“‘The town too tough to die.’ Well, I think it’s dead.”
               “Don’t be silly, it’s just off-season.” Clancy, ever the optimist, was excited to explore the town.
               “It’s also 75˚in December and there isn’t a place to get coffee after 2pm.”
               “I always forget your midwestern bones can’t handle the heat.” Clancy motioned the universal “cue the violins” while she ambled ahead on the wooden planks.
               “Believe me, it’s not that I can’t handle the heat; I just prefer the cold.”
               “Like your heart.”
               “Exactly. You get me.”
               Our usual banter was off since the fight we had last week. I much preferred traveling to non-tourist destinations, but she won me over knowing I am a sucker for historic destinations. Still, my words from the argument hung over us.
               “You’re an idiot. You only want to go to Tombstone because you saw those loser ghost hunters on TV.”
               Sure we teased each other a lot, but the vitriol in my tone burned her worse than if I had held her heart to a flame.
               “Look, there’s ice cream.” I pointed to the sign ahead.
               “You don’t like ice cream.”
               “Yeah, but I’m hot.” Uncharacteristically, I pouted hoping to get my way.
               “Well, I strongly disagree with that,” Clancy smirked. “But I’ll never say no to ice cream.”
               We entered the tiny shop and ordered. As the woman behind the counter scooped, she asked how long we were in town.
               “Just tonight.”
               “A couple days.”
               We both answered at the same time.
               “Oh, sorry,” the woman said. “I thought you were traveling together.”
               “We are,” I replied. “I guess we just aren’t on the same page with our travel plans.”
               Clancy looked down at the floor and remained silent. I grabbed our cones and waited for Clancy to pay. When we took our seats on the bench outside, we ate our ice cream in silence.
               A stagecoach went by with a lone patron in the back. The only thing missing was a tumbleweed blowing by, but even the air was too stagnant to produce the effect.
               “We can leave in the morning. Sorry I dragged you here.” No longer the optimist, Clancy peeled the paper off her cone as the ice cream melted down her hand.
               “No, it’s okay.” I wasn’t usually one to feel bad about someone else’s feelings, but for some reason I couldn’t stand to see her this way. “We can stay. And we can do your little ghost tour.”
               “Really?” Her face lit up.
               “Yes. But on one condition.”
               “Sure! What?”
               “This afternoon, we tour the mines.”
               Dread crossed her face, but I liked seeing that emotion over sadness.
               “You know I hate small spaces.”
               “Don’t worry about it. They don’t let us go in the small spaces. Besides, if you ain’t afraid of no ghosts, you shouldn’t be afraid of no mines.”
               She thought about it for a moment before a smile returned to her face.
               “Okay. Mines this afternoon. Ghosts tonight.”

Upon arriving at the mine’s entrance, we were handed hard hats.
               “This is going to mess up my hair.”
               “And who are you trying to impress, Clancy? The ghosts of miners past?”
               “Maybe our tour guide will be a knockout?”
               As if on cue, I could see our guide coming up from the mine with the last party of two who ventured down with him.
               “You know, you’re right, Clancy. He’s a fox. A silver one at that.”
               “Age is just a number you know.” At that moment, she turned around to catch sight of the subject under discussion. “On second thought, who cares what my hair looks like.”
               For the first time in a week, I laughed.
               “Hi there, ladies.” The guide acknowledged us. “Let me finish up with these two and then we’ll head down. Take a look around.”
               “Thanks,” we said in unison.
               “Let’s go check out that pile of rubble over there.”
               “Since when are you interested in a pile of rubble? The girl who was just concerned about her hair being ruined by a hard hat.”
               “Since I thought I saw a cat meandering over there.”
               “A cat? Why didn’t you say so. Let’s go.” I grabbed her by the hand and sprinted over to the remnants of history. “I don’t know, Clancy. I don’t see a cat.”
               “I swear, he was right here. Maybe he went down in the mine.”
               “I hope not. He could get lost down there.”
               “He knows what he’s doing. Cats out in the wild west know how to handle themselves.”
               “Cat cowboys?”
               “Purr-cisely.”
               “That was bad, even for you, Clancy.”
               “I aim to impress. What’s that though?” She pointed down to the pile we so fervently ran to and then ignored.
               I looked down and saw that it looked like a teratoma. It had a little bit of everything in it, but the “that” that Clancy was referring to, was an arm. A doll arm to be exact. I reached down to pick it out of the pile.
               “Stop!” Clancy sounded panicked. “Don’t touch it.”
               “There’s no sign that says we can’t.” I’d noticed quite a few of those around the compound.
               “Still.”
               I stared at Clancy waiting for a bit more of an explanation. “Still what, Clancy?”
               “Well it’s dirty and it could be cursed. Plus, dolls are just really creepy.”
               “I agree with you there. Alright, I’ll let sleeping dolls lie.”
               “Okay, ladies.” Clancy and I both jumped at the sound the guide’s voice. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. My name’s George and I’ll be taking you down in the mine today. Just a few rules before we head down. Make sure you stay on the path, don’t touch anything but the rails, and most importantly, do not venture down any of the tunnels (or drifts as we call them).
               “I’m afraid if I catch you wandering, we’ll have to end the tour immediately for your safety. Any questions?”
               “No, sir,” I replied. Clancy remained silent and quite clearly still a little spooked. I nudged her shoulder and she snapped out of it.

As we followed the guide to the entrance of the mine, he gave us the rundown on its history. After learning about Ed Schiffelin, George let us play with the steam mule and then we were on our way down 100 feet below ground.
               “Finally, it’s cooler.” I whispered to Clancy as George led us into what he called a stope. We were in an open cavern with drifts leading off in several directions.
               “Now, I’m going to show you something neat,” George said as he lit a candle. “These candles were all the miners had down here, and they were given three each for every ten-hour shift. The candles lasted for two hours. You can see there’s a problem with the math.”
               George turned off his flashlight, leaving the only illumination to come from the lonely candle against the rock.
               “So, in order to save candlelight for when it was most needed, this is how the miners would work.” George blew out the candle, casting us into darkness. Just then, I heard a soft meow. George carried on, but I turned to Clancy,
               “Did you hear that?”
               “Shh, I’m listening to George.”
               “Clancy, that cat is down here.”
               I quickly toggled the flashlight on my phone and darted off in the direction of sound, completely ignoring the protests of Clancy and George. Also ignoring George’s previous warnings, I found myself at the entrance of a drift. I shined the light down into pitch black and right there stood a feline, eyes glowing.
               Having just learned from George that these drifts could suddenly drop off hundreds of feet, I inched my way toward the cat and calmly asked it to come to me. The cat hissed and leapt right for my face, claws extended. Before I knew it, I was down on rock with three fresh slices in my cheek.
               “Get out of there, right now,” a very stern George uttered. Up until that point, he had been very cordial, and it was quite clear just how pissed he was.
               I could feel the anger radiating off Clancy as she stood behind the guide shining her flashlight on me. I slowly rose off the hard stone but stumbled as I caught sight of a doll father down the drift. Just as quickly as I saw it, the tunnel was cast into shadow again when George and Clancy turned around, bringing the light with them. I scrambled for my phone, fallen in the battle that had ensued, and aimed it down the shaft.
               Nothing.
               The cat must have knocked more out of me than I thought.
               Upon exiting the mine, we were tossed out like drunks from a bar in true western fashion.
               “Sorry, Clancy.”
               “Don’t apologize to me. You’re the one who wanted to see the mines. As long as we aren’t blacklisted from The Bird Cage Theatre, I don’t care.” She stopped and took a moment to look at me. “What was that though?”
               “I just didn’t want the cat to get hurt down there.”
               “What cat?” The puzzlement on her face let me know she had indeed seen no cat.
               “The one that scratched me.” I pointed to my face.
               “I saw no cat, man. I am sure you scratched your face on the rocks when you fell.”
               “Okay. Whatever. Sure.” I started walking again down the old wooden sidewalk, expecting Clancy to catch up. But she didn’t. When I finally stopped, she shouted at me from the spot I left her.
               “What is wrong with you?”
               “A lot. Are you coming?” My humor worked this time as she finally started moving towards me.
               “Look, I know something is wrong. And I know you’ll talk about it when you’re ready. But you really need to stop taking it out on me.”
               I took a moment to let her words sink in. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
               “Apology accepted, ass. What now?” She acted like forgiveness was the easiest thing to give.
               “How about I clean up my bloody face before I’m mistaken for one of the gunfight reenactors?”
               “Sounds like a plan.”

We left the camper at 6 to make sure we made it to the theatre early enough to get tickets for the ghost tour. As we came to the corner of Third and Allen, my heart stopped.
               “You see that, right?”
               “The doll?” Clancy didn’t seem as concerned as I was. She also didn’t seem as creeped out as she had earlier.
               “Yes, the doll. It’s the same one from the mine.” This time, it sat on a pile of excavated material from the lot we were near.
               “Oh yeah, from that pile of rubble. They must have made a lot of them back in the day. Tombstone’s very own Barbie.”
               “More like Chucky. I saw it down in the mine too, Clancy.”
               “What? Where?”
               “Down the drift where I saw the cat.”
               “No way! Creepy, dude.” I could tell she wasn’t taking me seriously.
               “Okay, once again you’re all gung-ho for ghost tours, but you take cursed dolls with a grain of salt?”
               “I’m paranormally selective. But look, I agree it’s a little creepy. Let’s move on before it attaches itself to us.”
               I took one more glance at the object, hoping it wouldn’t start following us with its eyes and then followed Clancy toward The Bird Cage Theatre.

The tour guide here was in period attire and immediately I regretted agreeing to this. I could tell the evening would be filled with gimmicks and not ghouls. For Clancy, you’re doing this for Clancy.
               I tuned out our host and decided to give myself a tour by reading the placards on my own. I could tell by what they chose to highlight that they only wanted to talk about the debauchery of the time. One major gunfight makes the news and suddenly the town is one of ill-repute.
               After exploring for half an hour, the host had us all sit in the main room with the lights off and attempt to make contact with the spirits. I glanced over at Clancy for the first time that evening and saw pure unadulterated joy on her face. I couldn’t believe someone so smart could fall for this.
               I’d already scoped out all the objects they had rigged up to go off on demand. The flashlight sitting precariously on the board, all it would take was a step in the right spot to turn it on. The devices they claimed could channel spirits but produced nothing more than white noise. They sure put our cash to good use making it obvious that the theatre was still a place of ill-repute.
               The lights went out and immediately some of the others on the tour started berating the ”spirits” in an attempt to communicate. Believer or not, I was pretty sure you’re not supposed to rile them up.
               “This is so cool,” Clancy whispered to me.
               “If you say so,” I whispered back.
               After fifteen minutes of excruciating boredom, the host finally turned on the lights. Everyone started looking through the photos they’d taken in the dark, Clancy included.
               “Oh my!” The host jolted upright. “I’ve found a face in this one.”
               She quickly started walking around to show everyone the picture. Oohs and aahs followed as she made her way to Clancy and me. Clancy looked at the photo and feigned belief just to be nice.
               “Do you see it?” The host asked as she held the phone in front of my face.
               I looked at the image and laughed at her.
               “Lady, that’s the corner of the table that was right in front of you.”
               Stunned at my declaration, she took a step back and looked at the picture again.
               “I suppose you’re right. Silly me.” She stormed off and I was left with Clancy glaring at me.
               “Why do have to ruin everything?”
               “Me? How did I ruin this? Lady was passing furniture off for a ghost.”
               “I know that. You didn’t have to be so rude though.”
               “Well, I didn’t have to pay a lot of money to be swindled either, yet here I am.”
               “Why did you?”
               “For you!”
               “Well stop worrying about me and figure out your own shit! I’m going for a drink. Don’t follow.”
               With that, Clancy exited with the force of a hurricane and left me more haunted than The Bird Cage Theatre had.

The good thing about wooden sidewalks was that the lovely cadence of footsteps helps organize one’s thoughts. Sure, I was an asshole, but I’ve always been one and see no need to change now. It’s a badge of honor.
               Maybe Clancy thought I would be different on this trip. She did leave behind her whole life to join me. So far, I’d been grumpy about 90% of the time. Once again, she knew who I was when we started the journey. I change for no one.
               But I guess I had to accept the fact that Clancy wouldn’t change either. She was the yin to my yang. All I had to do was find a way to balance our forces again. Easier said than done. Maybe it was my own energy that was unbalanced. I chased my shadow down the street wondering how to make myself whole again.
               As I approached our camper, the light inside turned on. I guess Clancy didn’t go for that drink. I gave the door a yank and climbed up into our home on wheels, but Clancy was nowhere in sight.
               Assuming I toggled the light by accident on my phone, I slammed the door behind me and put the kettle on for some tea. I tidied up a bit until I heard a subtle meow from the cab. I leaned over the driver’s seat to look outside and was shocked to find I was not alone. There in the seat sat the doll. Eyes unmoving but locked right on me.
               The tea kettle whistled, but I’d run out of steam.