“Eight is perfect,” Lori said. “See you then!”
• • •
CAITIE’S eyes grew as big as saucers when she hopped into the car in front of the Depot and saw me. “Mom!” she cried. “Your head! What happened? Are you . . . are you okay?”
“It’s a long story, honey,” I said. “I’ll tell you as we drive.”
By this time, I had told the story so often that I could rattle it off. For Caitie, I left out the grisly parts. I told her that the roosters had been chicken-napped, and that Mr. Banner and I had gone after the thief, who was now under arrest. And during that process, we had discovered that the crook was growing marijuana, so he would be going to jail for a good long time.
“Extra Crispy is just fine,” I added, reaching over to pat her bare leg. “He’s not as pretty as he was, but he didn’t suffer any injuries. When you get him cleaned up, he’ll be good as new.”
For a moment, I thought she was going to cry, but she didn’t. She pressed her lips together, straightened her shoulders, and said, “So I guess he didn’t get a blue ribbon.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She sighed. “So am I.” She brightened. “But there’s always next year.”
“Right,” I agreed. “There’s always next year.” I turned off San Antonio Avenue toward the fairgrounds. “Let’s go see if Dixie Chick won a ribbon, shall we?”
The parking lot was full and we had to walk a good half mile to the poultry tent. The afternoon sun was still high, and the air hadn’t grown any cooler. By the time we got where we were going, I was hot and sweaty, and under my wraparound gauze headband, my bandage itched.
It was even hotter inside the poultry tent—and noisy, of course. Crowded, too, because the judging was completed and people were gathering in front of the cages to gawk at the winners. There were blue ribbons on some cages, red and yellow and no ribbons at all on others—happy chicken fanciers and unhappy ones.
Caitie’s chickens were at the far end. When we got there, the first thing she saw was the blue ribbon attached to Dixie Chick’s cage. She’d won a first in the “Heavy Breeds” class.
“Oh, Mom!” she cried, dancing up and down. “I knew Dixie Chick could do it! I just knew it!” And then we turned to look at Extra Crispy and got a big surprise.
When I left the rooster that morning, I had jotted down a few sentences of explanation and hung it on his cage. And now, the cage was covered with dozens of little notes, saying things like Sorry this happened! and You’re a fighter! and So glad you didn’t get barbecued! Some people had even pinned up little trinkets—a tiny plastic chicken, a plush chicken doll, a little gold-colored heart, a purple smiley face, a green rubber frog.
And at the top right corner of the cage hung a large purple bow with ribbon streamers and a handwritten tag in the shape of a heart, colored purple. This valiant rooster is hereby granted the Brave Rooster Award for courage on the field of battle! And on Blackheart’s cage, next to Extra Crispy, was the same thing.
Caitie burst into happy tears. “Oh, Mom,” she cried, “he’s won a purple ribbon!”
And at that perfect moment, Jessica showed up with her camera.
• • •
AFTER supper, Caitie went upstairs to talk to Kevin on her cell phone, taking Mr. P with her. I settled down at the kitchen table with the contents of the Corticelli carton in front of me, and Winchester at my feet.
There were well over a dozen clippings and pieces of paper, and when I finally got them laid out on the table in chronological order, I could see that they told a story—my ghost’s story, as nearly as I could make out. There were gaps, of course, and while I could see what had happened, the whys were not at all obvious. But in the end, I was able to reconstruct the major events, more or less.
The first clipping in the storyline was dated May 17, 1882, and announced the wedding of Miss Annie Laurie Scott, 21, to Mr. Douglas Duncan, 28. (Annie Laurie, she of the Scottish folk song I had heard hummed in the storeroom. This must be my ghost’s name!) According to the clipping, the newly married couple had moved into the house Duncan had built at 304 Crockett in Pecan Springs—my building, which now bore the Historical Society’s plaque with the Duncan name on it. A “prominent local blacksmith,” Duncan operated a smithy on the alley behind the house, where “those requiring his services” could easily find him.
But the Duncan story had a tragic ending. The next clipping was dated some three years after the wedding, on September 21, 1885. The headline—“Douglas Duncan Killed by Train at the Houston Street Crossing”—was bordered in black, with a subhead: “Horse Also Killed, Buggy Wrecked.” Apparently, Duncan was in the habit of racing across the railroad track ahead of the train, and this time, he lost. He was survived by his widow, Annie Laurie, who (according to the article) had been so distressed by the terrible news that she gave premature birth to a stillborn infant son. I sat for a moment, struck by the enormity of her loss: her husband and her little boy, on the same bleak day. And the awfulness didn’t end there, I realized, for in that day and age, a young woman—at that point, Annie was only twenty-four—couldn’t have had many options after she became a widow. She might go home to her parents, if they were alive. She might marry again, and hope for better luck the next time. Or she might work—but at what? Domestic labor?
And then I found an answer to my question. Among the clippings, I uncovered a pretty calling card with Annie’s Laces printed on it in fancy calligraphy, and a date
