Adrian Blackwell's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Adrian Blackwell stood on the warped porch of the old saloon and read the notice nailed to the door. The sheriff had written it in blunt pencil: CASE CLOSED, 1889. Forty years later, the paper was still there, curled at the corners. Adrian had come to Grubcreek to find out what happened to the girl who walked into this saloon one night and never walked out. The sheriff wouldn't hand over the file. Adrian had asked twice. He pushed through the swinging doors. Dust hung in the yellow light. A bartender wiped a glass and watched him without greeting. Adrian was tall, dressed in dark wool that marked him as a stranger. He asked who had known the missing girl best. The bartender kept wiping the glass. Then he said one word. "Thornwood." He pointed his rag at the hills. Adrian walked out before the man could change his mind. Without the police file, he was guessing at doors the law had already kicked in. He needed something the law had never seen. The trail up the ridge was thin. A brown squirrel darted across his boots, its tail trailing a thread of pale light that hung in the air a second too long. Adrian stopped. He had heard stories about Grubcreek. He was starting to believe some of them. The hermit's shack leaned against a split pine. Silas Thornwood stood in the doorway before Adrian reached it, a crooked staff in one hand, a knife in the other. His beard reached his belt. His eyes were narrow and unfriendly. "Turn around," Silas said. "I came about the girl," Adrian said. "The one from the saloon." The knife lowered an inch. Silas studied him. "Police already quit." "That's why I'm here." Silas didn't move for a long time. Then he stepped aside. The shack smelled of smoke and dried herbs. On a shelf above the stove sat a stack of leather journals, each one tied with cord. Silas pulled down the bottom one and dropped it on the table between them. "She wrote to me every week," Silas said. "Right up to the last one. I kept them. Never showed the sheriff. Sheriff didn't ask." Adrian opened the journal. Letters in a young woman's hand. Dates. Names he didn't recognize yet. A pressed flower between two pages. On the last letter, the ink broke off mid-sentence. "You can read them here," Silas said. "Not out there. They leave this room, I burn the rest." Adrian sat down. He had what the police never had. But the last letter named three men in Grubcreek, and the ink stopped as if her hand had been struck. One of those men, or their sons, would still be in town. And now Adrian would have to find out which one, without letting any of them learn he was looking.