Journal of an Unknown Soldier | CreepCast

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Speaker 3 Welcome back to Creepcast. Today we are doing a fan-submitted story.
That's right.

Speaker 3 You can upload your stories on r/slash creepcast and you don't have to post on no sleep and have it deleted immediately. And I probably shouldn't throw shade at no sleep all the time.

Speaker 2 We had a 15-minute dig at them in an episode where if I recall, your impression of them was, oh,

Speaker 2 that was you. That was how you said they sound.

Speaker 3 You can upload your stories to our slash creepcast and we'll read them like this one here, which is a, I love the title, and also Harry Reddit, which as of recently doesn't have the best track record stuff, but still,

Speaker 3 the Journal of an Unknown Soldier, U.S. Navajo War, 1863.
We get to go back in time a little bit. Have we done like a Western-y thing?

Speaker 2 I mean, I feel like there's been historical stuff. I don't think we've gone like a Western, though.
No, no.

Speaker 3 We've already dived into like a Western story, which would be kind of fun.

Speaker 2 Which also, if you're like, oh, I don't want a cowboy story,

Speaker 2 why don't you just fucking hang around for a second? I didn't even hear it. I don't know if I want to listen to a cowboy story.

Speaker 2 I think at this point, like, the people who are like watching this right now, they're here. Okay.

Speaker 2 I think whatever the title is,

Speaker 2 what's going on. I think we've established well enough that a lot of our diatribes will have nothing to do with the actual subject matter.
That's true. Or what's being discussed.

Speaker 2 So I think they're here. All right.
So the author of this story is User Strange Accounts. It seems his real name is Travis Weaver.

Speaker 2 Although he doesn't have any social media accounts leaked for linked for me to see specifically which Travis Weaver, if he has work elsewhere. But on this Reddit account, this guy posts a ton.

Speaker 2 We've got this one, and it seems a lot of them are historic-based because he's got this one, The Journal of an Exorcist, Diocese of Richford, 1975, the Journal of a Former Detective,

Speaker 2 Irish Coffin Ship, 1847. So it's like all these different things.

Speaker 3 This feels like a fan of yours.

Speaker 2 I hope so.

Speaker 3 Probably. This feels like somebody who likes the deep dive-y stuff.
Like, I feel like there's going to be a lot of niche,

Speaker 3 niche, like, comments. You know what I mean? Like, Easter eggs, niche Easter eggs where you'll be like, where it'll get you a little chubbed up being like...

Speaker 2 That reminds me of this. Okay, well, listen to this.
One of them, he posted 12 days ago. It's called The Journal of a Coal Miner's Daughter, West Virginia, 1907.

Speaker 2 What was I talking about right before we began?

Speaker 3 The U.S. military killing mole people.

Speaker 2 Coal miners. Coal miners.

Speaker 3 Cole people, coal miners.

Speaker 2 I was talking about the coal miners that he wrote a story about a horror story framed around. Yeah.
So

Speaker 2 I like him already. He's also super active in R slash Creepcast.
Not even about his own stories. He's just like talking.
to different people. His favorite episode, it seems, is the left-right game.

Speaker 2 So good man.

Speaker 3 You know, it's like

Speaker 3 being a Metallica fan and your favorite album is the black album. You know,

Speaker 3 it's easy. It's easy.

Speaker 2 You know, sometimes like just the popular thing is good.

Speaker 3 That's true.

Speaker 2 That's possible. That's true.

Speaker 3 I mean, it was one of my favorite ones to record.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's a good, it's a good story. I love it.

Speaker 3 Yeah. It's that made a Hall of Famer.
Yeah. I'm just saying a lot of good stories out there, too.

Speaker 2 Also, if you're really... Just because you think he's my fan, is that why you're being like aggressive?

Speaker 3 No, no.

Speaker 2 All right, well, well, we're gonna read this today and see how it is.

Speaker 3 I'm excited. It's cool.
I always like with these fan-submitted stories of people that are active in the subreddit and to have someone who's so active to commentating and stuff.

Speaker 3 This is the kind of community that we need. You know, people building each other up.
That's what I love.

Speaker 2 I will also say about him: every time someone else posts a story, he's like reading it and replying, like advice and stuff. Which

Speaker 3 king move. Keep that up.
King.

Speaker 2 Like to see it as opposed to R slash no sleep. Well, when it's like, well, nothing, well, nothing happened in your story.
So bye-bye. Bye-bye.
Delete. Bye-bye.
Delete. Banned.

Speaker 3 Banned.

Speaker 2 Not to completely slander. He does.
Before Creepcast, he posted on no sleep a lot. So credit words, too.

Speaker 3 Should we ban him here?

Speaker 2 Should we ban him? If you post on no sleep.

Speaker 3 If you post on no sleep at all, you're going to be able to do it.

Speaker 2 No sleep.

Speaker 3 Even though we've read almost 90% of our episodes are all no sleep.

Speaker 2 This entire show has been built on no no sleep. It's true.
Get it out of here.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Throw it out.
All right, cool. Well, let's let you want to jump in.

Speaker 2 I'm ready. Let's begin.
From the Journal of an Unnamed Soldier, 1863, Auxiliary Scout attached to Colonel Carson's column, September the 12th, camp along the Rio Pueco.

Speaker 2 I set my hand to an account of our company and the deeds that pass under a man who's had his share of smoke and not near enough coin.

Speaker 2 Oh,

Speaker 2 wow, he's already got me. I like that.
Those are good.

Speaker 3 That was a good one. I don't know what that means.

Speaker 2 A man who's had his share of smoke and not near enough coin.

Speaker 3 He's had too much gunfire and not enough pay.

Speaker 2 There you go.

Speaker 3 What if he was tumbled?

Speaker 2 Like, fucking. Whoa, what if he was.

Speaker 2 He's like, let me bust out the zong.

Speaker 2 No, that'd be pretty cool.

Speaker 2 He does fog machine

Speaker 3 and like stop that's crystal math

Speaker 3 dude, you hit too much of that crystal.

Speaker 2 My bad.

Speaker 3 All right, first line pretty good.

Speaker 2 My name need not be written full. Cut of these pages will tell it.
I was once of the artillery, a gunner of fair repute, and bore the weight of the 12-pounder as a mule bears its yoke.

Speaker 2 Yet a soldier under flag is forever shackled by rule and quarter, while a soldier for hire need only answer the call of his stomach and the weight of silver.

Speaker 2 So I turn cutthroat right now with Crawley Briggs.

Speaker 2 Briggs is hard stock, a cavalryman turned out of the regulars for sins no one puts to paper.

Speaker 2 He looks hewn from black oak, cracked by sun, with a set to him that cuts keen whenever there is profit to be sniffed.

Speaker 2 He holds the leash on our company, though it is a leash frayed and near to snapping, for we are no single breed.

Speaker 2 Thieves, runaways, half-blood scouts, turncoats from both sides, and one fellow swore to have shot his own kin at Shiloh.

Speaker 2 I hold no admiration for them, but I keep their pace, for coin cares little for the color of a man's soul. I said, I'm vibing.

Speaker 3 I was just waiting for the break because I knew it was like, oh my god, I'm in.

Speaker 3 I was just waiting. I was like holding there.
I was just like...

Speaker 2 You know what? I'm sorry I like stories. I'm sorry I like writing.

Speaker 3 My bad.

Speaker 2 Yeah, probably a bad podcast to be a part of.

Speaker 2 Yeah, my bad. I sat down here the talk I caught by the fire when we pulled clear of Santa Fe.

Speaker 3 Tell it again, Crawley.

Speaker 2 One of the boon boys said, kicking dust at the blaze.

Speaker 3 How many did you ride down that night?

Speaker 2 Briggs leaned back on his stone and drawled.

Speaker 3 Eight by my reckon. Though a few broke, and I ran before I laid steal to them.

Speaker 2 Yancy let out a bark. Eight!

Speaker 3 I'd be glad to tell a half that in a week.

Speaker 2 Another voice cut through in the smoke.

Speaker 3 You keep going, Yancy. You're the only fool I know ever shot his own horse middle of the fight.

Speaker 2 Circle broke into laughter, harsh as gravel rattling from a sack. Yancy spat into the coals.

Speaker 3 That beast near pitched me on my neck. Got what it asked for.
Besides, I'll break the next one.

Speaker 2 Pike worked a chaw between his teeth and pitched his question across the blaze.

Speaker 3 Captain, they say Carson means to drive the Navajo clean out. Burn the crops, starve them till they come begging.
That true?

Speaker 2 Briggs shifted his boots on the stone and answered flat. Carson means to herd the whole breed in the boss Redondo.

Speaker 3 They'll grow mesquite bart for winter's done if the army has its way.

Speaker 3 All workers seen them driving.

Speaker 3 No Hogan left standing. No sheep left grazing.

Speaker 2 Old Donnelly hacked into his sleeve and wheezed.

Speaker 3 You reckon the pay will hold?

Speaker 2 Briggs raked a coal with his boot heel.

Speaker 3 Pay holds when there's meat on the carcass. Uncle Sam's purse opens deep when it suits him.
And if he clinches it shut, we'll cut our share from whatever's left behind.

Speaker 2 The Boone brothers, Texans as they were, barked out a holler and knocked their cups together. Harlan pushed his hands near the flame.

Speaker 3 Heard the Navajo keep trinkets. Maybe silver.
Stone's finer than Mexican coin. You reckon we'll come across any?

Speaker 2 Fire threw a gleam across Briggs.

Speaker 3 You'll find what you got in the stomach to bleed for. But mark me, anything lifted belongs to the troop.
Try to shave any man's portion and I'll see your hairs cut off.

Speaker 2 After that, the talk soured. They turned it toward women, the kind of boasting a man's ears have no use for.
I laid my tent aside and eased back from the ring.

Speaker 2 Man may stomach war and butchering beef, yet there's a cruelty in these fellows that rides deeper than hunger itself. It's on these nights I reckon the desert keeps its own book on us.

Speaker 2 The mesas just like judges. The mesas rise like judges.
The stars stars burn holes through a man's skin. We bury little, for there is no time.
The coyotes drag what we leave.

Speaker 2 The wind takes the scraps, yet the land holds the memory all the same.

Speaker 2 I lay now under a bit of canvas, the desert rasping its song across the edges. Their talk drifts yet, tumbling like dice in the dark.

Speaker 2 I know well enough I ride with men who cut me as soon as shake my palm. But the pay is promised, and my gut recalls the lean months when I quit the guns.

Speaker 2 Better a place among wolves than to go hungry with the sheep.

Speaker 2 Close here for the night. Riggs alone keeps the edge of the fire now.
Darker shadow than the rest. He was made for the hours after sundown.
Okay, so that's the end of the first entry. Okay.

Speaker 2 I know, I know you get on to me. I know you're like.
Oh, you like this? You're bought in, but I am bought in. Okay.
It's language, very good command of words. You have any cash on you?

Speaker 2 Why?

Speaker 3 Buy it in.

Speaker 3 Okay, I'm buying in. Take a couple out and throw it on the floor.
Buy it in.

Speaker 3 Let's see how much he has bought in for.

Speaker 3 $5 buy-in. Price of admission.

Speaker 3 There's the tip.

Speaker 2 What was that one? $20.

Speaker 3 Damn! $5 buy-in with a $20 tip?

Speaker 2 For this story, yes. All right.

Speaker 3 So let's go over the first journal entry. A couple cowboys going around getting ready to start

Speaker 3 basically talking about the job coming in. And some people who are talking to Briggs, the captain, who's just like, what do you think we're in for?

Speaker 3 And they're kind of looking around, and he's more of a stern type.

Speaker 3 You can't take more than what you deserve kind of thing.

Speaker 2 You'll get whatever you're willing to bleed for. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's not going to be easy pickings because he, the author mentions he was like, I remember the lean months when I quit the guns.

Speaker 2 So he tried to step away from the violence, this career of his, so to speak.

Speaker 2 And he nearly starved for it. So he had to come back to this.
But it seems that a lot of the other people there are there for an easy dollar.

Speaker 2 They're talking, like, I hear after we kill him, they've got silver. We can keep the silver.
And Briggs is kind of putting his heel on it, saying, like, you're going to be in a fight.

Speaker 3 It's written well. Yeah.
I like the very pedally,

Speaker 3 like, floral nature of the descriptions and the kind of fantastical. It fits that, it makes me think I'm in the southwest.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 It fits that cowboy aesthetic, I guess is what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 It also,

Speaker 2 I mean, not obviously Core McMcCarthy's McCarthy, but it reminded me of Blood Meridian in the way the scenery is so florally described, but the dialogue is so abrupt and

Speaker 2 slargon, like, reckon we'll get blah, blah, blah. But this is.

Speaker 3 Except he knows how to use quotations.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2 There's an interview with McCarthy one time when he said,

Speaker 2 he said, why would I want to mark up the page with silly little dashes?

Speaker 2 He's just like, no, I don't like them.

Speaker 3 He's just like,

Speaker 2 okay, interesting. But

Speaker 2 like.

Speaker 2 Some of the stuff like the Maces rise like judges. I reckon the desert keeps books on us, stuff like that.

Speaker 3 You ever see the movie Bone Tomahawk?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Do you think this is going to go into something like that where the Navajo are like some kind of

Speaker 3 it's less about it being like actual Navajo Indians and maybe it could be like more of a

Speaker 3 not like zombie, but something where it's like a skinwalker-y kind of thing that exists out. You know what I mean? It could.

Speaker 3 Because it seems like they're venturing in an unknown land and they're getting they're bargaining. They're bargaining for more what they have.

Speaker 3 They're bargaining. What is the correct value? They're bargaining for more than they want.

Speaker 3 What's the deal? They're going to get more than they bargain for. They're going to get more than they bargain for.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they're bid off more than they can chew.

Speaker 3 They're going to buy off more than they can chew.

Speaker 2 They're going to bargain more than they can chew. They're going to bargain

Speaker 2 what they're bargaining for.

Speaker 3 They're going to bargain what they should have bargained.

Speaker 2 They're going to bargain the bite that they should have chewed but didn't.

Speaker 3 You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 Do you think we're going to lean towards that?

Speaker 2 So the difference to me is Bone Tomahawk

Speaker 2 opens with the two runaways causing problems with that. They weren't.

Speaker 2 It's never said what they were. It's like, oh, these are the people that killed the natives or whatever.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying that it's similar. I'm just wondering if

Speaker 3 it's a thing where they go in with a preconceived notion of like, oh, we're going into Indian territory only to be met with like... In Boneha Tomahawk, they're like, oh, these are like actual savages.

Speaker 3 Where it's like, these are like almost like primordial.

Speaker 2 entities that are like doing like they're gutting people open and doing like yeah yeah yeah they're like almost inhuman they like get shot it doesn't really affect them yeah and there's some line in that movie where they're like uh oh they're like the natives told legend of these yeah like they're almost like a skinwalker kind of like they're like an entity they're not necessarily but they're like it's a collection of them it's like a you know yeah yeah whatever but basically do you think we're going towards that or do you think it's going to be so what i was saying is the difference to me is in bone tomahawk it is like a peaceful group of people that are attacked right because of the actions of a couple the two that go out steal riches or whatever then that prisoner gets brought to town and that's why they come and break him out and all that violence starts.

Speaker 2 Whereas here, it's like them going looking for the violence.

Speaker 2 They're the headhunters in this scenario.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 2 it could. It could just be they lose, right? But I feel like that may be...

Speaker 2 Not predictable, because if it's written well, that's fine if you can predict a story, but I guess kind of predictable in that we're going to go fight. We lose.

Speaker 2 I feel like there needs to be some further twist rather than like guys beat us, you know, fair and square.

Speaker 3 I'm just wondering if they're even going to deal with any of the

Speaker 2 crazy, crazy word to say.

Speaker 3 That's what, that's how the cowboys used to say.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, they'd say, right? Is that how they used to say it? Yeah, but that's like a slur now, I think. What?

Speaker 2 I thought that was just a stupid way of saying Indians.

Speaker 2 Jump on them already. Well, you see, if you do it like that, it's better.

Speaker 2 Rather than you being like, what about the

Speaker 3 gonna come across the white iron?

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah. It's better when you start.
I'm just wondering, it's like they're gonna go looking for the Navajo, but they're gonna stumble across something far darker.

Speaker 2 That's what I think will happen. Yeah, likely.
Yeah. All right, entry two.
Entry two. September the 18th, camp near the San Mateo Range.
We pulled east with first light.

Speaker 2 Column of dust and horse flesh winding out of the valley like smoke from a cannon's throat.

Speaker 2 So see how do you like stuff like that?

Speaker 2 the imagery like a line of horse flesh like smoke from a cannon's throat like how

Speaker 2 that don't do anything for you i like it you like it okay yeah no i think it's good it gets me fired up it's like coffee i'm like all right i'm in i'm bought you're bought

Speaker 2 price of admission that was all my money

Speaker 3 come back when he got more 25

Speaker 3 also not to derail it too much but i do have a name i want to run by you because i don't really like i hate i i'd hate the unnamed thing

Speaker 3 the guy like an unnamed soldier right can I pitch a name for you and just see if we can roll with it

Speaker 2 go ahead

Speaker 3 La Jonah pepper spray

Speaker 2 the sun rose fierce cutting long black lines across the mesas it was a cruel light One that showed every wrinkle of rock and every sore upon a man's skin. This land gives no quarter.

Speaker 2 Man must bend to its terms or break outright.

Speaker 2 I've taken to reading the men by their horses, for beasts seldom lie. Yancy, the fool that he is, rides a raw colt with the white showing round its eyes.

Speaker 2 The beast jigs and tosses its head until the whole line swears at him. He rides it hard, jerks the reins, spurs till it bleeds, yet the beast fights him still.

Speaker 2 Twice it near threw him, and twice he struck it across the eyes. The animal rolls white in its gaze and foams like a rabbit thing.

Speaker 2 I think it waits for the hour to kill him proper.

Speaker 2 Brigg r. Okay, this whole this whole description of the horses, how the men ride them, stuff like that.

Speaker 2 Excellent. I don't know if he got it from somewhere, but this is great.
I love it. Briggs rides another breed altogether.

Speaker 2 His one-eyed gray bears the mark of an old saber work along its hind, yet never falters, not even when shale breaks loose beneath. It carries him as though horse and rider share one mind.

Speaker 2 When the column wavers, that gelding steadies its gait, and the rest fall in line with it. The rest fall somewhere between.
Pike rides a mare lean as himself.

Speaker 2 Harlan's surreal dances at every snake, and the Boone brothers kick their dun ponies, beasts never starved, yet running with a spite that keeps them living.

Speaker 2 My own is a Rowan. I took off a farm boy outside Santa Fe.

Speaker 2 Sound legs, steady temper. Eats what it can find and heeds my rein without fuss.

Speaker 2 So that's interesting because it's talking about about like how the different men, the horses are kind of extension for themselves and his own is one that eats when it cans, but follows orders without a fuss.

Speaker 2 Similar to how like our author is willing to go along with this horrific, you know, the act they're about to go.

Speaker 3 It's a creative way of exposing like telling about your characters without being like, I'm like this. It's like the he's like this.

Speaker 2 He does this.

Speaker 3 You're doing it. You're literally

Speaker 3 just understanding who the characters are to the characters of the horses. Yeah, yeah.
Which is fun. It's very cool.

Speaker 2 By midday, we crossed a cedar flat where the soil split like old hide. The heat drove the men quiet.
Only the groan of saddle leather carried.

Speaker 2 Pike lit a match and pulled a long draw, working it as if he meant that smoke to the last day. After a mile or so, Yancey broke the hush as he always must.
Captain,

Speaker 3 think we'll see Kit Carson out this way?

Speaker 2 Briggs kept his seat straight ahead. Going some rides that were soldiers.

Speaker 2 Not with the lack of us.

Speaker 2 Yancey gave a snort that fell flat.

Speaker 3 Thought he'd maybe give us orders face to face. Man's got a name.
Ought to share it.

Speaker 2 Pike flicked ash from his lip.

Speaker 3 Carson don't give nothing but long marches.

Speaker 2 Donnelly hacked into his sleeve and grunted.

Speaker 3 And he'd give pay if we'd do the work.

Speaker 2 Briggs drew his gray up and let his stare run the line.

Speaker 3 True enough.

Speaker 3 You want pay, you ride forward.

Speaker 2 You want a friend's hand.

Speaker 3 Turn back to Santa Santa Fe. No man here has promised company a reputation.

Speaker 2 Words closed Yancey's mouth for a time, though his colt still jigged sideways and near upset the file. I caught Briggs watching him with that knife-hard gaze of his.

Speaker 2 One day soon, he will put Yancey in the dirt. No man will warn it long.

Speaker 2 So we rode on.

Speaker 3 Seen smoke yonders last night, Pike said, nodding at the hills.

Speaker 2 Donnelly squinted over.

Speaker 3 Could be Mescalero. Could be Navajo.
Could be some farmer too dumb to know where to plow.

Speaker 2 Farmer? said Dancy with a laugh like a bark.

Speaker 3 Sure thing.

Speaker 2 The Texan boon brother called Charles spoke up.

Speaker 3 Let it be Navajo. I'm sick of riding with empty hands.
Ain't shot a soul in a wheat.

Speaker 2 His other half, Jesse, spat and flared crooked teeth.

Speaker 3 You get your chance. Carson's hounds always flush game.

Speaker 2 Briggs looked back, his black hat low over his brow. Best keep your powder dry.
If we're falling smoke, you'll see more than you care for before long.

Speaker 2 By evening, we drew up where the grass hissed underfoot and the sky bled purple along the ridges. The fire went quick to life.
The men sat close, talking as they ever do.

Speaker 2 Plunder to come, women to take, silver promised, and silver imagined. I kept back with my ten in this journal, letting their talk drift while coyotes raised their racket beyond the glow.

Speaker 2 It's a cursed thing, riding with wolves. Still, my purse runs thin, and their fire warms as sure as any.

Speaker 2 Tomorrow we push towards that smoke, and the country will bear what it hides.

Speaker 3 Seems like Brig kind of knows maybe something that they don't.

Speaker 2 Yeah, well, so here's what I was going to say.

Speaker 2 People will probably compare this so far to like the judge, right?

Speaker 2 The judge being the figure in Blood Meridian, who's like the overbearing kind of presence in the camp that leads them to war, even though he's not the group leader. That's Glanton.

Speaker 2 But I think this is more similar to the beginning in Blood Meridian when the kid's riding in the cavalry before he meets the Clanton gang or before he becomes a part of it. Because in that story,

Speaker 2 I forget his name. I think it's

Speaker 2 white something.

Speaker 2 But the cavalry leader is taking them to kill the natives. And over the course of it, everyone's like real eager for battle.
And the leader's just trying to keep a level head.

Speaker 2 Like, just keep your business up boys we'll be fine we'll get it done and as soon as they get into contact they are all slaughtered instantly like they get decimated there's this section in the book where it talks about the band of terribles and talks about how the natives are wearing armors of like spanish conquistadors and like the aztecs like just pieces of war that have been gathered by the tribe for centuries yeah you can tell they've just like they've all the people they've killed yeah they're they're generations on generations of warfare and then you have a group of people coming in like i hope i can get a hundred dollars from this and they just get wiped out immediately

Speaker 2 If we could see something similar to that so basically I'm kind of turning back to what you were saying the beginning Maybe they just get wrecked.

Speaker 3 I've never

Speaker 3 I've never read

Speaker 3 blood meridian, but I've seen that the judge character is he's supposed to personify like capitalism or like that kind of like looming kind of That kind of like looming western expansion or whatever, right?

Speaker 3 I would say western expansion more than like just capitalism well i guess the capitalistic thing of like uh

Speaker 3 taking more than you're required or whatever like you know what i mean like kind of like the ever-growing expanse or that kind of thing do you think that briggs is going to be something similar here of like do you think he will and like show well or do you think that it's instead of like speculating i guess has his

Speaker 2 with all the characters we've seen so far have you gotten any inkling of that so not really because with the judge so the judge one of the judge's main influences was lucifer from paradise lost And that's in a lot of his dialogue.

Speaker 2 The judge is a tempter. Like, whereas Briggs is kind of like, don't think about the money.
This is going to be a hard fight. The judge is like, think of all the money you could get.

Speaker 2 Think of how great this will be for you.

Speaker 2 He's like the whisper in the back of their ear.

Speaker 3 And yeah, Briggs is definitely a little more.

Speaker 2 He's more like, this is a good thing.

Speaker 3 I guess not a little more. He's definitely like...
Only take what you need kind of thing or what you just or what you earn.

Speaker 2 Stick to the battle. Stick to our plan.
Like, this is a serious thing, sort of. Whereas the judge would would be more on leading.

Speaker 3 I think that the line that kind of made me be like, eh,

Speaker 3 I feel like he knows more. It's just when he's just like, because like, oh, I haven't shot a soul in a week.
And he's like, oh, he might not like what you see. Or he basically just like

Speaker 3 more what you're bargaining for. I feel like there's more to that story.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm comparing it to Blood Meridian. That doesn't mean this story is one for one.

Speaker 2 I'm just saying the characters remind me of some of the characters here, just from the flowery language, which is a compliment to the story because Blood Meridian is a fantastic novel.

Speaker 2 But I think Briggs is

Speaker 2 trying to keep his head on straight.

Speaker 2 I think whatever happens, I think he'll be either the first to die, like, and that will immediately disrupt everything, or the last, because he's the only one that actually has a sense of the danger they're getting into.

Speaker 2 Like, you got one guy back there, I ain't shot a soul in weeks.

Speaker 3 And it's like, this is the only parallel that I've made so far because you've done Blood Meridian. I keep thinking about Moby Dick.

Speaker 3 I keep thinking about Ishmael.

Speaker 2 I've got parallels between those.

Speaker 3 Ishmael being comparable to the unnamed soldier here. And then Briggs, to me, has a very Ahab stoicness.
And it's just very, it's laser-focused on the hunt for this thing.

Speaker 3 Which, granted, I don't know what the hunt is. Like, in the Moby Dick, it's very much the obsession of

Speaker 2 the whale.

Speaker 3 But here, it's just

Speaker 3 so far it's been the prize, but I'm wondering if there's going to be like a fun, ulterior motive of like, yeah, I brought everyone in this dangerous thing for my kind of like.

Speaker 2 I can see that. Yeah, yeah.
Maybe they get out of it.

Speaker 3 That's where my world where i was like i you know there's just like that you know que quag being like the the ultimate you know harpooner kind of guy and stuff like that and he's like the big

Speaker 2 just like some of the fun parallel with like you know starbuck and all the other people too well i mean like that's a good comparison because one of the main things with moby dick is ahab didn't reveal his intentions until they got out there And it was only the people that had been with him a while that knew of this obsession.

Speaker 2 Like Ishmael didn't figure it out until they were at sea and came across it.

Speaker 2 I think they actually don't even miss it until he sees the white whale for the first time and like recklessly charges towards it.

Speaker 2 So, yeah, that's a good comparison. Man, we have, we just started reading this guy's stuff and we have compared him to blood, Corey McCarthy and Herman Melville.

Speaker 3 Well, I think it's interesting for, I guess, just to say, for people that are writing, because this is also, once again, this is just a fan-submitted thing on a street.

Speaker 2 On R slash Scapecast, whatever.

Speaker 3 Is that I think that you can also proudly wear your influences. Or not even, we weren't presuming that that's what he's influencing.

Speaker 3 But I just mean, I think that you can wear your influences in a way where it's like the flavor and the texture of like the other stories are there that only benefits your story, you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think that just just something to be mindful of people who are writing just be like don't shy away from your inspiration.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you know what I mean assuming this is like some of the which I think is fair

Speaker 2 Especially like you said if he's a fan of mine I think it's fair that he's familiar with Blood Meridian and stuff like that at least yeah, there's nothing wrong with writing stories that have things you like Yeah, I mean I just the I just don't want to be be presumptuous and he's just like yeah i wasn't even thinking about that it'd be funny if he's like i've never thought of bloggery in my life yeah or like yeah moby dick and no i don't give a fuck yeah i exclusively read jeff the killer fan fiction yeah i'd be like that's awesome that's great and now you've done very well for yourself yeah

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Speaker 2 The next day, September the 19th, near the San Mateo Range, we fetched the smoke at last. It sagged along the pines like a torn shawl, chalk white at sunup and coal black by noon.

Speaker 2 Briggs swung us wide. The wind set behind.
He watched the ground as if the soil itself confessed where the feet had trod.

Speaker 2 His gray passed under him without fuss, pricking for every stir, but never losing the trail.

Speaker 2 By midday, we topped a ridge. A hollow lay between.
Hogan scattered low, smoke coiling from vents. Sheep nosed the creek bank.
Young ones poked the mud with sticks. Women worked clay and meal.

Speaker 2 The scene sat plain and homelike, near harmless to the eye it offered.

Speaker 2 Yancy showed us gums. Easy pickings.

Speaker 2 He laughed, rocking in the saddle. Riggs showed a finger.
He took the hollow in with a hard mouth, then spoke so clean every man caught it.

Speaker 2 We ride hard.

Speaker 3 Camp sits in the flats. We strike mounted, fast, wheel left round the Hogan's, break them from their fires.
First volley, carbines, second sabers, no prisoners. Burn what you leave.

Speaker 2 Yancey's colt pitched and slid Pike's way. He rode it out, still gumming.

Speaker 3 About time. Was near to forgetting the stink of fresh work.
Best, you remember how to keep your seat. Any man bested by his horse gets left where he lands.

Speaker 2 Gray stamped once and squared. Briggs leaned in and laid a palm along its crest.
Sight narrowed into the valley. He cut the figure of a captain then, hat pulled tight, carbine resting across the horn.

Speaker 2 Briggs lifted a hand and broke us in two.

Speaker 2 Jesse and Charles Boone took half to the right. Rest followed after Briggs through a sage-choked cut.
My Rowan placed each hoof down as if it smelled to come and work. The camp showed all at once.

Speaker 2 Six Earthlow hogans, smoke turning out the vents, sheep inside a willow pin.

Speaker 2 Women moved at the fires, youngsters with armfuls of sticks, two men taking sheep to the creek. What struck me was the hush of it.
They had no notion that wolves were upon them.

Speaker 2 Briggs drew his saber and held it high. The sun flashed cruel at the blade.
His voice rang out. Ride!

Speaker 2 We spurred down the slope. The sound was thunder.
Hooves tore the crust, carbines barked, and the day split into hollers. I marked the first shot I sent.

Speaker 2 The man by the pin, palms still on a sheep rope. The ball struck center, and he folded without a word.
My Rowan drove on, stinging my sight, powder reek, and horse heat rolling.

Speaker 2 Gansy whooped like a drunkard, swinging his carbine by the barrel and striking a woman across the back as she fled. She fell face first into the dust, her hair black with dirt, red with worse.

Speaker 2 His colt fought the reins even in the charge, yet he spurred it harder. Both man and beast salivating at the mouth.

Speaker 2 Man, just in the violence, the command of words to be like the back of her head with dirt, her face red with worse, and like the horse and beast salivating, like just such great descriptors for how horrific.

Speaker 3 Painful dirty.

Speaker 2 Yet Briggs cut through the camp like a scythe. Greg horse stepping sure, his saber flashing in the sun.
A man came from a hogan with a bow drawn. Briggs split him from crown to collarbone.

Speaker 2 For the arrow loosed. Ouch.

Speaker 2 The air turned to cries. Sheep broke the pin and went under our hooves.

Speaker 2 Pike hung deep over the horn, snapping shots into door shadows, working charges with foul talk between. Harlan cut down a little one clinging to its mother's dress.

Speaker 2 The woman dropped over her child, and the Texan yanked her off by her braid, laid a knife across her neck. I cannot pretend I stood aside.
My Rowan ran a man down, bones breaking under hoof.

Speaker 2 When the first rush passed, I dismounted, took my pistol, and walked among them. The man stumbled from a Hogan with blood down his arm.
I shot him square in the face. It was work.
No more, no less.

Speaker 2 The thing went fast, as this breed of thing does. Roofs slit, stock open, corn poured into dust.
The cry sank under flame and smoke. When the killing thinned, we worked back on foot.

Speaker 2 Torches went into thatch and vents. Dry cedar took fire and ran skyward with a roar.
Women dragged themselves out, clothes burning, and found steel waiting. I kept to Briggs through the wreck.

Speaker 2 He spoke no mercy, made no halt, only tipped his blade where a crawler moved.

Speaker 2 Another man ended them.

Speaker 2 His grey stood patient under him, the firelight glinting off its blind eye. At the far edge, Yancy held a girl from a doorway, no more than 14.

Speaker 2 She clawed and bit, but he struck her down and set to tine her wrist. Briggs rode up close and leveled his steel.
Kill her, he said, voice flat. Briggs fixed him.
and the thought died. Killer.

Speaker 2 Yancy wavered, then pulled iron and fired into her be

Speaker 2 Yancy wavered, then pulled iron and fired into her breast. She went down like a feed sack.
He spat after.

Speaker 3 Waste.

Speaker 2 Briggs put a heel to the gray and moved on. The earth had turned dark with what bled.
Smoke clawed the chest and fire drew tall. Sheep lay opened, legs still thumping out their last.

Speaker 2 I dropped one knee to chamber again. My grip shook, though not from scruples or shame.
Hard money is bought this way. In the meantime, fire took the Hogan's one by one until only charred ribs stood.

Speaker 2 Smoke bit its sight. Ash rode the wind and gritted our mouths.
Men prowled the ruin like dogs that have torn a carcass and still knows for scraps.

Speaker 2 I near had the pistol charged when Charles Boone called.

Speaker 3 Another hut yonder. Tucked in the brush.

Speaker 2 Briggs had taken the grade of the creek. With him away, there was no rain on the men.
We tailed the Texan through scrub and rock rock till it showed a low hogan, half buried in cedar.

Speaker 2 A thread of smoke slipped from the vent, then a yarn. Thought we had em all, Puck muttered, drawing his carbine.
The pack of wolves came tight, hungry still.

Speaker 2 We sat to with our rifles leveled, though none thought a fight was waiting. Jesse shoved the mat aside and the door gave with a boot.

Speaker 2 Inside it was near dark, save for a shaft of late sun cutting through a gap in the hatch. The air was close, rank with sweat and smoke, yet colder than the burn of outside.

Speaker 2 Against the far wall squatted a cage of willow poles bound with sinew. A woman crouched within.
Her hair fell in a dark snarl, her stare sunk in a dirt-smeared face.

Speaker 2 When the light found her, she showed her teeth. Her forearms bore raw marks, maybe her own work.
No words came. Only a hiss through the bars like some wild thing caught cornered.

Speaker 2 She looks like she bites, Harlan said, flicking a pebble through the cage. She snapped at it, teeth bright.
Nancy sank beside the bars with pistol loose.

Speaker 3 Wild stock.

Speaker 2 Still got fight.

Speaker 3 No use in her. Best put her down, Pike said.
Here's enough for me, Nancy answered. She'll pay me back for what Briggs cost me.

Speaker 2 A few laughed, thin as leaves. Donnelly bent double in a fit of coughs, face near purple.
Leave it! She's wrong.

Speaker 3 You can read it in plain.

Speaker 2 The woman sank lower, body drawn tight, sight cutting from man to man. When it struck me, it felt like cold steel laid flat to the neck.
Shut it!

Speaker 3 You've been hacking since Santa Fe. Only sick one here is you, and you'll cool for any of us.

Speaker 2 By the doorway, Jesse worked a ceramic jar open with his boot toe and whistled short.

Speaker 3 Boys, over here.

Speaker 2 We turned. Inside lay a folded thing, feathers laid like scales, gray, white, and mottled dark.
An old, dry scent came off it, like long shut rooms.

Speaker 3 Bird coat?

Speaker 2 Jesse said, lifting it. Quills chattered, brittle under the beam.
Rage like owl, Donnelly said, clearing his throat.

Speaker 3 Old folks like me say that owl ain't no good luck. Means death's close.

Speaker 3 Nancy barked. Death walks with us anyhow.
Maybe they shooted her for the end of the road.

Speaker 2 He dipped his chin at the cage. Her hiss climbed.
Sight pinned to the coat in Jesse's grip. She thrust through the slats till her nails scraped bloody against the wood.

Speaker 2 She wants it back, Pike said, spitting black juice on the floor.

Speaker 3 Reckon it stands for more than dress. Reckon it means we ought to burn the thing, Harlan said, shifting his weight.
No,

Speaker 2 said Jesse, clutching it to his chest.

Speaker 3 Worse something, sure.

Speaker 2 Look at the work.

Speaker 3 Might fetch a traitor's coin.

Speaker 2 The woman shrieked then. Sound not of throat alone, but from the gut, raw and ragged.
Colt outside reared and screamed with her. Yancy swore, features drawn.

Speaker 3 Captain made me drop the last one. I won't get robbed twice.
What you say, boys?

Speaker 2 Charles chirped in.

Speaker 3 Have to be one at a time. Helps you'll snap in half.

Speaker 2 Donnelly cut in.

Speaker 3 Enough. This ain't soldiers' work.

Speaker 2 He folded with another fit, but his words carried. Yancy rose slow.

Speaker 3 Ain't soldiers' work. We ain't soldiers.
She's ours till she's dead.

Speaker 2 Talk turned coarse then, each man putting forward his say, each jest fouler than the last. Their shadows swayed across the walls long and twisted.
The woman's gaze never shifted.

Speaker 2 She watched as if weighing us, as if our words were pebbles in her hand. Don't they caught my coat? Come on.

Speaker 3 This ain't no fight.

Speaker 2 I backed for the door. Yancy swung towards me.
You walking?

Speaker 2 I am, I said.

Speaker 3 You want her? T take her. I don't want no part.

Speaker 2 Their laughing chased me into the smoke outside. Donnelly braced on a post and coughed into his sleeve.
He said nothing, only set a worn look on me no fever could explain.

Speaker 2 Behind behind, the hut swelled with harsh talk. Sound ran together with the snap of burning roofs.
Horses struck the ground farther off, restless.

Speaker 2 I poured a measure of water over my hands, though no dirt came free.

Speaker 2 Briggs came back before long, his gray flank wet from the creek. He saw the Hogan smoking, the men walking out with their shirts half done, their faces like dogs after the kill.
He said nothing.

Speaker 3 End of entry.

Speaker 3 A couple of interesting things there, for me at least.

Speaker 3 Really like in stories or any kind of narrative, whatever, whenever you have a buildup of characters that seem a bit cartoonish, almost like innocent.

Speaker 3 You have the two Texan boys who are kind of joking and being like, Well, I hope I get to kill somebody. Yeah.
Whatever, all that stuff.

Speaker 3 And then you do something great with the narrative here where then you actually dump it and you make it, oh, this is like real and this is brutal.

Speaker 3 One, even the thing here where the woman was assaulted by these men, doesn't draw it out, doesn't do whatever. It's just a sting of just like, one, it's doing a couple things across this.

Speaker 3 It shows how ruthless everybody is. Even Briggs, our main protagonist, even though he isn't participating in that, he's still like stampede over somebody, did all this other stuff.

Speaker 3 The cartoonish, joking nature they had before translates over in this horrible way to where now when you're like, oh, I kind of like this group of people. Now you're kind of like,

Speaker 3 I don't really know how to feel about any of them.

Speaker 2 It went from like likable dialogue and set pieces. Well, like, it resets everything.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 It resets every dynamic you have, which I think is a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 I mean, obviously they were bad in the conversations before.

Speaker 3 Well, yeah, but it's

Speaker 2 it's not in practice

Speaker 3 it's not in practice even it's like having it's like in a story where it's like well i've killed 20 men or whatever exactly you've never seen it and you also haven't seen it described where this is an innocent those these are innocent people just hanging out and all of a sudden these people raid in even like the idea of the job was just kind of like yeah we're going to go in and do x y and z but until you actually hear about it you're like holy shit so this reset one cleanses you of being like, I don't even know how to feel about any of these people.

Speaker 3 So now you're kind of suspicious of everybody of like, well, if they're able to do this, what else are they willing to do?

Speaker 3 But then there was a couple of things by having it be so over the top and kind of like people are fucking getting mauled. There was a couple, which I don't know if I read this right.

Speaker 3 Literally, literacy comprehension once again.

Speaker 3 But arms bare, she's biting at this thing. Almost reads like a fucking like werewolf kind of creature or something to where it's like.

Speaker 2 It's like digging across.

Speaker 3 They have had no idea what these people are. She's like this feral kind of like

Speaker 3 creature, basically. Whatever.
Which she looks human. Yeah, yeah.
But I just mean like she's like biting and all this stuff.

Speaker 3 There's just a couple things where it's like, oh, it looks like she had chafed arms

Speaker 3 where it's like, oh, probably by her own doing. She looked like she was human.

Speaker 3 It's these little, it's like these little remarks where those, I think those are important details to where it's like, well, no wonder no one paid attention because of all the fucking crazy thing around them.

Speaker 2 But even for the reader.

Speaker 3 Then it's like when you go back and read it again, you're like, oh, the marks were right there. I just didn't notice with all crazy the rest of the things were, you know, going.

Speaker 2 Well, most crucially, when one of them picked up the feathers at the front of the door, she started freaking out, trying to get over to it or something. And they're like, I reckon she wants it back.

Speaker 3 But then you have that because that is dropping clues for the reader, but then you immediately,

Speaker 3 you, once again,

Speaker 3 blindside the viewer with them just like taking advantage of this person.

Speaker 2 Yeah, right after that, Yancy says, well, she's ours till she's dead. And then which is horrible.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Despicable thing. But it just like,

Speaker 3 the author is dropping these clues for you, but then he's also just being like

Speaker 3 throwing this other stuff. It's just, it's like so much happening, but all the information's there.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's all there. It's all laid out in a way where you process it.
It's not brushed over. But it's in the midst of so much other stuff happening that it just comes off naturally.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Which also, we talked before in stories, like, there's so many that will use like sexual themes poorly, like sexual violence and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 And we'll always say, like, there is a way to do it right. And I feel like we rarely ever get to one that does it right.

Speaker 2 But I do feel like this is, if you're going to include it in a story, a way to do it right, where it doesn't become exploitive of the topic.

Speaker 2 It is an element of it in a sense that you would kind of be doing a disservice to the original historical account that it's working off of.

Speaker 2 Like, this was a thing headhunters were doing on behalf of the government around this time in history, right?

Speaker 2 If you don't, if you kind of shy away and act like they weren't

Speaker 2 murderers, that kind of discredits what actually happened.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, there's an argument always that this story would be the exact same without that, but the author's using it in a way where I think now more than ever, obviously, but not even just all this other stuff, but it's just like,

Speaker 3 it makes you hate the people even more.

Speaker 3 The murder and stuff is horrible and everything, and it's just like the extra cherry on top of all this other stuff that they're doing to where it's like these people are just like to the degree that our main character and that other character, Donnelly, I think,

Speaker 2 are like, this isn't our fight. Walk out.
Like, they're fine to, like, as they said, like, kill people with swords and shoot families and children, but this is like too much.

Speaker 2 This isn't part of the job. Similar to the horse earlier, the horse is willing to follow whatever orders if it can get scrapped in between.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think that that's like an interesting thing, too, is it's worth noting that, like, I don't think that they're, it's not that they're any better.

Speaker 3 I mean, they're still fucking murderers or whatever, but I think that there's going to be like this gray area where like you're like, oh, well, Donnelly's cool because he didn't participate in that.

Speaker 3 And then you're going to be blindsided when, oh, no, he's still a fucking murderer. Yeah.
You know, like, it's just, yeah, when Donnelly woke up.

Speaker 2 Woven in a way that's very.

Speaker 3 It's woven in a way that's

Speaker 3 interesting.

Speaker 2 When the two of them back out there, yeah, it's Donnelly. When the two of them back out right there, it's like, oh, well, that's good.
But they didn't stop her from getting raped.

Speaker 2 And also, they murdered dozens of people.

Speaker 3 And there's still something about Briggs where I'm like, I just don't think that that full story.

Speaker 2 I don't think he's

Speaker 3 revealed everything yet.

Speaker 2 I will say, like, for the

Speaker 3 burning everything, I feel like he's trying to purge something or he's trying to.

Speaker 2 Well, that was standard for them at the time. Oh,

Speaker 2 yeah. Burn everything and come across so they can't re-establish the area because the idea was to wipe them off the face of the earth.

Speaker 2 So, burn everything to come across or take it.

Speaker 2 And, like, there was that one Yancey was trying to top a 14-year-old girl to keep and stuff. Like, they're horrific things, but the author understands the weight of what he's talking about.

Speaker 2 There's a respect for the subject material that makes it feel earned rather than like phoned in.

Speaker 3 Yeah. With details like that.

Speaker 3 Good writing. Next entry.

Speaker 2 Next entry: September the 22nd, camp north of the San Mateo Range. Three days from the burning and the stink rides our hair still

Speaker 2 smoke outlasts blood.

Speaker 2 Each mile, the troop grows sore-tongued, for fortune has turned. The mutton we dragged from that place spoiled in a single night.
Okay, so prediction.

Speaker 2 Them that like specifically the feather and obviously killing the village, but um, messing with the feather and stuff like that, they've brought like a curse curse upon themselves, something to that effect.

Speaker 2 The mutton we dragged from that place spoiled in a single night. Grubs thick as grits worked the fat.
Pike split the sack, gagged, and kicked it shut. We pitched the mess into the wash.

Speaker 2 Cowdies made short work of it. Come sun up, one dog lay stiff on the bank with a black tongue.

Speaker 2 The corn went the same road. Damp got into the cloth and the kernels turned to mush.
Donnelly swore it smelled like a body left too long in the sun. He would know the scent from his own stench.

Speaker 2 Toward dark, by the blaze, Jesse broke out cussing. God damn my hide, he said, thumping the dirt with a fist.
I left it behind. Pock asked him.

Speaker 3 Left what?

Speaker 3 A jacket. Owl feathers stitched fine.
I had in my hand. Said it down when Yancy made his noise with that girl.
Meant to fetch it after. Forgot.

Speaker 2 Harlan let out a rumble. You weeping over bird feathers?

Speaker 3 Worth more than any of you, Jesse said.

Speaker 2 Fire painted a mean cast over him.

Speaker 3 Would have brought silver. Should have been mine.

Speaker 2 Briggs sat apart, sharpening his saber along a whetstone. He said nothing, though I saw his eye on Jesse.
Donnelly hawked red into the dust.

Speaker 3 You ought not to have touched it at all. That woman looked ready to tear the bars apart when you held it.
Best leave behind what riles a beast.

Speaker 3 Beast?

Speaker 2 Jesse curled his lip. She weren't beast.

Speaker 3 Just a squaw like any other.

Speaker 3 She howled enough to set Yancey's colt near on its back.

Speaker 2 Pike muttered.

Speaker 3 I remember it. Thought the damned thing bolted in the fire.

Speaker 2 Yancy bristled at that.

Speaker 3 My colt's got more fight than your crowbait. Takes a strong seat to keep him.
Strong seat or not, you ain't its master.

Speaker 2 Harlan said. Yancy pushed up from his blanket.

Speaker 3 Say that again, you sour-riding bastard.

Speaker 2 Briggs cut across him. Sit down.
He did not look up from the blade. The whetstones sang in long pulls.
Fire snapped. Men sank back to their cups.
Night dropped heavy. No star worth naming.

Speaker 2 The wind cut keen. I laid down.
Gosh, oh,

Speaker 2 I'm just such a sucker.

Speaker 2 After the conversation, like, no star worth naming, not Drift King.

Speaker 2 It reminds me of like all the poems I would read, like, growing up around Appalachia, the like local authors would use to talk about the mountains and stuff like that. Like, ugh.

Speaker 3 And bread stuff.

Speaker 2 what what did i do to deserve that one i was just i was having a good time

Speaker 3 just add a little pepper to it i don't know man

Speaker 2 gosh earlier i was talking about coal miners and i was describing like the big worker strikes and like people dying in the mines and hunter doesn't say a thing and then when i get done he goes well i mean they were like mole people so it's really like a give and take sort of thing no i tell you that you're you're right i mean like the

Speaker 3 people sat there and the brother and sister lovers

Speaker 3 brother and sister lovers with the three three fingers and

Speaker 2 and the fish mouth and stuff like that they do write pretty poems and stuff like what did you brother and sister lovers with three fingers and a fish mouth is that what you think of of me?

Speaker 2 Poetry in a total right.

Speaker 3 Yeah, everyone's spock out there.

Speaker 2 Fish love stuff.

Speaker 2 Make love to your sister.

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Speaker 4 So again, just head to the link in the description at drinkag1.com slash creepcast to sign up for less than three dollars a day thank you to ag1 for sponsoring the show we are now back to the episode get down under my blanket and shut my lids yet the horse has stirred

Speaker 2 first a shuffle then snored some pounding rope links and stamping by the time i rose yancy was on his feet cursing goddamn nags grumbled jerking on his boots he strode for the picket the blaze casting his shape long

Speaker 2 rowan went up with the whites rolled white. The rest janked their ties, drawing hard, hooves drumming dust.

Speaker 2 Yancey called, voice too sharp for comfort.

Speaker 2 Damn it

Speaker 2 He seizes the reins of his cold and pulled hard. The animal screamed high, half like a woman, came up and lashed out with both hind feet.
The kick took Yancey square in the skull.

Speaker 2 He went down without a word, but for bone crackling. His body pitched sideways and his legs kicked as though he still rode in saddle.
Boam showed at his lips.

Speaker 2 Men scrambled from their blankets, curses flying. Pike shouted, Hell, he's done for!

Speaker 2 Briggs stepped out of the dark. He stood over Yancey for a spell.
The man lay on the ground, whites rolling, limbs jerking in fits. Briggs drew his colt, thumbed it back, set one round into the skull.

Speaker 2 Twitching stopped. Briggs holstered the iron and freed the Roan's tie, smacked the flank, and sent it off into the dark.
Then he turned, his eyes black as burnt wood. Get some sleep.

Speaker 2 He said, words thinned by long miles.

Speaker 3 We ride at first light.

Speaker 2 No man answered. I alone kept watch after.
In the glow of the dying fire, I saw a shape above. A great owl sat upon the limb of a cedar, feathers dark as coal, eyes wide and fixed upon the camp.

Speaker 2 It did not move nor stir when I rose to throw more wood on the coals. Its gaze burned steady, and I knew it had come for us.
At daylight, we left Yancey where he fell.

Speaker 2 Coyotes would see to him by sundown. No grave was dug.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 interesting way for Yancey to die, because it's mentioned earlier how unruly his beast is, both of them like foolish, stubborn. Then it kills him.

Speaker 2 But there was the line earlier when I think it was Yancey said, or maybe it was the author said, Briggs would be the death of Yancey.

Speaker 2 Or maybe Yancey looked at Briggs and said, you'll be the death of me. Something to that effect.
Sure enough, Briggs was the one who walked out and put him down with the gun.

Speaker 2 But it was from Yancey's own foolishness. He was unable to control his horse, had no interest in actually breaking it.

Speaker 2 And then he gets killed when it's in a wild spur, kicks him in the head.

Speaker 3 Yeah, even like this owl kind of omen that's looming over them now.

Speaker 2 Well, what'd they find in the hut? Owl feathers.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah. Well, that's what I mean is it almost seems like they

Speaker 3 like cheated death or they were kind of, you know, it just seems like the owl feels to me almost like death following them. Yeah.
Where now it just seems like

Speaker 3 the sins of their, the sins of man, whatever, their faults are going to be the things that kill them.

Speaker 3 It's the excessive greed as well. I think that's just like, you know, you're going to pay your dues kind of thing.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Next entry.

Speaker 2 September the 24th.

Speaker 3 So five days since the last one?

Speaker 2 The last one was the 22nd. Oh, that was 22.
The killing was on the 19th. Yeah, okay.
Three days of riding, 20 seconds, and now two days later. September the 24th, east of the San Mateo Range.

Speaker 2 The nights draw out or feel that way. The owl's still with us.
Each camp we make, it sets itself above, watching. Always in sight, though never near enough to strike with the lead.

Speaker 2 Its wings spread wide, black against the moon. Some of the troop grumble, some spit curses, others go still.
None of us find clean sleep. Donnelly went bad soon after Yancey's burying without a grave.

Speaker 2 First, the same cough as always, then worse. What he hacked up ran thick.
By yesterday, he could not mount without another man lifting at his belt.

Speaker 2 Sun peeled him down till he shook. Riggs rode near and gave the order no one favored.

Speaker 3 Time to that saddle. He rides, else he dies here.

Speaker 2 Man, talk about a... Can you imagine how miserable that would be? I mean, obviously, the character.

Speaker 3 Like living in that time or whatever?

Speaker 2 Well, living in that time, but specifically like getting sickly and then sitting in a saddle all day in the hot sun, night shade, just baking. I like the way he describes it.

Speaker 2 It peels him in the saddle.

Speaker 3 He's just chapped. Yeah, he's just like lips probably all blistered and stuff.

Speaker 2 Coughing up.

Speaker 3 Dehydrated all no end. Oh, by God.
Yeah. And worst of all, no internet.

Speaker 2 Now you have to time him to his saddle. Or else you just leave him if he falls out.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 And now, too, Briggs is also becoming this kind of person where everyone's just kind of like, well, he's going to be alive until Briggs says we have to go. Yeah.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 If Briggs says we leave him, we leave him. Briggs walked out.
I mean, obviously, Yancey was at a point you couldn't do anything for him.

Speaker 3 Well, yeah, it's like a merciful kind of thing.

Speaker 2 It was like a mercy killing, but Briggs was also the only one who could make that call and say, walk out, shoot the guy.

Speaker 3 Well, yeah, no one battered an eye. Yep.

Speaker 2 No one complained.

Speaker 2 And which also, again, harkens back earlier, the story when the author says, when Yancey dies, there will be a little fuss over it. Sure enough, they don't dig a grave.
Just leave him for the wolves.

Speaker 2 We bound Donnelly upright. He hung like soaked canvas, chin sunk to chest.

Speaker 2 His dun bore him without protest, though the beast staggered under the weight. Donnelly's head bobbed with the trail's roll, and once or twice he gave a rasp that might have been words.

Speaker 2 None could tell. At the midday stop, Pike broke the quiet.

Speaker 3 He's done, captain.

Speaker 3 Best to end it.

Speaker 2 Briggs fixed him with a stare, then said, He rides.

Speaker 3 Ain't no good to him or us, Harlan added.

Speaker 2 Briggs' hand rested on the butt of his colt. He rides.
That shut the talk.

Speaker 3 Almost seems like he needs him.

Speaker 3 Like, it seems, I wonder if he's just like, prop him up. It just seems like with the other one, if he really didn't need him there, I feel like he would have killed him.

Speaker 2 He needs Donnelly for some reason. I think so.

Speaker 3 Or like whoever is. Yeah.
I think.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I think that there's just something where he needs a certain amount of people or something like that. It's my gut intuition.
Yeah. Yep.

Speaker 2 By the flames, Donnelly let out a low grind. The sort of man makes when the inside of him has gone to water.
Jesse dragged a stick through the coals.

Speaker 3 Hell of a sight. Worse than Yancey, Pike said.

Speaker 3 Yancy went fast. This one drags.

Speaker 2 No one laughed. Briggs settled beside Donnelly, the gray tide near.
He spoke near nothing, only brushed a strip of cloth across that brow.

Speaker 2 No man dared wise crack. Donnelly once stood close to Briggs, as close as any can.
They fought side by side in Texas or so Pike swears. Night dropped.
The blaze fell to coals.

Speaker 2 Then the first call toward the dark, time drawn out, too strong for any bird, yet it carried the shape of an owl's call.

Speaker 2 It came once, then again,

Speaker 2 nearer. Charles swore.

Speaker 3 That bird is following us.

Speaker 2 Then shoot it, Pike muttered, fumbling with his carbine. Harlan flicked dust from his cap.

Speaker 3 I drew it on last evening. Lead went through the branch.
Bird never so much as twitched.

Speaker 2 Call rose again, up above. I raised my face and marked it on a juniper limb.
Twin embers set in tar.

Speaker 2 Wings tall, spread wide as two men across. It held fix on us.
Only watched.

Speaker 2 It's got like a 10-foot wingspan up in the trees.

Speaker 2 Man. Briggs rose, revolver drawn.
He planted his boots, took his sight, and fired twice. The reports rolled over the rock.
Chips Chips jumped from the limb. The bird did not shift.

Speaker 2 Only the smoke slid off the barrel on the night wind. I lay close to the ground, listening.
Nonley rasped beside the fire, a wet choke with each breath.

Speaker 2 His chest heaved and sawed, ribs like blades under skin. Riggs sat beside him, brim slanted, revolver laid across his thigh.
Yow held still till the fire dimmed.

Speaker 2 Then it spread wide and rose with a cloth-ripping sound.

Speaker 3 dark fleck against the stars end of entry man gosh a giant owl this black owl in the trees following them kind of interesting too that they've all noticed it and tried to kind of shoot away instinctively and it just almost has like a the raven kind of edgar poe vibe you know i mean he shoots it twice and it just it doesn't even care also it's a wings totally like

Speaker 3 It's like a fucking...

Speaker 2 It's like it's accepting their souls, like it's waiting to gather them up and take them.

Speaker 3 It makes you think of like when an owl comes down and and grabs like a mouse or something yeah like a prey it's just like waiting it's like looming up there and at any moment it could just be like whoosh

Speaker 2 or whatever yeah big enough to carry him off too fucking 10 feet wingspans yeah terrifying

Speaker 2 hello yeah

Speaker 2 who

Speaker 3 holy shit

Speaker 2 briggs that is the scariest bird i've ever seen

Speaker 2 the scariest fucking thing i've ever seen in my life

Speaker 2 I plead to God. We burn the forest and everything.

Speaker 3 We should really stop settling for the night near trees.

Speaker 2 We should. We should.
How about this? We keep riding until we're dead or we get there.

Speaker 2 I don't know where we're going, but I'm not stopping again.

Speaker 2 September the 27th, foothills north of the San Mateo Range. We rode three days more with the owl dogging us, ever above, ever near.
Donnelly withered to a husk, tied to his dun like a feed sack.

Speaker 2 His crown drooped, mouth gone loose, a wet rasp working in his throat. The talk drained out of the troop.
Even Jesse, never short of words, kept his own counsel.

Speaker 2 Toward dusk we struck sign of a runner, fresh moccasin prints threading the sage.

Speaker 2 Briggs swung down and read the dirt while the gray knocked flies from its hide.

Speaker 2 He raised two fingers and sent us along the trace into into a wash.

Speaker 2 There we found him, a Navajo, lean and worn, a stave across his knees and a knife at his belt. He carried the stamp of a man driven near the end, yet his regard sat hard as tender.

Speaker 2 He circled and fasted the carbines up. Pike took his measure up and down.
What we got here? A straggler?

Speaker 3 Ought to drop him now.

Speaker 2 Jesse rolled. Pike ground his heel in the dust.

Speaker 3 Let's hear what he knows first.

Speaker 2 Briggs eased his grave pace closer. Speak English.
Navajo spoke rough but plain.

Speaker 3 I speak enough.

Speaker 2 The man's regard ran hard across our line.

Speaker 3 Camp no more.

Speaker 2 Burned.

Speaker 2 He tipped the stave towards the way he'd come.

Speaker 3 Smoke rise. Juden cries.
You make it.

Speaker 2 Jesse snorted.

Speaker 3 He knows us, boys.

Speaker 2 The Navajo lifted his hand, palm outward.

Speaker 3 Not for talk of smoke, I stand. For woman, you let her free.

Speaker 2 Oh.

Speaker 2 Here goes. There's a tiny cell.

Speaker 3 That's the woman that they... Yep.
Yep.

Speaker 2 One that was in the cage. The packs shifted on their feet.
Pike spat a brown stream and asked. What woman? Navajo's mouth twisted.

Speaker 3 Not woman. Never woman.

Speaker 2 Chihiti.

Speaker 3 She eat babies. Take hearts.
Wear feathers. Owl now.

Speaker 2 Owl always.

Speaker 3 You see.

Speaker 2 Interesting. I had the thought when it was like a giant owl.
I kind of thought to myself, maybe it's like a skin walker transformation thing.

Speaker 3 Have you heard of like the chihidi before?

Speaker 2 I don't think I have.

Speaker 2 Let me be lame real quick. Ghost or devil?

Speaker 2 Malevolent spirit of the dead, often thought of as a ghost or devil.

Speaker 2 That's excellent. What a great thing to let outside.

Speaker 3 Oh, damn, man.

Speaker 2 We had sex with it.

Speaker 2 Oh, fuck.

Speaker 2 Most often, the spirit of a dead person. You got to avoid contact with the dead or enclosed places like a Hogan, where someone has passed to avoid coming into contact with a Chindi or contracting it.

Speaker 2 Okay. So you're not supposed to come into contact with one.

Speaker 2 That's why the house was over in the bushes, put to the side in a cage, because someone had died there. It was a spirit container.
No one was supposed to step in there.

Speaker 2 And they came in and touched it a lot.

Speaker 3 Got super.

Speaker 3 Also, all the stuff that they had taken for the place is completely rotted. Yes.
So I think that each person is just going to start deteriorating probably.

Speaker 2 They're going to start decaying, falling apart. The spirit's been let loose now.

Speaker 2 I have a friend who's Navajo, and I remember him telling me that there are, because me and him were talking about like

Speaker 2 demons within like some Christian beliefs like succubus and stuff like that. We were talking about like things that will be a temptress or appear as a woman.

Speaker 2 And he mentioned that there's like shapeshifters within Navajo belief like that. And I don't remember the word Chindi, but I imagine that's...

Speaker 3 Also, I could be completely mispronouncing that.

Speaker 2 Well, it's often spelled spelled as chindi chindi yeah because the the the abbreviation was like the eyes and the italics is like navajo speak specifically but chindi's or cheety's probably like the english way i'll start saying chindy if we keep saying coming up but this just by the way this story being like a blood meridian-esque like headhunter group coming across a cryptid that like tears in pieces

Speaker 2 My heart right up my alley. I love it.
You're bought in. I'm bought in.

Speaker 2 I've been bought in, and I'm doubling down. He lifted the stave towards the sun.
The men fell silent, each eye following the skyline. Briggs' voice cut hard.

Speaker 3 Say it plain, he said.

Speaker 3 She was caged. My people bind her long years,

Speaker 3 hungry, but bound.

Speaker 3 We feed her little, just to keep her not loose.

Speaker 3 You cut cage, you use her, you leave her. Now she walk free.

Speaker 3 She hunts all.

Speaker 3 Not only white men. Not only Navajo.

Speaker 2 All.

Speaker 2 Harlan swore and rubbed his chin.

Speaker 3 He lies.

Speaker 3 Some red gone mad, that's all.

Speaker 2 Navajo looked on him with contempt.

Speaker 3 You think lies you see. She eat nest.
No birds safe.

Speaker 2 I'll take all.

Speaker 3 Sky, ground, night, day. No safe.

Speaker 2 Jesse snarled.

Speaker 3 Then you'll die too.

Speaker 2 Die. All die.

Speaker 3 Navajo leave this land. Not safe.

Speaker 2 You too. Pike leaned on his saddle horn.

Speaker 3 Captain, I say we got him here.

Speaker 2 He talks too much.

Speaker 2 Briggs kept him in his eye.

Speaker 3 Why should I keep my men from you?

Speaker 2 Navajo said on Dawnly, slamped and died to the dun. That one's sick.
Breathe black.

Speaker 3 You leave him. He dies slow.
I take him. He live maybe.

Speaker 2 He let us try. A hard laugh went around.
Charles grunted. Healers?

Speaker 3 He means cut his throat and leave him for the buzzards.

Speaker 2 Harlan shifted.

Speaker 3 He ain't living anyhow. Let the Navajo spare us the work.

Speaker 2 Puck asked Briggs.

Speaker 3 You trust him? I sure don't.

Speaker 2 Briggs held his tongue and ran a palm along the gray's neck. Finally he spoke.
His words cut straight.

Speaker 3 We give him over.

Speaker 3 This man dies by your hand. Or if you leave him in the dust, I will come for your tribe.

Speaker 2 Every lodge, every tent. You understand me?

Speaker 2 Navajo kept a dark face.

Speaker 3 I understand.

Speaker 2 Briggs turned to us.

Speaker 2 On time. This is interesting because earlier we get, he like he refuses to let Donnelly die.
And then there's the mention by Pike that the two of them have fought together a long time.

Speaker 2 So it's like the one thing that would make him not just kill this Navajo like he has everyone else is his loyalty to Donnelly, their friendship. That maybe if this can help him, then I'll trust him.

Speaker 2 I'll let this guy go. Pike scowled, yet loosed the knots.
Donnelly slid from the dun like a sack of meal and gave one deep groan.

Speaker 2 The Navajo bent and swung him up, light as a child, slinging him across his back. Jesse twitched towards his revolver.

Speaker 3 Captain, you really letting this rat walk off with one of ours?

Speaker 2 Briggs' eyes burned black.

Speaker 3 Donnelly's near gone. We waste food and time-strapping him upright.
This way both sides get a chance.

Speaker 2 Harlan kicked Claude. Or a hole in his throat.
Briggs answered cold.

Speaker 2 If so, I'll know. And I'll come back for every one of his people.

Speaker 3 That is enough.

Speaker 2 The man moved off into the brush with Donnelly over his back. Their thread thinned among the cottonwoods until only the wind kept on.
No one spoke for a long spell. The gray stamped once and settled.

Speaker 3 After a moment, Jesse said, I'll stake coin we never see Donnelly again.

Speaker 2 Pike worked his tobacco. Better end than me.

Speaker 2 All right. Man.

Speaker 3 Gosh, this is so good. Next entry.

Speaker 2 Next entry, September the 29th, along the broken Mesa country.

Speaker 2 Two days since the Navajo runner slipped off into the cottonwoods and the camp has grown mean with silence.

Speaker 2 The owl follows yet. None can deny it.
It circles when we ride, and each night it perches near enough that the firelight snags in those embers it carries for eyes.

Speaker 2 Near midnight, Harlan came up screaming, blanket wound round his forearm like a drowning man to a spar.

Speaker 3 I dreamt of her. The one we pulled from the cage.
She walked through the flames and her hands were feathers. She set them on man's eyes, and then we opened them and owls flew out.

Speaker 2 That night, we built three fires and drew in tight.

Speaker 2 First light, we found the Texan Boone. Not Jesse, the other one.
Charles. He had held the watch before dawn, carving across his knees.
We found him split, ribs bent like fingers pried to apart.

Speaker 2 His eyes were gone, only two wet holes left. Feathers stuck in the blood across his chest.

Speaker 2 That's interesting because Harlan had the dream and said she walked to a man, and when she says eyes on him, owls flew out. I imagine either of him of her.

Speaker 2 So it's like that was his dream of what actually happened to Charles over the hill. Jesse dropped to his knees and let out a noise like a hound caught in a trap.

Speaker 2 Then he came up, colored drain, taking the ring of us.

Speaker 3 Which Which of you bastards did this?

Speaker 2 No one spoke. Pot crossed himself, then caught my eye and stopped.
Harlan swore small and worked his hat brim to the floor.

Speaker 2 Briggs came up, took one measure of the body and swept dirt across Boone's face.

Speaker 3 He's gone.

Speaker 2 We ride without him.

Speaker 2 Jesse rushed him, teeth showing, clawing at air. Briggs stepped in, caught him at the wrist, and slung him to the earth.
Colt was out before Jesse hit.

Speaker 3 He's carry-on,

Speaker 2 Briggs said, flat as truth usually is.

Speaker 3 Stay down or join him.

Speaker 2 Blood threaded from Jesse's lips as he rolled to his knees. Kept his mouth shut.
That night, we stacked the fires high. We drew the stock in close, yet none of them settled.

Speaker 2 Pike's bay ran slick with sweat. Harlan's surreal punched holes in the earth, ears pinned, eyes white.
My own Rowan trembled, neck down, snorting. Only Briggs Gray held steady.

Speaker 2 The blind side turned to the night. The owl called once more.
The sound cracked through the dark like a green log on fire. It set Jesse to his feet, brandished his revolver.

Speaker 3 Cover me then, he hollered. Come on, and I'll spit you to hell.

Speaker 2 He threw six rounds into the black. Each flash lit his face, lips skinned back in a grin that meant nothing.
When the smoke thinned, the birds still called. Pike told him, soft as mud.

Speaker 2 You pulled in, fool. Jesse wheeled wild face.

Speaker 3 Let it come. I'll put my knife in his guts.
Out!

Speaker 2 Cry came again, closer. It set the horses to screaming.
The bay broke loose, reins snapping, hooves tearing the ground. It ran headlong into the night.
We heard it shrink once.

Speaker 2 Nothing. No man said a word after that.
The owl did not call again. It's like every time she comes as an owl, death, someone dies each time.
Or death soon to come, like with Conley.

Speaker 2 October the first broken mesa country I set my hand to these pages though the grip shakes near as bad as Donnelly's did before we gave him over if any man should find this book take it for a warning I know not if the sun will find me alive come morning this night split with a wind full of grit enough to skin a man raw we tied the stock short Set three more fires, checked rifles.

Speaker 2 No man slept. Jesse hunched over his blade and talked to himself in a thin thread of sound.

Speaker 2 Meanwhile, shadows worked tricks across the ground, swelling large, shrinking small, never matching the flames that cast them.

Speaker 2 Every beast tethered near rolled its gaze to the ridgeline, snorting, stamping deep holes in the crust. The smell of singed hair rode the air, though no man set torch.

Speaker 2 It was when the night was loudest the owl came for us. No call first, none of the distant mournful notes we had grown to dread.

Speaker 2 Instead, it it dropped like a stone from heaven, wings spread wide enough to swallow half the stars. The air slammed against us as though a canvas had been ripped overhead.

Speaker 2 The fire burst upwards as if some hand had seized the flames and torn them sky-high. Sparks rained down upon us, biting the skin, setting blankets alight.

Speaker 2 In the glow, I marked her, tall, twisted, cloaked in wings thick as tar.

Speaker 2 Her eyes were red coals set deep, her mouth a beak that split wide and gnashed with teeth like endless stones.

Speaker 2 She strode between firelight and shadow and every man swore he saw her in a different place. Oh man.

Speaker 2 Gosh, that's so cool. It reminds me of

Speaker 2 Mother Horse Eyes and in the old story of the water tribe, how the giant bat demon thing comes onto the rock for the girl.

Speaker 2 Even the description were like the cats in that story were watching it rise above the hills and then land. All the horses were looking to the ridge line where it came cruising down, man.

Speaker 2 Pike cried out and fired blind into the dark. Shoot it! Shoot, damn you! His rounds smacked dirt and wind away.

Speaker 2 Harlan raised his rifle and the stock tore against his cheek as though wrenched by unseen hands. I fixed sight on it full then, straight in my path.

Speaker 2 Feathers heavy as storm banks sagged from her shoulders. No bird, no woman, but some mistake between.
A creature built from the wrong parts of both.

Speaker 2 The beak tore open and what poured out was no simple cry, but a howl carried by a dozen throats. Men groaning, women shrieking, children wailing, all rising together.

Speaker 2 My guts folded as if every sin I'd pressed down came rushing back through that one sound. Briggs cut through the racket.
Saddle up! We ride! Puck shouted. Ride where?

Speaker 3 She flies!

Speaker 2 Briggs swept the line, face black with soot from the smoldering camp. Saddle!

Speaker 3 Mountain ride! You flee for Carson's mane.

Speaker 2 My horse is the only one with courage. I'll keep it busy.
Pike's throat cracked. You'll be killed! Briggs glare burned through the haze.
We're already dead.

Speaker 3 Best I buy you another hour.

Speaker 2 He swung into the saddle. The gray lifted its head proud, stamping once, eyes like chips of glass in the blaze.
The sight of the pair struck me frozen.

Speaker 2 For that instant, Briggs stood the hero he might have been. A true soldier unbroken.
He spurred forward into the stands. Ride! Barked once more, then he was gone.
We mounted in a frenzy.

Speaker 2 Men dropped their rifles, kicked at stock, clawed at tack. My Rowan trembled under me, veins thrumming, spit hanging thick from its mouth.
Still, it carried me when I drove heels into its flanks.

Speaker 2 Behind us rang three sharp shots, measured, certain,

Speaker 2 then silence.

Speaker 2 We drove through the Mesa country. Each man bent low, attention cut into the sky.
At first, there was only the wind. Then came the cry.
That terrible cry. After a spam, Pike twisted in the saddle.

Speaker 2 His color drained.

Speaker 3 It comes.

Speaker 2 I wheeled in the leather and watched. It crossed the stars, dark and vast, wings wide as canyon walls.
It fell upon us like night itself.

Speaker 2 Harlan screamed. The thing stooped once and he was gone.
Mountain man lifted into the black. One cry split off and died, then nothing.

Speaker 2 it just snatched up him and the horse. Just

Speaker 2 fucking huge. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, also, this probably have you heard of the thunderbird before? No.

Speaker 2 There's this legend that, like, cavalry soldiers out in the west around this time reported seeing something they called the thunderbird, which was a giant bird with like a giant wingspan that would pick up horses from camp and carry them away.

Speaker 2 There's like

Speaker 2 like there's some people who say like maybe it was a pterodactyl that survived or whatever, like a giant dinosaur bird thing. So this kind of ties into the legends of that as well.

Speaker 2 Pike fired over his shoulder, spitting curses so raw they hardly made sense. The bird fell again, its wings hammering air.

Speaker 2 It smashed Pike from the saddle, rider vanishing into a spray of red mist and quills that drifted down like snow.

Speaker 2 Just like crushing to death. My Roan fled behind, foam running, whites flashing.
I clung to saddle and horn, the dark a smear. Behind, all went still but for the thunder of wings.

Speaker 2 Then the roan stumbled. A foreleg snapped like timber under an axe.
I pitched forward and the beast toppled, weight crushing across me. My leg pinned under, bone near cracked, the flesh screaming.

Speaker 2 The horse thrashed wild, foam and blood working from its muzzle. I drew pistol and put a ball through its skull.
The weight sagged dead.

Speaker 2 I lay under it, air burning my chest, desert rough against my skin. She came on then.
The owl sat upon a rock not twenty paces off.

Speaker 2 One cold, bright orb glowed from her ruin of a skull, the other socket now hollow. Where a heart ought to rest, yon two holes surrounded with blackened plumage.

Speaker 2 Yet it lived, if such a life can be named. I reached for my powder horn.
The arm shook but held true. I poured what charge I had left into my palm, set it with ball and wadding.

Speaker 2 I meant to make a bomb of it, to set it alight and strike when she came. Better that than wait to be plucked apart like Boone.

Speaker 2 The owl shifted, wings stretching wide, feathers spilling into the dust. The sound of its call rose again, low and long, a voice like the tearing of the sky.
My ears bled with it.

Speaker 2 I scratched these lines with the book on the dust. The charge waits beside my knee.
She closes in, on Ember Bright, her shape draped against the stars.

Speaker 2 If these pages be found, no, I rose to meet her. I aim to trade fire for flesh and powder for blood.
Whether it ends her or not, it will not be said. I lay idle.

Speaker 2 Her wings roof over me. Night bends to her shape.
The air spits. The earth shudders with her cry.
I close here.

Speaker 3 And that is the end.

Speaker 3 What an awesome awesome fan story, dude. That was sick.

Speaker 2 Oh, my gosh. Oh, it was written so well.
What a great writer.

Speaker 3 The Journal of an Unknown Soldier. It's fun, I like the idea, too, that someone did come across it, and that's like just the

Speaker 2 transcription. It's found amongst the desert, amongst a pile of bones.

Speaker 3 The Thunderbird kind of analogy, or like the Thunderbird mythology kind of thing, is fun, too. Like, it feels like this is a piece of that mythology that you would find out there.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, like one of the early legends that started the story in the desert of the western landscape.

Speaker 3 You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 Oh, just the writing was so good the descript the descriptors the adjectives the command of words there were so many fun things set up like yancey or being like yance or briggs will be the death of yancey and then he was and like the brutality that's matched by like the fear they experience over the next coming weeks and like the navajo they come across and like how briggs almost had not humanity but he had valor in his own mind yeah senses where he's like Like I'll let this Navajo go if he can save my friend or at the end where he's like, my horse is the only one brave enough.

Speaker 2 You men ride. I'll hold it off.
And he dies. Like, obviously, a horrible person, but in his mind, there was a justification.
There was a,

Speaker 2 there was a, um,

Speaker 2 there was a code.

Speaker 3 Yeah, a code of honor.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they had a code of honor amongst himself. Yeah.
Even if he wasn't deserving of honor.

Speaker 2 Just so many interesting little character moments baked into such a short story.

Speaker 2 And like the, it was all written so well, like each of those character moments were described and the way the language changes between like the narration and the dialogue.

Speaker 2 And God, it just felt so full. Even little things like, how do we write in that the men discover it's a Chendi or whatever, a cheeti? And it's like, okay, well, they come across a Navajo.

Speaker 2 That could be a cheesy moment, except because there's been another village burned, and he says he can take Donnelly, maybe the only person that lived through this, which would not that Donnelly, Donnelly's still a killer, but he was one that stepped out of the tent.

Speaker 2 Him and the writer were the two who left.

Speaker 2 So maybe it's saying that, you know, Donnelly survives, taken away by the Navajo, the same people he had killed, because he didn't go in this one further act of evil with the woman in the cabin or the woman in the Hogan, who turned out to be the Chindi.

Speaker 2 But like that moment, one that feels natural with Briggs giving off Donnelly, is also the expository moment that's used to give the information about what this cryptid is, but it doesn't feel like exposition because it all works together so well.

Speaker 2 Just Just so many interesting moments, like well written from like the actual wording to how scenes are framed and stuff like that. This is great.
Trevor, Strange Accounts.

Speaker 2 We're going to have this story linked in the description. He has written multiple of these in the R/slash Creepcast subreddit, which sounds, this is an absurd place to put

Speaker 2 these stories.

Speaker 3 I think it's a great place to put it.

Speaker 2 Just that he's this talented. And as far as I can find, he's not published or anything, which this keep riding, dude.
This was fantastic.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, I think that I say it's

Speaker 3 broken record, but simplicity. In this story, two things literally happen.
They raid a village and they ride away. And you're able to get so much out of something that's so simple.

Speaker 3 It's not convoluted. It just takes its time.
And it like ushers through these like.

Speaker 3 Two simple things. It's so crystal clear.
And I think that like it benefits greatly from it.

Speaker 3 Like, I think that sometimes on paper, you're like, I mean, all they did was raid that and then they just rode away and they got attacked. But you can really,

Speaker 3 I mean, you can really get so many miles out of something that's just so simple. And I think, like, it didn't overstate its welcome.
The characters

Speaker 3 just like we got to, we, we knew enough about them to be invested, and then they were taken away from us. And, you know, I mean, it's like, just really fun.
I mean, like, it was, it was great.

Speaker 3 I mean, I'd love to read another one of his stuff sometime.

Speaker 2 I think it was awesome.

Speaker 3 Especially, I like this format of the entries. That's always fun.

Speaker 3 You know, I always like to, we read some stories to have like the kind of like little entry points, but I like a lot this would also by the way

Speaker 2 Not to not to take away from Trevor's writing. This would also not be allowed on r slash no sleeve Really? Because it didn't happen to the author.
Mmm. It didn't happen to the person posting it.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 3 So it's just some of my phone.

Speaker 3 Bye-bye.

Speaker 2 Bye-bye. Wrong.
I don't think.

Speaker 2 Unless you open with the beginning, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah, you open the beginning with,

Speaker 2 hey guys, so I'm posting this thing I found. Also, I think there's an indestructible pedophile in the closet.

Speaker 3 Banned.

Speaker 3 Thank you so much to our audio listeners over on Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Thank you guys for giving us the good ratings there.

Speaker 3 Also, thank you to our patrons who support us and get a little extra juicy content on the side. And thank you to the author who decided, Trevor, who decided to upload this to our

Speaker 2 Creepcast subregion. Link will be in the description.

Speaker 3 Link will be in the description. But please, guys, be creative.

Speaker 3 Post this stuff on there. Like their community's been reading more stuff, been commenting on stuff.
If you want an excuse to just dive in, not everything's going to be a fucking home run.

Speaker 3 Sometimes you got to like make some shit before you make some stuff that you're really proud of. It's all about the process and having fun.

Speaker 3 Even if people are like, this sucks, that's fine.

Speaker 2 It's okay.

Speaker 3 So just know, post it, have a good time. We thank you.
And we will see you in the next one.

Speaker 2 Bye-bye. See you in the next one.
And also, I think this story

Speaker 2 makes up for what Harry did to us with the brick story. So he's back on neutral grounds with that.

Speaker 2 Don't get too excited. Bye.