1st 5 Pages November Workshop- Weems

Name: Sue L. Weems
Genre: Middle grade: historical mystery
Title: Ghost Town Diaries: Stanton’s Shadow

Everybody in the Arizona territory except Rebekah “Reb” Harden wanted one thing in 1890: gold. Reb was after two things knowing neither was likely to pan out, even on her twelfth birthday. Her first wish was the same thing she’d prayed for day and night for over a year: her father’s return. Her second wish was more and less complicated: to eat alone where she didn’t have to hear and smell the miners eating breakfast in their large boardinghouse’s dining room. 

Her mother had laughed at the second wish as she plaited Reb’s hair for bed. “But if we don’t serve breakfast and lunch, how will I keep you in boots? I’m not taking in boarders,” she said.

“Except Corky.” Reb smiled thinking of the animated gray-haired, peg-legged man who lived downstairs and filled the lunch pails every day.

“Corky isn’t a boarder. He’s practically family.” Her mother finished off the braid with a torn piece of muslin.

“Nobody wants to smell the six day stink on a miner on their birthday or any other day,” Reb grumbled. She turned to face her momma. “Don’t you think we ought to try to head back to Kansas? What if Daddy’s…”

“Shhh.” Momma hushed her.

Reb was tired of being hushed and tired of running around serving miners meals and tired of waiting for her daddy to return from sorting out the property dispute. She was tired of everyone telling her what to do and how to do it. If it weren’t for Corky, her Momma might have already listened to reason and left Stanton and the mining town for good. If J.R. Martin Sr. hadn’t died and left her daddy the boardinghouse and property, he wouldn’t have left for Prescott and they might have been back in Kansas by now. 

“Night, lighting bug. Keep shining.” Her momma hugged her and pulled the thin sheet over her.

“Still no lighting bugs in the Arizona territory,” Reb said with a sigh. Her mother gave a tired smile, and Reb felt a pang of regret. Her momma’s life wasn’t easy either. “Night, Momma.”

The next morning, Reb rubbed her eyes in the dim room. Her foot hit a box at the edge of the bed and she sat up remembering her birthday. Light was just dawning over the edge of the canyon through her window and Reb snagged the box,  surprised to see a second one. She already knew the first box was boots— the one thing her momma splurged on each year, having them sent from back east. Reb opened the box and inhaled the new leather. Tucked down the side of the box though were two books. 

She gasped. The first book was Little Women, a book her mother had tried to order several times. The second was a book of blank pages. On the inside was an inscription:

“Things start to change at twelve, but I know you’re ready. Write down your days to share with Daddy when he returns. We love you so much. Keep shining, Momma and Daddy” 

In the bottom of the box was a quill pen and little glass bottle of ink. 

Looking around her sparse room, Reb imagined her room back in Leavenworth. It had a pretty little white desk where a book and pen like this would fit neatly. She frowned, wondering if after five years she would fit at the desk, even if they hadn’t sold it to head to the Arizona territory. Here, her room had a bed, two shabby yellow curtains, and a set of hooks to hang her clothes on. Reb put the books back in the box and replaced the lid, sliding it under the bed. 

She opened the second box and frowned, suddenly glad she wasn’t opening it in front of her mother. Clothes. Not just any clothes. Reb held up the cream colored shirt, a single simple ruffle along the button line. Underneath, there was a calico skirt and underthings. Reb scowled. She supposed this was her momma’s way of letting her know she was going to be a grown up soon, but Reb wasn’t trading in her pants. Not now and maybe not ever. 

She pulled on a her favorite trousers with a plaid short sleeve button down shirt, and she tugged on her new boots. 

In the stairwell, the gruff voices beneath her rumbled like harmless storm clouds. “But what’s she running’ around with an injun for, Corky? Ain’t right. Somebody’ll…”

Corky’s voice was crisp. “Shut it, Varner. Sammy’s momma might be Apache, but she’s been in Stanton since the day Lu opened that laundry. None of your business.”

Reb froze. It wasn’t the first time she’d overheard people talk about her best friend Sammy. Reb didn’t understand, except she thought maybe people were mad because Sammy said his daddy was Geronimo. No accounting for adults.

Reb tiptoed back up the stairs and made a point to stomp down loud enough to wake the dead. Corky shouted at the men.

“It’s Reb’s birthday, ya filthy animals. Try to be respectable for once!” 

Reb stifled a giggle and jumped down the last two steps, landing with a bang like she had each year they’d been in Arizona.

“Here she is!” Corky yelled. All six tables full of men hollered “happy birthday” along with a chorus of whistles and hoots. Reb grinned down to her boots. 

“Thanks, everyone,” Reb said. Corky whistled pointing to her boots, his dark gray hair unusually well combed this morning. Even his beard didn’t have any crumbs. 

“Morning, Corky.” She hugged him round the waist, noting that he must have bathed. 

He grinned. “Now listen here. I’ve got the breakfast shift. We set up a table for you out back. Sammy’s gonna come by in a bit so you can go quail hunting. How’s that sound for a birthday treat?”

“Corky!” her mother was smiling, but firm. “We said if she wanted to, remember?”

Corky’s eyes glimmered, and he stomped his peg leg and cane at once. “Kay Harden, nobody said she had to, nobody said it! Why’d she want to go outside when she could stay in here slopping around?”

Kay gave him a warning look and waved him back to work. She nodded her head to the back door, leading Reb outside. 

On the covered back porch, her momma had set up a milking stool with a handkerchief over it. On top, she had arranged some scrub daisies in a square. It reminded Reb of their placemats from Kansas. 

“Oh, Momma, thank you.” 

“You got your wish, Reb. Happy birthday.” Her mother hugged her tight. 

“One of ‘em.” Reb plopped down on the wood planks and dug into her breakfast, thankful for the breeze and the outside air, free of body odor.

The second benefit of eating out back was she could wolf down her cakes in any fashion she saw fit instead of listening to her mother’s instruction on propriety at the breakfast table. As if manners could fend off the frontier. Reb’s fingers were sticky with her third cake when Doc Robbins startled her.

“Well, how’s the birthday girl this morning?” He had a finger stuck in the pocket of his vest like he was about to fish out a coin that never materialized. 

“Fine.” She’d learned a long time ago that one word answers cut conversation short, something that came in handy in a mining town.