Here is part two of The Haunted Bridge. If you've yet to read part one, it is below. Part three will be up soon. And then I'll stop sparing you the details of my mundane existance. Have fun.
March 4, 1849 was a very unique day in the history of the United States. James K. Polk’s term as President had just ended the night before and old Zachary Taylor, the religious zealot that he was, refused to take the Oath of Office on a Sunday, leaving the office vacant, which, according to a mostly unknown law, made the Senate President the head man for a day, Mr. David Rice Atchison, a Slavery Democrat who didn’t know he had been President until several months later. Anyway, it was also the day that this particular covered bridge had been built. It spanned the mostly placid waters of Mercy Creek, linking the Ever’s farm to the surrounding town. The head architect, a Mr. Zeke Atchison, a distant relative of the unknowing President for the day, walked out early, ready to hammer home the final nails. There was to be a dedication ceremony later that day. Records from that era are spotty at best, but we know with certainty that there was no ceremony later that day, or ever for that matter.
What he saw must have been something, out there in the sharp gray dawn of the cold March morning. His wife said that he left “in good spirits, he did” and he was known as a mostly cheery fellow, one who lived for his work. He walked out with his box of tools, his hat as always jauntily perched on his head, but the only tool he used that day was the rusty Winchester he kept tucked in his belt against Indian raids.
Now, Mercy Creek was long rumored to be haunted (or hainted as the old-times called it.) There was tell of an ancient Indian massacre there, one so major that the waters ran red for days. There was tell of an early settler burying the head of his axe in the head of his mistress who threatened to tell his wife, and then the very same day doing the same to his wife, lying them side by side on the banks, like so much damned driftwood. It had a bad reputation, and the children of the village avoided its musical currents at night (and usually in the light of day.)
Anyway, Zeke strolled into the woods as he did everyday, gun at his hip, tools in his hand. At around 8:15, around the time many of the townsfolk were headed into church, Zeke was, as best as the local authorities were able to reconstruct, putting the slim barrel of the Winchester between his lips. He had scrawled the words “dead bridge” on one of the beams in his own blood. Its clear retort raised the eyebrows of the parishioners, but no one really worried much. They probably figured ole’ Zeke was just catching him some lunch.
The horror of the story was that he didn’t kill himself right away. He blew most of his few teeth through the back of his mouth, but his brain was most unfortunately spared. The same couldn’t be said for his face, which became, by the accounts of the townies, a mask of blood. He stumbled in from the woods at about 8:30, lurched blindly down the main street trailing a gory swath behind him, and painted the windows of the full church a bright red before dying at the feet of the gathered townsfolk. His death was ruled an accident, but everyone knew better.
The bridge became known as a bad luck place. As the town grew and surrounding towns sprang up, stories of shadows and cold spots and ghostly lights on the bridge sprang up too. And substantiated events added to its notoriety. Elmer Elderside, the town drunk and resident retard, was found hacked to death on the bridge, a knife protruding from his mouth, his heart neatly removed and placed into his hand. And Mary and John, two lovebirds, saw something that neither ever recovered from while doing the unmentionable one night on its planks; both were sent downstate to the hospital. Mary had pulled out nearly all of her hair and came bellowing into town, naked and haunted. They found John mumbling to himself in the woods the next morning. No one ever crossed it unless they needed to. It was rumored to affect even the most hardheaded, even the most impervious.
Well, the world moved on, and soon covered bridges became a relic of the past. The town died out and the bridge sat, derelict, until a new town sprang up in the early part of this century and someone got the great idea that the town should restore it, make the surrounding land into a park. He also got the great idea to hang himself from the rafters of the newly restored bridge. Soon, the county planners needed a place to put the fairgrounds, and the newly painted bridge looked a lovely centerpiece, its reputation largely unknown or ignored. And with the fairgrounds came the people, the strolling couples who held hands in the glimmering moonlight, who paused long enough from their endless kissing to sign or carve their names, and then moved on.
March 4, 1849 was a very unique day in the history of the United States. James K. Polk’s term as President had just ended the night before and old Zachary Taylor, the religious zealot that he was, refused to take the Oath of Office on a Sunday, leaving the office vacant, which, according to a mostly unknown law, made the Senate President the head man for a day, Mr. David Rice Atchison, a Slavery Democrat who didn’t know he had been President until several months later. Anyway, it was also the day that this particular covered bridge had been built. It spanned the mostly placid waters of Mercy Creek, linking the Ever’s farm to the surrounding town. The head architect, a Mr. Zeke Atchison, a distant relative of the unknowing President for the day, walked out early, ready to hammer home the final nails. There was to be a dedication ceremony later that day. Records from that era are spotty at best, but we know with certainty that there was no ceremony later that day, or ever for that matter.
What he saw must have been something, out there in the sharp gray dawn of the cold March morning. His wife said that he left “in good spirits, he did” and he was known as a mostly cheery fellow, one who lived for his work. He walked out with his box of tools, his hat as always jauntily perched on his head, but the only tool he used that day was the rusty Winchester he kept tucked in his belt against Indian raids.
Now, Mercy Creek was long rumored to be haunted (or hainted as the old-times called it.) There was tell of an ancient Indian massacre there, one so major that the waters ran red for days. There was tell of an early settler burying the head of his axe in the head of his mistress who threatened to tell his wife, and then the very same day doing the same to his wife, lying them side by side on the banks, like so much damned driftwood. It had a bad reputation, and the children of the village avoided its musical currents at night (and usually in the light of day.)
Anyway, Zeke strolled into the woods as he did everyday, gun at his hip, tools in his hand. At around 8:15, around the time many of the townsfolk were headed into church, Zeke was, as best as the local authorities were able to reconstruct, putting the slim barrel of the Winchester between his lips. He had scrawled the words “dead bridge” on one of the beams in his own blood. Its clear retort raised the eyebrows of the parishioners, but no one really worried much. They probably figured ole’ Zeke was just catching him some lunch.
The horror of the story was that he didn’t kill himself right away. He blew most of his few teeth through the back of his mouth, but his brain was most unfortunately spared. The same couldn’t be said for his face, which became, by the accounts of the townies, a mask of blood. He stumbled in from the woods at about 8:30, lurched blindly down the main street trailing a gory swath behind him, and painted the windows of the full church a bright red before dying at the feet of the gathered townsfolk. His death was ruled an accident, but everyone knew better.
The bridge became known as a bad luck place. As the town grew and surrounding towns sprang up, stories of shadows and cold spots and ghostly lights on the bridge sprang up too. And substantiated events added to its notoriety. Elmer Elderside, the town drunk and resident retard, was found hacked to death on the bridge, a knife protruding from his mouth, his heart neatly removed and placed into his hand. And Mary and John, two lovebirds, saw something that neither ever recovered from while doing the unmentionable one night on its planks; both were sent downstate to the hospital. Mary had pulled out nearly all of her hair and came bellowing into town, naked and haunted. They found John mumbling to himself in the woods the next morning. No one ever crossed it unless they needed to. It was rumored to affect even the most hardheaded, even the most impervious.
Well, the world moved on, and soon covered bridges became a relic of the past. The town died out and the bridge sat, derelict, until a new town sprang up in the early part of this century and someone got the great idea that the town should restore it, make the surrounding land into a park. He also got the great idea to hang himself from the rafters of the newly restored bridge. Soon, the county planners needed a place to put the fairgrounds, and the newly painted bridge looked a lovely centerpiece, its reputation largely unknown or ignored. And with the fairgrounds came the people, the strolling couples who held hands in the glimmering moonlight, who paused long enough from their endless kissing to sign or carve their names, and then moved on.
Comments