When Ruth spoke, her voice was very quiet. “There was a cholera epidemic that winter, and many of the former residents of Legend died, including some of Cole’s young friends. The parents sent me photos of their dead children. They—”
Pausing, Ruth took a deep breath. “They cursed me. One old woman spit on me on the street and said she hoped my dead grandson haunted me forever. And she hoped my new baby would come to hate me.”
As goose bumps rose on Kady’s arms, she rubbed them. She wasn’t Catholic, but she felt that she should cross herself against such an evil wish.
“It has all come true,” Ruth said. “Cole haunts this town, wanting desperately to grow up, to love, to have children of his own. And my living son—”
Kady listened while Ruth told of how she’d imprisoned her youngest son, how he was never allowed off the grounds. When he was three, Ruth had received a kidnap threat from a person who had once lived in Legend, so Ruth redoubled her attempts to keep him safe.
When Ruth paused and seemed as though she was going to say no more, Kady said, “What happened to your youngest son?” then tried to prepare herself to hear of yet another tragedy.
“When he was sixteen, he climbed over the fence and ran away.” Ruth took her time before she spoke again. “He left behind a letter that said my hatred of Legend was stronger than my love for him. He said I had allowed my grief for the dead to override my love for the living.”
Ruth looked at Kady. “I was furious at first, and as always, I blamed Legend for taking yet another loved one from me, but as the months, then the years passed, I came to realize that my son was right. I was the one who had lost my only remaining child. I could blame this tragedy on no one else.”
“Have you heard from him?” Kady asked.
“Yes. I heard nothing for years, then six months ago he wrote me a letter. He’s in New York trying to make a life for himself. He wants no help from me; actually, he wants no contact from me. He is . . .”
“Angry,” Kady said, trying to imagine a child who had grown up imprisoned by a woman obsessed with hatred.
“Yes,” Ruth said softly, “my son is very, very angry.”
When Ruth turned to look at her, Kady instinctively knew what was going to be said. And more than anything in the world, Kady didn’t want to hear it. Ruth Jordan was going to ask Kady for help. She was going to ask her to help with the people of Legend and to help with her angry young son.
But before Ruth could speak, Kady put up her hand. “I think I should tell you about myself. I think there are things you should know about me. I didn’t want to come here, I don’t want to be here, and I plan to go back to my own world and to the man I love immediately.”
There, she thought, that was out in the open. Tossing back the lap robe, she stood and began to walk about the porch. It was very late now, and it would be daylight before long. As Kady began to talk, she tried to conjure the image of Gregory and of Onions. She wanted to remember a world full of cars and jets and computers. Right now atomic warfare seemed safe compared to blood feuds involving curses and ghosts.
Through all of what had happened, Kady had never been able to understand why she had been chosen to go back in time, and now she knew she’d come to know a man who had never lived to be a man. Right now she did not want to think of Cole, for if she did she’d remember too many things about him that she’d come to love. No! No! she corrected herself, she had not come to love him. She was in love with nice, safe Gregory, a man who had lived all of his thirty-one years as a human, not as a ghost, a man whose mother had been cursed by no one (except maybe a few restaurant supply delivery men).
“Do you have lots of money?” Kady asked as she paused in pacing the porch.
“Masses.”
“Then why don’t you rebuild Legend? You could make it into the place that Cole dreamed of. Maybe that’s why I was sent back to this place, to see what Cole wanted and to tell you about it.”
Ruth arched an eyebrow. “Who would want to live high in the Colorado mountains?”
At that Kady smiled. “Maybe I should tell you about downhill skiing.”
“I see, and you think that if I make the town of Legend into a pretty little resort, that will right all the wrongs?”
“I don’t know if you can right the wrongs,” Kady said quickly, while silently begging Ruth not to ask her to stay. Right now the only thing in the world she wanted was to go back to her own time and place, and to be with people who were familiar to her.
While Kady had been pacing nervously, Ruth had been watching her. “Dear, do please sit down. Joseph can’t sleep if you are moving about so restlessly.”
Kady had not noticed the older man stretched out on a couple of blankets at the far end of the porch, now raised on one elbow and watching the two women sleepily. Kady sat back on the chair.
Ruth took her hand and squeezed it. “I’m not going to ask you to stay. What would be the use? What could you do now that you have not already done? You gave my grandson a chance to live for a while. You gave him the chance for revenge.”
“Revenge?” Kady asked, startled.
“When your letter arrived telling me you were now my granddaughter-in-law and that my hardheaded grandson was holding you prisoner, I threw the missive in the trash. Over the years I have become used to such hateful pranks, and I always ignore them. But the next day Joseph brought me a newspaper clipping.”
From inside a cleverly concealed pocket in the sleeve of her dress, Ruth pulled out a piece of newspaper and handed it to Kady, but when she held it nearer the lantern light to read, Ruth spoke.
“It says that an old wrong had been righted. The men who robbed the bank in Legend so many years ago were never caught. My son and husband were both killed while pursuing the three men, but the robbers seemed to vanish into the mountain. No trackers ever found a trace of them.