she did not get much sleep because the ghost made a sound that caused her to look in the direction of the bathroom. Once again, she spotted the ghost standing against the wall, in a leaning position. His eyes were dark black, and opened wide, and even though his mouth moved to make words, no sound came out. Then the ghost suddenly disappeared. Becky said she closed her eyes and convinced herself that what she had seen was something her imagination had made up, but she spent the night drifting in and out of sleep. With this new information, Becky and I returned to our hotel and demanded a room change. Since that weekend, we’ve not had another experience with the supernatural. And I have not had another anxiety attack or anything like one.”
Village of Arivaca
Arivaca, in southern Pima County about 11 miles north of Arizona’s border with Mexico and mapped by Father Eusebio Kino in 1695, is in an area which contains some of the oldest mines in the United States. Arivaca, which is unincorporated, is about 56 miles southwest of Tucson. The post office was established in 1878.
The locale may have been a Tohono O’odham Indian village before natives revolted in 1751 against the Spanish, who were attracted by precious metals and excellent grazing land. The Spaniards used forced local Indian labor to work these mines under the direction of Tumacacori Mission padres. In 1833, the Mexican government approved a petition by brothers Tomas and Ignacio Ortiz to raise cattle and horses on 8,677 acres of land that formed the Arivac Ranch. (The original Indian word, OLa AribacO, means small springs). Although boundaries for the ranch were never certain, the lands rights were quickly bought by the Sonora Exploring and Mining Company in the year 1856. This company operated mines near Arivaca and Tubac. Also located on the ranch were reduction works for the Heintzelman Mine.
Charles Poston, the father of Arizona, acquired the property in 1870 and later asked the U.S. Government to confirm his right to 26,508 acres. The U.S. Surveyor general recommended confirmation of 8,680 acres, but the U.S. Congress failed to heed this recommendation. Poston’s rights were obtained by the Arivaca Land and Cattle Company, which asked the U.S. Court of Private Land Claims to approve the land claim. The court refused, saying it was impossible to identify...the land, which was intended to be granted. The decision was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court on March 24, 1902, and the land became part of the public domain.
Today Arivaca is primarily a retirement and residential area.
Francis Torres’s (Hispanic) Story
I interviewed Francis at her home. Arivaca is a small village town tucked within a quaint desert valley. Within this quiet town lies Frances’s two-bedroom home. Viewing it from the street, the house would not give any indication as to the frightening manifestations having transpired just a few years ago within its walls.
Francis preferred that I not describe the outside of her house because she said that by doing so, some neighbors might identify her and start to gossip. Given her concern, I have chosen to also not use her real name.
This interview was conducted in Francis’ kitchen. During the interview we kept hearing a few “thuds” coming from the walls. After the third thud, Francis excused her self, rose from her chair, walked to a back room and shortly thereafter returned to the kitchen holding a picture of St. Benidict and a lit candle. Francis said, “I’m not taking any chances. Whatever is here knows we’re talking about it. This should take care of them.” Francis then placed the picture and candle on the table and the interview continued without any further interruption.
— Antonio
“My story about “El Coyote” took place just a couple of years ago. I have made sure not to tell many people about what happened in the house because, being a small town, the gossip gets around really quickly. I used to rent and live in the house next to the one I now live in. I also knew the old woman who was the owner of the property. When I moved into the house next door, she and I began to talk and we became very friendly with each other. Some mornings we would have coffee in my kitchen. She sure was a talker. She told me about her son who lived in Tucson, and I got to meet him a few times before she died. I recall that the first time I visited her, she showed me around the inside of her home.
I noticed that one of her bedrooms had a door with nails hammered into the doorframe. Hanging on one of the nails was a small metal crucifix. I asked her about this, because it was very strange to have a door nailed shut the way it was. Her explanation was that she had nailed the door because of El Coyote. I asked her, “Who was El Coyote?” She said he was a bad spirit that needed to be kept locked up. I immediately thought that living by herself for so long made this old woman go crazy. I asked her why the spirit had the name of El Coyote. She said she had given it that name because, although she had never really seen the spirit’s face, its body looked like a wild dog. I thought to myself that this poor woman needed to get out of the house more often and mingle with people because she was most definitely not a rational thinking person. I didn’t think much more about the “friend” that she kept locked up in the bedroom. I never heard any loud noises coming from her home and, after all, she was really sweet.
One day while she was at the post office, I walked to the rear of her house and looked inside the bedroom window where she kept El Coyote. I didn’t know what I would expect to see. As I looked inside, I saw a room that was without furniture. It didn’t even have any rugs. Poor old woman, she must have invented this ghost as her own personal friend. I began to feel sorry for her because I myself have never married and I know that it some times does get a bit lonely. There wasn’t anything unusual about the room, so I never mentioned it to her again.
Well, two days later, I paid her a visit to show her a large holiday greeting card that had arrived at my house. I knocked on her front door and when she did not answer, I walked to the rear door, which was left unlocked and walked inside. I immediately smelled gas. I took a few slow steps into the house and kept calling her name. There was no answer. I got concerned and quickly walked through the house. When I entered her bedroom, I found her lifeless body in bed. I called the police and they discovered the cause of her death was due to a flexible copper hose leading from the wall to her gas heater that had developed a small hole. The day before her death, she had spent the holiday in Tucson with her son and his family. I know she had died happy because, after returning home, all she did was talk to me about how nice her visit to her son’s house had been.
After the funeral, her son told me that he was going to sell his mother’s house. I asked him if he would sell it to me, and he agreed. I also asked him if he knew anything about the closed door that was nailed shut, and about El Coyote. He said that his mother only mentioned El Coyote a few times, but that he thought it was an imaginary friend his mother made up. After buying the house, I had two friends who lived in the town of Nogales come to Arivaca and help me with repairs. I was overjoyed to finally own a house of my own. I began to remove old wallpaper and paint from every inside wall. Of course, the first thing I did was to remove the nails on the bedroom door where “El Coyote” was kept locked away. During the repair work, I never noticed any strange noise, or saw any ghost. Except for the cold temperature that hovered in that rear bedroom, there was nothing strange at all.
Finally, after a few weeks, the house repairs were completed. After moving all my belongings into the house, I soon began to notice that the rear bedroom was strangely very much colder than the rest of the house. At first, I was not much bothered by it, but it did make me wonder. At times, when I would enter the room, it was so cold that I got goose bumps on my arms. At other times, it was like stepping outside into a cool night. I thought about what the old woman had told me, but realized that perhaps my imagination was working overtime.
As the weeks passed, things began to get much worse. Day and
