Ghosts: True Hauntings In Montana

By David Francis Curran

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Brautigan, Richard, A Pilgrimage, August 1982

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Violet

Jill Branan* lived in a small mountain town in Montana some years ago. The elderly woman became friends with the family of Tom Crause* who lived next door. They became such good friends that when Jill sold her house she moved in with the Crause family.

But Tom was her favorite. She would fascinate Tom for hours with tales of the old wild west days when she and her best friend Violet O'Hara, who lived nearby, but whom Tom had never meet, had been young girls.

It was the summer of '74. Tom had just gotten out of high school. He was growing his hair long and taking it easy. One day Jill came over, very upset and told Tom that Violet had died. She asked him if he would help come with her in a few days to Voilet's house and help gather some things that Voilet said she could have.

Tom readily accepted. He knew that Jill did not get along with Brian O'Hara, Violet's husband at all. And he assumed that she wanted him to come along, just to act as a buffer between the two.

Tom borrowed a pickup truck from an neighbor. When they got there, Jill asked him to load a big potted cactus and some other things while she went inside. After a few minutes, she came out with Brian - who was about 75 at the time--and who stood looking disdainfully at Tom, whose long hair flowed down past his shoulders.

"I'd rather not have that in the house if you don't mind," Brian finally said, pointing to Tom. And then went back in the house.

Jill shrugged her shoulders and said, "I'll bring the stuff to you."

Tom tried to ignore Brian's rudeness. He found himself by the front door, trying to listen to Brian who was now talking to a woman whom Tom gathered from the conversation had moved in with him.

Jill came out and said, "I have to go through some things, it'll be a few minutes."

So Tom, with nothing else to do, went around to the back yard to explore. There, he found an open second floor window and beneath it a large colorful pile of something that had obviously been thrown out that window.

He bent down and touched one papery, bright yellow object. It was a pressed flower. He fingered the pile gently and realized suddenly that the entire pile was a collection of beautiful pressed flowers and that all were destined for the garbage.

Tom heard a noise behind him on the back porch. He turned and looked up. Brian was standing on the back porch staring at him.

"What is all this?" Tom asked, standing up and pointing to the pile of flowers.

"Just stuff Amanda," Brian said, nodding his head back toward the house, "wants thrown out."

"Can I have 'em?" Tom asked.

"Don't make no never mind to me," Brian said and turned to go back into the house.

Tom knelt down and began picking the flowers up carefully. When he turned to go back to the front of the house he happened to look up at the second floor window. A friendly looking old woman with long gray-streaked brown hair was looking down on him smiling.

Tom figured he had misjudged Amanda. Maybe she was just allergic to dried flowers. He took his newfound haul and walked back to the truck.

As he was putting the flowers in out came Jill followed by a heavy dark-haired woman of about 50 with sharp features. This woman had a black 'n blue bruise around her left eye and a grim look on her face.

"Who else lives here?" Tom asked Jill.

"No one," Jill said, puzzled.

"But then who was up on the second floor just now?"

"No one else is here."

Tom described the woman in the window.

"I don't think this is funny. Voilet was a friend of mine," Jill cried angrily. "I don't appreciate this at all."

Later Tom reminded Jill he had never seen Voilet and she had not described Violet to him.

-end-