Here's a new story. It's based on a real place.

The Temple Mound


Lisa had had a long day. Nothing unusual there. Between taking a full class load and the secretarial work she did for the History Department, she kept her school days full. After work she had homework, assorted extracurricular activities, all that reading she did to transcribe books and students’ papers onto tape for Dr. Evans (she had never once seen him use Braille)—and of course being a wife. Denny had a similar slate of responsibilities, with his school and his internship at the local paper. Still, she had to count her blessings. Some of the other couples in the little married students’ apartment complex had to work long hours on nights and weekends to make ends meet and hardly ever saw each other. Their parents had agreed to help them finish their senior year by covering their rent. She and Denny had obviously done a good job of winning over each others’ families. They could have made them wait another year before marrying!

Denny’s familiar step sounded on the stairs. She dropped the textbook she had been reading, rose, and rushed to open the door to greet him with a proper wifely hug and kiss. “Hi, Honey! Did you have a good day?”

“It was okay. Just a day. You seem awfully cheerful!”

“Well, it is our three-month anniversary! You told me not to worry about supper tonight.”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Denny pulled off his book bag and slung it down beside the little living room’s couch. “We might as well splurge for the occasion. Even if it is only the Pig Pit.”

“I like the Pig Pit. It’s the first place you took me out to eat.”

“Are you ready to go?”

“Just let me run a brush through my hair.”

Lisa stepped into the apartment’s single bedroom and brushed her hair down and adjusted her head band before the mirror. She gave herself a quick look to make sure her clothes were presentable. Satisfied, she stepped back out into the living room. Denny ushered her through the front door and closed and locked it after them.

On the way to the barn-like barbecue place (she just loved good barbecue!) they filled each other in on their respective days. Denny really hadn’t had a very outstanding day. Lisa had. That morning Dr. Hammond had taken the Arkansas History class on their field trip to the Indian temple mound north of town, near Osage Valley.

“We all climbed up on the mound itself while he talked about the history of it. He can be a vivid speaker when he wants to be! You could almost picture the way the place looked hundreds of years ago.”

“Dr. Hammond loves his subject,” said Denny. “He has this real enthusiasm about the classes he teaches.”

“He sure does! Thank you for recommending that class. Dr. Hammond’s pretty charming, too. I think there are several girls in class who’d like to get to know him better.”

“Present company excepted, I guess?”

“Of course!”

The car drove around a sweeping curve in the road that led around a large field on the banks of the Osage River. Lisa pointed across Denny’s lap at a little rounded, tree-clad hill on the far edge of the field. “There it is right now! You know, I’ve passed by here no telling how many times and never realized that hill was man-made.”

Over supper Lisa kept talking about the field trip and the things Dr. Hammond had lectured about. “He mentioned that this was one of two well-preserved Indian temple mounds in this county. Do you know where the other one is?”

“Sure I do! I grew up around the area, remember? It’s down along Basse-Terre Creek, kind of toward Hudson.”

“Could you take me to see it some time?”

Denny stared at her, a thoughtful look in his deep green eyes. She stared back, blue eyes wide, her chin resting on her hands. “You’re taking a while to answer.”

“I was just remembering exactly where it is. It’s only about half an hour’s drive from here. There’s a full moon out tonight. Would you like to go see it when we’re done eating?”

“Oh, I’d love to!”

“Then clean your plate, Gorgeous, and we’ll go.”


Denny steered their hatchback onto Interstate 30 heading south. About fifteen miles down the road he took the Hudson exit. Instead of turning left to go to Hudson, he headed to the right, up a little state highway that Lisa had never driven down before. They passed through wooded areas and a scattering of houses and fields. A few miles on Denny turned right onto a county road. They passed a few houses. The road turned to gravel.

After rumbling along the gravel for a couple of minutes, Denny suddenly pulled to a halt. In the bright moonlight Lisa saw that they had stopped on the edge of a fairly steep descent down twenty or thirty feet to a large, open flat area. She saw it spread out below them, an expanse of fields with fence rows here and there and a line of trees in the distance.

“That’s the Basse-Terre Creek bottom there,” Denny explained. “That belt of trees marks the creek. The mound’s just a little beyond them.”

They drove down into the creek bottom. “It’s as flat as a pool table,” Lisa observed.

“It’s good farming land. That’s why the Indians lived here. They only lived and farmed here during the dry months. Before the valley was drained in the 1920s it flooded for much of every year.”

As they approached the line of trees Lisa saw the girders of an old bridge truss before them. Denny slowed the car to a crawl as they approached the bridge.

“That’s an old bridge.”

“It was built in the 1920s.”

“Are you sure it’s safe?”

The car rose up onto the plank roadway with a loud bump. “Oh yeah, it’s safe. It doesn’t get much traffic to wear it out.”

The car idled along the bridge, the wheels making a clunking noise as they passed the spots where the planks joined together end-to-end. Lisa nervously watched the old steel girders and rods as they passed by. It felt a little like driving through some kind of cage. Through the truss she saw the moonlight glinting from the water between the dark banks. Basse-Terre Creek could almost qualify as a small river. She felt relieved when the car bumped off of the end of the roadway and the rumble of solid gravel road resumed.

Just past the bridge the road made a curve and passed out of the trees. Denny stopped and pulled over to the side. He killed the engine. “Here we are!”

They opened their doors and climbed out. With the car’s engine stopped Lisa could hear no sounds of traffic or other human activity anywhere. The chirping of crickets and katydids and other nocturnal insects filled the warm September evening air. A few brass-throated frogs sounded from the direction of the creek.

A huge full moon bathed the open fields in soft light. Perhaps a hundred yards out into the level field on the right-hand side of the road a mound of earth arose. Unlike the one on the Osage River it had no trees. It looked about the same height, but longer and less regular.

“How high do you suppose it is?” Lisa wondered.

“It’s over twenty feet high. When they first built it, it might have been over thirty feet tall. It would have been more regularly shaped. Since the Indians stopped maintaining it a couple hundred years ago it has subsided. If you look, you can see that the farmer has plowed rows all over it. That probably hasn’t helped either.”

“Have archaeologists ever examined it?”

“Oh yeah, it was first studied generations ago.”

Lisa took in more of the scene. Across the fields she saw the wooded enscarpment that marked the far side of the creek bottom. A light from a house glinted in the trees on the top of the rise. The gravel road snaked away in the general direction of the light and disappeared among the trees.

“That sure is some moon we’ve got tonight,” Denny remarked. “I guess you’d call that a harvest moon. It’s about the right time of year for it. The Indians would probably be celebrating their harvest some time around now, before the floods forced them to leave for their winter settlements on higher ground.”

“It looks kind of eerie in this moonlight,” said Lisa. Her eyes gazed up at the great moon, and then back toward the mound.
She focused on the mound. What did it look like, back in the days when it was new? Now and then when she visited some old place she got an odd feeling. It felt as though she had passed close to the people who had once lived there—like she had passed a little out of her own time. That sense came very powerfully to her now. The mound seemed to fill her vision and her mind.

As she stared at it she became aware again of the chirping of the insects and the croaking of the frogs. The volume of the animal concert swelled, growing perceptibly louder, rising toward a weird crescendo.
“Man, I’ve never heard anything like that!” sounded Denny’s voice above the racket. “You think maybe they know something we don’t know?”

Lisa did not reply. The mound and the noise filled her mind. And the heat, as well. She felt so hot suddenly. The scene before her shimmered like heat waves on a hot summer’s day. That didn’t make sense. You couldn’t see heat waves like that at night.

Then the mound…changed.

Suddenly she saw it higher, with steeper and better-defined sides. On the flat top stood a large hut made of brushwood. A fire blazed brightly beside it.

Other fires burned here and there around the base of the mound over a wide area. Some were very near her. She practically stood among them!

As her eyes adjusted to the firelight she saw more brush huts. People moved around the fires, casting shadows to and fro. There must have been hundreds of them. Dimly she saw that they were all different sizes and ages. She could see the clothes and ornaments that they wore. Some seemed to be dancing. She heard drums and many voices chanting in words she could not understand.

The sensation of heat had left her. Now she felt cold…chilled…more chilled than ever before. All those people…all those voices…the fires…how could she be here…how could she see all this? They did not belong. She did not belong.

Something was where it should not be. It all felt wrong. And it frightened her.

A hand had her by the arm, shaking her. She opened her mouth and could make no sound. She felt the blood drain from her head. Her whole field of vision grew dark….


Denny’s frightened face faded into view, looking down at her. “Lisa? Honey? Are you okay?”

Lisa suddenly realized that she was lying in the dry weeds on the edge of the road. “Denny? What happened?”

“You just…you started rocking back and forth on your heels. I grabbed your arm. And then you keeled over. You looked like you blacked out for a second.”

She sat up. “Ohhhhh!”

“Do you feel dizzy?”

“No. I feel…weird. And cold for some reason.”

“Do you think you can stand up?”

“Yeah. Help me up.”

She raised her arm. He took it and gently helped her to her feet. He continued to hold her.

“You’re trembling.”

“Denny, did you see what I saw?”

“You mean…did I see anything strange just now?”

“Yes!”

“For just a moment there I thought I saw lights on the mound. I even thought I saw people moving around. What did you see?”

“I—I don’t want to talk about it right now. Honey, let’s go home.”

“Are you going to be all right?”

“Yes, I’ll be fine!” She pulled away from him and started for the car, walking steadily. “I just don’t want to be around here any more.”

Denny helped her into the car and drove back the way they had come. He kept trying to get her to talk, afraid that something might have happened to her mind. Lisa kept assuring him that she was okay. She just did not want to talk. By the time they had gotten onto the interstate Denny had pretty well given up. Lisa sat silently all the way home, staring blankly out the window at the passing countryside. Her mind raced, full of fading images of the mound and the fires and the people.

When they got home Denny walked her up the stairs, holding onto her for fear that she might fall. She did not resist, though she felt it unnecessary. Inside the apartment they sat down on the couch. Then Lisa began to cry.

“Aw, Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” she sobbed. “I just feel really weird. Like I’ve never felt before. I don’t know what else to do.”

Denny leaned her head onto his shoulder. She felt his hand stroking her hair. In a few moments she stopped crying. She raised her head from his shoulder and wiped her eyes. She sighed heavily.

“I feel better now. I guess I got it out of my system.”

“You really feel better?”

“Yes. I don’t know what came over me. It’s gone now. I still feel a little weirded out.”

She told him what she had seen.

“You do believe me, don’t you? I mean, you saw it too.”

“I didn’t see nearly as much as you did. I just thought I saw some lights and shadows like people moving for a few seconds.”

“You…don’t think I’m going crazy, do you?”

“Oh no, Sweetheart, no! I saw enough to know that something strange happened tonight. I guess it affected you more than me.”

Lisa looked deep into her husband’s green eyes. “Have you ever had the feeling that you were really close to the past? Like you were so close to the old days you were about to step right out of your own time?”

“Like when you’re standing by an old house and you’re trying to imagine what it used to look like?”

“Yes! You know what I’m talking about?”

“I guess so. I felt a little that way tonight just before that…whatever…happened to us. I kind of hope it doesn’t happen again.”

“Me too!”


Early next week Lisa sat in the classroom a few minutes before Arkansas History was due to begin, poring over her textbook. Laurel Nilsson sat beside her in her usual seat. She leaned over and looked at the page at which Lisa stared so intently.

“Looking at that illustration of an Indian village and temple mound? We did that last week! We’re moving into the next chapter now.”

“I’m just looking at the outfits the people in the picture are wearing. The artist got a few details kind of wrong.”

“How do you know?”

“I just…I just know.” Lisa flipped the page over to the next chapter. She sat up straight and looked ahead, and waited for class to begin.