:12:50.960 of the garden. I asked her, the last row of 244 00:12:51.000 --> 00:12:52.519 what corn? 245 00:12:53.159 --> 00:12:55.840 He said, it kept the peace. She started back. 246 00:12:55.759 --> 00:12:59.440 Up toward camp. Mama made him quit telling people about 247 00:12:59.440 --> 00:13:03.840 it at church. Sh My reaction was more irritation than 248 00:13:03.919 --> 00:13:07.639 wonder or fear. I'd married into this family. I'd been 249 00:13:07.679 --> 00:13:10.840 coming up that mountain for nine years, and here was 250 00:13:10.879 --> 00:13:14.399 a thing everybody apparently knew and nobody had mentioned, like 251 00:13:14.440 --> 00:13:16.759 the well watered tasting of iron, just. 252 00:13:16.720 --> 00:13:19.960 A feature of the property. Katie's people are like that. 253 00:13:20.600 --> 00:13:22.879 Some things get talked about at the fire and never 254 00:13:22.960 --> 00:13:25.519 in town, and you find out which is which by 255 00:13:25.519 --> 00:13:30.039 getting it wrong. Once that night, Friday night, nothing knocked 256 00:13:30.080 --> 00:13:33.120 and nothing screamed. But twice in the small hours I 257 00:13:33.159 --> 00:13:36.639 woke to the sound of walking deer are dainty, even 258 00:13:36.639 --> 00:13:40.440 when they're big, picking and pausing and picking again. And 259 00:13:40.519 --> 00:13:44.559 this was something else entirely two feet heavy and slow 260 00:13:45.200 --> 00:13:47.879 coming down the slope behind the tent, maybe forty yards 261 00:13:47.879 --> 00:13:51.080 off footfalls with enough weight behind them that I felt 262 00:13:51.080 --> 00:13:53.919 them through the cot legs more than heard them. It 263 00:13:54.039 --> 00:13:56.240 stopped and stood there for what I'd guess was two 264 00:13:56.279 --> 00:13:59.480 full minutes, long enough that I counted it out. And 265 00:13:59.519 --> 00:14:01.919 I lay there with my hand on the flashlight and 266 00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:05.440 never turned it on because Katie was asleep, and if 267 00:14:05.440 --> 00:14:07.720 I turned it on, I'd have to deal with whatever 268 00:14:07.759 --> 00:14:11.279 the light landed on. Then it walked back up the slope, 269 00:14:11.480 --> 00:14:14.720 patient and unhurried, like something that had come down to 270 00:14:14.799 --> 00:14:18.039 check the doors and found them locked. Banjo never made 271 00:14:18.080 --> 00:14:21.120 a sound. He was pressed flat against the tent floor 272 00:14:21.159 --> 00:14:24.080 with his nose under Katie's cot and when I reached 273 00:14:24.120 --> 00:14:27.559 down and touched him, he was shaking again. I didn't 274 00:14:27.559 --> 00:14:30.720 sleep much after that. I lay there thinking about the 275 00:14:30.759 --> 00:14:33.519 tracks and the last row of corn, and somewhere in 276 00:14:33.519 --> 00:14:35.759 the dark I made a decision that looks half smart 277 00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:39.960 and half stupid in hindsight, and about equal amounts we'd 278 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:43.080 stay through the fourth, like always, watch the fireworks from 279 00:14:43.080 --> 00:14:46.360 the ridge like always, let her folks come up, like always, 280 00:14:46.600 --> 00:14:49.200 and then leave the morning of the fifth, one day early, 281 00:14:49.519 --> 00:14:51.000 with some excuse about the heat. 282 00:14:51.799 --> 00:14:52.519 One more day. 283 00:14:53.320 --> 00:14:56.080 That was the whole plant, And it might even have worked, 284 00:14:56.440 --> 00:14:59.600 except for two things I couldn't have known. The first 285 00:14:59.679 --> 00:15:03.360 was the that came through Saturday afternoon. The second was 286 00:15:03.360 --> 00:15:05.720 that the walking and the knocking and the smell had 287 00:15:05.759 --> 00:15:09.120 never really been about us. Something else was going on 288 00:15:09.279 --> 00:15:11.919 up at the head of that drainage, something with its 289 00:15:11.960 --> 00:15:15.320 own clock and its own arithmetic and its own bad timing, 290 00:15:15.759 --> 00:15:18.120 and we just happened to be camped between it and 291 00:15:18.200 --> 00:15:22.080 the road. Stay tuned for more backwoods Bigfoot stories. We'll 292 00:15:22.080 --> 00:15:26.879 be back after these messages. The fourth of July came 293 00:15:26.919 --> 00:15:29.320 in blue and hot, and by eight in the morning 294 00:15:29.320 --> 00:15:32.600 you could already hear it coming. Wick's Mill was turning 295 00:15:32.639 --> 00:15:35.399 one hundred and fifty years old that summer, and the 296 00:15:35.440 --> 00:15:37.879 town had decided the way to honor a century and 297 00:15:37.879 --> 00:15:40.720 a half of existing was to blow up more sky 298 00:15:40.840 --> 00:15:43.919 than it ever had before. The paper had been going 299 00:15:43.919 --> 00:15:46.480 on about it for a month. They'd hired a real 300 00:15:46.559 --> 00:15:50.480 pyrotechnics outfit from Chattanooga. Instead of letting the fire department 301 00:15:50.519 --> 00:15:53.879 handle it, they doubled the budget, and people kept talking 302 00:15:53.879 --> 00:15:56.519 about a shell in the finale as big as a basketball, 303 00:15:57.080 --> 00:16:00.320 and that was only the official show. On top of it, 304 00:16:00.639 --> 00:16:03.039 every ridge and hollow in the county had stocked up 305 00:16:03.039 --> 00:16:06.600 from the fireworks warehouses across the state line because the 306 00:16:06.679 --> 00:16:09.799 drought had broken in June. The burn band had come off, 307 00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:12.840 and folks had two dry summers of pent up ordinance 308 00:16:13.080 --> 00:16:16.919 and money to spend. The Odem brothers, whose chicken houses 309 00:16:16.960 --> 00:16:19.879 sit on a bench across the valley from Katie's family land, 310 00:16:20.279 --> 00:16:23.759 maybe two miles as the crow flies, had reportedly gone 311 00:16:23.799 --> 00:16:26.799 in together on a case of commercial grade mortars, and 312 00:16:26.879 --> 00:16:29.159 the word at the feed store was that Ricky Odom 313 00:16:29.200 --> 00:16:32.320 planned to shoot until they ran out or the law came, 314 00:16:32.879 --> 00:16:37.320 whichever happened second. So even that morning, hours ahead of dark, 315 00:16:37.720 --> 00:16:39.960 you'd hear a pop from one direction and a thump 316 00:16:40.039 --> 00:16:43.519 from another, ranging shots and kids with firecrackers and some 317 00:16:43.639 --> 00:16:46.279 full testing a mortar at ten in the morning, and 318 00:16:46.320 --> 00:16:48.759 each one rolled around the valley walls and came back 319 00:16:48.759 --> 00:16:52.639 two or three times. Sound does strange things in that country, 320 00:16:53.000 --> 00:16:57.039 and a single gunshot can sound like a skirmish. Every thump, 321 00:16:57.200 --> 00:17:02.519 Banjo flinched, and every thump caught myself looking up the drainage. 322 00:17:02.639 --> 00:17:06.119 Katie's folks came up around noon. Her daddy Ray backed 323 00:17:06.119 --> 00:17:08.279 his truck to the fire ring and unloaded like we 324 00:17:08.279 --> 00:17:11.799 were feeding a church homecoming, ribs and corn and a watermelon, 325 00:17:11.920 --> 00:17:15.200 riding in a cooler by itself like a passenger. Her 326 00:17:15.240 --> 00:17:17.720 mama took one look at Katie and started in about 327 00:17:17.720 --> 00:17:21.279 swollen ankles and whether she'd been drinking enough water. And 328 00:17:21.359 --> 00:17:23.839 Katie took it the way she takes everything from her mama, 329 00:17:24.480 --> 00:17:27.759 nodding along and doing exactly what she'd already planned to do. 330 00:17:28.519 --> 00:17:31.839 It was a good afternoon. We ate too much, Ray 331 00:17:31.839 --> 00:17:34.200 and I pitched horseshoes. It stakes his own daddy had 332 00:17:34.279 --> 00:17:37.559 driven fifty years earlier. Katie floated her feet in the 333 00:17:37.599 --> 00:17:40.079 branch while her mama sat beside her, and the two 334 00:17:40.119 --> 00:17:42.680 of them laughed at something for a solid five minutes, 335 00:17:43.200 --> 00:17:46.519 that helpless kind of laughing where you stopped making noise altogether. 336 00:17:47.319 --> 00:17:50.440 The baby kicked hard all day, and Katie kept grabbing 337 00:17:50.480 --> 00:17:52.720 my hand and pressing it to her side so I 338 00:17:52.720 --> 00:17:55.359 could feel a knee or an elbow slide by under 339 00:17:55.400 --> 00:17:59.480 her skin like a fish passing under a boat. Around three, 340 00:17:59.599 --> 00:18:01.880 Ray and I walk down to check the lower crossing 341 00:18:02.359 --> 00:18:05.200 because weather was coming. And he'd looked at the culvert 342 00:18:05.200 --> 00:18:07.759 on the drive in and hadn't liked what he saw. 343 00:18:08.759 --> 00:18:11.920 The storm two days earlier had chewed at the downstream lip. 344 00:18:12.519 --> 00:18:15.319 Fresh raw dirt showed where the fill had slumped, and 345 00:18:15.440 --> 00:18:18.920 daylight had opened over one corner of the pipe. Ray 346 00:18:18.960 --> 00:18:22.240 toad at it. This thing's about done. It held us 347 00:18:22.279 --> 00:18:26.000 up fine coming in. That was three inches of water ago. 348 00:18:26.599 --> 00:18:28.799 He looked up at the sky where the clouds were 349 00:18:28.839 --> 00:18:31.960 already stacking over the ridge to the west. You get 350 00:18:32.000 --> 00:18:35.599 any real rain this afternoon? I'd crossed before it, not after, 351 00:18:36.839 --> 00:18:39.359 And boy, did we ever get real rain that afternoon. 352 00:18:40.039 --> 00:18:42.279 It came in about four point thirty, one of those 353 00:18:42.359 --> 00:18:45.839 July mountain storms that isn't messing around straight down with 354 00:18:45.920 --> 00:18:49.279 no wind to speak of, just tonnage and Dutch branch 355 00:18:49.359 --> 00:18:52.000 came up brown. In half an hour. We all crowded 356 00:18:52.039 --> 00:18:54.599 under the tarp and hollered small talk over the drumming, 357 00:18:54.839 --> 00:18:57.440 while Ray kept leaning out to look downhill toward the 358 00:18:57.480 --> 00:19:01.400 crossing with his jaw set by six, and the sun 359 00:19:01.480 --> 00:19:05.160 came back out with everything steaming. Ray and Katy's mama 360 00:19:05.200 --> 00:19:07.920 packed up around seven because they wanted to cross while 361 00:19:07.960 --> 00:19:11.480 there was still light. Ray crossed slow and from up 362 00:19:11.480 --> 00:19:13.599 the road he leaned out the window and studied the 363 00:19:13.599 --> 00:19:17.960 culvert for a long moment. Y'all coming down tomorrow. First 364 00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:21.559 thing I said, cross it slow and stay left. Left 365 00:19:21.559 --> 00:19:25.440 sides still got filled under it. Then to Katie, call 366 00:19:25.480 --> 00:19:28.279 your mama when you get signal. And they went on 367 00:19:28.920 --> 00:19:31.839 the tail lights flickering down through the trees, and that 368 00:19:31.920 --> 00:19:34.160 turned out to be the last easy moment of the 369 00:19:34.200 --> 00:19:36.720 whole business. Though you never get to know a thing 370 00:19:36.839 --> 00:19:40.880 like that at the time. Now about signal, because everyone 371 00:19:40.960 --> 00:19:44.480 under fifty asks there's no cell service on that property 372 00:19:44.519 --> 00:19:47.640 at all. You're sitting in a hole between two ridges, 373 00:19:47.960 --> 00:19:49.920 and the nearest bars are a mile and a half 374 00:19:49.960 --> 00:19:53.160 back up Steelhouse Road, where the pipeline cut crosses the 375 00:19:53.240 --> 00:19:56.680 ridge spine, a big mode gash in the forest where 376 00:19:56.720 --> 00:19:59.880 a man standing dead center can catch one bar sometime 377 00:20:00.160 --> 00:20:04.400 two off the tower in Ellison. Katie's family calls it 378 00:20:04.480 --> 00:20:07.599 the phone booth. If you want to text somebody from camp, 379 00:20:07.960 --> 00:20:11.519 you take a walk. Katie had actually made that walk 380 00:20:11.599 --> 00:20:14.279 earlier in the day, with her mama's blood pressure in mind, 381 00:20:14.799 --> 00:20:17.640 texted Carol the midwife a cheerful nothing about the baby 382 00:20:17.720 --> 00:20:21.200 kicking and Tuesday's appointment, and Carol had texted back a 383 00:20:21.279 --> 00:20:24.480 thumbs up. Dark came on and the valley lit up. 384 00:20:25.160 --> 00:20:27.319 We climbed to the little knob above camp where the 385 00:20:27.359 --> 00:20:30.880 family has watched fireworks for sixty years, where you can 386 00:20:30.920 --> 00:20:33.079 see over the shoulder of the ridge and down the 387 00:20:33.160 --> 00:20:36.799 valley to the fair ground glow at Wick's Mill. Katie 388 00:20:36.839 --> 00:20:39.680 made the climb slow, one hand on my arm and 389 00:20:39.720 --> 00:20:43.000 one under her belly, stopping twice to breathe and waving 390 00:20:43.039 --> 00:20:46.039 me off when I fussed. We spread a blanket on 391 00:20:46.079 --> 00:20:48.559 the rock banjo we'd shut in the tent with his 392 00:20:48.640 --> 00:20:52.079 thundershirt on, which he hated, but I already knew what 393 00:20:52.160 --> 00:20:54.160 kind of night it was going to be for him. 394 00:20:54.759 --> 00:20:57.359 The town show started at nine point thirty, and even 395 00:20:57.359 --> 00:21:01.319 at nine miles it was serious. See the bloom count 396 00:21:01.319 --> 00:21:03.920 three or four, and then the boom would arrive and 397 00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:06.720 roll up the valley, and the ridge behind us would 398 00:21:06.720 --> 00:21:09.759 send it back. Then the Odin brothers opened up from 399 00:21:09.799 --> 00:21:12.720 their bench and they were close, and they weren't shooting 400 00:21:12.759 --> 00:21:17.799 consumer stuff. Those shells cracked flat and hard. The flash 401 00:21:17.880 --> 00:21:21.039