Since it is a few pages long, I will post it in four parts.
If you like ghost stories, or not so much, either way I hope that you enjoy.
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It was 1832 and old man Burnaby, a lanky but able trapper, sat at the table with his bowl of radish and potato soup. His nephew, having had finished one himself, returned with another bowlful while old Burnaby’s friend, Lawrence, a good trapper and sometime prospector himself, threw bits of radish to Fit, Burnaby’s hunting dog.
Burnaby was very popular and admired by people in the town.
He was the one who found a great hidden treasure in the dark and supernatural woods that nearly surround a new and growing town, and shared it with the inhabitants of the town and their children.
Because of him, the old village had grown into a town, rather than fade away as what was happening in those years.
“Uncle Burn,” nephew James said as Burnaby’s wife Martha and James’ cousin Timothy walked in the door and closed it behind them, “When you going to tell us the story when you went up to the dark hills with Fit?” he asked.
Burnaby stopped eating and put down his spoon.
“You never told us the truth about what happened for those two days you were up there,” Lawrence added.
“Everyone else believed the story about you and Fit getting trapped in that mudslide and freeing yourselves. Coming down from dark hills two days later, to find men to help with that treasure,” James said.
Burnaby looked at his nephews, then at Martha his wife, and then at Lawrence, his friend.
“Fine, its been some time now, and I suppose that I can tell you all the truth.” old Burnaby said pushing away his bowl. “You all know that what I told the others was just a bunch of storytelling.”
Martha and cousin Timothy served themselves, and sat down to listen.
After everyone got comfortable, Burnaby lit a richly carved antique looking pipe.
“Now, what I’m gone tell you is the honest truth; what I saw up there, and this is something that I’ll just tell you three here this night, as Martha knows the truth already.”
Fit got up and lay down next to Burnaby.
“You all heard about the story of the Milburn place that stands by the old time road in the dark hills,” Burnaby asked.
“Everyone has,” said James, who has been raised in the backwaters.
“I haven’t” cousin Timothy said, having been raised in the city, and far from those lands and their peculiar legends.
“Well, one day me and Fit went out to set traps by the clear river that runs near the forest part where the frogs plagues come from, that’s heading directly to the dark hills. But, like you know, that time of the year, there aren’t too many good catches where pelts are concerning.
So I decided to set traps further in the forest where the ash trees end that’s just at the edge of those hills. The following day Fit and me went out to check the traps again, but we found nothing.
We found nothing at all in them traps.
Well, our supply of salt meat and bread was running low, and I recall that the river wasn’t all that full of fish either. So I decided to try my traps in them dark hills. That’s when it all started for Fit and me.
I set some near the giant stone, some by them abandoned prospector shacks and others near the edge of the trail that leads to the mountains. I had one more so I decided to leave it by the abandoned Milburn Mansion.
I’ve never left any traps that close there because of what trappers say about them Milburns and their mysterious end.
We covered so much land that day that it was starting to get late. I knew that since we were so far from home, we wouldn’t be getting back until the rising of the next sun. But, we started back anyway, because Fit and me couldn’t be staying in the woods, with all of those goblins stirring.”
Burnaby poked the fireplace with a stick and relit his pipe with it, then leaned back again. “We hadn’t gotten twenty yards from the last trap, when I felt the first drops of rain on my hat.
I heard the rolling of thunder for some time before then, and knew that it was going to come down with no mercy. So, Fit and I turned back and went up the road to the Milburn place, figuring that no one lives there anymore, and that them Milburns wouldn’t mind it if we spent the night in their place,” he said.
“But you know that the place is haunted uncle Burnaby, the old time trappers said so,” James said.
“No one ever goes there, and I’ve never laid one foot on that land, and I’ll tell you that you’ll never catch me anywhere near there either,” added Lawrence.
Martha got up to stoke the fire and to put some water to boil for the chicory coffee.
“What makes the dark hills so haunted?” cousin Timothy asked, getting a somber look from the others.
“Well, I’ll tell you, nephew,” Burnaby said. “The Millburn family; Ukiah and his wife May Bell, her brother Harmon, and Ukiah and May Bell’s six children moved to that land about ninety years ago or so.
Now, Ukiah became wealthy from raising cattle on that pastoral land, and decided to live the rest of his life in peace. He took his family far away from the city life. They built the mansion in the green hills, that’s what it used to be called before folk started calling it the dark hills.
In those days, the land was good, and Ukiah had it cleared out before the hose was built there. They lived there in peace for many decades.
In time, Ukiah passed, and so did his wife, leaving the mansion and surrounding land to their children.
Burnaby stuffed more tobacco into his pipe and relit it.
“It was 1873, when folk said everything started happening.
“Now, some say that a witch from the east came along and liked the place, and it’s remoteness so much that it stayed. They also say that it cast a spell on three of the Milburn siblings, and made them cause so much suffering on the people of the village for the sake of gold.
People say that the witch poisoned the remaining Milburn family, taking the mansion and all of the hills for itself, until some soldiers who had served in the war, were given payment to go there and rid the land of that old witch.
Stories say that they did so, and left the witch’s remains amongst the hills. They say that the sun doesn’t shine there like it used to anymore, and that’s why it’s called the dark hills.
They also say that it was the reason why the three Milburn siblings became evil and greedy and became the most despised landowners in that part of the valley.” Burnaby said.
“Others say, that it wasn’t a witch. They say that about the same time, a mysterious disease brought on by a passing traveler, who had stayed there for a day, did away with the remaining despised members of the Milburn family that and that their ghosts still haunt the hills and mansion, refusing to go to their rest.
And even others say that the haunting goes back to the time of the pilgrims in a long forgotten story.
And even others say that goblins decided to take up residence in that land, being a secluded place. They say that most of the Milburn family ran off for the east never to return, leaving all that they had behind to the remaining Milburns, who had joined in league with the goblins, to take the wealth of the villagers, and ruin their lives.”
Burnaby tossed a piece of boiled radish to Fit.
“Whatever the reason, whether we know the truth or not, those hills remain haunted by one way or another and that’s why nobody goes there. There’s a good supply of pelts for the taking, I just know it, but trappers stay far from there,” Burnaby said.
“Let me get back to my story.
Well, anyway, Fit and me were standing there on the front porch of that abandoned mansion house, where the Milburn siblings conspired and manipulated to take the gold and lands from the villagers, while torrents of rain fell all around.
It was getting cold and by that time it was nearly dark and I could hardly see old man moon.
“There’s nothing that’s going to get caught in those traps, and nothing in this weather,” I thought to myself.
I started to shiver and looked down to see poor Fit looking up at me, and shaking, so I decided for us to go into the mansion house.
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