A ghost story
"No, sir. This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
I spent most of August on a road trip through parts of the American west. This is the fourth of what was to be a trilogy of posts on what I learned. You can read the first and second, and third parts here.
For nostalgia’s sake, I stop, somewhere between Provo and Moab, at a ghost town1. It’s much as I remember it from twenty years earlier. There are derelict buildings, some decorated, some lacking a surface to support decoration, a few trailers, some possibly inhabited, a Cadillac, half-buried, nose down at 45 degrees, in a nod to Cadillac Ranch.
But one thing is new - a General Store. Hand-painted signs outside read Welcome!, Hot Coffee, Cold Beer. I join the one other car in the gravel parking lot and go inside. In the air-conditioned interior, a young family is just settling up with the lady behind the counter. I busy myself till they’re done, then wander over.
“Welcome, is this your first time here?” the lady asks. She's shortish, stocky, probably fifty-something, short gray hair with tight curls. She looks tough, but not rough, relaxed. I figure there's a shotgun under the counter.
“No, I drove by back in 2004, heading from Junction down to Moab. It looked abandoned on the way down. Then on the way back after dark I noticed there was a light on. That stuck with me. Then in 2018, I read a story about a woman who came to make a life here.”
She's slowly nodding her head as she follows my story. I can see her mentally crossing her arms, her look saying she's heard it before.
“I wanted to come back to see what's changed since.”
“Well, a lot's changed,” she said ambiguously, still eyeing me.
I know I’m going to say it, she knows I’m going to say it, and we both know what the answer’s going to be, but I say it anyway.
“Are you the woman from the story?”
‘‘No, I'm not her,” the tension breaks like a rifle shot, “and I don't know where she is. She left shortly after that. I guess she wasn't quite the pioneer she claimed to be,’’ she tells me, with a hint of triumph in her voice. ‘‘But I'm still here,’’ she adds, ‘‘and so are my neighbors. They've been here 50 years!’’
“Oh, wow, how interesting,” or something equally banal, I offer, in an effort to keep some air under the conversation’s wings.
“You're not the first one to ask,” she continues. She hesitates for a moment, looks around as if someone else might be there, then goes for it. “It's mostly not true, by the way, that story,” she announces. “She only owned an acre, for starters, not the whole town like she said.” She’s off and running now. “I found out about the story through a friend where I was working at the time. She said, 'Have you seen this?' and she showed me the story. I was blown away. It was a good story, very well written.”
“It was,” I agree. “Really good. It's one of the pieces that made me say I want to do that, I want to write like that. And I started writing myself. So, it was the start of a lot of things, this place. That's why I wanted to come back.”
“A good story,” she repeats, “even if it wasn't true. Well, some of it was true.” She pauses, then continues. “I don't tell most people all this, you know, but you seem like you can handle it!”
“Sometimes a good story is better than the truth,” I venture. She nods in agreement.
“It's brought me a lot of business, that story, so I can't complain.”
“So, if you’re not her, what is your name?” I ask.
“Joan,” she replies2.
“I’m John. Let me look around a bit.’’ I feel I should buy something for taking up her time. I choose a T-shirt, which I wind up giving to my stepdaughter because I like the design, but they don’t have a medium, so I buy a small which is too small, and a bag of tortilla chips to go with the homemade roasted Hatch chile salsa I've brought all the way from Washington but don’t have chips for, and head back to the counter to pay.
‘‘Joan, would it be cheeky of me to ask for your picture?’’
‘‘What are you going to do with it? You're not going to put it on the internet, are you?’’
I reassure her that I’m not and pay up, but neither of us is trying to close the conversation.
‘‘What killed the town?’’ I ask.
‘‘I70,’’ she says. ‘‘The town used to be over by the narrow gauge, four miles that way, and then moved over here when they built the standard gauge. It was sheep, back then. They'd raise the sheep out here and the train would take the wool. Then it was oil and gas. They just closed the last well a few years ago.’’
“Western Slope boom and bust,” I commiserate.
The town used to be a water stop on the railroad. Steam locomotives would fill up with water pumped from the nearby Colorado River. Not any longer.
‘‘We don't have water out here. We have a share from the town up the road, and they deliver to our cistern. We do have electricity, though, since I paid for a new transformer.’’
“Would you say it's a ghost town?”
“Oh, yes, it's definitely a ghost town.” She looks around as if someone might be listening and leans over the counter. “We have a ghost here. A young girl died here, about a hundred years ago. We know where her grave is, but we don’t show anyone. I haven’t seen her ghost, but my neighbors have. One time, they were moving a, a, er, a movable house,” I guess she meant trailer, “and she appeared. She was pissed. Pissed because they were moving her home. I guess she lived there. My neighbors say she was about seven years old, with a dress on and her hair in pigtails.”
Looking over her shoulder again, she continues, “Now listen to this. A while back a couple with a young daughter came in. I think they were maybe Filipino. She didn’t speak English, but he did. Anyway, he asked me if I’d ever seen a ghost. I said, no, but my neighbors have, why? Well, his daughter had seen one. He wanted me to come out to see if I coud see it, but the store was really busy. By the time the store calmed down, they had to leave, but he said let me at least tell you what my daughter saw. It was a little girl about seven years old, with a dress on and her hair in pigtails.”
“It made me a believer,” she concludes.
“Thank you so much for sharing that,” I say. “It’s been fun swapping stories with you. True stories, partially true stories, ghost stories, …”
“True ghost stories!” she corrects me. “Thank you so much for spending time with me. And thank you for your bravery in coming in.”
“Bravery?”
“That couple who were here when you got here? He left his wife and kid in the car at first and came in on his own to make sure it was safe! I guess the place still has a certain vibe, a stigma.”
“Well, I’ll be back,” I said.
“Yes, please do come see me again!”
There's a line in the 1962 movie The Man who Shot Liberty Valance3 that's often incompletely quoted as “Print the legend.” The full quote is “No, sir. This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” The line was not in the original book; it was added by the screen writers. Some film writers suggest that veteran director John Ford chose to keep it in as a commentary on his entire oeuvre of Western movies. This ghost town certainly fits the mold, a legend in its own lifetime. An entire mythology has grown up around it, and for all I know this post is just another rock on that cairn.
The line from the movie has stuck with me all these years, waiting for me to recall it in context. As I drive away, I realize that the recent executive order4 aimed at ‘‘Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History’’ is aimed at nothing of the sort. It’s aimed at restoring the legend, and erasing the truth.
Thanks, as always, for reading or listening. I’ll be back soon with another story from the road. To make sure you don’t miss it, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Sleuths will figure out which one, but I’m not offering any prizes!
Name changed
In the movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, made in 1962 by John Ford, Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) is a lawyer who comes to a small Western town wanting to bring to justice Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin), who is terrorizing the town, and winds up in a duel. Tom Doniphon (John Wayne) knows that Stoddard has no chance, so shoots Valance from a rooftop as Stoddard draws his gun. Stoddard becomes the town hero, gets the girl, and heads off to Washington to win statehood for this unnamed territory. Just before he leaves, Doniphon tells Stoddard the truth.
Twenty-five years later, Stoddard returns for Doniphon’s funeral and approaches local newspaper editor Maxwell Scott:
Ransom Stoddard: [after he tells Scott who really shot Liberty Valance] Well, you know the rest of it. l went to Washington, and we won statehood. l became the first governor.
Maxwell Scott: Three terms as governor, two terms in the Senate, Ambassador to the Court of St James, back again to the Senate, and a man who, with the snap of his fingers, could be the next vice president of the United States.
Ransom Stoddard: [Scott burns his notes] You’re not going to use the story, Mr Scott?
Maxwell Scott: No, sir. This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
The Western Slop and a ghost story! I love it, thanks John!
How great to read this written up! I like how you weave in the previously published story and the idea of myth without being overt about it ... obviously there was some myth in what story, and perhaps some wishful thinking. I'm kinda curious to go there now and meet Joan myself!