Rockinghorse (3 page)

Lucas recalled something his grandfather once told him. “Mister Colt made everybody equal, Jim.”

Jim chuckled. “You'll do, Lucas. Yep. You're all right.”

“Why is that man wearing a badge and carrying a gun if he's that dumb?” Lucas asked, adding silently
and dangerous
?

“Well, believe it or not, Jim, the man serves a purpose in the county. This is a big county, and we got some rough ol' boys live around here. Oh, they know their place. You ain't gonna see 'em in any decent cafe or minglin' with proper folks. They got their own honky tonks and places to hang out in. But ever' now and then Big Burt's gotta go knock some heads. And he's right good at that.

“He was a big football star in high school. Too goddamn stupid to last in college. Played one year at the university, then went to the pros. Didn't last but two seasons there. They kicked him out after his . . . troubles.”

“Troubles?”

“Let's put it this way, Lucas: Burt Simmons likes little girls.”

Lucas felt his temples pound and his face flush as he looked at the deputy, who was still looking at Jackie. Staring at a certain part of her anatomy. Lucas turned to Jim.

“Put that Colt in the bottom of a big bag, Jim. With the clips and ammo and leather. Fill up the bag with candy bars and two loose cartons of Virginia Slims and Parliaments. You know what I mean?” He reached for his wallet.

Jim Dooley looked at Burt, who was staring with open lust in his eyes at Jackie. The girl was conscious of the man's stare and would not meet his eyes. She was leaning against the station wagon, drinking a Coke from the soft drink machine. “I sure do, Lucas. I'll dump in an extra box of ammo—on the house. You might ought to practice some.”

“I wonder who painted the house?” Tracy asked, as they turned off the rutted, bumpy gravel and dirt road into the curved drive leading to the beautiful home. Lucas braked and stopped.

The huge mansion sparkled in the Georgia sunlight. The white paint was almost too white, producing a glare that made them all glad they were wearing sunglasses.

“I don't know. I don't recall seeing the expenditure on the annual maintenance bill.”

“It's so lovely,” Tracy said.

“It's beautiful,” Jackie spoke from the back seat.

“Frankly, my dear,” Johnny said, disgust in his boy's voice. “I just don't give a damn.”

Lucas put his forehead on the steering wheel and laughed aloud. Tracy and Jackie joined him. All the tension that had built within Lucas at the service station drained away. The entire family had watched
Gone With The Wind
on TV and had thoroughly enjoyed the great old classic.

When the laughter had died down, Jackie said, “Listen. Did you hear that?”

“Hear what, baby?” Lucas asked.

They were silent for a moment, listening.

Nothing.

“What did you hear, honey?” Tracy asked.

“Well, I thought I heard a horse whinnying,” the girl said. “No—I
know
I heard it.”

They all listened again.

Nothing.

“We're out in the country now,” Tracy told her. “You probably did hear a horse. I'm sure there are many out here.”

“But it wasn't coming from any pasture,” the girl objected. “I know it wasn't.”

“Oh?” Lucas twisted in the front seat to look at his daughter. “Then where was it coming from?”

She pointed. “From there.”

The white antebellum home glistened silently under the hot sun.

The first thing Lucas did after Tracy went into the house was hide the pistol he'd bought from Jim. He hid it in his toolbox, after carefully wrapping the gun in a towel. There wasn't enough room for the ammo, so he hid that in a piece of his luggage.

“Paranoid,” he muttered. “I'm becoming a basket case . . . overnight.”

“Did you say something?” Tracy asked. She had moved up quietly behind him.

“Humming an old song,” he said, looking up from the tailgate of the station wagon. “Do you remember ‘Chapel Of Love?' ”

“Do I? I bet I danced a thousand miles to that one.”

“Me, too. How is it looking on the inside of the house? ”

“The truth?”

“And nothing but the truth?”

“God! Spare me that, bailiff. It's just a little grim, baby.”

“I never promised you a rose garden.” He grinned at her.

“The man is regressing. Let me see the shotgun you bought.”

He showed her the shotgun. “Interested in learning how to handle it?”

She did not share his smile. “Funny, hubby—funny. Put it away.”

They both turned to look at Jackie and Johnny, who were prowling around the huge front yard. “Stay in sight, gang,” Tracy called to them.

They waved and ignored her.

Lucas looked at the grand old home. “I remember my father saying this was the most pretentious home he had ever seen. I remember as a boy thinking it so magnificent.”

She glanced at him. “And now, Lucas, as an adult?”

“I think it is the most vulgar, ugly, pretentious monstrosity I have ever laid my eyes on. God, what an elephant.”

She laughed and took his hand. “Come on. Just wait until you've seen the interior. Do you remember any of it?”

He pulled away from her suddenly, as unexplained fear grabbed the man in a cold fist. For a reason he could not fathom, Lucas Bowers, age thirty-seven, a very responsible, intelligent adult—except when it came to handling his wife's success, and he was working on coming to grips with that—did not want to enter the old mansion. He could hear his wife speaking to him, but her words were a jumbled roaring in his head. Quick, very vivid images leaped into his brain. They were terrifying in their realness. The reality of the illusion crippled Lucas, turning the man into a sweaty statue.

Then, as quickly as the horror had come, the images vanished. They left Lucas shaky, with sweat dripping from his face.

His wife's voice finally became clear to him. “Lucas! What's the matter?”

He shook his head to clear it further. Her face became clear through his eyes. She stood before him, very pale, eyes wide. “Jesus, Tracy. The damndest thing. I never had anything like it happen to me. I saw . . . I saw, monsters and . . . my God! Unspeakable images of . . . hideous things.”

“Where were these things, Lucas?”

“In my head!”

“No, Lucas. Where did they come from? What was the origin?”

“I . . . I don't know.”

She did not know what to say, so she remained silent. She had not experienced the terror, so she could not really understand the intensity.

She watched his face. The fear left him, confusion taking its place. “Lucas?”

“Whatever it was, Trace, is gone. And I hope to God that whatever it was never returns. That was the damndest thing I've ever gone through.”

But try as he would, he could not bring the terror into any rerun. Finally, he laughed. “Must have been that triple-decker sandwich I had last night.”

She joined his laughter and the tension eased, then passed.

“You ready to go into the house?” she asked.

He shrugged, all memory of the terror gone. “Why not?”

Pretentious may have been too kind a word for Lucas to use in describing the Bowers plantation house. Completed in 1853, the great, great grandfather of Lucas Taylor Bowers had wanted a home distinctly different from any of those around the area—or the entire state. The planter had hired an architect out of Savannah and given the man his head. And the architect's adaptations of classic style had produced some rather odd effects.

The home contained one hundred and sixty-six windows, all tall and restrained. Cast ironwork had been used for balustrades. Inside, the thirty-six rooms were large, the halls expansive. Three sets of spiraling, swirling stairs, each set containing two hundred and twenty-two steps, each set running from ground level to the attic. More bathrooms had been added as decades marched over decades, but the huge water tanks on top of the mansion still remained. There was an all-white ballroom with glistening white tiles and white marble mantels.

The attic, larger than that of many plantation homes, was filled with dark corners and hidden tucks and hideaways and escape routes. There were six massive columns at the front of the home, which had verandas on all four sides. The curved driveway leading to the plantation home was osage-lined, and the lawn was thick with boxwoods and great walnut and oak trees. The grounds contained three gardens, now mostly unkempt and ragged, which were filled with weeping cherry and weeping willows, all shaded by English laurel, mimosas, and crepe myrtle.

While their parents roamed the old home, Jackie and Johnny sat on the east side of the home.

“You ever seen so much old crap in all your life?” Jackie asked.

He was unusually silent, not electing to reply to her question.

“You gone deaf?” she asked.

“No,” he said slowly. “I just don't like this place, Jackie. I mean, I really don't like this place.”

“Don't let Mom or Dad hear you say that,” she cautioned.

“Oh, I won't. But I can't help the way I feel, can I?”

“I guess not, Johnny. I don't like this place, either,” she confessed.

“Why?” he pressed her.

“I don't know. It's something . . . no, there is some thing about this place—the whole place. Grounds, everything. I can't put it into words.”

“That's me. I can't, either.”

“I heard that horse nickering, Johnny. And it was coming from the house.”

“I know, Jackie,” his reply was soft. “I heard it, too.”

* * *

“There is no way,” Tracy said.
“No way
I can get all these rooms cleaned up and redecorated in three and a half months.”

Looking around him, Lucas silently thought a full crew couldn't do it in three and a half
years.
But he kept those thoughts just that.

“Thirty-six rooms,” Tracy bitched softly. “I didn't count the bathrooms. Did you, Lucas?”

“Hell, no! I got lost three times in this place.”

She covered her mouth and suppressed a giggle.

“They's them that say the place is haunted,” the voice came from behind the man and wife.

The voice spun them around, Tracy's heart pounding, the blood draining from her face. Lucas felt fear wash over him, old fear, leaving him almost physically ill.

The man that stood before the couple—and how did he manage to move so quietly?—could have been forty years old, could have been eighty years old. He was dressed in overalls and a patched, dirty blue-denim work shirt. His hair was long and dirty, hanging down to his shoulders, and he had a full shaggy beard peppered with gray and white. His eyes were small and mean-looking.

“Scared ya, huh?” he said, then laughed in a high-pitched voice. “Wal, don't neither of you pay no nevermind to my prowlin' around. I been livin' here for a long, long time. I know my way around this place.”

“You . . . live here?” Tracy asked, finally finding her voice.

“Yep.”

Lucas struggled to remember the caretaker's name. It finally came to him. “You're Lige Manning . . . right?”

“Yessir. That I is. My great grandpappy was the overseer of this place back before the War between the States; back when they was thousands of acres of cotton and corn under cultivation. He were killed in the fightin' 'round here. '64, I think it were. My grandpappy stayed on, as did my pappy. I took over 'bout twenty years ago or so. Don't rightly remember.”

“Did you paint the house?” Tracy asked.

Lige seemed to smile mysteriously, his eyes almost glowing. “House ain't been painted in years, ma'am.”

Man and wife looked at one another, neither of them believing the caretaker. The house had been painted, recently—by somebody. But why would Lige lie?

Jackie and Johnny entered the ballroom, empty except for a beautiful grand piano. Tracy had already removed the sheet covering the piano and had found it to be highly polished and perfectly in tune.

Lige's strange eyes touched on the boy and girl. Something flickered behind the eyes. Because of the position of the man's head, neither parent caught the odd light. But the kids picked it up. They held hands, seeking comfort in contact, struggling to keep from backing up in fright.

“Y'all gonna fix up the mansion and sell 'er, huh?” Lige asked.

“That is our intention,” Tracy said.

“Even if you do that, it ain't gonna get neither of you the money Lady Bowers set aside for the place,” Lige said with a grin. It was ugly and knowing and very sarcastic.

“Yes, it will,” Lucas said, taking some offense at the man's attitude. “But that isn't what we're after.” Goddamn, he thought. Why should I explain anything to this man?

“Uh-huh,” Lige said, more a grunt. He pointed toward the rear of the house. “When you want me to fetch anything for you, I'll be back yonder. Step through the kitchen and holler. I'll come.”

He abruptly turned around and walked away, his clodhopper shoes thudding with a hollow sound on the floor. He stopped, turned around, and said, “Y'all listen to me. The
house
don't wanna be sold.”

Lige Manning left them with that.

Lucas and Tracy looked at each other. Both of them wore a very confused expression on their faces.

“Did he say what I think he said?” Tracy asked.

“We both heard him,” Lucas said.

“And so did we,” Jackie and Johnny said in unison.

“He's probably senile,” Tracy said. “And afraid of losing his job.”

“That's as good an explanation as any,” Lucas agreed.

“What money, Dad?” Jackie asked.

It took Lucas half a minute to fathom what she was talking about. “Tell you all what. Let's fix some lunch and take it out on the porch. We'll talk there and I'll explain it.”

With sandwiches and soft drinks, the family went onto the south veranda. Lucas could not see Lige, but the man may well have been hiding, listening behind the shrubbery.

“Grandmother Bowers died when I was fifteen,” Lucas began explaining. Tracy listened as intently as the kids, for she knew only a part of the story. It had always made Lucas angry and, to her way of thinking, very bitter whenever she brought up the question. Bitter not at her, but at some unknown. After a few tries, she had finally dropped the subject. But it had always intrigued her. “She died on my birthday, March tenth. My mother and father died not too long after that; Mother died in August, Dad died in February. Six months apart. You've all been told I was an only child. That's not true.”

Tracy forgot her sandwich. She had been ravenous only seconds before. Now her hunger was forgotten.

“I have an older brother. He was committed to a mental institution when he was twelve. I was six years old at the time.”

The play of numbers triggered something in Jackie's mind. But she couldn't bring into clear focus what it was; just that there were too many sixes involved. Not just in her father's talking, but this entire place. Everything could be broken down into sixes. She dismissed it and concentrated on her father's voice.

“My brother's name was Ira. I don't even remember what he looked like. But he was Grandmother Bowers's favorite. I was told that by her—pointedly told. The day the old lady died, Ira escaped from the mental institution. He has not been seen since. Heard from,
I
believe, but not seen by anyone that I know of. He would be . . . forty-three years old.” Lucas sighed. “Anyway, when the will was read, Grandmother Bowers's will, all her monies, and they were considerable—”

“What's that mean, Dad?” Johnny asked.

“Means Grandmother Bowers was filthy rich,” Jackie said.

“That right, Dad?” the boy asked.

“Yes. She was worth millions.”

“Umm,” Tracy said, rubbing Lucas's arm. “I knew I made the right choice.” She laughed.

“You're looking at the poorest millionaire in the world, kid,” Lucas told his wife. “Anyway, all her wealth was to be divided between keeping Ira in the best institution in the world—that means he would have probably been sent to Europe—where he would have lived out his life in as much luxury as could be bought for him, and the other part of her holdings would be placed in an interest-bearing account and the money used to keep this house and the grounds around it, some three hundred and ninety acres, intact, well-kept, and in the family name. The taxes on a place this size would stagger the imagination. Her will laid it all out, very neat and plain, and very unbreakable. I won't try to explain all the legal jargon to you kids. It comes down to this: as long as the taxes are paid, the house and the grounds must remain intact. Well, of course the taxes are paid—the woman left millions of dollars. The place cannot be broken up and sold. That's firm and legal. It can only be sold as a whole unit, house and grounds together. And I couldn't even begin to think of doing that until Ira was declared legally dead by the courts. Unfortunately for us, nobody wants the damn place, and I sure can't blame them. There just aren't that many Howard Hughes's around.”