A collection of short stories based on spooky Oklahoma legends.

Mason Mims has taken refuge in the swamps of the Carolina Lowcountry. Suspected of killing his brother's family, Mims, a former Navy Seal, uses that black water region to shield him from the authorities. Meanwhile, a body count begins to mount along the landscape of cypress trees and Spanish Moss. Though law enforcement combs the swamp, they are no match for Mims, who knows the land as though he was at God's elbow when it was designed. With Mims slipping in and out of the swamp, and the death toll rising, a select group of men realize they have unleashed the beast in a man who has nothing left to live for, and who possesses a skill set making him virtually unstoppable. From bestselling author Chuck Walsh, this murder/suspense story, deep in both prose and character development, shows there's no limit to what a man will do when pushed over the edge.

Joe, George, and Richard Youngblood, three white brothers growing up in the rural South during the Great Depression, live in a world of paradoxes: love and hate; doubt and faith; and sadness and humor. In his poignant memoir I Must Remember This: A Southern White Boy's Memories of the Great Depression, Jim Crow, and World War II, author George Youngblood shares stories about everything from the brothers' first awareness of death, sex, and race to the truth about Santa Claus. They smoke rabbit tobacco, tremble at ghost and snake stories, watch haircuts for excitement, get baptized, and gawk at locomotives and alligators. Hard times draw the Youngblood family closer to their father's black farm workers. With one family in particular they form a symbiotic relationship in the hostile world of poverty, disease, and segregation. I Must Remember This is Youngblood's family story as they hope, work, and laugh with little cause-and succeed with basic honesty, respect, and an astounding sense of humor.

Tribesmen regarded Mingo Swamp as a rare wildlife haven and made it a favored hunting ground long before white settlers discovered it, but in even earlier times, the storied Mississippi River passed through it moving to Arkansas. The soggy countryside around it made a good part of the neighborhood virtually inaccessible and therefore sparsely settled at the time of the Civil War; but Mingo, nevertheless, became one of Missouri’s more hotly contested battlegrounds. Guerrillas fighting for the Lost Cause made its cypress and water tupelo forests their hideout, and it is identified to this day with one of the state’s bloodiest encounters, the Battle of Mingo Swamp. The treacherous swamp’s abundance of natural resources first attracted hardy backwoodsmen, but the entire countryside remained commercially undeveloped until arrival of the railroad and the founding in 1883 of Pucksekaw, now Puxico, which quickly became the base of a great logging and tie operation headed by newcomer Thomas J. Moss, the town’s esteemed merchant prince who quickly became the largest tie contractor in the state. After the great timber boom ended in the early 1900s, newly organized Mingo Drainage District, encompassing 39,786 acres in Stoddard and Wayne counties, sought to clear the stumpage and drain the swamp to enhance agricultural pursuits and control costly St. Francis River overflows. After that glorious adventure failed in the 1930s, the federal government stepped in to acquire land for construction of two ambitious projects that changed the countryside forever, the 21,676-acre Mingo National Wildlife Refuge and, just beyond it to the west, a dam on the St. Francis River that created sprawling Lake Wappapello, which, in both land and water, encompasses more than 44,000 acres. Shortly thereafter, in the early 1950s, the Missouri Conservation Commission acquired the rest of the swamp to establish what now is Duck Creek Conservation Area, which encompasses 6,234 acres in Wayne, Bollinger, and Stoddard counties. Though obviously vastly different now and managed today by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Mingo remains one of America’s premier wildlife havens. It is home to tens of thousands of waterfowl, three distinct ecosystems, and an incredible diversity of plants and animals. A great number of rare species, such as the swamp rabbit and the alligator snapping turtle, still strive at Mingo.

Ghost Railroads of Kentucky (first published in 1967) and its two sister volumes, Ghost Railroads of Indiana (1970) and Ghost Railroads of Tennessee (1975), provide the authoritative account of the abandoned lines in the railroad heartland east of the Mississippi. No mere compilation of dry statistics on track closings and running schedules (though they are here too!), this book is full of the life and vigor of Kentucky's economic arteries. Professor Sulzer, a consummate storyteller, recounts the human drama surrounding these ghost lines. Even poor Alex Richardson, shamefully lynched on the new railroad bridge over the Kentucky River at West Irvine, has his sad story told.

"Built in 1847 on the banks of the Ohio River, the Bellaire House is reputed to be one of the most haunted houses in America. Since the early 20th century, it has earned a reputation as a hotbed of paranormal activity-the site of apparitions, curses, psychic assaults, and violence. This is a collection of true ghost stories from the former owner of the Bellaire House and the proprietor of the Bellaire House Afterlife Research Center"--

Series statement from publisher's website.

The early 18th century was a time of turmoil and change in America. England and France fought each other to establish American colonies and formed alliances with the great competing Iroquois and Algonquin confederations. European colonists staked claims to native lands. Native people resisted those claims. European diseases and technology changed the continent in ways few understood. Native American tribes engaged in near-constant conflict no one knew how to stop. In this environment, the River People risked war with their ancient enemies, the Mingos, by granting protection to six travelers, Tamaqua, a Lenape warrior and his blood brother John, Tamaqua’s son, Boy, John’s wife Abigail, their two-year-old son, Benny and fourteen-year-old Tilly. In exchange for this protection, they expected the travelers to participate in village life. John felt pressured to go on the winter-long beaver hunt, that had become the new core of the village economy. Abigail and Tilly tried to settle into village life, making wampum and coping with Native anger toward Whites. Tamaqua concentrated on recovering from his wounds. Then, on the same night that children in the village became ill with Dutch Fever, Tamaqua’s Manitou appeared to him in a dream, telling him Abigail had knowledge that could save many lives. The problem was, Abigail had no idea what she knew. Meanwhile, people were dying. One thing is sure, the long, hard winter would change them all in ways no one expected. The River People, Book Three in the Bompeau Family Saga is the sequel to The Fourth Son, and Abigail’s Tale.

Discover the spookier side of West Virginia with over 85 ghost stories, legends, and haunts from Harpers Ferry, where Screaming Jenny still never outruns the trains, to Hatfield-McCoy Country where Devil Anse Hatfield rises from the grave along with his sons. Explore Moundsville Prison and see the shadow man, then investigate the death and ghostly hereafter of Mamie Thurman, the housewife with a secret life who haunts 22 Mine Road. Follow the Rail Trail to get a glimpse of the ghost of the Silver Run Tunnel and take a thrill-ride through one of the most haunted tunnels-Dingess Tunnel. There's the Headless Ghost Rider of Powell Mountain and a woman who still walks the Ohio River shoreline of Blennerhassett Island long after her death.

"Chukfi is a trickster worthy of the name, and this fresh, funny tale makes an excellent addition to the genre." (starred reivew, Kirkus Reviews) Named to Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2014 Silly kids, tricks are for rabbits! Chukfi Rabbit, that is. The laziest—and hungriest—trickster rabbit there is! Deep in Choctaw Country, Chukfi Rabbit is always figuring out some way to avoid work at all costs. When Bear, Turtle, Fox, and Beaver agree on an everybody-work-together day to build Ms. Possum a new house, Chukfi Rabbit says he's too busy to help. Until he hears there will be a feast to eat after the work is done: cornbread biscuits, grape dumplings, tanchi labona (a delicious Choctaw corn stew), and best of all, fresh, homemade butter! So while everyone else helps build the house, Chukfi helps himself to all that yummy butter! The furry fiend! But this greedy trickster will soon learn that being this lazy is hard work! A classic trickster tale in the Choctaw tradition. Greg Rodgers is a storyteller and writer. He is a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and tells stories in schools, libraries, festivals, and tribal events throughout the country. He is currently completing a PhD at the University of Illinois, Urbana. Leslie Stall Widener lives in north Texas in a one-hundred-year old farmhouse with her husband, also an illustrator. When she was a child, she explored every inch of her grandparents' Oklahoma farm, an allotment her grandmother received for her Choctaw ancestry. Leslie's latest book, a collaboration with her sister, is an illustrated history of fashion.