Bear Grease - Ep. 61: Bear Grease [Render] - Near Death on a Tractor, Black Panthers, and the Brutality of the Middle Ground

Episode Date: July 6, 2022

Clay and the crew are joined by Zach Newcomb, mental health professional and real life brother to Clay.  After a rousing version of “I Saw the Light” the gang discusses the finer points of seasoning gravy, larger than life black panther busts and near misses with heavy machinery before jumping into the most recent episode of Bear Grease about Lewis Wetzel. You’ll want to stay tuned til the end to hear Brent Reaves recite a rhymed verse recounting the life and times of one of American History’s most brutal and bloody characters. Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware Gear at firstlight.com. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called the Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual Bear Grease podcast. Presented by FHF Gear, American made, purpose-built, hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. We got it, we got it.

He's playing the Dutch oven. I wondered so aimless and a life filled with sin. I wouldn't let my dear savior end. And Jesus came out like a stranger in the night. Praise the Lord. I saw the light. I saw the light. I saw the light.

No more darkness. No more. more night. Now I'm so happy no sorrow inside. Praise the Lord, I saw the light. That's right. Sing with me. Just like a blind man, I wandered along, worries and fears I claimed for my own. Didn't like a blind man that God gave back aside. Praise the Lord, I saw the love. I saw the light. I saw the light. I saw the likeness. No more night. Now I'm so happy, no sorrow inside. Praise the Lord. I saw the line. Excellent. Finally nailed it. Nailed it. Josh Spilmaker on the lodge, cast iron Dutch oven. Welcome to the bare grease rendered. Great to have everyone here.

on the Bear Grees Render. We've got a great lineup for you today. To my left, I have Misty Newcomb. Hello. It was accompanied me on the banjo. To Misty's left, we have Brent Reeves. Brent, great to see you. You put too much salt in the gravy.

I don't know if that's possible. Yeah, we just, okay, we just made a big, huge, like, 12-man. Football team. Skillet size. We figured we could have fed 12 men an average helping a gravy, which is about a quarter. Brent says too much salt. I wasn't going to say this, but last time Brent cooked me gravy, I didn't think it had enough salt. I have to say I saw that video.

Yeah. And I don't remember you putting salt in the video. Because he didn't. Ooh, Brent. Well, no. You basically made paper mache. No, everybody puts the right amount of salt, their own salt. Because you can always put salt in.

I'm 100% with Brent on this. But you can't take it out. I'm 100%. Because Clay Newcomb likes an enormous amount of salt. salt. And for me, it's like a little bit too much. See, my Alexis was here. I'm with Prince. Too much salt. Like if you eat too much salt, what are, what are the symptoms of that? Like, high blood pressure. Okay. I have. I have. I have, I have incredible blood pressure. I have great blood pressure. Clay also has had multiple nights in the last year where he couldn't sleep because he had consumed so much salt.

Well, how do you? That is, you don't know that. That would be a slight exaggeration. We need to hear more about this. Okay. Oh, I'll tell you. So how many times did I say? Twice I ate salt. Twice this year. Twice. No, not this year. It hadn't even happened this year.

Twice in the last three years, I've eaten salt pork. Where do you, where does one procure salt pork? At the right grocery store. Petty Jean Meets. Thank you very much. That's exactly right. Salt pork is incredible stuff. It is incredible stuff.

But man, it will send you through the roof. Better than coffee. But I don't know. For real. I couldn't sleep. I told Brent, I called Brent after I ate salt pork one time. And I said, I woke up three times last night and drank out of the bathroom faucet. He literally did.

You know you're thirsty when you go in the bathroom. So, anyway, but I don't eat that much salt that often. So Brent Reeves, I respect your gravy, your gravy stuff. I'm with Josh, so I like a little salt. I like my salt cooked into the case. Alexis was here, and she doesn't put salt in anything. She was some Texas and she's crazy. But that's just the way it is.

And if mama don't want salt in there, Daddy don't put it in. No, that's not a Texas thing. That's like a... That's an Alexis thing. That's like a girl from Tyler, Texas. It's never put her foot in the grass before. That's her. That's my girl.

Yeah. Great lady. A really great person. She is. Not much of a tomato farmer or salt eater. No, she'll kill a. To Brent's left. Isaac Neal, assistant producer of bear grease.

It's big. Wow. It's big. too, though. Yeah, we always introduce him like that. I mean, he is. I mean, Isaac worked a lot together on bear grease. Every day.

I've been sowing the seeds of getting a promotion by promoting you. How's that going to work? I want you to be bumped up to executive producer so then I can be the producer. Oh, that's a good idea. Resin Tide Flutes all ships. I think we pretty much make up our own titles around here, so we can do what we want. He needs to really apply him, so. Yeah, I'm hoping in the next five years I can get promoted to producer.

I think you're there. So our really special guest, this week, though, to the left of Isaac is my brother, Zach Newcomb. Hey, everybody. So, Zach, yeah, y'all didn't know I had a brother, did you? Until the last podcast.

You have a brother? Zach, I have a brother? Is this your first time on the Bear Grease podcast? Ed the Render. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. Because I think that you've got some bones to pick with Clay. Do I? I probably have many bones to pick.

You're going to have to be more specific. You got mad at me about something. You got one of the, and you said, Oh, did I get mad at? Because Clay said he's the only one of the Newcomb brothers who made it through the Gary. Let me just pour some salt in the moon. Speaking of salt.

Exactly. We may have to have to talk after this. And you're the only one who doesn't know it. Actually, Clay has multiple talks after the podcast. You can have him first, Misty. I'll take him next. No, yeah, yeah. I said I was the only Newcomb boy who graduated from the Gary Newcomb School of Hunting Hard Knocks.

And that wasn't the bear grease, though. That was the previous podcast. I remember you said, Clay, you said that as if me and Tyler failed. And you said, me and Tyler never were in the school. We never wanted to enroll. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have some memory. But Zach was a feature guest on this last Wetzel Deathwind podcast.

What's it like to be a feature guest on the Barakrys podcast? I've always wondered. Josh wouldn't know. Josh, one of these days, maybe, one of these days. So, Zach, what are your credentials inside the mental health field? So I'm a clinical social worker. I've been, and right now I'm in private practice. So I have my own office in northwest Arkansas where I, you know, do individual therapies, see people

with trauma and depression and anxiety, see multiple ages. How long have you been doing that? I've been doing that since. 20 years, probably. Well, not in private practice. I was a clinical director for a bit. I've worked at some group homes. And then, yeah, yeah, in private practice.

Done a lot of in-home work with families. Have you diagnosed of the Frontiersmen from the middle ground? Frontiersman from the middle grounds? Yeah. What they call the middle ground. I have not. Okay. That was a trick question.

I've got a, oh yeah, yeah, because you can't diagnose someone who's not in person. I have a more pressing question. Okay. What if a frontiersman from the middle ground walked into his office today? What would they be diagnosed with? I mean, who knows? Yeah, be fair game. No, no.

I mean, like, I'm not saying they time traveled. I'm just saying some dude shows up wearing buckskins, scalps on his belt. I mean. What do you start talking? I'm going to first look at the condition of the skin, thinking maybe zombie at first. Yeah. I want to rules that out. And then from there, it's on.

I don't know. We're going to do lots of scans and tests. Yeah. So we're going to come back to Zach's left to finalize introductions, Josh Langebridge, Spillmaker. Great to see you, Josh. Fly Fisherman, deck builder, you name it. Josh has been helping to build a deck. It's true.

Hey, so all this, all the, I've been doing a fair bit of construction as of late building a deck, and we're getting ready for a few things. And I told the story earlier today to Brent and Isaac that I had not remembered in a long time. It had almost been a race from my memory. When I first started a landscape company, circa 2005, something like that, I had a 16-foot trailer, I had a truck, like a three-quarter tonne short cab Chevrolet truck. And I had a cabot a tractor, small cabotor tractor. Well, the area I was working in Fayetteville, Arkansas area, is really hilly.

And there's a lot of people building on these pretty steep slopes and different things. Well, this is something that you learn when you're around heavy equipment. You learn it real quick. But I had never worked with anybody else, so no one had taught me this, which I proceeded to teach everyone after me this. So I backed my trailer down there driveway because when you got down there, it was like real tight and you couldn't turn around. There was just a little section of concrete.

And it was like gravel and then concrete. And I'd backed my trailer down in there to unload all the stuff and whatnot. Well, it came time to leave, finish the job, and I'm pulling the tractor into the trailer. And my truck is on the gravel. My trailer is on the concrete. And my truck is, like, pointed uphill pretty severely. 12 feet behind the tailgate of my trailer is a very steep drop-off that just goes down the mountain, trees. And it was kind of like built up red dirt where they built the concrete pad.

and then it just dove off down the mountain. Well, I go down there and square up the tractor to the tailgate of the trailer and start driving onto the trailer. Well, I didn't have any little legs on the back of my trailer, so when the weight of the tractor was on the back of the trailer, the hitch of the trailer lifts and pulls the weight. You know, the ball is attached to the truck. So it lifts the back tires of the truck essentially off the ground almost.

And I'm like halfway on the trailer. As soon as my wheels get onto the tailgate, the truck and trailer just starts coming back. Just sliding down the hill. The gravel's popping, and the truck, trailer, tractor, and me are all gaining speed going down the hill. And Bob's led to the ER. I was petrified. I was by myself there. I jumped off the trailer onto the ground.

The trailer and truck are still sliding. I run and jump into the moving truck. and jam the brakes, which doesn't do any good because all the weights still, like, there's no weight on the back of the truck. The weight of the tractor is pulling me down. And finally, after just cramming on the brakes, it skids. And basically the trailer gets hung up hanging out over the edge. And my tractor is like dangling over, like this big drop off. And I can't move.

Like I start, you know, I put it in park, and then I started to take my foot off the brake, and it starts going again. And so I had a cell phone. I was in cell range. And so I call a wrecker and I say, man, if I get out of my truck or take my foot off the break, I'm going over a ledge. How quick can you get here? And they were like, well, we can be there in probably about 30 minutes. Don't get in a hurry.

I know. They're always so calm and cool. And I was like, well, I'll be right here. I won't be going anywhere. And I sat in my truck until the wrecker came and I stuck my head out of the window and was like, I ain't getting out of this truck. I'm not taking my foot off this break. just hook me up and get me out of here.

And so he did. He was able to... How long did it take him? You know, I really don't even remember... It was a non-dramatic rescue once he got there. He just was pretty quickly able to hook on and just pulled me out. So all that to say... All that to say what?

Yeah, what's the point of the story? That's what Merrick curiosity is going to do. The point of the story was that... If Wetzel would have been there. This was just an exciting story. that came up in my memory bank today with Brent and Isaac. Isaac, it was totally relevant, wasn't it? Absolutely. Yeah. I'm right there with you. What a yes, man. He just wants a promotion. I do have something I want to show you guys. You may have seen this on Instagram.

Isaac and I were traveling through, where were we, Isaac? We were in Illinois. We were in Illinois, and we walk into a Native American gift shop. And it was no ordinary Native American gift shop. It was a, I mean, huge log cabin building, very nice. It's a land of wonder. He was a wonderful diversity of products. Yeah. Authentic stuff. Buffalo hides, animal hides, stone points, shirts, art, $6 sunglasses.

I bought a nice pair of $6 sunglasses. And then I saw this on the back wall. And if that is not a black panther, I mean, I would say real black panthers, probably their heads aren't this big. I wish they were. And note that I said, real Black Panthers. Because there is such a thing.

They might be. But that is a, I mean, that's art. How much you give for that, bad boy? Probably more than them is worth. But I didn't care. I told Isaac, I said, I don't care what it costs. I'm buying. Steal it twice the price.

But I haven't figured out where to put it yet, though. I'm curious to know what made it a Native American gift shop. Yeah. That is how they build themselves. There were billboards. That said so. Yes. That's what it was called.

I mean, like Native American gift shop, next exit turned right. Okay. And they also did wholesale. Yeah. I did like a bat turn on the interstate. Yeah. And it was. Well,

it was worth it. The lady was exceptionally nice. And when I walked up there with this, I figured she would be like, who are you? Yeah. Who would buy this? She acted like they sell these, like every other person that walks in there. Yeah. She's got three in her home.

I mean, it's a nice looking. No, I don't know. That was the vibe that you guys. That is a beautiful camp. I'm telling you what this. She was just like, I was going to look so nice. Did she for real say that?

She was excited that we bought this. And she wanted to sell me another one. I'm sure she was excited. Have you been there for 10 years? She's like, it's a miracle. They probably have a bet going back in the break room. I'm just kind of going through a little checklist. Okay, I don't make it a point to read too many of the iTunes reviews.

Okay. I do because there's some really good one. I have a gentleman who brought into question me saying that the Washtal Mountains were the only mountains between the Appalachians and the Rockies that run east and west. And he, I mean, I hope this guy's listening and I hope he doesn't think I'm being rude to him. But he had a little bit of a chip on his shoulder when he was like, Clay, he might want to do some fact checking. He's a little sassy. He was a little sassy. There was sass.

There was some sass in it. There was sass. And I don't want to make this a thing where because I'm the guy with the microphone, I make the guy without the microphone look stupid. Right. But that's going to be hard to do here. He's just wrong. There's so many more diplomatic ways to do that. He challenged me on this thing.

The moral of the story is don't challenge the man with the microphone. On iTunes reviews. That's a general rule of life. I appreciated his desire for engagement. He's clearly invested in the bare grease universe. Of what was said. Because the Ozarks ran east and west too, which, granted, there are ridges and mountains in the Ozarks that do run east and west.

But that does not make them a mountain range that runs east and west. The Ozarks are completely jumbled. The Ozarks were formed by erosion. So there was a plateau. I mean, I go through this like, this podcast ought to be called how the erogene of the Ozark and Washington Mountains, because I go through it about every other podcast. Also at our dinner table. When the South American continent bumped into the North American continent, there was a bulge. The Ozark Plateau bulged.

And that was in the north it bulged. And that plateau eroded randomly. And so there's ridges that run east and west, north and south, southwest, northwest, northwest, any direction you want. Stay with me, Josh. Boring. Soapbox much. Okay. And the Washatals were formed.

They were closer to the impact. And they actually buckled. And the Washtal Mountains looked like the furrows of a plowman's field, that long east-west ridge. What's the elevation that requires that means it's a mountain? Oh, I do not believe there is an actual elevation that makes something a mountain. I think that, yeah. Aren't you an environmental soil science, maybe? Don't feed that.

Shouldn't you be able to tell us this? No, I don't think there's anything that makes them a mountain. Are you kidding? Maybe, maybe. I could be wrong. What brought this up is we were looking at a hydrological map of Arkansas earlier today, and it's just so clear that the watchtaws run east and west. It's just like somebody got bored and drew lines across the map there.

Yeah. That is not what the Ozarks looks like. Yeah. As a proud Ozarker, born and bred. Yeah, yeah. Love the Ozarks. Not a... Yeah.

So I don't want to make a big deal about it. Misty has something. Most geologists classify a mountain as a land form that rises at least 1,000 feet, aka 300 meters or above its surrounding areas. Oh, there you go. There you go. So, you know, the highest peaks in Arkansas are about 3,000 feet. Appalachians are much bigger.

Did you know the highest peak in the east of the Mississippi is in southern Appalachia somewhere, and I think it's just under 7,000 feet? That's a high mountain. Yeah, that is. I believe it's, I don't want to say, I'll get more emails. You know, I was pretty... And you'll be wrong that time. I would be wrong.

There's a mountain. I think it's called Mount Mitchell. It was pretty cool. You know, we were in Maui a couple weeks ago. Check what's the biggest mountain in the Appalachian mountain range. We're in Maui a couple weeks ago, and it's weird to sit on the beach, and then we went up to Halea, Kala, if I'm saying that right, National Park. And it's 10,000 25 feet.

Wow. You go from the beach to 10,000, 25 feet. feet. Hey, here's another thing to fact check. I think that might be the tallest mountain in the world from its base. Oh, really? Which is far below the ocean. Yeah. As opposed to Mount Everest, which is the tallest mountain from sea level. Oh, gotcha. That would make sense. I mean, it's, it's, it's impressive. What's the biggest mountain in the Appalachians? Mount Mitchell. What? Score. Are you saying tallest mountain from base in North America? No. Just in the world. I'm putting it out there.

Good job. Just be bold. Yeah, absolutely. Say the name, Josh. Haleakala. Monakia. Okay. That's not sure. That is in Hawaii.

Monikaia? That's a different volcano. I knew it was a Hawaiian mountain because the first time I read that, I thought, no. He was just like, no. Turns out I was wrong. Isaac has a toddler, y'all, so. Isaac is a toddler. This pot.

This podcast, Lewis Wetzel, the Death Wind. What did you think of it? General thoughts. He's a mean rascal. Yeah. He was mean. He didn't strike me as the most psychologically healthy person. Yeah.

There's a lot. You know, I hate to oversimplify this, but I was listening to it again on the way up here. And there was a lot in there, the guy that y'all talked to up in Ohio or Illinois. Yeah, Chip. Chip. Yeah. And he was talking about how people thought, how Native Americans thought of Europeans and how the Europeans thought of the Native Americans thought of the Native Americans thought of the Native of Americans is not being worthy, not being humans, you know, that each had that opinion.

And the only thing I can relate that to is growing up, my grandmother had a pecan tree in the backyard. And I got a nickel for every Blue Jay that I could shoot out of that pecan tree. If I shot a red bird, she would have beat me to half to death. But Blue Jays were fair game because they knocked pecans out of the tree before they got ripe and they would ruin. to this day I sit in my backyard and I got bird feeders out there and we sit out on the patio

in the evenings when it's not so hot and we watch the birds and I love seeing red birds up there but to this day a blue jay flies up in the backyard and I think if I had a BB gun right now

somebody owed me a nickel it was just ingrained to me from a small child Blue jays were bad yeah and there's really nothing that's going to change that no they're beautiful

but my first thought when I see it is he's got to die. Yeah. That's what I think. You know, I don't follow through with it. It's getting dark quick. Pretty dark.

But I mean, you see the correlation. Yeah, yeah, that's a great correlation. That was the only thing. Because it's not really fair. It's like, why is that bird any different than that bird? Exactly. I'd like to point out, and we talked a little bit about this on the phone the other day, but this idea that, like, there was some cognitive dissonance in people.

Like, I think that. they were aware that they were making up excuses to dehumanize these people to justify their actions. A couple examples are there were missionaries to the Native Americans at that point in time. Like, if they're not people, then why are we trying to evangelize to them? And secondly, if there is a context in which killing a Native American is wrong, i.e., the time that he got tried for murder, then you're kind of aware of the humanity of these people anyway. And so I think that's part of what makes this story stand out and carry through to be like, man, even in a time when people were like doing something that on one level they knew was wrong.

I mean, really, effectively what was happening was like, I know it's wrong to kill other human beings, but I really want this land and they're standing in the way. That like full stop. But like a lot of people did a lot of justifying in the middle of it, which is not to assuage all the actions that Native Americans took in retaliation. But it is to say that like they were aware of the humanity. It was just something that they had convinced themselves of in a certain context. this is okay, this is appropriate.

You went too far. Yeah. And that, what happened here in North America has not been uncommon to planet Earth at all. Oh, no. I mean, it's still happening to this day in some places. And it's, yeah, it's the problem of humanity. I could just imagine the justification that was given for, you know, and I think people had to have turned blind eye to what he was doing just you know that's just him because there were people who were

not that way for instance daniel boon he mentioned daniel boon yeah who had a completely different standard in the way that he interacted with people but man there there's there's there's people out there i mean you run into it and zach probably sees it as much as anybody but just that there's a there's a thing inside of them that drives them to it's almost a it's almost an insane of to do this thing no matter what the cost. And he just had this mindset to... I don't even know if it was like... It's not that he wanted to murder.

He wanted to eradicate Indians, you know, whatever the cost. Wetzel, he defined the perimeter of what was acceptable to white culture during that time. I mean, this American culture during that time. because some people thought he was over the line, other people didn't. And in an hour-long podcast, I really didn't have time to even tell the whole story. He became somewhat of an anti-government hero to the people on the frontier who were having trouble with Native Americans, and the government would come in and try to stop them and wouldn't be able to. And they would be like, well, if Lewis Wetzel was here, he could stop him.

and he was actually more efficient as a guerrilla warfare guy than even the government. And so he all of a sudden is brought to this position of even more esteem inside these communities, you know. And I can't get past, and again, this is not, I said it on the podcast, and this is not a justification. Like I said, I'm not trying to justify. I'm just trying to make sense of how stuff like this could happen. and man if you lived on the frontier these Indian hunters these Indian scouts would be people that the vast majority of culture deeply respected and I want to say something else too is that there's this idea that that you know white Europeans came and took the land from these Native

Americans there were generations when when Europeans first got here where literally they've left their home in Europe came here and then would have tried to take land from Native Americans to live. And there was a time when Native Americans were saying, yeah, come on over here. But then there are people that are born here very quickly. And they wake up and they're like, well, we've got to have a place to live. And so they start trying to acquire lands and whatnot.

And very quickly you get people who are born here, who are native people to this continent. Now, their parents weren't, their grandparents were. And it kind of takes, to me, it's different than just like somebody coming and trying to take someone's land. And even the Native American chiefs told Ticumsa that when Ticumsa went to, Tecumse tried to build this pan-Indian federation. Basically, Ticumse went to all the tribes and tried to say, hey, we can push all the white people back to Europe. That's a simple version of Ticumse's life.

and many of the Native American leaders said, where are they going to go? It's like, these aren't the people that came here. Do you see what I'm saying? A little bit? I get what you're saying. I think this gets at another thing that we talked about on the phone, and this is like a regret that I have about this episode,

is until listening to it, I didn't even think you had tasked me with finding somebody to interview on this. And when I was listening to it, I was like, there is not a native voice present in this. And this is a story that is wholly dependent on a native voice. Not wholly dependent. Yeah, yeah. Half of the story is about him killing Native Americans, right? And so, like, I would just love to hear the other perspective on that.

Because for me, very easy to empathize with what you just said. And then I go, like, what's the other side of the story, right? Because there is in a conflict, two sides of the story. And the victor often gets to write the history. Yeah, and that's true. And beyond that, I think that we are guilty of like a little bit of essentialization in terms of humanity when we're trying to tell stories. And so it's like there was so much going on where no one is a monolith. There were people who were pretty comfortable with this.

And then there was other dynamics going on, like the idea where Eastern tribes had already been pushed west. And so it's not like all Native American tribes were hunky dory and pushing towards one goal. like they were fighting for resources and space within that and fighting with this thing that was external white colonizers and I don't know it's just like I don't know that there is an answer I don't know if you can sum it up and there's no possible way that Native Americans didn't I mean it was essentially genocide and I mean like all the terrible descriptors that we know which and I guess my point in seeing the way people handled guys like well Wetzel is that it was a little bit more like a frog in boiling water. Like the, this thing took place over the course of really 500 years. Yeah. From the time the first white Europeans went inland into the,

into what's now the United States and spread smallpox and, you know, as much as 80, 90% of Native Americans died from disease to all the time, all the way up to Wetzel, which is pretty late history. I mean, like, Wetzel died in 1808. Honestly, that's like not that long ago.

Closer to last than boots on the ground for the first time for white European settlers. Exactly. So it was just this long period. And it was a war. Like Zach said, like Ronella said, this was a war zone.

Zach, what did you think? Yeah. I mean, I enjoyed the podcast. Clay, good job. Right on.

You know what? I had never heard Wetzel's story before, obviously. I had, you and I had some conversations before. So, yeah, you actually never, you didn't listen to the podcast before, you just heard me tell you stuff. Yeah, you and I talked for 10 minutes, you know, before that podcast and you shot me that song. Yeah, listen to the ballad of Lewis.

Yeah, very informative ballot of Lewis. For making a diagnosis. Yeah. Can you determine whether or not he's a psychopath based on this ballot? You know, I mean, I think that, I mean, I agree with what Isaac said and that, I mean, there's not really a good answer there, right? I mean, this was an awful situation. And to me, what I see is that, like, when I look at this, it's like, I mean, you throw, it's almost like cooking a good stew, Misty, right?

You know, you throw a bunch of ingredients in and this is what you get, right? I mean, so, I mean, if you got this war zone happening, you've got, you know, probably, I mean, a lot of unethical stuff happening across the board, right? You've got these people on the border. You've got this one guy with this crazy trauma. and when you throw humans into certain environments and they've got certain genetic tendencies, things pop up, right?

And Wetzel is one of those dynamics that pops up. And you could probably find, I mean, you mentioned too, you can go back all across history, you can go to Nazi Germany, you can go to genocides and all over the place. There's stuff happening now that you could find, my guess is you could find a very similar story to Wetzel's for that context, right?

Yeah. You can find somebody who, you know, extreme trauma really laid against a certain population or people or people group, right? Yeah. And if they've got certain tendencies, then that's what it's going to create, right? And so, you know, it's a sad story. I totally agree. I mean, I had the same thought Isaac did about it would have been interesting to have a Native American

voice in there. I apologize. I mean, especially if you could have found somebody who knew Wetzel's story. Yeah. Right? And honestly, we had a hard time finding anybody that knew the story. Because Wetzel was such a periphery character. Like he didn't, he wasn't a boon that really influenced American identity.

He wasn't a Davy Crockett. He wasn't a war hero. He was just, I mean, he was known literally just for what we told about, like killing. So he's not, there's not many people that we couldn't find an academic expert that said, raise my hand. I am the expert on this guy. It was just all these little hodgepodge stories from different people. And then we found Chip. Chip Gross.

Chip's our guy. What a guy. Incredible. So those are my general. I mean, I mean, it was an awful story. I mean, I didn't know. Even when we spoke, I didn't know he had a brother. And so, well, I guess I knew because he got, but I didn't know his brother had the aggressive

tendencies as well. All his brothers were heavily involved and just pretty rough stuff with Native American. And so it's just a rough story. And it just shows, I mean, what people can become in the right environment, right? And in the right, I mean, you know, there's a little bit of genetics involved and there's, yeah, the wrong environment. But, you know, how the environment shape us and form us and change us. And I'm not saying that, I mean, even in the podcast, I think one of the guys that, was interviewed. It's not an excuse necessarily, right? Sure. I mean, like Wetzel had choices.

Right. He had choices. He could have, he could have done, he could have been different. But, yeah, it's an awful story. I mean, it's one that you go back and, I mean, I think you mentioned the podcast too, where's the redemption in this? And it's, it's a little bit tough to find, other than it makes me thankful for where I'm at. Yeah. Right. I mean, it makes me thankful for the context and where I'm at and the culture that we live in. Because even now in 2022, there are places that are more similar to that environment that Wetzel was in than the environment that we live. Yeah.

And so, yeah, those are my musings on it. On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed and there was a full of blood. Oh my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce,

and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper, from cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkly. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest.

Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. What'd you think, Misty? Well, I think the part where you said that it would have been hard for women not to pay attention to a man when he locks down to his knees. I was just speculating.

I'm driving down the car listening to it alone in the car, and I'm listening, and you say that. And I say out loud in the car, that's my husband. It just said that. I laughed out loud. It would have been very striking to see a dude with black hair down to his ankle. It's all through the literature. I'm just the messenger, man. All through the literature, it said that he was, he never gave any attention to the ladies,

but the ladies gave him attention. Oh, and they did say that. Yeah. Dude was running through the woods on a killer spray. He looked like Crystal Gale. I think he ever tripped over it? He's too fast. I mean, he had to have it contained somehow.

For him to do what he did, he had to have it contained. What does plated mean? Plated hair? Plated. It's braided. That means that's a braided. Okay, well, he wore it braided all the time. Clay, you didn't mention in the podcast that in our conversation, I thought was real interesting,

was that he was very isolated, right? Like, I mean, you said that he wasn't interested in the ladies. Yeah. I don't think I hit on that enough. I mean, I don't remember you talking about it at all. Maybe you did, and I missed it. It was in one of the reading was it. I didn't pick up on that.

Yeah, but you're right. I didn't say it. I mean, because to me, that was like, so if he walked, if Lettsville walks into my office, that's one of the things that I think I, I don't think I, I don't think that made it to the podcast where I, where I kind of laid out some of the things I would necessarily look for. But that would have been one that's kind of interesting to me. Does he have the capacity to build relationships? Yeah, yeah.

Well, like what's going on there? I mean, that could be a result of the PTSD that he suffered from or it could be other thing. I mean, the fact that he was so obsessed that he took that vow so seriously to me is another thing. to me is another thing I would want to. So if he comes into my office, I'm going to look at how he isolates and how he has relationships. I'm going to look at that obsession that he had.

You're going to look at the trauma. I'm going to look at the context. Not just that he took it so seriously, but also the idea of a 13-year-old boy making a vow, based on that experience. Not saying it would be fun to be kidnapped by Indians. But there was a lot of people

who had that experience and that didn't ignite that. Yeah. It would have been interesting to be inside of their home to see how their dad, John Wetzel, just kind of who he was because all those boys just had no conscience. Yeah. And so he must have been somehow been. Yeah. I mean, he clearly would have. I definitely don't think that John Wetzel was father of the year.

Yeah. I think we can, I mean, we may be slow to diagnose, but I'm just saying. Okay, there was an interesting fact that. So John Wetzel dies when Lewis Wetzel is. 26, his dad, presumably, was, you know, in his 40s or 50s when he died. So Wetzel's mother remarries

a guy in town. So she moves back into town. When Wetzel, when who's 46? The dad is 46? I mean, Lewis Wetzel, the man we're talking about, was like in his early 20s when his father was killed. Okay. So his mother became a widow. Okay. And his, the widow remarried. A city slicker. Yeah.

And Lewis Wetzel never liked the guy. Never forgave his mom for being married. No. Now, there was, there was, there's just so many stories that are so hard to tell. Once Lewis Wetzel witnessed a, okay, let me back up. Louis Wetzel only one time was noted to have killed a Native American woman. and the way that this happened was is that they did a raid

they were attacked by Native Americans, bushwhacked. And I almost want to think it was when John Wetzel and George Wetzel got killed his brother and father. Well, the other brothers go and chase down the Indians that did this and engage with them and kill the men and they had a woman with them. And they just were like,

go on your way. Like they, they didn't kill women. And this woman followed Wetzel and tried to, basically, she wanted to be his wife. And she followed him around.

And like, he just kept, like, shewing her off. And this went on for, like, days. Just,

what, this, just like woman in town? Or this woman that was related to the southern? This woman in the wilderness that Wetzel had just killed her people.

Gotcha. And that would have been a thing inside of, That would be like a cultural. Yeah, like, like, like, like, like, like, take me. Like, if my people are dead, take me. Yeah.

And he ended up killing that girl. Really? Yeah, just because she wouldn't leave me alone. She wouldn't leave me alone. Wild stuff. Yeah. Another time, Wetzel witnessed a, he was walking through the woods around an Indian camp and he's found an Indian baby laying on the ground.

Like, okay baby. I mean, a living baby. I'm only telling these stories just as it's like we Clay Newcomb cannot fathom the brutality of that period and the things that he would have seen. And he, as the story went, basically he like picks up this Indian baby and he wasn't going to kill it. Like he wasn't interested in killing a baby. And a squaw comes running out and says, ah, it's my baby, that's my baby. And so he gives the baby to the woman and the woman proceeds to kill the baby. in front of him and then another squaw comes running out saying oh that was my baby and this

other squaw killed this other lady's baby I mean just brutality nonstop brutality where these stories come from man there's a lot of lot there okay they did not have video cameras podcast what photographs where's the YouTube channel but they did have a lot of people they had a lot of people that were interested in documenting stuff. Like, for instance, a fair number of the stories that we have about Lewis Wetzel came from a man named Lyman Draper, who is probably the most reliable source of the frontiersman during that time period.

Lyman Draper was like, you know, Geraldo Rivera. Mr. Draper? I don't know. But Lyman Draper, if Lyman Draper said it, it doesn't mean necessarily that it's true, but it means that he recorded it true to what was told him. Right. And I'm not saying Draper recorded that specific instance, but some of the stuff...

A lot of the stuff is recorded by him. Draper recorded, but just... And some of it probably is just a lie. There was another part of the podcast that I could not tell. I mean, really, the podcast could have been two hours long. Well, did I tell the story about the thunderstorm dream? That doesn't sound familiar. See, this is a story that you totally have to take with a grain of salt.

Because, I mean, who knows if it happened? Louis Wetzel is the only one. Who knows if someone made it up and told it about him? But the story's so specific. It's hard to fathom someone just making it up because it was just, I'll tell you the story. Louis Wetzel was being pursued by Native Americans. He had done something to him and they were after him. Probably killed some of them.

So it was Tuesday. So it's Tuesday. It got dark and a big thunderstorm came and he knew where there was an old abandoned cabin. And so he's like, well, I'll go stay in that abandoned cabin tonight. So he goes in the cabin and rather than just sleeping on the floor, he, and this is where a backwoodsman just earns his salt is he said, I'm not going to sleep down here in the floor. I'm going to sleep up in the rafters just in case somebody comes in. And so he's asleep. He needs the salt to put in the grave.

He's asleep in the rafters. And it starts thundering in a couple hours after dark. He hears the door creak open. And here comes three or four Native Americans that are tracking him. And they had the same idea as him. It's thundering, storming. We'll go stay in that old cabin. And so Louis Wetzel is hanging in the rafters.

It's like a horror movie. And they come in and they start a fire and they start talking. and he can speak Delaware and Shawnee and multiple languages. And so he knew what they were saying. And he tells the story that one of them said, I had a dream last night. And he said, this Native American said that he dreamed of white-cheeked squaws with rosy red cheeks like buffalo blood and eyes as black as coal.

And it was just such a rancid. You can envision a guy sitting around the fire just saying, man, I had a dream about, you know, what in his culture was beauty and this, and, you know, longing to be home probably. And it was just so specific. And then they spent the whole night there. And then the next morning they leave. And then Wetzel goes out and ends up killing one of them. He didn't kill him then. That's what I was expecting.

Well, he was outnumbered inside of a cabin, and he just, I guess, knew he couldn't. How about that dude didn't sleep a wink? Yeah, no kidding. But do you see what I'm saying? Like, that story, there's only one place that could have come from. No one else was there with him. Wethel told that story to someone.

And how many times it came around. All I know is that I read that story one time, and I will always remember white-faced squalls. That's what he said. That's what white-faced squalls was. cheeks as rosy red, it's buffalo blood, and they may not have said cold, all gone it, now that I'm saying it, I'm beginning to question myself. Luckily for me, I have the book right here.

I don't think many people are going to fact-checking on this. Yeah, I'm thinking about how could we? You're one of a dozen people who have purchased that book in the last 50 years. Yeah, there is so little information about Louis Wetzel. Yeah, I mean. Oh, yeah. That's why Steve wanted you to look it up. That's right.

He's like, I'm not pouring through it. Yeah. While you look that up, I thought an interesting perspective was Steve talking about how sort of the game of telephone of telling stories. Yeah. And I thought specifically of the turkey stories, how like I can conceive of a few guys sitting around talking about like, oh, here's the story of Lewis Wetzel. And then another guy goes, oh, that reminds me of another crazy Indian killing turkey story. And then a third guy sitting there goes, all right, two stories for Lewis Wetzel, you know, and goes, right. You know, it's just very easy for that to transmutate.

I want to know how that guy, how he left turkey tracks and didn't leave his own track. Like patches of snow. Had the same thought. I didn't describe it. It was, it was, I said snow bank. Yeah. But it was, it was a patch of snow. So he'd just walk around it and.

Well, now, I've done that to my brother before turkey season. Good thing you didn't get killed. A turkey from the year before. In the mud. We don't have snow. Did I say snow? I didn't mean snow. You said, okay.

in the dirt, I was like, man, there was like one turkey goblin, and I didn't want him where I was at, so I went to where he was at where he wasn't here and one, and I made some cobbler tracks in the road. I knew he'd find him, and he's like, man, this turkey will not gobble. I'm like, man, just hang in there. He's in there somewhere. Let me read you a little bit of something that also relates to us not knowing about Wetzel, and here's a key reason we don't know about Wetzel. The long-haired husk, scout played on sensing no danger. He's 26 at the time of athletic build, especially muscular in arms and shoulders.

His carefully braided, hair knotted around his shoulders when combed out would reach nearly to the calves of his legs. He was on the tall order, small head, black eyes, piercing the extreme, a long spare face, high cheekbones, a swarthy complexion, occasioned in a great measure by his exposure to the sun and very much pitted by smallpox. So he had kind of like acne looking, you know, kind of like. And his ears bored and he wore silk tassels them in them at times and some other ornament. So he had big pierced ears too, which I just didn't say that.

Very attractive. So is the guy with gauges in his ear. It'd be hard to look away. Active on his feet. His legs were well proportions. Feet on the small order. A penetrating mind, mind, sound judgment in regard to Indian encounters. and a plan once laid nothing could deter him from putting it into execution.

Smart and active in all his movements and noted marksman. He could shoot and aim well, a strong constitution, and is blessed with remarkably good health. No education, not capable of keeping his own journey, which is a great pity. He could not even write his name. So he couldn't even write his name. We know a lot about Boone.

We know a lot about these guys because a lot of them wrote letters to their families. They wrote about what they were doing. Yeah, Gersh Stager went and wrote a book. All these guys wrote. Davy Crockett wrote his own autobiography, you know, and not too long after this guy. So this guy just had literally had zero education. Yeah, he sounds like a Marvel character.

It's interesting to me how they, I think back before you had pictures and videos, people paid a lot of attention to stuff. High cheekbones. They all, yeah, complexions. Small feet. Yeah. Well proportioned legs.

People talk about Brent like that. Yeah. What would you, what would we say about Brent? Let's go around the room. Overalls. Overalls. Well proportioned legs, small feet. Do we actually have to do it?

Dude, one of the things in that description, though, that stuck out to me is in this idea of like, it's difficult when you try and, essentialize situations, but that is a human predilection to essentialize things. And I think that's why characters like this stick around is because he's very easy to essentialize. Like he has the singleness of purpose, which is, I will kill all Indians. And galvanizing personalities oftentimes have that like singleness of whatever it is. Like I can just, this is it. This is it. Let me, You know, like, Tecumseh in a good way was pan-Indian unification, pan-Indian unification. And so it's like very easy to tell those stories. It happens to be in Lewis Wetzel's case that it's a pretty abhorrent trait.

But it's interesting when I look at people who have that singleness of purpose, it's really interesting to me because I don't possess that at all. So luckily, for you guys, I found the quote about the thunderstorm dream. I love dreams. man. This is what he said. This is what Wetzel said that he said. I had a dream last night, ventured one of the Indians. I dreamed I was

in the happy hunting ground, and my lodge filled with white-faced squalls, each with cold black eyes, and cheeks as red as bison's blood. Good, grunted the other. I, too, dreamed that a snake

stung me on the hill, and it turned to a coal of fire, and when I tramped it and I had to put my foot in the flame in my sleep. Ugh! They bound themselves closed, rocked to and fro, and then we're asleep. Louis Wetzel. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

No dream. Annie got killed. I had a dream. I was going to have a splitting headache. It is hard to wrap your mind around it. It really is hard. The brutality. Yeah.

And, you know, yeah, it's, we don't know what that's like. We have no concept. And I think that's, I think, I think in societies like ours, that's one of the things that makes it so tough for soldiers to come home is that it's so vastly different. The lines are so blurred in a time of crisis like that. And then to come home and to try to live a completely different life, it's got to really mess with your psyche. Yeah. Zach, tell us about PTSD. So Zach gave me a description of PTSD on our interview,

and I wasn't able to include the whole thing. Like what would be some of the ways that you would get that? So PTSD would be when you go through basically a life-threatening circumstance, right? Your body, like you go through some kind of life-threatening circumstance, some kind of trauma. So, you know, it could be wartime stuff. It can be like a car accident you're in, where it's very traumatic. It can be abuse as a child. And when I say life-threatening, I mean, that's like the technical kind of component to that.

But it really, any kind of trauma you go through that, and basically your mind can't, it happens so fast, it's so aggressive, it's so outside of the realm of normal that your mind really can't process it, right? So the trauma just kind of gets stuck, just kind of get stuck. And so you'll see, so with, you know, I mean, it's real common and very widely known now. So like when the military guys come back, you have a lot of flashbacks where they just feel like they're back in a wartime setting where, you know, maybe there's a loud noise outside and they, for 30 seconds, they go back to some kind of wartime scenario. You have, I mean, I've had clients that have had hallucinations due to it. Especially like childhood chronic trauma, right? When I say chronic or complex. So when I say chronic, I mean, over a long period of time, so like multiple traumas over a long period of time or complex.

meaning like different types, right? So you had maybe, you know, multiple types of abuse by different people and this kind of that kind of compounded on itself. So, you know, it ruins lives. It ruins lives. And it's really those with complex, complex trauma and chronic trauma. I mean, it is a lifelong battle that they're battling through that. You'll see, and I've seen hallucinations, you see a lot of depression, a ton of anxiety.

That's why when you look at Louis Wetzel, like the fact that he isolated them. so much. Like, that very well could have been a symptom of the PTSD. Now, I can't say that for sure, because it could be other things as well. But so that would be something I would be looking at, right? It's like, I mean, you get kind of the image of the war, the war hero comes back and wants to go live off, you know, in a cabin in the middle of the woods and not, not know anybody because his, I mean, that trauma just gets stuck inside you.

Yeah. And it, and it, and it, and it, and it's hard to get out. It's hard to get out. How do you treat it? That's what I was going to ask. ask, are there effective ways of? Yeah. So, you know, lots of different opinions and thoughts on that kind of stuff.

Medications oftentimes are involved to manage symptoms, like the depression, the anxiety, those kind of things. Depending. So if somebody comes in my office and they've got some trauma. So what I'm going to look at is, you know, first you want to assess it, right? Are we dealing with super complex, pretty simple trauma? What are we looking at? And then from there, I want to assess their capacity to.

to kind of, because we really have to, you have to, I mean, you've got to process it and you've got to get it out, right? Like you have to find a way to, so I will use journaling a lot with people. We'll go back through and journal. Good luck doing that with Lewis Wetzel. Louis Wetzel, he couldn't read. We'd have to talk it out with him. So, and so what I'm going to do is I'm going to look at the pace we have to go at. And you want to get it. So we're going to go back and reprocess it oftentimes.

you have to be really careful with that because you can't re-traumatize people. So often, so, you know, you'll hear that all the time that, you know, my wife tells me me I need to talk about it. I was like, well, maybe you do, maybe you don't. Let's figure this out first. Or maybe we need to go at a slower pace than what you might go. And so you're going to, I'm probably giving you too much of an answer than you want. No, that's good.

You can cut it all out. But basically, you're going to go back and reprocess it slowly and at an effective pace. You're going to teach them to handle it. That trauma also defines you, right? So, like, it tells you things. So if you're, you know, it tells you, like, so with Louis Wetzel, you would go back and be like, hey, your dad lied to you. And, you know, Native Americans aren't all bad, right?

And so, it's because that's, that habit has been just ingrained inside of his mind. You have to go back and fix it right where it got broke. Yep. So you can go back and fix the trauma, but you've still got all the bad habits. You still got all the behavioral things that you've dealt with over the years. And so you have to process through the trauma. There's different ways of doing that. Then you've got to deal with the poor definers and bad habits and all the things that they've built up over the years.

And then you've got to point them forward. There has to be forward movement. So you can never just stay too much in the past. You never want to dwell on the past. You want to deal with it and move on. Yeah. And so you want to, you know, if you had Wetzel in the office, you deal with the trauma, you help him think differently about all the things that trauma created

inside of him. Who knows what it created inside of him? Have you ever actually thought about literally sitting with Louis Wetzel, like the Lewis Wetzel in front of you, and what you would do? What would you say to him? I mean, I'd do it every day, Clay. No, but, I mean, think about the actual, I mean, a guy that literally had done this and was this hardened and was this like yeah i mean i've dealt with people that have done things like that before i mean you just talk to them like a human being you know bring them you bring them in their office and you talk to them what have you seen brother what have you mean you just talked to them i mean

you just talk to them just like a human they're human at the core they're a human being right they've been through a lot of crap uh and i've never met it's really stiff language for the I've never been... Sorry, kids. I've never met a human being that didn't want to get better. Really? You think Lewis Wetzel would have wanted

to have gotten better? There might be a selection factor here. People are walking into Zach's office. Yeah, yeah, so that's part of it. But, I mean, if he... Now, he might not have wanted to stop killing Native Americans. Do you think he felt? But he wanted to stop the pain that he was in.

He was not a healthy human being. Yeah, that's an interesting... To recognize that? Well, I mean, he would have known he's in pain. He would not know that there's something we could do about it. And he might, and to him... So the killing was a symptom of the pain. Well, I mean, that's...

A bad habit is what Zach's describing. The trauma-induced habit. Yeah, trauma-induced behavior. Like the lightest possible way to ever, you know, count. So it wasn't like he was just this happy, happy guy. I would get, I mean, he lives by himself. He doesn't have any friends. He's totally isolated.

He's a messed up. I mean, he's a messed up dude. Yeah. I mean, he's a messed up dude. I'm not arguing with it. I'm just trying to say, what can we infer? Now, that's assuming that, you know, we're making a ton of assumptions, but that would be my first go-to, right? Mm-hmm. So he's in pain, and he does it.

And sometimes you get so used to the pain, you don't even know it's there, right? Yeah. And so, like, it wouldn't know anything but a war zone and death. It's so much part of who he is that he probably can't suffer. evaporated would be my guess. Yeah. Right. And so if somebody like that comes in and wants to work, yeah, absolutely.

You could do some stuff with that. Now, the challenges, would he want to work? All those kind of things. Yeah. So those will be my musings on it. Did you guys hear at the end of the podcast that they exhumed his grave in 1948? 42. I think that's part of what's kind of crazy to me is that in recent history,

people are treating him like he's a hero. I think that was listening to it, that was, okay, so you could say this is a different time and murder was much more common, killing was a war zone. You could say all that, but it's like, 1942 people exhumed his grave to treat him like a hero? I mean, there are people alive today that were alive in 1942.

I know, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, exactly. That's wild. Yeah, and I was completely guessing. I wasn't able to go back to, like, I couldn't find, you know, like, who, Who decided to drive to Mississippi and get the whatever kind of red tape they had in 1942. Maybe it wasn't much to exhum the grave of Lewis Wetzel,

carry him back to McCreary County, West Virginia, and re-barian. And, you know, they don't even know for sure that it was him that they actually brought back, but they said it was. Didn't they say it in his hair? Well, they did. They did. But I just, it's also, it's not like that's in some government document or something that it's, just tradition.

Might have been Larry Wetzel and they got the wrong gray. Oh, no. Who also happened to have Gale, Crystal Gale's length hair. Yeah. If it does the hair last for... That's what I thought, too.

I'm just saying... Especially in a and probably the kind of casket Wetzel would have been. It's a self-serving, like, the guy who dug him up and moved him all the way to West Virginia and buried him gave the account. So it's like kind of self-interest.

you're not going to be like, I have no idea if it was the guy. You know, all these stories may be made up. Lewis Wetzel might have been the nicest guy in the world. He might not have even existed. Never even hurt Andy. He's a prank by his brother. His brother just shared all these stories about him. Well, that's what is so hard about telling any of these stories.

So when I was doing the stories on, well, just in all the stories that I tell, you often interview multiple people. to tell one story. Right. I mean, even Dad and I, you know, dad since mid-70s and now I'm, you know, 40-something. And we tell stories different now that happened to us at the same time and the same place. Like the two of you tell different versions of the same story. He says, no, it didn't happen like that.

And I'm like, it happened like that, Dad. That's the way it happened. Who's right? No. Well, I mean, it has me questioning myself. Well, I always say. Yep. And just how quickly.

And then this is hundreds of years ago. And it's come down through so many people who have polished the story. I mean, and kind of maybe just told it a little different or told it easier or told it with a little different emphasis or a little different narrative. And that's why I like it's really fun when you find a really hardcore story that is just vetted from so many different places. And that's why Daniel Boone is such a cool guy because his life was. incredibly well documented for the time period. Like unbelievably well documented, which was unusual. So that's part of what makes Boone who he was, is we just simply knew who he was.

We had all these different things, which guys like Wetzel, we don't. Brent, why don't you finish this out reading The Ballad of Lewis Wetzel? So this is a poem by Philip, somebody. The Life in Times of Lewis Wetzel. This is a poem entitled The Ballad of Lewis Wetzel by, Glenn Baker My parents came from sturdy stock. They were tall brown and people in Mary

with the keen eyesight of the soaring hawk and lips like the Red Hall Berry. Horny-handed folk injured to toll. They marched in the pioneer. That's what that says. And I could not read it fast enough, but that's what it said. Carry on.

It means callous hands. Callous-handed folk inured to toil, they marched in the Pioneer Legion to carve a home from the virgin soil of Virginia's far-most region. And I was born on the wilderness road in a tawny sunlit clearing. I cut my teeth on oxen gold and had a backwood rearing. And I remember the cabin there in the clearing on the big wheeling, the coarse but wholesome Pioneer Ferry. and the herbs that hung from the ceiling. I keep waiting for this, and Merry Christmas,

to all a good night. And childhood years, when days were long and the first spring winds were blowing, my mother humming an old well song, and my father bent to his hoeing. And then one day the Indians came, and with their inhuman yells and laughter,

and our cabin blazed with rifele flame, and smoke went to the rome. But the walls were staunch and the red men fled, and the days flowed on as before, till I grew too tall for a trundle bed, and I slept on the punching floor. And so I came to my tall manhood with a woodman's knowledge and daring, and so with a rifle for livelihood, I started my forest faring. And once I was turned the homeward way across the trail of some savages, and hurried on through the day.

dying day, sensing a scene of red savages. And when I came to the clearing there, when the path of maize was greening, I saw my mother tearing her hair and walking the woods with her keening. And my father's form so still and cold, with the riven skull that was hairless, and all the remained of a loved household shattered by red hands and careless. And over the grave we dug that night in the raw, rich frontier clay, I swore an oath to hairy and blight, the red race by night and day. I swore it there as the forest gloomed, forbidding and dark in its silence, a savage oath that forever doomed us all to a life of violence. And many a red, brave, homeward bound from the latest scene of his pillage,

heard in the forest a moaning sound and died within sight of his village. And there's more. for thus I played on the red man's fear as I blew through my rifle bore, warning him with his end was near with the death wind of border lore. And down the years I kept my vow till the Red Tribes west were turning, left this valley to settler and plow in freedom from pillage and burning. And time rolled on and my breath was stilled and they laid me away to the long rest. But even in death my spirit willed to continue on with. the long quest. So still I follow the trail of Braves

and wraith-like steel I go stealing over the hands of the Ohio leaves and the Cincinnati to the big wheeling. And on autumn nights when the dark winds Carol and thunderstorms roll and rally, you can hear me blow through my rifle barrel the length of the Ohio Valley. Thus say Louis Wetzel.

Pretty dark. What do you think, Misty? It's just weird. to hear something that dark rhymed. When was that, when was that written? I don't know. I couldn't find when it was written. I'm sorry. But it feels like a Christmas story that you'd read to your kids,

especially with Brent's voice on it. I kept waiting for that. And it's like, this is really the worst thing I've ever. I tore away. Eye in my sash. It just described the time. I mean, that's, and that's the whole point I think of this, to me, or just kind of like the takeaway, it was, it was a war zone.

And it's interesting to feel like that could be normal to just have in your sights, a race of people to just annihilate. And, you know, and they, and he told why they were mad at him. I mean, they burned his cabin and they killed his dad. I mean, you think about it, it really is a singular perspective. Because you think about it from the perspective of a Native American. Exactly. People, you know, coming in and killing people and taking people and taking your things,

of course you're going to retaliate, you know. So it's, it's, man, it's hard when the perspectives are so, so spread apart. And there's no opportunity for really, humans mess things up. I mean, that's one thing you can look at the earth and realize that. Humans mess things up. Yeah. You know, but the redemption is that all it takes for things to get right is for people to start making one right decision after another.

I mean, that's the golden ticket that we have as humans is we get to decide how we forecast our life in terms of the way that we think about other people. And, you know, these kind of stories, too, give me empathy for people that I know live in a completely different philosophical place or have a different worldview. Because you can see, I mean, I don't want to, we know which side was really in the wrong in the macro picture. I mean, just the side that was committing genocide and pushing the people out of their ancestral lands. Like, that's not up for debate.

But at the same time, you see why these people love Lewis Wetzel. It's like they were in a war zone. and their enemy, he protected them from them. But you go to the other side and you see the Native Americans' perspective of, you know, these people came in and were taking our land and we had no choice and we had to fight. And basically, you just see that your perspective is not the only one. Louis Wetzel was taking one thing off of the list that was out to hurt those folks. You know, it was a big enough struggle just finding something.

to eat. Raise your kids, you know, up to where they would live, where they could help that they had to look up to that guy or they, you see the reason why they did. Yeah. Because he was taking one fear away from, you know, something that they could, they could check the box off and say, okay, we don't have to worry about that today because Lewis is making the rounds out there. We can focus on trying to get this corn to grow, which was something mentioned about corn

in that poem I just read. So, I mean, you see it. It doesn't make it right, but you see where those folks, they were in that space at that time, and that was something that they had to worry about, and he was alleviating some of that pain. You know, listening to Brenton talk, it makes me think about, you know, our society these days is so polarized. And the older I get, the more I recognize that the answer is not found in the extremes. Yeah. You know what I mean?

The answer is found in the principle of things. Not in, I mean, Lewis Wetzel was extreme. He saw this thing that he perceived as a threat, as something that needed to be annihilated, and he went hardcore extreme. And then you have, I'm sure you had people on the Native American side that's like, let's wipe all these white men out because they're destroying our lands. And the answer is not found in the extremes. Yep. Well, thanks for coming, Zach. Yeah, it's fun.

Appreciate it. Thanks for having me. So will you be giving us written diagnoses of all our problems? Will you diagnose Brent? Just real quick? You guys will all be getting a bill in the mail, first of all. Pay that promptly. Yep.

And the diagnosis is becoming shortly. What do you think about Isaac's tattoos? What's that tell you about a man? Isaac Neal's covered in tattoos. I'm just not- I'm just noticing. They're really secure with his legs. He does like to show a lot of leg.

I'm going to say the lack of color is what I would ask him about. He's monochromat. What do you mean? I don't have any color tattoos. No color tattoos. They're all black ink. Yeah, that's cool. I'm not saying cool or not cool.

I'm just asking him about it. I think the most fascinating part of Isaac's tattoos is how much forethought he put into them. Okay. Some of them a lot. Some of them. None. I like them. I saw that in a book and thought it looked cool.

Are you going to give the tattoo of me on somewhere? Are you finding it? Sure. Yes. I'll get to pick the spot. Don't do this. I was like, this is bad. Look, you could put that picture of me shooting that bear.

See that picture in that nice picture? No, I like the one with your kid on your back. Oh, okay. Yeah, I don't want you to put my kid tattooed on you. That'd be creepy. I'll blur out the face. You can put those little stickers. Pixelated face.

Tattoo, I like it. It would be cool to have a Brent tattoo, though. Who doesn't have one? I want a live-size tattoo. You need a Brent's only bigger. smiling. We're working on it. Yeah, that'd be good. Well, all right, excellent guys.

Well, next bear greases are going to be different than this one. Hopefully a little more. The death wind. We're pulling ourselves out of the arc of darkness. Oh, good. I thought it was really poetic how you said that at the end, by the way. Yeah, there were a couple points in this

podcast that I had thoughts about, but... What did I say? Yeah, you just talked about coming out of the arc of darkness. Mr. Rogers. Yeah. Mr. Rogers. I'm looking forward to that podcast.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to Mr. Rogers podcast. Thanks, guys. Keep the Wild Place is wild. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called Prime Cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen.

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