If Catfish Had Nine Lives (Country Cooking School Mystery) (4 page)

Esther blinked and then bent to look again. She gasped as she re-straightened.

“Oh, my,” she said. “I . . . I don’t feel so well.”

Somehow, an instant later, both Jake and I were holding on to Esther’s slack body.

“Did she faint?” I asked.

“I hope it’s nothing more serious.”

“You have quite an effect on women, my friend,” I said.

“History—it’ll take you to your knees if you ever start to really pay attention to it, Betts.”

“Right.”

“For now, lean her on me, and grab a glass of water.”

I did as Jake asked, and we hoped it wouldn’t take more than that to revive our visitor.

“Oh, my, I am so embarrassed,” Esther said as she sat up straight on the stool. Jake and I were on either side of her, at the ready in case she went down again. “I don’t think I’ve ever fainted. Ever. It was just so strange to maybe suddenly be connected to a family member, someone dead for so long but whose existence was partially responsible for mine. It was like . . . well, like his ghost was in the room with us for a minute.”

Jake looked at me with raised eyebrows. I shook my head. No, the ghost of Astin Reagal wasn’t in the vicinity, but I was really beginning to think he’d ridden into town earlier. I wanted to confirm before I got Jake’s hopes up too high, though. Disappointment flickered over his face, but he normalized quickly. He loved the entire idea of our historical ghosts, and he knew about their visits with me and Gram. Much to his chagrin, he wasn’t able to see them—well, he’d had a brief glimpse of Sally Swarthmore, but that was a planned and rare moment.

“It’s okay,” I said to Esther, “if you’re okay.”

She waved away my concern. “Fine.” She blinked and then looked at Jake. “May I look closely at the
mochila
again?”

“Of course,” Jake said hesitantly.

Esther laughed. “I’m so sorry, Jake. I won’t faint again, I promise. I was just momentarily overwhelmed.”

If I wasn’t mistaken, Esther batted her eyelashes at him.

“Sure. I know,” Jake said as the two of them smiled at each other a beat too long.

Esther looked away first and then sat even straighter.

I relaxed back onto my own stool, and Jake scooted the
mochila
closer to Esther.

“Go ahead, touch it all you want,” he said. “I keep it wrapped up most of the time; but if anyone has the right to look it over closely, it’s you.”

“Well, if that really is Astin’s signature, I guess.”

“Let’s go with that being the truth. If we need to rethink later, we can.”

“Thank you.” Esther smiled at him again.

“For a minute I thought it was truly amazing that Jake might have a
mochila
with Astin Reagal’s signature, but it kind of makes sense, too,” I said, interrupting all the smiling and reminding them I was there. “Since Astin was from Broken Rope, and historical items tend to be left in attics and closets around here for a long time, maybe it’s not so strange after all.”

Esther nodded. “You know,” her fingers rode over the tooled letters of, presumably, her ancestor’s name, “apparently his disappearance was a huge mystery, and it broke up his family.”

“Hang on,” Jake said. “I’d love to hear everything you have to say, but would you mind if I recorded it?”

“As I mentioned earlier, Jake keeps track of our history better than anyone,” I said. “He likes to make sure he’s as accurate as possible.”

Jake laughed. “Truthfully, accuracy isn’t always the point. Stories are passed down and passed around. I just like to make sure I have as many versions of the stories as possible. I suspect there is some truth, some fabrication, in them all, but I think it’s important. History is important. If I record, I’ll transcribe what you say and make a file. I hope to open a museum someday. I would use your story—and make sure everyone knew that it came from you—for some sort of display.”

Esther thought a second, and then said, “Certainly.”

Jake pulled out his phone and moved his finger over the screen a couple times. “This is Esther Reagal, great-great-granddaughter of Astin Reagal. She’s visiting Broken Rope and is looking at the
mochila
that I had in storage. There is evidence in the form of a partial tooled name that Astin might have used it when he was a Pony Express rider. He died on the trail and his body was never found. Go ahead, Esther, tell us whatever you’d like to share.”

Esther cleared her throat. “Well, Astin was young, only eighteen when he signed on with the Express. I think eighteen was the oldest they’d consider for riders. It was a job meant for young bodies. It was an exciting time, and the riders were young men who loved what they did, loved the adventure of it all. They’d ride like the wind for about ten miles, and then change horses.”

“Or change riders, too? Like if their—what—shift was over?” I said.

“Yes,” Jake said.

Esther bit her bottom lip and looked off into the imagined distance before she continued. “It was about the riders
and
the horses. The riders were amazing, but so were the horses. They were fast and apparently very smart. They were chosen for their speed and endurance. It’s said that the one that Astin was on when he was on his way to Broken Rope and disappeared tried to lead my great-great-grandmother back to Astin, but no one ever found him. My great-great-grandmother searched and searched for him, for years, even abandoning her own son because of her heartbreak. They were young; so young. I think she was only seventeen, and with a new baby.”

“What was her name?” Jake asked.

“Amelia Reagal.”

Stepping around the table and Esther, Jake moved to his computer and started typing.

“I can’t find her,” he said. “I have a database of Broken Rope cemetery residents. She’s not listed.”

“That part of the story is vague, but we think she left town after years of searching.”

“Do you know where she went?”

Esther shook her head. “Their son, my great-grandfather, stayed here. Amelia just stopped being a mom. She stopped everything except searching for her husband. It’s not known where she ended up, but it’s been speculated that Springfied, Jefferson City, or Rolla were all possible places.”

“What was their son’s name?” Jake asked.

“Charlie Reagal.”

Jake typed more. “There he is. He’s buried in the cemetery next to where Betts works. She and her Gram run a cooking school.”

“That cemetery’s yours? I drove by it, and I wondered about the school. What a great building.”

“The school is ours; the cemetery is just part of the scenery,” I said. “It isn’t under our care, but it is right next to the school.” I hadn’t noticed Esther visiting the cemetery, but I hadn’t been there very often over the last few days. My duties away from the school had consisted of sewing a few ripped costume seams; fishing, of course; helping Orly with a number of little things that no one else would attend to; prepping for our fish-frying and Dutch-oven-cooking lessons; and other glamorous chores that had kept me on the move. Orly and I had hit it off, and I remembered that I hadn’t been able to find him earlier. I silently noted to myself that I needed to track him down. Along with Teddy, Gram, Jerome, and the new ghost, Joe.

“It’s a charming cemetery,” Esther said.

“I agree.” The name Charlie Reagal was familiar, but I couldn’t place exactly where he was buried. I’d ask Gram if Charlie had ever visited her in his ghostly form. If so, we might end up with an even bigger chunk of Esther’s history to share with her. I liked the idea of the shortcut.

“What family did Charlie stay with?” Jake asked.

“I don’t know,” Esther said. “That part of the story is missing. I was hoping you might be able to help.”

Jake typed again. “Well, I can’t be completely sure, but I think he owned the general store. Someone by that name owned it, but I’d have to look a little deeper to confirm that this Charlie Reagal was your Charlie Reagal. If it is, then he was successful. I know I’ve got some stuff on the old general store, but I haven’t digitized the information yet. I’ll find it, hopefully today sometime. Maybe it’ll tell us more.”

“That’s . . . wow, that’s so much more than I thought I’d be able to learn. Thank you.”

“Trust me, my pleasure.” Jake stood and moved back to the table. “May I ask you some more questions?”

“Sure.”

“What else do you know—I mean, are there any other stories about the Pony Express riders that were passed down to you? There are legends and there are facts, and sometimes those stories tend to melt together a little, but can you remember anything else that your family discussed?”

Esther thought a moment. “No, not really. I wish I could.”

“Believe it or not, I’ve actually heard an Express story,” I said. Jake and Esther nodded me on. “Well, they weren’t supposed to carry heavy weapons, no shotguns, but a rider did, and I’m not sure if I believe this, but the story is that halfway through his first ride, he threw the rifle off the horse mid-stride and it fired, scaring both the rider and the horse, but the noise also sped the horse up. They arrived at the next post in record time. The rider was a company star on his first ride, because he shot at himself.”

“That’s a good one,” Jake said, but I could see the uncertainty in his eyes. He wouldn’t want to make me feel uncomfortable, but I understood his doubt regarding the validity of the story.

“They
needed
weapons—though not shotguns—to protect themselves from, among other things, Native American attacks—at that time they were Indians. This doesn’t really have anything to do with Astin, but in Nevada, four Express men were killed and a station was burned by Paiutes in retribution for the rape of some young Paiute girls,” Jake added. “History isn’t always pretty and romantic, but I think it’s important to acknowledge the bad stuff with the good stuff.”

“Oh, Astin helped deliver a baby once,” Esther said.

“Really?” I said.

“Yes, he came upon a stalled stagecoach, and though it was against policy to ever stop, the riders were clearly in distress, so he broke policy, stopped, and helped deliver the baby. The woman who gave birth was the only female on board; she was traveling with her husband and the stagecoach driver. Apparently, neither of the men were up for the challenge. Astin had helped with Charlie’s birth—they lived out in the woods; everybody lived out in the woods at the time—so he had some idea of what to do. The baby was a healthy girl.”

“That’s wonderful,” Jake said, but he doubted her story, too, I could hear it in his voice, though he hid it better with her story than with mine.

Esther blinked and then fell into thought. “Yes, it’s a wonderful story.” She ran her finger over the letters on the
mochila
again. “This is more than I could have ever expected. Thank you,” she said. It seemed she was suddenly tired.

“It’s meant a lot to me, too, truly. Thank you for sharing,” Jake said.

“I’m a bit overwhelmed. I’m not going to faint again, and you’ve both been so kind, but I think I’d better head back to the campsite and rest a little.”

“Certainly.” Jake touched the phone to end the recording.

Before the faint, Esther hadn’t struck me as delicate or frail, but now I wondered if she’d be okay. I debated taking her back to the campsite myself as we stood and moved toward the door, but she seemed fine.

Esther turned and looked at us both. “It was terrible what happened out there today. I feel a little guilty for enjoying all this, but as long as I’m in town, I’ll let you know if something else comes to mind.”

“That would be great, and I’ll let you know what else, if anything, I find,” Jake said.

“I wish your museum was set up.”

“Someday,” Jake said.

“I don’t suppose . . . Well, I don’t know if this is inappropriate or not, but I’d love to take you to dinner, perhaps this evening?”

There was nowhere for me to go. I could open the door and go into the front room or all the way out the front door, but not without Esther having to move a little, which would interrupt the moment. The idea of hiding under the table ran through my mind briefly, but thankfully I realized that would have been ridiculous. I simply looked away—at the ceiling, then over toward the files. On second thought, the ceiling was better, because it had the interesting chandelier. Yes, I could inspect the chandelier parts.

“I . . .” Jake began.

Come on, Jake, do NOT say no.
I almost shot him a stern look, but I just squinted as I continued to inspect the light fixture.

Jake had never had much of a personal life. He’d dated, and even had a girlfriend or two since high school, but nothing had stuck. He never seemed particularly lonely, but there were times when I thought he might appreciate some female company other than me and Gram.

“Actually, I’d love to. May I pick you up?” Jake said.

I held back a fist pump, but the pull of a smile was too strong to ignore, so I gave into it. I smiled at the chandelier, and then at Jake.

“I’m at the campsite. I’ll meet you in front of the high school at seven o’clock?” Esther said.

I liked her style.

“That’s perfect. I look forward to it.”

“Great.” Esther glanced at me shyly, her cheeks blushing like any good redhead’s.

I just smiled at everyone as I opened the door and let Esther go through first.

Of course, Jake rolled his eyes at my grin.