New Story---- The Ghost World

The Ghost world

by

Russell R Ellis

There was a place, in Walkenabo, the township I grew up in, named by the Chippewa Indians for a graveyard, on a hill above a lake and that was the name of the lake also below the hill. We even bury our dead not far from there. As I said, Walkenabo means land of the dead. where an entire world and the people disappeared, long before I was born, a ghost world just behind my grandpa's barn, not far from our home.

This is a story of an entire forest burned down that was a living, thriving, world, like the one we lived in, that disappeared, so fast that it was feared as a jinks, so bad that it took years after I grew up, before anyone began moving in and changing it for the better. But in my day it was haunted by mystery haunting knocks on tree’s coming from nowhere, and sometimes everywhere, weeping winds, and feelings of eyes watching our every move, but I loved it dearly and fondly think of it. So much of it was just grassland, with bog’s and bottomless lakes, some all covered with moss and surrounded by large forests of huge trees, we called islands.

This place once held huge lumber camps, with bunkhouses full of lumberjacks, a cook-house, and shed’s full of large two man saw’s, wedges, and all the other gear needed to get as many logs cut as they could, without power saw’s and machines we have for the same job today.

In the old day’s, just after winter set in, and at that time they would make a trail in the snow with there sled and horses and fill the imprint of where the runners were with water to turn into ice, then they would have a track, like a railroad track, that trains run on, so when they put the sled runner into the runner made by the sled they would slide very easily, inside the imprint of the sled’s runner, slippery from the water pored in it. So they could hook several, sleds together like train cars and then a lead team of six or 10 horses would get the sleds moving and once the sleds began moving, they no longer needed so many horses pulling, so they would quickly unhook all but two horses, and the sleds would move along, like boxcars hooked up together, moving along on the railroad track, moving the sleds to the train station. You could still hear faintly far away the husky yells of the team masters, yelling at the teams, or the axes hacking at the trees far off into the misty forest, and the cussing and swearing of the lumber jacks hard at work lost in a mirage, of the huge woods. Leaving you wondering what it must have been like. All that was left there, was where the mossy rock foundations were left, like ant hills, the buildings sat all surrounded by new tall tree's replacing the ones that were long gone by the fire.

I remember when we were logging back in those timbers and loaded our sled with logs we planned to saw for firewood, then we packed up to head home and hooked up Roxy and Tony, dads horses, to the sled and I road on one of the runners in back, as the horses plowed through the snow only hearing the sounds of jingling from the harness on the horses, and a fart every now and then, from the horses, as they re-leaved gas's along the way, it was one fart after another, as they moved along.

Then, it was like the spooky woods, shot two trees out of the ground in a V right in front of Rocky and Tony, and they got all stopped when they came into the V of the two tree’s. Now horses can get stuck, just like any tractor, and dad tried backing them up, but nothing, so he cut the tree's down. Got the Horses on the move again and they walked into a huge snowbank and were stuck again. So dad got out his shovel and shoveled the snow until they could move again. It was like the place was out to get us and it did again and again, with whispers of laughter in the wind.

There were Pond’s and lakes covered with peat moss, five six feet deep, created by the fast deep burning fires in the peat parts of the land, that threatened you, with illusions of people not there moving, out the corner of your eye. The moss that grew over the edge of the lakes, or over all of some of the lakes, and made them look so solid, that you could walk across without any problem, yet when you stepped on them you would sink to the knees, (or disappear if unlucky) with water filling where your leg was, and I always got a spooky feeling of snake like monsters, living under the moss, as the floating moss moved like waves. So like others, I as a little boy, avoided it often.

One of these bog lakes, was called the Beaver Dam, and on the edge of it was a nice gentle feeling place with a nice big tree and many small ones around a small grassy area, kept mowed as the deer spent most of the time at this place eating the grass. It was like a small park, where I always felt safe, even at the edge of the monster mossy lake.

But I never went farther then the small park-like place. It was a real beaver dam, and was a wonderful place to set alone, and day dream about being Peter Pan, and Robin Hood with his merry men, and watch the beaver work on there dam. That gave the place its name, it was a peaceful place filled with birds of all kinds, even ducks and geese on the lake in the middle where the moss didn't grow and I even saw, wolves, deer, and other wonderful critters walk by. Hunters use the place as a deer stand during hunting season. There was another deer stand on down the mossy pond from this place and I was put on this one as a kid and my little brother on the other deer stand and a deer came between us and wow, he started shooting as I dived to the ground. He had a trigger finger, and of course, he was severely punished by dad.

Another place was a meadow on a hill, by a cider forest, that had only a house foundation on it, and it was so spooky because it was so quiet, nothing at all seemed to come out to eat at this field, no wind, and every so often, the ravens or crows would fly by cawing, or a hawk squawking, scaring me so bad my skin would crawl, as shivers zigzagged, up my spine.

There was another place like the beaver dam, It was around a single huge Norway pine, the spooky thing about this place was, it was a small farm long ago, with people living there, Mom, pop, and children, some burned up in there home as there was no way to warn them, back then, the fire moved so fast, and this wasn't the only place that burned down to the ground, but it was a place you would see images, of fading people, walking by, like spirits on the move, walking from the field or barn to the house, as though they couldn't see me.

The family living at another place, we didn’t disturb. The family living there had no warning in those days as the fire shot at them, so they went into there well and died there they say. It was another creepy place of voices and strange things moving around.

Now its time to explain that this was not just a small community, it was a modern world of the old days, that just vanished, even roads that stretched threw half the State. The roads they always traveled over that was now just trails though the woods and ghost towns, and ghost farms, where people lived, one of those places was my dads uncle Walters blacksmiths shop, again, nothing but a foundation there and a small patch that allowed you to know there was a home there. Just whispers were left for us to hear.

Along one of the old roads, now called trails, was a place called Rolph's hill. We went there on a sled pulled by dads horses Roxy and Tony, and took cardboard boxes and slid down the hill. The people who lived on that hill, was my great, great grandma Elizabeth Rolph and my great, great uncles Forest, Guy, a huge tough man that walked in the door and dropped dead in his tracks, dyeing in there home on the hill, Mury was a gunfighter with a trigger finger, and Audry Rolph James, who became my great grandmother. Audry was born in Texas county Missouri, to Allison James, son of John and Nancy James, John was the son of Thomas James brother of Jesse and Frank James dad. But of course I never saw the hill when they lived there, the hill was just a hill with an apple tree on it and a trail of the old road that went to a ghost town called I think Hay Point. The other road was called the Bain Road that went to a part ghost town that burned down. A lot of people lived along both those roads.

They planted by there house and a large hole, they used to store stuff under the floor of there house.

The other road from Rolph’s hill went to the town of Palisade and Forest Rolph often walked to Palisade on this road, and got hypothermia one winter night and took off his close and folded them and place them beside him as though he went to bed and was found by a boy in the spring.

So many sad thing went on back then, because of a huge fire, that not only took homes, farms, businesses, and so many lives, like a sneak attack, taking people by surprise having no place to run, no place to hide, nothing fast enough to get away, and all hidden by a new growth of trees, mossy lakes, and a misty like cloud over it all, with so much silence as no one lived in there, so all you could hear from it was the train miles away, animals moving around, sticks breaking and the howling of wolves at night and perhaps the murmur of long ago happiness.