Jana Nolan
Earth Star Publications
www.earthstarpublications.com
FIRST EDITION
First Printing October 2015
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2015 Jana Nolan
ISBN 978-0-944851-43-2
CONTENTS
PART 1
1. My Best Surprise . . . . . . . . . 8
2. Adventure Waiting to Happen . . . 14
3. Next Journey . . . . . . . . . . 19
4. Magic of the Park Bench . . . . . 23
5. Employment and Anticipation . . . 27
6. Beginning of a Bigger Adventure . 33
7. Strange Conversation . . . . . . 40
PART 2
8. Suspicions Were Correct . . . . . 48
9. Evasive . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
10. No Expectations . . . . . . . . . 56
11. Help Needed . . . . . . . . . . . 61
12. Action and Maybe Reaction . . . . 66
13. Reliving a Meeting . . . . . . . 72
14. Big News Stopped . . . . . . . . 76
15. Stay Safe Back Home . . . . . . . 81
16. Surprise for Everyone . . . . . . 85
PART 3
17. Home Again . . . . . . . . . . . 91
18. Stories of Fear . . . . . . . . . 96
19. Could This Change the World? . . 110
20. Too Many Secrets . . . . . . . . 115
21. What Was Created . . . . . . . . 121
22. Owner of Cemetery . . . . . . . 127
23. Peter? Who's Peter? . . . . . . 137
24. Struggles and Accountability . . 143
25. Traveling and Surviving, . . . . 150
26. Facing Trouble . . . . . . . . . 158
27. Fear and Loss . . . . . . . . . 166
28. No Way to Change What Is . . . . 173
29. Six Years Later . . . . . . . . 185
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Chapter 1
Some people look at crying as a sign of weakness. As for myself, I feel as if it is the cleansing of one's soul. Whether it be happy tears, or sad tears.
Then again, there are a lot of things that I believe that some people have either made fun of, or out of fear of not wanting to know, find out about or out of disbelief, refuse to accept.
This is where my story starts. Only you can choose to believe what you want to.
My name is Malon Moore. My friends call me Mylo for short. As I was growing up, some of the kids in school would scarf at my name. Their favorite dig at me was, “Did your parents think you were a boy when you were born?” My reply back was, “Maybe?”
This was only the beginning of my learning that people can be cruel. Whether they are a kid or an adult. The truth being said, I chose the name myself.
I was born and raised in a small town in Colorado. I grew up loving the outdoors and the mountains. Truly a country girl by heart. Everyone around the entire area knew each other.
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When a neighbor needed help, everyone that could help pitched in. The town that I am referring to is Applegrove. It's located at the bottom of Sleeping Indian Mountain.
Many stories circulated around the town for many years. The people of Applegrove called them strange and bizarre happenings that were believed to have occurred on the mountain or about the mountain itself.
Mainly, the older people in my small town are the ones who lived, or relived, the different events that haunted them for years. For some, many more years to come.
In order to tell you my story, I need to go back in time. My earliest memory starts at the age of 5. As far as I remember, at that age the only thing that stands out in my mind was the day that my father and mother brought home the best surprise that any kid could receive. They brought me a horse.
I chose the name "Rocky" for him as he had a hump on his back that felt like a rock when I rode him bareback without a saddle.
Rocky was red in color, with a long mane. He stood tall and proud. When he saw me running in the pasture to greet him, he put his head down to nudge me. He like me as much as I did him.
My father would ride with me on Rocky until he was sure in his mind that I would be safe. It wasn't long before I had learned everything I needed to know. By the time I turned 6, Father was ready to let me ride by myself.
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On my sixth birthday, Mother had dressed me in a yellow dress with a black sash. She had invited neighbors and family to the house to celebrate my birthday.
There was one guest missing. This would be my best friend, Rocky. Mother told me that after the opening of the presents, cake and ice cream, I could change into my jeans, shirt and boots. Rocky could join me and the party.
This was the beginning of a long friendship which led to many years filled with adventure that we both shared together.
I know that living below Sleeping Indian Mountain was a dream that a lot of kids my age wished they could have had. That was where Rocky and I chose to explore.
Mother and Father extended limitations where we could go on the mountain. When the sun started to go down, I was expected to be back in the yard with Rocky in the pasture to graze.
Every day when the bridle came off, I would pat Rocky on his head, followed by a soft kiss.
When I ran off the school bus on school days, I rushed to my bedroom to change clothes. Out the back door, I ran to find Rocky either in the pasture or in the barn.
Many nights before it was completely dark, I would stand at my bedroom window, or sit on my bed, and plan another adventure for us to discover the next day.
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Days, months and years passed, I had gone from age 6 to 16. I could tell that Rocky was struggling some days to interact with our journeys. He was moving slower. Our trips exploring the lower part of Sleeping Indian were filled with more rules set by Mother and Father.
There were many days when there were too many clouds, and too much fog, to even be allowed to leave the yard. The weather in Applegrove was worse than it had ever been before.
When morning came, I picked up my school books and was ready to walk out onto the back porch when I was met by my father and mother coming toward me through the screen door.
The look on my father's and mother's faces was very sad, and somewhat distant. When Father looked at me, several tears dropped from his eyes. Knowing how much Rocky meant to me, it was hard for him to deliver the news to me about Rocky.
With tears still streaming from his eyes, Father said, "Mylo, I have bad news to tell you. Last night your mother and I heard a disturbing sound outside. Getting up out of bed, I grabbed my rifle. As I rubbed my eyes, trying to wake up, I told your mother to wait for me in the house, and not to go outside looking for me. When I went out the back door, I walked to the barn to check on Rocky. He wasn't there.
"I then changed my direction and checked the pasture. There, lying on the ground next to the drain ditch, was Rocky. It looked like he had stepped into a hole and fell. Since I had been gone longer than your mother thought I should have, she loaded her rifle and came to find me. What killed Rocky was an animal of some sort. We believe it went back to Sleeping Indian."
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All I could do was cry and say, "It's not fair. Why Rocky? Why?"
"I know, Mylo, that Rocky meant a lot to you. Maybe a bear killed him. She might have thought that he was a threat to her cubs."
I was only 16, but even I knew that Father would know the sound of a bear, and not just a disturbing sound. At that time I thought that Father had told me everything.
Mother put her arms around me and said, "Remember, Mylo, it's okay to cry." Those words stayed with me my whole life. She, too, was crying and rubbing her eyes, trying not to.
Every day after that just wasn't the same without Rocky in my life.
On graduation night, dressed in my cap and gown, I went to my bedroom window and opened the curtain. As I looked outside, I said out loud, "Rocky, you are out there somewhere. I wish you were here with me tonight, so I could ride you to the high school. You would be there to watch me graduate. Remember when I was 6, and you came to my birthday party?" Several tears dropped from my eyes and fell to the floor as I talked to my best friend.
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I closed the curtain, walked to my bedroom door, and turned off the light switch. That night was a new beginning of a new chapter in my life. Other journeys were waiting for me, so this was my way of letting go of my past, and telling myself that I accepted my future.
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Chapter 2
After high school graduation, I stayed around Applegrove for a few years and helped my father with the ranch. I also worked at a small store in town as a clerk for a few days a week.
The store has a small area in the middle of it, where customers can sit, talk and rest. Mainly, the older people of the town sit there. As my grandmother would say, "They go there to chew the fat." For those of you who are clueless about what this means, it is talking about anything, and everything that comes to mind in a conversation.
The same people congregate in the store to tell stories of either their past or present occurrences that have or had taken place recently or in the past.
It being a small store, there is no way that anyone can avoid hearing their conversations. Believe me, I tried. Some things they discussed were way more than what I wanted to hear.
After all, I grew up in this area and wanted to believe that it was just a calm and uneventful town. How little did I know at that time, it was anything but.
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The conversations seemed to always lead to different secrets of Sleeping Indian Mountain.
For years, Rocky and I had spent every day exploring as much of that mountain as we could. There were times that I felt like Rocky and I were being watched, but I just attributed it to maybe the wind that blew up there, or my wild imagination.
That day, as I stood there, I was amazed at what I was hearing. For me, knowing these people my entire life, it was hard for me to believe that they were making this stuff up.
It was my last day working at the old country store. Tomorrow I would be on my way to a new journey in my life. My new direction was New York City.
No doubt that every young girl or boy, at one time in their lives or another, has wondered how the other half live, if they were born and raised in the country.
After hearing stories of the mountain that I loved that day, and being adventurous, in my mind I knew that when I returned to Applegrove, there would be more exploring because of the strange and bizarre stories I was hearing, that Sleeping Indian Mountain possessed for many years.
The secrets would still be here, even if some of the townspeople who experienced them weren't. As strange as the stories were, or sounded, there were many reasons why, when I was growing up, I had to be in the house before it got dark.
After I started driving, no one was allowed to drive up the mountain road when the county had the road blocked and the barriers were in place.
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It being time for me to leave the store and return home, I had plans to just spend every moment with my parents. I walked over to the owner of the store to hug her and thank her. Because of her giving me this job, it would pay for my journey to the city that never sleeps, that I had read about in books.
"Megan, thank you for hiring me. I will send you a postcard."
Megan hugged me back, saying, "Mylo, you have been a real joy to work with. When you come back home, I would love to have you work for me again."
"Thank you, Megan. I will be returning home, but I am not sure when."
"The best of luck to you."
I then left the store, and on my way home all the stories kept going through my mind. Especially the story that Ralph Winters told about the unexplainable sounds, such as the ones that my parents had heard years ago when Rocky was killed. Ralph and his family had heard these sounds close to their home.
As Ralph Winters put it, "It wasn't a dog! This came from a large animal of some sort. Years ago, Old Jake Peters and I decided to go fishing up on the mountain. When we were getting our fishing poles out of my Jeep, we heard howling, or some horrible sound like rustling of the bushes. I wanted to stay, but Old Jake got scared and put his pole back in the Jeep and said, 'Ralph, we are going home. I didn't come all this way up here today for this!' "
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As Ralph sat at that table in the store, he was, of course, poking fun at Jake for wanting to leave that day without even getting his fishing line wet.
Then Bob Porter asked Ralph, "Weren't you just a little bit afraid as well, Ralph?"
"Okay, yes. It did frighten me as well, but I had my rifle with me," Ralph replied.
With Bob laughing, he said, "What were you going to do, Ralph, shoot the bush that was rustling, making some weird sound?"
"Go ahead and poke fun at me, Bob, if you want. But you weren't there that day to hear it. Pay attention to some of the other stories, and you will see why some of us here are frightened. Maybe you haven't experienced anything yet, but don't scarf at us that have."
Of course Bob was speechless, as he and his family didn't live as close to Sleeping Indian Mountain as some of the rest of us did. He told Ralph that he was sorry for disbelieving him.
I was pretty sure at that time that the reason Bob acted the way he did that day was because of either the fear of the unknown, or that because this hadn't happened to him. It was easier for him to ignore it and pretend as if something like that didn't exist. In the store that day, after I left, there was another story told by Ralph Winters that I didn't hear, but would hear before long.
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I had reached my home and was ready to spend what time I had left in the day talking to Mother and Father. It was starting to rain and was getting dark. An adventure was waiting for me at daylight.
I parked my car in the garage and walked outside of it to enter the door of the back porch. Then, I turned around and looked out at the pasture, where my best friend had his own private grave. I sure did miss him.
The morning that Father and Mother had heard unusual sounds---the night Rocky died---was something that I tried not to think about. If I did, that would mean that once again, every time when I turned off my bedroom light switch, I would be saying goodbye to Rocky in my way.
Now, many years later, going to New York, I knew that my destiny would not be living out my life in a city. There would be a time when I would be coming home again to explore Sleeping Indian Mountain, to see what all the stories were about.
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Chapter 3
Morning came too soon for me. My mind wouldn't allow me to sleep. All I did was think about the different stories I had overheard at the country store yesterday.
I always wondered why Mother, as I was growing up, would hold my hand and keep me away from where all the stories were being passed around among everyone sitting at that table. At the time, she believed that I was too young to hear them, and I might hear something that could frighten me.
Well, she was right as I am grown up now and frightened about what is waiting for me to discover on the mountain when I return home.
I was ready for my day of driving to begin. Mom had cooked a huge breakfast and packed food and drink in a cooler for my journey. I was sure that there was much more than I could eat in three or four days of traveling.
My excitement of going to a big city and knowing that Mother and Father were excited for me, but sad as well, brought fourth many emotions that day. They were nervous and worried as the only thing I knew, and had ever known, was country living surrounded by small towns.
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After the prayer, as we ate, I had questions for my father.
"Father, this might not be the right time to bring this up, but to be honest, I don't know of a good time."
Father looked over his glasses at me and asked, "What is it Mylo? I am open to talk about anything you want to know about or talk about."
"For some time now, I couldn't help hearing stories about Sleeping Indian Mountain in the old country store. I tried not to listen, but yesterday the men at the table were talking so loud, I couldn't keep from hearing them and everything that they said. I have wondered about so many things growing up, and now I am old enough to know the truth. I just need you to confirm that all the stories being told are true and real."
As my dad was eating, he was listening to my words. He stopped eating and wiped his chin with his napkin to reply to me.
"Mylo, you know that neither your mother nor myself have ever misled you about anything. Yes, when you were growing up, we didn't tell you probably everything that we should have, but we didn't want you growing up in a world of fear and doubt. I know what you want to know about now, and yes, it's time to tell you what I know. Are you wanting to know about the secrets of Sleeping Indian Mountain?"
"Yes, Father, I am."
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"There are many stories that our townspeople have told for many years," Father said as he took a sip of coffee.
I replied, "Yes, it is a beautiful mountain that all of us live below. The stories that are circulating are strange, bizarre and scary. I am wondering why you and mother allowed me for many years---knowing what people were saying---to ride Rocky up on the mountain and explore the area."
"Mylo, I knew that what was told of the mountain was something at least to others in our town. There hasn't been any real proof established yet, showing anything. I also knew that you would be safe. You see, Mylo, there was no way that even in a day of riding up that mountain road, you and Rocky would have been able to ride to the top of the mountain. Mother and I did give you boundaries of how far up you could ride. After Rocky was killed, if you remember, I became more protective and the rules around here got stronger.
"Whatever this is that's happening on the mountain, it started coming down into the valley at times, and all the stories of the people that say they had an experience from it became more frequent. When you got your car, you were not allowed on the mountain at all. The last time has been many years ago, when you turned 16, and Rocky got killed. That morning is when your mother and I told you to stay off of the mountain altogether."
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"I do remember, Father. I wasn't sure why, but do remember how sad I was when Bill Baker's father went up on the mountain and found Bill dangling from a tree. Some of us were in shock for days. He was the captain of our football team, who had scholarships waiting for him. The sheriff said Bill had killed himself, but now---like all the stories I have heard---there is no doubt in my mind that someone, or some thing, took Bill's life."
Dad and I agreed that we had talked enough about this for now. I had a long drive ahead of me. We would discuss it more in depth when I returned.
We finished breakfast and, with tears, hugs and goodbyes, I was ready for a journey that, at the time of leaving, I had no idea would lead me back here to pursue the secrets of the mountain that I loved.
After I backed out of the garage, I turned around to wave one last time to my parents. The radio was on and turned up. Time to drive away.
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Chapter 4
New York City, as I had read about, was ...
...
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