🐦‍⬛ The Haunting of Black Hollow Ranch

November 1861

Thistle Creek, Colorado

"Mitchell, I dare you to go up there," Jed said as he watched the cattle.

Mitchell didn’t answer right away. He spat a long stream of tobacco juice into the dirt—something Jed hated but, as always, ignored.

"There ain't no way I'm goin' up there. Not alone."

"What if me and Johnny went up there with you?" Jed countered, nodding toward the prairie where the dilapidated old ranch house stood. A few of the cattle had wandered near it, sniffing the overgrown fence line.

Mitchell scratched his head. "I don't know. Why do you wanna go up there so bad? Ain't it supposed to be haunted? By that lady? The one who got killed comin' across the plains? Said she haunted her family."

"Oh, that's just a load of hogwash," Johnny said, grinning over at Jed.

The three of them had been hired to watch the cattle on the lower range for Mr. Dugan. Right in the middle of the land sat the old ranch house. The family had long since left, but the stories stuck around like burrs on a mule’s tail.

They said a woman—Mrs. Lafferty—still haunted the place, looking for her family. Anyone who ventured too close to her home met the same fate. The story went that as her family traveled west from Missouri, she fell ill and was left behind with plans to catch up later. Her husband had gone ahead with their two young children to make a new life far from their homeland in Ireland.

Anyone who dared stay the night there mysteriously fell ill. Some died within months. It had been years since anyone nearby dared go near the place.

Jed, for one, thought it was all a ruse—something cooked up by bandits to keep folks away so they could use it as a hideout. Fran and Izzy Sullivan even told them they’d once gone inside and found loot from robbed stagecoaches.

But sometimes a rumor grows teeth. And Mitchell? He believed them.

"I’ll buy you a whiskey if you stay the night," Jed said.

Mitchell scoffed.

"I mean it," Jed repeated. "Three whiskeys if you stay overnight."

Mitchell raised an eyebrow. "Three? You come into money or somethin'? You runnin’ with Tate’s boys?"

Jed chuckled. "Ain’t no bandit. Just want to see you do it."

"Why don’t you stay the night then?" Mitchell asked.

"'Cause I don’t believe in it. I wouldn’t be scared, and where’s the fun in that?"

Mitchell looked to Johnny. "You reckon I should?"

Johnny shrugged. "Three whiskeys sounds decent. It's just an old house, Mitch."

Mitchell looked back toward the house. Jed could see him thinking hard, chewing over the offer like an old piece of jerky.

The truth was, Jed had come into a bit of money—gambling, over in the next town. And that money was itching in his pocket.

"You swear?" Mitchell asked. "You'll buy me three whiskeys if I stay the night?"

Johnny laughed. "Hell, you might need 'em if you see the Lady Lafferty."

Mitchell scowled. "You gonna stay with me, or you yellow?"

Johnny laughed again. "Don’t go baitin’ me with insults. I ain’t yellow. But Jed didn’t ask me. He asked you."

Mitchell narrowed his eyes. "Why'd you ask me and not Johnny?"

Jed shrugged. "Figured you’d do it. You’ve lived here the longest. Surprised you haven’t been out there already."

Mitchell shook his head. "I don’t want to go messin' with no ghosts. Especially not ones that make folks sick and die."

"Oh, those are just old rumors," Johnny said, moving toward the cabin. The cows shifted behind them, hooves crunching in the dry grass.

Jed and Mitchell followed. Soon the three of them were within shouting distance of the house. Its front door barely clung to the hinges. Some of the boards on the porch were rotted clean through. The windows were covered with old, warped planks.

It gave off a forlorn, foreboding feel.

All three men shivered, though none admitted it aloud.

"Well, it sure looks haunted," Johnny said. He was new to town and had never been out this way.

Jed had passed it a few times, but never this close. He had to admit—it felt eerie.

Mr. Lafferty and the children had lasted only a year before they packed up and left in the middle of the night. No stories of bandits. No tales of Indian trouble. They just left. Took nothing with them.

For just a second, Jed wondered if the rumors were true—if the ghost of Mrs. Lafferty really had driven them away.

He shook the thought off.

"So, you gonna do it?" he asked Mitchell. "The rules are simple. At sundown, you go in. You don’t come out until sunrise."

"That’s it?" Mitchell asked.

"That’s it," Jed nodded. Johnny was grinning now, mischief in his eyes.

Jed knew he had him.

"For three whiskeys?" Mitchell asked.

"Yep."

A look passed over Mitchell’s face—hard to name. Then it cleared.

He spit into his hand and held it out.

Jed hated that custom too, but he spit in his own and shook. A deal was a deal.

"You wanna do it tonight?" Jed asked.

"Might as well," Mitchell replied. "That whiskey ain’t gonna drink itself."

He laughed and spat again, but the look on his face said he wasn’t quite at ease with his decision.

***

The sun kissed the edge of the horizon, the prairie sky looking as if on fire. Shadows stretched long and thin across the dry earth as Mitchell stood at the edge of the porch.

The house loomed before him, broken. It looked like it had taken one punch too many from the wind and still refused to fall.

Jed handed him the lantern. “Oil’s fresh. Should last all night.”

Mitchell took it with a grunt, his fingers curling tight around the handle.

“You sure about this?” Johnny asked, his earlier bravado now quiet under the weight of the moment.

“Nope,” Mitchell said, but he put his boot on the first step anyway.

The porch bowed slightly beneath his weight. He gave one last glance over his shoulder at the two men standing in the waning light, then opened the door.

It didn’t creak—it moaned.

Inside, the air was stale and cold. The lantern’s flame sputtered to life, casting flickering shadows that danced along the bare boards and cracked ceiling. Dust hung thick and clung to the cobwebs in the corners. Mitchell shuddered. He hated spiders. But he liked whiskey more.

He stepped into what must’ve been the sitting room. A rocking chair sat near the hearth, its back facing him. A brittle book lay open on a nearby table, its pages yellowed and curled. On the mantle, a photograph in a tarnished frame showed a stern man, two children, and a woman with a hauntingly blank stare.

Her eyes didn’t follow him. But it felt like they did.

He lit a second lantern from the wall, setting it near the center of the room. Then he settled onto an old settee, creaking and groaning beneath him, just like everything else in the house.

“Just a house,” he muttered.

The wind outside picked up. It hissed against the walls and sounded like a whisper.

The hours passed.

The stillness settled around him and time got lost. The fire in the lanterns flickered—sometimes calm, sometimes uneasy, as if moved by something not quite air.

From upstairs, something shifted.

A faint scrape.

Like bare feet across floorboards.

Mitchell stood, slowly. His fingers found the knife in his pocket.

“Just an animal,” he whispered. “Raccoon or somethin’.”

Another step overhead.

Then a sound like a soft sob.

Mitchell’s heart turned to ice. The lantern in his hand shivered and the light cast flickering shadows as he crept toward the staircase.

He didn’t want to go up.

Everything in him said no.

But something else—something curious, something stubborn—moved his foot onto the first step.

The second creaked louder.

The third cracked beneath his boot.

As he reached the landing, the sobbing stopped.

All was quiet.

Then… a lullaby.

Soft and low. A woman’s voice, humming something too sad to be a child’s song.

It came from the room at the end of the hall.

The nursery.

Mitchell’s breath caught. He gripped the lantern tighter.

And walked forward.

***

The door to the nursery stood ajar, just wide enough for a spirit to squeeze through.

Mitchell pushed it open with the toe of his boot.

The room was coated in more dust. A cradle sat in the corner, long untouched, one rocker broken. A doll lay facedown on the floor, its porcelain cheek cracked, one eye stuck open.

The lullaby stopped.

A pale figure sat in the corner chair, turned halfway toward the window. Her back was to him, her shoulders narrow and trembling, clad in a faded muslin dress. Her hair hung long and damp down her back, as though the prairie storms had followed her in.

Mitchell froze.

He wanted to run. He meant to run.

But she turned her head.

Her face was soft, sorrowful. Not angry. Not hideous. Just... empty. Her eyes met his with such aching loss that he forgot to breathe.

“I couldn’t go with them,” she whispered.

Her voice was like wind through grass—barely there.

“I told him to take them. Said I’d catch up. But the sickness… it held me.”

She looked at the cradle, and Mitchell followed her gaze.

There were no children.

No toys.

No laughter.

“They cried for me. I heard them. I still hear them.” Her voice cracked. “But I’m still here. I keep waiting. I keep listening.”

Her eyes met his again.

“Have you seen them?”

Mitchell shook his head—just once, stiffly.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his throat sticking.

A long silence.

She gave him a small, sad smile. “So am I.”

And then—

She vanished, like fog in the morning sun.

Mitchell didn’t remember turning around.

He barely remembered stumbling down the stairs, the lantern swinging wildly in his hand. He threw open the front door and ran across the yard, nearly tripping over a tuft of grass. He didn’t stop until he’d reached the edge of the field where Jed and Johnny were leaning against a fence post, passing a flask between them.

Johnny caught sight of him first. “Well, well. Thought you were settlin’ in for the night.”

Mitchell bent over, hands on his knees, gulping air. “She was there,” he gasped. “She was there.”

Jed smirked. “Let me guess. Pale dress? Sad eyes?”

“She talked to me.”

That made Johnny’s grin falter. “She talked?”

“Said she was waitin’. Said she heard them. The kids.”

The three stood quiet for a long beat, the wind rushing past like a woman’s cry.

Then Johnny handed over the flask, goose pimples breaking out on his arms.

Jed clapped him on the back. “Guess we owe you those whiskeys. Didn’t make it to sunrise, but… close enough.” He had heard the cry too and was keen to leave.

Mitchell took the flask and drank deep.

He didn’t say thank you.

He just looked back toward the house, hidden in the darkness, watching them.