Ghost Towns

by Louis L'Amour

  They died when a flaming beam fell on them. Their bodies were crushed and burned beyond recognition.

  I would like to believe they had left us only to offer someone of less strength and courage aid and rescue. The only identifying remnants of their earthly existence were their wedding rings and the two small gold lockets my mother wore around her neck.

  The lockets held pictures of Gillian and me. The picture of Gillian was taken when she was just a girl of five, golden curls flowing over her shoulder onto a fragile lace collar—an expensive portrait that serves as another reminder that our lives were once full, and rich. Gillian’s angelic beauty was evident, even then.

  I have worn the locket around my neck ever since. And Gillian wears the locket that holds the picture of me, a miniature version of my father in physical appearance and like mind.

  Void of any relatives, we were whisked off to The Children’s Aid Society shortly after our parents’ bones and ashes were ceremonially laid to rest in a pauper’s grave.

  The fire destroyed everything that they owned, and though my father worked at a financial firm, there was no record of any investments—we had no money. At least that is what we were told, by a man with thinning hair and tobacco breath who stood in representation of Slade, Crothers, & Leiberman, at the end of the funeral.

  The Children’s Aid Society offered few comforts, and more terror than one child, much less two, should be left to imagine.

  The only thing that Gillian and I had to hang on to was each other. We vowed early on, after our shock and grief began to subside, to remain together no matter the cost.

  And so we did.

  Until that solemn day when we both boarded the Orphan Train, and were shepherded out of our wonderful city on the harbor, full of tall ships, teems of people, wonderful smells of food, and the memories of our parents.

  We began our journey west, nervous and afraid, to a land that seemed barren, dry, and populated with people who eyed us with only opportunity and greed.

  Moses set a full glass of whiskey on the table in front of me. Miss Ruth sat across from me, her mass so large the chair all but disappeared in a sea of green.

  “Tell me of Gillian, please. You are the first person in my travels who has known of her. Is she still here, in this town?” I asked.

  Miss Ruth shook her head no. “I’m sorry, Edward, she has been gone from here for nearly two years. Ages, it seems, since someone has touched the piano with such fineness. She was a sweet nectar, her talents were far above the stature of our lowly establishment. Her presence was a blessing, and I was sad to see her go. My pockets have not been as full since, and I don’t expect they ever will be again now that we teeter on the edge of loss.”

  I smiled, ignoring the soulful moan of Miss Ruth’s mention of her current calamity. How could I not? “I always knew Gillian would be great, perhaps even famous. She would have traveled the world if our parents hadn’t died when we were children,” I said.

  “Instead of playing for kings and queens,” Miss Ruth said, “she played for the likes of Moses and me. All the while, watching out of the corner of her eye, hoping that you would walk through the door.”

  “She searched for me, as well?”

  “Still does, as far as I know.”

  I took a drink of the whiskey. My chest had began to boil, and the last thing I wanted to do was break into a coughing fit.

  The news of Gillian was an elixir, a salve that soothed any thought of my illness. I wanted to touch the keys on the piano that she touched and feel close to her, feel the warmth of her touch, share the sameness of our blood and memories that have been missing from my life for so long, but I could not move. I was weak, and afraid I would miss a word of Miss Ruth’s tale of my long-lost sister.

  “She knew of your reputation,” Miss Ruth continued. “Knew that you gained a certain amount of fame yourself. But you moved around too frequently for her to catch up with you. She missed you by two days in Dodge City. She searched all sixteen saloons until, finally, someone at the Long Branch told her of your victory in a card game there.”

  “Blackjack Eddie? She knew of me as a gambler?”

  “You look surprised.”

  “My father would be ashamed that I have used my skills for a deviant cause.”

  “Surviving is not deviant.”

  “Ah, but cheating is.”

  “Gillian told me of your skills, so please be aware that you won’t be counting any cards here. My till is thin enough.”

  “My gaming days are nearly at an end,” I said. “My pockets are empty, and I have lost the will to maintain my fame. I promised Gillian that I would come for her, and I hope to fulfill that promise. Do you know where she went?”

  “Yes,” Miss Ruth said. “I do.”

  We did not know we were leaving until the day before. It was a Monday bath that warned us. Of course, by then, we had seen many children leave the confines of The Children’s Aid Society before us. They vanished like they had never existed, nary a trace of them left behind. Our fear, Gillian’s and mine, was that we would be separated; only one of us sent west, while the other remained behind in New York.

  Fate spared us the blow of separation, if only temporarily, when we both found a new set of clothes on our beds and our hair tended to like we were to be department store models after our “special” bath.

  The next day, we were herded to the train station and pushed on board the Orphan Train under the watchful eye of the placing agent who was to accompany us. The man’s name escapes me, but he was flustered and mean, overwhelmed by the forty or so waifs and street urchins put in his charge.

  The novelty of the train ride soon fell away. It was miserably hot inside because of the unrelenting summer heat. The seats were thin and uncomfortable, and worse than anything else, the passenger car was filled with the smell of bile from children suffering from the constant sway of the railcar. Gillian was afflicted far worse than I.

  We held hands continually.

  “Promise me we’ll always be together,” Gillian said just after we crossed the Mississippi River.

  Our parents had been dead for nearly three years. Gillian was ten years old, and just as I was a mirror image of my father, Gillian favored my mother. I could not look into her eyes without wanting to cry.

  “I promise.”

  We had both been cheated, stolen from, and lied to since the day of the fire. I wasn’t sure I could keep my promise to her any longer, but I could not bear to see her afraid.

  She rested her head against my shoulder, the golden curls straight now and lacking any hint of luster. Even then Gillian looked frail, haunted by fire and the misery of loneliness.

  I could only hope the home we were going to would be gentle, our new parents understanding and kind. Anything had to better than the institutional life two thousand miles behind us—at least, that is what I thought at the time.

  Sleep came intermittently, and our nerves were on end at every stop. No one knew how long it would take us to arrive in Kansas. Each time the brakes squealed, Gillian clutched my hand with all of the energy she had, afraid that we had arrived at our final destination.

  I can still feel the pain of her touch when I squeeze my hands together.

  “Gillian told me to tell you that she would go to Silent Hill and wait for you there. If the wait became too long, she would leave word of her whereabouts at the saloon, just like she has done here,” Miss Ruth said.

  “Silent Hill,” I uttered, barely able to speak the name of the town aloud.

  “Gillian felt the same way, I’m afraid. But she thought you might look for her there.”

  “I vowed never to return.”

  “I tried to persuade her to stay. But she is willful.”

  “She was good for your business.”

  “It was more than that,” Miss Ruth said, clenching her teeth after the words had left her mouth, forcing the fullness of her face to draw so tightly her lifeless eyes bulged.

 
; “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you, Miss Ruth. My sister and I have been on the stiff for so long cynicism has become a code.”

  “I cared for your sister. She was like a canary with a broken wing. I have never had any children of my own so love does not come easy for me. Moses has always been my protector, my closest confidant. I felt her emptiness immediately.”

  I sat back in my chair and studied Miss Ruth. Her emotion was forced, her eyes averted to the door, away from me. For the first time since our conversation began, I felt like she was not telling me everything, that she was hiding something. My gambler’s instinct warned me something was wrong—that it was time to stand up from the table before I lost everything I had.

  I was uncertain of my location, how far I had wandered before stumbling on Miss Ruth’s saloon. “How far is Silent Hill from here?” I asked, as I pushed my chair away to stand up.

  “A day’s ride, more or less, true north,” Miss Ruth said. “Why don’t you rest up for the night before leaving? There’s a bunk in the storeroom, and a good meal wouldn’t hurt you none.”

  The thought of climbing back in the saddle did not appeal to me, at least not physically. I wasn’t sure I had the strength to make the trip. But knowing Gillian was close, that I had caught a whiff of her trail, gladdened my heart, even if I had trepidation about Miss Ruth’s intentions.

  I relaxed back into the chair, wooed by the thought of food. “In the morning, then.”

  “Good,” Miss Ruth said. “But I have a favor to ask of you before you leave.”

  “A favor?” I was as far down on my luck as I could go, and I was short of favors—but Miss Ruth had given me something that I had longed for, a thin piece of hope that Gillian still walked this earth. Still, even with the gift, I was distrustful.

  The door of the saloon pushed open and a sudden burst of wind snaked around my ankles. A cold chill, that had no association with fever, ran up the back of my neck. I followed Miss Ruth’s gaze to the door.

  Upon seeing the fellow striding into the saloon, dressed impeccably, fresh pomade eliciting a confident shine that extended all of the way down to his highly polished boots, I knew the favor Miss Ruth asked of.

  She aimed to profit off my skills, just as she had Gillian’s. I knew the gentleman, and the gentleman knew me.

  Mysterious John Harvey and I had a long history.

  If my instinct was still intact, something told me there was far more at stake for me than a set of clean sheets and a piece of well-cooked meat.

  Rain had just stopped falling when the train came to its final stop.

  There were twelve of us boys and only one girl, Gillian, remaining on the train. The rest of our group of orphans from The Children’s Aid Society had already set upon their new lives at various stops across the state of Kansas. I could only hope that their journey, like ours, would lead to a happy end.

  A creaking sign, waving in the persistent, cold wind informed us that we had arrived in Silent Hill, Kansas.

  The placing agent led us single file down the main street of town.

  Silent Hill looked nothing like New York City or anything Gillian and I were accustomed to. Muddy streets. Single-level wood frame buildings that were sparse and weathered. The sky was larger than I could have ever imagined it truly was—gray and moody, full of rolling, bubbling rain clouds that seemed to go on forever.

  Even in the middle of the day, there was an eerie quiet, a lack of human activity in the town. The only consistent sound was the whine of the wind. It felt strong enough to topple us over, or go in one ear and all of the way out the other.

  “I don’t like this place,” Gillian said.

  I could hardly feel my fingers, she was squeezing my hand so hard.

  “It’s not so bad,” I lied.

  A crowd was hovering outside the opera house. They parted silently as we approached.

  As we passed, I searched the crowd, hoping to find a kind face, a nod, an acknowledgment, from someone that seemed recognizable. I realize now that I was looking for love, a hint of it anyway. Why would someone agree to adopt an unknown child from two thousand miles away if there was not love in their heart?

  I saw only fear and judgment in the eyes of those we passed. Love was a lost memory, never to be truly found again.

  I was to be a workhorse, a laborer, a body to tend to as if it were nothing more than an animal that could easily be put down and replaced.

  My boyish desire for comfort and understanding was dying as I made the walk up to the stage in that opera house—but I didn’t know it, couldn’t imagine it, then. I still believed in the goodness of people…and myself.

  We stood there like cattle, facing a crowd of strangers whose presence promised to change our lives forever.

  The placing agent, who looked even angrier and more exhausted than he did when we first left New York City, joined three men and one woman. They spoke in soft tones, and pointed to the crowd. The three men and woman were obviously members of the committee in Silent Hill that had lined up potential families to adopt those of us from hopeless circumstances.

  One of the men, dressed in black and no bigger around than a twig, announced that, “The children are now available for inspection.”

  The placing agent nodded in agreement.

  Slowly, the crowd broke apart, and people approached us curiously. Some checked our ears to see if they were clean. One man grabbed my arm and squeezed as hard as he could, trying to determine the size of my muscles.

  I jerked my arm away, and though I was tempted to spit at the man, I restrained the urge. I didn’t want to make a bad show of myself. I knew my manners, and I hoped my discomfort at being prodded and poked would not overcome them.

  The man eventually moved on, though he eyed me like he might have found what he was looking for.

  Gillian stood behind me, shivering.

  Fear has a metallic taste to it—and the air was filled with gunmetal, iron, and hidden tears. Each time someone touched me, I nearly let go of my bladder.

  A woman dressed in widow weeds stopped in front of me. The placing agent was two steps behind her.

  “Well,” the woman said. “Aren’t you a fine looking little fellow.”

  I could hardly believe my ears.

  The woman sounded just like my mother, her accent proper English. Not only did the woman look formal, fully in mourning, but there was a softness in her eyes that made my heart melt. I could almost taste a cucumber sandwich.

  Gillian peered out from behind me.

  “And you must be the girl I’ve heard so much of,” the woman said, a smile appearing on her face like a ray of sunshine peeking from behind a dark cloud. “I understand you play the piano beautifully. Is that true?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Gillian whispered.

  “Oh, that is lovely. Just lovely. I have a piano in my parlor. Would you like to come and see it?” The woman extended her hand, a gold band still on her finger.

  “Yes.” Gillian had not touched a piano since the night before our parents died. She took the widow’s hand and looked over her shoulder at me. “What about Edward?”

  It was then that I noticed the man who squeezed my arm, standing behind the placing agent. The taste of cucumber sandwiches washed out of my mouth, replaced by iron and gunmetal.

  “I’m sorry. I only have room for one.”

  Gillian’s screams sounded like the wind on the worst Kansas day. Her eyes were filled with terror and tears as she disappeared from my view for the last time, fighting to escape the widow’s grasp.

  The placing agent, and the man who would become my adopted father and tormenter, restrained me as I fought futilely to reach Gillian. It was the end of everything I knew—and the start of an even more miserable existence.

  “I’ll come for you, I promise!” I screamed after Gillian. “I’ll come for you.”

  But I couldn’t. I was a prisoner on a farm in Silent Hill, fed gruel and beat with a belt when I didn’t do what I s
upposed to do, or sassed back at Wilmer Beatty, the meanest man in the world. Even though I quit believing in God, I prayed every night that Gillian’s life was better than mine.

  I escaped when I was seventeen, and not being privileged to the location of the widow’s home, I’ve been searching for Gillian ever since.

  Mysterious John Harvey sat down at the table, opposite me. “I heard you were dead,” he said.

  “Funny. I heard the same thing about you.”

  Harvey motioned for Moses to come over to the table. Miss Ruth was now standing at the bar, watching us both with trepidation, the exact details of her favor interrupted by Mysterious John Harvey’s entrance.

  “A whiskey for me and my friend.”

  “I’ve had enough,” I said.

  “A game then? If I remember right, the last time we met you walked away from the table before I had the chance to empty your pockets.”

  “My pockets are empty now.” Our last meeting was a hundred miles ago, when Lady Luck and my body turned on me the final time, and I was too weak to keep count of the cards. I wandered for days, in and out of consciousness, in and out of towns, where I heard Mysterious John Harvey was shot, just outside of Dodge City when he was caught cheating, an ace up his sleeve.

  Moses set a whiskey in front of Harvey. “No,” he said to me, “they’re not. He’s playing for the house, Mr. Harvey.”

  A laugh escaped Mysterious John Harvey’s tight mouth. “You have very little left to lose, Ruth. I will own this place if Blackjack Eddie’s luck is as miserable as it looks. Are you sure you’re willing to risk everything on a stranger?”

  “He’s no stranger,” Miss Ruth said.

  “Very well. Eddie?”

  I stared at Harvey, knowing full well he would do anything to win. I had to wonder if I was up to the challenge, even if it was prideful. I turned my attention to Miss Ruth. “So if Mysterious John wins, your establishment is his? What is my prize?”