The Legend of Annie Murphy (2 page)

“Where's the
town
?” Lila asked.

“We're driving through it right now.” Mac brought the jeep to a halt on a flat, straight stretch of road, shut off the engine, and set the parking brake. The quiet and solitude settled over them like a warm blanket. “This, dear friends, is the town of Bodine, Arizona, after eighty-some-odd years of neglect, harsh weather, souvenir hounds, dirt bikers, backpackers, and such.”

Jay and Lila stood in the jeep, hoping to see something, anything. Not one building was left standing. Not even a single wall remained. There was one lone chimney jutting above the sagebrush about a hundred yards away, but half of it had fallen and the rest was crumbling, soon to disappear like everything else.

Jay muttered to himself, “Well . . . I guess we're a little late.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” said Mac, pushing his cowboy hat back on his brow. “There are a few ghost towns still standing, of course, but I'm afraid most look like this: a hundred years past their prime and only a few decades away from disappearing altogether.”

“Take heart, kids,” said Dr. Cooper. “What we're seeing of Bodine is much more than we've seen of a lot of biblical cities.”

Lila shrugged, playing with a braid of her long, blond hair. “At least these ruins are still above ground.”

“Try to see the town as it was. That's the challenge.”
   Jay took a moment to gaze at an old ore car standing next to a crumbling foundation. “I understand they were mining for gold.”

Mac nodded. “The biggest gold strike occurred in 1880, and within two years the town's population grew to more than 3,000. They dug mines into these cliffs and dredged ten miles of the old creek bed. A lot of people got rich, at least for a while. Around 1910 the gold ran out, the mining company went elsewhere, and the people left. Another eighty years went by, and now here we are, standing in the middle of a memory.”

Dr. Cooper cocked his hat back a little and explained to his kids, “This is Mac's kind of place. He's not only a professor of astrophysics at the University of Arizona; he's also an Old West history buff.”

Mac gazed in all directions, surveying the cliffs, studying the ground. “There's more here than just the ruins or the history.”

“There are the legends!” Lila hinted.

“Indeed, and the question of what natural forces may have given birth to those legends.” Mac pointed to a compass mounted on the dashboard of the jeep. “I've been waiting for someone to ask me about this.”

They all looked at the compass. And then they looked a second time.

Its needle was moving, rocking to and fro, swinging toward the north, then toward the south, then back again. Sometimes it paused, then it moved again for no apparent reason.

“The compass is moving even when we aren't,” said Mac. “The earth's magnetic field is severely disrupted in this area. The aviation charts even make mention of it.”

“Iron deposits in the cliffs?” Dr. Cooper asked. Mac shook his head. “No, nothing like that. My theory is that it's tied in with a bend in gravity, a sort of dip in the time/space fabric.”

That got Jay's full attention. “Say again?”

Mac smiled, his white teeth gleaming under his mustache. “This particular point on the planet is . . . oh, let's say it's kind of mixed up. It's like a spot in a river where the water gets turned aside and swirls around in circles instead of flowing steadily downstream. Gravity, time, and space don't move in a straight, fluid line through here, but get snarled up like a traffic jam. So weird things happen.”

Dr. Cooper's eyes brightened and he gave a knowing nod. “So that's what you're up to! You're developing scientific theories to explain the legends.”

Mac nodded right back. “Whatever happened to those boys the other night could be more than just a ghost story. It might actually tie in with everything else that's been going on in this canyon for as long as people have been here to record it.”

Both Jay and Lila leaned forward to hear more.

Mac continued. “I've been doing some research. For almost a century, people have called this canyon haunted. The Indians who lived here said it was Big Medicine. A few of your modern-day mystics think it's a landing site for UFOs or a center of psychic power. The kids all have their wild stories about seeing ghosts here.

“But I think it has to do with gravity. Sometimes, gravity goes haywire in this place. A marble on a level table might roll south one day, roll north the next day. Well, you see that pond over there, just beyond that stone wall?”

They stood in the jeep and could see the murky water lying in a chalky hollow.

“Sometimes it's deepest at the north end, and sometimes the water shifts and it's deepest at the south end. You'd never notice it unless you measured it from day to day—which is what I've done. Oh, and this jeep . . .” He reached down and released the parking brake. “Hm. Today it won't move. Last week it rolled from here to . . .” he pointed out a large boulder almost a hundred feet away “. . . that boulder over there.”

Jay was puzzled and curious. “So how does this explain the ghost those boys saw? What do you think caused that?”

Mac only smiled and shook his head. “I haven't a clue.”

“And what about the lady in the cliff?” Lila asked.

“I haven't a clue about that either.” He thought a moment. “Well, I have a few guesses, that's all. I've uncovered some historical records—you know, old letters and diaries—that speak of people seeing faces watching them from the cliffs around the town, but . . .” Then he smiled at them and even gave Dr. Cooper a slap on the shoulder. “But that's why you're here, to help me solve these riddles. We have a ghost we need to explain, along with a mysterious lady in the cliff. Are you interested?”

Dr. Cooper cocked his head a little. “I'd like to see this lady in the cliff first and then decide.”

“Fair enough.” Mac leaped from the jeep. “Let's go before the sun gets any higher.”

“Where is it?” Lila asked.

Mac chuckled. “The perfect place for a mystery: the old cemetery.”

TWO

T
hey left the jeep in the middle of the road and set out on foot through the ruins. They had to step around piles of old boards and crumbling rubble where houses, stores, saloons, and other businesses once stood. At times, the sagebrush and cacti allowing, they could even see where the main street and some of the backroads used to be. It didn't take long for Jay and Lila to appreciate how large the town of Bodine had been.

“It's time I acquainted you with the legend of Annie Murphy,” said Mac. “It's her ghost the boys claim to have seen.”

Jay and Lila drew close and walked on either side of him, wanting to hear every word.

“But you have to remember: Legend is one thing; known facts are another. Legend paints Annie Murphy as the most notorious woman Bodine ever saw—a spooky, insane murderess who shot her husband and chopped him into tiny pieces. The facts aren't quite as gruesome. We know Annie was a real person who came out west around 1885 to join her husband, Cyrus Murphy. We know that Cyrus had staked a claim, started a mine, and struck it rich. We know that Annie shot him in the bedroom of a boardinghouse, although no one is sure why. Some say it was jealousy, and some say she was just greedy and didn't want to share the wealth with him.

“Anyway, she was tried, convicted, and sentenced to be hanged, but that never happened. She escaped from jail the night before and got shot trying to flee.”

They started climbing a low, wind-swept hill above the town's ruins. Soon they could see several aging, tilting gravestones sticking up above the coarse grass and ragged sagebrush. They read the name and date on the first one they passed: Thomas Carron, August 4, 1801– October 19, 1861. Then another, lying on its side: Elizabeth Macon, who was born in 1832 and died in 1883. It was an odd sensation: The people buried here were long dead. But somehow, the cemetery itself seemed long dead as well, forgotten and fading with the passing of time.

“The facts don't tell much of a ghost story,” Jay remarked.

“Oh, but where the facts end, the legends begin!” said Mac. “According to
legend,
Annie Murphy came back as a ghost and haunted the town for several days, seeking revenge on the sheriff who had arrested her and the judge who had sentenced her. Several people saw her ghostly form.”

“But those stories aren't true?” Lila asked, hoping for a no.

“Oh, they're part of the legend. Just like the story about what happened to the sheriff and the judge.” He paused a moment to survey the old cemetery with its leaning, fallen, and crumbling gravestones. “They were both found dead one morning, their bodies flung over Annie Murphy's grave. Apparently Annie got her revenge.”

“Oh, but that can't be true!” Lila wanted to be sure.

Mac had the glint of a mischievous storyteller in his eye. “No one can prove it true or false, so you never know. But a second tradition grew out of the first one: Anyone who camps on Annie Murphy's grave will suffer the same fate.” Before either Lila or Jay could scoff or question, he pointed his finger at them and warned, “Those boys tried it the other night, and you know the rest.”

They followed Mac to the top of the hill where he stopped, looked around to get his bearings, and then peered intently toward a jagged cliff. “Okay, everybody stand right here.”

The Coopers gathered close and looked in the direction Mac was pointing, toward a weather-beaten cliff to the south. At first there was nothing to see in that massive wall, just furrows, cracks, jagged edges, and meaningless shapes, all highlighted by the long shadows of early morning.

“It helps if you close one eye; it'll eliminate your depth perception and flatten the image.”

The Coopers each closed one eye.

Lila gasped. “I see her!” It had taken her no time at all.

“Where?” Jay asked, his hand over one eye.

Lila pointed. “See that knob sticking up on the top edge of the cliff? Just below that, about a third of the way down.”

The image leaped out of the cliff so clearly it surprised him. “Whoa!” He studied the image intently just to believe what he was seeing. “You see her, Dad?”

He did, and the fine detail of the image startled him: a lady wearing a long dress, her hair falling about her shoulders, her hands clasped over her heart, and her eyes, filled with sadness, looking down at them.

“Incredible.” Dr. Cooper opened both eyes and the image broke up into several pieces, some near, some farther away, making it hard to see as a whole. He closed one eye, and the image came together again. “An incredible formation . . .”

“If that's all it is,” said Mac. “I guess you've noticed how we're viewing the cliff from an angle. The right side of the lady's face is, oh, about an eighth of a mile away, while the left shoulder would have to be . . .”

“As far as half a mile,” Cooper estimated. “If we were to view the cliff straight on, we wouldn't see an image at all.”

“Try moving just a few yards to the left or right.”

All the Coopers tried it, keeping their eyes on the cliff as they took several steps sideways to the right, steepening the angle of view. Almost immediately, the image broke up as the more distant parts disappeared behind the closer ones. When they returned to their original spot, the stony shapes along the cliff lined up again and the lady reappeared.

“Unbelievable!” said Dr. Cooper. “I suppose it would happen with any change of distance too?”

“Of course. If we stood closer, or farther away, or higher, or lower, the perspective would change again, and we wouldn't see it.”

Dr. Cooper shook his head in wonder. “I can see how this could start a legend. It's an amazing formation . . .”

“Still think it's coincidence?”

Cooper raised his hands with resignation. “What can I say, Mac? The formation is at least a hundred feet high, and its various parts are separated in depth by up to a half a mile. It would be impossible for human hands to carve it. I admit it looks just like a woman. I'll even say I'm amazed. But I don't know of any reason why it shouldn't be considered a natural phenomenon.”

Mac smiled. “Let me offer a reason.” He reached into a leather folder he was carrying and brought out a sheet of paper. “This is a photocopy of the only known photograph of Annie Murphy and her husband Cyrus. It's dated December 1884.”

Dr. Cooper took it as Jay and Lila huddled close for a look. They studied the photo, then the formation in the cliff, then the photo, then the cliff. Dr. Cooper held it at arm's length at his eye level, closing one eye and comparing the long-haired woman in the picture with the woman of stone.

Neither Dr. Cooper, Jay, nor Lila could think of a word to say, but no words were necessary. Their wide-eyed, drop-jawed expressions gave away what they were thinking.

“Go ahead,” said Mac. “Try to tell me that isn't Annie Murphy up there.”

Dr. Cooper did not want to believe it as he looked long and hard at the formation in the cliff. “Well . . . if it was carved by someone, why is it incomplete? See there, how she has both hands clasped in front of her, but the right arm isn't finished?”

“It's her,” said Lila, totally convinced. “It's Annie Murphy.”

Dr. Cooper looked around. “Well, whoever—or whatever—it is, I imagine you've marked this spot so we can find it again.”

“It was already marked,” said Mac. “Take a look.”

Directly under Dr. Cooper's feet was a flat grave marker, its inscription weathered but readable. Dr. Cooper could read it when he looked down, but the name he read made him stoop and brush away some grass and dust to be sure.

The marker read: Cyrus Murphy, 1852–1885. Dr. Cooper immediately looked up at Richard MacPherson. “Mac . . .”