Kentucky Hauntings (13 page)

He put his prize hunting dogs in the pen out back and fed them their supper first. Then he heated up some stew and cornbread and ate by himself.

The dusk deepened and the moon came up. Lightel decided to relax a bit and let his food digest before he cut up the buck, so he took his guitar and moved out onto the front porch. He started strumming softly, but he suddenly was overcome by a most uneasy feeling. He stopped playing his guitar and sat quietly, listening. Then he realized what the problem was. The woods around his cabin were totally silent. The crickets, frogs, and all the forest creatures were not moving or making a sound. That was a sure sign of danger close by.

Suddenly, the silence was broken by Lightel's hunting dogs whimpering and running out from behind the house with their tails tucked! They dashed under the floor of the cabin and stopped whimpering, falling as silent as everything in the woods. Lightel was amazed. He had never known his dogs to dig out of their pen before. He laid his guitar on the porch beside his chair and stood up, still listening for any sound.

Then he heard what he wished he hadn't heard. His skin crawled as the air was pierced by a screech like nothing Lightel had ever heard from human or animal. It came from behind the cabin in the vicinity of the buck. Then the noise started to move toward the end of the cabin. He was too frightened to move.

In the moonlight, Lightel saw something stop at the end of the porch. It looked red and smelled bad, and it walked upright. Its eyes glowed red, too, as they focused on him and started slowly around the porch. It threw back its head and let out another blood-curdling screech.

Lightel thought he could not move, but the last screech pumped adrenalin to his legs, and he lunged for his cabin door. He got inside, closed the door, and bolted it just as the red thing came up on the porch. Lightel's escape had been a narrow one, and even then he was not sure he was out of danger. The cabin walls and doors were thick. Lightel prayed they would hold the thing outside. He crouched beside the door and listened to the thing scrape its claws across the wood, but fortunately the door held. The creature scraped and scraped, and then paced back and forth across the porch. It walked upright most of the time, but sometimes Lightel could hear it walking on all fours.

The night crept by and the red thing stayed on the porch. The dogs stayed under the house and never uttered a single bark. Lightel got his loaded gun and held it across his lap, but he had the feeling it wouldn't offer much protection if the creature got inside.

Finally, mercifully, the sun came up. It was not a welcome sight for the red thing. It let out another screech that rattled the small windows of the cabin. Then it moved off the porch and vanished into the woods.

Lightel waited to go outside until he heard his dogs come out from under the cabin. He figured they would know if the red thing had gone or not. He found his guitar untouched on the porch, but the buck he had hung in the tree was completely devoured. He was grateful that there was no sign of the red thing.

Lightel told friends and family about his frightening ordeal, but nobody believed him. Some suggested that he must have sampled some moonshine after he ate his stew and cornbread. He had not had anything to drink, though. He knew what he had seen.

Only one other old-timer said he had heard stories of red things that lived deep in the woods and hardly ever came out. He said it only happened if their food supply got really low. Nobody believed him either, except Lightel.

For the rest of his life, Lightel made sure his chores were done and that he was safely inside before dark. People could laugh at him if they wanted to. He was not going to take any chances. He was thankful that he never heard that awful screech or saw the red thing again.

Roberta's Uncle Josh always had dogs on the farm. He told this and other dog stories that always fascinated us
.

Some of us believe that dogs go to heaven as people do, and that they can return and appear to the living.

Howard was a little black mutt, a dog of mixed breed. He did not come from a royal canine bloodline; he came from the pound as a rescue dog to four-year-old Mattie Granger and her family. From the day they brought him home, Howard made it clear that his heart belonged to Mattie. She was equally clear about her love for Howard. She named him Howard after her best friend who had moved away. Howard was happy to take over that role.

Mattie and Howard liked to play ball in the backyard. When the ball would roll into the woods behind the house, Howard would go fetch it and bring it back. One day Mattie threw it so hard that it rolled into the woods out of sight. Howard dashed into the woods, and Mattie ran after him. Mr. Granger happened to see them and called them both back.

“Don't go into the woods, Mattie,” he said. “It would be easy to get lost in there. Mr. Phillips owns them, and he hasn't cleared out any trees in years. Any kind of dangerous animal could be in there. Plus, I know Mr. Phillips has a big dog. I want you to play in your own yard.”

“Okay, Daddy,” promised Mattie.

Howard made no response. He wouldn't have promised to stay in the yard even if he could. The woods were a wondrous place to the little dog. There was space to run unseen among the brush and trees, and there were things to chase!

One day Mattie came down with a cold and couldn't come out to play ball with Howard. Howard stayed inside and kept her company for a while, but when she went to sleep, Howard scratched on the door for Mrs. Granger to let him out. She thought he would soon be back at the door wanting to come back inside, but that was not what Howard had in mind.

The little dog headed straight for the woods. He was sure he could find something to do there, and he was right. First thing, up jumped a rabbit, and the chase was on! To Howard, it was a wonderful game.

Howard kept in sight of the rabbit until he found himself in unfamiliar territory. Suddenly, the rabbit turned into some bushes and was gone. Howard stopped, a little confused. Just then, a noise in the bushes caught his attention. He thought it was the rabbit, so he sensed no danger. Howard watched as a huge dog twice his size emerged from the bushes and charged at him. Howard was not a fighter, but he tried to defend himself. His efforts were useless, though, because the attacking dog was too big and too mean to handle. He went for Howard's throat and made the kill. Then he went on his way to Mr. Phillips's house, where he lived.

Mrs. Granger was busy and did not notice right away that Howard had not come back yet. Mattie woke up and asked for him, so Mrs. Granger went to the back door and called him. She expected him to come running like he always did, but this time there was no sign of the little black dog.

“Mommy,” said Mattie, starting to get out of bed. “I'll go look for him.”

“No, Mattie,” said her mother. “You have to stay in bed until you feel better. Howard is probably off chasing a rabbit somewhere, but I'll have your dad go look for him if he isn't home by suppertime.”

Howard still had not come home by suppertime. Mattie felt well enough to come down to the table for supper, but her mother still would not let her go outside. When the meal was over, Mr. Granger went into the woods to look for Howard.

“Howard!” he called again and again, but there was no response. Darkness was settling over the woods now, so Mr. Granger gave up the search and went back home.

“I'm sure he'll show up in the morning,” he told Mattie. “He's probably rambling around in the woods.”

Mattie went to the door and called for Howard before she went to bed, but all was silent in the yard and the woods beyond. She hoped her dad was right about Howard's coming home in the morning. She went to bed and finally fell sleep.

During the night, a thunderstorm passed over the Granger house. The wind howled and the rain beat down on the yard and woods. The thunder and wind woke Mattie, and immediately she thought of little Howard out in the storm. She pulled back the cover and got out of bed. She stuck her feet into her little house shoes and went down to the kitchen. She opened the back door and called and called for Howard, but he didn't come.

“I've got to go find him,” she told herself. “He's afraid of storms.”

And out the door she went, straight into the woods. She walked farther and farther among the trees, and there she saw Howard's body on the ground. She sat down beside him and began to cry. She began to feel a chill and started to cough, but she had no idea of how to get home. She began to get very sleepy.

Back at the Granger house, the storm woke Mrs. Granger. She went to Mattie's room to check on her and discovered she was not in bed. She looked in the bathroom, but Mattie was not there, either.

“Wake up!” she called to her husband, running back into their room. “Mattie's not in bed!”

They both hurried down to the kitchen and saw the back door slightly open.

“Oh, my Lord!” cried Mrs. Granger. “She's gone out in the storm to find that dog! She'll catch her death of cold. We've got to find her.”

She was interrupted by a bark coming from the edge of the woods. She and her husband both looked out the door.

“Look at that,” said Mr. Granger. “Howard's home!”

He opened the door wider and called to him.

“Come here, boy! Come on in!”

Howard made no move toward the house. He would bark, go into the woods, come out and bark again.

“I think he wants you to go with him,” said Mrs. Granger. “Maybe he knows where Mattie is!”

“I'm going to follow him,” said Mr. Granger, pulling on his raincoat. “I'll be back as soon as I can.”

Mrs. Granger watched Howard and her husband disappear into the woods. She stood at the kitchen door and waited as the minutes ticked by. The thunder and wind had passed on, but the rain had stayed on to continue its steady beat. She could see most of the yard from the porch light, but nothing moved out there.

She left the door and put on some water to boil for tea. When her husband found Mattie, she would need something to warm her up. She made strong coffee for herself and her husband. With that accomplished, she went back to the door. It seemed forever before she saw her husband emerge from the woods, carrying their daughter in his arms. Howard was not with them. She thought that was odd, but she now focused her attention on her child. She took off Mattie's wet clothes, put a clean, warm gown on her, and wrapped her in a blanket. Her head was hot with fever, so Mrs. Granger gave her some tea and put her to bed.

Mr. Granger changed into some warm, dry clothes and sat down with his wife to drink a cup of the steaming coffee.

“Where's Howard?” she asked.

“He's dead,” Mr. Granger answered softly.

“Dead?” gasped Mrs. Granger. “What happened?”

“It didn't just happen,” Mr. Granger explained. “He's been dead awhile. It looked like he got in a fight with a big dog, probably the Phillips's dog. He was back in the woods off the path, and I found Mattie beside his body.”

“But he was clearly leading you!” exclaimed Mrs. Granger.

“I know,” said Mr. Granger. “He seemed as alive as you and me! I thought he was alive until I caught sight of Mattie beside his body there on the ground. The Howard I'd been following vanished then. I wouldn't have found Mattie so soon without his help.”

Later that day, while Mattie was recovering from her ordeal, Mr. Granger went back into the woods with Howard's favorite blanket. He wrapped the body of the little dog in the blanket and carried it back to the backyard. He dug a grave and buried the family's best friend. This time Howard was home for good.

Roberta's Uncle Lawrence liked this story and often told it when we gathered for storytelling.

When Tim Dutton was a teenager in the 1900s, he moved with his family to a western Kentucky farm that they had bought at auction. He wasn't too pleased about the move because it meant living farther away from his friends and the small town where they had been living. There had been all sorts of things to do in town, but in the country it seemed he always had to be doing some kind of chore or dealing with a problem of some kind.

From the first day the family had moved to the farm, there had been a problem with the cows.

They didn't want to come from the pasture to the barn for milking at the end of the day. For the first two days, Tim's dad rounded them up and brought them to the barn, but then he decided it would be a perfect chore for Tim. Tim totally disagreed.

“I don't know why they can't come up by themselves,” he grumbled. “We should just leave them out there until they do!”

“I can't work by their schedule,” said Mr. Dutton. “It's strange, though. That big oak tree is the only shade, but they don't gather under it. They don't even like to walk by it.”

“Maybe they're spooked by the tree,” Tim's younger sister, Ester, suggested.

“That's silly,” said Tim. “Why would they be spooked by an oak tree?”

“Haven't you heard?” she asked. “A man hanged himself in that tree. He lost his farm and then he lost his mind. So he hanged himself.”

“You're making that up,” accused Tim.

“I am not,” she insisted. “People have seen his ghost standing by the tree late in the afternoon 'cause that's the time he did it.”

“Where did you hear that?” asked the father.

“At school,” she said. “Several people told me when they found out we had moved here.”

“I think maybe they were playing a little joke on you,” said her father.

“They weren't kidding,” she said. “They were serious.”

Tim and his father shook their heads and disregarded her explanation for the lingering cows. Ester shrugged her shoulders and went on about her playing. If they didn't want to hear the truth, it was all right with her. They could find out for themselves.

Tim thought the cows lingered because they liked grazing in the fresh air. Even cows would not like to be shut up in a barn when they could be free outside.