Early in the twentieth century, legend has it there once was an all white bobcat living along this creek. He was wily and only spotted from a distance and if you stared at him, he vanished into the mist.

Men hunted this bobcat for rumor spread that whoever killed the phantom would gain supernatural gifts.

Lester owned a rifle that was sighted to a hair and he spent day after day in the rhododendron jungles along the creek tracking the cat. A poor farmer he longed to see his children successful.

One day he saw it staring at him, ephemeral with glowing eyes. He raised his rifle and fired one shot. Red stained the white fur.

He went to collect the prize but when he reached it lying beneath a tree, he found he could not bear to touch it.

He walked slowly away and turned once to look only to find the carcass was gone.

Lester went home and told his wife what had happened. As he was talking to her, he saw a black aura appear around her.

The next day, she sickened with a fever. The children gathered around her bedside as she coughed and weakened. Around them all, Lester saw a black shadow.

She died on the fourth day and his first born child began coughing. One by one, his five children became ill and one by one, they died.

Lester buried them all behind his house, marking their graves with pieces of slate, etched by hand with their names and the dates of their births and deaths.

In the small community he lived in, Lester noticed more and more of his friends and kin bearing the black stain of death.

After a week had passed, Lester went back to the tree where he had killed the bobcat. He took his rifle. He put it into his mouth and pulled the trigger.

In the town, those who were marked died but the illness stopped the day Lester made his final trek into the woods.

A search party was sent to find Lester. His cousin, Nathaniel said he would often go to Brush Creek when he was troubled. They found him under the tree.

The men were startled to find the once thriving tree was leafless and had turned white. In the branches above sat an albino bobcat. It leaped into the air and seemed to disappear.

The rumor spread that whoever killed the white bobcat would gain riches beyond imagining.