The Stone of Blood (25 page)

Flaget and Louis Philippe had both left
France
in 1793, while Fitch had came and left again that very same year!

“
Perhaps Flaget, Phillippe and Fitch had met one another while in
France
.
” I reasoned.

The meeting between this ‘
Prince of Blood
’ and Father Flaget happened in
Cuba
in 1799, six years later. “
That was the same year that the Talbott Tavern was built in Bardstown!
” I realized.

“
Had Lystra been built before Bardstown was founded? Had it been built while the town was still known as
Salem
?
Salem
was famous for its ‘witch trials’! Could this be the missing link I have been looking for? The plan for Lystra
was
created in 1795
.” I continued.
“Could Flaget have been given somethin’ from the ‘prince of blood’ that he was supposed to bring to Bardstown, near the location where the new city of
Lystra
was to be built?
” I wondered.

I was putting together a timeline for Lystra, but I didn’t know for sure what Flaget had brought with him. I knew that it had to be somethin’ important enough to involve the future King of France. And it was important enough to the people who had followed it that they made plans to have a city built here in secret, apparently several years in advance of Flaget’s journey to Bardstown.

I surmised too, that they could’ve been involved in the death of John Fitch. Could he have been murdered over the rights to his lands?

I knew it was mostly circumstantial evidence, and almost completely speculation …but it did seem possible!

However, how exactly this connected up with the
Civil War
and to
the ghost
in my family’s barn, I didn’t have a clue!

None of the stories I had read would’ve given reason for a soldier of the Confederacy to have been bound to our lands for eternity!

Unless …unless there was somethin’ about
what
Flaget carried; somethin’ that he was given to him …by the ‘
Prince of Blood
’?

“
And could that have been the reason why the new city of
Lystra
was destroyed?”
I wondered. “
Could someone have been lookin’ for what Father Flaget carried?
”

I browsed through several other books then …lookin’ for information on Bardstown’s history durin’ the times of the Civil War. I knew that Jesse James and his older brother Frank had visited here quite often during and after the war, and that Jesse had stayed right across the street from where I sat, right there at the Talbott Tavern! But I didn’t know much else about it.

But as I dug further into it though, under the heading of bandits and outlaws I found
an article regardin
g
‘
Magruder, Sam ‘One Arm’
Berry
, and Sue Munday
’! They had also been in Bardstown durin’ the days of the Civil War.

“During the cold months of 1864, the men wanted adventure and rode into Bardstown. Magruder stated that “nothing short of some blood from us, to deplete us, and bring our ardour into some correspondence with the weather, or some blood from our Federal friends to gorge and satisfy us-nothing short of this would answer that day.” The guerillas attacked the courthouse in Bardstown, where thirty Federal soldiers took refuge. During Magruder’s charge, the Federals wounded
Berry
. Magruder and the rest of the guerillas retreated from Bardstown.”

I thumbed through more pages and I read through several other articles, skimmin’ through them quickly as I read. But nothin’ seemed to fit into my line of reasonin’. I couldn’t find a connection. I couldn’t find anything connectin’
these outlaws
to anything else that I had surmised.

However, I did find an article regardin’ our famous song writer: Stephen Foster. But I’d have to say that I almost didn’t pay it any attention cause Stephen Foster didn’t have anything to do with France or ‘
werewolves
’ or the Civil War, at least wise that I could figure! But I did read that …‘
T
he only time that
Stephen Foster
had the opportunity to journey through Kentucky, was when he and his mom had come through here when he was a kid. But,
they didn’t stop in Bardstown
at the time cause of the
cholera epidemic of 1833
. Some of his cousins even died at the Federal Hill
Plantation
from the disease that year!’

I further read that:

‘He
came through
Kentucky
once more in the early 1850’s by steamboat, as he and his wife journeyed down the Ohio River on their way to
Louisiana
. But they where only listed as bein’
off of the boat
…for an hour and a half, per the boats log book while they were docked at port in
Louisville
. …s
o
there wasn’t enough time for him to have gotten to Bardstown and back to
Louisville
again
by carriage or by horseback.”

“If he didn’t really come to Bardstown,” I wondered as I spoke out loud. “…then what’s the ‘
Stephen Foster Drama
’ about?”

“
And how could he have written the song about the Plantation Home in Bardstown if he’d never actually visited the Federal Hill
Plantation
?
” I wondered to myself.

I guessed that those were questions for another time.
Reading
about this was givin’ me a
headache
!

But as I was readin’ about that boats’ log book, somethin’ did cross my mind. “
Could there be a record or a log entry of a ‘werewolf’ listed in
Nelson
County
?
”

I got up from my chair and walked over to the small room by the Librarian’s desk and I searched through some old microfiche records and newspaper clippin
g
s.
After about twenty minutes or so, I came across an article dated October 1965. It was the only article that I could find on record.

They called the creature the
‘
The Whortlechort’
cause up and until that time no one from around this area had ever heard of a ‘
big foot
’ and no one would’ve believed they’d seen a ‘
werewolf.
’
“
The sighting occurred in an area of
Nelson
County
where farmers raise tobacco and allow cattle to graze along the creek beds.”
The article read.
 
“On this particular October night in 1965 two brothers had driven their pickup truck to their grandmother’s farm to find a cow that had wondered off while expecting to have a calf. They parked their truck and headed up a fence row to a clump of trees where the cattle usually bedded down for the night.
”

“
As we moved up the fence row, we spotted something in sort of hunched position.”
One of the brothers stated. “
There were alot of buck bushes growing around the field and we couldn’t see too well. We didn't think it was a cow but we didn't know what else it could be.”

“
About 100 feet away from the object their dog started barking and would not follow any closer. All of a sudden the creature rose up on two legs and began running! It stopped under an arch formed by two trees and faced its trackers. Brown hair covered its entire body as it stood nearly eight foot tall! The brothers aimed their flashlights at it! And its eyes flashed red from the reflection!
”

“
We couldn’t have watched it for more than a few seconds,”
The other brother related. “…
than we both ran off scared to death! I turned once to see if was chasing us and I saw the creature put its hand on a fence post and just flip over into the next field."

“
The next day when their father went out to the field to check their story, he found a path through a field of uncut oats in the exact area where the boys claimed the ‘monster’ jumped the fence. But they never saw the creature again.
”

This proved that there had been sightings in
Nelson
County
! But somethin’ just didn’t add up …somethin’ told me that this was
not
a sighting of a ‘
werewolf
’! Or could it have been? While it may have been the first recorded sighting of a ‘
Bigfoot
’ in the area, could this be an
actual link
to what I was lookin’ for?

I turned off the microfiche then. The light was beginnin’ to get hot! And I proceeded to walk back to my desk where my books were still all laid out.

I caught a glimpse of Colby as he came down the elevator again and then proceeded to walk back on up the staircase. I figured there must’ve been a girl up there or somethin’. At least he was keepin’ himself amused I reckoned.

But as I was on my way back to my seat …I heard a book fall from a shelf. And as I turned to see where the book had fallen, I spotted an old leather-bound book sittin’ in the far west corner of the Library on a solitary wooden pedestal. I was drawn to it. It was a large and heavy book; too heavy to pack to my table. So I wiped off the books cover with my hands and blew the rest of the dust into the air. And I opened the book, turning its large musky pages slowly and with sense of purpose.

It was an ancient book of names I gathered; like a book from another time. Inscribed in intricate detail and handwritten print; with hand painted drawings and artwork!

It listed families, titles and surnames and such; listing their root names and meanings. It also listed the origins and locations from where they had come from and so forth and so on. So I proceeded to thumb through its large and heavily engraved pages to find the meaning of my last name!

My last name was ‘McAnully’ and I found that it was of ‘
Irish
’ descent. The way it was spelled had been changed over time from its original spelling. “
Kind of like the name of Highway 31E,
New Haven Road
.
” I thought.

“
McAnully
…
was
recorded in several spellings. This was a famous Irish surname. It was a development of two original Gaelic surnames. The first was ‘Mac con’ and the second was Ulaidh’ composed of the elements ‘Mac’ meaning son of, ‘con’, a hunting dog (or hound), and ‘uladh’, the province of Ulster.”

“
What was the meaning…?”
 
I wondered. “…
behind callin’ someone
'the son of a hound of
Ulster
’
?”