Speaker 1: On this episode released on Christmas Day twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: We're going back to revisit some iconic moments in the
Speaker 1: last three and a half years of the Bear Grease podcast.
Speaker 1: When I thought about what moments stood out to me,
Speaker 1: I quickly just rattled off five right in a row
Speaker 1: without really even thinking about it. So today we're gonna
Speaker 1: hear clips from Arizona cowboy Warner Glenn. We're gonna hear
Speaker 1: from ninety year old East Tennessee bear hunter Britt Davis.
Speaker 1: It's number two. We're gonna hear the account of Erskine's
Speaker 1: death in eighteen forty one from a bear attack. The
Speaker 1: fourth one, we're gonna hear from Stony Edwards talking about
Speaker 1: the murder of his great uncle Carl Edwards. And lastly,
Speaker 1: we're gonna hear a clip from the Donnie Baker episode
Speaker 1: Donnie's from Missouri, and it's him talking about the moment
Speaker 1: that he is legally killed a two hundred and nine
Speaker 1: inch white tail. It's like the Bear Grease time machine.
Speaker 1: We're gonna go back and it's gonna be a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. And I really doubt that you're gonna want
Speaker 1: to miss this one. And while you're listening, I'd like
Speaker 1: to ask a favor of you. Email us at bear
Speaker 1: Grease at the Meat Eater dot com and tell us
Speaker 1: your favorite bear Grease moment. My name is Klay Nukem
Speaker 1: and this is the bear Grease Podcast, where we'll explore
Speaker 1: things forgotten but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places,
Speaker 1: and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live
Speaker 1: their lives close to the land. Presented by FHF Gear,
Speaker 1: American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed
Speaker 1: to be as rugged as the place that's we explore.
Speaker 1: Warner Glenn is an eighty nine year old rancher from
Speaker 1: southeast Arizona who's made his living as a cattleman on
Speaker 1: his Malpie ranch, of which his southern fence line is
Speaker 1: the US Mexican border. No kidding. Warner Glenn is also
Speaker 1: a houndsman and a legendary dry ground mountain lion hunter.
Speaker 1: Dry ground meaning they're hunting in the desert without snow.
Speaker 1: That's why I knew him. He's got to be one
Speaker 1: of the oldest still working line hunters and cowboys left
Speaker 1: in America, known to put on twenty five hundred plus
Speaker 1: miles per year on his mule. Even today, Warner is
Speaker 1: one of the most humble, toughest, and hardest working men
Speaker 1: that I have ever interfaced with, and you kind of
Speaker 1: just get that sense when you're around him for a
Speaker 1: few hours. This clip is from twenty twenty one, when
Speaker 1: I asked him about a turning point in his life
Speaker 1: when he got into some trouble with the law. This
Speaker 1: clip was pulled out of episode twenty two titled American
Speaker 1: Cowboy in Open Country Warner Glenn Part one. The fruit
Speaker 1: of success almost always grows from the seed of failure,
Speaker 1: and sometimes that part of the journey is overlooked. An
Speaker 1: influential event in mister Warner's life took place in the
Speaker 1: early nineteen eighties, long before the success of the Malpi
Speaker 1: Borderlands Group, and I want to see if mister Warner
Speaker 1: is open to talking about it. You got in a
Speaker 1: tussle with one of the border agents.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did.
Speaker 1: Did that change the way you saw that you needed
Speaker 1: to deal with people? Can you talk to me about that?
Speaker 3: Well? Sure, you bet that did.
Speaker 1: The kind of tell me the story and then tell
Speaker 1: me how it affects.
Speaker 3: I had a pretty pretty volatile temper when I was younger,
Speaker 3: and a lot of stuff. But I did them that
Speaker 3: I wouldn't do that day. I did my butt take
Speaker 3: down anyway, I.
Speaker 1: Don't know, you still look pretty wiry.
Speaker 3: That fellow was. That fellow was out of line, no
Speaker 3: doubt about it. He told me what he could do
Speaker 3: in anywhere he wanted on my feet land and I had.
Speaker 3: I couldn't do anything about it, and I told him
Speaker 3: I thought it could, and he said, well, you sure can.
Speaker 3: So I did. But anyway, it got me in a
Speaker 3: big trouble. Yet, one thing about it. He was a
Speaker 3: federal uniformed officer. My docture took him to the ground
Speaker 3: and rubbed his head in the dirt.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just a how old were you,
Speaker 1: mister Warner?
Speaker 3: Probably forty seven, forty eight? Okay, Well I could go
Speaker 3: on and on about that, but that, of course, that's
Speaker 3: a felony. Anytime you had touch a federal officer in
Speaker 3: assault a federal officer, that's a fellay charged. And there's
Speaker 3: no doubt about it. I did it, There wasn't and
Speaker 3: I never made any excuse. I just told him why
Speaker 3: I did it. And I didn't go to prison, but
Speaker 3: I came that close. And also if you have a
Speaker 3: fellow in charge, you can't have a fire on him
Speaker 3: for so many years, and it affects your way of life.
Speaker 3: So just taught me, big boy, you better be careful
Speaker 3: what you're doing. And they told me some of the agents.
Speaker 3: They had an agent that dealt with things like that,
Speaker 3: and they came and talked to me, and they said,
Speaker 3: wonder what you should have done is gone to his
Speaker 3: supervisor and let them take care of it. And I said, well,
Speaker 3: now I can see that. At the time, I was hot,
Speaker 3: I was tired, and this guy was telling me one
Speaker 3: and he was standing on my private land and we
Speaker 3: were talking about the effect of vehicle traffic over my
Speaker 3: private land where there was no roads. I just figured
Speaker 3: that in my way of thinking, right then I had
Speaker 3: a right to protect my problem too. But he was
Speaker 3: but he wasn't a federal. I wasn't wrong, no doubt,
Speaker 3: but so was he. And well, the way it turned out,
Speaker 3: I didn't go to prison and they shipped him out
Speaker 3: of here. Yeah, and it was, but it was a
Speaker 3: thing that I wished I had gone about it well.
Speaker 1: But what I take away from it is that later
Speaker 1: you became very skillful in dealing with these people, and
Speaker 1: that that event changed the course of kind of how
Speaker 1: you were and how you worked with these Absolutely.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And really I respect the law enforcement. I mean,
Speaker 3: there are some guys in law enforcement that probably don't
Speaker 3: deserve to be there, but by and large I had
Speaker 3: backed those guys, and part of that's just I kind
Speaker 3: of learned. You know, they've got a they've got a
Speaker 3: job to do, and it's a tough one. I'm not
Speaker 3: ashamed that that happened, but it taught me a good lesson.
Speaker 1: You know, I deeply value that you can say that,
Speaker 1: because a lot of times negative things happen to people
Speaker 1: and it shapes them and makes them bitter and changes
Speaker 1: their life for the negative. But what I respect about
Speaker 1: your character is that that you know you can own
Speaker 1: up to it. But I think it I think it
Speaker 1: changed you for the better.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you a little. I went and told Daddy
Speaker 3: because I knew he was gonna he was gonna play out.
Speaker 3: And he sat there and listen. After I through telling me,
Speaker 3: he said, I didn't know, as you get a lot
Speaker 3: to hit one of those best.
Speaker 1: Man, your dad, he was taking your side, wouldn't he.
Speaker 1: That's all good. Dad's supposed to do. I hope you
Speaker 1: don't get the wrong idea about Warner. If you listen
Speaker 1: to the series, you'd see why this was such a
Speaker 1: wild moment because it was so out of character for
Speaker 1: him to beat up a federal officer. But it highlights
Speaker 1: the gritty underbelly of Western ranchers and especially those on
Speaker 1: the Mexican border. I'll never interview another man like Warner.
Speaker 2: Glenn.
Speaker 1: I was forever impacted by his character, and for that reason,
Speaker 1: he's in the Bear Grease Hall of Fame. Warner series
Speaker 1: was episodes twenty two through twenty six. In this next clip,
Speaker 1: I want to go back to East Tennessee in Cock County,
Speaker 1: in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains. This was just
Speaker 1: a short interview. It wasn't even the main interview, but
Speaker 1: we're speaking with eighty nine year old Britt Davis, who
Speaker 1: is the father in law Bear Grease Hall of Famer
Speaker 1: plot hound bear hunter Roy Clark, who you may remember.
Speaker 1: This is on episode eight. It's way back in the
Speaker 1: beginning in a podcast titled fifty Years in the Backer Field,
Speaker 1: where Britt talks about his upbringing and chokes up when
Speaker 1: he talks about his father's death. Mister Britt, how old
Speaker 1: are you?
Speaker 2: If I lived the second dead June, i'll.
Speaker 1: Be ninety ninety. What year were you born?
Speaker 2: Thirty one?
Speaker 1: Nineteen thirty one, so you grew up you were? Were
Speaker 1: you born in this hollow?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Right up a little there, about two miles.
Speaker 1: Now what kind of work did you do your whole life?
Speaker 2: Well? I farmed some, I log some, and I worked
Speaker 2: about a year on this interstate down here, and then
Speaker 2: I went to work for the county Road Department and
Speaker 2: stayed dead, little retard.
Speaker 1: Have you ever have you traveled much out of Appalachia? No,
Speaker 1: you've stayed right here.
Speaker 2: I went to Texas one time whenever Roy was an
Speaker 2: army out there, and that's on the trip I ever made. Really,
Speaker 2: I lived on up in the Gulf up third Well,
Speaker 2: I'd say we was up for about four or five years.
Speaker 2: So my daddy got killed up there, and I enjoyed
Speaker 2: dead up our lord?
Speaker 1: How did your father get killed?
Speaker 2: Of the log? The log rolled over?
Speaker 1: Really? How old were you?
Speaker 2: I was about twelve year old?
Speaker 4: Wow?
Speaker 1: How did that impact your life?
Speaker 2: Well, it made it rough on me for a while. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was up there whenever they about the time it
Speaker 2: started logging it, but he got killed. We left at
Speaker 2: a long time before the gut loom.
Speaker 1: So did you have to kind of were you the
Speaker 1: oldest son his illness son, so you kind of had
Speaker 1: to take care of your family?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Really, so was that a lot of responsibility for you then?
Speaker 2: Yeah? We moved back home here up here, and my
Speaker 2: grandparents hit me with it and I raised a crop
Speaker 2: of the bicker and boughket a place where I lived.
Speaker 1: M How old were you?
Speaker 2: I'd say I was about thirteen?
Speaker 1: Really, So you you raised a crop of tobacco when
Speaker 1: you were thirteen? Yeah, and bought a piece of property.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 1: And that's the property that we went to earlier today
Speaker 1: up at the head of this holler.
Speaker 2: She gonna pull out here.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you.
Speaker 1: Bought that place when you were thirteen. Yeah, I'll be daring.
Speaker 1: And so you've lived you've lived there your whole life, Yeah,
Speaker 1: whole life. What What are your earliest memories, mister Britton?
Speaker 2: Oh low, I can I can remember things back then,
Speaker 2: buttering again now, really, I can remember a carrying me
Speaker 2: and us is stopping and talking to our neighbors. That
Speaker 2: was before we moved the good.
Speaker 1: So that was in the nineteen thirties. Did your family
Speaker 1: have a car that had an automobile?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: No, what how did you get around?
Speaker 2: Walked? Walked?
Speaker 1: You didn't everything you needed you could walk to get.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this little stores all around here, M three or four.
Speaker 2: Well of the first I'd say it was in the
Speaker 2: late thirties of the early forties. Before that, there's there
Speaker 2: was a car in this country, Is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 2: The doctor lived right up the older.
Speaker 1: He had to first tell me about how the doctor
Speaker 1: worked in this community.
Speaker 2: He'd go around in the and he's with his horse
Speaker 2: and people wanted to be doctored that tie read or
Speaker 2: a white flag on the mail walks, and.
Speaker 1: Each he'd ride his horse up to your house and
Speaker 1: knock on the door and say what's wrong.
Speaker 2: And then he finally got a car, and it didn't
Speaker 2: they do the same thing.
Speaker 1: Do you ever remember being sick and him having to
Speaker 1: come to your house, the doctor on you?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Really, what would you have been sick from?
Speaker 2: Maybe the strip the old or something like.
Speaker 1: That, and he'd come give you some penicillin maybe or something.
Speaker 1: That's what he doctored with penicillin.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: When did electricity come back in here?
Speaker 2: I'd say it was about fifty two or fifty three
Speaker 2: before I got it.
Speaker 1: So you were in your twenties before you had electricity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you remember those days?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah?
Speaker 1: What would what would you do? Once it got dark?
Speaker 1: Would you light the house with.
Speaker 2: Lamp?
Speaker 1: Or what kind of lamp? Was the coal burning? And
Speaker 1: you would what would you do? You would sit around
Speaker 1: with the family.
Speaker 2: We'd just sit around and go to bed. I guess
Speaker 2: that's they finally got a radio.
Speaker 1: Mister Britt. Do you remember when John F. Kennedy died President?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Do you remember where you were? Was that a significant
Speaker 1: where I was at where we are we enter.
Speaker 2: I was running the road rider over on Tom's Creek,
Speaker 2: and I just fardy got a paste an old man's house,
Speaker 2: and he come out and run up a little behind
Speaker 2: me and hollered at me and told me about.
Speaker 1: Do you hear what they're saying, mister Britt? They're saying,
Speaker 1: because because you were the only child, you've been spoiled
Speaker 1: your whole life. Do you agree with that?
Speaker 2: I wouldn't hardly say that.
Speaker 1: I've never forgotten that. When Britt was thirteen years old,
Speaker 1: he raised a crop of tobacco and bought a place
Speaker 1: for him and his mother to live after his father died. Today,
Speaker 1: mister Britt is ninety two years old and still drives
Speaker 1: the roads listening to bear races in the fall. I'll
Speaker 1: never forget that moment. This next clip is a little different.
Speaker 1: It wasn't an interview, but it's a reading of the
Speaker 1: first hand account of the German immigrant to America Gershtalker,
Speaker 1: recounting the death of his hunting partner Erskine in eighteen
Speaker 1: forty one. It's a wild story from episode four titled
Speaker 1: Death of a Bear Hunter. There are too many of
Speaker 1: Gershtalker's incredible stories to tell on this podcast, but I
Speaker 1: want to tell you one that cut me to the
Speaker 1: quick when I first read it. It involved a man
Speaker 1: being killed by a bear in a creek drainage less
Speaker 1: than twenty miles from where I live. I was shocked
Speaker 1: and slightly offended that nobody ever told me this story.
Speaker 1: I want you to hear the first hand account from
Speaker 1: Gershtoker of the death of his friend Erskine. This is
Speaker 1: an excerpt from the book Wild Sports, published in eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty four. This story is taken out of context, so
Speaker 1: there are some characters you'll need to know well as
Speaker 1: Gershtalker's older American hunting partner and friend with hair as
Speaker 1: white as snow. He said, Conwell lived in Arkansas. Wachiga
Speaker 1: is a Cherokee that became a trusted friend and hunting
Speaker 1: partner of Gershtalker. And you'll be introduced to young Erskine,
Speaker 1: who Gershtalker had met some years before in the back country.
Speaker 1: So we were off again before noon and gain the
Speaker 1: source of the hurricane. Rode across the Devil's stepping path,
Speaker 1: a narrow rock with a precipice on each side, left
Speaker 1: the pilot rock on our left, and came towards evening
Speaker 1: into the pine forest where we were sure of finding kindlers.
Speaker 1: Descending the steep side of a mountain, we observed a
Speaker 1: thin column of blue smoke by the side of the stream,
Speaker 1: showing that some hunters were in camp there. We went
Speaker 1: straight towards it and found it to be an Indian
Speaker 1: camp in our former acquaintance young Erskine. Among them they
Speaker 1: were Cherokees with three young chop tawls. These two tribes
Speaker 1: being on good terms like ourselves, They were out bear hunting,
Speaker 1: but it had better luck. A quantity of bear meat
Speaker 1: was hanging about the camp and even the dogs would
Speaker 1: eat no more. Casting ourselves down by the fire, one
Speaker 1: of the squalls, for there were several women in the camp,
Speaker 1: immediately cooked for us some bear, which we duly regaled ourselves.
Speaker 1: Night came on, and soon we were all sunk in
Speaker 1: deep repose. Early in the morning we began to move,
Speaker 1: dividing into two parties for the better chance of finding game.
Speaker 1: Conwell went with some of the Indians, amongst whom he
Speaker 1: had found an old acquaintance, to make a circuit round
Speaker 1: the pilot Rock, while Erskine and I, with three Cherokees,
Speaker 1: proceeded to the sources of the frog Bayou. Knight found
Speaker 1: us far from our camp, so we made one for ourselves.
Speaker 1: Where we were on the morning of February first, we
Speaker 1: had hardly started ere we heard the dogs, which he could,
Speaker 1: declared instantly that they were his brothers, and disappeared behind
Speaker 1: the rocks without another word. As we stood listening, the
Speaker 1: sound seemed to take a different direction. We ascended the
Speaker 1: mountain as fast as we could to cut off the chase,
Speaker 1: but found that we must have been mistaken, for in
Speaker 1: a few minutes all was as silent as a grave.
Speaker 1: Once we thought we heard a shot, but we couldn't
Speaker 1: be certain. We ascended to the highest terrace and walked
Speaker 1: slowly on, looking out for fresh signs, and listening to
Speaker 1: catch the sound of the dog below. Amongst the broken
Speaker 1: masses of rock, they might be near without being heard.
Speaker 1: Along the mountaintops, they are audible at a great distance.
Speaker 1: It may have been two in the afternoon, and we
Speaker 1: had seen nothing when bears grease raised his nose in
Speaker 1: the air, remained for an instant or two in a
Speaker 1: fixed position, then given a short smothered howl, dashed down
Speaker 1: the mountain side. Listening attentively, we heard the chase coming
Speaker 1: down the Hurricane River. Erskine and called out triumphantly, we
Speaker 1: shall have plenty of bear this evening, and dashed after
Speaker 1: the dog. I was soon by his side. I must
Speaker 1: observe by the way that we were both very hungry. Presently,
Speaker 1: a bear broke through the bushes. A projecting rock stopped
Speaker 1: him for an instant when Erskine saluted him with a ball.
Speaker 1: He received mine. As he rushed past and disappeared. The dogs,
Speaker 1: encouraged to greater efforts by our shots, and the stronger
Speaker 1: scent followed him out. Bear's grease, who was quite fresh
Speaker 1: leading the van. Soon they came upon him and stopped him.
Speaker 1: We rushed to the spot, without waiting to reload, and
Speaker 1: arriving in time to see the beast, excited to the
Speaker 1: greatest fury, kill four of our best dogs with as
Speaker 1: many blows of his paws. But the others threw themselves
Speaker 1: on him with greater animosity, and if our rifles had
Speaker 1: been loaded, we could not have used them. Just as
Speaker 1: a large, powerful brown dog, which had furiously attacked the bear,
Speaker 1: was knocked over, bleeding and howling, Erskine called out, Oh
Speaker 1: save the dog, threw down his rifle and rushed on
Speaker 1: with his knife among the furious group. I followed on
Speaker 1: the instant. When the bear saws coming, he exerted still
Speaker 1: more force to beat off the dogs and meet us.
Speaker 1: Seizing his opportunity, my comrade ran his steel into his side.
Speaker 1: The bear turned on him like lightning and seized him,
Speaker 1: and he uttered a shrill, piercing shriek. Driven to desperation
Speaker 1: by the sight, I plunged my knife three times into
Speaker 1: the monster's body with all my force, without thinking of
Speaker 1: jumping back. At the third thrust, the bear turned upon me,
Speaker 1: seeing as Paul coming. I attempted to evade the blow,
Speaker 1: felt a sharp pang, and sunk senseless to the ground.
Speaker 1: When I recovered my senses, bear's grease was licking the
Speaker 1: blood from my face. On attempting to rise, I felt
Speaker 1: a severe pain in my left side and was unable
Speaker 1: to move my left arm. On making a fresh effort,
Speaker 1: I succeeded in sitting up. The bear was close to me,
Speaker 1: and less than three feet from him, lay erskine, stiff
Speaker 1: and cold. I sprang up with a cry of horror
Speaker 1: and rushed towards him. It was too true. He was
Speaker 1: bathed in blood, his face torn to pieces, his right
Speaker 1: shoulder almost wrenched away from his body, and five of
Speaker 1: the best dogs ripped up with broken limbs, lying beside him.
Speaker 1: The bear was so covered with blood that his color
Speaker 1: was hardly discernible. My left arm appeared to be out
Speaker 1: of socket, but I could feel that no bones were broken.
Speaker 1: The sun had gone down, and I'd hoped that the
Speaker 1: other hunters might have heard our shots and the barking
Speaker 1: and howling of the dogs. It grew dark.
Speaker 4: No one came.
Speaker 1: I roared and shouted like mad, but no one heard me.
Speaker 1: I tried to light a fire, but my left arm
Speaker 1: was so swelled that I gave up the attempt. But
Speaker 1: as it would have been certain death to pass the
Speaker 1: night under the circums dances without a fire, I tore
Speaker 1: away part of the back of my hunting shirt, and
Speaker 1: the fore part, being saturated with blood, sprinkled some powder
Speaker 1: on it, rubbed it well, and with my right hand
Speaker 1: I shook a little powder into my rifle. Placing the
Speaker 1: muzzle on the rag, I fired, blowing it up to
Speaker 1: a flame. I piled on dry leaves and twigs, and
Speaker 1: succeeded in making a good fire, though with great pain
Speaker 1: and trouble. Now it was dark, I went to my
Speaker 1: dead comrade, who was lying about five yards from the fire.
Speaker 1: He was already stiff, and it was with great difficulty
Speaker 1: that I could pull down his arms and lay him straight,
Speaker 1: Nor could I keep his eyes closed, though I laid
Speaker 1: small stones on them. The dogs were very hungry, but
Speaker 1: it was impossible for me to break up the bear,
Speaker 1: only ripped him up and fed them with his entrols.
Speaker 1: Bear's grease laid himself down by the corpse, looking steadfastly
Speaker 1: in his face, and went no more near the bear
Speaker 1: and hoping of obtaining help, I loaded and fired twice,
Speaker 1: but nothing moved. The forest appeared one enormous grave. I
Speaker 1: felt very ill, vomited several times as well as I could.
Speaker 1: I laid myself down beside the fire and lost all
Speaker 1: consciousness of my wretched situation. Whether I slept or fainted
Speaker 1: is more than I can tell, but I know that
Speaker 1: I dreamed that I was at home in my bed,
Speaker 1: and my mother brought me some tea and laid her
Speaker 1: hand on my breast. Such an awakening as I had,
Speaker 1: was worse than I could wish. To my bitterest enemy,
Speaker 1: Bear's greased had pressed close to my side, lying his
Speaker 1: head on my breast. The fire was almost out, and
Speaker 1: I was shivering with cold, and the wolves were howling
Speaker 1: fearfully around the dead, keeping at a distance for fear
Speaker 1: of the living, but by no means disposed to lose
Speaker 1: their prey. I rose with difficulty and laid more wood
Speaker 1: on the fire. As it burned up, the face of
Speaker 1: the corpse seemed to brighten. I started, but found it
Speaker 1: was only an optical delusion. Louder and fiercer howled the
Speaker 1: wolves and the dogs, of whom five were alive. Besides
Speaker 1: bear grease answered them. But the answer was by no
Speaker 1: means one of defiance, rather a lament for the dead,
Speaker 1: partly to scare away the wolves, and partly in hope
Speaker 1: of finding help. I loaded and fired three times. My
Speaker 1: delight was inexpressible as I heard three shots in return,
Speaker 1: I loaded and fired until all my powder was expended.
Speaker 1: As morning broke, I heard two shots not far off,
Speaker 1: and soon after a third. A shipwrecked mariner hanging to
Speaker 1: the side of a plank could not raise his voice
Speaker 1: more lustily to hail a passing ship than I did,
Speaker 1: and joy upon joy, I heard a human voice and answer.
Speaker 1: The bark of the dogs announced a stranger, and Wachiga
Speaker 1: advanced out of the bush wall, he exclaimed. Staring at
Speaker 1: the shocking spectacle, he felt poor erskine and shook his
Speaker 1: head mournfully. He turned to me. I showed him my
Speaker 1: swollen arm, which he examined attentively. Without speaking, Forming a
Speaker 1: hollow with his two hands and placing into his lips,
Speaker 1: he gave a loud, piercing shout. The answer came from
Speaker 1: no great distance, and in a few minutes my old
Speaker 1: dear friend Conwell and most of the Indians were at
Speaker 1: my side. I grasped Conwell's hands sorrowfully and told him
Speaker 1: in few words how it all had happened. The old
Speaker 1: man scolded and said, it served us right. There's no
Speaker 1: greater danger in sticking a knife into a bear's paunch
Speaker 1: when he's falling with the dogs upon him. But if
Speaker 1: he has been thrown and then catches the sight of
Speaker 1: his greatest enemy man, he exerts all his force to
Speaker 1: attack him, and woe to him who comes within reach
Speaker 1: of his paws. It was all very well talking. He
Speaker 1: had not been present and seeing one dog after another
Speaker 1: knocked over, never to rise again, five minutes more and
Speaker 1: not one would have been saved. And who knows whether
Speaker 1: the enraged beasts would not have attacked us. Then meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the Indians had been digging a grave with their tomahawks,
Speaker 1: wrapping the body in a blanket. They laid him in
Speaker 1: it and covered him with earth and heavy stones. Conwell
Speaker 1: cut down some young stems and made a fence around
Speaker 1: the solitary grave. I could not avoid a shudder at
Speaker 1: the quiet coolness of the whole proceeding, as the thought
Speaker 1: struck me that the same persons under the same circumstances
Speaker 1: would have treated me in the same cool way had
Speaker 1: I fallen instead of Erskine. Like me, he was a
Speaker 1: lonely stranger in a foreign land, having left England some
Speaker 1: years before, and his friends and relations will probably never
Speaker 1: know what became of him. Thousands perish in this way
Speaker 1: in America, of whom nothing more is heard, and perhaps
Speaker 1: in a few months the remembrance of them was entirely
Speaker 1: passed away.
Speaker 4: To the dead was.
Speaker 1: Quietly laid in the grave. Wachiga came with an elderly
Speaker 1: Indian to look at my arm. Wachiga moved it while
Speaker 1: the other looked steadfastly in my face. The pain was
Speaker 1: enough to drive me mad, but I would not utter
Speaker 1: a sound. Next, the Indian took hold of my arm,
Speaker 1: laying his left hand on my shoulder, and while Wachiga
Speaker 1: suddenly seized me round the body from behind, the other
Speaker 1: pulled with all his force. The pain at first was
Speaker 1: so great that I almost feinted, but it gradually diminished.
Speaker 1: In spite of my resolve to show no signs of it,
Speaker 1: I could not suppress a shriek. Conwell soon after asked
Speaker 1: if I could ride on my answering yes, he helped
Speaker 1: me on a horse, then throwing the bear's skin and
Speaker 1: some of the meat on his own, we moved slowly homewards.
Speaker 1: My sufferings on the way were very great, but I
Speaker 1: uttered no murmur. I only longed for repose. That's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite stories of all time. I get chills
Speaker 1: listening to parts of it, and for that reason, Frederick
Speaker 1: Gershtacker is also in the Beargreas Hall of Fame. We
Speaker 1: did a series in twenty twenty two that was meaningful
Speaker 1: to me called Genuine Outlaws. It was about two men
Speaker 1: from my hometown in western Arkansas named Blue Dell and
Speaker 1: Charlie Edwards. They both passed on now but were notorious
Speaker 1: turkey poachers, but also beloved people in our community. As
Speaker 1: a kid, I was always a little bit confused by this.
Speaker 1: You know, did we like them or did we not?
Speaker 1: Were they dangerous or were they friends? But this story
Speaker 1: explores a bigger question of America's fascination with outlaws through
Speaker 1: the story of these two brothers. This clip is from
Speaker 1: episode fifty two and starts with game warden Jimmy Martin,
Speaker 1: who chased the brothers his whole career, but the story
Speaker 1: transitions to Stony Edwards, Charlie's son, talking about some deep
Speaker 1: family history that might have helped tip their tendencies towards outlaw.
Speaker 5: There are old time poachers that grew up in hard times.
Speaker 5: Most of them did the ones that I ran across,
Speaker 5: the hardcore matters that used mets and the rivers and
Speaker 5: on the lakes, the hard time night hunters for deer,
Speaker 5: you know, the bad turkey poachers, the bad daytime deer hunters.
Speaker 5: They were all from old times when times was tough,
Speaker 5: meat was hard to come by, and outlaw and was
Speaker 5: just a way of life. Most of the old hard, hard,
Speaker 5: hardcore poachers came from moonshiner families.
Speaker 1: Old time poachers and moonshiners, remember those two things. The
Speaker 1: first family member that I went to and I got
Speaker 1: permission with Stony Edwards, the son of Charlie. I drove
Speaker 1: out to the Big Fort community and found him at
Speaker 1: the Big Fort Mall, which is a small gas station
Speaker 1: that he and his wife run. I told him I
Speaker 1: wanted to tell the whole story his dad and uncle,
Speaker 1: and he agreed. He began by showing me a story
Speaker 1: from nineteen twenty six. That's an interesting puzzle piece. Tragedy
Speaker 1: literally struck the Edwards family. I'm reading from a laminated
Speaker 1: newspaper clipping bound in a three ring binder. So this
Speaker 1: is nineteen twenty six and it says officers shoot Carl
Speaker 1: Edwards in Polk County. Carl Edwards was killed in Montgomery
Speaker 1: County Sunday afternoon by a bullet fired by some member
Speaker 1: of a posse that had just arrested two alleged moonshiners
Speaker 1: and probably were searching for more or for anyone connected
Speaker 1: with the illicit traffic. Edwards, twenty three year old resident
Speaker 1: of Heath Valley, which is right in Polk County, was
Speaker 1: shot and instantly killed as he drove his Ford car
Speaker 1: homeward from a hunting trip in Montgomery County. A single
Speaker 1: bullet fired by one of the posse's six officers and
Speaker 1: said to have wounded Edwards's brother, kill the dog, and
Speaker 1: then given Carl Edwards a mortal womb as he set
Speaker 1: at the steering wheel. The tragedy occurred the Government Road
Speaker 1: between Big Fok and Norman. So who was Carl Edwards?
Speaker 1: To you?
Speaker 6: He would have been my dad's uncle, Okay, my grandfather's brother.
Speaker 1: So what were they doing? They were trying to get
Speaker 1: away from No.
Speaker 6: In all actuality, uncle Landy was only I think he
Speaker 6: was only like ten. They had been coon hunting. They
Speaker 6: had coon dog in the car and Uncle Landy was
Speaker 6: in the car and they were coming back and the
Speaker 6: officers hollered for him to stop, and Carl hollered a
Speaker 6: will at the bottom of the hill. Car didn't having brakes.
Speaker 6: But you got to take the previous history into account
Speaker 6: because they had been trying to catch him for years
Speaker 6: and hadn't been able to so when he didn't stop
Speaker 6: on command, they opened fire. And of course this ad
Speaker 6: came from the newspaper, which I'm gonna say his bias
Speaker 6: towards law enforcement at the time. It wasn't because those
Speaker 6: men loaded my uncle up, drove him to my great grandparents'
Speaker 6: house and dropped him on the porch when he was
Speaker 6: shot dead. Yeah, they left him dead on the front porch.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 6: Uncle Andy was shot through the ear.
Speaker 1: He was just a kid.
Speaker 6: He was ten years old. He was shot through the ear,
Speaker 6: and of course it.
Speaker 1: Killed his dad and his son in the car with
Speaker 1: a coon dog.
Speaker 6: No, it was two brothers, two brothers. Yeah, they were
Speaker 6: thirteen years apart.
Speaker 1: Oh, I see, I see.
Speaker 6: And the coon dog in the car and it.
Speaker 1: Was a coon dog. Okay, no, it did say it
Speaker 1: killed the dog.
Speaker 6: It killed the dog, killed Carl and wounded in So Carl.
Speaker 1: Was a known moonshiner and they'd been trying to catch him.
Speaker 6: Well, you got to consider his His dad went to
Speaker 6: Levenworth Prison for moonshining. So basically the whole family was
Speaker 6: in the business. There's no way around it. Yeah, my
Speaker 6: great grandfather had seven sons.
Speaker 1: And they all lived out here in the valley.
Speaker 6: Yeah, right over there where I live now. We're still
Speaker 6: on the original Edward's home plush.
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 ears
Speaker 1: whole life. A week after the shooting. The six officers
Speaker 1: involved would be charged with murder. Carl Edwards was Louis
Speaker 1: Dell and Charlie's uncle, though he died before they were
Speaker 1: ever born. This is another newspaper clipping. Charges of murder
Speaker 1: have been made against six officers who were the posse
Speaker 1: that caused the death of Carl Edwards in Montgomery County
Speaker 1: last Sunday afternoon. The six were Sheriff George how it
Speaker 1: names all their names. Ruben Edwards, a brother of the
Speaker 1: man killed, was in Mina Tuesday, and stated that the
Speaker 1: accused officers had been summoned to court. I just wanted
Speaker 1: to say this was a murder case, and I mean
Speaker 1: that in and of itself could lead to a family
Speaker 1: having some bad taste in their mouth for the law.
Speaker 6: If it hadn't been for Rube at that time, the
Speaker 6: other brothers would have killed all six officers. Rube stopped
Speaker 6: it and said that it would go to court.
Speaker 1: And it'd be better off taking them to court than
Speaker 1: killing them.
Speaker 6: But the brothers would have killed them, and they're lucky
Speaker 6: that they didn't.
Speaker 1: Later on, lucky is probably a good descriptor, because all
Speaker 1: six officers would be acquitted of the murder charges they
Speaker 1: got off. None of them were convicted, nor was there
Speaker 1: any recompense for the coon dog. This isn't the best
Speaker 1: way to gain the trust of the government's law men.
Speaker 1: I'd known Louis Dell and Charlie my whole life but
Speaker 1: this was the first time I'd heard this story of
Speaker 1: their families past. Sometimes the reasons why people are the
Speaker 1: way they are go way back, and I don't view
Speaker 1: that as an excuse for breaking the law. We've all
Speaker 1: got things in our past that shape us that we
Speaker 1: have to overcome. But the redemption in this story that
Speaker 1: I see today is that the Edwards clan do their
Speaker 1: best to follow the law Outlaw and has kind of
Speaker 1: faded into the past for them coming from where they did.
Speaker 1: I respect that The genuine Outlaw series was episode fifty
Speaker 1: two through fifty six. My buddy Steve Ranella says that
Speaker 1: it's his favorite Beargary series. Lastly, I'd like to go
Speaker 1: back to January to episode one eight, titled the Donnie
Speaker 1: Baker Story Mayor. It was our most listened to episode
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four and many people were struck by
Speaker 1: Donnie's fourth right and it's about a dark time in
Speaker 1: his life when he illegally killed a two hundred and
Speaker 1: nine inch buck on the military base Fort leonard Wood
Speaker 1: in Central Missouri. Here's Donnie talking about the moment he
Speaker 1: saw the buck from his truck.
Speaker 7: So as I as I kind of hit my brakes
Speaker 7: and it spooks him a little bit and he hops
Speaker 7: down to the timberline. But when he gets to the timberline,
Speaker 7: in front of him are two really good bucks. It
Speaker 7: was a massive, huge eight point with a little bitty
Speaker 7: brow tines and a really nice ten. So I pulled down.
Speaker 7: There's a running track there in some porta potties. So
Speaker 7: I pulled down to those porta potties and I thought, right,
Speaker 7: I thought I could kill it deer right there.
Speaker 4: And like I.
Speaker 7: Said, it was just kind of I don't know if
Speaker 7: you ever when you was a kid shot at a
Speaker 7: bird on a setting in a tree or something, just
Speaker 7: kind of and then when you do kill it, you think, oh, man,
Speaker 7: that's kind of what I went through there. But I
Speaker 7: knew it was an on hunting area. So I grabbed
Speaker 7: my bow and just jeans and boots and well behind
Speaker 7: the porta potties up this little rise and there was
Speaker 7: a big old red oak that had died and fell over.
Speaker 7: And when I got to that red oak, I was
Speaker 7: considering if I should hunker down there or climb over it.
Speaker 4: And as I'm as I'm contemplating that.
Speaker 1: So I mean, at this point, you've made a decision
Speaker 1: you're illegally kill this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and let me ask you this.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think every human has experienced a moral
Speaker 1: dilemma of being given an opportunity that they know is
Speaker 1: wrong and them not taking it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But then there's like this this suck, this drawl, that
Speaker 1: something happens that all of a sudden you cross into
Speaker 1: a red zone and it's something flips.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Well was at this time, Clay I had I had
Speaker 7: seen I'd had twenty two in my truck multiple times
Speaker 7: from from squirrel hunting. When I've seen this deer. You know,
Speaker 7: if if I had set out to poach this deer,
Speaker 7: I mean, I could have shot it many times. But
Speaker 7: when I saw that deer for the first time, I said,
Speaker 7: I've got to kill that deer. I mean, it just
Speaker 7: felt like that was almost a rite of passage for
Speaker 7: people who think that I was a good quality bow hunters.
Speaker 4: I was going to have killed this monster deer.
Speaker 1: There's some profoundness in Donnie's honest, simple conclusion of his motivation.
Speaker 1: He was a twenty six year old man hungry for
Speaker 1: validation from the world around him, and killing a big
Speaker 1: deer with his bow was a pathway to gain respect.
Speaker 1: I get it. I remember when the picture of the
Speaker 1: first decent deer that I killed hung on the wall
Speaker 1: at the local bow shop, and I soaked up any
Speaker 1: validation that I could get from anywhere. Validation for grand
Speaker 1: feats are important in a young man's life or a
Speaker 1: young woman's life, but when they're stolen, the system is
Speaker 1: cheated and it produces the opposite of what it's supposed to.
Speaker 1: It's supposed to identity and self confidence and a sense
Speaker 1: of worth, but what it actually creates is insecurity when
Speaker 1: it's stolen. But let's get back to Donnie. Here's what happened.
Speaker 7: So when I knew where that deer was going to go,
Speaker 7: I knew it was illegal, but never really give that
Speaker 7: a consideration. Just the only thing I was saying about
Speaker 7: is wanting to kill it deer. I needed to kill
Speaker 7: that deer some reason. I just thought that that's something
Speaker 7: I had to do. And as they get to that
Speaker 7: red oak, I'm considered, if I need to climb over
Speaker 7: to hunker down there, and it's just a few yards
Speaker 7: off of it's a high line, and it's kind of
Speaker 7: it's pretty clean.
Speaker 4: There's a little brush there.
Speaker 7: As I'm I'm sure I'm moving around and I look
Speaker 7: up in that big ten is twenty five yards from me,
Speaker 7: staring at me. Well, he blows and takes off running,
Speaker 7: and I thought, gosh, dang, I mean I blew that up,
Speaker 7: still not thinking, you know, hope nobody's seen me or whatever.
Speaker 7: And as I watched them cross Army Street, I look
Speaker 7: back where they were, and a probably thirty five yards
Speaker 7: behind him, that bucks stand there staring right at me,
Speaker 7: wide open between he and I. I really believe if
Speaker 7: he was a National Force wild deer, he'd have been gone.
Speaker 4: To you know.
Speaker 7: I shoot a single pin hha side and I had
Speaker 7: had an arrow knock. I knocked narrow forore. I set
Speaker 7: my bow on that red oak, trying to side where
Speaker 7: I was going to try to get. So I draw
Speaker 7: my bow back and he's still just standing there. I mean,
Speaker 7: he's looking right at me. I know that if I
Speaker 7: can fall it into his front end, high success rate
Speaker 7: killing him. And I put that pen right underneath his nose,
Speaker 7: just right about the top of his white patch and
Speaker 7: turn it blues.
Speaker 1: I wonder how long it took Adam, after sinking his
Speaker 1: teeth through the skin of the forbidden apple, to regret
Speaker 1: his decision, the bite initiated a sequence of unretractable consequences.
Speaker 1: Man's always had a problem with laws, breaking them, that is,
Speaker 1: But laws are the guideposts of societal security, designed for
Speaker 1: the well being of us. All the truth is is
Speaker 1: that everybody wants some form of law in their life
Speaker 1: to protect them and their interests, even in a time
Speaker 1: in America where we're talking about liberty and freedom and
Speaker 1: laws take away all this stuff which I am generally
Speaker 1: absolutely in agreement with. However, I'm telling you we all
Speaker 1: love laws, but we like to cherry pick. The ones
Speaker 1: that we'd like to break are the ones that infringe
Speaker 1: upon our personal freedom. And it's kind of bizarre. Human
Speaker 1: life is complex, society's complex. As I'm sitting here with
Speaker 1: Donnie hearing this story for the first time, I am
Speaker 1: struck with a palpable sense of remorse as the arrow
Speaker 1: drifts through the air and hits the buck just below
Speaker 1: the throat patch. Later we'll learn that as a society,
Speaker 1: we demand remorse from the people who've cheated the system
Speaker 1: ahead of myself. The buck has just been shot.
Speaker 7: The first thing I think is I shot him right
Speaker 7: in the front leg, and that was the first sick
Speaker 7: feeling I got in bout. I thought, oh my gosh,
Speaker 7: I just win that monster, dear, and shouldn't he been
Speaker 7: doing this? And that's still running through my mind when
Speaker 7: I hear him crash, and then reality starts setting in
Speaker 7: good and grief. So I set my bow down, ease
Speaker 7: up to the eye, look around, make sure there's no
Speaker 7: cars coming down the highway, and there's nobody really in
Speaker 7: that area at that time. Nobody had to run and
Speaker 7: trap where I was parking with him, So I instead
Speaker 7: of blood trailing him, I kind of stay out of sight,
Speaker 7: and I sneak down there where I thought I heard
Speaker 7: him crash and he's laying there dead, and to walk up.
Speaker 4: On him and grab his antlers.
Speaker 7: You should feel the most excitement you've ever had in
Speaker 7: your life, other than like one of your kids being
Speaker 7: born or something. And I kind of had the opposite feeling,
Speaker 7: and I immediately I thought, there's no way that I'm
Speaker 7: going to get away with this.
Speaker 1: The Donnie Baker series is one that you just have
Speaker 1: to listen to understand. The crescendo of the final episode,
Speaker 1: number one eighty two left a lot of grown men
Speaker 1: in tears. How could a poaching story do that. It
Speaker 1: surprised me too. As I analyze these stories that stood
Speaker 1: out to me, there's kind of an odd theme at
Speaker 1: least in three of them, and that is people breaking
Speaker 1: the law. And I can see how it might be
Speaker 1: possible to miss the point. I don't claim to be perfect.
Speaker 1: I was raised by Gary Bilivernukam, who taught me to
Speaker 1: be a law Biden Feller, and to the best of
Speaker 1: my ability, I've lived by that code. But really, what
Speaker 1: I'm interested in these stories is the redemption. All these
Speaker 1: stories have a heavy dose of redemption. I can't thank
Speaker 1: you enough for listening to Bear Grease as we close
Speaker 1: the year. I'm truly grateful for every one of you
Speaker 1: that listen and support Brent and I on this Bear
Speaker 1: Grease feet. Every Bear Grease episode feels like it takes
Speaker 1: shape on its own. It kind of forms up like
Speaker 1: a cloud as I explore and research something I don't understand,
Speaker 1: and it honestly feels like it's out of my control.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people view creating content as something that they can
Speaker 1: completely control just by the decisions they make and what
Speaker 1: they do. This doesn't feel like that to me. I
Speaker 1: couldn't have scripted meeting Warner Glenn, or blindly walking into
Speaker 1: Donnie Baker's home and watching and hearing that story unfold
Speaker 1: before me just like it did, y'all. I couldn't have
Speaker 1: scripted the hair on my neck raising up as I
Speaker 1: read the one hundred and eighty year old text of
Speaker 1: Gershtok talking about erskin dying. Can I guarantee compelling stories
Speaker 1: that give us insight into human nature and our powerful
Speaker 1: connection to wild places. I don't think I can, because
Speaker 1: it's not coming from me. I didn't generate it. But
Speaker 1: I think these stories are fueled by something bigger, and
Speaker 1: that give me faith that in twenty twenty five, the
Speaker 1: stories are just going to get better. Thank you again,
Speaker 1: really truly, thank you so much for listening to Bear
Speaker 1: Grease and Brent's This Country Life podcast. Hope everyone has
Speaker 1: a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Keep the
Speaker 1: wild places wild, because that's where the bears live.