Shattered Bloodline - Chapter 2：Miranda 2

As Elliot said, this is his story, though he isn’t the only one who can tell it. My name is Miranda Edwards, yeah, Edwards. I was married to Charles Edwards, John Carlston’s business partner. This is the story of how Elliot, the detective came to Deadwood. Yes, he died, but that wasn’t the end of his story. This is also a story of betrayal, distrust, and greed. Let me tell you my side of the story.

Charles was always around when I was growing up in Boston. He was about ten years my senior but his father was an import tycoon and he had taught Charles everything about business. I was the daughter of a railroad tycoon, his father and mine were business partners. Charles was the perfect fit for me and me for him.

Once we were married, which was an extravagant event in the city, he would become the sole heir to both, the shipping and railroad companies. When my father fell ill and passed on, he left his company to Charles and me, of course, this is a man’s world so it was his.

Then Charles met John Carlston and they hit it off nicely. John was unmarried and had made a small fortune in mining out west in the late 50’s and was looking for a partner to transport gold out of a place called the Black Hills. Deadwood, to be exact.

The two decided that they would partner up and make a fortune, so we packed up our things and moved from Boston to Deadwood, might as well have taken me to the moon.

Deadwood was so wild in comparison to Boston, but it was wildly beautiful. The hills were rich in greens in the summer. Reds, yellows, and oranges painted the landscape in fall. Winters were particularly beautiful because the glistening snow from the peaks. Winters became my favorite.

We arrived in early summer of ’76, shortly after Deadwood became officially a town. Of course, we didn’t even have a lawman around until March of ’77, but it wasn’t too terrible. In the spring of ’77, the once famous lawman, Wyatt Earp and his brother moved to town to make money, though that only lasted until the following July and word had it, Wyatt became a lawman again down in Dodge City.

In early 1879, my husband and John’s business relationship began to get tense, they were arguing about what land they should buy for mining and what prices were reasonable to them. In the end, John always won the arguments because he knew land, while Charles knew transport.

I remember the night I woke up to them arguing in the den. I usually tried not to listen to their business dealings but I heard a name that stopped me from leaving. That name had been Marisol Phillips, she was a sweet girl, maybe just over twenty, a little younger than myself. Her husband, Stephen, was a tall, big man. He towered over most of the people in town, so when he suddenly disappeared, people noticed and started to talk.

I had been acquainted with Marisol, though we were not in the same class. Here is Deadwood, however, class was not near as divided as it was in Boston. We had had tea together a few times as our husbands discussed business and it was saddening when she, too, vanished with her husband.

I remember that night though, I eavesdropped on my husband’s conversation of that matter. He was angry with John for something and all I knew was that it had to do with the Phillips.

“I wanted to buy the land, John, not steal it,” I heard Charles say.

“Why buy it for such a price when we could easily just take it?” John answered with a question.

“But, John, we are talking about murder here. I never wanted to be a part of any murder. Especially, for land, it’s just land, John.”

“Charles, you have to be prepared to cut out unnecessary obstacles when needed if you wish to succeed in business. Listen, my friend, it’s too late now to be backing out of this. You are just as guilty as me, you just have a conscience up stairs that makes you weak. She keeps you from reaching your full potential, is she a necessary or unnecessary obstacle?” John finished and a chill ran up my back, then settled in my stomach like a cold stone. I ran up the stairs as quickly as possible and wrote a letter to a private detective that I remembered hearing about when we were in Boston. I hastly wrote what I had heard about the Phillips and how John had mentioned the he was willing to cut out unnecessary obstacles.

Then he mentioned me. Did that make me an unnecessary obstacle? Was he going to try to cut me out? Why? What did I do?

I kept asking myself questions as I finished the letter and as I was sealing it, I heard someone moving around downstairs. I had a basket of goods that I had made for a friend and so I wrote her a quick note, instructing her to mail the letter if I wasn’t able to myself. Then I wrapped my friend’s note around the addressed envelope and hid it at the bottom of the basket. I hurriedly ran to my bed and pretended to be sleeping as a child would pretend when their parents would come to check on them.

Then I heard his footsteps coming up the stairs, one by one. They were heavy from drink and I felt dread and fear well up in my throat. With every step, my heart would jump into my throat.

He got to the top of the stairs and I could hear him trying to be quiet with every step, but his boots gave him away. There was a baseboard that always creaked in the third step from the stairs. That meant that in five steps, he would be opening the door. I hoped that I was just exaggerating and fretting about nothing, but something told me that John would have his way.

Once I heard the creak, I froze, holding my breath as if it would make me disappear. Step five, my heart was pounding in my ears. Four, I began to tremble, thinking about what might happen, now. Three, tears came to my eyes at the thought that I may be “cut out”. Two, I took a deep shaky breath. One, I clenched my eyes shut as tightly as I could. And as the door opened, I wanted to scream.

I opened my eyes and I could see his shadow on the wall across the room in front of me. There was something in his hand. A knife, perhaps?

I rolled over to look at him. To ask him what he was doing. To try and talk him out of whatever John had talked him into. But the moment our eyes met, he leapt at me and plunged my butcher knife in my gut.

I could see the pain in his eyes as he stabbed me again and again. With every jab of the knife, I became less and less aware of what was happening. The last thing I saw was his face looking at me with tears in his eyes. He was crying and apologizing.

Then I was standing in the corner watching my husband cry over my now dead body. The body that was dead because of him. Suddenly, I felt hot anger fill me as I walked over to the bed and hit the lantern he had brought into the room with him. It fell to the floor and he looked at it with terror written on his face. I chuckled, realizing how much fun this was going to be.

A couple of days later, my friend retrieved her basket and I knew it would only be a matter of time before Detective Benedict would be in Deadwood. Hopefully, then the killings could stop over land.

Through the next few weeks, I watched my husband’s mental health deteriorate as his guilt ate at him and I saw the hatred he was now harboring for his business partner. John had gotten him drunk and convinced him to kill me. A part of me was happy that he regretted his actions but I was too angry at him to care. Every now and then I would remind him that I was still there, knocking things over just to see him panic.

Then one day, Charles left to go on a trip, I watched him pack, wondering where he planned to go. After he left in the carriage, I stood there, on the porch looking around. That’s when I saw her, a tiny little girl, maybe five was standing near the road. She was just staring at me.

“Hello?” I called to her, “Can you see me?” Her response was simply a small smile and a nod of her head. Her little curls bounced as she nodded.

I started through the yard, toward the little girl. “Hello,” I said as I approached her.

“Hi, I’m Arya. How long have you been a ghost?” She said.

She shrugged her shoulders then said, “Come on, you should meet Maude,” she grabbed my hand and started toward town. I followed, eager to see others who might be able to see me, that I could talk to. I had been so lonely the last few months, even with my husband there to mess with.

We continued on into town and I began to see more people who actually met eyes with me. More ghosts, I guessed. We got to the abandoned mining camp and as we went into the storage barn, that once housed gold waiting for transport, I saw it was full of people.

“Miranda?” I heard a familiar voice. I turned and saw Marisol walking up to me and my heart broke realizing that John had indeed killed her and Stephen for their land. Then, looking around the room, I wondered, how many people here met their fate at the hands of John Carlston.