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Huckleby Farm

Beyond strange.

By Lamar WigginsPublished 2 years ago Updated about a year ago 15 min read
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Huckleby Farm
Photo by Philip Brown on Unsplash

I was rudely awakened by the early morning sunshine as it easily penetrated the thinness of my eyelids, but not before the bright rays were incorporated into my dream...

I was dreaming I was in a village. In a place I've never seen before. I remember it was nighttime. People were coming from different directions but all walking in the same direction toward something. I wasn't sure where they were going but somehow knew what I was doing. This is one of the many mysteries of dreams. They have nothing to do with your waking life, but you always seem to know what you're doing, and you rarely question the situations you find yourself in.

This particular dream was very vivid, I can recall details as if they happened yesterday. The forest was thick with brush, the pathways to straw huts were laden in jewel plated tiles. The people of the village were that of color, perhaps Latin American or Arabic decent. I myself had a mustache and a well-trimmed beard even though I stay clean shaven. The setting seemed primitive, like pre-pioneer days but we were all wearing modern day clothing, including ball caps and camouflage jackets. Near the top of the housing units were large red emblems woven into the straw. Each one had a different symbol on it. I spotted the one I needed to go in and began walking toward it. I didn't know if I lived there, I just knew it's where I could retrieve a black satchel. Inside the bag were stones of some sort that I needed for trading with a man I was going to meet. Right after entering the lodge-like home, I heard some commotion toward the back of it. I went over there to investigate and saw that it was an owl. A barn owl to be exact. You know, the kind with the flat oval sides to their face where the eyes are. This one must have been a foot and a half tall. It was flapping its wings while scratching at the dirt floor. The wind generated by the flapping was removing the loose dirt where he was digging. I moved a little closer and could see that his effort was revealing something buried. All of the sudden he stopped, his wings folded down and his head slowly turned 180 degrees until he was looking at me dead in the eyes. Suddenly, he clutched the unearthed object with his claws, jumped into the air and took flight. He swooped past me in a hurry and flew out an opening at the top of the hut. I quickly ran outside to see if I could see where he was going. He was nowhere in sight. I looked everywhere.

My attention was easily drawn back to the villagers gathering around something bright. With strong hues of orange and yellow emanating from the center of the crowd it looked like a campfire filling the night sky. There were too many people gathered around it, I couldn't see over them. I had to get closer, so I pushed my way through the strangers until I was almost close enough to witness what they were looking at. Thats when I heard a loud screeching sound. Everyone else heard it too. In unison, we all looked above us to see that it was the owl. He was about 10ft or so above our heads and flying at a good rate of speed. He flew over the entire crowd, toward the source of light. Once he got right over it, he screeched again while swooping upwards and simultaneously released whatever it was that he dug up, it went directly into the light. He made another sharp pitched screeching sound before disappearing into the darkness. Everyone started to panic and disperse, but it was too late. Whatever was dropped into the light caused it to magnify in brightness and expand in all directions. The last thing I saw was everything disappearing into the illumination... I woke up starring right into the sun as it had finally crept up to eye level, piercing through the open window in my bedroom. I quickly looked away, stretched for a few seconds then jumped out of bed to get ready for work.

My job is full of routine chores. There are chickens to feed, cows to feed, horses to be fed and let out of their stables so they can roam around free. We have to feed and hose down the pigs just to watch them get muddy again. There are all sorts of things to keep you busy when working on the farm.

My Aunt's Carrol's property was approximately 110 acres, humongous! She took over Huckelby Farm in the late 1950s after her husband wanted to pursue his dream of becoming governor of the state. One of his goals was to change some of the laws overseeing farmers so that they can turn bigger profits. He was still around from time to time but relinquished himself from anything farm related. It was a mutual decision between my aunt and uncle.

During the summer of 1966 I decided to secretly grow a small section of tobacco. Neither my aunt nor any of my cousins knew about the location of the plants. I tried to convince her a couple years earlier to start growing it, but she was completely against the idea saying that she was not growing anything that can kill people. I understood that, but my logic went a different way. I felt that people will find it one way or another. We can't stop the sale of it and there was a lot of money to be made from it. I found a good spot in the fields toward the edge of the forest for it to grow. It would fetch me an extra six or seven hundred dollars a season. If we were to use the main field to grow it though, we could make thousands of dollars a season but that wasn't going to happen. My aunt was too stubborn and apparently held on to some morals.

10 days had passed since the last time I checked in on the lush green money makers. The closer I got to them the bigger my smile became. I had dollar signs for pupils and already knew what I was going to do with the money. For years I've had my eye on a 1960 CT 200 Honda motor bike. It was a Dream Bike for anyone in their early 20s and I finally figured out a way to get one. There were only 2 weeks left until I could begin the laborious but exciting harvest. I planned to sale the crop to Johhny Benton. He was a good friend of mine and was the only one who knew the secret. He claimed to have a buyer but never mentioned any details about the sale. I could care less who he sold them too, as long as I made a profit.

As I arrived at the location, my smile quickly turned into a frown. The plants were gone, all 8 rows of them. I began running around the entire area looking for a sign of them, looking for any clue I could find. I found nothing except empty holes from them being pulled up. My mind began to race in search of what could have happened. I began to sweat with uneasiness at the thought of my aunt finding and destroying them, but that didn't make sense because she is the type that will confront you right away about something like this. Maybe Johnny stole them. That also didn't make any sense. Although I told him about it, I never told him where they were. It would literally take him days to search the acreage, plus he could get arrested for being on private property without permission. Then what happened to them? I continued to look around and was quickly becoming angry at this discovery. I put a lot of hard work into something and will receive nothing for it! I spit out my chewing gum and went to seek shade. It was a steamy 95 degrees out with no assistance from the wind.

I found a tree at the edge of the woods where I could sit and think. What happened to my beautiful plants? What can I do about this? I spent the next few minutes cursing up a storm and was on the verge of tears, it was very upsetting. Then I saw something near my right shoe. I reached over to pick it up. It was a bunch of twist ties, the kind you use to close up garbage bags. Someone left evidence. This made me wonder what else I could find. I got up from the ground and began looking around. Several feet into the forest, I found more twist ties. Then I found a wooden crate with gloves and unused plastic bags in it. This was it! Someone was here and stole the plants. I looked down at the crate with fury, then kicked it as hard as I could. It went flying into the brush and disappeared from sight. I wanted to scream out bloody murder but remembered that this whole thing was a secret so I couldn't call law enforcement or tell anyone. This situation was indeed a pickle. I decided I should probably keep all the evidence that I found so I went to find the crate. As I approached the area where I saw it go, something jumped out of the brush and flew up into the trees. It startled me and I almost fell backwards. It was a barn owl! I immediately got a feeling of DeJa'Vu. It looked exactly like the owl in my dream a week earlier. I didn't know what to do except look at it and wonder what all of this meant. He was perched on a branch 20 feet in the air, gazing at me with a wicked stare. I was kind of frightened by the whole thing. I cautiously walked closer to the crate, all the while never taking my eyes off of creepy looking bird. The first thing I saw when I looked down at the crate was a red emblem on the side of it. It had a striking resemblance to the ones on the huts in my dream. Things just got a little weirder... Was this a tell tell sign that I was supposed to pay attention to what was going on? It was definitely too much of a coincidence to just say whatever and go about my business.

I was thoughtless, my mind didn't know what to think. Two real objects from a dream I had was right in front of me. Maybe I needed to go to the area where the owl leapt from. He remained in the tree and was still displaying a sinister stare. He never took his eyes off me the entire time. It gave me fearful goosebumps. If it ever came down to it, I felt I would win in a physical confrontation with an owl. On second thought I would probably run like everyone else from fear of getting my eyes scratched out. I spent a moment recalling the dream in case it gave me an idea of what to do. Then a sound came from deep in the woods. The owl reacted by turning his head in the direction of the sound. He wasted no time jumping into flight and flying in the opposite direction of where the sound came from. I kept my ears on high alert and took cover. I waited for a moment but never heard any additional sounds, so I went back to my agenda of searching and gathering evidence from the tobacco heist. I started with the crate, as I reached down to grab it, I could hear fidgeting under the brush. IT WAS THAT DAMN OWL! He was in the same spot I saw him fly up to the tree from. How and when did he return, because I never saw anything. I know that owls have high-tech feathers and don't make sound when they fly but I never took my eyes off of that area. I stooped down and moved some of the brush to the side to see what it was doing. He was scratching at the ground using his razor-sharp claws and pecking at it with his beak. From time to time, I would see small yellow and white objects fly off to the sides of his body. They looked like teeth! Why would teeth be buried back here in the middle of nowhere? Unless something or someone was buried there. I had to see for myself, so I threw the crate over near where he was and jumped out of the bushes while making a loud threatening sound with my voice. The owl reacted by flying away. I glanced at my surroundings before moving closer to the spot where he was digging. Once there, I got on my knees and reached down to pick up an object that I thought was a tooth. It was a kernel of corn and was hard as a rock. I grabbed another, it was also corn. Then I reached right down in the center of where he was digging and pulled up a necklace made of corn. I was very relieved that it wasn't teeth. The necklace looked old and worn. It had different colored beads threaded into it as well. I'm not sure why the owl was interested in it, he is a carnivore and only eats mice and birds and stuff like that. I was intrigued enough to want to grab a shovel to see if there was anything else it was digging for but first, I had to finish gathering my evidence. I spent another hour looking for the stolen crops or more items that were tied to this crime scene. I found nothing else. It was time for supper, so I headed back to the ranch to feed the chickens and get myself something to eat. I was suspicious toward everyone I ran into including my aunt. I felt paranoid like everyone knew something about the disappearance of the crops.

By Lucas van Oort on Unsplash

The following day I took a shovel back to the site where the owl was. He was there, diligently digging away. I shushed him until he took a spot in the trees where he could watch me dig up whatever it was that he was after. I started carefully digging in a small circle around the center of his focus. The ground was moist after a rainstorm passed by in the early morning, which made it easier to remove the dirt. After a few minutes of stabbing into the earth I hit something solid. I switched to using a hand-held spade that I brought with me. Whatever it was it was deep into the ground. I spent the next hour carefully digging around the object that was starting to take shape. I realized that it was the lid to an old wooden box. It was at least a 4ft wide and 4feet long. I grabbed the shovel and put the edge of it between the seal to try and pry it open. I looked up in the tree and the owl was gone. I looked around in the neighboring trees, but he was nowhere in sight. I went back to prying it open. The wood on this box was very fragile, it broke in every spot I placed the shovel to try and get it open. Then I threw down the shovel and just used my hands to see if that would work. The box suffered some damage but with my determination I got it open. My eyes couldn't believe what it was seeing. I felt like a pirate who just found a sunken treasure. Inside the box was a bunch of jewelry laying on top of black bags, like the satchel in my dream. In excitement, I grabbed one of them, it was tattered, dusty and moldy. I sat it on the ground and looked inside. It was full of more jewelry and all kinds of necklaces. I pulled out the rest of the bags to see that they were concealing a small human skeleton. I swiftly took a few steps back in awe of the sight. I had never seen anything like it. It had to be the remains a young child. This changed everything. I rushed back to the ranch and told my aunt what I had found, she called the local authorities. They showed up a couple hours later and brought a paleontologist with them. The area was an ancient Indian stomping ground for a small tribe. My aunt was forced by the courts to sell the land that it was on to the city for preservation. They spent months digging up all kinds of artifacts, tools and a few more bodies. They said that the site was more than 300 years old. The story was front page news and I had quite a few interviews with different newspapers from different cities. Everyone wanted to know the story. The headlines read, "A Local Farmer, Mike Stapleton Has a Dream and Finds Lost Treasures." Of course, some of the critics thought I was a lunatic or was on drugs. I for sure knew that everything I told them was the truth and that's all that mattered.

We sold most of the jewelry that I found on that hot summer day to the natural history museum. My aunt kept a lot of it. Needless to say, I got my bike but never figured out what the owl was after and never found out what happened to my tobacco plants.

Every part of this occurrence depended on certain actions to happen in order for the discovery to be made. If I never planted the crops or had that dream, I would have never made this historic find. To this day I still think about the owl and wonder if he ever got his share from the dig. One thing for sure, I am thankful he led me to the site...

By Ronan Furuta on Unsplash

Mystery
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About the Creator

Lamar Wiggins

Creative writer in the Northeast US who loves the paranormal, mystery, true crime, horror, humor, fantasy and poetry. Take a chance, you'll be thoroughly entertained.

"Life is Love Experienced" -LW

LDubs

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