The Legend of Annie Murphy Read Free

the shoulder. “But that’s why you’re here, to help me solve these riddles. We have a ghost we need to explain, along with a mysterious lady in the cliff. Are you interested?”
    Dr. Cooper cocked his head a little. “I’d like to see this lady in the cliff first and then decide.”
    â€œFair enough.” Mac leaped from the jeep. “Let’s go before the sun gets any higher.”
    â€œWhere is it?” Lila asked.
    Mac chuckled. “The perfect place for a mystery: the old cemetery.”

TWO
    T hey left the jeep in the middle of the road and set out on foot through the ruins. They had to step around piles of old boards and crumbling rubble where houses, stores, saloons, and other businesses once stood. At times, the sagebrush and cacti allowing, they could even see where the main street and some of the backroads used to be. It didn’t take long for Jay and Lila to appreciate how large the town of Bodine had been.
    â€œIt’s time I acquainted you with the legend of Annie Murphy,” said Mac. “It’s her ghost the boys claim to have seen.”
    Jay and Lila drew close and walked on either side of him, wanting to hear every word.
    â€œBut you have to remember: Legend is one thing; known facts are another. Legend paints Annie Murphy as the most notorious woman Bodine ever saw—a spooky, insane murderess who shot her husband and chopped him into tiny pieces. The facts aren’t quite as gruesome. We know Annie was a real person who came out west around 1885 to join her husband, Cyrus Murphy. We know that Cyrus had staked a claim, started a mine, and struck it rich. We know that Annie shot him in the bedroom of a boardinghouse, although no one is sure why. Some say it was jealousy, and some say she was just greedy and didn’t want to share the wealth with him.
    â€œAnyway, she was tried, convicted, and sentenced to be hanged, but that never happened. She escaped from jail the night before and got shot trying to flee.”
    They started climbing a low, wind-swept hill above the town’s ruins. Soon they could see several aging, tilting gravestones sticking up above the coarse grass and ragged sagebrush. They read the name and date on the first one they passed: Thomas Carron, August 4, 1801– October 19, 1861. Then another, lying on its side: Elizabeth Macon, who was born in 1832 and died in 1883. It was an odd sensation: The people buried here were long dead. But somehow, the cemetery itself seemed long dead as well, forgotten and fading with the passing of time.
    â€œThe facts don’t tell much of a ghost story,” Jay remarked.
    â€œOh, but where the facts end, the legends begin!” said Mac. “According to legend, Annie Murphy came back as a ghost and haunted the town for several days, seeking revenge on the sheriff who had arrested her and the judge who had sentenced her. Several people saw her ghostly form.”
    â€œBut those stories aren’t true?” Lila asked, hoping for a no.
    â€œOh, they’re part of the legend. Just like the story about what happened to the sheriff and the judge.” He paused a moment to survey the old cemetery with its leaning, fallen, and crumbling gravestones. “They were both found dead one morning, their bodies flung over Annie Murphy’s grave. Apparently Annie got her revenge.”
    â€œOh, but that can’t be true!” Lila wanted to be sure.
    Mac had the glint of a mischievous storyteller in his eye. “No one can prove it true or false, so you never know. But a second tradition grew out of the first one: Anyone who camps on Annie Murphy’s grave will suffer the same fate.” Before either Lila or Jay could scoff or question, he pointed his finger at them and warned, “Those boys tried it the other night, and you know the rest.”
    They followed Mac to the top of the hill where he stopped, looked around to get his bearings, and then peered