Scenting an interesting story, I joined the boys on the grass, and asked, “What’s true, Zeno? Tell me the story that you were telling Wayne.”
“’Tain’t no story, hit’s the gospel truth, and if you’ll take me up there, I’ll show yer,” was the defiant answer.
After several more questions, I got this story. Near the head of the Frio River, between Leakey and Concan, there is a mountain with a rather steep, bald face. Anyone who has the temerity [[58]]to linger in the vicinity until night begins to fall will see the tall, willowy figure of a woman all in white moving slowly down the mountain-side, carrying a lighted torch in one hand, while with the other she strikes about her with a rod or switch.
“Where does she come from,” I asked, “from behind the mountain or from out of the top?”
“She don’t come from nowhere,” was the indignant reply. “She just—just—”
“Just appears,” I suggested.
“Yeh, just ’pears,” Zeno agreed.
“But what is she striking at?” I persisted.
“At ever’thing, and if she hits yer, you don’t feel no lick. Yer just have a shivery feeling like a puff of cold, wet wind had struck yer.”
“What is she doing there?” I insisted. “Was there a murder committed there?”