And the Winners Are...
Astrid Claire
Werner
1st Place,
Young Writers Category - International Divison
In due time, the stranger recovered his health although his
mental faculties did not recover at the same rate as his physical strength. It was the
stranger's memory that seemed to have suffered the largest blow from whatever unfortunate
accident had brought him into the backward town of Deer Lick. As the stranger's fever
subsided and his lucidity recovered, small tidbits of his past would return to him, and
the questions about his origin and presence in Missouri were slowly being pieced together.
At the end of six months the stranger was fully sound of body, and had remembered that his
Christian name was Alejandro DiGiovine and that he was originally from the coastal nation
of Portugal. His mother had been Portuguese and his father had been Italian. Beyond the
early years of his childhood with his family, however, Alejandro could not yet recall.
John Gray had prevailed upon his daughter
to refuse Hugh Gregory when he came again to call on her. Her obedient nature would not
allow her to disregard her father's command, and so she tearfully told Hugh that she would not marry him.
"Why ever not?", he demanded as the color rose in his face. "Do not ask me questions, Hugh. I simply can't marry you." "Isn't there anything that can be done?" "No. Please just go."
Hugh turned on his heel, his heart full of hurt and confusion, and did not stop to reflect. He fled the house of the Gray family for his own office dwelling. He threw himself into his work for the next six months, determined to drive the stinging memories of this painful rejection out of his mind. In despair, Mary fled weeping to her bedroom past her father, who regarded the sight with satisfaction.
"She'll soon recover, and then I
reckon she'll never again regret that Hugh Gregory. Not when she realizes the extent of
her possibilities. Now I just have to find a man who'll suit my fancy."
In the absence of her beaux, Hugh Gregory,
and in the wake of her disappointed matrimonial hopes, Mary had thrown herself with all
the energy of her despair into nursing the stranger back to health. She fed him, read to
him, made sure he was warm enough, and as comfortable as possible. He needed constant
care, for often when he fell asleep, he would become extremely restless and shout things
and work himself back up into a fever. He was rarely peaceful. As his physical strength
returned, he had been known to actually get out of bed during his fits, and walk around
shouting excitedly, some times in English but mostly in foreign tongues. Although his eyes
were open during these fits, he did not appear to be conscious. After the first such fit,
the doctor diagnosed these spells as related to the trauma that he had experienced before
John Gray had found him. After about three months, Mary had the idea to keep a written
record of what Alejandro exclaimed in his sleep, trying her utmost to phonetically copy
down the foreign tongues for his later translation. She would then discuss these notes
with him the next day. Some times these records would spur a memory and Alejandro could
fill in another piece of the puzzle.
"Last night I heard you call out something about a storm. You were most upset about it. You said that the 'wind will be the end of me at this height."
"That is very strange."
"Then you exclaimed that you were falling, and you screamed about lightening and carried on until you were in such a state I scarce knew what to do."
"I am very sorry for upsetting you, but I cannot think but that I had a simple nightmare."
Mary Gray had been so thoroughly attentive and kind to Alejandro during his illness that a trusting friendship developed between them by the end of six months. He had recovered enough strength to make himself a bit useful about the farm with simple tasks. John Gray, true to his nature, objected to supporting an idle member of the household, and saw to it that Alejandro pulled his weight as much as he was able. Returning from his outdoor chores, Alejandro had noticed at times that Mary would wipe away a furtive tear while she embroidering quietly by the fire. Every now and again he would find her fondly regarding a bouquet of dried flowers with eyes red from crying. She would look up suddenly when she noticed she was being observed and give a nervous laugh and make some weak excuse. Finally, Alejandro asked her what was wrong, and she confided the whole sad of history Hugh Gregory to him.
Mary had been growing thin and pale from her sadness. Her thin frame was wracked with sobs as she recalled how fond they were of each other, and how his auburn hair used to curl about his ears. She also confessed to Alejandro that she had been harboring a growing resentment towards her father for his unexplainable change toward Hugh. So much so that she had to suppress wild flashes of scorn for him. She found it harder and harder to be a dutiful and good daughter. Some times at night she would imagine that Hugh would return to her, and beg her again to marry him, and then she would accept his hand to the dismay of her father. She would turn to him and say "Father I reckon I'm old enough to do as I please." After the thoughts Mary would feel a bit ashamed of herself for such outright disrespect, and rebuked herself, but she found it a comfort anyway.
At around this same time, John Gray had grown impatient. The thoughts of his brother's fortune had obsessed him. His thoughts could not long dwell on any other subject. His mouth watered for his brother's grand possessions and extensive holdings. He was always at thinking about what he would do with the money. He seemed to have forgotten that the money was left to his daughter and not actually to himself. It did not seem to matter to him.
One day when Mr. Gray was in town he had over heard several men discussing Dave Gray's new mare.
"Why I declare it's of the finest lines I've ever seen and what a mover? "I don't reckon I've seen its like around these parts for quite some time." "Must have cost a pretty penny that one."
That set something off in John. "Why wait to inherit my future comfort? Dave's certainly enjoyed himself quite enough for one lifetime." John set off walking home and over the several miles to his farmhouse, he devised a plan to ensure that Mary inherent the fortune and soon.
Alejandro's nighttime fits had ceased
about four months after his arrival, but he suddenly began to have them again soon after
that fateful conversion about Dave Gray's mare. Not only did the fits return, but they
were worse. In this new round of sleepwalking he had actually left the house several
times, and was seen ranting in his usual fashion by different neighbors. He was easily
recognizable for his cloak and hat were of a very distinctive cut compared to the rest of
the clothing of town's people. In fact, no one in the backward town of Deer Lick ever wore
a cloak of any kind.
The third time that Alejandro wandered out
at night he had apparently broken a window of a near by house. The inhabitants awoke to
the sound of shattering glass and, when they went down the stairs to investigate, they saw
Alejandro's form. When the husband called out to him, he fled into the dark. After each of
these fits, Alejandro was always found safely in his room the next morning, sound asleep.
Because he had no recollection of his escapades, the family would only find out later that
day that he had been at it again.
Being backward in every way, the good people of Deer Lick were naturally xenophobes. They had regarded Alejandro with marked suspicion from the first news of his arrival. The strange languages that he spoke and his unusual ways made them very wary of him. When the story of Alejandro's sleepwalking trouble got out, people thought that's about as much as they'd expected from the Portuguese. The town's women felt the most outraged at his lack of decency.
"Why he's hardly civilized!"
"Had no sort of proper upbringing, I expect. Raised among heathens and barbarians."
With the news of his latest antics combined with the mysterious circumstances of his arrival in Deer Lick, some began to regard him as some sort of daemon.
One day about a week after the sleepwalking began again, Alejandro walked into the house from his chores to find Mary pacing the floor agitatedly. Her face was flushed and she was breathing hard. She clutched a letter in her right hand and looked at Alejandro beamingly.
"Can I trust you not to breathe a
word of what I am going to tell you to a living sole?" "Of course. I am as silent as the
grave." "I've had a letter from Hugh."
"Yes? What did he say?
"He's asked to speak with me next
week. He says, 'when I left six months ago, my life fell apart. I need you and I hope that
time has changed your feelings toward me.' He says if I agree to marry him, we shall run
away together and get married in the next county. He knows the preacher in a town
there."
Hugh arrived at the Gray's after midnight on Thursday. He saw a candle lit in Mary's room, and waited for her to come down stairs. She had agreed to meet him at half past midnight by the woodpile. Hugh crouched down in the lilac shrub near the kitchen door, and waited. He hardly dared to breathe. After ten minutes or so had passed, he heard footsteps approach the door. His heart leapt as he waited to be reunited with the radiant face of his dearest Mary.
He was sorely disappointed and surprised to see the face of Mary's father, as he quietly left the house. He was wearing a highly unusual looking cloak and hat and was concealing something under his arm.
"I wonder where he could be off to? This is a mighty power of good luck. Now he'll be out of the way while Mary and I make our escape."
A few moments later, Hugh heard Mary's soft footstep at the door. She had taken the precaution to lock Alejandro's door from the outside so that he would not be able to wander out that night. She did not want anything to wake the family early and disturb her escape. She had taken to locking his door after the first two or three incidents of his night walking, and could not figure out how on these occasions he had still managed to escape and go cavorting around the neighborhood. On each of these strange occasions, she found the door still locked the next morning. Alejandro had no recollection, of course, as to how he had escaped, and Mary had given up looking for an explanation.
When Mary appeared suitcase and all, Hugh reached for her hand. They did not say a word to one another, but climbed directly into Hugh's buggy, which was well hidden in a bower of low trees, and disappeared into the night.
The sun arose the next morning in a cloudless blue sky. John Gray awoke to the sounds of a horse and carriage rattling up the dirt road to his house. He and his wife answered the door to the frantic knocking of the minister.
"John", he said, "I have some grave news for you. You had better prepare yourself You're brother has - he has been found - found to be murdered, John. Strangled to death."
Mrs. Gray blanched and needed to sit down. The minister informed them that the town was busing with the news of the murder. Children traded news with absolute fascination. Men shook their heads and said "what a nasty business this is." Women made a show of covering their ears at the descriptions of the murder scene and fussed about it being too horrifying for their conscience to bear, but always removed their hands from their ears in time to hear the gory details. The main question on everybody's mind was "who could have done such a brutal and senseless thing?" Each had his theories. Some thought that without a doubt it was Hugh Gregory, for all knew of the keen dislike the two men had for one another. It was also just found out that Hugh had fled from his home and office with all his belongings. He had left no forwarding address. It all seemed to conclusively point to Mr. Gregory, especially when it was discovered that Miss Mary Gray had surreptitiously fled her home at the same time. The were speculations that Hugh had murdered Dave where not at all implausible, for after all a servant had heard him say "one day you'll go too far."
A lynching mob would surely have gone in pursuit of the two fugitives had there not been one flaw to their theory. At the murder scene was found a silver flask with the initials A.C.D. engraved in the bottom right hand corner. The flask was of European design, and was quickly identified that of Alejandro Cassini DiGiovine, the stranger who seemed to have dropped from the sky. His cloak and hat were found just outside the building, too. It quickly circulated that Alejandro, who was known to have sleep walking episodes and to occasionally be violent during them, had had another one and wandered into the home of David Gray, apparently drunk, and strangled him in a fit of daemonic rage.
The minister reported to the curious town's people that John Gray had received the news of his brother's murder with obvious distress, but admirable stoicism.
"I'm sure he was thinking back on many a pleasant day they had spent in their youth, and wishing that he had had the chance to reconcile after all."
Actually, John Gray was thinking back to the vents of the previous night while the minister delivered the news.
He had left his house that fateful night
with a grim purpose in mind. His green eyes glowed with a strange light as he crossed his
fields on his way to town and his brother's house. He would have his fortune yet, and John
congratulated himself on his ingenious plan. He had been venturing out late at night for
the past several weeks dressed in Alejandro's cloak and hat, and making such a ruckus that
every one saw the cloaked form carrying on in a disgraceful and crazy manner. Then each
time after he returned John would place the hat and cloak back in Alejandro's room while
he slept. All the town's people were convinced that he was out of his head and a dangerous
barbarian, so it was not a great leap for them to believe that he was capable of murder.
In addition, it was more pleasing to blame the murder on an outsider rather than on one of
their own.
John reached his brother's house. Instead
of feeling his resolve weaken in the presence of his brother's home, the sight of its fine
architecture spurred him on. He did the deed easily for he crept upon his brother while he
slept upon satin sheets and pillows. Having left the silver flask at the bedside, he stole
out of a front window, but with some difficulty for it would not open all the way and it
was a good distance from the ground. As he was struggling he heard the sound of a carriage
coming near. He fought to get through the window but the cloak was stuck on the hinges. As
he teetered cantilevered over the sill, his hat fell to the ground below. He quickly freed
himself of the cloak and left it dangling in the hinges for he could not get it unstuck.
As he jumped to the ground, the carriage pulled up close to the apartments. John leapt for
the bushes just as the driver of the buggy stepped out and entered another entrance to the
building. It was Hugh Gregory! John Gray had forgotten that Hugh lived in the same
building as his brother Dave.
"That young scalawag has come close to ruining my plans for fortune twice now." Hugh returned carrying a suitcase of his own, and as he locked his door, he noticed the hat and cloak that he had seen Mary's father wearing earlier. He then noticed a form lurking under the bushes. Hugh did not waste any time. He assumed that Mary's father had heard them escape and was here to catch them. Hugh jumped in the buggy and took off at an incredible pace. John could not see from where he was hiding that Hugh noticed him, and so assumed that he had not. When the sound of the buggy had died sufficiently away, John took off at a run toward home, leaving the cloak and hat behind him. This did not matter, he thought, as it would only enhance the impression that the foreigner had committed the murder.
Alejandro awoke the morning after the
murder to the sound of excited chatter downstairs. He had had one of the most peaceful
nights of sleep yet since he arrived in Deer Lick. He stood up and stretched and then
proceeded to dress. As he dressed, he thought on Mary and Hugh.
"I hope everything went alright last night."
He had been helping Mary plot her escape for the past several days, passing messages from Mary to Hugh and visa versa. He finished dressing and walked toward the door, and found that he could not open it.
"How very odd. This has never happened before. One of the family must have accidentally locked it last night."
He knocked and shouted until Mr. Gray, the minister, and the judge who had only just arrived, came upstairs to see what was the matter. When they reached the door, the judge said, "my boy, you are under very grave suspicion for the murder of David Gray. I'm afraid I will to put you away for a while until we get this sorted out." And they took him away.
After several days, lawyers came in from the neighboring county to deal with the issue of Dave Gray's will. All the Gray family was gathered during the proceedings. John Gray was very anxious to get the will sorted out ostensibly "to be done with the whole matter, and let the family grieve in peace."
John Gray's mouth began to water as the lawyers started to read the will. When the entire document had been read, Mrs. Gray looked over at her husband, who had turn a ghastly shade of white. His color soon changed to near purple as he attempted to contain his rage.
"Not a cent", he thought,
"not a single cent. Why that man was the most money grubbing, wasteful, disgusting
excuse for a man I've ever did meet. All of this for nothing. We all get
NOTHING!!!!!!!!"
He managed to contain his thoughts, stood
up from the table and walked out the door. He went straight to the center of town and
began working a crowd of good Christians into a frenzy over the blood thirsty deed
committed by ''that foreigner". John Gray was determined to make someone pay for his
disappointment. Who better than someone who the town regarded with distaste anyway?
"Are we going to let this injustice pass unpunished. I should say not?
"I say lynch him, lynch him now!"
"We don't stand for brutality in this
town in any form! Let the world know, Deer Lick means justice?
Just as the good citizens of Deer Lick
were about to avenge the sins of the world on this poor foreigner's head, the new Mrs. and
Mr. Hugh Gregory pulled into town. Alejandro had managed to send them word from prison by
means of a serving boy.
"Stop You mustn't, no!", cried
Mary as she saw them fitting the noose around Alejandro's neck.
Hugh went on to explain how he had seen
Mr. Gray leave his own house the night of the murder and set out in what turned out to be
Alejandro's cloak. He explained then how he had seen John outside the building where he
and Dave lived, and how he assumed that Mr. Gray was in pursuit of him and simply took
off. Mary then added that Alejandro had been locked in his room that night, for she had
seen to it herself.
The minister chimed in "that is so, I witnessed it myself"
The mob was heartily disappointed that Alejandro was not to be hanged so they suggested that John be substituted. Mary prevailed in this matter, however, for she tearfully exclaimed that she could not bear to see her father treated so, no matter what he had done. The generosity of his daughter's nature was astounding considering his own. They crowd opted instead to run John out of town on a rail, which was equally as much fun for the townspeople and much more agreeable to Mary. John fled to California, equally hungry for wealth and equally inept at accumulating it. He ended his days a pauper, which is only just after all.
Mary and Hugh settled down perfectly content on Hugh's more modest income and went about raising a family. Mary was just as happy for this, for she found the whole business of the inheritance highly distasteful. As for David Gray's money, he had long since lost most of it in speculation. He had tried to cheat Hugh Gregory's father out his farm those many months ago in order to help pay his debtors. What little money there was left was divided among distant relatives, and none was bestowed on Mary. The business of leaving the money to Mary was merely the result of a misunderstood, secondhand conversation. The minister's son had overheard Dave Gay say he was contemplating a change of his will, but he never actually did so.
As for Alejandro, he decided to light out when the town's people were busy with Mr. Gray just in case they were not satisfied with his performance and came back for him too. Poor Alejandro had come to view America as an hourly evil, and quickly booked passage to Europe where he spent his time traveling and writing books of cultural observations. He never did regain his memory well enough to figure out how he had reached America, so he never learned that he had been a famous, world traveling, hot-air balloonist, who had been unceremoniously dumped in Missouri after he pitched over board with a sand bag. He preferred to think of his adventures in America as some form of divine act to teach him appreciation for his European heritage.