Journey to Yesterday (3 page)

The next stop was the McDonald house. The guidebook said
that McDonald had been injured when two tons of dynamite, still a recent
invention in 1879, blew up the old Standard works. The house was later owned by
the Burkham family. S.B. Burkham operated a store on Main Street in the 1880s
and 1890s. His son, Cecil, ran the first automobile stage out of Bodie in 1912.

She really should write a book, Shaye thought. The town and
its former inhabitants were fascinating.

Shaye continued on down Green Street. She paused in front of
each building, waiting to see if she would feel anything, sense anything out of
the ordinary. Maybe what had happened at the jail yesterday had just been her
imagination, after all. And maybe Clark McDonald was just some guy who was a
little wacko from spending so much time in a ghost town.

She stopped in front of the Cain House, located on the
corner of Green and Park Streets. It was her favorite, with its large square
glass window. There was a photograph of James Cain and his wife, Martha, on
page five of the guidebook. It was a wedding picture. The caption stated they
had been married in Carson City on September 17, 1879. The groom was sitting
down, looking stern. Martha stood beside him, her forearm resting on his
shoulder, her long white veil trailing down her back. They made a handsome
couple. She wondered if they had been happy in Bodie. According to the
guidebook, Cain became the town’s principal property owner.

She passed the sawmill, the Seiler House, the Cameron House,
the Lester Bell house, the Mendocini House, the house of Pat Reddy, a one-armed
attorney who was well-known through the west for his ability to defend
criminals, union members, and the underdog in general. It was with a sense of
trepidation that she approached the jail. Today, there was no one else nearby,
no other tourists in sight.

She approached the barred window slowly, took a deep breath,
and looked inside.

Nothing met her gaze but an empty room. She felt a deep
sense of relief, and a vague sense of disappointment. “You really do need a
vacation,” she muttered.

And then she felt it again, a sudden whisper of cold air
that raised goose bumps along her arms and sent a chill down her spine. She
grasped the iron bars in her hands. They were firm. Cold. Tangible.

She clung to them as the air inside the cell began to
shimmer and then she saw him, standing against the far wall, his hands shoved
in the pockets of his trousers. He looked solid and real, not ghostlike at all.
As if sensing her there, he looked up, his gaze catching hers. Something
intangible flowed between them. She felt his anger at being imprisoned, his
bitterness. His despair.

This can’t be happening
. Yet even as the thought
crossed her mind, she knew it was real…maybe the most real, or unreal, moment
of her whole life.

And then, as quickly as the image had appeared, it was gone.
She stood there for several minutes, trying to convince herself she hadn’t seen
what she had seen. Her hands were trembling when she let go of the bars. Her
legs were too weak to support her and she sat down, her back against the jail’s
rough-hewn wooden exterior. Closing her eyes, she took several deep breaths.
She couldn’t deny what she had seen this time. It hadn’t been her imagination. She
had seen him. Alejandro Valverde. But why? What did it mean?

The thought plagued her the rest of the day. Feeling
suddenly restless, she stood up and began walking up and down the streets,
streets Alejandro Valverde had walked on over a hundred years ago. Had he
shopped at the Boone Store? Played cards at the Sawdust Corner Saloon? Wandered
the streets of Chinatown?

Later, she sat on the hillside, watching the other tourists,
contemplating the changing shadows of daylight as the sun moved across the sky.
The setting sun cast shimmering orange highlights on the buildings, making them
look as though they were on fire.

Finally, it was six forty-five. Rising, she dusted off her
shorts and started walking down the hill to meet Clark McDonald.

Shaye was back at the museum a few minutes before seven.
Clark McDonald was waiting for her out on the boardwalk.

“You’re early,” he remarked.

“So are you.”

“Well, there’s a good reason for that,” he said, revealing a
dimple in his left cheek. “After all, it’s not every day that I get to have
dinner with a pretty tourist.”

Shaye laughed self-consciously. She had never thought of
herself as pretty. She wasn’t ugly by any means, but she wasn’t sure she
qualified as pretty. Her shoulder-length hair was an unremarkable shade of
brown. Her eyes were green. Her figure was okay, perhaps a little on the skinny
side. She had nice legs though. Long, slender, and tan. They were, she thought,
her only vanity.

“It must have been quite a long day for you,” Clark remarked
as they walked through the now deserted ghost town. “Once you’ve toured the
town, there’s not much else to do.”

She hesitated before replying. “It was an interesting day.”

He looked at her askance a moment, but she wasn’t ready yet
to discuss what she had seen, or thought she had seen, at the jail.

“I noticed one of the houses is called the McDonald house,”
Shaye remarked. “Any relation?”

“No, ‘fraid not.”

They walked down Green Street, past Main, and made a right
turn on Wood Street. They passed several houses until they came to one with a
wooden sign on the side that said
Employee Residence
. Like all the other
houses in Bodie, it was made of time-weathered wood. The picket fence sagged,
the gate hung from one hinge, the stairs were crooked.

“Is this where you live?” Shaye asked dubiously.

Clark chuckled. “I admit, it doesn’t look like much on the
outside, but I assure you the inside is a lot more modern.”

She followed him through the rickety gate, climbed the three
stairs to the porch, stood to one side while he unlocked the door, then held it
open for her. “Come on in.”

Shaye crossed the threshold, and found herself in an
average-sized living room, furnished with a green and tan plain sofa, a dark
green easy chair, and a couple of mahogany end tables. The walls were painted
off-white, there were a couple of colorful throw rugs on the floor, an
old-fashioned looking clock hung on the wall over the brick fireplace.

McDonald closed the door behind her. “Would you like to take
a look around?”

“Sure.”

“Here, let me take that.” Clark took her backpack and set it
on a ladder-back chair beside the front door.

“Well, this is the living room,” Clark said, and went on to
explain that the shell of the house was original, but the inside had been
modernized to accommodate the employees who lived there. It was a large house:
living room, kitchen, bathroom, and two fair-sized bedrooms.

“Do the park rangers live here year round?” Shaye asked.

“Only a couple of us stay all year. I’m one of them. The
winters can be rough, and we don’t get many tourists. Do you want to keep me
company while I fix dinner?”

“I’m not much of a cook, but I’ll be glad to help, if you
like.”

“Sure.”

She followed him into the kitchen. “What do you want me to
do?”

“I’ve got some steaks in the fridge. Think you could fix us
a salad while I put the steaks on the grill?”

“That I can do.”

* * * * *

Clark McDonald proved to be an amiable dinner companion. He
told her he had been employed at the park for the last four years. The summers
were hot, he said, the winters downright frosty, with temperatures as low as
thirty and forty degrees below zero, and the wind blowing at up to a hundred
miles an hour, but there was something about the place that kept him there year
after year. Talk of the present day inevitably led to talk of the past. Clark
had done a great deal of research on the town and its people.

He smiled at her. “Helps to pass the time when the snow’s
fifteen or twenty feet deep and the wind’s howling. Sometimes I think I missed
my calling. I think I should have been a history teacher. The past really
intrigues me, though I’m not sure why.”

“I never cared much for history in school,” Shaye remarked,
“but ghost towns have always fascinated me. Durango, Silverton, Jerome. Oh! And
Virginia City in Montana. There’s a candy store there that has the best salt
water taffy I’ve ever tasted.” She grinned at him. “I guess I know what you
mean about the past, though. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s
something about walking down the streets of one of those old towns. I don’t
know what it is…”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. Gives me the feeling of, shoot,
I don’t know…”

“Of connecting to the past?”

Clark nodded. “I guess that’s it. I’m pretty rootless, at
the moment, and being here, I guess it gives me a sense of…” He shrugged. “A
sense of where I came from. Hell, I can’t explain it.”

“You don’t have to. I know what you mean. I did a little
reading about the town last night. It must have been pretty wild in its day.”

“Oh, it was that, all right. Gold was discovered here in
1859, but it was another twenty years before the boom began. In June of 1878
there was a big strike up at the Bodie Mine. Ore was assayed at a thousand
dollars a ton. In six weeks, the Bodie Mine shipped a million dollars worth of
gold bullion and the rush was on.”

“That’s amazing,” Shaye exclaimed. “All that wealth buried
under those barren brown hills.”

Clark nodded. “By the end of the year, there were more than
six hundred buildings. The winter of ’78 was reported to be one of the worst.
There were thousands of people living here then. Housing was poor. Food was
scarce. Nothing much to do except hang out at the saloons and get drunk. Men
gambled and fought. Hundreds of them died from exposure and disease.

“In the spring of ’79, gold-hungry men and women were
pouring into town as fast as they could get here. Buildings were going up
everywhere. Nearly everybody had a claim or stock in one of the mines. The men
had money, and they were anxious to spend it.”

Shaye nodded. It was easy to imagine how it must have been
back then. Even now, Bodie was in a remote area. In the 1800’s, the area had
been sparsely settled. There had been no government and practically no law,
making the town a haven for con men and prostitutes. There had been no modern
conveniences. Housing was poor, the climate harsh summer and winter. Only the
saloons and gambling dens, the dance halls and cribs, provided warmth and
entertainment.

Once again, she was glad she had not lived back then, when
the only lights were coal-oil lamps and candles. How had people managed with no
running water, no gas, no electricity, no hospitals, no theaters, no
entertainment of any kind suitable for a decent woman except picnics and an
occasional dance? They hadn’t even had a church until the late 1800’s. Of
course, women had very little spare time in those days, when practically
everything had to be done by hand and made from scratch. She would have made a
lousy pioneer. She couldn’t sew, hated to cook, couldn’t imagine scrubbing
laundry in a tub, or hanging clothes on a line to dry.

“Well,” Clark said, “I guess I’ve bored you long enough.
I’ll get that book.”

Shaye smiled. Rising, she started to clear the table.

“Leave it,” Clark said.

“I don’t mind. Really.”

“I’ll do them later.” He smiled at her. “You’re a guest,
after all.”

With a shrug, Shaye followed him into the living room. Clark
went to a bookcase and took a small, leather-bound book from the second shelf.
Opening the book, he pulled out a square white envelope and offered it to her.

Shaye took a deep breath, knowing, in that moment, that her
life was about to change forever, change in ways she could not fathom.

With a hand that trembled, she opened the envelope and
withdrew a small picture. She turned it over, and found herself looking at the
face of the man she had seen in the jail, the man she had been searching for in
her dream. Alejandro Valverde. It was him. There was no doubt in her mind. None
at all.

“Miss Montgomery?”

She looked up, her gaze meeting his.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” Clark asked. “The man you saw in the
jail.”

“Oh, yes.” She sat down on a chair near the bookcase. “It’s
him.” It was a face she would never forget. She looked at the photograph again.
“When was this taken?”

“I’m not sure.”

“But it’s here, in Bodie?”

“Yes. I think maybe it was taken in front of one of the
saloons. See here,” he pointed at the top right corner of the photo. “This
looks like the edge of a sign. And this,” his finger moved down a little,
“looks like it might be and I and an E. I think he’s standing in front of the
Queen of Bodie saloon, maybe the day it opened.”

Shaye took a deep breath. “I saw him again today.”

“You did?”

She nodded.

Clark sat down on the sofa. “Where did you see him this
time?”

“In the jail again. It only lasted a few moments, but it was
so real.”

“What happened?” He leaned forward, his elbows resting on
his knees, his gaze intent upon her face. “Did he see you? Did he say
anything?”

“It happened so fast. I looked in the window, and suddenly
he was there. He didn’t say anything, but he looked at me…” She glanced down at
the photograph in her hand, remembering the impact of his gaze meeting hers. “I
felt what he was feeling.”

Clark shook his head. “Amazing,” he murmured. “Simply
amazing.” He studied her a moment. “But why you?”

“I don’t know.”

“I tried to contact him again after I saw him that first
time, but I never could. I even got a medium out here one night,” he admitted,
looking somewhat sheepish. “Nothing.”

She didn’t know what to say, so she gestured at the book in
his hand. “Did he write that?”

“What? Oh, no. It’s a diary, written by the woman he was
supposed to have killed.”

“May I see it?”

“Of course.”

Shaye placed the photograph on the end table, face up, as
Clark offered her the book.

“I could use a cup of coffee,” he said. “How about you?”

“Yes, please.”

The cover of the diary was brown leather, the pages inside
were old and brittle, yellow around the edges. She opened the book carefully,
her gaze skimming the first page.
Diary of Daisy Joanna Sullivan, commenced
this 1
st
day of January in the year of our Lord, 1879.

Shaye thumbed through the book, skimming over the entries,
until she came to a page dated April 2nd.

I started work at the Velvet Rose today. It is a much Nicer
place than my old crib on Maiden Lane. The girls are friendly and my room is
nice, although there is dust everywhere. I can’t believe I’ve been in Bodie
almost a Year. I’ve never worked a mining town before. The traffick in the
streets is never-ending. Huge wagons arrive carrying freight from the railroad.
They are pulled by teams of twenty horses, sometimes more. Ore wagons come down
from the mines, and there are wood carts and hay wagons and lumber wagons.
Stagecoaches, too. One of the coaches was robbed today.

April 3rd. I had eight customers today. I love this town.
All the men are rich. And generous. And Madame Louisa lets me keep half of what
I make. If this Keeps up, I’ll be able to save enough money to go back home.

April 4th. This town never closes. There isn’t much Law
here. The sheriff lives in the County Seat, which is twelve Miles away.
Killings are frequent, especially in Chinatown. I guess that is to be expected,
since all the men carry guns.

April 5th. One of the girls who worked at one of the other
saloons killed herself last night. Her body was found in a ditch two miles
south of town.

April 6th. I met someone tonight. His name is Alejandro
Valverde. He is a gambler, and a good One, too. I took him a drink, and he
asked me to stay. I sat beside him for an hour, and he won over a thousand
dollars. When he was ready to leave, he gave me a hundred dollars! He said it
was because I’d brought him luck.

April 7th. He came into the Rose again tonight and asked me
to sit beside him. For luck, he said. He is a most Handsome man. And Kind. He
treats me like I was a lady of quality. He won again tonight, and gave me
another hundred dollars.

“Coffee?”

Shaye looked up, startled. “Yes, thank you.”

Clark handed her a mug, then sat down on the sofa. “Lose
yourself in the Old West, did you?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. How was Daisy killed?”

“She was shot in the head. They found her body in the
bedroom of her house.”

Shaye took a sip of coffee, her gaze falling on the photo on
the table. It was a strong handsome face, but it was his eyes that held her
attention. They were vibrant and alive, even in a photograph that had been
taken over a hundred years ago. Alejandro Valverde. “You said he swore he was
innocent. Weren’t there any other suspects?”

“Dade McCrory was questioned.”

“McCrory?”

“He was Daisy’s partner in a saloon. In her diary, she
mentioned that she thought McCrory was stealing from the till. Apparently, they
had several fights about it.”

Shaye nodded. “Go on.”

“Like I said, McCrory was questioned, but according to an
old newspaper article, he had an alibi.” Clark grunted. “Claimed he spent the
night with one of the girls at the Rose. And the girl backed him up, swore he
was there the whole night.”

“Why did they think Valverde did it?”

Clark blew out a deep breath. “He used to carry a hide-out
gun. They found it beside her body.”

“What about fingerprints…oh, I guess they didn’t do that
back then, did they?”

“No. Too bad.”

“Do you really think he was innocent?”

“I think he was capable of violence, but not murder.”

Shaye glanced at her watch. As much as she wanted to stay
and hear more, as anxious as she was to read the rest of the diary, it was
after nine, and she had a long drive ahead of her. “I’d best be going. Thank
you so much for dinner, and everything.”