Haunted Arkansas Mountain

Fayetteville Confederate Cemetery

On a gentle. wooded ridge of the Ozarks overlooking the town of Fayetteville,  Arkansas is the Fayetteville Confederate Cemetery, the final resting place for hundreds of men who gave their lives during Civil War battles in the northwest part of the state. Officially listed as East Mountain, the locals call the ridge Ghost Mountain. Not as famous as other battle sites like Gettysburg, Manassas, or Vicksburg, this was nonetheless one of the most violent and desperately contested sites of the war.  

The men's original burial places were where they fell when after the battle, soldiers of the victorious side or civilians from the area hurriedly interred the bodies in shallow, makeshift graves trying to prevent disease and the stench of decay. In 1878, the Southern Memorial Association of Washington County established the cemetery and began the process of exhuming the bodies from the area. The Confederates were buried here and the fallen Union soldiers were interred in the Fayetteville National Cemetery.

There are a number of homes just down the hill from the cemetery and the residents often report seeing unusual lights floating along the ridge. There are also numerous reports by residents and visitors alike of strange anomalies showing up in photographs taken within the cemetery. Even more famous though, is the legend of the Burning Bride of Ghost Hollow.

Directly across the slender dirt road from the Confederate cemetery is a much smaller cemetery, The Walker Cemetery is a family burial plot of land much smaller than its neighbor. Here lies the body of David Walker. In the 1860s, he was an Arkansas state senator, three times a state supreme court justice, one of the founders of the University of Arkansas, and served as a colonel in the Confederate army during the war. He was married to Jane Lewis Washington, a third-cousin of George Washington. Buried here next to him are his parents and a few of his close relatives.  

In 1872, Judge Walker had a large, 2-story brick house built for his daughter and her husband as a wedding present. It still stands just a little ways away from the family cemetery. Soon after the happy couple moved in though, strange things began to happen. Mostly small things, items disappearing then reappearing several days later, unexplained "moaning" noises, doors slamming closed for no reason. Then the couple became aware they could no longer find hired help. When the last housemaid quit,  they inquired to learn why nobody would work for them. They learned the African-American community considered the home haunted because of a horrible accident that happened there years before. 

Shortly after the Civil War ended in 1865, a man and his fiancé moved to Fayetteville from Fort Smith trying to start a new life after his hard service in the Confederate army.  They constructed a small home on the exact same spot of land as the Walker-built house. They were married in the house one cold winter evening and after the guests left, the bride of one hour, still wearing her wedding dress, leaned over the fireplace to stir the fire. A spark popped onto her dress and set it ablaze. Running and screaming hysterically out of the house, she ran down the ridge and, having ran through the grounds which would later become the Walker and Confederate cemeteries, she fell down and died in agony. From that day on, there have been reports of people seeing her apparition running through both cemeteries and hearing her screams as she over and over, relives her tragic wedding night.

Unfortunately, more tragedy plagued Ghost Mountain. In 1932, a family lived in a small log cabin located near the cemeteries. One night, the husband came home very drunk to his wife who was caring for a sick infant. The baby cried incessantly no matter what the mother tried and the husband, incensed that he couldn't sleep because of it, suddenly grabbed the baby, stumbled outside and threw the baby down the water well. The wife went into hysterics, grabbed the well rope and jumped into the well to save the child. The drunken father picked up a nearby ax and chopped the rope, leaving his wife and child in the well to die. It was several days later when his employer came to investigate why he had not been to work. Seeing the dangling, chopped well rope, he looked down and saw in the dim light, the floating bodies. It is assumed the husband fled the area as he has never been found. 

Some say the stories are just myths, there's nothing strange about East Mountain. Others insist the stories are not myths. One thing that is for certain, to this day, the stories remain a source of fear for those living on and around Ghost Mountain.

Unsettled Souls of Fort Smith Cemetery

The Fort Smith National Cemetery in Sebastian County, Arkansas played an important role in the western expansion of the United States. By the early 1800s, white settlers were moving into the land acquired in the Louisiana Purchase of 1805. As the settlers moved onto land inhabited by the Indians, tensions naturally began to rise. The U.S. Army began building military posts to protect the settlers. Fort Smith was the first and most western of these forts. As a wild and lawless town grew around the fort, it became the last “civilized” place for outlaws, bandits, and renegades to acquire supplies before entering Indian Territory.

In 1823, out of the 200 troops stationed there, 51 died and the first official cemetery was created and dedicated on the site just outside the stockade where there had already been 3 burials. In 1824, Fort Gibson was constructed and Fort Smith was closed. Between 1824 and 1838, when the army returned to re-open Fort Smith, a number of men, most of whom died due to the lawlessness of the town, were haphazardly buried there. The army rehabilitated the cemetery and began overseeing internments.

When the Civil War began, Confederate forces took over the fort. When the Union forces recaptured it in late 1863, over 475 Rebel soldiers, most of them men who had fallen in battle, had been buried in the expanded cemetery.

The war ended in 1865 and by 1867, the bodies of so many fallen Confederate soldiers had been removed from hasty graves dug on battlefields and reburied in the Fort Smith cemetery that it was increased in size to over 5 acres. It was officially made a National Cemetery in late 1867 and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

Over the years, the cemetery has been expanded to cover over 33 acres and include almost 14,000 burials. Probably the most famous person buried here is Isaac Parker, the “Hanging Judge.” During his 21 years in Fort Smith, he sentenced 160 men and women to die with a noose around their necks. 79 of those 160 actually met their fate on the gallows.

During the 1860s, as the bodies of more and more soldiers who had suffered horrible deaths during battles were being dug up from their resting places and reburied in the cemetery, stories began circulating of strange sounds emanating from the graveyard at night; cries of anguish, sometimes a painful scream, and a persistent rumor of hearing what sounded like a young man crying out for his momma. Sometimes strange, bobbing lights would appear, float around the headstones and then vanish. Soldiers who were assigned night duty of standing guard at the cemetery’s gate refused to do it alone and would not enter the grounds.

By the early 1900s, it seems things in the cemetery began to settle down. Although still spooky after dark, stories of the unexplained sounds and lights virtually ceased. In the late 1990s however, for some unknown reason, it seems the forever occupants of the Fort Smith cemetery became uneasy. Once again, strange lights began to be seen floating around in the dark. Cemetery caretakers began reporting tools left amongst the graves overnight would be moved when they reported back to work the next morning. Sometimes the tools would simply be moved from one side of a grave marker to the other side of the same marker and other times a rake or shovel would be moved several graves away from where it had been left.

In 1998, on a cold December night, one of the groundskeepers had been performing maintenance work around Isaac Parker’s grave. He had left a spade and clippers next to the grave when he had been called away to help on another task. It was dark when he returned alone to retrieve his tools and put them away in a shed. After gathering up the tools, he turned away heading toward the shed when he heard something behind him. Thinking it was just a leaf being blown along the grass, he didn’t think anything of it. A few steps later though, he realized the noise had not gone away; in fact, it seemed now like it was the footsteps of someone following him. He pulled a flashlight from his tool belt and turned it on as he quickly turned around. Illuminated by the flashlight stood an old man with white hair and a white beard, wearing an old-fashioned black suit. The man was just standing there looking at him. The groundskeeper asked him what he wanted and the man began moving his lips as if he was talking, but there was no sound. It was then the groundskeeper realized that in the beam of his flashlight, he could see right through the man to the headstones directly behind him! Dropping the flashlight and the tools he had retrieved, the groundskeeper ran directly to his car without looking back and sped home.

Having worked and been in the Fort Smith Museum and having seen the pictures of Isaac Parker numerous times, the groundskeeper had no doubt the eerie apparition had been the Hanging Judge himself. The story goes that when the groundskeeper came in the next day, his salt-and-pepper-colored hair had turned completely white. He told his supervisor of his encounter and then, with trembling hands, gave him his letter of resignation and walked out.

The Angry Man in the Powhatan Courthouse

The old Powhatan Courthouse

The Powhatan, Arkansas courthouse, built in 1885, is a majestic building sitting on a hill overlooking the county it once served. The original courthouse on this site was built in 1873, but it burned to the ground and had to be rebuilt. In a little park next to the courthouse is the original jail. The building now houses a county museum and is part of the Powhatan Historic State Park, but the visitor's brochures don't tell you there is something very strange happening here; something unexplained; something sinister.

After years of whispers and rumors of ghosts being seen, unexplained moans and screams coming from the walls and mysterious lights in the locked building late at night, a well-respected group of paranormal investigators were invited to dispel the stories. What they experienced though was far from what the town's officials had hoped for.

Right after getting set up for the evening, one of the psychics claimed to have encountered the spirit of a young boy playing in a corner of the courtroom. The spirit told her he was sad because he had been murdered and that he stayed at the courthouse because that is where the man who killed him went on trial. He then said he was scared and broke off contact.

Several of the psychics reported unseen hands grabbing them the way a child trying to get an adult's attention would do. They heard muffled noises in almost every room, but when they went into the rooms to investigate, the noises completely stopped and no source could be found.

The most frightening encounter of the night happened in the belfry. One of the female investigators had climbed up the narrow, rickety stairs to see if there was anything up there. She asked out loud, "Is anyone here?" Suddenly she was attacked by an unknown, unseen entity. She began to have trouble breathing and felt as if there was an invisible hand closing around her throat! At the same time this was happening, she felt an overwhelming sense of sadness and heaviness, like a huge amount of grief had been suddenly cast upon her. She managed to run from the belfry and down the stairs to the courtroom where there were other people. As soon as she left the belfry, the feelings started to subside and she could breath again. The next morning, she and others found a bruise on her neck right where the invisible hands seemed to be attempting to choke the life out of her.

Later that night, with a video camera recording, several investigators heard heavy footsteps on one of the staircases. When they arrived at the foot of the stairs, the footsteps stopped. Several minutes went by and they were about to leave when the footsteps began again. As the investigators began climbing the stairs, they suddenly heard the high-pitched scream of a woman! They ran up the stairs to investigate the source of the scream, but after thoroughly searching the upper floor, nothing was found that could have made the heavy footsteps and no one that could have issued the blood-curdling scream.

Nothing else happened the rest of the night, but a follow-up session was planned. The 2nd night of investigation occurred two months later and just like before, there was no lack of paranormal activity. The first spirit that made contact was a black female who said she was going to stay at the courthouse with her brother until he moved on. According to her, he had been a young man who was falsely accused of raping a white woman and an angry mob of men had abducted him by overpowering the jail guard and had hung him from an oak tree. Although none of the psychics were from the area and knew nothing of the detailed history of the courthouse, later investigation into dusty records revealed that a young freed slave by the name of Andrew Springer had worked as a sharecropper after the civil war and had indeed been arrested for rape in an adjoining county and brought to the Powhatan jail for trial by that county's authorities who had been trying to keep him out of the hands of vigilantes. The vigilantes had taken him out and hung him from a nearby oak tree. The oak tree still stands today a few yards from the courthouse. The female spirit who claimed to have been Andrew's sister had died in the jail. Records indicated that after the lynching, she had attempted to kill several of the men who were suspected of being in the lynch mob. She had been arrested and had died of an unknown illness while awaiting trial.

The belfry where Andrew's spirit lives

Two of the psychics decided to investigate the belfry where the female psychic had been physically harmed during the first investigation. Almost immediately upon climbing the stairs the air became extremely dry and there was a high amount of energy that could be felt. It was almost as if a charge from a lightning strike was in the room. Then the temperature went up until both men were dripping with sweat. After a few minutes, the spirit communicated via a knocking sound and by moving metal rods held by the psychics. The spirit claimed to be Andrew and he did not approve of the psychics being in "his house." He admitted it was he who had attacked the female psychic the last time as he especially hated women because it was a woman who had falsely accused him of rape and had thus condemned him to a horrible death by beating and hanging. The Andrew spirit suddenly told them to leave or he would hurt them. One of the men then felt like there were fire ants crawling on him and furiously biting all over his body. Both men were by this time exhausted as they felt the spirit had been sucking their energy. They both were so unnerved by the encounter, more so than any they had ever experienced before, that they decided to beat a hasty retreat immediately. As soon as they had left the room and started down the stairs, everything returned to normal. They all packed up and left the building shortly afterwards.

Is the old Powhatan courthouse haunted? Those who don't believe in spirits hanging around after physical death will say no. Others will be unsure. But for a few psychic investigators who were brave enough to spend several long, dark nights there, the answer is an unequivocal yes.  
 

The Terrifying Creature of Lake Conway

The woods around Lake Conway where  
Skunk Ape has been seen.

The woods surrounding Lake Conway in Faulkner County, Arkansas are home to a large number of living things, mostly birds, raccoons, snakes and little creepy crawlies. The lake provides some of the best fishing for bass and crappie in the state, but there are reports of a different type of animal that resides there. The kind that comes out after dark. The kind the fishermen and visitors only speak about in hushed tones while anxiously looking over their shoulders in the blackness of night. The kind the fishermen & visitors pray they don't encounter in the dark woods.

The sightings started in early 1970. People began calling in to game wardens and police to report strange observations of something that looked like a man, but obviously wasn't. The witnesses reported the creature as being between 7 and 8 feet tall and ape-like. It was most often seen emerging from the woods to wade in the shallow areas of the lake, evidently looking for food. One thing was common with each of the sightings - the brute was always accompanied by an incredible stench. It was soon given a name - "Skunk Ape."

Near the site where Lee reported his frightening
encounter with Skunk Ape 

One reported encounter proved to be especially disturbing. On a hot and muggy night in August, 1985 a fisherman named Lee was alone in his flat-bottom boat not far from the shore. The fish had stopped biting so he decided to reel in his line and head back to the boat ramp. He heard a sudden commotion behind him in the water and when he turned, he could see something big thrashing around. It seemed to Lee that maybe a large beaver had been under water, had gotten caught in somebody's trotline and was trying to extricate itself from the entanglement. Looking at it more intently though, he realized it wasn't a beaver as it was much to large and had longer hair covering its body than a beaver. As he sat in his boat trying to determine exactly what it was he was seeing, the monster stood up. It was like something from a nightmare! The water was five feet deep and the hairy thing's head was at least three to four feet above the water.

The creature caught site of Lee and seemed to be just as surprised to see him as Lee was to see the creature. The two locked eyes for about five seconds, but it seemed like forever to Lee. Suddenly the beast started moving closer to Lee and his boat, grimacing and making deep-throated, angry growling sounds. Totally frozen with shock and fear, Lee couldn't move or make a sound. All he could do was watch with horror as the beast came closer and closer, never taking its eyes off Lee. When the creature got within about 15 feet of him though, an horrendous stench hit his nostrils and shocked him into action. He turned to grab the .22 pistol he always carried in his tackle box, but as he turned back around with his gun outstretched, he found the monster had quickly covered the distance between them and with a single vicious swing of his powerful arm, knocked Lee out of the boat.

Lake Conway

Not seriously hurt, but disoriented, Lee came up gasping for air and grabbing for something to steady himself. He managed to find the side of the boat and cautiously pulling himself up enough to peek over it, saw that the monster was no longer paying any attention to him. What had caught and was keeping his attention was the stringer of fish that was hanging over the other side of the boat. Fish by fish, it was pulling them from the line and eating them whole in one or at most, two bites. Lee ducked back behind the side of the boat in fear, worried that if he made a break for it, the creature would immediately attack him.

The last of the fish was quickly consumed and the beast began rummaging around in the boat, slamming stuff around, looking for more food. When everything turned quiet for several minutes, Lee could stand it no longer and slowly pulled himself up to peek over the side. As he did so though, the creature was still there and saw the top of Lee's head poking up. Obviously angered, the brute lifted the 300-pound boat clear out of the water as if it was nothing and Lee found himself once again staring into the eyes of the monster!

Fearing for his life, this time Lee reacted at once and began half-swimming and half-running through the chest-deep water as fast as he could for the shore about 75 yards away. As he got near the water's edge, he turned once to look behind him and became weak with fear as he saw the monster was coming after him! Just 10 yards from the shore, but knowing he couldn't outrun it, Lee thought of his family and began screaming at the top of his lungs for help. Somehow he safely made it the last few yards. Running a short way into the trees, he didn't hear footsteps behind him so he turned once again to look. The creature was nowhere in sight. The only evidence it had even been there was the overturned boat floating in the water in the moonlight.

The area of Lake Conway where several sightings
have been reported.

Since that first sighting, there have been numerous reports of the Skunk Ape. Anglers often talk about having a feeling of dread, a sense of being stalked as if something just out of sight was watching them, waiting for them to walk into its trap. Strange noises are often reported coming from the woods in the night. Some have reported hearing the creature scream in the middle of the night as if it was celebrating a fresh kill. They say the sound will turn one's blood into ice water.

So what exactly is the Skunk Ape? The scientific name is hominid cryptid - hominid means "great ape" and cryptid means "a creature that has been suggested, but cannot be scientifically proven to exist." To many around Lake Conway though, that the creature exists is a fact. In certain parts of the lake, most locals will not even go outside after dark. The monster may not yet be proven, but for sure, something is definitely out there.

Reports of sightings still come in several times each year. So if you are brave, or perhaps just foolhardy, break out your fishing gear and head to Lake Conway after dark... and hope the only thing that tugs on your line is a big bass.

 

The Haunted Sanatorium

Just outside a small town in northwest Arkansas sits what once was a Tuberculosis Sanatorium. Opened in 1909, by the time it closed in 1973, over 70,000 patients were treated there. When the facility was opened, the mortality rate from tuberculosis was over 80%. By the time it closed, it was down to 10%. During those years of medical advancement however, more than 20,000 people died before the facility was closed and the front gate was left unlocked for the first time in 63 years.

The Nyberg Building once housed over 1,000 patients at a time.  The sick people who came to live here knew it most likely was a death sentence as there was no sure cure. They were contagious and had to be quarantined away from their family and friends. They were sent here to live out what time they had left. The building now is closed, in disrepair and empty. TB has been conquered by modern medicine so there is no need for a TB sanatorium. Thank God. Thank God. The broken glass in some of the windows has been boarded over, but not all. The roof has gaping holes through which the rain and the winter snow pour through and the occasional pigeon returns to roost for the night.  

The halls that run the length of the building, and the rooms, especially the rooms, have an aura of sadness. Everything is covered in dust and cobwebs. The rooms where the people lived and breathed their last, room after room after room are each and every one dark, shadowy places infused with sorrow and misery. They were built as places where those who entered would never have to leave. And many of them seem to have found this a permanent home even after death.

From the time it opened until the late 1940’s, medical tactics for combating TB were often horrifying and even barbaric. For a while, doctors thought that giving the lungs time to rest was the best treatment. Of course, breathing is necessary for life, but to make the patient breathe less, they often would clip and pull out the phrenic nerve, the long chord which connects the spinal column to the diaphragm and enables breathing subconsciously. Without the phrenic nerve, the patient must consciously think about breathing and must force air into the lungs by contracting and relaxing the diaphragm. The painful procedure was most often done while the patient was fully awake so he could tell the surgeon whether or not he was prodding the right nerve. Other treatments were tried as well, such as opening up a patient’s chest, deflating the lungs, filling the chest cavity with sterilized ping pong balls and then sewing the chest closed to force the lungs into staying mostly deflated. This left the patient in a continuous state of gasping for air, always feeling on the verge of smothering to death. Another treatment was thoracoplasty, which is the removal of a large chunk of the patient’s ribs and chest muscles to force the lungs to collapse and not have the ability to fully inflate again. Many of the patients said they would welcome death from TB rather than continue to suffer from the “cure.”

For many of them, especially in the early years, there was nothing but boredom and fear every single day and night. With no cure prescribed except clean air and bedrest, they were left in their room laying in their bed with no human interaction and nothing to occupy their minds for hours at a time. Nothing to do but stare at the same walls, the same door, the same little rectangle of sky through the window, trying to breath and waiting to die. Those lucky enough to somehow survive the disease, the “cures,” and the boredom reported their life at the sanatorium was mostly one of sound. Laying in their bed, sounds were the only thing to focus on. Mostly it would be the sounds of someone in another room down the hall dying. “It always began with a long coughing spell, then it would turn into a kind of gurgling, raspy sound. Then it would get deathly quiet. You knew what happened.” Death was a daily occurrence. Death became routine.

When someone died like that, everything would get real quiet. A stillness would descend and then the nurses would push a gurney down the hallway, the wheels wobbling and squeaking. When it came back with a body on it headed to the morgue in the basement, the weight would cause the wheels to run straight and it no longer made a sound.

With this much tragedy, suffering and despair, is it any wonder some of the thousands who died here have not been able to leave? Several of the buildings in the complex are still occupied and serve as a home and training facility for over 130 developmentally challenged adults. Over the years, staff and maintenance workers have reported hundreds of ghostly incidents in every building, but especially in the Nyberg building where the TB patients were housed & treated. Forlorn faces looking out of broken windows in empty rooms, seeing quick-moving “shadow people” from the corner of the eyes, unexplained glowing orbs of light, lights in abandoned rooms glowing even though the electricity has been turned off, faint feathery touches on the neck and arms when nobody else is around, a strong feeling of being watched or “someone being there”, apparitions suddenly appearing or disappearing, and ghost people walking through solid doors and walls disappearing into empty rooms have all be reported. Most of the staff refuse to go anywhere near the Nyberg building after dark and more than a few have abruptly quit, stating they would “never come back to this place” after an encounter with a long dead resident.

Some of the developmentally challenged residents refuse to walk near the Nyberg building. They know nothing of the building’s history, but will pull back and cry out in terror whenever they are brought near it. There are good spirits and there are evil spirits and it seems some of the current residents are especially aware of the evil ones.

Only a few people know about one particular part of the 3rd floor in the Nyberg, the part that was blocked off from the rest of the floor and the rest of the building. TB doesn't discriminate. It doesn't care if you are a good person, an innocent child or a deranged axe murderer. Part of the 3rd floor, the part few know existed, was where the criminally insane, the murderers, the rapists, the child molesters and psychopaths were held after they had contracted TB in prison. This is where many of them took their last ragged breath. And, if the actions of the current sensitive mentally challenged residents are to be believed, this is where some of them, their essence forever rotten and evil, remain.

Court Is In Session And The Gallows Await

It was an unusually hot day in Fort Smith, Arkansas. A crowd had gathered to watch the spectacle and as they impatiently stood in a semi-circle facing the large wooden structure, the sun beat down on the men's hats and the ladies parasols and a hot wind swirled dust across the children's bare feet as they played chase. Finally, a group of armed lawmen led by the sheriff escorted six dirty, unshaven men from the jailhouse. Four of the men had faces filled with fear, one of them openly crying, while the other two men had a bearing of insolence and pure evil as if they didn't care what happened to themselves, much less anyone else. All had their hands securely bound behind their backs and leg chains fastened around their ankles.

The six men were led up the wooden stairs and onto the wooden-planked floor of the gallows. The crowd of spectators was quiet as the condemned men stared back at them. The one among them who was crying, the youngest one, kept repeating, "I'm sorry, Mama! I'm sorry!" The ropes were placed around their necks while a preacher prayed aloud for their souls. Without warning, the hatch underneath each man's feet opened and all six dropped to their deaths. Five of them hung there limp in a quick death from the broken neck caused by the hangman's noose, but one of them, the young crying man, twitched and kicked for several minutes until, unable to breath, he joined his fellow murderers and rapists in death. It was 1891 and such was the fate of men who broke the law in the "Hanging Judge's" territory.

Fort Smith Courthouse where Judge Parker dealt
harsh punishment to criminals.

For 21 years, from 1875 - 1896, Judge Isaac Parker was the federally appointed judge for the Fort Smith territory. This territory stretched across the western half of Arkansas and all of Indian Country, what is now Oklahoma. During this time, Judge Parker would preside over 12,000 cases. Of those who came before him for sentencing, 160 were slated to die at the end of a rope. 81 of those either were spared with long prison sentences or died of other causes before they could be hung, leaving 79  to end up with a noose around their necks. Judge Parker was actually against the death penalty, but his hands were tied when it came to murderers and rapists as the law then had only one punishment for such crimes and that punishment was death. 

Fort Smith Courthouse. Jail cells on bottom floor is
where condemned men waited to be hung on the
gallows (in background).

Perhaps his guilt over ordering the death of so many is the reason he still haunts his courthouse and gallows. Thousands of visitors now come to see the preserved courthouse and gallows in Fort Smith, to stand and see where so many men were executed. Many of them report odd feelings, an uneasiness while walking the grounds, especially when standing on the gallows where so many condemned souls once stood and breathed their last.

Many of the employees and volunteers manning the historical site tell of seeing the ghost of Judge Parker sitting at his desk as if waiting for the next case. The sound of his gavel slamming down is often heard when there is nobody in the courtroom. One former employee told of the experience she had which caused her to quit and not return. She was working by herself late one evening, closing up the courthouse and cleaning in preparation for the next day's visitors. After completing her duties and making one last round to ensure nobody was still in the building before locking the doors, she was turning off the lights when she came to the courtroom. Just before flipping the light switch, she heard what could only be the sound of a gavel being repeatedly struck against Judge Parker's bench. She quickly turned to look, but saw no one. She felt a cold draft of air wash over her and then, distant voices began to be heard. Slowly, they became louder, the voices of angry men. They were shouting and she clearly heard the sound of the gavel banging down over and over. She whirled around and around desperately looking for anyone in the room, but there was nothing except those sounds. Then she was startled to see a heavy mist forming around the defendant's table and as it became heavier, it began to spread across the whole room. Just before the mist reached her, she bolted out of the door, down the hall and out of the building. Not even stopping to lock the outer door, she ran through the dark to her car and drove straight home. She called her supervisor and told him what happened. He agreed to meet her in the parking lot of the courthouse where she gave him her set of keys to the building and left. Her supervisor told her later he had gone into the building to check it out and all was quiet as a mouse, but she refused to ever go back.

Another employee named Jessica told of her own experience at the gallows one day. She was standing just below the structure keeping an eye on the tourists, making sure nobody defaced or damaged it. She caught a movement on the gallows itself out of the corner of her eye and when she turned to look, she gasped as she saw a man there hanging from the middle of the hanging beam with a noose around his neck. He appeared to be in his 30's wearing dirty clothes, dusty, worn-out boots and was obviously dead. At first, her mind told her it must be an actor, they must be doing a reenactment, but then surely, she thought, they wouldn't have such a gruesome display where children were running around.

Behind that wooden fence is the gallows where 79
men dropped to their death and the jail cart
which brought them to Judge Parker's court.

She watched the hanged man for a minute and then looked around to see the reaction of others, but realized nobody else was looking at him. It became obvious she was the only one seeing this ghostly image of death as she watched several tourists walk right through the man. For several seconds Jessica held her breath and simply stared at the specter with his head tilted at a grotesque angle where the noose had snapped his neck. Even though they were outside, the air seemed to have been sucked away. The birds stopped chirping and all sound disappeared into complete and total silence. Suddenly, the dead man's eyes opened and he was intently looking straight at her! Jessica tried to scream, but no sound came forth. She tried to run, but her legs wouldn't move. The long-dead outlaw then slowly began to grin; a hideous sideways smile showing his blackened teeth and wormy tongue. This horrified Jessica so much that she was finally able to look away. When she got the courage to take a peak again, the apparition was gone.

Judge Parker and the men he hanged obviously still inhabit the area, forever damned with no possibility of parole to a better place. With all of the death and anguish that took place on these grounds, there can be no doubt there is a horrible scar on the fabric of time. If you have the courage to visit, be sure to obey the laws. The punishment around here can be severe.

The Story Behind "The Town That Dreaded Sundown"

The Texarkana Post Office/Courthouse. The left half  is
 in Texas while the right is in Arkansas.

Texarkana is a nice, small city. With half of the town in the state of Texas and the other half in Arkansas, the road that divides the two halves is named State Line. Shoppers on one side of the street are in Arkansas and just a few feet away on the other side of the yellow line in the middle of the road the stores are in Texas. The Post Office/Courthouse Building sits astride the state line - Texas offices on one side of the building, Arkansas offices on the other. There are plenty of outdoor activities to enjoy as well as several popular parks where families go for a picnic lunch or to play Little League baseball or simply to enjoy a lazy summer day in the shade of the many trees. 

One of those popular parks though, Spring Lake Park, has a sordid history. Many of the old timers still refuse to go into the park after dark. You see, back in the mid-1940's, it was the favorite hunting grounds of a serial killer. The murders shocked and terrorized the quiet, close-knit town. Doors and windows in homes that previously were never locked, were locked and checked several times after darkness fell. Men began carrying guns; women stopped walking alone when running errands and children were forbidden to play outside. As more innocent people turned up brutally killed and the murders went unsolved, neighbors and friends of many years began to suspect and turn on each other. In the mid-1970's, a horror movie, The Town That Dreaded Sundown was made about the crimes. The true horror is that the story was based on fact.

The entrance to Spring Lake Park

On the night of February 22, 1946, 24-year-old Jimmy Hollis and his 19-year-old girlfriend, Mary Jean Larey, went on a date, a date that started off as any number of dates taken by any normal young couple, but this particular date would end very differently. After dinner and a movie, Mary Jean accompanied Jimmy in his car to a dark, secluded spot in the park for a romantic interlude. Jimmy glanced at his watch and noted the time as 11:45. He had promised his father to have the car home by midnight, but the moon was full, Mary Jean was lovely, her sweet perfume filled the air and when he leaned in for a kiss, she didn't resist. Facing the wrath of his father's anger later was no match for the lure of Mary Jean now. Soon, only the sounds of heavy breathing could be heard in the car and the young couple were not aware of anything other than their passion.

When Mary Jean opened her eyes to look into Jimmy's, she saw a dark shape beside the car. When she gasped and pull away, Jimmy looked up and saw the figure of a man. Expecting to see the uniform of a policeman, he began to roll down the window and was startled to see not a policeman, but a man dressed in dark clothing with a hood over his head. In a muffled voice, the man said, "Get out of the car now!" and tapped on the partially opened window with a .32 caliber pistol he held in his hand. 

Fearing the man would shoot through the window if they didn't do as he demanded, they both exited out of the driver's side door. They offered to give him their money and the keys to the car, but the hooded man hit Jimmy in the head twice with the butt of the gun knocking him out. He then turned his attention to Mary Jean. In desperation, she ran, but the man quickly caught her and threw her to the ground. After slapping her several times, he began to rip off her clothes and, still holding the gun, began roughly fondling her. After several minutes but what seemed like hours and frightened beyond words, Mary Jean had resigned herself to her fate when she saw the dirty canvas that covered her attacker's head light up. The man groaned and shouted several coarse cuss words. At first confused, Mary Jean then realized it was a car coming down the road and its headlights had illuminated the scene. The hooded man stood up and after hitting her in the face with his fists several times, ran off into the darkness.

The approaching car, occupied by a kindly farmer and his wife who were coming home from a late movie, stopped to see what was going on. They managed to get Jimmy into the back seat and rushed the injured couple to the nearest hospital. Physically, Mary Jean only had bruises and scratches, but Jimmy's injuries from being hit in the head with the butt of the gun were more serious. Although he suffered from two skull fractures so severe that he had to spend days in the hospital, both he and Mary Jean lived to tell their story. At the time, they were not aware of how lucky they actually were.

When the police failed to find and arrest the attacker, the crime was written off by the residents as an anomaly, a sad byproduct of having a railroad going through town. The perpetrator must have been a transient and he had no doubt hopped a railway car and was long gone. No need to fear.

On March 24th, just one month later, a visitor to the park noticed a 1941 Oldsmobile parked partially hidden about 100 yards from the road in a grove of trees. Thinking it might be a stolen vehicle and he should investigate, the driver approached the car. He saw what he thought at first was a man asleep behind the wheel, but when he got close, he saw a body covered in blood. He ran, jumped in his car and made it to a store nearby where he called the police.

After rushing to the scene, police found not one, but two bodies in the car. The man sitting in the driver's seat was identified as being 29-year-old Richard Griffin who had recently received his discharge as a Navy SeaBee. Laying in the back seat was his girlfriend, Polly Ann More. Both had been shot in the head with a .32 pistol. Polly had been roughly sexually assaulted. Evidence indicated Richard had been shot outside of the car and Polly had been tied to a nearby tree with rope. Police theorized the attacker had incapacitated Richard and then tied Polly to the tree. He had made her watch as he beat and then fatally shot her boyfriend. For some reason, he drug Richard's body back to the car and placed it in the driver's seat. He then proceeded to assault Polly while she was still tied up. She eventually was killed and drug to the car where her body was placed in the back seat. Once again, the police were unable to find any clue that would lead them to a suspect. He seemed to have vanished into thin air.

The town now knew there was a sadistic killer among them. Papers across the state picked up on the news and began calling the case the "Texarkana Moonlight Murders. With the public clamoring for an arrest, the local police called in the vaunted Texas Rangers for help. Three weeks later on April 14th, with the Rangers in town performing their investigation, the killer struck again.

15-year-old Betty Booker was an exceptionally gifted saxophone player. To help with her family's income, she sometimes played in a band which performed at proms and other social events. The band was asked to play for a dance one night at the local VFW and since she was a straight-A student, it would be for good pay, and he had come to trust the band's adult leader, her father gave his permission for her to join her band-mates and then attend a slumber party at a friend's house. After the performance was over at about 1:00AM, a friend and former classmate of Betty, Paul Martin, offered to drive her to her friend's house for the slumber party and drop her off. Paul was a clean-cut, innocent-looking young man who had not partaken of any alcoholic beverages so the band leader said it was OK. After packing her sax in its case, the two said their goodbye's. It was the last time they would be seen alive.

The road going into the park where Paul's car
was found.

Several hours later, parents at the slumber party became worried that Betty had not yet arrived so they called her parents to see if maybe she had decided to go home instead. Soon, the police were notified that Betty was missing and a search was quickly begun. Paul's car was found abandoned on the side of the road just inside the entrance of Spring Lake Park, nowhere near where the slumber party took place. Paul's body was finally found over a mile away and Betty's was found almost 2 miles from the car. Both were riddled with bullets from a .32 cal revolver and Betty had been sexually assaulted. It was a mystery as to why Paul's car was found so far from the slumber party destination. The pair had not be linked romantically and both had reputations for being good kids so there was no reason for them to be at the park. Betty's saxophone was missing and police put out notices in the papers and to pawn shops to be on the lookout for it. The instrument, still in its case, was found 2 months later rotting in the muck around a small pond inside the park several hundred yards away from where the car was found. It had obviously been thrown there the night of the murders as it was half-submerged and rusted. Why it was taken and why it was thrown there so far away from the car and the bodies is unknown. The leader of the band Betty had played in felt so guilty that he had let her go with Paul rather than drive her himself that he disbanded the popular group. The Rhythmaires never played again.

The pond near where Betty's saxophone was found
is now cleaned and maintained.

After testing, it was determined all of the bullets from each of the murders was from the same gun. Once again, the perpetrator had disappeared and neither the police nor the Rangers found anything which would lead to the identity of the killer. The papers began calling him "The Phantom."

Texarkana became a town under siege. Gun shops sold out of shotguns and ammunition; hardware stores completely sold out of locks and latches. Homeowners began constructing burglar devices that would drop nails and tacks on the floor. Shotguns were rigged to fire with strings attached to doorknobs and triggers. Business' closed at sunset when the streets and sidewalks emptied. Groups of vigilantes, men armed with shotguns, patrolled all over town. Unfamiliar cars driving through town were stopped and the passengers made to identify themselves and give a good reason for being there. Older teenagers staged traps in the park - a boy and girl would park along a dark secluded roadway and pretend to make out while a pack of armed boys would be hidden in the trees waiting for The Phantom to make an appearance. The police had their hands full trying to disperse and send the armed groups home before some innocent person was shot. It was all to no avail - The Phantom seemed to be able to sniff out any traps and stayed away.

As to capturing The Phantom, the police were clueless and the Rangers embarrassed. In desperation, the FBI was called in. Over 300 people were detained and questioned - people caught roaming around in the dark, people considered "odd" by their neighbors, hermits, loners, and every person in town who had any kind of criminal record. Soon, the FBI was just as perplexed as the other lawmen. Newspapers around the country picked up the story and Texarkana came into public awareness for the wrong reason.

On May 3rd, with groups of armed men roaming around, police on high alert, the Texas Rangers and the FBI still in town in force, The Phantom struck again. 

Virgil and Katy Starks owned a farm 12 miles outside of Texarkana. About 9:00PM, Virgil retired to his easy chair in the living room, turned on the radio and began to read the newspaper. Katy finished cleaning the kitchen, went upstairs, changed into her nightgown and lay on the bed reading the Post magazine she had recently purchased. As Katy began to relax, she was startled by what sounded like two gunshots and breaking glass downstairs. She jumped out of bed, put on her slippers and rushed down to her husband's side. She saw glass blown into the room from a shattered window pane and then she saw her husband slumped over and covered with blood from two gunshots to the head. She immediately thought, "Phantom!" and rushed across the room to the phone to call the police. Her shaking finger managed to dial 0 on the rotary phone, but as a female voice answered, "Operator, how may I help you?" she felt a tremendous blow to her right jaw and the phone flew from her hand. The blast of a gun shot registered in her brain and she instinctively turned toward the sound only to feel another bullet smash through her left jaw. As if in slow motion, she fell to the floor and saw her shattered teeth flying through the air above her. When she hit the wooden floor, she swallowed a mouthful of blood. 

Incredibly, Katy remain conscious and fighting through the pain and shock, began crawling toward the kitchen away from the window where the shots were coming from. Bleeding profusely, she made it to the kitchen only to discover to her horror that the shooter, failing to gain entry through the locked front door, had ran around to the kitchen door in the back and was trying to get in. It too was locked and she could hear the monster on the other side cursing in frustration as he kicked and slammed his body into the door trying to break in. Struggling to not pass out, Katy found a determination borne of desperation to not be another of The Phantom's victims. She made it to her feet and ran to the front door. As she unlocked it and ran out, she heard the kitchen door finally give way. As she stumbled across the porch and into the front yard, she heard more curses as The Phantom found her to be gone.

She made it into the dark before the intruder saw her and made it to a neighbor's house down the road. After banging on the door, she passed out. Finding her on the porch in her bloody nightgown, the neighbors called police and then rushed her to the hospital. Katy was immediately taken into surgery and spent several weeks in the hospital in critical condition, but, physically anyway, she eventually recovered. She had terrible scars, but the physical scars were nothing compared to the emotional scars she suffered for the rest of her life.

Back at the Starks home, authorities entered to discover no one alive. Virgil's body was found laying on the floor in a pool of blood. Muddy footprints were found going from the smashed back door, through the kitchen, into the living room where the killer evidently had dabbed his palms in Virgil's blood, then up the stairs into the bedroom and back down again through the front door. The walls had been smeared with bloody hand prints. The monster had obviously been hunting for the whereabouts of Katy. Bloodhounds were brought in and they followed the scent out the front door, across the yard and into the woods where Katy had fled. They then doubled back for about 200 yards and disappeared where he evidently had gotten into his car and drove away.

The authorities were ecstatic because this time they had hand prints and shoe prints, plenty of them. However, in spite of the evidence and all of their efforts, The Phantom's identity remained unknown. There was no record of his prints to match, his shoe prints were non-remarkable, there were no witnesses and again the perpetrator seemed to have vanished into thin air without a trace.

As suddenly as the killings started, they stopped. Nobody was ever arrested. Nobody ever confessed. Nobody knows who The Phantom was, why he did what he did, why he stopped, if he fled Texarkana or stayed in town as a neighbor and friend to unsuspecting residents. The case is still open today and unsolved. But that's not exactly the end of the story.

Whispered rumors continue of faint female screams and cries coming from the woods in the park after dark; of cold spots suddenly walked into on a warm summer night's stroll through the park's remote roads and paths. The tree that poor Polly had been tied to still stands; the tree she had been tied to and forced to watch her lover's gruesome death, the tree she had been tied to and forced to suffer a humiliating sexual assault before being killed herself. And legend has it that if you lean against this tree, you will feel a constriction as if a rope is tying you to that tree. It might be Polly's spirit struggling to get loose. Or just maybe, poor Polly is looking for someone to take her place so she can finally be free from that night of horror.

Mount Holly Cemetery

Cemeteries speak to the living. The rows upon rows of graves marked by headstones, monuments and effigies remind us that we will follow. Sooner or later, we will follow. 

The word "cemetery" comes from a Greek word meaning "sleeping chamber." The term "graveyard" is  considered coarse terminology for where the dead are buried. Death sounds so final and permanent when "graveyard" is used, but a "sleeping chamber" is comforting and soft. In a cemetery, when the body is lowered into the ground, you can comfort yourself with the thought that the dearly departed is merely sleeping until you meet again.  Resembling a calm, restful park with cut grass, shade trees and walkways, some cemeteries seem to welcome us to drop by and visit before we come to stay.

Mount Holly Cemetery is Little Rock, Arkansas's oldest graveyard and the final resting place for many of the state's past leaders, governors, mayors, and Supreme Court Justices. Civil War generals, an Indian Princess, a spy who was hung and other souls from all walks of life are all in their final rest here. But for some, "rest" doesn't appear to be anything they are interested in doing.

While within the 20 acres of the fenced and walled cemetery, visitors have reported hearing flute music, drumbeats, and horse hooves with the sound fading away as it proceeds between the rows of headstones.  They often report a feeling of being watched even though they can see there there is no one else there. After the sun goes down, the massive obelisks, ornate mausoleums, gated plots and narrow carriage-rutted lanes make it almost impossible for the mind to not see movement where there shouldn't be, shadows flitting around and ghostly figures slowly drifting in the ground fog. What is even more disturbing though, all these things sometimes happen in broad daylight also. Almost from the very beginning of its existence in 1843, there have been reports of odd things happening there - too many unrelated individuals, too many independent reports of things not easily explained to simply dismiss them all as pure imagination.

Residents in nearby apartments have reported seeing gravestones appear in their yards only to disappear into thin air even as they watch. One lady and her husband moved from out of state into one of the apartments across the street from Mount Holly. The couple had no previous knowledge of anything related to the cemetery. Just 1 week after moving in, the lady went to call in her cat from outside before going to bed for the night. When she opened her front door, she was shocked to see a huge, seemingly very solid 12-foot high grave marker standing upright just 3 feet from her steps. Thinking it must be a prank being pulled by local teenagers, she ran back inside to get her husband. They both returned to the door not 60 seconds later and as they watched in confusion, the marker slowly disappeared as a very cold draft of air wafted over them. They then noticed their kitty was standing at the edge of the porch facing the now vanished marker, its fur up, hissing. The next morning, they made their way around the cemetery and found the marker on the old grave of a wealthy business man. It was made of limestone 1-foot thick and estimated to weigh over 1,800 pounds.

David Dodd grave marker and area of most
paranormal activity in the graveyard

In 1864, The Union Army which was in control of Little Rock, hung a 17-year-old suspected Confederate spy, David O. Dodd. The area around his Mount Holly grave has long been reported as the most frequent place where visitors walk into cold spots even on a hot summer day, where often is felt an overwhelming sense of despair and sadness, and even in the bright light of day, moaning and choking sounds can be heard. You see, when David was hung on that cold winter day, the rope was new and therefore it stretched, the condemned was slight in stature, and the distance from the bed of the wagon to the ground wasn't far enough. Instead of breaking his neck and a quick, merciful death, the condemned's tiptoes touched the dirt and he slowly strangled, struggling and jerking for almost 5 minutes. Women observers and a few men became sick and at least one battle-hardened soldier fainted. Finally, two of the enemy soldiers took pity or maybe they just couldn't stand to watch the spectacle any more themselves and each grabbed one of the hanging legs and pulled down, adding weight to hasten his death. Is it any wonder that David's soul cannot rest?

Also in 1864, the bodies of 640 Confederate soldiers who had been killed in battles were dug up and, along with their headstones, moved to a different cemetery across town. Disturbing the dead by moving their bodies has long been believed to be a reason for ghostly activities. It seems to upset them, to confuse them. Even those souls who are apparently resting in peace after accepting their new home where they are buried appear to be confused and angry when their bodies are moved. Relocating 640 of them was like kicking a fire ant nest - a frenzy of paranormal activity was started which has yet to cease.

Go for a visit yourself. Walk the quiet, shaded paths and read history in the headstones and markers of the dead. Don't be afraid. Unexplainable things usually don't happen in the daylight hours. Not much anyway. I wouldn't tarry when the sun begins to set though. Mount Holly, you see, is one of those weird, unsettling places where the dividing line between the land of the living and the realm of the dead blurs. And who knows what might cross over that line?

The Fiddler

Henry Albright moved to rural Arkansas when he was just a baby. As the only child of a middle-age couple who farmed and raised a few cows, chickens and pigs, he was terribly lonely as there were no neighbors or relatives with small children nearby. He played by himself, mostly with sticks and stones which he used to build make-believe castles. What Henry most liked to do though was read. 

His father had been a city man with a decent job at one time, that is until he lost his job and most everything else in the stock market crash of 1929. Unable to find work anywhere, he had moved his wife and baby son to the small frame house on a few acres of farm land which had been left to him by his grandparents upon their death. They could at least eek out a living and raise their own food there.  He had brought with them a number of books from the library he had owned when times were better and it was these books which became Henry's friends. He taught himself to read by sounding out the letters, asking his mother for help when he was stumped. By the time he started school, he was far ahead of his classmates. As he learned to better comprehend what he was reading, he went back and re-read all his father's books again.

Henry proved to be a very bright, avid student and almost always made the highest grades in his class. Unfortunately, he remained mostly alone as the other kids never could figure out what to make of him. He rarely took part in the games the other kids liked to play at recess and mostly spent his time in school sitting alone away from the others, reading books his teacher would bring him. When school was not in session and he was not needed to tend the fields at home, Henry roamed the hills and forests and noted all the things that change with the changing of the seasons.

One Monday in the fall of Henry's senior year, due to a teacher's convention, school would not be in session. As the crops had been gathered, he was not needed at home so Friday afternoon Henry packed his pup tent, a lantern, beef jerky, and a small cooking pot and set out for a few days of camping in the woods. As he left home, the air was clear and crisp, the sun bright and warm.

It was late afternoon and a number of miles from his home when Henry came to a small clearing in the woods and decided to camp for the night. He was only a mile or so away from Jeb Gibson's shack where he could buy some eggs and milk for his breakfast in the morning. Everybody knew and loved "Old Jeb," a life-long bachelor who had lived in his little house "since God invented dirt." Darkness had set in by the time Henry had finished his meal of the ham sandwich he had packed from home. With only a small sliver of moon in the night sky, he lit his lantern and began to read a book on philosophy his teacher had recently loaned him.

As his eyes began to tire, Henry turned out his lantern and lay down to sleep. Just as he got comfortable though, from out of the woods behind him came the sounds of a violin, sad, haunting clear notes that seemed to tremble in the air. At first he thought he must be imagining it as there was no house for miles around except for Old Jeb and he didn't play the violin. Henry climbed out of his tent and looked around. There was no light anywhere, but the music seemed to get louder, more insistent, drawing him to seek out the source. Who in the world would be out here in the cold, dark woods wondering around playing the violin?

For some reason Henry could not explain, he was compelled to find the source of such haunting music. He had walked a short way into the woods when he found a deer path. He followed it on silent feet, around boulders, deeper and deeper into the forest. At times, the music seemed to be right in front of him, but then in the next instant, it seemed to be further down the trail. Finally, in the distance, Henry saw a dim, stationary light. It became larger as he slowly crept up on it, until he came to a slight rise in the trail. He could see clearly now that it was not a circle of light as he had thought, but a rectangle which seemed to be glowing through an open door. He strained to see the building itself, but he could not make out walls, windows or even a roof. Yet from somewhere near the light came the sounds of the violin. It seemed to surround him, coming coming down from the night sky, from the trees, from the very ground he now laid on.

All of a sudden, the music stopped. Henry could see two women step into the doorway, one older, stooped with gray hair, the other young and beautiful. They were oddly dressed even for these Ozark backwoods, in long, full calico skirts and tight bodices with lace inserts. The young one reached over and placed a protective arm around the older one's shoulders. Somewhere off to the side, Henry heard an unseen horse whiny loudly. Both women looked toward the woods with a look of confusion on their faces. It seemed they were looking straight at Henry.

As he was contemplating whether they could actually see him or not, a shot rang out! Then another and another! The night was filled with the wild shrieks of the horse and a single scream from one of the women. Suddenly, there came another loud report and a blinding flash of fire. As Henry looked on with wide open eyes, he heard another shot and the young woman fell to the ground. The old woman seemed to bend down to help the young one, but another shot rang out and the old woman was also felled. Both lay in stillness that only death can produce. And then, appearing as if from nowhere, a young man ran into the doorway, leaping over the bodies of the women only to come back out a few seconds later holding a rifle. He shot again and again into the woods and as Henry lay there in fear, he heard the sounds of snapping twigs and the rushing footsteps of someone trying to run away. After a few seconds, Henry raised his head just in time to see the male defender fall to the ground next to the bodies of the women.

Henry hurried back to his camp, his mind playing over and over what he had seen. He intended to find someone in the morning to report the awful crime. Tired from the hike and with the adrenaline slowly reduced, he finally drifted off into an uneasy sleep. As the sun rose over the horizon, Henry was startled when he opened his eyes to find Old Jeb standing over him. Old Jeb sat down a quart of milk and 6 eggs next to him, said, "I figured you could use these" and walked away back toward his cabin. 

After breakfast, Henry began to doubt himself, to doubt what he had seen. Perhaps it was all just a dream and wouldn't he look the fool to report such a story to the authorities if it wasn't true. He decided to go back to ensure it wasn't just a trick of a tired mind. Although it wasn't easy, he managed to find the almost hidden deer trail again and then followed his tracks. By early afternoon he had found the cabin from the night before. At least he found what remained of the cabin. It had been a low, long structure with one room and a lean-to kitchen. The ridge pole was broken and the roof had caved in long ago. The remains of the door, its old buckskin hinges shredded with age, leaned open against the wall. Henry carefully stepped inside and found the floorboards rotten with weeds growing through the cracks. The fireplace mantle was covered with moss. Desolation and decay were everywhere. It was obvious nobody had lived there for many years.

Henry left and made his way back to his camp. He arrived just before the sun went behind the trees. In confusion, Henry ate several pieces of jerk and drank a cup of water from his canteen. After dark, he listened for the music, the sweet, haunting notes of the violin, but none came before exhaustion overtook him with sleep. The next morning, Henry awoke to find Old Jeb sitting on a log on the other side of the fire pit. He had once again brought milk and eggs for Henry's breakfast and this time he had brought enough for himself as well. After eating, Old Jeb brought out two corn cob pipes and a small sack of tobacco. He handed one of the pipes to Henry and after both men had gotten a good fire glow going, he sat back down on the log, looked Henry straight in the eye and said, "You heer'ed the music did'n ya?" 

Henry didn't know what to say so he remained silent. "You been to tha cabin in tha woods too, ain't ya?" Henry nodded in reply. "Course you don't know tha story 'cause you ain't really hill folk. My kin've been here many a year. I'm the last of the old un's. I reckon since you see'd it, maybe you won't think I'm just a crazy ol coot so I'll tell ya the story." 

"A hundred years ago a boy child was born in that cabin. His name was Daniel, but he was a strange one and never seemed to fit in anywheres. He hated farm chores and everythin' bout these hills. His kin worried bout him, but didn't rightly know what to do. Daniel always wandered 'round like he was dreamin or somethin, all fidgety-like ya know? Like he was always lookin' for something. And he hardly ever talked to nobody. He was a strange one, that's fer sure. Then one day he spied his dad's fiddle hanging over the fireplace mantel. He stood on a chair, got it down, and started playing that thing like he was born to it all natural like. He played such haunting melodies that the animals in the forest went quiet. The whippoorwill stopped callin', the wood dove stopped cooin', and the crickets stopped chirpin'. It was real strange how that boy could play like that and nobody could understan' it. 

Then one day a outsider fella came to the woods. Said he'd heer'd 'bout Daniel's ability an he told him about colleges and places to study music and such. Places an' things folks in this holla didn't know nuthin 'bout. Daniel got all kinds of excited 'bout it and his pappy said he could go. But then the sickness came through and his pappy caught it and died. Daniel had to stay to tend to the farm and help his mama. Daniel did what he had to do, but his fiddlin' took a turn. It sounded all sad an mournful, like he was poring out all his sadness and disappointment into his music. It 'bout drove his mama crazy and she would go hide out in the woods when she couldn't take it no longer.

A while later, one mornin' Daniel went to the barn and found a newborn colt one of the horses had given birth to the night befor'. For some reason, Daniel took a shine to that colt. They formed a real bond those two did, like they was growing up together. That colt grew into a beautiful filly and Daniel loved it more than jus' about anything. And Daniel's music turned all happy again and it made his mama happy and the animals got quiet to listen to it again.

Daniel didn't give up his dream of freedom from the farm and being able to make a livin' playing his fiddle, but as time passed, he found another love, a girl named Hattie from the next holla over. It was like he knew from the start he was s'posed to marry her and I reckon she did too. He knew if they married he'd never leave this hill country, but he din't pay it no never mind. He figured after they married, he'd play love songs through the cold winter nights and when the babies come, he'd put them to sleep with lullaby songs. Folks said it was just like God had planned it all along.

"Cept another man already loved Hattie. A mean bear of a man who promised a day of reckonin' if'n Hattie turned him down. But Hattie was a real hill girl, Henry, and they have no fear of nuthin. She told him outright she wasn' goin to marry him and she thought no more of it, didn' even tell Daniel.

The weddin' day came in October and after they was hitched, they went to Daniel's mama's place to live until they got a place of their own. They spent the evenin' laughin' and singin'. While Daniel played the tunes, Hattie sang the words in her beautiful voice. Come dark and Daniel and his bride were gettin' anxious to head to bed and enjoy each other's private company when all of a sudden a terrific noise came and like to shook that cabin all ta pieces! And then Daniel heer'd a horrible sound. A loud cry from his beloved filly was what it was. He rushed outside and found her dying, lying on the ground in a pool of her own blood. She'd been so scared of all the noise that she tried to jump the fence and a wood stake had driven' right through her. 

Noises came from the woods and Daniel figured out quick what was happening. It was a mob of men like them gangs of Baldknobbers or bushwackers that used to ride through the countryside killin' and burnin'. Nobody knew who they were or where they'd strike next. Praise ta God there ain't no more of that nowadays!"

Henry knew the rest of the story as he had seen it all himself with his own eyes, but he sat there still and quiet as Old Jeb knocked the spent tobacco from his pipe, carefully loaded it up again and got it fired before continuing.

"Daniel was real skeered, a course, for his loved ones and he ran back toward the cabin. Jus' as he rounded the corner though, he heer'd a shot and a flash of fire. Then he saw Hattie drop to the ground. Before he reached the doorway, there was another shot and his mama dropped beside Hattie. Daniel kept running until he reached the door of the cabin. He jumped inside, grabbed a rifle and came out shootin'. They say he musta opened fire in all directions, just firin' again and again in all directions. 

The next day, my pappy who had heer'd all the shootin' and commotion, and two other men crept in to tha woods to investigate. They got to tha cabin and found Daniel laying dead by the door next to his women folk with his rifle by his side. Evidently, the loss of everythin' he loved was more than he could stomach and he used his last bullet on himself. Five more dead men were found in the woods 'round the cabin with Daniel's bullets in 'em. One of 'em was the fella that'd made the threats, the one Hattie had turned down.

That cabin's full of haints now. It don't happen ever night, but when there ain't much moon and the wind is jes right, I can heer'd that fiddle music all the way down ta my cabin and then I can heer the shootin' an I know them haints is a livin' it all over agin. I reckon they's doomed to it till they ain't no more of these hills."

Without another word, Old Jeb knocked the ashes from his pipe, gathered up his milk bottle and began slowly walking back to his cabin. Henry packed up his belongings and headed back home. He wanted to be far away from these woods before the sun went down and sad, sad music from a haunting violin could be heard again.