A Misty Mourning by Rett MacPherson Page B

all year around?”
    â€œNo,” he said. “Afraid the only thing I know about the Indians is the Morris Massacre.”
    â€œOh, yes,” I said, aware of the story of Mr. Morris and his ill-fated pioneer family. “Well, there’s lots more to know about Native Americans than that.”
    â€œWhat are you?” he asked.
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œYour nationality?”
    â€œI’m an American, silly.” With that I walked away, shoving a deviled egg in my mouth as I went. I sat down across from Gert, and as I had expected, she was already finished eating.
    What I hadn’t expected was for Pastor Breedlove to follow me to my table, with Lafayette Hart on his heels, and sit down across from me. “We’re all Americans,” he said. “But what were your ancestors?”
    â€œLittle bit of this, little bit of that. Basically, though, my ancestors from this area were Scotch-Irish. Just like everybody else’s in this area,” I said. “Why the interest in my ancestors, Pastor?”
    â€œJust wonderin’ if we were related,” he said.
    â€œGo back a few generations, I wouldn’t doubt it.” And that was a fact. I have a cousin who is my cousin so many times in so many different ways that we are more related to each other than if we were brother and sister.
    â€œThis is my grandmother,” I said. “Gertrude Crookshank. Originally, Seaborne.”
    â€œSeaborne?” he said and nodded at her. “Nice to meet you.”
    It was quiet a moment until Lafayette finally spoke up. “Gertie’s mother was Bridie McClanahan.”
    Now I doubt seriously that Pastor Breedlove was old enough to remember a woman who had died very young in 1926. But the look on his face said that he at least knew of her. “Bridie Mac,” he stated.
    â€œExcuse me?” I asked. “What do you mean, Bridie Mac?”
    â€œ ‘Lies all those lies, sharp as a tack. Need to keep a secret, tell Bridie Mac,’ “ he chanted.
    I cannot tell you the peculiar feeling that crept down my spine, causing goose bumps to break out along my neck and arms. Was this something he had just made up? If so, why? And if it wasn’t something that he had just made up off the top of his head, its implications were quite disturbing.
    I was speechless, unable to say a word. I suppose the look on my face relayed everything I was feeling and thinking, because the pastor became very somber and apologetic. “Forgive me,” he said.
    â€œWhat. . . what was that?” I asked. I looked to Gert, who seemed as disturbed as I, but in a different way.
    â€œYou know those rhymes that kids on the playground chant when they’re a-doin’ things like hopscotch? Somethin’ I heard as a kid,” he said. “I didn’t mean to trouble you.”
    â€œNot at all,” I said, recovering enough to take a bite of some excellent potato salad. We all ate in silence for a few moments. Two little girls, in their frilly Sunday best, ran around the churchyard :hasing each other with chocolate ice-cream cones. I really wanted to talk to my girls.
    â€œSo, tell me, Lafayette,” I said. “I had a cashier at breakfast ask me something about two miners who either disappeared or had some terrible fate befall them. Do you know what she’s referring tor
    Lafayette snapped his plastic fork in two trying to pick up a piece of his pork steak. “Mm, not sure.”
    â€œIt was said in reference to your mother and the boardinghouse. The woman said that now we may never know what happened to those miners. What was she talking about?” I asked.
    Lafayette looked good for his seventy-one years. He normally had healthy coloring, but at the moment he looked a little peaked. He didn’t get a chance to answer me, Pastor Breedlove answered for him.
    â€œOh, she’s probably talkin’ about those two miners a long time ago that