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Authors: William W. Johnstone

Rockinghorse (8 page)

BOOK: Rockinghorse
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“Why are you telling me all this, Granddad?”
“Just am. Let me think for a few hundred steps, Lucas. I got something I have to tell you; it's hard, boy. Real hard.”
The silence of winter had fallen around the old man and the boy as they walked across the field, dry stalks cracking and rustling and whispering under their boots. The cold winds of fall blew sharply around them, reddening the exposed skin of their faces.
Then, in the summer's heat of Georgia, Lucas recalled his grandfather's words of that cold winter's day in Vermont.
“You're old enough, I reckon,” the old man had said. “It's time. But that don't make it any easier. Your Grandmother Taylor is gone on, and the docs in the city say I don't have all that much more time left me before I join her. That's fine with me. I seen seventy-seven years of this old world.”
“Time for what, Granddad?”
“Your life is gonna rock right along pretty smooth for another few years, Lucas. But when you're sixteen or so, you'll have to grow up damned quick. And you'll have to do it alone. Remember this, Lucas: All is not what is appears to be. Life ain't no rocking horse you just get on and ride. Sometimes it's a hard ride; sometimes you get throwed off. But you got to get right back up on that rocking horse and hang on.” He fixed the boy with a steely-eyed look, a look filled with mystery and love and wisdom. “What I'm saying, Lucas, is between you and me. Nobody else. You understand?”
“Yes, sir, Granddad.”
“You're going to be the one they want, boy. They want you for their own . . . ”
“They, Granddad? They?”
“You'll see, boy. All in time. I can't prove none of what I'm saying, but I know it's real. Be careful, Lucas. And if you have children of your own, they'll find some way to lure you and yours to them. So be careful, Lucas. Promise me you'll be careful.”
Lucas hadn't had the vaguest idea what he was promising, but he had promised he would be careful.
Grandfather Taylor had continued then, “You're still too young to know much about evil, Lucas. Like most, you were born with good overriding evil. I've looked at you and watched you carefully over the years. You're not marked. So they'll try to draw you to them. I'm going to tell you two more things, boy, then we'll never speak of it again.”
“Yes, sir.”
In Georgia, walking toward the creek bank, Lucas tried to pull the old words back to him, but they would not bridge the gap.
Then they came ripping and tearing and echoing into the man's head.
“Watch out for Ira and . . .
“Stay out of Edmund County.
“Watch out for Ira and . . .

Stay out of Edmund County!

“Are you all right, Dad?” Jackie asked.
That brought the man clearly and cleanly back into the present.
“Yeah, you look funny, Dad,” Johnny asked.
“I . . . I was just thinking about things that happened a long time ago, kids. Come on!” He shook off the old words from old worlds. “Let's go catch us a mess of fish.”
8
Lucas was no expert with the .45 pistol, but after a month of practice, burning up six boxes of ammo, he could hit what he was aiming at; or get close enough to the bull's-eye to ensure that if it were a man, he would have knocked him down.
Satisfied, he put the pistol back in leather and silently prayed he would never have to take it out again.
And for several weeks he was torn between keeping quiet about his grandfather's words and leveling with Tracy.
He decided to tell her.
“But what does it mean, Lucas?” she asked.
“I don't know,” he confessed. “But I think my grandfather knew a hell of a lot more about . . . well,
things
, than he told me. And, no, I don't know why he didn't tell me everything he knew.”
“Maybe he thought you were too young to cope with everything,” she said.
“I guess that is as good an answer as any, honey.”
The Bowers family had been in Edmund County for one month, and as Trooper Cartier had said on his last visit to sit on the on the veranda and sip iced tea with Lucas and Tracy, the radio in his car turned up to catch the calls, “It's hard to believe what all you folks have done with this old place. It's really coming around.”
“We've got to give Lige a great deal of the credit,” Tracy said. “He works from dawn to dusk. And he knows what he's doing.”
“He hasn't given you any further trouble?” Kyle asked.
“Not a bit,” Lucas said. “And he even takes a bath every now and then.”
“I wonder how old the man really is?” Tracy asked. “That has puzzled me for a month.”
“Between forty and forty-five, I'd guess,” Kyle said. He sipped his iced tea. “I tried to run a make on him some time back. The man doesn't have a past. Nothing.”
“Jim said he came here after the army kicked him out.”
“He was never in the army—or any other branch of service,” Kyle said. “Not under the name of Lige Manning.”
“And that means? . . .” Tracy asked.
“He's probably running from something,” Kyle replied. “A wife, bad debts, trouble with the law. I was curious about him for a time. But he's been in Edmund County for a long, long time and never been in any kind of serious trouble. He was arrested a couple of times for window peeking and once for drunkenness, but that was a long time back. He's been clean for years. And I reckon if a man wants to change his name, that's his business. See you folks.”
* * *
Lucas and Tracy had made love for what seemed to both of them like hours. It had been the most satisfying lovemaking they had shared in several years. Now both of them lay sweaty and near sleep in the big bed.
A squall of pure terror cut through the velvet of the Georgia night. Lucas and Tracy sat up in bed, eyes wide, hearts pounding.
“Jesus!” Lucas said. He struggled into his trousers, almost falling down in his haste. Jamming his feet into house shoes, he ran to the window and looked out.
Behind him, Tracy screamed in horror at the sight before their eyes.
It was Jackie. She was naked and running from half a dozen men. They were horrible-looking men, dressed in animal skins, all of them looking as though they had stepped into a time warp and been spun fifty thousand years into the future, out of the caves. Lucas almost knocked his wife down as he whirled around, running for his pistol.
He blasted the night with a fury of gunfire, flame leaping from the muzzle of the .45, the peacefulness of the night shattered by the booming of the heavy pistol.
Then the scene before them vanished, leaving the freshly mown grass bare and dew-damp under the moonlight. They both whirled around at a sound behind them.
“I just had a terrible nightmare!” Jackie said. She was standing in the doorway. She was dressed in pajamas and had been crying.
Lucas looked at the pistol in his hand, a thin finger of smoke leaking from the muzzle. He lifted his eyes first to his daughter, then to meet his wife's eyes.
Neither of them could believe what they had just seen—and were seeing.
“Jesus Gawd Amighty!” Lige called through the night. “What in the hell's goin' on around here?”
The man had Baby on a chain and was carrying a club in his other hand.
“A bear!” Lucas called over the expanse of lawn. “There was a bear in the yard. I think I scared it off.”
“Took ten years off my life,” Lige called. “That shootin' started, Baby jumped right square up in my bed. I thought the Widow Hargrove done tracked me down agin. Cain't hardly tell her and Baby apart.” He looked down at Baby. “Sorry, Baby.”
While Tracy was comforting Jackie, Lucas called to Lige through the open window. “I think the bear is gone, Lige. I want to thank you for being concerned about us.”
“Shore. They're plenty b'ar around here. I got me a notion that's what slapped you goofy back yonder in the woods. Well, night, y'all.” He disappeared into the night.
“You all right now?” Tracy asked Jackie.
The girl nodded her head.
“It was just a dream,” her mother assured her. “It's all right now. It's over. You two go on back to bed.”
The kids said, “Night.”
Lucas reloaded the clip and slapped it back into the butt of the .45. He was silent as he sat on the edge of the bed.
Tracy sat down beside him. “A bear, Lucas?”
He shook his head. “That's all I could think of at the moment. Things were happening pretty damned fast. Tracy, tell me exactly what you saw out there.” He pointed to the open window overlooking the expanse of lawn. “Or what we both thought we saw.”
Carefully, she re-created what she had seen. A naked Jackie being chased by men who looked like prehistoric cavemen.
The couple lay back on the bed and held hands. Lucas said, “I know what I did all day, Trace. I can account for every minute. But you tell me what you and Jackie did, and try not to leave anything out.”
He felt her eyes on him.
“Why, Lucas?”
“Humor me.”
With a sigh of patience, Tracy said, “Jackie and I did some work upstairs, then my curiosity got the better of me and I tried to get into the attic. The door was locked. We spent about an hour looking for the key. We finally—or Jackie did—found a ring of keys in the little room just off the kitchen. They were hanging from a nail. The very last one we tried unlocked the attic door. Then we had to find fresh light bulbs. Lucas, you would not believe the junk we found up there. It'll take weeks to go through it all. There are boxes piled on top of boxes. Trunks piled on top of trunks. Old furniture; some very expensive antiques. Some of the trunks are so heavy we couldn't move them. Others have chains around them, secured with heavy locks. We spent most of the rest of the day just prowling around up in the attic. And we found the
cutest
rocking horse you have ever seen. It's
very
old. Not a nail in it; all put together with pegs. Jackie took it down from the attic to the landing and we cleaned it up. It's
really
precious, Lucas. That's how I spent my day.”
“A rocking horse.” He thought immediately of his tattoo.
“Yes.”

Life ain't no rocking horse
. . .
you got to get right back up and right back on that rocking horse, boy.
” Grandfather Taylor's words came back to him in a rush.
“Lucas?”
“Sorry. Tracy, don't you see the connection?”
“What do you mean?”
“My tattoo.”
She was silent for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was small in the darkness of the bedroom. “I didn't connect it. But is there any connection?”
“There has to be. But damned if I know what it is.”
She was silent for a moment. Lucas knew she was thinking about the rocking horse she and Jackie had found. “What are you going to do, Lucas?”
“To be truthful, honey, I don't know. But I'm going to look at that rocking horse first thing in the morning. It's got to be connected. It just has to be.”
“And after you look at it?”
“I might burn the goddamned thing.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. She rolled over, turned her back to him, and without another word went to sleep.
Pissed her off again, Lucas thought.
On the second-floor landing of the mansion, the painted-on grin of the rocking horse changed into the ugliness of a homicidal maniac after a fresh kill. Its painted-on eyes took a new life, beginning to shift and slowly blink. The hobbyhorse listened to a voice only it could hear, and began to rock slowly back and forth on its wooden runners. And in the timber surrounding the mansion, shadowy forms began to gather, to squat and stare at the dark shape of the house. To stare in silence. The night was their world, for they could not live in the light of God's day. As they squatted in the midst of their stink, hate and loathing for those who resided inside the mansion glinted and gleamed out of their eyes.
One of them defecated where it squatted. The others gathered around to smell. Another softly grunted a command. The others went back to their positions, assigned by age and rank in their primitive pecking order.
These beings, these creatures, these not-quite-animal but not-quite-human
things
were all that remained of the direct ancestors of those who came before them. They had always lived here. That was as much as they knew of their history: that they had always been. And in some form or another, they would always be. It had been promised those who came before them. They knew they were supposed to hate all those who did not command them. They did not know why they were supposed to hate—they just did as they were told. For hundreds of years they had carefully avoided all contact with those not like them. They had lived peacefully in the dark timber, venturing out only at night. As long as those who were not like them did not hurt one of their own, they would hurt none of the others.
But then, longer ago than even the oldest of the creatures could recall, something had changed all that. They could no longer live in peace. Those who had come before them had had a leader that could not be seen. And now those who came after had to obey. That was the way.
It was all so strange..
Where once half a thousand had lived, now there were no more than a handful of the Rejects, as they were called. And for years now they had been forced to obey one not of their own kind.
As a faint, nickering sound, a whinneying sound, drifted through the night air, the Rejects slipped back into the deep timber. Back to their carefully concealed holes in the earth, where those who came before them lived. To lie quietly at rest during the daylight unsafe time. And to hate those not like themselves.
The Rejects wished they knew, wished someone would tell them why they had to hate. But no one ever did.
It was all so strange
And the forest was once more silent as only the shadows created by the night crept through the brush and timber. But even that seemed alive. And evil.
“Hell, it's cute,” Lucas said.
“Told you,” Tracy smiled, as she stood by his side on the landing.
Lucas put his hand on the hard painted rump of the rocking horse and gently pushed. The horse rocked back and forth as its tail twitched up and down and back and forth with the movement. Lucas felt an almost-electric sensation run from his hand to his shoulder. But it was a very pleasant sensation—almost erotic.
The little hobbyhorse was so cute all thoughts of destroying it left Lucas's mind.
“Well?” Tracy asked. “When do we start the bonfire?”
“What?”
“You said you might burn it, remember?”
“You're taking me literally, Trace.” Lucas looked down at the horse and shrugged. “Hell, what harm could this thing possible do?”
Man and wife walked down the spiraling steps, leaving the rocking horse alone on the landing. Had either of them turned around, they might have seen the shape of a young boy materializing by the horse's side, one hand on the hobbyhorse's neck. The boy's eyes glowed with sadness and hate and nearly uncontrollable fury. The eyes of the rocking horse shifted, to look with something akin to love at the boy.
Then the wavy shape of the boy changed into a mist and dissipated, vanishing, leaving only the rocking horse on the landing. Rocking slowly back and forth. Under an invisible hand.
The horse smiled, its painted-on mouth moving in an evil semblance of a smile. The rocking horse knew the boy had not gone far.
Ira
, the horse seemed to say.
Ira
.
Man and wife stopped on the steps. Lucas looked at Tracy. “Did you say something, honey?”
She shook her head. “No. Why? What did you hear?”
He smiled it off. “I guess nothing. My imagination, I suppose.”
“Come on, old man,” she took his arm. “How about some pancakes for breakfast?”
* * *
“Dad?” Jackie asked after breakfast. “Would it be all right if we,” she looked at Johnny, “go walking up the road? Maybe do a little exploring? We've been here a month and neither of us have left the grounds except to go with you and Mother into town.”
Lucas looked at Tracy. “What do you think, honey?”
“Oh, I don't see what harm it would do.” She met her daughter's eyes. “Tell you what—that road's pretty smooth; why not take your bikes?”
“All right!” they both echoed. Since arriving at the Bowers plantation, brother and sister had grown much closer. Much to Jackie's surprise, they were even friends. Who'd have thought it?
BOOK: Rockinghorse
8.04Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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