Ghost Towns. Martin H. Greenberg

are you still doing here, then?” a voice boomed out behind me.

      I jumped so high I was wearing the sky for a hat.

      “Easy,” the voice warned when my feet touched ground again. “Put the rifle down and turn around…slow.”

      I did as I was told and found myself facing a big-boned, potbellied man of perhaps fifty-five years. He had a long, white, wild beard and even wilder eyes, which were glaring at me, incidentally, over the leveled barrels of a scattergun.

      “You,” he said to Old Red. “Keep your hands where I can see ’em.”

      “Ain’t got nothin’ to do with ’em anyways,” my brother said.

      We’d left our gun belts back at the barn.

      “Listen, mister—you wanna do us all a favor?” I said. “Point that cannon of yours at the water. Cuz you won’t be gettin’ any trouble out of me and my brother…but that there lake I ain’t so sure about.”

      Rip Van Winkle didn’t oblige me. He was about thirty yards off—far enough that a shotgun blast might not kill me outright, but close enough that he couldn’t miss if he tried.

      “Oh, ho. Seen something, have we?” he said, and for the first time I noticed a hint of brogue in his voice.

      “We seen something, all right—something that come outta the lake, from the look of things.”

      “You got a notion as to what our something mighta been?” Old Red asked. He was still balanced precariously on the end of that log with dark water lapping up around his ankles.

      “At the moment, I’m more interested in who you are,” Rip told him.

      “Amlingmeyer’s the name,” I said. “Otto and Gustav—Big Red and Old Red to our friends.” I grinned as genially as a preacher passing out how-do-you-dos at an ice cream social. “That could include you, provided you point your artillery some other direction.”

      The old man tightened his grip on his shotgun. “Your kind and my kind can never be friends.”

      “Now, now—let’s not be so hasty,” I said (hastily). “I’ve known cats and dogs that come to be bosom chums, by and by.”

      “Which ‘kind’ is it you’re thinkin’ of, mister?” my brother asked.

      “What do you think? Gentiles and Mormons.”

      “Oh. Those kinds.” I did my best to look guileless. “And which might you be?”

      Rip narrowed his eyes. “Which are you?”

      Never in my schooling days (all five years of them) had I ever faced a quiz as weighty as this. Stand up and spell “danger” with a j, and the worst you’ll get is laughed at. But answer wrong now, and the punishment might be a bellyful of buckshot.

      I peeked over at my brother, hoping he’d Holmesed out which faith it was Rip seemed to hold so dear. As you so well know, it’s amazing the things Old Red can tell about a fellow from little more than a quick glimpse and some careful cogitation. A man’s trade, his home life, his hopes and fears—my brother can see it all in a hangnail and a dirty collar. I’ve often told him he could clean up as a sideshow fortune teller if only he didn’t have his heart set on detectiving.

      And yet all I got from him now was a shake of the head.

      I couldn’t bullshit our way out of this. I’d have to gamble on honesty.

      I hate when that happens.

      “I suppose we’d be Gentiles, as Mormons reckon it. We was raised Lutheran, but ain’t neither of us seen the inside of a church in a coon’s age.” I looked heavenward, palms pressed together as in prayer. “Sorry ’bout that. No hard feelin’s…I hope.”

      Apparently, He was in a forgiving mood: Rip lowered his scattergun and favored us with a grin wide enough to spy even through the white thicket of his beard.

      “Well, then—welcome to Kennedyville, boys!” he said. “I’m Kennedy.”

      There were handshakes all around (my brother having been allowed at last to come ashore) while Kennedy made apologies for the less-than-hospitable way he’d originally greeted us.

      “Me and my kids, we’re the last Gentiles left around here. The other families pulled up stakes after the valley got to overflowing with Mormons. I’ve just been waiting for the day the Brethren turn up to claim all the old homesteads. And when they do…”

      His grin actually grew wider, though there was no amusement to be seen in it. It almost looked like he was a-baring his fangs.

      “So what brings you two through these parts?”

      I laid out a judiciously expurgated account of our travels, saying only that we were out-of-work drovers headed south in search of jobs. The truth of it—that we’d set out to become sleuths—tends to get folks eyeing you like you’re foaming at the mouth.

      “Cowhands, are you?” Kennedy asked, seeming pleased. “So you’ve worked on ranches.”

      “Ranches, cattle drives, farms,” I said. “We’ve had dealings with animals about every way you can without joining the circus.”

      Old Red cleared his throat. He’d opted for his usual greeting when shaking hands—a grunt—but now he had something to say.

      “Speakin’ of animals…”

      He nodded down at the peculiar tracks leading into and out of the lake.

      Kennedy nodded, his expression turning grim.

      “Oh, yes. We’ll talk more about that.”

      Then he brightened again—and I did too when I heard what he said next.

      “Why not over breakfast? I can have the girls whip up hotcakes and bacon.”

      Hotcakes, bacon…and girls? God had most definitely forgiven me.

      I rubbed my hands together and tried to keep from drooling on my shirt.

      “Lead the way, Mr. Kennedy.”

      And so he did, cutting back through the woods to a spread no more than a quarter mile from the farmhouse we’d stayed in the night before. As we tromped past rows of summer-gold wheat, Kennedy and I chatted amiably about his daughters, Fiona and Eileen. (“Pretty as a picture, the pair of ’em,” he boasted. “If there was anything but Brethren around here, they would’ve been married off ages ago.”) Old Red remained silent, though, his gaze darting from side to side as if he might catch a glimpse of our giant, web-footed friend out for a morning stroll.

      “Wait here for a minute while I run ahead,” Kennedy said as we approached a tidy little cottage. “The girls would never forgive me if I brought home gentlemen callers without giving ’em a chance to pretty up first!”

      He scuttled on into the house, leaving me and my brother out front with the chickens strutting to and fro hunting for grubs.

      “Mighty hospitable feller, once he decides not to kill you.” I eyed the henhouse nearby. “Say…when’s the last time we had us some eggs, anyway?”

      “That all you can think about? Food?”

      “Nope,” I said. “I’m mighty anxious to meet them gals too.”

      Old Red rolled his eyes—then turned them back toward the forest.

      “You’re wastin’ your time, Brother,” I said. “Bogeymen don’t get around much afore dusk.”

      Yet I was feeling it too for all my tomfoolery. That presence again, lurking, watching, waiting.

      There were patches back in those trees where the thicket and leaves left it black as night at highest noon. Who knows? Maybe that’d be darkness enough for a bogeyman to do his prowlings,