Ghost Town

by Annie Bryant

  “JT is getting very chatty,” Maeve whispered to Avery.

  “I love to read,” Charlotte responded with enthusiasm while motioning for Avery and Maeve to be quiet. “I think that books are like best friends—they’re always there when you need them.”

  “Well, little lady, there’s a whole library back there of old books. But I don’t go back there too much. Just not much of a reader.”

  “Wow!” Charlotte exclaimed. “Thanks, JT!” She charged out of the room with a backward wave to her friends. Old books were one of her all-time favorite things to explore.

  The small room was covered in dust and grime. It was obvious that JT hadn’t been there in a very long time. After whisking away giant curtains of cobwebs, Charlotte surveyed the shelves of books. There were hundreds of books—some in better shape than others, as JT had warned. Charlotte browsed the titles. There were a lot of famous early American classics, like Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, as well as some other old books that she’d never heard of.

  Then she spied a rolltop desk in the corner. Charlotte loved rolltop desks with all their little cubbyholes and tiny drawers. Someday she wanted to have her own—a special desk where she’d do her best writing. She hesitated for a second—JT had said she could check out the library, but he hadn’t given her permission to open the desk. Then again, he hadn’t exactly said it was off limits either. A detective at heart, Charlotte couldn’t resist. She started to pry the top open, but there was so much thick dust that she pulled her hands back. Eeew. The grime was so caked on that it seemed as if the desk hadn’t been opened in years . . . decades, maybe. After rolling up her sleeves and with much rocking and prying, Charlotte was finally able to roll the top back.

  As Charlotte explored the drawers and cubbyholes, an entire bank of drawers suddenly popped open. Charlotte’s eyes widened. A secret compartment—this is the kind of thing that only happens in the movies, she thought.

  Yuck! When she reached into the drawer, the first thing her hand brushed against was a dead spider. She gingerly brushed it away. No way was she going to let a little crunched up daddy-long-legs bother her . . . not after the scary spiders she had encountered in Africa.

  Charlotte pulled out a stack of yellowed papers from the drawer and plopped into the wingback chair next to the window so she could get a better look. Immediately she realized this wasn’t just another stack of old bills or hotel records. The papers were carefully hand-bound with string and a faded yellow ribbon. The package looked like a diary or a scrapbook of sorts, full of letters and mementos. Charlotte immediately became engrossed in the correspondence between a woman named Amaryllis, who had swooping, flowery handwriting, and a soldier who only signed his letters with one initial . . . she couldn’t tell if it was T or L.

  Charlotte’s breath caught in her throat as she realized she was reading love letters between newlyweds. She felt a little funny reading such personal letters, but once she started she just had to know what happened next. The soldier, it seemed, was drafted to fight in the army toward the end of World War II.

  Charlotte was spellbound by the beautiful handwriting and the obviously deep emotion that had brought pen to page. Amaryllis recorded the painful details of the mining disaster and how the town was totally devastated. No one had the strength to rebuild, particularly during the pinch of wartime. Sadly, only a week before the disaster, Amaryllis received a telegram from the government saying her dear husband was missing in action and presumed dead.

  Charlotte brought a hand to her heart. It was as if she could feel just what Amaryllis had felt. She brushed away a few tears and swallowed hard before continuing to read. Amaryllis wrote that she had been so disturbed to receive the telegram that she burned the letter, refusing to believe it. She swore that she would have known in her heart if her true love had died.

  Charlotte let the brittle pages fall to her lap and stared out the window. Will I ever love someone that much? she wondered. So much that even if he were half a world away, I would know whether or not he was alive?

  Charlotte read on, eager to learn if Amaryllis’s instincts had been correct. She wished with all her heart that Amaryllis would be reunited with her beloved.

  But Charlotte soon read that Amaryllis had other worries. State officials feared for the safety of Dry Gulch and its citizens and ordered a complete evacuation. Amaryllis wanted desperately to wait at home for her soldier husband’s return, but she was expecting a child and had to think of the baby’s safety. So she packed up and sought shelter with her parents in Kansas.

  “There you are.”

  Charlotte almost jumped out of her seat, she was so startled. Maeve poked her head in the library door. “I’ve been looking all over for you. You’ve been gone for the longest time.” Twisting a curl between her fingers, Maeve began to stammer. “Char, I was kind of wondering if you’d noticed anything . . . well, anything strange about your dad . . .” Maeve’s voice trailed off when she noticed Charlotte’s tear-stained face.

  Charlotte had tried to wipe the tears away, but it was obvious that she’d been crying.

  “Oh, Charlotte, what’s wrong?” Maeve asked, putting her arm comfortingly around Charlotte. Expecting her friend to break down and sob, Maeve furrowed her brows in confusion when Charlotte burst into laughter instead.

  “I’m just being sentimental,” Charlotte confided. “Look at this.”

  She handed Maeve the delicate diary.

  “A diary . . . a secret diary?” Maeve’s eyes lit up and she sunk into the chair, eagerly flipping through the pages.

  “What’s going on?” Avery asked as she burst into the dusty old library.

  “Avery, you HAVE to read this,” Maeve insisted.

  “Read what?” she asked.

  “Charlotte found this old diary with love letters and everything,” Maeve said, holding up the stack of papers. She stopped suddenly and stared down at the diary. “You know what this means?!” Maeve exclaimed.

  Avery and Charlotte just looked at Maeve quizzically and shook their heads.

  “We have just discovered our very own tragic-to-magic love story,” Maeve said very seriously. She began pacing the room like a great tragic actress as she filled in the missing pieces of the story with her own ideas.

  “This poor, war-weary soldier probably came back from the war and couldn’t find his precious wife. I bet Amaryllis—what a lovely musical name that is!—AMARYLLLISSSSS!” Maeve sang out in a fake opera voice.

  Avery plugged her ears with her fingers. “I could do without the concert,” she moaned while Charlotte giggled at her dramatic friend. Nobody could tell a story like Maeve.

  Maeve went on without missing a beat. “Sweet, lovely Amaryllis had their darling baby and he didn’t even know anything about it and then years and years later, they FOUND each other again and rediscovered the magic of their young love and lived happily ever after. MAGIC!”

  “WHOA!” Avery shouted and stopped Maeve mid-sentence. “Hey, Cinderella! Aren’t you getting a little carried away with this fairy tale? How do you know that this soldier guy actually made it back from the war? It says right there that he was MIA—missing in action!”

  “Hello! Things get really messed up in war.” Maeve looked at her friends. “Besides, that’s the way all great love stories go. The unimaginable happens, and people who are MEANT to be together . . . well, they just ARE!”

  “All right, all right,” Charlotte held up her hand. “Love conquers all.” Charlotte flipped through the diary again. “What do you guys think this guy’s initial is? I can’t tell . . . T? L?”

  Avery studied it closely. “Looks like a J to me. My grandfather on my dad’s side is named John, and his handwriting kind of looked like this. Yeah, that’s what his Js looked like. J is a pretty common first letter for a man’s name. I mean, J could stand for John, Jim, Josh, or Joe.”

  “It could stand for Jeremiah or Jonah or Jake,” Charlotte pointed out.

 
; “Justin, Jacque, Jerry, Jay, Jeffrey, Jordan, Jesse, Joel, Juan, or Jebediah,” Avery rattled off the names in quick succession as she leaped around the room.

  Maeve and Charlotte laughed so hard at Avery’s antics that there were tears in their eyes.

  “Maeve,” Charlotte said when they calmed down. “I think the point is that it’s a great story, but I’m not convinced that ‘J’ lived happily ever after. Let’s keep looking. Maybe we can find out more about J and Amaryllis. There’re a lot of old papers in this desk.”

  The three searched through all the drawers until at last Charlotte pulled out a letter. “Wait, here’s something! Oh, look! It’s from the army. It’s addressed to someone named Sergeant Jasper Tucker and it’s a notification that his wife, Amaryllis Lockhart Tucker, and her parents, Ebenezer Lockhart and Priscilla Evans Lockhart, died in a car accident in January 1945.”

  “I was right!” said Avery. “The initial was J . . . J for Jasper. And Jehoshaphat,” she giggled.

  “Jasper Tucker,” Charlotte said slowly. “Jasper Tucker. JT. JT. JT!” she repeated, the excitement growing in her voice as the pieces fell into place.

  “JT?!” Maeve and Avery exclaimed.

  “You mean, you think Jasper Tucker is our JT?” Maeve asked in wonder.

  “Why not?” Charlotte asked. “It makes sense, right?! We know he grew up here and came back after the war. He must have tried to track his wife down, but when he got this letter saying she had died—”

  “He had nothing left to live for!” Maeve interrupted dramatically, clasping her hands to her heart. “And he’s been alone in this ghost town ever since, pining away for his lost love . . . and making fabulous chili.”

  “Should we tell JT about the diary?” Avery asked as she tried to stifle a giggle. Maeve is just too funny sometimes, she thought.

  Charlotte looked reluctant. “I’m not sure. I mean, I don’t know how I would feel about someone digging into MY past. Maybe he already knows everything. He might have read the diary before and tucked it away because it was all too painful to think about.”

  “But he’s got to have relatives somewhere. He can’t be totally alone in the world, right?” Maeve asked.

  “I think we should talk to my dad about the whole thing before we say anything to JT,” Charlotte said.

  “Before we do anything else, I want to stop by the fireplace and thaw out. I’m freezing!” Maeve declared.

  “Me too. My fingers are completely numb,” Charlotte agreed, as she stood up and stretched.

  “Really?” Avery asked. “I’m not cold at all. I think I’m going to jump around in the snowbanks for a while. Have you seen how huge some of them are?”

  Avery ran out the front door and took a flying leap into a giant pile of snow. She was climbing out when a shadow fell across the snow bank. Avery looked up, and all she could see was a familiar cowboy hat.

  “JT?” she said.

  “You want to see about those howling noises?” he asked in his low, growling voice.

  Avery couldn’t stand up and scramble out of the snow-drift fast enough.

  CHAPTER

  17

  Four-Legged Secret

  JT MIGHT BE OLD, thought Avery, but he sure is fast. “Almost there,” JT shouted, looking back at Avery, who was trotting double-time to keep up with his long-legged strides.

  The snow was waist deep in places, and even with the snowshoes she borrowed from JT, Avery was breathless from trudging over the drifts. The two hikers passed piles of rubble from the buildings that had collapsed during the mine explosion more than sixty years earlier. Avery felt sad for all the miners and their families. Finally, trudging around the last pile of rocks, she spotted the entrance to the mine. It was all boarded up, but there was something yowling mournfully from the inside.

  The hairs on the back of Avery’s neck rose while a spark of excitement ran through her veins. She was a little scared, but mostly she was curious. What was behind that door?

  “Ain’t nothing to be ‘fraid of,” JT told her, reaching into a nook and pulling out a key on a long chain.

  The yips and barks reached a fevered pitch as JT worked the padlock. As soon as it was unlocked, he roughly shouldered the door open and disappeared inside.

  Timidly, Avery crept closer to the door. Once inside, she saw there was a kennel with four cages. In each cage were some puppies . . . strange-looking puppies with intelligent and watchful eyes.

  “What kind of dogs are those?” Avery asked. “They look kind of like Siberian huskies. Are they . . . ?”

  “They ain’t dogs. Those be wolf pups,” JT said matter-of-factly.

  Avery’s eyes widened and her heart began thumping rapidly. “Where did the wolves come from?” she asked in a high-pitched voice. She had never seen a wolf up close before. She couldn’t wait to tell her brothers and friends about this.

  JT didn’t answer. The wolf pups jumped at the wire walls of their cages, begging to be set free.

  “Can I touch them?” Avery reached her hand toward the nearest cage.

  JT grabbed her wrist and pulled it back roughly.

  “I wouldn’t be doin’ that,” he warned. “They is probably healthy enough . . . likely not to have rabies and all . . . but best to be careful. I got a vet friend who is sworn to secrecy ‘bout this . . . like yourself now. She’s coming out next week to take a look at them.”

  “Are you going to keep them?” Avery asked, kneeling down and staring at the pups, which were jumping and rolling over each other. She’d give anything to hold one of those soft bundles of fur.

  “Wolves don’t belong to no one. They are wild things. They belong in the wild.” JT spoke gruffly.

  “But JT, why aren’t they in the wild, then? Where did they come from?”

  “I found them abandoned a couple weeks back. I reckon their mother’s dead. Killed, most likely,” JT surmised.

  The pups whined and yipped as if to agree with what he’d said.

  “There’s no one else who’d help these wild critters. I keep them here and tend to them. I couldn’t leave them to die. Them’s too young to make it on their own.”

  “But why does it have to be a secret?” Avery wondered.

  “Wolves aren’t welcome in these parts. If the ranchers found out there was wolves about, there’d be trouble. Don’t want no trouble,” said JT, shaking his head. “No trouble at all.”

  “But these little guys couldn’t hurt . . .”

  JT cut her off. “You don’t understand. Folks in these parts don’t care for wolves, pups or grown. Livestock is what people care about. Ranchers probably killed these pups’ mother ‘cause they figured she might go after one of their cattle.”

  Avery gulped. “I thought wolves were an endangered species in Montana.”

  “Some places they are. But them ranchers don’t care none. They think the wolves are a threat to their livestock and to their family’s livelihood.”

  Avery nodded. She was a total maniac for animals, so it was hard for her to understand how someone could think of the furry creatures as a threat.

  “My vet friend, she lives over by the border and helps the park service with wolf relocation. But she tells me funding’s low. Them little guys just got to hang on a little while longer till she can get them out of here.”

  “Did you name them?” Avery asked.

  “Sure thing. The boy there, he’s Jake, and the others are Candice and Marylyn. And that small gray one is my favorite—she’s Amaryllis.”

  Avery’s mouth dropped open. Had he said Amaryllis? Like the lady from the diary Charlotte found? She was just about to ask JT about the unusual name when the door burst open.

  Avery’s heart leaped to her throat. She was terrified that the ranchers had found out about the wolf pups in hiding, but was quickly relieved to see it was just Mr. Ramsey.

  Mr. Ramsey was breathing hard, like he’d been running. His cheeks were bright red and his breath was coming out of his mouth in quick puff
s of steam.

  “WHAT is going on here?!” Mr. Ramsey demanded. His eyebrows were knit together in a scowl. Avery had never seen Mr. Ramsey this angry before. He usually seemed so laid back, and even if he was annoyed, he never shouted or anything. Something had made Mr. Ramsey flip out big time.

  JT must have been shocked, too, because he just stood there staring at Mr. Ramsey.

  “I asked you a question, JT!” Mr. Ramsey spat out. “You don’t take a twelve-year-old girl on a hike without asking permission. That is completely unacceptable!”

  “He didn’t mean to, Mr. Ramsey. It’s not JT’s fault. He was just showing me these wolf pups. He knows I love animals, and I was asking about the howling noises. I should have told you I was going on a hike with JT. I’m sorry. It’s MY fault.” Avery felt horrible. Now that she stopped to think, it was a pretty bad idea to go off alone with some person she barely knew, even if he didn’t mean any harm.

  “Avery, you SHOULD have known better. But JT is an adult, and he DEFINITELY should have known better.”

  JT looked utterly desolate. “I’m sorry. I been away from folks so long that sometimes I forget how to act. I’m right sorry. I made a big mistake.”

  Seeing that Avery was fine and how ashamed JT was, Mr. Ramsey calmed down a bit, and Avery filled him in on the plight of the wolf pups.

  “Is it common for the ranchers to kill wolves?” Mr. Ramsey asked.

  JT shook his head. “Don’t know about that. I just try to look after any pups whenever I find ‘em out here. But I can only do so much, you see.”

  “Mr. Ramsey, since you’re a writer, maybe you can do something. Could you write an article about the wolves so people will know about their problems?” Avery suggested.

  Mr. Ramsey smiled and patted the hood of Avery’s snow parka. “Always thinking, Avery. We’ll see what we can do. Let’s go, now. Time to get back to the others.”

  JT sat down on a chair he had carved out of a tree stump. “You go on ahead. I’ll be back in a bit. I got to check in with the pups first.”