Just up the road from our camp a few miles, on the way to Evergreen Valley, is a place known as Bride’s Camp.  Every year, on a certain night, we would go just before dusk and wait to see the ghost after dark.  Here is her story.

At last, the end of the war came.  John came home and married his intended as he had promised so many years ago.  Their wedding luncheon was a close family gathering, full of joy and sweetness of a longing fulfilled.  The couple decided to spend their wedding night in a nearby meadow, a place full of memories of their youth, of innocent play and later tenderness.  At twilight, as the stars twinkled from their daytime hiding places, John started a campfire to cook a simple meal.  His bride was brimming with fun.  Laughter bubbled up unbidden and her smile felt as if it wrapped twice around her head.  She put on her veil to go pick wildflowers before it was full dark.  Then she went to the river’s edge to fetch water and heard uneven bounding behind her.  She cried out as she turned but her cries were cut short.  John ran to the river in time to see her veil floating away and blood on the ground.    He heard the sound of the three-legged wolf, the strongest of survivors, willing to chew off his own leg rather than be caught in a trap.  The rhythm of the galloping three legs, one-two-three, one-two- three, went on and on until at last it faded and no sound was left but the clattering of the river over the rocks.

The years passed, the sorrow became a bittersweet memory, and John married again.  He raised a family and passed on his love of the great outdoors, but never again visited the meadow of his first honeymoon.  The ghost of his bride, however, returns each year on their anniversary, walking the banks of the river and the woods nearby, crying out the name of her husband, always searching to be united with her true love.