“Eucalyptus” by Edward Ahern

It was never more than a few dozen buildings around a crossroads, inhabited for only a half-century. Eucalyptus. Scrub had tried to grow along the streets and walkways and, like the town, died.

I walked its three-hundred acres for two hours, peering through busted window glass at the dirt-grit interiors of the homes, farms and mining shacks. The dusty heat accentuated the aromas of dry rot and animal scat. Stallion County, Wyoming had taken custody after the last resident passed, leaving considerable unpaid fees and taxes. The whole thing, including the unsuccessful farms and mining claims, was for sale at a half million.

My vision for the site was modest. Rehab the few homes I could, tear down and replace the others, and create a feeder hamlet for the tech industries moving into the county. Enhanced electrification would be key. The county power lines were less than a quarter mile away from the abandoned village. An expensive quarter mile, but with full service I’d have a chance.

I doubled back to one of the buildings, long, narrow and high roofed, that had no cross atop it, but that I guessed had been the church. The door was ajar and I took a calculated risk and went in. If the flooring was sufficiently rotted, I’d end up in the cellar. The boards held. Anything portable had been stolen or trashed, but the pews, bolted through the flooring, were still in place. They’d tried to make it churchy, with cheap paneling lining the side walls in imitation of oak wainscotting. The hard afternoon sun flooded through glassless windows like searchlights, glaring onto the paneling. And revealing that one of the boards was discolored at the top edge.

“I wonder,” I said aloud to no one. I walked over and tapped the board. It felt a little loose. After some jiggering I realized that its tongue could be slipped out of the adjoining groove by pulling it upward. Which I did.

Inside the concealed cubby, preserved from the vandals, were two leather-bound books-a King James bible and a thick journal. The front of the bible listed births and deaths in Eucalyptus. Twelve births couldn’t compete against what looked like over two hundred deaths. The handwriting changed every so often, which made me think that as a congregant died another took his place as record keeper. The country records had James Farnsworth listed as the last resident, but his name wasn’t in the bible. No one left to write it. A riffle through the journal flashed a chronicle of events, mostly mundane.

The afternoon sun was setting behind bald stone hills. I took the books with me to my car and retraced fifteen miles to the Eureka motel, which could accurately be renamed Egad. The bed suffered from terminal sag, and the windows were loose enough in their frames to give conduct passes to desert insects.

I went on line and looked up James Farnsworth. His young son and wife had died before him. The funeral home notice had quoted him as being “the last, proud resident of Eucalyptus.” And probably the loneliest.

After a diner dinner (“Try the chicken fried steak”), I retreated to my room, turned on a wheezy air conditioner, flopped into a faux leather chair and opened the journal. The entries were weekly, a great many of which had almost nothing to report. The first and longest entry was the founding of the town, listing many names and the help they provided. Despite the dry tone of the entry a sense of pride had snuck in. They’d done it.

There were over two hundred pages of entries, some pages with ten or twelve “nothing to report” notations before recording a mining claim started, an arrival or a death.

I knew I should be evaluating the prospects for repurposing the village, costs, income stream, scheduling: finally put my MBA to good purpose. But I couldn’t put the journal down. There had been many more men than women in the village, but, in those times, the women were the vessels for the future, and received a disproportionate amount of ink.

I stopped flipping pages and began to read front to back like a novel. By the time I was finished it was 3:30am. Their efforts had been mighty and all consuming, but doomed. Over time no newcomers arrived, the mining claims and farms were abandoned, and the few children grew up and left. Those remaining, now in their high sixties and seventies, dropped onto the pages like rain. There was no doctor, and little money if there’d been one. Eucalyptus’ death had been painfully lingering.

I got a few hours’ sleep and returned to the diner that morning for reconstituted orange juice and grease. Perched on the plastic seating, I couldn’t focus on the numbers that might make Eucalyptus viable again. I gave up and drove back out to the village. Only my own tire tracks and footprints were evident.

I walked back into the church, sat in a pew, and took out a pen. I entered James Farnsworth into the bible and the journal, where I also wrote that he was the last, proud resident. Then I returned both books to their little shelf and slid the panel back into its slot.

After getting into my car, I pressed my lips together. Leave them in peace. There’d be another town.