Ghost Towns. Martin H. Greenberg

forced myself to turn toward the henhouse again.

      “Back to more important questions,” I said. “Such as ‘scrambled or fried?’”

      “Scrambled, I reckon,” Old Red sighed. “Like your brains.”

      “Oh, no, Brother—you’re the egghead of the two of us, remember?”

      Kennedy stepped out of the house and gave us a pinwheeling wave of the arm.

      “Come on in, boys! It’s time you met the best cooks in Kennedyville!”

      Fiona and Eileen proved to be the prettiest girls too—and might have been even if they weren’t the only ones. Willowy, raven-haired, bright-eyed, and smiling, they were visions of loveliness such as a drover carries with him for a thousand miles. By the (alluring) look of them, they fell in age somewhere between myself and my brother—in their midtwenties—and though they teetered on the brink of what some would call old maidhood, their charms had not faded but rather deepened with time.

      Then again, I always have been partial to older women.

      And younger ones.

      And skinny ones, plumps ones, and all the ones in between.

      Oh, hell—let’s just face it. I’m gal crazy.

      Old Red, on the other hand, is crazy about women in his own way, which is crazy-scared. I doubt if that whatever-it-was in the woods could spook him half as much as a wink from a pretty lady. The more Fiona and Eileen fawned over us—taking our hats, pouring us coffee, asking (huzzah!) how we’d like our eggs—the more Old Red lived up to his handle by blushing as scarlet as a pimpernel.

      (I will admit to you here, Mr. Brackwell, that I don’t know what a “pimpernel” actually is. I gather from my readings that some come in scarlet, though.)

      “You are a lucky man, Mr. Kennedy,” I said, slathering butter over a stack of flapjacks that stretched halfway to the roof. “Having two such daughters to look after you here.”

      Kennedy nodded, his obvious pride slowly giving way to sadness.

      “Lucky, I am…though I’d think myself luckier if their mother was still with us.”

      Eileen was hurrying past with a pitcher of milk, and she stopped behind him and put a hand on his shoulder.

      Kennedy reached up and smothered her fingers under his big paw.

      “She died bringing my youngest into the world. It’s been just the three of us ever since.”

      “I’m sorry,” I said.

      Kennedy gave his daughter’s hand a squeeze, then let go.

      “Oh, we get along fine. It’s only in the last few years things have turned lonely.”

      “With the other families leavin’, you mean,” Old Red said. “So…there any reason they cleared out other than the Mormons movin’ in?”

      Kennedy gave my brother a somber nod. “There’s another reason, all right. One I gather you two know about firsthand.”

      My mouth was stuffed full of griddle cake and bacon, but that didn’t stop me from offering a reply.

      “Well, there weren’t no hands—nor claws—involved, thank the Lord. But yeah, we saw something mighty strange last night. And then there was them tracks we was followin’ when you, uhhhh…stepped out and introduced yourself.”

      “What’s goin’ on around here, Mr. Kennedy?” Old Red said.

      The old man took in a deep breath. He looked reluctant to speak, and once he got to going I figured I knew why. He was afraid we’d take him for a madman.

      “I suppose the simplest way to put it is this,” he said. “We’ve got us a monster.”

      Kennedy’s daughters stopped their bustling in the kitchen, listening along with my brother and me as their father told his tale.

      “The Utes called it a Pawapict—a Water Indian. A spirit that lives in the lake. A lonely, ghostly thing, they said. Coaxes you in, then never lets you go. They can come to you as a snake, a baby, even a beautiful woman…or so the legend goes. I never put any stock in it myself. Redskin twaddle, that’s all I took it for. But then those Latter Day heretics swarmed in, and before long they were claiming the Indians were right. Some of the Brethren started saying they’d seen a sea serpent up near Fish Haven. The Bear Lake Monster, they called it. Of course, it was obvious what they were trying to do—scare us ‘Gentiles’ off our land. But we just laughed…until we started seeing the thing ourselves. A giant with great, glowing eyes prowling around our farms, frightening our women and children. Well…first the Mormons, and now this? It was more than most people could take. Argyle—that’s what the town called itself then—it just drifted away, scattering like dandelion seeds on the wind until it was all gone.”

      Now, if we’d heard such a windy as this around some cattle-drive campfire, I know how Old Red would’ve received it: he’d snort, roll his eyes, and quickly compare it to the fresh little mounds dotting the ground all around the cows bedded down for the night.

      My brother heard Kennedy out quietly, thoughtfully, though. He wasn’t quaking in his boots over that “Water Indian,” yet he wasn’t cutting loose with any sneers, either.

      “Argyle ain’t all gone, though…is it?” he said.

      Kennedy shook his head and chuckled. “No. Not so long as Kennedyville’s still here. And here it’ll stay. Here we’ll stay.”

      “Why?” I asked. “I mean—you got a nice spread and all, don’t get me wrong. But it must be awful lonesome up here with all your old neighbors gone.”

      Over in the kitchen, behind their father’s back, Eileen and Fiona exchanged a little look. Raised brows, widened eyes, tight lips.

      The question I’d just raised—“Why stay?”—seemed to be one they’d done some thinking on themselves.

      Eileen caught me watching, and I beamed a grin at her, turning my attentions into something flirtatious.

      “And I can’t say I care much for your one new neighbor, from what we’ve seen of him,” I said. “I don’t guess you’d be too happy should he come a-callin’.”

      “Oh, I don’t know,” Eileen replied, her voice, like her father’s, honeyed with just a drop of brogue. “We’re grateful for whatever company we get.”

      “Very grateful,” her sister added, mooning at Old Red.

      My brother felt the sudden need to re-butter his hotcakes.

      “Lonely or not,” Kennedy said sternly, going stiff-backed in his chair, “we won’t abandon our land. Not to the Mormons, we won’t.”

      Old Red peeked up from his pancakes.

      “And not to a monster?”

      “Ah! That’s all the more reason to stay.” Kennedy leaned forward toward my brother. “I’m going to catch the rascal!”

      That was enough to slow even my chewing.

      “You aim to catch a ‘Water Indian’?”

      “Why not? Whatever it really is, it’s solid enough—you’ve seen the tracks. Why shouldn’t a trap catch it the same as any other animal? And Mr. Barnum…he’d pay thousands for such a thing, wouldn’t he?”

      “Maybe he would’ve,” I said. “But ol’ P.T.’s been dead goin’ on two years now.”

      “Oh. Well.” Kennedy shrugged. “Some other huckster, then. It hardly matters who. Get your hands on a living, breathing monster, and the showmen’ll line up for the chance to buy him. We’ll be rich.”

      I tried for another sneaky peep at the women to see what they thought of their father’s