“It’s just Frank,” the younger man corrected. “Only my father goes by Franky.”
“Either way.” Larry stepped away from the car and closed the door. “I can definitely see the resemblance.”
“And this is Sonja.” Frank’s father motioned to the young, redheaded woman. “Frank Junior’s girlfriend.”
“Well,” the elderly gentlemen exclaimed walking over and holding out a hand in greeting. “It’s a pleasure.”
Sonja cordially smiled and shook the man’s hand. Grasping her fingers tightly, Larry leaned down and gave her hand a kiss. “I figured a girl as pretty as you couldn’t possibly be related to Franky here.”
Feeling uncomfortable, Sonja pulled back her hand. She could tell that the man was trying to give her a compliment—but it was delivered poorly and came off more creepy than anything else.
“Oh,” the older gentleman paused, realizing he made a mistake. “I apologize if I’ve offended you.”
She shook her head. “It’s all right. I’m just a little startled is all. You look an awful lot like someone I know,” she said, trying to hide her discomfort.
“I hope it’s someone you like,” he teased, obviously fishing for compliments.
“He’s a family member,” she replied, refraining from going into too many details. While Sonja did have a deep-rooted love for her father, she also held great animosity toward him for leaving her and her mother without reason or notice. Now, it seemed, she saw the man everywhere—almost as if he were haunting her.
“Well, I was an only child, so I doubt I’m related,” Larry guffawed loudly as if he’d just told a hilarious joke.
“I wouldn’t think so,” Sonja replied, hoping to end the awkward encounter.
“Larry just has one of those faces,” Frank’s grandmother interjected, stepping forward. “Hello, dear. I’m Frank’s, grandma.”
“Nice to meet you.” Sonja smiled, thankful for the elderly woman’s intrusion.
“You can call me Grammy if you like. That’s what Franky calls me.”
“Alright, Grammy.”
“Frank,” Larry turned, “how did you manage to win over this dashing beauty?”
Sighing, Sonja couldn’t help but feel as if this man was trying to make himself out to be the “cool uncle” type character of the family, but wasn’t quite delivering his compliments correctly.
“That’s a story for another day,” Frank retorted, attempting to cut the conversation off before it could begin. “We really should get moved in.”
“Yes,” his girlfriend agreed. “Let’s get the bags out of the trunk.”
“Well, Hannah,” the grandmotherly figure called, switching the focus of the conversation onto her daughter. “Are you going to tell the children where to put their bags?”
“Last bedroom at the end of the hall,” she muttered quickly before taking another step up toward the house.
“Aren’t you going to at least say hello to me, Hannah?” Grammy scolded.
Hannah paused again, only turning slightly to glance at her mom. “Hello, Mother,” Hannah muttered. Continuing her ascent of the stairs, she disappeared into the house.
“Well, that was rude, wasn’t it?” Larry replied, completely unaware of what had just transpired.
CHAPTER 6
* * *
Frank’s grandmother followed Hannah inside almost immediately, calling to her. Shortly after, their shouts could be heard echoing through the house and out into the yard.
“Why can’t you just be civil for five minutes? He hasn’t done anything to hurt you.”
“That’s real great, Mom. It isn’t my responsibility to entertain your boyfriend just because you decided to shack up at eighty-five.”
“Why shouldn’t I? Do you want me to just wither away in my old age, sad and alone?”
“You could have picked someone else, someone who measures up to the standards my mother once had, or at least someone who didn’t think he owned the whole world.”
“Oh, so it’s okay for your son to bring some nobody girl home—some woman he’s only been dating for three months—for a family holiday, but when your own mother tries to bring her boyfriend along then I’m the bad guy.”
“Five months, Mom. They’ve been together five months.”
“Who cares, Hannah? It makes no difference. You can accept your own son but treat your mother like she’s an outcast.”
Sonja honestly felt bad about the tension between mother and daughter. She honestly liked both women based on her first impressions, and in so many ways they seemed very similar. They were each kind, gentle, and hospitable while also having a sense of fire beneath the surface.
Frank had already headed inside, both bags of luggage in tow. Sonja had tried to follow, but Frank suggested it may be best for her to wait outside.
The two women continued to yell at one another while Larry walked toward the barn, which stood directly next door to the ranch house, and acted as if he was completely oblivious to the situation.
“Let me show you how to really saddle a horse, boy-o.” He motioned to Hank who was in the process of putting his horse up for the night. It seemed Larry had decided to distract himself from the family drama currently occurring inside the ranch house by imposing his “knowledge of ranching” on Hank.
Sonja guessed that Frank had been right, and she could kiss her quiet holiday vacation goodbye. Still, despite the awkward and uncomfortable nature of the situation, there was still something refreshing about not being forced to participate—at least not as directly.
“Mr. Paulson, I know very well how to care for the horses without your help,” Hank argued, attempting to steer clear of the bald gentleman.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Larry argued, trying to grab the saddle out of Hank’s hands. “I’m older than you and know a thing or two about ranching.”
“He’s lying, you know,” Franky muttered as he came up and stood next to Sonja. “He doesn’t know the first thing about ranching, but the poor fellow wants so badly to fit in with the family.”
“This happens frequently?”
“Almost every time he comes up for a visit. He wants to show us all how capable he is, and how well he gets along with everyone else.”
“But he just ends up coming off too strong?”
“You got it.”
It wasn’t a difficult observation to come to, not after his charade of poorly placed compliments he had made upon his arrival.
“He may have grown up in this area, but he’s from a rich family that hired ranch hands to do all the work while they sat back and collected the money. After high school, Larry lived most of his life in the big city.”
Glancing over at the tall man beside her, Sonja couldn’t help but feel as if she were looking into the future—looking at her boyfriend as he may be in twenty-five years.
“Seems like we showed up at the wrong time,” she commented.
“Fiddlesticks, it’s these clowns who showed up a day early. We were planning on you guys arriving, not on entertaining the town fool.”
“What about Grammy?”
Franky shrugged. “I’ve always loved her, so has Frank, but Hannah has really struggled with the new boyfriend. Sees it as a betrayal of her father.”
“How long has he been gone?”
“Almost five years, now. Fell off his horse in the pasture and cracked his neck.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Hannah struggled with it more than her mother. He was old and sick. It was only a matter of time. He really wasn’t strong enough to go riding but enjoyed the fresh air. I think, in some ways, it was a better way to go than rotting away inside day after day.”
With that, Sonja had to agree.
“But, while her mother has tried to heal, tried to move on with her life, Hannah just stays angry. Outwardly, she’s a happy woman, but inside she still has a hole that her father left.”
In some distant way, Sonja related to that f
eeling. While her own father wasn’t dead, his betrayal and associated absence did leave a notable absence in her life.
“Just give me the saddle, buddy,” Larry argued loudly.
Glancing over toward the barn next door to the house, Sonja watched as the older gentleman insisted on helping out.
“I don’t need to saddle the horse right now,” the ranch hand shouted. “We’re putting the horses up for the night.”
Sonja sighed. “You guys don’t like him very much, do you?”
Franky shrugged. “Hannah surely doesn’t, and I wouldn’t call him my friend by any stretch of the imagination. At most, I feel sorry for the man.”
Sonja agreed, she hardly cared for the man herself. She had to admit, it was hard to imagine an eighty-five-year-old dating again.
“Excuse me, but I need to get to my other job,” Hank snapped, yanking the saddle from Larry’s grip and heading into the barn.
“You mean you can’t even take five minutes to learn some new tricks from an old dog? I’ve got valuable information, you know?” Larry disappeared into the barn behind Hank.
“I’ve never met someone so oblivious to the world around him,” Franky sighed. “If it were up to me, that man would never touch any of our equipment or tools.”
Sonja shrugged. “So why do you let him?”
“For Hannah, for her mother.” Turning on the heel of his boot he looked toward the house. “If Larry can at least feel a little welcome maybe Hannah will begin to accept him. I’d like to see her relationship with her mother return to normal.”
“They used to get along pretty well?”
“Like best friends.” He shook his head. “Now, this is the only way they interact.”
“And Larry?” Sonja pressed. “Do you think letting him ‘help out’ does more harm than good?” She nodded with a hint of a smile toward the barn.
“Sometimes, Sonja, it’s easier to let a fire like that burn its course than constantly fight to put it out.”
Hank emerged from the barn, red-faced and breathing heavily, and walked over to his car. Larry wasn’t far behind, suddenly wearing a cowboy hat atop his head.
“Shoot, now what’s he doing?” Frank complained.
“What’s wrong?” Sonja asked.
“He’s wearing my hat.”
Larry brandished a smile as he walked across the yard.
“Larry, take off that gosh dang hat,” Franky yelled across the yard.
Sonja was surprised in the slight change in Frank Senior’s demeanor, an angry redness appearing in his cheeks. “That’s my father’s hat,” he muttered. “No one wears it but me.”
“What about letting a fire burn its course?” Sonja asked.
Placing his hands on his hips, Franky sniffed like an angry boar. “Other times, you just have to fight fire with fire.”
CHAPTER 7
* * *
Frank Senior had marched after Larry, following him into a thicket of trees, but after about ten minutes he came back out claiming that “the idiot just up and disappeared on me.”
At that same moment, Frank Junior came out of the ranch house and offered to show Sonja around the rest of the ranch—partially, she guessed, to get her away from the arguing voices inside. Frank Senior, also wanting a respite from the arguments, tagged along.
Sonja was grateful for the chance to walk around in the fresh autumn air after being cooped up all day in the tiny sports car. She was excited to see the different workings of the ranch, including the barn, the ice house, the tool shed, and the ranch hands’ house. All of this helped to get her mind off things—her father, the tension in Frank’s family, and the demonic horse who had appeared earlier that day.
Leading her to the back of the pasture, almost to the edge of the field, Frank pointed out the different types of trees that bordered their land.
“Is there anything else out in this direction?” Sonja asked, looking at the stretch of trees and hills that backed up to the ranch.
“Not for miles,” Frank Senior responded. “We’re the last ranch until you hit the next town.”
Pausing, the astute young woman sniffed. “Does it smell burnt out here to you?” she asked.
Father and son both stopped and sniffed. “It certainly does,” Franky commented.
“Well, a lot of farmers use controlled fires to burn their land at the end of the season,” the son added.
“But, you said you’re the last ranch for miles. Would we really be able to smell their fires way out here?”
“It’s possible,” Frank’s father assessed the situation, “but unlikely. It could be a brush fire nearby.”
“A brush fire?” Frank chimed in. “During this time of year? It’s been too cold for that.”
“But it’s been unusually dry this season, even with the dusting of snow we got last night.” The older of the two men noted, motioning toward the patches of snow.
“Should we check it out?” Sonja was unaware of the procedure in just such a situation. Was a brush fire considered dangerous? Could it start a larger fire?
“I suppose we should. Just in case. We wouldn’t want it turning into something unmanageable if it is a brush fire.” Franky motioned toward the hills. “We’ll spread out in a line and walk out about fifty feet. If you see a fire, ash, coals, or anything at all, just holler.”
“Got it,” the young couple replied in unison.
Lining up about ten feet apart from one another, with Sonja in the center, the group headed forward into the line of trees. Walking carefully, they each looked up and down, in search of any ash, coal, or flame.
Climbing to the crest of a hill, Sonja looked down, and her mouth dropped open. The skeleton of a charred shed stood among the trees. “I see it,” she cried. “I see a burnt building.”
Trotting down the slope, she came to the place where the fire seemed to have occurred. She could hear both men on either side of her, scrambling in her direction. Stopping just as her feet stepped on an ashy piece of wood, she gasped.
Leaning against a tree, just outside the ruin, was a man. Sonja was about to speak to him, ask if he was okay when she noticed the hole in his head. A stream of dried blood ran down the man’s face. Additionally, it looked as if parts of the body had been trampled—ashy hoofprints printed into the clothing.
She instantly thought of the nightmare she’d had earlier that day—and the way the gunshot wounds had looked on all the bodies.
“What the devil?” Franky muttered as he stepped forward. His eyes grew wide and his face turned pale. “It’s Deputy Baker.”
“Frank,” Sonja screamed. “Get over here.”
Running through the trees, her boyfriend emerged onto the burnt site. “What is it?”
She motioned toward the body.
“Oh, no,” he whispered. “Not again.”
* * *
By the time they found some cell phone reception and phoned the police, it was dark and chilly. Sonja’s ears were beginning to sting from the gusts of wind, and she was wishing for the warmth of the ranch house.
Frank, despite not being the local authority, took a few preliminary measures to make sure the crime scene was prepared for the sheriff when he arrived. Sonja, despite not having any real experience in the field of forensics, took the initiative to at least look over the scene while her boyfriend went about his business.
Taking mental notes, she saw a few strange things which caught her attention. First of all, the remnants of a book, unreadable at this point, lay near the center of the rubble. She deduced that it had at one time been a hardback binding in about the same dimensions as maybe a school textbook.
Momentarily she wondered, placing together the image of the skull faced horseman, the horse prints, and the book—whether the pages of the book contained some sort of occult inscription. While her previous experience with the supernatural had mostly been in random ghostly encounters, during Halloween the previous month she had encountered some truly dark occult magic
and was forced to go head-to-head with a long dead evil spirit.
Sometimes it scared Sonja how commonplace ghosts, demons, and the occult seemed to be in her life.
The next thing she noticed was some pieces of the wood, the ones not quite burned to ash, had strange inscriptions carved into them. This only added to her belief that something occult had occurred here.
The last thing that caught her eye were multiple sets of animal prints. There were the horse prints she recognized, but some smaller prints also.
“What are those?” she asked Frank, pointing at one of the indentations in the earth.
“Looks like cow or steer,” Frank Senior answered.
“And these are horse,” her boyfriend added, indicating the horseshoe laden indentations.
Slowly tracing both tracks she noticed that while there were cow prints coming into the site, but not leaving it. Meanwhile, the horse prints lead away from the murder site, but there didn’t appear to be any coming into the site. So where had the cow gone? And where did the horse come from?
CHAPTER 8
* * *
About twenty minutes later, Sonja spotted a portly gentleman trotting over the hill, his semi-bald head bobbing with each step. Based on the uniform, Sonja guessed that this was the sheriff. He wore a simple brown overcoat, his badge tacked to the lapel, along with a lengthy forest green scarf.
“Sheriff Branson,” Frank called. “Glad you could make it so quickly.”
“Frank,” the sheriff nodded stepping close. “It’s good to see you.”
“Good to see you too, sheriff,” he replied, shaking the man’s hand. “I’m just sorry it has to be under these circumstances.”
“Part of the job, I suppose,” the little man grumbled. “It’s always harder when it’s someone you know. Poor Sim.” He turned to the rancher and nodded a greeting. “Franky, I’m sorry you had to see this.”
“I will admit, it’s a bit startling,” Frank Senior complained, his face still pale from shock.
Turkey and Terror: Book 6 in The Diner of the Dead Series Page 3