The Witch and the Gandy Dancer
by Willy Whiskers, Constable of Calliope, NV

Long before Calliope was a town or even a village it was a mining camp – or at least there was a mining camp up in the hills overlooking the town as it stands today. As silver strikes go, the Calliope lode did not rival the Comstock, but it did attract its share of starry-eyed diggers. Among them were Jacob Miller and his wife Andorra. Jake worked the mine and his wife took in laundry and ran a lunch table jammed between two ramshackle saloons.

Andorra was taller than most women, broad shouldered, but not handsome. The life of a miner’s wife was far from comfortable so it was necessary to develop a hard skin, though she probably had one already, otherwise she would not have been among the scarce number of women in the territory. As such, she gained the reputation as an unpleasant person. No one went to her for feminine comfort and it was only for need of a meal that any miner came near her at all.

An errant blast deep in the mine sent Jake to his treasure in the sky. When they told the now-Widow Miller, she stood still for a moment, stared off into the abyss, and went right back to dishing out stew to a table full of miners. It was couple of years before the mother lode played out and the big mining interests moved in. They were the only ones who could make a go of the lower grade ore. By then, Andorra was living in a one-room hovel above the old mine and for all evidence had no income at all.

Among the residents of the nascent town, the Widow Miller was a curiosity. Every few weeks one general store or another would send a clerk up the hollow with the meagerest of supplies. No one ever saw the woman – she would leave a few coins in a tin can tacked to the cabin door and speak to the errand boy through a closed window. Occasionally a trespasser came too close to her domain and his first warning was a shotgun blast or a rifle shot too close to be misunderstood.

Everyone in town had at least one Widow Miller story. The two most prevalent were that she was from Salem and therefore a witch. It was true she was from Salem – Salem, Indiana – and that she had a horde of gold and silver hidden in the floor of her cabin. She was said to incessantly count it from dark to dawn. Without any real knowledge about her, the tales ran wild.

One night Tommy Worth, Eli Roule, and a few other boys got into some of Tommy’s father’s hard cider and decided to see how close they could come to the old woman’s shack before getting a warning blast. Eli mentioned, “If we’re lucky we might catch her counting then we can snatch some of her gold.” Moving quietly, or as quietly as a bunch of half-drunk young men could, they picked their way up the steep dark path to their destination. In the distance they saw a faint light from a single lamp peeking thought the shuttered window. This encouraged them.

They reached the building undetected. They knew they were undetected as they had not been shot. Once there, they had no idea what to do next. Tommy would later tell how he stood up and yelled at the house, “We’ve come for your gold!” then they all rushed the door only to find it barred from inside. He went on to say they heard the widow witch chanting some incantation and the whole cabin erupted into blinding light. Confident in their successful sortie they all high-tailed it back to town, falling and skidding their way down the hill. Tommy was the only one who ever talked openly about that night and for some reason the members of small gang were never close after that.

By the time they reached home, the whole town was aware of a fire at the top of the hollow. The blaze filled the sky and several men mounted up to investigate. Reaching the widow’s shack they found it totally engulfed and in no time just a pile of smoldering ashes. In the morning, they found the remains of a person they assumed was Andorra, wrapped her in a canvas and brought her down to the new cemetery east of town. All that remained was burned kitchen gear, two tins of coins dated to the time of the silver strike, and what was left of her bed – nothing else.

The passing of the Widow Miller might have ended the stories, but being such a horrendous local event, it just fueled more outlandish yarns. If she was a witch, then her death would not stop her – she would be out for revenge against Tommy and the boys or the people of the town or even the town itself. Her grave became taboo and the next generation of youth looking to prove themselves would visit it with cider- or whisky-filled bellies. By the time the gandy dancer Abel Hammond came to town to work on the railroad there was a very rich and intricate folklore surrounding the Widow Miller.

Abel was a smallish man, wiry, with a shock of light tan hair and narrow squinty eyes. You could pick him out amidst the section gang as if he was a child among men. If this was not peculiar enough, Abel was afraid of just about everything: snakes, bugs, the number 13, spilling salt, everything. But the one thing that scared him most was graveyards. He would walk three streets out of his way just to miss a tombstone.

Most cowboys had their favorite saloon. In the days of the cattle drives in Kansas, the drovers would park their chuck wagons out in front of their chosen bar to mark their headquarters. The same can be said of the railroad men. In a town with one saloon for every ten people barmen were grateful for the loyal business of a section gang or two.

The boys at the Full Mug saloon were railroad men and a nastier bunch than most. Unfortunately for Abel, he was on their crew and they showed him no mercy. They had endless fun setting him up, doing things to make him panic, piss his pants, or just bolt and run all the way home. Why he continued to visit that pub is a mystery, but I think if you asked him he would say they were his friends.

In many western towns, the cemetery had an exotic name, like the famous Boot Hill. In Calliope, we just called it the graveyard and one fateful night the Full Mug boys fixed on the subject of graveyards and pestered Abel about what bothered him about the place. Of course, Abel’s fears had no reason and he just said, “I didn’t like them.”

“Well, it’s just time to face your fears and we’ll help you,” said Jacko, the gang foreman. The typical big Irish bully, he was unkempt, shaggy and sported a pair of the largest hands granted any man.

“Oh, no.” Abel looked down with his hunched shoulders. “You couldn’t pay me to go there.”

“Oh, yes. And we will do just that very thing. Come on men. Let’s get up a poke for Abel.” Jacko passed his hat all round and it soon jingled with coins. The barman promised a week of free drinks. “Here it is, it’s all for you. All you have to do is go into the graveyard and come out.”

Abel was amazed. This was the most positive attention they had ever granted him. He started feeling like he was one of them. “Just step in the graveyard?”

“Pretty much, “ granted Jacko. Then Harry, the one they called Professor because he had finished 8th grade, spoke up. “No, you will have to go to the back of the yard. This is a pretty heavy purse. If you want it you need to earn it.”

“The Widow Miller’s grave is back there,” added Peter. He was a weasely, twitchy man who always jumped into these schemes once a few others had already preceded him. “You have to go that far.”

Abel’s new found courage began flagging. “The Widow Miller? She was a witch. I’m not going anywhere near her.”

The local lore was strong and Abel believed every word. The stories of her death and about her ghost out for revenge spoke directly to the fearful man. No amount of whistling past the graveyard was going to make him feel any better about this proposal.

“Come, come, Abel. You can’t live in fear all your life. This could be a watershed for you. Your whole life could change. Don’t you want that?” Jacko put his arm around the small man and gave him a playful punch in the jaw.

In the end, Abel agreed and would visit the grave that very night. As he left the tavern Harry stopped him. “Just a minute. We have to have some proof that you went.”

Handing Abel a broken chair leg, he said. “When you get to the grave, just hammer this stake in the ground so we will know you were there.” Abel took the stake and headed out. Moving into the darkness he heard laughter coming from the bar.

Screwing up his courage, Abel pulled his long coat around him as a comfort and headed straight for the graveyard. The moon was half full so there was some light, but not much. The sky was full of fast-moving puffy clouds that caused shifting shadows to play across every surface. Reaching the graveyard he hesitated, but he wanted to make good on his task for some reason. Perhaps he wanted to show his manhood, or he really wanted to conquer his fear, or the money drove him. Whichever, he made his first few halting steps. Happily there were no adverse effects, so he pushed on.

It was not long before he arrived at the small wooden marker with the widow’s name roughly scribed on it. This was not her original grave marker. That had been stolen, and the next one desecrated, then one was burned, and another just disappeared. The present rough board was the handy work of Eli, who used to work in the mines until his health gave out and now lived in an old cabin in the hollow, not far from the spot of the widow’s place.

Abel looked around in the faint light and for the first time in his life he felt calm at a time when he would be nearly paralyzed with fear. Facing his terrors had filled his chest with power and confidence. His backbone stiffened. His lungs filled full for the first time. He stood tall.

“Just one more thing to do,” he thought in his new found swagger. Dropping to his knees he pulled out the stake and placed the tip on the ground. Pushing hard to drive it into the earth, he found it did not penetrate. A few more efforts brought no additional effect. Feeling around, he found a small cobble. Using it as a mallet, he brought the stone down several times on the stake driving it into the dirt. One last hit made it good and secure – it was time to leave. He mind was full of collecting his prize and finally facing down his tormentors.

Moving to rise, something held him down. Abel tried again to gain his feet with no success. Once more, and again and again he tried, but whatever had him held him fast. Forgetting about all his new-found courage, only visions of the old witch filled his mind.

“Let me go!”, he screamed, “Let me go!” He continued pulling and pulling, but he was still stuck fast. “I didn’t kill you. You don’t know me. Let me go!” Suddenly he felt a hand grabbing his arm and another on his leg. He knew the witch was pulling him into the grave. This sent him into a new panic, more terror than he had ever felt before. “Let me go, Let me go, let me go . . . .”

Back at the tavern everyone forgot about Abel and the evening passed away. It was several days before anyone wondered why Abel wasn’t around. He had often missed work in the past, so no one thought much of it at first.

“I wonder if he went to the grave,” said Jacko as the first round of drinks hit the table.

“Let’s go see,” added Peter.

The railroad men all rose in unison, grabbed their mugs, and in solemn procession trudged up to the graveyard. It was placed on a hill and no one could see the widow’s grave from the road as it was on the back side, so they all had to make their way inside. None of them would admit it, but their hearts beat faster and each felt uncomfortable among the graves.

At the witch’s grave they found Abel’s cold body laid out on its back. He was a sad sight starting to show the decay of a man three days dead. Jacko and the boys felt a little ashamed at having a hand in sending the little man to this place. Say what you will, Abel was still one of them, as the runt of the litter is still a member of the pack.

Solemnly, they wrapped his long coat around him and buttoned it tight. Each grabbing a handful of cloth, they lifted him. Or at least they tried, for there was something holding him to the ground. That is when the Professor found the broken chair leg piercing the coat through one corner as proof of Abel’s triumph over his fears.