Bad Grrlz' Guide to Reality: The Complete Novels Wild Angel and Adventures in Time and Space with Max Merriwell Read Online Free PDF Page B

the room stank of steam and sweat and drying socks.
    He found a table at the back of the room near one of the gaps in the walls that served as windows. The dreary late-afternoon light that shone through the calico curtain gave that table the best lighting of any table in the house. Turning his collar up against the cold draft that blew through the opening, he settled down with his notepad and pencil to compose a letter to Mrs. Audrey North of New Bedford, Massachusetts. He had the address from letters he had found by the tent. It was difficult, but he knew that it had to be done. Since he had discovered the bodies, he felt that it was his place to do it.
Dear Mrs. North,
    It is with a sorrowful heart that I must write to tell you that a tragedy has befallen your sister and her family. There is no way to soften this news, and so I will state the facts directly. Your sister and her husband have been murdered by unknown assailants and their daughter Sarah is missing and most likely dead in the mountains.
    I was returning from prospecting on Grizzly Hill when I passed the place where your sister’s family had camped. There I found a terrible scene of destruction. Unknown persons had shot your sister and her husband and had wantonly destroyed much of their property. There was no sign of the child, Sarah, that your sister mentions in her letter.
    A group of miners from the nearby encampment of Selby Flat have thoroughly searched the area, hoping that divine providence had somehow protected the innocent child from harm. Alas, we have found nothing. Some have suggested that Indians might have carried the child away, but that seems unlikely. I believe that the child is dead and that her body has been carried off by wolves.
    I can give you no information about who perpetrated this terrible crime. Some suspect Indians, but there is no proof that the savages were involved. We have done our best to give your sister and her husband a Christian burial and we have said a prayer for Sarah, that she, too, may rest in peace.
    It might comfort you to know that your sister’s last thoughts were of you. I enclose a letter that I found beside her tent. I also enclose a sketch that I made of the valley where your sister died.
    He was finishing this line when Mrs. Selby returned to the table, having bustled about and made sure that all the miners were cared for. While she read the letter, Max took out his sketch of the gravesite.
    Mrs. Selby wiped away a tear with a corner of her apron. She returned the letter to him and peered over his shoulder at the sketch. “That’s lovely,” she said.
    Accepting the letter from Mrs. Selby, he wrote a final line. “You have all my sympathy at this time of sorrow.” He could think of nothing more to say, no words that could make this tragedy any less painful to Rachel’s sister. He signed his name and folded the note and his sketch of the valley around Rachel’s half-written letter.
    “I’ll send it with the next stage,” Mrs. Selby said. “Such sad news for a sister to hear. But I’m sure your sketch will be a comfort to her.”

4 WANTED
    “A man should not be without morals;
    it is better to have bad morals than none at all.”
    —Mark Twain’s Notebook; Mark Twain
    F OR THE NEXT FEW WEEKS , the miners of Selby Flat continued speculating about the robbers who had held up the stage and about the villains who had killed Rachel McKensie and her family. The murders were generally blamed on Indians or Mexicans. Arno’s continued absence made him a favorite for the robbery. The stage company offered a reward for the recovery of the gold, but no one came forward to claim it.
    Without a hint of shame, Jasper Davis speculated and discussed the murders with the others. He felt no guilt, no remorse.
    Jasper Davis was an extremely intelligent man with no conscience. The youngest of six boys, he had been born on a hard-scrabble dirt farm in the hills of Tennessee. His mother, exhausted by the needs of the