Your True Tales
March 2008 - Page 8

Benjamin's Ghost
by Cheese

The year was 1966 in the town of Cantua Creek, California. School was out for the summer and I was looking forward to spending a lot of time with my friends. Eleven years old with lots of energy to burn. My friends said they liked hanging out with me because I was always coming up with something to do!

One day we we're walking down this dirt road. Along the way, we would think up different games to play. We'd throw rocks at targets, hide from each other, chase cloud shadows, pretend we're on a different planet, and talk funny. Laughing and having fun! Soon we came upon a dried up reservoir. All the water was gone; only hard mud was left. Broken bottles, used tires, and other litter was exposed. There was even a refrigerator!

My friend Richard noticed something in the middle of the reservoir. From where we were standing, it was hard to make out what it was. Half of it was buried in the mud. To get a better look, we walked over to the other side. From there we could see it had a human shape. Two arms, two legs, ribs, and a skull! It was facing down in the mud. We we're stunned and scared! My friend Jesse wanted to get out of there and go back home. We decided that was a good idea. So we took off and ran most of the way home.

When we told our families what we saw, they could tell we weren't making it up. Word spread around quickly. Later in the day, I remember several police cars arriving and going to the reservoir along with my father and other men from the camp. We had to stay home, which I didn't mind. The skeletal remains were dug up and taken so they could be identified. For the next two weeks, that's all everybody was talking about. The local TV stations even came down to do a report. I was interviewed briefly, but I don't recall any of it.

During those two weeks, I learned about the story of a migrant worker named Benjamin. In 1964 he came from Mexico to California to find work. He settled here and lived in a farm labor camp not far from Cantua Creek. My father knew him and worked along side him several times. He was a big man, friendly, hardworking. Everyone who knew him liked him. He had one major problem though. He was an alcoholic big time! He didn't have a car, so he would walk home drunk many times.

One day last summer, after getting paid and after a night of drinking which followed, friends remember seeing him walking home. He never made it. He just disappeared. No one knew what happened to him. Some people suspected foul play because there were other migrant workers drinking with him that night and they probably noticed the amount of money he had on him.

Several months after his disappearance, a ranch foreman, while making the rounds one late evening in his truck, saw Benjamin by the side of the road! He was standing there pointing down the road. The foreman stopped, and when he got out, Benjamin was nowhere to be seen. Soon, more people were seeing him on that same road, standing there with no expression on his face and pointing down the road. And when they stopped to investigate, they were always met with the same result... nothing! Nobody was there!

Later on that same year, I remember hearing my father talking with the other workers one evening about a ghost on the road. Most everyone more or less knew or suspected whose remains those were in the reservoir, and it came as no surprise when they were finally identified as belonging to Benjamin. There was tremendous damage on the back of the skull caused by being struck by a heavy object. He was murdered, then his body dumped into the reservoir at that time full of water. His killer or killers took his money and were now long gone!

It seems Benjamin's ghost was trying to tell people where his body could be found. His ghost was always pointing down the road. Pointing toward the reservoir! The same road my friends and I walked on that summer's day.

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