Indian Ghost Story Essay -- essays research papers

It was February in the year 1991 when I had my experience with a ghost. I was 17 years old at the time. One Saturday evening in Phoenix, my high school was having a basketball game, and afterward my cousin and I left the school gymnasium at around 10 p.m. My cousin is from Tohono O’dham, and I was going to spend the weekend with my aunt’s family. Like myself, my aunt is Yaqui. She married a Tohono O’dham man some years ago and had two kids. One is my cousin. We got on Interstate 10 and then switched on to South Highway 15 for the drive to the town of Sells on the Tohono O’dham Reservation. About 40 minutes into our drive, we were deep in the desert. Because my car needed new tires, I had to drive just below the speed limit. The treads were just about completely worn out. I guess I had the type of car that we Indians call an â€Å"Indian car.† It was a pretty beat-up looking car, but it got me where I wanted to go. Anyway, there we were, driving in the middle of the desert with the CD player going, and the darkness all around. Suddenly, a large javelina crossed the road, and I hit that wild pig with a big old â€Å"bang!† I didn’t have time to think about stepping on the brakes, because one second there was just the road before us, and the next there was this javelina. I knew we had some big trouble with the car, because the radiator began to hiss, and steam began pouring out. I immediately drove to the side of the road and stopped the car to check on the damage. Sure enough, that animal had hit the front grill head-on, and a piece of metal had punctured my car’s radiator. Directly behind the car in the darkness e could hear the pig loudly squealing. It was a weird experience to be alone at night in the desert and to hear ... ...e before dawn, we were awakened by a truck with two guys who were headed for Sells. They sure did give us a good scare when they knocked on the car’s window, but soon we were introducing ourselves, and they offered to take us home. The guys told us they were artists driving from California. They were on a photography trip, taking pictures of the desert and Indians for an art project. We tied one end of a rope to the back of their truck and the other end to the front of our car, and they towed us home. We never mentioned our experience with the ghost the night before. But when we did get home that morning, we told my aunt and her family everything. Everyone agreed that what we had experienced was the ghost of an Indian from the spirit world. Since my encounter with that ghost, I’ve decided, if at all possible, never to drive at night through the desert again.