Little Brushy Mountain keeps its silence, but the Audie Murphy Memorial sits right where the wreckage came down in 1971. The story goes that Murphy, the most decorated soldier of World War II, survived battlefields in Europe, wrote his life into books and films, and then lost it all here in the Blue Ridge when a small plane struck the trees on a fog-heavy May morning. No survivors.

The monument marks the place. A granite block with a bronze plaque, circled by flags and tokens that strangers bring. Pennies, toy soldiers, weather-worn notes. I reached it near dusk, the shadows already climbing the trees. The woods seemed to press in, hushed, as though they were still carrying the weight of the crash.

Some hikers say that on thick summer evenings you can hear the splinter of branches and the roar of an engine cut short. Others speak of a soldier in uniform, watching quietly from the treeline, fading when you draw close. They say the air sometimes grows dense and muffled, as if the mountain itself is remembering the smoke and fire that once tore through its silence.

I felt it too. As I stood there, the cicadas ceased all at once, and the air tightened around me. My ears rang. For a moment I thought I caught a glimpse of a figure resting one hand on the stone, cap pulled low, eyes distant. I blinked and the place was empty again, only the bronze plaque catching the last light.

When the wind stirred, the woods rushed back to life, but I left a coin at the base of the monument before starting down the trail. I turned back more than once, half expecting to see a shadow on the ridge, patient and unmovable, keeping watch where the mountain still remembers.