The Good-Time Ghosts

It was on one of these bitterly cold nights that Mike heard the strains of honky-tonk music coming from one of the buildings. Believing himself to be the only person in town, he was puzzled, but he decided that some cross-country skiers or snowshoers must have come into Garnet without his knowledge. He set off in the direction of some cabins to look for them but turned back when he realized that the music was coming from somewhere else.

"I finally traced it to Kelly's Saloon, a typical false-fronted building constructed before the turn of the century," Mike explained. "It's true that extremely cold weather can alter sounds, but as I approached the saloon I had no doubt that I was hearing the noise of a rip-roaring party.

"I walked a plank from the hillside up to the back door, and the sounds got louder. I opened the door and walked onto a landing where a stairway used to be. No doubt about it—people were talking and laughing and a piano was being played. I walked over to where a railing used to be and looked down into the bar area.

"The sounds stopped as if someone had switched off a radio," he said, "and the old saloon was empty except for a few odd pieces of furniture scattered about. I realized that what I had heard did not belong to the present time, but for some reason I wasn't frightened."

Mike and a later caretaker, Kerry Moon, had never heard of one another before I began my research, but their experiences involving the saloon were uncannily alike. Kerry was the caretaker at Garnet during the mid-1970s; during his stay he enjoyed the company of Whiskers, a border collie-sheltie mix once owned by a previous caretaker who had died. One night in the middle of December 1975, Whiskers began barking and howling.

"He woke me up, and that's when I heard the sounds of music and laughter coming from Kelly's Saloon," Kerry remembered. "I was worried because I thought teenagers or transients had found their way there and were having a party. Determined to evict them, I grabbed my rifle and Whiskers and I walked the eighty feet from the guard cabin to the old saloon."

© Article copyright Pruett Publishing.