Your True Tales
June 2004 – Page 25

Ghost Riders
by Tonja

In the early '80s, I was living in a house I had recently bought. My son was off to college and so I lived alone except for rare weekends when he was visiting. On this particular day I was sitting eating lunch in my kitchen facing out the back of my house which looked upon an abandoned railroad track. It was January, but a fairly sunny and pleasant day in Western Kentucky. My elderly neighbor was raking some old dead grass in his yard and burning it. Plumes of gray smoke drifted upward. There was little wind. As I sat staring but not really seeing as they say, I was looking through the glass enclosed porch out towards the track which was approximately 100 to 150 feet.

I saw them then – transparent riders on horseback, low in the saddle riding their steeds hard. They appeared to be dressed in old-style clothes. I sat watching but unbelieving because, while my eyes perceived, my mind was racing with thoughts of this can't be happening. There is a steep drop-off to either side of those tracks. Where the "ghost riders" were riding was air! The tracks had long been abandoned by the railroad.

I watched them for several seconds, and then something told me to run to the front of the house. I remember thinking, this is a reflection of some riders in the street out front. That was an odd thought, but knowing that folks kept a few horses down the block from me and that I had seen people riding horses in the past albeit rarely, my mind sought a logical explanation and this might be one answer. But no, the streets were empty. There were no people or horses anywhere. I raced back to the kitchen and was disheartened to notice no one was now on the tracks. My riders were gone – vanished back to wherever they came from.

I told my mom about it, but she was skeptical, saying I needed to get out of the house more. As the years passed many listened but few believed. My son thought it was fascinating. I have come to think that maybe I looked into the past somehow. The town I came from had a history of river pirates and outlaws. In fact, my grandfather used to tell me that Jesse James' brother, Frank, used to run the county fair horse races, but you know grandfathers. Who's to say it wasn't true? All I know is I saw the riders that day and for that I will always be grateful.

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