Ever Seen a Ghost?

It was at one of Albuquerque's oldest restaurants that I once thought I saw a ghost. I was about 13. A 12-room hacienda dating to the early 19th century, Maria Teresa was full of antique wooden furniture, frayed Navajo rugs and black and white photographs in large metal frames. One was a portrait of an old woman with piercing eyes. As I looked at it, it seemed as if she were staring right back, and not nicely. I attributed it to my overactive imagination and sat down, but shortly after, I thought I saw a white, shadowy form glide across the large mirror that hung on the wall behind our table. I suddenly had chills—and an urgent desire to get out of there. When I told my parents, I expected them to laugh or nod indulgently before returning to their meals. But my father, a physician famous for dismissing unproven claims, caught me off guard. He nodded, unsurprised, and said he felt the same thing. We left and never went back. While researching this story, I came across a Web site linked to A Ghost in My Suitcase: A Guide to Haunted Travel in America, which is available on Amazon.com. Maria Teresa was listed as the most haunted place in my hometown. "Most of the reported sightings are in the mirrors of the restaurant," says a caption next to a picture of the room where we sat that night. The author wrote that staff said the piano in the Armijo room would sometimes play by itself in the wee hours and that they'd set the table and lock up at night only to return the next day to find the silverware piled in the middle of the tables. And there was a picture of that photograph I remembered, the one of the old woman, whom the author identifies as Doña Jesusita Salazar de Baca. A waiter, the caption reads, jokingly insulted her one night and afterward tripped or dropped something every time he passed the portrait.

On a sunny Sunday afternoon in April, Marshall waits for people to arrive for a ghost hunt at Fort Worth's Log Cabin Village historical museum, a collection of original settler homesteads from the Old West. While people park and walk over with cameras around their necks, Nuñez stands talking to another investigator, a brown-haired woman named Sabrina. "We're new," announces a blond woman with fashionable sunglasses. She has arrived with two men carrying large cameras. "So, this place is supposed to be really active?" Marshall nods and surveys the group of around a dozen people. "We just walk around, take pictures; some people feel things, some people don't, so sometimes it's just going back and looking at the pictures." While they wait for stragglers, there's talk of previous hunts—prime haunted spots such as the Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells, cold spots, orbs. "You guys catching those with your 35 mm or your digital?" asks a man with a camera around his neck.

"Digital."

He nods. "Yeah, 'cause I've seen them more with my digital." A petite gray-haired woman with pearl earrings and a sweater draped over her shoulders looks more suited to a country club than a ghost hunt, but it turns out she's a veteran. Her name is Olyve Hallmark Abbot, and she's a Fort Worth author who has written three books about Texas ghosts. She tells everyone about the time at the Baker Hotel when she saw a figure dart across a dark hallway on one of the upper floors. "I think it's because spirits are more active at night," she says.

We go into the first cabin, where the Foster family lived, and view the frontier memorabilia before walking out the other side into an outdoor area with tall trees and manicured pathways. I hear a scream and turn to see the blond woman stumble away from a wooden door. She leans over with her hands on her knees, breathing hard. "There's a real person in there!" she says. Indeed, there is a gray-haired woman in period dress sitting in a rocking chair inside the cabin. Everyone laughs, and Marshall says, "Sorry, I should have told you it's a living history museum."

When I walk up, the woman inside is narrating the place's history. "This cabin was built in 1851," she says. "The Tompkins family lived here. They came from Missouri with five children..." Abbot is busy taking pictures, but not of the woman in costume. She's aiming her lens at the stove and dining room table, hoping to catch some orbs. I ask Marshall if she's seen anything.

Yes, she replies, there was a male ghost who wanted to teach her how to use the gristmill.

"What did he look like?" I ask.

"Sandy brown hair, suspenders, dirty white shirt."

She catches up to Sabrina, who's walking ahead to the next cabin. "You getting anything, Sabrina?"