Haunted Cosmos - The Deadman's Canyon

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

In this chilling episode of Haunted Cosmos, we ride into a forgotten corner of the Old West, where the sun bleeds out over the horizon and a lone shack stands in silence. Something terrible happened here. And someone, or something, still lingers. Saddle up for a spectral mystery soaked in dusk, dread, and the eerie stillness of unfinished business.Love Haunted Cosmos? Get access to our exclusive show, The Dusty Tome, early ad-free access to main episodes, monthly AMA's, and livestreams with Ben and Brian by becoming a patron of the show: https://www.patreon.com/c/HauntedCosmosBuy the Haunted Cosmos book: https://www.newchristendompress.com/cosmos PS: It's also available as an audiobook!This episode is brought to you by Mt Athos. Sustainably sourced goat dairy protein and other performance products. Listeners of the show get a 20% discount site-wide with code "NCP20".https://athosperform.com/Want to keep nefarious fairy Bigfoots away and also avoid icky seed oils, preservatives, artificial colorants, and other nasties in your daily shower routine? Then check out the vast array of homemade soaps from our friends at Indigo Sundries Soap Co.! Go to http://indigosundriessoap.com to learn more—and as our gift to you, use code HAUNTEDCOSMOS for 10% off your whole order!This episode is also sponsored by Stonecrop Wealth Advisors! Go to this link to check out their special offers to Haunted Cosmos listeners today.https://stonecropadvisors.com/hauntedcosmosDesignButter offers mobile, web, and product design for a fixed monthly fee. Check out their services here:https://www.designbutter.com/Finally, this episode is sponsored by Gray Toad Tallow. Visit their website here and use COSMOS15 at checkout for 15% off your order.https://graytoadtallow.com/Support the show

This episode is sponsored by Mount Athos, results, purity, and sustainability in every bottle. Just planes. On and on west of the Mississippi, there's only planes for a life's eternity of wandering. Such a vast canvas of land didn't suit the Tennessee man all too well. He was used to trees. Trees cloaked by and by in the morning with the mist characteristic of the smokies. He didn't realize the comfort that came from all the cover. At times, as a boy, he would work himself into a fright when camping in the woods. He felt closed in by the forest. He thought himself claustrophobic then, and it would almost send him into a proper start. But as he crossed the blank white plains of seemingly nothing but dust and chaparral, he realized he'd only just discovered real claustrophobia.

With nothing around him at all but slate ground and blue sky, he felt naked. He imagined to be how Adam and Eve felt when they heard God walking along in the cool of the garden's day, searching for them. How could so much space make one feel so boxed in? It was only his more steeled manhood nerves that kept him from losing his mind with the overwhelming emptiness. Each river or creek crossing of his wagon train became the most exciting thing he'd ever experienced before. For most of the banks had grooves of trees that provided precious breaks in the prairie. The water was somehow a lesser concern to him. So it was that Henry Harkins made the slow trek across the arid or otherwise tall grassy plains of North America in 1863, eventually just hoping the

rumor of mountains somewhere west had not been a joke pulled on him. He finally concluded that he'd believe in the mountains only when he started to climb their foothills. He could no longer imagine how anything other than dust and grass and short brush fauna could exist in that part of the world. Perched on a hill, he could look all around him and see for what seemed to him hundreds of miles in any direction. A herd of buffalo grazing far off to the north, a mirage of what looked like people digging steel into the earth and striking or removing the fire God had put there to the south and emptiness to the west. At least, though Hawkins didn't know it, he was distracted from the summer heat and hunger and thirst that everyone else in the train was suffering from.

They didn't seem to mind the emptiness and flatness nearly as much as he did, but that only made them mind more important things, really. Thus, they were really miserable. By midway through the boundless chaparral on the east side of Colorado, the dryness of the scrub oak gave any unobservant woman a sincere scratch. Harkins was the last one talking with any kind of passion. Everyone else had grown surly in the difficulty and fearful in the face of the Indian threat, but Harkins was still perfectly content to loudly complain night and day about the nothingness all around them. Everyone else thought it ironic that a man had so much to say about something he described himself as nothing. But there they were, listening to the grizzled and dried out Sawyer,

carry on about it day after day with increasingly worn out ears. All that fussing made Harkins less agreeable as well. He wasn't stoic or surly like the other folks, and he wasn't whiny about the children. But when a man talks only negatively about that one thing in life he doesn't like, it tends to make him less cheerful about everything else. And yet, this didn't stop Harkins from letting out the first genuinely happy hollers that he had loosed since they crossed into Arkansas upon seeing the snow-capped peaks of the Rockies far ahead of him, like a rim of salt on the world's horizon. He wondered then that they probably were real,

and he wouldn't be forced to live out his days and misery at the hands of a cruel joke from the traveled folk back home. The growing glory of the mountains with each step of the horses made the final days of his emigration from Appalachia go by quickly. As if waking up from a lonely dream, he rose one morning from his tent to see the clear precipices reaching far up into the cold and dark outside of Denver, where he had stayed the night. The time had finally come for his long-anticipated split from the rest of the group. He had no wife or kids of his own, but he'd grown fond of some of the children. in their train over the course of their journey and made sure to hand out some hard candies to them before unceremoniously saddling his sorrel and riding with his own small wagon off into the morning towards the south. He reasoned that since the intel he'd received about the mountains had been

good, the additional intel about the less settled but rich areas just south of Denver must be good as well. As such, he made the lonely journey down to Colorado Springs in just over a day, pressed on after a long rest around the stockade of the newly erected Fort Carson and finally decided to stop and set up shop in an arbitrary place outside of the tiny town of Rock Creek, which laid on the gently swelling eastern shoulders of the Blue Mountain. Here, he wasted no time in acquainting himself with his neighbors and constructing his sawmill. Right away, Harkins felt good about his fortunes. He was not a particularly religious man, but he could hardly get the psalmist words.

the lines have fallen for me in pleasant places out of his head in those first days. Though a little far away from the small main street, he found his neighbors to be very friendly and was able to doubtlessly confirm that the area was every bit as rich with timber and opportunity as he had been promised it would be. Before the first chills of mid-autum arrived, he completed the basic framing and roofing of the sawmill and took in a dog he'd found in town that took a liking to him. By first snowfall, he was done with all the major construction and settled in for a cold but comfortable enough winter in his new home. In late winter the following year, and further to the south in Cannon City, a man walked out of his cabin one fine March morning and began the ride up hard Scrabble Creek to his own sawmill.

He had placed it so deep in the little canyon due to the fact that most of the townsfolk never expected to see Old Bruce from morning until sunset had all but given way to the full dark of night. With the days slowly lengthening, though, they could see the traces of him here and there at dusk. He'd be laughing in the saloon, playing cards with other Sawyers at the table, before going back to his cabin in preparation for an early morning. That evening, however, Bruce didn't join his friends at cards and never showed up to drink even a drop of whiskey. His mule and cart did show up, though. Apparently bereft of its master, the strong thing had rolled right on along toward town,

a cartful of all the tools Bruce would normally have with him up at the mill. After a while of just sitting there parked outside of the saloon, some of the men gawked at the mule, perking up and turning around as if to make for the cabin. It all seemed somehow strange to them. They were each individually willing to chalk the strangeness up to the slight buzz they already had for the night. They can sometimes trick a man into thinking small things or big things, vice versa. But then one of them voiced the odd sense they all felt. He was the youngest of them, fairly green as a professional miller, but one who'd been raised by a Sawyer and knew the ropes better than most of the old men drifting in from the east to do the same thing.

Though he was young, he was competent and therefore well thought of. So the men harkened to him and decided they ought to follow the mule to the cabin just to check and make sure that Bruce was all right. When they arrived, they did not see so much as a single candle burning in the house. It would be odd for Bruce to be asleep already unless he was ill. It would be odd or still for him still to be at the sawmill so late. They spurred on and trotted carefully through the dark up the creek until they ran right into the threshold of Bruce's mill. Inside, without any warning at all,

the half-drunk men found the body of Francis Bruce dead from a gunshot wound to the chest. They'd later learned that he was killed by the infamous gang of fanatic Mexicans, the bloody Espinosas. They were a threesome, two brothers and a cousin, from a family that had grown jaded by what they perceived to be encroachment of the Americans into their own land. They'd moved out of the Mexican territory some years prior and into Colorado, but they behaved as though any white-skinned neighbor was an alien worthy of capital punishment. As they herded sheep by the day, they terrorized the pioneers at night

and soon gained a reputation for ruthless and bloodthirsty robbery. Francis Bruce was just one more in an already non-negligible list of victims for the kin, but they weren't satisfied with him and struck out north to inflict more pain on the white man. Harkins and his dog had wintered well, though the early spring melt had showed him some patchwork that needed doing in his roof. He always hopped too as the water started dripping and was eventually satisfied that his roof was totally waterproofed. In the full cold and blackness of the winter,

while milling was more futile work that could always wait for the thaw, Harkins had accidentally earned a noble reputation for himself among the Rock Creek locals. In early January, a small wagon train of other settlers had made it to town during the evening. Harkins found himself purchasing some supplies that afternoon and had lingered for a drink at the town saloon, a place that somehow managed to stay stuffy and dusty all year long. He noticed the weary band of travelers and made their acquaintance right away. It was just one family, though they took up three full wagons, and that was with all the men. excepting one small boy on horseback.

He learned they weren't staying there, which Harkins took as a pity. They too were from Tennessee, and had been the only people he'd really related to in the months that he'd lived in the territory so far. A piece of him rashly considered packing up and just following them wherever they'd land, but then he remembered tell of more dreaded plains to the north and south thought it best just to stay put.

At any rate, he promised to join them for a camp breakfast the next morning before sending them off to whatever end. He rose early enough in the morning for the moon's brightness to shine a delicate blue off the snow. He knew it would somehow get darker before morning, though he never understood how, and so he saddled up his sorrel and whistled his dog along towards the settlers' camp. He figured that they'd be up early, and he was right. He loped into the smell of sourdough biscuits in a small cast-iron Dutch oven. He thought he could see a jar of honey getting passed around too, and his mouth started watering.

He could not remember the last time he'd tasted a southern biscuit, or any biscuit for that matter. He dismounted and strolled right into the camp to the warm greeting of folks he felt a close and quick kinship too. After breakfast, which was heavy and warm, he trotted along with the train so long as they went back towards his own mill. He rode behind the main wagon, speaking with the eldest patriarch of the family,

and interrogating him as to where exactly he intended to go. But even as the man was speaking, Harkins noticed the wagon jolt hard from the left side, falling off a clay ledge formed by a dried-up puddle on the road. He alone watched the little boy tumble head first out of the wagon. His head struck some sand hard, the only non-frozen piece of ground that time of the morning, thank heavens, and he lay in a clear days right under the wagon.

All in a flash, Harkins watched the rear wheels continued to drive on directly towards the boy's head. The driver had not heard or seen anything fall from the wagon and had not cared to check on his cargo after the bump. Harkins yelled out of, whoa there, stop! Just in time for the driver to pull rain and stop the wheel mere inches from the boy's temple. The older man dismounted and picked the boy up, looking back at Harkins with grateful eyes before placing the boy,

who had already started to snap out of his days back into the wagon with his sisters. Thus it was that Harkins became more popular in town. Despite his biting southern wit that few others understood, the folks around him now felt more and more sure that they could trust him. Where he had felt welcomed before that morning, Harkins came to feel like a prominent member of the community thereafter. He enjoyed it for a while, but all it really did was serve to make his doom all the more tragic. On March 19, 1863, Harkins woke up and went about his routine as he had done for weeks in the half-thaw of late winter. The time for milling had finally come, and Harkins had been doing all he could to stay on top of the sun whenever it rose.

As it turned out, he was doing quite well as a Sawyer. Any doubts about the market being saturated proved false. In a place fresh with settlements and towns, lumber was in high demand. Parkins would do all he could to oblige the eager customers. He stretched and stoked the fire before walking over the already squeaking floors to feed his dog. Outside, the creek ran strong with freezing water ready to power the saw and turn out processed wood, but the creek would have to wait for the slow-starting southern gentleman. to have his coffee and bacon first. He indulged in these things half-dressed. His pants were pulled on, but his shirt was still unbuttoned to show forth long johns underneath.

His suspenders hung from his trousers and loops that his dog occasionally swatted at. He pulled his boots on and finally stepped outside to greet the crisp western mountain air with a warm smile. He had still not tired of seeing the sun rise up over the eastern plains. He had hated so much while traveling over them. It seemed to him that they didn't look so bad from a warm. where he sat nestled in the pines and aspens of Blue Mountain. But each morning, on further thought, he remembered how lifeless they were and decided to instead rejoice in what appeared to be the sun scorching them to hell where he felt they belonged. Into this morning routine, there rode three men,

each mounted right up to his front door. They were Mexicans, Harkins could tell, and he could also tell that they were not the friendly sort he'd encountered passing through his town. These were ragged men, oiled with grease that flowed out from their hair and into their collars and their thin shirts. They smiled at him, not in a friendly way, and showed rotting teeth through lips cracked by the sun's rays, mixed with the dry winter wind beating against them constantly. Their chaps were filled with holes, their hat-brims drooped low and floppy, as if weighed down by too many snowstorms, and their horses looked like sickly corpses, pulled up out of the ground somewhere not on this earth.

It was a sight that Harkins knew right away to be troublesome. Thus, the cool man sipped his coffee and waited for one of them to speak first. The tallest man let a thick wad of tobacco spit fly from his lips before tightening his eyes and saying, Gringo Pig, we're hungry, you have anything good to eat? Harkins took another sip and spoke in the smoothest drawl he could muster. Well, now let's see. I got fritters frying on the stove with some beans and coffee too.

it's all pretty good stuff, but none of it's fit for animals like the three of you. It's not. Go on your way and stink up somebody else's morning. In a flash, the world fell into action. Harkin saw by the rage in his visitors' faces that they were going to kill him. Even as the lead man reached for his gun, Harkin jumped far out between the horses

and made for the double-sided axe sunk into an old cedar stump. Suddenly, he felt the heavy thump of a horse's hindquarters slamming into him from the side and he lost his footing. These Mexicans were certainly quick, and their horses were too. Something else hit him hard on the back of the head, but he didn't know if it was a boot or a hoof. It didn't matter anymore, really. He propped himself up in the snow.

It had melted some with the sunrise and was mixed in with dirt beneath it to make a frigid mud. His vision swam in circles, and his mouth hung open. He felt like he was swimming in a pool of red water, bobbing up and down in the waves, but unable to tread enough to keep his head on the surface. It made him feel sick to his stomach. He watched through these red clouds enough

to see spurred boots walking slowly towards him. In one moment of lucidity, he knew more boots approached him from the other side too. All he could hear was the sound of laughter. Laughter laced through and through with malice, such anger as Harkins had never conceived of before. The noise drifted from one ear to the other. It surrounded him, only not all at once.

the whispers in an old haunted mansion. He rose up to his knees and faced eastwards once more. The warmth felt good to his stormy head. He felt warm blood dropped down off of his hair and into the collar of his shirt's back. In the few seconds he had left, he heard the laughter pick up its pace again before pausing. Somebody walked to stand right in front of him.

He saw the shining glint of the axe head for just a moment as the man swung it flippantly. Stinking animals, eh? The world went gray with a hollow and painless. thud. Harkin sank to the earth before the bloody Espinosa's, axe still sunk into his head, immovable as it bit into the bone. His eyes raced to and fro in a last attempt at escape or rescue. Blood bubbled out of the wound and pulled around his face, around his mouth opening and gasping with rasping breath. The younger Espinosa dismounted and drew his pistol from the belt and walked slowly

toward his victim with soft and careless laughter. He chuckled at the wide, wide eyes darting over to him, caring not for the blinding sun that would surely be scorching them. He cocked the gun and fired down on Harkin's chest. The eldest brother did the same, and Harkins died. The sun rose up and covered by a cloud, just as a wind swept down from the mountain to bring back the bitter chill of morning. The blood froze.

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Athosperform.com and use code NCP20 for 20% off your order today. Captain Feltz rode on his mount towards the home of a young Fort Carson woman. As he rode down the still-quiet streets of the gold country, he looked to his south and saw the rolling minor plains darkened by the already long shadow cast down on them by the mountains to the west.

He marveled at what he beheld, an albedo like the moon, with lush river-fed canyons and mountain springs on one side, down into a gray and lifeless desert at their feet. Yet it was the desert that had proven so lucrative in recent years. Gold was there. Felch could see the peppered lantern swang on the wagons of miners making their way back home, living dead men who were giving their life's best years to a game of chance.

They crossed the dirt slowly and uncaring, like dying cattle on a hard drive who wished to seal their death by turning back to a river that was days behind them. Felch tapped with his spurs and continued on to the woman who called him. He arrived to her standing with her parents on the front porch of a quaint timber frame home, She was crying, and her mom stood at her side with one arm cupping her daughter's near shoulder and the other wrapped across the girls up her back. The captain stepped out of his stirrups and calmly approached the family with a questioning look. The mother gently rubbed her daughter's shoulders until they slightly shook and whispered something in her ear.

The girl composed herself as best she could before speaking. She spoke so softly that the wind blowing into the chimes on the porch made it hard for Felch to hear her. but he could make it out well enough. Her fiancé, a man named Kimball, had been missing for two days now, and she was convinced he'd come to harm in the goldfields. Felch followed her shaking finger pointed south and looked once more on the sullen plains

he had only just been studying himself. Most of the lanterns could still be seen jostling slowly with the rocking of their wagons and mules. He turned back to ask where he was supposed to have been working the previous day and shuddered when he heard the answer. Dead Man's Canyon. He, like everyone else, did all he could to stay free of that place. A bold few dug there now and again, hoping to take advantage of everyone else's fear. They always ended up the more fearful. It had been so many years since the unlucky soul died there,

but the brutality of the death seemed to have left its mark. Felch tapped his hat brim down and said he'd be back. He shoved his cutter-toed boot into the stirrup and swung fluidly up onto his horse, sugar. He gave his mare a kick and started off on a lope into the West's evening redness. A bit further on, out of sight of the family and neighbors, he leaned down to Sugar's ear and whispered where they'd be going. He patted her on the neck and told her it'd all be okay. He said it for him.

By the time he arrived at the mouth of the little canyon it was already dark. The ruins of the old mill could be seen as black monoliths in the shadows, ancient fallen watchers for all he could sense, and they were watching with eyes he could not see. A breeze swept towards him with the echo of a deep groan, and he began to smell something horrible. It was putrid like rotting flesh and soiled, like a sock that had been wet all day. He covered his nose with his shirt sleeve, but it wasn't enough. He strapped a piece of leather lashing around his face and right up into his nostrils, and

it worked a little bit better. Sugar seemed not to notice the smell. Just after he'd begun the slow ride into the dreaded canyon, he heard the sound of a racing horse behind him and turned quickly. He saw the very thing that had so frequently sent better men into a panic, a pale horse, phantom-like, and misty in the breeze, cut through by shadow until it streaked with black, and on it rode the ghost of a man with a bobbing head, hung heavy and limp due to the axe that was still embedded in it. It was the ghost of Old Hawkins. Feltch closed his eyes and readied himself for death. He thought lastly of sugar and wondered if she too would be taken

by the vengeance. But after a few moments when nothing happened, he opened his eyes and looked around again. It seemed somehow darker. Some 30 yards ahead of him, he saw the ghastly riders standing with limp head turned back towards him as if waiting. When Felch had noticed the apparition once more, it turned slowly and walked down the canyon. Felch followed. The phantom horsemen, once they were closer to the cabin, ran ahead and dissolved into the ether. The smell remained. and the air was thick and wet, but Felch could not figure as to why. He watched as an equally ethereal old man and dog, stepped calmly from the ruins of the cabin as it was still in its prime,

and they were going up for some routine daily chore together. These ghosts did not regard Felch outright. They stood facing into the canyon's blackness and only began to walk once Felch could hear himself following. The man's head remained limp and drooping, waded down by the axe. drops of quicksilver cloud dripped from the tip of the axe's blade and disappeared in the rocks.

He followed the undead man and dog of a sharp incline and to the edge of a cliff that went down some 100 feet into a gully with a wide bank next to the creek that ran down dead man's canyon. As he looked,

he saw the forms of two men made of light like the old man and the dog. They fought violently for a long time. Finally, one of the sprites doubled over and Felch could see his back heaving as if he'd been stabbed in the lungs. Finally, he fell to the pea gravel of the beach

and vanished into the night. Felch looked up, but the old man and the dog were gone. The canyon was dead. It was still and utterly quiet. The smell went away, and as the moon rose past the shoulder of the mountain towering above him, the sound of crickets and owls returned. He turned and raced down the canyon.

The next morning, enlisting the help of some loose, tenants, Felch returned to Dead Man's Canyon. The men didn't wish to go in. The horses down aren't refused. But Felch made them follow him, albeit on foot. They came without incident to the spot on the beach. Felch had seen the previous night. He saw the ground disturbed so much with boot prints running all over. It was as though what he had seen had been something real. He recalled where the ghastly victim had lain down to die and ordered his men to dig. They dug. Before along, sweat dripped down the undersides of their hats and off of them into the sand. Before much longer, they uncover the body of a man.

It was Kimble. A deep wound pierced through his vest and shirt and sunk far into his chest. In a world that isn't just stuff, our bodies are no different. They are embodied spirits. As part of God's creation, we are called to steward both body and soul, taking dominion over our health with purpose and care. Mount Athos Performance, a family-owned company, embraces this calling. Their protein powders, pre-workout formulas, and supplements are crafted to build lasting strength.

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Hey, in honor of that. I had to kind of do one in the story. Yeah, it's true. In honor of that Mexican accent, Cholo accent, we would like to extend a cordial, happy birthday to Martina McBride. Yeah. You know what? I'll call him by his real name, Martin. Not on the day that this releases, but on the day we record this. Which is March 13th, 2025. He is 33 years young. His social security number. Yes. His address is somewhere in Utah. I'll tell you that. Or is it?

Or not. Could be somewhere else. Is he a real person? Is he real? Is he working remote? Is he a real person at all? Anywhere? We could have made it.

What if this is a big troll? Martina McBride is a troll. We're actually not real. We're just AI agents. I love how on his birthday we're like, yeah, he's not even real. He doesn't even exist. No, but Martin, happy birthday. Yeah, happy birthday to Martin.

Everyone's dropping the comments. Happy belated birthday to Martin. It's good. to haunt the cosmos with Martin. Yeah, it is. So what I like about the story. Uh-huh. Okay. Is this how everyone dies and it's sad?

No. Well, both stories like the person you like died. No, not the second story. I don't care about Kimball. I don't know him from Adam. Who I care about is Sugar, Felch's horse. Did he make it? Yeah.

Or she? Or it? She was a mayor, so yeah. So it was a lady horse. It was a lady horse. Sugar made it. Up in horsey heaven, here's the thing. For angels wings.

And just when we all said goodbye, you take a run and leap and you learn to fly. Bye, bye, little Sebastian. Missed you in the satisfaction. We're going to get copyright struck by some liberal production company. Up in horsey heaven, here's the thing. You trade your legs for angels. So a horse with no legs, then takes a running.

Dude, you're five thousand candles in the wind. What's five thousand times better than a candle in the wind? This song is called five thousand candles. People appreciate how long we committed to that bit. Yeah, that's a great, that's a great bit. Yeah, but so you like, let me just restate this in your own words. Why, I didn't get to finish what I was saying. You liked that everyone died.

No. I appreciate that that's part of the story. I don't like that everyone died, but not everyone died. The horse didn't die. The horse didn't die. The sheriff. The feet that late, that girl, the fiance didn't die again. Harkins died.

Dude, Harkins got axed to the head and then shot twice. Harkins got dishegged is what he died. He got absolutely hid by MS-13. Dude, he got disrugged by that horse's butt. By early American MS-13. I like, like, you know, like. The espinole, they probably had like, the bloody espinosas were actually just MS-13.

That was whole. horrible. And this happened? This is real. Yeah, this is real. So I liked Harkins. He saved that little boy. Yeah, Harkins was way cool. He, he's way cool. And then. And then the demons did him dirty by pretending to be him. Right. But at the same time, like, they did help out the sheriff on how to find more murders. Yeah. But it's good to find the body. Yeah, that's fine. So that he can go back to that, that young lady and say, hey, Kimball's dead. Your fiance's dead. They just wanted to see her reaction when your fiance got disranged. Did he get Killed by MS-13 too? No, he just got killed by another gold miner.

Okay. Who stabbed him in the chest. Hey, he really kept that one close to the chest. He really kept that gold stash close to the chest. That was so unnecessary. So anyway, if you find yourself in Dead Man's Canyon in Colorado, be sure to be on the lookout for Harkin's ghost. It'll be noticeable by the axe sticking out of its head.

We literally, in our ghost episode, said, whatever you do, don't go ghost hunting. Don't look for ghosts. Don't go ghost honey. Next thing you know, we're going to cut from it. From that to this, Ben's going to be like, if you're ever there, look for Harkins. No, I be on the lookout is different. Okay, that's fair.

It's like a night watching. You don't go looking for trouble, but you're watching for it. That's fair. In case it comes to you. I'll give you this. That's fair. Hey, I'll give you this. I think we're out of time.

What else can you say about these soul-crushingly depressing stories other than I hope they were all Christians? Yeah, me too. Harkins is in the Great Cloud of Witnesses probably looking down right now going right in front of the post-war consensus. Harkins was a Tennessee man. I'm sure he was a Christian. Man, I don't get it. I've been playing so bad today. Well, have you tried just like maybe not sucking quite so bad? Have you tried not sucking? Yeah, I've tried not sucking, but I still suck. I mean, what about you though? You've been doing, you've been doing just fine. What's your secret? I'm just good at what I do.

Nah, no, no, no, no. Don't give me a lie, for real. Tell me, what is your actual secret? Come on. Okay, you can't tell anybody, but the secret is the hell. The Kingsman hat. I gotta do what I gotta do. I'm in a yellow Steve Harvey suit. That point went off you went prodigal. Came for the sin like a hospital. We are your crib, watch your comic view.

Got it un-like it's good ton of mo. He told me that anything's possible. And I believe- You know, it's crazy to say, but I think you're right. I think it's just the hat. It's like comfy, it's soft, it's supple. The inside has so much attention to detail. the outside is clean and pure. I love it.

Yeah, dude, I told you the hat's the secret weapon. But you got to understand, it's my hat. So it's my turn. No. No, no, no, no, no. Get your Kingsman caps in either black or white at kingsmancaps.com. Use code haunted 10. That's Haunted 1-0 for 10% off your order.

Now, felch and sugar was a Christian, the horse. Christian horse for sure. Horses are Christians. that MS-13 horse that booty bummed Targans. It went Sauron stole the horses from the Rittermark. True.

The black horses. You know, then they became non-Christian horses. Yeah, he corrupted them. But the horses of Rohan were Christians. We all know this. No, that's actually canon. That's canon.

Dude, that's canon. That's literally all I have to say. I just want to say, thank you guys for listening. Is this going to be our last one before the season starts probably? You're welcome for that for that really enlightening commentary.

This is going to be our last off-season dusty tome. I know everyone's probably excited about that because that means that season five is about to start in two weeks from today watching this. Hey, and if you love it, guess what you can do right now?

You're stealing the words right out of my mouth. Good job. You know what you can do right now? Ben, what can you do right now? You can go to Honeikosmosmosmosmos. Tell them.com. You can become... Tell them, Ben.

You can become one of our supporters of the show. Yep. And if you do that in the top two tiers of support, you will get access to all of season five. At this point, basically all of season five is available right now. Go check it out. I don't know if that's... Something like that is probably true.

Fully produced and available to you to binge in those top two tiers. And if you go in the lower tier, don't fret. That means that you'll get access to over 100 episodes of the dusty tome, which is like this, but there's no video and no commentary. It's just kind of a lore-style show. Yeah. So if you like it, go check. that out as well. And also in that lower tier, you, when the main episodes drop to the public,

you will get them ad free. Ad free. So that's kind of an ad of benefit. Which ruins us them, honestly, because our ads are quality. They add to the show. They make it better. Dude, it's like, we spell advertisement with two Ds. You know what? They add to the show. If, if Harkins had washed with Indigo Sundry soap, they wouldn't have been able to smell their way up to his camp. That's true. They would have, no, it's, he would have, he would have been so repulsed. Yeah, that's true. Because their stink wouldn't have been able to get through the barrier. It's true. Of good smell. And if they had somehow, pressed through, like maybe one of their horses was still Christian enough. Yeah.

Then hadn't been fully broken. Hey, he would have Keanu Reeves them and all three of them, they would have been the headless ghosts or whatever. Hey, he wasn't headless. Hey, they would have been the ax. I'm yawning. Sorry for my voice. Hey, uh, I'm putting a call out. right now to Inigo Sundries. Yeah. Listen up. Garrett. Make a scent called Dead Man's Canyon.

Dang. Like, that's a call. Harkens, Harkens axe head. There's no way that they're going to do this from me just asking right now, because I'm not going to follow up. No, this is not going to happen.

But maybe they will. That'd be cool. What if? How cool. Guys, that's it. Yep. Get out of here. Except join us on Supercast,

become a patron, support the show. If enough of you support, we might give Martina a raise for his birthday. Yeah. And give your horse a sugar cube. More Haunted Cosmos, then make your way over to Patreon, where you can get early access to our content as well as exclusive content in regular dusty tomes and monthly live streams with Brian and myself. So go to patreon.com slash haunted cosmos and sign up now.