Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Do you feel a sharer up your spine from fear? Yes,
it's another story from the Night's Shade Diary. You know
what that means. Check under the bed and make sure
no one or nothing is there. Is the closet door
securely shut. Then leave your disbelief behind, amp up your
imagination and hang on tight for another ride into terror
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and mystery. And like all good horror stories, just imagine
it's a dark and stormy night, and remember screaming like
a little girl is permitted. The Ghost of Two Forks
by Elmer Calton. A railroad was often a blessing to
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early Texas towns, but it could as easily be a curse.
Many new towns sprang up and thrived along the rights
of ways as track layers moved into new territory eager
for improved transportation, or other towns once rospres withered and
died because the Eastern money counters and the surveyors found
another route that bypassed them. Such a town was Two
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Forks for years a county seat. Its voters had approved
a bond issued that built a fine new stone courthouse
with a tall cupola that sported a clock face on
each of its four sides. From the day its stores
first opened for business, it had been Sandy Fuller's job
to sweep its floors and keep its brass door knops
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bright and shiny. In winter, he kept wood boxes full
for the several pop bellied heaters. All these were task
he enjoyed, for he had hand carried many of the
stones that went into its building, and he felt he
owned a share of it. Most people would say Sandy
was not among the brightest members of the community, that
his limited skills restricted him to the most menial of tasks.
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At fifty's back was beginning to bend. Toting all those
heavy stones had not been good for his arthritis either.
But whatever his his own shortcomings might have been, his
two Jersey cows gave more milk than any in town,
and his three dozen laying hens kept much of the
community well fixed for eggs. He also kept a dandy
little garden, selling much of its produce to his neighbors,
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giving it to those who could not pay. Those assets,
along with his housekeeping job at the court house, yielded
everything Sandy needed for the good though simple life. He
told his cowboy friend Cap Anderson that he hoped it
would last all of his days, and that heaven would
be just like Two Forks. He and Cap had once
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ridden bronks to gather in their younger years, until too
many falls forced Sandy to find less strenuous work. Cap
still held a steady wrench job, though now he rode
gentler horses. Everybody in town knew Sandy, but a thousand
miles away in a cloud of cigar smoke at the
railroad director's conference table, decisions were made by men who
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had never heard of him. All they knew of Two
Forks was that it was in the wrong place. The
surveyors had marked a route that would miss the town
by at least six miles. They were about to strike
a death blow to the prosperous little community. But that
was Two Fork's misfortune, and none of their own. Sandy
had every reason to remain where he was, among friends
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working at a court house yet helped to build. Among
other things, he visited the cemetery almost every day, carrying
a bucket of water to sprinkle on wildflowers that grew
over two graves. One tombstone marked the resting place of
Ardella Fuller, loving wife and mother, beneath the shadow of
the other, topped by the carved figure of a lamb.
They the infant daughter of Sandy and Ardella. The date
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of death was the same on both stones. For months,
Sandy had heard rumors that the railroad was coming. He
shared his neighbour's early enthusiasm because the shining rails could
bring fresh enterprise to the town. He loved. Sandie's thin
wage might not increase, but it pleased them to think
it would be a boon to his friends and neighbors. Meanwhile,
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he kept the courthouse spotless and clean. It was the
town's crowning glory and his own. He paid little attention
to whispered rumors that surveyors were placing stakes across the
bar m ranch far south of town. It seemed unreasonable
that the railroad builders would not want to make the
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fullest use of a promising community like Two Forks, as
already a landmark of sorts, its courthouse clock towers, sounding
proudly three stories high, visible for miles across the open prairie.
The striking of the clock was music to Sandy's ears
and the until you heard the county judge talking to
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two of the commissioners that he began feeling uneasy. He
stopped pushing his broom to eavesdrop. The judge said, I
met with the railroad people. They tell me we've got
no chance to change their minds. The bar m offered
them the right of way cheap, because old man Mathers
figures to sell town lots. The greaters are already at work.
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A commissioner asked, what kind of a county seat will
this be? Then, six miles from the railroad. Old man
Mathers figures sooner or later will have no choice but
to move it to his town. We can't move a
stone courthouse, and this one ain't half paid for, no,
but we can be sure mothers will try to convince
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the voters to build a new one over on the railroad.
The commissioner declared, he'll play hell doing it. Most of
the county's voters live right here in two forks. That
sounded reasonable to Sandy. He went back to sweeping and
put the worry behind him. That night, as he watered
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the wildflowers on Ardella's grave, he talked to her, just
as he had talked to her when she was alive.
Don't you be frettinged none, honey, the folks ain't going
to go off and leave a town like this, especially
one with such a pretty court house, and it's not
paid for yet. But it played out like the judge
had said. The greaters followed the surveyors, and the rails
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followed the greaters. Old man Mothers had a crew staking
out town lots along the right of way. He donated
a large town square for the building of a new
court house. He put up a big new general store
and guaranteed that his prices would be lower than those
in two Forks because he could obtain his goods directly
from the railroad without the extra cost of freighting them
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in by wagon. Sandy refused to acknowledge the riding on
the wall, even when he stood with Cap Anderson and
watched skids being placed beneath the Jones family frame house.
He watched a six meal team slide the structure. A
crossed a prairie towards the new town of Mathers. They'll
wish they hadn't moved, he told Cap. They'll get awful
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lonesome over there without their old neighbors. But one by one,
the old neighbors moved to house after house, made a
six mile drag to a new site on the railroad
or road over there on a wagon bed extended in tandem.
And time, Two Forks began to look as if a
tornado had skipped through, taking out structures at random, leaving
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behind only cedar post foundations and falling down sections of
yard fence. Weeds grew where flower beds and gardens had been.
Town's not the same anymore, he told Ourdella. But the
courthouse ain't changed. He swept every day, for dust from
the abandoned lots made it more difficult to keep its
floors clean. He polished the doorknobs, and as he could
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get to them, wash the windows. Cap Andersen sympathized, you
can't blame folks for leaving. They've got families, most of them.
They've got to go where they can make a living.
Cap lived north of Two Forks. The new town was
a hardship for him because it meant he had to
travel six miles further than when he could dwell his business.
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Time came when almost the only people still living in
Two Forks were those who worked in the courthouse, the
judge and his wife, the county clerk, the sheriff, a deputy,
the jail keeper, and Sandy, the operator of the last
general store, loaded his goods on wagons and hauled them
to a new building in Mathers. His old place tood vacant.
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It made Sandy think of a doggy calf. One night,
some young vandals from the new town sneaked in under
the cover of darkness to break out the store's windows
and those of what had been the blacksmiths shop. The
judge was the first of the courthouse crowd to surrender.
He had his big house sodden too, and hauled over
to Mathers. Sandy heard that one section was sprung a
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little during the trip, so that the two never fit
back together just right. After some loud cussing, the judge
graudually accepted the patching job, though his wife was never
again satisfied with the house. The county clerk was not
long and following the judge to Mathers, the sheriff and
his crew had to stay because the jail was still
in Two Forks. Though the law man spent most of
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his time in forcing the ordinances in the new town,
the few residents remaining in Two Forks were not given
to crimes and misdemeanors. The judge became increasingly vocal about
the nuisance of living in one town and working in another.
Sandy heard his voice swinging down the hall. There is
no longer any question about it. We've got to move
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the county seat to Mathers. Sandy almost dropped his broom.
The sheriff agreed with the judge's opinion, but pointing out
that such a move would require a vote of the
county citizens. The judge said, most of them are in Mathers.
Now who was left to vote, staying in two forks.
As it turned out, the only dissenting votes were Sandy's
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and those of some farmers and ranch people like cap
afraid of higher taxes. Sandy listened disconsolately as the ballots
were counted in the clerk's office. He quickly saw that
his vote was being crushed beneath the weight of all
those others. He heard the judge say, now we've got
to have a bond vote so we can build a
new court house. The sheriff was skeptical. The county still
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owes ten years payments on this one. Do you think
the landowners are going to vote another tax boarden on themselves.
The people in town outnumber the country voters. The judge argued,
they're tired of having to come all the way over
here to do business with the county government. And so
it was. The new citizens of Mathers were overwhelmingly in
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favor of a new court house, especially after the judge
pointed out that most of the added tax burden would
be levied upon landowners and not themselves. Old man Mathers
was especially pleased. His son in law was a builder
and assinched to get the construction contract from the Commissioner's court.
The stone would be quarried from the south end of
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the Mathers ranch. It was a foregone conclusion that the
price of building stone was going to run high. Watering
the flowers, Sandy told Ardella, it's going to take them
awhile to get that new court house built. I'll bet
it won't be nothing like as pretty as this one here.
He was right. He sneaked over to Mather's one Sunday
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afternoon to steal a peak at the construction work. The
sight of the walls were up and the roof was
half built. He took a measure of satisfaction in the
fact that this court house was going to be but ugly.
It offered no imagination in its architecture, no adornments, just
four plane square walls and a row of deep set
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windows that reminded him of the eye sockets and a skull. Oh.
It was more. He had been told that this court
house was costing twice as much as the older one.
They would be held to pay for the judge and
some others when the next election rolled around, but that
was still more than a year off from people who
came to the old two Fork's court house to do
business with the county. Sandy heard rumblings of discontent at
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a petition drive demanding that the county refused to accept
the new structure on the basis that it was badly designed,
shaddily built, and uglier than a mud fence. But the
judge ruled that the petition did not represent a large
enough percentage of the voters and thus was invalid. Construction
was completed and the new court house was approved by
the Commissioner's Court. The next step was to move the
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records from the older building. Sandy's hopes soared when a
dozen ranchers and their cowboys, including Cap, surrounded the two
forks court house and vowed to stop, at gunpoint, if necessary,
any transfer of documents. The Judge and the shaf foiled
that attempt by bringing into Texas Rangers to enforce the
court order. The ranchers and their cowboys might have gone
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up against the United States Army, but they knew better
than to oppose the Texas Rangers. Sandy and Cap watched
crestfallen as the county records were placed in a line
of wagons and hauled away. That night, he told Ardella,
I don't know what I'm going to do now, except
for one thing. I ain't leaving you and the baby,
and I ain't leaving my courthouse. The judge came to
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him the next day with a proposition, you just as
well give it up, Sandy and come over to Maths.
We need a janitor to take care of the new
court house like you've taken care of this one. Sandy
knew one reason they wanted him was that they could
not find any one else willing to do the job
for the same low pay. No, sir, he said, I'm
satisfied where I'm at, but there's nothing for you to
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do here. This court house is still here. And it
needs somebody to care for it. The judge began to
show impatience. Don't you understand this court house is vacant, retired.
We don't need anybody to take care of it. But
it still belongs to the county, don't it. We're all
still paying for it, ain't we. That is beside the point.
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We can't pay you to sweep out an abandoned building.
We will pay you to take care of the new one.
One way and another. I reckon I'll get by. If
anything ever happens to that new court house, you'll be
glad you've got this one sitting here waitin for you.
The judge shook his hand, disgusted. A man who would
argue with a fool is a fool himself. He turned away,
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but stopped to say, your paycheck ends to day. Money
had never been an important issue with Sandy. He could
get by. I'm very little between his garden, his chickens,
and his milk cows. He would not go hungry, he
told the judge. If you ever need me, you'll know
where to look. Damn it, man, don't you realize that
two Forks as a dead town. It ain't dead as
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long as somebody lives in it, that'll be me. Sandy
cooked his meals and slept in a plain framed shack.
It would be a stretch of the language to say
he actually lived there. He lived in the court house.
He was accustomed to going there before daylight and making
sure it was ready for business. In winter, he built
fires and all the stoves to take the chill off
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before the first of the staff arrived. Now, though it
was summer, he opened the windows, saw a cooling breeze
could freshen the air. Everything continued the same as before,
with one important difference. No one was in the courthouse
except him. With all the desks and chairs removed, the
sweeping chore was easier because he did not have to
work around the obstacles. The empty rooms looked larger than before,
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and the county clerk's officer's shelves were bare, where once
they had been full of records of land transactions, court decisions,
marriages and births and deaths. Sandy did not need the
records to help him remember, however, he had been a
witness to almost everything that had happened here. Having more
time on his hands, he spent longer at the cemetery.
Talking to Ardella, he wiped dust from the carved lamp
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totop the baby's tombstone. It's awful quiet here now, he said,
but in a way I kind of like it. Sometimes.
I got tired of all that noise, and I don't
have a lot of people throwing their trash around. You
ought to see how clean the courthouse is. He almost
never went to Mautha. The sight of the squatty new
court house made his eyes hurt. He still bartered enough
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butter and eggs to trade for the few groceries he needed,
mainly coffee and bacon and such. Every two or three
days cap where some other rancher cowboy took his produce
to town for him and brought back whatever he ordered
from the general store. He had noticed that the new
court house did not even have lightning rods like the
old one. Maybe one day lightning would strike, the building
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would burn down, and they would have to move the
county seat back to two forks. The county could not
afford to be paying for three court houses at the
same time. Well, when it happened, they would find the
old one as good as when they had left it
better even for Sandy made improvements on it here and there,
but lightning did not strike. Time went dragging on. A
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windstorm took most of the roof from Sandy's shack. He
decided to move into the jail, which stood in the
shadow of the courthouse. He reasoned that a building always
fared better when someone lived in it than when it
stood vacant. They would need the jail again some day
when they returned to Two Forks. He kept it as
clean as the court house. One by one, his rancher
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and cowboy friends died or moved away. Cap remained, but
he did not often go to town any more. No
longer could Sandy depend on someone else to carry his
butter and eggs to town. He had no choice but
to walk to six miles to Mather's, carrying his goods
in a cloth sack, then walking back with food he
could not produce for himself. Most of the townspeople had
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forgotten about him. Now they talked about him again. He
was poor, i feeble minded old Sandy who didn't have
the sense to give up and quit beating a dead horse.
He became the Ghost of Two Forks, a ragged apparition
who showed up briefly on the dirt streets of Mather
every three or four days, said little or nothing to anybody,
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disappeared like a wisp of smoke. A few of the
more superstitious even suggested that he had died of lonesome
and that what they saw was a wraith, a will
of the wisp. Town boys dared each other to visit
the Two Fork Cemetery after dark and see if the
ghost would appear. He did on a few occasions. Sandy
was as protective of the cemetery as of the court house.
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He was afraid vandals might topple some of the tombstones,
especially Ardellas or the babies. After several town boys hurried home,
shaking with fright, talking about the ghosts that appeared out
of nowhere, the nocturnal visits stopped. Hardly anybody except Sandy
came to the cemetery any more. The few abandoned frame
houses gradually succumbed to time and the weather, sinking back
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to the ground or giving up to the wind, which
scattered them in pieces. Across the old town site. Only
the grand old court house remained and the jail. The
ghost of Two Forks continued to care for them to
keep up repairs. Then one day a cowboy happened by
on his way to town. It was a hot summer day,
but the court house windows remained closed. Sandy had routinely
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opened them each morning from spring into late fall. Maybe
the old man was ill, the cowboy thought. He rode
up to the courthouse and tested to the front door.
It was locked. He led his horse to the jail
and went inside. Sandy was not there. The stove was cold,
Sandy's coffee pot sat empty except for yesterday's grounds. Alarmed,
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the cowboy went outside and called. The only response was
the echo of his own voice. A circle through the
town site yielded no sign. He rode to town and
went directly to the office of the new sheriff. A
small delegation of townspeople, mostly older ones who remembered the
heyday of two forks, accompanied him back to the ghost town.
They searched every room, every closet in the old courthouse,
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half expecting to find Sandy dead in one of them.
They even climbed up into the clock tower. They did
not find him. It's just like the wind just lifted
him up and carried him away, the cowboy said, or
maybe he wasn't nothing but a ghost. To start with
the town's message jed maybe he died when the town died.
So now Two Forks was officially dead. The last person
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to have lived there was gone. The tall, old courthouse
stood a silent testimony to the town that once had been,
and to the man who had stubbornly refused to accept
that it was gone. But as Sandy had long predicted,
the courthouse did not die. It refused to submit to
the wind and the rain and the ravages of time.
After many years, some former citizens of Two Forks Dey
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said it was time to honor the town's memory with
a big reunion. A barbecue and dance were better to
have it than in the courthouse. No one knew where
to find the keys, if they even existed anymore, so
someone had to pick the lock so the committee could
go inside and clean up the place for the benefit
of the expected crowd. To their amazement, the courthouse was
as clean as if it had just been swept. Tight windows,
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they reasoned, had not let the dust in. They should
have been cobwebs. Yet they saw none. Even the windows
arkle as a freshly washed the ghost of Sandy Fuller.
Some said he had never given up his job. The
estate placed a historical marker beside the front door of
the old Two Forks Courthouse. The reunion in barbecue became
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an annual affair in dances for a frequent event. From
time to time, the old building pulse with life as
it had long ago. Visitors came often in hope of
glimpsing the ghost of Two Forks, but none ever saw him.
Then he only that occasionally he still swept the courthouse
by night and kept it clean. No one ever knew
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how Sandy Fuller had disappeared, well, almost no one cap
Fuller knew, for he had found Sandy lying dead beside
Ardella's grave. Knowing Sandy's love for the courthouse, and knowing
the law would not allow it if anyone knew, he
secretly buried him in the basement. He kept Sandy's keys.
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He also kept Sandy's room until he wore it out
and had to replace it with a new one. The
Defense of Sentinel by Leuis Lamour. When the morning came,
Finn Magral awakened into a silent world. His eyes opened
to the wide and wondering sky, where a solitary cloud
wandered reluctantly across the endless blue. At first, he did
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not notice the silence he had awakened. His mouth tasted
like a rain soaked cat hide. He wanted a drink,
and he needed a shave. This was not an unusual situation.
He heaved himself to a sitting position, yawned wildly, scratching
his ribs, and became aware of the silence. No sound,
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no movement, no rattling of well buckets, no cackling of hens,
no slamming of doors. Sentinel was a town of silence. Slowly,
his mind filling with wonder, Finn macgral climbed to his feet.
With fifty wasted years behind him, he had believed the
world held no more surprises. But Sentinel was empty. Sentinel were.
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For six months, Finn mac gral had held the unenvied
position of official town drunk. He had been the tramp,
the vagabond, the useless, the dirty, dusty, unshaven, whiskey sodden drunk.
He slept in alleys, he slept in barns, wherever he
happened to be. When he passed out, Finn mac gral
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was a man without a home, without a job, without
a dime, and I was a man without a town.
What can be more pitiful than a townless town? Drunk carefully,
mc graw got to his feet. The world tipped edged wise,
and he balanced delicately and managed to maintain his equilibrium.
Negotiating the placing of his feet with extreme caution, he
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succeeded and crossing the wash, and stumbling up the bank
on the town side again more apprehensively, he listened silence,
no smoke rising from chimneys, no barking dogs, no horses.
The street lay empty before him, like a street in
a town of ghosts. Vinmigras paused and stared at the phenomena.
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Had he, like Rip van Winkle, slept for twenty years?
Yet he hesitated for well, he knew the extreme lengths
that Western men would go for a good practical joke.
The thoughts came as a relief that was it. Of course,
this was a joke. They had all gone together to
play a joke on him. His footsteps echoed hollowly on
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the boardwalk. Tentatively, he tried the door of the saloon.
It gave inward, and he pushed by the inner bat
wing door and looked around. The odor of still whisky
mingled with cigar, smoke lingered lonesomely in the air. Poker
chips and cards were scattered on the table, but there
was nobody, nobody at all. The black ar was lined
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with bottles. His face brightened, whisky, good whisky, and his
for the taking. At least, if they had deserted him,
they had left the whiskey begin Caution intervened. He walked
to the back office and pushed open the door. It
creaked on a rusty hinge and gave inward to emptiness. Hey,
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his voice found only an echo for company. Where is everybody?
No answer? He walked to the door and looked out
upon the street. Suddenly the desire for human companionship blossomed
into a vast yearning. He rushed outside. He shouted, His
voice rang empty in the street against the false fronted buildings. Wildly.
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He rushed from door to door. The blacksmith's shop, the
livery stable, the saddle shop, the boot maker, the general
store of the jail. All were empty, deserted. He was
alone alone. What had happened? Where was everybody? Saloons full
of whiskey, stores filled with food, blankets, clothing. All these
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things had been left unguarded. Half frightened, Finn mcgral made
his way to the restaurant. Everything there was at as
it had been left, a meal half eaten on the table,
dishes unwashed, but the stove was cold. Aware suddenly of
a need for strength that whiskey could not provide, Finmigras
kindled a fire in the stove from a huge hand.
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He cut several thick slices. He went out back and
rummaged through the nest and found a few scattered eggs.
He carried these inside and prepared a meal. With a
good breakfast under his belt, he refilled his coffee cup
and rummaged around until he found a box of cigars.
He struck a match and lighted a good havana, pocketing
several more. Then he leaned back and began to consider
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the situation. Despite the excellent meal and the cigar, he
was uneasy. The heavy silence worried him, and he got
caught up and went curiously to the door. Suppose there
was something here, something malign and evil. Suppose angrily he
pushed the door open. He was going to stop, supposing,
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for the first time, in his life. He had a
town full of everything, and he was going to make
the most of it. Sauntering carelessly down the empty streets
to the elite general store, he entered and coolly began
examining the clothing. He found the hand made down gray
suit and changed his clothes. He selected new boots and
donned them, as well as a white cambric shirt, a
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black string tie, and a new black hat. He pocketed
a fine linen handkerchief. Next, he lighted another cigar, spat
into the brass platoon, and looked upon life with favor.
On his right as he turned to leave the store
was a long rack of rifles, shotguns and pistols. Thoughtfully,
he studied them. In his day, that was thirty years
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or so ago, he had been a sharp shooter in
the army. He got down a Winchester seventy three, an
excellent weapon, and loaded it with seventeen bullets. He appropriated
a fine pair of cults, loaded them and belted them on,
filling the loops with cartridges, taking down a shotgun, loaded
both barrels with buckshot. Then he sauntered down to the saloon,
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rummaged under the bar until he came up with Denis
Magoon's excellent Irish whisky and poured three fingers into a glass,
admiring the brown, beautiful color, the somber amber, as he
liked to call it. He studied the sunlight through the
glass and tasted it. Ah, now that was something like it.
There was a taste of bog in that. He tossed
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off his drink and refilled his glass. The town was his,
the whole town full of whisky, food, clothing, almost everything
a man could want. But why where was everybody? Thoughtfully,
he walked outside. The silence held sway. A lonely dust
devil danced on the prairie outside of town, and the
sun was warm. At the edge of town, he looked
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out over the prairie toward the mountains. Nothing met his
eye save a vast, unbelievable stretch of grassy plain. His
eyes dropped to the dust, and with a kind of shot,
he remembered that he could read sign. Here were the
tracks of a half dozen rigs, buckboards, wagons, and carts
from the horse tracks. All were headed the same direction east.
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He scowled, and turning thoughtfully, he walked back to the
livery barn not a horse remained. Bits of harness were
dropped on the ground, a spare saddle. Everything showed evidence
of a sudden and hasty departure. An hour later, having
made the rounds, Finn MacGraw returned to the saloon. He
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poured another glass of the Irish, lighted another havana. But
now he had a problem. The people of the town
had not vanished into thin air. They had made a sudden, frightened,
panic stricken rush to get away from the place. That
implied there was in the town itself some evil. Finn
McGraw tasted the whiskey and looked over his shoulder. Uncomfortably,
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he tiptoed to the door, looked one way, then suddenly
the other. Nothing unusual met his gaze. He tasted his
whisky again, and then, crawling from the dusty and cobweb
convolutions of his brain, long befuddled by alcohol, came realization Indians.
He remembered some talk the night before while he was
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trying to bum a drink. The latter five wrench had
been raided and the hands had been murdered. Victoria was
on the warpath, burning, killing maiming apaches. The fort was
east of here. Some message must have come, some word,
and the inhabitants had fled like sheep and left him
behind Like a breath of icy air. He realized that
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he was alone in the town. There was no means
of escape, no place to hide, and the apaches were coming.
Thrusting the bottle of irish into his pocket, Finn mcgrael
made a break for the door outside. He rushed down
to the Elite General Store. This building was of stone,
low and squat and built for the fence, as it
had been a trading post and stage station before the
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town grew up around it. Hastily, he took stop moving
flower barrels. He rolled him to the door to block it.
Atop the barrels he placed sacks, bales, and boxes. He
barred the heavy back door, then blocked the windows in
the center of the floor, built a circular parapet of
more sacks and barrels. For a last defense, he got
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down an armful of shotguns and proceeded to load ten
of them. These he scattered around at various loup poles
with a stack of shells by each. Then he loaded
several rifles, three spencer fifty six sharps, fifty and seven
Winchester seventy threes. He loaded a dozen of the cults
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and open boxes of ammunition. Then he lighted another Havan
and settled down to wait. The morning was well nigh gone.
There was food enough in the store, and the position
was a commanding one. The store was thrust out from
the line of buildings in such a way that it
commanded the approaches of the street in both directions. Yet
it was long enough so that he could command the
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rear of the buildings as well by running to the back.
The more he studied his position, the more he wondered
why sentinel inhabitants had left the town undefended. Only blind
unreasoning panic could have caused such a flight. At noon,
he prepared himself a meal from what he found in
the store and waited. It was shortly after high sun
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when the Indians came. The Indians might have been scouting
the place for hours, Finn had not seen them. Now
they came cautiously down the street, creeping hesitantly along from
a window that commanded the street. Old Finn McGraw waited
on the windows till he had four shotguns, each with
two barrels loaded with buckshot, and he waited. The Apache,
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suspecting a trap, approached cautiously. They peered into empty buildings,
flattened their faces against windows, then came on. The looting
would follow later. Now the Indians were suspicious and anxios
to know if the town was deserted. They crept forward,
six of them bunched to talk, some forty yards away.
Beyond them, a half dozen more Pachies were scattered in
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the next twenty yards. Signing to his shotguns, Finn mcgral
rested a hand on each. The guns were carefully held
in place by sacks weighing them down, and he was ready.
He squeezed all four triggers at once. The concussion was terrific,
with a frightful roar, the four barrels blasted death into
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the little groups of Indians, and instantly Magral sprang to
the next two guns, swung one of them slightly and
fired again. Then he grabbed up a heavy spencer and
began firing as fast as he could aim, getting off
four shots before the street was empty, empty but for
the dead. Five Apaches lay stretched in the street. Another,
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dragging himself with his hands, was attempting to escape magral
lunched his feet and raced to the back of the building.
He caught a glimpse of an Indian and snapped a
quick shot. The Apache dropped, stumbled to his feet, then
fell again and lay still. That was the beginning. All
through the long, hot afternoon, the battle waged. V McGraw
drank whiskey and swore. He loaded and reloaded his battery
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of guns. The air in the store was stifling, the
heat increase. The store smell thickened, and over it all
hung the acrid smell of gunpowder. Apaches came to recover
their dead and died beside them. Two naked warriors tried
to cross the rooftops to his building, and he dropped
them both. One lay on the blistering roof, the other
rolled off and fell heavily. Sweat trickled into McGraw's eyes,
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and his face became swollen from the kick of the guns.
From the front of the story, he could watch three ways,
and a glance down the length of the store allowed
him to see a very limited range outside. Occasionally he
took a shot from the back window, hoping to keep
them guessing. Night came out whilst bringing a blessed coolness,
and old m McGraw relaxed and put aside his guns.
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Who can say that he knows the soul of the Indian?
Who can say what dark superstitions churn inside his skull?
But Apati will fight at night, since he believes the
souls of men killed in darkness must forever wander homeless
and alone. Was it fear that prevented an attack now?
Or was it some fear of this strange, many weaponed man,
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if man he was who occupied the dark stone building?
And who can say with what strange expressions? They stared
at each other as they heard from their fires outside
the town, the weird thunder of the old piano in
the saloon, and the old man's whisky bass rolling out,
the words of the wearing of the green drill y terriers.
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Dwell come where my love lies dreaming, and Shenandoah they
came and found for Magras in the store, ready for battle.
The old LUs for battle, that is the birthright of
the Irish had risen within him. Never from the moment
he realized that he was alone in a town about
to be raided by apaches. Had he given himself a
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chance for survival. Yet it was the way of the
Irish to fight, and the way even of old whisky
soaked fin An hour after dawn, a bullet struck him
in a side. He spun half around, fell against the
flower barrels, and slid to the floor. Blood flowed from
the slash, and he caught up a handful of flour
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and slapped it against the wound. Promptly fired a shot
from the door, an aimless shot to let them know
he was still there. Then he bandaged his wound. It
was a flush wound and would have bled badly but
for the flower. Sweat trickled into his eyes, Grime and
powder smoke streaked his face, but he moved and moved again,
and his shotguns and rifles stopped every attempt to approach
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the building. Even looting was at a minimum, for he
controlled most of the entrances, and the apaches soon found
they must dispose of their enemy before they could profit
from the town. Some time in the afternoon, a bullet
knocked him out, cutting a furrow in his scalp, and
it was nearing dusk when his eyes opened. His head
throbbed with enormous pain, his mouth was dry. He rolled
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to a sitting position and took a long pull at
the irish feeding for a shotgun, and Apache was even
then fumbling at the door. He steadied the gun against
the corner of a box. His eyes blinked. He squeezed
off both barrels and hid in the belly. The Apache
staggered back. At high noon on the fourth day, Major Magruder,
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with a troop of cavalry, rode into the streets of Sentinel.
Behind him were sixty men of the town, all armed
with rifles. At the edge of town. Major Magruder lifted
a hand. Jake Carter and Dennis Magoon moved up beside him.
I thought you said a town was deserted. His extended
finger indicated to that Apache. Their horses walked slowly forward.
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Another patches sprawled their dead, and then they found another.
Before the store of four patches lay in a tight cluster.
Another savage was stretched at the side of the walk.
Windows of the store were shattered and broken. A great
hole had been blasted in the door. At the Major's ordered,
the troops scattered to search the town. Magrooder swung down
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before the store. I'd take a notath. Nobody was left
behind Carter said. Magrooder shoved open the store. The floor
inside was littered with blackened cartridges, cases, and strewn with
empty bottles. No one man could fire that many shells
or drink that much whiskey, Magruder said positively. He stooped,
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looking at the floor, and some flour on the floor, blood,
he said. And the saloon they found another empty bottle
and an empty box of cigars. Magoon stared dismally at
the empty bottle. He had been keeping count, and all
but three of the bottles of his best Irish glory
were gone. Whoever it was, he said, sorrowfully, drank up
some of the best whiskey ever brewed. Carter looked at
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the piano. Suddenly he grabbed Magoon's arm. Mc Graw, he yelled,
twas Finn mac Graw. They looked at each other. It
couldn't be, And yet who had seen him? Where was he? Now? Who?
Magruder asked? Is MacGraw? They explained, and the search continued.
Bullets had clipped the corners of buildings, Bullets had smashed
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water barrels along the street. Windows were broken, and there
were nineteen dead Indians, but no sign of mac Graw.
Then a soldier yelled from outside of town, and they
went that way and gathered around under the edge of
miss Squeep Bush, a shot gun beside him, his new
suit torn in blood stained. They found Finn mac graw.
Beside him lay two empty bottles of the Irish, another,
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partly gone, lay near his hand. A rifle was propped
in the fork of the bush, and a pistol had
fallen from his holster. There was blood on his side,
and blood on his head, and face dead, Carter said,
but what a battle. Magruder bent over the old man.
Then he looked up, a faint twinkle breaking the gravity
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of his face. Dead, all right, he said, dead, drunk