Since the storm the desert nights had seemed never so peaceful. Hughie felt ashamed of himself almost as soon as he knew he was going to leave. For nearly a month there had not been a cloud in the evening sky—just the clear lilies or roses of the sunset streaming into a high salmon field; then, purple; gray patches of dusk, and over all a lighting of stars.
At dawn it was the very same: one morning prettier than the other. Hughie began to realize he should lose something in leaving the desert. That night, the last but one, he was sneakingly sorry to go. The whole evening went to getting up his reports, and when he looked at the clock the east-bound passenger was due. Hughie had no orders for it, but the engineman stopped that night to tighten a nut, and the conductor came in to congratulate the boy on his promotion; also to give him a cigar instead of stealing one, and to beg Hughie to remember him when he came into the seats of the mighty—not to leave him lying out long hours at Point of Rocks on cold nights waiting for orders. Hughie had already promised everybody the best of every thing, and after the conductor signaled and the long string of Pullmans drew past the station into the eastern night, he watched the lights vanish upon the distant tangent feeling content with himself and the world.
Chapter III
The lamp had burned bad all evening. After the train was gone Hughie stopped poking at the wick. His reports were up and signed, and he had finished a long letter home when he remembered that in his report to the express company he had forgotten, under the head of “Unusual Incidents,” to note the death of the sheep-herder and the fact of the body’s being brought in to the station and left all night in the waiting-room. By keeping a record of such events the company sometimes developed clues to thefts, robberies, and other unpleasant happenings. While Hughie felt certain that there could be no after-clap to this affair, since the dead man had been taken away and duly buried, it was a part of the routine work to make up the record, and he began a brief account of the matter.
As he wrote, the night of the death came back. The storm presented itself, and so vividly that he hesitated at times for words. His thoughts crowded fast one on another. It was what there was in his recollections to leave out that bothered him; things indefinable but things creepy to think about. He stopped his writing for a moment and took the chimney from the lamp to poke the ill wick with his pen. Through the open doors the south wind, fanning the uncertain flame, caused it to flare suddenly, and as he put back the chimney he heard the office door behind him close. The wind often closed or opened the door and the south wind was a kindly companion, blowing for hours together with the same gentle swiftness over the desert wastes. Hughie wrote the last words of his report. Just as he pressed the blotter down upon the signature he became aware of an odd sensation; an impression that he was no longer alone in the room.
He passed his fingers mechanically across the blotter-pad waiting for the impression to pass. Instead, an almost imperceptible shiver ran up his back. He rubbed the blotter more firmly, almost officiously, but with the growing conviction that someone else was in the room, and soon the difficulty was to stop the rubbing. When he did lay the pad aside a faint moisture suffused his forehead. He wanted then to open the door that he had heard close, but to do it he should be compelled to turn around. This required an effort, and he tried to summon the resolve. He looked at the lamp—it burned brightly. The moisture cooled on his forehead; the signature he had just blotted lay under his eyes. He recognized it perfectly and felt sure he was awake. He was even conscious that his hands were growing cold, and he put them up to his head; what it cost mentally to do even this surprised him. He could not look around. He attempted to whistle softly and had almost shamed himself out of a fear he felt to be ridiculous when he was stunned by a voice at his very side: “Should you like to have your grave dug out here under the stars?”
The words were distinct. Hughie froze to his chair. If the tones were soft they were perfectly clear, and the words were already stamped on his consciousness. What did it mean? Could it be the voice of a living creature? Of a woman? No woman lived within twenty miles of Point of Rocks—no living creature with a voice such as that within a hundred miles. He heard it again:
“Your grave will be under the stars.” Hughie’s fingers moved, but beyond that he sat paralyzed, and his tongue clove dry to the roof of his mouth. He knew now that an unreal presence had come upon him. He knew, too, that in the mountains men went mad of mere loneliness, and faint with horror, he clutched his temples, waiting every instant for reason to leave.
“The stars are singing for us tonight.” With these words, spoken softly and almost in his ear, something touched his shoulder. The touch went through him like needles, and he sprang like a madman from his chair.
He whirled and cried out in a cracked voice. A figure shrank quickly away—a woman’s figure, seemingly, with a shadowy face and loosened hair. When he could realize that he really saw something the head was averted and he could remember only a glimpse of startled eyes. The apparition, with hands outstretched, was moving toward the door. He heard a suppressed utterance, “I cannot find my grave.”
The voice was too human. “Who are you?” cried the operator in desperation. “Why are you here?”
“I cannot find my grave.”
“I—I haven’t got it,” stammered Hughie, with hair on end.
The figure shrank farther away. In the dim light he could see outlines of loosened draperies and falling hair. It already seemed as if the ghost were more frightened, if possible, than he, and his scattered faculties began to act. The figure moved toward the door and laid a white hand on the knob, but could not turn it. Hughie saw that the spring lock would hold the door and the helplessness of his unreal visitor inspired courage. If it was a woman she was trying painfully to open the door. Hughie took a cautious step. There was no longer any thought of a vision in his mind; the clock was ticking loudly, the sounder clicked at intervals on the table and his heart beat fast and heavily. He was awake, and whether living or dead, a woman was standing before him. If she had not dropped from the stars, how could she have come? There had not been the slightest warning of an approach save the closing of the door—no wagon rattle from some far-off ranch, no sound of horses’ hoofs, and as for walking, there was no place to walk from. Even believing her to be a living creature, there was something unnatural in her manner. She inspired fear. When she put her hands to her face a shiver passed over him. When she moved, her feet gave forth no sound. Hesitating between the fear of what the wildest surmise could not explain and the conviction that this must be a reality, Hughie heard a sob and pity moved him.
“I will let you out,” he exclaimed unsteadily. Watching his visitor narrowly as he stepped forward, he released the spring-bolt. In doing so he saw her face. A shock checked him and a new fear overcame him. What mystery could this be? It was the face of the broken miniature. The head, as he now saw it, was bent and the eyes were drooping, but the high cheeks, the lines of the hair falling over the temples, the straight nose, and the curving side mouth. With the certainty of an acute memory the operator knew it all. He collected himself and spoke again. “Shall I let you out?”
Failing to see that he held the knob in his hand, she put forward her own to reach it. Her fingers touched his, and he knew that he faced a creature of flesh and blood. He released the lock. “Shall I let you out?” She looked helplessly before her and her voice trembled. “It is cold.”
He closed the door. “It is cold,” he echoed. “How did you come here?”
She drew timidly back. “What is your name?” he persisted.
“It is so cold.”
To none of his questions could she give an answer. She spoke like one in a trance; at times trying pathetically to put back her loosened hair, pleading at times to be let go and shrinking in fear from her companion, who found himself now the protector of his unaccountable apparition. He continued to speak and
with growing excitement, to all of which the strange visitor appeared insensible. He saw very soon that he was unnecessarily frightening his ghost, and he presently stood silent with his hands on the back of a surprised chair, waiting for his visitor to make the next move herself.
She had, so far as he could ever remember afterward, but two coherent movements; either her eyes sought in hope the light of his lamp or turned from it in despair. This much, at least, was intelligible, even if incomprehensible. Not until he saw her falter, put her hands blindly out and sink to the floor did he realize that she was ill and in distress. Too excited to breathe as he took her in his arms, he lifted her up and placed her inert upon a chair. She opened her eyes in a moment. A chill passed over her. Hughie threw open the drafts of the stove and chafed her hands. Something of gratitude seemed to move her, for as she shrank into the chair she looked at him with less of fear. He sat down then himself, and facing her, tried with his hands on his knees to inspire confidence. She would not talk. Instead, as the fire in the stove blazed up and the heat diffused itself she showed unmistakable drowsiness and added the last straw to Hughie’s embarrassment by asking him why he did not go to bed. He tried to explain that he went to bed in the daytime. His apparition was too far overcome by the warmth to comprehend, but an inspiration seized him. He asked if she would rest for a while on the long table at the back of the room. She opposed nothing that he suggested, and he took the cushion of his chair for a pillow and helped her as well as he could to lie down on the table. When he had done this he went back to his end of the room and watched the dim corner beyond the stove. His charge, for he now made her such, lay perfectly quiet, and when she breathed regularly he took his overcoat from the nail behind the door, tiptoed over to the corner, and laid it across her shoulders. It had been a swagger coat at school, but was short for a coverlet. Still, it served, and as he walked back better satisfied to his chair he heard a rapid clicking from the sounder. The train dispatcher at Medicine Bend was sending the 19—the imperative call from headquarters to clear the line for the dispatched office—and every night operator on the division was getting out of his way. As soon as the wire was free a station call came, and to Hughie’s surprise it was for Point of Rocks. He answered instantly, and the message came so fast he could hardly write it.
“Passenger missing from Chicago sleeper on Train Number Two—a young Englishwoman. Is believed to be somewhere between Castle Creek and Point of Rocks. Get your section men out quick with lights and hand-cars and with orders to stay out till they find her. Name, Grace Swinton. Answer quick.”
The chief dispatched initials were appended. Hughie Morrison sent his answer straightway.
“Unnecessary to call out the men. I have the missing passenger. She is asleep here in the office. Instruct.”
“Good boy, Hughie,” returned the pleased dispatcher. “Hold her for special car and engine from here running as second Number One. Make her as comfortable in every way as possible. Get whole story. If injured in any way notify office of Whispering Smith.”
Hughie Morrison, turning from the key, drew a breath. It was his last night at Point of Rocks. He looked with curious feelings into the dim corner where the missing passenger lay. He turned in his chair again and again, but she did not move. He adjusted and readjusted the drafts of the stove, noisily and at times officiously, but her soft, regular breathing never varied and day broke on a face upon the table as delicate as ivory and the operator in despair for a sign of awakening.
First Number Two, the regular train, came and went, with every man of the train and engine crews peering furtively into the shaded corner at Hughie Morrison’s ghost, but Hughie waved them away and knew that the Special to bear her away would follow all too soon. When it drew in, bringing the superintendent’s car, he was ready to rebel against his orders and disposed to hold the ghost against all comers. But with careful tread they brought in heavy blankets, and as Grace Swinton lay wrapped her in them and carried her, sleeping heavily, to the car, regardless of Hughie’s protests that they ought at least to wait till he had got her story from her own lips. They asked for orders, got them almost at once, and puffed noisily away for Medicine Bend. When they were gone Hughie folded his papers; he was all ready to say good-by to Point of Rocks.
Chapter IV
The promotion had come. After all, it was not exciting. Indeed, nothing excited Hughie any more. Martin Duffy was the most crestfallen man, save one, on the division over having picked Hughie for a dispatcher, that one being the new dispatcher himself. The change that had come over the president’s nephew was the common talk of the trainmen. His alertness, the light play of his humor, the grasp that met the little desert emergencies at Point of Rocks with the ease of a veteran—where were they? As to the night with the ghost, nobody gave that any consideration, because where things happen all the time, and where everything that happens is unusual, an incident holds the stage only for its fleeting instant. Hughie himself felt the situation keenly. He even asked to be relieved, but Martin Duffy was above all things not a quitter. “Don’t commit suicide,” he growled. “You’re in a funk, that is all. I pulled a woman once from in front of a locomotive. What do you think she did? Sent me a cross-stitched waistcoat and a copy of ‘The Simple Life.’ Wouldn’t that kill you? And I’ve wanted a meerschaum pipe for twenty years.”
The advice was good, and Hughie swallowed it, as a fool should, with disgust and humility. But Martin Duffy usually caused things to happen, and this time proved no exception. When the new dispatcher walked into the office just before twelve o’clock that night for his trick, the mail from Number One was being distributed and a letter, small but plump-looking, bearing a foreign postmark and addressed in a clear, firm hand to Hughie Morrison, was laid before him. He cut open the envelope with feverish haste and began to read. Line after line and page after page slipped past the lightning of his eyes, and one would have said that the play of his mental fire had quite come back. This was the letter that it should be. This was the story, her own story with its frank account of the long illness that had first shown itself during an overland railroad journey in America; here were the prettily chosen expressions of gratitude—all that the greediest Princeton man could ask for, and Hughie was greedy—thanking him for the delicate kindnesses she said he had shown to her during her night of trance and terror on the desert. Hughie, unable to read and breathe at the same time, sat down. The desert came back; the stillness of the wind and the glory of the stars, the stealing fear, the shock, and now the grip of the eagerly waited letter.
“I had come from the coast,” she wrote, “and was bringing home from California my invalid brother. He was then, and is still very ill. The worry of providing for his journey and the fear that I might not be able to bring him home alive had worn upon me until I was in but little better condition, I fear, than he.
“How I ever came to leave my berth in my sleep and to walk asleep straight out of our sleeping-car when the train stopped that night at Point of Rocks I cannot, of course, explain. But the doctor has since told me that in crossing the Rocky Mountains the altitude is often accountable for strange things that people do. When I reached home after the ocean voyage I was already ill of brain fever—less, I suppose, could hardly have been looked for—and my recovery has been very slow. But for your delicate consideration in that night of delirium I should probably never have recovered at all. Wandering as I did over the open country around the station in the cold of those dreadful hours of unconsciousness, I seem faintly to remember seeing the light in your window—the only light, I was afterward told, within many, many miles. And I want now to apologize with all humility for breaking in upon your solitude at so unearthly an hour and in so forlorn a condition. If at any time hereafter, you should ever be in England, I hope you will surely come to Ormonde Road, Richmond. You will find us at The Knolls, and it will give me a chance to tell you in person how grateful I am for all you did f
or me. It will surprise you very much, I know, to learn that I myself once really lived at Point of Rocks, but it was years ago, during my childhood. An uncle of mine had cattle ranches in that country, and built a large house near the Point, which afterward burned. As a little girl I lived with my aunt, and I often played with my dolls among the very rocks near the railroad station.
The letter bore the signature of Grace Swinton. Hughie Morrison brought his hand down on the table and a new light shone in his face. His resolve was taken. Saint George and Merry England was the watchword, whether it forever blasted hopes of promotion or not. He began his eight-hour trick on the instant that night and did the best work with the trains he had done since his promotion. Moreover, he found time to write a letter and start it at six o’clock that morning on Grace Swinton’s own train, as he called Number Two, to The Knolls, in Ormonde Road, Richmond, explaining how he had happened to be sent to Point of Rocks—with incidental mention that he had long known of her having lived there. And mention, too, of a broken miniature and of one surviving doll that she might, he hoped, still be interested in.
Inquiries mutually began could not, of course, be satisfied at so long distance with a single exchange of letters. When Bucks heard the story he seemed more pleased than he ever had been with a relative in his life, and to Hughie’s surprise, gave the six months’ leave asked for the trip to England and The Knolls without a word of reproach. But an account of that trip with its surprises, with the international complications that followed, with Hughie’s questions as to whether the stars really had sung on the desert that night and Grace Swinton’s denials as to ever having said anything about their singing; the journey made by President Bucks to inspect the English railways and to be present at The Knolls at his nephew, Hughie Morrison’s, wedding—all this would make a chapter told too often in the traditions of the Mountain Division. What is of importance is that Hughie, being now general manager of the coast lines, is stationed where his English bride—having lived in the Rocky Mountains as a little girl—professes to feel entirely at home.
The Fourth Ghost Story MEGAPACK: 25 Classic Haunts! Page 59