Woodward, Oklahoma, some time in the early 1900's. My Mama figured it to be close to 1907 - 1908, but it may have been a tad earlier or a tad later. This was one of Elsie and Joseph Ratliff's residences when they lived in or very near Woodward. This I guess is the most fitting time of year for this one, as when I told about Harlan's ghost it had not dawned on me Halloween was around the corner, until one of ya'll pointed it out to me. From a previous story, all ya'll know how superstitious Joe Ratliff was and if you don't then let me say this... If there had been a category in the Book of Records for "Most superstitious", Joe would have placed high on that list maybe even topped it. His wife Elsie on the other hand was quite the opposite, and the perfect leveler for Joe. They balanced each other in this category nicely, fitting like two weights on opposite sides of the scale. In or around 1907 - 1908 they moved into a rental house some where near Woodward. My Mama could never be sure of its exact location as she herself had never been there, only remembered her mother's story of the place. It was a large house, nice compared to a dug out, or many of the single and double room shacks in the area that were otherwise rentable. This was a home, with an upstairs even. A fine place to raise a family and the rent was reasonable enough to contemplate staying for awhile even when times were real lean. The stair case had a twist in it, like many do. It had a nice bannister, sturdy and probably made from oak. The floors in this house were not dirt, such a nice luxury that was. They were hard wood, or wood anyway of some sort. The stairway was slightly dark as the windows were not situated properly to let in full sunlight on them. At the bottom of the stairs under the large hand made rug was a dark stain. That stain drove Elsie to distraction. She would scrub the wood with lye soap, wearing her hands out in the process trying to get rid of it. After scrubbing it real good, almost like sanding it if you have any recollection of the cleaning capabilities of lye soap, it would look to be gone. Next day or so that stain would be back again. This process of scrubbing went on all the while Elsie lived in the home. Joe was not around after they rented the house, as he was cattle herding steady at this time. He was riding from Texas up to Montana taking cattle to their destinations, or driving them into Dodge City, Kansas... Oh, and there is a story for another day. Elsie was not one to worry about being alone. She was full of guts and never backed down from anything. Mama thought that maybe her sister (Elsie and Joe's daughter Thelma) may have been a baby at the time. That was only a guess on Mama's part and we never could establish the truth to it. But, any way, Elsie was alone whether Thelma was born or not, what could a baby do to help in a crisis? Every night Elsie would hear sounds at a certain time when the clock would strike that moment. They were sounds like scuffling and bumping at first. Elsie figured they were animals or somebody nosing around outside. Up she would get, stove poker in hand and out she'd go to investigate. She never would find what was making the noise. My Mama always wondered what she would have done with a little ole' stove poker any way if she had a found something out there. Now Elsie got to thinking that maybe skunks or the like were under the house. She devised a plan to remedy the situation. For all the work, no skunks or any other varmint could be found under the house or in the walls even. Still at that time in the night the noises were getting louder. Finally they got to the point of where Elsie could hear a chain being drug across the floor and fighting sounds and voices from what she thought sounded like two men arguing and a woman screaming. The bumping and shuffling always getting louder. Every time, she would get up and run down them stairs to see what the commotion was and every time there would be nothing to be seen. Elsie was beginning to get uneasy in the house, alone as she was and having no solid explanation to the whys nor the wheres of those sounds. She finally confided in some folks in town when she drove the buck board in to get supplies one day. They asked her to tell them where the house was located and who the owner was, exactly. When she told them, they grew kind of quiet like and did not really know what to tell her. One of them decided not to keep shut up about it and gave her the story he had heard. Seems that the folks who had been there originally (in the 1800s) were a married couple. The husband come home one night late or early, according to how you look at time past mid-night. I do not know what his profession was, but if it was cattle maybe he had been on the trail and decided to come home unexpectedly. The wife had been entertaining in an adulterous fashion while he was gone, and this time he found her with the man right there in his own home. The men fought on the stairs, and they between them had a chain and a knife for weapons against one another. One of them getting the upper hand had managed to knock the other down to the floor. He stabbed him with the knife that had probably been the other fellah's, dropped when he fell. The wounded one bled all over the floor, deep into the grain of the wood, saturating it all the way with just about every drop he had in him..... What happened to the wife or the surviving man, I can not say. Maybe they added to the blood stain as well, but I do not know for sure. Once Elsie heard what the tale was she decided that the home was not for her. She would never fess up to believin' in ghosts, but when you'd talk to her sometimes about the supernatural, she would tell the tale of the house and you knew it had shook her in a way she had never thought possible. Kelly ___________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]