It was in the summer of my fifth year that my grandparents, my uncle, and his wife Loretta spent the weekend fishing in Spavinaw Lake, Oklahoma. After making camp, building a bonfire, and rigging lines, my grandmother laid a quilt on a soft sand hill and placed a blanket over it for me to sleep in.

The grownups fished all day as I played, ate, and just generally made a pest of myself. Once the sun had set, my grandmother sent me to bed as the adults planned to fish all night.

My Aunt Loretta decided to join me for a few hours then would get up and continue fishing.

Without warning, a frigid, extremely heavy weight was on my lower legs. I told my aunt to get her legs off of mine; they were cold and heavy. Just then she screamed saying it was on her, too! My uncle ran over and jerked the blanket off of us and the weight vanished, but we could see the deep indentations where our legs had been pushed into the sand with the quilt still in them.

Since then I have wondered: Was it the spirit of a large domestic animal that may have used that sand patch for a bed? I'd like to know if anyone else has ever experienced this.

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