Speaker 1: M start talking to people. Told him that I was.
Speaker 1: I was a bricklayer from Tennessee that recently moved here
Speaker 1: and my wife got a job in Hot Springs, and
Speaker 1: now I like the little turkey hunting And I actually
Speaker 1: asked a guy, Hey, if you have the best turkey
Speaker 1: hunt around here, who would be I'd like to talk
Speaker 1: to somebody about turkey hunt. You need to talk to
Speaker 1: Louis Dale. On this third part of our Genuine Outlaw series,
Speaker 1: we're going behind the veil into the realm of the
Speaker 1: covert operations of the government. In a strange twist, we
Speaker 1: were able to get an interview with the federal undercover
Speaker 1: officer who worked a sting operation on Louis Dell Edwards
Speaker 1: in the nineteen nineties. The Edwards brothers, Charlie and Louis
Speaker 1: Dell were notorious turkey hunting violators, moonshiners, and could be
Speaker 1: straight up rough men. But we're also beloved, respected men,
Speaker 1: known for their honesty, genuine nature, and generosity. Some even
Speaker 1: describe them as pure. I grew up knowing these men
Speaker 1: and them in a process of personal exploration of why
Speaker 1: I am endeared to them, we'll spend half of our
Speaker 1: time with this secret agent and the second half with
Speaker 1: Dr Daniel Rupe as he lays out for us the
Speaker 1: anthropological foundations of why Western culture is enamored without laws.
Speaker 1: This whole series, I've been trying to make sense of
Speaker 1: why we're often endeared to these guys who don't play
Speaker 1: by the rules, and its origins will surprise you. Of
Speaker 1: all the Dad Gubb Bear Grease podcasts we've ever made,
Speaker 1: this one I doubt you're gonna want to miss. And hey,
Speaker 1: if you haven't listened to the first two parts of
Speaker 1: this series, which were bio sketches of the Edwards brothers,
Speaker 1: you might be lost with some of these characters, so
Speaker 1: be sure to listen to part one and two. Ego
Speaker 1: is a very bad thing in the world of hunting,
Speaker 1: and uh the particular group obviously the information I heard
Speaker 1: about them, that is, they were very ego driven in
Speaker 1: their in their taking of animals. They wanted to be
Speaker 1: the ones that couldn't be caught. My name is Clay
Speaker 1: Nukelem and this is the Bear Grease Podcast, where we'll
Speaker 1: explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places,
Speaker 1: and where we'll tell the story of Americans who lived
Speaker 1: their lives close to the land presented by f HF Gear,
Speaker 1: American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed
Speaker 1: to be as rugged as the places we explore. LOOKI Tulsa,
Speaker 1: and I heard this restrict of Ludel's mouth. He was
Speaker 1: at the house one day and the guy shows up
Speaker 1: at his house and Ludell said, a big, old tall
Speaker 1: he said, a nice looking guy, strong built, and he said.
Speaker 1: He knocked on his door, and he went to the door,
Speaker 1: and Loudell said, amen, what could do for He said,
Speaker 1: I hear you're a turkey hunter. He said, I'm from
Speaker 1: Tennessee and he said, I stopped down by the Big
Speaker 1: FOURK store and asked around, and they said, you're the
Speaker 1: guy that would take me turkey. And this is two
Speaker 1: or three weeks for a season. Hen Loudell says, well,
Speaker 1: you know it's not so he said, I don't care.
Speaker 1: He said, if you take me here, he said, can
Speaker 1: you take me? He said sure, I'll take you turke
Speaker 1: hn And he said, well, you'll be over here at
Speaker 1: four thirty in the morning. And he said next morning,
Speaker 1: old boys are at four thirty. And Loudell said, he
Speaker 1: gives a boy some credit because they talked and everything.
Speaker 1: He said he was the best he ever heard on
Speaker 1: a turkey call. With the mouth call. He said he
Speaker 1: was the best he ever heard, the best he ever heard.
Speaker 1: I'd like to introduce you to a man named Russ Arthur.
Speaker 1: That's his real name, but he hasn't always used it.
Speaker 1: Russ is now sixty three years old, and in the
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties he was in his early thirties. Oddly, he
Speaker 1: fits the description to the t that Louis Dell gave
Speaker 1: of this Tennessee turkey hunter. Russ is about six ft
Speaker 1: two and kind of built like a retired nineteen eighties
Speaker 1: w WF wrestler, and by my best estimation and at
Speaker 1: least by one other hill billy, he's a nice looking feller.
Speaker 1: When you meet him, you're struck by his genuine nature
Speaker 1: and he can't hide that he's his country. As Cornbread
Speaker 1: turns out, he's an incredible voice mouth caller, no doubt,
Speaker 1: one of the best I've ever heard. It's kind of spooky.
Speaker 1: See can you mouth call like with your physical voice? Uh?
Speaker 1: Sometimes if yeah, I want to hear your barred owl hoot,
Speaker 1: you gotta yelp. That's just with his mouth. That's not
Speaker 1: a call. It's slightly unnerving sitting here talking to Russ
Speaker 1: after hearing Louis Delle's description of this strange man oddly
Speaker 1: appearing at his house in Arkansas. The Russ I'm talking
Speaker 1: to is a real man, clearly a real turkey hunter.
Speaker 1: He's a real bricklayer, and he's really from Tennessee. Louis
Speaker 1: Delle and I talked to the same guy, but back
Speaker 1: then he wasn't Russ. He was someone else. You see.
Speaker 1: Russ worked his entire career for the United States Force
Speaker 1: Service Law Enforcement Division, and in the nineteen nineties he
Speaker 1: worked a stint of that time in Arkansas. He said
Speaker 1: it was one of the most memorable parts of his career.
Speaker 1: But he's been retired for almost a decade. After I
Speaker 1: did the first episode in this series, I had someone
Speaker 1: privately contact me and say, nobody in the community knows this,
Speaker 1: but I know the undercover agent who worked the case
Speaker 1: on Louis Dell. I was giddy. I was able to
Speaker 1: contact Russ, drive eight hours to where he lived, and
Speaker 1: he agreed to talk to me as long as we
Speaker 1: didn't speak negatively about the Edwards family, because he respected
Speaker 1: them as people. There were at least two undercover operations
Speaker 1: with the Edwards brothers, but none of it fully revealed
Speaker 1: until now here's Andy with more of what Louis Dell
Speaker 1: told him about the incident. But he said, I'm not
Speaker 1: ready to go, said get you good, and a boy said, well,
Speaker 1: where's your gun? He said, well, don't you worry about
Speaker 1: if Turkey goub was morning. He said, I'll find a gun.
Speaker 1: But he loads him up and dropped him off and
Speaker 1: picked him up back east down there that morning. But
Speaker 1: they'd sent they'd sent that lit us and they sent it.
Speaker 1: A boy in there trying to trying to get me
Speaker 1: to mess up. Did he know the whole time that
Speaker 1: he was entertaining the undercovered guy. He suspicion it's the
Speaker 1: whole tel. He's suspicioned that the whole time, and he recalled.
Speaker 1: But he may not have come up with this completely
Speaker 1: on his own, and some details will point to that
Speaker 1: he didn't suspicion it the whole time at all. Turns
Speaker 1: out Louis Dell had some help from the community. But
Speaker 1: you'll have to wait to find out. How you remember
Speaker 1: retired Arkansas Game and Fish game board and Jimmy Martin
Speaker 1: from part one of the series. Here he is giving
Speaker 1: us some broader context into the undercover operations on the
Speaker 1: Edwards brothers. There were several operations over several years where
Speaker 1: we would have, like to say, people from the Fishing
Speaker 1: Wildlife Service, u S, Forest Service, different undercover agents would
Speaker 1: come in and uh, how would how would they get
Speaker 1: their name? I mean, would it be like, how would
Speaker 1: they get Louis Elle's name? My supervisor and we communicated
Speaker 1: with Fishing, Wildlife and Forest Service all the time. We
Speaker 1: we used undercover agents all the time, not just on
Speaker 1: Louis Delle or they'd be used all over the state
Speaker 1: on different things like striper fishermen. We used them on
Speaker 1: when the whites were running up the river for netting,
Speaker 1: people that were net and fish, illegal bear hunting. The
Speaker 1: big one from my supervisor was Loui Delle and Charlie.
Speaker 1: He wanted the people called. He wanted, you know, to
Speaker 1: be the one look at me. I caught Louis Delle,
Speaker 1: look at me. We never didn't make it. The most
Speaker 1: interesting part of all these interviews is hearing the different
Speaker 1: angles into the same story. We might be surprised to
Speaker 1: learned that they could have busted Louis Dell. This next
Speaker 1: twenty minute interview with undercover agent Russ Arthur is one
Speaker 1: of the most unique I've been a part of it
Speaker 1: was like talking to a ghost, to a man that
Speaker 1: didn't really exist. It was so interesting because I heard
Speaker 1: multiple stories of the brothers suspecting they'd entertained undercover agents,
Speaker 1: but none of the agents ever surfaced, as they say
Speaker 1: in the business until now Here's retired Forest Service law
Speaker 1: enforcement agent Russ Arthur. What years were you in Arkansas?
Speaker 1: I was in Arkansas ninety, so I would have been
Speaker 1: eleven years old when you were over there. I think
Speaker 1: I remember seeing you. I think he's actually riding it
Speaker 1: back with ninety. How would people get selected to have
Speaker 1: a job done on them? They would just have notoriety
Speaker 1: inside the communities and the local guys couldn't catch them.
Speaker 1: I mean, is that is that how it would work? Well,
Speaker 1: that's part of it. But you know, when I moved
Speaker 1: to Arkansas, you know, keeping mind, my number one job
Speaker 1: was not undercover work. Uh, it was just a probably
Speaker 1: of my work that I did when I was in
Speaker 1: Arkansas was undercover. A lot of it was just you know,
Speaker 1: overt investigations, of crimes on federal land, on service land,
Speaker 1: whether it be in the drug world or the timber
Speaker 1: theft world or the wildfire arsenal world. So you know,
Speaker 1: I was a criminal investigator that investigated all crimes out there,
Speaker 1: and occasionally information would come in that we've got a
Speaker 1: need for an undercover operation, and there are several things
Speaker 1: that you have to look at, and I had a
Speaker 1: supervisor that was that was very familiar with that state.
Speaker 1: But information would come up through the field level, either
Speaker 1: through other agencies or through our own agency, of a
Speaker 1: need for potential undercover and then there were litmus tests
Speaker 1: he would go through to see and set down, and
Speaker 1: we'd say, hey, do we need to do this? Is
Speaker 1: it worth while spending time on this? How egregious is it?
Speaker 1: You know all those things you have to go in?
Speaker 1: Is it? Is it dangerous? Is it something that's gonna
Speaker 1: take a week? Is it something's gonna take it two years?
Speaker 1: So you have to look at that, But a lot
Speaker 1: of that is word of mouth of communities. Yes, so
Speaker 1: the local game wardens probably would it just would have
Speaker 1: gone up the chain and the gaming fish that these
Speaker 1: brothers were killing more turkeys than they should have. Oh, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I heard about these particular individuals for for a year
Speaker 1: or two when I was out there, from the game
Speaker 1: wardens and from the local Force service officer. Do you
Speaker 1: remember what they said. Did they give numbers to how
Speaker 1: many birds they were killing or anything? No, the Uh,
Speaker 1: the only thing that I remember is these guys are killers,
Speaker 1: and you know that they need to be stopped and
Speaker 1: nobody can catch them. And it became a very apparent
Speaker 1: to me. Uh. And I'll still stand by this that
Speaker 1: ego is a very bad thing in the world of hunting.
Speaker 1: I mean, I truly truly believe believe that. And uh,
Speaker 1: this particular group, obviously the information I heard about him,
Speaker 1: that is they were very ego driven in their in
Speaker 1: their taking of animals. They wanted to be the ones
Speaker 1: that couldn't be caught. They wanted to be the ones
Speaker 1: that couldn't be caught. This lines up perfectly with what
Speaker 1: we've heard everywhere else. To the Edwards brothers, evading the
Speaker 1: law was a game. To me. I don't want to
Speaker 1: say it's comical, but I want to ask you something.
Speaker 1: If you're an officer, and let's say you and Joe
Speaker 1: were the only two officers in a two hundred thousand
Speaker 1: acre county and a hundred fifty thousand acres, and that's
Speaker 1: federal land, fifty thousand that's private land that's got cattle ranches,
Speaker 1: farm land. Your phone was ringing off the wall. I've
Speaker 1: got a haulk it's dead over here, I've got this
Speaker 1: it's going over here, and you've got all this vast
Speaker 1: area over there. Is it really an achievement that you
Speaker 1: can allude to people that are that busy. You're obviously
Speaker 1: a good hunter. You when you go in the woods,
Speaker 1: your senses go up. You know how to read them,
Speaker 1: lap and say, you're pretty good navigator. You've got a
Speaker 1: good sense of bearing, good sense of weather coming and going,
Speaker 1: good sense of animal movement. You know where to go
Speaker 1: in and go out. It would be that hard taking
Speaker 1: what these officers are up against to elude them. So
Speaker 1: I find it kind of comical because I don't think
Speaker 1: that the common people in the community is realize what
Speaker 1: officers are up against. That's a mic drop comment from Russ.
Speaker 1: Game boardings can't work twenty four hours a day, they
Speaker 1: have days off, they have limitations, and most of the
Speaker 1: time they have to be reactionary and not proactive in
Speaker 1: enforcing the law. As a little context, the United States
Speaker 1: Forest Service Law Enforcement Division is commissioned to enforce the
Speaker 1: law on the federal lands on which they have jurisdiction.
Speaker 1: Much of the Edwards Brothers hunting was done on Forest
Speaker 1: Service land. I asked Russ why the Forest Service was
Speaker 1: tasked to try to catch them, and he said, the
Speaker 1: state game agencies in federal law enforcement often work together
Speaker 1: on these type of projects, and they just felt like
Speaker 1: he'd be a good fit on this case. It was
Speaker 1: that simple. Here's Russ describing how the sting went down.
Speaker 1: Do you remember how did you engage Edwards Brothers. Okay,
Speaker 1: it was very well known when I was in Arkansas,
Speaker 1: within my work force, if you will, that I was
Speaker 1: an avid turkey hunter. So they obviously said, Man, I
Speaker 1: think I think you're the guy to go do this
Speaker 1: turkey deal. I mean, you know, you like turkey hunting,
Speaker 1: you understand turkey hunters. And and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, is is he charging people to hunt on
Speaker 1: no forest? Well no, I don't think he is. Him
Speaker 1: and his brother they just they just kill everything they see. Well,
Speaker 1: why can't you catch him? Just can't catch him? Uh? Well,
Speaker 1: is he is he is he baiting. Well, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if he's bating turkeys or not, but rumor has
Speaker 1: it he does walk throughs. He'll get dropped off one place,
Speaker 1: picked up another, and he hides guns and stop poles.
Speaker 1: So you hear all these rumors. I think it would
Speaker 1: have probably have been ninety two, probably maybe ninety three.
Speaker 1: And my supervisor came to me and he said, do
Speaker 1: you want to give a shot? You know? And I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: well we'll give a shot. And he said, well, let's
Speaker 1: let's lay a plan out. And uh, you know how
Speaker 1: the govern is, you have to have a plan for everything.
Speaker 1: So I drafted up a pretty generic plan and he
Speaker 1: approved it, and uh and and it consisted of, you know,
Speaker 1: playing on their ego. What I know about turkey hunters,
Speaker 1: there were very territorial over their hunting there, probably more
Speaker 1: so than than any other group that I know. So
Speaker 1: I had an undercover truck, had a Tennessee tag on it.
Speaker 1: About a month for that turkey season, I started going
Speaker 1: out scouting in areas that I knew louis Dale frequented hunting.
Speaker 1: No one that he would probably see my truck just
Speaker 1: as a seed, if you will. I never ran into
Speaker 1: him in the woods. But I parked it two or
Speaker 1: three different places predominantly though I knew that he would
Speaker 1: have to come by. What would you do when you went?
Speaker 1: Would you actually walk out in the woods. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd walk out in the woods, but I didn't normally
Speaker 1: just turn around, watch my truck and see what vehicles
Speaker 1: came by, See if anybody slowed down and looked at it.
Speaker 1: And I had vehicles slowed down and look at it,
Speaker 1: and you'd part it with the license plates where you
Speaker 1: could see it, and uh, word would get out there
Speaker 1: somebody from Tennessee run here. Yeah, what's the name of
Speaker 1: the little store down there? Well, the big malls what
Speaker 1: they call it? Right, I ended up stopping I stopped
Speaker 1: in there two or three times and just get a
Speaker 1: coke and a pack of crackers, and uh start talking
Speaker 1: to people. Told him that I was it was a
Speaker 1: brick player from Tennessee that that recently moved here. And
Speaker 1: my wife got a job in Hot Springs And now
Speaker 1: I like a little turkey hunting. And I actually asked
Speaker 1: a guy, if you had the best turkey hunt around here,
Speaker 1: who would it be. I'd like to talk to somebody
Speaker 1: about turkey hunt. He said, you need to talk to
Speaker 1: Louis Dale. And I said, who's that? You knew what
Speaker 1: he's gonna say, And I said who you know? I said, well,
Speaker 1: who's that? And what he he? Oh? Yeah, hell, he'll
Speaker 1: talk to you about he loves turkey. He did he
Speaker 1: Did this guy give you any intel that Louis dell
Speaker 1: Wood was a by later? No, he just said he
Speaker 1: was turkey hunter, good turkey hunter. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: how did I get in Dutch with him? Said, here,
Speaker 1: I'll call him, and he called him. He picked up
Speaker 1: the phone, he called him and uh, he got him
Speaker 1: on the phone and put me on the phone with him,
Speaker 1: and and he said, well, why don't you come up
Speaker 1: to the house. And he told me how to get
Speaker 1: into the house. So he was real open to a
Speaker 1: guy from Tennessee. Yeah, yes he was. Was that surprising?
Speaker 1: Oh well, I was hoping by then that his curiosity
Speaker 1: had that he had already known there was somebody pope
Speaker 1: around because back then everybody knew where everybody hunted, and
Speaker 1: everybody knew what everybody drove, and just a Tennessee tag
Speaker 1: back in there would have been super unusual, exactly, And
Speaker 1: and I knew that it was probably circulating around that community,
Speaker 1: and eventually it turned out that it was. That was
Speaker 1: the first thing as the first as the first thing
Speaker 1: he said when I pulled up next front yard, he says,
Speaker 1: I wonder who that was. And so we just started,
Speaker 1: you know, having exchange about turkey hunting. And I wasn't
Speaker 1: asking him where to hunt. Uh, you know, I told
Speaker 1: him I was just an avid turkey hunter and I'd
Speaker 1: like to hunt some of the areas. I understood he
Speaker 1: was one of the best in the area. You know,
Speaker 1: I would far didn't want to get in any areas
Speaker 1: that he hunted, but could he just give me some
Speaker 1: general advice on hunting turkeys in Arkansas? And he ate
Speaker 1: that up. I told him some man I would loved.
Speaker 1: I had some good friends I probably never get to
Speaker 1: hunt with again. And I know you probably playing folks
Speaker 1: to hunt with, but if you ever get time, I'd
Speaker 1: like to hunt with you. And we exchanged phone numbers.
Speaker 1: And you are a lot younger than him, well I
Speaker 1: was probably about ten years younger. Okay, you know we
Speaker 1: immediately had a connection there and everything and everything. That's
Speaker 1: how I got started the story that Andy and Russ
Speaker 1: both tell are incredibly similar, which is pretty wild considering
Speaker 1: the thirty year gap in Andy's story being second hand.
Speaker 1: As Brent Reeves always says, if you want to get
Speaker 1: two different stories, asked two eyewitnesses to the same thing.
Speaker 1: What happened. I'm amazed at how easily the details of
Speaker 1: stories can get messed up, But not so here and
Speaker 1: hey stick around until the second half of this podcast
Speaker 1: when Dr Daniel Ruth tells us why we love Outlaws.
Speaker 1: Russ continues, and so exchange phone numbers, and then what happened?
Speaker 1: Change phone numbers. I didn't want to be too pushy.
Speaker 1: I waited a week or two. Season was getting ready.
Speaker 1: It was about probably a week or two away, and
Speaker 1: I called him up, was look, I'm going to come
Speaker 1: out scouting and and do some listening. Do you want
Speaker 1: to go in? And he said, man, I ain't got
Speaker 1: They said that first time. He told me he didn't
Speaker 1: have time. And then he called me back and he
Speaker 1: said yes. He said, if you can do it, it
Speaker 1: was either like a Tuesday or Wednesday. One of the
Speaker 1: isn't the middle week, I can do it the other day.
Speaker 1: So he actually called me back and re schedule of
Speaker 1: the day. So I went over there before daylight, picked
Speaker 1: him up and we went out and he said, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you what he said if he told me we're
Speaker 1: to let him out. He said, I'm gonna walk this
Speaker 1: ridge out. Show me on the map where you come out.
Speaker 1: He said, I'll walk this ridge out, and he told
Speaker 1: me where to go. Listen, and he said, then you
Speaker 1: can pick me up. And that's when I knew that
Speaker 1: he was beginning to trust me. He said, no, look,
Speaker 1: when you pick me up, I don't want anybody to
Speaker 1: see me on the road. And when you pick me up,
Speaker 1: we drove the section the road I was picked him up.
Speaker 1: He said, when you pick me up, there'll be a
Speaker 1: limb laying in the edge of the road, and you
Speaker 1: stop right there with that limb. Said, I'll jump out.
Speaker 1: I'll jump in the truck from there. He said, we
Speaker 1: don't need to let anybody see where we're getting in
Speaker 1: and out. I said, I understand that. So I didn't
Speaker 1: ask any questions. But that was just a scouting trip.
Speaker 1: That was That was our first trip. He had heard
Speaker 1: a couple of birds. I didn't hear anything. And I
Speaker 1: told him, you went where you were supposed to go.
Speaker 1: I went when he came back, gave him a report. Yep,
Speaker 1: come back, gave him report. I didn't hear anything, pretty country,
Speaker 1: what about you? And he was excited he had heard
Speaker 1: a couple of birds, and I said, well, I said,
Speaker 1: do you think anybody be hunting them opening day? He said,
Speaker 1: they may be hunting them opening day, but they may
Speaker 1: be dead before opening day. I said, okay, I said,
Speaker 1: I can understand that. And I just said, if you
Speaker 1: need help, let me know. If you need any help,
Speaker 1: let me know. It's hard to imagine the dynamics of
Speaker 1: what's going on here. Russ is trying to dupe a
Speaker 1: man that's extremely suspicious of the law and known for
Speaker 1: not getting caught. He's got to come across as genuine
Speaker 1: as he invites himself on an illegal preseason turkey hunt,
Speaker 1: which deep down he disdains the activity. It's an interesting
Speaker 1: mental space. You see. Russ is from a real deal
Speaker 1: turkey hunting family from Tennessee. Let's step outside of this story,
Speaker 1: outside of this truck for just a second. I have
Speaker 1: a personal question for Russ about his motivation for doing
Speaker 1: what he's doing. I want to understand what he's feeling
Speaker 1: at that moment because it's not what he's letting on.
Speaker 1: What would you say your primary motivation inside of this,
Speaker 1: because it's it's clear to me that you're you're a
Speaker 1: hunter yourself. You're deeply connected to where you grew up hunting.
Speaker 1: Is it a love for wildlife? Is it uh a
Speaker 1: love for justice? What would you say would be a
Speaker 1: primary motivator for you inside of this? I guess you
Speaker 1: would have to say it's all wrapped up. And what
Speaker 1: I mean by that was I was very fortunate to
Speaker 1: have a mentor, my dad, who was very long abiding,
Speaker 1: very very structured in any and everything that he did.
Speaker 1: From growing up very little, we would hear about people
Speaker 1: that did other things, and I was taught, hey, respect this,
Speaker 1: and I was taught that it's it's the hunt, it's
Speaker 1: not the kill, and and I just always I've always
Speaker 1: lived that in my opinion, when when the kill becomes
Speaker 1: a more important thing, you know you're you're losing as
Speaker 1: a hunter, because there's a lot more things out there
Speaker 1: than to kill, and and to go in and seize.
Speaker 1: The total disregard for for for that, to me, it
Speaker 1: was despicable. I mean it truly was very interesting. Now
Speaker 1: let's get back in the truck. Russ has just invited
Speaker 1: himself on a preseason turkey hunt, and things escalate quickly.
Speaker 1: For you, as an undercovered guy, this must have been
Speaker 1: like this is music two your ears. Oh yeah. But
Speaker 1: but you know, there was a there was a lot
Speaker 1: of talk. You know, we spent five minutes here talking
Speaker 1: about it. But you know we had talked on the phone,
Speaker 1: we talked in his yard. We talked the first time,
Speaker 1: so you know, then the second time he took a gun,
Speaker 1: and the best, yes, and the best I can remember.
Speaker 1: I wanted to think it was an old single barrel,
Speaker 1: but I really don't remember the gun. I tried not
Speaker 1: to pay a lot of attention to it. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to draw attention to it of me looking at it,
Speaker 1: staring at it, because it was four daylight. But I
Speaker 1: dropped him off and I picked him up. Did he
Speaker 1: say much about it? He just got in a truck
Speaker 1: and he had a gun, right, said, I hope this
Speaker 1: is okay with you. We're not gonna get in trouble.
Speaker 1: You won't get me in trouble. I look, I ain't
Speaker 1: gonna get you in trouble. You know, I'm just out
Speaker 1: here from Tennessee. You know. So he was all good
Speaker 1: with it, and I picked him up within a hundred
Speaker 1: yards where I picked him up the first time, and
Speaker 1: I knew we hunted that same ridge. He didn't kill
Speaker 1: a bird we talked about He said they wouldn't work
Speaker 1: and uh, and took him home and that was that
Speaker 1: was that. Louis Dell left with the shotgun, but when
Speaker 1: he returned he didn't have it. He told Russ he
Speaker 1: had left it up on the point of the rich.
Speaker 1: This confirmed the brother's strategy of hiding shotguns in the woods.
Speaker 1: And if you remember Stoney Edwards told us that's how
Speaker 1: they evaded the law. Well, this time the law was there.
Speaker 1: I honestly wished I had asked Russ if he ever
Speaker 1: felt any internal confliction working under cover, but perhaps remorse
Speaker 1: and plane someone in a good guy hustle. Working undercover
Speaker 1: is basically living a lie for a period of time
Speaker 1: for the greater good of the resource and justice. I
Speaker 1: know it's a dumb question, but in that truck, Russ
Speaker 1: fabricated a story to gain the authentic repport from this man.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it was wrong, it's just a genuine question.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure he would have said absolutely not. And
Speaker 1: there are ethics involved in undercover work, like you can't
Speaker 1: entice someone to break the law when they maybe wouldn't
Speaker 1: have if you weren't there. It's called entrapment. Like modern
Speaker 1: game wardens can't put a boot and Crockett sized deer
Speaker 1: rack on a dummy deer on the side of the
Speaker 1: road in that situation, your own dear sweet mama might
Speaker 1: even take a crack at that thing. Russ is now
Speaker 1: going to tell us how this thing finalized and fell apart,
Speaker 1: and it all went back to the community support that
Speaker 1: Louis Dell had. Then this is when things got interested.
Speaker 1: One other time, we basically did the same thing in
Speaker 1: another area. Now you'll you'll hear people say that he
Speaker 1: knew who I was this second time. Makes me know
Speaker 1: that I know he didn't know who I was because
Speaker 1: he took a gun the second time. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: the first time, most people are under the misconception that
Speaker 1: if he was a law enforcement offer, he had already
Speaker 1: busted me. So I hear I am the second time,
Speaker 1: So to me, that that kind of solidified that, you know,
Speaker 1: everything was good. Now the same thing didn't kill a turkey.
Speaker 1: I actually went back into the same areas that he
Speaker 1: hunted on by myself to look for corn. Never did
Speaker 1: find any corn. And and now's when the uh the
Speaker 1: law enforcement structure of the Forest Service that bent me.
Speaker 1: There was a person in the community that was close
Speaker 1: to louis Dale that got wind of my actions out there.
Speaker 1: The word got back from from the community that this
Speaker 1: person within the Forest Service had been talking to louis Dale,
Speaker 1: and louis Dale himself told me, he said, you know,
Speaker 1: I was told I better watch out for you. And
Speaker 1: I said, well, man, I don't know why. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know why. When he approached me about it,
Speaker 1: it was it was kind of like I've been old,
Speaker 1: look out, look out for you. You You just you're just
Speaker 1: something something just ain't ride with you. I don't remember
Speaker 1: exact words, I've been told to watch out for you.
Speaker 1: And he just kind of slapped me on the shoulder, like,
Speaker 1: I ain't worried about it, You're okay, you know. So
Speaker 1: I felt pretty confident that the cover was still there,
Speaker 1: But do you want to continue and take the chance,
Speaker 1: you know? And no, we weren't scared of him. I
Speaker 1: wasn't scared for my life. He wasn't that type of people.
Speaker 1: The family was not that type of people. In my opinion.
Speaker 1: The danger would be that you're in a truck and
Speaker 1: he gets mad at you, your cover gets blown and
Speaker 1: he fights your pulls again physical or something. Right, We
Speaker 1: had at least four or five different charges we could
Speaker 1: tag on him, and there were very few people at
Speaker 1: that time that knew about the operation. And I still
Speaker 1: have not pinpointed exactly who it was, but I've got
Speaker 1: my suspicions and we tracked it down, and that's pretty
Speaker 1: much what the person told him says, you know, just
Speaker 1: be careful with that guy, because that's this particular person
Speaker 1: was ingrained in the community. And uh, there's still this
Speaker 1: mystique about protecting the outlaws in that community. You know.
Speaker 1: Incredible Russ got rated out from the inside. There was
Speaker 1: a mystique about protecting the outlaws in that community. We're
Speaker 1: about to talk with Dr Daniel Rupe about why someone
Speaker 1: would do that. It's layered like an onion and fascinating.
Speaker 1: I thought it was very interesting that Russ never felt
Speaker 1: endangered considering the rough and tough past that we learned
Speaker 1: about these guys. On Part two, here's Russ on what
Speaker 1: they could have prosecuted these guys on but what they
Speaker 1: chose to do. My supervisor and I sat down and
Speaker 1: we did a review of of of the evidence that
Speaker 1: we had. How long would this whole thing have taken?
Speaker 1: A month? Probably a month. So you've taken the truck over,
Speaker 1: You've done your seeded the idea I got from Tennesse
Speaker 1: gone to the gas station. This is this is probably
Speaker 1: five or six trips forever in that country exactly. And
Speaker 1: I wrote a report up on it, and my boss says,
Speaker 1: you know, we can, we can, we can take this forward,
Speaker 1: he said, but is it worth it? You know, you know,
Speaker 1: there's no commercialization, nothing was killed. Is it worth surfacing
Speaker 1: you know who you are and what we did on
Speaker 1: such a minor and fraction, you know? So that was
Speaker 1: that is the very and only reason that we did
Speaker 1: not charge him federally. It just wouldn't have gone very far.
Speaker 1: Oh we would have. We would have prosecuted him, but
Speaker 1: for that level of violation, did you want to surface
Speaker 1: your identity as an undercover officer? And so you just
Speaker 1: kind of drifted out of this world. That's it. This
Speaker 1: young mouth calling turkey hunter from Tennessee just drifted out
Speaker 1: of Louis Dell's world. Apparently the tip and probably other
Speaker 1: stuff that happened gave Louis Delle confidence to know that
Speaker 1: the guy was under cover. We know that from Andy's story.
Speaker 1: Here's Russ with a wild summary of small communities in
Speaker 1: the Southern United States. I also want to state that
Speaker 1: Russ intentionally had not listened to either part one or
Speaker 1: Part two of the series before this interview. His conclusions
Speaker 1: are striking every small community, whether it's Western Carolina, Southeast Tennessee,
Speaker 1: North Georgia, Ozarks, Washtalls, you can take small county, USA
Speaker 1: where there is a prevalent big game that's being hunted,
Speaker 1: and you will find that family, whether it's bear, whether
Speaker 1: it's big deer, whether it's turkey, you'll find that family
Speaker 1: that everybody loves that nobody wants to tell on m
Speaker 1: So you think this is a common scenario, Is it truly? Is?
Speaker 1: Why do people love outlaws? I don't know. Like I
Speaker 1: said to me, I think it's funny because just what
Speaker 1: type of person does it take to a lou game
Speaker 1: board and it's got two thou acres to patrol just
Speaker 1: beyond me, and you'll hear stories of they kill a
Speaker 1: lot of them. They never let anything waste, and they
Speaker 1: would they would feel other people. This is not the
Speaker 1: depression time. Yeah, I don't buy that, you know, just
Speaker 1: sitting times where you have to hunt for your food.
Speaker 1: And and here's the thing, I could give you family
Speaker 1: names right now of the of the Louis del Edwards
Speaker 1: in about six different states. Boom boom boom. What are
Speaker 1: the characteristics of those people? Normally hard working, god fearing.
Speaker 1: You'll see them in church, active in their community, very
Speaker 1: family oriented, just down to earth good people. What what
Speaker 1: is amazing? You haven't listened to the podcast? No, and
Speaker 1: you just wrote the script for Hulu down Charlie were
Speaker 1: But that's uh minus maybe a few of those components.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, I want to get along
Speaker 1: with everybody. Well, you will do anything with anything for anybody.
Speaker 1: Very compassionate, I mean that's very common. They're compelling people
Speaker 1: a lot of times. And the thing about it is
Speaker 1: if if if you're if you're an on hunter or
Speaker 1: even a part time hunter, not as passionate as Edwards,
Speaker 1: and you look at somebody in your community with those characteristics,
Speaker 1: you don't want to get them in trouble. You know,
Speaker 1: if you're just looking at those characteristics without having the
Speaker 1: background and the and the of a of a resource
Speaker 1: management perspective. You don't see it to be a big
Speaker 1: deal if you're just a general Joe citizen, because those
Speaker 1: are good characteristics for people to have in today's world,
Speaker 1: especially in today's world, so it would be very easy
Speaker 1: to be, you know, compassionate towards them. I'll never forget
Speaker 1: interviewing Russ Arthur after hearing his description from Louis del
Speaker 1: I'll be at second hand through Andy. This is a
Speaker 1: good time for us to all get caught up on
Speaker 1: what's been going on, if for some reason, you're just
Speaker 1: getting here. Our first two episodes were bio sketches of
Speaker 1: the Edwards brothers, who lived in the community that I
Speaker 1: grew up in in the western Washingta Mountains of Arkansas. Louis,
Speaker 1: Dell and Charlie were extremely colorful characters, beloved in the
Speaker 1: community by most, and I've been exploring why I like them.
Speaker 1: They were known as notorious turkey outlaws. When I heard
Speaker 1: the sting operation was ratted out by someone on the inside,
Speaker 1: I felt a tinge of guilt because I've already declared
Speaker 1: my endearment to these guys. But I don't think that
Speaker 1: endearment would have made me compromise my value system. I've
Speaker 1: told this story from an honest perspective. I've been in
Speaker 1: search of how I could be so full of irony, paradoxes,
Speaker 1: and maybe straight up hypocrisy. You may recognize this clip.
Speaker 1: It's from the opening scene of the acclaimed nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: movie The Godfather. We'll see a pattern here that is
Speaker 1: very relevant. I I went to the police like a
Speaker 1: good American. These are the boys that were brought to trial.
Speaker 1: The judge sentenced them in to three years in prison
Speaker 1: and suspend the sentence. Suspended the sentence. They went three
Speaker 1: that very day, high student the court from me like
Speaker 1: a fool, and those two pasted the smart at me.
Speaker 1: Then I said to my wife, for justice, we must
Speaker 1: go to Don Corlone. Well didn't you go to the place.
Speaker 1: Why didn't you come to me first? What do you
Speaker 1: want me? Tell me anything? But do what I'm beg
Speaker 1: you to do. For justice, I must go to Dawn
Speaker 1: cor Leone. In this film, the common man and immigrant
Speaker 1: to the United States went through the courts for justice,
Speaker 1: the highest power in the land. But he couldn't find justice,
Speaker 1: He couldn't trust the powers on top. He had to
Speaker 1: turn to the mafia, to the outlaws who lived outside
Speaker 1: the systems of power. Here's Dr Daniel Rupe, an anthropologists
Speaker 1: and longtime hero of the Bear Grease podcast, to help
Speaker 1: me sort all this out. Dr Daniel route Man, you
Speaker 1: know that inside of this series, I have been in
Speaker 1: an exploration of something inside of me that I know
Speaker 1: is inside of a lot of people. That is this
Speaker 1: magnetic draw in some situations to be drawn towards people
Speaker 1: who pushed the envelope, break the law. I mean, you
Speaker 1: can't turn on television or Netflix without seeing these like
Speaker 1: rebels that we love. I don't know if that's an
Speaker 1: American thing fully or if that's a human kind thing.
Speaker 1: But why do we love outlaws? They don't write movies
Speaker 1: about people who follow the rules. You know, we're not
Speaker 1: captivated by stories of folks who do. There's only one
Speaker 1: guy who ever did that. They made a movie, Mr Rogers.
Speaker 1: So why do we love the bad guys? Because in
Speaker 1: the West, and specifically in the modern or the postmodern West,
Speaker 1: deep down, the bad guys are actually the people who
Speaker 1: are on top in power, making the rules. We we
Speaker 1: just we don't trust them, we're not sure we like them.
Speaker 1: We really hope to get somebody in there that's kind
Speaker 1: of like us if we could, but we don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of hope and ever changing who's on top.
Speaker 1: So the bad guys kind of the common man, the
Speaker 1: the rebel doing as good as he can. You know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like the Dukes of Hazzard, which you
Speaker 1: brought it up in one of the that's really appealing
Speaker 1: to us because they're not really the bad guys. The
Speaker 1: real bad guys are the folks who are on top
Speaker 1: and this kind of foss hog boss dog, that guy,
Speaker 1: the ones that are in control of the resources, who
Speaker 1: are making the rules, who are kind of laying the
Speaker 1: playing field out. We're forced to play their game, and
Speaker 1: the folks who refused to play that game are inherently
Speaker 1: are heroes. People who refuse to play the game are
Speaker 1: lived by the laws instituted by those on top, are
Speaker 1: often are heroes. This is getting interesting, and it's gonna
Speaker 1: get more interesting when you hear the foundations of where
Speaker 1: this comes from in Western society, and this whole line
Speaker 1: of thinking is actually in the scope of human history,
Speaker 1: is actually relatively recent and has a little bit of
Speaker 1: real Yeah, so it has a little bit of surprising source.
Speaker 1: Even though today the kind of the political and go
Speaker 1: ron mental structures that followed Karl Marxist thinking have in
Speaker 1: Mass been basically objectively proved as irrevocably a failure communism.
Speaker 1: The vast majority of us view the people on top,
Speaker 1: the people in power, the people who have the resources
Speaker 1: and set the rules. We view them through a Marxist
Speaker 1: lens that the way forward, the way for change, is
Speaker 1: for a revolt and for an overthrow. And Marx when
Speaker 1: he was writing in uh middle of like eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: almost immediately you saw in several European nation revolutions, all
Speaker 1: of which failed. And so part part of the thinking
Speaker 1: back then was if you know, if the common man
Speaker 1: could just gain power in mass and redistribute everything communism,
Speaker 1: then would all be great. And who who knew? That
Speaker 1: didn't go very well all But nonetheless that seat that
Speaker 1: same seed of if the common man could have power,
Speaker 1: if the common man could get into that place of power,
Speaker 1: he would know what to do, he would know and
Speaker 1: and things would be made right. And the really the
Speaker 1: way forward is the common man gaining power. So the
Speaker 1: way forward or progress or hope or you know, you
Speaker 1: might say salvation for any given individual is to revolt
Speaker 1: against whatever powers that be. If the common man could
Speaker 1: gain power. This is fundamental to the understanding we're building
Speaker 1: about why we love outlaws, because they are the common
Speaker 1: man that is fed up with the systems of power,
Speaker 1: just like the guy that went to Don Corleone, the Godfather.
Speaker 1: So you you drove over here, and you didn't You
Speaker 1: probably don't remember deciding to put on your blinker. You
Speaker 1: probably don't remember deciding to go a little bit over
Speaker 1: the speed limit, but not too much. But in every
Speaker 1: every single day you're engaged with law, and you're thankful
Speaker 1: that it's there. But yet every single day, you, like
Speaker 1: all the rest of us, feel injustice and oppression and
Speaker 1: disproportionately distributed. Marx would say economic capital. You feel social
Speaker 1: and cultural capital and the pull on it and at
Speaker 1: tension for it and the competition for it. And so
Speaker 1: having a power up top that is evil and bad
Speaker 1: makes sense. And and if we're honest with ourselves, of course,
Speaker 1: and we look at history, a lot of times the
Speaker 1: power up top is evil get bad. But then sometimes
Speaker 1: when you've got this bad game warden. He's not even
Speaker 1: a bad guy, and if you probably sit down to
Speaker 1: lunch with it, you probably actually really like him. So
Speaker 1: then it's not him personally, but it's the system that
Speaker 1: he works for. So that's how these gentlemen like Louis
Speaker 1: Dell and Charlie they can relate with this one game
Speaker 1: ward who genuinely, clearly you can tell he cared for them,
Speaker 1: and he did, but he kind of represents the system
Speaker 1: of law and he's doing his job, and they're representing
Speaker 1: another thing that society needs, which is individuals who make
Speaker 1: things a lot more simple and a lot more black
Speaker 1: and white. My life is super complicated. I've got rules
Speaker 1: to follow, I've got multiple bosses, I've got different social
Speaker 1: pressures and relational kind of strains, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: when I can look somewhat from Afar, I'm not too
Speaker 1: closely associated with this particular outlaw, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So I'm looking somewhat from Afar, and I see here's
Speaker 1: a person who sees it like it should be seen,
Speaker 1: and they stand up against the man, and they they
Speaker 1: they they may not follow every law, but there's a
Speaker 1: law there. Their own kind of law, you know, and
Speaker 1: they're gonna follow We were just of course, and we
Speaker 1: can't because we live in the real world a lot
Speaker 1: more complicated. Just like the further you went on the
Speaker 1: biographical sketches of these gentlemen, they lived in a real world,
Speaker 1: and we would kind of like to think of them
Speaker 1: as the wonderful things that they did to the people
Speaker 1: around them and how they kind of gave it to
Speaker 1: the law and stuck it to the man. But they're
Speaker 1: also real people with messy lives, just like you would
Speaker 1: like to know. I thought it was kind of funny
Speaker 1: when you're like, wait a minute, he wore tennis shoes.
Speaker 1: So we like to we like to project on individuals
Speaker 1: what we really wish we were, and every single one
Speaker 1: of us because we're enlightenment thinkers and for us postmodern
Speaker 1: enlightened quote unquote thinkers, we want to give it to
Speaker 1: the man. And Karl Mark's articulate, that's an American thing
Speaker 1: or the Western thing. It's a Western thing. Is it
Speaker 1: is a Western modern So if we if we if
Speaker 1: we did this story in a child Chinese version, what
Speaker 1: would they think, Well, the Chinese version would want a
Speaker 1: very a very powerful ruler on top that was far away.
Speaker 1: So there's a chung yu or a Chinese saying that
Speaker 1: translated to English means the emperor is high above and
Speaker 1: far away. So the emperor he's there, he's high above,
Speaker 1: he's way above us. But thankfully he's far away. So
Speaker 1: him being there provides stability, it provides security. But he's
Speaker 1: far away, so we don't really have to interact with
Speaker 1: him a lot, but we want him there m So
Speaker 1: this is why they wouldn't like an outlaw. They wouldn't
Speaker 1: like an outlaw, and the idea of a revolution would
Speaker 1: be entirely unsettling. Whereas most of our stories and songs
Speaker 1: when you you were talking about a little bit earlier
Speaker 1: in American history, think about like the fifties and sixties
Speaker 1: and seventies. I mean, everything is a revolution. And even
Speaker 1: now today we have society puts forth these causes or
Speaker 1: these movements that are revolutionary in nature. If you don't,
Speaker 1: everything is a revolution. Everything is. And if you don't
Speaker 1: align yourself with one of them, who are you? Why?
Speaker 1: How could you not do that? How could you not
Speaker 1: join that movement? How could you not? Because deep down
Speaker 1: people see revolution as the way forward. There's a power
Speaker 1: in place that's corrupt and it needs to be brought down.
Speaker 1: There is a power in place that needs to be
Speaker 1: brought down. You may be asking yourself if you fit
Speaker 1: this description, and it's certainly a generalization that generally applies
Speaker 1: to Western culture. It would be stronger in some but
Speaker 1: it pops up in some areas and not in others.
Speaker 1: You may not have a problem with slow traffic lights,
Speaker 1: but despise referees in basketball games, and if we're being
Speaker 1: honest and hunting culture, game wardens are typically seen as
Speaker 1: the bad guy or the adversary, even though we all
Speaker 1: know this isn't true. They're the good guys. I am
Speaker 1: interested in the things that drive us and make us
Speaker 1: see life that we're completely unaware of. And that's why
Speaker 1: when I am intrigued and just love and and kind
Speaker 1: of make heroes Louis Dell and Charlie Edwards. At the time,
Speaker 1: I was a kid, Yet I also knew that I
Speaker 1: was not permitted to be like them in in in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. And that's bizarre. So now that
Speaker 1: I'm adult, it's like, wait, how does this work? Hey Dad,
Speaker 1: Hey Gary, tell me how this works again? So Juju
Speaker 1: would never have been okay with you behaving like them,
Speaker 1: but you and Juju both look and recognize that the
Speaker 1: system has fallen. The system is is broken, the system
Speaker 1: is is in justin to some degree corrupt and needs
Speaker 1: to be overthrown. And then you look across the other
Speaker 1: side of your hometown and you see these two guys who,
Speaker 1: in their way are living outside the system, outside the system,
Speaker 1: and we're being control that we're being control by. And
Speaker 1: you and I either don't have the guts or the
Speaker 1: means or life is actually more complicated than that. And
Speaker 1: I look at these people, and because I want someone
Speaker 1: who's outside the system, I see that, and in reality
Speaker 1: they're probably still in the system. But my mind makes
Speaker 1: an outlaw because I've lost faith in the law to
Speaker 1: begin with, And so all of a sudden, these guys
Speaker 1: are my heroes, even if I would never act like them,
Speaker 1: or even yeah, if even if we would, we would
Speaker 1: reject what they did. I mean, like we were never
Speaker 1: okay with somebody killing a bunch of turkeys in our
Speaker 1: home county, or or just even the idea of it.
Speaker 1: Seemed like every time there was the least little altercation
Speaker 1: or or kind of argument with somebody everybody armed themselves
Speaker 1: immediately with a gun. I was like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: you don't hope you know, no kidding, you know, we
Speaker 1: would never do that, you know, just sheer fire. We
Speaker 1: carry concealed. We we have permits now for that. But
Speaker 1: that kind of mindset. Listen to this, So so Juju
Speaker 1: bringing up Juju on the no for real. The other
Speaker 1: day She's she texted me and said, hey, we just
Speaker 1: found out that you're like great great uncle something on
Speaker 1: the Newcomb side went to went to prison for moonshine.
Speaker 1: It was like a new discovery in the Newcombe family.
Speaker 1: You know, they kind of started looking and now her
Speaker 1: dad went to juvenile jail when he was young for
Speaker 1: being a part of a moonshine operation when he was
Speaker 1: like sixteen or seventeen. But on the Newcomb side, and
Speaker 1: in anyway, she literally wrote back, why are we proud
Speaker 1: of this? I mean, we don't. We're not into hard liquor.
Speaker 1: I mean like, I'm never gonna make moonshine. I'm never
Speaker 1: gonna live a lifestyle of moonshine drinking. But yet, for
Speaker 1: some reason, oddly, I like I want to tell people
Speaker 1: that my great great uncle Thomas Nucombe went to prison
Speaker 1: for moonshine. That's but that's stupid, that's bizarre. Hey, Dr
Speaker 1: d why do you have to bring up my sweet
Speaker 1: mother Juju in the Outlaw episode? How about we talk
Speaker 1: about your mom? Sorry, Juju. The thing that makes us
Speaker 1: love outlaws is fundamentally a suspicion of power and people
Speaker 1: making the rules. Outlaws live outside the boundaries of the
Speaker 1: law and revolt against the system. Deep in our cultural
Speaker 1: DNA is something that screams that this is good. It's
Speaker 1: stronger in some than in others. Dr Dan is about
Speaker 1: to talk about suspicion of power in politics, and it's
Speaker 1: relevant because that mechanism is the exact same one that
Speaker 1: makes us love and outlaw. Basically every political party in
Speaker 1: the United States that has gained power is basically saying
Speaker 1: the folks before did it awful, and we're gonna do
Speaker 1: it better. We're gonna drain the swamp, or we're gonna
Speaker 1: we're gonna make it better, or we're gonna undo what
Speaker 1: they did. This is the song, every single It's the
Speaker 1: song and dance of every political candidate forever. And now
Speaker 1: our suspicions are growing even worse, and we're subsequent generations
Speaker 1: are gonna most likely be even more suspicious of politics.
Speaker 1: It's a wild that we just keep biting the same hook.
Speaker 1: And that's the irony of the quote unquote enlightenment and
Speaker 1: progress is in a way we make these leaps and
Speaker 1: bounds forward, but in another way, as humanity, it seems
Speaker 1: like we've just developed more intricate ways to not trust
Speaker 1: one another, and then we're left with heroes that live
Speaker 1: in kind of a gray area. If you look at
Speaker 1: our stories, like the kind of the the stories and
Speaker 1: the songs that we're seeing as a culture, our heroes
Speaker 1: are broken, whether whether we whether we like it or not,
Speaker 1: because we can identify with that. The irony of modernity
Speaker 1: and progress is that we may have cars, nice houses,
Speaker 1: and fancy clothes, but continue to be utterly lost in
Speaker 1: finding ways to unite for the common good. Now that's
Speaker 1: an interesting thought. I had another question for Dr Dan.
Speaker 1: I should have asked him about his mama, but I didn't.
Speaker 1: So is there is there anything redemptive and valuable inside
Speaker 1: of revering an outlaw? Definitely? So you've at least got
Speaker 1: two things that are very valuable inside revering an outlaw.
Speaker 1: One is the systems that we are all a part
Speaker 1: of are imperfect, and so we don't want to accept
Speaker 1: those or live within those without stepping outside of them
Speaker 1: and looking at them. So revering an outlaw, he's the
Speaker 1: guy that's on the outside, that's looking back, that's that
Speaker 1: has the goal to really call out the system. Yes,
Speaker 1: so in a sense you're gaining objectivity. You know you're
Speaker 1: you're gaining it, even though it's a far pendulum swing.
Speaker 1: Sure like I'm not gonna go kill a bunch of
Speaker 1: turkeys someone that calls us. There's a way to live
Speaker 1: that's outside the system helps people that are within what
Speaker 1: society is made of systems. So the problem isn't that
Speaker 1: we have systems. The problem is that we have systems
Speaker 1: that we're in that we're not aware of. Is this
Speaker 1: a healthy thing inside of a democracy where the idea
Speaker 1: is that the people rule, the people make law, and
Speaker 1: so you would have these periphery of people and there
Speaker 1: will be some people outside of that circle that would
Speaker 1: be constantly challenging the system. So in a sense, a
Speaker 1: democracy would be a conglomeration of outlaws. So they they
Speaker 1: these this conglomeration, this mob of people get together and
Speaker 1: together they decide on a set of rules, usually the
Speaker 1: least limiting rules possible, to maintain a certain amount of
Speaker 1: social order on which at a day to day basis
Speaker 1: they can go about and do whatever they want. So
Speaker 1: they want the least amount of interference from the state
Speaker 1: as possible, but they want enough interference that is not
Speaker 1: total chaos. If you just pop out of the box
Speaker 1: and your whole you're gonna obey the rules like without question.
Speaker 1: And this is a gray area, man, big time gray area,
Speaker 1: because we're supposed to obey the rules. The rules are
Speaker 1: what makes it safe. I believe that that's the way
Speaker 1: I live. But there comes a point when the rules
Speaker 1: and many times throughout history where where the rules were
Speaker 1: bad and it took breaking laws to get the thing
Speaker 1: back on track. And that's this said, there are two
Speaker 1: things that are valuable. That's the second thing. The system,
Speaker 1: most often, in some way, shape or form, needs to
Speaker 1: be pushed. I want to put this discussion into context.
Speaker 1: We're now looking out far beyond the boundaries of wildlife violators.
Speaker 1: Back to my original big question of why we revere outlaws.
Speaker 1: We're not saying that people need to violate game laws
Speaker 1: so that agencies will make game laws more just nuke.
Speaker 1: We're now talking about outlaws as an archetype and their
Speaker 1: general function inside of the democracy. Now that we got
Speaker 1: that cleared up, let's take the discussion back to the
Speaker 1: Edwards brothers for one final analysis. I think this sums
Speaker 1: it up for me in a sense. It's almost as
Speaker 1: if these two men full on went after whatever they
Speaker 1: were doing, and they thought those mountains were their home
Speaker 1: and what was in those mountains belonged to them. And
Speaker 1: who's this foreigner coming from outside or this person that
Speaker 1: I might know personally in respect but enacting foreign laws,
Speaker 1: like from a different spot, to come in and tell
Speaker 1: me what I can do with these turkeys or what
Speaker 1: I can do at this particular time of year. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna stand for that, And so I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: what I think is right. And what I also think
Speaker 1: is right is loving my family and loving my neighbors.
Speaker 1: And by the way, what I also think is right
Speaker 1: when that person prank calls me, I'm not gonna stand
Speaker 1: for that, and I'm gonna go full on, you know.
Speaker 1: I think another thing that's very appealing about these outlaws
Speaker 1: like this and and these two gentlemen maybe in particular,
Speaker 1: is just there. They're kind of they're full on nature.
Speaker 1: Every single thing that they did, they seem to go
Speaker 1: all the way at man that I keep going back,
Speaker 1: and they threw themselves into it, and I think one
Speaker 1: of the big that's one of the things that probably
Speaker 1: makes them the most human. When we look at them,
Speaker 1: we see them outside the system. They're not just outside
Speaker 1: the game and fish laws. They're outside normality and that
Speaker 1: most people we know don't full tilt throw themselves into everything.
Speaker 1: Why we're not doing that? And I think one of
Speaker 1: the realities of the industrial revolution is that we become
Speaker 1: a cog in the wheel and we kind of accept
Speaker 1: our fate and we just go about life and we
Speaker 1: do are and we pay our mortgage and we and
Speaker 1: deep down we know that life is supposed to be
Speaker 1: more than that. And so one of the things that
Speaker 1: we see when we look at an outlaw is not
Speaker 1: just somebody who's outside the system or above the law,
Speaker 1: are going against corrupt power. We see a person that
Speaker 1: gives everything they got, that's going for it, and that
Speaker 1: we all want to be that. We all want to
Speaker 1: be that because as an artifact, that's what we were
Speaker 1: made to be. We were made for more than just
Speaker 1: a cog in the wheel. That the way I described
Speaker 1: it was that their sense of identity was very strong.
Speaker 1: I'm very interested in identity, very interested in people that
Speaker 1: live out the functionality of their identity and accurate ways,
Speaker 1: not to say that their version of who they were
Speaker 1: was curate. I look at those guys and I admire
Speaker 1: their certainty, and I admire their how they functionalize their identity.
Speaker 1: And I think that the genuine nature in which they
Speaker 1: functionalized their identity was powerful and and I took some
Speaker 1: heat for it, but it's like a template for like
Speaker 1: I want to be. I want to be that certain Well,
Speaker 1: it's it's revolutionary to not let society or the world
Speaker 1: define you. Now, everybody in our day and age is,
Speaker 1: you know, define yourself and become your authentic self. The
Speaker 1: problem with the vast majority of people is if you
Speaker 1: lay that question before me and say, hey, you can
Speaker 1: go ahead and define yourself deep down a super disconcerting
Speaker 1: because I have no idea who I'm supposed to be
Speaker 1: or who I am. But when you look at people
Speaker 1: like Louisville and Charlie, they appear to now it may
Speaker 1: have been imperfect, but they appear to have known who
Speaker 1: they were, and they would not allow the system to
Speaker 1: define themselves and whatever aspect of who they were, whatever realm,
Speaker 1: they would go full on after. That's why people love them,
Speaker 1: and that's why people know. Man, what a discussion. This
Speaker 1: one really summed it up for me. We've been on
Speaker 1: a wild ride as we got behind the veil with
Speaker 1: undercover agent Russ Arthur, who I am forever grateful to,
Speaker 1: As we learned about the sting operation by the Forest Service,
Speaker 1: we learned how Louis Dell's strong community alliance has helped
Speaker 1: him evade the law, and we finally answered the question
Speaker 1: I've been after this whole time. We love outlaws because
Speaker 1: of an innate distrust of power that's deep inside the
Speaker 1: Western worldview, and that spurs a desire for the common
Speaker 1: man to stick at two systems of power that we
Speaker 1: deem unjust. This outlaw archetype can play itself out in
Speaker 1: the big picture or the small picture, and in any
Speaker 1: part of our life. As we come to a close,
Speaker 1: I'm perplexed and enamored by human nature. I love guys
Speaker 1: like Russ Arthur, who have dedicated their lives to enforcing
Speaker 1: just laws and protecting wildlife so that all of us
Speaker 1: have an opportunity to have great experiences in wild places,
Speaker 1: law and order, or what have made this country what
Speaker 1: it is. And these are admirable folks. And in the
Speaker 1: exact same breath and artifact of my past makes me
Speaker 1: somewhat hat tip to the outlaw archetype. Not wildlife violators,
Speaker 1: not poaching, those actions we outright reject. But the hat
Speaker 1: tip is because of the role the outlaw has played
Speaker 1: in human history. Most of our heroes are in some
Speaker 1: way outlaws that stood against a prevailing system of unjust power.
Speaker 1: Most of these people would have been considered criminals at
Speaker 1: their time, but they're now heroes. Many stories of men
Speaker 1: recorded in the Bible were textbook outlaws. Now this is
Speaker 1: some metaphorical stuff, but metaphors are powerful medicine when used correctly.
Speaker 1: But in my best image of myself, I'm an outlaw
Speaker 1: against the negative trends of the age. In every generation,
Speaker 1: there are things that push society and I think quite
Speaker 1: intentionally to be something that is ultimately detrimental to society,
Speaker 1: whether it's patterns that degradate family structures, degrade our collective work, ethic,
Speaker 1: our integrity, or push us to distrust people different than us.
Speaker 1: The trend of the age has told us that spirituality
Speaker 1: is primitive and outdated as an example, which I outright reject.
Speaker 1: I'm always interested in pulling something positive from the stories
Speaker 1: we tell on this podcast, and I think these real
Speaker 1: stories of our past are important for our future. My
Speaker 1: oh my, I can't thank you enough for listening to
Speaker 1: the Bear Groups podcast. I truly thank the Edwards family
Speaker 1: and their friends for so generously opening up the stories
Speaker 1: of their family to us and trusting us. I truly
Speaker 1: hope that this produces good stuff for all involved, because
Speaker 1: these stories are meaningful and valuable to me personally, as
Speaker 1: these men influence my life and continue to do so.
Speaker 1: We look forward to meeting with you again next week
Speaker 1: on the Beargrease Render. Please leave us a review on
Speaker 1: iTunes and share some of this stuff on social media
Speaker 1: and share the Bargrease podcast with one of your hill
Speaker 1: billy or yuppy friends this week