Search for the Shadowman (7 page)

“I think it’s safe enough to give her the fax number, but stick to ‘Hunter’ for now.” Mr. Thomas smiled. “Go ahead and answer her e-mail, before you squirm a hole right through the floor. I’ll wait to use the computer until after you’ve finished.”

His father had left MLB321’s e-mail letter on the screen, so Andy clicked on
reply
and wrote to thank MLB321 for the offer. He gave his dad’s fax number, then clicked on
send.
A picture of a mailbox popped up on the screen. The mailbox sprouted wings and seemed to fly off somewhere deep inside the computer.

Andy collapsed against the back of the chair he was sitting in, finally able to breathe normally.

Letters from Coley Joe! They were bound to tell him something or give a clue as to what had happened. How long would it take for copies of the letters to arrive by fax? Was MLB321 sitting at the computer now, waiting for his answer? Or was she the kind that booted up once a week in her spare time? “Come on, MLB321! Do something!” Andy mumbled.

The phone on the fax line rang. His father’s fax machine beeped and went into action. Andy jumped to his feet, ran to the fax, and removed the sheets of paper as they came up. There were three letters, each addressed to “My Dearest Felicity” in a swirly, scratchy kind of handwriting that Andy found hard to read.

Mr. Thomas came into the room. “Are the letters going to be of any help with your project?” he asked.

“Project?” As he stared at the handwriting of an ancestor whose whereabouts had become a mystery, Andy realized he had forgotten he was searching because of his history assignment.

“Look, Dad!” Andy said, and waved the sheets of paper toward his father. “Real letters, written by Coley Joe.”

“That’s good?” Mr. Thomas asked.

“It’s cool. Really cool. All I have to do is figure out the handwriting so I’ll know what he wrote.”

“Have you thanked MLB321?”

“Ooops. I’ll do that right now.”

Andy went back to MLB321’s e-mail letter, clicked on
reply
, and wrote: “Letters received. Thank you very much. Hunter.”

He sent the mail and turned the computer over to his father. It was a terrible temptation to go up to his room and pore over Coley Joe’s letters, but he had to keep his interview appointment with his grandparents. For safe-keeping, Andy tucked the letters on top of the poetry book inside the drawer of his nightstand. He took a quick call from J.J. and filled him in before he ran across the lawn to his grandparents’ house.

Grandma Dorothy ushered him into the den, where Grandpa Zeke, dressed in sweatpants and an old Dallas
Cowboys T-shirt, was stretched out in a recliner. Grandma Dorothy picked up the remote control and turned off the television set.

“Hey!” Grandpa Zeke exclaimed. “That blond girl from Idaho was just about to give the answer.”

“We promised Andy we’d tell him family stories,” Grandma Dorothy said. She sat in her armchair and smiled at Andy.

“Well, then, let’s get it over with,” Grandpa Zeke said. “That hospital soap opera’s coming on next, and I don’t want to miss it.”

Grandma Dorothy smiled at Andy. “Your grandpa’s just kidding,” she said. “Go ahead, Andy. Ask whatever you like.”

Andy gulped. “I forgot my notebook.”

“Looks like you forgot your pen, too,” Grandpa Zeke told him.

Andy looked at his empty hands, surprised. “I’m kind of excited,” he said. “I just got something special faxed to me.”

“A course on how to improve your memory?” Grandpa Zeke asked.

“Now, Zeke, don’t try to fluster the boy,” Grandma Dorothy said. She got up and fished through the top desk drawer until she found a notepad and pencil. “Here,” she said to Andy. “You can use these.”

“Thanks, Grandma,” Andy said. He looked toward
the screened porch and lowered his voice. “Is Miss Winnie back there?”

“Miss Winnie’s gone to bed,” Grandma Dorothy said. She settled back into her chair.

Andy leaned forward, lowering his voice. “I asked about Coley Joe Bonner on the Internet’s genealogy bulletin boards. I didn’t use Dad’s name. I used the name Hunter. A little while ago I got copies of three letters. They were written by Coley Joe Bonner to his girlfriend, back in Corpus Christi.”

Grandma Dorothy blinked, then frowned. “I heard Miss Winnie tell you not to question her about Coley Joe Bonner.”

“I’m not questioning her, Grandma. I’m trying to clear Coley Joe’s name. Do you know about Coley Joe and that his family thought he stole their money?”

“Yes, I know the family story. But the Bonners didn’t
just think
Coley Joe stole their money. They had some kind of proof.”

“Proof? What kind of proof?”

“I have no idea. I doubt if Miss Winnie even knows. If she does, she’s never mentioned it to me.”

Grandma glanced toward the hallway that led to Miss Winnie’s bedroom. “I really wish you’d forget about Coley Joe,” she said. “Every time you’ve mentioned him, it’s upset Miss Winnie. She doesn’t want anyone to know about him.”

“Miz Minna knows. She said something about a
skeleton in the Bonners’ closet. She said something about
proof
, too.”

Grandma Dorothy sighed. “Over the years Miz Minna has held the story of the theft over Miss Winnie’s head.”

“Why?” Andy asked.

Grandpa Zeke broke in. “Why? Because Miz Minna’s family from way back has been livin’ in high cotton. The Bonners, on the other hand, came to Hermosa poor and hungry, then made something of themselves. Miz Minna considers the Bonners upstarts. I guess she wants to keep Miss Winnie in her place and—”

“No more about Coley Joe,” Grandma Dorothy declared. “Ask the questions you need for your report, Andy. We’re ready to answer them. Did I ever tell you that when I was a little girl we didn’t throw away socks that had holes in them? We learned to darn the holes with tiny, woven stitches.”

Andy heard about outhouses and when electricity first came to rural West Texas and having to memorize the multiplication tables through twelve. Grandpa Zeke’s story about the first time he milked a cow and got his milking stool kicked over made Andy laugh. And his mouth watered as Grandma Dorothy described kneading and slicing homemade fudge, which her parents gave to all the near neighbors and friends at Christmas.

“Got enough information, Hunter?” Grandpa Zeke asked. He winked as he used the remote control to turn on the television set. “It’s nine o’clock, and my program’s on now.”

Andy smiled as he got to his feet. “You gave me a lot of good background,” he said. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Grandma Dorothy said as she escorted Andy to the front door. “If you come up with any more questions, we’ll be glad to answer them.”

She placed a hand on Andy’s shoulder and paused, glancing with a worried frown toward Miss Winnie’s bedroom. “But please, Andy. Do me a big favor. Please forget all about Coley Joe.”

Andy smushed and crackled his way across the leaf-strewn lawn, remembering too late his intention of raking the leaves for Grandpa Zeke.
Saturday
, he told himself.
Saturday would be a good day.

Once up in his bedroom, Andy yanked the copies of Coley Joe’s letters from the drawer and spread them on his desk. He pulled the magnifying glass out of a “young detective” kit his grandfather had given him on his eighth birthday. So far, all he’d done with the kit was use the glass, along with the sun, to set dried leaves on fire.

“Hey!” Andy laughed. “I’m being a detective right now!” He bent to scan the words through the glass. He
could make out the narrowest, threadlike sweeps, and he saw where tiny ink blots widened some of the letters. Before long, as if he were learning a foreign language, Andy began to feel at home with the spidery writing and understand it.

The letters were dated the first, eighth, and fourteenth of December 1877.

The first letter began:

Andy grimaced. He wished Coley Joe had written straight, plain letters, without turning so mushy over some girl.

Coley Joe went on to describe the rigors of his trip to the noisy, dusty town of El Paso across the miles of scrub-covered prairie.

In his second letter, along with the yucky love stuff, he wrote of widespread gambling in El Paso and numerous saloons—“too many to count.”

His third letter told of making a friend, “a learned gentleman,” who worked as chief clerk for a district judge. Coley Joe wrote:

My friend has offered his help and promises to ride with me to San Elizario, near El Paso, to meet with a gentleman
who wishes to sell a herd of Longhorn cattle. A chief clerk’s job is highly respectable but, alas, pays only a small salary, so he is hoping to collect a commission.

Coley Joe went on into a boring comparison of the hardiness and disease resistance of the Longhorn, versus the more flavorful and tender meat of the Angus.

The third letter ended:

Andy put down the letters and thought hard about what he’d read. He dismissed all the details and focused on the fact that Coley Joe had arrived safely in El Paso and had fully intended to purchase livestock for his family’s future ranch in Hermosa.

He wasn’t running away with the money
, Andy told himself.
He’d promised Felicity Strickland he’d come back to marry her.
Probably a bad move, but Coley Joe had seemed set on it. Andy was sure that Coley Joe wasn’t the kind to make promises, then break them.

Andy gathered up the pages to return them to the drawer in his nightstand. He had his hand on the drawer pull when he froze, gasping at the sight of the faded blue poetry book. It lay not inside the drawer where he was positive he had left it but on the nightstand next to his pillow.

Exasperated because he couldn’t remember handling
the book, Andy stuffed it inside the drawer, laid the copies of Coley Joe’s letters on top of it, and shut the drawer tightly. He had to think about what he’d just found out. And he had to sleep. There was no room in his life for more bad dreams!

“S
o how are y’all coming with your family reports?” Mr. Hammergren asked the next morning in history class.

“Are we supposed to start them already?” Harvey asked.

“When did you say they’re due? I forget,” Nelson asked.

Tiffany Lamb waved a hand. “I’m making a family tree to go with my report. I’ve gone back four generations.”

Harvey groaned. “Is that something we gotta do?”

“No, it’s not something you have to do,” Mr. Hammergren said, “but Tiffany’s idea is a good one. If you’re collecting stories about a lot of grandparents and
great-grandparents, it’s a way of keeping their names straight.”

“Does a family tree actually look like a tree? What does it look like?” Lee Ann asked.

“Tiffany? Why don’t you show us?” Mr. Hammergren asked.

Tiffany hurried to the board and wrote her name on the left side in the middle of the board. Then she drew lines leading to her parents’ names, and lines from them to her grandparents’ names and their parents’. There were extra lines leading to names she identified as uncles and aunts. “And these are the names of who they married and their children, and then their husbands and wives and their children.” Pretty soon her handwriting covered the board.

“It doesn’t look like a tree. It looks like a spaceship,” Luke said.

Andy took notes. Maybe if he went all the way back to Malcolm John and Grace Elizabeth and wrote down all the begats—as Miss Winnie called them—there’d be a pattern that might fit together. It was worth a try.

“Anyone else want to share what they’re doing?” Mr. Hammergren asked. “I’d like to hear what directions you’re taking.”

“I sent out a query over the Internet,” Andy said, “and got an answer. A woman faxed me three letters one of my ancestors wrote to his girlfriend.” He
grinned. “Dad had told me not to use my real name, so I used the name Hunter.”

Luke and Harvey hooted, but Mr. Hammergren said, “That was a neat idea, Andy. Are the letters going to help you with your project?”

“I think so,” Andy said. “At least I know this guy made it to El Paso.”

When the bell rang, Mr. Hammergren asked Andy to wait a few minutes.

“Why don’t you stick around with me, J.J.?” Andy asked.

“We’re going to be late for lunch,” J.J. complained.

“Hey, what are friends for?”

“Friends don’t make friends miss lunch,” J.J. said as his stomach growled, but he walked with Andy to Mr. Hammergren’s desk.

“Are these letters from the guy who disappeared?” Mr. Hammergren asked Andy.

“Yeah. Coley Joe.”

“So you did trace him to El Paso. Good for you.”

“Thanks,” Andy said. His stomach growled, and he turned toward the door.

“One second,” Mr. Hammergren said. “How far are you going with this search for Coley Joe?”

“As far as I can,” Andy said. “I hope I can find out how and why he disappeared.”

“You’ve already found out he got to this part of Texas,” J.J. said. “Isn’t that enough?”

Andy stared at J.J. “You want me to give up?”

J.J. shrugged. “You know what happened next. Nothing is going to change the facts.”

“Unless I find other facts that prove the first facts are wrong.”

Mr. Hammergren broke in. “Let’s see how your search progresses. If you can bring it to a conclusion, then I’m going to suggest you write an essay about it. There’s a statewide history essay contest I’d like you to enter. First prize is a nice-sized college scholarship.”

“A scholarship?” J.J. repeated.

Andy was puzzled as a strange expression came into J.J.’s eyes. He looked as if he were sorting out every thought that strayed into his head.

Finally, J.J. said, “And an automatic A on our history project?”

Mr. Hammergren chuckled. “You sound like Andy’s agent.”

“I have to be. We’re best friends.”

“Okay. An A on the project.”