How would you like to have a ghost standing a foot in front of you saying that to your face? So begins the saga of 'Cowboy Bob,' our ghost in residence at our home in the mountains. I should probably give you a little background info first, though.
The acreage we bought to build our home on was perfect, with one exception; most of it was sitting atop a mountain of solid limestone. The land had no structures at all. Virgin soil with nothing but limestone shelves, juniper, scrub oak and ponderosas stretching to the sky. We'd only heard of hauntings centering around buildings which spirits were tied to or died in, so the idea that we'd acquire a ghost while the house was still under construction, barely weathered-in, was unimaginable . . . until it happened. Apparently it took only a matter of weeks for 'Cowboy Bob' to start making his presence known.
We have a relative who was helping us with interior/exterior finishing projects on the house. He is one of those that is more 'sensitive' to otherworldly goings on, the things other people cannot see. He's been that way all of his life. Though he waited months before spilling the beans about the confrontations he'd been having with 'Cowboy Bob,' he eventually started sharing experiences that made our hair curl, giving us the reasons why he was now refusing to stay at our place any longer unless he had someone staying there with him.
'Cowboy Bob' got his name from our relative's description of what he looked like; late twenties or early thirties, tall, rather lanky with sandy blond hair, wearing blue jeans. A while later the relative added to that description, saying the man wore what looked like a double-breasted dark blue coat with brass buttons and a funny shaped hat. That sounded like a Cavalry officer. And, as it turns out, this area up here saw many vicious skirmishes between the Apache and the Cavalry, one big battle taking place not far from our property. So we should probably rename him 'Cavalry Bob,' but the first name sort of stuck.
Our relative stayed in the upstairs bedroom directly above our master bedroom, in the bedroom which would later become our oldest daughter's room whenever she visited. This room became a hotbed of paranormal activity. Cowboy Bob would seek out our relative up there to threaten him if he didn't leave. The first time, our relative heard a sound behind him while in the upstairs bedroom and turned around to find Cowboy Bob standing within a foot of his face, whereupon he told our relative; "I like these people. I like what they're doing here . . . this place. But you on the other hand, you don't belong here! You need to leave, now."
Cowboy Bob threatened him again in the middle of the afternoon, outside by our pond. Our relative was picking up boulders to use on a wall and turned around to find Cowboy Bob in his face again, reiterating that he needed to leave, immediately.
This relative also looked out our back window one night to the pond and saw a figure walking back and forth across the top of the dam, holding an old-fashioned hurricane lamp and appearing like he was searching for something. He watched the figure make pass after pass across the damn for several minutes, then the light suddenly disappeared.
At this point no one else had seen any strange happenings besides this one relative, but that was to change. One night my younger daughter and I were up from Prescott for the weekend and we were finishing hanging wallpaper in the two-story front foyer. I was on top of a sixteen foot ladder while my youngest was bracing it at the bottom. It was after eleven and very quiet in the house . . . our relative had shut the lights off and gone to bed two hours earlier. From my vantage point on top of the ladder I had a clear view to the bedroom's closed door. I heard a quiet click and looked over. The door's handle had been pushed down and the door had clicked open, very slowly opening fully to the inside. That bedroom had a room air-conditioner going full blast along the opposite wall from the door. It should have been pushing a fair amount of wind resistance against the door, and yet it continued to open. I could see it was pitch-black within.
I looked down at my daughter, she gaped up at me and we began to shake our heads. I commented quietly; "Glad that's happening up there and not here." Nothing else happened after a couple of moments; no blood-curdling shrieks or a terrified young man streaking out of the bedroom with Lucifer on his heels. There wasn't any sound at all. We went back to work, but less than five minutes later I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and looked over, seeing the door just as slowly closing, the handle pushing down by unseen hands once again and the door latching itself shut quietly. I looked down at my daughter.
"You about ready to call it a night?" I asked. She didn't need to be asked twice.
More stories about 'Cowboy Bob' to come. Thanks for reading, friends! Night, all.
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