I've spent most of my life in the western North Carolina Mountains. My encounter happened in the early nineteen nineties. My kids and I would spend our weekends and evenings hunting the North Carolina Mountains for Gensen. It's a beautiful plant that grows in the hollers in our local area. The children enjoyed this activity, searching the forest floor for the distinct five leaf plant that gave proof the gen seen route would be found in the rich, dark soil below.
We did this every September in October. Digging and searching, we could earn several thousand dollars once the roots were dried and sold. A lot of mountain folks would make extra money this way, the children would get to keep any money they made for their efforts. That was a huge motivation. Particular year, we found a real honey hole in a place called Greenville Watershed. It is a restricted
nineteen thousand acre reserve. A highway passes through the area with signs visible all along that warned you not to trespass. Looking back, I have to ask myself why on earth we went in there, because we could have gotten in a lot of trouble. If we had been caught. This forest was completely untouched by humans and it was isolated. Needless to say, there was an abundant plant life. One evening, after my husband got off work, we went to our
honey hole to dig. The fall evening was perfect, The air was crisp, and the sky was blue, and we had been blessed with our diggings. In fact, we were so successful that we went further into the forest than usual. The day had gotten away from us and darkness was setting in Under the tree canopy, we made our way back toward our which was parked in a discreete area
along a narrow road. We were still in the darkness of the woods, but we could see the last of the day's light where the trees were cleared along the road. My husband was in front and our kids were in the middle, and I was bringing up the rear. We approached the light, we heard a huge noise. At first, I thought it was rocks falling from the high peak of the adjacent mountain, and I looked up in that direction, thinking I would see a commotion. When we all stopped
and listened, I realized it wasn't rocks crashing. It was a huge, growling breath way too close to us. We froze. No one spoke for several seconds. The children started to whimper as the reality of what we heard set in. When we took a step forward, the creature released another long, rolling growl. It was so loud and long that it shook my insides, and I knew then that it was watching us. We had no choice but to walk forward
toward the car and out of the dark woods. I did not want the children to start running, so I held my youngest hand and instructed the other two not to run, but to walk slowly and steadily to the car. We took several more steps forward, and the creature once again released that warning breath, sending tremors of fear through
my body, but we didn't stop. We all held steady and made it to our vehicle, and as soon as we were in the car, we took off, the children crying and all of us questioning what on earth was in the woods with us. We never went back to that area again. We still retell that event, and we all agreed that the creature that warned us away that day was a big one. I now live in a small town in the area known as Forest City. We bought a sixty eight acre piece of property that is
partially pasture and part forest. I have seen evidence that Bigfoot passes through occasionally. I see twisted off trees and it leaves a horrible odor. It calls and makes tree knocks too. Now I haven't seen it, and I'm not looking for it. I'm satisfied to know that they are living peacefully nearby, and that's enough for me. Okay, here's a fun little piece of Steve Lily fan fiction. I told people that you're feel free to write Steve Lily's stories and I would put them on the podcast. I
don't know the name of this writer. I think it's a woman from Charleston, South Carolina. This is really good. I live at the trailer park. It ain't a bad place if you learn who to avoid and who to ignore, and mind your business. One of my favorite things to do is people watch from my little deck just to the right of the front door, and it gets the best son. Our trailer backs up to the woods and all the trails and forts that the park kids built. I know all the kids here and I try to
watch out for them. There's a lot of them that are latch key kids with working parents. Well there I was one afternoon on my porch, laying low in minding my business, when I heard the kids coming up from the woods at the back of the trailer park talking excitedly. Hey, it's not my fault. One of them said, it's not my fault either, said another one. Well, she's your sister. Which one of you was playing with her? Was it? Me? On?
These kids went bickering at each other, and I tune most of it out until I heard something that piqued my interest. I'm hiding out over at your house. One of the kids said, my mom is gonna whoop my butt good if she don't show up. I told her not to go running after the baby monkey. Another said, there's no monkeys Mississippi, dummy. It wasn't that, And you know it what I thought to myself, realizing they left
someone's little sister out in the woods chasing monkeys. I took off to the back of the trailer and set off in the woods. It wouldn't be long before dark, and luckily I knew those woods better than anyone, having lived there most of my life. The kid's trail was easy to follow on the sandy path. There were lots of footprints and broken sticks and leaves. So far, so good, I thought, though I had to go deeper into the woods than usual. I finally veered off the path and
I saw two sets of small, barefoot tracks. Those idiot kids let the little sister out here with no shoes on, I thought. I shook my head. Then I saw another small set of tracks, which was a bit suspicious. Was I looking for one lost kid or two? Well? On I went for over an hour, knowing that this little girl was certainly lost by now, and then I smelled something. Oh oh, I thought, it's a pole cat. It's gone. What on earth was making that god awful smell. I
got closer and it got stronger and stronger. There was something familiar about it. I had smelled it before, and then it hit me, sisquatch. It had to be. Is that what that little girl was chasing? A baby? Sisquatch? This wasn't looking good. I knew I had to hurry up and find her before mama squatched it. Well. Not
long after that, I heard pitiful crying sounds. Thank goodness, I thought, I found the girl and I spread it in the direction of the sound, I stopped to look around, and in an instant I got the scare of my lifetime. Something fell on top of me and wrapped its hairy little arms around my neck. Oh dear, I thought, realizing a baby sasque watch had wrapped her body around me like a monkey on a tree. I knew Mama would be looking for her, and she would be mad. What
was I going to do? Now? I needed to return this thing and find the little girl. With the baby wrapped around my neck, I started going back the way I came. I followed my steps to the main trail and looked right and left, knowing Mama was gonna come any second and find me. And then I heard a growl from somewhere in the bushes. I backed up, knowing that running would have been a bad idea. I heard another growl behind me, and another one off to the side.
The baby clumbed to my neck even tighter, afraid of whatever was in the bushes watching us. One of them darted between the trees and I got a glimpse of it. It was a pack of coyotes. To hell with this, I thought, feet don't fail me now with the pursuit on the coyotes yodled and yep. I ran as fast as I could, and the pack ran with me, more of them seeming to join in the faster I went. I had made a big mistake, and now I had no idea where I was. The woods had become so
thick to see through, and I had become winded. I backed up against the large pine tree and coaxed the baby onto the nearest branch, knowing at least she would be safe. Climb on up, Baby, climb, I whispered. I watched her climb the tree, and I heard the dogs come to a sliding halt behind me. I knew then that I would not be going home tonight. When the first coyote lunged at me, I raised my arms over my head in a pitiful attempt to shield myself. Then
a miracle happened. I heard it being launched into the side of the tree. When I heard a second one jump, I heard a smash into the tree too, and I heard them yipping and lunging, but none of them touched me. I got brave enough to take a look, and that's when I saw Mama Squatch. To say she was mad would have been an understatement. She was eight feet tall, no doubt. As she made her way to me, she snatched codies up by the tail and swung them headfirst
into the nearest tree. Her eyes never lost my face. Her teeth were grimacing, and out came her tongue, and she inhaled deeply and screamed, bloody murder. The sound hit me like a bag of rocks and rang through me like a jackhammer. My chest hurt from the vibration. She inhaled again and screamed louder, probably having smelled her baby on me and letting me know that she was furious about it. The surviving codies ran in every direction, and as she approached me, she raised her large ham sized
fist in the air. I closed my eyes. This wasn't the death I had figured earlier. Thump. The baby squatch landed on me again and wrapped her arms around my neck. She put her face next to mine and looked at her mama, who stopped in her tracks. I saw her face soften as she reached her long arms out to take her baby. After their touching reunion, the mama reached out and stroked my hair. It was a strange sort of thing. But knowing she wasn't going to kill me,
I could at least breathe again. If only she had the neighbor's girl and we could swap, I thought, as if she had read my mind. She looked deep into my eyes and she softly whooped. Somehow I understood her. She wanted me to follow. As in all unbelievable happy endings, Mama Squatch led me to a makeshift nest, and when I looked over the edge of the sticks and the twigs, I saw the little girl I had been looking for. She was sound asleep. Mama Squatch had probably looked out
for her so the coo wouldn't get her. Mama looked behind her nervously, like there was something out there that still worried her. I had heard about sasquatch hunters and worse, and knowing this Mama had enough on her plate, I woke up the little girl and we got out of there. We ran a few paces, and then I stopped, wanting to thank the Mama Squatch, but when I turned around,
her and the baby were gone. I let the little girl down the path through the woods, and when we came out from behind my trailer, she ran straight for home. Ahead of me, I saw my man home from work getting out of his car, and when he saw me, he waved his hand in front of his face, laughing. Phew, what you been doing girl, chasing skunks? He asked me. Lewis hurriedly walked over. Steve, don't you fuss at her. The neighbor's girl just told me that Lily found her
in the woods and brought her home. She deserves a steak. Steve Lily nodded and shrugged. Now this was Steve Lily quote fan fiction, and it wasn't. It wasn't the normal circumstance that Steve Lily would be in. But he's in the story. So I want to tell this writer how much I appreciate them thinking enough of my Steve Lily stories that you would take the time to write a great story like this. This was really good. It was
written almost in you know, the mint Southern vernaculars. Easy for me to read because I kind of got it. The woman who wrote it is from Charleston, South Carolina, Carolina. Apparently we talked pretty close. Charleston, South Carolina is one of my favorite places. It's one of the nicest, nicest people in the world on the east coast of South Carolina and North Carolina. Wilmington's that way, Outer Banks is that way. I love the East Coast. I'd love to
live out there someday. Anyway, all that said, thank you for writing this, and that'll wind up this podcast. I've got quite a bit of work going on. It's hopefully it's my last job I'm gonna do for the year. When i'm done, i'll finish up Steve Lilly Number nineteen and it'll be published. And just be patient. Everybody's asking for Steve Lily. I'm not done writing Steve Lily. I've just hitting a I've just hit a phase where I don't know, I can't do two things at one time.
I've been working so hard on this podcast for you know, about six or seven years, and I'm just backing away and I'm not working twelve fourteen hours a day. I'm just working maybe ten hours a day, and I'm skipping the podcast part. I come out about every third day early in the morning, and I record a couple of stories and I'm gonna be putting those out. But just hang on, I'm not done with this. I'm having so much fun with it. This next Steve Lily should be
a ringer. It's pretty good. I think it's a good idea for a story. Hang on, thanks for listening to this podcast and I certainly do appreciate you, and we'll see you on the next week.