Ghost Town (3 page)

Lauren shot a quick glance at her mother. “Okay what?”

“Okay, I'll make an agreement with you. If you find me a ghost—a real one, not some make-believe thing—I'll agree to let you have your own computer.”

“Marj,” Mr. Raney began, but she held up a hand to stop him.

“Lately there have been a number of times when Lauren and I have needed to use the computer at the same time,” said Mrs. Raney. “Maybe Lauren
should
have a computer of her own. We'll give her offer a try.”

Lauren studied both her parents' faces, looking for a sign that they were taking this as a joke. “You think it's funny, don't you?” she asked.

“You asked for an agreement, and I gave you one,” her mother said. “Isn't that what you wanted?”

“I guess,” Lauren answered.

“Okay then. While we're here, see what you can scare up.” Mrs. Raney burst out laughing.

Mr. Raney wrapped an arm around Lauren's shoulder in a hug. His deep chuckles vibrated against her arm.

Lauren followed her parents into the visitors' center. If she did find a ghost, they'd be sorry. She'd collect the best computer on the market.

Mr. Raney paid the entrance fee and was given a map. “Our tour guide will join us in a few minutes,” he said. “I told her that while we're waiting I'd like to look around for possible shots.” He led the way toward a two-story building.

“Shakespeare's a weird name for a town in New Mexico,” Lauren said as she followed her parents. “What did Shakespeare ever have to do with a ghost town?”

“The town started out as a stagecoach station named
Mexican Springs,” Mrs. Raney answered. “As it grew into a town it kept changing names. Finally the last mine owner named the town after his favorite author.”

Mr. Raney opened the door of the adobe building, and the Raneys entered. Lauren found herself in a high-ceilinged room with plaster walls and a few pieces of rough-hewn furniture.

“This is, or was, the Stratford Hotel,” Mr. Raney said. He glanced again at his map. “Next door is the Grant House Saloon.”

“I've read about the Grant House,” Mrs. Raney said. “There weren't any trees around here that could be used as hanging trees, so the Grant House, which had high ceilings, was used to hang convicted crooks and horse thieves. They'd swing from the oak beams in the saloon. There are still a few ropes dangling from the rafters.”

Lauren gasped. “They hanged people right in the saloon? Where people came to drink?”

“To eat, too,” her mother said. “Can you imagine stopping in for a meal and finding a body still swinging?”

“That's awful!” Lauren said.

“Let's take a look at the Grant House,” Mr. Raney said, but Lauren shook her head.

“I'll stay here,” she said. “I don't care how wild the
Western mining towns were. I don't want to visit the place where people were hanged from the rafters.”

“But that might be the best place to find a ghost,” Mrs. Raney said, grinning at Lauren.

“I imagine there are plenty of ghosts haunting this town,” Mr. Raney said seriously. “You won't have to go looking for them, Lauren. They may even come looking for
you
.”

“I'd rather stay here,” Lauren insisted. Computer or not, she didn't want to face the ghost of some long-dead horse thief.

“Fine. Stay here if you want,” Mrs. Raney said. “We'll be back to get you in fifteen or twenty minutes.”

Lauren was glad to have her parents leave. For just an instant she wondered if there was any way she could create a fake ghost. Now that she was alone, she began to feel slightly uncomfortable. Maybe she should go outside. But the dry New Mexico heat was already increasing, and it was cool—even a little chilly—in the hotel, with its thick mud-plastered walls.

Lauren decided to forget a fake ghost. She couldn't jump out and shout “Boo!” to her parents. Instead, she wandered around to look into the other rooms of the Stratford Hotel. Stratford-upon-Avon
was the town where William Shakespeare had been born. The person who named this place back in the 1800s must have loved Shakespeare. Her English lit teacher would have adored him.

As she reached the foot of a wooden staircase, Lauren stopped short, startled. She stared intently at a little girl in a long nightgown perched midway up the steps. The child was young—about five or six years old—and she clutched a large, beautifully dressed doll, pressing its china face into her shoulder. Lauren quickly glanced to both sides. Was someone trying to play a joke?

On the way to Shakespeare, Mrs. Raney had explained that a few people continued to live in the town, but Lauren couldn't help wondering why anyone would want to live in this old hotel. Who would let a child wander around alone in her nightgown?

“Hi,” Lauren said.

The little girl leaned forward, staring at Lauren's face. “Emma?” she asked. “Are you Emma?”

“Where's your mother?” Lauren asked the child.

“Mother? No. I'm looking for Emma,” the little girl said.

Lauren decided that the girl must have wandered to the hotel from somewhere else. Lauren's parents would return within a few minutes. She'd keep the
little girl chatting until then so that they could help find her family.

“What's your name?” Lauren asked.

“Jane.” The answer was barely a whisper.

Trying to make conversation, Lauren took a few steps toward the staircase. “Jane, may I see your doll?”

Jane skittered up a few stairs, farther from Lauren, and pressed her doll more closely to her shoulder.

“I didn't mean to frighten you,” Lauren said. “Wait. I'm going to stay right here.” She slowly sat down near the bottom of the stairs. She didn't know why Jane was frightened, but she felt as if she couldn't leave without putting the little girl at ease. “Tell me about your doll,” she said.

Jane buried her head against the doll and hugged it in a strangling embrace. Again she spoke in a low whisper. “She's
my
doll! She's
mine
.”

“I'm not going to take your doll,” Lauren reassured her. “I just wanted to see her pretty face. I'm sure she's pretty, isn't she? My mother still has a china doll that long ago belonged to her grandmother. Maybe it looks something like yours.”

“It's
my
doll!” Jane clutched the doll even more tightly.

Lauren smiled. She could see the back of the doll
from where she sat. To her surprise, the doll's white, ruffled dress was soiled with what looked like mud stains, and some tiny dried twigs and broken leaves seemed to be caught in the lace trim.

“Jane, why don't you ask your mother to wash your doll's dress?” Lauren asked. She pulled a tissue out of the pocket of her shorts. “Or, if you like, I'll clean her face and hair and brush off her dress for you.”

Jane shook her head. She shifted, drawing her bare toes up under her nightgown. And, as she did, the doll half-turned slightly in her arms. Lauren caught a quick glimpse of an empty eye socket and a dark crack—or was it a streak of mud? For a valuable antique, the doll obviously wasn't cared for all that well.

She smiled at Jane and asked, “Was the doll a Christmas present?”

Jane shook her head. “It was Emma's doll.”

“Is Emma your age? Is she your friend?”

“No. Emma's a big girl. I think she's eight.”

“Did Emma give you the doll as a gift?”

“No. My sister Mary bought it from her with a five-dollar gold piece.”

“Wow! A five-dollar gold piece!” Lauren said. “They've been out of circulation a long time. Where did Mary find one of those?”

Jane seemed puzzled. She didn't answer.

Not sure whether she was talking to Jane or to herself, Lauren said, “I think a five-dollar gold piece would be a lot more valuable than a doll. Of course, your doll would be an antique.”

Jane's forehead wrinkled. Lauren realized that the child didn't know what she was talking about.

“I'm sorry,” Lauren said. “Mary was really a terrific big sister to buy you that doll. Why don't you tell me
why
she bought it for you? You can trust me. Was the doll for your birthday?”

“There was a party,” Jane answered in a tiny voice. “It was Emma's doll. She'd brought it with her from Virginia City. I liked the doll more than any doll I'd ever seen. I wanted it. Three days later I got sick, and in my sleep I kept dreaming about the doll and calling for it.”

She paused, and Lauren asked, “Is that when Mary bought the doll from Emma?”

“Yes,” Jane answered. “My mother put the doll in my arms, and I held it. It was mine, and I wouldn't let anyone else take it, or even touch it.”

Two tears rolled down Jane's face, and she raised one hand to brush them away. “They thought I was asleep, but I heard Mary tell Mama that Emma wept when her parents took the gold piece and told her to give Mary the doll.”

Jane began to cry in earnest, and the tears fell freely. “I wouldn't let go of my doll, even after I died,” she whispered. “When they put my body in the coffin, the doll was still in my arms.”

Suddenly Lauren felt colder than she'd ever felt in her life. Shivering, she backed up against the newel post, leaning against it for support. Her teeth began to chatter, but she did her best to speak calmly. “Jane, did you say you died?”

Jane nodded.

“Then why—how—are you here?”

Jane looked bewildered. “I have to find Emma,” she said.

Still numb with fear, Lauren quietly asked, “Why do you want to find Emma?”

Sniffling, Jane said, “She wept for her doll.”

“And you've been looking for Emma ever since … since you died…so that you could give back her doll. Is that right?”

“Yes!” Jane sobbed. She buried her face in the doll's stained dress. “Can you help me find Emma?”

“I'll try, and so will my mom. She'll be here soon, and—”

Lauren suddenly remembered the agreement about the computer. She
had
found a ghost. If she
could keep Jane talking until her mother saw her, the computer she wanted would be hers!

But that wouldn't help Jane. The little girl would probably be frightened by the adults and would leave. She'd continue to wander with a guilty heart, always searching for Emma.

Lauren could hear her parents' voices just outside the hotel. They'd return in a minute. She didn't have much time.

Lauren leaned forward, gazing into Jane's eyes. “You don't have to keep looking for Emma,” she said quickly. “Emma was crying because her parents kept the gold piece and didn't let her have it. You were very sick, and she was glad to give you the doll to help you feel better.”

Jane's eyes widened and her lips parted in surprise. “She wanted me to have the doll?” she asked.

“Yes,” Lauren said. “I'm sure of that. She cried only because she wanted the gold piece.”

“Lauren?” She heard her mother's voice at the doorway of the hotel.

“Are you sure?” asked Jane.

Lauren spoke quickly. Her mother would arrive in this room in less than a minute. “I know that Emma wants you and the doll to stop looking for her and to forever rest in peace,” she said.

Jane seemed to smile. “Rest,” she repeated. A little shiver trembled through her body. She hugged her doll tightly. Her shape began to flicker.

“Goodbye, Jane,” Lauren whispered.

Mrs. Raney walked briskly into the room and up to Lauren. “My goodness, it's cold in here,” she said. “It must be those thick adobe brick walls.”

Lauren got to her feet, brushing the dust from the seat of her shorts.

“What a wild town this must have been. Come see the bullet holes in the walls of the Grant House,” Mrs. Raney said. “Can you believe it? The men in the bar used to shoot at flies!”

“No … thanks,” Lauren said. “I don't want to see them.”

Mrs. Raney put an arm around Lauren's shoulders as they walked out of the hotel. “We didn't mean to hurt your feelings with our teasing about ghosts, honey,” she said. “The idea of your hunting for a ghost was just too funny to pass up. Are we friends again?”

“Sure, Mom, we're friends,” Lauren said. “But suppose I told you I
did
meet a ghost.”

Mrs. Raney chuckled. “No more teasing about ghosts, okay? Let's talk about that computer. I think we can call it an early birthday present. Would you like that?”

“I'd love it,” Lauren answered. She hugged her mother. “I need to do some research.”

“On what?” Mrs. Raney asked.

“On ghost towns,” Lauren said with a smile, “and on the ghosts who haunt them. What else?”

Chosen as a stagecoach stop on the route to California because of a nearby freshwater spring, the tiny town of Mexican Springs soon grew into a busy mining town when veins of silver were discovered. Renamed Grant after then-popular General Ulysses S. Grant, the mining town was next named Ralston, after a wealthy investor in the mining district. Finally in 1879, the mining claims, including the town, were purchased by a British mining engineer, William G. Boyle. He named both the mine and the town Shakespeare, after his favorite author.

For a while the town boomed. But the railroad came to nearby Lordsburg, and people left
Shakespeare to live closer to the supply trains. Also, the mine's silver deposits began to shrink. The depression of 1893 finally forced the mines to close.