Ghost Towns. Martin H. Greenberg

me to notice how them tracks of yours just happened to go in and out of the lake next to a big ol’ log—which somebody could use to climb out of the water without leaving more footprints on the shore. And led me to notice a notch in a broken tree limb where the ‘Water Indian’ had been skulkin’ around.” He nodded at the rope coiled up on the table. “The kinda notch that might make if it was thrown over and used to shake the branches way up high. Or to dangle something up there. A couple candle ‘eyes,’ let’s say.”

      The boy nodded, looking awestruck. Old Red hadn’t shot wide of the target once.

      My brother turned back to the old man.

      “Course, it didn’t have to be y’all playin’ bogeyman. At first, I thought it might be someone tryin’ to scare you off—some of ‘the Brethren’ hopin’ to clear out Kennedyville for good. But when you run on ahead this morning to tell your family we was comin’? Seemed like a good time to cook up some flimflam. And when you told us your wife died birthing your youngest…and then the gravestone said she passed in 1875?”

      Old Red threw Eileen a quick there-and-gone glance.

      “I’m sorry, miss, but there just ain’t no way you’re eighteen.”

      Eileen perked up just enough to shoot him a hateful scowl.

      “So I volunteered to help you hang out the washin’,” my brother went on, turning to Fiona. “Pinned up some shirts and britches a big, bluff man like your father’d bust at the seams. Looked like clothes for a smaller feller. Younger, maybe. Like eighteen, perhaps.”

      “My, my…you’re smarter than you look, aren’t you?” Fiona said, something like admiration peeking out from behind weary bitterness. “But I bet there’s still one thing you haven’t figured out.”

      “That’s right,” Old Red said. “Why?”

      Fiona jerked her head at her father.

      “Because the king of Kennedyville commands it, that’s why.”

      Then more words spilled out of her, coming so fast, in such a flood burst, she couldn’t even take the time to breathe.

      “At first, he sent Keeley out to scare you off. That’s what he does whenever any Mormons try to stay the night around here. But when he found out you were Gentiles, he thought we could trick you into staying. Permanently. As part of the family. Keeley would have to keep out of sight for a while, but that wouldn’t last long—just until my father could catch one of you in the act.”

      “Catch us—?”

      “—in what act?” I’d been about to ask. But then suddenly I knew, and all I could whisper was, “Oh, my.”

      Catch one of us with one of them, she’d meant. With her or her sister.

      I couldn’t help myself then: I shivered. When it comes to sheer blood-freezing terror, a lake monster’s got nothing on a shotgun wedding.

      “You know,” Old Red said, “if y’all are this desperate to, uhhh…expand the family, I’d say it’s time you moved on to greener pastures, courtin’-wise.”

      “Don’t you think we know that?” Eileen cried out, her voice quavering, on the verge of becoming a sob. “Don’t you think that’s what we—”

      “No!”

      Her father slammed down a fist with such force every plate on the table jumped an inch in the air. “I was here before those bloody Mormon heathens, and I’ll still be here after they’re gone! This is my home! My land! My town! My family! And I’ll never give any of it up! Never!”

      When Kennedy was done, Fiona, Eileen, and Keeley were all looking down, silent and still, like worshippers in church competing to seem the most pious. Hate the man as they might—and I suspected they did—a little blustering and table thumping and they were utterly in his thrall.

      “Well,” Old Red said quietly, “I think we best be leavin’.”

      The old man blinked at him.

      “What? You can’t leave now. It’s dark out.”

      “Oh, don’t worry about us,” I said. My brother and I stood and started backing away from the table. “We’ve done plenty of night herding. We won’t break out necks.”

      “Look…” Kennedy tried out an unconvincing smile. “I’m sorry about the tricks. The lies. Let us make it up to you. A good night’s sleep indoors and a hearty breakfast before you hit the trail. What do you say?”

      I say you’re insane, I thought.

      For obvious reasons, I kept this to myself.

      Kennedy’s smile went lopsided and slowly sank.

      “You can have your pick of spreads….”

      The old man stood and took a staggering step after us. He stopped next to the spot where he’d left his shotgun propped up against the wall.

      “Your pick of wives. Just stay. Please. You won’t regret it.”

      We kept backing away.

      Kennedy took another step toward us. Beyond him, his daughters and son just watched from their seats, unmoving, unblinking, glassy eyed. They seemed strangely sleepy, as if what they were seeing was merely a dream they’d had before and would no doubt have again.

      Old Red and I reached the door.

      “Don’t go,” Kennedy said, his voice half-pleading, half-demanding. “We need you here. I need you….”

      “Good-bye,” my brother told the old man.

      “And good luck,” I said to his children.

      And then we were outside in the gloom.

      We saddled up quick as we could by lantern light. I kept expecting Kennedy to come out and tell us again to stay…or try to make us. Yet when it came time to swing up atop my mount, I found myself lingering, waiting.

      Old Red horsed himself without pausing a jot.

      “They ain’t comin’, Brother,” he told me.

      He knew what I was thinking. Maybe the boy or one of the women would dart out after us, beg to be brought along. And we could—maybe should—help them out. After all, we knew what it was like to be trapped on a farm, tied down by obligation and expectation. And Old Red, at least, knew what it was like to escape.

      He hit the cow trails at eighteen and never saw the family farm again. And in a way, I felt like he was running from the old homestead even still. You can’t get much further removed from the dreary toil of sodbusting than a gentleman deducifier cracking mysteries in well-appointed drawing rooms.

      Old Red had freed himself from the past—or was trying to, anyhow, which maybe amounts to the same thing. So if he looked at Fiona and Eileen and Keeley and didn’t see the strength there to do likewise, I suppose it wasn’t there to be seen.

      I pulled myself up into my saddle.

      “Think they’ll ever get away from here? The gals? Or the kid?”

      “Not till the old man’s dead.” My brother gave his pony his heels. “Maybe not even then.”

      The horses ambled slowly out toward the trail, finding their way by memory as much as moonlight. It could have been a short journey—all we had to do was head north fifteen minutes and bed down in the same abandoned farmhouse we’d been in the night before. But Old Red and I agreed to push south a ways instead. More than ever since we’d begun our travels, we both felt the need to move on.

      I looked back just the once. All I could see was the dull yellow glow from the cottage windows aflicker through the trees like a sunset shimmering on dark, rippling water. Then a turn in the trail blotted it out, and the last of the light was swallowed into the black depths of the forest.

      Should