Ophelia's War
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Charlie chimed in. “All right? She did more than all right! She’s got so much money she hasn’t even bothered to count it.” Charlie winked at me from across the fire.
I smiled. “You’re just a pair of boys walking around in men’s bodies. And I love you both.” I looked at Charlie and he looked at me. “But neither of you understand women.”
“No one does,” said Charlie. Zeke nodded in agreement.
“That’s right,” I agreed. “Not even me, and I am one.”
Charlie took a couple of tin coffee mugs from his saddlebag. He poured whiskey into them and handed one to Zeke and me. “We’ve all sinned. Let’s toast our sins and then put them behind us.” He held up the bottle.
We held up our mugs. “Is this how they repent in Texas?” Zeke asked.
“Hell, yes,” said Charlie.
“To our sins,” we said in unison.
“Now go and sin no more,” I quickly added before we drank.
THIRTY-FIVE
The Grafton graveyard had not changed much. The town looked like it had gone through a short period of growth and then decline. Several abandoned homesteads littered the hillsides. We didn’t see a soul as we rode past the meeting house. Although the flimsy white crosses over our parents’ graves were weather-beaten, they were still there, fluttering in the breeze.
Ezekiel shook his head. “We never did get a chance to make them a proper headstone.”
“No, we didn’t.” I answered. We stood with our heads bowed.
Charlie paced the cemetery and read all the headstones while chewing on his mustache. Graveyards made him anxious.
The dress of a bonnet-clad woman swung like a church bell as she ran from town toward the cemetery. Ezekiel turned from her approaching figure and walked to the farthest corner of the graveyard.
She opened the gate, closed it behind her, and rushed toward me. “Ophelia Oatman! I would recognize that hair anywhere. Why child, we figured you for dead!”
“Yes, well, hello, Mrs. Thompson, I’m grateful to be among the living.”
Mrs. Thompson looked around the graveyard nervously. “Well, you’re not, dear,” she said, gesturing to the graves. “Except of course for those two men, now tell me, who are they? Is one of them your husband? How on earth did you survive your kidnapping? I want to know everything? Does your uncle know you are alive?”
“My uncle?”
“Yes, your Uncle Luther, poor soul, shot in the arm, would have bled to death if widow May Belle Hopkins didn’t find him and nurse him back to life.” Mrs. Thompson smiled demurely. “You know all this, don’t you? Surely, you’ve been reunited with your Uncle Luther already. Why, he’s been scouring the territory for you.”
Charlie had overheard. He came over and listened with his arms crossed against his chest. I almost fainted, but Charlie put his arm around me just in time. I couldn’t speak.
“No, ma’am, this is the first my wife and I have heard of this. We thought all her relations were dead. Please, go on.”
“After the shooting, May Belle Hopkins nursed Luther back to health. They fell in love. Luther converted and they got married. Why, Ophelia, your Uncle Luther is a Saint now!” The thrill in her voice filled the desolate graveyard. She smiled a tight smile and looked at Charlie. Then she glanced over at Zeke, who stood at the edge of the graveyard with his back to us. She spoke in a low solemn tone. “Why, you are still a Saint, aren’t you?”
From the corner of the graveyard Ezekiel turned toward me. Our eyes met. He had heard. I looked from Zeke to Charlie.
We returned to Ogden. Ezekiel and Charlie didn’t have too much in common. They disagreed on many issues and argued about many things. Yet they both had restless spirits. And they agreed that Uncle Luther deserved to die. They argued over which one of them had the right to kill him. I don’t know why I spent so much of my time and energy trying to talk them out of killing a man who’d caused me so much suffering. I suppose, like my past, I just wanted to put him behind me.
Charlie started an autobiography about his life as a Texas cowboy and Pinkerton detective. I helped him with the writing and editing. I anonymously donated money to build Ogden’s first orphanage. In the early days of Ogden, before Belle London and Kate Flint, two infamous madams, Pearl Kelly and Miss Peach, ruled Fifth Street. I have kept my story secret until now.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alison L. McLennan was born and raised in Quincy, Massachusetts, until she moved to Utah in search of outdoor adventure. Her debut novel, Falling for Johnny, won an honorable mention in the 2012 Utah Original Writing Contest and the 2013 Inkubate Literary Blockbuster Challenge. Johnny was inspired by the infamous James “Whitey” Bulger. McLennan provided commentary on radio, TV, and print during Bulger’s trial. She earned a Bachelor of University Studies Degree in Expressive Therapy with a minor in creative writing from the University of Utah and an MFA from the Solstice program where she was awarded the Dennis Lehane Fellowship for Fiction. She was once stranded in the Yukon Territory with only one shoe. She currently lives in Ogden, Utah, and is working on a sequel to Ophelia’s War.