The Ghost Wore Gray

by Bruce Coville

  The things we need can best be purchased in Canada. But the Canadians will not accept our currency. So it is necessary for someone to carry the actual treasure to Canada.

  I have been asked to do the job because of the years I spent at college in Massachusetts, which left me with the ability to imitate the way a Yankee speaks. It’s a skill I will need if I am to pass safely through Yankee territory.

  It is such a great honor to be entrusted with this treasure, which was wrung from the very hearts of the fairest women in Charleston. I hope that I will be worthy of it.

  I leave in the morning. I am to make contact with a Canadian courier in New York State three weeks from today. It will be a perilous journey. But I have a list of contacts in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York—friends sympathetic to the Confederate cause. They will shelter me and help speed me on my mission. It seems ironic that I will be traveling in much the same way as those slaves who escaped to the North on the infamous Underground Railroad.

  APRIL 28, 1863

  The journey is taking longer than I expected. The effects of the war can be seen everywhere—in the scorched fields and the burned houses, and most of all in the haunted, weary eyes of the women and children who have lived too close to battle for too long.

  I begin to wonder if it is really worth it.

  APRIL 30, 1863

  Yesterday I entered Maryland. Tomorrow a friend will take me by wagon to a train station. The next leg of my journey will be by a real railroad, rather than this “underground railroad” I have been using.

  This friend also offered me the use of his own trunk, which has a cleverly constructed false bottom. I can use this to hide the jewels, and travel with less fear of being robbed.

  MAY 9, 1863

  I reached New York a day and a half ago. Canada seems within striking distance! I am staying at a small inn called the Quackadoodle, where I am to wait for my Canadian contact. He should be here in three days.

  I have seen a great number of blacks since I entered the state. I cannot help but believe that many of them are escaped slaves. How it angers me to see the property of good Southern gentlemen being sheltered by these Northerners. It is theft, pure and simple.

  MAY 15, 1863

  I have been here six days now, and my contact has not yet appeared. I begin to wonder if something has happened to him.

  It would not bother me quite so much, save that another guest here at the inn has taken an unusual interest in me. I suspect he has noticed the occasional touch of Dixie in my speech, and wonders why I am here, what I am up to.

  MAY 17, 1863

  Last night, while I was at dinner, someone searched my room. Thanks to the secret compartment in my friend’s trunk, they did not find the treasure. I also keep this journal in that compartment, so that no one can learn of it by reading these pages.

  Despite the thief’s failure, I am not sure that another attempt would not succeed. What if, in frustration, the thief simply smashed the trunk? I may be worrying needlessly. But I think I should hide the jewels elsewhere.

  MAY 31, 1863

  It has been two weeks since I have written a word in this journal. The reason is simple: I have been unconscious that long.

  On Tuesday night I buried the treasure in a secluded spot. It was good fortune that I took this action, for later that same evening my unknown enemy attacked me in my room.

  I suspect that someone has betrayed me. Although I have let slip no word of my mission, after I was knocked unconscious, my assailant ransacked my room. I wonder now if someone has trailed me all the way from South Carolina, waiting for the right moment to steal the fortune they knew I was carrying. Or perhaps someone who was aware of my mission wrote ahead to unscrupulous allies to tell them what they might find in my room.

  The kind of people I am dealing with is indicated by the fact that, finding nothing in the room to steal, they left me for dead.

  I am alive today entirely due to the kindness of two men: the innkeeper, who discovered me, and a black man whom he called in to treat me. The latter is a remarkable person, and I will write more of him tomorrow. I must stop now, for even this little exertion has exhausted me.

  JUNE 1, 1863

  According to the innkeeper, my “doctor” is named Sam. He either doesn’t know, or isn’t willing, to give me his last name.

  The strange thing is, I feel as if I have seen the man before. I find I am eager for him to arrive today, partly because I know that I am still very ill, and partly because he seems to carry with him a kind of calm, as if he had some personal source of peace and happiness. I find it a remarkable thing.

  JUNE 5, 1863

  Bad news. I lost consciousness after writing the last entry, and I have been asleep for another three days. According to the innkeeper, Sam was beside me almost night and day.

  For the first time I fear that I might not recover. I seem to see the shadow of death hanging over me.

  I worry, too, that my Canadian contact may have come and gone while I was unconscious.

  JUNE 6, 1863

  What a strange situation this is! I have finally recognized my doctor. He is none other than Samson Carter, so well known for his work on the Underground Railroad. What strange fate has put my life in the hands of this man?

  I called him by name. He looked surprised, and even a little frightened. And no wonder. At one time there was a reward of $10,000 on his head, available to anyone who could catch him and carry him to the authorities of any slave state. That was why he looked familiar to me, of course. I had seen his face on wanted posters throughout the South.

  I am in a great deal of pain now, and it is hard to sleep. Carter sat with me through the day and well into the night. To pass the time, he told me stories of his adventures with the Underground Railroad. I am impressed by the man’s bravery. I know many white men who would not risk half so much for their own freedom as he has risked for people not known to him.

  JUNE 7, 1863

  Weak and exhausted. Two men came looking for me today—claimed they had heard there was a rebel officer being sheltered here.

  Carter took me down to the kitchen, where he hid me in a little room that he told me was once used by the Underground Railroad.

  “This wasn’t made for white men,” he said. “Least, not any that had slaves. But I guess it don’t matter now. The important thing is to keep you from being skinned alive, Cap’n Gray.”

  I looked at him in astonishment. “How do you know who I am?” I asked.

  “Oh, I knew a lot of white folk around Charleston,” said Carter. “Did a lot of work down there when I was younger.”

  “Why didn’t you turn me in when you first saw me?” I asked.

  Carter shrugged. “I didn’t know why you was here. Maybe you was running away, just like so many of my folk. Maybe not. I don’t turn people in till I know what they’re about. Now, you just rest quiet till we get the mess out front settled down.”

  Then he closed the door on me. I was all alone in the tiny room. It was completely black. I was ill. I could hardly hold myself up. But I feared that if I fell it would make a noise that would attract the attention of the searchers.

  I thought of the stories Carter had told me, while sitting by my bed, and wondered how many frightened, sick blacks had huddled in this same hole, fearing for their lives, fearing they would be discovered.

  When Carter finally came to get me, I was shivering with fever.

  DATE UNKNOWN; I have lost track of time.

  I have been lost in strange dreams. I have seen myself as a slave, in chains, beaten, placed on the block and sold. I cry out, but do not seem to be able to wake.

  Carter is here. When I rouse myself I see him. Sometimes in my sleep I can sense him laying a cloth on my forehead, or clutching my hand when the dreams are too terrible.

  Yet in a way I think the dreams are his fault. I dream of the things he has told me, of what it was like to be a slave. I knew those things, of course. But I never thou
ght they made a difference. After all, they were only blacks. They weren’t the same as white men.

  Now I don’t know. I have rarely met a man as fine as Samson Carter.

  I am confused.

  JUNE 14, 1863

  I do not think I will live very long. I have asked the innkeeper to bring me paper.

  I have to make a map and a will.

  That was the last entry in the diary.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Ruby Fire

  I looked up. Through the window I could see the first rays of dawn. My father was going to wonder why we were so tired, when we had gone to bed so early!

  I closed the diary and looked at Chris. I was still trying to figure out exactly what it meant. One thing did seem clear: we had an important tool for understanding what was going on at the Quackadoodle. If nothing else, we finally knew why a Rebel ghost was haunting a Yankee inn.

  “The way I figure it,” said Chris, “old Captain Gray must have died before he could make the map and the will—”

  “Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “He’s not old. He’s young!”

  “What do you mean?” said Chris. She closed her eyes and did a quick calculation. “The man has to be pushing a hundred and fifty!”

  “Sure,” I replied. “But I’ll bet he wasn’t even thirty when he died. So he’s young.”

  That got us going on a discussion about how you should figure a ghost’s age. But since neither of us really knew, we finally decided to look it up when we got home.

  “Anyway,” I said, “I don’t see any reason why he couldn’t have made the map and the will. The only thing is, they wouldn’t have done him any good, unless he could have found some way to pass them on to his Canadian contact. He could hardly ask Samson Carter to help him do that! My guess is that the reason Captain Gray is haunting the inn is because the treasure is still here. It was his responsibility, so he feels he has to guard it.”

  Chris stopped to think about that. “Makes sense,” she said after a minute. Suddenly her eyes opened wide. “Did you hear what you just said?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “The treasure. It’s still here! What if we can find it?”

  “But it doesn’t belong to us. It belongs to Captain Gray.”

  “Well, he can’t use it,” snorted Chris. “He’s dead!”

  “Shhhh!” I hissed. I looked around nervously. I didn’t know if the ghost would like this line of conversation.

  “Look, if he doesn’t want us to have the treasure, why did he lead us to the diary?” Chris asked defensively.

  “I don’t know. Maybe he wants us to finish his mission.”

  “That’s silly,” said Chris. “The war ended nearly a hundred and twenty-five years ago!”

  “Well, maybe he doesn’t know that!”

  That got us sidetracked again, and we spent the next few minutes trying to figure out how time passes for ghosts, and whether or not they pay attention to current events. It’s weird. I’ve dealt with two ghosts now, which in a way makes me kind of an expert, and I don’t have the slightest idea about that kind of thing. I mean, do they read the headlines in the morning paper? If the house they’re haunting has a television, do they watch the evening news? Or do they just focus on whatever is keeping them in this world—like this mysterious treasure?

  “I wonder if anyone else knows about the treasure?” asked Chris suddenly.

  “How could they?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Some people are real Civil War freaks. I’ve got an uncle like that. He knows all kinds of weird stories about the war. Maybe it’s even in a book somewhere. I bet years later those Charleston women told their kids about how they donated their jewels to the cause only to have them disappear on the way to Canada. Maybe it’s a family legend—you know, one of those things that gets passed on from generation to generation.”

  “Then you think someone here might be looking for it?” I asked.

  “Well, that would explain why the plans were stolen from your father’s room,” said Chris. “If someone came here hoping to find the treasure, and they knew this place had been a stop on the Underground Railroad, they might figure the plans would show some special hiding places—the kind of place where someone might tuck away a treasure.”

  “But the ghost didn’t do that,” I said. “He buried it!”

  Chris just looked at me.

  “Right,” I said, feeling silly. “You know that. And I know that. But anyone who hasn’t read the diary wouldn’t know that.”

  “I’m glad your brain is working again,” said Chris. She went to the dresser and got the ruby. “Come here.” She motioned for me to follow her as she crossed to the window.

  She held the ruby in her palm. The light of the rising sun caught in the stone. It looked like rose petals, like blood, like fire. Suddenly I wanted it to be all mine.

  It was a frightening feeling. That was when I finally understood why so many terrible things happen around treasures like this. I knew there was a part of me that would do anything to possess this jewel.

  Chris closed her hand, separating the stone from the sunshine. It was like breaking a spell.

  She looked at me. I got the feeling she had experienced the same hungry greed that had frightened me.

  “We’d better find a safe place to keep this thing,” said Chris.

  I nodded. Whoever the thief was, he or she might decide that if my father had any more useful information, he would put it in our room for safekeeping. The basic theory would be wrong. But if they searched our room they’d still get results.

  “Baltimore probably has a safe,” I said. “We can put it in there.”

  “Good idea. But first let’s put it in an envelope or something. Right now the fewer people who know about this, the better.” She paused. “I wonder if the treasure belongs to Baltimore,” she said. “After all, he owns the inn now.”

  I shrugged. “Could be. It might depend on where it’s buried. Or whether or not we can find the will.”

  I knew that if the law got involved with this thing, the treasure could be tied up for years while people tried to figure out who had a legal right to it. The thing was, as far as I was concerned it really belonged to Captain Gray. So I figured he was the one who ought to say where it should go. Somehow, I didn’t think that would happen if we ended up in court. I could just see us trying to explain to a judge that the ghost of the original owner had told us what to do with the treasure. It would probably get us sent to a room with padded walls.

  We were still trying to figure all that out when my father knocked on the door and asked if we were coming to breakfast with him.

  We said he’d have to give us time to get ready.

  He said that the invitation was for breakfast, not lunch.

  We called him a male chauvinist pig, and told him we’d meet him in the dining room in ten minutes. We did, too, although it wasn’t easy. I was still trying to get the last knots out of my hair as we walked through the dining room door. I quickly slipped the comb into my pocket when I saw that Mona was sitting at the table with Dad.

  I went to get some milk and one of Dieter’s pastries. “Maybe the ghost isn’t really guarding the treasure after all,” I said to Chris. She was standing beside me, dumping sugar in her coffee as if it was the last time she was ever going to see the stuff.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Maybe he had one of Dieter’s pastries and decided he had already made it to heaven.”

  “You could be right,” she said, putting two of them on her plate. “I’d be perfectly willing to come back here for breakfast every day after I’m dead.”

  “Well, did you two sleep all right?” my father asked when we sat down.

  “Fine,” I said—which was quite true for the time we had actually spent sleeping.

  Mona looked terrific. That worried me, since I didn’t think most women would bother to look that good that early in the morning when they were
on vacation, unless they were after some guy. Like my father.

  “If I leave you two alone today do you think you can stay out of trouble?” asked Dad.

  “Mr. Tanleven!” Chris cried. “How can you even ask such a question?”

  My father rolled his eyes. “You’re right,” he said. “I should know better. Of course you can’t stay out of trouble. But I have to go into town to talk to some contractors about the work on the inn, so I’d appreciate it if you could keep things below crisis level here.”

  “We’ll certainly try,” I said primly.

  “They can always check in with me, Henry,” Mona said. “I’ll just be loafing around the inn most of the day.”

  Ah-ha! At least she wasn’t going to town with him.

  “Excuse me a minute,” said Chris, pushing herself away from the table. I wondered where she was going, until I spotted Baltimore on the other side of the room. Then I knew she must be planning to ask him about the safe.

  The inn had one, just as we expected. But as it turned out, using it was not one of the smartest things we had ever done.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Over the Hill

  After breakfast we borrowed a large brown envelope from my father. I put the diary in it. I was about to add the ruby when Chris said, “Let’s take it with us. I like to look at it.”

  I handed her the stone, and she slipped it into the pocket of her jeans.

  Baltimore chuckled when we handed him the envelope. “It’ll be safe with me, girls,” he said, giving us a wink. He seemed to think we were playing a game, pretending to be international spies or something. That was fine with us. We figured out a long time ago that kids can get away with all kinds of things by being serious. For some reason, it almost always makes a grown-up think you’re fooling around.

  Once we had the diary locked away, we headed out to the bridge for a little strategy session. We ran into the Deadly Wildflower Bandits on the way.