December 12, 2025 • 38 mins
After weeks of strange encounters and mounting dread, the group finds themselves surrounded by Lenape hunters deep in the wilderness. Rather than the violence they expect, they're taken to meet Gray Owl, an elder so ancient his face has become a map of wrinkles and his eyes have clouded with cataracts. Yet somehow, he sees everything. What he tells them about the Mesingw challenges everything they thought they knew. These creatures are not spirits or demons. They are simply old. Older than humanity itself. And they have been waiting.
Gray Owl gives Elijah a stone pendant carved with symbols that shift in firelight, telling him it may buy time when the creatures finally decide what to do with them. The warning is clear. They have been marked. For good or ill, there is no turning back now. What follows is two weeks of psychological warfare that tests every man to his breaking point. The knocking escalates into something like war drums. Howls split the night, reaching into frequencies that touch something primal in the human mind. Equipment is moved while they sleep.
Enormous footprints appear inches from where their heads rested. And then one of their horses is torn apart in a display of raw power that defies comprehension. The expedition pushes on into Shawnee territory, where Cornstalk's Son shares his own people's history with the Old Enemies. A war that lasted generations. Warriors who went into the mountains and came back broken, wearing the shapes of men but no longer truly human. An uneasy agreement that has held for longer than memory.
Now that boundary has been crossed. And the creatures have followed.Part Two builds toward a reckoning that has been centuries in the making. The tests are not over. The judgment has not been rendered. And somewhere in the darkness, ancient eyes are still watching.
Gray Owl gives Elijah a stone pendant carved with symbols that shift in firelight, telling him it may buy time when the creatures finally decide what to do with them. The warning is clear. They have been marked. For good or ill, there is no turning back now. What follows is two weeks of psychological warfare that tests every man to his breaking point. The knocking escalates into something like war drums. Howls split the night, reaching into frequencies that touch something primal in the human mind. Equipment is moved while they sleep.
Enormous footprints appear inches from where their heads rested. And then one of their horses is torn apart in a display of raw power that defies comprehension. The expedition pushes on into Shawnee territory, where Cornstalk's Son shares his own people's history with the Old Enemies. A war that lasted generations. Warriors who went into the mountains and came back broken, wearing the shapes of men but no longer truly human. An uneasy agreement that has held for longer than memory.
Now that boundary has been crossed. And the creatures have followed.Part Two builds toward a reckoning that has been centuries in the making. The tests are not over. The judgment has not been rendered. And somewhere in the darkness, ancient eyes are still watching.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
For decades, people have disappeared in the woods without a trace.
Some blame wild animals, others whisper of creatures the world
refuses to believe in. But those who have survived they
know the truth. Welcome to Backwoods Bigfoot Stories, where we
share real encounters with the things lurking in the darkness bigfoot,
(00:22):
dog man, UFOs, and creatures that defy explanation. Some make
it out, others aren't so lucky.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Are you ready, because.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Once you hear these stories, you'll never walk in the
woods alone again. So grab your flashlight, stay close, and
remember some things in the woods don't want to be found.
Hit that follow or subscribe button, turn on auto downloads,
and let's head off into the woods if you dare.
(01:02):
Before we begin today's episode, I need to talk to
you about something important. Yes, you, you pressed play for
a reason. You stepped into my space, so please hear
me out. Independent podcasts don't rise because fate smiles on them.
They don't climb because algorithms suddenly decide to be kind.
(01:22):
There's no marketing wizard behind a curtain pulling strings. There's
only you listening, showing up, returning again and again because
something here pulls you in and you know it. And
that's why what you do next matters more than you think.
Turn on auto downloads. Let the episodes arrive on your
device quietly and reliably, like a ritual that never fails,
(01:46):
something steady, something you don't have to think about. Leave
a rating and review, a few words, a moment of
your time, but the impact it lasts, it spreads, It
tells the world this corner of chaos has value. And
then tell ten people about the show. Ten because ten
(02:07):
is enough to shift momentum, but small enough to feel easy.
You already know who they are, friends, family, co workers,
even that neighbor who fires up his leaf blower at
sunrise because he enjoys a little suffering. They're all waiting
for something new to obsess over. You're simply giving them
the nudge. Because indie shows grow one way, through the
(02:30):
people who believe in them, through the voices that carry
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make a huge difference. And honestly, the only thing I
want for Christmas, the only thing is for you to
take those few small steps and send this show into
the world with the kind of energy that can't be ignored.
(02:50):
So now that we understand each other, let's begin today's episode.
April eighth to fifteenth, seventeen ninety nine, Territory. They came
out of the forest like ghosts. One moment we were
alone on the trail, the horses plodding through morning missed.
The next moment, seven Lenapi hunters surrounded us, their faces
(03:13):
painted for war, their weapons raised.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
The horses spooked.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Jim's mayor nearly threw him, and Zeke's gelding reared so
violently that my nephew had to grab the saddle horn
with both hands to stay mounted. Only Sam seemed unsurprised,
his hands raised and empty, his voice calling out in
a language I didn't recognize. Henry stepped forward, adding his
own words and yet another tongue. The lead hunter, a
(03:39):
man of perhaps thirty with scars that spoke of battles survived,
responded sharply, his hand on the knife at his belt.
He wants to know why we're here, Henri translated. He says,
white men always bring harm, whether they mean to or not.
Tell him we mean no harm to his people. I said,
we seek only the maing. Henre hesitated. Captain. Tell him
(04:05):
Henre spoke. The effect was immediate. The hunters exchanged glances,
and I saw several of them make signs against evil.
The lead hunter, whose name Henre told me later, was
hunting Bear. Step back, his hand, moving from his knife
to the medicine pouch at his chest. You are fools,
haun Re translated. He says, to turn back while we
(04:25):
still can. We cannot turn back. More rapid exchange, Hunting
Bear's face shifted through expressions I couldn't read anger, fear,
something that might have been respect. Finally, he lowered his
weapon and spoke at length. He will take us to
their village, Henri said, to speak with the elders. He says,
(04:47):
if we are determined to die, we should at least
understand what will kill us. We followed them through the
forest for half a day, climbing into territory that grew wilder.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
With every mile.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
The Lenape hunters moved through the trees like shadows, appearing
and disappearing in ways that made me question whether they
were entirely real. The village was smaller than I expected,
perhaps fifty people in all, living in longhouses arranged around
a central fire pit. Women and children watched us pass
with expressions of curiosity and suspicion. Old men sat smoking pipes,
(05:22):
their eyes tracking our movements with the patients of those
who have seen everything. Hunting Bear led us to the
largest longhouse, speaking briefly with a young woman at the
entrance before gesturing for us to follow him.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Inside.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
The interior was dim and smoky, lit only by a
small fire burning in a pit near the center. Animal
skins covered the walls, and the smell of tobacco hung
heavy in the air. At the far end, seated on
a raised platform covered in furs, sat the oldest human
being I had ever seen, Gray Owl. They called him
(05:55):
a man of such advanced age that his face had
collapsed into a map of rings, his eyes clouded by
cataracts that should have rendered him blind.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
But when he looked at us, when he.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Looked at me, I felt seen in a way that
defied explanation. He spoke, and on retranslated, he says he
knows why we've come. He has been waiting for men
like us for many years, waiting, I asked, hoping we
would not come, knowing we would, The old man gestured
for us to sit. We arranged ourselves on the packed
(06:29):
earth floor, uncomfortable and out of place, while gray Owl
studied each of us in turn. His gaze lingered longest
on Sam, and something passed between them, recognition perhaps, or understanding.
Then he began to speak. What followed was the most
remarkable conversation of my life, and retranslated as best he could,
(06:51):
though he admitted afterward that some concepts had no equivalent
in English. I will record here what I understood, knowing
that much was lost in the transition from one language
to another. The messing gray Owl told us We're not
what we thought, not spirits, not gods, not demons. They
were simply old, unimaginably old. They were here before us
(07:15):
On retranslated, they were here before the first people crossed.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Into this land.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
They watched us come, they will watch us go. Are
they animals, Thomas asked. Gray Owl's laugh was dry and papery,
like leaves rustling in autumn wind. Are we animals? We eat,
we sleep, we mate, we die. But we are more
than animals?
Speaker 2 (07:39):
So are they? Then? What are they? The first people?
Speaker 1 (07:44):
The elder brothers, They walked the forests when the forests
were young. They remember when the great ice covered the land.
They remember what came before. I leaned forward. Have your
people fought them? We've heard stories of war. The old
man's expression darkened. He spoke for a long time, his
voice dropping to a whisper, And I saw some of
(08:06):
the hunters at the edges of the room make signs
against evil. There was war on, retranslated slowly generations ago.
My grandfather's grandfather fought in it. Many warriors went into
the high places to drive out the masing. Most did
not return what happened to them. Some were killed, some
(08:26):
were taken, Some came back changed. They would not speak
of what they saw. They lived apart from the village,
and when they died, their bodies were burned, so that
whatever touched them could not spread what touched them, Josiah asked.
Gray Owl looked at the former reverend for a long
moment before responding, Understanding, hen retranslated. They came to understand
(08:48):
the masing, and that understanding broke them. The fire crackled
in the silence that followed. Outside, I could hear children playing,
women singing, the ordinary sounds of village life. But inside
this smoky longhouse nothing felt ordinary anymore. Why did they hide.
I asked, if they're as powerful as you say, why
(09:10):
have they retreated into the deep wilderness. They have not retreated.
They have allowed us to spread. There is a difference.
But why Gray Owl's milky eyes seem to look through me,
into me, beyond me. Because they are patient, because they
have seen people's rise and fall for longer than we
can imagine. Because they know that this he gestured broadly,
(09:35):
encompassing the village, the forest, the world is temporary.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
We are temporary. They are not.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
He reached into the firs beside him and produced something
small and dark, a stone, pendent carved with symbols I
didn't recognize. He held it out to me. Take this
on retranslated, wear it where they can see it. If
they find you. When they find you, show them this.
It may buy you time, time for what to decide
(10:04):
if you are worthy of continued life. I took the pendant.
The stone was cool and smooth, heavier than it should
have been for its size. The symbols seemed to shift
in the firelight, though that might have been my imagination.
What do these symbols mean? They mean that you are
known to us, that you have been warned that you
have chosen to enter their territory. Despite the warnings, gray
(10:28):
Owl's lips twisted into something that wasn't quite a smile.
They may respect that, or they may not with the
messing you. One never knows. I slipped the cord over
my head and felt the pendant settle against my chest.
It was warm, now, warm, like a living thing. They've
been watching us, I said, since we entered the mountains,
(10:50):
the footprints, the structures, the sounds at night. Yes, what
do they want to know?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
What you are?
Speaker 1 (10:58):
To decide what you will become? Gray Owl leaned forward,
his ancient face, suddenly fierce. You are being tested, soldier,
every step you take, every choice you make. They are watching, learning, judging, judging.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
What, whether you are worthy, worthy of what.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
But gray Owl had sunk back into his furs, his
eyes closing. The audience clearly over. Hunting Bear appeared at
my elbow, gesturing toward the exit. We left the village
at dawn the next morning. The leunapee watched us go
with expressions I couldn't read, pity, perhaps, or the grim
acceptance of those who know their watching dead men walk.
(11:42):
As we mounted our horses, gray Owl appeared at the
edge of the trees. He raised one hand in a
gesture that might have been farewell or might have been warning. Then,
from somewhere deep in the forest, a wood knock echoed
three times, just like every night before. Gray Owl smiled.
They're listening, he said, and these words needed no translation.
(12:04):
They know what you seek. They have marked you, now,
for good or ill you are marked. We rode out
of the village and back into the wilderness, and behind us,
following at a distance we could feel, but not see,
something watched us go. Marcus set down the journal and
walked to the window again. The sun was setting over
the mountains, painting the sky and shades of orange and red, beautiful, terrifying.
(12:31):
The same mountains his ancestor had ridden into two hundred
years ago, seeking answers to questions that haunted him, The
same mountains his father had walked into again and again
year after year. What had his father found out there?
Marcus touched his chest, feeling for something that wasn't there.
Then he remembered the pendant, the one from the trunk.
(12:53):
He'd set it aside when he started reading, focused on
the journals themselves. He went back to the table and
found among the other artifacts. The stone was dark and smooth,
carved with symbols that matched Gray Owl's description. When he
picked it up, it felt warm. He slipped the cord
over his head, the pendant settled against his chest, and
(13:14):
for just a moment, a fraction of a second, he
could have sworn he heard something in the forest outside,
a knock three times, but when he went to the
window and listened, there was nothing, just wind in the
trees and the last light of day fading from the sky.
He went back to his father's chair and picked up
the next journal. April fifteenth to twenty eighth, seventeen ninety nine,
(13:39):
Deep in the Mountains, Two weeks of hell. That's the
only way I can describe what followed our meeting with
the Lenape. Two weeks of constant surveillance, nocturnal terrors, and
psychological warfare that shredded our nerves and tested our sanity.
The forest changed around us, older trees, denser canopy, perpetual
(14:00):
twilight even at noon, the sun a distant memory above,
layers of leaves so thick that rain took hours to
filter through to the ground. The silence was profound, not peaceful,
but oppressive. Our own breathing seemed too loud, our own
heart beats seemed like violations. And everywhere, always the feeling
(14:21):
of being watched. Eyes in the darkness, something moving at
the edge of vision. Turn to look and find nothing there.
Turn away and feel them again, pressing against the back
of your skull, like fingers. The men dealt with it
in different ways. Jim grew more aggressive, his hand never
far from his rifle, his eyes scanning the trees constantly.
(14:44):
He snapped at small provocations and argued with Thomas over nothing.
The war had trained him to respond to threats with violence,
and the formless menace surrounding us gave him no target.
Thomas retreated into his scientific documentation, filling notebook after note
oat book with observations and measurements and theories. Stay tuned
for more Backwoods Bigfoot stories. We'll be back after these messages.
(15:09):
His earlier arrogance had given way to something like desperation,
a need to categorize, to explain, to force the unknown
into frameworks he could understand. His hands shook when he wrote,
and his voice cracked when he spoke. Will Harper's behavior
disturbed me most. He'd always been peculiar, but now he
seemed to be drifting into another world entirely. He sketched constantly,
(15:34):
filling page after page with images he wouldn't show anyone.
He stared at the forest with an expression that wasn't
quite fear. It was more like hunger, like recognition. They're
showing me things, he said one night, when I found
him sitting apart from the fire, his sketchbook opened on
his knees. When I close my eyes, I can see them,
(15:55):
see what, faces, places, Things that were here before his
eyes when they met mine were too bright, too intense.
They want me to understand, Captain, they want me to see.
I didn't know what to say to that. I still don't.
Josiah prayed constantly, his lips moved without sound, the words
(16:17):
of scripture or supplication running through his mind like water
through a channel. I don't know if it brought him comfort.
I don't think he knew either. Solomon carved small wooden figures,
faces and shapes emerging from the wood under his skilled hands.
Some were human, others were not. He wouldn't explain what
he was doing, just kept working, the shavings falling around
(16:39):
his feet like offerings. Sam watched. That's all he did.
He stood at the perimeter of our camps and watched
the forest with an expression I couldn't read. Sometimes I
thought I saw him nod, as if in response to
something no one else could hear. And every night the
terrors came. The knocking started around midnight, always midnight, as
(17:01):
if the creatures had a sense of time. It began slow,
one knock, then another, then a third, then built in
frequency and intensity, until the forest rang with the sound
of wood on wood, like war drums, like the heartbeat
of something vast and terrible. Then the howls. I have
heard wolves, I have heard mountain lions. I have heard
(17:25):
the screams of men dying on battlefields in ways that
should not be possible. None of it prepared me for
the howls that echoed through those mountains. They started low,
a rumbling that seemed to come from the earth itself.
Then they rose, climbing through registers that shouldn't exist, reaching
into the skull and touching something primal, something that remembered
(17:46):
being prey. The first few nights, we built the fires
high and clutched our weapons and waited for attacks that
never came. By the end of the first week, we
had learned to simply endure. The attacks weren't coming. The
creet didn't need to attack. They were breaking us by
other means. Physical evidence of their presence accumulated around us.
(18:07):
Rocks thrown into our camps at night, landing with enough
force to shatter cooking pots, Branches torn from trees and
scattered like warnings, Equipment moved, disturbed, examined while we slept.
Once I woke to find enormous footprints in the soft earth,
not three feet from where my head had rested. Something
(18:27):
had stood over me while I slept, watching. Deciding, I
touched the penn and at my chest. It was warm.
The smell came next, a musk, unlike anything I had encountered,
wild and earthy and somehow wrong. It preceded their approaches,
warning us they were near. We came to dread that smell.
(18:48):
Though there were nights I was almost grateful for it.
At least it told us when they were close. On
the fifteenth day, they killed one of our horses. The
animal broke free, and the chaos of a particular intense night,
the knocking reaching a crescendo. Howls coming from every direction.
We heard it scream. Horses scream, you know, when they're
(19:10):
terrified enough, when they know they're about to die. The
sound is almost human. Then silence. We found what remained
in the morning. I will not describe it in detail.
The nightmares are vivid enough without committing the images to paper.
I will say only this. The destruction required strength beyond
anything human, beyond anything I had thought possible. The horse
(19:33):
had been torn apart, not eaten, or not entirely eaten,
torn apart, as if in anger, as if in demonstration.
They're showing us what they can do, Sam said, looking
at the remains with an expression of grim recognition. They
want us to understand. Thomas examined the scene with trembling hands,
(19:54):
his scientific detachment crumbling. These wounds weren't made by any
animal I can classify, he said. The sheer force required.
This was done by hands, enormous hands. Not hands, Solomon said, quietly,
not like ours?
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Then what?
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Solomon didn't answer. He just looked at the small wooden
figure he'd been carving, a figure with long arms and
broad shoulders and a face that was almost human but
not quite. We buried what we could of the horse.
It seemed disrespectful to leave it there, though I couldn't
have explained who we were showing respect to the animal,
(20:32):
the creatures that killed it, our own sense of decency
fraying at the edges that night, The knocking was quieter,
almost gentle, as if they were waiting to see how
we would respond. We didn't respond. We sat around our
fire and stared into the flames and tried not to
think about what would happen when the creatures decided to
stop playing with us, Because that's what it was, play
(20:57):
a cat with a mouse, a child with an insect.
They could kill us anytime they wanted, They demonstrated that,
but they weren't killing us. Why they're deciding, Sam said,
as if reading my thoughts, watching to see what we'll do,
what we're made of?
Speaker 2 (21:15):
What should we do? Nothing?
Speaker 1 (21:17):
His voice was flat, certain, We keep moving. We show
them we're not afraid, even though we are. We demonstrate
that we're worth the trouble of keeping alive. And if
we failed that test. Sam looked at the darkness beyond
our fire. Somewhere out there, something was watching us, something
ancient and patient and utterly alien. Then we won't have
(21:40):
to worry about anything anymore. Marcus closed his eyes and
leaned back in the chair. His body was exhausted. He'd
been reading for how long now three days?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Four?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Time had lost meaning in his father's cabin, the hours
bleeding together in a haze of ancient words and mounting dread.
But his mind wouldn't stop, couldn't stop. The narrative had
taken hold of him like a fever, filling his thoughts
with images of vast forests and watching eyes and creatures
that existed at the edge of human comprehension. He thought
(22:15):
about his own life, his comfortable career, his reasonable apartment
in Chicago, his sensible routine of lectures and research, and
the occasional dinner party with colleagues who discussed history like
it was something dead and distant. All of that seemed
impossibly far away. Now another life, another person. Here in
(22:35):
his father's cabin, surrounded by his ancestors' words, Marcus was
becoming someone else, someone who understood why his father had
spent his life watching the mountains, someone who felt the
weight of inherited responsibility settling onto his shoulders. He opened
his eyes and looked at the remaining journals. Four more
and the letters and the portfolio of drawings and whatever
(22:59):
was in that small, all carved box he hadn't opened yet.
How much worse was it going to get? He already
knew the answer. He'd read enough accounts of expeditions gone wrong,
the Franklin Expedition, the Donner Party, the countless disasters that
littered the history of American expansion. He knew how these
stories ended with death, with horror, with knowledge that no
(23:22):
one should have. But he kept reading because he needed
to know, because his father had needed him to know,
Because some burdens, once accepted, can never be set down.
He picked up the next journal and turned to the
first page. April twenty eighth through May tenth, seventeen ninety nine,
Shawnee Territory. We descended from the high mountains into the
(23:46):
Ohio Valley, and the world changed around us. The oppressive
forest gave way to rolling hills and river bottoms. The
air grew warmer, heavier, thick with the smell of spring growth.
Birds sang again. Cardinals and thrushes and mockingbirds sound so
normal they seemed almost alien after weeks of terrible silence.
(24:07):
But we knew better than to relax. The creatures were
still out there. We could feel them watching, even in
this gentler country. They'd followed us down from the mountains,
or perhaps they'd been here all along and we simply
hadn't noticed them before. Henry navigated us into Shawnee territory,
his knowledge of the region proving invaluable. The Shawnee had
(24:29):
no love for Americans. Treaties had been broken, promises betrayed,
land stolen in ways that bred legitimate grievance. I did
not expect a warm welcome. I received worse than I expected.
The warriors who found us were young and angry, their
faces painted in patterns I didn't recognize. They surrounded us
(24:50):
without warning, appearing from the underbrush like the hunters they were.
Their weapons were a mix of traditional and modern tomahawks
and muskets, bows and rocks rifles, but their intent was unmistakable.
We were trespassers, and trespassers in Shawnee country often didn't leave.
Henry spoke quickly, his hands raised, his voice carrying tones
(25:13):
of respect and urgency. The warriors listened without lowering their weapons.
One of them, a man with scars running down the
left side of his face, stepped forward and spoke in
rapid Shawnee. He wants to know who sent us on retranslated,
and why we travel with the dead. The dead, that's
what he said. He says, we smell like the dead.
(25:36):
I didn't know how to respond to that, but before
I could speak, Sam urged his horse forward. Tell him
we seek the old enemies, he said. Tell him we
know what lurks in the high places. Tell him we've
been marked on, rehesitated, then translated. The effect was immediate.
The scarred warrior's face went pale beneath his paint. He
(25:56):
stepped back, making a gesture I'd seen before among the lenape,
a sign against evil. Then he spoke rapidly to his companions,
and suddenly their weapons were lowering, their postures, shifting from
threat to something more complex, fear. They were afraid of
us or of what we carried with us. They'll take
(26:17):
us to their chief. Henery said to Cornstalk's son, I
knew that name. Cornstalk had been a great Shawnee leader,
murdered by American soldiers while under a flag of truce.
His son, who had taken his father's name and honor,
was said to be even more formidable. And far more
hostile to Americans. We followed the warriors through the valley
(26:38):
for three days. They didn't speak to us, They barely
looked at us, But I noticed them watching the forest
around us with expressions of barely suppressed terror. They knew
what followed us, and they wanted nothing to do with it.
Cornstalk's son received us in his village, a substantial settlement
on the banks of a river. I didn't recognize. He
(26:59):
was younger than I expected, perhaps forty, with the bearing
of a warrior and the eyes of a man who
had seen too much. He looked at each of us
in turn, his gaze lingering on the pendent around my neck.
Then he spoke, you are fools. On retranslated, he says
that entering the territory of the old enemies is not
bravery but suicide. We have no choice, I replied, We
(27:23):
must understand what they are. Cornstalk's son laughed. It was
not a pleasant sound. You think you can understand them.
My grandfather's grandfathers fought a war with the wild people.
Generations of warriors went into the mountains to drive them out.
Most did not return what happened to them. Some were
killed in ways that warriors should never be killed. Some
(27:47):
were taken.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
We do not know where or why.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Some came back, but they were no longer warriors. They
were broken things that wore the shapes of men. He
rose from his seat and walked to the edge of
the fire. The war lasted longer than anyone can remember.
Both sides bled, both sides learned, and in the end
we made an agreement, not peace. They do not know
(28:11):
peace as we understand it. They stay in the high places,
we stay in the valleys. Neither crosses into the other's territory.
But we've already crossed. I said yes, and they have noticed.
He turned to face us, his expression grim. When you
cross that boundary, you invited consequences, not just for yourselves,
(28:32):
but for all humans. The old enemies do not distinguish
between tribes. A human is a human to them, pray
or competition or curiosity. But never can we mean them
no harm. That does not matter. You have entered their home.
You have seen what should not be seen. They will
(28:52):
decide what to do with you, and their decisions are
not our decisions. I thought about the horse, the way
it had been torn apart. The demonstration of power that
served no purpose except intimidation. They've been testing us, I said, watching, evaluating. Yes,
what are they looking for? Cornstalk's sun was silent for
(29:15):
a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was softer,
almost regretful. My grandmother told me a story. Once a
warrior from our village went into the mountains long ago,
seeking the old enemies. He wanted to prove his courage
to earn glory by facing the unfaceable. He was gone
for a full turn of the moon. When he returned,
(29:38):
he was changed. His hair had gone white, and his
eyes were different, older, deeper, as if he had seen
ages pass In those weeks. He said, the old enemies
had shown him things, the world before humans, the world
after humans, the world as it truly is beneath the
skin of what we see. He said they had he
(30:00):
judged him worthy of that knowledge, and that knowledge had
nearly destroyed him. Stay tuned for more Backwoods Bigfoot stories.
We'll be back after these messages. What happened to him?
He lived another forty years. He never took a wife,
never joined another war party, never left the village. He
(30:20):
spent his days sitting by the fire, staring at nothing.
When he died, his last words were, they are still watching.
They will always be watching. The fire crackled between us. Outside,
I could hear the sounds of village life, children playing,
women cooking, dogs barking, normal sounds, human sounds, but underneath them,
(30:44):
barely audible. I could hear something else, wood knocking three times,
far away, but unmistakable. Cornstalk's son heard it too. His
face tightened. They followed you here, he said. They're at
the edge of my territory watching. I'm sorry. Don't be sorry.
Be careful, he stood abruptly. I'll give you a guide,
(31:07):
swift Hawk. He'll take you to the boundary of their lands.
Beyond that, you're on your own.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Why help us.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
We're Americans, your enemies. You're not my enemies, your fools
walking into death. There's a difference, he almost smiled. Besides,
if you die in their territory, it's not my concern.
If you die in mind, it becomes a political problem.
We left the village at dawn, with swift Hawk as
our guide. He was young, perhaps twenty five, and terrified.
(31:39):
He wrote at the front of our column, with his
shoulders hunched and his eyes constantly moving, scanning the forest
for threats he couldn't see, but knew we're there. We
traveled for five days through increasingly wild country. The Ohio
River fell behind us, and the mountains rose again, different
from the alleghenies, older, somehow, more worn down by time.
(32:02):
And all the while the creatures followed us. We didn't
see them. We didn't need to. The signs were everywhere,
footprints in the mud, structures in the trees, the smell
of musk on the wind, and always always the knocking
in the night. Swift Hawk grew more agitated. With every mile.
(32:22):
He barely slept, he barely ate. His conversations with Anri
grew shorter and more clipped, until finally he stopped speaking entirely.
On the fifth day, he halted his horse at the
edge of a ravine and refused to go further. This
is the boundary on retranslated, Beyond this point is death.
The ravine stretched across our path, a natural barrier perhaps
(32:45):
fifty feet deep and twice that wide. On the far side,
the forest seemed different, darker, older, somehow more alive. They're
waiting on the other side, swift Hawk said, through Nri,
I can feel them, Oh, could I dependent at my
chest was warm, almost hot, and the air seemed thick
(33:05):
with watching eyes. Thank you, I said to swift Hawk,
till Cornstalk's son were grateful for his help. Swift Hawk
looked at me with something like pity. May your deaths
be quick on retranslated. Then he wheeled his horse and
rode away without looking back. We watched until he disappeared
into the forest, his hoof beats fading into silence. We
(33:27):
were alone, well, Thomas said, his voice brittle with forced cheerfulness.
I suppose there's nothing for it but to press on.
Sam was already urging his horse toward the ravine, looking
for a way down. There's a path here, he called.
Looks like it's been used recently by what. He didn't say.
He didn't need to. One by one we began the
(33:49):
descent into the unknown. Marcus woke with a start. He'd
fallen asleep in the chair again. The journal opened on
his chest, the fire burned down to cold ashes. His
neck ached, and his back protested.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
As he straightened, trying to remember where he was.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
The cabin, his father's cabin, the journals, the creatures. He
stood and stretched, his joints popping outside. The sky was
gray with pre dawn light. How many days had he
been here?
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Now?
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Five six? He'd stopped counting. The journals consumed him. Every
time he tried to stop to eat, or sleep, or
simply think about something else, the narrative pulled him back.
He needed to know what happened next, needed to know
how Elijah and his men fared in the forbidden territory.
Needed to know whether his ancestor survived what was coming.
(34:44):
He already knew some of them didn't survive. The outline
hinted at it. The tone of Elijah's writing suggested it.
Two deaths at least, maybe more. But which ones Jim
with his battle hardened skills and fierce loyalty, Thromus with
his crumbling certainties and trembling hands, Will Harper drifting into madness,
(35:06):
his own nephew Zeke, too young and too eager for
what lay ahead. Or maybe Sam, the one who'd been
waiting twenty years for this, the one who'd already been marked,
already been examined, already been allowed to live. Maybe he'd
finally learn why Marcus made coffee and forced himself to
eat some of the dried fruit from the pantry. Then
(35:27):
he went back to the chair, picked up the journal
and continued reading the b
For decades, people have disappeared in the woods without a trace.
Some blame wild animals, others whisper of creatures the world
refuses to believe in. But those who have survived they
know the truth. Welcome to Backwoods Bigfoot Stories, where we
share real encounters with the things lurking in the darkness bigfoot,
(00:22):
dog man, UFOs, and creatures that defy explanation. Some make
it out, others aren't so lucky.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Are you ready, because.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Once you hear these stories, you'll never walk in the
woods alone again. So grab your flashlight, stay close, and
remember some things in the woods don't want to be found.
Hit that follow or subscribe button, turn on auto downloads,
and let's head off into the woods if you dare.
(01:02):
Before we begin today's episode, I need to talk to
you about something important. Yes, you, you pressed play for
a reason. You stepped into my space, so please hear
me out. Independent podcasts don't rise because fate smiles on them.
They don't climb because algorithms suddenly decide to be kind.
(01:22):
There's no marketing wizard behind a curtain pulling strings. There's
only you listening, showing up, returning again and again because
something here pulls you in and you know it. And
that's why what you do next matters more than you think.
Turn on auto downloads. Let the episodes arrive on your
device quietly and reliably, like a ritual that never fails,
(01:46):
something steady, something you don't have to think about. Leave
a rating and review, a few words, a moment of
your time, but the impact it lasts, it spreads, It
tells the world this corner of chaos has value. And
then tell ten people about the show. Ten because ten
(02:07):
is enough to shift momentum, but small enough to feel easy.
You already know who they are, friends, family, co workers,
even that neighbor who fires up his leaf blower at
sunrise because he enjoys a little suffering. They're all waiting
for something new to obsess over. You're simply giving them
the nudge. Because indie shows grow one way, through the
(02:30):
people who believe in them, through the voices that carry
them through listeners like you, quietly doing the things that
make a huge difference. And honestly, the only thing I
want for Christmas, the only thing is for you to
take those few small steps and send this show into
the world with the kind of energy that can't be ignored.
(02:50):
So now that we understand each other, let's begin today's episode.
April eighth to fifteenth, seventeen ninety nine, Territory. They came
out of the forest like ghosts. One moment we were
alone on the trail, the horses plodding through morning missed.
The next moment, seven Lenapi hunters surrounded us, their faces
(03:13):
painted for war, their weapons raised.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
The horses spooked.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Jim's mayor nearly threw him, and Zeke's gelding reared so
violently that my nephew had to grab the saddle horn
with both hands to stay mounted. Only Sam seemed unsurprised,
his hands raised and empty, his voice calling out in
a language I didn't recognize. Henry stepped forward, adding his
own words and yet another tongue. The lead hunter, a
(03:39):
man of perhaps thirty with scars that spoke of battles survived,
responded sharply, his hand on the knife at his belt.
He wants to know why we're here, Henri translated. He says,
white men always bring harm, whether they mean to or not.
Tell him we mean no harm to his people. I said,
we seek only the maing. Henre hesitated. Captain. Tell him
(04:05):
Henre spoke. The effect was immediate. The hunters exchanged glances,
and I saw several of them make signs against evil.
The lead hunter, whose name Henre told me later, was
hunting Bear. Step back, his hand, moving from his knife
to the medicine pouch at his chest. You are fools,
haun Re translated. He says, to turn back while we
(04:25):
still can. We cannot turn back. More rapid exchange, Hunting
Bear's face shifted through expressions I couldn't read anger, fear,
something that might have been respect. Finally, he lowered his
weapon and spoke at length. He will take us to
their village, Henri said, to speak with the elders. He says,
(04:47):
if we are determined to die, we should at least
understand what will kill us. We followed them through the
forest for half a day, climbing into territory that grew wilder.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
With every mile.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
The Lenape hunters moved through the trees like shadows, appearing
and disappearing in ways that made me question whether they
were entirely real. The village was smaller than I expected,
perhaps fifty people in all, living in longhouses arranged around
a central fire pit. Women and children watched us pass
with expressions of curiosity and suspicion. Old men sat smoking pipes,
(05:22):
their eyes tracking our movements with the patients of those
who have seen everything. Hunting Bear led us to the
largest longhouse, speaking briefly with a young woman at the
entrance before gesturing for us to follow him.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Inside.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
The interior was dim and smoky, lit only by a
small fire burning in a pit near the center. Animal
skins covered the walls, and the smell of tobacco hung
heavy in the air. At the far end, seated on
a raised platform covered in furs, sat the oldest human
being I had ever seen, Gray Owl. They called him
(05:55):
a man of such advanced age that his face had
collapsed into a map of rings, his eyes clouded by
cataracts that should have rendered him blind.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
But when he looked at us, when he.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Looked at me, I felt seen in a way that
defied explanation. He spoke, and on retranslated, he says he
knows why we've come. He has been waiting for men
like us for many years, waiting, I asked, hoping we
would not come, knowing we would, The old man gestured
for us to sit. We arranged ourselves on the packed
(06:29):
earth floor, uncomfortable and out of place, while gray Owl
studied each of us in turn. His gaze lingered longest
on Sam, and something passed between them, recognition perhaps, or understanding.
Then he began to speak. What followed was the most
remarkable conversation of my life, and retranslated as best he could,
(06:51):
though he admitted afterward that some concepts had no equivalent
in English. I will record here what I understood, knowing
that much was lost in the transition from one language
to another. The messing gray Owl told us We're not
what we thought, not spirits, not gods, not demons. They
were simply old, unimaginably old. They were here before us
(07:15):
On retranslated, they were here before the first people crossed.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Into this land.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
They watched us come, they will watch us go. Are
they animals, Thomas asked. Gray Owl's laugh was dry and papery,
like leaves rustling in autumn wind. Are we animals? We eat,
we sleep, we mate, we die. But we are more
than animals?
Speaker 2 (07:39):
So are they? Then? What are they? The first people?
Speaker 1 (07:44):
The elder brothers, They walked the forests when the forests
were young. They remember when the great ice covered the land.
They remember what came before. I leaned forward. Have your
people fought them? We've heard stories of war. The old
man's expression darkened. He spoke for a long time, his
voice dropping to a whisper, And I saw some of
(08:06):
the hunters at the edges of the room make signs
against evil. There was war on, retranslated slowly generations ago.
My grandfather's grandfather fought in it. Many warriors went into
the high places to drive out the masing. Most did
not return what happened to them. Some were killed, some
(08:26):
were taken, Some came back changed. They would not speak
of what they saw. They lived apart from the village,
and when they died, their bodies were burned, so that
whatever touched them could not spread what touched them, Josiah asked.
Gray Owl looked at the former reverend for a long
moment before responding, Understanding, hen retranslated. They came to understand
(08:48):
the masing, and that understanding broke them. The fire crackled
in the silence that followed. Outside, I could hear children playing,
women singing, the ordinary sounds of village life. But inside
this smoky longhouse nothing felt ordinary anymore. Why did they hide.
I asked, if they're as powerful as you say, why
(09:10):
have they retreated into the deep wilderness. They have not retreated.
They have allowed us to spread. There is a difference.
But why Gray Owl's milky eyes seem to look through me,
into me, beyond me. Because they are patient, because they
have seen people's rise and fall for longer than we
can imagine. Because they know that this he gestured broadly,
(09:35):
encompassing the village, the forest, the world is temporary.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
We are temporary. They are not.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
He reached into the firs beside him and produced something
small and dark, a stone, pendent carved with symbols I
didn't recognize. He held it out to me. Take this
on retranslated, wear it where they can see it. If
they find you. When they find you, show them this.
It may buy you time, time for what to decide
(10:04):
if you are worthy of continued life. I took the pendant.
The stone was cool and smooth, heavier than it should
have been for its size. The symbols seemed to shift
in the firelight, though that might have been my imagination.
What do these symbols mean? They mean that you are
known to us, that you have been warned that you
have chosen to enter their territory. Despite the warnings, gray
(10:28):
Owl's lips twisted into something that wasn't quite a smile.
They may respect that, or they may not with the
messing you. One never knows. I slipped the cord over
my head and felt the pendant settle against my chest.
It was warm, now, warm, like a living thing. They've
been watching us, I said, since we entered the mountains,
(10:50):
the footprints, the structures, the sounds at night. Yes, what
do they want to know?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
What you are?
Speaker 1 (10:58):
To decide what you will become? Gray Owl leaned forward,
his ancient face, suddenly fierce. You are being tested, soldier,
every step you take, every choice you make. They are watching, learning, judging, judging.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
What, whether you are worthy, worthy of what.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
But gray Owl had sunk back into his furs, his
eyes closing. The audience clearly over. Hunting Bear appeared at
my elbow, gesturing toward the exit. We left the village
at dawn the next morning. The leunapee watched us go
with expressions I couldn't read, pity, perhaps, or the grim
acceptance of those who know their watching dead men walk.
(11:42):
As we mounted our horses, gray Owl appeared at the
edge of the trees. He raised one hand in a
gesture that might have been farewell or might have been warning. Then,
from somewhere deep in the forest, a wood knock echoed
three times, just like every night before. Gray Owl smiled.
They're listening, he said, and these words needed no translation.
(12:04):
They know what you seek. They have marked you, now,
for good or ill you are marked. We rode out
of the village and back into the wilderness, and behind us,
following at a distance we could feel, but not see,
something watched us go. Marcus set down the journal and
walked to the window again. The sun was setting over
the mountains, painting the sky and shades of orange and red, beautiful, terrifying.
(12:31):
The same mountains his ancestor had ridden into two hundred
years ago, seeking answers to questions that haunted him, The
same mountains his father had walked into again and again
year after year. What had his father found out there?
Marcus touched his chest, feeling for something that wasn't there.
Then he remembered the pendant, the one from the trunk.
(12:53):
He'd set it aside when he started reading, focused on
the journals themselves. He went back to the table and
found among the other artifacts. The stone was dark and smooth,
carved with symbols that matched Gray Owl's description. When he
picked it up, it felt warm. He slipped the cord
over his head, the pendant settled against his chest, and
(13:14):
for just a moment, a fraction of a second, he
could have sworn he heard something in the forest outside,
a knock three times, but when he went to the
window and listened, there was nothing, just wind in the
trees and the last light of day fading from the sky.
He went back to his father's chair and picked up
the next journal. April fifteenth to twenty eighth, seventeen ninety nine,
(13:39):
Deep in the Mountains, Two weeks of hell. That's the
only way I can describe what followed our meeting with
the Lenape. Two weeks of constant surveillance, nocturnal terrors, and
psychological warfare that shredded our nerves and tested our sanity.
The forest changed around us, older trees, denser canopy, perpetual
(14:00):
twilight even at noon, the sun a distant memory above,
layers of leaves so thick that rain took hours to
filter through to the ground. The silence was profound, not peaceful,
but oppressive. Our own breathing seemed too loud, our own
heart beats seemed like violations. And everywhere, always the feeling
(14:21):
of being watched. Eyes in the darkness, something moving at
the edge of vision. Turn to look and find nothing there.
Turn away and feel them again, pressing against the back
of your skull, like fingers. The men dealt with it
in different ways. Jim grew more aggressive, his hand never
far from his rifle, his eyes scanning the trees constantly.
(14:44):
He snapped at small provocations and argued with Thomas over nothing.
The war had trained him to respond to threats with violence,
and the formless menace surrounding us gave him no target.
Thomas retreated into his scientific documentation, filling notebook after note
oat book with observations and measurements and theories. Stay tuned
for more Backwoods Bigfoot stories. We'll be back after these messages.
(15:09):
His earlier arrogance had given way to something like desperation,
a need to categorize, to explain, to force the unknown
into frameworks he could understand. His hands shook when he wrote,
and his voice cracked when he spoke. Will Harper's behavior
disturbed me most. He'd always been peculiar, but now he
seemed to be drifting into another world entirely. He sketched constantly,
(15:34):
filling page after page with images he wouldn't show anyone.
He stared at the forest with an expression that wasn't
quite fear. It was more like hunger, like recognition. They're
showing me things, he said one night, when I found
him sitting apart from the fire, his sketchbook opened on
his knees. When I close my eyes, I can see them,
(15:55):
see what, faces, places, Things that were here before his
eyes when they met mine were too bright, too intense.
They want me to understand, Captain, they want me to see.
I didn't know what to say to that. I still don't.
Josiah prayed constantly, his lips moved without sound, the words
(16:17):
of scripture or supplication running through his mind like water
through a channel. I don't know if it brought him comfort.
I don't think he knew either. Solomon carved small wooden figures,
faces and shapes emerging from the wood under his skilled hands.
Some were human, others were not. He wouldn't explain what
he was doing, just kept working, the shavings falling around
(16:39):
his feet like offerings. Sam watched. That's all he did.
He stood at the perimeter of our camps and watched
the forest with an expression I couldn't read. Sometimes I
thought I saw him nod, as if in response to
something no one else could hear. And every night the
terrors came. The knocking started around midnight, always midnight, as
(17:01):
if the creatures had a sense of time. It began slow,
one knock, then another, then a third, then built in
frequency and intensity, until the forest rang with the sound
of wood on wood, like war drums, like the heartbeat
of something vast and terrible. Then the howls. I have
heard wolves, I have heard mountain lions. I have heard
(17:25):
the screams of men dying on battlefields in ways that
should not be possible. None of it prepared me for
the howls that echoed through those mountains. They started low,
a rumbling that seemed to come from the earth itself.
Then they rose, climbing through registers that shouldn't exist, reaching
into the skull and touching something primal, something that remembered
(17:46):
being prey. The first few nights, we built the fires
high and clutched our weapons and waited for attacks that
never came. By the end of the first week, we
had learned to simply endure. The attacks weren't coming. The
creet didn't need to attack. They were breaking us by
other means. Physical evidence of their presence accumulated around us.
(18:07):
Rocks thrown into our camps at night, landing with enough
force to shatter cooking pots, Branches torn from trees and
scattered like warnings, Equipment moved, disturbed, examined while we slept.
Once I woke to find enormous footprints in the soft earth,
not three feet from where my head had rested. Something
(18:27):
had stood over me while I slept, watching. Deciding, I
touched the penn and at my chest. It was warm.
The smell came next, a musk, unlike anything I had encountered,
wild and earthy and somehow wrong. It preceded their approaches,
warning us they were near. We came to dread that smell.
(18:48):
Though there were nights I was almost grateful for it.
At least it told us when they were close. On
the fifteenth day, they killed one of our horses. The
animal broke free, and the chaos of a particular intense night,
the knocking reaching a crescendo. Howls coming from every direction.
We heard it scream. Horses scream, you know, when they're
(19:10):
terrified enough, when they know they're about to die. The
sound is almost human. Then silence. We found what remained
in the morning. I will not describe it in detail.
The nightmares are vivid enough without committing the images to paper.
I will say only this. The destruction required strength beyond
anything human, beyond anything I had thought possible. The horse
(19:33):
had been torn apart, not eaten, or not entirely eaten,
torn apart, as if in anger, as if in demonstration.
They're showing us what they can do, Sam said, looking
at the remains with an expression of grim recognition. They
want us to understand. Thomas examined the scene with trembling hands,
(19:54):
his scientific detachment crumbling. These wounds weren't made by any
animal I can classify, he said. The sheer force required.
This was done by hands, enormous hands. Not hands, Solomon said, quietly,
not like ours?
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Then what?
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Solomon didn't answer. He just looked at the small wooden
figure he'd been carving, a figure with long arms and
broad shoulders and a face that was almost human but
not quite. We buried what we could of the horse.
It seemed disrespectful to leave it there, though I couldn't
have explained who we were showing respect to the animal,
(20:32):
the creatures that killed it, our own sense of decency
fraying at the edges that night, The knocking was quieter,
almost gentle, as if they were waiting to see how
we would respond. We didn't respond. We sat around our
fire and stared into the flames and tried not to
think about what would happen when the creatures decided to
stop playing with us, Because that's what it was, play
(20:57):
a cat with a mouse, a child with an insect.
They could kill us anytime they wanted, They demonstrated that,
but they weren't killing us. Why they're deciding, Sam said,
as if reading my thoughts, watching to see what we'll do,
what we're made of?
Speaker 2 (21:15):
What should we do? Nothing?
Speaker 1 (21:17):
His voice was flat, certain, We keep moving. We show
them we're not afraid, even though we are. We demonstrate
that we're worth the trouble of keeping alive. And if
we failed that test. Sam looked at the darkness beyond
our fire. Somewhere out there, something was watching us, something
ancient and patient and utterly alien. Then we won't have
(21:40):
to worry about anything anymore. Marcus closed his eyes and
leaned back in the chair. His body was exhausted. He'd
been reading for how long now three days?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Four?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Time had lost meaning in his father's cabin, the hours
bleeding together in a haze of ancient words and mounting dread.
But his mind wouldn't stop, couldn't stop. The narrative had
taken hold of him like a fever, filling his thoughts
with images of vast forests and watching eyes and creatures
that existed at the edge of human comprehension. He thought
(22:15):
about his own life, his comfortable career, his reasonable apartment
in Chicago, his sensible routine of lectures and research, and
the occasional dinner party with colleagues who discussed history like
it was something dead and distant. All of that seemed
impossibly far away. Now another life, another person. Here in
(22:35):
his father's cabin, surrounded by his ancestors' words, Marcus was
becoming someone else, someone who understood why his father had
spent his life watching the mountains, someone who felt the
weight of inherited responsibility settling onto his shoulders. He opened
his eyes and looked at the remaining journals. Four more
and the letters and the portfolio of drawings and whatever
(22:59):
was in that small, all carved box he hadn't opened yet.
How much worse was it going to get? He already
knew the answer. He'd read enough accounts of expeditions gone wrong,
the Franklin Expedition, the Donner Party, the countless disasters that
littered the history of American expansion. He knew how these
stories ended with death, with horror, with knowledge that no
(23:22):
one should have. But he kept reading because he needed
to know, because his father had needed him to know,
Because some burdens, once accepted, can never be set down.
He picked up the next journal and turned to the
first page. April twenty eighth through May tenth, seventeen ninety nine,
Shawnee Territory. We descended from the high mountains into the
(23:46):
Ohio Valley, and the world changed around us. The oppressive
forest gave way to rolling hills and river bottoms. The
air grew warmer, heavier, thick with the smell of spring growth.
Birds sang again. Cardinals and thrushes and mockingbirds sound so
normal they seemed almost alien after weeks of terrible silence.
(24:07):
But we knew better than to relax. The creatures were
still out there. We could feel them watching, even in
this gentler country. They'd followed us down from the mountains,
or perhaps they'd been here all along and we simply
hadn't noticed them before. Henry navigated us into Shawnee territory,
his knowledge of the region proving invaluable. The Shawnee had
(24:29):
no love for Americans. Treaties had been broken, promises betrayed,
land stolen in ways that bred legitimate grievance. I did
not expect a warm welcome. I received worse than I expected.
The warriors who found us were young and angry, their
faces painted in patterns I didn't recognize. They surrounded us
(24:50):
without warning, appearing from the underbrush like the hunters they were.
Their weapons were a mix of traditional and modern tomahawks
and muskets, bows and rocks rifles, but their intent was unmistakable.
We were trespassers, and trespassers in Shawnee country often didn't leave.
Henry spoke quickly, his hands raised, his voice carrying tones
(25:13):
of respect and urgency. The warriors listened without lowering their weapons.
One of them, a man with scars running down the
left side of his face, stepped forward and spoke in
rapid Shawnee. He wants to know who sent us on retranslated,
and why we travel with the dead. The dead, that's
what he said. He says, we smell like the dead.
(25:36):
I didn't know how to respond to that, but before
I could speak, Sam urged his horse forward. Tell him
we seek the old enemies, he said. Tell him we
know what lurks in the high places. Tell him we've
been marked on, rehesitated, then translated. The effect was immediate.
The scarred warrior's face went pale beneath his paint. He
(25:56):
stepped back, making a gesture I'd seen before among the lenape,
a sign against evil. Then he spoke rapidly to his companions,
and suddenly their weapons were lowering, their postures, shifting from
threat to something more complex, fear. They were afraid of
us or of what we carried with us. They'll take
(26:17):
us to their chief. Henery said to Cornstalk's son, I
knew that name. Cornstalk had been a great Shawnee leader,
murdered by American soldiers while under a flag of truce.
His son, who had taken his father's name and honor,
was said to be even more formidable. And far more
hostile to Americans. We followed the warriors through the valley
(26:38):
for three days. They didn't speak to us, They barely
looked at us, But I noticed them watching the forest
around us with expressions of barely suppressed terror. They knew
what followed us, and they wanted nothing to do with it.
Cornstalk's son received us in his village, a substantial settlement
on the banks of a river. I didn't recognize. He
(26:59):
was younger than I expected, perhaps forty, with the bearing
of a warrior and the eyes of a man who
had seen too much. He looked at each of us
in turn, his gaze lingering on the pendent around my neck.
Then he spoke, you are fools. On retranslated, he says
that entering the territory of the old enemies is not
bravery but suicide. We have no choice, I replied, We
(27:23):
must understand what they are. Cornstalk's son laughed. It was
not a pleasant sound. You think you can understand them.
My grandfather's grandfathers fought a war with the wild people.
Generations of warriors went into the mountains to drive them out.
Most did not return what happened to them. Some were
killed in ways that warriors should never be killed. Some
(27:47):
were taken.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
We do not know where or why.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Some came back, but they were no longer warriors. They
were broken things that wore the shapes of men. He
rose from his seat and walked to the edge of
the fire. The war lasted longer than anyone can remember.
Both sides bled, both sides learned, and in the end
we made an agreement, not peace. They do not know
(28:11):
peace as we understand it. They stay in the high places,
we stay in the valleys. Neither crosses into the other's territory.
But we've already crossed. I said yes, and they have noticed.
He turned to face us, his expression grim. When you
cross that boundary, you invited consequences, not just for yourselves,
(28:32):
but for all humans. The old enemies do not distinguish
between tribes. A human is a human to them, pray
or competition or curiosity. But never can we mean them
no harm. That does not matter. You have entered their home.
You have seen what should not be seen. They will
(28:52):
decide what to do with you, and their decisions are
not our decisions. I thought about the horse, the way
it had been torn apart. The demonstration of power that
served no purpose except intimidation. They've been testing us, I said, watching, evaluating. Yes,
what are they looking for? Cornstalk's sun was silent for
(29:15):
a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was softer,
almost regretful. My grandmother told me a story. Once a
warrior from our village went into the mountains long ago,
seeking the old enemies. He wanted to prove his courage
to earn glory by facing the unfaceable. He was gone
for a full turn of the moon. When he returned,
(29:38):
he was changed. His hair had gone white, and his
eyes were different, older, deeper, as if he had seen
ages pass In those weeks. He said, the old enemies
had shown him things, the world before humans, the world
after humans, the world as it truly is beneath the
skin of what we see. He said they had he
(30:00):
judged him worthy of that knowledge, and that knowledge had
nearly destroyed him. Stay tuned for more Backwoods Bigfoot stories.
We'll be back after these messages. What happened to him?
He lived another forty years. He never took a wife,
never joined another war party, never left the village. He
(30:20):
spent his days sitting by the fire, staring at nothing.
When he died, his last words were, they are still watching.
They will always be watching. The fire crackled between us. Outside,
I could hear the sounds of village life, children playing,
women cooking, dogs barking, normal sounds, human sounds, but underneath them,
(30:44):
barely audible. I could hear something else, wood knocking three times,
far away, but unmistakable. Cornstalk's son heard it too. His
face tightened. They followed you here, he said. They're at
the edge of my territory watching. I'm sorry. Don't be sorry.
Be careful, he stood abruptly. I'll give you a guide,
(31:07):
swift Hawk. He'll take you to the boundary of their lands.
Beyond that, you're on your own.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Why help us.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
We're Americans, your enemies. You're not my enemies, your fools
walking into death. There's a difference, he almost smiled. Besides,
if you die in their territory, it's not my concern.
If you die in mind, it becomes a political problem.
We left the village at dawn, with swift Hawk as
our guide. He was young, perhaps twenty five, and terrified.
(31:39):
He wrote at the front of our column, with his
shoulders hunched and his eyes constantly moving, scanning the forest
for threats he couldn't see, but knew we're there. We
traveled for five days through increasingly wild country. The Ohio
River fell behind us, and the mountains rose again, different
from the alleghenies, older, somehow, more worn down by time.
(32:02):
And all the while the creatures followed us. We didn't
see them. We didn't need to. The signs were everywhere,
footprints in the mud, structures in the trees, the smell
of musk on the wind, and always always the knocking
in the night. Swift Hawk grew more agitated. With every mile.
(32:22):
He barely slept, he barely ate. His conversations with Anri
grew shorter and more clipped, until finally he stopped speaking entirely.
On the fifth day, he halted his horse at the
edge of a ravine and refused to go further. This
is the boundary on retranslated, Beyond this point is death.
The ravine stretched across our path, a natural barrier perhaps
(32:45):
fifty feet deep and twice that wide. On the far side,
the forest seemed different, darker, older, somehow more alive. They're
waiting on the other side, swift Hawk said, through Nri,
I can feel them, Oh, could I dependent at my
chest was warm, almost hot, and the air seemed thick
(33:05):
with watching eyes. Thank you, I said to swift Hawk,
till Cornstalk's son were grateful for his help. Swift Hawk
looked at me with something like pity. May your deaths
be quick on retranslated. Then he wheeled his horse and
rode away without looking back. We watched until he disappeared
into the forest, his hoof beats fading into silence. We
(33:27):
were alone, well, Thomas said, his voice brittle with forced cheerfulness.
I suppose there's nothing for it but to press on.
Sam was already urging his horse toward the ravine, looking
for a way down. There's a path here, he called.
Looks like it's been used recently by what. He didn't say.
He didn't need to. One by one we began the
(33:49):
descent into the unknown. Marcus woke with a start. He'd
fallen asleep in the chair again. The journal opened on
his chest, the fire burned down to cold ashes. His
neck ached, and his back protested.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
As he straightened, trying to remember where he was.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
The cabin, his father's cabin, the journals, the creatures. He
stood and stretched, his joints popping outside. The sky was
gray with pre dawn light. How many days had he
been here?
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Now?
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Five six? He'd stopped counting. The journals consumed him. Every
time he tried to stop to eat, or sleep, or
simply think about something else, the narrative pulled him back.
He needed to know what happened next, needed to know
how Elijah and his men fared in the forbidden territory.
Needed to know whether his ancestor survived what was coming.
(34:44):
He already knew some of them didn't survive. The outline
hinted at it. The tone of Elijah's writing suggested it.
Two deaths at least, maybe more. But which ones Jim
with his battle hardened skills and fierce loyalty, Thromus with
his crumbling certainties and trembling hands, Will Harper drifting into madness,
(35:06):
his own nephew Zeke, too young and too eager for
what lay ahead. Or maybe Sam, the one who'd been
waiting twenty years for this, the one who'd already been marked,
already been examined, already been allowed to live. Maybe he'd
finally learn why Marcus made coffee and forced himself to
eat some of the dried fruit from the pantry. Then
(35:27):
he went back to the chair, picked up the journal
and continued reading the b
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