Escanaba in da Moonlight (2001) - full transcript
A humorous and relatable story of an intelligent man dealing with the frustration of being a "buckless yooper" at deer camp. He deals with his competitive brother, his challenging father and two other comical guys. Men will easily relate to the angst. Women will have fun as long as they're willing to avoid trying to find a deep plot line the first time they watch.
(peaceful, winding music)
- Hello, my name is Albert Soady,
and have I got a buck story for you.
The tale I'm about to tell
starts in November of '89
in the Soady deer camp, located just north
of Escanaba, Michigan, otherwise known
as the heart and soul
of the Upper Peninsula.
That's north of the Mackinac Bridge
and just south of heaven, for those of you
who don't know nothing.
For those that don't know
much about the Superior State,
there's a couple things
that need to be explained.
First thing is, in the U.P.,
we don't explain things.
Second thing is, we got some of the best
hunting and fishing in the whole world.
Bear as tall as Norway pines.
We got wolf, moose, beaver, wild turkey,
quail, rabbit, fox, and,
of course, the bucks.
Holy Wah, do we got bucks, big as Buicks!
You can slice the venison off
one Superior State buck and feed
the whole state of Wisconsin.
But there's another U.P.,
the one that ain't in the travel books,
the one that's older than
the very rocks it sits on,
the one only the Indians understand.
Don't get me started on them.
My oldest boy married one.
Strange gal, to say the least.
I'm getting ahead of myself.
As Great-Grandpa Alphonse
always used to say,
when you don't know where to start,
go back to the beginning.
From the loins of our union,
Big Betty Belou and me
bore two boys, Reuben and Remnar.
Now, I'll tell ya right up front,
they are not the sharpest
tools in the shed.
Remnar turned out to be pretty much
what you'd expect from somebody
who went by the name of Remnar.
But Reuben, well, Reuben
was a different story.
Reuben spent his whole
life without hanging
a single buck on the buck pole.
That ain't a big to-do
if you're just another
fudge-sucker bobbing over
the bridge, but for a Soady?
Luckily that Injun gal had a way with him.
- Wolf Moon Dance, will you still love me
if I come back without a buck?
- [Albert Voiceover] Now, some things fit
together better than others,
and it's hard to say how somebody
who was so much a part of
the natural order of things
would fall in love with
somebody who wasn't so natural.
But she did.
(gun clicks)
And, lucky for him, 'cause
as Great-Grandpa Alphonse
always said, behind every good
man is a woman who can hunt.
(soft Native American music)
- Forgot your lucky hat.
- Can't go without this.
- Boys, wave bye to Daddy, then I want
you to run inside, okay?
Go ahead.
- Go get a deer, Dad.
- Bye, boys.
What?
- Why does he never
invite me up to deer camp?
- It's deer camp.
- So?
- So, it's deer camp.
- Just thought maybe
if we hunted together.
- If we hunted together, I'd be known
as the buckless Yooper
whose wife shot him a buck.
Look, I know what you're doing,
and I love you for it, I really do,
but I gotta do this on my own.
(Reuben gasps)
(Wolf Moon Dance speaking
foreign language)
- Reuben, first, you must believe.
- [Albert] Despite his little problem,
Reuben hadn't missed an
opening day in over 30 years.
- Best bait pile?
Not corn, not carrots.
Spoiled Brussels sprouts.
See, deer aren't just colorblind.
They're all-blind.
And since they can't see,
they gotta rely on the olfactory.
Give 'em a little whiff
of the spoiled sprouts.
Holy Wah, there he goes.
(soft, twangy music)
♪ Thought I knew a cold ♪
♪ People I really thought I knew ♪
♪ But there is such a freeze on me ♪
♪ I'm fixing to turn blue ♪
♪ Want you hand me down
my old winter coat ♪
♪ No fire will warm me ♪
(singing drowned out by squealing tires)
♪ Freeze ♪
(soft, twangy music)
- Hey, look, it's Buckless Yooper!
(kids shout)
Hey, Buckless Yooper, Buckless Yooper!
Hey, Buckless Yooper,
Buckless Yooper, hey!
(tires screech)
(kids laugh)
(soft, twangy music)
♪ Now it doesn't seem that long ago ♪
♪ I was sitting on Daddy's knee ♪
♪ Listening to the tales
that he would tell ♪
♪ Some taller than the big pine trees ♪
♪ He taught me about tradition ♪
♪ Doing proud of the family name ♪
♪ Hard as I might try mine
always seems the way of shame ♪
♪ And I'm feeling so downhearted ♪
♪ And I think I must just cry ♪
♪ I'm afraid that if I do ♪
♪ These tears are gonna freeze in my eye ♪
♪ That might be okay ♪
♪ 'Cause then I couldn't see ♪
♪ All the things that keep going wrong ♪
♪ The way they all look at me ♪
♪ Back there wishing I would go ♪
♪ Over that big old bridge and leave ♪
♪ Lord have mercy, get me through ♪
♪ This hard luck freeze ♪
(soft, twangy music)
- Hello!
- Hello!
- Is this the Soady deer camp?
- You found her.
- The world famous Soady deer camp?
- One and the same.
- Yeah, is that Albert
Soady's sweet sap whisky
over there I see?
- Might be so lucky.
- Well, better have me a snort, eh?
- You know it's good for ya.
- How ya feeling, Pop?
- If I felt any better, I'd be dangerous.
(Reuben chuckles)
- Oh, wow.
A little heavy on the sap.
- A little what?
- On the sap, it's a
little heavy on the sap.
- The sap's what's makes it.
- Yeah, well, that may be,
but, if I didn't know better,
I'd say I just drunk from
a bottle of maple syrup.
- [Albert] Give me the damn jar back.
- All right-
- A man who can't look another man
right in the hairy eyeball and tell him
he's heavy on the sap ain't much of a man.
Maybe it'd be better if I
took the sap out altogether.
Would that make you happy?
- Well, I wouldn't think of Aunt Jemima
every time I took a snort,
I can tell you that.
- Well, I ain't about to
do it, so put that down.
That year, camp was as
tense as a moose's butt
during fly season.
Remnar didn't help.
- Hello!
Is this the Soady deer camp?
- You found her!
- The world famous Soady deer camp?
- The one and the same.
- The one and the same.
- And is that a pint of Albert Soady's
sweet sap whisky I see?
- You like pancakes?
- A little heavy on the sap, eh?
- Oh yeah, no kidding.
- But that's what makes it-
- You're late.
You're supposed to be here at six, eh?
- Black leather, fudge-sucking-
- I stopped off to the porcelain bus,
picked up the beer,
thank you very much.
- I'm not talking about that
and you know that.
You're supposed to steer
clear of her, Remnar.
- Did you want the beer or not?
- I don't care about the beer.
- I don't drink nothing
that's already been drunk before.
- Pop, I got it, okay, I got it.
- They was playing this game, eh?
(people chattering)
They put all the guys on one side,
and all the girls on the other.
And we each got a cue stick
off of the pool table there.
(people chattering)
And the gals all got a
roll of toilet paper.
(bluesy bar music)
(people shouting)
First couple to jam their cue stick
into the toilet roll gets
a free case of Leinenkugel,
thank you very much.
- [Reuben] She's married, Remnar.
- I couldn't help myself, eh?
The girl's got a tongue of a trout.
- Your mother had the tongue of a trout.
- She was licking me like a dog's balls.
- Her husband filed a restraining order.
- Yeah, I know, I know, but she's got
a hot nose, hands like a logger.
This girl can split wood.
- [Albert] Your mother could split wood.
- Did you bring the pasties?
Tell me you brought the pasties.
- We're gonna eat like kings.
- You know me, you know how I am.
I am a creature with habits.
If things aren't just so,
things won't work out.
- Things won't work out.
- That's right.
Tell me again you brought the pasties.
- I took care of it, eh?
- Beautiful!
Is this heaven or is this heaven, eh?
- This is heaven.
- I think I look forward to
opening day of deer season
more than any other day of the year.
It's like Christmas, with guns.
You feeling lucky this year, Pop?
'Cause I'm feeling lucky.
- Give a man a little luck and
anything will do for brains.
- Yeah, toss a little over this way.
- I was driving up to camp tonight,
I swear to God I had one of those things.
What do you call those things
you get when you're driving?
- Blackouts?
- Blackouts?
- One of those things that flash
across your mind like a dream,
only you're not dreaming.
- A vision?
- I was driving up to camp, eh?
Thinking about what scope to use,
which socks to wear, how
much beer to take, you know?
- The essentials.
- Right, when all of a sudden,
right there in front of me
is a 50-point buck.
- A 50-point buck?
- That's what I said.
- There is no such thing
as a 50-point buck.
- I know, I know, I know,
I said the same thing.
I said, this can't be so.
I mean, you know, a 50-point buck,
but I looked again, and
there he was, as real as you.
And the thing was, he didn't go away.
I just kept seeing him and
seeing him and seeing him.
- And you're still
driving this whole time?
- I do not believe I was, no.
Somebody had their hands on the wheel,
but I could not tell you
for sure they was mine.
- Holy Wah.
- Holy Wah is right.
So I jump out of the truck,
and still he don't move a muscle.
It was like he was waiting for me,
just standing there, tall and proud,
like the trophy that he is.
So I bring my gun up, put
my finger on the trigger,
take a deep breath-
- To steady your nerves.
- And that's when he spoke to me.
- He spoke to you?
(Albert laughs)
- "Take me, Remnar, take me now." (laughs)
(Albert laughs)
(Remnar laughs)
- You buggered him.
Ah, you buggered him that time. (laughs)
He swallowed it all, all of it, all of it!
- Pop, I don't know whose
hands are on the wheel, eh?
(Albert and Remnar laugh)
I just made that up as I was telling him.
(Albert and Remnar laugh)
A 50-point buck.
- [Albert] That might be the only buck
you see this year, eh?
- You're just jealous 'cause
I kicked your butt last year.
- You and all your talk put
together couldn't kick my butt.
- My 12-pointer to your
little four-point forkhorn.
I think that's a butt-kicking
in anybody's book.
Wouldn't you say that's
a butt-kicking, Reuben?
- Leave me out of it.
- I took the forkhorn and
passed on that 20-pointer.
I didn't have the clear shot.
- 20-pointer.
- That's right!
You can't make a clean kill,
don't make a kill at all.
- If you ain't gonna
pull the trigger, Pop,
than snap a picture.
At least then you'll have
something for the scrapbook.
- I shot the biggest buck of
anybody sitting in this room.
- When was that, Pop?
- November 15th, 1961.
Back when the bucks was as-
- Thick as mosquitoes.
- Thick as mosquitoes, that's right.
18-point, 15-inch thighs, 24-inch spread
with a weight of 284 pounds fully dressed,
and don't you forget it!
- Are you sure you didn't shoot a cow?
(Albert growls)
(Albert laughs)
- It would've been a state record
if I'd felt like reporting it.
- [Remnar] Well, it
wasn't 'cause you didn't.
- The hell it wasn't!
- You didn't report it, eh?
You don't report it, it
ain't a state record.
- I don't believe in state records.
- Oh, you don't believe in state records?
- I don't believe in anything
managed by the goddamned DNR.
- They aren't either managed by the DNR.
Reuben, what's the name
of that big game agency
down in-
- CBM?
- CBM, that's right, POP, CBM.
Stands for what, what's it stand for?
- Commemorative Bucks of Michigan.
- Commemorative Bucks of Michigan.
You gotta report it to
Commemorative Bucks of Michigan.
- When your great-grandpa Alphonse
tagged a Soady ridge buck back in 1922,
you think he notified the state?
Hell no!
- Probably hold the
state record if he had.
- He come back to the camp, pulled out
the Soady camp log and started writing
it down for all posterior.
Where is it?
- Right here, Pop.
1922.
- 28-points, with a rack spread
of 30 and three-quarter inches,
and an estimated weight of 334 pounds.
Boy, that ain't a state record.
That's a world record.
- How do you know everything
in here is on the up and up?
- If it's in there, it's the truth.
- Well, then make sure
there's a pencil handy
'cause when I come down
from the ridge tomorrow,
there's gonna be a new
Soady record holder, eh?
- You're hunting the ridge tomorrow?
- I hate to tell ya, but they ain't up
on the ridge this year.
- Big ones are on the
ridge, Pop, trust me.
- Big ones, eh?
- Oh, yeah, trophies.
I seen the tracks.
And you know what they say,
big bucks make big tracks.
Store that away for a rainy day.
- You mind if I hunt it with you?
- I like to hunt alone.
- Well, you know, I
don't mean side-by-side.
I'll take the one end, you take the other.
- No, that's no good, neither,
'cause then when we get to the middle,
we'll be shooting each other.
- What are you talking?
The ridge is five miles long.
- And I plan on hunting every inch of it.
I know, why don't you hunt the swamp?
- I'm hunting the swamp.
- The whole swamp?
- You're hunting the whole ridge?
- Well, that's how I hunt, eh?
- Well, that's how I hunt.
- Okay, wait a minute.
- You can't the ridge the
same way you hunt the swamp.
- The hell I can't!
- They're two different terrains!
- Hey, hey, hey, easy.
You know, if you're up on the ridge
and Pop is down in the swamp,
where the heck am I supposed to hunt?
- How about out by the road?
- How about what road?
- M35.
- It's a state highway.
- Deer love the highway.
- I hit one just last week.
- I'm not gonna hunt the highway.
It's a highway.
- Are you sure?
I think you might be
missing an opportunity here.
- You want me to set up a blind
on a shoulder of M35 and wait
for the next 10-pointer who tries to cross
it in traffic?
- I think you're getting the
plum spot, don't you, Pop?
- [Albert] Position A.
- That's how Bob McGinnis hunts.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, sets up a lawn chair
right on the side of the road and waits.
He'll sit there a whole week if he has to.
People bring him food, change of clothes.
- Hey, he ever marry that gal?
You know the one I'm talking about,
the one with the eyebrow going
straight across her head.
- Yeah, and she combs it
with her toothbrush. (laughs)
(Albert laughs)
(twangy, bluesy music)
(Albert knocks)
- Reuben.
(Albert sighs)
Reuben, open the damn door.
Oh, Jesus crumbs.
Holy Wah.
I admit I'm guilty in thinking
that maybe my luck would be better
if you was somewheres else.
That's no way to treat your own.
You wanna hunt the swamp
tomorrow, we'll hunt the swamp.
- Yeah, well, I'll just jinx you.
- I'll take my chances.
I think your problem's
more along the lines
you're just a shitty shot.
You couldn't hit the house
if you were standing in it.
It's a simple thing.
You just bring the gun up,
you put your finger on the trigger,
you take a deep-
- Take a deep breath
to steady your nerves,
I know it.
- To steady your nerves,
that's right.
Your great-grandpa Alphonse always said,
all good things come to those-
- Who shoot straight.
- To those that shoot
straight.
That's your problem in
a nutshell, right there.
Been a lifelong case of the buck fever.
- You think I'm cursed?
- (sighs) You're a Soady.
Soadys crap so big they
gotta stand up to get off it.
I'm thinking, I'm thinking
this is gonna be your year.
- Yeah, well, now you sound like my wife.
(Albert chuckles)
(Wolf Moon Dance gasps)
- What, what's wrong?
- It's my intuition.
It's telling me something.
- Oh, is it, is it, really?
What is it telling you?
- It's telling me, it's telling me
your luck's about to change.
- Oh, is it?
- Yeah, it is.
- I'm not so sure.
- Come listen.
- Do you really believe
everything in here is true?
- It's the Soady bible.
- You know what happened back in '72?
That was the year Uncle
Alvin got his first buck.
You know how old Uncle Alvin was
the year he got his first buck?
He was 43.
And besides being the
family idiot that he was.
I don't think you'll
disagree me with there.
- Dumb as dirt.
- "On November 15th, 1972, Alvin Soady,
"during the taking of his traditional,
"opening day morning crap,
"shot himself a six-pointer,
which happened to be
"sniffing around the back of the two-holer
"at the time that he was in it,
"making him, at the
embarrassing late age of 43,
"the oldest Soady in the
history of the Soadys
"ever to bag a buck."
(gun bangs)
(deer thuds)
Signed, his brother Albert Soady.
How old am I, Pop?
Pop?
- 43.
So there it was, staring us
right in the hairy eyeball.
We sat there trying to figure out some way
we could avoid Reuben ending up
on the wrong end of the record books.
The crazy thing about hunting is
you can plan all you want,
but, the truth of it is,
it's out of your hands.
And November of '89 was out of
our hands more than we knew.
(mysterious whizzing)
Whoa.
(mysterious whizzing)
(Albert and Reuben groan)
- Was that a sighting?
- I seen a sighting!
- [Albert] You need to
know about the UFOs.
They exist up here.
I seen one first back in
'65 over the Bark River,
this speeding silver streak of
light flying across the sky.
Bob McGinnis claims a bright white dish
come over the trees one night and settled
right above his boathouse,
just hovered there.
He thought for sure they
was about to take him away.
But if you know Bob, you
understand why they passed.
But the Jimmer was a different story.
Jimmer Negamanee from Menominee seen
the safe hovering light a few years ago,
except he was abducted,
disappeared for a whole weekend.
It's the truth.
'Cause when they brought him
back the following Monday,
there was a few changes
that were in the Jimmer
that were hard to ignore.
One was he talked different.
- My Chevy shook a shit!
(men mumble)
- Try Chevy.
- Something wrong with your Chevy, Jimmer?
- My Chevy shook a shit!
- Shook a shit?
Chevy took something.
- Shit, shit.
- Shit.
- Shit.
- Shit, took a shit.
Your Chevy took a shit, Jimmer?
- Boodabeeboop!
- The shotgun, he wants the shotgun!
- The shotgun, the shotgun!
We'll get you the shotgun, Jimmer!
- Okay!
(men chattering)
(Jimmer shouting)
- [Albert] Get your butt up there!
(Jimmer shouting)
Another was, all of a sudden,
he could drink like a fish.
- [Reuben] Hang on,
Jimmer, hang on, hang on.
- Look what I got, eh?
- Oh!
- Don't that look nice?
- [Jimmer] Boodebeeboop!
- It's okay, it's okay.
There ya go.
- [Albert] The Jimmer had
become a living legend,
and not because he'd been abducted.
We get two or three of those a year.
- Two, three!
- [Albert] It was his
capacity for drinking
that spread through all the
watering holes in the U.P.
(Jimmer screams)
- With a whisky chaser!
- With a whisky chaser!
- With a whisky chaser!
- [Albert] The regulars
up to the Porcelain Bus
compare him to the late, great Himel Hyman
in the Cup-o-harder,
known amongst the Injuns
as the Great White Stomach.
Himel made a nice living drinking
any and all things put in front of him,
including that fateful
bucket of week-old wastewater
from the bilge of a
Scandinavian oil barge,
God rest his soul.
Jimmer Negamanee from Menominee
was cut from the same piece of cloth.
- This tastes like sap.
- Jimmer, where's your Chevy?
- Shook a shit.
- I know that, eh?
Where'd you leave it, out on 35?
- I leaves it at the road.
- Which road, the road into camp?
- On the camp road!
- Okay, all right.
What do you say we climb
down, jump in the truck,
see if we can get it started, eh?
(Jimmer speaks gibberish)
- Shames?
- Shames, shames, shames!
(Jimmer screams)
- Calm down, just calm down.
Calm down.
(Jimmer speaks gibberish)
(car rattles)
- My Chevy shook a shit.
(Jimmer speaks gibberish)
So, as I was walking (indistinct)
down the (indistinct) road.
(Jimmer speaks gibberish)
Til all of a sudden.
(fire crackles)
(Jimmer speaks gibberish)
(car revs)
Then, the strangest thing happened.
(Jimmer screams)
(horn honks)
(Jimmer whimpers)
I think I shit myself.
(bluesy music)
- Remnar, get the Jimmer a towel.
- You get the Jimmer a towel.
- [Albert] Goddamn it!
Jesus Christ!
- Pop!
(Albert grumbling)
Pop!
(glass shattering)
Pop, what's wrong?
- It's all sap.
Right out of the tree, sap.
- The whole batch?
- All that's missing is the
pancakes and the butter.
- Mr. Soady, does that means?
- I'm afraid so, Jimmer.
We're in deer camp without whisky.
- If I didn't know better,
I'd say this camp was.
Holy Mary, Mother of God.
- [Albert] If we'd had had
an ounce of sense amongst us,
we'd have drove back to
Escanaba as fast as we could,
but, as Great-Grandpa
Alphonse always used to say,
if you're looking back
at the things you missed,
you won't know what hit ya.
- Let's have a pasty, eh?
- Shasties!
- Mom made the best pasties, remember?
Remember how Ma used to make 'em?
- Nobody built a pasty like your mother.
- They were so good I could
almost eat six of them.
- We ain't having pasties this year.
- We ain't what?
(gun clicks)
- I don't know, thought we
might eat something different.
- Not at deer camp.
- At deer camp, we eat pasties.
- Well, you know, I just
thought it might change
our luck if we ate something else.
- My luck's just fine the way it is,
thank you very much.
- Speak for yourself, eh?
- I do believe I was, eh?
- No shasties?
- Let me remind you, eh, that pasties
have been the traditional meal of choice
since Great-Grandpa Alphonse
first built this camp.
- Change is good.
- Reuben, listen to me.
We've known each other since we was kids.
- We're brothers, Remnar.
- Hear me out.
You know how I can be a
little bit superstitious?
(Jimmer chuckles)
Any change in my deer camp ritual,
big or small, directly deflects the odds
of me bagging a big buck.
Every year, I pack up
my truck the same way.
I arrive at camp at the same time.
I wake up opening
morning at the same time.
4:44 am on the dot.
I go to the same blind
by way of the same route
with the same gun, the same buck calls,
and the same Spam and mayonnaise
on Bunny bread sandwich.
Everything is exactly the same.
Even the shirt on my back.
I've worn this same
shirt every opening day
since the age of nine.
Does it fit?
No.
Does it keep me warm?
No.
Does it smell?
Most definitely.
But does it guarantee the
big buck for yours truly?
You betcha.
Why?
Because it's part of Remnar
Soady's deer camp ritual.
A ritual that includes eating pasties.
- You wanna know what
happens every time I eat
pasties at deer camp?
- No.
- No, three decades of meat,
potatoes, rutabagas, and lard.
Every year, I go out to my blind,
and I'm sitting out there
waiting for first light,
and the only sound I hear is the sound
of myself farting like a
tuba at the back of the band.
- Pasties is a Soady tradition.
- I know that very much.
But I got a vision,
too, Remnar, a real one.
I see myself coming back from camp,
carrying a 10-pointer on my back,
and my wife looks out, and I say to her,
"Put on the lard and onions, honey,
"I'm gonna gut you a buck."
And I am happy at last,
knowing that I, Reuben Soady,
have finally put the meat
on my family's table.
(gentle music)
- (sighs) I'll give it
a go for you, Reuben.
Sure.
Remnar?
You're a deer in my headlights, Remnar.
- (sighs) For this year only.
- Thank you, Remnar, thank you very much!
- [Jimmer] This is real nice.
- [Reuben] You won't be sorry, I promise.
- Ah, you just bag that buck this year.
- Oh, I will, I can feel it.
Maybe I'll even bag me a state record, eh?
- You see anything foraging, fire away.
- (laughs) I'd love to go tonight.
(men chattering)
- [Jimmer] I do some of
my best huntings at night.
(Reuben laughs)
(Jimmer speaks gibberish)
- I can eat slapjacks
every day of the weeks, eh?
- I know you could, Jimmer.
- No, not flapjacks.
- Y'all don't like the slapjacks?
- Macaroni and cheese,
thank you very much.
- With Spam.
- With Spam.
- How's about slapjacks with Spams?
- Fellas-
- Just Spam for me.
- Kraft macaroni and cheese.
- No flapjacks, no macaroni
and cheese, and no Spam.
- No Spam?
- Boys, you are not only
going to eat like kings,
but that 20 bucks you was gonna throw
in the kitty for pasties, keep it.
I am about to feed the whole camp all week
for absolutely free.
- [Albert Voiceover] As
Grandpa Alphonse always said,
anything free is worth saving up for.
- Last month, I was
sitting down to supper.
Wolf Moon Dance comes out of the kitchen.
She says, "Here, drink this."
I didn't know what the heck it was.
So I said, "What the heck is it, eh?
She said, "There is more to bagging a buck
"than just shooting a gun."
- No shit, Cheyenne.
- Yeah, she said that before every hunt,
the Ojibwes prepare a special recipe
to give the hunters good luck.
Before they can even enter the woods,
they believe that they have to
have the right air-a around.
- The right what?
- Air-a.
- What's a air-a.
- It's the air around you.
- We all got a air-a?
- Yeah, well, you know, at
least you're supposed to.
- I can feels my airish.
- That's good, Jimmer.
- How do you know when the
air around ya is your air-a?
- Your air is your air-a.
- Is my air-a my air?
- Just do the ritual, Remnar.
- Reuben, I'm just trying
to be clear here.
- Wait a minute,
we ain't gonna strip down to our skivvies
and dance around the table
like we did last Thanksgiving?
- Involved, no-
- No offense to
your Injun wife, but if
that's what I gotta do
to get a piece of turkey
over to your place,
I'll see you at Christmas.
- You do not have to do any of that!
I promise.
- Thank you very much for that.
- All you have to do is drink this potion.
- This what?
- Follow me.
- Did he say potion.
- I heard him say potion.
They're kinda yellow, don't you think?
- [Remnar] I don't know what those are.
They look like cheese.
- [Reuben] It's not cheese.
- [Remnar] Okay, but I do enjoy cheese.
- [Albert] Oh, so do I, but
it's cold on the bottom there.
- [Reuben] Yeah, it's just like-
- [Albert] Why do you got two of them for?
- This one's Jimmer's.
- Is it tasty?
- Oh, it's definitely got a taste to it,
no doubt about that.
- Oh!
- Is this what we're supposed to eat?
- Oh yeah, yeah, that's very filling.
One glass, three times a day,
and not only will your air-a be so strong,
instead of you hunting the bucks,
the bucks will be hunting you.
- I likes the sounds of that, eh?
- I still don't like the look of it.
Reuben, what are these
chunky little things
floating around in here?
- Protein, just chunks of protein.
- You got them, too, huh?
That thing in there, right?
- Pretty good there.
- You can take the lids
off, if you want, now.
- What are we doing out here?
- [Reuben] I gotta do a little ceremony.
- Jesus!
- Like what?
- Okay, all right.
- Reuben.
- All right.
- What the hell ya doing?
- Just a second here, I
gotta read this little thing.
Okay, the moon is the mirror reflecting
the passion within our soul
up to the Great Spirit, that's the moon,
who, once received and twice removed,
then sends it back down, guiding our lives
with eternal light that lives within us.
So far so good.
- What's that supposed to mean?
- Shh!
- Okay, this next part is a little tricky.
Just bear with me.
I'll nod when it's your turn to join in.
(tuner hums)
(Reuben shouts foreign language)
(Reuben chants foreign language)
You have to say it.
(men speak foreign language)
- Tasty!
- Not bad.
- This has got a kick
to it, I'll say that it.
What proof is this, Reuben?
- Oh, sorry to say, there's
not a drop of alcohol in it.
- Well, it ain't no pasty pie,
but I'll tell you what, I could drink
a few of these without looking up
and saying hello, eh?
Just what the heck's that old
lady of yours got in here?
- Well, like I said,
this magic potion goes back generations.
- Yeah, but I might
wanna steal the recipe.
- Yep, you and me both.
- Well, all right, let's
see, I think she's got,
yeah, here it is.
Fill a large bucket with fresh cow's milk.
- Well, there's your
milkshake taste right there,
see?
- Yep.
- Then blend one ounce each of parsley,
ginger, and caraway
seeds, with eight ounces
of sap from a mature maple.
- I thought I tasted the sweet sap.
- [Reuben] And barley and yeast.
- Yeast!
- You gotta have yeast.
- Next, take 12 large
earthworms baked on a shovel,
the gizzard of a red squirrel,
four ounces of strained mule tail sweat,
100 finely crushed black flies,
a pinch of the dirt
surrounding a buck rub,
and the dried and powdered left testicle
of a fully grown moose.
Chill, and serve.
(Jimmer speaks gibberish)
(Jimmer speaks gibberish)
That just breaks the spell.
Now, we gotta protect ourselves
from the evil spirits.
Wolf Moon Dance says for
every tree in the forest
there is a spirit.
Some are good, some are evil.
According to the Ojibwes,
this lets the good spirits in,
keeps the bad spirits out.
- Oh, smells like porcupine piss.
- [Reuben] It is.
- You wants us to drink this, too?
- No, no, no, no, no.
You just splash it on, you know, like so.
See, not only does it protect
you from evil spirits,
but, when it comes to the bucks,
it's an aphro, aphro?
- Deshilact?
- Yeah, yeah.
She said that her father
went out last year,
covered himself from
head to toe with piss.
15 minutes later, he was
surrounded by hundreds of bucks.
- Hundreds of bucks?
- That's right, she said that
if you can stand the stink,
they'll walk right up
and introduce themselves.
- I can't believe I
drank a moose testicle.
- You're lucky.
I think it's one of them chunks I chewed.
- Say, Rubens.
- Hmm?
- How does a man goes
about extractions jars
of piss froms a porcupine?
- Well, you know, first
thing you gotta do, Jimmer,
is catch one, which I
did about a month back.
Nice 30-pounder.
- That's a good size quill cushion.
- [Reuben] Oh, that's
a real good size, yeah.
- Say, you don't grabs him, dids yous?
- Oh, no, no.
- 'Cause if you grabs a porcupine,
you'll get stuck with his schtickers.
- Oh, no, no, you're right there, Jimmer.
No, no, I seen one down the Soady Creek.
He was sitting out on
a rock sunning himself-
- Right down Soady Creek, yeah.
- I snuck up behind him, you know.
I threw a blanket over the top of him
and took him home.
- No schtickers?
- No schtickers.
Stickers, stickers.
Yeah.
- [Albert] Where's Jack?
- Yeah, so anyway, you
know, I took him home,
and I put him out in this cage out back
that I made special.
Had a little wire floor of a
top with this pan underneath.
Then I spent the whole entire next week
making that quill pen drink
all the water he could stand.
Come Saturday, the pan was overflowing.
- Reuben-
- So then it was just
a matter of pouring some of the piss
into the wife's spare
pickle jars, you know,
and letting them sit out
in the sun, you know,
so they could ripen up-
- Reuben!
- A day, what?
- Between your moose-ball milkshakes
and your pickle jars
full of porcupine piss,
I think you got us covered, eh?
- I was explaining to the Jimmer-
- Let me ask you this,
is there a magic potion
for dealing out loaner hands,
'cause that would be helpful.
- I don't think-
(Albert speaks indistinctly)
- I was talking to my partner,
thank you very much.
- Yeah.
- Jimmer, as always,
take no prisoners.
- Take no prisoners.
- Do me a favor, will ya?
Try to remember what trump is.
You cost us the championship last year.
- What cost us the championship
was when somebody I won't mention
called for a loaner and then got
ukered for three tricks.
That's what cost us the-
- I was two-suited with eights
high, thank you very much.
- Two-suited with the eights high
is not a loaner hand, Remnar.
- Reuben, listen to me-
- Look, I got five cards.
Five cards, I am sitting
right across the table.
- But you don't know how
to use the card, all right?
- I am your partner.
- What is trump?
- I am here to-
- What's trump?
What's trump?
- Ladies!
(Albert laughs)
- [Reuben] Think that'll work.
(Remnar laughs)
Take that, little boy.
- Here's to one, here's to one.
- [Albert] I'm damn sick and
tired of cleaning up after you.
(men chatter)
(twangy music)
- Sometimes it's deer season, Remnar,
sometimes it's deer season.
(Reuben laughs)
(twangy music)
(men chattering)
- Are you drunk?
- Oh, yeah.
- You're drunk now?
(men chattering)
- Have another hit of sweet sap.
(twangy music)
(men chattering)
(twangy music)
- Oh, Reuben, I swear to God.
- You can't tell him.
- Camp's rules, the camp's rules!
- If he forgot, he forgot, he's
gotta play without knowing.
- Reuben, you forgot what
trump is again, haven't ya?
Haven't you, Reuben?
- I can't finish this hand.
- Nothing but nines and 10s?
- More like twos, threes, and fours.
- There ain't no twos, threes,
and fours in a uker hand.
- Maybe when he shuffled, he
picked up the wrong cards.
- The only decks in this
camp are uker decks.
Ain't no twos, threes,
and fours within 20 miles.
(Albert whimpers)
The Jimmer's Impala
catching fire was one thing,
and the best backwoods whisky in the U.P.
curdling like milk right
under our nose was another,
but when the cards changed face
right in our very own hands,
we thought we'd seen it all.
(tense music)
(men panting)
(tense music)
(mysterious knocking)
(mysterious howling)
(mysterious knocking)
(mysterious chittering)
(mysterious banging)
(mysterious growling)
And then, just when we thought
it couldn't get any worse.
(Reuben shouts)
- Ranger Tom T. Treado,
Department of Natural Resources!
- Pop, no!
- Welcome to Soady deer
camp, Officer Treado.
- Please, call me Ranger Tom.
- [Men] Ranger Tom.
- I'm Reuben Soady, this
is my pop Albert Soady,
that's my big baby brother Remnar Soady,
and the living legend you
got right next to you there
is the one only Jimmer
Negamanee from Menominee.
- My Chevy shook a shit.
- I got a ticket from every DNR officer
who ever set foot in these woods.
I sure don't remember seeing you.
- I just got transferred up
to this part of the state.
- Oh, where from?
- Detroit.
- Oh, yeah.
- Detroit.
- What a shity, that's a nice place.
I been there once.
(men chatter)
- I rode on this thing.
It took all the people around.
- You are not gonna believe
the night we had, Ranger Tom.
- It all started with Jimmer's Impala.
- My Chevy shook a shit.
- Brand new used Impala.
- Burst into flames.
- Yeah, yeah.
- No reason, eh?
- Then the sweet sap, right, Pop?
- Sap!
- The slapjacks!
- The flapjacks.
(men chatter)
♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ I looked over Jordan
and what did I see ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ A band of angels coming after me ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
- [Albert] He sung the whole damn song.
Him being from the DNR,
we didn't wanna interrupt
for fear he might take
away our hunting licenses.
You gotta remember, this time of year,
the DNR is more powerful than God.
In fact, some of them think they are God.
Or, in Ranger Tom's case.
- I just saw God up on your ridge.
- Huh, well, it's a beautiful ridge.
- No, I saw God up on your ridge.
- God?
- God?
- The one with the angels?
- With heaven and the angels
and the manager, that's right.
- You saw the manager?
- Are you sure it wasn't a spaceship?
- No, he's right, you know.
It might have been just a UFO.
- Jimmer was abducted by aliens.
- [Jimmer] I spent the whole
weekend in a spaceship.
- There was a light.
- [Albert] You saw a light?
- We seen the light, too, right, Pop?
- Yeah.
- We seen a light.
- Was it hovering?
'Cause mine was hovering right above me,
right before they sucked me up in a chute.
- No.
This was the light, the light you see
right before you see God.
I was out combing the area
for irregularities, you know?
We got a lot of orange coming up
over that ridge tonight.
Gotta go out there, establish a presence.
(mysterious music)
At first, I thought it was the moon
coming out from behind a cloud.
But then, words started
falling out of my mouth,
words I'd never said before,
words I didn't know the meaning of.
I lost all sense of time and place
and my place in time.
I began questioning the
futility of my existence,
my mind racing with a never-ending stream
of ceaseless, incessant contemplation,
examining, reexamining the relevance
of my sad excuse for a life,
clinging to a deeply-seated faith
versus modern society's insistence
that if mankind cannot explain
it it can't possibly exist.
Or
is that simply a reflection
of the world we live in,
or I live in, or the way I
choose to live in the world,
if I even live in a world.
Is this a world?
And, if it is, am I in it?
And if I am, why?
For what purpose, for what reason,
for what possible reason
is my being, being.
There's no method behind whatever madness
was orchestrated on my behalf.
They'd spent the time, energy,
and spiritual wherewithal
to make sure that, damn it,
at least this mass of flesh,
blood, and bones is,
this carcass with a pulse
gets to breath the air, drink the water,
and eat the food like I'd never eat again.
- I've been thinking.
- Damn it!
- What?
- What is this mass of flesh?
- You know, with everything
that's happened, maybe it'd be better
if we just jumped in our trucks,
drove back to Escanaba.
- No deer season?
- If you think after I
just got done drinking
the left testicle of a
full grown moose that I'm-
- I'm just saying maybe
we should come back
when things aren't so weird.
♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪
- Nobody leaves this camp til I say so.
Last time I checked,
tomorrow's still opening day,
and we are gonna hunt it.
♪ Swing low ♪
Now hit the sack, all of ya.
You, too.
♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪
Now, the night in the U.P.
is a whole different animal.
There's a stillness to it, like black ice.
You can't see it.
You can't touch it.
And, if you're not careful, it'll wrap
its arms around you and squeeze
til the only sound you hear
is your own heart beating
and your own breath breathing.
Reuben said later he wasn't sure
what it was that woke him.
Might've been a dream.
Might've been the moonlight coming out
from behind a cloud, or it might have been
the sound of all those deer.
(mysterious snorting)
Put your finger on the trigger.
- Just bring your gun up.
- Steady your nerves.
- Just bring your gun up.
- Put your finger
on the trigger.
- Just bring your gun up.
- Steady your nerves!
- Just bring your gun up.
- [Albert] Put your finger on the trigger.
(Reuben gasps)
Do it.
(mysterious snorting)
(mysterious, whispering voices)
(Reuben panting)
(mysterious voice rumbles)
(Reuben gasps)
(mysterious voice rumbles)
(voices shout)
(people shout)
(low rock music)
(low rock music)
(Reuben panting)
- [Wolf Moon Dance] Be-ah-ee.
Be-ah-ee, be-ah-ee, be-ah-ee.
(Remnar snores)
(Remnar gags)
(Jimmer farts)
- Well, now we know why the
aliens brought him back.
(Remnar sighs)
Keeping a lookout, eh?
Good idea.
I gotta go to the two-holer.
If I'm not back in five minutes,
you might wanna come and get me.
I mean, who knows what's out there?
Could be anything, aliens, bears.
Alien bears.
Might even be God himself,
just like Ranger Tom said.
Chances are, though,
that if God is out there,
I gotta believe the last place he'd be
would be the Soady two-holer, eh?
I tell ya what.
If I happen to run into God
out there, hold your fire.
In fact, if you see me doing this,
that means hold your fire,
I'm with God, okay, Reuben?
Reuben?
- Be-ah-ee.
(Remnar gasps)
- Pop, wake up!
(Albert shout)
There's something wrong with Reuben.
I was on my way out to the two-holer, eh?
- You smell like you didn't make it.
- I'm on my way out there.
I was just talking to him,
and, all of a sudden.
- Be-ah-ee.
- Give me some of the porcupine piss.
- It's the curse, ain't it?
- Don't give me that curse crap.
This'll do it even if he's dead.
- Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Father and Son, Holy Ghost.
Mother of Mary, Mother of God.
- Be-ah-ee!
- All right, that's it.
Stand back.
I don't wanna hit ya.
- Pop, what are you doing?
- I'm gonna fire a round off
next to his head, wake him up.
- You can't do that, he'll go deaf.
- He's already deaf, look at him.
- Wait.
I got a better idea.
I got some 100 foot jumper
cables out in my truck.
I'll pull it up close, hook the one
up to my Diehard, the other to Reuben.
Count of three, I'll start it up.
- Are you out of your mind?
- I seen Bob McGinnis do it once.
- Oh, well, that would
explain a lot, wouldn't it?
Think of something else!
- I can't think of nothing else.
I'm thought out.
- [Albert] And then it happened.
Like a vice from heaven, it called to us.
(Jimmer farts)
- Get closer.
Look out!
Here, hold on to Reuben.
- Wait a minute.
I got him.
- Get him in there.
- Got him in there good?
- If he was any closer, he'd be attached.
- If the Jimmer cuts loose on a big one,
he's liable to come shooting
back this way, so get ready.
- If he cuts loose with a big one,
he'll blow his head right off.
- What's he looking for?
- Reuben's froze up.
- We think maybe he's cursed.
- He's not wither cursed, he's just-
- Cursed, look at him!
- [Albert] We must've stood
there for a good 30 minutes.
Nobody moved a muscle.
Unfortunately, that included the Jimmer.
Finally, Ranger Tom suggested
some basic DNR training
he thought might be
useful in this situation.
- Pump his legs.
One potato, two potato,
three potato, four.
- [Men] Five potato, six
potato, seven potato, more.
One potato, two potato,
three potato, four.
- Must be clogged, keep pumping.
- [Albert And Remnar]
One potato, two potato,
three potato, four.
- [Men] Five potato, six
potato, seven potato, more.
One potato, two potato, three
potato, four, five potato.
(twangy music)
- Well, that explains my dream.
- Reuben's froze up.
- This ain't what
it looks like.
- I was on my way out
to the two-holer, and I said,
"Reuben, cover me, I'm
going to the two-holer,"
'cause all the goings-on around here,
and we didn't have no smelling salts.
- Up on the lake.
- Yeah, down at the lake.
So we tried the porcupine piss.
(Jimmer farts)
We even almost hooked
him up to my Sears Diehard, eh?
But then you let go of a good one
right as we were about
to fire up the truck,
so we said, hey, what better way to snap
someone out of Looneyville
than with one of your good old, you know.
Right, right, so that's why Reuben
is, you know, where he is.
(Jimmer screams)
Look out!
(Jimmer farts)
(Jimmer howls)
- Reuben. (coughs)
Reuben, where are ya?
(Albert gags)
Reuben, Reuben, Reuben!
I got ya, Reuben!
(Reuben screams)
- I can do it again if he needs it!
- [Men] No!
- Take care of Ranger Tom!
I think he's a little discombobulated.
- [Jimmer] I got you!
- Pop, help me get him to the couch.
- Get him to the couch.
- He's crazy!
- [Albert] Get him on the
couch, get him on the couch.
(men shout)
- Where is it, where is it, where is it?
- Where's what?
- I seen a light.
- Light, did you say a light?
- I seen a light.
- Where?
- I seen it in the
window, right over there.
- I saw a light up on the ridge.
- I seen mine at the window.
- You sure it wasn't a spaceship?
- Did it call to you?
- What?
- Mine hovered.
- I'm not talking to you,
sir, I'm talking to him!
Please, wait over there by your vehicle.
Did you walk towards it like I did?
- No, I tried to shoot it.
- You don't shoot God.
- That was God?
- Of course it was God!
- I almost shot God.
- Going to the light was people.
- Listen to me!
As an officer of the Department
of Natural Resources,
I hereby command you to release and reveal
any and all information
pertaining to said disturbance.
Leave nothing out.
Can you do that?
- Well, it's a little fuzzy.
(hand smacks)
- Sit down.
The man's about to speak.
- There were these people.
- The people, how do you mean people?
- Well, these people
that I knew weren't there
'cause they couldn't have been there
'cause they weren't
real, except they were.
- Ghosts?
- You was one of them.
You, too, Pop.
And the Jimmer.
- Yeah, well, how about me?
- No.
But I was.
I was there, I seen me.
I was looking right at me.
And then I looked up, and
a long, long way of pines,
you know, there she was.
I wanted to run to her so bad.
She was so beautiful.
That's when Wolf Moon
Dance, she looked up.
- [Albert Voiceover] For
those of you planning
on traveling to the U.P. any time soon,
you need to know about the bear walks.
- Head of a buck and a body of a man.
- [Albert Voiceover] You
won't find them listed
in the travel books they
pass out at the bridge,
but they're as much a
part of the Superior State
as the pictured rocks.
The Indians are scared to death of them.
They say it starts out as a light.
Then it changes,
usually into a bear, a
raccoon, wolf, even a buck.
The human part, that's the
spirit that it come from
come back looking for
something, or somebody.
- That's why the sweet
sap turned to syrup.
- And the uker cards
changed their numbers.
- And Jimmer's Chevy took a shit.
- Be-ah-ee, that's his name.
Be-ah-ee, the bear walk.
- What's happening to me, Pop?
What's happening to me?
(jars rattle)
(mysterious growling)
(lights buzz)
(wind whistles)
(lights buzz)
(Jimmer shouts gibberish)
(lights buzz)
Jimmer, Jimmer, easy, easy.
Easy, easy.
(Jimmer shouts gibberish)
Come on, come on, come on.
- [Jimmer] Sacrafish,
sacrafish, sacrafish!
- Sacrafish?
- Sacrifice!
- What?
- Sacrifice, the bear
walk wants a sacrifice.
- What the hell are we gonna give it?
♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ Swing low ♪
♪ Sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
- Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
♪ I looked over Jordan ♪
♪ And what did I see ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ A band of angels coming after me ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me ♪
(glass shatters)
(Ranger Tom growls)
(exciting rock music)
- Be-ah-ee.
Be-ah-ee.
Be-ah.
Ka-sah-ki.
(birds tweet)
Ka-sah-ki.
♪ Swing low ♪
♪ Sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me ♪
♪ Home ♪
♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me ♪
- Pop!
- No, no, let me kill it!
It's the bear walk!
- No, it's not him.
- I'm trying to kill the bear walk.
- It's me, it's me.
- What are you talking about?
- I've seen the light,
I've seen the light.
- No, no, that's the
northern lights, just northern lights
coming over the ridge.
They bounce off the
water, that's all it is.
- I'm cursed, don't you see?
I'm cursed.
There's only one way to break
a curse like the one I got.
Every year, you tell me,
"This is gonna be your year, Reuben.
"This is gonna be your year."
Well, you know what, you're right.
Either way, it's gonna stop.
Either I'm gonna get eat bear walk
or that bear walk's gonna eat me.
But somebody is gonna be putting
meat on somebody's table.
- Reuben, listen to me.
- Put a pasty in the oven for me, eh?
(soft music)
- [Albert Voiceover] Now, I
know what you're thinking.
"Albert Soady, this tale you're telling
"is nothing but a crock."
But if you thought up til now
I've been stretching things,
well, what I'm gonna tell you next
you're not only not gonna believe,
you're gonna think I fell
off my rocker for good.
So, I'll let Reuben tell
ya, in his own words.
Soady camp log, November 15th.
- 1989.
I don't know what it was I was running to,
but, whatever it was,
it was the very thing
I was running from.
(Reuben panting)
(angelic music)
(Reuben panting)
(suspenseful, shimmering music)
(exciting music)
Now, I'm not saying what I seen was real,
'cause that would make me as crazy as Bob.
Ka-sah-ki!
Ka-sah-ki!
But I'll swear on my mother's
grave that what I seen next.
- Son.
You couldn't hit a house
if you were standing in it.
(man laughs)
If you don't know where to
start, go back to the beginning.
(man laughs)
Anything free is worth saving up for.
All good things-
- Come to those who shoot straight.
- Hello, Reuben.
- Holy Wah.
You're dead, ain't ya?
- Oh, yeah, I'm dead, I'm very dead.
- I'm as loony as Uncle Alvin.
- I need you to do something for me.
Can you do something for
your great-grandfather?
- Sure.
- I want you to bring your gun up,
put your finger on the trigger,
take a deep breath to steady your nerves,
and shoot that buck.
- What buck?
- That buck you've been chasing
all the way up Soady Ridge.
- That's a buck?
- That's your buck.
- I ain't never shot a buck before.
- Tell me something,
do you believe in fate?
- I don't know.
- How about luck?
You believe in luck?
- Only luck I've ever had's been bad.
- That's good, so you believe.
- In what?
- In something, anything.
For instance, you believe
I'm here with you, right now?
- No, no.
- Then you'll never
shoot that buck, Reuben.
But if you believe, truly believe
that I'm here with you, right now,
then your Uncle Alvin will go down
as the oldest Soady in
the history of he Soadys
never to bag a buck.
Just bring your gun up.
That's it.
(gun clicks)
Put your finger on the trigger.
Take a deep breath to steady your nerves.
- You brought me this buck,
didn't you, Great-Grandpa?
- Let's just say it was somebody
a little higher up on the
spiritual food chain than me.
- Was it God?
- Higher.
- There's somebody higher than God?
- Just shoot the buck, Reuben.
- Who was it?
- Just shoot the buck.
- If it wasn't you and it
wasn't God, then who was it?
- [Wolf Moon Dance Voiceover] Ka-sah-ki.
(shimmering light)
Ka-sah-ki.
Ka-sah-ki.
- I love you, too, Wolf Moon Dance.
(gun bangs)
(emotional music)
♪ Feel that winter wind is blowing ♪
Put on the lard and onions, honey.
♪ Down on me so cold tonight ♪
I'm gonna gut you a buck.
♪ Stuck out on this lonesome highway ♪
♪ Seems to be no end in sight ♪
♪ And I've got one more river to cross ♪
♪ One more mountain to climb ♪
♪ One more day to survive ♪
- We took the road.
(Albert laughs)
♪ One more river to cross ♪
- [Remnar] You bagged a buck!
(men shout)
(emotional music)
♪ Make your dream come true ♪
♪ Never comes easy ♪
♪ Always takes time ♪
♪ You just keep on going ♪
♪ What else can you do ♪
- Hello!
- Hello!
- [Child] Grandpa!
- [Albert Voiceover] Reuben's buck kept
the whole family in venison
til the following spring.
It was some of the best ven I ever ate.
See, it's like this.
When I'm sitting down to
the Sunday supper table,
surrounded by Soadys, facing all that food
we hunted and gathered
ourselves, I'm in heaven.
And, if you wanna go to heaven,
it's north of the bridge.
♪ Just as the darkness is falling ♪
♪ I can hear your sweet voice call ♪
♪ Welcoming me home ♪
(percussive music)
♪ Feel the winter wind is blowing ♪
♪ Down on me so cold tonight ♪
♪ Stuck out on this lonesome highway ♪
♪ Seems to be no end in sight ♪
♪ Just as the darkness is falling ♪
♪ I can hear your sweet
voice calling to me ♪
♪ Saying don't worry, baby ♪
♪ We're gonna be all right ♪
♪ And I've got one more river to cross ♪
♪ One more mountain to climb ♪
♪ One more day to survive ♪
♪ One more river to cross ♪
♪ One more dream to hold on to ♪
♪ To keep me alive ♪
♪ I've got one more river to cross ♪
♪ I can see you standing there ♪
♪ On the night we said goodbye ♪
♪ Knowing that we sacrificed all ♪
♪ Knowing there'd be tears to cry ♪
♪ You pointed to a bright star shining ♪
♪ And promised it would
always watch over me ♪
♪ But I look in the sky tonight, baby ♪
♪ Your smiling face is all I see ♪
♪ And I've got ♪
♪ One more river to cross ♪
♪ One more mountain to climb ♪
♪ One more day to survive ♪
♪ One more river to cross ♪
♪ One more dream to hold on to ♪
♪ To keep me alive ♪
♪ I've got ♪
♪ One more river to cross ♪
♪ When you put your heart on the line ♪
♪ Trying to make your dreams come true ♪
♪ It never comes easy, always takes time ♪
♪ You just keep on going ♪
♪ What else can you do ♪
♪ Even as the darkness is falling ♪
♪ I can hear your sweet voice calling ♪
♪ One more river to cross ♪
♪ One more mountain to climb ♪
♪ One more day to survive ♪
♪ One more river to cross ♪
♪ Til I rest in your arms ♪
♪ Til I make you feel alive ♪
♪ I've got just one more river to cross ♪
♪ There is always one
more river to cross ♪
♪ One more river ♪
♪ I'm coming home ♪
- Hello, my name is Albert Soady,
and have I got a buck story for you.
The tale I'm about to tell
starts in November of '89
in the Soady deer camp, located just north
of Escanaba, Michigan, otherwise known
as the heart and soul
of the Upper Peninsula.
That's north of the Mackinac Bridge
and just south of heaven, for those of you
who don't know nothing.
For those that don't know
much about the Superior State,
there's a couple things
that need to be explained.
First thing is, in the U.P.,
we don't explain things.
Second thing is, we got some of the best
hunting and fishing in the whole world.
Bear as tall as Norway pines.
We got wolf, moose, beaver, wild turkey,
quail, rabbit, fox, and,
of course, the bucks.
Holy Wah, do we got bucks, big as Buicks!
You can slice the venison off
one Superior State buck and feed
the whole state of Wisconsin.
But there's another U.P.,
the one that ain't in the travel books,
the one that's older than
the very rocks it sits on,
the one only the Indians understand.
Don't get me started on them.
My oldest boy married one.
Strange gal, to say the least.
I'm getting ahead of myself.
As Great-Grandpa Alphonse
always used to say,
when you don't know where to start,
go back to the beginning.
From the loins of our union,
Big Betty Belou and me
bore two boys, Reuben and Remnar.
Now, I'll tell ya right up front,
they are not the sharpest
tools in the shed.
Remnar turned out to be pretty much
what you'd expect from somebody
who went by the name of Remnar.
But Reuben, well, Reuben
was a different story.
Reuben spent his whole
life without hanging
a single buck on the buck pole.
That ain't a big to-do
if you're just another
fudge-sucker bobbing over
the bridge, but for a Soady?
Luckily that Injun gal had a way with him.
- Wolf Moon Dance, will you still love me
if I come back without a buck?
- [Albert Voiceover] Now, some things fit
together better than others,
and it's hard to say how somebody
who was so much a part of
the natural order of things
would fall in love with
somebody who wasn't so natural.
But she did.
(gun clicks)
And, lucky for him, 'cause
as Great-Grandpa Alphonse
always said, behind every good
man is a woman who can hunt.
(soft Native American music)
- Forgot your lucky hat.
- Can't go without this.
- Boys, wave bye to Daddy, then I want
you to run inside, okay?
Go ahead.
- Go get a deer, Dad.
- Bye, boys.
What?
- Why does he never
invite me up to deer camp?
- It's deer camp.
- So?
- So, it's deer camp.
- Just thought maybe
if we hunted together.
- If we hunted together, I'd be known
as the buckless Yooper
whose wife shot him a buck.
Look, I know what you're doing,
and I love you for it, I really do,
but I gotta do this on my own.
(Reuben gasps)
(Wolf Moon Dance speaking
foreign language)
- Reuben, first, you must believe.
- [Albert] Despite his little problem,
Reuben hadn't missed an
opening day in over 30 years.
- Best bait pile?
Not corn, not carrots.
Spoiled Brussels sprouts.
See, deer aren't just colorblind.
They're all-blind.
And since they can't see,
they gotta rely on the olfactory.
Give 'em a little whiff
of the spoiled sprouts.
Holy Wah, there he goes.
(soft, twangy music)
♪ Thought I knew a cold ♪
♪ People I really thought I knew ♪
♪ But there is such a freeze on me ♪
♪ I'm fixing to turn blue ♪
♪ Want you hand me down
my old winter coat ♪
♪ No fire will warm me ♪
(singing drowned out by squealing tires)
♪ Freeze ♪
(soft, twangy music)
- Hey, look, it's Buckless Yooper!
(kids shout)
Hey, Buckless Yooper, Buckless Yooper!
Hey, Buckless Yooper,
Buckless Yooper, hey!
(tires screech)
(kids laugh)
(soft, twangy music)
♪ Now it doesn't seem that long ago ♪
♪ I was sitting on Daddy's knee ♪
♪ Listening to the tales
that he would tell ♪
♪ Some taller than the big pine trees ♪
♪ He taught me about tradition ♪
♪ Doing proud of the family name ♪
♪ Hard as I might try mine
always seems the way of shame ♪
♪ And I'm feeling so downhearted ♪
♪ And I think I must just cry ♪
♪ I'm afraid that if I do ♪
♪ These tears are gonna freeze in my eye ♪
♪ That might be okay ♪
♪ 'Cause then I couldn't see ♪
♪ All the things that keep going wrong ♪
♪ The way they all look at me ♪
♪ Back there wishing I would go ♪
♪ Over that big old bridge and leave ♪
♪ Lord have mercy, get me through ♪
♪ This hard luck freeze ♪
(soft, twangy music)
- Hello!
- Hello!
- Is this the Soady deer camp?
- You found her.
- The world famous Soady deer camp?
- One and the same.
- Yeah, is that Albert
Soady's sweet sap whisky
over there I see?
- Might be so lucky.
- Well, better have me a snort, eh?
- You know it's good for ya.
- How ya feeling, Pop?
- If I felt any better, I'd be dangerous.
(Reuben chuckles)
- Oh, wow.
A little heavy on the sap.
- A little what?
- On the sap, it's a
little heavy on the sap.
- The sap's what's makes it.
- Yeah, well, that may be,
but, if I didn't know better,
I'd say I just drunk from
a bottle of maple syrup.
- [Albert] Give me the damn jar back.
- All right-
- A man who can't look another man
right in the hairy eyeball and tell him
he's heavy on the sap ain't much of a man.
Maybe it'd be better if I
took the sap out altogether.
Would that make you happy?
- Well, I wouldn't think of Aunt Jemima
every time I took a snort,
I can tell you that.
- Well, I ain't about to
do it, so put that down.
That year, camp was as
tense as a moose's butt
during fly season.
Remnar didn't help.
- Hello!
Is this the Soady deer camp?
- You found her!
- The world famous Soady deer camp?
- The one and the same.
- The one and the same.
- And is that a pint of Albert Soady's
sweet sap whisky I see?
- You like pancakes?
- A little heavy on the sap, eh?
- Oh yeah, no kidding.
- But that's what makes it-
- You're late.
You're supposed to be here at six, eh?
- Black leather, fudge-sucking-
- I stopped off to the porcelain bus,
picked up the beer,
thank you very much.
- I'm not talking about that
and you know that.
You're supposed to steer
clear of her, Remnar.
- Did you want the beer or not?
- I don't care about the beer.
- I don't drink nothing
that's already been drunk before.
- Pop, I got it, okay, I got it.
- They was playing this game, eh?
(people chattering)
They put all the guys on one side,
and all the girls on the other.
And we each got a cue stick
off of the pool table there.
(people chattering)
And the gals all got a
roll of toilet paper.
(bluesy bar music)
(people shouting)
First couple to jam their cue stick
into the toilet roll gets
a free case of Leinenkugel,
thank you very much.
- [Reuben] She's married, Remnar.
- I couldn't help myself, eh?
The girl's got a tongue of a trout.
- Your mother had the tongue of a trout.
- She was licking me like a dog's balls.
- Her husband filed a restraining order.
- Yeah, I know, I know, but she's got
a hot nose, hands like a logger.
This girl can split wood.
- [Albert] Your mother could split wood.
- Did you bring the pasties?
Tell me you brought the pasties.
- We're gonna eat like kings.
- You know me, you know how I am.
I am a creature with habits.
If things aren't just so,
things won't work out.
- Things won't work out.
- That's right.
Tell me again you brought the pasties.
- I took care of it, eh?
- Beautiful!
Is this heaven or is this heaven, eh?
- This is heaven.
- I think I look forward to
opening day of deer season
more than any other day of the year.
It's like Christmas, with guns.
You feeling lucky this year, Pop?
'Cause I'm feeling lucky.
- Give a man a little luck and
anything will do for brains.
- Yeah, toss a little over this way.
- I was driving up to camp tonight,
I swear to God I had one of those things.
What do you call those things
you get when you're driving?
- Blackouts?
- Blackouts?
- One of those things that flash
across your mind like a dream,
only you're not dreaming.
- A vision?
- I was driving up to camp, eh?
Thinking about what scope to use,
which socks to wear, how
much beer to take, you know?
- The essentials.
- Right, when all of a sudden,
right there in front of me
is a 50-point buck.
- A 50-point buck?
- That's what I said.
- There is no such thing
as a 50-point buck.
- I know, I know, I know,
I said the same thing.
I said, this can't be so.
I mean, you know, a 50-point buck,
but I looked again, and
there he was, as real as you.
And the thing was, he didn't go away.
I just kept seeing him and
seeing him and seeing him.
- And you're still
driving this whole time?
- I do not believe I was, no.
Somebody had their hands on the wheel,
but I could not tell you
for sure they was mine.
- Holy Wah.
- Holy Wah is right.
So I jump out of the truck,
and still he don't move a muscle.
It was like he was waiting for me,
just standing there, tall and proud,
like the trophy that he is.
So I bring my gun up, put
my finger on the trigger,
take a deep breath-
- To steady your nerves.
- And that's when he spoke to me.
- He spoke to you?
(Albert laughs)
- "Take me, Remnar, take me now." (laughs)
(Albert laughs)
(Remnar laughs)
- You buggered him.
Ah, you buggered him that time. (laughs)
He swallowed it all, all of it, all of it!
- Pop, I don't know whose
hands are on the wheel, eh?
(Albert and Remnar laugh)
I just made that up as I was telling him.
(Albert and Remnar laugh)
A 50-point buck.
- [Albert] That might be the only buck
you see this year, eh?
- You're just jealous 'cause
I kicked your butt last year.
- You and all your talk put
together couldn't kick my butt.
- My 12-pointer to your
little four-point forkhorn.
I think that's a butt-kicking
in anybody's book.
Wouldn't you say that's
a butt-kicking, Reuben?
- Leave me out of it.
- I took the forkhorn and
passed on that 20-pointer.
I didn't have the clear shot.
- 20-pointer.
- That's right!
You can't make a clean kill,
don't make a kill at all.
- If you ain't gonna
pull the trigger, Pop,
than snap a picture.
At least then you'll have
something for the scrapbook.
- I shot the biggest buck of
anybody sitting in this room.
- When was that, Pop?
- November 15th, 1961.
Back when the bucks was as-
- Thick as mosquitoes.
- Thick as mosquitoes, that's right.
18-point, 15-inch thighs, 24-inch spread
with a weight of 284 pounds fully dressed,
and don't you forget it!
- Are you sure you didn't shoot a cow?
(Albert growls)
(Albert laughs)
- It would've been a state record
if I'd felt like reporting it.
- [Remnar] Well, it
wasn't 'cause you didn't.
- The hell it wasn't!
- You didn't report it, eh?
You don't report it, it
ain't a state record.
- I don't believe in state records.
- Oh, you don't believe in state records?
- I don't believe in anything
managed by the goddamned DNR.
- They aren't either managed by the DNR.
Reuben, what's the name
of that big game agency
down in-
- CBM?
- CBM, that's right, POP, CBM.
Stands for what, what's it stand for?
- Commemorative Bucks of Michigan.
- Commemorative Bucks of Michigan.
You gotta report it to
Commemorative Bucks of Michigan.
- When your great-grandpa Alphonse
tagged a Soady ridge buck back in 1922,
you think he notified the state?
Hell no!
- Probably hold the
state record if he had.
- He come back to the camp, pulled out
the Soady camp log and started writing
it down for all posterior.
Where is it?
- Right here, Pop.
1922.
- 28-points, with a rack spread
of 30 and three-quarter inches,
and an estimated weight of 334 pounds.
Boy, that ain't a state record.
That's a world record.
- How do you know everything
in here is on the up and up?
- If it's in there, it's the truth.
- Well, then make sure
there's a pencil handy
'cause when I come down
from the ridge tomorrow,
there's gonna be a new
Soady record holder, eh?
- You're hunting the ridge tomorrow?
- I hate to tell ya, but they ain't up
on the ridge this year.
- Big ones are on the
ridge, Pop, trust me.
- Big ones, eh?
- Oh, yeah, trophies.
I seen the tracks.
And you know what they say,
big bucks make big tracks.
Store that away for a rainy day.
- You mind if I hunt it with you?
- I like to hunt alone.
- Well, you know, I
don't mean side-by-side.
I'll take the one end, you take the other.
- No, that's no good, neither,
'cause then when we get to the middle,
we'll be shooting each other.
- What are you talking?
The ridge is five miles long.
- And I plan on hunting every inch of it.
I know, why don't you hunt the swamp?
- I'm hunting the swamp.
- The whole swamp?
- You're hunting the whole ridge?
- Well, that's how I hunt, eh?
- Well, that's how I hunt.
- Okay, wait a minute.
- You can't the ridge the
same way you hunt the swamp.
- The hell I can't!
- They're two different terrains!
- Hey, hey, hey, easy.
You know, if you're up on the ridge
and Pop is down in the swamp,
where the heck am I supposed to hunt?
- How about out by the road?
- How about what road?
- M35.
- It's a state highway.
- Deer love the highway.
- I hit one just last week.
- I'm not gonna hunt the highway.
It's a highway.
- Are you sure?
I think you might be
missing an opportunity here.
- You want me to set up a blind
on a shoulder of M35 and wait
for the next 10-pointer who tries to cross
it in traffic?
- I think you're getting the
plum spot, don't you, Pop?
- [Albert] Position A.
- That's how Bob McGinnis hunts.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, sets up a lawn chair
right on the side of the road and waits.
He'll sit there a whole week if he has to.
People bring him food, change of clothes.
- Hey, he ever marry that gal?
You know the one I'm talking about,
the one with the eyebrow going
straight across her head.
- Yeah, and she combs it
with her toothbrush. (laughs)
(Albert laughs)
(twangy, bluesy music)
(Albert knocks)
- Reuben.
(Albert sighs)
Reuben, open the damn door.
Oh, Jesus crumbs.
Holy Wah.
I admit I'm guilty in thinking
that maybe my luck would be better
if you was somewheres else.
That's no way to treat your own.
You wanna hunt the swamp
tomorrow, we'll hunt the swamp.
- Yeah, well, I'll just jinx you.
- I'll take my chances.
I think your problem's
more along the lines
you're just a shitty shot.
You couldn't hit the house
if you were standing in it.
It's a simple thing.
You just bring the gun up,
you put your finger on the trigger,
you take a deep-
- Take a deep breath
to steady your nerves,
I know it.
- To steady your nerves,
that's right.
Your great-grandpa Alphonse always said,
all good things come to those-
- Who shoot straight.
- To those that shoot
straight.
That's your problem in
a nutshell, right there.
Been a lifelong case of the buck fever.
- You think I'm cursed?
- (sighs) You're a Soady.
Soadys crap so big they
gotta stand up to get off it.
I'm thinking, I'm thinking
this is gonna be your year.
- Yeah, well, now you sound like my wife.
(Albert chuckles)
(Wolf Moon Dance gasps)
- What, what's wrong?
- It's my intuition.
It's telling me something.
- Oh, is it, is it, really?
What is it telling you?
- It's telling me, it's telling me
your luck's about to change.
- Oh, is it?
- Yeah, it is.
- I'm not so sure.
- Come listen.
- Do you really believe
everything in here is true?
- It's the Soady bible.
- You know what happened back in '72?
That was the year Uncle
Alvin got his first buck.
You know how old Uncle Alvin was
the year he got his first buck?
He was 43.
And besides being the
family idiot that he was.
I don't think you'll
disagree me with there.
- Dumb as dirt.
- "On November 15th, 1972, Alvin Soady,
"during the taking of his traditional,
"opening day morning crap,
"shot himself a six-pointer,
which happened to be
"sniffing around the back of the two-holer
"at the time that he was in it,
"making him, at the
embarrassing late age of 43,
"the oldest Soady in the
history of the Soadys
"ever to bag a buck."
(gun bangs)
(deer thuds)
Signed, his brother Albert Soady.
How old am I, Pop?
Pop?
- 43.
So there it was, staring us
right in the hairy eyeball.
We sat there trying to figure out some way
we could avoid Reuben ending up
on the wrong end of the record books.
The crazy thing about hunting is
you can plan all you want,
but, the truth of it is,
it's out of your hands.
And November of '89 was out of
our hands more than we knew.
(mysterious whizzing)
Whoa.
(mysterious whizzing)
(Albert and Reuben groan)
- Was that a sighting?
- I seen a sighting!
- [Albert] You need to
know about the UFOs.
They exist up here.
I seen one first back in
'65 over the Bark River,
this speeding silver streak of
light flying across the sky.
Bob McGinnis claims a bright white dish
come over the trees one night and settled
right above his boathouse,
just hovered there.
He thought for sure they
was about to take him away.
But if you know Bob, you
understand why they passed.
But the Jimmer was a different story.
Jimmer Negamanee from Menominee seen
the safe hovering light a few years ago,
except he was abducted,
disappeared for a whole weekend.
It's the truth.
'Cause when they brought him
back the following Monday,
there was a few changes
that were in the Jimmer
that were hard to ignore.
One was he talked different.
- My Chevy shook a shit!
(men mumble)
- Try Chevy.
- Something wrong with your Chevy, Jimmer?
- My Chevy shook a shit!
- Shook a shit?
Chevy took something.
- Shit, shit.
- Shit.
- Shit.
- Shit, took a shit.
Your Chevy took a shit, Jimmer?
- Boodabeeboop!
- The shotgun, he wants the shotgun!
- The shotgun, the shotgun!
We'll get you the shotgun, Jimmer!
- Okay!
(men chattering)
(Jimmer shouting)
- [Albert] Get your butt up there!
(Jimmer shouting)
Another was, all of a sudden,
he could drink like a fish.
- [Reuben] Hang on,
Jimmer, hang on, hang on.
- Look what I got, eh?
- Oh!
- Don't that look nice?
- [Jimmer] Boodebeeboop!
- It's okay, it's okay.
There ya go.
- [Albert] The Jimmer had
become a living legend,
and not because he'd been abducted.
We get two or three of those a year.
- Two, three!
- [Albert] It was his
capacity for drinking
that spread through all the
watering holes in the U.P.
(Jimmer screams)
- With a whisky chaser!
- With a whisky chaser!
- With a whisky chaser!
- [Albert] The regulars
up to the Porcelain Bus
compare him to the late, great Himel Hyman
in the Cup-o-harder,
known amongst the Injuns
as the Great White Stomach.
Himel made a nice living drinking
any and all things put in front of him,
including that fateful
bucket of week-old wastewater
from the bilge of a
Scandinavian oil barge,
God rest his soul.
Jimmer Negamanee from Menominee
was cut from the same piece of cloth.
- This tastes like sap.
- Jimmer, where's your Chevy?
- Shook a shit.
- I know that, eh?
Where'd you leave it, out on 35?
- I leaves it at the road.
- Which road, the road into camp?
- On the camp road!
- Okay, all right.
What do you say we climb
down, jump in the truck,
see if we can get it started, eh?
(Jimmer speaks gibberish)
- Shames?
- Shames, shames, shames!
(Jimmer screams)
- Calm down, just calm down.
Calm down.
(Jimmer speaks gibberish)
(car rattles)
- My Chevy shook a shit.
(Jimmer speaks gibberish)
So, as I was walking (indistinct)
down the (indistinct) road.
(Jimmer speaks gibberish)
Til all of a sudden.
(fire crackles)
(Jimmer speaks gibberish)
(car revs)
Then, the strangest thing happened.
(Jimmer screams)
(horn honks)
(Jimmer whimpers)
I think I shit myself.
(bluesy music)
- Remnar, get the Jimmer a towel.
- You get the Jimmer a towel.
- [Albert] Goddamn it!
Jesus Christ!
- Pop!
(Albert grumbling)
Pop!
(glass shattering)
Pop, what's wrong?
- It's all sap.
Right out of the tree, sap.
- The whole batch?
- All that's missing is the
pancakes and the butter.
- Mr. Soady, does that means?
- I'm afraid so, Jimmer.
We're in deer camp without whisky.
- If I didn't know better,
I'd say this camp was.
Holy Mary, Mother of God.
- [Albert] If we'd had had
an ounce of sense amongst us,
we'd have drove back to
Escanaba as fast as we could,
but, as Great-Grandpa
Alphonse always used to say,
if you're looking back
at the things you missed,
you won't know what hit ya.
- Let's have a pasty, eh?
- Shasties!
- Mom made the best pasties, remember?
Remember how Ma used to make 'em?
- Nobody built a pasty like your mother.
- They were so good I could
almost eat six of them.
- We ain't having pasties this year.
- We ain't what?
(gun clicks)
- I don't know, thought we
might eat something different.
- Not at deer camp.
- At deer camp, we eat pasties.
- Well, you know, I just
thought it might change
our luck if we ate something else.
- My luck's just fine the way it is,
thank you very much.
- Speak for yourself, eh?
- I do believe I was, eh?
- No shasties?
- Let me remind you, eh, that pasties
have been the traditional meal of choice
since Great-Grandpa Alphonse
first built this camp.
- Change is good.
- Reuben, listen to me.
We've known each other since we was kids.
- We're brothers, Remnar.
- Hear me out.
You know how I can be a
little bit superstitious?
(Jimmer chuckles)
Any change in my deer camp ritual,
big or small, directly deflects the odds
of me bagging a big buck.
Every year, I pack up
my truck the same way.
I arrive at camp at the same time.
I wake up opening
morning at the same time.
4:44 am on the dot.
I go to the same blind
by way of the same route
with the same gun, the same buck calls,
and the same Spam and mayonnaise
on Bunny bread sandwich.
Everything is exactly the same.
Even the shirt on my back.
I've worn this same
shirt every opening day
since the age of nine.
Does it fit?
No.
Does it keep me warm?
No.
Does it smell?
Most definitely.
But does it guarantee the
big buck for yours truly?
You betcha.
Why?
Because it's part of Remnar
Soady's deer camp ritual.
A ritual that includes eating pasties.
- You wanna know what
happens every time I eat
pasties at deer camp?
- No.
- No, three decades of meat,
potatoes, rutabagas, and lard.
Every year, I go out to my blind,
and I'm sitting out there
waiting for first light,
and the only sound I hear is the sound
of myself farting like a
tuba at the back of the band.
- Pasties is a Soady tradition.
- I know that very much.
But I got a vision,
too, Remnar, a real one.
I see myself coming back from camp,
carrying a 10-pointer on my back,
and my wife looks out, and I say to her,
"Put on the lard and onions, honey,
"I'm gonna gut you a buck."
And I am happy at last,
knowing that I, Reuben Soady,
have finally put the meat
on my family's table.
(gentle music)
- (sighs) I'll give it
a go for you, Reuben.
Sure.
Remnar?
You're a deer in my headlights, Remnar.
- (sighs) For this year only.
- Thank you, Remnar, thank you very much!
- [Jimmer] This is real nice.
- [Reuben] You won't be sorry, I promise.
- Ah, you just bag that buck this year.
- Oh, I will, I can feel it.
Maybe I'll even bag me a state record, eh?
- You see anything foraging, fire away.
- (laughs) I'd love to go tonight.
(men chattering)
- [Jimmer] I do some of
my best huntings at night.
(Reuben laughs)
(Jimmer speaks gibberish)
- I can eat slapjacks
every day of the weeks, eh?
- I know you could, Jimmer.
- No, not flapjacks.
- Y'all don't like the slapjacks?
- Macaroni and cheese,
thank you very much.
- With Spam.
- With Spam.
- How's about slapjacks with Spams?
- Fellas-
- Just Spam for me.
- Kraft macaroni and cheese.
- No flapjacks, no macaroni
and cheese, and no Spam.
- No Spam?
- Boys, you are not only
going to eat like kings,
but that 20 bucks you was gonna throw
in the kitty for pasties, keep it.
I am about to feed the whole camp all week
for absolutely free.
- [Albert Voiceover] As
Grandpa Alphonse always said,
anything free is worth saving up for.
- Last month, I was
sitting down to supper.
Wolf Moon Dance comes out of the kitchen.
She says, "Here, drink this."
I didn't know what the heck it was.
So I said, "What the heck is it, eh?
She said, "There is more to bagging a buck
"than just shooting a gun."
- No shit, Cheyenne.
- Yeah, she said that before every hunt,
the Ojibwes prepare a special recipe
to give the hunters good luck.
Before they can even enter the woods,
they believe that they have to
have the right air-a around.
- The right what?
- Air-a.
- What's a air-a.
- It's the air around you.
- We all got a air-a?
- Yeah, well, you know, at
least you're supposed to.
- I can feels my airish.
- That's good, Jimmer.
- How do you know when the
air around ya is your air-a?
- Your air is your air-a.
- Is my air-a my air?
- Just do the ritual, Remnar.
- Reuben, I'm just trying
to be clear here.
- Wait a minute,
we ain't gonna strip down to our skivvies
and dance around the table
like we did last Thanksgiving?
- Involved, no-
- No offense to
your Injun wife, but if
that's what I gotta do
to get a piece of turkey
over to your place,
I'll see you at Christmas.
- You do not have to do any of that!
I promise.
- Thank you very much for that.
- All you have to do is drink this potion.
- This what?
- Follow me.
- Did he say potion.
- I heard him say potion.
They're kinda yellow, don't you think?
- [Remnar] I don't know what those are.
They look like cheese.
- [Reuben] It's not cheese.
- [Remnar] Okay, but I do enjoy cheese.
- [Albert] Oh, so do I, but
it's cold on the bottom there.
- [Reuben] Yeah, it's just like-
- [Albert] Why do you got two of them for?
- This one's Jimmer's.
- Is it tasty?
- Oh, it's definitely got a taste to it,
no doubt about that.
- Oh!
- Is this what we're supposed to eat?
- Oh yeah, yeah, that's very filling.
One glass, three times a day,
and not only will your air-a be so strong,
instead of you hunting the bucks,
the bucks will be hunting you.
- I likes the sounds of that, eh?
- I still don't like the look of it.
Reuben, what are these
chunky little things
floating around in here?
- Protein, just chunks of protein.
- You got them, too, huh?
That thing in there, right?
- Pretty good there.
- You can take the lids
off, if you want, now.
- What are we doing out here?
- [Reuben] I gotta do a little ceremony.
- Jesus!
- Like what?
- Okay, all right.
- Reuben.
- All right.
- What the hell ya doing?
- Just a second here, I
gotta read this little thing.
Okay, the moon is the mirror reflecting
the passion within our soul
up to the Great Spirit, that's the moon,
who, once received and twice removed,
then sends it back down, guiding our lives
with eternal light that lives within us.
So far so good.
- What's that supposed to mean?
- Shh!
- Okay, this next part is a little tricky.
Just bear with me.
I'll nod when it's your turn to join in.
(tuner hums)
(Reuben shouts foreign language)
(Reuben chants foreign language)
You have to say it.
(men speak foreign language)
- Tasty!
- Not bad.
- This has got a kick
to it, I'll say that it.
What proof is this, Reuben?
- Oh, sorry to say, there's
not a drop of alcohol in it.
- Well, it ain't no pasty pie,
but I'll tell you what, I could drink
a few of these without looking up
and saying hello, eh?
Just what the heck's that old
lady of yours got in here?
- Well, like I said,
this magic potion goes back generations.
- Yeah, but I might
wanna steal the recipe.
- Yep, you and me both.
- Well, all right, let's
see, I think she's got,
yeah, here it is.
Fill a large bucket with fresh cow's milk.
- Well, there's your
milkshake taste right there,
see?
- Yep.
- Then blend one ounce each of parsley,
ginger, and caraway
seeds, with eight ounces
of sap from a mature maple.
- I thought I tasted the sweet sap.
- [Reuben] And barley and yeast.
- Yeast!
- You gotta have yeast.
- Next, take 12 large
earthworms baked on a shovel,
the gizzard of a red squirrel,
four ounces of strained mule tail sweat,
100 finely crushed black flies,
a pinch of the dirt
surrounding a buck rub,
and the dried and powdered left testicle
of a fully grown moose.
Chill, and serve.
(Jimmer speaks gibberish)
(Jimmer speaks gibberish)
That just breaks the spell.
Now, we gotta protect ourselves
from the evil spirits.
Wolf Moon Dance says for
every tree in the forest
there is a spirit.
Some are good, some are evil.
According to the Ojibwes,
this lets the good spirits in,
keeps the bad spirits out.
- Oh, smells like porcupine piss.
- [Reuben] It is.
- You wants us to drink this, too?
- No, no, no, no, no.
You just splash it on, you know, like so.
See, not only does it protect
you from evil spirits,
but, when it comes to the bucks,
it's an aphro, aphro?
- Deshilact?
- Yeah, yeah.
She said that her father
went out last year,
covered himself from
head to toe with piss.
15 minutes later, he was
surrounded by hundreds of bucks.
- Hundreds of bucks?
- That's right, she said that
if you can stand the stink,
they'll walk right up
and introduce themselves.
- I can't believe I
drank a moose testicle.
- You're lucky.
I think it's one of them chunks I chewed.
- Say, Rubens.
- Hmm?
- How does a man goes
about extractions jars
of piss froms a porcupine?
- Well, you know, first
thing you gotta do, Jimmer,
is catch one, which I
did about a month back.
Nice 30-pounder.
- That's a good size quill cushion.
- [Reuben] Oh, that's
a real good size, yeah.
- Say, you don't grabs him, dids yous?
- Oh, no, no.
- 'Cause if you grabs a porcupine,
you'll get stuck with his schtickers.
- Oh, no, no, you're right there, Jimmer.
No, no, I seen one down the Soady Creek.
He was sitting out on
a rock sunning himself-
- Right down Soady Creek, yeah.
- I snuck up behind him, you know.
I threw a blanket over the top of him
and took him home.
- No schtickers?
- No schtickers.
Stickers, stickers.
Yeah.
- [Albert] Where's Jack?
- Yeah, so anyway, you
know, I took him home,
and I put him out in this cage out back
that I made special.
Had a little wire floor of a
top with this pan underneath.
Then I spent the whole entire next week
making that quill pen drink
all the water he could stand.
Come Saturday, the pan was overflowing.
- Reuben-
- So then it was just
a matter of pouring some of the piss
into the wife's spare
pickle jars, you know,
and letting them sit out
in the sun, you know,
so they could ripen up-
- Reuben!
- A day, what?
- Between your moose-ball milkshakes
and your pickle jars
full of porcupine piss,
I think you got us covered, eh?
- I was explaining to the Jimmer-
- Let me ask you this,
is there a magic potion
for dealing out loaner hands,
'cause that would be helpful.
- I don't think-
(Albert speaks indistinctly)
- I was talking to my partner,
thank you very much.
- Yeah.
- Jimmer, as always,
take no prisoners.
- Take no prisoners.
- Do me a favor, will ya?
Try to remember what trump is.
You cost us the championship last year.
- What cost us the championship
was when somebody I won't mention
called for a loaner and then got
ukered for three tricks.
That's what cost us the-
- I was two-suited with eights
high, thank you very much.
- Two-suited with the eights high
is not a loaner hand, Remnar.
- Reuben, listen to me-
- Look, I got five cards.
Five cards, I am sitting
right across the table.
- But you don't know how
to use the card, all right?
- I am your partner.
- What is trump?
- I am here to-
- What's trump?
What's trump?
- Ladies!
(Albert laughs)
- [Reuben] Think that'll work.
(Remnar laughs)
Take that, little boy.
- Here's to one, here's to one.
- [Albert] I'm damn sick and
tired of cleaning up after you.
(men chatter)
(twangy music)
- Sometimes it's deer season, Remnar,
sometimes it's deer season.
(Reuben laughs)
(twangy music)
(men chattering)
- Are you drunk?
- Oh, yeah.
- You're drunk now?
(men chattering)
- Have another hit of sweet sap.
(twangy music)
(men chattering)
(twangy music)
- Oh, Reuben, I swear to God.
- You can't tell him.
- Camp's rules, the camp's rules!
- If he forgot, he forgot, he's
gotta play without knowing.
- Reuben, you forgot what
trump is again, haven't ya?
Haven't you, Reuben?
- I can't finish this hand.
- Nothing but nines and 10s?
- More like twos, threes, and fours.
- There ain't no twos, threes,
and fours in a uker hand.
- Maybe when he shuffled, he
picked up the wrong cards.
- The only decks in this
camp are uker decks.
Ain't no twos, threes,
and fours within 20 miles.
(Albert whimpers)
The Jimmer's Impala
catching fire was one thing,
and the best backwoods whisky in the U.P.
curdling like milk right
under our nose was another,
but when the cards changed face
right in our very own hands,
we thought we'd seen it all.
(tense music)
(men panting)
(tense music)
(mysterious knocking)
(mysterious howling)
(mysterious knocking)
(mysterious chittering)
(mysterious banging)
(mysterious growling)
And then, just when we thought
it couldn't get any worse.
(Reuben shouts)
- Ranger Tom T. Treado,
Department of Natural Resources!
- Pop, no!
- Welcome to Soady deer
camp, Officer Treado.
- Please, call me Ranger Tom.
- [Men] Ranger Tom.
- I'm Reuben Soady, this
is my pop Albert Soady,
that's my big baby brother Remnar Soady,
and the living legend you
got right next to you there
is the one only Jimmer
Negamanee from Menominee.
- My Chevy shook a shit.
- I got a ticket from every DNR officer
who ever set foot in these woods.
I sure don't remember seeing you.
- I just got transferred up
to this part of the state.
- Oh, where from?
- Detroit.
- Oh, yeah.
- Detroit.
- What a shity, that's a nice place.
I been there once.
(men chatter)
- I rode on this thing.
It took all the people around.
- You are not gonna believe
the night we had, Ranger Tom.
- It all started with Jimmer's Impala.
- My Chevy shook a shit.
- Brand new used Impala.
- Burst into flames.
- Yeah, yeah.
- No reason, eh?
- Then the sweet sap, right, Pop?
- Sap!
- The slapjacks!
- The flapjacks.
(men chatter)
♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ I looked over Jordan
and what did I see ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ A band of angels coming after me ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
- [Albert] He sung the whole damn song.
Him being from the DNR,
we didn't wanna interrupt
for fear he might take
away our hunting licenses.
You gotta remember, this time of year,
the DNR is more powerful than God.
In fact, some of them think they are God.
Or, in Ranger Tom's case.
- I just saw God up on your ridge.
- Huh, well, it's a beautiful ridge.
- No, I saw God up on your ridge.
- God?
- God?
- The one with the angels?
- With heaven and the angels
and the manager, that's right.
- You saw the manager?
- Are you sure it wasn't a spaceship?
- No, he's right, you know.
It might have been just a UFO.
- Jimmer was abducted by aliens.
- [Jimmer] I spent the whole
weekend in a spaceship.
- There was a light.
- [Albert] You saw a light?
- We seen the light, too, right, Pop?
- Yeah.
- We seen a light.
- Was it hovering?
'Cause mine was hovering right above me,
right before they sucked me up in a chute.
- No.
This was the light, the light you see
right before you see God.
I was out combing the area
for irregularities, you know?
We got a lot of orange coming up
over that ridge tonight.
Gotta go out there, establish a presence.
(mysterious music)
At first, I thought it was the moon
coming out from behind a cloud.
But then, words started
falling out of my mouth,
words I'd never said before,
words I didn't know the meaning of.
I lost all sense of time and place
and my place in time.
I began questioning the
futility of my existence,
my mind racing with a never-ending stream
of ceaseless, incessant contemplation,
examining, reexamining the relevance
of my sad excuse for a life,
clinging to a deeply-seated faith
versus modern society's insistence
that if mankind cannot explain
it it can't possibly exist.
Or
is that simply a reflection
of the world we live in,
or I live in, or the way I
choose to live in the world,
if I even live in a world.
Is this a world?
And, if it is, am I in it?
And if I am, why?
For what purpose, for what reason,
for what possible reason
is my being, being.
There's no method behind whatever madness
was orchestrated on my behalf.
They'd spent the time, energy,
and spiritual wherewithal
to make sure that, damn it,
at least this mass of flesh,
blood, and bones is,
this carcass with a pulse
gets to breath the air, drink the water,
and eat the food like I'd never eat again.
- I've been thinking.
- Damn it!
- What?
- What is this mass of flesh?
- You know, with everything
that's happened, maybe it'd be better
if we just jumped in our trucks,
drove back to Escanaba.
- No deer season?
- If you think after I
just got done drinking
the left testicle of a
full grown moose that I'm-
- I'm just saying maybe
we should come back
when things aren't so weird.
♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪
- Nobody leaves this camp til I say so.
Last time I checked,
tomorrow's still opening day,
and we are gonna hunt it.
♪ Swing low ♪
Now hit the sack, all of ya.
You, too.
♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪
Now, the night in the U.P.
is a whole different animal.
There's a stillness to it, like black ice.
You can't see it.
You can't touch it.
And, if you're not careful, it'll wrap
its arms around you and squeeze
til the only sound you hear
is your own heart beating
and your own breath breathing.
Reuben said later he wasn't sure
what it was that woke him.
Might've been a dream.
Might've been the moonlight coming out
from behind a cloud, or it might have been
the sound of all those deer.
(mysterious snorting)
Put your finger on the trigger.
- Just bring your gun up.
- Steady your nerves.
- Just bring your gun up.
- Put your finger
on the trigger.
- Just bring your gun up.
- Steady your nerves!
- Just bring your gun up.
- [Albert] Put your finger on the trigger.
(Reuben gasps)
Do it.
(mysterious snorting)
(mysterious, whispering voices)
(Reuben panting)
(mysterious voice rumbles)
(Reuben gasps)
(mysterious voice rumbles)
(voices shout)
(people shout)
(low rock music)
(low rock music)
(Reuben panting)
- [Wolf Moon Dance] Be-ah-ee.
Be-ah-ee, be-ah-ee, be-ah-ee.
(Remnar snores)
(Remnar gags)
(Jimmer farts)
- Well, now we know why the
aliens brought him back.
(Remnar sighs)
Keeping a lookout, eh?
Good idea.
I gotta go to the two-holer.
If I'm not back in five minutes,
you might wanna come and get me.
I mean, who knows what's out there?
Could be anything, aliens, bears.
Alien bears.
Might even be God himself,
just like Ranger Tom said.
Chances are, though,
that if God is out there,
I gotta believe the last place he'd be
would be the Soady two-holer, eh?
I tell ya what.
If I happen to run into God
out there, hold your fire.
In fact, if you see me doing this,
that means hold your fire,
I'm with God, okay, Reuben?
Reuben?
- Be-ah-ee.
(Remnar gasps)
- Pop, wake up!
(Albert shout)
There's something wrong with Reuben.
I was on my way out to the two-holer, eh?
- You smell like you didn't make it.
- I'm on my way out there.
I was just talking to him,
and, all of a sudden.
- Be-ah-ee.
- Give me some of the porcupine piss.
- It's the curse, ain't it?
- Don't give me that curse crap.
This'll do it even if he's dead.
- Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Father and Son, Holy Ghost.
Mother of Mary, Mother of God.
- Be-ah-ee!
- All right, that's it.
Stand back.
I don't wanna hit ya.
- Pop, what are you doing?
- I'm gonna fire a round off
next to his head, wake him up.
- You can't do that, he'll go deaf.
- He's already deaf, look at him.
- Wait.
I got a better idea.
I got some 100 foot jumper
cables out in my truck.
I'll pull it up close, hook the one
up to my Diehard, the other to Reuben.
Count of three, I'll start it up.
- Are you out of your mind?
- I seen Bob McGinnis do it once.
- Oh, well, that would
explain a lot, wouldn't it?
Think of something else!
- I can't think of nothing else.
I'm thought out.
- [Albert] And then it happened.
Like a vice from heaven, it called to us.
(Jimmer farts)
- Get closer.
Look out!
Here, hold on to Reuben.
- Wait a minute.
I got him.
- Get him in there.
- Got him in there good?
- If he was any closer, he'd be attached.
- If the Jimmer cuts loose on a big one,
he's liable to come shooting
back this way, so get ready.
- If he cuts loose with a big one,
he'll blow his head right off.
- What's he looking for?
- Reuben's froze up.
- We think maybe he's cursed.
- He's not wither cursed, he's just-
- Cursed, look at him!
- [Albert] We must've stood
there for a good 30 minutes.
Nobody moved a muscle.
Unfortunately, that included the Jimmer.
Finally, Ranger Tom suggested
some basic DNR training
he thought might be
useful in this situation.
- Pump his legs.
One potato, two potato,
three potato, four.
- [Men] Five potato, six
potato, seven potato, more.
One potato, two potato,
three potato, four.
- Must be clogged, keep pumping.
- [Albert And Remnar]
One potato, two potato,
three potato, four.
- [Men] Five potato, six
potato, seven potato, more.
One potato, two potato, three
potato, four, five potato.
(twangy music)
- Well, that explains my dream.
- Reuben's froze up.
- This ain't what
it looks like.
- I was on my way out
to the two-holer, and I said,
"Reuben, cover me, I'm
going to the two-holer,"
'cause all the goings-on around here,
and we didn't have no smelling salts.
- Up on the lake.
- Yeah, down at the lake.
So we tried the porcupine piss.
(Jimmer farts)
We even almost hooked
him up to my Sears Diehard, eh?
But then you let go of a good one
right as we were about
to fire up the truck,
so we said, hey, what better way to snap
someone out of Looneyville
than with one of your good old, you know.
Right, right, so that's why Reuben
is, you know, where he is.
(Jimmer screams)
Look out!
(Jimmer farts)
(Jimmer howls)
- Reuben. (coughs)
Reuben, where are ya?
(Albert gags)
Reuben, Reuben, Reuben!
I got ya, Reuben!
(Reuben screams)
- I can do it again if he needs it!
- [Men] No!
- Take care of Ranger Tom!
I think he's a little discombobulated.
- [Jimmer] I got you!
- Pop, help me get him to the couch.
- Get him to the couch.
- He's crazy!
- [Albert] Get him on the
couch, get him on the couch.
(men shout)
- Where is it, where is it, where is it?
- Where's what?
- I seen a light.
- Light, did you say a light?
- I seen a light.
- Where?
- I seen it in the
window, right over there.
- I saw a light up on the ridge.
- I seen mine at the window.
- You sure it wasn't a spaceship?
- Did it call to you?
- What?
- Mine hovered.
- I'm not talking to you,
sir, I'm talking to him!
Please, wait over there by your vehicle.
Did you walk towards it like I did?
- No, I tried to shoot it.
- You don't shoot God.
- That was God?
- Of course it was God!
- I almost shot God.
- Going to the light was people.
- Listen to me!
As an officer of the Department
of Natural Resources,
I hereby command you to release and reveal
any and all information
pertaining to said disturbance.
Leave nothing out.
Can you do that?
- Well, it's a little fuzzy.
(hand smacks)
- Sit down.
The man's about to speak.
- There were these people.
- The people, how do you mean people?
- Well, these people
that I knew weren't there
'cause they couldn't have been there
'cause they weren't
real, except they were.
- Ghosts?
- You was one of them.
You, too, Pop.
And the Jimmer.
- Yeah, well, how about me?
- No.
But I was.
I was there, I seen me.
I was looking right at me.
And then I looked up, and
a long, long way of pines,
you know, there she was.
I wanted to run to her so bad.
She was so beautiful.
That's when Wolf Moon
Dance, she looked up.
- [Albert Voiceover] For
those of you planning
on traveling to the U.P. any time soon,
you need to know about the bear walks.
- Head of a buck and a body of a man.
- [Albert Voiceover] You
won't find them listed
in the travel books they
pass out at the bridge,
but they're as much a
part of the Superior State
as the pictured rocks.
The Indians are scared to death of them.
They say it starts out as a light.
Then it changes,
usually into a bear, a
raccoon, wolf, even a buck.
The human part, that's the
spirit that it come from
come back looking for
something, or somebody.
- That's why the sweet
sap turned to syrup.
- And the uker cards
changed their numbers.
- And Jimmer's Chevy took a shit.
- Be-ah-ee, that's his name.
Be-ah-ee, the bear walk.
- What's happening to me, Pop?
What's happening to me?
(jars rattle)
(mysterious growling)
(lights buzz)
(wind whistles)
(lights buzz)
(Jimmer shouts gibberish)
(lights buzz)
Jimmer, Jimmer, easy, easy.
Easy, easy.
(Jimmer shouts gibberish)
Come on, come on, come on.
- [Jimmer] Sacrafish,
sacrafish, sacrafish!
- Sacrafish?
- Sacrifice!
- What?
- Sacrifice, the bear
walk wants a sacrifice.
- What the hell are we gonna give it?
♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ Swing low ♪
♪ Sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
- Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
♪ I looked over Jordan ♪
♪ And what did I see ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ A band of angels coming after me ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me ♪
(glass shatters)
(Ranger Tom growls)
(exciting rock music)
- Be-ah-ee.
Be-ah-ee.
Be-ah.
Ka-sah-ki.
(birds tweet)
Ka-sah-ki.
♪ Swing low ♪
♪ Sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me ♪
♪ Home ♪
♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me ♪
- Pop!
- No, no, let me kill it!
It's the bear walk!
- No, it's not him.
- I'm trying to kill the bear walk.
- It's me, it's me.
- What are you talking about?
- I've seen the light,
I've seen the light.
- No, no, that's the
northern lights, just northern lights
coming over the ridge.
They bounce off the
water, that's all it is.
- I'm cursed, don't you see?
I'm cursed.
There's only one way to break
a curse like the one I got.
Every year, you tell me,
"This is gonna be your year, Reuben.
"This is gonna be your year."
Well, you know what, you're right.
Either way, it's gonna stop.
Either I'm gonna get eat bear walk
or that bear walk's gonna eat me.
But somebody is gonna be putting
meat on somebody's table.
- Reuben, listen to me.
- Put a pasty in the oven for me, eh?
(soft music)
- [Albert Voiceover] Now, I
know what you're thinking.
"Albert Soady, this tale you're telling
"is nothing but a crock."
But if you thought up til now
I've been stretching things,
well, what I'm gonna tell you next
you're not only not gonna believe,
you're gonna think I fell
off my rocker for good.
So, I'll let Reuben tell
ya, in his own words.
Soady camp log, November 15th.
- 1989.
I don't know what it was I was running to,
but, whatever it was,
it was the very thing
I was running from.
(Reuben panting)
(angelic music)
(Reuben panting)
(suspenseful, shimmering music)
(exciting music)
Now, I'm not saying what I seen was real,
'cause that would make me as crazy as Bob.
Ka-sah-ki!
Ka-sah-ki!
But I'll swear on my mother's
grave that what I seen next.
- Son.
You couldn't hit a house
if you were standing in it.
(man laughs)
If you don't know where to
start, go back to the beginning.
(man laughs)
Anything free is worth saving up for.
All good things-
- Come to those who shoot straight.
- Hello, Reuben.
- Holy Wah.
You're dead, ain't ya?
- Oh, yeah, I'm dead, I'm very dead.
- I'm as loony as Uncle Alvin.
- I need you to do something for me.
Can you do something for
your great-grandfather?
- Sure.
- I want you to bring your gun up,
put your finger on the trigger,
take a deep breath to steady your nerves,
and shoot that buck.
- What buck?
- That buck you've been chasing
all the way up Soady Ridge.
- That's a buck?
- That's your buck.
- I ain't never shot a buck before.
- Tell me something,
do you believe in fate?
- I don't know.
- How about luck?
You believe in luck?
- Only luck I've ever had's been bad.
- That's good, so you believe.
- In what?
- In something, anything.
For instance, you believe
I'm here with you, right now?
- No, no.
- Then you'll never
shoot that buck, Reuben.
But if you believe, truly believe
that I'm here with you, right now,
then your Uncle Alvin will go down
as the oldest Soady in
the history of he Soadys
never to bag a buck.
Just bring your gun up.
That's it.
(gun clicks)
Put your finger on the trigger.
Take a deep breath to steady your nerves.
- You brought me this buck,
didn't you, Great-Grandpa?
- Let's just say it was somebody
a little higher up on the
spiritual food chain than me.
- Was it God?
- Higher.
- There's somebody higher than God?
- Just shoot the buck, Reuben.
- Who was it?
- Just shoot the buck.
- If it wasn't you and it
wasn't God, then who was it?
- [Wolf Moon Dance Voiceover] Ka-sah-ki.
(shimmering light)
Ka-sah-ki.
Ka-sah-ki.
- I love you, too, Wolf Moon Dance.
(gun bangs)
(emotional music)
♪ Feel that winter wind is blowing ♪
Put on the lard and onions, honey.
♪ Down on me so cold tonight ♪
I'm gonna gut you a buck.
♪ Stuck out on this lonesome highway ♪
♪ Seems to be no end in sight ♪
♪ And I've got one more river to cross ♪
♪ One more mountain to climb ♪
♪ One more day to survive ♪
- We took the road.
(Albert laughs)
♪ One more river to cross ♪
- [Remnar] You bagged a buck!
(men shout)
(emotional music)
♪ Make your dream come true ♪
♪ Never comes easy ♪
♪ Always takes time ♪
♪ You just keep on going ♪
♪ What else can you do ♪
- Hello!
- Hello!
- [Child] Grandpa!
- [Albert Voiceover] Reuben's buck kept
the whole family in venison
til the following spring.
It was some of the best ven I ever ate.
See, it's like this.
When I'm sitting down to
the Sunday supper table,
surrounded by Soadys, facing all that food
we hunted and gathered
ourselves, I'm in heaven.
And, if you wanna go to heaven,
it's north of the bridge.
♪ Just as the darkness is falling ♪
♪ I can hear your sweet voice call ♪
♪ Welcoming me home ♪
(percussive music)
♪ Feel the winter wind is blowing ♪
♪ Down on me so cold tonight ♪
♪ Stuck out on this lonesome highway ♪
♪ Seems to be no end in sight ♪
♪ Just as the darkness is falling ♪
♪ I can hear your sweet
voice calling to me ♪
♪ Saying don't worry, baby ♪
♪ We're gonna be all right ♪
♪ And I've got one more river to cross ♪
♪ One more mountain to climb ♪
♪ One more day to survive ♪
♪ One more river to cross ♪
♪ One more dream to hold on to ♪
♪ To keep me alive ♪
♪ I've got one more river to cross ♪
♪ I can see you standing there ♪
♪ On the night we said goodbye ♪
♪ Knowing that we sacrificed all ♪
♪ Knowing there'd be tears to cry ♪
♪ You pointed to a bright star shining ♪
♪ And promised it would
always watch over me ♪
♪ But I look in the sky tonight, baby ♪
♪ Your smiling face is all I see ♪
♪ And I've got ♪
♪ One more river to cross ♪
♪ One more mountain to climb ♪
♪ One more day to survive ♪
♪ One more river to cross ♪
♪ One more dream to hold on to ♪
♪ To keep me alive ♪
♪ I've got ♪
♪ One more river to cross ♪
♪ When you put your heart on the line ♪
♪ Trying to make your dreams come true ♪
♪ It never comes easy, always takes time ♪
♪ You just keep on going ♪
♪ What else can you do ♪
♪ Even as the darkness is falling ♪
♪ I can hear your sweet voice calling ♪
♪ One more river to cross ♪
♪ One more mountain to climb ♪
♪ One more day to survive ♪
♪ One more river to cross ♪
♪ Til I rest in your arms ♪
♪ Til I make you feel alive ♪
♪ I've got just one more river to cross ♪
♪ There is always one
more river to cross ♪
♪ One more river ♪
♪ I'm coming home ♪