Cold Case

Cold Case - A short story in need of writers

This story begins with a gravestone. It is situated in the old cemetary on my family land in northern Vermont. The cemetary is typical, an old crippled maple tree in the Southeast corner has roots that seem to push the skeletons to the surface. The granite stones mark the deaths of farmers and tradesmen and their wives and their children. Revolutionary war veterans who got to see the first couple decades of a new country, born out of their sweat and blood.

In this cemetary are the families of Massachusetts who left behind the civilization of Plymouth and Boston and Salem and moved north, running against the current of the Connecticut river, settling in the valleys and forests, where winters were long and conditions harsh.

It was here that this story begins. My family can point to generations in the cemetary, and my curiosity on this particular day was spurred on by nothing more than the need to take my St. Bernard for a walk. As she chased a chipmunk across a split rail fence, I let my eyes wander over the old granite stones.

I stopped to consider John Stanton. My mothers name was Stanton, and while there is no doubt of their relationship, I had never spent time following the intricate lines of marriage and life and birth and death. That would change.

This is what I read:

John Stanton

beloved husband of Ruth

born July 1, 1768

died March 13, 1822

This Stone above my head is not the First

But just another milestone in the Curse

And generations hence both foe and friend

Can not evade God's justice in the end.

It was a bitter epitaph, written in the first person, but certainly someone else caused it to be placed on the stone. And the mention of a curse, ongoing from the past and carrying forth into the future, seemed to suggest something more than a simple "rest in peace".

As the dog played hunter along the edges of the graveyard, I found myself caught up in the possibilities of a mystery never solved.