Micanopy in Shadow Read Free

century houses, collecting her thoughts. “Mother would’ve been twenty-three then. In 1921 the train station was called Micanopy Junction. She probably got on the train in Jacksonville. A woman testified she saw her in one of the cars. Later she was seen at the station here. It’s long gone, of course. The woman said my mother looked around, like she was searching for someone.”
    The pickup crept on down Cholokka Boulevard. “We know a driver picked her up in a buckboard and took her to the Haven Hotel. The driver didn’t remember anything special about her. Lots of people visited here in those days. Young women didn’t usually travel alone then, but she had me with her. She chose the cheapest hotel. That might tell us something.”
    With a sun-browned hand, Hope pointed to the right. “The hotel stood back there. It burned in the late thirties, like a lot of other wooden buildings in town. By then I was already grown.”
    “Your mother started out walking?”
    The look in Hope’s gray eyes softened. It always did when she talked about the mother she could scarcely remember. “She talked to Mrs. Haven and asked her to watch me. She promised to be back soon. She didn’t sign the guest book or pay for a room. Mother Haven got the idea she hoped to stay somewhere else that night.”
    “So she walked down town?”
    “That’s probably why she didn’t take me.” Her eyebrows arched at Brandy. “People expected to walk then. They were the better for it.”
    The little truck coasted along Cholokka Boulevard, past the two-story town hall and library. Once it had been a school where her grandmother taught, and Brandy played on the swings when she visited. They passed the rustic Micanopy museum then neared the two-block downtown that comprised Micanopy.
    “My mother walked right along here,” Hope added. “It was about three-quarters of a mile from the hotel.”
    The boulevard had widened to four lanes. Brandy looked across the grassy median at the uneven row of nineteenth century brick and stucco buildings. Tourists in shorts, T-shirts, and sunglasses strolled along the sidewalk, passing in and out of the antique shops and bookstores. It looked much the same in the days when Brandy’s grandfather or grandmother had taken her into town for ice cream. Hope nodded toward a one-story building with mullion windows. “My mother went into the dry goods store. It was located here then. Caleb Stark Sr. owned it. He testified she came in and asked if she could find work. He didn’t promise anything, and she didn’t give her full name, worse luck. He said she used the telephone before she left. He had a wall phone with a crank that customers could borrow. Not too many folks in town had phones yet, of course, but we never knew the person she called. The woman at the central exchange didn’t remember the call. Whoever it was, wasn’t talking.”
    “Who else saw her?”
    “The town marshall. Briefly, he said. A minister at the Smith Street Baptist Church noticed her walk by. That was about two hours later.”
    Brandy jotted a few more notes. She’d heard the story before, of course, but it never hurt to take a fresh look now that she planned to investigate. “The town’s never had more than seven hundred people. Looks like the marshall would remember someone new.”
    Her grandmother scowled. “I agree.” She pulled into a diagonal parking space before a sidewalk shielded from the sun by a flat overhang. A pharmacy sign hung above the sprawling store. “My mother walked into this very building.” Hope backed the pickup away from the curb. “I cut some glads before you came, and I’d like to put them by the grave. We can go right past the Smith Street pond on the way to the cemetery. You might like to see it again.” Brandy nodded.
    “After that, you’ll want to take another look at the few things your great-grandmother left behind.” She cast another searching glance at her granddaughter. “The