I was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, where this
story takes place.
When I was thirteen or fourteen, I developed an interest
into the occult, which I still have. This story occurs when
I wasn't even expecting it.
Like all kids, my pals and I would roam and explore all summer. One day, I had gotten a
hand-me-down tape recorder from my brothers, a big suitcase
sized monster, and I took it to record nature sounds and the
like while we were on one of our expeditions. While
wandering around, my neighbor and I found an old log cabin.
We decided to explore this, too.
Around the cabin, the remains of other foundations were
overgrown with weeds. I felt this was some kind of trading
post or camp. We walked through the cabin, but didn't find
anything. We left and didn't think anything about it. Later
that night, I listened to the tape I made. There were no
surprises, except until the cabin. Faintly in the
background, I heard voices other than ours speaking. I
thought it was bleeding through the tape until I really
listened. I made out the word 'Anglais' several times. I was
taking Elementary French and German in school and recognized
it as French. The next day, Sunday, my neighbor listened to
it and also heard the voices. I decided to take it to my
French teacher on Monday, which I did.
The teacher listened to the tape and accused me of trying to
pull a prank. I got sent to the principal's office but she
kept the tape. Tuesday, the teacher apologized to me. When I
asked why, she said I couldn't have made the voices up
because they were speaking 19th Century French. What she
said next really scared me. She said the three people were
calling us English spies and bandits and they were planning
on killing us!
I never told my neighbor what was on the tape or what I
learned later. The cabin sits on the site of a French
fur-trapping/trading post called Fort Belle Fontaine. It was
attacked by the British in 1821.
Unfortunately, I never got the cassette tape back. It would
have made a nice conversation piece.
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