More Adventures Of The Great Brain (14 page)

The Ghost of Silverlode

   
JUST THE OTHER SIDE of the town limits of Adenville on the old road leading up Red Rock Canyon
lay
the ruins of the ghost town of Silverlode. It had been a booming silver-mining camp before I was born. Ever since I could remember, there had been a wood sign just this side of Aden irrigation ditch, which had separated Adenville from the mining camp. The sign read:

NO PERSON UNDER 18 YEARS OF AGE

ADMITTED BEYOND THIS SIGN UNLESS

ACCOMPANIED BY ADULTS BY ORDER

OF MARSHAL AND DEPUTY SHERIFF

MARK TRAINOR

   
The road up Red Rock Canyon had been the only road to Silverlode and Adenville until the mines petered out and Silverlode had become a ghost town. Then the railroad had come to Adenville, and a new road had been built that ran northward, following the railroad. The old road up Red Rock Canyon was only used by trappers and hunters. There were so many rock slides and washouts it was impossible to travel by wagon.

   
I learned when quite young why Uncle Mark had put up the sign. When I was about three years old, two Mormon kids, Larry Knudson and William Bartell, had gone exploring in the ghost town and were never seen again. The ghost town was honeycombed with old mine tunnels and mine shafts and giant excavations. Uncle Mark organized a search party, but a cloudburst that afternoon had washed away all tracks left by the two boys, and the heavy rain had caused landslides, rock slides, and cave-ins. Every able-bodied man in Adenville had searched for the bodies of the two boys for two weeks without success, and then the search was given up.

   
That was the reason Uncle Mark had put up the sign. But he really didn’t need a sign to keep the kids in Adenville from exploring in the ghost town because it was haunted by the ghost of Silverlode. Trappers and hunters returning at night had reported seeing the ghost. Many fathers told their sons they had seen the ghost. And even Uncle Mark said he’d seen the ghost. I remember asking Papa about the ghost when I first heard about it from some other kids.

   
“They say it is the ghost of a man named Tinker, who owned the Tinker Mine,” Papa had told me. “Like other greedy mine owners he refused to put proper safety devices in his mine. The day before the mine closed, six miners were killed when trapped by a cave-in. The miners who escaped lynched Tinker before the Marshal could prevent it. And the miners who lynched Tinker put a curse on him, that he would never know peace in death and would haunt Silverlode forever. They say his ghost comes up from his grave at night and roams the ghost town.”

“Have you ever seen the ghost?” I asked.

   
“No, J.D.,” Papa had answered. “But even without a ghost, Silverlode is no place for you or your brothers unless I am with you. What happened to Larry Knudson and William Bartell could happen to any boy foolish enough to go exploring there.”

   
I sure as heck wasn’t going to take a chance of being buried alive or meeting up with a ghost. The ghost was welcome to his ghost town as far as every kid in Adenville was concerned until just a couple of weeks before my brothers were to leave for school in Salt Lake City.

   
It started on a Saturday afternoon. It was raining too hard to go swimming. Some of the kids came to our barn to play, as they often did when it was raining. Seth Smith showed up with his eyes all red.

   
“Are you sick?” Tom asked as Danny Forester, Sammy Leeds, Parley Benson, Basil, and I crowded around him.

   
“I didn’t sleep all night,” Seth said. “My Uncle Steve is visiting us and he likes to tell ghost stories. He was telling us some last night before I went to bed. I was so scared I was afraid to close my eyes all night.”

“There is no such thing as a ghost,” Tom said.

   
Sammy looked at my brother as if Tom had just said there was no sun in the sky. “How about the ghost of Silverlode?” he asked. “My own Pa told me he’d seen the ghost.”

“And mine,” Danny said.

“My Pa too,” Seth said.

   
“I don’t care what your fathers think they saw,” Tom said. “There is no such thing as a ghost.”

   
Sammy got angry. “Are you calling my Pa a liar?” he demanded.

   
“I’m not calling any of your fathers a liar,” Tom said. “All I’m saying is there is no such thing as a ghost, and there is a perfectly logical explanation for what they think they saw.”

   
“But,” I protested, “Uncle Mark says he saw the ghost, and he is a Marshal and Deputy Sheriff.”

   
Tom could sure be stubborn at times. “I don’t care what Uncle Mark or anybody says. My great brain tells me there is no such thing as a ghost.”

   
Sammy got that sly city-slicker look on his face. “Have you ever been to Silverlode at night?” he asked.

   
“No,” Tom admitted, “but my father took me and my brothers there in the daytime once.”

   
“Everybody knows that ghosts only appear at night,” Sammy said. “My Pa says when it gets dark the ghost of Tinker comes right up from his grave. I’ll bet you are afraid to go there at night.”

   
“I promised my father I’d never go to Silverlode unless he was with me,” Tom said. “And besides, I also promised him I’d never make any more bets with you kids.”

   
“A poor excuse is better than none,” Sammy said with a sneering look.

   
That got to Tom. “If I went there alone at night and came back and told you kids there was no ghost who would believe me?” he asked. “The only way I could prove it would be to have witnesses. All right, Sammy, are you willing to go there at night with me and be a witness?”

Poor old Sammy suddenly lost his sly look. “Why me?” he asked.

   
“The more witnesses the better,” Tom said. “All of you meet me here after curfew Monday night, and I’ll prove there is no such thing as the ghost of Silverlode.”

   
I figured Tom had neatly turned the tables on Sammy. None of the kids in their right minds would meet him. But I was wrong.

   
Parley Benson pushed his coon-skin cap to the back of his head. He patted the Bowie knife in the scabbard on his belt. “I’m not afraid,” he said. “I’ll meet you.”

   
Tom looked at Parley with surprise but only for a second. “How about you other fellows?” he asked. “The more witnesses the better.”

   
The other kids either had to volunteer or admit they were cowards.

   
“I’ll be here,” Sammy said but sure didn’t look pleased with the idea.

“Me too,” Danny said.

   
“I’m game if the rest of you are,” Seth said and sounded as if he were pronouncing his own death sentence.

   
“Me no afraid to go,” Basil said, “but I can’t sneak out of my room.”

   
Basil was right. He lived in an apartment above the Palace Cafe. Even if he jumped from the second-story window of his bedroom and didn’t hurt himself, he could never get back in his room.

   
Tom looked at the rope ladder leading up to his loft. “You can borrow my rope ladder,” he said. “Tie it to your bed or something and use it to get out and back into your bedroom.”

On Monday morning Papa told Tom and me to come to the Advocate office after we’d finished our morning chores and distribute some handbills for a livestock auction.

   
When we arrived at the Advocate office, Tom took one stack of handbills and put them in the basket on his bicycle to deliver in town. I took the other stack with the tack hammer and box of tacks to post on trees and on the light poles on Main Street. I met Seth Smith when I was about half done. He offered to help me.

   
“I told my Uncle Steve we are going to Silverlode tonight,” Seth said.

   
“Why did you do that?” I asked. “Now the whole deal is off. He’ll tell your mother and father, and they will tell the parents of all the other kids.”

   
I acted like I was angry, but I was really happy. I hadn’t volunteered to go but this would give Tom a good excuse to not go.

   
“Uncle Steve gave me his word he won’t tell a soul,” Seth said. “I just wanted him to know because he is interested in ghosts and ghost stories.”

   
Well, I thought to myself, if that is the case, it isn’t even important enough to mention to Tom.

   
That night when Tom and I went up to our bedroom, I started to get undressed.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Tom asked.

“Going to bed,” I said.

   
“Oh, no, you’re not,” Tom said. “You are coming with me.”

   
“You didn’t hear me volunteer to go,” I said as I pulled off one shoe.

   
“I’ll need you as a witness in case the other kids back out,” Tom said.

“Then take Sweyn as a witness,” I said as I took off my other shoe.

   
A slow smile came to Tom’s lips which suddenly broke into a big grin.
“Why not?” he asked.
“I’ll take you both, if big brother isn’t afraid.”

   
I put my shoes back on trying to think of some excuse for not going. Maybe I could pretend I was suddenly very sick. No, Tom was too smart for that. And if I said I was afraid to go, that would make me a coward. I was trapped.

   
We had to wait until almost nine o’clock before Sweyn came upstairs. Papa and Mamma said he was old enough to stay up an hour later than Tom and me. Tom met him at the top of the stairs and brought him into our bedroom.

   
“We are going to Silverlode as soon as the curfew whistle blows,” Tom said. “I’m going to prove there is no such thing as a ghost.”

“You must be crazy,” Sweyn said and looked afraid.

   
“I’m not crazy,” Tom said, “but it looks as if us little grade-school kids have more courage than you big Academy fellows.”

   
Sweyn had to admit he was a coward or go after that. Tom removed the screen from our bedroom window and we all shinnied down the elm tree. We went to our corral and waited in the bright moonlight. Parley was the first to arrive, then Sammy and Danny, followed by Seth. A few minutes later Basil arrived.

   
We all sneaked up alleys until we came to the town limits and the sign. We walked along the old road until we were at the corner of Whiskey Row, which used to be the main street of the mining camp, and Corry Street.

 
  
I looked around and began to shiver. The thrifty Mormons had torn down many of the wooden buildings to use the lumber for making barns and pens, but there were still several deserted buildings on Whiskey Row. And I could see old weather-beaten shacks on both sides of the canyon, and the entrance to several old mine tunnels, and the giant excavations of big mines now overgrown with weeds and underbrush.

   
Tom led us up Corry Street as if he was just taking us on a nice safe hike. We had only gone a few steps when we heard a ghostly sound and all of us except Tom stopped. He looked back over his shoulder.

“It was just an owl,” he said.

   
We continued on to the end of Corry Street and started up a trail that led to Boot Hill.

   
“Go single file now,” Tom ordered us. “We are safe as long as we stay on the path. Get off it and you might fall into an old mine shaft or tunnel or an old well.”

   
We were about halfway up the path leading to the cemetery when we heard a roaring flapping sound and saw what looked like a thousand bats flying out of a hole by the side of the path. That was enough to make even Tom stop.

   
Seth was the first to speak. “May-may-maybe they are vampire bats,” he said, stuttering he was so scared. “My Uncle Steve said vampire bats will attack a person and drink their blood.”

   
“These are mine bats,” Tom said. “You don’t see them attacking us, do you? Come on.”

   
Tom continued to lead us up the trail until we came to a place where the ground leveled out and we could see Boot Hill. In the eerie moonlight I could see old weather-beaten wooden grave markers and two big marble headstones almost as high as I was. I knew one of those marble headstones was over the grave of Mr. Tinker because Papa had showed it to us on our daylight trip to Silverlode.

   
“Take a good look, fellows,” Tom said casually. You’d think he’d told us to look at a nice flower garden. “You don’t see any ghost, do you? I told you there was no such thing as a ghost.”

   
He had no sooner got the words out of his mouth when the ghost of Tinker came right up out of its grave behind its headstone. He was dressed in a white sheet just like a ghost is supposed to be.