Return Me to Mistwillow Read online

  “Wait!”

  She opened the door. Howling wind rushed in and blew open the opposite door, creating a wind-tunnel effect that flung the urn out, shattering it on the ground. Grandpa’s ashes suddenly became indistinguishable from the blowing dust.

  Fighting panic, George jumped out, scooped up dust and ash, and let the mixture sift through his fingers. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Return me to Mistwillow. He looked up and down the windblown street, felt a presence he couldn’t explain.

  “What are you up to, Grandpa Robert?”

  ***

  Ground rumbling, Jake opened the coach door. The dark interior beckoned him to come closer. He responded, either out of curiosity or fear; he didn’t know which: curiosity of seeing Robert there, or the fear of Marianne being right about Mistwillow's final demise.

  “Robert?”

  The earth lifted and heaved.

  “Are you in there?” He held on to the rocking coach, heard wood planks crack behind him. “I’ve waited a long time for you to come home.”

  “Father?” The voice of an angel emanated from the doorway. “Where am I, Father?”

  “You’re home, son.” Jake couldn’t hold back his tears as he spoke into the stagecoach’s dark interior. “Mistwillow, son. Come out. Let me have a look at you.”

  A gust of wind blew gray ash from the coach. As the cloud dissipated, an old man appeared before him: stooped over, warty chin, a boxer’s nose, and hairy nostrils flaring. “Finally, we meet again, Father,” Robert said in a gravelly voice, his bushy gray eyebrows cocked at an angry slant.

  Stepping back in disbelief, Jake felt only repulsion for the creature standing before him. Where was his ten-year-old boy, the blue sky, and the marching bands? “You’re not my son.”

  “My name is Robert Stratton,” he bellowed. “Daddy, I’m home!”

  The ground shook.

  “You can’t be my son.”

  “What did you expect? The same boy you never listened to?”

  Buildings splintered and crashed to the ground. Falling debris crushed panicked Mistwillow citizens.

  Robert spread his arms like Jesus Christ. “This is your punishment for killing my mother.”

  A porch beam fell on Jake, knocking him over. The Stratton Trading Post sign sailed off with the wind. Marianne ran to him, knelt at his side, and held his hand. “Why did he say that, Jake? You didn’t kill me.”

  “He blames m-me,” Jake sputtered, “that you died that day.”

  “It was an earthquake. How could he blame you?”

  Jake coughed up dust. “Robert wanted us to go with him ... to Denver ... to the museum ... but the store needed a good dusting.” Jake now realized the irony of his miserable life, eating dust. “When I told him we were staying, he begged me to let you go with him, but I wouldn’t allow it. I needed your help with the store. So you stayed and you died in the earthquake. That’s why it’s my fault.”

  The ground quaked, split like forked lightning.

  Robert stood against the force of the wind and shaking ground as if they were nothing and cackled, “Wanta toss the ball, Daddy? Wanta go fishing? We never did before. You never had time.”

  Only now did Jake understand his mistake. The store had been more important to him than spending time with his son.

  On her knees beside Jake, Marianne screamed up at Robert. “It’s not his fault. Get back on that stage and leave Mistwillow, leave us be, leave the past where it belongs...in this god-awful dust.”

  Robert’s eyes glowed red with rage. “He brought this dusty existence upon himself, Mother. I’m sorry you had to pay the price...I’m sorry for this whole damned town.”

  Fishers in the earth slammed shut, jerked open, and slammed shut, again and again, like the snapping jaws of hell. The ground rumbled like thunder that rolled off into the distance.

  Clinging to his wife’s arm, Jake feared spending eternity with his angry son. “If I said I was sorry, would that make any difference?”

  “Sorry?” Robert’s voice softened. “If you’re truly sorry, you’ll give up your precious trading post.”

  “But it’s all I’ve had to hang on to.”

  “Then eat dust forever.”

  “Dust is better than nothing,” Marianne said. “Don’t listen to him, Jake.”

  He looked into her empty eye sockets. “It’s time for things to change around here.”

  “Don’t say it, Jake, please. I beg you.”

  It was time to set her free, along with everyone else in Mistwillow. “I’m sorry, Robert. I truly am sorry.”

  Marianne screamed. Her body crumpled to dust before his eyes. The townspeople around him blurred into the storm, along with every building and hitching post, all swirling away with the wind. Robert collapsed into a heap of gray ash and became indistinguishable from the blowing dust. The last thing Jake saw, the skin peeling off his hand, his arm, the bones dissolving to dust and whirling away...and then nothing.

  The earth lunged one final time, cracking plaster walls in downtown Denver, the Boulder depot, and the University of Colorado campus. The 6.2 trembler was felt from Salina, Kansas, to Salt Lake City, Utah. On November 7th, 1882, the largest earthquake in Colorado history had leveled Mistwillow. There were no survivors, except Robert, but only because he had gone to Denver that day, the day Mistwillow became lost to history forever.

  ***

  The blare of a truck horn sent George scrambling for the ditch. “What the hell?” He’d damn near gotten run over. Glancing around, he couldn’t believe his eyes. The busy highway had reappeared. The dusty Expedition was parked on the shoulder. All the doors were open. Traffic whizzed by. He shook his head, tried to get a grip on what he’d just witnessed.

  The dust storm was gone. And Carol, too.

  “Carol!” Heart pounding with dread, he scanned the highway up and down but didn’t see her. “Carol!”

  “George!” She emerged from the other side of the SUV, the same place she was standing when she’d opened the back door. Her hair was windblown, but otherwise she appeared unharmed. “What the hell happened?”

  “A bad dream.” He batted dust from his shirt. A really bad dream.

  “I know what I saw,” she said. “That was Mistwillow. A ghost town. You saw it too, right?”

  He ran to the open rear door and looked inside. The urn was gone, and the seat was swept clean of ashes, replace by the rustic Stratton’s Trading Post sign the wind had blown in. A creepy-crawly feeling skittered up his spine. Grandpa Robert had gotten his last wish. He’d made it home to Mistwillow, a town that didn’t exist anymore, for whatever reason, George would never know. However, like Robert had promised, he’d left a sign. A real sign. George had to admit the old coot had a sense of humor. “Get in.” He shoved the rear door closed and jumped in behind the wheel.

  Carol joined him and buckled her seatbelt. “Let’s go home, George. It’s over.”

  “Is it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We have a ghost in the family.” Who knew what problems that would create?

  He floored the gas, whipped a u-turn across the highway, and headed south under a beautiful blue Colorado sky.

  About the Author

  There’s nothing mundane in the writing world of Terry Wright. Tension, conflict, and suspense propel his readers through the pages as if they were on fire. Published in Science Fiction, Supernatural, and Horror, his mastery of the action thriller has won him International acclaim as an accomplished screenplay writer. A longtime member of the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, he has served on their board of directors, and for five years, he ran their annual Colorado Gold Writing Contest. He’s also the recipient of RMFW’s coveted Jasmine Award for 2012. Terry lives near Denver with his wife, Bobette, and their Yorkie, Taz Man.

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