The Voodoo Queen Chapter #9

Upon arriving on Middle Mountain, a rock fire ring marked the campsite spot where Harold and a handful of other hunters always camped. A fire was built, horses and mules unsaddled, watered and fed first, then a pot of coffee was put on to brew as Fred began to peel potatoes and onions for supper along with the ever-present staple of Spam.
The sky was clear, the stars sparkled, and the moonlight exposed the beauty of the Kiamichis from a different perspective. The chill of the November air seemed to rise from the ground below and down from the sky above as everyone checked gear and spread bedrolls.
“What supplies did you lose today?” the Sheriff asked Harold.
“Some clothes, ammo, food and a little horse and mule feed,” Harold replied.
“We’ve got plenty of food, and I’m sure we can divide some food rations for your animals. Conrado and Crowbar have 30-30 ammo, but you’re the only one toting a .357-mag pistol. How much 357 you got left?” the Sheriff asked.
“Pistol’s loaded and about 30 rounds on my belt,” Harold replied.
As they ate their supper, an owl hooted below the ridge and then another farther down the mountain. Suddenly, a small rock came flying into camp and landed near the fire.
Everyone jumped up, except Harold.
“It’s ok, they’re just lettin’ us know, that they know, we’re here,” Harold said.
“And who are you talkin’ about Harold?” the Sheriff asked.
“The Bigfoot people. They only toss stuff at me to let me know, they’re here—they’re always around, always watching,” Harold replied as he finished his Spam. Everyone sat back down and a pine cone hit the Sheriff.
“Are these things going to do this all night?” the Sheriff asked.
“Nah, they’ll get bored with us and move on,” Harold replied.
“I’ll take somethin’ outside the camp and leave it for them. Left over potatoes, Spam, apples, whatever we can spare. It’s an offering of respect due them as we’re traveling in their world up here,” Harold explained to everyone.
“I think all of us here have had some kind of sighting or experience with these things at one time or another. If you live in these mountains long enough, there will be something that you see, hear or encounter that you can’t explain. What about you, Tim? You got any Bigfoot stories?” the Sheriff asked.
“Well, I’m not sure I believe in Bigfoot. Harold, do you think that’s what hit Shotgun in the head with the rock that knocked him off his burrow?” Tim responded.
“No, they won’t hurt you, unless you provoke them or threaten one of their young ones. I think they were trying to warn us about the ambush, and we didn’t heed the warning. I was looking at those warriors when we passed them on the trail, there were a few of them holding rocks that were just big enough to fit in the palm of their hands. I feel certain, it was one of them that hit Shotgun. I got pelted with rocks, and so did my horse after the arrow went through my arm,” Harold answered.
Tim thought about his other world of adventure he entered after the snake bit him. He was certain it was a dream or an illusion, even though he felt everything that happened from the weather to Skookum’s breath when he warned him about the cave. Now he was starting to wonder, was it real, was it another time, another dimension? “Does the word ‘Skookum’ mean anything to any of you?” Tim asked.
“How do you know anything about Skookum?” asked Crowbar in a serious tone.
“Oh, I don’t know—I think I read something somewhere about them,” Tim replied.
“No, not’ them—him—Skookum. He was the Chief Elder of the Stands Back People who were here before our people arrived by the Trail of Tears. They helped our people in different ways, showed us healing plants that grow here, all the many places to find freshwater, and traded food with us as they learned our language. They shared other secrets with the Choctaw people—some secrets that only our medicine men and Chiefs will ever know, and some secrets are lost and forgotten now,” Crowbar said.
Before the conversation could move forward, a howl and a growl came from the timber around the edge of the camp. The campfire revealed a set of glowing, yellow eyes about three foot from the ground. The eyes began to move, circled the camp and the horses, staying just outside of the campfire glow, holding to the shadows. They were joined by another set of eyes, then another, until there were nine sets encircling the group of men. Soon, growling began with an occasional howl. Everyone stood up and chambered a round. Conrado threw more wood on the fire, and the flames rose high, exposing shadowy figures that looked like timber wolves. They slowly backed away from the light. All the campers were circled around the campfire, backs to the fire, and facing the darkness, guns cocked, expecting an attack of wolves. The horses and mules stamped and blew as they pulled on the picket line.
“Shilombish, Shilombish Okpula,” Conrado said.
“Ya’ think those are evil spirits?” the Sheriff asked Conrado.
“Yes, Shilombish Okpula,” Conrado replied and threw more wood on the fire. The bigger the fire grew, the further the wolf like figures moved into the tree line.
“Well, looks like we need to keep this fire going all night. I want two people on night hawk duty. We’ll change guards every two hours, and that way everyone gets some sleep. Me and Fred will take the last shift starting at four a.m. Hell, we’re old, we get up early, anyway,” the Sheriff gave the orders. They aimed their lights at the growling, howling figures, but nothing was there.
. . .
Fred had breakfast ready by sunup. To everyone’s relief, the night had been uneventful. Everyone had a copy of the map and Harold was studiously examining it.
“Well, Harold, wha’cha’ think?” the Sheriff asked.
“I’m not sure, was this drawn by the Hermit or by his Uncle?” Harold asked.
“We don’t know,” the Sheriff replied.
“I would think, his Uncle drew it. Ain’t no reason for the Hermit to draw one. He already knows where the gold is, and he’s got nobody to tell as far as we know. So, we need to find these landmarks and not his old cabin site,” Harold surmised.
“Hot damn, Harold, you’re smarter than you look!” Fred interjected.
“Let’s pack up and get moving,” Fred shouted.
The Middle Mountain trail was three times wider than most trails and well-traveled, even though no more than six hunters and a couple of hikers used it once or twice a year. Deep in one of the last frontiers, the scenery on a clear bight November day was stunning from the high mountain trail. The bright sunshine and cool breeze helped to chase away the terrors of the previous night and enabled them to concentrate on their goals.
Harold led the way, followed by Tim, Conrado, the Sheriff, Shotgun & Ray, while Fred and Crowbar rode drag, watching their flank. As they followed the trail heading East toward the Arkansas border, Tim began to feel light-headed, then he began to sweat. It was November and forty degrees with a light wind blowing, causing the tops of the tall pines to gently sway and whisper. The pack line paused for Harold to study the map again. Conrado rode up beside Tim and asked if he was alright.
“You’re sweating, it’s chilly out here, and you’re sweating. Do you need to get off and sit a minute?” Conrado asked.
“Nah, I’m ok,” Tim replied as he uncapped his canteen and took a drink.
As they started moving again, Tim’s vision began to grow blurry, or so he thought. On the trail in front of Harold, there was a continuous ripple in the air, similar to when rocks are thrown into a pond. Suddenly, there stood Skookum.
“Skookum! Do you see him?” Tim shouted.
The pack line stopped as Tim rode ahead of Harold. All the men looked, but no one could see anything except Tim and his horses.
“What’s he doing?” the Sheriff asked.
“He’s in the spirit world,” Conrado replied.
“What?” the Sheriff asked.
“He’s in the spirit world—his body is here, but his mind is in the spirit world. His flesh is fighting with his spirit eyes—he may pass out. I’ve seen this before, long ago when I was a child,” Conrado said.
Skookum turned and started walking away from Tim. Tim rode at a fast trot to maintain his eyesight of Skookum. The pack line followed, with Conrado’s assurance that something phenomenal was happening which he couldn’t explain. After an hour and a half of a fast trot, Tim veered off the main trail, and slowly let his horse and pack animals pick their way down the huge pine-covered slope, dotted with gray and greenish-colored stones that resembled alligators protruding out of the ground.
As the pack line slowly headed down and around the side of the mountain, Harold looked back over his shoulder and shouted to the rest of the outfit, “This ain’t on the map, I think we’re going the wrong way. We’ve gotten way off the main trail. If we keep this up, we’re gonna’ be lost.”
As several shouts came from the pack line to stop, Tim continued traveling at a fast pace. He couldn’t hear anything except the wind in the pines and could only see Skookum trudging along in front of him. His surroundings began to become familiar to him once again. The pack line held up for just a minute. Harold looked back.
“He ain’t stopping. What are we gonna do?” Harold asked.
“Keep following.” Conrado said.
“If Conrado says follow, we follow,” the Sheriff said.
The pack line continued down and around the mountain under the giant canopy of pine trees and villages of car-size boulders. It was like another world, one that had never seen an axe, plow or any type of human tool or machine. A place lost in time. It was almost dark when Tim stopped at the edge of a huge crevice in the mountain. The pack line stopped and dismounted. Everyone walked up to the edge of the crevice and shined their flashlights down into it.
“If you didn’t know it was here, you would ride right over into it. It’s covered by these huge trees that camouflage the opening, like an illusion!” Harold talked excitedly as he shined his light down into the abyss.
“This is it! this is it!” Tim said, still sweating and now trembling and shaking like he was in his death throws. Conrado and Crowbar grabbed Tim by both arms as he collapsed.
“The trip to the spirit world while staying conscious has almost killed him.” Conrado stated.
“Let’s make camp and get a fire goin’. Maybe he’ll come back around and tell us what the hell we’re doing here. We’ll start over in the mornin’,” the Sheriff instructed.
Crowbar went up the mountain and was gone for about an hour. He came back with some roots and plants which he cleaned and boiled. Tim was in and out of consciousness. Crowbar held his head and poured the bitter tea into Tim’s mouth a little at a time until it was gone. Within a few hours, Tim was awake and talking.
“Wow, I thought I was dreaming. Last thing I remember is we broke camp and headed down the trail,” Tim told them.
“You rode all day; you passed Harold and took the lead. You wouldn’t talk or stop. Our horses were worn out, and if you hadn’t stopped when you did, we would have ridden off into that big crevice and probably died,” Shotgun told Tim as he shined his flashlight to reveal the huge obstacle in their way.
Tim said, “This is IT!”
“This is what?” the Sheriff asked.
“The gold! The gold’s down there!” Tim said as he stared into the blackness of the crevice.
“Down there?” the Sheriff asked
“We don’t think this place is on the map,” Fred said.
“There ain’t no sign of any diggin’ or minin’ or even an easy way to get down there,” the Sheriff pointed out. “We’re lookin’ for what’s left of an old mine shaft. The Choctaws caved it in when it got too dangerous to go down the shaft. The old hermit must have found a way in through the rabble,” the Sheriff continued.
“I don’t know about the hermit, but I do know the gold’s down there,” Tim said.
“You better listen, Sheriff—the spirits led him here,” Conrado said.
“Which spirits, good spirits or evil spirits? Look at him—pale as a ghost and sweating!” the Sheriff said. “And now he wants us to go down in that damn crevice. I’m not sure about this.” The Sheriff wasn’t enthused. “Let’s sleep on it and look at it in the daylight. Keep the fire going and post a guard, same as last night,” the Sheriff ordered in an aggravated voice.
“If ya’ll want something besides potatoes, onions, and Spam, you’re shit out-of-luck, unless you’d rather have pork n’ beans and beef jerky for supper,” Fred announced.
As they ate, everyone watched Tim. Tim ate his supper and watched as everyone kept staring at him.
“There’s something you’re not telling us,” Crowbar said.
Tim rubbed his face and searched his pocket for a Lucky Strike. He was in luck, a little fire from a Zippo lighter, and he spilled his story about seeking help from Miss Cherie, and the snakebite, and the three days he slept on her porch, and the creatures he encountered. He still didn’t remember Claude holding him while the snake bit him. He told them of the gold, and Skookum leading him back, and the rebirth at the Three Waters.
“And somehow, all of that has led us here,” Tim concluded.
“And you still don’t believe in Bigfoot?” Crowbar asked.
“I didn’t until now,” Tim answered. “For some reason, I didn’t realize what Skookum was. A big, hairy, indigenous person—I guess that’s how I looked at him. I guess that’s kinda’ what Bigfoot is, huh?” Tim concluded.
“This makes all the difference in the world. If Miss Cherie had something to do with us being here and going down in that crevice, then we’ll do it. She has never misled me or lied to me,” the Sheriff said. “First thing in the morning, we’ll gather some supplies and see if we can find a way down,” the Sheriff affirmed.
“I know we’ve been followed,” Crowbar said.
“You sure about that?” the Sheriff asked.
“I’m sure. As I looked at the warriors with Otie, I recognized several young braves—one in particular, Running Dog, son of Sam Big Knife,” Crowbar said.
“Sam Big Knife?” the Sheriff and Fred both asked in chorus.
“Yes, Sam Big Knife’s son,” Crowbar repeated.
“Sam Big Knife is one of the best trackers in the nations. Why, I watched him cut sign across a half mile of solid rock one time, when we were tracking a mountain lion over by Tombstone Mountain. If that boy is half the tracker his daddy is, he won’t have any problem tracking us,” Fred said.
“He’s probably out there watching!” the Sheriff said, and everyone looked around them into the darkness.
“Middle Mountain has never been logged, because it’s supposed to be haunted,” Harold said, trying to change the subject. “The closest any loggin’ crew has ever gotten is about a half mile from the base of the mountain. That crew only worked a half a day before logs and rocks started to get thrown at them and their equipment. They also heard screams and howls. After all that got started, they all left and threatened to quit if they had to stay,” Harold said.
“My pappy and Big Don’s pappy used to work a liquor still on Middle Mountain back in the old days when we were kids. We only had to help when the pressure was on by the G-Men. We were about seven or eight, and our job was to be lookouts for the revenuers and warn them if we saw anyone comin’. On the first night, we climbed up a big pine tree, close to where we camped, when we saw a big hairy man come out of the brush and start digging around under a big blown down. He looked like a man, but he was covered in hair except for his hands and face. Don and I looked at each other but didn’t speak. The ‘hairy man’ is what most of the Choctaws called them, and the White, old timers called them ‘wild men.’ We hadn’t heard of Bigfoot back then. People knew they were there; they just didn’t talk about them much. We watched this one for about five or ten minutes. Then he must have felt us watching and looked right at us and let out this awful scream like a panther or a woman, loud and shrill. He was about a hundred yards down the mountain in a small clearing. That scream scared the hell outta’ us. You remember it, don’t you Don?” Fred asked.
“Yep, like it was yesterday,” the Sheriff replied. “Let’s get some sleep, who knows what tomorrow’s gonna’ bring,” the Sheriff suggested.
Sleep came slowly, but everyone finally drifted off. With guards posted, around two a.m., the wolves were back. Eyes glowing, growling, snarling, circling around the camp in the shadows of the ancient pines. Everyone woke up and gathered around the fire.
A loud roar came from deep in the darkness, and the brush began to shake and rustle around the camp. A large bear emerged from the brush and slowly walked into camp. Harold shouldered his rifle and took aim. Crowbar grabbed Harold’s rifle and pulled it down.
“This is a spirit bear,” Crowbar said.
The bear looked at everyone in the outfit as he circled around them, only four feet away. Then he turned and faced the growling wolves, let out a deafening roar and charged the pack of wolves. Growls, snarls, gnashing teeth, yelps and whines followed. Then silence—no wolves, no bear—absolute silence.
“The spirit bear come to guard us,” Crowbar said.
“This is the damnedest place I’ve ever seen!” Tim exclaimed.
Eventually, everyone went back to sleep.
. . .
Daylight came with the smell of coffee and bacon. “You boys wake up and eat up. I got a feelin’ your gonna’ need your strength today,” Fred spouted.
Every man and monkey loaded a backpack with hammers, chisels, water, food, ropes, lights, and ammo. The tossed a rope into the crevice with one end tied to a tree. They didn’t need to repel, but the rope did assist them to climb down into the crevice.
Tim lead the way, followed by the Sheriff, Conrado, Fred, Harold, Shotgun, Ray, with Crowbar watching the flank. As they descended down the mountain, Tim asked the Sheriff a few questions.
“Sheriff, the other day, when you confronted Chief Otie, you told him that Conrado was going to show him an old Shawnee scalping technique,” Tim recapped.
“Yes, that’s what I told him,” the Sheriff agreed.
“But Conrado is Apache,” Tim pointed out.
“That he is. Back in the 1840s, the Mexican Government put a bounty on the Apaches. They were raiding hard into Mexico, and the Mexican government couldn’t protect its frontier citizens or its border. So, with a hundred-dollar bounty on a male Apache scalp, some White men started hunting the Apache, working with the Shawnee, who were good trackers. They would go into Apache camps and kill everyone there. The Shawnee developed a quick and effective way of scalping. They would cut around the hairline, then push off on the shoulders with their feet while they had a double handful of the long hair. The scalp would make a popping sound like a cork when it turned loose from the skull,” the Sheriff explained.
“Wow, sorry I asked!” Tim said.
As the descent got deeper, it also got darker. Tim pulled out his flashlight and thought about how much better this flashlight lit the way than the two crystals he had rubbed together the first time he was here. Exactly as before, the crevice turned into a cave and then they came to the Y in the cave. Tim took the right-hand, smaller passageway. After two hundred yards and much investigation with the flashlight, Tim stopped with his light shining on the wall of the cave. Everyone gathered at the same spot, lights on the wall and eyes wide.
There it was! It was no longer a legend, no longer a myth. It was real! Shining with all its glory, three-foot wide and ten-feet tall, a vein of gold like no one had ever seen. The very thing that men went mad over, killed for, betrayed for, hoarded and stole; some forsook everyone and everything to search for it in the hopes of wealth and plenty.
They stood and stared for several minutes, then Tim dropped his backpack and broke the silence.
“Let’s get to work!” Tim said as he dug a chisel and hammer out of his pack.
Everyone followed suit, and they worked two at a time while everyone else held lights. They chiseled all they could carry in their packs, making sure not to overload themselves, although it was hard not to keep gathering the mesmerizing mineral.
Shotgun was curious about the bigger passageway that went deeper into the mountain, the one that Skookum had given a stern warning about not entering. As they made their way out of the smaller passageway, Shotgun took three or four steps into the large passageway instead of following Tim. Tim looked back and grabbed Shotgun’s pack, pulling him in the right direction.
“Come on; don’t go down there,” Tim warned.
“There might be more gold down there,” Shotgun said.
“What? More gold?! We’ve got more gold than we can spend! Nope, we can’t ever enter that part of the mountain. We can’t ever, ever go that way! I’ve been warned by Skookum,” Tim told everyone.
As they neared the top of the crevice, the Sheriff instructed Crowbar to check the surroundings before they made their exit.
“Go check things out before we pop out of this rabbit hole,” the Sheriff said. Crowbar drew his .45 and eased up from the crevice slowly and disappeared over the edge. All was quiet for three or four minutes then Crowbar spoke up, “Ok, all clear.”
One at a time, the whole outfit climbed out of the crevice, with the Sheriff bringing up the rear. As the Sheriff reached for a handhold, he was hoisted up and out by a familiar grip and the unmistakable pressure of cold steel pressed against the side of his head! To the Sheriff’s surprise, he was looking down the barrels of two dozen AR 10s held by the Choctaw Tribal Police. He was hoisted out of the hole and greeted by the Chief of Police’s right-hand man, Johnny Lamebear.
“What the hell is this all about, Lamebear?” the Sheriff asked.
“I could ask you the same thing, Sheriff,” Lamebear responded.
“We’re just out doin’ a little huntin’ and explorin’,” the Sheriff replied.
“This is tribal land, you know,” Lamebear said.
“I know—-I’m a member of the tribe, remember? Not to mention, Middle Mountain has always been open to everyone for hunting or hiking, horseback riding and such. At least, for anyone who wasn’t afraid to come up here,” the Sheriff pointed out.
“What exactly are you and your crew doing here?” Lamebear asked.
“Well, Tim over there is a geologist and being a brother Marine, Fred and I were trying to help him find some mineral sand rocks that he was interested in,” the Sheriff explained.
“Sheriff, you look a little out of place. I’m used to seeing you in your Lincoln Town car or in the pasture on your cutting horse, working cows. I didn’t know you had any hobbies like geology,” Lamebear smiled.
“You know me, I’m always learning new things. I even got me one of them damn smart phones,” the Sheriff explained. “You boys lower those damn rifles, and let’s visit,” the Sheriff suggested.
“Sheriff, if I look in all of these backpacks your outfit is carrying, what’ll I find? Wait, I’ll answer that. Just rocks and minerals, right? Rocks and minerals that look like gold. How close am I to being right?” Lamebear asked.
“Well, could be or could be iron pyrite, fool’s gold. We’re not sure,” the Sheriff was attempting to throw Lamebear off point.
“No, it’s real gold. Gold, that up until today, only a handful of Chiefs have known about and us, the Tribal Police. Yes, there’s always been the stories and legends, but no one knew if they were true. Our job is to protect the gold. Our people have always only taken what we needed for the Choctaw nation and no more. If word leaks out about its location, the US Government will seize this mountain, declare it a military training site or some kind of bullshit story like that and cut this mountain and these valleys to pieces with bulldozers and equipment until they satisfy their hunger for gold or at least until they can find all that’s here. I am authorized by the Choctaw Government to administer judgement as I see fit in this case. Like the Lighthouse Police in the 1800s, Winchester was judge and jury most of the time. Today the .308 rifle and .45 pistols will be judge and jury,” Lamebear explained.
The Sheriff and his whole crew were lined up along the edge of the crevice, each one wondering what was going to happen next.
“We could kill all of you, and no one would ever know. No one would find a body; I can make sure of that. Just seven men and a monkey that went missing in the Southeast Oklahoma Mountains, happens all the time, you know that Sheriff.”
Lamebear paced back and forth in front of the men as if he was deciding what to do. “But we’re actually here for two reasons; One to make sure you didn’t find the gold…we’re a little late for that as I can see. Two, we’re tracking Chief Otie and have a warrant for his arrest and about half of his Warriors. I think I can give you all a reprieve on your lives in exchange for your help and cooperation in capturing Chief Otie.”
“I think you boys are a little late on finding Otie, too,” the Sheriff said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lamebear asked.
“We had a run-in with the Chief and his Warriors, a little over halfway up the mountain, where the trail is the narrowest. We had the drop on him, but he probably had us followed. Probably got three or four scouts out there watching right now,” the Sheriff explained.
“He was headed down the mountain?” Lamebear asked.
“Yep, surprised you boys didn’t run into him. Unless he saw you first and hid while you passed. Maybe he wants us all together, so the killin’ll get done quicker instead of huntin’ all over the mountain for two groups of his victims. Why—you got warrants?” the Sheriff asked.
“It seems Otie’s gone crazy, killed seven of his own braves,” Lamebear explained.
“Why’d he do that?” the Sheriff asked, as everyone waited for the answer.
“It seems that Otie is dabbling in witchcraft of some sort, and some of his followers didn’t agree with that. When they objected and refused to go along with him, he killed them. After that, a few others decided to notify Chief Hatak and the council, unbeknownst to Otie—we thought. But it seems he’s on to us, and we’re looking for him now,” Lamebear explained. “The council put a one-thousand-dollar bounty on him,” Lamebear said.
“All this has happened in the last few days?” the Sheriff asked.
“Yep,” Lamebear replied. “But there’s one more twist. The U.S. Government has placed a one-million- dollars bounty on him. It seems he was conspiring to get his hands on some type of EMP. It’s a new technology that can direct a pulse toward an object instead of over a region. It’s U.S. Government technology. He has part of what he needs but was trying to get the rest, so he can disable any aircraft flying over these mountains. If he controls the sky over him, he controls a lot, especially since the only way to get around in these mountains is on foot or horseback. Some other criminal elements wanted it also, and that seems to be what they were after on K-Trail at that cabin with all the dead bodies and then the body and the safe that this man found a few days later,” Lamebear said pointing at Tim. “Seems like Otie’s contact double-crossed him and sold to a higher bidder, then that bidder decided not to pay and instead just take the box and kill everybody involved. But we see that didn’t work out. So, what we have is one big mess,” Lamebear explained further.
“All this was revealed to you, and nobody told me?” the Sheriff asked in an irritated tone.
“Well, Sheriff, there ain’t no cell service in these mountains, and all this information was not given to your office—we don’t know who can be trusted. Besides, except for the government intervention, this is a tribal matter,” Lamebear said.
“Not that I like the Feds, but why aren’t they here looking for Otie? These mountains should be crawling with agents—not that they’d ever find him,” the Sheriff said.
“Otie bought a plane ticket to New York City and supposedly flew there two days ago. So, that’s where the Feds are looking. But we know he’s here. He’s a clever guy—dangerously clever,” Lamebear said.
“One-million-dollar bounty, this must be some serious technology!” the Sheriff said.
“It can drop planes and helicopters out of the sky, stop vehicles in their tracks, keep electronic controls from deploying weapons. Very, very serious technology,” Lamebear explained. “The bounty can’t be paid to any law enforcement, you know that. But if one of these civilians you have here claimed to have captured him, he could split the reward among all of us, if we let you live,” Lamebear proposed.
“I don’t think we have much choice,” the Sheriff conceded.
“Do we have an agreement then?” Lamebear asked.
The Sheriff studied his outfit’s response. Everyone nodded in agreement. The Sheriff stuck out his hand and shook with Lamebear.
“Now, ya’ll take those backpacks back down the hole and leave them where you found the gold. We will use it in future endeavors and on behalf of the Choctaw Nation. I thank you for preparing it for us, it’ll save a lot of chiseling,” Lamebear said with a smile.
The crew begrudgingly deposited the gold back where they found it and returned to the surface to begin a new search for which they had not bargained. They headed back the direction they had come from, while Crowbar, Conrado, and two Tribal Police scouted ahead and looked for any sign of Otie or his scouts.
Nightfall came with fog. A large campfire was built, and the dreaded darkness filled the mountains once again. As the Sheriff’s outfit gathered around the fire, the Tribal Posse began to notice a disturbance in the brush around them; growls, snarls, howls and glowing, yellow eyes appeared. “Ya’ll stay close to the fire, and keep it burning all night,” the Sheriff instructed. Then all of the sudden, like a streak of lighting, an enormous, black wolf shot across the camp and in one fatal swoop, ripped the throat from one of the Tribal Policemen. Guns were drawn and fired in the direction of the wolf, but it had disappeared more quickly than it had appeared. The policeman’s throat was torn out from his bottom jaw to the top of his collar bone, blood sprayed and poured into puddles around the body.
“What the hell was that?” Lamebear shouted as he searched the darkness with his pistol drawn. The long, loud howl in the darkness was his answer. “Damn it! Shit! There’s nothing I can do for him!” Lamebear cursed.
“We need to put his body in something or wrap him in a tarp. This blood will only entice them more,” the Sheriff said.
“We came prepared. We have body bags, just didn’t intend to use them for our guys,” Sargent Windwalker said. His brothers placed the unfortunate lawman in a body bag, then carefully and respectfully laid him near his gear and saddle.
“I’ve only seen a handful of wolves in these mountains, and never heard of one attacking anyone!” Lamebear said.
“Shilombish Okpula,” Crowbar hissed.
“An evil spirit?” Lamebear asked.
“Yes, conjured up by Otie, there may be many more in other forms. Wear your cross high on your neck and pray to Jesus, it might be a long night,” Crowbar suggested.
“Post guards, two of my men and two of yours. Rotate them every two hours all night. That’s what we’ve been doing,” the Sheriff told Lamebear.
The night passed with only howls and growls. In the dim light of dawn, everyone gathered around the fire for coffee and breakfast. Lamebear and Windwalker walked over to the body bag that contained the fallen brother. There was movement in the bag, like someone trying to get out! Lamebear unzipped the bag and jumped back drawing his side arm. The body was gone! Twenty large rattle snakes had taken its place! When Lamebear and Windwalker began shooting, everyone’s attention turned to them. “What the hell are ya’ll doing?” the Sheriff yelled.
“Snakes, Rattlesnakes!” Lamebear shouted back.
“It’s too damn cold for snakes!” the Sheriff yelled.
Lamebear tossed a dead rattler at the Sheriff’s feet. “Yeah, I know…then what’s that?” Lamebear asked.
About that time, two of Lamebear’s officers ran into camp shouting, “Redwine and Colter are nowhere to be found—they had the last watch! We can’t find ‘em!” the Officers shouted.
The Sheriff looked at Crowbar and Conrado, who had discouraged looks on their faces. “You boys better start trackin’ and take Windwalker with you, he’s good, too. Tim, you go and take six Officers. The rest of us’ll stay here and break camp,” the Sheriff ordered.
Without question, the men did as they were ordered. Conrado, Crowbar, and Windwalker went to the spot where the guards were last seen and began to see sign down the mountain. An hour of silent tracking had led them to a rocky wash. They paused to scope out their surroundings.
“No blood—are they being drug, carried—what? What are we following? I don’t see any sign!” Tim asked.
Crowbar, without speaking, held his finger to his lips and pointed down the mountain. They crossed the open ground of the wash, rounded a ridge and down a finger of the mountain that turned into a boulder field. Conrado stopped abruptly and darted behind a boulder, and everyone followed his lead. As they peeked around the boulders, they could see what looked like a body laid out on a big, flat rock as large as a kitchen table. Cautiously, they made their way closer to the body. The mountain was quiet, no birds, no wind, nothing—only dead silence. As they neared the body, three of the young Tribal Officers began to get sick and vomit. The body had all the skin removed, the head was missing, along with the feet and hands—GONE!
Conrado and Crowbar stood on each side of the body, looking it over very closely. Crowbar leaned over and sniffed the body.
“What the hell are you doing?” shouted one of the Tribal Officers.
Crowbar paid him no mind and continued to sniff up and down the body like a blood hound.
“What the hell is that crazy old bastard doing?” another officer shouted and charged toward Crowbar. Sargent Windwalker grabbed the young officer and held him.
“Shut up and respect your elders!” Windwalker told him.
“This is a bear,” Crowbar said.
“What?” Windwalker asked.
“This is a bear! Been killin’ bear all my life. I know what bear smells like and looks like. A bear looks a lot like a human when you remove the hide. Some tribe won’t eat bear because of it. They believe the bear is our brother. But I eat bear,” Crowbar said calmly.
“Are you sure?” Windwalker asked as he moved closer to examine the body.
“I’m not sure, I’m positive,” Crowbar replied.
“So, they’re playing mind games, psychological warfare?” Tim quietly surmised.
“No, I think it’s more like witchcraft, black magic, dark spirits, demons,” Conrado said.
“Why do you say that?” Tim asked.
Conrado pointed to a track leading away from the body. It was twenty inches long and had three toes with claw marks from each toe.
“Oh! Wow! Kinda’ wish I hadn’t seen that,” Tim said.
They followed the track to a sheer cliff with a two-hundred-foot drop, where they lost the trail. Crowbar, Conrado, and Windwalker looked in every direction and found nothing, no sign, nothing to follow.
“It’s like it just flew off this cliff! Is that what you’re sayin’?” Tim asked Conrado.
“That’s what it did.” Conrado said in a cool, calm tone. The group of trackers gazed over the cliff as the fog and clouds rolled and moved around the mountain much like it did that morning when Tim observed it on Tombstone Mountain. It darted and whisked around boulders and trees like phantoms searching for something. Except this time, under these circumstances, it was much more daunting.
An owl hooted behind them, and Crowbar and Conrado looked at each other and nodded as they quietly thumb-cocked their Winchesters. A crow cawed and the owl hooted again, and at that moment Conrado and Crowbar stood up, turned and shot all in one quick motion. Tim and the others hunkered down as they spun to see what the shooting was about and watched as two bodies fell from a tall pine about forty yards behind them. They approached the bodies with caution and rolled them over, it was two of Otie’s warriors. As they examined the bodies, a wisp of fog moved around them, and then similar to what had happened to Harold’s pack horse, it wrapped around the legs of two officers and drug them over the sheer cliff to their deaths as fast as a frog can flick a fly with its tongue! The group scrambled back up the mountain to report their findings. After catching up to the posse, they reported what they found and what had happened.
“Why is this happening to my men and not yours?” Lamebear questioned the Sheriff for his thoughts.
“Well, Lamebear, we had a little help from Miss Cherie Won-Fon-Taine. Do you know who she is?” the Sheriff asked Lamebear.
“The Voodoo lady over on Little River?” Lamebear answered.
“Yes, that’s right,” the Sheriff affirmed.
“Sheriff, you mean to tell me that you believe in this witchcraft and magic?” Lamebear asked.
“After what you’ve seen here today, don’t you?” the Sheriff asked.
“I don’t know what to believe! All I know is, I have some dead and missing officers, and I’m pissed off!” Lamebear angrily replied.
“My suggestion to you is, to get you and your men off this mountain before you don’t have anyone left to get gone with!” the Sheriff told Lamebear.
“I’m not running from this asshole! I’m going to catch him and put him away for the rest of his life, or kill him in the process,” Lamebear shot back.
“Suit yourself, but this ain’t no ordinary person or situation. This ain’t a fist fight at the Casino between two drunks, or even a killin’ over a dope deal. This is other worldly things that we have never seen or have any defense against except what we got from Miss Cherie. I don’t know what else to tell you, Lamebear,” the Sheriff explained.
. . .
The posse trudged on in silence. There was a somber tone in Lamebear’s voice when he spoke to his men as they rode in the cold mountain air searching for any sign of Otie’s war party. Conrado, who was in front of everyone looking for sign, pulled up on his reins, and smelled the air. A light breeze rolled down the mountain as he turned and rode up alongside the Sheriff.
Conrado spoke softly, “There are three above us, walking parallel and watching; one behind, watching our flank.”
“You need help?” the Sheriff asked.
“No,” Conrado answered.
“Be careful,” the Sheriff whispered and winked. Conrado rode back to the front and acted as though he found some sign, ribbed his horse around the mountain and up a ridge, disappearing into the fog and pines. The Sheriff slowed the pace and nervously listened for any sign of what was happening. In about an hour, a shot rang out behind the posse, and everyone dismounted. There was more silence and a light drizzle began to fall. In a few minutes, Conrado’s horse came galloping up behind the posse without Conrado and with the reins dragging the ground. The Sheriff and Fred spurred their mounts in the direction from which the horse came. At about a hundred yards behind the posse, they found Conrado laying on the ground with one of Otie’s warriors on top of him. The warrior’s knife was still in his hand and there was a .45 hole through him. They dismounted and flipped the dead warrior off Conrado, who was still clutching his 1911. Fred and the Sheriff dropped to their knees and lifted Conrado’s head onto their laps.
“Conrado, Conrado!” Fred shouted. Conrado slowly opened his eyes and looked up at Fred and the Sheriff.
“I got the other three, with my knife. This bastard jumped out of a tree on me. . . had to use my .45,” Conrado said with short, labored breaths.
“Don’t talk, be still, where did he get you?” the Sheriff asked as he looked him over.
“He didn’t, just knocked the breath out of me, when he knocked me off my horse. I was just resting when ya’ll showed up and started messin’ with me,” Conrado said.
“Damn it, boy, I ought to whoop your ass for scarin’ me like that!” Fred yelled as he stood, shoving Conrado off his lap.
“You gonna be alright. . . nothing broke?” the Sheriff asked.
“No, just gettin’ old, like you two!” Conrado said and then smiled.
The Sheriff and Fred helped him up about the time Windwalker showed up, leading Conrado’s horse. The posse made their way up the mountain to the main trail with no sign of Otie or any other warriors. As they topped the mountain onto the trail, Conrado and Windwalker stopped and held up their hands for everyone to stop.
“They came down the main trail and headed east, maybe two hours ago,” Windwalker said as he squatted down and examined the trail.
“How many. . .can you tell?” Lamebear asked.
“At least twenty, give or take two or three,” Windwalker replied.
“He’ll know somethin’s up when he doesn’t get a report from one of those scouts that Conrado dispatched,” Fred pointed out.
“It’ll be dark soon, and if we keep pressing on in the dark, we’ll be target’s. . .easy targets,” Tim said.
“It’s like he wanted us to see the sign and follow him,” Crowbar pointed out.
“That’s what it looks like. We better come up with a good plan before daylight,” Lamebear said.
No matter how big the fire was, as darkness came, so did the fear. No moon, no stars, only black, cold darkness. It surrounded the posse and seemed to squeeze them with the darkness and fear. Each Tribal Officer stood around the fire with a cup of coffee in one hand and the other on their sidearm, rifle slung over their shoulder. Harold didn’t turn loose of his Winchester, and Shotgun slept with his .20 hugged up close.
“No disrespect, but you fellas are a lot older than me. I’ve heard stories about you, Sheriff, and you too, Fred. Stories about you before the war, stories about during the war and after. I’m told that ya’ll found Conrado when he was a small child wandering in the middle of nowhere in South Texas,” Lamebear stated with curiosity.
“Yep, that’s right. Fred and I were cowboying down around Eagle Pass on a ranch that covered eighty thousand acres. You had to drive forty miles and open twenty gates before you got to the main house. We were checking cows and saw this little kid walkin’ around out in the middle of nowhere. He looked to be three or four years old, and we thought he was a Mexican. We took him back to the ranch house and showed him to Mr. Harris, the rancher who we worked for. None of the Mexicans could talk with him. He couldn’t understand them, and they didn’t understand him. We went everywhere within a hundred-mile radius, looking for his family and trying to find someone to talk with him. You got to remember this about 1958, there weren’t many phones out in that part of the world and a long, long ways between towns. We checked every Mexican village and any Indians we could run into, until finally we ran across a Jicarilla Apache who could communicate with him a little bit. The old Apache said that the boy spoke an Apache dialect and his name was Conrado. The boy couldn’t remember how he got to where we found him, and he didn’t know where his family was or what had happened to them. There were no Indians that anyone knew of in that area for at least a hundred miles or better. We looked, Mr. Harris looked, and a lot of other people tried to find someone who had lost a child. No one knew anything. . .it was like he fell out of the sky. We cowboyed there for about another year and a half. We got to missin’ these mountains and homesick for Oklahoma. So, we told Mr. Harris we appreciated the jobs, but we were gonna’ sky up. We had gotten really attached to Conrado—he went everywhere with us and slept in the bunkhouse with us. We told Mr. Harris we could find him an Indian family to live with in Oklahoma. He liked the boy, too, so he thought about it a little while, but then he agreed, and we brought the boy with us. It didn’t take long to find him a good home, and we still spent a lot of time with him. We’ve always been a part of his life and he ours, the only kid either of us ever had, I guess. We taught him to ride, shoot, hunt, and a few bad habits that he didn’t hang on to…like drinking and smoking. People are placed in other people’s lives for a reason I believe,” the Sheriff said.
Everyone in the camp listened intently to the story. It distracted them from their fears for a little while and gave them something to ponder. Each one thought about their own family. This night the wolves didn’t come, not a howl, no sounds, not even the rustle of a leaf, no wind, no breeze, only the bone-chilling, damp cold. Sometimes anticipating bad things is as frightening as when they happen. Worry and fear can be harder on the mind than battle can be on the body.
“I think Otie has lost track of us, since his scouts couldn’t report our location. He doesn’t know we’re here. I think we should move out in the middle of the night and leave all the pack animals here and travel as fast and light as possible,” the Sheriff suggested.
“We’ll still be targets moving in the dark with flashlights as a bullseye. It’s so black tonight. I can’t see my hand in front of my face,” Tim pointed out.
Lamebear fumbled in his pack saddle and pulled out a pair of night vision goggles. “I have one pair of these. I did have two, but one of my missing officers had them,” Lamebear said.
“One pair of night vision? I don’t think that’s gonna’ help us,” Fred said as he lit a Marlboro and took a sip from Ray’s flask.
“Wait a minute, one may be all we need. One man rides point, wearing those, and all the horses will follow,” Tim suggested.
“I think that’s a great idea, and our best option, since we have the element of surprise on our side for right now,” Lamebear agreed.
“Willard, you and Ray stay with the pack line. Lamebear, leave two of your officers. Everyone else, we leave at one a.m. Take water and plenty of ammo,” the Sheriff barked commands like a general.
At one a.m., in single file with Lamebear riding point wearing the night vision, the posse set out into the darkest night of the year. A cold, winter wind blew lightly through the mountains and the riders turned up their collars, riding in the pitch black, hoping their horse was following the one in front of it. The darkness made it impossible for the rider to determine whether or not they were on the trail; they were forced to rely on their mounts and Lamebear. Almost four hours of riding in pitch black darkness had been a mental test for everyone involved. Then each mount stopped, and the faint sound of drums and chants drifted into the riders’ ears.
In the distance, the glow of a campfire could be seen. Lamebear dismounted and approached each man quietly and whispered his plan as he took their horses and tied them off the trail. As they neared the camp on foot, each man split off, one by one to surround Otie and his warriors. When the posse got a good look at the camp, they could see thirty warriors gathered around the fire, Otie standing and chanting in front of the fire, while four drummers beat the rhythm of the ceremony. Two masked dancers began dancing around the fire with what appeared to be a human head on the end of spears. They were reminded of what Miss Cherie had seen and reported to Tim and the Sheriff. Then the sound of huge, flapping wings was heard, and a creature that can only be described as a demon came from the dark sky and lit behind Otie. It had the body of a bear, the legs of a huge wolf with three, clawed toes on each foot, arms like a man with claws on its fingers, huge leathery bat like wings and a head that looked like a cross between a bat and a goat. The creature took the decapitated heads from the dancers and began to eat them.
At that point, Lamebear shouted, “Otie, you’re under arrest, throw down your weapons! We have you surrounded!
Otie was startled and angered. “Kill them, kill them all!” Otie shouted.
The demon launched itself into the blackness with a scream from hell, and the warriors let arrows and lances fly. The defining sounds of the. 308s, 30-30s, and .45s filled the crisp night air and rang through the mountains with muzzle flash all around Otie’s camp. Dust, shattering rocks, ricocheting bullets and screams followed the first bark of a rifle. Otie fled into the cover of darkness, while his warriors charged straight into the muzzle flash and sound of firing guns. Some warriors were cut down immediately, while some hit their marks with lance and arrows. The demon silently swooped down and grabbed two officers; you could hear their screams over the sound of gunfire. One officer lay pinned to the ground with a lance as his assailant finished him with a flint tomahawk. One officer lay dead with an arrow through his neck, and two more reeled in pain, clutching arrows in their chests and legs.
Harold didn’t want to kill anybody, but when faced with a charging enemy wielding a war club, he made exceptions. Fred and the Sheriff slowly walked toward their enemies, firing their ever-faithful Colt .45s. They flashed back to Korea and didn’t stop firing and reloading until everybody in camp had stopped twitching. Lamebear was only grazed by an arrow on his arm.
Tim managed to get clubbed from behind, but Windwalker dispatched Tim’s attacker for him. Crowbar had found an excellent position behind a blowdown, where he managed to crop a warrior behind the Sheriff. Several shots were fired at the demon as it zipped over the campfire with the two officers. Conrado had his sights on Otie when he slipped into the darkness. Conrado pursued him into the night. It became a game of cat and mouse, or blind cat and blind mouse. They listened for one another to make a step, and then the other one would move. Conrado had discarded his rifle and drawn his elk-handled knife. Otie held his flint hatchet in one hand and flint knife in the other. They circled one another in the darkness, swishing weapons in the air and barely missing one another.
Otie shouted and taunted Conrado, “You boot-lickin’ Apache; I will cut your heart out and feed it to my demon! You have grown old and lost your strength and your agility. The last thing you will lose will be your life, and I will take it!”
But Conrado had the upper hand, all his life he had been able to see in the dark. He had never told anyone, because he was worried that people would be afraid of him, as basically predators are the ones who are able to see in the dark. As a child, his adopted parents would have to come and find him, because he didn’t come in from playing when it got dark outdoors as the other children did. They never questioned why, they just figured he wasn’t afraid of anything. With a quick leap and spin, Conrado had Otie in a wrestling hold that Fred had taught him as a teenager. Conrado took his knife and began to cut around Otie’s forehead at his scalp line.
About that time, a flashlight blinded them both, and the Sheriff yelled, “No, No Conrado, you can’t do it.” The Sheriff ran over to the pair laying on the ground. Blood was running down Otie’s face, as Conrado had already cut from temple to temple.
Fred was right behind the Sheriff. “Conrado I know he pissed you off, but you can’t do it. We’ve got to hand him over to the Feds, and we can’t hand him over with no scalp,” Fred argued.
Otie’s eyes were closed and his teeth clinched. Conrado’s jaw was set, and he still had pressure on his knife. After a few tense moments and a couple of deep breaths, Conrado flung Otie away from him and leaped up.
Lamebear and Windwalker quickly cuffed Otie, who was laughing like a mad man. “You can’t stop me! I’ll be back. . .you should have killed me! All of you will die! That includes you Lamebear, you and your kind, who are traitors to the Choctaw people! And the Apache. . .someday I’ll cut your heart out,” Otie ranted.
“Save your rhetoric, Otie,” Lamebear warned him. “You’re headed for Fort Leavenworth prison.”
“You’ll have plenty of time to plot our deaths,” Windwalker told Otie.
“All the braves dead?” the Sheriff asked.
“Four got away,” Lamebear reported.
“Lordy, what a mess, what a waste,” Fred said, as he walked through the camp which was strewn with bodies.
“What about that demon?” Harold asked as he looked up at the sky, pointing his Winchester, and spinning around like he was being attacked by birds.
The posse surveyed the sky as the sun rose over the Kiamichis and the Sheriff said, “I don’t know. . .I just don’t know.” Then he holstered his .45 and walked toward his horse. “Lamebear, me and my men are going back to camp. We’re loadin’ up and gettin’ off this mountain fast as we can. It looks like we need to get Tim to a hospital. I expect you to keep the deal we made on the reward. You can say that Harold captured Otie in your report. Harold, I know you don’t cotton on telling lies or even stretching the truth, but you’re not telling it—Lamebear is. Besides if you don’t go along with it, I’m sure Lamebear will probably put you in that pile of bodies over there,” the Sheriff stated.
Harold glanced over at the camp littered with warriors’ corpses and slowly nodded his head in agreement. “Law enforcement personnel can’t claim it, and Tim has a history with the CIA, so that might complicate things. Fred just got out of prison a few weeks ago, so that’s a problem, and I don’t think we can sell the story about Willard and Ray capturing him. That leaves you as the only civilian to claim the bounty,” the Sheriff explained.
Lamebear assigned a few of his men to stay with the bodies of his fallen officers and the warriors. Tim was helped onto his horse after receiving some first aid to his head, and the posse headed back to break camp and start the long ride back down Middle Mountain.
. . .
The morning broke bright and clear. A blue, Fall sky and sunshine was a very welcome sight after several gloomy days. If it were not for the loss of life, the ride down the mountain would have been a more enjoyable one.
“If Middle Mountain wasn’t haunted before, it sure will be now,” Shotgun said as they made their way down the mountain.
“It seems that nowadays, I have much in common with ghosts,” the Sheriff replied.
After Lamebear descended the mountains, he had phone and radio signal and knowing for certain that Otie was in custody and did not have EMP capabilities, he ordered a helicopter to recover the bodies.
Lamebear’s official report stated that the Tribal Police with the aid of Sheriff McCloud, two of his deputies and two civilian guides, killed and captured Chief Otie and his warrior cult. He left out Fred, Tim and Ray for good reasons and stated Harold as the one who captured Otie. It made local, state and national news, while the Feds were in New York City looking for Otie.
. . .
Since the Sheriff and his crew had missed Thanksgiving, Miss Cherie and Fred cooked a big after Thanksgiving meal for everyone involved, at Fred’s place. Miss Cherie’s gumbo, Fred’s venison stew, and a fresh ham with all the trimmings, was spread out on the old chuck wagon as the campfire burned, and the Autumn leaves drifted in the breeze.
The Sheriff was the last to arrive, and as he walked into the circle of newly found friends, he stopped and looked around. “Well folks, I got some bad news. The Feds, who were transporting Otie to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, had a wreck and ran off a bridge before they got out of the Nations. They fished the car out of the Arkansas River and recovered the bodies of the Federal agents, but Otie was gone. The back door was open, and he was gone. They’re draggin’ the river, but sumthin’ tells me that they’re not gonna’ find anything. The good news is, Lamebear got the paperwork done for the reward, and the Feds had possession of him, so we still get paid. The folks in the car followin’ them reported that a fog rolled in and it looked like it pushed the car into the bridge railing and into the river,” the Sheriff reported.
“Looks like everyone’ll make some money off this endeavor, except me. Even after I get my forty-two thousand, I’m still 60K in the hole on this venture,” Tim said. Ray handed Tim his flask. “Thanks Ray, that’s what I need—a drink,” Tim said. Tim turned the flask up and then spit on the ground. “Damn! Ray, what the hell are you trying to do to me. You got rocks in your flask!” Tim shouted.
Ray reached down and handed Tim one of the rocks he had spit out. It was a small, gold nugget.
“What in the world did you do, Ray? It looks like you filled this flask about half full of gold nuggets! I guess he was picking up small nuggets, while we were chiseling. It’s not a million dollars’ worth, but it’s better than nothin’!” Tim said.
“Hell, I bet my Grandpappy hid more than that’s worth in these mountains,” Fred said.
“Was he a miner?” Tim asked
“Why hell, no, I take it you don’t know who my grandpappy was?” Fred asked Tim.
“I guess not,” Tim replied.
“Frank James. Frank James was my grandpappy, Willard’s great-grandpappy. Willard’s named after him, Willard Frank Scott,” Fred explained.
“THE Frank James, as in Frank and Jessie James?” Tim asked, intently interested.
“Yes, that’s right. They hid loot here, there and yonder; no tellin’ what was left and never retrieved,” Fred said.
“I’ve studied all the possible treasures that could still be hidden here in Oklahoma, and according to legend, the James gang left a lot in these mountains. But I never had a reliable source to dig deeper into the legends and sort out the truth. . .until now,” Tim said with a new, brighter attitude.
“Don’t forget, we’ve still got a map that we never figured out, too,” Fred said. “We followed you, not the map.”
“Hmm. . .looks like I might be around here a little longer,” Tim said.
. . .
After the feast, Miss Cherie returned to her shack on Little River and reflected on everything that had happened in the last few months. She brushed Rambler and watched the owl in the hayloft as the wind brought an arctic chill to the River Valley. She scattered feed for her chickens and gazed at the mountains. Snow clouds hung over the region, and it looked like an early winter was at hand. Snowflakes began to drift down, which made the mountains appear cold and difficult to overcome with a touch of mystery. There are places here, where time stands still, the living have much in common with the dead, and a ghost will cast a shadow. Only the brave and the uninformed dare travel there and at their risk!