Merry, Merry Ghost

He looked embarrassed. “Anytime I can help, Miz Flynn, you just tell me.” He brought our coats and once again we were at his front door. He held it open.

I stepped outside first. Susan followed, then turned. “Merry Christmas, Leon.”

“Merry Christmas, Miz Flynn.”

Archibald chimed in. “And a Merry Christmas was had by all.”

Susan hesitated, then spoke in a rush. “Leon, please teach Keith how to ride and fish for crappie and hunt deer. Show him all the places we love on the ranch. Take him out to the tanks and let him smell oil.”

Nothing smells finer to an Oklahoman than sweet crude.

Susan’s eyes were shiny. “Tell Wade Farrell I asked you.”

There was longing and sadness in Leon’s voice. “I wish I could, Miz Flynn. That’ll be up to Tucker, I guess.”

Susan looked away. Her voice was uncertain. “Tucker may not want to stay on Burnt Creek.”

Leon’s face folded into a frown. He started to speak, stopped, cleared his throat. “If Tucker leaves the ranch, I’ll be there for Mitch’s boy.”

She didn’t look up as she swung to give him a quick hug. She ducked her head and hurried from the porch.

I knew she ran because she didn’t want Leon to see her tears. This was her final farewell, farewell to a life she had loved.

Leon lifted a hand, took a step after her, then stopped. His mouth opened. Closed. He shook his head. He turned and opened the screen door. “Burnt Creek…” His voice was gruff with an undertone of anger. The door closed behind him.

As I walked to the car, I carried a clear picture of his face, an honest face, grieved and forlorn.

I opened the driver’s seat. The interior light flashed on. Lying in the driver’s seat was Susan’s letter. I picked up the envelope, saw that it was sealed now as well as stamped.

The passenger seat was empty.

“Susan?”

Suddenly I knew I was alone. Susan’s task was done. Death after Life doth greatly please. She was free now, no longer tethered to earth. Before too long I would be home in Heaven and Susan would be there, vigorous and happy, reunited with those she had loved.

I tucked the letter in the pocket of my coat and slid behind the wheel. I didn’t glance again at the passenger seat. I would never again while on earth hear Susan’s light, clear voice or see her kind eyes and quick smile.

“Godspeed.” I turned the key and moved the gear to D. I drove down the dark road and, to be honest, heaved a sigh of relief. I’d embarked on a perilous and forbidden path and was exceedingly fortunate that my gamble had succeeded. Perhaps Wiggins, occupied in Tumbulgum, would never know that I’d once again succumbed to impulse. Certainly I had the greatest respect for Precept Two and had ignored its stricture only because I felt I had no choice.

I turned onto the main road.

Ends justifying means rarely received plaudits, but in this instance everything had worked out well and surely that was a mitigating circumstance. However, I suspected I would be climbing aboard the Rescue Express as soon as I returned Jake’s car. Perhaps she’d never notice that scrape on the left rear fender. I’d hoped to stay through Christmas—was there anything lovelier than the peal of bells at the midnight service?—but it looked as though my work was done. Keith was authenticated as Mitch’s son and was now officially Susan’s heir. I would go by the post office and drop the letter in the slot.

I reached the top of Persimmon Hill. Here the road ran straight and true, swooping down at a steep angle. Adelaide teenagers, not to mention some adults, were sometimes tempted to put the pedal to the metal.

I rolled down the windows, felt the flood of cold air. Why not?

“Yee-hah!” The wind blew my hair, rushing past loud as the wings of a Mississippi kite. I felt as one with the bucketing car, exhilarated, adrenaline rushing, the headlights’ twin beams flashing through the night, fast as a black skimmer snatching fish from a Gulf wave.

“Bailey Ruth!” Wiggins’s stentorian shout shook me.

I flinched. The wheel swerved under my hands. The car whipped from one side of the road to the other, zigging and zagging down the sharp incline. I fought to keep the front end from careening into the bridge at the bottom of the hill.

A siren shrilled.

The Ford shuddered as I brought it to a stop on the shoulder just past the bridge.

“Worst ride…since that night…the Lady Luck’s brakes went out.” Wiggins spoke in strangled gasps.

I clutched the steering wheel and struggled for breath, but Wiggins’s uneven bleats moved me. “Are you all right?”

“All right?” There was an edge of despair in his voice. “How can I be all right? Transgression piled upon transgression. Consorting with a departed spirit. Encouraging defiance of a Heavenly summons. Appearing here, there, and everywhere. Alarming that officer.”

Footsteps approached.

I twisted to look. Oh dear Heaven, here came Officer Cain, clearly revealed in the wash of lights from his car. I had a dreadful premonition. Officer Cain had no doubt marked down the license plate of the blue Ford he had stopped earlier. My mink coat gleamed a soft caramel in the sweep of his flashlight. I’d not bothered to disappear when I left Leon’s house. The passenger seat, of course, was empty. Perhaps I, too, could wish a purse and driver’s license, but Susan was forever beyond my call. Officer Cain might reasonably wonder what had happened to her and