......Ghost Story III..........kronk   Author:  21435  Category:(Fiction) Created:(8/2/2001 11:07:00 PM) This post has been Viewed (258 times) "Hot air hangs like a dead man.....from a white oak tree. People sitting on porches......thinking how things used to be....Dark night....It's a dark night....dark night." by (The Blasters) As I drifted back down the river and around the bend, I lost sight of the pecan grove and my self induced hallucination ended. The trees in the grove were tall, straight and numbered about 100 in all. They were equally spaced and the trunks were painted white, from the ground, up to about 8 feet. Supposedly, the whitewash prevented insect infestations. Maybe it did. Mr Taylor, the owner of the property, commissioned Leroy and myself to do the painting. He stressed that everything be uniform, so we measured and marked each tree. The result, if I say so myself, was extremely pleasing to the eye. Old Mr. Taylor enjoyed viewing his pecan grove from every possible angle. It was his idea to drift down river in the canoe. This gave him great joy indeed. Imagine his pleasure, when I suggested that we view the property from the river by moonlight. We picked a night very similar to this one. The slice of a moon hung off to the west, giving off a weak lumination. The freshly whitewashed trees seemed to pick up every speck and reflect it. The drift took about 5 to 10 minutes, depending on the speed of the current. The slower the better of course. On about our 4th drift that night, the old man said, "Harlan, I have a tale to tell you." Now Mr. Taylor was about 80 years old, and could draw on a vast arsenal of stories to delight a boy of 14. He told me about a tribe of Native Americans that lived in this area. Tall and fierce they were. Brave in battle, hard as ironwood, they lived as one with the land. With the coming of the Europeans, their world was changed at a rapid pace. Too quick for the people to adjust, even if they would have had the inclination. Eventually, the new-comers sealed off the area and had the tribe surrounded. With nowhere to run and facing an armed force many times their number, the tribal shaman took control and convinced the warriors to slit the throats of their women and children, to keep them from falling into the invaders hands. With heavy hearts the men committed the awful work. The shaman was captured as he was trying to escape. Too late was his treachery discovered. The warriors hung him from the branches of a giant oak tree, before they themselves marched off the steep banks into the river and were drowned. The old man concluded his story. "If you close your eyes, pert near shut em now, and look at yonder ridge, you can see the ghostly warriors walking slowly about, before heading for the river. That sound ya hear, might be the wind whistling through the tree branches, but, more than likely what ya hearing is the moans of the warriors, when they realized the evil that they done. And up around the bend there, you'll see the body of the wicked shaman swinging from yon branch over the water." You can join Unsolved Mysteries and post your own mysteries or interesting stories for the world to read and respond to Click here Scroll all the way down to read replies. Show all stories by   Author:  21435 ( Click here ) Spring is coming