Old Man lived at the peak of Ghosten Mountain, not two miles from my boyhood home. Covered in pine and birch, the top of the mountain camouflaged Old Man (I never heard him called anything but Old Man, so me and my friends of course never called him anything else). If in fact he was there. Speculation passed around that he wasn’t really there, only remnants from a previous time, holding secrets scattered around the top of that mountain. Maybe the ghosts of some Cherokee who passed through. My granddad told me once that as a child he had heard stories about some old crazy Civil War soldier who went up there and never came down. And there’s the white fox that folks keep talking about, he recalled, seeming to guard what’s left of an old cabin. Then the occasional hint of smoke arising from the top of the mountain. Or was it just a whiff of fog or a cloud passing by? But nobody, not grown-ups, not great grown-ups and certainly not youngsters like me and my cousins Billy, Daphne and Peggy, ever took a step in that direction. Leave it alone, we learned. It’s haunted.
So, we left it alone, until my twelfth birthday on December 17, 1949, when we woke up to a six-inch wet snow covering the brightest early morning landscape you could image. And looking up, the sunlit white covering Ghosten Mountain was a sight to behold. I had never seen it like that, so beautiful, so clear, so inviting. That Saturday morning, we circled around our brand new T.V., watching The Lone Ranger.
“It’s your twelfth birthday, Henry,” Peggy announced, just as the Lone Ranger’s and Tonto’s horses reared up and sped away. “So, what do you want to do? Wanna go down to the store, get a Baby Ruth? Then go build a snow fort, boys against girls?”
Looking out the living room plate glass window, I gazed across the street, past Bigby Creek and up the incline toward the top of Ghosten Mountain. “I want to go there, to see Old Man on top of Ghosten Mountain. To see if he’s really there, and to talk to him. Yep, that’s what I want to do.”
Besides music from The Lone Ranger echoing off the wall, not a sound, not a peep, crept out of Billy, Daphne and Peggy. They just stared at me, then laughed, first softly, then with uncontrolled abandon. “Really?” Peggy said, “what do you wanna do today?”
I just looked around at them, grinned, then whispered, “Who’s going with me?”
After Mom’s hot vegetable soup and baked bread, the four of us moved into the hallway next to the front door. We pulled on our boots, woolen coats and neck scarves, knitted mittens and leather caps with floppy ear covers, hollering to Mom that we were going out to make a snow fort. She came into the hallway and stuffed some of her fresh bread into our pockets. “Be back by early dinner; fried chicken and mashed potatoes. And maybe some Brownies.”
We assured her, in unison, that we would be back in time for THAT.
“And thanks for the bread,” Daphne said as we left.
The snow, wet and thick, continued to fall, covering tree limbs and bushes all along the path leading from our home through the woods and occasional neighbors’ yards. After about an hour the four of us reached the base of Ghosten Mountain, just at a crossing of the creek. We stared up to the peak. But the snow, falling more heavily now, obscured anything much more than fifty feet away. Then we looked down at Bigby Creek with its thin layer of ice staring right up at us.
“Henry, you sure you want to go up the hill?” asked Daphne.
“Yea,” chimed in Billy, “who knows what we’re going to find up there. What if he’s sittin there, waiting for trespassers and starts shooting at us. And what about Bigby, how we going to cross it? The ice looks mighty thin.”
I thought about that, then turned around and looked them all straight up. “You want to go on back, go on back. But I’m going. Anyone following?”
They looked around, then Peggy said she would go up and then Daphne and Bill nodded. We found some gray limestone rocks, wide and thick, and dropped them in the water. The ice cracked on contact, and we looked for more rocks, piling them up to fashion a walking bridge across the creek. “I’ll go first,” I told them, “then you follow me.”
Taking a running start, I jumped on one, then two, then the third pile of rocks, making it to the other side. Peggy followed, then Daphne. We all made it across with nary a wet boot to show for it. We called for Billy to jump, but he hesitated.
“You know,” he said, “I don’t think I wanna. I’ll stay here for a while, waiting for you all to come back down. You go on.”
Peggy, Daphne and I looked at each other and then back to Billy. “Suit yourself,” I told him, “Stay if you want, go on back home if you’d rather. We’ll be back down after we look around.” And we started the trek up that mountain.
After about one hundred yards we came up on a three-foot-tall stone wall, stretching for as far as you could see. I knew that during the Civil War both southern and northern troops had marched and camped around this part of Tennessee. I loved that time in history, and could name lots southern generals and some from the north. Hood’s Confederate army, with Forrest and Cleburne in support, had come right through here in December, 1864, I knew, and Schofield, under Thomas in Nashville, had come to meet them, to keep them from getting to Nashville. This has to be some breastworks put up by Hood’s men, I thought, and walked up and down that wall.
“What are you doing?” both girls asked at once, interrupting the other. “We’re getting cold and want to keep moving. And get finished with this crazy mountain so we can climb down, find Billy and get back to the house.”
I told them to wait, that this old wall might hold some secrets almost a hundred years old and I wanted to explore.
“You stop this right now, and start climbing again,” Peggy yelled.
Ok, I told them. I’ll check it out when we come down.
Climbing over the wall, the three of us headed straight up the mountain, passing through pockets of deep snow covering the top of our boots and fighting off the cold as best we could. The temperature dropped, it seemed, with every step. The two girls reset their scarves to block the cold and wind from their necks and chins, and covered their ears with the flaps on their caps. I wanted to hold off on that, to show I was tougher, and did for about two minutes. But once, while slowing down to study animal footprints in the snow appearing more frequently as we marched higher, I gave in, pulled the flaps down and tied the string tight under my chin. But I left the scarf loose around my neck. I had my pride.
“Maybe rabbits, or squirrels,” said Daphne.
“Or a fox,” I said, hoping to scare them some. It seemed to work, as two snowballs all of a sudden hit me in the head and shoulder. We chased each other around some, me balling up my own soft white weapons and pounding them. Then we started running up the hill.
Through the trees and falling snow, up ahead about half a football field length, we saw another stone wall, this one taller than the one below, and behind it what looked like the edge of a log cabin, with a partially collapsed chimney sticking up. We looked down into the snow at multiple footprints scattered about, too small for a cayote, but too big for a rabbit or squirrel. Looking at the girls, I asked if they still had it in them to go all the way with me to the top. Peggy, saying nothing but suddenly emboldened with a new found burst of energy, started walking up alone, and got to the wall before Daphne and me. When we caught up with her, she pointed toward the now fully framed cabin, with cedar trees flanking each side. Firewood was stacked on what remained of a front porch, next to a single straight-back chair.
Then Daphne hollered and pointed. “Look there, by the cedar on the left, that’s a fox, a white fox not moving, set against the trunk of the tree, just looking down at us. Next to it looks like some kind of sign, or marker. Wonder what that is? And, my god, look, the front porch, there’s two more foxes, both of ‘em white, sitting side by side in front of the door and staring!”
“Couldn’t be,” I said, looking up from studying the animal footprints. “No such things as white foxes around here, no matter what the tales say. Snow’s playing tricks on you.”
“You’re wrong, Henry,” said Peggy. “Just look now. There’s another one, sitting inside the cabin, looking out that window.”
We stared at the foxes. They stared at us. We knew about foxes around here, and how they sometimes carry rabies. But we also knew that foxes, and skunks, racoons, cayotes and the occasional bobcat, showed the disease through aggressive behavior and crazed looking eyes. But these showed none of that. They just sat there, looking. Like they were guarding the cabin.
“I’m going up, up to the porch,” I told the girls. “We’ve come this far, and seen this much, so let’s go. Each of us looked around to find something sturdy we could use to fight off the foxes if they attacked. I found a strong tree limb, as did Daphne. Then Peggy, after looking over under a bush, joined us holding something that looked like a long knife, all rusted and covered in moss.
“Let me look at that,” I said. I grabbed it, sat on a downed tree trunk, scraped away the snow, then pulled off some moss and dug into the rust. “Peggy,” I said without looking up, “this looks a lot like a bayonet! Look at the shape, at the little circle fastener that slides onto a gun.” I kept scraping. After a few minutes of scraping and rubbing with my glove, I saw, but just barely, what looked like the letters U.S. engraved on the side. “I wonder how long it might have laid there,” I said.
“Give it back,” said Peggy. Then she jumped ahead of us as we moved toward the cabin, all the while watching the foxes as they watched us. “I can fight them off if I need to,” exclaimed Peggy.
Before we got to the porch, the fox next to the cedar tree crept toward us with his body hugging the ground and his eyes fixed on us. Only a dozen or so feet away, he turned, jumped up on the porch and sat with the two blocking the cabin door. For reasons none of us could ever comprehend years later, we kept going. The three white foxes on the porch sat there, ears perked straight up, just watching us. From the window, the fox tilted his head to the side and, with a quizzical look, stared at us, then at his fellow guardians on the porch. All of sudden the fox in the window disappeared. A muffled sound, like a deep grunt, came from inside and we all stopped, frozen.
I whispered to Peggy and Daphne, “Somebody or something big in there, did you hear that?”
“Yea, Yea,” they whispered back.
The foxes made no move to charge; they just kept watching us. We looked at each other, nodded and kept going straight up to the cabin. As we reached the porch, we heard another sound, like a scratching, and looked at the window. There, where the fox had been inspecting us, was a white head of hair covering a bearded face of leather and grime, staring at us, tilting his head, just like the fox. Then a hand pulled a cover over the window. Running away seemed the best course of action at this point, and I have to admit that I turned and started downhill. Peggy grabbed me by my cap and pulled me back.
“Ohhh no you don’t,” she said, gripping her newly found bayonet. Red faced and determined, she reminded me that this was what I had wanted to do, that this was the birthday I had insisted on, that the three of us were all in on this mission. “Now,” she said, “let’s go inside. You first.”
Climbing up to the porch, the door to the cabin creaked open and there, standing before us, was the ancient face from the window, attached to a withered body wrapped at the shoulder in a worn, patchwork quilt. He held an equally ancient rifle, unlike any I had ever seen outside a museum. He looked around and whistled for the foxes. Ignoring us, they scurried around his feet and sat just inside the door. Then the old man just stared at us, saying nothing. Finally, fumbling for words, I mumbled that my name was Henry. And this was Peggy and Daphne. And our whole life we had wondered who, or what, lived up here on Ghosten Mountain. So, we came to see for ourselves. “And it’s my birthday.” This last part sounded stupid, I know, but it just sprang out of me.
Still saying nothing, the ancient figure stepped back and opened the door wide. Pointing inside, we started toward the door. Daphne and I threw our wooden sticks down on the ground, but upon looking at Peggy’s weapon, he grunted his first words. “Give that to me. Wondered where it was. Hadn’t seen it for years.” The snow tapered off, then stopped, as the sun draped the mountain forests, valleys and bushes in brightness. Entering the cabin, our eyes took time to adjust to the darkness that enveloped us. The brightest light came from the green-lit eyes of the four foxes staring out the small window, now laying side by side in front of the unlit fireplace.
The old man lit a candle and held it steady, standing there. Just in front of us was a slaughtered, hairless rabbit hanging frozen from the center beam crossing the ceiling. On the floor beneath the window were mounds of dirt covered roots, radishes, cabbages, shriveled carrots and squash. Nothing resembling a bed appeared anywhere, but a pile of straw mixed with moss took up the far south corner of the room. Next to it sat an old wooden trunk, with leather binding and a broken lock. A fork, spoon and large hunting knife sat in a metal bowl balanced on a table made of two, uneven cuts of wood. A bench, equally rough, with room to sit two, served as the only piece of furniture in the room besides the table and trunk. We stood while he sat on the bench, gun and bayonet sitting across his legs. Minutes went by without a word spoken. Finally, he asked what we thought of his foxes.
“Beautiful,” said Daphne, “I’ve never seen anything like them.”
“How come they’re all white,” I asked?”
He stared at me, saying nothing.
“Down the mountain we all call you Old Man,” Peggy exclaimed boldly. “You got another name? And how long you lived here?”
“Old Man is fine. And I don’t know how long I’ve been here. Long time, though. Been on this mountain since Hood went on south of here, running away from the General Schofield’s army after we chased him out of Nashville.”
I did a quick calculation, and realized that what he was telling us was that he had been there since 1864 or 65, or about seventy-five years. I was pretty sure that couldn’t be the case, but didn’t say that. We all just looked at each other, and watched as he called one of the foxes over and stroked his ears. “Did you say when ‘we chased him out of Nashville,’ I asked?” Are you saying you were in the Union army, fighting here? Where are you from, where did you come from?”
“You young ‘uns wouldn’t happen to have something to eat, would you?” Daphne pulled the bread out of her pocket and handed it to Old Man. He ate it as quickly as he could through his toothless mouth, then Peggy took out her bread and handed that to him. He gulped it down. “How ‘bout you, young fella, got any of that fine bread?” I handed it over and he pulled it into five pieces, one for each of his foxes and the last one for himself. “Take that pail over there,” he told me, “and go outside to that cistern hanging on the side of the porch and pour me some water. Snow’s been heavy enough to make some, and the rain from yesterday helped. Just knock through the ice there and bring it to me. I’m thirsty after that bread.”
Returning to Old Man I handed him the pail now holding a speck of water with ice and snow on top. He took it, drank some, and waited for us to talk. I started where I left off. Hood, Schofield, Battle of Nashville, where are you from?
“I see,” he mumbled. “OK. I got only a little time left, and it’s been so long, guess telling it now won’t hurt none. Besides, ain’t talked to anybody for god knows how long, and no one left to tell this tale to. Should tell it for Sally. So here, listen. But you gotta guarantee me, you can’t go back down this mountain and tell anyone what I’m about to say to you. Not for a few years, not till after I’m dead and gone for sure. Understand?”
“Yes sir,” we said.
“But first I gotta rest, we’ll talk in a little while.”
At this, Old Man stopped talking, sat quietly for several minutes, and laid down on his straw. We started looking around the cabin, inside and out, finding almost nothing of interest except that marker, which we now recognized as a small cross we’d seen when we came up to the cabin. Then we went back in and over to his trunk. “Let’s open it,” said Peggy. Lifting the cover, we saw some worn clothing, and a folded, ancient American flag. First, we pulled out some overalls and tattered white shirts. Next, we found a faded, frayed military uniform. On top of it was a belt and blue cap, each marked “U.S.” Then we lifted out the folded flag. We put all that on the table. Next Daphne pulled out a lady’s dark brown dress, moth eaten but still adorned in lace and bows. And under the dress some photos. One was of a young private in the Union army standing at attention in a well fitted uniform, which we guessed was Old Man. The other of the same young man, still in uniform, with a girl wearing a dark dress with lace and bows, holding hands. She was black. Stunned, we just stared at the photo, looked at Old Man sleeping on the straw, and wondered who this girl could possibly be. Even then, in the 1940s, a white man holding a black girl’s hand could lead to arrest, if not a beating or killing of them both. We sat the photos up on the table and waited for Old Man to wake up. We were full of questions.
While he slept Peggy and Daphne carried fire wood into the cabin from the porch. I scrounged around outside for dry kindling and took that in, placing it in the fireplace. We took the lighted candle and lit the sprigs, then placed small cuts of the firewood on top of that. Slowly the fire heated up and before long we felt a small, but welcome warmth spread across the room. Lost in the flames, we turned to find Old Man standing behind us.
“What you got there?”
“We were cold, and wanted to get your cabin warm. Hope you don’t mind. Here, come on in close.”
“Nah,” he said. “Feels good right here. One of you go over there next to those vegetables and pull up the loose plank. Get me my spirits and bring the bottle here.”
After Daphne found the bottle, saying it looked just like water, she brought it over and handed it to him. He took a swig, then another. “I see you been meddling in my things. I’m not sure I take kindly to that, but since you have, I might as well tell you things.” And we listened.
“I’m from right around here, right over there in that little town of Santa Fe. I was born there, and lived there right up till the war. When the war started, I was around twelve. Early on I knew I had no time for them Confederates crawling all around me. No time at all, them with their hollering about the god-damned Yankees coming down here to free our slaves and take our farms. Well, we didn’t have no slaves, and hardly had a working farm. But by the time I was fourteen or so, I did have a girl. Sally was only thirteen, but I intended to have her. We’d known each other just by walking on the dirt roads in Santa Fe, and I started to talk to her some. We started to meet secret-like for a while, sometimes right up on the side of this Ghosten Mountain. ‘Course we couldn’t tell nobody about that. You see, Sally was a slave to the Kennedy family next door. And, of course I wanted her free, or at least run away, so we could someday be together. I’d do anything I could to get that done. Nobody ever saw us, or heard us talking about running away together. At least that’s what we thought.
“When the Union soldiers came through here in ‘64 chasing Hood’s army, I told my folks I wanted to join up with them. My daddy smacked me across the face and tied me down to my bed. ‘No son of mine’s going to join no Yankee army, going to get us all in trouble, going to shame us in front of our neighbors. No, you stay put like this till you swear you’ll stay put.’ I could only think of Sally, and hoping she was OK while the soldiers fought all around. So, after a day of being tied up, I lied and swore to it. That night I snuck off and joined up with the Federals.
“I got my uniform, my gun, this one right here, and got assigned with General Ruger’s troops in Spring Hill. Not a day passed but we headed to Franklin to fight the Confederates, some from my own family on my mom’s side and some of them neighbors I’d grown up around. I didn’t know about war, not really. But then, at age 15, I saw more than any one boy, or man, should ever have to see. Finally, we fought off Hood and his army in the awfulist, bloodiest few days God ever saw, finally sending him and what was left of his army back into Alabama. That’s about the time Sally and her mom, dad and brother got their freedom. Her brother joined up with the Union army, working on keeping the Federal railroad lines open. After the battles in Franklin and Nashville, I snuck back into Santa Fe while marching close by and found Sally pulling a mule down a path close to my folks’ home. I told her to keep working the Kennedy farm like before, don’t make any trouble, and wait. I’d be back to get her after the fighting stopped. ‘I don’t think this war’s going on much longer,’ I told her. I stayed away from seeing my mom and dad.
“I got sent down to Mobile to help guard the port there, and all the time I worried about Sally. I tried to find some news of her from other soldiers coming down from Tennessee, even talking to some rebel prisoners, but nothing. I never heard from her or about her for the next five months. Finally, we heard about the surrender of Lee in Virginia and Johnston in North Carolina. I told my captain that I had a girl waiting for me in Tennessee and he gave me a quick pass to get home. ‘You can muster out up in Nashville when you get there. Just show them this paper.’ I started walking, then came across a stray horse, with bridle but no saddle, somewhere around Tuscumbia. And rode the rest of the way to Santa Fe.
“When I got to Santa Fe I went straight to my folks’ home. When my mother opened the door, I moved to hug her, but she looked straight ahead while backing away. ‘So, it’s true. You went and turned traitor on us all. Look at you in that blue uniform. How many of your kinfolk, your friends did you kill? And what about that nigra girl over at the Kennedy place? We heard, everybody’s heard. What shame you’ve brought to us all. I’m only sorry you didn’t get killed in the fighting. It would have been easier for us all.’ Then, my dad came to the door, took my mom’s hand and slammed it shut. I never saw them again.
“I went looking for Sally. It took a day or so, but I found her working in a corn field on the Kennedy place. I ran to her without looking around. I didn’t see her old Master, Mr. Homer Kennedy, but he saw me. He pulled his gun down from the wagon he was in and pointed it at me. ‘You got no right coming here. Traitors like you should be shot, or hung, but I’ll let you run for it. Start running, and don’t look back ‘till you cross the Tennessee border into Kentucky, and keep going north from there to be with your own blue-belly kind. And don’t think there ain’t word spreading about you and Sally here. Neither of you got any shame, playing around together these past years. We’re on to that. She ain’t mine to own now, but she’s still mine. Besides, she’s got no place to go. She can live and eat here if she behaves. But I tell you, I’d just as soon shoot her too if I get an ‘inkling you’re thinking of running off with her. Now go.’
“I looked at Sally, whispered, ‘Ghosten Mountain, at the first stone wall, midnight tonight.’ Then I ran as fast as I could. But not north. I went south toward this mountain, burrowed in behind that first wall down there, covering up with branches and leaves. By nighttime I heard horses riding close by down by the creek, and men with torches hollering about keeping the bloodline pure, and killing any Yankee traitors they find. Then I heard my name, and Sally’s.
“After a few hours I caught the sound of soft footsteps coming up the way. Looking out over the wall I saw a lone figure, a girl. Sally. She was scratched up, and bruised from a beating she got that night from her old master. She told me she had fought back, and yelled. Just then a troop of union soldiers patrolling the area wandered by and took her away. ‘Those blue coated men saved me,” she said. ‘Now you, in your own blue coat, you gonna keep me safe?’ Then she smiled, took some ham, biscuits and jam from her canvas bag and said, ‘Old Master Kennedy don’t know it, but he’s providing us some nourishment for a while.’
“That’s what Sally was like. Tough, pretty with a glint in her eye.”
Old Man took a breath, and leaned back on the straw. He seemed to drift off into a light sleep, his legs twitching and his chest heaving. Three of the foxes curled up around Old Man, while one sat by the fire watching us. Peggy, Daphne and I went back over to the chest again. Papers and documents littered the bottom, and we took them out. First was a discharge paper presented to Private Zakaria Turner, 23rd Corp, Army of The Tennessee, United States, June 14, 1865. So now we knew Old Man’s name. Under that was a poster of Abraham Lincoln, with the words of the thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery below that. Daphne dug deeper and pulled out an envelope with Zakaria’s name on it, and a letter inside informing him he would receive a lifetime pension of thirty dollars a month from the U.S. government in appreciation for his service.
Old Man moved some in his straw, and opened his eyes. “Where was I?” he asked.
I told him he stopped his story when Sally joined him at the wall on Ghosten Mountain.
“Yea,” he said.
“Well, I knew that this old mountain was supposed to be filled with ghosts, haunted you know, from when the Cherokee used to come and set up camp here on their hunting trips. Story goes that one night late in the 1700s people down in the new settlement saw light coming from the top of this mountain. The whole place was on fire and burned for days. When it cooled off, some of the men from down in Santa Fe climbed up to see what had happened. They never returned, and later when a search party went up to check on them, they found nothing. None of the white men, and no trace of the Cherokee. Not one teepee, not a horse or blanket, no bow and arrow, not one Indian, nothing. A bear roared in the distance, they later reported, and some of them swore they had seen a pack of foxes, all white, sitting on top of the mountain just staring at them. From then on, this place was called Ghosten Mountain and everyone stayed away until some union solders camped here, building those stone walls down a bit, and putting up this cabin for their officers. I was one of those soldiers. And I knew no one was coming up here. It was haunted, and defiled by us Union soldiers. This would be a safe place for Sally and me.”
Peggy went over to the table and pulled out the photo of Old Man and Sally. “What happened to Sally,” she asked?
“Come on with me,” he said. “I’ll take you to her.” He walked out the front door, the foxes following. He grunted, and they sprinted off the porch to sit by the marker we had seen earlier. “Sally had a way with the animals around here, and with the plants. I went down the back side of the mountain every now and then, since I’d set up a post office account in Eddyville, up in Kentucky, to get my pension. On the way home I’d get supplies, staying away from places I might have been known. Sally sneaked down to the old Kennedy place once or twice a year to see her mom. She and Sally’s brother and his wife and kids lived off in a corner of the old Kennedy farm, growing sweet potatoes and corn. They lived off his pension, beings’ how he was a union solder like me. He set up getting his pension at Eddyville, like me, and started cashing in my pension at the Eddyville bank when he got his. With this he’d buy us supplies for a long time, mostly leaving them for us at the back side of the mountain in a small cave we found or waiting for Sally to sneak down to the farm to get them.
“After a while we really didn’t need the money, and I told him to keep it all for his mom and his wife and kids. We’d go months without seeing anyone, sometimes a year, living off the land up here and scavenging around down on some of the farms at night for vegetables and fruit when the pears and apples came in season. We got blackberries growing up here on this mountain, and every summer we canned those. I learned how to make my spirits with the potatoes we pulled up from below, sometimes Sally’d take a few from the Kennedy farm. We never got caught, not sure why. Like I said, Sally was good with planting things, and pretty soon we had collard greens and beans and scraggly potatoes right over there, just behind this cabin. I bought some traps down on my early visits down to Eddyville, and we never wanted for rabbits or squirrels for eating. We lived just the two of us up here all that time till Sally got sick and died back eight or ten winters ago. I made some tonic from the berries and potatoes, and she drank it for days. But she finally gave out. She sure was a sight to see, so pretty, so strong. You can see that in her picture. She laughed so much. Funny to say, but I never really cried, I just thanked God I had her for so long and told her right at the end I’d be with her soon. We had a good life together, nobody bothering us. Can’t wait to see her. But I got these white foxes, our foxes we’ve had for all these years, one litter after another. They keep me company, watching out for me. Guess they will till I go off myself.”
Darkness grew all around us as Old Man wound up his stories. We went back in the cabin and he said he was tired, and wanted to lie down. “We’ve got to go,” I told him, “or our folks will start looking for us. But can we come back to visit, to hear more stories, to maybe bring you some of my mom’s bread and brownies?”
“Well, he said, “That would be nice, yes, that would be nice. But remember, don’t tell anybody about what you saw or heard up here today. Wait till I’m gone, then say all you want. And when you come back, don’t worry about my foxes, they’ve got your scent now and won’t bother you. Now, I think I’ll get some sleep. Just hand me my gun, and that old bayonet you found. And thank you for that. Wondered where that was for the longest time.”
The three of us climbed down the mountain, over the two stone walls and across Bigby Creek. Billy was nowhere to be found, so we guessed he had gone home. When we finally got to the house, mom gave us a tongue lashing, asking why we were so long up there, and letting us know she was worried silly about us.
“Sorry,” the three of us said in unison.” “We just climbed up the side of Ghosten and saw these walls,” I explained, “maybe from the Civil War, and an old cabin. Nobody lives there, at least not for a long time, and it’s about to collapse. Sort of boring, but not a bad walk for my birthday.”
We saw Billy eating an enormous brownie, not his first it seemed, just grinning at us. “And if you think you can have brownies now, forget it,” said my mom.
Two weeks or so later, around New Years of 1950, Peggy, Daphne and I gathered up some bread and ham, a can of pickled watermelon rinds and an old bottle of bourbon my dad had opened but hardly touched. We put it all in a backpack and climbed up the hill. The day was bright and crisp, with a coolness that inspired us every step of the way. We hurried up the mountain, over the walls and up the steps of the cabin.
The white foxes were nowhere to be seen. Entering the cabin, we found Old Man’s trunk open and the contents lined up neatly on the table. His gun, with bayonet attached, leaned against the bench. Old Man was nowhere to be seen, so we walked outside, around to the side of the house. We found him there, lifeless, resting across Sally’s grave, with the photo of the two of them clutched in his hands. The white foxes lay together just within the edge of the woods, guarding Old Man as always. Peggy walked back into the cabin and pulled the old flag off the table and brought it out to me. She and Daphne reentered the room to gather the rifle, uniform, Sally’s dress and documents. We each put aside one piece of Old Man’s and Sally’s story. Peggy pulled the bayonet off the gun, Daphne cut a clip of lace from Sally’s dress and I pocketed the photo of this young soldier who fought to free the love of his life.
We took Old Man in our arms, wrapped him in the flag, and with an old hoe found under the cabin steps, dug a grave next to Sally. We lowered him in the ground, making sure the photo was firmly in his grasp, placed the remainder of his belongings around the body, covered him, and protected his grave with a layer of rock and a makeshift cross. Standing over Old Man and Sally, we watched the foxes rise up, turn and vanish deep into the woods.
Over these past seventy years Peggy, Daphne and I have never shared the stories we heard on Ghosten Mountain, though when it’s just been the three of us, we recall those two visits up to that cabin and wonder if white foxes still look after Old Man and Sally.
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Learn more about Edgar on our Contributors’ Page.
Edgar’s book, From Calvin to Mao and Beyond: A Memoir, was published in 2023 and is available here.
(Photo: Valerie Everett/flickr.com/ CC BY 2.0)
- Old Man by Edgar A. Porter - October 3, 2024