00:00:05 Speaker 1: They run one vehicle up behind him and running another one up and parked in front of the car and open fire. Dad bailed out and he said, he he said, I just ran, he said, and I ran hard. He said. There was two ba bar fences. I don't remember jumping any one of them. On this episode of the Bargaras Podcast, we're going to continue building a biographical sketch of Louis Dell and Charlie Edwards, two Southern characters known for being turkey hunting outlaws, but also beloved men in their community. By most we'll be diving into the Moonshine incident and giving some backing for why people said they were rough men. You're gonna hear about some fighting and some gun plays, so if you're sensitive to such talk, be advised. But if you want a picture into the American South, these guys will deliver. These men were connected to the land and it shaped their identity. Having known them my whole life, I'm unashamed by how much I like these guys, but conflicted by how much I disagree with some of the stuff they did. Life is a paradox, and linear equations built for judgment don't always add up. This episode is a character sketch of two modern colorful characters. Their lives were just straight up entertaining and intriguing. I doubt you're gonna want to miss this one. And hey, stick around to the very end and you'll hear me and Game Warden Jimmy Martin relive the run in that I had with him when I was sixteen years old. According to game laws, they were poaching. According to our forefathers, they were doing what they were supposed to. They grew up with that mentality right Eron's Valley, and it still exists to point we're more civilized now. Yeah. Yeah. My name is Clay Nukelem and this is the Bear Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of Americans who lived their lives close to the land. Presented by f HF Gear American Maid, purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. In Part one of our Genuine Outlaw series, we introduced you to two brothers by the name of Louis Dell and Charlie Edwards from Big Fork Arkansas in the western wah Hitals. If you haven't listened to it, you've got to for all this to make sense. Charlie passed away in at the age of seventy three, and Louis del in one at the age of seventy six. I expressed my inner conflict in telling their story because there is a risk of glamorizing breaking the laws and outlawing, but being true to our mission. I love telling the stories of people who live their lives close to the land, especially in the South, and without a doubt, my whole life, I've been intrigued by these men. I think it's an apropos time to clarify the intent of telling this story. It is not to decide if breaking game laws is right or wrong. We all know the answer to that. What it is is an intriguing look into human nature. Often we gravitate towards stories that are far outside of our personal experience. I've never been an intentional law breaker or fighter, but these boys were. They're real deal characters that shaped my view of rural Arkansas. You see, I grew up in the same community as Louis Dell and Charlie, and I was heavily influenced by my father, Gary Knucom, a small town banker who would come home from work and tell me stories about people he had met and done business with. At the time, he nor I would know how influential his storytelling would be in my life. It taught me to value people of all types, and he told me stories about Louis Dell and Charlie. But the knowledge of these stories didn't push me to want to break game laws. It was clear he valued them for other reasons, and he still does. A window into their life gave me a broader picture of the reality of the world, a world that he knew I would have to live in. The intent of exploring this story is to help us evaluate our own biases, to search for oocracies, and to see the bigger story that most people have. Humans can't be described in totality by a single descriptor or label. Life is sometimes gray. We don't function well in those gray areas. Lastly, I hope this story fortifies a culture of putting the wildlife resource first by obeying science back to game laws. Being a poacher isn't complex. You either is one or you ain't one. But this story about Louis Dell and Charlie. Their life is complex, and I'm not trying to decide whether I'm okay with people being outlaws. I'm trying to make sense of why people love them so much, and in the same breath, understand how they were such rough characters. A little backstory from episode one, we learned that the Edwards brothers came from a family of moonshiners, and their uncle and his coon dog were killed by police in the ninth twenty six traffic stop gone Bad. These men were known for killing a lot of turkeys and evading the law with almost a supernatural ease, and they worked hard at everything they did, including outlaw on we learned they were generous and forthright, genuine even people used to the scripture of pure But one thing is for sure, you didn't want to cross them. Here's Stony Edwards, the son of Charlie. He'll get us going into a string of stories highlighting their rougher side. Get ready for a few rumbles. They were as nice as can be, either one of them, but they didn't have a whole lot of push to The fuse was about that long and as long as everything was going good and you were treating them as well as they would treat using. You're fine, but then you get on the bad side. And we were rough fellers. I mean, they didn't believe in I will call the law on you. They were gonna take care of it theirselfs Do you remember several years ago there what was the guy's name, How big old boy? Are you? Hard mercer? Well, you know Pete Hillard and Jackie Ryan. They got this great idea to call on Gloodell because they knew that that would stir him up. And I don't remember who they put, Oh they did. They got on the phone. Well, we lived over here at dill Back Place at the time, and I was about twenty, I guess, and here come Uncloodell sliding into the yard. I mean he said, y'all get in. We got take care of Now. You think I'm joking, But when we left the house, every one of us had a gunning ring. This wasn't gonna be no barroom brawl crap. This was well, we got down there and it was Jackie and peace and uh so Louis, I mean Louis Dell was ready to it was. He was ready for a shootout whatever it was gonna take him and Dad both were really hard people are That's how they came off. When you grow up like they did, though, it was you gotta have that shell out there. That was their protection. And then when they left here and went to the city, they were dumb hillbillies according to the city people, but they had that shell. Well. Everything with them, too, was a fight. They didn't believe in all the talking stuff. You just got walked. I mean, I know, I've heard stories of a lot of our fights. Yeah, if only that phone call could have been recorded. Whatever they said pushed Louis Dell to the edge. These brothers had a stark and temperamental sense of justice. They didn't do well with a lot of talking. Here's knee Old Taylor, a good friend of the brothers. You know, Old Lois del There's a lot of people that morning, Mike lud mad h. I'm gonna tell you what, And you could make him mad pretty easy. Charlie it was hard to make mad, but Charlie is the one he wanted to watch. He got mad because he was tougher and mean. Really, everyone I spoke with said the same thing about Charlie. He was tough here's Stony And for a little info, The Candle Light is a bar on the edge of Oklahoma. I was probably six and he had been over at the Candlelight. They were shooting pool, which my dad loved shoot pulling, and he had won a few games. And he always wore a great, big old black leather cowboy hat. I mean I remember him wearing one till the brim on it was just nobs and he had sewed it back together himself to three times. He was over there that night and Uh, a man stood up and said, I bet I can knock cut some hat off and he won't do a thing about it. Well, he made about two steps across the floor before Dad hit him with a Q stick and he went down. He was done. A couple of weeks later, they cornered Dad to go, you know, bear to go, and uh went shooting at him. Well, Dad bailed out of the car and off out across the retaliating for what had happened. Well, they they run one vehicle up behind him and running another one up and parked in front of the car and opened fire. And yeah, he Dad bailed out and he said he he said, I just ran He said and I ran hard and said. A couple of hours later he was coming back. I want to get back to the car, you know, And uh he said, there was two baby our fences. I don't remember jumping in one of them. Dad got into uh more of that stuff, and uh, Uncle Adelle did. Uncle Ade was a little he was just as rough, but he was a little more settled about it. But as far as their heart went, they do anything for for a friend or for somebody that needed them. But they didn't want everybody to know about it because that would affect that shell that they wouldn't be tough guys. Anymore. Interesting analysis from Stony about them developing a hardened shell. It seems the catalysts of this hardness worked both ways. It made them deeply loyal and devoted to friends, and it made them dangerous if you cross them. Y'all remember Andy Brown here he is recalling a story of a bar fight in Texas. If you remember, these brothers worked out of state a fair bit in the city. Oh Loudell talk hells a story about what they were down there in DALYs of work. He said, got that other one night, so it went to a bar and he said, we walked in. He said, I ain't been that bar ten minutes he said, he said, oh, broke loose back there in the dangpool room. He said. I looked around, and I said, where Charlie. He said, he said he went back there and he said here old Charlie that he said, Man, he's find the big old boys. And he said, he said that old boy and he whooped, he said, and he said about that time, he said that old boy went to screaming and take it on. And he said he finally looked. He said, old Charlie was just taking bitens clugs out of me. Tried to get away from him. Uh, it doesn't and he whooped. He said, he went to their blugs out of him. Wow, I can imagine a few people got surprised by these outwardly unassuming hillbillies. You remember were Stoney mentioning Jackie Ryan Prank calling Louis Dell, Well, this is Jackie telling a story about the brothers. I was doing a job in Dallas and they went down to a club and uh, Charlie playing pool and and uh he got in fat. I mean they getting he gets uh you know it over money. I'm sure they're probably having a bed. And Charlie he was good a bought both of them is good pool shooters. And uh, but but he gets in the fat in there, and there was other people around and and uh, Louie got out there truck and got his pistol and and I think the fat he had moved outside or got outside, and there was people around him while he was at the pistol out and and Ann was keeping everybody off of them while they was fat, and you know, and make sure nobody get it bobbed, you know. And uh, I think Charlie had used cuesdick on the game, you know. And and there there was another part of it where he uh, he chumped down on he's there. I know he did, but he's uh. And Charlie had fathered face and they he been a chunk guys there, that's what he did. These guys weren't afraid to pull a gun or to bite you. They played by their own rules. Like Andy said, that's just the way it happened. Here's Andy with another one. They were Dallas or Fort Worth putting in drop ceilings for Walmart store, and uh, anyway, everything was kind of open and anyway they had some old boys come in there and kind of put in on them, and uh, it was Charlie in Louddale in Vernon, Ryan Vernon was working with him. This guy was yeen with with Loue Dell. He was up on the scissor lift and Vernon said, the whole time he's y yang and telling Loudell what he's gonna do to him. He said, Charlie is slipping up on that guy. He said he's got a claw Himer. He said, he's got it in his hand. In Vernon. Of course, Vernon says he's watching all this and watching Charlie and he said, Charlie walks up behind that guy, he said, with a claw in and he draws back and Vernon said, I went, oh, whoa, whoa like it, you know, And that guy saw him, but he said Charlie was fixing and knocked him in the head with that claw. Hammer said, but anyway, the guy kept telling on Liddell, I'm gonna go get get my bunch and I'll be back. And Loudelle said, that's exactly what you guys need to do. And he said when that guy walked off, Loudelle got down off his sister left, went to his truck and I don't know, Clay, if you've ever heard about the trust and the stories, he had a rifle, that's all he ever deer hunted with. And anyway, he went and got the five, put it on. The sister left and got back up in the deal and just kept working. And he kept working. But Loudell was a great shot. I mean, when you run, when you run deer with dogs, you've gotta be And then boys, they wouldn't knew what happened if they had come back. They never came back. No, they never come back. Thank god. You know Verdon is scared to death or gonna come up. Yeah. Man, it sounds like you wouldn't want to cross these boys. And I'll tell you another thing that would not be advisable would be messing with their dogs. This is a longtime friend of the Edwards brothers, Jerry Dean Pickett. Well, it was a dear season and we had been running the dogs. There's a gap in there dogs. When I was gap. We didn't kill the deer, but anyway, the dog was checking it out. He had him with tracking colors on and we come around are catching the dogs and he said, one of my dog right up here, on the right up here, and we drove up this feller's house. He got out and he said, with my dogs around here, right here close. He said, yeah, your colors were on the woodpile. He said, I killed your dog up there, and yeah, LOUI ain't never threatened him, He never said nothing, but he just kept walking to him. And when he got hands of him, he spatted him when bouncing across him. Rocks and as a feller from Texas hunting with this other fellow, I don't forgot his name, and uh, Louis went to working on him. I'm telling you, working on him. You're you're here, you're watching. I'm standing right there and that other feller standing of workers. I knew what was fending to happen when he said he kill that dog, and I figured the other feller getting it, but he didn't. Finally he hollered the whole hold Louis, he didn't kill you, dough. So he stopped and he told me, said asked him a question, He said, why did you tell me you killed my dog? He never would say, tell him, so he got his collar. He got off fellow and he told him he said, I'm going back to my house. My dog don't come home. I'm coming back over and finished when I started, and that's how Louis said, went on to the house. Sure enough, the dog did come home. So so the guy was just messing with Louis. Well, I guess, but Loui Dea was't the type that you can mess with. He wasn't gonna argue with you. It was just him and Charlie both. You know, they didn't mind falling down the dirt, will you if that's what you want to do. Now that that's the part of them, I'm still trying to put together the pieces because they were such like you get this one feeling that they were just the nicest guys in the world, which they were. I want to hear how you connect the nicest guy in the world to a guy that'll just fight you in a second? How did that? How does that? Have you ever been in there where people go to argon and you know, carrying on? Well, I just want to time Charlie want nobody to tangle with. So Charlie was the was a real tough guy, and Louis was bad. But Charlie got more scrapped and Louis did if you gen the beer, join or anywhere and you got to won't argue with him. It was just on Well, they shaved me three years old. He was still laying block. Charlie was really he was still land block at seventy three years that he was drown How how big were they? You know? I knew when I was a kid. Louis was about my side. Carl It was a little bit taller than Louis and he was. They were both solid, yea stocky guys. Hands would big. Both of them had big hand when you shook hands, whether you could feel it. I find it a healthy practice to peer into a world foreign too your own. I've never been a fighter, nor would I condone violence as a productive means of solving disputes. But I do admire their certainty to continue on in our study of these brothers. I'm gonna read from a newspaper clipping from the nineteen nine edition of the Mina Star. The headline of this newspaper says big fort Man arrested and charged with a legal whiskey still operation. A big fort Man has been released a ten thousand dollar property bond after being charged with the operation of the legal whisky whiskey still near the Polk Pike County line. Louis D. Edwards, forty, will be arraigned Monday in Polk County Circuit courts, according to Polk County Sheriff Fred Niblock. Niblock said it is the first still confiscated in Polk County in approximately eleven years. Officers also confiscated three hundred and five pounds of what is believed to be deer meat, fifty to seventy five pounds of what is believed to be turkey meat, along with fifty two turkey beards at the house. According to the the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, Enforcement officers officers found an operational whiskey still, a hundred and sixty five gallons of fermating mash, and partially filled wooden barrel containing approximately twenty gallons of whiskey at edwards residence in Big Fork, according to Nibblock. Also found were several gallon and half gallon jars of whiskey. The officers sees the loaded shotgun and several cartons of rifle and shot ammunition at the site, along with the nineteen four Chevrolet four wheel drive pickup containing a bottle of what the officers believed to be illegal whiskey. Also confiscated where sugar yeast, corn starter mash, and utensils believed to have been used in the illegal production of whiskey. Hey had a really nice set up. I'll be dar Do you remember that as a kid. I wasn't a kid. I was in the United States Army when that What year was that? N Here's Neil Taylor with what happened in the Moonshine raid. There was a guy come over to buy some fish. You know, Louie used to raise catfish. Louie had a little steel learned in the fish room, and they were just making it for himself and mainly a few of his friends out there. You know. Hey gave us old boys un well, they got drunk, got caught, told the more he got it, you know. So they sent a sheriff Montgomery count here over in pair of camouflage and talking about turkey hunting, you know, and and one off knew any place had some. Well, Louis gave him a court a game shot. That's good that can I buy something? And not that I ain't gonna sell it to you, but he said, I'll give you a chuard of it. And Old Fred Neblake he was sheriff and it was re election and he thought that that would get him reelected. Oh, it was kind of a political move. Well to some extent it was he and they were just after and you know the game Mordens eight was all in it in Ah. Oh. Look he was there at the house one morning and he's camo overalls and barefoot didn't and all of a sudden, long cars started pulling up in the front yard. Old went out there and Old Fred he stepped out. He said, what't going on? Fred? And I was I was kind of afraid going out there, you know what he might do. And he's, well, look you know what we heard. You had some uh well that he was making whiskey out here, and Laris said, so he said, are you the smile said the best whiskey you ever tasted. And so they coming learned. Of course the game wardens they had there's been they had been after him all his life, and they coming there and they took Mete out of the freezers and they got turkey beards he kept through the years. And I don't know they had him for about twenty thousand dollars worth of game violations, and he was up. They heading to jail. I took him to jail, of course, and as upper and coming in, and I said, Lari said, we've got you for this, this, this now. If you'll plead guilty to the here said we'll drop it down to in thousand and he said, boys, he said, I'm not going to plead guilty to it. Fine. It wound up. They didn't. I like it, coughed him about Tian Graham on Whishkey making for the record. The idea that the raid was a political move by the sheriff isn't really known for sure, but it was the speculation of many. The Moonshine raid also included a game and fish raid. However, all the wildlife violations were dropped. It's unclear to me if it was because of faulty procedure in the raid making the evidence unusable in court, or if they just couldn't prove that all the wildlife was taken illegally. According to the family, the game and fish had to bring back all the meat and return it to the Edwards freezer. So according to the law, Louis del was innocent of the wildlife violations. On a completely irrelevant and tragic side note, Sheriff Fred Niblock would later become the mayor of Cove, Arkansas, and in night he was murdered by a disgruntled seventy eight year old man upset about an eighteen dollar water bill. The story made national news because the murderer had ridden his lawnmower to the city hall and also used it as a getaway vehicle. David Letterman made a joke about the incident on his Late night show, bringing Arkansas into the national spotlight for the eccentric murder. I bet you weren't expecting that. Here's some more of the back story on Louis Dell's moonshining from Jerry Deane Pickett that paints a little different light on it. For some info, Mr Mack was Louis Dell's father who only had one hand. Mr Mack he had done his grandpa and his daddy and the old mate whiskey, and Mr Mack had a recipe. And Louis Dale told me all along. He said, you know, I ain't never made no whiskey, but I'd like to make it one time. Just see if I can, and so he ended up getting to steal. He was making whiskey. He was already making it out there and buying his house In't it a little garage I called it. He wasn't making it to sell or make a living. He just making it see if he could make Him and Charlie I think he'd ruined about Tim Gallands at the time. Did that bother him that he got that they busted him for that? No, really, it just I mean he had to pay a lot of money though didn't well, he had to get a lawyer affirt Main and they had to go to court and all that, But it didn't bother He wasn't mad about that. I mean, but Louis never I never heard him say a horse word against none of them he called him really so he just was kind of okay with him. Yeah, he got Uh was he embarrassed about it? You think? Just kind of like just another day on Edwards Farm. He wanted to see if he could make it. But they wasn't making it to make money. They just Louis wanted just he wanted to see if he could make it. Yeah, I've tried several times to get him to give me Max recipe, and he's to say, oh, jee, you don't need that his recipe. It just gets you intro him. That's all he would. He wouldn't give you till the day he died. He never give me that recipe. Everybody agrees that Louis Dell never made moonshine again. If you remember, on the first episode the game Warden, Jimmy Martin made some statements about how he never caught Louis Dell and Charlie, which was correct because during his career nobody ever caught him. However, before Jimmy Martin became a game warden, they were caught for illegal turkey hunting when they were young. Here's Neil Taylor telling about the brothers getting caught. Let me go back, let me go back. Before we was at just a minute ago. I said that Louis never got caught. In Charlie, they did get caught one time when they first started. Really I guess say turkey hunted all her life off. No, but when they really took off serious about it. Uh, he had no toy Yoda, and he had take that thing where a billy goat couldn't go. You could look at the body work on it until it But they went up as old skid trail top of the mountain and they drought turkey hunting and they killed one. But anyhow they called. They had parked down and walked up the mountain, was hidding the brush around a Loulie struck, he haven't Charlie come out, and they put the bird under the hood and stuff started getting the truck, and they come out and rested them, you know, and old Charlie out And I could nobody tell it like Charlie did, he said. After they rode as a tickets, he said, the dumb ass old bees ask us for a ride back down the mountain. Louie said, well, sure, you give you a ride, just crawling the biker. Old Charlie, you get tick, will tell me, he said. Louise hearted up and backed up, trying ran. He said he looked over it when he said, Charlie, you better hang on. He said, Louis forward that thing, and he said we went off of that dad gum mounting on that good trail on hitting him was wasshed out place, and he said, you looked back her in the back. He said, they had all be with her hands and hair stuck up in the air on their back one time, he said, next time they'd become down on her ants. He said, it's a wander at and killed. He said, you know when they stopped at the bottom, he said, has sound grateful. They didn't even think us for giving him a ride. So they did get caught. And I don't want to take lightly these guys disregard for the law or putting someone in danger, But that doesn't erase for me how interesting this story is. If there was a movie about these guys, which there probably should be, this would probably be your favorite scene. I I'm just trying to figure all this out because I don't think any of us would condone such behavior or do it ourselves, but it's no doubt intriguing. Author Mark Bowden, in his book Killing Pablo, gave some insight into the irony of our intrigue with outlaws. Here's the quote from the book, quote the ones immortalized by Hollywood al Capone Body and Clyde Jesse James. Large numbers of average people rooted for them and followed their bloody exploits with some measure of delight. Their acts, however selfish or senseless, were invested with social meaning. Their crimes and violence were blows struck against distant oppressive power. Their stealth and cunning and avoiding soldiers and police were celebrated, these being the time honored tactics of the powerless man. That sounds familiar in dearmot to an outlaw is the time honored tactic of the powerless. We'll hear a lot more about this in later episodes. Here's stody was some more interesting intel. They got caught again, So they did get caught. That was the one time they got caught. All. Dad got caught another time. He'd been hunting down here. Oh, there used to be an old man lived down here named Fred Ferguson, And Dad had went in behind his house that morning and he killed him a good gobbler. And when he come back out, which Fred was about seventy five or eight years old, then he stopped at Fred's and cleaned it and gave Fred the bird. Well, then Dad went home. Well, I guess the game, and Fish had heard him shoot or seen him to leave Fred's. And they went in and searched and found that turkey and told Fred called Charlie and tell him get come over here. And take his ticket, or we're gonna take you to jail. And Dad got in his truck and go back over there. Kind got his ticket. Dad told me, he said, have dollars that average apter list and thirty cents a bird today if you get caught. The law confiscates vehicles, guns and all kinds of stuff, along with fines that can cripple a man, which we all believe is a good thing. Again, I think Charlie's sentiment clearly shows this was a different era. Back then, it was just a ticket and a three fine. I'll let you do the math on how many turkeys Charlie claim to kill. This also gives us a one time glimpse into what these guys did with some of the meat. In this case, Charlie gave it to the elderly landowner. If you remember, the game warden didn't think they killed as many turkeys as people believed because of the unsolved issue about what was done with all the meat. However, one thing every single person agreed on is that they would never waste any meat. Here's Neil giving us some insight on some of what they did with it. You know, I know that a lot of old people old ladies and stuff. And even if something old men, they got too old, get out. Louis would take them, dear mate, he'd take them turkey breast when he when he gave somebody like get the mayor, you hey, might give a show for the refs too. Yeah, but them old people like it. He took the best cuts to him. He'd take him if he took them tender on something, onom he took them a young tender one, or he'd give them the breast. Yeah, turkey. When I mentioned to somebody about their ethic around meat, they said, turkey poachers only take the breasts. Well, I wanted to get to the bottom of this. Here's Jerry Deane. I've heard it said that he had a really strong ethic for not wasting meat. He would not hunt nothing anything they're waste. I mean a lot of these people take the breast out of a turkey and throw the rest of the way. No, no, we we take all the dark legion. Really, so, even even if he was illegally killed a turkey and was sneaking it out in his pants pockets, he was taking the drumsticks and the thighs and everything. You didn't leave nothing but the God. I had another person off the record confirmed to me that they always took the entire turkey and never just breasted it out. I got a question for you. Have you ever breasted out of turkey and not used the thighs and drumsticks? Be honest, because I sure have. With today's wild game movement, most people are now keeping and using the dark meat on a turkey. Back in the day, I'm telling you they didn't do that. But these boys were doing this long before it was cool. Again, I'm not saying that made poaching right. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm just saying it's an interesting point. Here's Stoney with some more details. We ate everything. I I've had a lot of friends that would go hunting with us and they would sit there and bone out of deer. Oh most of them don't take ribs, and they don't take necks, And there's not a lot of meat on ribs or necks either one. But when we get home, what we don't eat, our dogs do. Because we've got a cook pot that's as big as this table. We'll take ribs, we take coon carcasses, possum carcasses. We don't skin coons and woods. We'll bring them home, skin them out. Carcass goes in the freezer when we've got enough in there. We filled pot up that potle feed dogs for about two weeks. When they were growing up. That's all the dogs eight was. There was dog food stuff when I was a kid, that pot cooking in the front yard and they just build a big pine not fire into that pot. So they had a really strong thing about not wasting meat. None of it goes to waste. As long as they knew you were taking it to eat, that they did not have a problem. Was it. Here's Stoney talking about the only time they turned somebody else into the game and fish. They came from a different era and just had a mentality about taking more game than they were allotted. Like why did why do you think they thought they could do that? And what would they have been mad at somebody else if somebody else has been like that, Like if there had been another another guy a couple of mountains over that was just as big a big outlaws them. I've seen them turn one person in and my whole life they called they went drove out and called game fish on that was wasting meat. We were hunting down on South Boundary. That was the only year we camped down there. And there were some people camped down just below us, and they had four carcasses laying there and they had they hadn't even skin them, and they cut back straps out of them, and the whole rest of the deers were all four deer were laying there. And my uncle drew by that and he said that ain't you on fly? And he drove from there to Langley and called game fish and had got him upburn and they got rope takes. Interesting stuff. These next two stories are just straight up entertaining that continued to paint a picture who these characters were. Here's Andy Brown. I don't know he just I'm missing my missing every day, you know, I think about everybody's got a Louis Hill story, and you know, I've one of the funniest stories and of all time probably this. If If I had this on tape, I would I would have been a millionaire because back when I first went to work for the company I worked for, I had insured a house that Louisdell owned over between Big FOURK and Opal. Charlie lived in it with his wife and so when I insured it, we had a field man, Charles glide when he's one of the greatest guys I've ever met in my life. And so we pulled up over to Charlie's got out and they had a rot water dog that you could road. I mean, he was a monster. Step on the porch, you know, but I mean, you know. We get by the roight waller dog and we go in and I said to Charlie, I said, I said, we need to look at your breaker box. And he I can't remember what his wife's name was, but she was really nice. He said, take him in there and sho him where the breaker box is. So we walk in this We walk in this bedroom and there's this big old cage, I mean a big cage, and breaker box is over on the wall that anyway, Charlie goes over and looks at it and takes a picture of it, and in about that time, this fox squirrel comes running out on this They got this tree for li Liam's cut. This fox girl comes running out there and I said, I said, oh, you've got a pet squirrel and she says, oh yeah, she says this thing. Thanks, I'm a smarma, and she just reaches over and opens up the cage. That squirrel just hops up on her shoulder, on her It's sitting there popping to stay like that, and Charlie is standing about about eighteen inches from her. And Charlie's dressed nice. He's got his tie on and his white shirt and his knit pants. And about that time Charlie goes, oh, that's a nice squirrel, And about that time that thing just hops over on charts. Oh, man, old Charlie. He just froze. He just stiffened up. And when she when she reached to get that squirrel, that squirrel, Clay just ringed him like a dead snack. He had no stiff pants up. And when it did, he just stiffened up like anyone. He screamed like a walk anywhe she got to squirrel over the closing anything like that, I was out of control. I couldn't even catch my breath. But anyway, that's a story, but that's hilarious. So they had a pet fox girl. Oh, he screamed like a wildcat. I'll never in my life forget Andy Belly laughing about this thirty years after it happened. Here's another interesting story about Louis Dell's appreciation of rattlesnakes and the Edwards brother's choice of footwear. This is Jackie Ryan, the guy that nearly got shot when he prank called Louis Dell. We was turkey out one morning, coming off a mountain and and I mean we should have ratt I mean just we went airborne to old same time, but uh, huge rattler and they rattle return and we scattered. Well, I mean he should leave it, baby, don't don't mess with it. Said, he could have been at either one of us, you know. And uh he's told me stories here just not there or four year ago or if five, maybe about one. Uh, he was a word turkey on one morning and daylight and and uh he heard some rustling in the leaves and and he should do was a monster one come right up between his legs, him sitting there against tree that he had set out on it. It was just cold that morning, you know, it was early spring. And uh, he just didn't never believe in killing rattlesnakes. I've seen him catch one. We've been aware of fishing on the cost Tot And he was out there barefooted at at dark. It was just after dark and and got him a stick and fork of stick, and he caught that thing and got it by the bash of the head and put it back to the truck and carried it back and were with him a word baylock. I mean, I never didn't even kill one, so he turned it loose. Yeah, he likes trattle snakes. I like that. I like rattle snakes too. And he wore tennis shoes every I mean when he went a hunting most every time he went, he wore tennis shoes. Did he really, Oh? Yeah, yeah, he didn't hunting boots. No, did he not know he'd wear tennis shoes old Tam, he did, but he kind of hunt and he did. He wore tennis shoes. This is new news to me. He always had crossing creeks and getting wet and I didn't care about that. He weighed right out in it didn't matter, and just wear wet tennis shoes. And I'm sure cotton socks he probably didn't. Yeah, I don't remember exactly what socks she wore, but I know he wore them tennis shoes old time. And he did that in Colorado too, did he really? Yeah, he'd wear tennis shoes. I don't remember him wearing many boots. He did backed years ago work in boots. I don't think he done a whole lot in boots. Really, he didn't even work in leather. But he wore tennis shoes most of the time. Oh my, okay, Jackie, you don't know what you've done, because this recks my philosophy. I have a really strong philosophy on footwear. And you are well inside the bounds. You're wearing a beautiful pair of probably red wing boots. I don't know if it was Okay, okay, I got my schnays one. I don't like to go anywhere where I don't have a good leather boot on me. Was he ever bit by a snake that you know? Not that I know of. I heard Charlie was one time a squirrel hunt, and they said he'd squirrel barefooted, you know, because where you slip around and got bit by a copy head. But I mean that just want hunted squirrels barefoot. Yeah, I believe it. And I think they had competitions. I mean, you know, they was they were competitive with each other, and you know, and and I think Louie always thought Charlie but a squirrel hunter, and he was that maybe not on anything else but squirrels. I think it's you know, he thought, butter squirrel on it. I wouldn't want have been a squirrel in the woods. Louis Dell was a woodsman in the truest sense of the word. He knew the woods like the back of his hand and how to gain resource from it. He spent more time in the woods in a year than most people would in a lifetime. To hear that he wore tennis shoes kind of puts all our fancy gear into perspective. I had a question for Stony about some of the deer's uncle and dad killed. Honestly, I was hoping to see some of the racks. I was very surprised at what he said. Did Uh did your dad or Louis Dell ever kill any I mean, I know they did, real big bucks. Oh yeah, have you got some of their horns? Still you don't have any of their horns? Uh? Gloodell's got two deer hanging on his wall. About four years ago, we had been running all morning and we got back to his house and I heard two him dogs, three of my dogs. They've been running five hours and I heard him come across the mountain up there, and Uncle, I'll run to the truck and got his gun, and uh, he said, they'll come out at the crowd down there, and I said, all right, well it's a cross three hundred yards. Well, we looked up and here coming this buck across the field and he's coming right straight at us. Well, he got out there and turned broadside, and Uncle I said shoot him, and I said I I can't. He's a hundred and fifty hundred and sixty yards and he's out of my He's got a six meli mate in his hand. I said you shoot him and he boom. He turned the circle there and fell over and then and he was he's a nice, nice eleven point. And I told Uncle and I said, we need to go get that one mounted. Well, we we sat down right there before we even went to the deer, because Dan's still hear the dogs. There was a mile behind him. He can still hear dogs running. And I said, they'll be out here in a minute. Let them let them find him, you know. And directly here you see all three of them coming across the field right up there and circling in that deer. And we went ahead and drove out there then. And I don't know if he was more proud of the deer or the dogs, because he sat there petting on him and feeding him liver. And you need, you need to put that deer in this uh gas station. Uncloud Hell's got three sets of horns that he's kept his entire life. Ones is both kill elk five to five elk that buck there and then year before last he killed a nice nine point. They saw off horns and just keep him in the barn or something. Yeah, but they gave him way over the years. Yeah, dad killed a killed a thirteen point. They had a twenty three inside spread and uh, my nephew came came from Tulsa, and Dad gave him the horns. And they killed a lot of nice ones over the years. But the horns just didn't mean much to him. It didn't mean anything. Give they give away their deer horns. They just when we're deer camp during that week, it's all important, the big bucks, who killed the biggest buck. When we go home that night, the last night of camp, none of it matters anymore. In fact, when we're packing up camp. Oh, you can have them horned I feel on them. That was surprising to me that they didn't care about the horns. It doesn't fit the stereotypical ideas we have about quote poachers, but it does fit the character of Louis Dell and Charlie. I'd sooner give away my truck than a set of white tail antlers. Does that make me a trophy hunter? Louis Dell and Charlie were serious deer hunters, and the only way they cared about killing one is if it was in front of a dog. And for the purpose of the expansion of our worldview, I'll mention this dog deer hunters have often been known to think that still hunters, tree stand hunters, guys that hunt over corn piles and food plots aren't real sport wortsman. They believe it takes more skill and dedication to craft to kill a deer in front of a dog, and when you hear their side, it's hard to argue with the purpose of this is not to incite an argument or debate of whether the doctrine is right or wrong, because there isn't an answer. I've always talked about supporting all legal methods of hunting. Stuff like this teaches me the world is much bigger than my small window into it and my personal preferences in my style of hunting, and I respect the way a man wants to hunt as long as it's within the boundaries of the law. What Stony is about to say is controversial, but he's speaking for his own father and uncle, who can no longer speak for themselves, and I think he's got the right to express the mechanics of their mentality. For anybody to hang a poacher stigma on them, I believe it's wrong. According to UH game laws, they were poaching. According to our forefathers, they were doing what they were supposed to. I mean that, and that's the way they looked at it. If I come into your house and tell you how to eat your corn, you know you have to have this much butter on it, and you can only have ten pieces. You're gonna tell me to go to when they come into our home, which I'm sorry. These mountains are their home, all of them, not just the land they own. All these mountains are their home. When you come into their home and say, well, here's all these, dear, you can only kill this one or this one, but leave all these alone. They're gonna tell you to go to if you go back far enough. Our country is founded on that very principle. Those guys got tired of England telling them what they could and could not have. Well, the people that moved in here weren't very far removed from those people that told England go to So they grew up with that mental to your Eron's Valley, and it still exists to a point. We're more civilized now. Yeah, the need isn't there now. I asked Neil Taylor a question about how the community dealt with these guys killing more than their share. How do you how did people perceive that, because everybody knew that these were turkeys that you know, they were taking away more than their share. What was your perception of the way people in the community handled that. Well, I may not everybody knew it. You know, people's way of thinking change from time to time. From when you was a kid, you already see a huge difference in how people thinks and takes different things. Yeah, it's totally different. There were still enough of the old timers back that so they didn't care. There was plenty of turkeys for them and everybody else too. And there wasn't there that many turkey hunters back right, I could go out and go hunting and never see a vehicle hardly. Now you go out there and there's four or five vehicles where you've been scouting. On opening the morning, you know, a lot of people started coming in from the city, you know, and there was a few people that didn't like it at all. I mean, you know, you know what you said about how people's mentalities change over time, that's a that's a very real thing that's hard to calibrate. Like I think today, I feel like today, even though certainly there's still people that break the law, it's much more common for people to pretty much obey the law. And there's a lot of reasons for that. You know, people are more educated about the science of game management, even if they're ones are not back then to call call a game ward and you had to go to the house now and they can't take a picture of you and your tags right there, you call right there and follow you know, right, Okay, So yeah, technology has made enforcement easier, which has made people be more apt to obey the law. But I don't think that that's as much. Is is what some people thinks it is. I think it's uh. The mentality of thinking what Neil is tapping into is true. We have too many examples throughout history of a shifting value system, and it doesn't make what happened before necessarily right. It just helps us make sense of how some stuff happened. I wanted to ask Stony something and I had no idea what he would say. What are the things that you you would pound the table for for your kids or grandkids in terms of the values that they had that you would want them to have. I want my kids to be law abiding in in this day and time. You go buy a car, well, if you met us up the game and fish can take that car back in their prime when this was going on, game fish didn't have that power. I mean, you get a fine, all right, we'll pay it and go on. I want my kids pounding the table for their guns, and my boys believing their guns, and I want them to pound on the table for their right to hunt, had to hunt the ways they want to bid bows and arrows or guns or black powder or spear checking. I mean, but I also want them to pound the table for conservation. There's a touch of that bear grease redemption that we've all been looking for inside of that. It's pretty powerful to hear Stony, Charlie's son say that about conservation. It took this family a little bit longer to get there, But I think the Edwards have shifted their positions in a lot of ways. Here's Jerry Deane. They may have been some game warned. It could have called him when he was young. I'd like to seeing them because they have been too. They probably some of them set out there the last fifteen years trying to catch him, and even home eating breakfast. Undoubtedly the last fifteen years of their lives, Louis Dell and Charlie slowed down on violating game lass. Many people said this it would be a cute bota in this story to say that they had a change of heart, that they could look back and say that they've done stuff wrong. But I don't really know if that's true. Perhaps they just simply slowed down physically, or maybe the penalties for game violations increased to the point that they couldn't risk losing it all. Will never really know. Would it change the way that you feel about them at the end of the story, if they'd realized the error of their ways and changed. I guess the game of fish will always know him is outlaw. Well, I get a lot of other people of outlaw suit. But the world will be a whole lot better if everybody would like old Lois. That's all I can say about to get. If I were falling on a rope somewhere, he'd be the one I wanted on the end of the rope, I want anything. Pire's Neil with a very interesting take on Louis Dell and Charlie Well. A lot of people that laugh at this, and I find it kind of comical, but it's the truth. They kind of they was kind of modern day Robin Hood. Tell me what you mean by that, Well, you know, I mean Robin Hood. He was an outlaw by the government. He would killed the king's game, and he robbed from the rich. Louis didn't rob, but in a way he did rob some games from some people. People might think but he but he gave a lot of meat away. Like I said, old people on fixed incomes, okay, you know, and you could always count on him to help you. They're kind will never be again. It was pretty much the last of a of a tie of people and I miss them. Oh, Louis, you know, hey, he was quick to get mad, but he was quick to laugh, you know, quick to forgive. Why won't there be other people like them? Well, it's just it takes the times that they lived through will never be again. You know, that's what develops the power person. What they are and what they've lived through. Like I said, the mentality and and the thoughts of the people that raised them and they grew up around or them, people are no more. Man, I don't know what to say. I've had a lot of people that I question why I highlighted these men, But I've also had a lot of people that I trust thank me for it. As we come to the close of this biography section of this series, I'm still conflicted. But I have noted one thing. People that knew these men were much more apt to extend mercy to them. And I'm not saying that mercy means condoning illegal activity. It just means they weren't ready to lock them up. People that never knew these men were much more likely to want justice. I envisioned some other podcaster making a series on some outlaws that I didn't know. Maybe some hellbillies from Alabama that just wore the turkeys out. I have a feeling I might be like, how the heck could these guys use their platform to highlight those heathen criminals. These guys are the biggest threat to the North American model of wildlife conservation I've ever seen. Lock them up. Honestly, I might say that, but I think we're all full of paradoxus. And I think that face to face human relationship with other people means all the difference in a whole bunch of stuff, and that's what makes life interesting. One thing is for sure. We're entertained and intrigued by outlaws for better or worse. And after exploring the fullness of these guys stories, I am still proud to have known these men, and I think their story is of great value. Man, thanks so much for listening to Bear Grease. On the next episode, we're gonna find out why we love outlaws, and I don't want to leave you with a nondescript cliffhanger, but I really doubt you're gonna want to miss the next episode. Please leave us a review on iTunes and share this podcast with a friend. We've got our famous bear grease hats back in stock at the meat Eater dot com, so check that out too. But hey, now I want to give you some of that bonus material. This is some interesting stuff that I couldn't fit into the main podcast. You guys remember the game Ward and Jimmy Martin from the first episode, who spent his whole career chasing Louis Dell and Charlie Well. After our interview, I asked him if he remembered the time that he stopped me. He said he had zero recollection of it, so I proceeded to tell him the story. I do want to tell you about our run in that you don't remember. Listen to this. I've never told this story publicly. I was sixteen years old and it was a Friday night, and I had a blue tick coonhound named Thunder, and he got loose. I heard him way off somewhere, treed long like I'll just as far as I could hear. Somehow I knew he was treed down in this hollow and it was it wasn't coon season, I want to say, it was this summer, and I had my coon light that had my pistol attached to the belt. All in one deal and and when I I had to go get the dog, and I grabbed my coon belt and I had my pistol on there and my light, and I jumped on a fore wheeler. And now this is where the story gets interesting. I had decided that if there was a coon in the tree, I was gonna shoot him, just I was. It was a young dog and he's treed down there, and it's just like it's in my heart. I was like, I'm gonna shoot this coon, but I wasn't coon hunting. Well, I jump on my dad's fore wheeler and it didn't have lights, no lights on the fore wheeler. So I'm running with a head lamp, my coon lamp shining, riding a fore wheeler. Well, to get to the dog, I had to jump out on the highway, and I was riding is after dark, and I'm riding in the ditch of the highway going down to get to my neighbor's land. And he he would have known, you know, it's been a good friend of mine. And I was gonna drive down to his driveway and then go into the woods and get the dog. Well, as soon as I get out onto the highway, there's one truck coming and it's you. And so you see this coon light coming down the road and you're like, what's going on? Anyway? I see you turn around you put on your lights, and I just go, oh no. And you come over to me and you say, son, what are you doing? And and I was honestly, was just like honest to a fault. I said, sir, I'm coon hunting. And I didn't even have I mean, I was sixteen, so I just didn't have the wherewithal to like really give you the whole story of what was happening. And I just told you I was coon hunting, and you said, is it coon season? And I said I don't think so. And you pulled out your book and you look through and you knew it wasn't coon season, but you look through and you said, look here, well it turns out it's not. And uh and you said, well, take off your gun and your light belt and give it to me. And so I gave you my gun on my light belt. That's right. And I didn't tell you that and uh. And you said meet me at the courthouse tomorrow at noon. And so you get in the truck with my light and drive off and then I've got a fourth of no lights and I drive all the way home with no lights. And then uh so the next day, I mean, you treated me with complete respect. The next day, I show up at the courthouse and I'm scared to death, you know. And I really didn't break the law on purpose. I mean I I've always been, even since a kid, straight laced. I mean, now I broke I've road claws on accident and some on purpose. That you know it's happened. So I meet you at the courthouse and you you've probably got a little more of the story from me. And you said, Clay, I was on my way last night to break up a party out at ink At at the river down there somewhere, and he said, and here you are, minding your own business, coon hunting, he said, And you you reached in and grabbed the belt and gave it to me and said, I just said, going your way. So you didn't give me a ticket. So you have no recollection though, man, that it happened just like that. Oh man. I was a nervous wreck that night. Lucky for me, Jimmy showed me mercy. I had another question for Jimmy about Louis Dell and Charlie. Were they the most notorious guys you ever chased guests in your time? They would have been in Polk County, but there were lots of others in other candies. Of course, my district was six counties is that we worked. So we worked some good ones out of Scott County and Yale County, and we had Louis Dale's, but they were in other counties. The other ones that I ran into them and I had to help work on weren't as likable as Charlie and Louis Dell, if that's a good way to put it. They the others were just out for what they could get, and if they weren't making money, well they just they just didn't enjoy what they were doing. They were just doing it to get even. I guess in these other candia they were getting as much as they could get. But Louis if, Loui Delle and Charlie may have been getting as much as they can get, but they you liked him for it. You guys remember Uncle Andy from the first podcast. He was a ten year old brother of Carl Edwards that was killed by police. He was involved in that shootout. Here's Jerry Deane. So you knew the Edwards. Yeah? Yeah, did he have part of his ear shot off? Sir? What what? What part of his ear was shot up? Was the top part of his ear? Yeah? Me? And then he was uncle and that's what ruby. Here's another interesting clip from Jerry Deane about Louis Dell's character. Jolly was fine fellow, but he uh, he wasn't worried about material things. Louis had the best business mind and he had done well, you know, with his job. And he treated everybody worked for the way he wanted to be treated. I mean you would you wentn't out nothing when you worked for Louis, and he paid good money. He took care of his workers. He took care of everybody. Yeah, Louis was fine feller and most people thought he was out law. But if you ever had anybody you wanted as your friend, he'd be the man to pick. I had heart surgery ten years go. Louis told me, And most people don't know it, but he told me. He said, don't worry about nothing, you need anything, you know, I pay forward. I'm here and he offered to pay my bills. Yeah, he pushed that type. And but let me tell you something. Money didn't mean nothing. Damn. That's why he was. That's why he could be so generous. You feel like it's because money didn't Well he wasn't. He wasn't a multimillionaire. But I guess you'd say, uh, he made money, money didn't make him. You understand. Yeah, he's really something. Everybody would have met him and my daddy, finest two fellers I ever met. Here's jerry On Louis del as a dog man. Lou Dell would have been just an all around woodsman. Correct. Tell me about the kind of dogs he had? Oh man, like what what types of that he had squirreled off? He had squirreled? Oh dear though whom no, I'm man hog dog hog dog Louie probably had. It's one time. He probably had twenty dolluh. He still had good score though when he passed away. He kept dogs all the live. He's a dog man. Here's jerry On Louis Dell's willingness to take people hunting. We'll probably learn on a later episode how willing he was to even entertain undercover officers too. No doubt Louis Dell and Charlie shared their passion for turkey hunting with anyone that wanted to go. Some of the turkey ounors wouldn't even to tell you where they gonna go turkey hunting. If they heard the turkey Louis tell you, say, go right of where they went there. He'd tell anybody for the turkeys that you know. He wasn't no tyke to be staying you about anything. He'd take them. People that never had even turkey hunt, He take them and put them out there and uh let him kill one. And most turkey owners ain't that way. Yeah, exactly. And that's another thing about Louis there's a lot of young boys like John now that Louis Elle has told how to to turkey on and he just wasn't his family know it was. Anybody that wants to come, he he teaches what he could. Thanks so much for listening, guys. We'll check in with it next week on the Bear Grease Render

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