Day of the Longbow

By William K. Schlotter IV

The Day of the Longbow is the tale of Bill Sherwood and his friends who encounter Oberon, a wise and powerful wizard from the parallel universe of Avonia. Avonia is a medieval world similar to earth’s eleventh and twelfth centuries. Many things are the same as our own past, but many are different. The bow and arrow were never invented in the Avonia universe.

These are the adventures of Bill Sherwood and his fellow archers, sought out by Oberon to take their longbows to Avonia and help stave off the attacks from the savage Nordics. Bill and his men go back with Oberon to his medieval world to help King Stephen and the realm of Avonia fight the Nordic invasion.

Theirs is not merely a fight to win but a battle for their survival. Knights of the realm, castles, magic, time travel, evil warriors, and true love…Bill and his band of archers will find it all in Avonia and be forever changed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662441097

Book preview

Chapter 1

Bill Sherwood

The hunter slowly moved through the dark forest landscape. Bill Sherwood had been awake since 2:30 a.m., leaving his house well before three thirty. His home was just off Route 5 in Lake City, Pennsylvania, and today, he planned to hunt the Game Lands. The Game Lands include several hundred acres along the shores of Lake Erie. Bill had scouted his hunting site months earlier and was pleased with all the deer sign that he had found. He had asked his good friend Dan to hunt with him, even though he knew Dan would turn him down. Both men knew hunting alone greatly increased the odds of taking down a big buck. Friendship demanded that they ask each other to hunt together, and neither one was offended when they turned each other down. There was always a friendly, unspoken competition between the two friends, especially when it came to archery and even more so with deer hunting. Having left his 4 × 4 Chevy truck on an old logging road just east of Raccoon Park, Bill continued to make his way to his blind. It was an old oak surrounded by small brush for good concealment. Ever so slowly, he worked his way through the forest underbrush, quieter than the game he had come to hunt.

Finally, he arrived at his site, just below a huge red oak nearly twenty feet in circumference. This tree must be at least two hundred years old, Bill thought to himself. The wind was blowing off Lake Erie but only lightly at 5–10 mph, which was pretty calm for the big lake this time of year. It was October 1, and archery season had just started. He had seen several deer the last two weeks but had not seen the big buck that he knew was using this area as his own personal territory. Bill had seen the signs, huge tracks, the buck rubs, and even the one good picture from his field camera, that was triggered a week earlier just at sunrise. That picture was fairly dark, but you could make out the large rack of antlers…at least a 16-point buck!

The hunter checked his watch, showing 4:35 a.m. He had made good time, still over an hour and a half before sunrise. Bill slowly strung his bow, checking the string for any signs of wear. Most hunters strung their bows prior to entering the woods, but he didn’t like the way the string could catch on the undergrowth. It wasn’t good for the string and was noisy when it snagged small branches and weeds. He pulled back the string to test it. His bow was a replica of an Old English War Bow, nearly six and a half feet long with a draw weight of 120 pounds. Many of his friends made fun that he used such a heavy bow. Most of them used bows of fifty- to sixty-pound pull weight. Bill always took the teasing in stride, for he knew they secretly admired him and his longbow. When they were together practicing, they all wanted to try his bow and were amazed at how hard it was to draw the big bow all the way back to their cheeks. A few couldn’t pull it back past the halfway point. He would always joke with them that they simply needed to grow stronger. Bill wasn’t a big man at 5'10", but he had been a weightlifter since high school and had the hefty muscles to show for it. Many men wanted to test his strength by arm wrestling, but he hadn’t been bested yet.

It was now nearing 5:00 a.m., and Bill prepared himself for the morning hunt. The wind coming off the lake to his north dictated that he would face north so as to be downwind of any deer that appeared. This spot was only a half mile away from the shore, and deer tended to use this narrow strip of land to move back and forth from the feeding grounds to their bedding down areas. Deer are usually nocturnal, mainly feeding at night then bedding down during the day. The large bucks tended to use the lakeshore as a natural trail way.

The moon was full and slowly settling toward the west. The moonlight filtered through the trees in rays, only a few making it through the thick canopy of leaves, striking the ground here and there, giving the woods a strange, otherworldly landscape. Yes, fall was his favorite time of year. The temperature was nice and cool but not yet cold. The fall foliage was nearly at peak. The trees were ablaze in orange, red, gold, yellow, and purple, breathtaking in their beauty. He was alone in the dark woods with his favorite bow, and it was deer season; it didn’t get any better than this, he thought to himself. Bill sat on the ground listening to the soft sounds of the early morning north woods waking up, feeling the light breeze coming off the lake, gently caressing his face. It had rained a few days earlier, and the damp leaves that had fallen gave off a sweet musky woods scent that he loved.

It was nearly 6:00 a.m., and the woods were slowly becoming less dark. Dawn was coming and objects across the clearing from where he sat were gradually coming into focus. Bill checked his bow once more. He had tied two pieces of thread, each about a foot long, to the top end of his bow—one white and one black. Once he could see the color difference between the two, he knew the dawn was almost there. Plus, the threads would tell him any changes in the wind, allowing him to stay downwind of his game.

Suddenly, Bill saw movement on the other side of the clearing. There was enough light to see that it was a buck, slowly walking along the edge of the wood. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. On the other side of the clearing was a huge deer nearly the size of an elk! It was getting lighter by the minute, and he could see that it was definitely a whitetail deer, only it was huge! As Bill was watching in awe, his right hand ever so slowly reached down to his belt quiver and took one of his arrows, quietly pulling it out of his quiver. The big buck was grazing with his head bent down, looking away from the hunter. This was his chance! Slowly, Bill stood, keeping the big oak between him and the deer. He had already fitted the arrow onto the string and took a quick glance at the two threads on the tip of his bow. They were gently blowing back toward him. Perfect, he thought to himself. The big buck was fifty to fifty-five yards away. Too far, he thought. Most bow hunters considered the perfect range for deer to be fifteen to twenty yards, thirty yards in ideal conditions.

Bill had made shots in practice at this range, even out to one hundred yards, which he practiced at a lot. Still, that was at 3D targets, not a live animal. Maybe the buck would come closer toward him if he waited a little longer? He waited a few more minutes, his heart pounding so hard he was afraid the big buck might hear it. The minutes ticked by, and to the hunter’s disappointment, the deer was moving away from him. It was now at sixty yards. The buck was still broadside to him, head down, feeding at its leisure. Bill made up his mind in a second. If it had been a normal-sized buck, he would not take the shot at this range, but he had never seen one this size. His mind made up, Bill slowly pulled back to his anchor point, which was the end of his jawbone, and just below his right earlobe. Everything was instinctive now, the years of practice, the thousands of arrows shot, so instinct took over. No time for thought, no time for doubt, no time to breathe, just instinct. He let loose the string. All 120 pounds of kinetic energy shot the arrow off the bow nearly as fast as a bullet from a gun. It was a good, clean release. The arrow arched its way toward the deer with lightning speed. It hit dead center of the deer’s side, just above and a little to the left of the deer’s arm pit. It was a perfect shot!

Bill watched as the big buck jumped up and turned away from the impact, running over the ridge and out of sight. Even though he was super excited, Bill sat down and inspected his bow and his arrows to calm himself down. He had learned from experience never to go after a deer right away, even after a perfect shot. If a hunter started to track a deer right after it was hit with an arrow, even in the heart-lung area, it could run for a mile or more making for a very long day for the hunter and needless suffering for the animal. By waiting fifteen to twenty minutes, the deer would normally run just fifty to one hundred yards and lie down and bleed out in just a few minutes, easing the animal’s suffering and trauma. So sit is what he did. Pulling out an apple from his hunting jacket for a well-deserved snack, he waited. After eating the apple, he took a couple of drinks from his canteen and began thinking back on the hunt. Bill knew that at sixty to seventy yards, it was a risky shot, but the buck was definitely moving away from his position. My God, he thought to himself, what a deer! He couldn’t wait to see it up close. The rack was huge, at least sixteen points, maybe even a state record.

Bill waited a few more minutes, taking in the quiet beauty of the northern green woods. He recalled many of his friends joked about the Lake Erie region, which stretched from Detroit, Michigan, all the way to Buffalo, New York. They said this region only had two seasons, July and winter. The truth was that spring, summer and especially fall were spectacular. It was time! Bill grabbed his longbow and slowly and quietly made his way across the clearing to where the big buck had been standing. He knelt down and looked around for the blood trail that he was certain he would find. To the hunter’s dismay, he didn’t see any blood at all, only his arrow that he had just shot, laying on the ground. Bill knew his shot had been on target. Examining the area further, he was startled to find that there was not even a single track! What the hell? he said out loud to himself. He searched several more minutes, slowly widening his search area. Nothing at all, he thought. Bewildered, he knelt down and searched the ground again. Bill saw several deer tracks, but those were several days old and from a smaller deer, probably a doe. What is going on? he thought to himself. It was much lighter now, and he looked some more but could find nothing.

Scratching his head, he stood up and looked back over to where he had shot his arrow beneath the big oak and he froze. There, beside the oak tree, was a strange-looking man. Bill rubbed his eyes and looked again. Sure enough, standing there was a man. Funny-looking and strange were the only two words that jumped into Bill’s head when he saw him. The stranger was dressed in a brown robe with a long, pointed brown hat. He held a tall staff with what looked like a large green stone embedded in the upper end. The stranger had a long gray beard, and even from this distance, Bill could tell that the man was barely five feet tall.

Hello? Bill called out. Did you see the big buck that was grazing over here?

Yes, I did, replied the strange man, with a smile on his face. He then abruptly turned and stepped behind the big oak tree.

Hey, wait a second, Bill called out as he trotted over to the tree. When he got to the tree, there was no one there. Bill walked around the tree twice, but nothing. Only Bill’s own boot tracks were there. What the hell? he thought again, slowly sitting down. The small hairs on the back of his neck were standing straight up.

Chapter 2

Dan Moher

Forty miles to the south, Dan Moher made his way slowly along the path toward the tree stand he would be hunting from today. It was 4:45 a.m., and he was behind schedule. He should have been at the tree stand forty-five minutes earlier, but he had to find his car keys. Dan had forgotten that he had put them into his hunting jacket the night before. Oh well, he thought to himself, at least he was almost there. Today, he would be hunting just outside Meadville, Pennsylvania, just off Route 18, about forty miles south of his hometown of Lake City.

Dan was a member of the Locksley Medieval Bowmen, an archery club he helped to start with Bill Sherwood and Tom Bowman. Ninety acres of pristine northern Pennsylvania hardwood forest, it included a clubhouse, an A-frame building with a large meeting room approximately thirty by forty feet with two bathrooms, a galley kitchen, and a large open area downstairs in the basement forty by eighty feet, perfect for indoor shooting during the winter months. Also on the property was a separate pole barn with a loft area that the members used to store 3D targets and other equipment including tractors, chainsaws, mowers etc. Several years earlier, Bill had received a call from a law firm in Erie, Pennsylvania, informing him that a Mr. Oberon had passed away and the property and all buildings and equipment were left to Bill, as Mr. Oberon’s sole heir. Also, $50,000 was left to Bill with the condition that the money be used to maintain the property in good condition and to pay yearly taxes. One additional condition was stated in the will: Bill was to start an archery club and that the property was to be used solely for archery by the members only, thus the Locksley Medieval Bowmen Archery Club was founded.

It was Dan’s favorite place to hunt white tail deer. The moon was full, and he didn’t need the flashlight that he carried in his hunting jacket pocket. His pals kidded him that he was afraid of the dark because he always carried a flashlight with him when hunting, but he had a good reason. Ten years earlier, while hunting, he had caught his foot on a tree root and nearly broke his right leg. Luckily, he had only sprained his ankle, but the injury had kept him out of work nearly a week. Now he always came prepared. Dan was a big fellow at 6'4", so the teasing was always good-humored, and the one doing the teasing always kept out of his arm’s reach.

Finally, Dan could see the tree stand just ahead. He climbed the built-in stairs quietly and sat down on the bench, fifteen feet above the forest floor. At this height, his scent would carry above any approaching game. A quick look at this watch showed it was now 5:00 a.m. Good, he thought. He still had an hour before first light. He checked his bow, pulling back the string to his anchor point. His good friend Bill never strung his bow until he had arrived at his hunting stand, but Dan didn’t like to have an unstrung bow in the woods. You never knew when one would need to get off a quick shot. Dan sat back and took in the quietness of the woods. It was cool but not yet cold. Alone in the woods during a hunt was like a soothing therapy to him. He checked the wind. A light breeze was coming from the northwest. Very good, he thought. The deer would be coming across the field directly in front of him, working their way into the woods to bed down. He could barely see the outline of the target stands out in the center of the field that the club used for practice. They were spaced ten yards apart, starting at the ten-yard mark, then twenty, thirty, forty, and fifty yards respectively. The closest one to his tree stand was fifty yards away. It was getting lighter, and he could now make out all five targets.

Suddenly, Dan thought he saw a movement on the far side of the field at the edge of the woods. It was still too dark to see what was moving, as the edge of the woods was a good two hundred yards from his tree stand. Something was definitely moving across the field heading his way then stopping near the center of the field. It was light enough now to see that it was a deer, slowly making its way toward him, pausing along the way to feed on the green grass. It was next to the fifty-yard target, still one hundred yards away. Even at this distance, Dan could see that the deer was huge. He took out his small hunting binoculars from his jacket pocket. Ever so slowly, he raised them to his eyes and focused his field glasses in. Good God in heaven, he thought to himself. The beast’s rack was unbelievable. From this distance Dan could make out that it was at least twenty points! Never had he seen such a buck this big. Pennsylvania was known for its big bucks and he had taken a few himself over his years of hunting. Last year, he had shot and killed a twelve pointer, but this buck made that one look like a small doe. It was taking its time crossing the field, lowering its head to feed every few yards. The buck raised its head every now and then to look around, but it didn’t seem to be in any hurry or nervous at all.

Five minutes later, it was next to the ten-yard target, still fifty yards away from Dan’s tree stand, and he was getting excited. C’mon, big fellow, he thought to himself, just a little closer. The big buck lifted its head and smelled the air. It slowly turned left and started to feed again. The buck was now broadside to Dan, a perfect alignment for him except that it was still a good fifty yards away. Too far, he thought. Damn it, move a little closer. He ever so slowly fitted an arrow onto his bowstring and held his breath. The big buck started slowly moving again, but to Dan’s disappointment, not toward him but parallel to his tree stand. In a few seconds, it would be getting further away, working its way eastward. Dan made his decision instantly. He would take the shot. He was already standing as he pulled his string back to his ear, all one hundred pounds of draw ready to explode. It was all pure instinct now, just like breathing, natural, no doubt, and no thought. Dan watched his arrow fly from his bow toward the big buck. He saw the arrow hit the buck just left of its shoulder, a good, clean hit! The big buck jumped straight up and ran into the woods, out of sight. Dan sat back down and slowly brought his breathing back to normal.

He took out a bacon and egg sandwich from his backpack and started to eat a well-deserved breakfast. His buddy Bill would think him mad for taking such a long shot, but Dan knew that he had to, and when Bill saw that buck, Dan knew Bill would agree with him. After he finished his sandwich, he sat back and took in the quiet of the early morning woods. He loved this time of day especially in the fall, alone in the woods, with nature all around him. Dan checked his watch. Fifteen minutes had passed since his shot on the big buck. It was time to climb down from his stand and go find his trophy buck. Once Dan was on the ground, he slowly started making his way over to where he had last seen the buck. He suddenly saw something else, a man, at about the same spot where the deer had been fifteen minutes earlier.

As he walked over to the stranger, Dan noticed that this person was no hunter. The strange man was wearing what looked like a long, hooded robe with a tall, pointed hat, both a fall brownish color. He had a long full beard that was all gray, yet his face didn’t look old, maybe in his late thirties. The man was barely over five feet tall, and in his right hand, he carried a weird-looking staff nearly six feet long. Dan was about twenty yards away and called out to the stranger, Hey, do you know that you are trespassing on private property?

Yes, I do, replied the stranger with a smile on his face. He quickly walked around a big maple tree and disappeared from view.

Dan closed the distance quickly and was at the maple tree in just a few seconds. He walked around the tree and found nothing, no stranger, not even tracks on the ground. What the hell! he thought to himself. The maple tree was a good thirty yards away from the rest of the trees of the forest, so there was no cover for hiding. The stranger had simply vanished!

Dan walked back to the spot where he had last seen the buck. There, lying on the ground, was his arrow. That’s impossible, Dan thought. He knew his shot had been true. There was no way he could have missed! He looked around, focusing his attention on the ground where the buck had been standing, and where he had found his arrow. No tracks of any kind, no blood, no trampled grass, nothing! What the hell? he thought to himself once more, the small hairs on the big man’s neck standing on end.

Chapter 3

Tom Bowman

Four hundred miles to the south, still another hunter prepared for his deer hunt in the mountainous hills of southwestern Virginia. Tom Bowman lived just outside of Abingdon, Virginia, right off Highway 58, overlooking the south fork of the Holston River. He woke early this morning so he could be at his tree stand at least an hour before sunrise. He had driven his Jeep Wrangler twenty some miles to his favorite hunting spot at the base of Mount Rogers. At a height of 5,729 feet, it was the tallest mountain in Virginia. Tom pulled his Jeep into the parking lot of the little Baptist Church overlooking Mount Rogers. He unloaded his gear (a backpack with food, first aid kit, field glasses, matches, and a blanket). Tom planned to be in the woods just for the day, but he always liked to be prepared for any emergency.

Tom was the third member of the Locksley Medieval Bowmen Archery Club that his friend Bill had started nearly five years earlier. Bill’s mom was born and raised in Mendota, Virginia, just outside of Abingdon. She had talked Bill’s dad into settling there after he retired from the Army. Tom and Bill met at the local high school and became best friends, eventually becoming close as brothers. After high school, Bill’s dad moved the family to northern Pennsylvania, taking a job as a diesel mechanic. The boys stayed in touch and kept their friendship strong, traveling back and forth, visiting through the years. They also enjoyed camping, fishing, and of course, hunting together.

Tom strung his longbow which he had made himself. At 100-pound draw weight, it was devastating to the deer he loved to hunt. Tom had a small archery shop behind his house where he made bows, arrows, quivers, and other traditional archery gear. He was a superb craftsman and made a good living doing what he loved. In fact, his friend, Bill, had made it a stipulation that membership in the Locksley Medieval Bowmen Club, required the purchase of a longbow with at least one-hundred-pound draw weight, made by his friend, Tom. At just a dozen members, it was a small but elite club. All the members loved their longbows made exclusively for them by Tom. They considered their bows to be true works of art. No store-bought bow could even come close to Tom’s bows for function or beauty.

Tom checked his quiver and arrows and was satisfied that he was ready to hunt. He checked the time, 3:45 a.m., so he began his trek toward Mount Rogers. Tom moved through the woods quietly to his tree stand, which stood about a mile from where he had parked. The moon was full and slowly setting over the mountain. Beams of moonlight lit his way, making it easy for him to stealthily make his way through the massive trees of maple, spruce, and mighty oaks. It was a shadowy, eerie landscape that Tom imagined looked much the same as it had two hundred years earlier when the native Cherokee lived and hunted these lands. What a beautiful place, he thought to himself. As if in agreement, an owl hooted nearby on his right, and he heard a coyote howl in the distance. This is what it would’ve looked like and sounded like two hundred years ago, Tom thought again. Man, it doesn’t get any better than this.

At last, Tom reached his tree stand. Actually, this time he planned to hunt from the ground, at the base of a large red oak tree. He had a ten-foot piece of camouflaged burlap that he tacked to the trunk of the red oak and stretched to a small sapling about five feet away ending at a second sapling three feet further away, thus creating a loose L-shaped blind four feet high. Tom liked to use the camo burlap because it gave him good concealment but rolled up easily in his pack. It was also easy to adjust the location depending on wind direction. He had set up the blind a week earlier, and it was just like he had left it. Tom checked the wind, and it was lightly blowing from the northwest toward his blind. It was exactly what he wanted. In front of his blind was a small brook about thirty yards away. He had seen evidence of deer in the area and knew that they drank from the brook. A large pool in the brook had numerous tracks on both sides of the brook’s banks, so he knew it was a popular spot. Many of the tracks were quite large, so he was hopeful of his chances. About sixty yards across the brook was a clearing seventy to eighty feet across. Tom felt that it had been cleared from what seemed to have been a lightning strike a few years earlier. This would give him maximum visibility for any approaching deer. It was a near-perfect hunting spot of which Tom fully intended to take advantage.

He checked his watch, 5:10 a.m., nearly an hour before sunrise. Good, very good, he thought to himself. Tom sat on a log behind his camo blind and checked his bow, pulling the string back to his ear, holding it there a few seconds. Slowly releasing the string back to its original point, he nocked one of his hunting arrows to the string. At the end of the arrow was a wicked-looking replica of a medieval long Bodkin arrowhead that Tom had made himself. In medieval times, points like this could pierce metal armor at two hundred yards. A deer would have no chance surviving such a lethal weapon. He waited and listened, taking in the sights and sounds of the deep woods.

It was getting lighter, and he could easily see the burned-out clearing nearly ninety yards from his position. Tom thought he saw movement near the edge of the clearing, and froze. Yes, he said softly to himself. There at the clearing edge was the biggest white tail deer he had ever seen. His heart started pounding, and he took in a deep breath to steady and calm himself. The buck slowly and deliberately made its way across the clearing, stopping now and then to smell the ground, looking for choice young shoots of greenery that it liked to feed on. The big animal was working its way toward the brook and Tom’s blind. It was taking its time, stopping here and there to sniff the air, looking for any danger nearby. A little bit past the clearing and the brook, the big buck stopped suddenly and raised its head, his tail raised up and its ears pointed straight ahead. Tom froze, holding his breath. Had the big buck heard him? All the signs indicated that it was spooked about something. Tom knew that he had made no sound and the wind was still coming from the north, from the buck, toward Tom. The big buck snorted once and slowly lowered its head, feeding once more. Tom slowly exhaled, making sure to not make a sound whatsoever. The buck turned to its right, exposing its left side to the hunter. It was slowly walking and feeding again but parallel to the brook, not thirsty at the moment. At sixty yards, it would be a near impossible shot for most bow hunters. Tom had confidence in his archery skills and knew he could make such a shot; putting his arrow where he wanted it to go. Suddenly, a shaft of sunlight broke through the trees from the now rising sun, bathing the big buck in golden sunlight. Tom slowly stood up, his mind made up to take the shot. Every act was instinct now. He pulled his longbow back to his ear, aiming at a darker patch of fur on the big buck’s side about the size of an apple, about where the big animal’s heart would be. Aim small, miss small, he thought to himself. Tom’s arrow exploded from his bow with tremendous force. He watched his arrow hurl toward its target. Suddenly, the big buck jumped forward, just before the arrow found its mark, embedding itself into the trunk of a large tree directly behind the spot where the big buck had been standing.

To his extreme disappointment, Tom watched as the huge animal disappeared from sight over a small nearby ridge.

Tom silently cursed himself as he started walking over to try to dig his arrow out of the tree trunk. He took one more look in the direction where the deer had run away. Nothing. It was long gone and out of sight. Damn it to hell, he thought to himself. As he looked back towards where his arrow had struck, Tom saw a strange little man dressed in brown robes standing next to his arrow. The small man had a long gray beard and also wore a tall brown hat that was cone-shaped. Even with his pointed hat, he was maybe five feet tall. He also had a big grin on his face. Tom calmed himself, and with all his Southern manners he could muster, called out, Excuse me, sir, do you know that you just scared off my deer?

Yes, I do, replied the strange little man. As he turned away from the fast-approaching hunter, he gently pulled Tom’s arrow from the tree trunk, dropped it on the ground, and quickly walked around behind the large tree. Tom was still thirty yards away and quickly ran the rest of the way to the tree. When he got there, Tom looked behind the tree and saw…nothing. The strange little man had simply disappeared into thin air. What the hell? he thought to himself. Nothing, not even any tracks. Tom bent down and picked up his arrow. No damage to it at all. What the…? he said out loud. The shaft had penetrated several inches into the tree. He checked the tree and saw that it was a big red oak, very hard and dense wood. As he looked it over even closer, he could find no mark on the trunk at all. He was very confused. What the…? Tom said out loud again. The small hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

This same scenario was repeated again and again nine more times, each time to a different hunter, all who just happened to be a member of the same club, the Locksley Medieval Bowmen.

Back in Pennsylvania, just about a half mile from where Bill Sherwood had his strange encounter, a lone figure stood in the middle of three huge oaks. The oaks formed a triangle, fifty feet by fifty feet by fifty feet. The upper branches of the three trees interwove with each other, forming a dense, nearly impenetrable canopy where sunlight rarely reached the ground. Oberon brushed dirt from