The Unseen Guest - by Rudy Billberg

The fall of 1933 came in warm and beautiful. A bright sun shone on the golden leaves of the poplar trees (locally called popple). My spirits were high, as my partner Ed and I had great plans for late fall and early winter.

I was through with high school and faced the challenge of the world with eagerness. Times were hard in ‘33 and jobs were scarce but we would handle that by going to the “Big Woods” to trap and harvest fur. The Big Woods was a relatively isolated area with just two old bachelor’s living there.

Logging had been extensive in the very early years of our county and there were still a few log shacks in the area that were useable. We were happy to find one of these in better shape than we expected, and only a good cleaning with some minor repair was necessary.

By November 1, the opening of the trapping season, we were ready. Our hearts sang as we planned our winter. I would lay out my line to the East and Ed would go West. There was snow on the ground and although the tracks of fur animals were scarce, it was going to be a great adventure. For about three weeks our lives as trappers went as we expected. Our fur harvest was modest but we were satisfied. Then one evening things changed.

The weather was nice. The wind was calm. We had about 6 to 8 inches of snow on the ground. It was Sunday and this was the day we stayed home to rest and do the necessary baking and cleaning. That evening we sat reading magazines. I with stories of the wild west, and Ed with a True Detective magazine. All at once I sat up straight. “Listen. Ed, somebody’s coming”. Ed looked around toward the window and said, “Who can that be?” “It must be John or Louie”, I guessed. “There’s nobody else around here.” They were the bachelors who each lived about a mile from us.

The footsteps were audible enough that we could tell the difference in sound when our caller moved from the soft snow to the packed area in front of our door. The sound stopped right in front of the door and I got up to open it, I waited a second. No one knocked —then I opened the door. There was no one there !!! We grabbed our flashlights and rushed outside, there was no sign of anyone. No one could have moved away fast enough to get out of sight, we would have seen and heard him.

We talked late that night, but no matter what kind of theory we came up with it didn’t make sense. Oh well, we decided, we might see some tracks in the morning. On this thought we went to sleep.

The moment there was a bit of light, we were outside. We searched and searched but found nothing. We then decided it probably would never happen again, so we tried to forget it.

In about a week, the guy (as we called him) came again. We were already in bed but waited for him to knock. He did not. His visits continued sometimes a day apart and occasionally a week.

On one occasion, I sat by the table facing the window. It was a dark night, and my kerosene lamp wasn’t bright enough to cast any light beyond the window. This time, he came to the door then turned to walk all the way around the cabin. My eyes were about 2 feet from the glass, and they grew to about the size of golf balls as his footsteps approached the window. Nobody passed by, but we could hear him.

That did it!! We stayed at home all the next day. We inspected every inch of our cabin. We checked every log, none were hollow. We checked the stove pipe to see if there was any clearance between the pipe and the metal safety ring that might allow a clatter. There was none. We checked the cellar and the roof. We eliminated every possibility. We were stumped.

There was an open 4-foot square well outside the house and in order to get to the water, I had to climb down a questionable ladder to the bottom as the water was in just one corner. I had dug the corner a little deeper and it gave us all the good water that we needed. It became my job to get water and that was mostly at night. Often, as I came with my pail and flashlight, I looked all around before I went down the ladder. At the bottom after every two dipperfulls, I bent my head back until it hurt to look and to be sure no one was looking down at me. I wondered what I would do if there were!!

Time went on. The visitor would come, and Ed would say, “Here comes our friend again.” One night it had just stopped snowing. I sat at the window again, “Hey, Ed”, I called, let’s not go out of that door tonight. If he comes, we will be able to see tracks in the morning. Sure, enough he came. In the first light of day, we were outside. We checked every foot of ground within 50 feet of all sides of the cabin. There was not so much as a squirrel track to be found. We tried one more trick. When he comes again, Ed suggested that we wait till he comes to the door then we will rush out. He added that I should go right, and he would go left, and we’ll meet in back. We did and found nothing but each other.

We left the woods in mid-Feb. I told the story to a local historian. He listened attentively and said he would do some checking. In a couple of days he told me that he learned of a man who was seriously injured at the lumber camp. He was taken to town on a bob sled, which took several hours, but he died almost as soon as he got to town. Could his spirit have returned to the Big Woods?

Years later, on a visit to my hometown, I returned to the Big Woods to see if our friend was still there. I found nothing, All the old shacks had long since burned to the ground.

I sadly walked away from the ashes. My mind was filled with memories of the winter when Ed and I lived there. What on earth was going on? We will never know.