“Somebody on my side at last, Dad!” she exclaimed; then to Terry she added quickly: “I’ve been trying for long enough to get Dad to bury his silly superstitions and instead make an effort to find out the reason for these phantom riders. Only he won’t. In fact, nobody will—not even the sheriff, and he’s supposed to be the guardian of law and order around here. Everybody’s plain scared, and rather than face up to the reality they’re all walking out.”
Terry became thoughtful as he continued with his meal. “How often do these ghosts appear?” he asked presently.
“Almost nightly at present,” Hilda answered. “Sometimes they are at a distance by the mountains; sometimes quite near, but so far they haven’t carried out their supposed threat of laying the territory to waste. I don’t think they ever will. I think they may be outlaws or range riders who happen to pass in this direction each night. There being four of them superstition attaches to the legend.”
“How do you see them if it’s dark?” Terry gave a puzzled look. “Are they illuminated or something?”
“They’re in white—and their horses are white.”
“Yeah—’cos they ain’t of this world!” Marchland snapped. “How much longer are you goin’ to blaspheme, gal, against things which come from the Other World?”
Hilda gave him a scornful look; then Terry spoke.
“I guess there are two sides to this business, Mr. Marchland,” he said. “All due respect to you, sure, but your daughter’s entitled to her opinion and so am I. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I won’t settle definitely for that until I’ve had a look for myself. What chance is there of seeing them tonight?”
“Every chance,” the girl answered, glancing at the clock. “They usually appear around midnight in the mountain foothills or on the trail which leads that way. I saw them once, and from then on Dad forbade me to leave home at night, After that the sheriff issued an order that everybody was to stay put and shutter their windows and bar their doors during the hours of darkness.”
Terry got on his feet and took his gun from his holster. He jerked it open and eyed the loaded chambers.
“This is good enough insurance for me against ghosts,” he said. “I’ll take a ride around until midnight and see if I can spot anything. I’ll soon decide then whether we’re dealing with spooks or not.”
“I’ll come with you,” Hilda said, turning to the door which was evidently that of her bedroom.
“You’ll stay right here, gal!” her father snapped. “1 gave you an order, an’ I mean to see you obey it! If Mr. Carlton wants to go, that’s his business, but no daughter of mine is—”
“I’m going, Dad,” the girl interrupted deliberately. “1 mean no disrespect to you, but this is the chance I’ve been waiting for—to have a man by my side who thinks as I do. As a lone woman trying to knock sense into a lot of superstitious fools, I’ve had no chance—but it’s come now, and I’m taking it. I’ll be with you in a moment, Mr. Carlton.”
Terry nodded and began to roll himself a cigarette. He looked under his eyes at old man Marchland as he stood frowning into the fire. Finally, he flung himself back in his rocking chair and scowled.
“I don’t see you can blame your daughter, sir,” Terry remarked, striking a lucifer on his thumbnail. “If these ghost are phoney, it lets out everybody in town. They don’t need to move on. You said yourself you don’t want to, so surely—
“I’m saying no more,” Marchland snapped, with a fiery glare. “I just say it isn’t right to dabble in things beyond us.”
“Yeah?” Terry gave a dry smile as he inhaled smoke. “Never yet found anything that was beyond me. Usually a six-shooter solves more mysteries than any durned sheriff—”
He turned quickly as Hilda reappeared. She had change quickly into a riding skirt and blouse, a leather mackinaw placed slackly across her. Terry’s eyes travelled to the gun swinging at her hip as she tied a floral kerchief about her dark hair.
“You wear a gun like you’re usta it, Miss Marchland,” Terry commented, and she turned to smile at him.
“You just can’t afford not to be used to it in this region, Mr. Carlton.” She turned to her father and kissed his forehead. “’Bye for now, Dad. And don’t worry so.”
He said nothing. Terry gave the girl a glance, then opened the door for her. Together they passed through the hall and presently gained the moonlit porch. A cold but gentle wind stirred about them.
“I’ll get the horses,” the girl said. “I’d bedded yours down for the night. Do you suppose he’ll be able to make the trip, or has he done enough for one day?”
“I imagine he has,” Terry said with regret. “Unless you can loan me another one, I’m afraid he’ll have to try—”
“I’ll fix it,” Hilda said, dodging away into the gloom. “I’ve a mare you can borrow.”
Terry nodded and lounged down the pathway to the gate. He opened it and then stood looking down the dark stretch of the main street. It went straight into the black vista of the town. It was a sombre, unnerving scene, the buildings turned into leprous white by the reflected light of the rising moon. It might have been three in the morning instead of around half-past nine.
Then the girl returned, mounted, leading the mare beside her. Terry vaulted easily into the saddle and followed the girl as she turned away from the town and headed instead for the open trail, down which Terry himself had come only a little while before.
In a matter of minutes all traces of Verdure had been left behind, and they were cantering along easily in the fresh night wind, the stars about ready to drop out of the cloudless dome overhead.
Terry glanced about him, determining his surroundings as he remembered them from his ride at sunset. As usual, the Western night was impressive, giving Terry the conviction that he and the girl were alone in the universe. The night wind brought with it the intangible aroma of untamed spaces, the smell of the mesa and desert, mixed also with the scent of pine. There was not a sound across the motionless expanses of brittle-bush to either side of the trail. No sign of activity until a night bird fled close beside the girl’s head. Far away, disturbing the silence at last, was the remote bass roar of a mountain lion.
To left and right the illimitable brittle-bush fields rolling into the wastes of the desert: behind, a town full of frightened people. Ahead, the mighty pinnacles of the mountain range, their saw teeth cutting fantastic diagonals and segments into the gleaming backdrop of the stars.
Terry drew a deep breath and smiled to himself. This was life as it ought to be, made even more so by the presence of the girl at his side. He found himself thinking how naturally he seemed to have become acquainted with her; how completely she evidently trusted him to thus ride with him through the night.
They were nearing the mountain foothills when she broke her long silence.
“I’ve seen the ghost riders more than once, Mr. Carlton,” she said, “only I didn’t dare say so before Dad. You can see how he feels about such things. Not that I blame him really, since he has never seen anything of the world beyond Verdure— However, to get back to my topic. Each time I’ve seen the riders they have gone through Star Canyon, over yonder.”
She drew rein and pointed. Terry drew up beside her. In the pale light of the rising moon, he studied the foothills ahead. At one point the mountains came down to a lower level and were split in a gigantic ‘V’, to the very base of which the stars glittered. The actual trail leading into the canyon was as yet indistinguishable from the all-surrounding greyness.
“I’ve always seen them from a distance,” Hilda added. “I didn’t dare go too close in case anything happened. Now I have you with me I’ll take the risk.”
“Thanks for the compliment,” Terry murmured.
“I don’t hand them out for the sake of it.” The girl’s voice had its usual directness. “I can tell from your manner and voice that you’re not any ordinary saddle-tramp. I feel safe with you. I never have with any other man around here.
“Than
ks again,” Terry grinned, and he could see her face turned to him in the moonlight. “Let’s get nearer that canyon and see if anything happens. You lead the way: I’m foreign around these parts.”
Hilda nodded and spurred her mount forward again. Terry kept close beside her, and presently they hit the rocky incline which led to the canyon trail. Before they had moved halfway along its length, however, the girl moved, her horse to one side. Terry followed her through an outcropping of small cedar trees and they emerged again on a higher level of ground studded with rock spurs.
“Here’s a good place,” Hilda said, dismounting. “We can tie the horses here and then, by lying on our faces at the rimrock over there, we can see the riders if they pass through the canyon.”
Terry nodded and dropped to the ground. In another three minutes he and the girl were lying on their faces at the extremity of the small tableland, their heads projecting very slightly over the edge of the rimrock so they had a view of the canyon entrance a hundred feet below. They took care that they were not too far over in case the moonlight silhouetted them.
“Supposin’ these riders are not ghosts—as I don’t believe they are,” Terry murmured. “What do you suppose the idea is?”
“To frighten the people of Verdure and the outlying ranches, of course,” Hilda answered promptly.
“Yes, but—why? What’s the point of doing that?”
“No idea. It’s something I never got around to thinking about. I suppose I should have done.…”
“If we’re to tie things up properly, you should,” Terry said; then he became silent again, his gun in his hand in case it might suddenly be needed. He noticed Hilda, too, had her .38 resting in a niche of the rock beside her. She was quite the most replete Western girl he had encountered—unafraid, direct, and yet still a woman.
It was half an hour later, and they were both beginning to feel cramped and chilled through inaction, when Hilda suddenly raised a hand warningly, her whole attitude one of intent listening. Terry listened, too—then, after a while, he heard the far-off drumming of hoofs on the hard-baked earth. Straining his eyes, he peered beyond the chasm entrance to where the rich pasture lands spread right up to it.
“There!” Hilda said abruptly, gripping his arm. “See them?”
He nodded, peered at four white specks visible in the moonlight against the blackness of the pastures. They came nearer, and the hoofs drummed into echoes until the canyon walls began to reflect them.
Terry said nothing, but he was conscious of a little thrill, as he watched the quartet. They moved with a steady precision, dead in line with each other. Had he been at all superstitious, he could have believed they were phantoms. Not being woolly-minded, however, he put the quartet’s perfect riding down to fine horsemanship and an accurate knowledge of the terrain to be covered, which made for almost military movement.
They came nearer. Riders and horses were visible how as all white. Hats, clothes, horses—white as snow, reflecting the moonlight. They reached the canyon entrance and still kept going. Their eyes fixed on them, Terry and the girl watched. They passed below, moving swiftly, the horses snorting at intervals, then as they went on the sharp twist in the canyon hid them from sight and the echoing hoofbeats died away.
Terry took a deep breath and drew his shirt sleeve over his face. He realised the girl was looking at him intently.
“Well?” she asked, her voice quiet.
“I can sure understand now why the folks think they’re phantoms,” he said. “First time out it’s a bit unnerving. Mebbe the moonlight and the silence. They sure look the part.”
“I felt the same way the first time. But you surely don’t think for one moment that they’re—”
“Ghosts? Hell, no!” Terry got on his feet and helped Hilda to hers. They holstered their guns.
“Good disguise,” Hilda admitted, thinking.
“Yeah—but I never heard of a ghost-horse snorting! And I never heard of a ghost-horse making noise enough to echo. If those were real phantoms, they’d go through everythin’ and not make a sound.”
Hilda gave a smile of relief. “You’re the kind of man I’ve been hoping for, Mr. Carlton! You think things out logically instead of rushing behind shutters and talking rot about the Other World.”
“Might as well see where they’re headed,” Terry added, moving towards the horses. “This business has got to be solved—and quickly—before anything else happens. I can’t believe these phoney riders are prancing about in the moonlight each night just for the fun of keepin’ a legend going.… Let’s move.”
His strong arms lifted the girl into her saddle, then he swung up on his mare. Together they returned down the rocky slope they had formerly ascended, and in a matter of minutes reached the canyon floor. Here Terry again dismounted, and the girl sat and watched him as he inspected the dusty hard-baked ground in the moonlight. Unsatisfied, he thumbed a lucifer into a brief glimmer, cupping it in his hands and peering at the ground. As the light extinguished he gave a chuckle.
“What?” the girl asked, as he came over to her.
“Just the fact that those horses have very material shoes,” he replied. “Real ghosts wouldn’t leave footmarks behind, I guess. Anyways, let’s see where we can go by following this canyon.”
“I can tell you that right now. It leads straight out to the mesa. After that, there’s nothing until the next town of Luna Mucho.”
“We’ll go, anyway,” Terry decided, and swung back into the saddle. This time he went first, his gun ready, Hilda coming up behind him. As he went, Terry watched the surroundings carefully. Once beyond the bend in the canyon down which the horsemen had vanished, the canyon walls came inwards suddenly, until towards the centre of it there was room for perhaps only six horses abreast. From here the canyon widened out again and in ten minutes Terry found himself gazing at the moonlit expanse of the mesa, the canyon trail running down towards it like a zigzagged white ribbon.
“No sign of ’em now, anyway,” he said quietly. “I sort of thought there might be, out on the desert there. White against black. It would show.”
“Might,” Hilda muttered. “Unless they’re out of sight.”
They became silent. The mystery of the night had closed down again. It was queer the effect it had in these lonely spaces. Even with the physical evidence of horses’ hoofs, in the dust Terry somehow felt uncertain.…
Struck by a sudden thought, he ignited another lucifer and held it cupped in his palm as he dropped from the saddle. Hilda alighted beside him. He didn’t know quite what to think when he found there was no trail of hoofs except those of his own and the girl’s mount.
“But—it’s silly!” Hilda protested.
“Yeah. Course it is.” The lucifer dropped and expired in the dust. “They must have gone straight on because we know they didn’t turn back, just as we know they couldn’t have turned aside and gone upwards—not with these sheer walls.”
Terry looked about him. Three hundred foot high escarpments at this point. No vegetation, no rockery niches, no acclivities. Either the four horsemen must have gone upwards, or—?
“I don’t get it,” Terry confessed finally. “Better go back a bit and see if there’s any sign of their trail leading off to some place.”
Hilda nodded, and leading their horses, beside them, they returned along the canyon floor. The moon had risen high now. It was possible to see the dust at their feet and the prints their own mounts had made on the previous journey. And presently they came again to the spot where the prints of a whole party of horses had been tramping.
“But look—!” the girl almost whispered, pointing in the moonlight; and Terry flared another lucifer just to make sure.
He couldn’t explain what he saw. It was next to uncanny. The trail of the four horses was mixed with the trail of his own and the girl’s horse but, whereas the trail of his and Hilda’s mounts went straight on, the others stopped short. Up to a certain point they were clear enough, then, w
ithout turning aside, they simply ceased to be.
“Sure is tarnation queer,” Terry breathed, as the lucifer died out. “Narrowest part of the canyon, too, where there’s no room to move to one side. An’ I guess these walls are so steep nothin’ could get up ’em. Smooth as a lake, I guess.”
The girl looked at him in the moonlight and said nothing. He knew just what she was thinking.
CHAPTER TWO
“I guess we’d better get back into town,” Terry said at length. “Nothing more we can do right here, and this wants thinkin’ about. Mebbe we can come back in daylight and weigh things up properly.”
“Uh-huh,” Hilda agreed, and said no more. It was plain she was shaken. She climbed onto her horse and nudged if forward, Terry catching up with her after a moment or two.
Neither of them spoke on the leisurely journey across the pastureland to town. Only when they were back once more in the living room, with Marchland looking at them suspiciously, did they feel they could speak openly.
“Must be some explanation,” Terry muttered, frowning. “Four horses an’ riders couldn’t just vanish into thin air!”
“Huh?” Marchland demanded, getting up from the rocker by the fire. “What’s that you say, Mr. Carlton?”
“We saw the horsemen, Dad,” Hilda explained. “They leave tracks, just like any horse should—only there’s something queer. They vanish into nothing halfway along Star Canyon,”
“What in tarnation else d’yuh expect ghosts to do?” her father demanded. “You ain’t got no right to pry into such things, either of you! Lookin’ on things of the Other World is blasphemous: I sed it all along!”
“They’re not of the Other World, sir,” Terry said, musing. “I’ll stake all I’ve got that riders and horses were solid as you and I, but they’ve sprung a mighty clever trick of disappearing. Makes you think for a minute that they are phantoms! I guess the daylight will show how it was done. I’m going back there in the morning.”
“And I,” Hilda said firmly.
“All right, if that’s so there’s no knockin’ sense into you.” The old rancher’s voice was grim. “I’ll have no part in it, gal. If you die ’cos of your curiosity, that’s your own fault. I figger from this, Mr. Carlton, that you’re stayin’ on awhile?”
Ghost Canyon Page 2