Speaker 1: M. Kenneth had stopped Uncle LiOD Ell and you're doing
Speaker 1: about having dogs in the game, refuge, Uncloda said, I
Speaker 1: ain't got on dogs in the game, Refuge Kenneth. He
Speaker 1: just looked at Uncle I mean went to pull his
Speaker 1: pistol and he said, we'll find out whose dog it is.
Speaker 1: And unclodill cocky rifle and said that dog dies, so
Speaker 1: do you. On this episode of the Beargrease podcast, we're
Speaker 1: telling a story that's never been written in a book
Speaker 1: or seen on a film. It's a story that's close
Speaker 1: to me. It's from my hometown. I want to introduce
Speaker 1: you to two brothers who were some of the most
Speaker 1: notorious turkey hunting outlaws to ever trapes the Hills of Arkansas.
Speaker 1: Their names were Louis Dell and Charlie Edwards, but in
Speaker 1: an ironic twist, they were deeply respected in our community
Speaker 1: for their forth rightness, genuine nature, and generosity. This story
Speaker 1: is about bar fights, evading game wardens, and making whiskey,
Speaker 1: all interwoven into a story about character and identity. I
Speaker 1: wasn't expecting that either. I'm in search of learning something
Speaker 1: about human nature, something about myself. I've committed to resolving
Speaker 1: a lifelong position of inner conflict of revering these men
Speaker 1: but also disdaining wanting disregard of the law. On this
Speaker 1: first podcast, we're gonna get to know the brothers through
Speaker 1: the voice of a son, men who hunted with them,
Speaker 1: and the game warden that chased them for thirty years.
Speaker 1: Though the brothers are both gone from this earth. In
Speaker 1: later episodes, will dissect their lives with the experts to
Speaker 1: learn why we love them and why we love outlaws. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess you get to decide if you like them
Speaker 1: or not. I really doubt you're gonna want to miss
Speaker 1: this one. Keep playing on, catching me, keep it, put
Speaker 1: you forward or the raf Canna shoes so and then
Speaker 1: you turn walked out. You know, the meeting was pretty
Speaker 1: well over then that kind of busted things that you know.
Speaker 1: My name is Clay Nukelem and this is the Bear
Speaker 1: Grease Podcast where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search
Speaker 1: for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the
Speaker 1: story of Americans who lived their lives close to the land.
Speaker 1: Presented by f HF Gear, American made purpose built hunting
Speaker 1: and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as
Speaker 1: the places we explore. When when I first started with
Speaker 1: with the Commission, the first thing supervisor did was tella
Speaker 1: that there's a standing offer of a state dinner for
Speaker 1: the officer and his wife if they can catch Louis
Speaker 1: Dale and Charlie Edwards illegal turkey hunting, and that would
Speaker 1: be the best state dinner anywhere in the state. And
Speaker 1: that stood for a long time, but it never got filled. Nobody.
Speaker 1: He never had to pay it up because nobody ever
Speaker 1: called him. Nobody ever called him. We had state police
Speaker 1: undercover agents come in, we had Federal Fish and Wildlife
Speaker 1: undercover come in and they hunted with Charlie, but he
Speaker 1: never ever and they've never hunted illegally. They count close,
Speaker 1: but these officers never could get enough to catch them.
Speaker 1: That was retired Arkansas Game and Fish Game Warden Jimmy Martin.
Speaker 1: He worked in Polk and Montgomery County, Arkansas, in the
Speaker 1: wash A Toss, which are the only mountain range between
Speaker 1: the Rockies and Appalachians that run east and west. At
Speaker 1: one time there were snow Captain soared ten thousand feet hall.
Speaker 1: Today the highest peaks are in the three thousand foot range,
Speaker 1: eroded by wind water and ice so deep in time
Speaker 1: the gaps are filled only with speculation. Time also erodes
Speaker 1: human stories, but much faster. Aldo Leopold alluded to the
Speaker 1: fact that individual cultures of the world reflect the wilderness
Speaker 1: from which they were hewn. This is a big story
Speaker 1: hewn by wilderness and hardship, and it's unusually personal for me.
Speaker 1: You see, I grew up in Mina, Arkansas and the
Speaker 1: Western Wash ATSs This was basically the hometown of Louis
Speaker 1: Dell and Charlie Edwards, though they lived in a smaller
Speaker 1: community about fifteen miles east of town. I grew up
Speaker 1: immersed into stories of their exploits, and like a shadow
Speaker 1: over our community, it was impossible to escape their lore,
Speaker 1: their influence. Charlie was born in nineteen four Ay one
Speaker 1: and passed away in ten at the age of seventy three.
Speaker 1: Louis del the younger brother, was born in nineteen and
Speaker 1: passed away just last year in April of one, at
Speaker 1: the age of seventy six. These were modern men, and
Speaker 1: I want to level with you. For years, I've wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about them, but I couldn't figure out how
Speaker 1: to get around two things, the first being the risk
Speaker 1: of glamorizing outlawn. We're gonna talk about some poaching on
Speaker 1: this podcast, but don't blame me if by the end
Speaker 1: of this you find yourself endeared to these men. Deep
Speaker 1: in the American psychees of fascination with people who push
Speaker 1: against the system. You can't turn on a television without
Speaker 1: hearing stories of law breakers. I didn't start this fire boys,
Speaker 1: and though it's just under the surface, in many ways,
Speaker 1: Americans are deeply insecure people, and we're off been enamored
Speaker 1: with people that have enough fortitude to stand against systems
Speaker 1: of power. We glean identity from these outliers and aspired
Speaker 1: to be like them, though the vast majority of us aren't.
Speaker 1: We're society deeply fixated on obeying laws, and that's why
Speaker 1: we like the guys that don't. Our law abiding fixation
Speaker 1: is what has made America a successful nation of law
Speaker 1: and order, which I like and so do you. In
Speaker 1: the second part of this series, and yep, I said
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a series, We're gonna dive deep
Speaker 1: into history, human psychology, and talk with more law enforcement
Speaker 1: guys to learn why we love outlaws like Doc Holiday
Speaker 1: and Body and Clyde will learn while we've created endearing
Speaker 1: fables like robin Hood and the Duke's of Hazard, the
Speaker 1: answers blew my mind as the experts laid out a
Speaker 1: clear roadmap to why we are the way we are.
Speaker 1: Their origins will shock you, and it might even have
Speaker 1: something to do with Karl Marx. How's that for foreshadowing.
Speaker 1: This is the voice of Neil Taylor, a longtime friend
Speaker 1: of the Edwards brothers. This will give you a scope
Speaker 1: of the operation these brothers had with turkey hunting. Well,
Speaker 1: it was one year that Charlie and Louison had a
Speaker 1: bet going on who could kill the most turkeys. Now
Speaker 1: this was his was back when he pulled out there
Speaker 1: in the woods and you had hooted, the only decision
Speaker 1: you had to make was which gobler is gonna go after?
Speaker 1: I mean, seeing eighty gobblers in the flock was quite common.
Speaker 1: They had a contest and I may be a couple
Speaker 1: of birds off one way or another, but I'm I'm
Speaker 1: right there. And these turkeys what nambush that they was
Speaker 1: called up and killed? I think Louis kill thirty six.
Speaker 1: I think Charlie kill. He was either thirty two or
Speaker 1: thirty four. Was either twenty six or that was all
Speaker 1: in one season their best year. But mind you, they
Speaker 1: did this for decades. The seasonal numbers vary with who
Speaker 1: you talked to in the community, but undoubtedly in their
Speaker 1: prime and when turkey populations were extremely good, Louis Dell
Speaker 1: and Charlie killed more turkeys in a season than the
Speaker 1: average turkey hunter would in a lifetime. Though they didn't
Speaker 1: play by the rules that everybody else had to play by.
Speaker 1: Lodell was a you know, he was I never got
Speaker 1: In fact, I never went turkey Hume would double one
Speaker 1: time in my life, but he was. He was about
Speaker 1: as good on slate calls. He might have heard how
Speaker 1: you knew how to work one? And it was obviously killed.
Speaker 1: They killed as many turkey as anybody in the world.
Speaker 1: That was Andy Brown, and that's a big statement, as
Speaker 1: many turkeys as anybody in the world. But having known
Speaker 1: these guys my whole life, and my own dad having
Speaker 1: hunted with him one time, you'll hear about that episode two.
Speaker 1: I stand by Andy's statement, though it's only conjecture. I
Speaker 1: want to tell you my second hesitation in telling the story.
Speaker 1: Remember I said there were two and it's a result
Speaker 1: of growing up in a tight knit community. I didn't
Speaker 1: read these stories. I knew these men and their families,
Speaker 1: which are still here. I didn't want to tarnish the
Speaker 1: reputation of the family by broadcasting their story on a
Speaker 1: national platform. But the Edwards boys themselves didn't seem to
Speaker 1: care much about that, and I decided the way i'd
Speaker 1: remedy the situation was go directly to the family and
Speaker 1: get their blessing to tell the story, which I did.
Speaker 1: Little did I know what I was getting into. Here's
Speaker 1: Mr Jimmy Gay Morden giving us a headstart and nugget
Speaker 1: on understand ending the Edwards and the context of their story.
Speaker 1: When did you start with the Arkansas game and fish
Speaker 1: started back in uh about the first five years, it
Speaker 1: was like the wild West, as far as as turkey poaching,
Speaker 1: deer poaching, the night hunting net and fish on the
Speaker 1: Washing Tall River. It was like it's like the wild
Speaker 1: wild West that we still had the old time poachers.
Speaker 1: I was initially assigned to Montgomery Kenny, and then I
Speaker 1: moved back to Polke Kenny. I think it was in
Speaker 1: nineteen They are old time poachers. They grew up in
Speaker 1: hard times. Most of them did the ones that I
Speaker 1: ran across, the hardcore netters that used nets in the
Speaker 1: rivers and on the lakes, a hard time night hunters
Speaker 1: for dere, you know, the bad Polk turkey poachers and
Speaker 1: the bad daytime deer hunters. They were all from old
Speaker 1: times when times was tough, was hard to come by,
Speaker 1: and outlaw was just away alive. Most of the old hard, hard,
Speaker 1: hardcore poachers came from Moonshiner family. Old time poachers and moonshiners,
Speaker 1: remember those two things. The first family member that I
Speaker 1: went to when I got permission was Stony Edwards, the
Speaker 1: son of Charlie. I drove out to the Big Fort
Speaker 1: community and found him at the Big Fort Mall, which
Speaker 1: is a small gas station that he and his wife run.
Speaker 1: I told him I wanted to tell the whole story
Speaker 1: his dad and uncle, and he agreed. He began by
Speaker 1: showing me a story from nineteen six. That's an interesting
Speaker 1: puzzle piece. Tragedy literally struck the Edwards family. I'm reading
Speaker 1: from a laminated newspaper clipping bound in a three ring binder.
Speaker 1: So this is nineteen six, and it says officers shoot
Speaker 1: Carl Edward right in Polk County. Carl Edwards was killed
Speaker 1: in Montgomery County Sunday afternoon by a bullet fired by
Speaker 1: some member of a posse that had just arrested two
Speaker 1: alleged mood shotters, and probably we're searching for more or
Speaker 1: for anyone connected with the illicit traffic. Edwards, twenty three old,
Speaker 1: resident of Heath Valley, which is right where we're at
Speaker 1: in Polk County, was shot and instantly killed as he
Speaker 1: drove his forward car homeward from a hunting trip in
Speaker 1: Montgomery County. A single bullet fired by one of the
Speaker 1: posse of six officers is said to have wounded Edwards brother,
Speaker 1: killed a dog, and then given Carl Edwards immortal wound
Speaker 1: as he sat at the steering wheel. The tragedy occurred
Speaker 1: in the Government Road between Big Fork and Norman. So
Speaker 1: who was Carl Edwards? To you? He would have been
Speaker 1: my dad's uncle, Okay, my grandfather's brother. So what were
Speaker 1: they doing? They were trying to get away from no
Speaker 1: In all actuality, Uncle Aandy was only I think he
Speaker 1: was only like ten. They had been coon hunting. They
Speaker 1: had coon dog in the car and Uncle Andy was
Speaker 1: in the car and they were coming back and the
Speaker 1: officers hollered for him to stop, and Karl Hollard, I
Speaker 1: will at the bottom of the hill. Car didn't have
Speaker 1: any breaks. But you gotta take the previous history into
Speaker 1: account because they've been trying to catch him for years
Speaker 1: and hadn't been able to so when he didn't stop
Speaker 1: on command, they opened fire. And of course this ad
Speaker 1: came from the newspaper, which I'm gonna say his bias
Speaker 1: towards law enforcement at the time, it wasn't a because
Speaker 1: those men loaded my uncle up, drove him to my
Speaker 1: great grandparents house and dropped him on the porch when
Speaker 1: he was shot dead. Yeah, they left him dead on
Speaker 1: the front porch. Uncle Andy was shot through the ear.
Speaker 1: He was ten years old. He was shot through the ear,
Speaker 1: and of course it killed and his son in the
Speaker 1: car with a coon dog. No, it was too brothers,
Speaker 1: two brothers. Yeah, they were thirteen years apart. Oh, I see,
Speaker 1: I see. And the coon dog in the car and
Speaker 1: was a coon dog. Okay, no kill, kill kill. The
Speaker 1: dog killed. The dog killed Carl and wounded and so
Speaker 1: so Carl was a known moonshiner and they'd been trying
Speaker 1: to catch him. Well, you gotta consider his dad went
Speaker 1: to Leavenworth Prison for moonshine, and so basically the whole
Speaker 1: family was in the business. There's no way around it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: My great grandfather had seven sons and they all lived
Speaker 1: out here in the valley. Yeah, right over there where
Speaker 1: I live now. We're still on the original Edwards home place.
Speaker 1: The whole family was quote in the business of moonshining,
Speaker 1: and the killing of Carl Edwards and his coon dog
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty six was a tough pill for the
Speaker 1: family to swallow, and Uncle Andy, who was just a
Speaker 1: child at the time, had a partly shot off ear
Speaker 1: his whole life. A week after the shooting, the six
Speaker 1: officers involved would be charged with murder. Carl Edwards was
Speaker 1: Louis del and Charlie's uncle, though he died before they
Speaker 1: were ever born. This is another newspaper clipping. Charges of
Speaker 1: murder have been made against six officers who were in
Speaker 1: the posse that caused the death of Carl Edwards in
Speaker 1: Montgomery County last Sunday afternoon. The six were Sheriff George
Speaker 1: how It names all their names. Ruben Edwards, a brother
Speaker 1: of the man killed, was in Mina Tuesday and stated
Speaker 1: that the accused officers had been summoned to court. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to say this was a murder case, and
Speaker 1: I mean that in and of itself could lead to
Speaker 1: a family having some bad taste in their mouth for
Speaker 1: the law. If it hadn't have been for Rube at
Speaker 1: that time, the other brothers would have killed all six officers.
Speaker 1: Rube stopped it and said that it would go to court.
Speaker 1: Would be better off taking them to court and killing them.
Speaker 1: But the brothers would have killed them. And they're lucky
Speaker 1: that they did. In later on, Lucky is probably a
Speaker 1: good descriptor, because all six officers would be acquitted of
Speaker 1: the murdered charges they got off. None of them were convicted,
Speaker 1: nor was there any recompense for the coon dog. This
Speaker 1: isn't the best way to gain the trust of the
Speaker 1: government's law men. We've learned an important component of the
Speaker 1: Edwards story. Mr Jimmy tipped us off to it. They
Speaker 1: were moonshiners. And let me tell you that stuff doesn't
Speaker 1: die easy. Have you ever heard of a community whiskey?
Speaker 1: Still the plot thickens. There were he uh, Davis's, Edwards's,
Speaker 1: and Putman's all lived in that area. In there, and
Speaker 1: all of them were the stills. Name was Old Jesus. Okay.
Speaker 1: The way Dad explained it was when you took a
Speaker 1: sip of that, that was the first thing out of
Speaker 1: your mouth, was Old Jesus. That. Yeah, but it would
Speaker 1: run off a hundred gallons of mash at a time,
Speaker 1: so it was a big still. It was huge. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean they were the multiple families using in cahoots,
Speaker 1: using this one put their stuff together to make make
Speaker 1: the whiskey, get it to market, get it. Once they
Speaker 1: got it sold, then they had split the money accordingly
Speaker 1: among the families, and that was their living I mean,
Speaker 1: that was their cash money. So all their fields and
Speaker 1: stuff was planted in corn, and the corn was used
Speaker 1: to feed animals and to make whiskey. That was their
Speaker 1: easiest way to get it to market. You know, this
Speaker 1: isn't a giant agricultural area. So people did what they
Speaker 1: had to do. People did what they had to do.
Speaker 1: That's an important phrase to remember if you're studying the
Speaker 1: actions of humans. The ideologies and character developed when living
Speaker 1: under pressure are hard things to get rid of, even
Speaker 1: with the passing of time and the pressure. Carl Edwards
Speaker 1: was killed nineteen six and Stoney's great grandfather went to
Speaker 1: Leavenworth Prison in Kansas before that for moonshine during the
Speaker 1: Prohibition era. But the Edwards history goes even deeper. We're
Speaker 1: laying a foundation to understand Louis Dell and Charlie Edwards.
Speaker 1: People just show up on the earth, but they're always
Speaker 1: connected to something behind them, for better or worse. The
Speaker 1: Edwards family came here in eighty three. I think that
Speaker 1: we actually settled here. This entire community was settled from
Speaker 1: one wagon train that came from Georgia to right here.
Speaker 1: And I guess in a way you could put it
Speaker 1: up kind of like a mafia family, you know well,
Speaker 1: and and they took care of each other, you know,
Speaker 1: all the families around. It wasn't like it is today
Speaker 1: that you know, there's people were really connected there. They're neighborhoods. Well,
Speaker 1: you had to have other people to survive. I mean
Speaker 1: that you have strong allies to survive. Yeah. Nowadays everybody
Speaker 1: gets up and goes to work. There's people that live
Speaker 1: in neighborhoods that don't know who lived two houses down.
Speaker 1: They've never met them, never talked to them, never in
Speaker 1: some cases, never seen them. These people lived and worked
Speaker 1: together day in and day out for the same goal.
Speaker 1: And I think that built stronger ties to the community.
Speaker 1: Is it easy for you to look back at that
Speaker 1: history and see your dad and your uncle Louis dell
Speaker 1: On the way they were and connected back to those times.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's like not a very far jump,
Speaker 1: is it. No, they retained their youth until they died.
Speaker 1: The way they were brought up, that was the way
Speaker 1: they lived. I mean right up until then. You know,
Speaker 1: strong work ethic. They weren't real religious men. They believed
Speaker 1: in God. Believe me, Uncle wyd El. When we were
Speaker 1: at the hunting cabin one time and my uncle never
Speaker 1: never okay, got a whole lot, but he'd come in
Speaker 1: from turkey hunting that morning and he said, there's no
Speaker 1: ways a man can sit up there whereas that this
Speaker 1: morning and not know that there's not a higher power.
Speaker 1: They had their own, their own moral compass. It's right
Speaker 1: and it's wrong, and there ain't no in between, and
Speaker 1: there wasn't no change in it. Where did that come from?
Speaker 1: Was their dad like that? Like your grandfather exactly like that?
Speaker 1: And I'm and I never met my great grandfather, but
Speaker 1: I'm positive that he was that way. You take a
Speaker 1: man that raised seven sons on the landing here, he's
Speaker 1: got to be a pretty strong feller first of all,
Speaker 1: to put up with seven sons. I've got three, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to kill him. My grandfather he worked at
Speaker 1: the pollard in town. He only My grandpa only had
Speaker 1: one hand. He lost it to an axe, got it
Speaker 1: chopped off when it was an axe when he was eighteen,
Speaker 1: and they were splitting stave bolts. But he had went
Speaker 1: to wipe a chopping block off, knocked the chips off,
Speaker 1: and the other guy wasn't paying attention and thought he
Speaker 1: had set another deal up there and took it off
Speaker 1: of the knacks. It seems the Edward family has been
Speaker 1: sculpted by hardship and they were outliers with an unusually
Speaker 1: distinct value system. Here's Neil Taylor describing Louis Dell and
Speaker 1: Charlie m M. Two boys. Some people ignorantly may disagree
Speaker 1: with me, but they had their own set of morals
Speaker 1: and principles. Now they may not have been mine principles
Speaker 1: or your principles, but they was there and they pretty
Speaker 1: much lived by you know, even if they didn't like
Speaker 1: you if they come across you and you needed help,
Speaker 1: they'd help you. Now everybody knows that they was turkey
Speaker 1: murdering son of a guns. You know they was probably
Speaker 1: they are undoubtedly the best turkey hunters in this country
Speaker 1: and probably any other country in the United States. You know,
Speaker 1: they fed their families. That's the way they was raised
Speaker 1: up in their grandparents. You know, has poor people back
Speaker 1: in times of the Depression and even further back than that,
Speaker 1: it was a way of life that you had to
Speaker 1: back in the day, you had to do what you
Speaker 1: had to do to survive. I heard this consistently. The
Speaker 1: Edwards brothers had a moral code that they stuck with
Speaker 1: no matter what. Here's the game more than Jimmy Martin
Speaker 1: revealing an interesting dynamic of this story and talking about
Speaker 1: the brothers as kids. Interesting point. You grew up with
Speaker 1: Louis Dell and Charlie. Yes they were. They were about
Speaker 1: five years older than I was and then kind of
Speaker 1: like big brothers. And I don't mean that. You know,
Speaker 1: if if if my mother was violating game fish regulational law,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna write a ticket. It doesn't matter if I
Speaker 1: grew up with Louis Edwards or Charlie or not. That's
Speaker 1: just the way I work. And they knew that. The
Speaker 1: brotherhood or whatever we had growing up as kids, that
Speaker 1: went out the window when I got my job, and
Speaker 1: they expected it and they wouldn't want anything else but that.
Speaker 1: What were they like as as kids? Just just wild crazy?
Speaker 1: You know, we we all were back there. I mean,
Speaker 1: what do we have for entertainment? But out here in
Speaker 1: the woods. Was out here in the woods now that
Speaker 1: there's people, But when I was growing up, things were
Speaker 1: just different. Back then. You rode rode a horse, I
Speaker 1: had horses. You might take off from the house and
Speaker 1: be gone for two days and your parents never They
Speaker 1: weren't worried about it because they knew you was okay
Speaker 1: out there in the woods. It wasn't nothing to ride
Speaker 1: from here to Big Fort all over those mountains. Back there,
Speaker 1: times were different. This is another statement I consistently heard
Speaker 1: when talking about the brothers. But they had a unique
Speaker 1: way of making time linger. You heard Andy Brown on
Speaker 1: the last podcast telling a turkey story about when Doc
Speaker 1: Robern wrenched up under a log to grab a turkey. Well,
Speaker 1: Andy knew the Edwards brothers. Well, here he'll begin to
Speaker 1: give us an introduction to the brothers the first time
Speaker 1: he ever met him, the first time I ever met Ludelle.
Speaker 1: In fact, I knew his dad mag before I ever
Speaker 1: knew Ludelle. It made me a little stint out west
Speaker 1: back in the late seventies, and was out there about
Speaker 1: three years, and I moved back here in that teen
Speaker 1: eighty and when I did, Um and my brother in
Speaker 1: law we liked to hunt. And one fall we were
Speaker 1: east at Big fourk we were hunting, and uh Loudell,
Speaker 1: he was dog man. He loved run his dogs. And
Speaker 1: in those days, October one, that's when the dogs got
Speaker 1: turned loose. That's just the way it was. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was that's that was That's just what happened. The
Speaker 1: implication is that on October one it wasn't legal to
Speaker 1: run dogs or hunt deer. But anyway, Doug and I
Speaker 1: it was middle October, turkey season was open, and I
Speaker 1: was eat up with fall turkey hunting. And anyway, I
Speaker 1: got out there and got a little bunch of young
Speaker 1: turkeys and got him busted up and call one back
Speaker 1: in and killed it. And I was proud of that.
Speaker 1: And Doug, of course we were squirrel hunting too, But anyway,
Speaker 1: he shot and shot and shot and shot and shot.
Speaker 1: So anyway, when I come back out, I walked back
Speaker 1: off and what and those and still call that Lewis Gap.
Speaker 1: And there still a guy and I've never seen before
Speaker 1: in my life, but he was standing there and backed
Speaker 1: up against a tree and he had a he had
Speaker 1: I'll never forget this. He had a browny automatic shotgun,
Speaker 1: thirty two inch full choke and he said good morning.
Speaker 1: I said good morning. And he said, killed you a
Speaker 1: little gobbler there, hunt. I said, yeah, I got lucky.
Speaker 1: He said, oh, he said, I'm just up here, squirrel hunt.
Speaker 1: He said, I don't know what it is you. You
Speaker 1: just know that, you know, And I knew that that
Speaker 1: was Charlie. And to describe Charlie Wayland Jennings, that's that's that's,
Speaker 1: that's the look. So you had heard of Charlie Charlie Lidell.
Speaker 1: Both I did. And you knew this well and I
Speaker 1: knew what they were doing. And you know what Andy
Speaker 1: knew but didn't say, is that Charlie was deer hunting
Speaker 1: out of season. You just know that, you know. I
Speaker 1: didn't ask him, but I knew in my mind it's
Speaker 1: Charlie because he looked a lot like Wayland Jenny's. He
Speaker 1: had was dark hair and the mustache and the beard
Speaker 1: and really nice guy. But he was Charlie was a
Speaker 1: tough guy. I mean he was. He was raw boned
Speaker 1: and he was tough. So I said, well, I better go.
Speaker 1: So I walked back off the mountain and walked back
Speaker 1: up to the duck's car. We were in a little
Speaker 1: cheval at. She fat and he had six squirrels laying
Speaker 1: there in the back of the back of the vat.
Speaker 1: And I said, is that all you have got to
Speaker 1: show for all the shooting done? And and I understand
Speaker 1: I'm at that time. I'm well, I would have turned
Speaker 1: twenty three. I was twenty three years old at the time. Anyway,
Speaker 1: he says, do you know somebody have the named loud
Speaker 1: ll Edwards? And I said, well, I've heard a lot
Speaker 1: about Loudelle. Don't know him personally, but I've heard a
Speaker 1: lot about him. He said, well, I shot a deer
Speaker 1: in front of his dogs up there. What have you
Speaker 1: done on the doorside of Missouri Mountain? So he set
Speaker 1: us up there in the high line, and I said, well,
Speaker 1: we better go get it, and tried to get out
Speaker 1: of here. As we turned around and pulled out, we
Speaker 1: didn't go. We go twenty yards and this guy who
Speaker 1: steps right out in the middle of the road, right
Speaker 1: in front of us. I mean, the ain't no going
Speaker 1: around him. I mean he's in the middle of the
Speaker 1: road and he's on my side. He said, good morning,
Speaker 1: y'all doing good? And I just looked at him and
Speaker 1: I said, are you really don He said yeah, he
Speaker 1: said a hecker, you you know, And I said, well,
Speaker 1: my I told him who I was, and I said,
Speaker 1: he said, uh, where y'all had it? And I said, well,
Speaker 1: I said, I'm not gonna lie to you. Lived there,
Speaker 1: I said, Doug, and shot a deer in front of
Speaker 1: your dogs and it's up there in the highline. And
Speaker 1: he was just tickled as anybody I've ever seen in
Speaker 1: my life. And from that day fourth it was kind
Speaker 1: of neat because he liked he liked me. Do you
Speaker 1: think he liked you? Because you're honest with him, You
Speaker 1: just up front with him. From absolutely, he was an
Speaker 1: upfront guy. You know, he wasn't gonna Louie Dell. Average,
Speaker 1: didn't beat around the bush about nothing. It's just the
Speaker 1: way he was, and I don't know what it is
Speaker 1: about people in my life. That's the people that I
Speaker 1: think I'm more attracted to, is the people that you
Speaker 1: don't have to guess what they're thinking. Louis Dell and
Speaker 1: Charlie had detected some new blood in their domain, and
Speaker 1: they went and checked in on the squirrel, turkey and
Speaker 1: deer hunters. One could surmise that if Andy had made
Speaker 1: a bad impression, things might have not gone as well.
Speaker 1: But Louis Dell extended the right hand of fellowship to
Speaker 1: Andy for life. It was kind of a it was
Speaker 1: kind of the deal. I mean, if you killed a
Speaker 1: deer in front of a man's dogs, he was entitled
Speaker 1: to half the deer. Period. That's just the way it was.
Speaker 1: He says, you guys, take me up there and drop
Speaker 1: me off. And he said, I'll get that deer and
Speaker 1: tell to get up to the house. And he said,
Speaker 1: y'all come back this afternoon and get it. And he
Speaker 1: said I'll have it. I'll have to have So we
Speaker 1: left went home, me and Doug and my sister and
Speaker 1: my wife. We all went back over to their house
Speaker 1: that afternoon and he had that dear split right down
Speaker 1: the middle front shoulder, rib cage, hand quarter, tenderloin and
Speaker 1: to give that to us from that day forth. And
Speaker 1: that's been forty two years nearly since that happened. Ludel
Speaker 1: and I were friends, and so were Charlie. Louis Dell
Speaker 1: and Charlie had a very clear value system that they
Speaker 1: functionalized in a consistent way throughout their life. Here's Neil
Speaker 1: with an example. You said they were genuine, Like, what
Speaker 1: does that mean to you? What you see is what
Speaker 1: you get. They had their ways and they didn't care
Speaker 1: if you agreed with them, were disagreed with them. They
Speaker 1: was going to do what they was going to do
Speaker 1: and what they thought was okay. And they didn't seem
Speaker 1: to have any problem hiding the good and the bad.
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody knew kind of what they were doing
Speaker 1: and what they were about. It's not like they had
Speaker 1: a dual life, like everybody knew what was going on. No,
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right. I mean, you know, he didn't make
Speaker 1: no bones about it to the game wardens. You know,
Speaker 1: he might not tell them what they want to know,
Speaker 1: you know, admit to anything, but I mean he didn't
Speaker 1: night it neither back in Uh, I don't know his
Speaker 1: late seventies. I think they was trying to do away
Speaker 1: with hunting dogs all exceptable, you know, a little you
Speaker 1: had to be a certain size or something. They had
Speaker 1: meeting up there after the Lime Tree, and they was
Speaker 1: in there and I was Oregon back and forth. That's
Speaker 1: all old lu He stood up, Hey said, well, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you fellers what you just do whatever and you
Speaker 1: wanna do, because that's what I'm gonna do. And he
Speaker 1: should keep playing on catching me. You better put you
Speaker 1: forward or drive tennis shoes. So and he just turned
Speaker 1: walked out. You know, the meeting was pretty well over then.
Speaker 1: That kind of busted things that you know, four will
Speaker 1: drive tennis shoes. Louis Dell was known for having a
Speaker 1: unique command of the English language. So what's what's so
Speaker 1: interesting to me is how everybody was kind of intrigued
Speaker 1: with those guys, even if they didn't well because they
Speaker 1: didn't put They didn't try to make believe that they
Speaker 1: was something that they wasn't. He he didn't try to
Speaker 1: make people like it's better than he boys. He didn't
Speaker 1: like people worse than he was. They didn't dress up
Speaker 1: in suits to go to this or that they was
Speaker 1: old country boys. That's not only what they was, it
Speaker 1: was who they was. Yeah, they were just genuine. They
Speaker 1: were satisfied with themselves and content of what they was.
Speaker 1: You know, most people are not like that. Yeah, tell
Speaker 1: me why why aren't most people like that? If I
Speaker 1: knew they're quite answer to that, I'd be a pretty
Speaker 1: smart man. People always want some people to think that
Speaker 1: they're they're better than they are, they're smarter than they are.
Speaker 1: They don't have maybe competence in themselves. Maybe they wanted
Speaker 1: to be something more in life. I don't know them. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, you you take a lot of paper, and
Speaker 1: you can see this a lot of paper. People take
Speaker 1: somebody that wins the lottery, no country boy like may
Speaker 1: or lou or Charlie. They win thirty or forty million dollars.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, they're driving where they've drove to
Speaker 1: pick up all their life, maybe even a nice truck.
Speaker 1: You know, all of a sudden they're driving sports cars
Speaker 1: and wanting to dress and suits and moved to a
Speaker 1: nice neighborhood and there wanting to be something that they're not.
Speaker 1: And Loo and Charlie wouldn't like it. Like I said,
Speaker 1: they was perfectly and content and happy with what they
Speaker 1: was and they didn't want to be anything else. You know,
Speaker 1: not both of them was hell billies, so to speak.
Speaker 1: But Jim Boys wasn't done by any means. That wasn't ignorant. Oh, Louis,
Speaker 1: he may have looked like hell belly, but you start
Speaker 1: trading with him or trying to outthink you, you better
Speaker 1: be good. Louis made a lot of money in his life.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of well educated college people never made
Speaker 1: the money Louis did. He was a hard worker. He
Speaker 1: could say opportunities your mind sale. No matter who you
Speaker 1: talked to, they'll tell you what a hard worker Louis
Speaker 1: Dell was and that he was good at anything he did.
Speaker 1: Here's Andy with some insight. You know what people don't
Speaker 1: understand about Liddell was he worked hard. You know, you
Speaker 1: think you hear stories about people like that and you
Speaker 1: think about them being you know, they get the picture
Speaker 1: of this this country bumpkin that's a sluggard, and you
Speaker 1: know he don't want to work. He don't want to
Speaker 1: do anything. That guy worked hard and he maintained the farm.
Speaker 1: He built Bertha chicken house for them to grow eggs in.
Speaker 1: But he had cattle, you know, he cut hay. And
Speaker 1: you know what a lot of people don't know is
Speaker 1: LiOD Dell. Uh he had a contract at one time
Speaker 1: with Walmart stores putting in drop sealings. He raised catfish,
Speaker 1: so catfish for a living. Uh. He owned some property
Speaker 1: done in Taylor, Arkansas where they had a catfish farm
Speaker 1: down there. And yes, I mean he didn't do everything
Speaker 1: right in life, but he did a lot of things right.
Speaker 1: And you know, he had a had a huge heart
Speaker 1: for his community. I don't know, probably twenty five years
Speaker 1: ago or thirty may have been thirty years ago, there
Speaker 1: was some people. Uh it was a man and his
Speaker 1: wife and they were raising kids and grandkids and uh,
Speaker 1: they lost their home and a lot of people don't
Speaker 1: know this, but LiOD Dell it wasn't just Lioddale, but
Speaker 1: he ramrodded it. They put together money and they bought
Speaker 1: them a mobile home and put back in there so
Speaker 1: they have a place to live. But the thing about
Speaker 1: Ludel was is you got exactly what you saw. Why
Speaker 1: is it so intriguing when someone is exactly what you see?
Speaker 1: Isn't that what we're all striving to display? But he
Speaker 1: wasn't just like this with his friends. He was like
Speaker 1: this with the law too. The saga of Louis Dell
Speaker 1: and Charlie is defined by an aversion to the law
Speaker 1: to the man, but a deep devotion to those they
Speaker 1: called friends. Ironically, the law men even respected them. Here's
Speaker 1: Mr Jimmy, and in this story, you're gonna hear the
Speaker 1: name Bertha, which is Louis Delle's wife of fifty four years.
Speaker 1: So with your patrol and tell me kind of the
Speaker 1: cat and mouse game that you had with them, just
Speaker 1: your whole career pretty much. It started off with one
Speaker 1: day I was following Ludale's truck, and I had followed
Speaker 1: that truck for hours, and finally, because I shadowing. You know,
Speaker 1: you if you ever for ever try to follow a
Speaker 1: truck on the fourth service Road, you try to stay
Speaker 1: way back, but you know somebody's gonna see you. Eventually
Speaker 1: I ran at the corner. The truck was dead in
Speaker 1: the middle of the road, and I never had really
Speaker 1: lost sight of it because I know that Charlie or
Speaker 1: lou Dell hadn't been in it, because nobody jumped out
Speaker 1: of the truck when it stopped. I used on up
Speaker 1: to the pick up, got out and walked up to it.
Speaker 1: Bertha was behind the wheel. She's sitting there laughing. I said, ma'am,
Speaker 1: what's wrong? She said, Jimmy Martin. Don't you know they
Speaker 1: hadn't been in this truck all day long. So I've
Speaker 1: been following that truck all day. And she was just
Speaker 1: a lure, you know. And they put it on the
Speaker 1: bad because I said that I've been following her all
Speaker 1: that morning. Nobody they're smart. But there was many a
Speaker 1: time I would find Louis Dell coming out of the woods.
Speaker 1: Now how he knew. I would stop be listening for
Speaker 1: turkeys and I'd hear something crashing coming down side of
Speaker 1: the mountain. It'd be Louis Dell. He'd come over the truck. Hey, Jimmy,
Speaker 1: how you don never never called him with a gun.
Speaker 1: I would even call him back when we had right
Speaker 1: after we had dogs dog teams in the state. Have
Speaker 1: the dogs go up. Try the way that he come
Speaker 1: down from the mountain. Let's see he popped out on
Speaker 1: the road before season, Yes, oh yes, before season. He's
Speaker 1: in campus coming out of nowhere. I never could understand
Speaker 1: how he did it. And so but y'all called dogs
Speaker 1: in to try to back trail him to where he sat.
Speaker 1: He thought he we always heard he had a shotgun
Speaker 1: in a in a hollow tree. Well if he did,
Speaker 1: we never did find it. He may not have had
Speaker 1: a gun in a tree. How many times did you
Speaker 1: trail him with a dog? We only we only did
Speaker 1: that twice. Becaut that point, we're giving up because if
Speaker 1: we don't catch him in, you know, with the gun
Speaker 1: coming out of the woods, you might as well forget it.
Speaker 1: Because when we brought the dog over two times, we
Speaker 1: just knew was gonna have him. He come out of
Speaker 1: the woods. We knew the spot he come out of
Speaker 1: the woods, the dog with traggling back. But the dog
Speaker 1: just kept trailing, trailing and trailing for miles, and he
Speaker 1: never would stop or hit on where there might be
Speaker 1: a gun. He was a dog trained to find a gun,
Speaker 1: or he trying to find a gun. He was training
Speaker 1: to find a shell. The dog could even find a
Speaker 1: twenty two casing. I mean there were that word. What
Speaker 1: did what did Louis Delle act like when you guy
Speaker 1: said here, you're going to get a dog. He didn't
Speaker 1: bother him at all. It's no sweat. He just laughed,
Speaker 1: but it didn't shake him. How did he How did
Speaker 1: he treat you? Was he hostile? He was just just
Speaker 1: straight up with me as he as he could be.
Speaker 1: We'd laugh and joke and carry on. You know. If
Speaker 1: if I caught him, fine, But he says, you're not
Speaker 1: ever gonna catch me, Jimmy. He said that to you,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, several times, and I never did, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't for one to try. And because I wanted that
Speaker 1: state dinner. I caught a lot of preseason turkey hunters,
Speaker 1: but never did catch Louisdale or Charlie. So what do
Speaker 1: you think he was doing? How was he doing it?
Speaker 1: I thought, and I never could prove it that. You know,
Speaker 1: Bertha would take him out and drop him off when
Speaker 1: he'd walk back home went and he I'm sure he
Speaker 1: did that because she would tell making deep in the forest,
Speaker 1: and I might catch him on the road in between
Speaker 1: walking back. But he never had farm, so I know
Speaker 1: he didn't walk that far over there and then back way.
Speaker 1: He may have, but he grew up in those woods
Speaker 1: and he knew him. So he just had probably stashes
Speaker 1: of guns in different places. That was stereirized. But we
Speaker 1: never knew. No, he may have took it with him
Speaker 1: when he when he left this earth. But he was good.
Speaker 1: He was real good. I thought this would be an
Speaker 1: interesting question to ask Stoney about how they evaded the law.
Speaker 1: I wasn't certain how he'd responded. How did they evade
Speaker 1: the law? So well? I've heard several stories of how
Speaker 1: they did things specifically. And if you don't want to
Speaker 1: talk about it, can we get dropped off. I'm not
Speaker 1: doing anything illegal as far as what you can see.
Speaker 1: But if you sit there and wait on me, you're
Speaker 1: not gonna see me again. Is that ain't where I'm
Speaker 1: coming out? And you don't know where my guns at?
Speaker 1: So they had guns hidden in the woods. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure that there's not some still hid in the woods,
Speaker 1: and I don't know where they're at. That was their secret,
Speaker 1: as they had people drop them off, and they had
Speaker 1: guns hid in the woods most of the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: here's Andy with some more intel on one of their tricks.
Speaker 1: It was a game clay and you know, and I
Speaker 1: don't mean it's bad, but lid he'll he'd lived for that,
Speaker 1: he'd lived for that challenge, he lived for that. I'll
Speaker 1: beat you at your game deal, you know, I know,
Speaker 1: I know this for a fact. He would take his
Speaker 1: he'd take his little Toyota pick up over there had
Speaker 1: birth of all. He would drop it off on parking
Speaker 1: right on the side of the road because he knew
Speaker 1: they'd be sitting on it. And he'd be ten milesle
Speaker 1: mari turkey, you know, because I mean they're going to
Speaker 1: set on it, you know, and he'd be he'd be
Speaker 1: someplace completely out of the country, someplace else. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and the and the thing. Well, and that's the reason
Speaker 1: it goes back to, you know, the birth of Bless
Speaker 1: your hearts. She she got to drop him off a lot,
Speaker 1: and she dropped him off here, and he'd say, you
Speaker 1: pick me up there at noon. He kind of put
Speaker 1: it in the game. Wardens faces though that he was
Speaker 1: an outlaw. Yes, with Louis Delle, it's a game. There
Speaker 1: was no real ill intent, at least not the way
Speaker 1: I interpreted Louis Dale. A lot of people, a lot
Speaker 1: of wardens, a lot of law enforcement officers. They took
Speaker 1: it very personal that supposedly, here's this man, he's out
Speaker 1: here just slaughtering the turkey's left and right, and uh
Speaker 1: flaunting it in our face. But Louis Delle he never
Speaker 1: hurt my feelings. It was a game to him, you know,
Speaker 1: catch me if you can. And he bested the best
Speaker 1: of us, and we never caught him. Why do you
Speaker 1: think he's like that? That's just Louisdale. Turns out Jimmy
Speaker 1: and Louis Dell both like coffee. Here's an entry Steen story. Well,
Speaker 1: every preseason and that we'd start like in March, late February,
Speaker 1: word March, we'd beut working priests at what coffree seasoned
Speaker 1: turkey hunt and uh, every now and then I'd run
Speaker 1: into Louis Dale. He'd always say, hey, Jimmy, we got
Speaker 1: in coffee. I'm sure he was thirsty. Had here he
Speaker 1: has at you. You never caught him with a game,
Speaker 1: but he'd be coming in all the woods. But it
Speaker 1: got to the point where I was eating and finding
Speaker 1: him so frequent I wound up making an extrapolot thermus
Speaker 1: a coffer to go with me, so you know, had
Speaker 1: mine in me and Loui Delle. We might sat there
Speaker 1: and drink half of thermis coffin between us and the
Speaker 1: latter part of the when I was working. He got
Speaker 1: to where he's kind of hard hearing, and you hear
Speaker 1: a bird, Jimmy, and he's using me for I guess
Speaker 1: there's a sounding boards, just trying to spot turkey for it.
Speaker 1: So you're sitting there drinking coffee with him and you're
Speaker 1: hearing birds and he's asking you if you heard it.
Speaker 1: He can't get a beat on it, right that that's classic.
Speaker 1: What what did you talk about with him when you're
Speaker 1: sitting there and you're you know that he's doing something illegal? Well,
Speaker 1: we didn't dwell on the illegal hunting part. He I mean,
Speaker 1: he knew if I caught him parents Square, he's gonna
Speaker 1: get a ticket. And he knew in his own mind
Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna catch him because he don't told me that,
Speaker 1: and if he tells you, he's gonna do it. But
Speaker 1: we we talked about a lot of stuff, how things
Speaker 1: used to be back and was growing up, kids and
Speaker 1: grandkids and his life and was solved all the world's
Speaker 1: problem back there on those country room. Did you enjoy
Speaker 1: seeing him? If you saw Louis Delle walking down the road,
Speaker 1: that no problem at all. It's like, oh home week.
Speaker 1: So I mean you you would you would have enjoyed
Speaker 1: that I had to. I mean, I knew the man.
Speaker 1: He wasn't the enemy, not at all. It's just it's
Speaker 1: just Louidy. I grew up with him and all the Edwards. Now,
Speaker 1: could that have clouded your ability to catch him? I
Speaker 1: don't think. I don't see how it could because of
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not saying you would have led him
Speaker 1: off if you knew something, But do you think that
Speaker 1: was part of their stick into getting away, was just
Speaker 1: kind of being likable and and befriending some of the
Speaker 1: people that were after him. I don't think so. I
Speaker 1: don't see how that really, how that would have affected it.
Speaker 1: I tried, I really wanted that steak dinner. We'll learn
Speaker 1: that the Edwards brothers could be intimidating and downright rough
Speaker 1: in some situations. I asked him, though, if he ever
Speaker 1: felt intimidated by him. You know, it's like if I
Speaker 1: wrote Louis Delle a ticket, he's not going to try
Speaker 1: to get back at me for that. If now, if
Speaker 1: I had written him a ticket and it was uncalled
Speaker 1: for a chicken when you were a ticket, then you
Speaker 1: but you know, he's gonna he might go out and
Speaker 1: kill double the amount of turkeys. You didn't do Charlie
Speaker 1: or Louis Delle wrong, But you didn't you. I wasn't
Speaker 1: afraid of them, and and and they're the kind that, uh,
Speaker 1: you don't mess with in the wrong. Wrong, you don't
Speaker 1: wrong them. I can't say it on any nice way
Speaker 1: on radio. No, it's just crap on them. They're gonna
Speaker 1: crap on you. Yeah, you treat them right, and they're
Speaker 1: gonna treat right even if you're writing them a ticket.
Speaker 1: If you treat them in the right way, everything's gonna
Speaker 1: go down just great. They weren't that intimidating. They're not.
Speaker 1: They didn't try to force their way out of a situation.
Speaker 1: And you know this, quit following me as a game
Speaker 1: warden or we're gonna get even with you know, none
Speaker 1: of that would ever happened. They don't do people that way,
Speaker 1: you know. Charlie and Luda, if I if I told
Speaker 1: him I needed anything at all, they would do it,
Speaker 1: whether I'm law enforcement or not. That's just the way
Speaker 1: they work. They were good. They were good people. They
Speaker 1: really work. Yeah, that's the That's the interesting part of
Speaker 1: this whole story is that they were these pretty notorious outlaws,
Speaker 1: but then they were also like I had, I had
Speaker 1: a hard time finding people that were willing to talk
Speaker 1: about them because they were afraid it was gonna make
Speaker 1: them look bad. You know, It's like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: these guys, you know, why are you defending the character
Speaker 1: of these you know, these these poachers. That's the that's
Speaker 1: the that's the way a lot of people were. Why
Speaker 1: do you think people were so loyal to them, Well,
Speaker 1: they're not Claude Dallas if you know that name from
Speaker 1: out West, I don't. He wanted killed two game wardens
Speaker 1: out and I think it was Idaho. Loud On Charlie.
Speaker 1: They're not gonna be violent against you. There was a
Speaker 1: romanticism of for some folks. When I started on as
Speaker 1: a game fish officer, you lose most of your friends.
Speaker 1: The people that I grew up with, hunted and fished with.
Speaker 1: That's the last thing they wanted to see was me
Speaker 1: coming up their driveway, especially in that game and fish truck.
Speaker 1: Louie and Charlie, they weren't like that. I'd have gone
Speaker 1: to their house many times on complaints. People have filed
Speaker 1: a complaint on them for one reason or another, and
Speaker 1: I would just pull it up in the driveway and
Speaker 1: we sit on the front porch and talk about it.
Speaker 1: Me trying to get down to the bottom of the situation.
Speaker 1: Is you know what the facts were on it. I
Speaker 1: was never intimidated having to drive up their driveway, whereas
Speaker 1: some of the kids I went to school with it
Speaker 1: might be a little bit different, and didn't have to
Speaker 1: worry about them. Yeah, and I can always I didn't
Speaker 1: have to walk backwards to my truck. I can always
Speaker 1: turn around when I left their house and just walk
Speaker 1: back to my truck normally because I knew I was
Speaker 1: nothing was going to happen to you. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: I think. I see what you're saying. And I guess
Speaker 1: you chased some guys that you wouldn't have done that with.
Speaker 1: I mean you chase, you chase some guys that work,
Speaker 1: straight up criminals that would cut the tires or worse
Speaker 1: than that. But Charlie and Louisdelle, they were they were
Speaker 1: down to, down to the earth folks they worked for.
Speaker 1: When they worked, they worked hard, and when they played,
Speaker 1: they played hard, and a lot of people respected them
Speaker 1: for that. Louis Delle liked Jimmy and treated him with respect. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties. Well, Jimmy Martin was working as
Speaker 1: a police officer. He was shot three times in the
Speaker 1: d Uy traffic stop. He had reason not to trust folks,
Speaker 1: but he trusted the Edwards. However, if you crossed them
Speaker 1: or for some reason they didn't like you, anything was
Speaker 1: on the table. Here's Stoney with a story of an
Speaker 1: interaction with the game warden that Louis Dell didn't get
Speaker 1: along with. It's important to know that it is legal
Speaker 1: to run dogs for deer in many parts of Arkansas. Well,
Speaker 1: we were running dogs, which you know, we're right on
Speaker 1: the game refuge line here, and uh, we had dogs
Speaker 1: over in the game refuge. Well, Uncloudel's over trying to
Speaker 1: catch him, and he's got his rifle. He ain't gonna
Speaker 1: leave it. Laying Sam was one of uncloud El's good
Speaker 1: deer dogs. But nobody catch him. But uncloud El know's
Speaker 1: it any strangers around that dog would stay out there.
Speaker 1: It's already forty yards. Nobody's gonna get close. And uh,
Speaker 1: Kenneth had stopped Uncloodell and looked at his license and
Speaker 1: cheered on him about having dog was in the game refuge.
Speaker 1: Uncluta said, I ain't getting on dogs in the game. Refuge, Well,
Speaker 1: whose dog is at look? Luta said, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It ain't mine and they had his collar on it.
Speaker 1: I mean, he knew it was his dog. He was
Speaker 1: over to get him, but he knew Kenneth couldn't catch him.
Speaker 1: Of course, Uncluda and Kenneth didn't get along. I mean
Speaker 1: just personality clash. They wouldn't have got along if they
Speaker 1: had have been met somewhere else. But Kenneth he just
Speaker 1: looked at Uncluta and he went to pull his pistol
Speaker 1: and he said, we'll find out whose dog it is,
Speaker 1: and Unclude cocked his rifle and the dog he was
Speaker 1: gonna kill the dog look at the collar, and Unclude
Speaker 1: just helped his rifle up there and cocked nemor. He
Speaker 1: said that dog dies, so do you. And Kenneth said, well,
Speaker 1: I thought it wasn't your dog, and he said, I
Speaker 1: don't give it. You ain't killing a dog in front
Speaker 1: of me. And it all ended right there. Kenneth and
Speaker 1: then went out in their truck left Unclude I loaded
Speaker 1: dog that went home. Wow, how how does the how
Speaker 1: does how does the law respond to that? Because I
Speaker 1: think maybe it was just from a different time, because today,
Speaker 1: you point your gun to a law enforcement guy, you're
Speaker 1: either gonna get shot, I'm gonna go to jail. Right,
Speaker 1: But let me ask you this, if the law enforcement
Speaker 1: guy is breaking the law, who's in the right right
Speaker 1: Because by today's law, him shooting that dog would be
Speaker 1: a felony. So it's almost like there was some backwoods
Speaker 1: justice going on there between both of them, right, I mean, it's, uh,
Speaker 1: you're just not gonna do it, you know, And so
Speaker 1: nothing was ever said about it. No. Man. See that's
Speaker 1: interesting because and I think that does show you kind
Speaker 1: of I mean, it's like Bow and Luke Duke. You know,
Speaker 1: I fought the law and the law lost. That's a
Speaker 1: pretty wild interaction. And I realized that that's just one
Speaker 1: side of that story. But we do know for sure
Speaker 1: it was a different time. If that happened today, things
Speaker 1: probably would have been different. Probably there's been several statements
Speaker 1: about them evading the law, but that actually didn't always happen.
Speaker 1: Jimmy never caught him, but as you'll see in the
Speaker 1: next podcast, we'll learn they actually got caught a couple
Speaker 1: of times a long time before Jimmy. Here's one time
Speaker 1: when Louis del caught himself. We were over on the
Speaker 1: headboard camp and of course man Uncle Adhill is coming
Speaker 1: back into camp and Terry Lunsford was parked in the
Speaker 1: road for his service first law enforcement, and Joe Lyles
Speaker 1: was game warden anyway, and I like both men, but anyway,
Speaker 1: uncleod Hell being unclood Hill, he gets out and we're
Speaker 1: talking Terry and Uncle Adell said, well, I guess you
Speaker 1: better check our license. And Terry said, no, this is
Speaker 1: at your dear camp. No, this is on the hood
Speaker 1: of Terry S. Trump. So just y'all, y'all are just
Speaker 1: coming back in the road. Okay, So it's a roadblock, right, Well,
Speaker 1: it wasn't really a roadblock. Terry was just pulled over
Speaker 1: and we pulled up to talk to him, and we
Speaker 1: got out and everybody's leaning on the hood, you know, talking.
Speaker 1: There's four guys standing there talking, and then Joe Lyles
Speaker 1: pulled up, so all five of us is talking and
Speaker 1: Uncle lud El stayed on Terry. Oh you're gonna check license.
Speaker 1: He said, Now, I didn't buy these things for nothing,
Speaker 1: and he's pulling his bill fold out and Terry's like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't need to see your license. I know you
Speaker 1: know well, Uncle Ludel don't have one. All the rest
Speaker 1: of us has got ours out there. And he turned
Speaker 1: bright red, I mean bright red, and went to cussing.
Speaker 1: And then the first thing, the next thing popped out
Speaker 1: of his mouth was I can't believe Bertsa didn't buy that.
Speaker 1: Lame threw Bertha right out of the bus. And then
Speaker 1: Terry just looked at Joe and he said, ain't you
Speaker 1: right in this ticket? Because neither one of them wanted
Speaker 1: to have to deal with the aftermath. You know, it
Speaker 1: wasn't that he was gonna get revenged, but he was
Speaker 1: gonna be mad at whoever wrote that ticket. Forever you
Speaker 1: wrote me a ticket. And I think Joe finally wrote
Speaker 1: the t of course uncle a Layer said that's only
Speaker 1: why he was ever gonna catch me. After doing some checking,
Speaker 1: it was actually Terry Lunsford that wrote the ticket. Here's
Speaker 1: Jimmy with his honest thoughts on the Edwards reputation. But
Speaker 1: a lot of louis Dale was bravado. You'd see in
Speaker 1: a restaurant and people would get to talk about turkey hunting.
Speaker 1: Who they'll like to brag and he you know, he
Speaker 1: might not have killed near as many turkeys as people
Speaker 1: as he put out to be doing. I don't I
Speaker 1: don't think you did that. At one time he had
Speaker 1: a big ring of turkey beards, but we don't know
Speaker 1: how long it's been collecting those beards. Yeah, a lot
Speaker 1: of bravado. The turkey beard thing came from back when
Speaker 1: he was arrested for a moonshining. Moonshining? Did he just
Speaker 1: say that Louis Delle got caught for moonshining? Man? There
Speaker 1: is not enough time in a single Bear Grease episode
Speaker 1: to even scratch the surface with these Edwards boys. You'll
Speaker 1: have to wait for part two of this podcast to
Speaker 1: hear the moonshining story. And it's a good one. If
Speaker 1: they killed half of what they got credit for, there
Speaker 1: wouldn't be any game left in polk Anning. So you
Speaker 1: think a lot of their reputation, Oh, I just got it.
Speaker 1: I'm sure they did kill more than their share, but
Speaker 1: it just got blown plumb out of proportionate the myth.
Speaker 1: It created a myth, and it just carried on and
Speaker 1: on and on. Louis Dell Charlie, they you know you're
Speaker 1: talking about the numbers of the killing thirty and forty
Speaker 1: birds in a season. They did not waste any meat.
Speaker 1: So if they killed thirty birds, either their fraser was
Speaker 1: plumb full of turkey, they gave away a lot, because
Speaker 1: you know, there's no way one family is gonna eat
Speaker 1: thirty turkeys. And if they did give away that mean
Speaker 1: other than the word would have gotten out. But if
Speaker 1: they did kill that men, they surely didn't waste it.
Speaker 1: What makes you say that? How do you know that?
Speaker 1: Because I know them, I know how they were raised
Speaker 1: and how they grew up and how they taught their kids. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just the way. That's the way it was when
Speaker 1: we grew up. You didn't waste that meat back then.
Speaker 1: It's precious. Yeah, they were good folks. I don't care
Speaker 1: how many times I gotta say it. I'll chase and
Speaker 1: I would write them today if they were still, you know,
Speaker 1: if we were still back in that situation, and they
Speaker 1: would know it. But they're gone. Yeah, here's Stoney on
Speaker 1: the big picture of his dad and uncle being outlaws.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about your dad and uncle being
Speaker 1: outlaws like that? And how would you be today? You
Speaker 1: gotta look at it this way, there's very few deer
Speaker 1: when they're younger. You're not allowed to kill a dough.
Speaker 1: By putting that restriction on, their chances of seeing one
Speaker 1: period were nearly void anyway. And then you see one,
Speaker 1: Oh that's a dough I can't shoot it. Well, that
Speaker 1: was a hard rule to follow. It was an impossible
Speaker 1: rule to follow when you know you've got family at
Speaker 1: home that need that meat. You know, you've heard old
Speaker 1: West stories of the guy went and killed somebody's cow
Speaker 1: and took it home. That was the only way he
Speaker 1: had to feed his family at the time, so he
Speaker 1: did it. Nowadays, I can't hold with a whole lot
Speaker 1: of it, and my uncle couldn't either. My dad couldn't either.
Speaker 1: At the last, there's a point where we have enough.
Speaker 1: So you saw that inside of them. I mean, so
Speaker 1: there was a time I mean when they were killing
Speaker 1: that many turkeys, kind of in their prime. I mean,
Speaker 1: they weren't they had plenty of money. I mean, they
Speaker 1: weren't wealthy, but they so they weren't killing turkeys just
Speaker 1: to feed the f It was kind of a remnant
Speaker 1: of a time past. But then they got in their
Speaker 1: old age where they weren't and I'm gonna say that
Speaker 1: because you know, when they were in their mid thirties,
Speaker 1: the only Christmas we had is from what they killed
Speaker 1: coon hunt their coon hides. Dad uncloud On made thirty
Speaker 1: five hundred in one month coon hunting. Of course, hides
Speaker 1: were twenty five and thirty five dollars apiece, but they
Speaker 1: were They weren't working in the day at all. They
Speaker 1: got up in the evening, we came home, went to bed,
Speaker 1: got up, went hunting every single night, seven days a week,
Speaker 1: all winter long. If they did, we're still up the
Speaker 1: next morning. You know, they'd get up. They'd go turkey hunter,
Speaker 1: or they'd go kill deer, or they may have killed
Speaker 1: a deers that night while they were con I mean,
Speaker 1: the work was very scarce that they were doing, and
Speaker 1: that was it. I guess it was later in their
Speaker 1: life that they kind of did pretty well for them. So,
Speaker 1: I mean Louis Dell uncloud El, he he did pretty
Speaker 1: well all the way through. Dad Unclodil married one woman
Speaker 1: and was married to her for fifty something years. Dad
Speaker 1: married six. I didn't know that, Okay, so Charlie had
Speaker 1: six wives. I'll be dared. I didn't know that. Dad
Speaker 1: made little fortunes and lost them all along the way,
Speaker 1: unclood un married one and made a fortune and managed
Speaker 1: to build it up as far as they're thinking, when
Speaker 1: if they needed it, they were gonna go get it.
Speaker 1: And you know, and I would be the same way today,
Speaker 1: but I can't see a scenario where I would need it.
Speaker 1: Here's Andy telling why he misses Charlie and Louis Dell.
Speaker 1: There's great folks. I mean I miss him. I mean,
Speaker 1: you just you just got to miss people like that
Speaker 1: because they're just so, they're just so. I mean sure,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're gonna get the same thing every time.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're not gonna get any And Blue Deal
Speaker 1: was loud. God, he's coming up there in the office,
Speaker 1: and I shut my door. Of course everybody in the
Speaker 1: office heard it. You know, he comed up there. I mean,
Speaker 1: this might be the fifth of March. He had two
Speaker 1: beards in his pocket more. And you know he'd leave
Speaker 1: there and go to the holiday house and tell him
Speaker 1: the same thing. I mean in front. I mean he didn't,
Speaker 1: I mean, it did not, It did not bother him.
Speaker 1: Just unbelievable. Isn't it ironic that these notorious outlaws were
Speaker 1: such respected and beloved people. Obviously they had enemies too,
Speaker 1: and I'm certain there are unflattered in stories about them,
Speaker 1: like there would be about all of us. Me telling
Speaker 1: the story of the Edwards brothers is clearly not condoning
Speaker 1: breaking game laws. And let me say, whoever is without sin,
Speaker 1: let him cast the first stone. Times have changed for
Speaker 1: the better. Today, obeying game laws is the norm, and
Speaker 1: if you break them, you will be caught and severely punished.
Speaker 1: Game laws keep wildlife populations healthy. We love game laws today.
Speaker 1: The cool kids obey game laws. That's just the way
Speaker 1: it is. The prime of these guys operation was simply
Speaker 1: a different time. It was a different mentality. So why
Speaker 1: did I tell the story in a day of extreme
Speaker 1: polarization of things either being black or white, someone is
Speaker 1: either a criminal or a saint. You've either been accepted
Speaker 1: or you've been canceled. It seems to me like we
Speaker 1: could judge people with a little more nuance. If we
Speaker 1: were all judged by our worst day, we'd all be
Speaker 1: in trouble. The Edwards story is extremely intriguing and complex,
Speaker 1: and my personal take home for Clay Nucom has to
Speaker 1: do with the certainty of the Edwards brothers identity. They
Speaker 1: could have taught a master class on functionalizing a strong identity.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying it was healthy or constructive, but
Speaker 1: they didn't take cues about themselves from sources deemed irrelevant,
Speaker 1: and there in lies the issue with many of us.
Speaker 1: It was noteworthy to me that over and over and
Speaker 1: over people said they were genuine. Well, aren't we all
Speaker 1: trying to be genuine? Or have most of us taken
Speaker 1: on an identity that's a facade. Wouldn't it be wild
Speaker 1: if it took a couple of outlaws from Arkansas to
Speaker 1: help us see what it means to be a genuine human.
Speaker 1: It's just a thought, It's just something to think about.
Speaker 1: On the next episode, we're gonna continue to hear stories
Speaker 1: about Louis Dell and Charlie. There just isn't enough time
Speaker 1: in this thing, and we're gonna tell about the time
Speaker 1: they got busted for making illegal moonshine and how earlier
Speaker 1: in their lives they actually did get busted by the
Speaker 1: game and fish Man, it's gonna be good. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for listening to Bear Grease. Share this podcast with
Speaker 1: the most law abiding person you know this week and
Speaker 1: see what they think. Leave us to comment on iTunes
Speaker 1: and we'll see you next week. On the Bear Grease
Speaker 1: written