Free Republic

Herbert "Cowboy" Coward, who as the sadistic toothless man in John Boorman's Deliverance terrorized canoeists and audiences alike with the chilling line, "He got a real pretty mouth, ain't he?," has been killed in a car accident. He was 85. Coward died Wednesday when the Nissan he was driving was struck by a pickup truck driven by a 16-year-old in Haywood County, North Carolina, North Carolina State Highway Patrol officials told WLOS-TV.

A former solider (Robert Redford), weary and jaded by war, trades civilization for a new life in the mountains as a trapper and a loner. Life in the wild is far more difficult that it seems, however, and Johnson must learn to survive both nature, and the wrath of those he inadvertently crosses... Co-starring Will Geer (Grandpa from The Waltons). Loosely based on the life of legendary mountain man "Liver-eatin' Johnson."

Now this is my kind of American. In a packed courtroom, 52-year-old Ernie Tertelgte told the judge “I am a living man protected by natural law and I have the right to forage for food when I am hungry… You are trying to create a fictitious, fraudulent action.” Charged with fishing without a license and resisting the arrest for fishing without a license, Mr. Tertegte says he’s being wrongly prosecuted for trying to feed himself. Tertelgte, 52 years old, was arrested on Monday and is accused of fishing without a license and then resisting arrest.

TRIPLETT, N.C. (AP) -- The way Eustace Conway sees it, there's the natural world, as exemplified by his Turtle Island Preserve in the Blue Ridge Mountains. And then there's the "plastic, imitation" one that most other humans inhabit. But the border between the two has always been a porous one. When he bought his first 107 acres in 1987, Conway's vision for Turtle Island was as "a tiny bowl in the earth, intact and natural, surrounded by pavement and highways." People peering inside from nearby ridges would see "a pristine and green example of what the whole world once looked...

MANTI -- For six years Troy James Knapp eluded authorities, moving from cabin to cabin across the Utah mountains, taking food and weapons and leaving notes to brag about it. It all ended Tuesday as lawmen made what they called a surprisingly easy capture outside a remote cabin after the suspect fired off a few harmless shots. "He was laughing with our guys. He said, `Boy, you really snuck up on me,'" said Sevier County Sheriff Nathan Curtis. "He threw his rifle down in the snow and said, `You got me.'"The 45-year-old survivalist is suspected of burglarizing dozens of Utah...

A self-styled 'Mountain Man' who left modern conveniences for the backwoods of North Carolina decades ago is butting heads with local officials who say his forest compound isn’t up to code – and he may have television to blame. Eustace Conway, who owns and operates a school that teaches hundreds of people how to live closer to nature, received a cease and desist letter from county officials who say his buildings don't meet code.

Since people started living in communities, there’s been tension between the rulers and the ruled. That became particularly acute when America reintroduced the concept of self-government 237 years ago. Bob Buckley reports on Eustace Conway, a Boone man who says he just wants to be free from the government and its rules.

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