Ghost Towns

by Louis L'Amour

  “Well?” I said as my brother and I finally stepped out into the orange-yellow light of early morning.

  “Well, what?”

  Old Red moved off toward the trees, eyes down, scanning the ground.

  “Well, what was that thing?”

  “I have no earthly idea.”

  “You got an unearthly one?”

  My brother glanced back just long enough to shoot me a scowl. “You know I don’t believe in spooks.”

  “Me neither…usually. And last night sure as hell wasn’t usual.”

  Old Red knelt and picked a broken branch out of the underbrush. It was maybe three feet long and still studded with fresh, green pine needles. One end was splintered, and in the middle was a notched groove cut into the bark, as if the branch had been torn down by one powerful, clutching claw.

  My brother looked up, then pointed at something above him.

  A broken stub stuck out from a pine tree a dozen feet up.

  “Spooks don’t tear down tree limbs.”

  “All right, granted,” I said. “So what does?”

  “‘It is a capital mistake to—’”

  “Oh, for chrissakes!” I spat. “You wanna make a capital mistake? Quote Sherlock Holmes to me after I spent the night lyin’ around waitin’ to be eaten by the bogeyman.”

  Old Red put down the branch and moved farther into the brush. “Ain’t no such thing as…hel-lo.”

  He stopped cold.

  “What is it?”

  “Tracks.”

  “What kind?” I asked, already feeling relieved. If it steps with paw, hoof, or foot, my brother’ll know what it is. I’ve seen him identify not just a cow’s breed but its age, weight, and brand from one long stare at the pies it left behind.

  “Never seen the likes of this,” Old Red announced. He started off again, still crouching low. “Bogeyman tracks, maybe.”

  “Har har. Thanks a lot,” I grumbled, following him into the forest to have a look for myself. I assumed he was guying me…till I laid eyes on those tracks.

  There were two footprints pressed into the soft, mossy sod beneath the tree, right where we’d spotted those eyes shining in the night. They were side by side, a right and a left, plain as day. What wasn’t plain, though—not plain at all—was what could have made them.

  Whatever it was, it had big pads and claws, like a bear. But there was something stretching from toe to toe, mashing the earth down into little humps. Webbing, it looked like, as one might see on a duck or frog or beaver—a water-critter.

  “There’s more over thisaway,” Old Red said. “Coming and going.”

  He stopped, but his gaze kept on moving along the forest floor, following a trail I was blind to. Soon he was staring straight into the sun streaming down through the trees.

  To the east. Toward the lake.

  Old Red started off again.

  “Uhhh…shouldn’t we be movin’ along?” I called after him. “Salt Lake City ain’t gonna come to us, y’know.”

  “Salt Lake City ain’t goin’ nowhere,” my brother muttered.

  I sighed, then started after him—but only after dashing back to the barn to collect the Winchester.

  It was a comfort having it at hand, for the deeper we went into the woods, the stronger the feeling grew that we weren’t alone. And we weren’t, of course: There were chipmunks and squirrels and songbirds all around us. But they went on about their business in their usual jumpy, oblivious way, whereas the presence I sensed was steady, quiet, watchful.

  And purely imaginary…or so I tried to tell myself.

  It wasn’t long before the lake came into view ahead of us. I hadn’t spied much more than the occasional dimple in the sod or trampled twig after the first set of prints, but that changed but good as we approached the shoreline. There were tracks in the bank so deep and well-defined even a bottom-rail, bat-blind sign-reader like myself couldn’t miss them.

  One set led one-two, one-two straight into the water.

  The other led out of the water.

  “You know what I just realized?” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Whatever made them prints…it walk son two feet.”

  Old Red shook his head sadly, as if—through my keen powers of observation and deducification—I’d just surmised that mud is brown and water wet.

  “You don’t say,” he mumbled.

  The tracks ran parallel to a big, rotten cottonwood that looked like it had toppled into the lake a half dozen years before, and my brother stepped up onto the trunk and walked along it, using it as a pier. The water was crystal clear back toward the bank, but the farther out Old Red went, the more it deepened and darkened until you couldn’t see what might be beneath the surface.

  The tree dipped under my brother’s weight, tilting farther forward with his each step until the water was swirling over his feet.

  “You wanna know what else I just realized?” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “I wanna get the hell outta here.”

  “What 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, even though the sun might still shine.

  Neither Old Red nor myself were superstitious men. But, then again, it’s not a superstition if something’s real. And those tracks sure weren’t an old wives’ tale.

  Something was out there. Something…

  I 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.