History

From: William Willis hellion@ix.netcom.com
Date: Friday, 28-Jul-95 10:33 PM
Story-type: Personal experience
Type: Ghost
Location: Texas, U.S.A.
Source: Email Submission

about 9 years ago or the summer of 86, i ventured off to a cemetary that had a lot of confederate dead in polk county texas. the reason for my journey had alot to do with my latent passion for military history,and a friend of mine who was involved with a grave registration project with the sons of confederate veterans.for an entire afternoon i walked among trees and plots bordered by wrought iron fencing and pondered the collective fates of the old confederates as it was unsubstantiated rumor that fully 75% of the fallen had all belonged to the same unit (10th texas cavalry hoods brigade) and died in the same sets of skirmishes, and were brought back to be buried by the surviors,(entirely possible as people then as now were extremely clannish).

earlier tom, chris, my girl friend at the time and i were drawn to a really fine specimen of a cypress tree that it took 3 of us to reach around, and while the three guys were modeling in front of the tree my girl backed up to take our pictures with a polaroid that was used in the registration process.( sweet jesus, but this makes me uneasy) jenine could not see us well as the sun was behind her and caused a glare in the viewfinder on the camera. jenine stepped into a hole and turned her ankle after taking only three pictures and we were frightened at the rate at which the ankle swelled and began t0 discolor. this required a trip to the emergency room where i dug the pictures out of my shirt pocket and saw that all three had not trace of us in them. the feature tree was dark and nondescript but we were not present in the photos. while we waited for the x-rays to develop we three guys agreed to go back and retrieve jenines car and hang around untill twilight just for grins. which we did.

nothing eventful happened untill around 2120 when a light fog began to form in the lower parts of the cemetary. as we were on the highest part of the cemetary, next to the county road that led in the fog never approached our position closer than 50 yds. the old cypress tree was down a gentle slope from us about 55-60 yds was bracketed by the fog, which appeared to have several layers. the three of us were sitting on the tailgate of toms ford and tom and chris were nursing a beer apiece,i didn't drink. i really had a boogery feeling, cold chill at 96degrees, hair on the back of my neck literaly attempting to stand, and an irresistable urge to get in jenines car and get gone. as i was announcing my intention of leaving, tom spit and said "who the hell would be riding a horse out there this time of night?" i saw no horse and demanded that he show me were he saw it. tom replied "i can't see it, i just hear it and feel it" we were all quiet, i heard the steady plod of a horses feet on gravel....gravel, jesus, we're on a sand hill surrounded by a veritable sea of grass with a 3/4 moon and i really should've left 20 minutes ago. i was raised on a farm where the descendants of sharecroppers lived and worked and when i was a boy the black family that was there farmed a big garden with a horse and all the livery that goes with that kind of farming. the sqeak of leather harness, the clink of chain and fasteners is something that i remember better than my wifes birthday, and on top of that sand hill in the blue water cemetary i heard a truly frightening parade of sounds of leather in need of oiling,shod and unshod horses on gravel, other sounds that tom and chris agreed had to be wagons, metalic clinks and chings but no clanks or bangs. all of this was just beyond the fog seemingly nearer than the fog or echoing in a strang manner off of the fog. i suddenly needed to whiz fiercely and suggested that they follow me over to jenine's dad's trailer so i could drop off the car. i've never been back there since even though i had a distant relative buried there in 94, amazing what a night out with the guys can do for your perspective on the paranormal.