The Legend of Annie Murphy Read online

  The judge rose to his feet and gazed out the window, his jaw dropping open.

  The kids could see it plainly and knew the judge could see it too: a carving of Sheriff Dustin Potter looking right back through the window, sighting down the barrel of a revolver—a .40 caliber revolver just like the one Deputy Hatch had found.

  “Right after Mrs. Crackerby saw Annie’s ghost in this room,” Hatch explained, “I came up here to have a look, took the trouble to look out the window, and there it was. Needless to say, it got me thinking. I figured there had to be more carvings like this one, and I was right.”

  “Your hunch was correct,” said Mac, his voice hushed with awe. “Annie carved Cyrus from the killer’s point of view.”

  “And the killer from Cyrus’s point of view.”

  POW! A gunshot rang out. There was a loud PING! as a bullet hit the steel railing. They instinctively dropped to the platform.

  POW–ZINNNNNG! Another shot ricocheted off the corner of the steel platform.

  “The sheriff,” Mac concluded.

  “He’s onto us,” said Cooper.

  Deputy Hatch looked once again toward the carving beyond the mercantile. “So I’d say all the pieces are coming together against you, Judge, and some of the testimony is even carved in stone. You—”

  POW! A flash of fire exploded from a gun in the judge’s hand. Deputy Hatch hit the wall from the impact of the bullet.

  The judge was obviously proud of himself. “Never turn your back on your adversary, Deputy!”

  The kids stood by the window. The judge stood between them and the door.

  They chose the window, tumbling out onto a small roof. From there it would be a big drop to the ground.

  “You won’t get away from me!” the judge was hollering, his voice rising in pitch.

  The roof felt strangely soft under their feet. The soles of their shoes were sinking through the shingles. They swung over the edge of the roof and dangled from the gutter. Their hands slipped through the fading wood and their bodies dropped slowly—too slowly—to the ground. They landed softly in a flower bed and leaped out onto the lawn, trying to run. The ground felt like water under their feet. They were moving in slow motion, pulling desperately for every stride.

  ZINNNNNG! A bullet whistled by their heads.

  BOOOOOOOM! The slow sound of a gunshot rumbled behind them. They could see the judge bursting from his front door, yelling, aiming the gun.

  “Where’d he get the gun?” Mac wondered.

  “Must have been hiding another one,” Dr. Cooper remarked.

  PANG! Another shot hit the bottom of the platform, and a small dent poked upward.

  The lift was swaying crazily now as gravity lurched and heaved at them from several directions.

  Dr. Cooper estimated the angle of the shots.

  “He’s to the left, perhaps twenty feet from the base.”

  “Are we that high right now?”

  Dr. Cooper liked Mac’s suggestion. “High enough.”

  They grabbed the siderails and began to throw their weight back and forth, making the lift sway even more.

  Dr. Cooper caught a quick glimpse over the side.

  “I’ve got him, right below us!”

  They could feel the next gravitational wave coming and timed their rocking accordingly. They pulled, shifted their weight this way then that way, back and forth.

  The wave hit. They rolled their bodies to one side, pulling on the rails.

  The lift tilted, teetered for a moment on two wheels, and then began to topple like a big tower. The sheriff quit shooting and ran to get clear. The ground was coming up fast.

  “Oohhhh,” Dr. Cooper hollered as the wind whistled by them, “this is going to hurt!”

  They leaped from the platform right before it crashed to the ground in a cloud of dust. Mac rolled in some soft dirt and came up unharmed.

  Dr. Cooper landed on Sheriff Potter and they both went down, grappling, wrestling. Potter still had the gun in his hand.

  Mac leaped on Potter as well, grabbing for the gun.

  The ground lurched. The sheriff turned to vapor and slipped out of their grasp. They spun around, groping to find him.

  He was standing over them, solid a moment, ghostlike a moment, wavering, flickering, aiming the gun at them.

  “Be careful!” Cooper cautioned. “If you fire that gun you could hit someone in the past!”

  “Just as long as I hit you!” the sheriff responded, aiming and ready to fire again.

  Time stabilized for a moment. Jay and Lila could finally run full speed—but so could the judge.

  “What do we do now?” Lila called to her brother as they ran up a wooden sidewalk with the judge hot on their heels.

  “The weeping woman!” Jay gasped. “One arm . . . one arm not finished. Annie never finished it!”

  Lila understood. “But how do we know she’ll be there?”

  Jay had no answer and no time to offer one. Another bullet whizzed by. “Quick! That alley!”

  The alley led to some back streets with places to hide, cover from bullets, and perhaps a route back to cemetery hill—but they would have to cross the open street to get there.

  A wagon pulled by a team of horses came up the street on an early morning delivery. As it passed by, they leaped into the street just behind it.

  Good. It came between them and the judge long enough for them to reach the alley.

  Lila stopped in front of a large rain barrel to look back.

  The judge fired another shot just as gravity tilted.

  The town faded—

  The bullet thudded into the rain barrel behind her back, releasing a stream of water.

  The town became solid again. Jay grabbed her and they ran up the alley. They had to get to cemetery hill!

  Gravity was swirling and lurching so much that Sheriff Potter could barely stand, much less remain solid and visible. He could hardly aim the gun.

  Dr. Cooper and Mac took full advantage of that and managed to pounce on him, sometimes holding him, sometimes passing right through him. It was like trying to capture a shadow.

  He became solid. Dr. Cooper grabbed his arm; Mac grabbed his leg; Dr. Cooper hit him in the jaw. He faded again and got loose.

  “This isn’t working!” Dr. Cooper despaired.

  “The cemetery!” said Mac. “Run for it!”

  Dr. Cooper didn’t need to hear another word. He took off running, Mac followed, and the sheriff gave chase.

  “Act scared,” said Dr. Cooper. “It might help.”

  “Who’s acting?” Mac retorted.

  They ran through the ruins as one more shot rang out and a bullet nicked Dr. Cooper’s ear.

  “He’s very good,” said Dr. Cooper, touching his ear and finding blood on his fingers.

  “And very solid, unfortunately,” Mac responded.

  They made it to the edge of town and started up the hill. It was a tough climb and the sheriff, still on flat ground, was catching up easily by just walking fast. He reached into his coat pocket for more bullets and reloaded the small revolver in his hand.

  “Oh nuts,” said Cooper. “He has more bullets.”

  The kids raced down a back road, through a yard, over a fence, and around a house, then into the open street again. Cemetery hill was just ahead of them.

  A hay wagon came around the corner. No! They couldn’t wait for it to pass! They dashed forward as the horses bore down on them, praying for just one extra second of time.

  They got it. Time wiggled, the horses slowed down, the kids sped up, the kids got to the other side of the street just as the horses thundered past.

  Jay and Lila started up the hill. They could see the judge coming across the street, smiling at them with nasty confidence, reloading his gun. They were much younger than he was and should be able to outrun him up the hill.

  Oh no. Time was warping again. They were slowing down, floating in slow motion, pulling for every stride, while the judge was
moving briskly along, coming closer.

  Time stabilized and the ground became still as Dr. Cooper and Mac reached the top of the hill and ran to Cyrus Murphy’s grave. They stood there, panting for breath, looking desperately in all directions.

  “She’s not here,” Mac said between huffs.

  “She has to be,” said Dr. Cooper. “She has to be here. The weeping woman was her last carving!”

  But Annie Murphy was nowhere to be seen. The sheriff appeared over the edge of the hill, his gun in his hand and the cold look of a killer in his eyes.

  The world of 1885 became solid again as the kids reached Cyrus Murphy’s grave. They were huffing and puffing and looking for Annie.

  They didn’t see her.

  “She’s got to be here!” Jay cried.

  Lila moaned and pointed toward the cliffs. “Jay!

  She’s been here already!”

  He looked and his heart sank. The carving of the weeping woman was visible in the morning light. Annie had been there, had carved it, and was gone.

  “No . . .” Jay groaned. “We couldn’t have missed her! Oh dear Lord, no!”

  Then came a voice behind them. “That’s right, boy. Better say a prayer!” It was the judge, breathing hard from the climb but quite solid and deadly. He raised the gun. “Because it’s time to finish this business!”

  As Dr. Cooper and Mac stood directly on Cyrus Murphy’s grave, the sheriff approached with gun in hand, snickering at them. “So you figured it all out, did you? Then you understand how I can’t go back. And I can’t let you live either.”

  On the morning of June 9, 1885, Jay and Lila stood on the grave of Cyrus Murphy and watched helplessly as Judge Amos Crackerby stood directly north of them and aimed his gun.

  On the evening of June 11, a century later, Dr. Cooper and Richard MacPherson stood on Cyrus Murphy’s grave as Sheriff Dustin Potter stood directly south of them and aimed his gun.

  Jay quickly stood in front of his sister, blocking her body with his own. But in that instant, out of the corner of her eye, Lila saw a flash of blue behind a large tombstone. She recognized a long blue dress and flowing red hair. Annie’s been hiding! Lila thought.

  The ground quivered. Potter squeezed the trigger.

  The ground quivered. The judge squeezed the trigger. The weird, wavering image of the woman in blue leaped toward the kids, hands outstretched. She touched them—

  FLASH! WHOOOSH!

  Dr. Cooper and Mac were suddenly crowded by two other bodies in dusty, dirty clothes. They stumbled sideways, trying to remain standing as time crashed and rippled around them, gravity swirled, and the earth whirled like a cockeyed carousel.

  Two gunshots! They sounded far away, from opposite directions.

  Dr. Cooper looked south, and through a quivering, waving window in time saw Sheriff Potter doubled over, wounded.

  Jay and Lila were dazed, disoriented, caught up in a whirlwind of colors and sensations. They seemed to be surrounded by the bodies of two big men. To the north, Judge Crackerby’s image waved and rippled as if they were looking at him from below the surface of a pond. He was staggering, tottering, holding his abdomen as if wounded. He began to fall toward them, falling in slow motion . . . slowly . . . slowly . . .

  Dr. Cooper and Mac saw the sheriff fall toward them ever so slowly, like the slowest slow motion film. . . .

  OOF! Jay, Lila, Dr. Cooper, and Mac landed on the solid, unshaking ground in the evening of June 11, a tangle of four bodies who still didn’t know what hit them. They didn’t even realize they were all together in one place in one time.

  But they all saw the same thing at the same time only a few feet away—the wavering, fluctuating image of Annie Murphy standing where her gravestone had been, watching two men fall at her feet. At first she seemed horrified.

  Then she grew calm and sighed a deep sigh of relief. She looked up at them, a look of deep gratitude on her face, and mouthed, Thank you.

  And then, as the earth gave one more tiny tremble, her image flickered out like a candle flame in a puff of wind.

  She was gone.

  It was quiet. The earth, time, and space had ceased their struggle.

  Dr. Cooper touched his daughter and found that she was real. Then his son. Then they embraced as tears filled their eyes.

  EPILOGUE

  Around a campfire in the ebbing light of June 11, Dr. Cooper and his children consulted with each other and with Professor Richard MacPherson on what had happened and why.

  “You see what I mean?” said Mac. “History can’t be changed, so everything worked out the way it was supposed to.”

  “But tell me the truth, Mac,” said Dr. Cooper as he applied a small bandage to his ear. “Didn’t you have just the slightest doubt about your theory when old Potter was aiming his gun between your eyes?”

  Mac laughed—he could do that now—and gave a big nod. “You know I did!”

  Dr. Cooper laughed too. “So did I. But I was still hoping I was right about Annie’s last carving.”

  “So were we,” said Jay. “We were hoping she didn’t finish it because she got interrupted.”

  “By all of us,” said Lila.

  “She was never able to finish the right arm because the time vortex unraveled the moment she touched you,” Dr. Cooper mused.

  “I wonder if she knew that would happen?” said Jay.

  Mac shrugged. “I think she was just trying to save you. Since the judge was aiming a gun at you, she could see you were on her side. But when she touched you, it threw you into the vortex. You popped back into the present, and that bumped the sheriff back into the past, instantly. With the time/space fabric untangled, she returned safely to her own time and space.” He shook his head with his next thought. “But imagine returning to find the bodies of her two enemies fallen across her grave, each shot by the other.”

  “Quite a homecoming gift,” Dr. Cooper chuckled, “and the source of that spooky legend.” He asked the kids, “So how did you figure out she would be at the grave of her husband?”

  Jay shrugged. “We discovered that she was carving her story, and we figured she was doing it in the order that it happened. Since the carving of her weeping over Cyrus’s grave wasn’t there when we first arrived in the past, we guessed it had to be the last one she did. So how did you figure it out?”

  “Well, Alice, Mac’s secretary, played a major role in that.”

  Mac explained, “She followed the lead we had from the old newspaper articles about some deputy named Hatch who became the sheriff right after you kids were there.”

  Jay and Lila brightened at that news. “You mean he wasn’t killed?” Lila asked excitedly.

  Mac was happy to reply, “No, he recovered from his wound just fine and went on to be Bodine’s sheriff for many years. And he kept a journal, which Alice found! He wrote about the whole Annie Murphy case, and even wrote about you kids.”

  “Did he say what finally happened to Annie?” Jay asked.

  “She moved back to Chicago, married a fine gentleman, had five children, and . . . oh yes, she eventually took Judge Crackerby’s widow to court and got back ownership of the mine. The old newspaper reports of Annie’s death were what the judge and sheriff wanted everyone to believe. We never read far enough into the future to discover she was alive.”

  Jay was still curious. “So . . . how did you figure out Annie would be on Cyrus’s grave when she was?”

  “Well, by retracing her story just the way you did,” said Dr. Cooper. “But we did have one other major clue.” He rose from the campfire, clicked on his flashlight, and beckoned to them. “Come have a look.”

  They followed him past the tent to where a mound of camping gear had been stacked up against an old tombstone.

  “Hatch recorded in his journal how the bodies of both the judge and the sheriff were found lying on Annie Murphy’s grave the morning of June ninth, 1885. But since it was such a strange legend, we had to be sure.”

  “Ann
ie’s carving of the sheriff shooting at Cyrus was one confirming piece of evidence,” said Mac.

  “But we also found this.” Dr. Cooper began to remove the bedrolls and food supplies from the pile, gradually uncovering a gravestone. “Still here, just as Hatch described it in his journal.”

  As Dr. Cooper removed the last folded blanket from the stone and shined his light on the inscription, the kids could read it clearly: Dustin Potter, Sheriff of Bodine, April 3, 1843 – June 9, 1885.

  The kids were awestruck.

  Dr. Cooper explained it. “So both Deputy Hatch and this tombstone agree that Sheriff Dustin Potter died on June ninth. He had to be back in the past for that to happen, which meant the vortex had to be untangled by then. As I considered the fact that Annie didn’t finish her carving of herself weeping, I had to hope it was because we all interrupted her.”

  “And so it was,” said Mac.

  Dr. Cooper led the way, and they all returned to stand on the grave of Cyrus Murphy. The moon was rising. The weeping woman was appearing once again.

  “She can stop crying now,” said Lila. “Her story’s been told for all time.”

  “And God’s justice finally came through,” said Dr. Cooper. “Sometimes it takes a while.”

  “Sometimes it has to reach across time and space,” Mac added.

  Jay sighed with amazement. “And sometimes it takes little people like us to help out.”

  Dr. Cooper chuckled and put his arms around his children, pulling them close. “But that’s what makes life interesting.” Then he began a prayer of thanksgiving. “Dear Lord, we thank you that you have helped us through this adventure and brought us all together once again . . .”

  They all huddled there under the light of the rising moon, thanking God for where they were in space, time, and His purpose. And perhaps it was just the angle of the moonlight, but as Lila looked up at the face of the weeping woman, it seemed Annie was no longer mourning, but praying right along with them.

  An Excerpt from

  The Deadly Curse of Toco-Rey,

  Book Six in The Cooper Kids Adventure Series®