Bearded Odyssey: Wrong turn yields supernatural results

In celebration of the 7th anniversary of the Bearded Odyssey, I am re-running the series throughout the summer. This chapter was originally published in The Daily Nebraskan on June 15, 2003.

Obermeyer family lore has it that Buffalo Bill Cody’s favorite niece married into my Grandma’s family long ago. My own travel lore has it that, since I was in Huntington Beach on Memorial Day, I didn’t have an opportunity to visit any departed relatives.

Driving out of Denver on I-70, I saw an exit that said “Buffalo Bill’s Grave.” So here was a chance to make up for the missed holiday and visit an honorary Obermeyer.

There had been signs for the Mother Cabrini shrine grouped with the signs for Buffalo Bill’s Grave, and I was only seeing signs for Mother Cabrini, so I kept going with those. I took a horrible winding road up the side of a mountain and cursed Buffalo Bill for getting buried in such a hard-to-reach place — I fear winding roads, particularly those that cling to sides of mountains.

I finally arrived at a nun convent on the top of a mountain far above Denver. There was a little chapel at the base of the peak where, in the early 1900s, Mother Cabrini supposedly struck a stone with her cane and water sprung forth that still flows to this day. Up on the peak was a big white statue of what I presumed to be Mother Cabrini. Thinking maybe there was a cemetery up there where Buffalo Bill was buried, I started up the steps.

Now it did occur to me that it would be rather strange that this army scout-turned-showman would be buried at a convent, but here I was, so up I’d go.

It was a creepy walk up, to say the least. Beyond the monuments and decorations along the trail, there were also a lot of signs saying “Beware of dangerous snakes.” To prove my fearlessness (please note sarcasm), I took a picture of one of the signs. I did see one crude, handmade sign that said “Beware of the snake,” so I took a picture of that too.

Very near the top was an eerie fenced area with a “Keep out” sign. Someone had placed dozens of stick-crosses within the chain links. I assumed the fence was just to keep people from falling off the cliff, but I noticed there were other equally dangerous spots with no fences.

I got to the top to find that the statue was of Jesus and not Mother Cabrini. Also at the top was a scruffy bearded man. I had noticed some biker-dude motorcycles in the parking lot, and this looked like a classic biker dude, so I made the connection.

Since we were the only two up there, I figured the polite thing to do would be to strike up meaningless conversation, so I asked “See any snakes?”

He laughed and said “No, you’re safe here.”

Then I asked him if he noticed that fenced-in area with the stick crosses. I expected him to say something brief and inconsequential. I did not expect him to lean against the big Jesus and start telling me a story. The following is the best I can recall what he told me.

Back in the ’70s, there were vampires (yes, VAMPIRES) in the area. (I hope that my reaction was a little more of a “No kidding?” glance than an “Are you kidding me?” glance.) So these vampires would come up to this monument and do some sort of rituals or something — I forget the exact word he used — and that naturally upset the nuns and other religious folk of the area.

He said that a priest came up here, and the vampires had never seen a priest quite like this — he apparently knew what he was doing in regards to dealing with situations like this. This priest supposedly fought the head vampire and finished him just down the hill from the monument, right inside what is now the fenced-in area surrounded by the handmade crosses. The fence and the crosses are there to make sure he stays there after death.

Around the big Jesus monument were several smaller monuments made of red brick with little pictures on them. He pointed out that in front of a couple of them, there were little rocks assembled into symbols. The ones he showed me didn’t look like symbols that I could recognize or really describe, but they were obviously deliberately arranged.

I got all the photos I wanted and mentioned that I wanted to be in St. George, Utah, before dark, so I needed to get back on the road. He laughed and said I’d better get going, and I headed back down the long stairway. I had parked up by the gift shop/museum, so I decided to stop in for a postcard or some souvenir.

The woman at the register asked me if I made the walk up to the monument, and I told her how I ran into this guy up there who told me a crazy story about the fenced-in area. Before I could really even finish that, she started laughing, kind of to herself, and said “Ah, you met Chester…”

The way she said it struck me as strange, so I said “Chester? Does he hang out up there or something?”

She said “Father is always trying to get rid of him. I don’t believe in him, though.”

This was even weirder. I asked “You don’t believe in him?” to which she responded “No, I don’t believe in him. Still, Father is always trying to get rid of him.”

It’s not hard to infer some kind of crazy supernatural business from her response. It gets even easier when you fast forward to that night. I was sitting in my hotel room in St. George, ready to upload the photos of the day onto my computer.

Wouldn’t you know it, in the Image Capture preview screen, some of the pictures didn’t have thumbnails. I went ahead and uploaded the ones that did, and I thought maybe if I just looked at the other ones on my camera it would fix whatever problem it was having. So I put the memory stick back in my camera, and it wouldn’t load the problem photos — it would just flash their file name. After examining which photos did turn out, I figured out which ones didn’t.

The photo of the arranged stone designs in front of the small monuments.

The photo of the Jesus monument with “Chester” standing beside it — the only photo of him I was able to sneak in.

The handmade sign that said “Beware of the snake.”

Oh, and I eventually found Buffalo Bill’s grave. I had just taken a wrong turn.

BONUS MATERIAL!

This first column was basically a slightly reworked version of an e-mail I sent to Derek, my editor. Here is the original e-mail:

>From: “neal obermeyer”
>To: “Derek Lippincott”
>Subject: does this qualify as an adventure?
>Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 02:18:16 -0500
>
>
>So tell me if you think this might make good adventure material…
>
>I was driving out of Denver on I-70 when I saw an exit that said
>”Buffalo Bill’s Grave.” I thought that sounded cool, so I took the
>exit and followed the signs. I saw signs for a “Mother Cabrizi
>Monument” or something like that, and it had previously been on the
>same signs as Buffalo Bill’s Grave, so I kept going with that. I
>took this horribly windy road up the side of a mountain and cursed
>Buffalo Bill for getting buried in such a hard-to-reach place. I
>finally got there, and it was this nun convent on the top of a
>mountain WAY above Denver. You could look down on the whole city
>from there. Anyway, there was this little chapel at the base of the
>peak where she supposedly struck a stone with her cane and water
>sprung forth that still flows to this day (she supposedly did this
>in the early 1900s). So, way up on the peak was this big white
>statue of what I presumed to be Mother Cabrizi, so I started up the
>steps. It was kind of creepy, because the whole stairway was a
>giant stations of the cross, with different stations represented on
>both sides of the stairway with little monuments around them in
>memory of people. I took a few pictures of those. There were also
>a lot of signs saying “Beware of dangerous snakes,” which I took a
>picture of. I did see one crude, handmade sign that said “Beware of
>the snake,” so I took a picture of that too. Very near the top was
>a fenced area that said “Keep out” and it had crosses made of sticks
>placed within the chain links. There were easily over a hundred of
>them. That was kind of creepy too. So anyway, I got to the top to
>find that the statue was of Jesus and not Mother Cabrizi. But in
>the base of the statue was where Mother Cabrizi’s body was kept.
>
>Also at the top was a scruffy man in a t-shirt that you could tell
>used to be black, but had since faded away. He had a long t-shirt
>or long johns underneath that and old tattered jeans. I noticed
>some motorcycles in the parking lot, and they were biker-dude
>motorcycles and this looked like a classic biker dude. Since we
>were the only two up there, I figured the polite thing to do would
>be to strike up meaningless conversation, so I asked “See any
>snakes?” and he laughed and said “No, you’re safe here.”
>
>Then I asked him if he noticed that fenced-in area with the stick
>crosses. I expected him to say “No” or “Yeah (chuckle)” or
>something equally brief and inconsequential. What I did NOT expect,
>however, was for him to lean against the big Jesus and start telling
>me a story. The following is the best I can recall what he told me.
>
>Back in the 70s, there were VAMPIRES (yes, vampires) in the area.
>(I hope that my reaction was a little more of a “No kidding?” glance
>than an “Are you kidding me?” glance.) So these vampires would come
>up to this monument and do some sort of rituals or something — I
>forget the exact word he used — and that naturally upset the nuns
>and other religious folk of the area. Now I realize this gets far
>fetched, but something about the way he was telling it — probably
>my natural fascination with crazy stuff like this — just captivated
>me and it seemed so believable at the time. But he said that a
>priest came up here and the vampires had never seen anyone who knew
>what he was doing, but this priest supposedly fought the head
>vampire (he had another word for “head vampire” but I can’t remember
>what it was) and killed him just down the hill from the monument in
>the fenced-in area surrounded by handmade crosses. The fence and
>the crosses are there to make sure he stays there.
>
>So naturally, I was blown away by this. Both by the story, and that
>I happened to be up here when this guy who knew stuff was up here.
>Anyway, around the big Jesus monument were several (probably 12 – I
>didn’t think to count) mini-monuments made of red brick with little
>pictures on them. I think they were the 12 Joyful mysteries, from
>what I remember. Well he pointed out that in front of a couple of
>them, there were little rocks assembled into symbols. The ones he
>showed me didn’t look like symbols that I could recognize or really
>describe, but they were definitely deliberately arranged.
>
>I got all the pictures I wanted and mentioned that I wanted to be in
>St. George Utah before dark so I needed to get back on the road. He
>laughed and said something to the effect of “You’d better get
>going,” and I headed back down the long stairway. I had parked up
>by the gift shop/museum, so I had to walk back up there and I
>decided to stop in for a postcard or something. The woman at the
>register asked me if I went up to the monument, and I told her how I
>ran into this guy up there who told me a story about the fenced in
>area. Before I could really even finish that, she started laughing
>and goes “Ah you met Chester…” but the way she said it was
>strange, so I said “Chester? Does he hang out up there or
>something?” And I’m going to try to type this as close to how she
>said it as I can remember, but she said “Father (can’t remember
>priest’s name) is always trying to get rid of him. I don’t believe
>in him, though.” This was even weirder. I asked “You don’t believe
>in him?” (emphasis on “believe”) to which she responded “No, I don’t
>believe in him. Still, Father (whatever) is always trying to get
>rid of him.”
>
>Okay so this was very strange. It’s not hard to infer some kind of
>crazy supernatural business from her response. It gets even easier
>when you fast forward to tonight. I’m sitting in my hotel room in
>St. George, ready to upload the photos onto my computer. Wouldn’t
>you know it, in the Image Capture preview screen, some of them don’t
>have thumbnails. I go ahead and upload the ones that do, and I
>thought maybe if I looked at them on my camera it would fix whatever
>problem it was having. So I put the memory stick back in my camera,
>and it won’t load the problem photos – it just flashes their file
>name like “IMG-0028″ or whatever. After examining which photos
>*did* turn out, I have figured out which ones didn’t.
>
>The photo of the stone designs in front of the small monuments.
>The photo of the Jesus monument with “Chester” standing beside it.
>The handmade sign that says “Beware of the snake.”
>
>Man I get chills just typing this up. Did I talk to the ghost of a
>vampire or something?
>Oh and it turns out I took a wrong turn and I eventually found
>Buffalo Bill’s grave.
>
>Neal

Derek’s response:

That’s pretty f—ing crazy, dude. Adventure material at its finest.