Esther cleared her throat. “Well, Astin was young, only eighteen when he signed on with the Express. I think eighteen was the oldest they’d consider for riders. It was a job meant for young bodies. It was an exciting time, and the riders were young men who loved what they did, loved the adventure of it all. They’d ride like the wind for about ten miles, and then change horses.”
“Or change riders, too? Like if their—what—shift was over?” I said.
“Yes,” Jake said.
Esther bit her bottom lip and looked off into the imagined distance before she continued. “It was about the riders and the horses. The riders were amazing, but so were the horses. They were fast and apparently very smart. They were chosen for their speed and endurance. It’s said that the one that Astin was on when he was on his way to Broken Rope and disappeared tried to lead my great-great-grandmother back to Astin, but no one ever found him. My great-great-grandmother searched and searched for him, for years, even abandoning her own son because of her heartbreak. They were young; so young. I think she was only seventeen, and with a new baby.”
“What was her name?” Jake asked.
“Amelia Reagal.”
Stepping around the table and Esther, Jake moved to his computer and started typing.
“I can’t find her,” he said. “I have a database of Broken Rope cemetery residents. She’s not listed.”
“That part of the story is vague, but we think she left town after years of searching.”
“Do you know where she went?”
Esther shook her head. “Their son, my great-grandfather, stayed here. Amelia just stopped being a mom. She stopped everything except searching for her husband. It’s not known where she ended up, but it’s been speculated that Springfied, Jefferson City, or Rolla were all possible places.”
“What was their son’s name?” Jake asked.
“Charlie Reagal.”
Jake typed more. “There he is. He’s buried in the cemetery next to where Betts works. She and her Gram run a cooking school.”
“That cemetery’s yours? I drove by it, and I wondered about the school. What a great building.”
“The school is ours; the cemetery is just part of the scenery,” I said. “It isn’t under our care, but it is right next to the school.” I hadn’t noticed Esther visiting the cemetery, but I hadn’t been there very often over the last few days. My duties away from the school had consisted of sewing a few ripped costume seams; fishing, of course; helping Orly with a number of little things that no one else would attend to; prepping for our fish-frying and Dutch-oven-cooking lessons; and other glamorous chores that had kept me on the move. Orly and I had hit it off, and I remembered that I hadn’t been able to find him earlier. I silently noted to myself that I needed to track him down. Along with Teddy, Gram, Jerome, and the new ghost, Joe.
“It’s a charming cemetery,” Esther said.
“I agree.” The name Charlie Reagal was familiar, but I couldn’t place exactly where he was buried. I’d ask Gram if Charlie had ever visited her in his ghostly form. If so, we might end up with an even bigger chunk of Esther’s history to share with her. I liked the idea of the shortcut.
“What family did Charlie stay with?” Jake asked.
“I don’t know,” Esther said. “That part of the story is missing. I was hoping you might be able to help.”
Jake typed again. “Well, I can’t be completely sure, but I think he owned the general store. Someone by that name owned it, but I’d have to look a little deeper to confirm that this Charlie Reagal was your Charlie Reagal. If it is, then he was successful. I know I’ve got some stuff on the old general store, but I haven’t digitized the information yet. I’ll find it, hopefully today sometime. Maybe it’ll tell us more.”