For several years I traveled once a week during the school year to Dulce, New Mexico on the Jicarilla Apache Reservation. As a rule, I stayed in Dulce at the famed Wild Horse Casino and Hotel. In the fall, the not on the front entrance announced, "no bloody boots allowed." In the evening, the lobby was alive with Casino players, but I never dared go in to gamble because a cloud of negative spirits seemed to always be following me in my tasks in that quaint rural town.
One day, I arrived in a snowstorm without a reservation, and the Wild Horse Casino was filled to capacity. I turned my little Honda Civic around and headed outside the reservation to the town of Chama. Dark was falling along with a heavy snowfall, but I did find a hotel accepting guests.
The business consisted of a log cabin style structure with 4 cabins build out back. Only one cabin was available, no rooms. Naturally, with it being so late in the day, I took the open cabin.
"One thing," the young man behind the desk held the old-fashioned key in his hand.
"Okay?" I was in a hurry to relax.
"You don't care if it's haunted."
"What are you talking about?"
The clerk laughed. "Just a joke." He handed me the key.
"One more thing," he said as I was about to exit the door. "Don't worry if a tree falls."
"A tree."
"Loud sound, but it happens all the time."
I frowned, figured the guy was stoned, and sped out of lobby.
Lighting in the back of the building was poor, and the path to the back cabin passed by ponderosa pines whose black branches swayed in the cold breeze. It was eerie, even spooky. I began to wish that I had asked more about the haunting.
However, when I opened the door, the room was cozy, with a small refrigerator, a coffee machine, and a good television with cable TV. I fell easily into a dreamless sleep only to awake several hours later to a thundering crash. TI expected to hear sirens and see the lights of firetrucks out my window.
Instead, a deep silence fell on the forest surrounding my little cabin. No wind blew and no cars passed in the distance. I look at my bedside clock. Three in the morning. Maybe I dreamed the sound. Still, I knew I couldn't sleep without at least checking out the room and glancing out the door to make sure a tree hadn't actually fallen onto the roof of the hotel.
The snow had stopped and the night was dimly lit. A shadow swept by the entrance to my room. The figure wore a long dress with colors that flashed in moonlight.
"Did a tree fall?" I called out.
"They killed my children." A woman's deep voice.
"Pardon me?"
"So I blasted the mountain."
A hyena laugh filled the dark air, and I slammed the door of the cabin, threw the deadbolt, and attached the chain lock. The laugh echoed in the woods outside my door.
Needless to say, I tossed and turned the rest of the night and dragged miserably through work the next day. And, yes, I asked the clerk about the sound.
"Happens all the time."
And that's why I say it's mysterious in New Mexico.
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