BANNACK MONTANA AND STILL UNDISCOVERED GHOST TOWNS. A COSMIC NOIR INCIDENT

 

Bannack, Montana is now a Montana State Park and on the National Historical Register.  I was there before that- - when you could still camp in the town with the ghosts of those who mined, erected,  buildings, and built lives there.  You could sense something in the air.

Unknown ghost towns -above timber line- and not on the informational maps were also haunted by us in our exploration of old Montana.  By 'us' I mean an extended family of homesteaders and pioneers who still remembered the last remnants of the action years. The old mining and logging roads we navigated in a bouncing 1950s jeep two door station wagon.

Education was integrated into our jeep adventures.  I did not yet have a driver's license so I rode in the back seat reading "Vigilante Days and Ways" by N.P. Langford, "Montana Paydirt" and another book about lost gold and hidden treasure.  Nathaniel Langford had been a Vigilante and wrote the first hand account of road agents and lynchings.  In 1890.  

 Not that long ago, by some accounts, but I wanted to give an image to take on your journey to the following story :  An alleged ghost story : 

The brick and gravel street ascending the hill is not in Bannack. A few displaced paver bricks at the edges of hardpacked road were remnants of an old attempt at building civil engineering.  I can't identify the location because I went there for a client who will remain anonymous. This was back when I had vitality and lung capacity.  Quite a climb.  High altitude civilization had been rapidly built by miners, mercantilers, school teachers, and road agents  'Road agents' were bandits and killers who were chased down and hung by Vigilantes.  One of the leaders of the "Vigilance Committee" was a Bannack lumber mill owner who wrote  "Vigilante Days and Ways."   The chase to justice went all across western Montana and it was one of these forgotten towns where I made my ascent through abandoned buildings.  False fronts giving authority to primitive wood and brick structures.  

The alley snakes up a hill between leaning wooden and  crumbling orange brick buildings. Over the rise, high above the town skyline, a glow in the early dusk reflects from a few clouds. I knew the area above the town as the location of a decaying stamp mill that still had a connection of cables to bring bucket loads of ore down from the cliff -side mines. First, I had to get through the gravel and paver brick streets of the town.  The spirits of those who built the buildings and lived there seemed defiantly staying beyond their glory years. Strata of energy levels were becoming visible as the streets darkened.  A few wisps of luminescence blinked for a few moments after gliding through old stores and toward the church before rising and lifting out of sight.  

Those more determined to stay carried a a misty fog with them as they drifted and settled in dark corners.  These were things I had sensed before, without visually registering them.  A town need not be old and abandoned to harbor spirits who are only trying to maintain some momentum of former life.  They can be anywhere.  Much that seems out-of -character or outside usual frame of reference is owing to them.  

Even in the midst of all this crowded intimidation, I had my own purpose to align with my actions.  Prosperity will fade if it is allowed to become a ghost.  Dynamic growth and manifestation requires attention to living detail.  A was having some ideas for creating a more attractive catalog for my business page.  Stay proactive in building for today if you don't want to become dispirited.  

Those were my distraction thoughts toward a constructive antidote on my way up the gloomy hill.  I brought my attention back to the reason my client wanted the investigation.

The presence in the last building of Ghost Town Row challenged me to step inside.  There was a musty atmosphere  that often pervades a place once vital with activity and even former glamour.

The creaking floorboards in the main parlor of the doorless old brick house modulated to the slow cadence of footsteps. Not my footsteps.  Not my soft shoes.  The click of heavy boot heels approached but I saw nobody.   

The times when you heard a ghost usually sounded in brief and curt monosyllabic attention grabbers.  Agree?

Did you consciously listen beyond the original greeting?  That's where the action is.  

"Alan!" was the quick and booming burst of sound.   

 After the curt sonic greeting, I listened to the intuitive transmission of a message.  Attitude can also be sensed.  

"Why are you here?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing," I muttered.

"As well you should.  I have an answer for you."

A wisp of motion now appeared in that disturbance of faded pale in the gathering dusk.  

"Please," I said.  "How are you?"  It seemed a reasonable response to a sentient speaker

 "I am well - - in my way.  I knew your people and I know more of them now. Be assured. I won't tarry here long and you will find what you seek."  

I nodded.  I had a sense of gratitude for such considerate awareness in 'speech.'  

There was more from the invisible apparition.  "Don't forget you have living people now who depend on you."

"I have clients," I said.  Being paid was how I justified being unavailable to others.  Life's work can take on strange forms.  

"You don't need the money," the presence said.  

"I need the work," I answered in a resigned tone.  The tone of resignation had become a habit. The thought-form conversation then became audible again, startling.  "Reprogram your work."  became a man's deep voice, "Make it count."  

I never saw the apparition.  But the apparition looked right through me.

I sensed a farewell.

But the thought communication remained as a continuing aura.  The thoughts were of a man out of a different time who considers himself more in time than I was.  There was an assurance that he was not an ancestor and his name would not matter to me.  Yet he knew my ancestors and reassured their well-being.  The thoughts then diminished leaving me to speculate the meaning.

My mission for the client would happen further up the mountain.  I had a feeling his ghost question would concern an 'imprint' which  is more like a repeating movie rather than in interactive presence 

At least that's what I thought.