“We’re walking, right?” She asked.
“Yeah, but it seems a shame,” Eddie said, looking over the great lines of the car.
Josh and Eddie’s parents had a very strict rule forbidding them to ride in cars with anyone under twenty-one years of age unless they approved it. Since the boys couldn’t tell their parents where they would be driving off to, they would not be able to seek approval. They did have an extra bike to offer Giselle, but the section of railroad bed that they had to travel down still had the rails and ties in place so riding a bike was out of the question. They had to hoof it. The good news was, it was only about a mile, and so off they went.
The three walked through the neighborhood, past the elementary school where they would jump on the railroad tracks that would take them all the way to the Red Creek Bridge.
Just past the school, Josh said, “Hey, on the way back we should stop at the truck stop and get a big plate of their fries. I got a few bucks.”
“Sounds good,” Eddie replied, as the team walked on.
Ryder’s Truck Stop was no bigger than most people’s family room on the inside. Across the two-lane road was a wide spot where the trucks had to park, and there was always at least three big rigs sitting there with their diesel engines idling. They had the best fries on Elk River Road and were only a dollar a plateful. It was just one of those little hole-in-the-wall joints that most people who lived up the river knew about. A stop on the way back would be mandatory.
The kids continued to discuss their dilemma.
“So did Mansfield do anything else weird today besides get into our business?” Eddie asked with intentional sarcasm.
“No, I don’t think so. And I did keep an eye on him the last hour or so, but I didn’t see him back down in the records room at all,” Giselle reassured him. “I can’t really follow him around though, ya know? I don’t want him to catch on that I know he knows.”
“It’s kooky. Why would he have retraced our steps? Why would this be of any interest to him at all?” Josh wondered out loud.
“Well, with no more information than he has, he probably won’t get any further than he already has gotten. I mean, unless he goes to the Internet and searches the way we did,” Eddie said.
“But why would he unless he had already heard of the legend of the Southern Jewel? You know what I mean?” If it is something that he has knowledge of, then that piece of paper would have caught his attention for sure!” Giselle added.
The three friends continued to step from one railroad tie to the next as they made their way down the straight stretch toward the bridge and Town Office.
“What are the odds of us finding this old milk can, figuring out a piece of a code that was in it, and then some guy who has been looking for it for years stumbles on to our notes? What are the odds?” Eddie pleaded.
“Yeah, I agree,” Giselle said. “The odds would be astronomical. Like hitting the lotto. But people do it.”
Josh said, “I’m not going to worry about it anymore. We have to have more information on this than anyone. You can bet the people at “The Legend of The Southern Jewel” web site would love to have what we have.”
“No doubt,” Giselle replied.
The railroad tracks ran parallel to the highway and only about 10 feet away from it. Josh looked up to see a bike coming their way down the side of the road dangerously close to where cars zoomed by at 50 miles per hour.
“Oh man,” Josh said with regret. “It’s that jerk, Radcliffe.”
Brad Radcliffe was the kid in town who was responsible for most of the juvenile disobedience that went on. He picked fights. He stole bikes. He threw rocks at cars going down the road at night. He was just a bad seed. If something was stolen, broken or vandalized, he was most often thought of first. Sadly, his anger came honestly, as he grew up with an abusive, alcoholic father who took his own shortcomings out on his family in a verbally abusive manner. His mother displayed the same psychological scars as Brad but did her best not to show it. At times people, even the kids, felt sorry for Brad Radcliffe, but his mean and hateful manner pushed people away from helping him or trying to befriend him. He had a real tough outer skin for a kid of sixteen.
Radcliffe braked to a stop. The boys braced for a verbal confrontation.
“Hey Giselle. Whatta ya hanging around these pinheads for?” he asked sarcastically, nodding towards the two boys. “Kinda young aren’t they?”
“What’s it to you, Radcliffe?” she calmly replied. “Besides, nothing spells loser like a sixteen-year old on a bike, ya know!” Giselle kind of regretted saying it the second it came out of her mouth. It wasn’t her nature to be demeaning to people.
“Ha, ha!” he replied, undeterred. “So when you gonna take me for a ride in that new Silver Bullet of yours?”
“WHEN PIGS FLY!!!” Josh piped up, having had just about enough of Radcliffe already.
“Shut up, ya little twerp,” Radcliffe said
“No, you shut up, Radcliffe!” Eddie shot back.
Brad Radcliffe threw his bike to the ground and stepped around it towards the three kids.
“Oh come on,” Giselle said. “What are ya gonna do? Kick our butts for walking down the railroad tracks? Is your life that pathetic, Brad?”
Radcliffe had nothing to say to that as the silence was broken only by a passing car, his mind reflecting on his home life for a brief second. He had had a bad day with his dad. His frustration was evident.
He looked at Giselle and then the two boys, and, for a moment there was that look in his eye that said, “Yes….my life is that pathetic.” He realized that there was no reason for any violence on the railroad tracks at that time and bent over to pick up his bike by the handlebars. His belligerence returned.
“You guys are lucky she’s with you,” he said.
“Hey, Radcliffe,” Eddie said, as Radcliffe climbed back onto his bike. “Were you throwin’ rocks at my garage a couple of days ago?”
“What are you talkin’ about, Debord? He looked at Eddie strangely. “I got better things to do than throw rocks at your stupid garage, ya know! Like, like….never mind!” He shook his head and rode away. “See ya, Giselle.” Brad Radcliffe had had a bad day at home and it showed. Josh and Eddie knew that, too.
Eddie was strangely convinced that if Radcliffe had thrown those rocks, he would have had no problem telling Eddie so. There was no doubt about that. But if he didn’t do it, then who did?
The three walked on and soon entered Red Creek’s humble-sized Town Office.
CHAPTER TEN
A little bell jingled at the top of the door as the three friends entered the building, signaling a middle-aged lady, who sat in a back room at a computer, that the office had visitors.
She looked out at them over the top of her reading glasses and said, “I’ll be right with you.”
“Thank you,” Giselle replied politely.
The Town Office sat in a row of three two-story buildings that were attached to each other, all being constructed of old clapboard-style siding and all three painted the same light grey color. All three were local government buildings, with the Town Office sitting between the Sheriff’s Office on the right and the Mayor’s Office on the left. Once inside, one could access any of the three offices. The doors between them were always open, so officials could wander between them to carry out business or just to get a fresh cup of coffee that Mrs. Anderson, in the Town Office, always had ready.
The inside of the offices had that scent of age to them. It was the same smell one may notice when one enters an old house--the scent of a gas stove and old wood that is somehow comforting and welcoming.
From the Town Office buildings, you could look directly across the bridge that crossed the Elk River and see the original General Store that was constructed when the town of Red Creek was established. An old brick structure.
“May I help you?” The pleasant but very busy Mrs. Anderson asked from behind an open window.
�
��Yes, thank you.” Giselle returned the politeness. “We need to look into town records to search an old name, if we could please.”
“OK. Sure. How old are we talking here?” Mrs. Anderson asked.
“Sometime around 1903, 1904,” Giselle replied.
To the left of the three kids, visible through the doorway to the next office, stood a heavyset, older gentleman who was a little above average in height. He had what was left of a large cigar in his mouth and was thumbing through a thick book at the front desk of the Mayor’s office. The big man leaned back a bit and looked over at the three kids when he heard Giselle’s voice. Eddie recognized him as Mayor Billingsworth.
“O.K.” She paused briefly while chewing on her right cheek. “Now, did you want tax records or birth and death certificate records or what?”
“Let’s start with birth and death,” Giselle answered.
“Sure. Step through that Dutch door over there and I will meet you in the records room. Oh, would you do me a favor and put your names on the sign-in sheet too, please?”
“Sure. Thank you,” Josh chimed in.
The kids signed their names and then stepped around the right side to a half door that Mrs. Anderson opened for the three to walk through. They entered a room full of tall, green and tan, four-drawer file cabinets. The cabinets looked old and appeared to have been painted a few times.
“Okay,” Mrs. Anderson said cheerfully. “Early nineteen hundreds start here, in these green ones, and then they just go in order to the next cabinet. It’s all public record and you can help yourself but we ask that you don’t carry anything out of here. Rather, we ask that you bring it out to me and I will make a copy, okay?”
“Sounds good. Thank you very much,” Giselle replied with a smile.
“OK, and if you need any help or have any questions, just shout.”
“Thank you,” Eddie said.
The team looked up and down the drawers where Mrs. Anderson had pointed and found the one marked 1900-1905.
“One thing,” Giselle said. “If we are looking for the birth record of a man who was at the scene of a train robbery in 1903, we need to look a lot earlier than 1900.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Eddie agreed. “We should probably start around 1850 or so, right?”
“Let’s try that,” Giselle agreed. “Arthur Otis, 1850. I am kind of amazed that they have records that go back that far, really. I mean for this little town?”
The three kids began their search through the endless files of Red Creek citizens. They were lucky in one way. Mrs. Anderson was a great organizer and everything was in order, year after year. All they really needed to do was take each year and look in alphabetical order for the last name Otis.
In 1850 there was a man named Zeke Otis, but no Arthur. In 1851plenty of babies were born but still no Arthur Otis. They found that in 1852 Zeke Otis married a lady named Othella Burdette. But there was still no Arthur Otis. The kids searched on, as each file for each year grew thicker as the town grew more populated.
After a few more minutes of thumbing through file after file, Josh exclaimed, “Got it!”
He pulled out a file folder that was labeled “Otis / Arthur B.”
They took the file over to a little table and opened it up to see what they could find on the man who had left his wallet at the site of a train robbery in 1903.
The first document was a duplicate copy of his birth certificate signed by Dr. Abraham Jackson, March 9th, 1855. It showed Zeke Otis as the father and Othella Burdette Otis as the mother. There were a few other documents in the file such as his Army registration paperwork in 1878 and his documents for being locked up in 1885 for the brutal beating of a man in a tavern over a game of poker. And that was about it. The kids were looking for more.
“Shouldn’t there be a death certificate?” Eddie asked.
Giselle got up and walked back over to the file cabinet and pulled a couple of citizen files and thumbed through them as the boys continued to look at Art Otis’ file.
“Yeah. These all have death certificates in them, too” she said
“Why wouldn’t his?” Josh asked.
“Wait. Look here,” Eddie said, pulling out a piece of hand-written paperwork that appeared very old.
“What’s it say?” Giselle asked.
Eddie read:
ADDENDUM TO FILE
The death certificate of Arthur B. Otis has never been available to Public Records due to his apparent disappearance from the area of Red Creek, West Virginia in 1903. It is believed that Mr. Otis fled the area after being involved in the train robbery that occurred at that time, but that has never been proven. Please refer to Tax Records for information on properties and surviving relatives. As of April 14, 1920, Arthur B. Otis’ whereabouts are unknown.
“OK. Where are the tax records?” Josh looked around.
“Tan cabinets,” Giselle responded.
The three friends looked up and down the drawers until they found the year 1900. They then slid open the drawer and Eddie dragged his finger along the tops of the files until he came to the Os. He then pulled out a handful and went through them until he found a file on “Arthur Benjamin Otis.” The kids opened the file and started their search to find out what they could about this man. They couldn’t believe all this information was available so easily.
“OK, now we are getting somewhere. It’s all here,” Giselle said. “It looks like he paid an annual tax amount of $7.87 on a place that is referred to as “Tater Holler Homestead.”
“That’s for the year 1900,” Said Josh. “Let’s look in the year 1903 now, the year he disappeared or took off or whatever.”
“Good thinking,” Eddie said, and he went back to the file cabinets.
A few minutes later they were looking at the Arthur B. Otis file for the year 1903. It didn’t take them long.
“OK,” Giselle paused. “There’s no record of any tax being paid on his property in the year 1903. Makes sense if he’s not around, he’s not going to pay his taxes, right?”
“Yeah. Now what about survivor or descendant information or whatever it’s called?” Josh asked.
Giselle was impressed with his vocabulary, considering he was only 14, and gave him that look. As well as adventurers, Josh and Eddie were both pretty advanced for their age.
The kids started rummaging through the few papers that were in the 1903 file until they came across a slip of paper that caught their attention.
It read: For 1903 tax information on Tater Holler Homestead, see: Emanuel B. Otis file.
“Who is Emanuel B. Otis?” Josh asked.
Giselle chuckled, “It’s gotta be a relative, right? Let’s look it up.”
The very next file in the drawer was the tax file for Emanuel B. Otis.
Inside it were the normal tax record documents for the normal Red Creek taxpayer. And then there was an extra document with a legal draft attached to it. It read:
1903 taxes on homestead property owned by Arthur B. Otis of Tater Holler have been paid in full on this day, Aug 29, 1903, by Emanuel B. Otis, surviving son of Arthur B. Otis. Therefore, the Homestead property of Tater Holler becomes the property of Emanuel B. Otis. If at any time in the future Mr. Arthur B. Otis returns to said property, the latter will have to settle back tax payments with the former to re-take possession of said property under the supervision of the court of law.
It was signed by the county tax commissioner, 1903.
“What …….does……all……that…….mean?” Josh asked slowly, a bit befuddled.
Giselle explained slowly. “It’s just a little bit of legal talk that says Arthur’s son Emanuel paid his taxes for him and took possession of the house or homestead or whatever it was at the time. In other words, he paid his dad’s taxes and moved in. And if Arthur ever comes back, he has to repay all the taxes that Emanuel paid in order to legally re-claim his property.”
“Alright, so we found out he has a son named Emanuel. We can keep digging from the
re and find out if Emanuel had kids, right?”
“It should be right in this file or back over in the green cabinets,” Eddie said.
“Have you guys ever heard of Tater Holler?” Giselle asked.
“Yeah, I know where it’s at. If I’m right, it’s about five miles downriver from our house. It’s takes off to the left just a little past the river shoals,” Eddie answered. “My dad used to go deer huntin’ with old Tom Maynard up there. It’s a pretty wide holler, I think, and runs a long way up into the hills. Ya’ can’t really get there by car. I mean, ya can but you have to go way down the road and come into it from the back side on old, old dirt roads. It’s not easy to get to.”
“Hmm,” She said. “Well, I’ll keep looking here if you guys want to go back to the green files and see if you can find a son or daughter of Emanuel Otis.”
“OK,” Josh said
When the two boys turned around, they were startled to see Mayor Billingsworth standing at the opening of the Dutch door, filling the space of the opened door pretty much to the max. He looked at the boys without saying anything as he chewed his cigar and rolled it from one side of his mouth to the other and then casually walked away from the door and stepped towards the Sheriff’s Office, his size 12 cowboy boots clumping heavily with each step on the hardwood floors. The three kids all looked at each other and shrugged and went about their business of finding the descendants of Arthur Otis, the man who dropped his wallet at a train robbery in 1903.
Eddie scanned the green cabinets while doing some figuring in his head. He was trying to determine an approximate year to start looking for a son or daughter of Emanuel Otis. He reasoned a twenty-year bracket from 1900 to 1920 for starters. He thumbed across the years, looking in the “O” section of each one, for a man or woman with the last name Otis. A few minutes of searching went by and then they found something. In 1912 a baby by the name of Martha Otis was born to Emanuel B. Otis and Margaret Turner Otis. In that same file was her death certificate for the year 1982. The boys studied the file for a while, took some notes, and then tucked it away. They continued to look. In 1916 a baby boy was born to Emanuel and Margaret Otis whom they named Matthew. They dug through his file and also found a death certificate for the year 1989.
River Rocks: A West Virginia Adventure Novel Page 7