Fear

Fear and I are great friends. For most of my life, I have been afraid of existence, I should do this, only to talk myself out of the idea due to money or fear. This is a short story about fear. Where I was brought up on fear. I was told to be scared of almost everything. Do not drink to tap water, do not run there, clean everything there are germs, no sex, life is short, hard and rough then you die. Mystery of the spirit world makes the people ski-dish and a bit unreliable. Sounds in the night due to the animals, bugs, sudden car scratches, people knocking over things made those sounds to a smaller extent than exciting and more mundane. However, there are those to a lesser degree even less than one-percent sounds that send those who believe to the movie theaters and watch scary television programs because they believe there is something that goes bump in the night. Well, one of those stories are about a place called Lame Deer, Montana an Indian reservation with around 3,124 people living and triple or more in the cemetery. The reservation has many ghost stories, big foot stories, murder mysteries, tree spirits, and demon stories. The ghost stories range from burnt-out homes where elders could be summoned by drums to sweat lodges where prior warrior spirits can be summoned with the right mixture of mushrooms, and stink grasses. The latest I heard was how nine terrorists were haunting the ice-wells because they had been murdered, and their bodies dumped in the ice-wells. Their ghosts were causing problems for some of the old timers fishing there. The big foot stories are told about how big foot would pick on people by dropping small pine-cones on them during the night to a priest who supposedly hit one going over the Ashland pass during a snowstorm. Murder mysteries depended on who was talking about who died. Example a chief found dead on the road from a heart attack or was he hard in the chest before passing on. The tree spirits or fairy mounds again would be told by elders about strange lights and going on around what are known or called fairy rings. The demon stories went along with tales of rich people losing all because hitch hiking on the road and being picked up by a demon with a hooked foot. All very good tales for people that love stories of this are this or that is that.

My story is about religion and how everything is meaning according to my mom. This is a story about bumps. First, you have to know about Lame Deer is in a valley which trees start covering the whole town in dark shadows by the tallest tress commencing at around six thirty at night. My mom started us in a Pentecostal church. Praying and singing is a big ideal there along with women wearing dresses, etc. We went to a late-night service of singing, and prayer the pot luck ran late so we got home already when the shadows covered home. The first bump started at 8 PM at night along with drums going off by the old police station. Then noises started to be heard through doors and walls. The noises sounded like eating. The two new dogs we had just adopted were going ballistic. I know God still loves us all. Even so, at times, fear is part of life when you are told to be quiet and do nothing. The Chinook camper was between the road and house, and something moved the whole shadow of the camper. The noise grew sounding differently over time. My mom said to pray. I asked about calling the police. I was reminded how much that helped with my bike. The police chief's son stole my bike, and nothing was done. Being young I listened and prayed until 3 AM in the morning when nature got the best of me. I went out and saw nothing but heard noises that sounded between crunching and fence bending like a wild animal having a rough time of it. Walking around the camper I was startled by the nose coming directly at me. No street lights in the teacher's compound at this time just the moonlight I was stuck more or less frozen when a horse whined and almost walked right on top of me. That night I learned an important lesson not all sounds of terror or terrible noises are frightful sounds that need to be investigated.

The Thanksgiving after Halloween that year was spent searching for a place to live. My mother and I were traveling the back roads of North Dakota in a Chinook camper. We ended up at my aunt, and uncles place a few days prior to Thanksgiving Day. The memory was not of the new-found wealth, or letters but the goose hunting done in a new Dodge Van. It was early 1980s, and the van was making a popularity contest with those that could afford to live a bit. Anyway, the salesperson said to use the van for a goose hunting trip. Wild those days when a kid and cousins, uncles, and a dog could go off in the morning goose hunting trip. My memories were of setting up the blind, the goose decoys and freezing my hands. The whole time having fun with my cousins running along with the dog and playing as kids did back then. Anyway, a goose hunting trip was to happen you have to shot geese and boom; they got three of the largest birds I have every seen. Remember I was a child and weighted less and was not that tall. So the birds were as big as me. Anyway into the back of the van went the geese bodies, dog, and three cousins. We were waiting to go home from the cold North Dakota weather. Everyone into the van went; I got pushed into the back with the three dead geese and the dog. I like that dog so it was not much of a problem and seat belt laws were not back then. Happily, we were off to home. Whilst one of the dead geese rose-up as if in one of the zombies in the movies now-a day in the murky plastic bag and started to flap around in the van. First off, the dog went berserk chasing the black bag from the back of the van to the front chairs where one of my uncles was there. The humor looking to the past was life and death really were something to see back then. I can see the hilarious picture of my family trying to get the goose, and dog separated while my other uncle was trying to pull over the van on a gravel road. Needless to say I did not sleep well that night. A few days later, the goose along with some turkey was served to the family. Just for spit I believe my uncle who finally killed the goose bit down into a piece of the goose meat and lost a tooth to a piece of buckshot left in the meat. Needless to say I slept less in those days. Being a bit freaked out that the dead could come back to life. Any ways I was thanking the creator for the life I was given.