A Pocahontas County Halloween Story
Ken Springer
Contributing Writer
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” ~ Shakespeare
The young girl knew every inch of the hills and hollers surrounding her grandparent’s Pocahontas County farm. At ten years of age, the precocious child could show you the best locations for gathering ramps, morels and ginseng.
Mary Margaret Bigham knew the location of ice caves, a necessity for making ice cream throughout the summer months. She knew where every natural spring was for several miles in each direction, much to the local bootleggers’ delight.
Mary Margaret’s grandfather taught her to identify birds by their song and to recognize the tracks of every varmint and feathered friend living in the verdant valleys and mountains surrounding the farm.
Yet, her favorite place to play was a pawpaw patch, and she didn’t tell anyone about her secret spot. It was where she tried to remember as much as she could about her mother.
It was 1933, the height of the Great Depression, and young Mary Margaret resided with her loving, but aging grandparents, Jonah and Gracie Aiken.
Her broken-hearted father, Richard, served in the Oregon Civilian Conservation Corps. A famous quip during the Depression was, “You couldn’t buy a job.”
At least the CCC offered young men a job and a regular paycheck.
When Mary Margaret was only eight, her comely raven-haired mother, Helen, went off into the woods one spring day to forage for wild mustard greens and was never seen or heard from again.
Well over a hundred neighbors and friends – men and women – searched every nook and cranny of Pocahontas and surrounding counties for over a month looking for Helen, but to no avail.
Shortly after Helen’s sudden disappearance, rumors began circulating throughout the county. Some speculated that she ran off with a wealthy coal baron, while others surmised that she had taken her own life; neither was even remotely true. Helen loved her family with all her heart.
The family’s grief was only heightened by not knowing what had happened to Helen. Mary Margaret missed her mother terribly and often cried herself to sleep at night. Her grandparents tried their best to console her, but life with a broken and distant father and no mother was a challenge for the young lass.
Both of her sets of grandparents were of Scots Irish descent, and they brought their traditions and values of hard work to West Virginia. They also carried their superstitious beliefs from the old country.
On her mother’s side, Mary Margaret’s great-grandmother was said to have had abilities that they called the “gift.” also known as An Da Shealladh or “second sight.”
Granny Aiken suspected that little Mary Margaret also possessed the gift of anomalous cognition. She seemed to know where lost items could be found without physically looking for them.
Mrs. McClafferty, a neighboring farmer, once lost a treasured broach, a gift from her grandmother. Mary Margaret overheard a conversation between her grandmother and Mrs. McClafferty regarding the missing piece of jewelry.
Mary Margaret was sitting on the floor sketching at the time. She looked up at the two women sitting at the kitchen table and said confidently, “Your broach is at the bottom of the watering trough, the one behind the red corn crib.”
The neighbor laughed at the child, saying, “Oh, young Mary, you have an active imagination, my dear.”
Much to the woman’s surprise, her husband fished her broach out of the trough later that same day.
On another occasion, Emil Neeson, up on Laurel Run, mentioned to Mary Margaret’s grandfather that someone had broken into his cabin while he was out of town and stole his double-barrel Parker Damascus shotgun, a prized possession his father had brought over from Northern Ireland.
Mary Margaret heard her grandfather speak of the theft over dinner. She asked him what the gun looked like, and he described it to Mary Margaret. Mary Margaret immediately ran upstairs to her bedroom to fetch her sketch pad.
The young girl sat on the floor and began sketching furiously as was her custom. When she finally held the picture up to her grandfather, his eyes widened at what he saw. Her depiction of the firearm was spot on, even down to the scrolling and etchings of bird dogs and pheasants.
How could she possibly know these details from the scant information he provided?
She had also sketched a small chestnut log cabin at the mouth of a deep ravine in one corner of the page. Only one home fit the picture; it belonged to Virgil Skinner, a violent and brutal man.
Mary Margaret’s grandparents could see that she was visibly shaking, and her eyes rolled back in her head. Her grandmother fetched her a cup of tea while her grandfather held her tenderly in his arms, wiping her forehead with a cool rag.
Mary Margaret came about shortly, but she had a look of pure anguish on her face. She had never responded in such a way to one of her drawings before. When asked why she was so upset about this particular drawing, Mary Margaret replied, “I don’t know. I felt as though I would stop breathing.”
A little later, Jonah saddled up his old mare and paid Emil Neeson a visit. After showing Mary Margaret’s sketch to Emil, the two set off on horseback to drop in on Skinner. When the despicable burglar opened the door, they pushed right past him and into the cabin. Sure enough, Emil’s prized shotgun stood in a corner of the room.
Still, when others heard of Mary Margaret’s unusual abilities, they did not look upon her too kindly. Vicious rumors and innuendo spread rapidly throughout the area, even by some of the people she had helped recover lost items.
Mary Margaret was daily harassed by the students at school; the children called her “freaky Mary.” Her grandparents overheard adults in town saying hurtful things like, “That Bigham girl is really creepy.” Many parents forbade their children from associating with Mary Margaret outside of school, and some thought she was, as they said, “In league with Satan.”
One warm May afternoon, Mary Margaret set out to her copse of pawpaw trees, situated on a sunlit ridge a mile or so as the crow flies from her grandparents’ farmhouse. For some odd reason, Mary felt closer to her mother there than anywhere else.
As Mary Margaret approached her special place, she was greeted by the persistent and complex song of the Red-Eyed Vireo, which sounded much like a melodic “Here I am. Where are you, over here, in the tree”
She sat on the sun-dappled ground and brought out her sketchbook. Just as she put pencil to paper, the vireo landed on a branch a few feet away. Normally quite skittish, this delightful little bird stayed put and seemed to be staring at Mary Margaret. She felt as though the vireo was trying to get her attention.
Mary Margaret sat perfectly still as she caught the tiny bird’s unflinching gaze. Its black eyes stared at her intently as if imploring her to follow it, which she did. To her utter amazement, the bird led her down the slope and perched on a nest in the crotch of a dogwood branch. Mary Margaret felt the bird’s gaze draw her nearer to the nest.
When she peeked into the nest, she found something that would change her life in a way she never thought possible. The interior of the small nest was lined with long black hair, human hair. Could it be her mother’s hair? Soon, her puzzlement turned to curiosity.
The vireo perched on a branch several yards away, continuing its gaze directly at Mary Margaret. She decided to follow the bird and maybe find the source of the jet-black hair. This game of following the bird continued for several hours, taking her farther and farther from the farm.
By late afternoon, she thought about turning back as her Granny would soon be ringing the dinner bell. But her drive to find out where the vireo would lead her won out, and she continued following the bird.
She trudged up a steep knoll in the dimming light, still pursuing the bird. Upon arriving at the top, she looked around, but the vireo could not be seen or heard.
She walked to the edge of the precipice, and to her surprise, she was looking down on the cabin she had sketched for her grandfather. Mary Margaret felt a mixture of fear and loathing. Her mind was racing; should she try to walk back into the darkness or solve the mystery of her unusual experience?
Then, a disheveled and unkempt man walked out onto the porch of the log house and loudly spit tobacco juice. Suddenly, as if sensing her presence, he looked straight up at her. When their eyes met, she felt a rush of horror—she knew instantly that this wicked and dreadful man was responsible for her mother’s disappearance.
Suddenly, Mary Margaret’s footing gave way, and she began sliding out of control down the steep slope, heading straight into the monster’s hands. She careened down the hill, stopping when she slammed into his boots. Skinner grabbed her roughly by her left hand and pulled her to her feet. Mary Margaret had grabbed a jagged rock and swung it as hard as she could into the side of his head. She heard the jaw break as he spat out a string of obscenities.
Mary Margaret looked up at the sheer rock wall that loomed above Skinner’s cabin and ran as hard as she could for it. Upon reaching the wall, she saw cracks and handholds and thought that if she could get to the first hold, she might be able to climb to the summit.
Glancing back over her shoulder, she saw that her pursuer had the same thing in mind and was quickly closing the distance between them. She lunged for the ledge, getting a firm hold and pulling herself up to the next and better hold. Looking down, she could see that Skinner was intent on climbing up after her.
Mary soon arrived at the vertical crack, and by making a fist, she could lodge her hand in the recess and pull herself up. Soon, she was out of his reach and standing on a larger ledge, but Mary was not yet out of danger.
Skinner had made it to the first ledge, but now, he had a pistol in his right hand and was holding on to a tree root with his left. She froze momentarily as he tried to hold on with one hand and get a bead on her with the other.
Suddenly, a shot rang out, and she winced, thinking that she had no chance of getting out of her predicament alive. Instead, she heard a solid thud as Skinner’s body hit the jumble of rocks at the base of the cliff.
She heard shouts; it was her grandfather and Emil Neeson on horseback up on the opposite ridge where she had fallen. Emil had put two deer slugs into Virgil Skinner’s back –he would never hurt another living thing.
Despite the two men urging her to wait until they could get a rope down to her, Mary Margaret finished climbing the face and stood up, motioning to them that she was OK.
As Jonah and Emil led their horses to the cabin, Emil said, “Jonah, you have a tough little granddaughter there. She reminds me of her mother.”
Jonah’s chest swelled with pride, and his smile couldn’t be washed off with a scrub brush. Despite her young age, Mary Margaret Bigham was a force to be reckoned with.
The men searched the cabin and found several items belonging to Helen, including a gold monogram pin with an “H” on it, her wedding ring, and her St. Christopher medallion. That was confirmation enough that Virgil Skinner had killed Helen.
After unsuccessfully sear-ching the area for any sign of Helen’s remains, the two men dragged Skinner’s body into his gloomy cabin. Finding some kerosene in his shed, a single strike of a match erased all that was Virgil Skinner.
Although Helen’s remains have never been found, Mary was sure her mother was always there and looking out for her.
It would be years before Mary would tell anyone about another mysterious thing that happened on that unforgettable day.
As she began her descent to Skinner’s cabin, she saw the Red-Eyed Vireo on a branch, singing, “Here I am. Where are you, over here, in the tree.”