The following story was sent to me by David Bullock.
He asked me if I was interested in placing it on my site.
I said "certainly." Thank you Dave for sharing it with us.
9/24/02.
An angry Indian spirit still burns for the oppression her
people faced five centuries ago ... and keeps reminding people living today.
By David V. Bullock ("Legendheir") 
Hundreds
of years ago, the Spaniards discovered gold and silver in the Rocky Mountains.
They enslaved bands of Indians and forced them to work in their mines, digging
the mineral wealth out of the ground. When the Indians died from whatever
cause, the Spaniards would disrespectfully throw their bodies into a common
pit. When the wind would blow out of the southwest, the smell of rotting bodies
encircled the Indian's village. Owl Woman, a medicine woman who, even though
old, learned the Spanish language over the years as she served the Spanish
leaders. She learned that there would be a relief party of new soldiers with
wagons coming from Mexico to load up and haul away the treasures that the
Indians had dug up at the cost of many lives. Owl Woman left her people and
hiked for over a hundred miles across the rugged mountains until she came
to the village of a strong band of Indians in what is now known as Spring
Lake, Utah. She devised a plan in her journey whereby the Spaniards could
be eliminated. Tired and literally on her last legs, Owl Woman plotted with
the war chiefs the overthrow of the soldiers. The Indians waited on the Spanish
trail. As the soldiers and wagons advanced, they were attacked and slaughtered
by the waiting Indians. The Indians then took the clothing, armor, mules and
wagons of the dead Spaniards and drove on to the village high up in the Uintah
mountains where Owl Woman's people awaited redemption. As the wagons rolled
into the Spaniard's camp, the men jumped up, excited to see the soldiers who
would relieve them. They were quickly dispatched to the great beyond by the
disguised Indians. After the short battle, the horses, mules, dogs and all
of the soldiers' belongings were destroyed and buried in the mines that they
had forced their slaves to dig. Knowing that she would soon die, Owl Woman
took a bone knife and walked to the now covered common burial site and cursed
the land that held the rotting bodies of her people, that "no man would stay
long on that sacred ground." She then sealed the curse with her life, spilling
her blood on the ground. In 1982, I was an engineer working on a power plant
in Eastern Utah. I had just moved into a brand new house that some had said
sat on or near an ancient Indian burial ground. From that first day, living
in that house was terrifying. Footsteps could be heard in adjoining rooms.
Upon examining those rooms, nobody would be there. Roommate after roommate
would come and go, leaving quickly in the dark of night, some leaving their
belongings. I laughed at their silly superstitions. One day, during the Super
Bowl, my buddies and I were watching the game in my room, when we heard a
terrible crash come from the kitchen. All of the contents of the kitchen cabinets
were spilled on the floor. My friends left, leaving me alone to clean up the
mess. I was tempted to leave, too, but even though I couldn't explain what
had happened, I didn't believe in ghosts. That night, at 1:23 in the morning,
I woke up. There was something there, but being tired and not hearing anything,
I shook it off and went back to sleep. Then at 1:27, I heard something that
woke me up again. It was the sound of feet slowly gliding down the plastic
carpet runner in the hallway, outside my bedroom door. As if the sound of
the feet dragging across the corrugated plastic wasn't terrifying enough,
the sound of an old woman, cursing in her Indian tongue, erupted from the
hall. She was so angry. Hiding with the covers up to my eyes, I listened as
her feet slowly caused a scraping noise on the plastic. Her anger was evident
in the tone of her speech. I was so scared! I now know what it is like to
be scared stiff. It, whatever it was, was coming closer and closer to my open
bedroom door. I didn't dare move, I was so terrified. I envisioned an old
woman with a knife or tomahawk, coming in and killing me there in my bed.
After lying there in the darkness, unable to move for what seemed like hours,
yet just seconds, I couldn't take it any more. I sat up in bed as her feet
left the runner at the entrance to my room.. I covered my head with my hands.
At a loss for anything better to do, then, I screamed. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Silence hung in the air like a rotting stench for as long as I sat there with
my head covered with my hands. I finally rose and turned on the light. No
one was there. I searched that house, and as I knew they would be, the doors
were locked and the windows closed. No one could be in my house....except?
I went back to
my room closed and locked the door. It took hours for me to return to sleep,
and when I awoke in the morning, my door was wide open. I thought perhaps
that it was a dream, a horrible, long, realistic dream. Then I saw something
on the carpet just inside the doorway. It was a feather. An owl feather. I
had heard the legends of Owl Woman from some of the Indian workers at the
power plant. They had told me about Coal Miners Basin, the area where I lived,
and how spirit dancers would come up from the common grave as balls of light
and dance all night long on moonless nights. This was one of those dark, moonless
nights. I moved from that house that very day, taking the feather with me
as a reminder of an experience that, without the evidence, the feather could
eventually be written off as a bad dream.