“My dad had a crush on her himself – this tough, fearless lady from Texas – but that assured him that she was right for his father. And Pops’ saxophone was out of storage. Whatever got him playing his horn again, it was worth it. Plus my dad was still young, not quite out of his teens, and even though he was closer to the Rider’s age than Pops, there was no denying the value of experience, as she was clearly taken with the older man.”
   “Did she have a name, a real name?”
   “I don’t like to say it, especially if she’s hanging around, but …” He whispers in her ear, “Sophia Rose.”
   Reflecting on the name for a deeper connection, Allison doesn’t make one.
   “She left to catch up with the carnival for their fall schedule, but would come back whenever she could, from the end of that summer through the next. They’d write letters to each other while she was traveling, and she’d come to visit longer in the winter. I forget if it was ’49 or ’50, but by then, their seasonal romance had become a full-blown love affair. Dinner or dancing to the radio at home, laughing together under the moon, or spending quiet nights by the fire, they made the most of their secret love.”
   “Secret?”
   “She was darker like you, probably with some Mediterranean ancestry. She told Pops she was a Gypsy, and that she could speak to animals and even spirits. She might have just been developing her mystique, tough. I’ve heard from a few of the old-timers that she was part Sac, but either way, she was counted as White. Loving vs. Virginia was twenty years off, and even though there was no law here banning mixed-race marriage, it was still so controversial, there was no way for Pops and the Rider’s love to be out in the open.
   “They didn’t even let my father know too much, in case anybody would harass him for it. As secretive as they were, it was still obvious to those close to them. They met up in different places – never at the carnival, never in public. She would come out to the family’s farm, but then people were talking, hearing the growl of her motorcycle out thataway a few too many times, so they got even more covert. They had a love nest in the northwest fields, but no one was ever sure where. And it must have been a bare-bones place, because she came to the farm for dinner and such.”
   “I thought she couldn’t.”
   “This is, near as I can figure, where the plot thickened on their illicit romance. The Rider wouldn’t let her love be hemmed in by the racist attitudes of anybody, much less a few rednecks in some podunk Midwest town. But, respecting my grandfather’s wish that their love not bring any harm to her or his son, she agreed to keep it secret. She took to parking her motorcycle off in the fields and walking through the corn to Pops’ place.
   “This worked out for a while. You could hear her all over town, so if she didn’t ride up to the door, people could suspect all they wanted, but never pin it down unless they took to following her. One man did.”
   “Denny Cooper.”
   With lips twisted in hatred, “Denny Cooper. He had drifted into town again. He was a drinker before, but by this time, he was a non-stop alcoholic. Always throwed off, blotto drunk, stumbling and puking and being a nuisance wherever he went. A true wretch in every sense of the word.
   “One night, after another rousing performance, Miss R. was due at the farm. Dad remembers Pops watching the clock, pacing the house, and staring out the windows. Finally, he grabs his coat and his shotgun and tells Dad to wait, and under no circumstances come looking for him.
   “Dad was an obedient son, but he knew trouble, and he wasn’t about to let his father go into it alone, whatever he agreed to. He crept out after him. Sneaking up, he found them in the fields. She was hurt and Pops was fuming, calling out, ‘Cooper! Get out here and face me, you coward! You’ll hit a woman, but you still got walloped by her! Let’s settle this like men, now!’ Nothing.
   “They’re walking back and they hear something – Pops trains his gun, but it’s only my dad. He comes out from where he’s hiding and Pops gives him the shotgun and sends him home. That was the last he saw of the Phoenix Rider.
   “In the days prior, Cooper had been bragging about how he knew what Pops and the Rider were up to, and once he could catch ’em, he’d have Pops hung. He kept asking who wanted to be in his posse. People thought it was the liquor talking. He was a conniving snake, but nobody believed he had it in him to kill Pops, he was too slow and blind with booze.
   “Pops came home alone that night, late in the wee hours, in fresh clothes. He never uttered a word about what happened. Dad asked him a couple months later, with both Cooper and Miss R. gone missing all that time. All he got was a look he’ll never forget. It reminded him of Pops’ face at Nanny’s funeral, but with an anger and coldness that he’d never seen before. Pops didn’t say a word. Dad said he asked once more, a decade later, and got the same response.”
   “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What happened to the Rider and Cooper?”
   “They disappeared,” he shrugs. “Neither one was ever heard from again.”
   Mystified, but greedy for the end of the tale, “What do you think happened?”
   “I asked my father the same thing, and all he could add was Pops, who always walked straight and firm, after that, he had a limp. And though it wasn’t so bad a few weeks on, he took that bit of limp with him to his grave.”
   “A fight with Cooper?”
   “Most likely. Miss R. never, ever crashed or wiped out on her bike. Her land legs, however, weren’t so agile. Pops loved to dance and they had their fun, but as good as she was on her Scout, she had two left feet.”
   Percy grimaces with a lurid notion, “I believe Cooper killed her. I picture Pops and the Rider walking through the rows. They get her bike – Cooper could have already sabotaged it, slashed the tires or something – and they walk it closer to the farm. It was her life and livelihood, after all. And probably they went to the road. It would be safer, and easier to see Cooper coming that way. But Cooper had wheels, like a big ol’ truck, and he found them on the road and drove them down. Pops jumped clear, but maybe Miss Rose, tangled up on her own feet, or trying to save her bike and not just herself – she couldn’t get out of the way.
   “They did find a truck. One of the Cooper brothers had reported it stolen that same night. It was across town, banged up on the fender, and the driver’s window was smashed out.
   “I think Pops, bless his soul, took revenge for the two loves that Denny Cooper took from him. Most folks didn’t even wonder on Cooper’s fate.”
   “They never found them?”
   “Nope. They never found her Scout, either. The police asked around and brought Pops in, but with nothing to go on, they left it unsolved. I think all three are at the bottom of Twin Lakes, myself.”
   Allison quivers for the grisly end.
   “The carnival master said the Rider had to rescue her brother from ‘communist bandidos’ in Mexico. I doubt anyone in the carnival knew much about what actually happened. No one does, really.”
   “And the White Maiden is the ghost of …?” Allison asks.
   Percy gazes at her, austere.
   She quakes again, “Yah.”
   They eye the graves, each alone with their thoughts.
   Allison reprises, “So you play for Pops?”
   “And Nanny and Miss Rose.”
   “If you don’t mind my asking, why?”
   To the unexpected question, he levels, “They should know their story isn’t forgotten. Someone still remembers them, and their legacy – in me – goes on.”
   In the breezy afternoon, Allison imbibes this mutely. Then, “Your music is exceptional. Why don’t you play for anyone else?”
   Suave for the compliment, “Who says I don’t have thousands of followers online?”
   “You are renowned in this town, Percy, but I haven’t met anyone who’s ever heard you play.”
   Percy looks down at his saxophone. The right-hand keys have been modified, enabling him to play the full range in defiance of his missing digits. He runs through a few fingerings. “I had a dream. I wanted to light this town up and tour the country like Pops, but I stopped dreaming that dream many years ago.”
   He wiggles the finger-and-a-half and thumb that remain on his hand. “We all have to make our choices in life. I could have kept trying,” holding up his abridged limb, “even after this happened. It felt like a big gamble. And then I found love, brought two beautiful children into the world, and opened up the restaurant. I don’t have any regrets. At least, none that bother me all that much.”
   “I’ll bet lots of people would like hearing you play. I did. If you pursued that dream again, you’d probably catch it.”
   “Maybe. Maybe my playing here is what matters most.”
   The two sit idle, pensive. The wind blows over the gravestones, the flowers dotted here and there bobbing with it.

   Percy walks Allison to her minivan. “How do you like that legend?”
   Allison throws him a sidelong glance, “Legend? It’s true, isn’t it?”
   “Most legends hatch out of a true story, and some even hold to the truth through the years. That one does both, as far as we know. But what do you think of it?”
   “It’s amazing. I never would have thought it could come out of Fairfield.”
   Percy smiles but he’s disappointed. She’s about to amend her confession when he stops her. “Don’t sweat me. There are all kinds of stories in a small town, but few bear retelling. Could you retell that one?”
   She observes Percy, trying to guess his game. “Why?”
   “What did my dad remember about his spin with the Rider?”
   “Is this a test?”
   “Pop quiz.”
   “The sky and the first stars and the ring of fire like a gate to hell opening up?”
   “Close enough.”
   “You afraid I wasn’t paying attention?”
   “If you share it, I hope you get the details down.”
    They stop at the minivan.
   “I’ll try. Is there a special reason you’re so concerned?”
   “I told my kids when they were old enough. Frankly, my son can’t remember more than the basics. I doubt he has a lick of storytelling blood in him. My daughter, on the other hand, could tell you an epic story about paint peeling that would keep you on the edge of your seat for days. But she doesn’t care for history, even her own family’s – maybe when her kids are older, she’ll be more interested in the story. Are you interested in that story?”
   “Interested enough for what?”
   Smiling his biggest smile, Percy laughs at himself. “Allison, I don’t know how to ask this … could you keep that story with you, and maybe tell it to your grandkids some day?”
   Humbled by his favor, “I will, Percy. Have you considered writing it down, for posterity?”
   “I don’t want it to be part of the official town record, if you follow me. And I doubt Pops would want a whole mess o’ people wise to his business. He was a private man in many ways.”
   “Then why did you tell me?”
   “I’m not entirely sure. I haven’t even told my wife the whole story. Maybe you struck me as the one person I had to tell. And these stories should be retold, if we want to change things for the better. But I swear, you could be the Phoenix Rider’s sister.”
   “How do you even know what she looks like?”
   “My dad kept all the clippings about her from the paper, and, uh –” his face curdles, and Allison knows why.
   “So you’ve – really seen her …”
   Percy exhales audibly and simply stares, his benevolent eyes and brave soul reluctant to show their fear of something that’s not supposed to exist.