December 17^th 1808, day eighteen.

My dearest Emily, at this time what I am writing in this journal is based solely upon my personal reflections of the events of those dates entered, and now as I sit here in reflection I must say that the morning of day eighteen began like every other day in that dreary somber place, as each morning began in the same cold and dark way as every other, with each day running endlessly into one another as one long nightmare unfolding itself like a devils flower blooming right before our very eyes. As if each man himself were bearing such a witness to a twisted play, drawing each of us into its dreadful conclusion, one by one each to his own end.. On the day of December seventeenth, in the year of our lord eighteen hundred and eight, I had dear Emily an awakening, on the eighteenth morning of our journey before the remaining members of our party left the valley, we had unanimously decided to gather our deceased companions and give each a Christian burial, and following an uneventful morning we did that very thing.. Each man recovered was put into his final resting place on this earth and as best as we could offer each was given his last rites.. And then we began our journey home. We would ride to the edge of the valley back to where we entered, and then on foot we would lead our animals and our prize up the long and winding trail that proved such a hazard for the deserters. As we rode to the beginning of the trail as I recall Crow Jackson was in the lead behind him rode Byron Kinney, and then Christopher Stautner, Boots Harlow and myself. As we rode I could hear distant thunder faintly echoing above us through the towering tree tops, like angry ocean waves crashing upon a distant shore, it was as if we were all of us lost in a terrible dream, then before my very eyes we were each awakened by the savage reality of our situation.

As we moved north towards our destination the path we rode became narrow and the trees on either side became taller and thicker, when out of the corner of my eye I spied movement in what seemed to me to be the tree tops themselves.. We made our way slowly as the trail on one side had a widening crevasse to our left that extended itself to a depth of perhaps twenty or thirty feet , as Crow made his way closer to the left a blur came out of those trees and took him from his animal , together in a flash they both rolled hard onto the ground and down the steep sides of the crevasse and disappeared from our view, though none of us saw him, it was unmistakably Moondaddy.. We all had stopped our animals and dismounted from them immediately, and began to load our weapons , Byron and Christopher stayed with the animals while Boots Harlow and myself now armed, slowly approached the edge of the crevasse while calling out Crows name repeatedly, to which we received no reply, only an eerie silence echoed in our path, and as we reach the edge we could see the still body of Crow Jackson lying on the ground at the very bottom, he was clearly Dead. Although there was no sign of Moondaddy, we both knew that he wasn’t to be far away, Boots moved along the ledge to his left and I braved the path to the right, to where I found a place where the sides were not as steep and I began to make my way along down into the crevasse itself and back to Crows body, and there in the trees standing in the mist like a defying spirit I saw him.. He was tall but gaunt and terribly thin in stature, it seemed to me, with a wild and almost incoherent stare harnessed by two Ice cold blue eyes that seemed to be as lifeless as his body itself, his hair was long and shaggy and terribly matted, in his right hand he gripped a bloody long blade which looked like a sword, he slowly raised it as we locked eyes he came forward slowly at first.. I raised my rifle and fired….

With my very first shot I took him off of his feet, his body lifted and lurched into the air backwards, And he fell hard onto the ground. He lie still, even though seeing this I did not approach him, for I have seen possums in action and in the very nature of this beast I did not trust my own eyes, Instead I reloaded my weapon and waited until some time had passed, I was correct in my assumption of the possum, as he rolled onto his side and began to rise, I again raised my weapon and trained it on his person, he looked at me and began to make a grunting sound which turned to a scream.. Though my first shot had not been fatal, my second found its way into his skull, and again took him cleanly off of his feet and killed him dead. Now to my rear I could hear my companions approaching and the first to reach my side was young Christopher Stautner, who upon seeing the body of the man that he had known as his father had little reaction in the way of remorse, it was more I suspect a look of relief, I placed my hand upon his shoulder, “I am truly sorry that I had to do this Christopher, But I’m afraid that I was left with little choice.” He gave the body a cold almost vacant stare, and then raised his eyes to mine “ I’m not sorry Mr Scarsdale,” he told me, “my father was already dead, you just killed his ghost.” We buried both Crow and Moondaddy each where they lay, and although few words were spoken we were all each locked in their own thoughts, mine were only of you.. With our terrible ordeal behind us we retrained ourselves to the task of going home to fight the fever and with our cure in hand we found ourselves safely at the top of the valley before nightfall… we were finally going home.. I love you Emily… Your devoted husband Chester Alan Scarsdale. December seventeenth 1808.

Epilogue.

It had been the very first time that I had felt the glorious warmth of the beautiful sun touch my skin in what seemed to be a lifetime, for so Long now I have felt the cold bitter bite and chill of winter life, and To feel warmth again for any length of time provided great comfort for my weary mind and soul, and although the joy it had given me to experience such euphoria, paled in comparison to what my tired eyes had beheld on this glorious Morning. I stood there transfixed by the beauty of that very sunlight that had only moments earlier comforted me so, now I watched as it danced in your beautiful long blonde hair Carried out on a gentle morning breeze. I think that I shall never again bear witness to such pristine a beauty as the woman that I love so dearly standing alone in her own world of wonder on a cold crisp spring morning, it fills my heart with more joy than any act of god or man ever could. You did not see me at first, and when you did you looked as though you did not believe what your eyes were telling you, and on a dead run you leapt into my arms on that cold spring morning and I once again held my dear Emily, and now here we are at home the shaman is using the root that we harvested to break the terrible fever, and it looks as though life will go on for those here that remain.. And as I look at you my beautiful Emily, as you lye there sleeping by our fire, I know that our Heavenly father has indeed blessed me with this beautiful life that we will live together , and that this wonderful union that we share dear Emily shall live long past old age… Finally.. Your loving Husband Chester Alan Scarsdale.. December twenty fifth, In the year of our lord eighteen hundred and eight..

December 16^th 1808 day seventeen (sixth entry)

Early this morning we had left crow Jackson along with Byron Kinney to stand guard over our remaining provisions, while Boots , Christopher and I ventured back to the root bulb patch to continue our harvest, we were sure to leave behind plenty of shot for their weapons, as the deserters didn’t appear to have taken any of the weapons or ammunition, perhaps in their haste to depart our fair company the cowards simply forgot. At any rate we now had more than enough Supply’s to last until we completed the harvesting of the root bulb. Along the way to harvest, Young Christopher had spotted something out of sorts, not far from where the bodies of the pack animals were found were the bodies of three of the five stolen horse’s, and whose riders lie dead near them, apparently they tried to ride the animals up the narrow path to the top of the valley instead of leading them on foot, and in their haste to flee they fell to their makers waiting arms.. We arrived at our destination to begin harvesting the remaining root bulb, we had two sacks left and Christopher and I had begun to fill them to capacity, when suddenly Boots had raised his rifle and fired it upon a dark figure in the tree’s, Christopher and I dropped our sacks and retrieved our weapons and joined him as he begun to proceed into the dark woods.. There the two remaining bodies of the deserters were lashed to the tree’s and chopped into pieces.. Though we had only found three of the horse’s along with their riders, it would appear as though all five had perished in their attempt to escape this valley.. And as I ran a finger over the mutilated body of Jerod Beatchum, I could feel that his blood was still warm, and when faced with that realization my own ran cold as we now knew that Moondaddy wasn’t very far away.. Young Christopher seemed to grow suddenly ill, and for a moment I thought as though he may have contracted the fever, but it was an illness that appeared to strike him much quicker. We sat him down after we took our final harvest back to our encampment, and there he had begun to break down and cry, we stood there in our uncomfortable confusion, until Byron came forward to ask the question, “Young man , why are you crying?” his response took us all by complete surprise.

He had told us that he had not been telling us the truth about Moondaddy, the settlement that the boy was from was not above the valley as he originally told us, he was from a small group of people that had become stranded through a harsh and very cold winter, on the far side of the valley itself, several feet of snow had fallen in a rather short period of time and the party had become trapped unable to fend for itself. in the beginning there were ten people, when the food supply ended they began to die from starvation. Some tried to leave on foot as all of the animals had been eaten and they were never seen again. Those that stayed behind began to turn to cannibalism to survive, and as of the last falling of the snow there were two people left out of the ten… Young Christopher and the man that he now called Moondaddy…. Aaron Stautner, Christopher’s Father. Young Christopher fearful for his life had been running from his deranged father for several weeks, to him the man that he knew as his father was dead, and the one that had been living in his body seemed to be completely mad now, so the boy fearful for his life tried to leave him to his madness and found himself being hunted. After hearing this sad confusing tale, our decision was easy after packing up all of our remaining supply’s along with the sacks full of the root bulb ,we were taking Young Christopher with us back to the Corbett settlement. It was now getting on in the evening so we could not travel through the night as we would all perish for certain, so we had all agreed that we would sit for one more night by the light of the fire next to the cave.. Byron Kinney and myself sat up for most of the night discussing young Christopher’s story in great length, and Byron who has a bit of a medical background had determined that the boys father must have contracted a disease of some sort that had put him in such a deranged mental state, and that he was now completely misplaced from the world around him and it was more likely than not that he was incapable of rational thought.. Moondaddy was completely insane. We are to leave this place tomorrow Emily and I will be home soon to once again hold you in my arms, my precious wife.. Your loving husband, Chester Alan Scarsdale December sixteenth, 1808.