Ghosts in the Gulch: An Evergreen Cemetery Mystery (Evergreen Cemetery Mysteries Book 1)

by S. L. Hawke

“Did you tell anyone about me?” Emma demanded, pushing Uriah back with a finger, watching the powerful man simply sway but not fall over.

  Uriah smiled coldly. “No. I’m a man of my word. As long as my mother is alive, as long as you keep bringing her the laudanum, I won’t tell.”

  Emma ran away up the hill as fast, and as hard, as she could.

  The main estate gate rose up in front of her. Josiah, an old black man, once a slave, he claimed, but now a Valet in the House of the Duchess Leonovna, held up the lantern to the back gate. A tall Cossack named Konstantin was also there. Both recognized Emma at once and let her in.

  Uriah began yelling for Emma. He was not that far away. He threw himself at the gate, bumped into it and then stumbled around in a circle. The gate opened. Konstantin came out and stood between them. Emma watched from behind the stanchions, trying not to go back out and help him. Josiah put a large, arthritic-bound hand on her shoulder.

  “I’ll go, Your Highness. It would warm my heart to see Missus again, especially since she is so poorly. I’ll take him home.” Josiah came out with his lantern, wrinkled and bent like a weathered palm on the stormy side of an island.

  “Mr. Sloan, sir. You best be getting back to your mother.” Josiah took Uriah’s arm and began walking him back down the road to his farm. Uriah spat on the ground at Josiah, then vomited. Konstantin ordered a wagon trap to be brought out and Uriah, Josiah and Konstantin climbed aboard. Konstantin, looking oddly too big for the trap, set out back down the mountain side with a very sick Uriah Sloan.

  Emma trembled, saddened that someone had given Uriah liquor that he had never touched in his life. She was glad for once that Virofsky had defied her. She knew without a doubt that Uriah would speak, like now, if he were given liquor again. The problem was, how much did he tell, subtly, to McKenna? Did Towne know as well? Fear crept into Emma’s heart until Margaret’s box fell from her satchel.

  Emma waited at the gatehouse until Josiah returned with Konstantin.

  “Princess! You must never do this again without us!” Konstantin barked. He stood rigidly by the gate and Emma swore his grand whiskers were curling.

  “Miss Emma, this is no good. You know that now. One day they gonna find you out.” Josiah looked wearier than usual. Emma bowed to Konstantin who gestured for a hand pull cart to take Emma the rest of the way up to her estate. She placed her hands gently on the old black man’s shoulders.

  “Josiah, you should not be working so.” Emma saw that Josiah had once been a large, powerful man, but now the sickness and his old wounds made him frail. Still, he was the best horse caregiver they had.

  “Miss Emma, I be old, as they say. You and Her Grace have given me a chance at life I could have never gotten back in Ohio. For that I am grateful, but when my time comes, I will take it like a man. No dreaming medicine for me.”

  Emma took his thin arm in hers and together they rode the handcart up to the main house.

  “He has become a good man,” Josiah said quietly. “He was a boy, last I saw him.” Josiah folded the letters into a neat stack and returned them to the Japanese lacquer box of Margaret’s. Emma smiled, glad to have this wise man in her household. “He always did like to draw. Now I see that it has defined him.”

  “Indeed!” Aunt Vera agreed. “Now you must meet this Englishman Virofsky hired last week.” Aunt Vera lifted up her wineglass and took a petite sip. “I hear he is quite the ‘artiste’!”

  Emma loved artists. It was the one thing her inheritance could support that actually made a difference in this corrupt and violent community. Many of the other widows believed in temperance, but Emma knew better than to try and make a man do something. Rather, it was better to have more choices for men to make that created positive results and truly punish those who made poor ones.

  Aunt Vera rang a bell. A Japanese servant appeared, bowed, and waited for her to make a request. Tea was sent for.

  Last week after a stern lecture on Emma’s adventures, Virofsky had informed her that he had hired a new employee of her household. His name was Benedict Shaw-Jones. She then met him downtown, him pretending to be a visiting English Lord requiring her services as a driver. Sporting Virofsky’s pin on his jacket’s lapel, he then introduced himself by simply chronicling her adventures of the last day and explaining his new pipe system for water delivery at her estate. He called it “plumbing”.

  Emma then had her aunt’s new estate installed with an indoor bath that included a commode that ran water and unwanted waste down into a pipe. It was very much like the ranch that McKenna had burned to the ground. Only this one had one difference. Shaw-Jones had made sure the waste went into a “holding tank” where it decomposed without stench. The fumes were pumped into another metal container that fed the boiler flame. The water boiler was continually full of hot water, making bathing and washing of the estate’s laundry and table linens completely manageable.

  This wonderful solution to human waste disposal was despised in London as outlandish. If outlandish meant seeping and living in stench, then how foolish government could be. The decomposed night soil was then sent to her fields. The produce, farmed elegantly by a Japanese family indentured to her late mother, was sold at the local market at first, then only to two hotels in town: Sophia’s and another hotel out in Aptos. Yes, Emma thought, creative minds were the key to both economic growth and change.

  Tonight, the Knights had met. Somehow Emma had to get the news to Cynthia. However, she knew Cynthia was still at the Red Salon. The calendar was always the same: A meeting of the Knights, ending in some of them enjoying themselves at the Red Salon in particular, a house of ill repute that dealt exclusively with men with odd tendencies. Emma wondered if a new prostitute would lose her life.

  “What be you thinkin’, Princess?” Josiah’s voice intruded. He was making tea from a bag of herbs the Shaolin had given him. The Shaolin. He had departed for New Almaden, it was said, to find A.J. and make sure he returned safely to his sisters’ house.

  “I need to get a message to Mrs. Guild, Josiah.”

  “She be tending to the battered prostitutes tonight. I hear that Supervisor has been busy, since his wife’s with child.”

  Emma nodded. Cynthia was the bravest woman Emma had ever known. She listened to the prostitutes’ stories of certain powerful men with odd weaknesses, a dangerous game that Emma worried would get her killed. Emma wondered if Cynthia would be the next victim in the slayings of prostitutes over the last five years. She quickly disavowed that notion. Cynthia was too upstanding, too social. The killer moved in the darkness like a thief.

  Cynthia was the one who was able to get A.J. to return home. Would their homecoming after so many years be as dramatic as Sophia claimed it might be? A.J. was willing to sacrifice his own life for his principles. Cynthia, it seemed, was very much like A.J., tempered emotions with a fierce observation, if the letters were anything like the man.

  “Your Highness, I am prepared to demonstrate my new machine.” The deep voice, elegantly dressed in an English accent, entered the room like a spirit proclaiming the future. Emma stood, wearing her warmest riding outfit, and nodded to the tall man before her with widely spaced pale eyes. He met her eyes, unflinching, and had good manners, kissing her gloved hand, never her bare one. Tonight Shaw-Jones would demonstrate some of his skills. Emma would allow him to rebuild the workshop. They rode, with a guard of five, out to the old MacAree Ranch.

  “Lord Shaw-Jones, how are you at investigating murders?” Emma saw no reason to be subtle.

  “You are concerned about the prostitutes that have recently lost their lives?” Shaw-Jones brought his horse alongside Emma’s. The Guard positioned themselves around the two at a discreet distance. Emma liked this man’s quickness.

  “Yes. They are buried without investigation and without–” Emma found herself unable to speak about it without choking up.

  “If your Highness commands, I will try to find out more about such things when I am… unencumbered
… by other tasks.”

  “Do you know anything about forensic science?” Emma could smell the estate before she approached the ruin. Her body shook with memory.

  “Your Highness, I am quite fascinated by the subject and if Her Royal Highness commands, I shall find time to explore it.” Shaw-Jones’ voice became quite low.

  “Yes, I command it. But only when you are not in service as my…watcher.” Emma stopped her horse. The stench of fire was still here at the black ruins of the house. Shaw-Jones kicked his horse and galloped across the property towards the gulch where her servants awaited with a warming fire and small resting tent.

  When they dismounted, Shaw-Jones, incredibly tall, removed his top hat and bowed to Emma. “Your Highness, you have my word that I will do everything in my power to solve your mystery and to protect your honor until such a task is transferred to one more worthy than I. It has come to my attention, if I may be so bold, that someone of impeccable training and reputation is coming forth bearing the undercover shield of a United States Marshal.”

  “And you wish to have this person assist you? If Virofsky wishes it, I will agree to it.” Emma’s fondness for Shaw-Jones was increasing. “Welcome to our House, Lord Shaw-Jones.”

  “Ali’i Aimoku, he po hookahi a au ua pau.”

  Emma giggled at Shaw-Jones’s attempt at Hawaiian. She gestured for him to approach her as she sat down on her koa wood stool and touched his forehead with hers, taking a deep breath with her nostrils touching each side of his nose. He smelled of sandalwood soap and rose oil. Better yet, he was not offended by her touch, but trembled and blushed. He rose and quickly set about his demonstration.

  He unveiled a large black object that looked like a musical instrument. Emma touched it. She gasped.

  “Yes, it is fabric, but observe,” he said gently, without condescension. “Using magnets – magnets are blocks of iron metal that generate a field of attraction to other metals of iron nature.” Emma watched him carefully as he explained that using this device that he called a “speak-er”, he had discovered a means to record sounds on a wax tube.

  To demonstrate, he held up one wax tube and, placing a needle-like arm attached to another horn-like object, he turned a crank handle and lo and behold music came forth. Emma gasped. She gestured for him to continue.

  In the darkness of the ruins of her old back yard, Shaw-Jones had recorded strange sounds beyond the realm of the human ear off Rodríguez Gulch, sounds she had herself sometimes heard or seen late at night, often during a full moon.

  The sounds were far away horns, and people shouting. Emma swore she heard faint words, most particularly, “Andrew Jackson Sloan, are you here?” Benedict said that this was proof that we coexisted with other places, other realms, which were different in many ways from our own. And yet, why Andrew Jackson Sloan? Why not a stranger’s name? Why did this realm call for him? A.J.’s arrival on the ‘morrow made her cold. He has some future, some place in all of this. I must find out what it is…

  7

  Summit Ridge, Santa Cruz County

  Night was here. Andrew handed me the thick vellum of a letter, then quickly went off into the bushes to relieve himself. I saw to my mare first, giving her a nice brush and hanging the blankets on a rope to dry them. My saddle I propped up near a fragrant bay tree and then found a remnant of an old corral. Someone else had used this spot. Somehow that comforted me. The place was well cleared and there was no recent muck. I gathered a few dried cow patties, from what I could tell the corral was used for, and set about making a small fire. It blazed and made our campsite merry.

  “Well, aren’t you the wife?” Andrew came out from the trees buttoning his trousers. He smiled and took off his jacket. He then saw to his own horse while I stretched out on my backside and leaned against my saddle. I tore open the letter. By the light of the fire, I began to read its contents aloud.

  A.J., my dearest brother,

  I cannot wait for your return to us. Sophia is beside herself and has set about making pies and cakes until the kitchen can hold no more. As you know Elizabeth has married a man of means and power, a man named John Towne, who insists on sending little Frank away. Beth is undone and this seems to drive our brother-in-law beyond angry. It frightens me that she has wed a man who is so fierce and so dangerous.

  Your place here is needed more than ever. Jonathan and Henry do their best to keep us safe, and I do not worry for myself, as Elmer is friends to all. Our three, especially my most recent babe, are fat and healthy. A.J., please believe me when I say that someone very dear to my heart is in need of you and your presence and I hope when you come you will take it upon yourself to make her acquaintance.”

  “I wish I had sisters that could make a match for me,” Andrew interjected during my reading. “Is the woman wealthy, beautiful, old and in need of company?”

  I scowled my answer. “May I continue please?” Andrew gestured for me to finish.

  Cynthia is involved with her secrets and has taken a young girl of 14, a victim of terrible circumstances and the mother of an illegitimate child as a result, under her wing. But as God would have it, the child was taken with the croup and now rests in our cemetery. Her younger brother has taken up an apprenticeship with Jonathan. They seem to be a family despite Cynthia’s childless circumstances. As for me, I continue to assist in the running of the boarding house and to keep companionship with her royal dowager Czarina Vera Leonov and her grieving widowed niece Emma. It is Emma with whom you should make the acquaintance. She would make an excellent mother to Hiru, as she herself, now widowed, has also lost a son to measles.

  “What about Cynthia?” Andrew commanded.

  “I’m getting to that. I’m just reading what the letter says. Keep your shoes in front of the fire.”

  Cynthia begs you to come back to us. Union beliefs are as rare as snow here and all those of other cultures suffer as a result of it. Your Chinaman has arrived and made your room in Sophia’s hotel as pleasant as any home. We welcome him as all our helping hands and workers but he insists on eating alone. Inscrutable, others would call him. Filled with duty is what we see. You have inspired him, as you have always done, to be a good person. Cynthia is in great need to hear news of your visit up north and of the state in which her good friend Dorcas Sweeney is fairing with her new charge, your son Hiru, the young princeling from Asia. Though I gather her news is far more recent than yours as yesterday a package arrived on the steamer ship from San Francisco. A.J., my dearest brother, you can go to San Francisco and back in a day now, because the steamships have harbor here in Santa Cruz. I hope that you will feel Santa Cruz to be your home, and if not, you could visit us on the steamer from San Francisco, as Dorcas has said you may reside there should your fortunes turn back to the Sandwich Islands. But it is my hope, and my friend Emma’s (whose company needs your firm hand), that you will find much of the Sandwich Islands here. I cannot wait for your arrival and count the seven days on my fingers.

  Your beloved sister, Margaret, her husband Elmer, your two nieces and one nephew.

  Andrew was staring at me with a grin.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I tried to growl but a smile came out.

  “’A woman who needs your firm hand’. That is the most lascivious, improper and sexy talk I have ever heard from a sister.”

  My face was a bit red. Margaret always said her mind. She was a few years older than Andrew and happily married thanks to no one. Andrew tried his hand at cookery, making fried potatoes and ham turn to mush, but I was too hungry to care.

  “Keep those thoughts to yourself, Marshal” was all I could say. The moon had moved across the sky. We should have gone a few more miles before nightfall, but this spot was good enough. We proceeded to climb into our bedrolls.

  I looked up to the night sky and saw quite a few shooting stars streak across it. My sisters were not the uncertain, newly-married women I had left behind in my youth, but hardened, seasoned women with piercing and clear understan
ding of the perils that faced us with the war. Whatever awaited me would not be easy or pleasant. It would seem that Beth’s husband and his contacts might be at the heart of all this Confederate business, but then again, what was obvious rarely was true.

  Lorenzana’s last words came to me unbidden as I struggled to find comfort on the hard ground. My wounds ached as well. He was going to betray you…I stopped him…I can help you… Lorenzana would have been the man to lead us to Poole. Now we would have to find someone else. But one thing I did know was that the next time I saw either one of those men, I would make sure neither walked away from me alive. Someone had to answer for Fergus’ death. If Vasquez was not hanged for it, then I promised to Fergus as I looked up into the stars across the sky, Fergus, you can count on me to see this through. One or both of these men will pay.

  *******

  Harris House, Santa Cruz Township

  “You really think your brother is interested in taking on this battle? After all the war he has seen?”

  “I think our A.J. will do the right thing, even if it means sacrificing himself.” Margaret put her baby down in the nearby basinet. Cynthia sighed sharply.

  “Or Jack will run away again,” Cynthia mumbled. “Our brother-in-law is not a man that likes to be challenged.”

  “He didn’t run away.” Henry Harris brought in buckets of potatoes. He kissed his wife and then kissed the rest of his sisters-in-law. “Andrew just took a little longer to get back from his wars.” Henry had greying hair and equally dark eyes. He was compact and lithe where Sophie was large. Though he ate an average of three to four helpings at each meal, he never seemed to put on weight.

  “Seventeen years too long.” Cynthia crossed her arms again.

  “He was young, and wanted adventure. Believe me, I understand.” Henry looked around at all of them with a funny expression, reminding Cynthia of a horse.

  “Oh, you and your lodge boys. Yes, yes, we women drive you to hold secret meetings where you can smoke cigars, pass gas, and do all manner of unhealthy things without us hens, yes yes…” Sophia placed a pot on the stove. Margaret had started peeling the potatoes. Cynthia went to retrieve the peas that Emma had stopped shelling. Henry looked up to the ceiling as if appealing for divine help.