The Ghosts of Kagel Canyon

I’m an accountant. Everything has its place. I believe in science. I don’t believe in anything that violates the rules of physics. That includes levitation, crystal balls, having conversations with the dearly departed, potions, Sasquatch, or superstition. When I buy a bag of M&M’s I empty it onto a table and separate them by colors. I eat the brown ones first just to get them out of the way. Then the tan ones. When my dinner plate contains meat, potatoes, and a vegetable, I am careful to consume each proportionately so that my last bite of meat is followed by the last bite of potatoes, followed by … you know.

Yeah, I’m that guy who drives you crazy with his never-ending logic and rationale. A dweeb, a nerd, and the one you’d go to if you needed financial advice. Someone you can trust because he hasn’t experience at being untrustworthy.

That’s why none of this makes sense. But you know it has to be true because it’s my story.

It started when my friend Judy introduced me to her friend, Raws. Raws and I soon became a thing. She lived in a place called Kagel Canyon. Don’t say you’ve heard of it, because you haven’t.

It’s the west coast version of Stephen King’s Derry, where even civilization a quarter-mile down and away from the canyon haven’t heard of it. It’s a place that starts where the road seems to end. Up the road and into the national forest. You’ve arrived when you see the bulletin board to the right, where you’ll find notices offering to exchange guitar lessons for your professional services. It’s hauntingly quiet during the day, except for the rush of leaves as the afternoon breeze brings personality to the canyon. As if it needed personality.

Wind up the road and The Hideaway, a biker bar and only commercial establishment, will be on your right, after which the lower canyon becomes the upper canyon. A maze of paved and unpaved trails with eighty year old cabins that became homes to those who wished to live without rules and restrictions and codes that the city people needed to keep order. Chickens, goats, bunnies, and people lived in this canyon. Overgrown oak and eucalyptus trees protected the homes, covering their roofs jealously. At the top of the canyon was Glen Haven, a cemetery long since forgotten and which was the final resting place for some silent screen stars. A creek wound its way down the canyon.

After nightfall, the canyon would take on a different life. Coyotes would howl, creek frogs would croak, and lions … from the Wildlife Waystation in the canyon next door … would roar.

By now you’re thinking this is the kind of place where you’d like to live. I once thought that.

Raws and her daughter lived in a smallish cabin house in the upper canyon. I loved visiting and soon I melted into the environment, staying often enough that I was friendly with her neighbors. Then she lost the house to her ex-husband and she moved away. I rented a room from an older divorcee called Joan, who lived miles away in Chatsworth. A hotbed of middle class civilization.

But the canyon called to me.

After a few months, I went to visit John, Raws’ brother who had the largest home in the canyon. It was in the lower canyon, upwards of the bulletin board. A Mediterranean white stucco and terra cotta tile roof, two stories with a pen in front for the goats and pigs. He allowed able-working people to stay at the house while they tended to the animals and maintained the house. The visit was hollow as I wasn’t visiting with Raws. The canyon was the residue left from whatever our relationship was.

On the way out, I stopped to read notices on the bulletin board.

“House for Rent. See Mike”.

Mike called himself the mayor of Kagel Canyon. He owned a ranch at the top of the canyon, the other side of the cemetery, where he rented stalls for horses. I don’t know what drove me to inquire, but I knew I needed to get away from Joan’s house in Chatsworth, and the canyon was something I thought I knew.

Mike’s personality was bigger than life and he was happy I had stopped by. He gave me the address, on Kagel Canyon Road, across the creek from Spring Trail. The rent was $800 per month, which in the early nineties was about the same as a modest two bedroom apartment in the San Fernando Valley. He called Clovis and asked that he meet me at the house.

Clovis. He was the caretaker. A Stephen King designed caretaker who, in his eighties, walked with a hobble and with one strap from his bib overalls hanging off his shoulder. He talked nasally, like you would were you to pinch your nostrils tightly while holding your breath and talking. Clovis introduced himself, his head cocked to the side because it wouldn’t go upright, and said with a smile , “Hi Barry. I’m Clovis. Want to feel my wires?” whereupon he unclasped his overalls, pulled them down, and took my hand so that my fingers would scrape across his chest. No doubt there were wires in there.

This was a nice house, I thought. A two story … three stories if you counted the basement that was open to the outside … all wood, with a redwood deck overlooking the creek, a cement shaded porch from which one would enter through side door of the house, and a second floor loft that opened to the roof below like an observation deck to view the stars at night. It was recessed below street level. A wood burning fireplace (of course) and a two story kitchen (of course). Unimproved parcels of land on both sides that belonged to the house.

I asked Clovis if he came with the house. He said he lived down the canyon and that Mike would want me to call him if I needed anything.

Well, that was that. A week later I moved in. A year later I moved out. That was anything but that.

The Harbingers

I never did get used to the night play of field mice. I’d often awaken to the cymbal clash of the vent flashing that ran through the living room. These were my field mice friends racing from one end of the room to the other. Crash, crash, crash. “Hey!” I’d yell to deaf ears. Note to self, call Clovis. I’d have to wait to see my mice running through the house. If they went into another room, I could close the door and then call Clovis. He’d arrive with a broken-tooth smile (of course), eager for action. I’d tell him I didn’t have my mouse container and he’d say, as he hobbled towards the room, “I don’t need a trap. I catch them with my hands!” And, indeed he did. He would toss them into the creek below and we’d do it all over again after they found their way back in to the vent flashing highway.

I hadn’t considered that when living in an eighty year old cabin in the woods, I would have field mice. Mice in the house give me the heebeejeebies. It was nice falling asleep to the roar of the lions and the caroling of frogs and the wind rushing nervously through the branches. The mice didn’t put me to sleep. Their racing through the vent alarmed me. It was to become a harbinger of things to come.

By occupation, I was a tax accountant at a big bank in the San Fernando Valley. I’d wear a suit and tie to work and then come home to my canyon house to tend to the chickens I was raising in the side yard. A regular gentleman farmer, even with some rows of cantaloupe, corn, and strawberries growing nearby to the fenced off chickens.

Shortly after a mouse incident I arrived home with chicken in hand, as it had flown the coop and was prancing about on the roof of a neighbor house. I stopped short. From the top of the stairs leading down the to front door I saw maybe a half dozen rattlers, intertwined and knotted under the living room window maybe five steps from the entry door.

I don’t know what came over me. I wasn’t afraid and didn’t need Clovis. Chicken still under my arm, I walked briskly down the stairs and to the front door. I muttered, “Hi fellas” without looking at them, opened the door, and walked in. I went about my business and by morning they were gone.

Perhaps this too was a harbinger of of that which was to come.

Come summer, it was nice having Judy and her boyfriend Ken over for a barbecue from time to time. Resting on the deck in a lawn chair, the creek babbling noisily, peacocks cawing in the distance, freshly made lemonade with a shot of tequila. This is why I moved here.

Ken was quite the handyman. Clovis was wonderful at MacGyvering broken things to make them work. Ken would actually buy parts and fix things. Whenever Ken would come over we’d chat about canyon living and the conversation would inevitably come to the air conditioning unit that was actually a noise machine. He would find a way to add 24 hours of life to it and the next time he’d come over he would do the same. The deafening tin rattle and vibration it would send would comfort me into thinking the unit had finally been fixed.

Ken would ask from time to time if I ever noticed anything paranormal at the house. Why would he ask this? Just canyon living talk.

The Haunting

Judy and Ken had left for the evening. I took care of the dishes and plopped down onto my bed, my bedroom directly off to the side of the kitchen. I fell asleep on top of my bed, shoes still on my feet.

I awoke with a start. The mice again. I ran into the living room, turned on the light, and yelled up upwards. I banged the ceiling with a broomstick and the mice silenced. I turned on the light and saw movement in my peripheral vision. A lone field mouse stood upright on his hind legs atop the air conditioning wall unit, staring at me. He appeared to have something to say. I went back into the bedroom. I shut the door tightly. Note to self, call Clovis.

The next day, I arrived home from work to find a dead, white dove on the living room floor nearby to the fireplace, feathers strewn everywhere. The chimney had no flue. I found a towel, gathered up the dove, and cradled it in a nearby nestle of leaves.

Another day broke to my calling my cats, Spanky and Darla, for breakfast. They had been outside and hadn’t returned. I left their food on the deck expecting them to be waiting for my return. I came home to find the food untouched. I called Clovis to ask if he’d seen them. He told me he’d come over to show me something. We walked across the wood plank bridge over the creek and on to Spring Trail. The pavement gave way to a dirt walking trail. No more than a hundred steps in, we came to a pile of bones, stretching upward about four feet on a hillside near the trail. “That’s where your cats are”, he said. “Coyotes catch ’em and eat em.”

A mouse staring at me from the air conditioning unit. Then the dead dove in the living room. Now a bone pile of cats.

I didn’t want to fall asleep that night. Every time I did, my head filled with imagery of things I’d witnessed at the canyon house. The spray of crops, each being pulled down by gophers. My chickens dancing rhythmically on a snake until it flattened to the look of a belt. The inside walls soaked through with rain, dripping with rainwater. The washer outdoors banging on my bedroom wall. Clovis asking if I’d like to feel his wires. Judy once telling me that she’s worried I have ghosts.

And then I awoke with a start. Someone was attempting to break in. I knew this because the entry door had a bad knob … one of those knobs where you hear springs winding inside when you turn it. I ran the straight line from the bedroom, through the kitchen, and on to the narrow hallway to the door and yelled out, “Someone is home! Go away!” I made sure the deadbolt was still in place.

He went away. Or, at least he stopped turning the knob.

I wasn’t frightened. I was annoyed. This wasn’t like me.

As I turned around, I heard a cackling commotion and had to step back to avoid the rush of white transparencies, maybe five of them, as they floated quickly in front of me and up the stairs to the loft. They left behind the acrid smell of a burnt match. Once upstairs, they continued their hyena-like cackling as if they were laughing yet quarreling with one another.

I screamed out, “Quiet! I need to get to sleep!” They quieted. I returned to my bedroom and went back to sleep.

I awakened early. As I walked through the kitchen to the bathroom, I asked, “What was that!” As I left the bathroom I walked over to the stairway, still lingering with the smell of a burnt match. Now a little pensive, I crept slowly up the stairs. It was quiet and there was no sign of them. But, that acrid smell was by far more intense.

I opened the upstairs window and door to the observation deck. I made my breakfast. I went to work. I stopped by Judy’s apartment in Van Nuys. I asked if she knew if there were any vacancies.

When the movers arrived, I asked if any of them were afraid of mice, because there was one still in the house that could cross their path. They looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders.

About a month after I had moved in, Judy visited my apartment. She said she had been out with Ken, who had wanted to take a picture of the canyon house. He drove over to Spring Trail to a clearing, where horses were occasionally tied to a post. It was across the creek from the back side of the house.

As he stood staring at the house, the lady who lived in the house nearby approached him. She said to him quietly, “You know, there are ghosts in that house”.

“I know”, he replied.

It’s been twenty-five years and a day doesn’t pass where the questions don’t arise. I’m still an accountant who lives within the confines of his columns and rows. I still don’t believe in magic because physics doesn’t allow it. People who say they’ve seen ghosts also believe in magic and so they are all liars. When they describe their experience it’s nothing like mine. Why was there such calm at the sight of them and what was the smell? I might have thought I’d dreamed it all were it not for the continuing acrid odor the following morning. If ghosts are transparent, how could they have turned the broken door knob to get me up?

I watch all of the science programs hoping to find something that explains the existence of my ghosts within the confines of physics. I rationalize that they are pure energy and pure energy exists in physics.

So there. So not there.

This will never be reconciled.