Our Family Always Kept the Old Rule — Leave Food, Never Follow and the Sasquatch Will Watch Over You

Chapter 1: The Rule at the Edge of the Timber

My grandfather taught me the rule when I was eight years old.It was a summer afternoon in 1962, and we were sitting on the porch of our cabin deep in the hills of eastern Kentucky. Sunlight filtered through the hemlock trees, painting long golden stripes across the yard. The air smelled of creek water and pine sap, and the endless chorus of cicadas echoed from the forest.

Grandfather Harlon sat beside me in his weathered rocking chair, smoking his old corn-cob pipe. He wasn’t the kind of man who forced lessons onto children. He simply shared what he knew when the time was right.

That day, he looked toward the dark line of timber bordering our property and said:

“Leave  food at the edge of the forest. Never follow to see what takes it.”

He paused, letting the words settle.

“That’s how you stay safe on a mountain that isn’t entirely yours.”

At eight years old, I didn’t fully understand what he meant.

I thought he was talking about bears.

Or maybe wildcats.

But Grandfather shook his head before I could ask.

“This rule is older than me,” he continued. “Older than your father. Older than this cabin.”

He pointed toward the timber.

“It comes from an agreement.”

An agreement.

The word fascinated me.

“What kind of agreement?” I asked.

Grandfather smiled slightly.

“The kind made between men and something that lives in the deep woods.”

I remember staring at him, waiting for him to laugh or tell me he was joking.

He didn’t.

His expression remained completely serious.

That was the moment I realized he believed every word.

Years later, I would learn why.

My name is Dale Carson.

I was born in this cabin in 1954 during a spring storm. The doctor from Beattyville couldn’t reach us because the roads had turned to mud, so my mother delivered me with my grandmother’s help.

I’ve spent nearly my entire life on this mountain.

Some people leave home searching for something greater.

I never felt the need.

Everything important was already here.

My father, Roy Carson, worked as a timber surveyor for the Forest Service. His job often took him deep into the wilderness for days or even weeks at a time.

My mother, Edna, ran the household.

She raised chickens, tended gardens, kept goats, and knew more about medicinal plants than most doctors knew about medicine.

Neighbors traveled miles to ask her for remedies.

When babies were born, she helped deliver them.

When sickness came, she brewed teas and prepared poultices.

When winter storms trapped  families in their homes, she organized food and supplies.

She was the strongest person I have ever known.

But even my mother followed the rule.

Everyone in the Carson  family did.

Leave food.

Never follow.

Never watch.

Never ask questions.

As a child, I assumed every family had strange traditions.

Some families attended church every Sunday.
Food
Some families passed down old recipes.

My family left food at the edge of the timber.

Only later did I learn how unusual that truly was.

Grandfather Harlon called it “the Covenant.”

He never spoke the word dramatically.

To him, it was simply a fact.

The Covenant had begun long before I was born.

Long before my father was born.

It began in 1904 with my great-grandfather, James Carson.

At that time, these hills were far wilder than they are today.

The forests stretched endlessly across the mountains.

Roads were scarce.

Neighbors were distant.

A man living alone could disappear into the wilderness and never be found again.

James had arrived with little more than determination and an axe.

He intended to build a life for himself on land nobody else wanted.

The work was brutal.

Every tree had to be cut by hand.

Every field had to be cleared manually.

Every cabin log had to be hauled and shaped without machines.

But James was stubborn.

The mountain respected stubborn men.

One afternoon in the spring of 1904, while clearing brush near the future homestead, James heard something.

A sound.

Not a bear.

Not a deer.

Not a wolf.

Something else.

The sound came from deep within the timber.

It was powerful.

Resonant.

Ancient.

According to Grandfather, James later described it as a warning—not a threat, but an announcement.

Something was letting him know he wasn’t alone.

Three days later, a black bear destroyed part of his food stores and killed two pigs.
Food
James shot the bear.

Then he faced a decision.

Most men would have butchered it.

Some would have dragged it away.

Instead, James did something unusual.

He hauled the entire carcass to the edge of the forest and left it there.

Not carelessly.

Not as waste.

As an offering.

The next morning, the bear was gone.

Completely gone.

In its place were tracks.

Large tracks.

Tracks unlike anything James had ever seen.

They were shaped like footprints.

Human footprints.

Except much larger.

Much deeper.

As though something enormous had walked upright through the mud.

James studied them for a long time.

Then he returned home.

The following morning, he discovered something hanging from a low branch near the timber line.

Fresh meat.

Perfectly butchered.

Cleanly prepared.

Placed where he would find it.

At that moment, James understood something remarkable.

He had left a gift.

A gift had been returned.

It was an exchange.

A conversation without words.

And thus the Covenant began.

Neither side crossed the boundary.

Neither side interfered with the other.

 Food was left.
Food
Food was exchanged.

Respect was maintained.

And for decades afterward, the Carson family lived safely on a mountain that belonged to more than just us.

That was the story my grandfather told me while the cicadas sang and evening shadows stretched across the yard.

I listened carefully.

When he finished, he tapped ash from his pipe and looked toward the forest.

The timber stood silent.

Dark.

Watching.

Then he said the words that would shape the rest of my life.

“Remember this, Dale.”
Family
His voice was calm.

“Leave food.”

I nodded.

“Never follow.”

I nodded again.

Grandfather’s eyes remained fixed on the tree line.

“And if you’re wise,” he said softly, “you’ll never try to find out what’s watching from the other side.”

For several years after Grandfather told me about the Covenant, I accepted it the same way I accepted everything else about life on the mountain. Children rarely question the foundations of the world they are born into. The rules of a family seem as natural as the weather, and the habits repeated every day become invisible. Leaving  food at the timber edge was simply something the Carsons did. We did not discuss it with outsiders. We did not explain it to visitors. We certainly did not joke about it. It was as ordinary as chopping firewood before winter or planting beans in the spring. Yet even as a boy, I could feel that the rule carried a weight different from the others. There was a seriousness attached to it that surrounded every offering we prepared. Nobody rushed through the process. Nobody treated it carelessly. My mother often spent more time selecting food for the Covenant than she did preparing meals for ourselves.

One autumn afternoon when I was nine years old, I witnessed something that deepened my curiosity. The harvest season had been particularly good that year. The garden had produced more vegetables than we could reasonably store, and the smokehouse was full of venison from a successful hunting season. My mother spent the day preserving food while my father repaired fencing damaged by summer storms. I remember the smell of apples cooking on the stove and the rhythmic sound of a knife striking a cutting board as she prepared vegetables for drying.

Near sunset, she began assembling the evening’s offering.

I watched from the kitchen table while pretending to work on arithmetic lessons. She selected a loaf of bread she had baked that morning, still soft in the center and golden on top. Then she added smoked venison, several potatoes, onions, and a small jar of honey. The selection puzzled me.

“That’s enough food for a  family supper,” I said.

She smiled without looking up. “Then it’s a proper gift.”

“Why not leave something smaller?”

At that, she paused and turned toward me.

“Because respect isn’t measured by what you can spare,” she said. “It’s measured by what you’re willing to give.”

The answer stayed with me.

As the sun disappeared behind the ridge, we carried the wooden box together toward the timber edge. The path was familiar, worn smooth by generations of footsteps. Fallen leaves crunched beneath our boots, and the evening air carried the scent of damp earth and wood smoke drifting from our chimney. The oak tree stood exactly where it always had, marking the boundary between our world and whatever existed beyond it.

Mother placed the box carefully on the flat stone beneath the tree.
Family
She adjusted the cloth covering it.

Then she stepped back.

No words were spoken.

No prayer was offered.

No ceremony took place.

The simplicity somehow made it feel more important.

When she was satisfied, she turned and began walking back toward the cabin.

I followed.

Halfway home I glanced over my shoulder.

The forest stood silent.

Dark shapes filled the spaces between the trees.

Nothing moved.

Yet I had the uncomfortable feeling that someone—or something—had watched the entire exchange.

The next morning I woke before sunrise.

Curiosity pulled me from bed.

I dressed quietly and slipped outside before anyone else was awake.

Mist drifted across the field. The grass glittered with frost. Everything seemed hushed, as if the mountain itself was still sleeping.

I hurried to the oak tree.

The offering was gone.

Every piece of it.

The wooden box remained, clean and empty.

But beside it lay something new.

A bundle of herbs tied together with woven grass.

I stared at it for several moments before touching it.

The plants looked unfamiliar to me, though I recognized enough of my mother’s work to know they had been selected deliberately.

I carried them back to the cabin.

Mother’s expression changed the instant she saw them.

Not surprise.

Recognition.

Almost gratitude.

She examined the bundle carefully before placing it on the kitchen table.

“What are they?” I asked.

“Medicine,” she replied quietly.

“Did whoever took the  food leave them?”

She looked toward the window where the forest was barely visible beyond the morning fog.

“Yes.”

That was all she said.

Years later, I learned those herbs were used to treat fever and infection. At the time, however, I only understood that another exchange had occurred. We had given food. Something had returned a gift.

The pattern repeated itself again and again.

Some mornings there would be fish.

Other times honeycomb.

Occasionally berries that were out of season or medicinal plants that my mother valued greatly.

Once there was a collection of unusual stones arranged carefully inside a basket woven from materials nobody in our family recognized.

The exchanges never felt random.

There was intention behind them.

Purpose.

As though whoever—or whatever—was participating understood exactly what our family needed.

By the time I turned twelve, curiosity had become a permanent companion. Every unexplained gift fueled it further. Every mysterious exchange convinced me that the stories were true. My grandfather noticed the change before anyone else did.

One evening while we sat on the porch watching a thunderstorm build over distant ridges, he asked a question without looking at me.

“You’re wondering about it, aren’t you?”

I knew immediately what he meant.

“The thing in the woods?”

He nodded.

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

Grandfather chuckled softly.

“If I knew that, there wouldn’t be a Covenant.”

The answer frustrated me.

“You’ve never seen it?”

“No.”

“Not even once?”

“No.”

I studied him carefully.

He was telling the truth.

Or at least he believed he was.

“Don’t you want to know?”

For the first time, he looked directly at me.

His eyes were calm but serious.

“Wanting to know and needing to know aren’t the same thing.”

I didn’t fully understand.

He continued before I could ask another question.

“The world stays balanced because some doors remain closed. Curiosity is natural. Every human being has it. But sometimes curiosity becomes greed. Sometimes people stop wanting understanding and start wanting possession.”

“What do you mean?”

He leaned back in his chair and watched lightning flash beyond the mountains.

“If someone sees something extraordinary, eventually they’ll want proof. Then they’ll want control. Then they’ll want ownership. That’s how good things get ruined.”

The storm arrived a few minutes later, ending the conversation.

But his words remained with me.

At the time, I thought he was being overly cautious.

I thought he was protecting a mystery simply because it was old and important.

I didn’t realize he was warning me.

The older I became, the stronger the temptation grew.

Every glimpse of movement near the timber line caught my attention.

Every unexplained sound from the forest made me wonder.

Sometimes late at night I would lie awake listening to distant calls echo through the hills. They weren’t animal sounds I recognized. They were deeper. Stranger. Almost musical in a way that made the hair on my arms stand up.

Whenever I mentioned them, my father would simply say, “The mountain has its own language.”

Then he would refuse to elaborate.

As my fifteenth birthday approached, I found myself thinking constantly about the boundary. I knew where the offerings were placed. I knew approximately when they disappeared. I knew the routes hunters used through the forest and the places where a person could hide unseen.

Most dangerously of all, I had begun convincing myself that I was clever enough to break the rule without consequences.

It started as a fantasy.

A harmless thought.

Then it became a plan.

And before long, it became an obsession.

I told myself I only wanted answers.

I told myself I wasn’t trying to harm anything.

I told myself that seeing the truth would help me understand my  family’s history.

In reality, I was a fifteen-year-old boy standing at the edge of a mystery that had survived nearly a century, and every instinct in me wanted to look beyond the curtain.

I had no idea that the choice would change the rest of my life.