Foolish Games | Tombstone

Chapter Twelve

Doc accompanied Clara to Tucson, where Mama and the bodies of Daddy and Thomas were loaded onto the railcar, bound for home. A solemn event, to be sure, in which no words or expression could be said on his part, though he listened with a gentle ear to his sweetheart. It struck him odd, her behavior, as Clara didn't cry as much as look longingly into the distance as the steam engine trucked away, saying it was a peculiar thing, watching her family leave her for a place she couldn't follow.

On Clara's end, melancholy settled into her soul. It was a definite ending to a chapter of her life, so forlornly in its finale that the young woman wasn't entirely sure where to go on from that point. What purpose did she have now that everything she had known was a whisper on the wind?

The tall, lean frame of Doc beside her was Clara's only support. She glanced up at him, her eyes drowning with uncertainty. He met her gaze, saying nothing and everything all at once.

.

.

Both decided to hire a room for the evening, to rest before the journey home. For the sake of social graces, Doc penned in the hotel registry a key had been assigned to Mr. and Mrs. John Henry Holliday. Clara stared at their names mingled amongst the others, feeling inexplicably taken by it. Then, the reason they were there in the first place came back to the forefront, and she felt grief-stricken. Doc gave her the bed, and he collapsed into a chair.

That night, Clara dreamt...

She woke to find herself in a graveyard, bitterly cold and alone. Ravens were perched in a dead tree that overlooked the markers as a guardian of the sleeping dead. Sitting up from the frozen earth, Clara's chest pounded. It constricted, her heart throbbing with immense pain, shooting through her arms and protruding out her back. She curled herself up against the coolness of a gravestone and shut her eyes tightly, willing dread to leave her. It did not.

"Clara..." A spectral voice carried itself on the fog.

She lifted her head, terrified of what she might be met by. Through the density of the fog, the figure of a young soldier boy trudged forward. Clara strained her eyes to see. Regret sank in at the moment realization fell upon her.

"William?" Her voice was younger.

Clara looked down at her hands, noticing they were the hands of a child. She was a child.

"Clara, what are you doing here? Did you get yourself lost again?" Her eldest brother knelt beside her, placing his rifle at their feet.

"I-I don't know. William, where are we?" Little Clara began to cry, hugging her knees to her chest. "I'm so cold and scared. I want my daddy!"

William cocked his head, a visage of pity displayed for his terrified sister. "Daddy's dead, Clara. Remember?"

"He is not!"

"Is too. Daddy, Thomas... me. We are all dead."

Clara looked up at her brother to find he had disappeared. Frantically, the small child called out for him, searching desperately. She stood up, shaking in her shoes, trying to peer through the fog. Turning around to face the tree, she screamed.

William hung, a noose cutting deep into his flesh. A wooden sign dangled around his neck, 'Rebel Traitor.' He was as the day he died, slowly rotting and swinging in the breeze.

Little Clara screamed for her Mama, for Daddy, for anybody. She ran, her legs pumping as fast as they could. She closed her eyes, begging the image of her brother to leave her be.

"Go AWAY! Go Away-."

Another shout escaped her adolescent lungs as she tripped and fell into a dark hole. Hands flew to her face as she sobbed uncontrollably. When she pulled them away, Clara noticed she was older again. She also became aware of a new horrifying situation. Underneath her lying in that grave pit, were Daddy and Thomas. She panicked as their cold bodies began to creak and move, grabbing her arms and legs.