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Speaker 1: I've never told this story to anyone. Government men said

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they'd place me in a military prison and seize all

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my family's property. If I did not wanting to see

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my family lose the homestead, I've kept my mouth shut. However,

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my doctor recently gave me a pretty sad outlook. Seems

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I only have a short time here left on earth.

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The family no longer has any interest in the home place,

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so I figured it was time. I want to get

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this story out for all the world to hear. I

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was born in southeast Kentucky in nineteen sixty four to

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a newly married young couple. I actually think they married

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because Mama got pregnant with me. Not long after that,

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my father was drafted and sent off to Vietnam. Mama

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and me stayed with papau down at the head of

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a holler. Mama passed away while I was still ins

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so the arrangement worked out fine with Paul. Paul having

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a woman around to take over Malma's housework and cooking

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were just the ticket. My days were spent playing with

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my cousin Scott, who everyone calls Scooter. My father was

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the youngest of seven brothers, and Scooter's Daddy was the oldest,

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even so Scooter was a month younger than me. Being

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so close in age made us naturally close in all things.

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The years passed in a hazy daydream of woods and

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streams and rocky hillsides to explore and conquer without a

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care in the world. And then, one hot July day,

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the year Scooter and I were set to start school,

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a couple of soldiers showed up at Paupaul's door in

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their dress uniforms. I thought it was my dad. He'd

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been gone since before my memories were formed, so I

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couldn't have known that these men were not my father,

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but the bearers of bad news that my father wasn't

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ever coming home. We didn't even get to bury his body,

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just an empty pine box meant to represent him. I

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guess it was fitting. He'd been absent from my world

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and life, and now he was absent in death as well.

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School started and it wasn't easy for me. I mourned

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never having known my dad more than I mourned his death,

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but Scooter was there for me and helped me get

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through it. Now I was finally beginning to adjust and

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move forward when one day, as we were getting off

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the bus. Papa was waiting for us at the stop.

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This was something he never did now. I could tell

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by the look on his face that he was worried. Boy,

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I got some bad news for you, he said, looking

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right at me. Your mama has run off. Apparently she'd

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gotten daddy's insurance check, packed her suitcase, and drove off

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in the old truck. I never saw her again. To

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this day, I don't know if she was alive or dead.

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I can't even remember what she or Daddy either one

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looked like. I guess that was the best thing that

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could have happened to me. There's no telling what my

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life would have been like with her. Pap Paul could

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have sent me to an orphanage, but he didn't. Instead,

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Scooter's mom and dad took me and raised me as

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their own. I quit calling them Uncle Ruths Shaw and

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Aunt Annie, and I started calling them mom and Dad.

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They were my parents, and they never treated me as

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anything less than a son. Life was tough in those years,

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and Dad worked hard, driving a coal truck and sometimes

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lumber rigs, but he didn't make much money. Scooter and

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me rarely got new clothes. We tended to wear our

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uncle's old clothes that were stored away at Pappau's. Our

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genes were generally full of holes, almost never the right length,

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and always out of fashion. We took some ribbing for that,

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but a few bloody noses and black eyes soon taught

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the bullies that we were nothing they wanted to mess with.

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The next year was the first time that I remember

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Dad closing up all the windows and setting bars to

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hold them in place. For the next month and a half,

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we were not allowed to leave the yard. We had

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to use the chamber pot or bucket after dark instead

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of going to the outhouse. There was a well at

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the edge of the porch, but once everything fell, neither Scooter,

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me nor our sisters were ever allowed to be out there.

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If we heard the coyotes howling. Even Mom wouldn't go outside,

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and Dad brought all the livestock into the lower pasture

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next to the house and moved all the chickens to

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the coop closest to the house as well. Six weeks

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or so later, about the time it got to be Halloween,

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the coyotes would quit howling and things would go back

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to normal. This was the routine every year. Right after

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schools started, Dad would spend a week locking down the

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house and moving livestock. All the neighbors did the same,

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all because of a pack of coyotes moving through the area.

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We would occasionally lose head of livestock or a dog

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wouldn't come home. There always seemed to be a tree

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limb that fell on the chicken coop that time of year,

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with a few hens coming up missing. One early mid

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July morning, the year I turned twelve, our oldest sister

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Ella came tearing down the road in her ragged old

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truck as hard as she could run it. She'd gotten

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married the year before, and she and her new husband

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lived in a trailer across the haller. She pulled into

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the yard and Dad ran out to the truck. Minutes later,

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she was headed back down the road and Dad was

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coming back up to the porch where me and Scooter

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were standing. Back then, Papaul was the only one in

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the holler with the phone, so this was the only

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means of communication. We had. Boys, get you guns and

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meet me at the truck. He told us we'd both

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been giving Stevens four tens for our tenth birthdays. It

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must have cost a fortune. To get us both guns,

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and our birthdays being only a month apart. I can't

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imagine how much Mom and Dad did without to make

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that happen, but it's a tradition in our family, and

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Dad was never one to break with tradition. We listened

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as Dad explained to Mom that Ella's husband Bo had

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gone squirrel hunting last night and he didn't come home.

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It wasn't squirrel season, but back then, hunting seasons were

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easy to overlook when one had an empty stomach. Ella

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couldn't come to the house last night because her truck

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had no headlights and she didn't dare walk it. She

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just sat and cried all night. We got our guns

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and we headed to Paul Paul's. When we arrived, our

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uncles were all there waiting for us, along with as

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many of our cousins who still lived in the air

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and were old enough to handle guns. All told, there

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were probably thirty of us. Everyone was carrying shotguns and

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had pistols strapped to their hips. Papa A walked over

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to Scooter and me and handed us five forty five

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long coat cartridges to use instead of shotgun shells. We

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all knew both secret squirrel spot was at the top

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of the ridge where the beech nut and red oaks

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grew near the big rocks. He was careless to leave

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all his cigarette butts and spent shotgun shells laying around

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when he was done for the day. He was the

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only one in the family who owned a twenty gage.

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My dad called it a lady's gun, since there wasn't

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a tree or rocking those hills that we didn't know.

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Wasn't long before we discovered his spot and started hunting

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it as well. Of course, we were all smart enough

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to pick up our shells and not leave signs of

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anyone having been there. We marched up the mountain like

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a small army in Sir of Bow. Thirty minutes later

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we were standing in the middle of the rocks. In

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a few minutes after that, cousin Leroy found Bow's gun.

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The barrels bent all the way back until it was

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touching the other end. Then Uncle Barry turned to his

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brothers and he urgently ordered them to get the boys

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off the mountain. Now he'd found a boot. It was

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Bo's boot, and Bo's bloody foot was still in it.

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I was still trying to imagine how Bow's foot could

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still have been in the boot when I heard the

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coyotes howling all around us. They were so loud, but

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we couldn't see him. Suddenly we were headed back down

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the mountain, but my mind was still on the boot.

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Had something biting his leg into had it been twisted off?

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How did Bow lose his foot? We got back to

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Paul Paul's and someone called the state troopers. They showed

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up with bloodhounds and a game warden. Dad and his brothers,

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along with some of the other cousins, took the officers

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up to the spot where they found the boot. The

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troopers turned loose to hounds, but they started whining and

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they refused to follow the trail. They ran back down

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to the cruisers and sat and waited to be let

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back inside. They all came back to Paupov's house, where

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the game warden began preaching to all of us about

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hunting out of season. He claimed it was a bear

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that killed Bow and drug him off. Dad, clearly upset

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by the game warden's words, walked him back out to

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his car. We could all clearly hear him tell the

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game warden that should he ever speak to his family,

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that way again, he would be wishing that it was

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a bear that had hold of him. He also told

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him not to ever come on the property or speak

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to his family again, or it would not end well

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for him. There might not even be a boot left

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of view to find. Dad said, me and my brothers

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drag you up on that ridge. Our family wasn't known

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for being bad or violent, but we were tough and

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we knew what it took to survive. Dad spent that

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night sitting on the front porch with a shotgun. There

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weren't many deer in that part of Kentucky back then,

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so no one felt the need on a rifle. A

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shotgun was all we had. The next day, all the

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uncles were busy getting the livestock rounded up and closing

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up the house. We even parked the tractor against the

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cellar door. Once we secured our house, they went to

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Papas's to do the same. Then they went to the

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next to ken down the road, and so on and

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so on. The entire community batten down in just two days.

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That year, we buried Bow's foot next to my father's

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pine box. Ellen moved in with Paupaul, and she never

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once went back to her trailer, not even for her clothes.

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She just started wearing Mamaw's clothes. That year, we lost

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some cattle we never found them alive or dead, and

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our neighbors and cousins lost animals as well. Uncle Barry's

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big german shepherd, Goliath, was found dead hanging about twenty

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feet up in a tree behind his barn. He was

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missing his legs and his head was twisted completely around,

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with the spine broken in half. The poor dog's head

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was just hanging from the torso by its skin. At night,

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our house was pelted with rocks and sticks that kept

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us awake in our beds. Dad was so upset that

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the coodes had come over a month early that year

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and that he had not been prepared for him. Kept

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asking himself what signs he had missed. The next year,

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he was ready early, but the codies came back at

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their normal time. There seemed to be more of them though.

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That was when he finally told me in scooter the truth.

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It wasn't coyotes we'd been protecting ourselves from. It was well,

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I had no idea what a booger was, so Dad

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tried its best to explain to us that boogers were

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part man and part beast. Every year since our ancestors

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came to the valley, the biggers would come through and

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kill either livestock or people. Our forefathers were some of

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the first settlers to venture through the Cumberland Gap, and

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no booger was going to run us off. It was

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their house that we had heard at night when the

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windows were boarded up. They were the ones who threw

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the rocks and sticks at the house. Dad warned us

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that they were always watching us and would grab anyone

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who wandered off alone or got too close to the woods.

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They were the reason we used the chamber pot at

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night and never ventured out on the porch for water

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after dark. We had a lot of calves born that year,

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more than we'd ever had before or since. Dad herded

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them into the barn at night with the heifers and

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barricaded them them in. One night, we awoke to what

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sounded like a train running through the building full of

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dry two by fours. The next morning we discovered the

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barn doors completely ripped off of the building. Five of

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the calves were missing, and one of the heifers lay

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dead in the barn. Her intestines were completely gone. The

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other cattle were huddled up next to the house or

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down at Paul Pau's. That was a rough year. We

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lost several more head of cattle before the boogers moved on.

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One of Paul Paul's bulls was killed. Its head had

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been torn off its body and dropped over one hundred

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yards away, right in the middle of the road. It

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was a devastating loss, and people brought heifers from all

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over to breed with his bull, trading hogs, goats, sheep, chickens,

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tools and guns for the right. One time, someone even

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traded him five pheasants, which he loved in a big, old, mean,

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loud peacock. Over the next few years they came back,

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but they were never as mean as they'd been from

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nineteen seventy six to seventy eight. Eventually, Scooter and me

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graduated school and we went straight to the recruiter's office.

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We planned to always be together and to have each

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other's back, but somehow we ended up in two different

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branches of the service. Scooter ended up in Special Forces

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and I became a sniper, although I never had to

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use the skill in battle. Man was I good at it. Meanwhile,

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Scooter became a regular badass. He got to where he

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could creep up on anybody and put them in a

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hole that Hulk Hogan couldn't escape. But until then he'd

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never bested me at wrestling, and after he honed his skills,

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I'd just lie down to save energy and give up. Well.

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During our six to eight years of military service, both

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Scooter and I sent our money home. We sent he

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signed our checks and sent them to Dad. The army

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fed us and clothed this and put a roof over

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our heads, so we didn't need it for that. We'd

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never had spending money growing up, so we wouldn't have

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known what to do with it anyway, And unbeknownst to us,

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Dad was putting all that money into bank accounts for us.

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Scooter was discharged in nineteen eighty nine. He'd fallen in

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love while on leave, and he married a woman named Susan.

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He brought her back to our little valley to settle,

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about five miles from Dad and Paul. Paul's and I

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stayed in for a couple more years until I was

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involved in an attack during the first weeks of desert

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storm and was sent home on a medical I ride

264
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back in Kentucky in October of that year. The boy

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was excited when Dad showed me my deposit book. I

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had nearly two hundred thousand dollars. I was rich, and

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by the end of the week, I'd purchase to brand

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new F two fifty and a Yamaha three point fifty

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Big Bear. To my surprise, Scooter had the same quad.

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We decided right away that we'd hit the deer woods

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on opening day back at the family farm. We still

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had our stands there from when we were in high school,

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and the boogers would have been gone for over a month

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by then. That Saturday, two weeks before Thanksgiving felt like

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it would never arrive. I had purchased a Browning three

276
00:16:29,840 --> 00:16:33,200
to eight and picked up an Army surplus sniper scope

277
00:16:33,200 --> 00:16:35,840
for it. I must have looked over one hundred of

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00:16:35,879 --> 00:16:38,399
them before I found one that I liked, and I

279
00:16:38,440 --> 00:16:41,279
had it sighted in within five shots, and I was

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ready to go. The day finally arrived and I picked

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up Scooter at four thirty am. We hit our quads

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in the middle of a big honeysuckle thicket and we're

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slipping up the mountain before five, and by five point

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fifteen we were seated in our stands. We always set

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our stands within sight of each other. He liked a tall, straight,

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white oak on the top of the ridge, and I

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00:17:06,880 --> 00:17:09,880
much preferred an aar looking twisted old tree on the

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flat about one hundred and fifty to two hundred yards away.

289
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The morning was so quiet we could hear a nut

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00:17:17,039 --> 00:17:20,880
drop from a tree one hundred yards away. Nothing was

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moving as we waited for the sun to rise. Sometime

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between six thirty and seven, the calm was shattered all

293
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at once as a young buck barreled down the trail

294
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right at me at breakneck speed. It ran past my

295
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tree stand without slowing down. Just as night was beginning

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to fade in today, I glanced over at a scooter

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and saw a couple of doughs moving toward him. They

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were acting nervous, and they looked as though they'd been

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running for quite a while. They kept looking behind them

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as if they were being chased. So I followed their

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line of sight down to the flat, where I could

302
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see movement in the shadows of the woods. I couldn't

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00:18:03,839 --> 00:18:06,440
see him clearly, but I knew it was a troop

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of boogers and we were in the middle of their hunt.

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I turned to yell to Scooter, let's get out of here.

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But before I could get the words out, he shot

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and I saw a big dough fall to the ground.

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He hadn't even moved yet when I saw something huge

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moving in on him from his blind side. This thing

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was tall enough to reach up and pull Scooter out

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of the stand. That stand was fifteen feet off the ground.

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There was no time to yell. I simply pulled the

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browning up, put my crosshairs on the creature's neck where

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the base of the skulls should be, but there was

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no neck. I prided myself on always taking neck shots

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and training, I knew that shot would bring down anything

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and everything without so much as a twitch. I had

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to look for the next kill shot at the temple

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00:18:58,240 --> 00:19:01,759
right behind the eye. I knew if I went center masts,

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I might not take out enough vital organs to keep

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the beasts from reaching Scooter before dying. With the mechanical

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precision that comes from years of training, I pulled the

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trigger and watched as the booger crumbled into a lifeless heat.

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Scooter spun around just in time to see the creature

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hit the ground. He was trying to get his safety

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belt undone so he could get down from the stand.

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I never used one because I had a lot of

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limbs to bounce off between me and the ground. The

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hills and hollers came to life with howls unlike anything

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I could ever have imagined. Rocks and sticks were thrown

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at us from every direction, and more roarers, even deeper

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00:19:44,880 --> 00:19:49,640
and louder, answered the first howls. They were moving in fast,

333
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and Scooter hit the ground and ran toward the quads.

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All was seconds behind, having jumped down from the tree.

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We climbed onto the quads and I saw all two

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00:20:00,759 --> 00:20:03,480
huge buggers coming at us from just two or three

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hundred yards down the trail that we'd come up on.

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We had a millisecond to decide stay or fight or run.

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I don't think Scooter had any faith in the damage

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his little two forty three would do to one of

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those things. He started his bike and I followed suit,

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and we took off, flying down the trail toward Uncle Berry's.

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There was no way that we'd be able to make

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it to Paul, Paul's or Dad's without going through the buggers,

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and I never dreamed those bikes would come off that

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mountain so fast. All the while we could hear what

347
00:20:38,400 --> 00:20:41,279
sounded like a herd of elephants running through the woods

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all around us. It was balls to the wall when

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we hit the edge of the woods. Richard Petty and A. J. Foyt,

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running shine and being chased by revenuers would have had

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00:20:52,519 --> 00:20:56,519
a hard time catching up with us. Our lives dependent

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on how fast we could make those bikes go. Uncle

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Barry was already at the fence with his rifle in hand.

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He raised his rifle and he shot past us. As

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we reached him, he yelled getting the house, and I

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noticed that his house was all boarded up and his

357
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livestock were in the corral. That's when I realized the

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00:21:17,799 --> 00:21:20,400
buggers had come late that year and we hadn't known

359
00:21:20,440 --> 00:21:23,839
about it. Both Scooter and I had lost our weapons

360
00:21:23,880 --> 00:21:26,759
on the way out, so Uncle Barry ushered us inside

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and armed us with two of his You boys really

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stirred up a hornet's nest this time, he said, I've

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been hearing them cruiters yelling like a bunch of angry

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demons coming from the pits of hell for the past

365
00:21:38,599 --> 00:21:43,319
couple of minutes. We didn't have time to respond. The

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00:21:43,359 --> 00:21:47,599
house was under attack. The boggers were pounding on the

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sides of the house and testing the window coverings in

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00:21:50,319 --> 00:21:53,759
the back door. Seemed like they were on every side.

369
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Even on the roof. We could hear the helpless cries

370
00:21:57,599 --> 00:22:00,359
of his cows. His big draft horse was in a

371
00:22:00,440 --> 00:22:04,240
fight for his life. The dogs were now silent as

372
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they were either dead or had run off, and our

373
00:22:07,400 --> 00:22:11,519
sense of security was ripped away with the roof. They

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00:22:11,559 --> 00:22:17,359
were inside now throwing furniture around upstairs. We knew we

375
00:22:17,359 --> 00:22:19,119
were going to have to make a break for it.

376
00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:24,079
Uncle Barry yelled us to get in his truck. Keys

377
00:22:24,119 --> 00:22:26,440
are in the ignition, He said, no, I'll bring up

378
00:22:26,440 --> 00:22:28,960
the rear. We didn't know Uncle Berry was going to

379
00:22:29,039 --> 00:22:31,279
stand his ground and give us a chance to get away.

380
00:22:31,960 --> 00:22:35,359
We heard five shots from a shotgun, choosing that weapon

381
00:22:35,400 --> 00:22:38,519
over his rifle. Being so close to them. Between the

382
00:22:38,599 --> 00:22:41,720
cursed words he was throwing at them, I could tell

383
00:22:41,759 --> 00:22:44,119
when he threw a shotgun aside and switched to his

384
00:22:44,240 --> 00:22:48,200
forty four mag His last words were run, boys, Run.

385
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We knew in our hearts that Uncle Barry was no more.

386
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His old Chevy was well cared for and ran like

387
00:22:57,119 --> 00:22:59,559
a race cars. We tore down the road and out

388
00:22:59,599 --> 00:23:02,440
of a hull. We pushed that truck as hard as

389
00:23:02,440 --> 00:23:04,839
it would run, and all the while fighting back the

390
00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:09,319
tears that stung our eyes. Scooter was driving, and I

391
00:23:09,359 --> 00:23:12,920
took the duty of gunner watching the rear. Didn't seem

392
00:23:12,960 --> 00:23:15,839
like they were chasing us anymore. I couldn't see him

393
00:23:15,839 --> 00:23:19,880
coming down the road anyway. Scooter pointed down the road

394
00:23:19,880 --> 00:23:22,359
and he said, look up ahead, I see Dad coming

395
00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:25,759
down the road at us. We got within one hundred

396
00:23:25,799 --> 00:23:29,000
feet of each other when a big tree came crashing

397
00:23:29,039 --> 00:23:33,599
down on the cab of my dad's truck. We could

398
00:23:33,599 --> 00:23:36,240
only hope that he'd managed to get down in the

399
00:23:36,319 --> 00:23:40,000
seat far enough to survive the hit. We hadn't even

400
00:23:40,039 --> 00:23:42,359
come to a stop when something hit the side of

401
00:23:42,400 --> 00:23:44,720
our truck, sending it rolling off the side of the

402
00:23:44,799 --> 00:23:48,160
road and down into the creek. The truck came to

403
00:23:48,200 --> 00:23:51,559
a stop on its top, and I had no idea

404
00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:55,200
how many times we'd rolled, but everything was thrown about

405
00:23:55,279 --> 00:23:59,559
in the cab. For the first time in my life,

406
00:23:59,640 --> 00:24:03,200
I'd lost my grip on my rifle. I looked over

407
00:24:03,240 --> 00:24:05,680
to see if Scooter was okay, but he wasn't in

408
00:24:05,759 --> 00:24:11,319
the truck. A sudden, violent slam against the undercarriage, which

409
00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:14,400
was now the top, sent blood rushing down over the

410
00:24:14,440 --> 00:24:18,759
side window next to my face, and Scooter's lifeless body

411
00:24:18,880 --> 00:24:21,400
was thrown twenty feet or more to the other side

412
00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:26,079
of the creek. His head unattached, rolled down the creek

413
00:24:26,160 --> 00:24:29,160
bank in front of the truck, and my heart fell

414
00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:33,119
into my stomach and my brother, my best friend, he

415
00:24:33,279 --> 00:24:37,319
was dead. I felt a hand bigger than anything I'd

416
00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:39,920
ever seen, grabbed my leg and pull let it through

417
00:24:39,960 --> 00:24:43,079
the door that had come open in the crash. I

418
00:24:43,160 --> 00:24:45,720
tried to reach over the seat for my uncle's rifle,

419
00:24:45,799 --> 00:24:47,960
but I couldn't get to it before the hand pulled

420
00:24:47,960 --> 00:24:51,359
my leg again, pulling me away from it. I was

421
00:24:51,400 --> 00:24:54,400
being pulled harder and harder as I held on to

422
00:24:54,480 --> 00:24:57,839
anything I could for dear life, and I saw my

423
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:01,319
life flash before my eyes and seconds and I made

424
00:25:01,359 --> 00:25:05,000
my peace with God. I knew my life was over.

425
00:25:05,480 --> 00:25:09,599
This devil pulled and pulled at my leg again, just

426
00:25:09,680 --> 00:25:13,680
like I'm pulling your leg. This is not a true story.

427
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:18,440
It's just for entertainment and fun. And this was written

428
00:25:18,599 --> 00:25:21,920
with no disrespect for anyone who has had an encounter

429
00:25:22,079 --> 00:25:25,480
with one of these creatures or hopes to. I simply

430
00:25:25,480 --> 00:25:28,079
wrote it as a story with a hope that some

431
00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:45,640
people will enjoy a little bit of tomfoolery.