The Cross Roads community sprawls along a high and long mountain
ridge, south of Jasper and the Little Buffalo Valley. Mountain trails
or roads crossed there years ago, thus the descriptive name.
In olden times, folks there, as well as elsewhere throughout the
Buffalo Country, followed sitting up with the sick.
This was long before the era of distant hospitals and strangers
around the languishing bed. Perhaps the absence of medical wonders in
those days and in such remote surroundings, were partly compensated
for by the comforting presence of friends and family in the sick
room.

On a hot summer night about ninety years ago, an old man lay dying
in a humble log house, located about a mile from the present
Cross Roads Church and cemetery.
Neighbors had gathered in from miles around to attending the
mortally sick man.
The more medically minded of the group worked around the sick bed,
while others did chores about the place or prepared food for the
large assembly. Some went to the woods to dig roots or to strip bark
of which to make the well known "Indian remedies".
But all was to no avail for shortly after midnight the old man
worsened and died. Then, many who had been ministering to cure him,
turned to the task of "laying out" the corpse. Broad boards were
brought in from the barn, and were placed on and between chairs.
The corpse was laid on these in the coffin position, that is laid
arranged in such a manner as to fit easily into a coffin when cold
and stiffened. Then nickels were placed on the eyelids to "freeze"
them shut. And in those days a lengthy search had to be made thru the
crowd to find two coins for the job.
(It was from this practice that the mountain saying, "Mean enough to
steal the nickels from a dead man's eyes," originated.)
Some of the men began plans for making the coffin, and one of the
group was chosen to ride into Jasper to the Dan Phillips store, there
to purchase hardware for the coffin and a shroud for the dead man.

Among those standing near when the duties were delegated, was a tall,
lanky, young man who lived out the ridge toward Deer. Now the dead
man had been a close friend of "Uncle" Ben Davis who then lived at
what is now Cowell (this was before his move to Harrican Creek).
It had long been the request of the deceased that Uncle Ben
"talk over him"(preach his funeral) when his time was up. Now it was
agreed that word ought to be taken to the beloved mountain preacher
at once, and in that Billy Bray (the lad from over toward Deer) lived
in that direction and was known to be fleet of foot, he should be the
one to carry the message and should leave on his mission immediately.
Of course, Billy Bray was not fond of traveling thru the woods at
night, especially when someone was dead in the community.
Too, he knew that his path would lay directly past the Cross Roads
Cemetery where the old man would be buried. But mountain pride
prevailed over fear (one just didn't refuse funeral duties in those
days) so the lad set out thru the hot, dark night, but with much
trepidation.

Billy Bray tensed like a well tuned fiddle string as the dim lights
of the cabin faded from sight, and the dark night closed fearfully
around him. Like many a night traveler in the lonely mountain
country,he whistled and hummed old tunes as he swung along. To try
and remove the dread from his mind, he tried to think of highly
pleasant things, like decoration dinner, courtin on Henderson
Mountain, and trips to the old swimming hole. But as he drew near to
the Cross Roads Cemetery, his thoughts became about as morbid and
apprehensive as those of a condemned criminal aproaching the gallows.
He began to whistle louder and he closed his eyes as the rail fence,
which then enclosed the burying ground, loomed so perilously close to
the right of him. But, alas, he couldn't close his ears.
Somewhere beyond the fence came the sound of grave diggers, spades
thumping into the ground, shovels scraping rock, and gravelly soil
being thrown into a pile. Now Billy knew that there were no earthly
grave diggers working there that night, for folks in the hill country
at that time believed that it was certain bad luck to work on a
grave before sunrise or after sunset.
The horror-struck lad froze for a moment, then lunged forward with
eyes still closed. That proved to be his undoing for he fell headlong
over a fallen log. But his crash to the ground on the other side did
not prevent him from hearing someone jumping from behind him and
landing at his side. He jumped to his feet and as he expressed it a
lifetime later.

"Rat plum square by me wiz the man what had jist died. Lawsey, great
Gawd almighty, he clutched one of his icy hands 'round my arm and put
the other one on my back, lack he was trying to steady me. But I
shore didn't want to stand steady then! I shot down that trail like a
deer with a hound dog aholt uv his tail. I guess I wuz a half mile
away before I cum to myself but when I did that man were rat aside
uv me and the race diden slow down a bit. Ever time I'd jump a log
er a branch, thump, that man would jump rat with me and land rat by
my side.
'Course he had to do some powerful runnin' to keep at my side very
long. After three er four mile I got so winded (out of breath) I jist
had to flump down aside the road. I'd had to done hit iffen all the
folks at Cross Roads had uv riz up and been running with me.
Well that corpse, er hant, er whatever hit wuz, set rat plum square
down aside me and just leaned rat over and looked me rat in the face.
He jist smiled and said, "Ain't we had one devil uv a race." And I
said yes sir and when I ketches my breath we're shore gonna have a
nuther one!"
I guess they had one, for when Billy Bray arrived at the Ben Davis
home, no doubt in record time, he just fell onto the porch, totally
exhausted. It was an hour or two before he could tell his mission.
When he finally got to the talking point again he blurted out:
"Uncle Ben I cum to git you to preach a man's funeral and be blamed
iffen that man dien cum most uv the way with me!"
And though Billy Bray lived to be a very old man, he would never
again pass the Cross Roads Cemetery at night.

The above tale is just one of many stories written by Bud Phillips in
his "Buffalo Boogers Book". The book includes tales of strange,
scarey and mysterious happenings in the Buffalo River country of
Northern Arkansas.
Bud Phillips gave me permission to use his stories on my
Newton County, Arkansas Website.
Copyright 1980 by Bud Phillips