Keeping a wary eye on Dan, Sarah turned toward Delevan and started to speak, but her words were cut short as she gave a strangled cry, and pointed behind them.
Before Delevan could turn, the report of a gun rang out.
“Delevan!” Miles cried, as his brother fell.
Miles felt himself pulled deeper and deeper into the whirlpool of unconsciousness. By the time the second shot was fired, Miles was so far down, the bullet felt like nothing more than a tap on the shoulder.
Sarah screamed incoherently, wailing as she dropped to her knees beside Delevan.
The fourth man scowled in her direction, then turned to Dan.
“What’s the plan?” he muttered, glancing toward Sarah as he wrapped a handkerchief tightly around Dan’s wounded arm, and tied it. “Shall I…”
“No, Sam,” said Dan. “She’s going to get us out of this mess.”
Sam added another kerchief to the make-shift bandage. “You’re lucky it didn’t hit bone. Should be alright.”
Dan flexed his wounded arm, testing it. Wincing but satisfied he still had the use of it, he watched Sarah. His brows knit as he considered how best to approach her. He didn’t have time for this.
“I’m sorry, Sarah. This didn’t have to happen… but your friends opened fire. If Sam hadn’t come along, we’d all be dead by now, not just Andy and Ron.”
Sarah ignored his poor attempt at sympathy, and continued to sob over Delevan’s body.
Dan’s impatience grew. Time was wasting, and there was much they must accomplish before they ran out.
Dan grasped her impatiently by the shoulder with his uninjured arm, and jerked her to her feet.
“That’s enough! Pull yourself together, unless you want to answer for your crimes,” he said firmly, glancing at the handbill which lay where it fell when Delevan dropped it.
Sarah froze for the briefest of moments, then her eyes slowly focused on her brother. He took that as a sign of compliance.
“We can get out of this without the law hunting us down, and you’re going to help,” he said.
The grief in Sarah’s eyes turned to hatred. She launched herself at Dan, taking him by surprise. He was almost knocked off his feet, as she barreled into his chest. As he struggled to maintain his balance, she clawed him hard across the face. Sam leaped forward and caught her by the arm and pulled her away, but not before she connected with Dan’s injured arm. He howled in pain, the hatred in his eyes matching her own. He moved a step back and further away from her reach.
They stood motionless, both breathing hard, as they glared.
“That’s enough of that,” he said through clenched teeth. “Try that again, and it’ll be the last thing you do.”
“And this should deter me?” she cried, her voice breaking.
Dan nodded to Sam. He drew his gun, then let Sarah go and stepped back, keeping her in his sights. She kept her eyes locked on Dan’s.
“It better deter you, unless you want to suffer a worse death than your friends,” Dan said ominously. He gave her a moment to consider this, before he spoke again. “We can get out of this without the law hunting us down, and you’re going to help. Then we’ll take a steamboat north up the Mississippi to Montana Territory, a comfortable distance from our reputation. But first, Sam and me have to dispose of Andy and Ron. When we’re done, you’re going back to the house and tell the Bannermans what happened.”
Sarah looked at him in surprise. Dan watched her closely, and appeared satisfied.
“So you are listening, then. Good. Now listen carefully, because this is what you’re going to say…”
As Miles floated in and out of consciousness, he began to take in the lies Dan intended for Miles’ family to hear. The thought of dying with a scandal of that sort dropped on his family and on his name, was unbearable. He struggled to remain conscious, fearing that if he did not, he would never wake again, but to do so was impossible.
“How dare you think that I will help you!” Sarah spat. “You’ve stolen my life and murdered two innocent men, one of them the man I love! I’ll die before I ever help you again!”
Dan crumpled the handbill, stooped, and shoved it into Sarah’s satchel. He then stood and shoved the bag into her arms roughly.
“I mean what I say. You will do exactly what I tell you, or die a worse death than your two friends.”
Sam laughed mirthlessly.
Sarah paled, but her expression remained set. Dan watched her for a moment, then he smiled and turned to Sam.
“If Sarah won’t do her part, we’ll have to help ourselves. We need to buy some time, and delay the law getting involved. So tell me, Sam, who’s going to discover the bodies and inform them?”
“The Bannermans,” said Sam.
Alarm filled Sarah’s eyes.
“That’s right. We can’t have that. Since Sarah won’t help us, looks like we’ll be paying a visit to the Bannermans. All of them. I understand your friends have a younger sister, and baby brother.”
Sarah’s eyes widened in horror, then her gaze dropped to the ground and her shoulders sagged. What color remained in her face, drained away.
Miles grew aware of faint voices, growing fainter. He was still in the clearing and he was still alive, but only just. Yet if Dan and the other man were leaving, it meant soon his father would come.
The long minutes dragged past, the only sound the whispering of the wind in the tall pines that surrounded the clearing.
It seemed he waited an eternity for each new beat of his heart. His strength waned and he lay struggling for breath, and yet his father did not come.
At what point it became too late for him he did not know, but he could no longer deny that it was. He grieved the loss of the future he would never have and resigned himself to his fate, relinquishing the hopes and dreams he held such a short time ago. All he now asked of what little life he had left, was that it would not leave him until his father came and heard the truth. Then he could rest, knowing he would not be blamed for coveting Delevan’s fiancé, and murdering his brother. Then he could let go.
As night began to fall, the earth grew dark.
Still his father did not come, and he had nothing left with which to hold on. With his last breath, he pleaded…
“Please, don’t let me rest. Please… don’t set me free… until my innocence is proven.”
Miles was silent, memories of the past obscuring the present. Trixie moved to his side and pushed up on his arm, so that it lay across her back.
My throat ached. I felt like I’d been there, a helpless observer, as I witnessed each tragic second. Chip rested his chin on my knee, looking up at me with his soulful eyes. I hugged him, burying my face in his thick fur. Judging by which, we were going to have a very hard winter this year.
Miles returned to the present and smiled slightly. He looked tired.
“So that is what happened… that’s how I… died. And yet, here I am. Here, but not here.” He shrugged.
I cleared my throat and pulled myself together.
“So you won’t be able to rest in peace, until your innocence is proven?”
“Looks like it. When I prayed what I did, I hoped to live long enough to tell my Father the truth. But… instead, here I am.”
“That—had to be disappointing,” I said, not sure how to say what I was thinking.
Miles laughed, and shrugged again.
“Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
“It had to be so hard, seeing your family grieve after what happened,” I sympathized.
“I’m thankful I missed most of that. It would have been unbearable. A number of years passed before I returned like this,” he indicated his semi-transparent form. “I gathered that the years I missed, were very difficult for my family. Father was obsessed with finding the truth. I was glad to see that he turned from that, and focused instead on my younger brother and sister, the children he had left.”
“So like… when his quest ended, yours began?�
�
“That’s the conclusion I’ve come to.”
“So… why didn’t you try communicating with your family, and tell them what happened? Write them a letter, something?” I wondered.
Miles shook his head firmly.
“No, seeing the effect on my family from the years my Father spent searching for evidence that did not exist, no. He would have become even more driven to find proof. I couldn’t do that to my family.”
“Wow, you actually chose to be like this forever, instead?”
“Yes. If you have a family, and love them like I did mine, you’ll understand.”
I thought about that.
“Yeah, I do,” I said. I wasn’t sure I had as much character as this guy did though, to stick with that resolve. How unbelievably hard it had to be for him, all those years. “You said proof didn’t exist, but listening to what you’ve said, there would be so much evidence left behind. Technology available today, would reveal the true story.”
“You’re right. There was evidence. If only it was still there,” Miles said. “It’s been a while, though. Over a century.”
“It’s a wonder no one considered that you couldn’t have shot Delevan in the back and killed him instantly, and then been shot by him twice, after he was already dead. What kind of Sheriff did you people have back then?”
Miles laughed.
“Not a very good one. I gathered that he would rather accept Sarah’s word, than be left with two murders to solve.”
“I’m not sure how we can use that information now, since we don’t have the crime scene, or a report of the investigation, or guns, or bullets… I’m surprised by the way you described Sarah, that she never tried to tell your family what really happened.”
Miles sighed.
“That surprised me, too. She was protecting the rest of our family at the time, but I don’t understand why she didn’t write and tell our parents the truth before boarding the ship to Europe.”
“In the story my Uncle told, the ship never made it to Europe. It sank with Sarah aboard,” I remembered.
“From what I overheard my family say after I returned, that’s what I understood to have happened as well. If the boat didn’t sink, I believe she would have contacted my family eventually, and told them the truth.”
“Was her brother on the ship with her?” I asked.
Miles thought about that.
“My family certainly never mentioned him, as they never knew of his existence. He could have used Delevan’s ticket, I suppose. One thing I’m sure of, she didn’t board that ship alone. There’s no way he would let her go free.”
“That Dan was horrible,” I scowled. “I can’t imagine having such an evil brother.”
“Me either,” Miles agreed. “It’s tragic that Sarah died on her way to Europe and was never able to escape from that. I never blamed her for what happened in the clearing that day. If you saw and heard her, how she looked at Delevan, and then how she reacted to her own brother… My parents did blame her, though. They didn’t give her much of a chance to begin with. And she was lying, they knew that, they just couldn’t prove it. And then she was gone.”
“Your brother would have been on that boat to Europe too, if things went the way he and Sarah planned,” I said.
Miles’ eyebrows rose in surprise and he processed that for a second.
“You’re right. I never considered that before. I felt a lot of guilt for a lot of years, as if Delevan would still be alive if I didn’t go after him. I eventually realized that wasn’t true, I didn’t bring Sarah’s brother and his companions to the clearing. It’s so strange though… to realize Delevan would’ve died, no matter what.”
“His death wasn’t your fault,” I said, feeling the need to elaborate on that. “Getting that handbill to Delevan before he married Sarah was honest and right, regardless of the outcome. Otherwise, you’re in a no-win situation where there is no right, because whether Delevan lived or died that day, was out of your hands. Imagine if you didn’t go after him, and he was confronted by all those guys with nothing but that little gun that had two shots, and wasn’t very accurate, either. Wouldn’t you feel just awful that you weren’t there? Wouldn’t you think that maybe, if you’d gone after him, you could’ve saved him?”
“Yes,” Miles said quietly, as he rubbed his forehead. “That’s exactly what I’d think for the rest of my life.”
“You’d be eaten up with guilt, and in that instance, you would be guilty of keeping that handbill to yourself, and letting your brother go off and marry some woman of questionable character. But you didn’t. You did the right thing. Consider this too, is your sister responsible for your death, since giving you the letter caused you to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time?”
“Of course not!” Miles said with feeling.
I was on a roll. If this guy ever felt guilty again after I was done, well, it wouldn’t be for lack of trying!
“Results don’t determine if our actions are right or wrong. Wouldn’t that be the ends justifying the means? It’s the actions themselves that are either right or not, all on their own.”
“You are very wise… Who are you, by the way?”
That made me laugh.
“I’m Anika Riley. Polly Bannerman hired me to manage the estate. Hire people to do the yard work, clean the house, see to any repairs.”
Miles looked mildly surprised.
I wondered why. After all, he was going out to the wild, wild west on his own to manage the family gold mine, when he was my age.
“So why can you see me, I wonder? What’s different about you?” Miles studied me curiously.
I shrugged, and paused before answering.
Yikes, I’m pulling an Uncle Mark!
“It might be because Polly gave me permission to search for clues to prove you’re innocent.”
That earned a set of raised eyebrows.
“Wait, you—you asked for permission? Specifically to—to try and prove me innocent? You came here—for that purpose?”
“Yes,” I said.
He stared back at me, stunned.
“I believe I’ll succeed,” I said.
He shook his head to clear it.
“The first person I’ve been able to talk to in all these years, and somehow you keep leaving me speechless. I never would’ve believed that was possible!”
I laughed.
“Yeah, I sometimes have that effect on people.”
“You’re unexpected, that’s for sure,” he smiled.
“Uh—look who’s talking!” I said, indicating his semi-transparent self.
We both laughed at that, then Miles continued.
“I love the idea of being proven innocent. I love that you want to do this. I’m completely blown away that you came here intending to do that. I think I’m in shock, actually. But after all this time, I wonder if it’s even possible.”
“Let’s think about this for a minute. If there isn’t any way to prove it, why are you here? That would just be cruel. ‘Hey, really nice guy that didn’t do anything wrong, live with false accusations against you for all eternity because you asked not to rest until proven innocent, and proof doesn’t exist.’ Really? I don’t see it. The fact that you’re here, makes me sure that proof does exist.”
“I like the way you think,” said Miles, a spark of hope reaching his eyes. “When you put it that way, it makes perfect sense.”
“So, do you want to help me find that proof so you can get out of this semi-transparent mode?”
“Yes! Absolutely,” said Miles.
“Plus, you don’t want your family home turned into a resort marketed as the home of a murderous ghost, seeking and never finding forgiveness.”
“What do you know that I don’t?” asked Miles, a shadow of concern filling his eyes.
“Okay, so you’re not all-knowing, then. Here’s the thing. There’s a distant cousin named Alfred, trying to wrestle control of the estate away from Polly. Polly’
s grandson Miles has been missing for the past four months, and if he doesn’t show soon, then she’s afraid Alfred may succeed. He’s trying to declare her incompetent, partly because of the mess the house is in right now, which is really because the caretaker died, and Polly didn’t know. So I’m here as I said before, to manage the cleaning and yard maintenance, to help prove her competence. But if Alfred wins, he plans to turn this place into a resort, and market it as I said.”
“Okay….” Miles said slowly. “That makes a little bit more sense. But would you please repeat all of that, and this time use a few more words?”
I laughed.
“I can do that.” I explained everything Polly said, in detail this time.
Miles listened and shook his head thoughtfully.
“After this long… I don’t know how we’ll prove who was responsible and what the truth is… we’ve got to try though, I can’t stand the thought of Alfred succeeding. I really do not want that to happen.”
“Polly doesn’t want that to happen either, that’s why she hired me. I don’t want that to happen, that’s why I took the job.”
Miles studied me.
“I can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate you believing in me. I can’t get over it that you do. Other than family, that isn’t what I’m used to.”
I could tell he wondered why.
“When I was here last week during the storm, I had to hunt down my dog Chip, who wandered all over your castle. It’s completely not like him to take off, but he did, so I followed him.”
“Ah, yes. That’s thanks to Trix. She’s missed having another dog around. She wanted a playdate, and sort of lured him away. I didn’t realize what she was doing until right before you found him, or I would have told her to stop sooner.”
“Wow. I... did not know that. I saw the other pawprints, and I sure wondered. So I found him in the portrait gallery then, and while we waited for the storm to calm down enough to get home, I looked at the portraits.”
“I know. I saw you,” said Miles. “I wondered what you were up to.”
“What?” I said. “I didn’t see you!”
Miles smiled.
“You never turned around.”
“It’s a good thing I didn’t, I would have died of fright! I was getting more stressed by the minute, until I found Chip and the gallery,” I said with all honesty.
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