Speaker 1: I lived in a ranch house about ten miles south
Speaker 1: of Eldorado, Texas, or As at Elderado, Texas. Eldorado, Eldoredo,
Speaker 1: who knows. My wife and I liked sitting on a
Speaker 1: screened in porch at night. One night we were out
Speaker 1: there when my wife said she saw something move across
Speaker 1: the driveway in a bank of trees. There were two shadows,
Speaker 1: both eight feet tall. They were moving around a mountain.
Speaker 1: Lion had been spotted near us, so I always carried
Speaker 1: a forty caliber pistol with me. I turned on my
Speaker 1: tactical light and pointed my gun toward the figures, but
Speaker 1: it still couldn't make out what it was. I thought
Speaker 1: about shooting into the trees to spook them into the open,
Speaker 1: but something told me not to. We went to bed
Speaker 1: not long after that, and I wondered what it had been.
Speaker 1: A week or two later, I woke up one morning
Speaker 1: and happened to look out my bedroom window toward a
Speaker 1: chicken coop. There, standing in the broad daylight was a creature.
Speaker 1: He had the outline of Chewbacca, and he stood eight
Speaker 1: feet tall, with long hair from head to toe. He
Speaker 1: was staring right at me like he'd been waiting for
Speaker 1: me to wake up and see him, wanting me to
Speaker 1: know that he was there. My friends and family think
Speaker 1: I'm crazy, but there was no mistaking what I saw.
Speaker 1: We moved from that house, not because of Bigfoot, and
Speaker 1: I left there a believer. Okay, a little short story
Speaker 1: to kick this podcast off. Thank you guys for joining me.
Speaker 1: Just an announcement. I uploaded a new Steve Lily story.
Speaker 1: There will be a link in the description if you
Speaker 1: want to listen to it. It's about an hour or
Speaker 1: a little bit over an hour long. I thought it
Speaker 1: was a pretty decent story, but I haven't done with
Speaker 1: Steve Lily in over a year and I needed to
Speaker 1: get one out. So I spent the last week kind
Speaker 1: of polishing up a story I'd been working on for
Speaker 1: six months. Could never get it right, and it's probably
Speaker 1: still not right, but it's the best I got. So
Speaker 1: new Steve Lily ouse, Steve Lilly Number nineteen is out,
Speaker 1: and if you're not familiar with that series, it's on
Speaker 1: another channel called the Steve Lily Journals. It's just fiction,
Speaker 1: fun fiction, lot of humor, story about bigfoot hunters who
Speaker 1: are hired by the government to exterminate the Bigfoot all
Speaker 1: over North America. They're mainly focused in the South. But
Speaker 1: it's just a fun thing to write, so that's all
Speaker 1: it is. So if you get a chance, go over
Speaker 1: and look at it. Otherwise, let's move on with this podcast.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you being here. All right, here we go.
Speaker 1: I am a retired US Army chaplain and I was
Speaker 1: based in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. I owned six acres
Speaker 1: of mountain property in Spring Cree, just south of Hot Springs.
Speaker 1: It was off a road near a place called Dave's
Speaker 1: two O nine Highway. Too. O nine was known as
Speaker 1: the Rattler by local MC riders because of its many
Speaker 1: twists and turns through the Pisca National Forest. This area
Speaker 1: is known for paranormal phenomenon, the brown lights, the UFOs,
Speaker 1: the ghostly events, and of course, Bigfoot paraphernalia is available
Speaker 1: in the local shops. I had built a twenty four
Speaker 1: foot diameter yert on my property, perfect for getting away
Speaker 1: from Bragg and all the ministry work. Every week. I
Speaker 1: had a little wire table where I could nestle pretty
Speaker 1: stones and crystals so they would not fall out or
Speaker 1: blow away. Every time I was up there usually about
Speaker 1: once a month. I'd place objects on that table, pebbles
Speaker 1: and sparkly crystals and things of that nature. This way
Speaker 1: they would not blow away while I was gone. When
Speaker 1: I came back on the next visit, the items would
Speaker 1: be gone, and in their place I would see new
Speaker 1: pebbles and stones. This might have been a teenager tramping
Speaker 1: over the land in my absence, because I doubt they
Speaker 1: leave any rocks for me. Around the property, i'd find
Speaker 1: interesting tree structures, such as two thirty foot long trees
Speaker 1: twisted and wound together and wedged horizontally between two trees
Speaker 1: twenty feet apart. It all looked so intentional. I half
Speaker 1: expected to find a swing hanging from it. Not far
Speaker 1: from there, something had built a teepee like structure out
Speaker 1: of broken branches. I made sure to keep my distance,
Speaker 1: and I continued to enjoy my polite company firm Afar,
Speaker 1: and I hope that they did too. On my last
Speaker 1: trip to the property before I sold it, someone or
Speaker 1: something had left me a large blue glass marble. It
Speaker 1: was an inch and a half in diameter, and it
Speaker 1: was sitting on that wire table. I love that. In
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, I was dog sitting for a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: having a beer on the porch on the summer solstice.
Speaker 1: It was around midnight and the dogs were snoozing beside me.
Speaker 1: The house sent on fifteen acres, and halfway to the road.
Speaker 1: The three acres from the house stood a street light.
Speaker 1: I was gazing out at the grass under that light,
Speaker 1: enjoying the peaceful night, the clear sky, in the great weather,
Speaker 1: when a black panther, plain as day meandered slowly through
Speaker 1: the light. I was stunned. I'm a biologist and I
Speaker 1: know my cats. It was a panther. There was no
Speaker 1: mistaking that I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The
Speaker 1: dogs quickly got the scent of it and took off
Speaker 1: in pursuit, so I knew I wasn't making it up.
Speaker 1: They came back thankfully ten minutes later, exhausted and very
Speaker 1: proud of themselves. Black panther sightings might not sound impressive,
Speaker 1: but the way their existence in America is denied by authorities,
Speaker 1: you're led to believe you'll see a bigfoot before you'll
Speaker 1: see a black panther. Thanks for your channel and for
Speaker 1: hearing my very gentle stories. And he signs the rev
Speaker 1: army chaplain. That's pretty cool. I've never met an army chaplain.
Speaker 1: I wonder what that job is like. I wonder what
Speaker 1: that job is like in the military. My son was
Speaker 1: in the Marine Corps. He never mentioned the chaplain I know,
Speaker 1: I know he ran into some but I've always been
Speaker 1: curious what those guys actually do. What do they do
Speaker 1: all day? I don't know. But anyway, this is a
Speaker 1: great story. He had an episode of gifting that he
Speaker 1: thinks could possibly be a bigfoot. He didn't say that,
Speaker 1: but I think that's what he's alluding to. Very interesting.
Speaker 1: And then the black panther sighting. Everybody sees a black panther,
Speaker 1: I believe they're here. I think I tend more to
Speaker 1: believe that black panthers are here more than I would
Speaker 1: say bigfooter here, at least around my proper because I
Speaker 1: see big tracks. I can tell a cat of a
Speaker 1: feline track over a canine track. The lobes in the
Speaker 1: back of the foot are a little different, and the
Speaker 1: way their tracks look her different. I actually looked it
Speaker 1: up one time. I looked it up because I had
Speaker 1: a friend of mine who In this Steve Lily story,
Speaker 1: there is a seventy nine year old man who lies
Speaker 1: all the time. He's just kind of a fun character,
Speaker 1: I added to the story. But this person I saw
Speaker 1: her posting. She lives out in the country, posting stuff
Speaker 1: on Facebook, and she is a big liar. She lies
Speaker 1: about everything. I've known her for years and years and years,
Speaker 1: and I like her. She's fine. She just tries to
Speaker 1: make a huge deal lot of everything she sees. And
Speaker 1: she puts some pictures of tracks on I think it
Speaker 1: was Facebook, and she was saying it was a mountain lion.
Speaker 1: Well I looked at them. They were dog tracks. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that at first, but looked up the difference
Speaker 1: between dog and cat tracks and it was absolutely a
Speaker 1: dog track. So that's how I know. And I never
Speaker 1: confronted her whether it just confirm what I know that
Speaker 1: she's just a big liar, she's an attention hog. We're
Speaker 1: still friends. Everything's fine. But that's the way some people are. Anyway.
Speaker 1: Let's move on to a next story. Okay, here's a
Speaker 1: short little story about a Mexican bigfoot. Twenty five years ago,
Speaker 1: the youth group of the church I attended went on
Speaker 1: a retreat to Busta Monte Nuevo Leon in Mexico. Bust
Speaker 1: de Monte has a spring in the canyon. It has
Speaker 1: several pools and lots of nature to enjoy. It's also
Speaker 1: known for its legends and tales about witches and goblins.
Speaker 1: One day, I went with a group of girls for
Speaker 1: a height and we took our time ascending the trail,
Speaker 1: taking breaks often and in no real hurry. At one point,
Speaker 1: I want I need to catch up with a different
Speaker 1: group that had left us behind, So while the girls
Speaker 1: sat and drank water, I ran ahead, promising that I
Speaker 1: would wait for them further up the trail. I climbed
Speaker 1: and kept an ole on where my group was for
Speaker 1: as long as I could, and after a while I
Speaker 1: stopped looking back and kept moving until I reached the
Speaker 1: side of the canyon. In the distance, I saw my
Speaker 1: group still talking and hydrating, so I kept going. Not
Speaker 1: long after that, I reached a point that jutted out
Speaker 1: over a hill to one side. I walked a few
Speaker 1: meters out to the point and I heard something loosely
Speaker 1: resembling laughter in women's voices. I figured it was my group,
Speaker 1: who had somehow managed to catch up with me in
Speaker 1: a short time, so I shouted out that I heard
Speaker 1: them and that I wasn't far away, and when I
Speaker 1: turned to walk back on the trail, I saw a
Speaker 1: figure on the other side of the rock that I
Speaker 1: had passed. It had a round head and bulb like shoulder,
Speaker 1: and it was covered in thick red hair and was
Speaker 1: at least two meters tall. I stayed silent. I turned
Speaker 1: my back on it, and I felt a chill. I
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do besides slowly backing out. The
Speaker 1: strange women's voices and laughter stopped, and when I turned
Speaker 1: to steal another glance, the figure was gone. A couple
Speaker 1: of minutes later, I heard the distant sound of my
Speaker 1: group catching up to me. I didn't know what to think.
Speaker 1: I'd like to say that it was bigfoot, but I
Speaker 1: haven't heard reports of them in Mexico. It couldn't have
Speaker 1: been a bear because the shape of its head and
Speaker 1: shoulders was all wrong, and the sound it made it
Speaker 1: was totally unnatural. And whenever I talk about it, even now,
Speaker 1: even writing about it now, I get chills. Oh man,
Speaker 1: that's cool. That's one of those brief moments that people
Speaker 1: have when they're all alone out in the wilderness and
Speaker 1: they see something they know, they see something they know,
Speaker 1: they didn't imagine it. They turn around and it's gone.
Speaker 1: There are so many stories like this, and it really
Speaker 1: intrigues me because I can't think of anything in particular
Speaker 1: like that that's happened to me, but I know it has.
Speaker 1: It's like you look, you look, you see a deer,
Speaker 1: You think you see a deer, You see a deer,
Speaker 1: You see a deer, You turn your heads, you look
Speaker 1: back in just a fraction of a second, and the
Speaker 1: deer's not there. Or a turkey or a skunk, or
Speaker 1: an armadilla or a raccoon, doesn't matter. That's happened to
Speaker 1: me before. So why couldn't that happen, Whether cryptid like
Speaker 1: a bigfoot or some other creature, I don't know. This
Speaker 1: story was just interesting me. I thought it was great. Okay,
Speaker 1: this story is a little bit strange, a little bit strange,
Speaker 1: but I think you're gonna enjoy it. So let's go.
Speaker 1: Let's go. Let's get on with the story. I was
Speaker 1: in Dougway, the High Plains desert of Utah and the
Speaker 1: spring of next year. It was late and I had
Speaker 1: just gotten off work and I was headed to my
Speaker 1: vehicle for the long drive home. I noticed it was
Speaker 1: a new moon, so i'd need my brights to see
Speaker 1: the road out there. It got even darker as I
Speaker 1: pulled away from the work site. I drove carefully, my
Speaker 1: eyes peeled to avoid hitting any local wildlife. As the
Speaker 1: lights faded behind me, I saw a figure rise through
Speaker 1: the road's surface at the edge of my high beams.
Speaker 1: I blinked and I shook my head. I had to
Speaker 1: be seen things. It didn't come from either side of
Speaker 1: the road. It just rose straight up from the asphalt.
Speaker 1: It startled me enough to slam on the brakes and
Speaker 1: veer into the oncoming lane to avoid hitting it. I
Speaker 1: caught it silhouette as I drove past. It looked like
Speaker 1: a pale, fleshy, large and naked person sitting on its heels,
Speaker 1: hugging its legs with its head resting on its knees.
Speaker 1: As if that weren't disturbing enough. In the three seconds
Speaker 1: it took me to drive past, I watched it morph
Speaker 1: into a large canine and disappear again, right back into
Speaker 1: the asphalt. Well. I chalked it up as weird, though
Speaker 1: not the weirdest thing I've experienced out there, not long
Speaker 1: after this, my headlights lit up in adolescent coyote next
Speaker 1: to the guard rail on the side of the road.
Speaker 1: I slowed down in case it darted in front of me,
Speaker 1: but it stayed put, staring at my car as I passed.
Speaker 1: Its mouth stretched open as wide as it could go.
Speaker 1: It looked like there was an invisible stick prying its
Speaker 1: jaw open, or like I'd caught it in mid yawn,
Speaker 1: jaw stretched wide and unmoving, except theyng did not end.
Speaker 1: Its mouth just stayed wide open, unnaturally so, and its
Speaker 1: eyes were fixed on me the whole time. There was
Speaker 1: nothing I could do besides keep driving, so I chalked
Speaker 1: it up as another weird thing and I kept going.
Speaker 1: But the night wasn't done with me yet. A little
Speaker 1: while later I saw another codey on the side of
Speaker 1: the road, and it's jaws stretched open as white as
Speaker 1: they could go, just like the first one, and its
Speaker 1: eyes were fixed on me as I slowly drove past.
Speaker 1: I made it home okay that night, but I'll never
Speaker 1: forget those images and get them out of my head.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I bet you won't get those images out
Speaker 1: of your head. That is so cool, That is Oh
Speaker 1: that story just good. I could just see all that
Speaker 1: happening as I'm reading it. I can see it. I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's just that's creepy. What a great story,
Speaker 1: great story, thanks for sending it. The other day, I
Speaker 1: was on the front porch listening to your podcast when
Speaker 1: my great grandfather Elijah walked by. He heard you talking
Speaker 1: about Bigfoot, sat down in the rocker next to me
Speaker 1: and listened to the entire story. Our family tends to
Speaker 1: get into the late nineties before age catches up with us,
Speaker 1: but ninety four, my great granddad is still sharp and
Speaker 1: has all his wits about him. After the podcast ended,
Speaker 1: he asked me if I believed in Bigfoot. I told
Speaker 1: him I had never seen one, and I asked him
Speaker 1: the same. He answered me with a tail from his youth,
Speaker 1: one I'd never heard before. When great granddad Elijah was
Speaker 1: a boy, he was glued at the hip to his
Speaker 1: two best friends, Thomas and James. The three of them
Speaker 1: had befriended a hermit whom the town nicknamed Crazy Joe,
Speaker 1: who lived two miles away near the Swampland. Joe would
Speaker 1: occasionally come to town to trade herbs and hides and carvings
Speaker 1: that he had made. The boys would make multiple trips
Speaker 1: each week to his shack, where he taught them to trap, fish, hunt,
Speaker 1: and gather wild plants save to eat. Joe taught them
Speaker 1: to tan hides and make Indian buckskins, as well as
Speaker 1: some words of a far away native tongue. One day
Speaker 1: in the early spring, when all three boys were about
Speaker 1: to turn sixteen, Joe disappeared. The door of his shack
Speaker 1: was open, the floor was busted up, all the furniture
Speaker 1: was pushed against the walls, and his wagon and mule
Speaker 1: were gone. Four weeks later, a man rode into town
Speaker 1: right up to the inn. His hair and beard were
Speaker 1: long and unkempt, but his clothing and his two horses
Speaker 1: were top of the line. He asked for the best
Speaker 1: room and the largest steak and potato the keeper could
Speaker 1: stir up, and when the meal was ready, the stranger
Speaker 1: came out of his room, a clean shaven new man.
Speaker 1: The next morning, all three boys were sitting on the
Speaker 1: steps of the Sheriff's office across the street from the inn,
Speaker 1: to catch a glimpse of the stranger. He came out,
Speaker 1: and he looked at them, and he walked straight over.
Speaker 1: Elijah stood up and greeted him, and then nearly fell
Speaker 1: over when the familiar voice of Joe greeted him back,
Speaker 1: and good morning to you, boys, Joe said. The boys
Speaker 1: made a ruckus and jumped up and celebrated their friend's return.
Speaker 1: And then the questions poured out. Where had he gone?
Speaker 1: Where did he get the fancy clothes and the horses?
Speaker 1: Joe told them to meet him at his shack after
Speaker 1: their chores that day, and not to tell anyone about
Speaker 1: his return. Later. When they got there, they found him
Speaker 1: sitting on the back of a new buckboard wagon, and
Speaker 1: in the corral nearby were two large mules and three
Speaker 1: more horses, just as striking as the two he'd brought
Speaker 1: into town. Joe reached into his saddle bag and tossed
Speaker 1: each boy a nugget of gold the size of a thumb.
Speaker 1: While they stood around, slack jawed, Joe told them the story.
Speaker 1: When he was a younger man, he headed west with
Speaker 1: two of his friends in search of gold. When they
Speaker 1: made it all the way to Idaho, they walked up
Speaker 1: to three on kemped harry trappers and buckskins whipping. A
Speaker 1: young Native American male nearby, tied to a wagon wheel
Speaker 1: was a young Native female screaming and crying. Without hesitating,
Speaker 1: Joe and his companions took the trapper off guard. One
Speaker 1: of the trappers was shot, and the other two held
Speaker 1: at gunpoint, were tied to the wagon. Joe and the
Speaker 1: others freed the captives and led them to safety. That night,
Speaker 1: they set up camp, and they cared for the young man,
Speaker 1: intended to his wounds. The next morning, they woke up
Speaker 1: surrounded by a pack of Native warriors. Just as Joe
Speaker 1: and his companions thought their lives were over, a statue
Speaker 1: of a man, a great war chief Pocatello, walked forward.
Speaker 1: Another man stood behind him. Speaking broken English. He told
Speaker 1: them the young man and the woman that they had
Speaker 1: saved were the chief's son and bride to be. When
Speaker 1: the translators asked why had trespassed on Shoshone land, Joe, Samuel,
Speaker 1: and Arthur apologized profusely, explaining that they had no idea
Speaker 1: and meant no disrespect, and were just searching for gold.
Speaker 1: The chief seemed satisfied by the answer and asked to
Speaker 1: be taken to the two remaining trappers. Joe and the
Speaker 1: others stood by as the chief and two of his
Speaker 1: warriors sliced the trapper's abdomens open, threw a rope around
Speaker 1: each of their necks, and then drabbed them off into
Speaker 1: the forest. Once the war party had left, the translator
Speaker 1: introduced himself as long Tooth and said the chief instructed
Speaker 1: him to take them to the valley of the Ancient Ones.
Speaker 1: After two days of traveling, Long Tooth led them through
Speaker 1: a hidden passage in a mountain side to an open valley,
Speaker 1: and while Joe and the others tied up their horses
Speaker 1: and gathered wood for a fire, Long Tooth walked to
Speaker 1: the center of the valley and began to sing and
Speaker 1: dance until well after dark. When he returned, he explained
Speaker 1: that he was asking the Ancient Ones for permission to
Speaker 1: hunt there and to search for the shiny rocks. They
Speaker 1: stayed there for months, chopping down trees for a cabin
Speaker 1: and building a corral and a small barn for the
Speaker 1: animals They gathered and stored hey for the winter. They
Speaker 1: hunted every few days and learned to skin and tan
Speaker 1: the animal fur for insulation and heavy coats for the
Speaker 1: coming cold months. When spring came, Long Tooth returned to
Speaker 1: his people, sure that Joe and the others could manage
Speaker 1: in the valley without him. Before he left, he told
Speaker 1: them never to harm the ancient one and never to
Speaker 1: pursue them, and if they saw one, they were to
Speaker 1: turn their eyes away. Long Tooth returned on the next
Speaker 1: full moon with several others from the tribe. They brought
Speaker 1: along a bull in, three cows, mules, chickens, and other supplies.
Speaker 1: The next morning, Joe cooked for the visitors, making sure
Speaker 1: to heave a serving of the meal on the rock
Speaker 1: where they'd received the elk. The next morning, the food
Speaker 1: was gone and three gold nuggets sat on that rock.
Speaker 1: Almost every day after that, gold nuggets were left for
Speaker 1: them on the rock, a gift exchange that continued for
Speaker 1: the next three winters. Long Tooth and the three travelers
Speaker 1: became good friends. Joe, Samuel, and Arthur learned to speak
Speaker 1: Shoshone and learned the dance Long Tooth performed each time
Speaker 1: he returned to the valley. Eventually, the three men said
Speaker 1: goodbye to Long Tooth and the valley, promising to return
Speaker 1: one day. There were different men on their journey home.
Speaker 1: They had become long bearded, weathered trappers. Their goal stored
Speaker 1: in the false floor of the wagon covered by a
Speaker 1: layer upon layer of furs and buckskin. When they had
Speaker 1: reached the Missouri, Arthur grew deathly ill, forcing Joe to
Speaker 1: ride to the nearest town to fetch a doctor, and
Speaker 1: while Samuel and Author waited for them to return, a
Speaker 1: group of men from the Southern States had found them.
Speaker 1: When Joe returned with the doctor, he found them both dead,
Speaker 1: hanging from a nearby tree, their backs whipt raw. The
Speaker 1: murderers had taken the best of the fur Pelts, but
Speaker 1: rode off without the wagon or mules. Joe buried his
Speaker 1: friends and proceeded on to Tennessee with the wagon, his
Speaker 1: world in disarray. He was so depressed he took his
Speaker 1: wagon of gold, rode out to the swamplands and buried it.
Speaker 1: He built a shack on top of it and rarely
Speaker 1: spoke to anyone after that. One day he woke up
Speaker 1: and decided that he was done grieving. Tennessee no longer
Speaker 1: felt like home, and he was going back west, back
Speaker 1: to the valley of the ancients. He tore his shack apart,
Speaker 1: gathered his gold, and decided to start new. When Joe
Speaker 1: finished telling Elijah and the other boys this story, he
Speaker 1: made a proposal. He was heading west the next morning,
Speaker 1: and he invited them to come. They unanimously agreed, and
Speaker 1: they left notes for their families and started the long
Speaker 1: journey with Joe. They took a steamboat all the way
Speaker 1: to Saint Paul, and then a train to Montana and
Speaker 1: horseback there all the way to Fort Hall, which had
Speaker 1: become a reservation for the Shoshawone. Shortly after their arrival,
Speaker 1: a Shoshone man greeted Joe with hugs and tears of joy.
Speaker 1: Joe introduced him to the boys's Long Tooth and told
Speaker 1: him he was going to show them the ways of
Speaker 1: the valley. The next morning, the five travelers set out
Speaker 1: for the Valley of the Ancients, and when they finally
Speaker 1: made it, they found the cabin almost as Joe had
Speaker 1: left it. While Elijah and the others settled in and
Speaker 1: found the wood for a fire, Long Tooth and Joe
Speaker 1: went to the center of the valley and began down
Speaker 1: and singing, and when dinner was prepared, two of the
Speaker 1: boys placed a large portion of meat on the rock
Speaker 1: for the ancient ones. The next morning they found several
Speaker 1: gold nuggets, and they started a renewed gift exchange with
Speaker 1: the ancient Ones. Once, during a hunt with Joe and
Speaker 1: Long Toooth, Elijah heard a loud crack of a tree
Speaker 1: limb being snapped off and hurled into another tree. It
Speaker 1: was followed by tree knocks and screams. Joe told him
Speaker 1: to get ready that the ancient Ones had joined the hunt,
Speaker 1: and within minutes a herd of elk came barreling toward them.
Speaker 1: Joe and Long Toothed down three of them, but only
Speaker 1: carried one back to the cabin. The other two, Long
Speaker 1: Tooth explained were for the ancient Ones. Over the next
Speaker 1: three winters, Elijah and the others lived in the valley,
Speaker 1: learning the ways of Long Tooth and occasionally getting short
Speaker 1: glimpses of the ancient Ones. They were a giant harry butch,
Speaker 1: and they kept their distance, and they weren't aggressive. On
Speaker 1: the day that Elijah and the other boys said goodbye,
Speaker 1: they saw an entire tribe of Ancient Ones towering over
Speaker 1: the corral and gathered to watch them leave. They made
Speaker 1: it back to Tennessee, each of them nearly twenty years
Speaker 1: old by then, pulling a wagon full of gold and hides.
Speaker 1: Looking like weathered mountain men, they split their fortune, and
Speaker 1: my great grandfather Elijah used his share to buy land
Speaker 1: and become a farmer. James moved to New York and
Speaker 1: became a wealthy merchant, and Thomas moved to California to
Speaker 1: invest in new gold operations. They never spoke of Joe
Speaker 1: or long Tooth, and they never saw each other again.
Speaker 1: When my great grandfather finally finished his story, I asked
Speaker 1: him if he really expected me to believe him, After all,
Speaker 1: I was getting too old to believe in tall tales.
Speaker 1: He smiled, and he told me to hold that thought,
Speaker 1: and he walked into the house, and he came back
Speaker 1: with a small canvas bag and a leather notebook, saying
Speaker 1: I was finally old enough to see them. It was
Speaker 1: a detailed journal from his travels, The papers worn thin
Speaker 1: with age, and the bag was full of gold nuggets.
Speaker 1: I read every line of that journal, the details of
Speaker 1: his journey, exactly as he had told me, the words
Speaker 1: too plain and genuine to have been made up. Our
Speaker 1: home is one of the largest private farms in Tennessee
Speaker 1: and has been since the eighteen eighties, when my great
Speaker 1: grandfather Elijah first bought it. It has been in the
Speaker 1: family for six generations. Now. Since then, I've become more
Speaker 1: dedicated than ever to spending sundays on the front porch
Speaker 1: talking with my elders. I look forward to sitting on
Speaker 1: that old rocking chair one day, just like my great granddad,
Speaker 1: sharing incredible stories with my children and grandchildren. Thank you
Speaker 1: for joining me on this podcast. Hope you enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: Don't forget. I've got Steve Lily nineteen up. If you're
Speaker 1: look in the description below, there'll be a link to it.
Speaker 1: I think I can put it on an end screen.
Speaker 1: I'll put it on an end screen right here if
Speaker 1: you want to go listen to it. If you go
Speaker 1: over there and listen to a Steve Lilly episode. And
Speaker 1: I don't ever ask this, but it would help me
Speaker 1: if you would subscribe, maybe even leave a comment, even
Speaker 1: be critical, you know, constructive criticism for things I write
Speaker 1: is happily accepted. And I think about it, I really
Speaker 1: think about it. Go over there and take a listen.
Speaker 1: If you like good fun fiction. It's probably not for kids.
Speaker 1: I know the men enjoy it, but a lot of
Speaker 1: women do enjoy it. So anyway, go check it out.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm gonna shut up about Steve Lily and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let you guys get back to your date.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to this podcast, and we'll see
Speaker 1: you on the next one. In Need It in cant