The Ghost Wore Gray

by Bruce Coville

  “Yeah, but what’s it doing here? I mean, when we first saw it, I thought it was just an old picture they had hung here because it sort of went with the inn. But it really has a connection to the place.”

  “I see what you mean,” said Chris. “Captain Gray wouldn’t have had his photo taken while he was here, at least not in uniform. So where did it come from?”

  I reached up to take the photo off the wall.

  “What are you doing?” asked Chris. She sounded nervous.

  “Calm down,” I said, setting the frame on the floor. “I just want to see if there’s any writing on the back.”

  Chris knelt beside me. I turned the frame around and sighed. The back of the picture was covered with plain brown paper; it was discolored in some spots, and tearing away from the edge of the frame in others. But there was no writing on it at all.

  “Oh, well,” said Chris. “It was a good idea.”

  I was picking the picture up to put it back when I noticed a bit of white paper under one of the torn spots. I set the frame back down and ran my fingers over the brown paper. Then I started picking at it, tearing it off in tiny bits.

  “What are you doing?” asked Chris.

  “I think there’s something under here,” I said.

  “Nine, you can’t do that. We’ll get in trouble.”

  We all have our weak spots. Chris is brave; without blinking an eye she’ll walk into places that I would rather run from. But she doesn’t like getting in trouble with grown-ups.

  “Who’s going to know?” I said. Then I peeled away a larger strip of the paper.

  “Jackpot!” whispered Chris.

  Underneath the paper, taped to the back of the picture, was a yellowed envelope.

  I pulled away the rest of the paper that covered the envelope. Working carefully, because the envelope itself was brittle, I removed it from the picture.

  I turned it over. It was addressed to “Richard Farnsworth, Innkeeper, The Quackadoodle Inn.”

  “Hurry up and open it!” Chris whispered.

  I shook my head. “Take it,” I said, thrusting the envelope into her hands. I stood up to replace the picture.

  Just in time! We heard someone whistling, and Porter Markson appeared at the top of the stairs just as I was straightening the frame.

  He gave me a funny look. “Admiring the ghost?” he asked.

  I smiled, trying to look innocent. “He’s just so good-looking,” I said.

  “She’s got a crush,” said Chris, who was leaning against the wall with her hands behind her back to hide the envelope.

  I shot Chris a nasty glare. Porter chuckled. “Ah, to be young again,” he said and wandered down the hall.

  “You didn’t have to say that,” I hissed when he was out of earshot.

  Chris grinned. “It threw him off the track,” she said. “Come on. Let’s get to our room and look at that letter.”

  We scooted down the hall. But when we got to our room we met Isabella coming out of the door.

  “What timing,” she said, smiling brightly. “Your room is all set.”

  She walked away, whistling cheerfully. Chris and I stepped inside, closed the door behind us, and looked at each other.

  “Was she really cleaning up in here?” I asked. “Or was she snooping around?”

  “I don’t know,” said Chris. “Remember that speech in the kitchen yesterday? She seemed to know an awful lot about some of the stuff that’s gone on here in the past.”

  “And she’s got keys for all the rooms,” I said, following that line of thought. “Do you think she could be the one who stole the plans?”

  “It’s possible. She and Martha had a lot of time when no one was watching them that evening. I wonder if the two of them are in this together?”

  My head was starting to spin. “Let’s think about that later,” I said. “Right now I want to take a look at this!”

  Trying not to tear the brittle old paper, I opened the envelope we had found behind Captain Gray’s picture.

  Here’s the letter we found inside.

  SEPTEMBER 12, 1875

  Dear Innkeeper Farnsworth:

  We would like to thank you for your help in locating the grave of Captain Jonathan Gray. It was a wonderful stroke of luck when you found that map. It meant a great deal to us to be able to provide our friend with the kind of memorial he deserved.

  Because of this assistance, and because your predecessor was so kind to Captain Gray while he was alive, caring for him during his illness, and providing him with a decent burial, we would like you to have the enclosed portrait of the captain. Perhaps the sad story that goes with it will prove of interest to your guests.

  Sincerely,

  The Friends of Captain Jonathan Gray

  “That must be the tombstone we saw in the cemetery,” Chris said. “People must have really cared about him, to worry about bringing in a tombstone so long after he had died.”

  I nodded in agreement.

  It wasn’t until the middle of the night that I finally figured out what was wrong with the whole situation.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Grave Undertaking

  I sat up in bed. “Chris, wake up.”

  She sprang to a sitting position. “Is he here?” she asked eagerly. She looked around for Captain Gray.

  “No one’s here but me,” I said, feeling cranky.

  “Then why did you wake me up?” She sounded even crankier than I felt.

  “Because I know where the treasure is. At least, I think I do.”

  She turned and looked at me with new interest. “Where?”

  I told her.

  First she laughed. Then she told me I was crazy.

  I explained my reasons.

  She still thought I was crazy. But she didn’t sound quite so certain.

  “Anyway,” I said, “we have to go get it. Now.”

  That pushed her the other way; now she was sure I was crazy. “Permanently around the bend,” as she put it.

  “But don’t you see?” I persisted. “We can’t possibly dig it up in the daytime. If anyone ever caught us, we’d get in incredible trouble.”

  “With good reason. It’s sick!”

  “No, it’s not. Captain Gray wants us to locate the treasure. I’m sure of it.”

  “Well, why don’t we just get someone to dig it up for us? We’ll tell them what you figured out, and …” Her voice trailed off. Chris knew as well as I did that no grown up was going to go dig up a hundred and twenty-five-year-old grave just because some eleven-year-old kid thought there was a treasure buried in it.

  It was us, or no one.

  “Well,” said Chris, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, “if we’re going to do it, we might as well do it now.”

  Me and my big mouth! I was so happy about figuring out where the treasure was, I hadn’t really thought about what it would mean if we decided to go get it. Now that I had Chris all excited, I started to realize just what I had gotten myself into.

  I made a resolution: I will, I will, I will learn to keep my mouth shut.

  I kept repeating it to myself as we pulled on our jeans, sweatshirts, and sneakers. I continued repeating it as we sneaked down the stairs. I began to think about having it tattooed on my forehead as we made our way across the lawn to the toolshed where we had seen Peter store the mower and paint cans.

  “Well,” said Chris when she opened the doors, “looks like we can find just about anything we need in here.”

  “The trick will be getting it out once we find it,” I said, staring inside.

  Did you ever play Pick Up Sticks? Imagine that game played with two-by-fours, old rakes, broken shovels, and eight-foot crowbars, and you’ll have some idea of what the inside of the shed looked like. Now imagine trying to pick your way through a mess like that without making any noise.

  I should have stayed in bed.

  We stepped in. I pointed the flashlight here and there, looking for what we ne
eded. At one point my foot got stuck in a hole in the floor. I was still trying to figure out how I was going to explain to my father why I was trapped in the toolshed when Chris pried me loose.

  “Come on,” she said. “I think we’ve got what we need.”

  She was wrong, of course. What we needed was someone to talk some sense into us! But since I was the one who started this whole expedition, I had no one to blame but myself.

  Carrying two shovels, a pick, and a long metal rod, we headed for the graveyard.

  The full moon was brighter, more clear, than I had ever seen it in the city. It flooded the lawn with silver light. The effect was strange. It was dark, but not dark; I could see Chris’s face very clearly. But in the strange midnight light she looked almost like a ghost herself.

  We crossed the bridge. The water seemed quieter, as if it knew not to make too much noise that late at night.

  Once we entered the woods we needed our flashlights. The moonlight only filtered down in patches and puddles, scattered among the shadows. It was almost soundless. Everything smelled moist.

  The silence ended when we had gone far enough to hear the waterfall. The sound was comforting.

  We stopped at the head of the falls, because they were too beautiful to pass. The water splashing and tumbling over the cliff almost seemed to be made of light. I could feel the cool spray on my face. I looked down to where the stream splashed against the dark rocks, some forty feet below. The moonlight made the spray look like a net of tiny pearls.

  “Don’t stand so close to the edge,” said Chris in one of her rare sensible moments. “It’s a long way down.”

  I had a momentary vision of slipping over the edge of the cliff and bouncing off the rocks far below. I swallowed and stepped back from the edge. “We’d better get moving,” I said. “We don’t know how long this is going to take.”

  “Right,” said Chris.

  Less than two minutes later we were standing in the little cemetery. Now I was really nervous. What kind of things lurked in a cemetery at night? Every tombstone had a dark shadow. Every shadow might be hiding something awful. I pointed my flashlight this way and that, smashing the shadows. I don’t know what I expected to find. Certainly it was better to find nothing. Yet I had a uneasy sensation that we were being watched.

  “Maybe it’s Captain Gray,” said Chris when I mentioned the feeling.

  I didn’t know if that made me feel better or not.

  I decided we should start digging.

  “Just where did you have in mind, Sherlock?” Chris asked. I could tell by the tone in her voice that for all her acting brave, she didn’t think this was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to her.

  I bit my lip. “If the family followed the map carefully, the treasure should be right under the stone.”

  I went to Captain Gray’s headstone and looked around. I figured the dead tree at the edge of the clearing was the one shown on the map.

  “Give me that tape measure,” I said to Chris.

  She fished the tape we had found in the toolshed out of her pocket. I took one end of it, and told her to walk to the tree.

  She did as I asked, muttering to herself as she picked her way through the bushes.

  When she reached the tree, she stretched the tape tight. “Twenty-five feet,” she said, squinting to make out the numbers.

  I frowned. “It should be twenty-three.”

  Chris began walking back toward me, rolling up the tape as she came. “What did you expect—that we would hit it right on the nose? I doubt Captain Gray was using a ruler when he measured this. Probably he just paced it off. Besides that old tree must have grown a foot or two since he used it as a marker.”

  “This could end up being one big hole,” I said nervously.

  Then another thought occurred to me. “Do you think his friends would have put the gravestone exactly on the spot marked on the map? Or would they have moved it to one side, figuring it should go at the head of the grave?”

  Chris tilted her head to one side and thought. “If it was me, I would have put it right on the spot,” she said finally. “If you were trying for the head of the grave, or something fancy like that, you might miss it altogether.”

  “Well, shall we start?” I said.

  She looked at me. She looked at the tombstone. She swallowed, hard.

  “Let’s do it,” she whispered.

  I learned a whole new respect for grave diggers that night. It’s hard work! First we had to cut through the undergrowth. We took turns, one of us whacking away at the plants while the other held the flashlight.

  “We should have brought an ax,” I said after a few minutes of trying to hack my way through a burdock root with the tip of the spade.

  “Live and learn,” said Chris. It seemed like a weird thing to say, considering where we were and what we were doing. I gave her the spade and took the flashlight.

  “I’m glad this place doesn’t have many visitors,” she panted after about half an hour. “I don’t care how carefully we clean up, this is not going to look like it did when we started.”

  I looked around at the mess we had made and nodded. If I was right, it wouldn’t make any difference. If I was wrong—well, I didn’t want to think about what would happen if I was wrong.

  She came and stood beside me. I played the flashlight over the hole.

  “What next, Fearless Leader—do we make it wider, or deeper?”

  How was I supposed to know? “Deeper,” I said at last.

  Chris made a face. “I was afraid of that. I don’t want to think about what we might find if you’re wrong.”

  An ugly image flashed into my mind. I pushed it away. It was too awful to think about. Besides, I was feeling more and more confident that I was on the right track. I figured if it was really Captain Gray’s body buried here, instead of the treasure, his ghost would have showed up to warn us off.

  We dug deeper. We dug wider.

  A cool breeze came and went, playing through the ends of our hair like ghostly fingers. Were other spirits lurking here in this old cemetery? An owl began hooting somewhere off to our right.

  We decided to do some probing. Using the metal rod we had brought from the toolshed, we began poking at the soil.

  A pattern began to develop: poke, poke, poke; nothing, nothing; clunk. We’d dig for the clunk and find a rock. After a while we realized that if we poked the rod on either side of the clunk, we could sometimes figure out if it was too small to be the treasure box, and save ourselves a little digging.

  We were both standing in the hole now. It was almost three feet deep and went straight down from the front edge of the gravestone.

  I was noticing that I had enough dirt under my fingernails to start a small garden when it occurred to me that the treasure might be right under the stone.

  That would make things difficult.

  “Step out for a minute,” I said to Chris.

  She climbed out of the hole. That gave me enough room to squat down and poke the rod into the soil under the stone.

  Six inches in on the first try I heard a clunk!

  I moved the rod to the right. Clunk.

  I moved it to the left. Clunk.

  I tried it three inches higher. Nothing. Three inches down. Nothing. I could feel my heart begin to pound. This looked like it might be it!

  Using the tip of the rod I began to pull away the soil. When that was too slow, I switched to using my hands. I could always clean my nails later. Finally I felt something smooth and cool, too smooth to be a rock.

  “I think I’ve got it!” I cried.

  I pulled away more soil. There it was—the metal box!

  I let out a shout of joy as I dug the box out of the damp soil. “Chris, we did it!”

  But Chris didn’t answer. Instead I heard a familiar voice say, “Good work, Nine. Why don’t you hand me the box. Then you can get out of the hole.”

  I looked up. Porter Markson was standing at the edge
of the hole, looking down at me. Chris was standing next to him. Porter had one hand on her arm. His other hand was holding a gun. It was pointing at her head.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Revenant

  “Well, fancy meeting you here,” I said, trying to sound casual.

  “Shut up,” said Porter, “or your friend gets an air-conditioned brain.”

  I shut up. I put the box at Porter’s feet as he directed. Then I climbed slowly out of the hole.

  I was trying to think, but I was too frightened. I was even too scared to get mad. But I wanted to. Who did this guy think he was, to come and take the treasure after we had done all the work?

  Besides, how did he think he was going to get away with it? He wasn’t even wearing a mask. We would just tell the police who had done it, and …

  I may be a little slow, but I’m not entirely stupid. It was about then that I realized Porter probably had no intention of letting us tell anything to anyone. Odds were, he did not intend to let either one of us live to see the morning.

  “The thing is, how to do it,” he said as if he were reading my mind. “It’s a little like one of those problems where you have to get a fox, a goose, and a sack of grain across the river without anything getting eaten, even though you can only take one thing across at a time. Now in this case, there are two of you, and only one of me. Fortunately, I have a gun. Unfortunately, I can’t simply shoot you and get it over with. No, that would raise too many questions.”

  “That’s a real problem,” I said. “Maybe we should all just go home.”

  Porter smiled. “You’re a cute kid, Nine. It’s a shame your father didn’t discipline you better. He’ll feel terrible when he finds out you fell over the waterfall. But what can a man expect, when he lets his kids wander around in the middle of the night like this?”

  This guy was good. I could see the whole plan at once: Chris and I don’t show up for breakfast—my father panics—a search party gets formed—and several hours later they find the two of us lying at the bottom of the falls. Everyone shakes his head and tsk-tsks about what reckless kids we were, and how that kind of craziness always leads to tragedy. Or even worse, they decide it was a mutual suicide pact. That really made me mad. If I had to die, I didn’t want people thinking it was because I was dumb enough to kill myself!