Moon Over Manifest

I took his hand and in it was the crumpled-up telegram Ivan DeVore sent for me at no charge.

WESTERN UNION

TELEGRAPH SERVICE

DEAR GIDEON TUCKER STOP REGRET TO INFORM YOU OF THE GRAVE ILLNESS OF YOUR DAUGHTER ABILENE TUCKER STOP SHE’S PUTTING UP A BRAVE FIGHT BUT THE LUMBAGO HAS SET IN AND WE FEAR HER TIME IS NEAR DONE STOP HER LAST WORDS (SO FAR) ARE: HERMAN MELVILLE SHOULD STICK TO WRITING ABOUT BIG WHITE WHALES, BECAUSE TRUE PLACES ARE FOUND IN MANY PLACES, INCLUDING ON MAPS STOP WE THOUGHT YOU MIGHT LIKE TO KNOW SO THAT YOU CAN COME TO MANIFEST AND PAY YOUR RESPECTS IN PERSON STOP WE WILL TRY TO KEEP HER ON ICE UNTIL YOUR SPEEDY ARRIVAL STOP GOOD LUCK AND GODSPEED STOP

The Rattler

AUGUST 31, 1936

I’ve been told that every good story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. As Gideon and I sat for a spell, just the two of us, right there on the train tracks, I told him the story I’d needed to hear. And I knew he needed to hear it too, all the way to the end.

I gave him his box of mementos and watched as he fingered each one: the Wiggle King fishing lure, the silver dollar, the cork, little Eva’s nesting doll, and the skeleton key. These treasures that had sparked Miss Sadie’s stories and led me back to my daddy. Gideon’s eyes filled with tears when I gave him Ned’s letters, all in a neat bundle and tied with string. He said he’d like to read them one more time; then we would give them to Miss Sadie. It was what we both wanted.

We pieced together some things in the middle. The fact that the spy map wasn’t really a spy map at all. It was just Ned’s drawing of home, a place he wanted to remember.

And I’d wondered for some time why Shady kept that bottle of whiskey right out in the open but never touched a drop of it. Gideon said it was because sometimes a man’s demons could creep up on him. He figured Shady would rather know where his demon was so he could keep an eye on him.

As for the Rattler? There had been a mysterious figure known as the Rattler, who had never really been a spy. Just a ghostly figure some would see walking the woods at night, a faint rattling sound accompanying the movement.

But one night had been different—the night Finn met up with Jinx. “Jinx” would be the way I’d always refer to my young father. There were several people in the woods that night. Jinx and Finn were having their argument. Uncle Louver was out setting his raccoon traps. And there was the mysterious shadowy figure that loomed from nowhere, accidentally frightening Finn into stepping in one of Uncle Louver’s traps. The fall landed his head on a rock so hard it killed him dead.

Gideon himself couldn’t shed any light on this mystery. But I could think of one person who would have been walking in the woods after being called to the Cybulskis house to help deliver a baby. And who might look a little ghostly at night dressed in her flowing black gown. And who rattles when she walks. Oh, I was sure Miss Sadie had done her part in tending Jinx’s wound. But a diviner’s jewelry jangles. A nun’s rosary beads rattle. It’s a universal.

With that, I knew I had my story I would turn in on the first day of school. And I formed the first line in my head as Gideon and I walked into town, past the sign with big blue letters: MANIFEST … A TOWN WITH A PAST.

HATTIE MAE’S

NEWS AUXILIARY

SEPTEMBER 6, 1936

Like my aunt Mavis used to say, a whistling girl and a cackling hen had better know when to call it quits. Well, it’s time for this girl to hang up her reporter’s hat. Yes, this will be the final installment of “Hattie Mae’s News Auxiliary,” and for your years of readership, I am grateful.

But I am pleased as punch to announce that I will be passing the torch to an up-and-coming writer who, according to Sister Redempta, has an eye for the interesting and a nose for news.

This young writer assures me that she will be truthful and certifiable in giving the honest-to-goodness scoop each and every week.

So for all the whos, whats, whys, whens, and wheres, look at the backside of “Hogs and Cattle” every Sunday to your new auxiliary writer—

ABILENE TUCKER

Reporter About Town

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Like many readers of historical fiction, I find it interesting to know what is fact and what is fiction. Sometimes what I find even more interesting is where the fact or fiction came from.

Manifest, Kansas. Moon Over Manifest is a story that came from my family roots. The town of Manifest, although very real and vivid in my mind, is both fact and fiction. Manifest is based on the town of Frontenac, Kansas. Originally, I chose the town of Frontenac as the setting for my story because my grandparents were from that area of southeast Kansas. But in doing so, I stumbled upon a community that was rich in color and history.