Night Mares in the Hamptons

by Celia Jerome

Then I heard his chant. I couldn’t understand the words, if there were words, just the cadence and the lilt, on and on, slow, low, and steady.

  I suspected he was chanting in an Indian tongue, unless he’d studied linguistics with Grant during his semester at the Royce Institute. But Grant said the Others didn’t have a true written or spoken language as we knew it, depending more on telepathy and imagery.

  I tried to be quieter the closer I got to him, but Little Red started growling. Ty kept chanting until I was right behind his chair, then he said, “That’s the song Connor’s ancestors used to call the Great Horse Spirit, to lead them to good hunting, or carry them out of danger. I figured it was worth a try.”

  “No one called the mares here in the first place.” I wanted to make sure he knew that, that I was not responsible for the chaos they’d caused. I spread my blanket next to his chair and fed Little Red a crumb of cookie—no chocolate—to shut him up. “Did they appear?”

  “They might have, if you and the guard dog here hadn’t scared them away.”

  “Bull. If Grandma couldn’t scare the night mares out of her tomatoes, Little Red isn’t going to keep them away. And I think they want to see me.” I handed him the posters and explained why I’d drawn what I had, how I’d tried to imbue the pictures with my own wanting to help. He nodded, despite the posters’ details being barely visible by the moonlight.

  He still hadn’t turned to look at me but went back to watching the road. I should have been glad. I’d dressed to be unappealing, hadn’t I? Instead, I was pissed at being ignored.

  “Do not dream about me anymore.”

  That got his attention. He turned to look at me, tipping up his hat. I could see his white teeth gleaming in a grin. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll try.”

  “And it’s elms.”

  He peered around my yard. “I might be wrong, but I thought those were white pines and oaks.”

  “Yes, but it’s horses in the herbs, mares in the marigolds, equines in the elms. Alliteration, you know.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I do know what alliteration is.” He laughed, a rumble of a sound from deep in his chest. “You really do have an odd kick to your gallop, don’t you, darl—”

  I cleared my throat.

  “Willow.”

  “And I won’t become a redhead.”

  “Won’t much matter, you keep wearing a baseball hat.”

  So he did notice. “That’s not the point. You twisted my dreams. I was trying to reach the colt again, to see if he was all right or if he could lead us to where he’s being held. But I couldn’t. You interfered.”

  “What did I do, sweet Willow—that’s okay, isn’t it? Bound to be better’n Weeping Willow or Pussy Willow.”

  I grimaced at the old high school taunts. “Plain Willow is fine.”

  “Nothing plain about you, lady, no matter how you tried to hide it. So what happened, you dream of me?”

  “Hmph. Of course not.”

  “But your dream was my fault?”

  I could tell he was laughing at me. I kept quiet.

  “Don’t suppose you’d tell me what you did dream about?”

  “Never.” God, just the image in my head made me blush.

  “A redhead, hmm? In sheer pink silk?”

  Because he was smiling, because my holding him responsible really was silly, and because it was the middle of a star struck night, I muttered: “In leather chaps.”

  “Oh, yeah. That would’ve been my dream for sure. I’m not apologizing.”

  To change the subject, I offered him a cookie.

  He held up a half-filled bottle I hadn’t noticed. “Sure. Cookies go good with warm beer.”

  “Sorry. I might have some pretzels inside. Should I go fetch them? Or see if there’s a cold bottle in the fridge?”

  “No, it’s too pretty a night to miss any of it.”

  It really was a nice night. I couldn’t remember the last time I just sat out, looking for shooting stars or fireflies. The stars shone brighter here than in Manhattan, where all the building lights blurred the sky. I suppose the wide open spaces of Texas had even better night viewing, but I think they had more bugs and bigger ones, too. They definitely had snakes. Maybe scorpions. No sitting outside on a blanket for me there. Here you could hear the sound of the incoming tide against the pebbles at the shore. You could smell the scent of wild honeysuckle in the air. Other than a couple of mosquitoes carrying West Nile virus, the biggest threat was the two-footed one sipping his last beer. You couldn’t ask for a much better night.

  Except a good night’s sleep, of course.

  Ty must be tired, too. “Maybe you should go back to Rosehill and get some rest. I can stay out awhile longer.”

  “I can go back to bed in the morning after building a corral for my horses and arranging for a car rental.”

  I started to tell him about the Escalade that belonged to Rosehill, but then I wondered how he’d gotten here. I doubted he’d have walked so far in the dark, or brought Paloma Blanca out again.

  “I carry motorbikes in the back of the horse trailer. Most times it’s easier, unless you want to go sightseeing with a pretty girl. I left the scooter out by the road so as not to wake anyone here.”

  I appreciated the courtesy for Grandma’s sake and Doc’s. So I told him about the SUV—Cousin Lily had her own car—and reminded him about breakfast at my grandmother’s. “So you won’t be getting back to bed”—I wasn’t leaving that out there—“back to sleep in the morning.”

  “I’ll take an afternoon nap, then. I don’t expect the mares to be moving around in daylight.”

  “They never have yet, but I thought we’d start looking for hidden barns, abandoned stables, that kind of thing. I’m worried about the colt.”

  He took another swallow of beer. “I’ve been trying to figure why the mares can’t sense him. At first I thought they knew where he was, just needed help getting him loose. They wouldn’t be telegraphing fear and anger, though.”

  I’d been wondering about that, too. “All I can think of is the light bulb left burning so he can’t disappear. Maybe they need the darkness to communicate. Or there’s iron bars on his cage. If the mares care one way or the other about heavy metals, like eldritch beings are supposed to.”

  “We don’t know enough about the critters. London wasn’t much help. I kind of hoped they’d tell us,” Ty said.

  “London?”

  “The mares.”

  It was one thing to talk to horses; another to expect answers. I’d stick to my plan. “Either way, we’ve got to start looking. Paumanok Harbor isn’t all that big, and I’ve got maps from the planning department. They should show every outbuilding and shed.”

  “Who says the one we need is legal? Kidnappers don’t usually follow the rules by applying for the right permits.”

  “No, but I doubt they planned this. No one could have known the mares would show up when they did.”

  “That’s a point. On the other hand, the bastard might have the colt stashed in a garage or a pool house like the one at Rosehill. Perfectly legal, and perfectly illegal for us to search.”

  “But we have to start somewhere unless someone gives us a tip.” I felt foolish saying it, but I was kind of hoping to feel some connection if we got close to the colt.

  “It’s worth a try, I guess. Connor can ride shotgun with you tomorrow. He’s sacked out now.”

  Which gave me the perfect opportunity to admit that I looked both of them up on Google.

  “Of course you did. Only sensible thing to do.”

  “There’s not much information about Connor, or the Condor.”

  He took another sip of beer and a bite of cookie, then tilted his head, considering the combination. “He likes it that way.”

  “It didn’t even give his hometown.”

  “He lived on a reservation. Not much of a town to speak of.”

  “But what tribe? You’d think he’d be proud of his heritage.”

  “Not mu
ch left to be proud of. Most of the tribe got assimilated years ago. He’s trying to protect what’s there by keeping them out of the spotlight.”

  I didn’t understand, and said so. Without being specific or giving away confidences, Ty explained how Connor’s people were like Paumanok Harbor’s.

  “Weird?”

  “Special. Talented. Tribal legends say one brave could hear the buffalo three days away. Another chief was said to see a rattler blink. And they could ride like the wind, most of them. So other tribes stole their women, wanting strong sons with the spirit of the Great Horse. In later days, the young men left the res to ride the range, then the rodeo circuit. They didn’t come back.

  “They were healers, too, medicine men. A lot of their medicine was like your granny’s herbal cures, but not all. Some had to be magic. That didn’t sit well with physicians with medical degrees or the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They did their usual bit of sending kids to school off the res, away from the magic and the legends. A lot of them didn’t come back either. Con’s great-great-grandpa was famous for it, so he took off in a traveling sideshow wagon to make his fortune.”

  “Did he?”

  “Got shot by a white man for letting his wife bleed to death after a stillbirth.”

  “That’s horrible!”

  “Yeah, but it convinced the others to play their cards close. So they said they were healing horses, not people. They became guardians of the last wild herds. Not owners,’cause they didn’t believe in that kind of thing, but brothers to the spirit of the Great Horse. They worked miracles with the mustangs. That’s how I got involved. I spent two years with them, supposedly teaching, supposedly scouting for the Royce Institute, but it took that long for me to learn the chants.”

  “And you took Connor away from them?”

  “He was lost before I got there. His father was a medicine man, too, only for people. The problem was, he couldn’t cure anything, just see what was wrong. He drank himself to death for not having the proper magic. Connor figured he’d find the way if he could open his mind. Shrooms and Pete. Mushrooms and peyote, all in ceremonial rituals, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “And whatever else a kid can find on the res, which was anything. His mother begged me to get him away, so I did.”

  “But isn’t that the same as destroying his tribe?”

  “The money he sends back lets them live better than they ever have. The kids have good schools, scholarship money and, most important, counselors. Reasons to stay, reasons to come back and raise their kids there. And now the people from Royce watch over and protect them, the same as the tribe still guards the plains horses.”

  “If Royce is involved, Connor must be—”

  “Special. Like you. Sometimes his gift hurts, like yours. Like his father’s.”

  “He’s a healer?”

  “No, but with training he could be a brilliant diagnostician, according to the medical people at Royce. A Red Dr. House without the cane but with the chip on his shoulder. And a history of pharmaceutical excess. Can you imagine how people would be beating his door down, overrunning his town, if they knew?”

  “But shouldn’t he be serving the greater good? Helping people find out what’s wrong with them?”

  “Broken bones and brain tumors are easy. Anyone can see them with X-rays and MRI’s. Con mostly sees what can’t be fixed. Not everything is curable. It would destroy him to keep telling patients they’re dying, without hope. Horses, he can diagnose and cure if a remedy exists. Or put them down if there’s nothing but suffering ahead. You can’t do that with people.”

  “Whew. That’s a heavy burden for a kid.”

  “That’s why he went to vet tech school, because he couldn’t stand the suffering. He refused med school or a vet degree for the same reason, though he has the brains for either. Now he sticks to himself and the horses, and rarely touches a person.” Ty chuckled. “We worked one rodeo where the manager wasn’t treating his animals right. We quit. Connor took our paycheck, shook the bastard’s hand, and said his heart was going to explode in two days.”

  “Did the man die?”

  “Of course. We got the rodeo shut down and left in a hurry before anyone asked too many questions.”

  I thought about Susan, how she never knew if the cancer was coming back. “Would he . . . ?”

  He seemed to read my mind. “Look at your cousin? Miss Lily told me about her and why she acts the way she does. I think Con would jump off a cliff before touching a female like that. Don’t ask. The kid’s got his head together now and a good thing going. In fact, forget this whole conversation. Except the redhead part.”

  “You can forget that.”

  He reached over and petted the Pomeranian, without getting his fingers bitten, which was a miracle in itself. “With apologies to Little Red, I really like blondes better.”

  That was good, right?

  CHAPTER 14

  WE WERE BOTH QUIET FOR AWHILE, not in an awkward silence that itched to be filled, but a comfortable pause filled with whispery night sounds. Then something small moved in the row of junipers near the road. Red started barking. Ty put one hand on his nose and murmured something. Red sat back down, his plumed tail curled around his feet.

  I was impressed. “My mother would love you.”

  He laughed. “Most mothers don’t.”

  “I can imagine, but my mother is different.”

  “I can imagine. You’re different.”

  With the night as a cloak of invisibility, I felt comfortable asking more personal questions. “What’s yours like? Can she talk to animals?”

  “I don’t know. I know she had degrees in animal behavior, but she died a year after we returned to the States. I was too young to understand what she did. My father never spoke of it.”

  “I’m sorry.” As difficult as my mother was, I couldn’t imagine growing up without her.

  “There’s no need to feel sorry for me. My father remarried to a nice woman who brought me up to say please and thank you and yes, ma’am. Her family had a quarter horse stud. I was in heaven.”

  I pictured Tyler Farraday as a cute little towhead hanging over a corral fence or slipping out of his bed to sleep in the stable. He must have been a devil. “Were you ever married? It didn’t say on your bio page.” (And I didn’t say I was dying of curiosity.) “Divorced? Kids?”

  “No, no, and no. Gun-shy, I guess. Besides, there are too many horses, too little time. Too good a time.”

  I leaned back on the blanket and stared up at the stars. The vastness above us made human foibles seen trifling. “Texas tumbleweed.”

  “Maybe.”

  The night also dismantled the social barriers, so I felt freer to say what I thought. “Do you miss it . . . home, family, children?”

  “I’ve got it all anytime I visit my folks, my ranch, or Con’s family. I love to visit, love to leave. Everywhere I go there are hordes of kids, all wanting a ride on Pal. There are hordes of aunties wanting babies to spoil.”

  “I get that, too.”

  “No inclination to play house?”

  “I thought I did, but I guess I didn’t like the architecture.”

  “Grant?”

  “Yeah. We came close to a fairy-tale ending, but I got cold feet.”

  “His nibs seems warm-blooded enough, for a Brit.”

  Warm-blooded? Grant was a hottie. He was so hot I had burn marks on my sheets. He was so hot I had to carry a fire extinguisher when we went to parties to douse the women who panted after him. He was the sexiest man I’d ever met . . . until this afternoon. Lust is great for an affair, though not so good for a life-long commitment, especially if you have nothing else in common. In fact, I wondered if the attraction between us wasn’t more physical than anything else.

  “Heat was never the problem,” I said, regretting it instantly. Damn, was I discussing my sex life with a man I’d just met this afternoon? “I realized I like my work, my home, my independence.
I’m not ready to give it up, especially to a man I’d only known for a month.”

  “Paumanok Harbor petunia.”

  I know he was getting back at me for calling him a Texas tumbleweed, but I wasn’t a clinging vine, or a fledgling afraid to leave the nest. I wasn’t. I had every intention of going back to my Manhattan apartment at the end of the summer. The apartment where I’d lived most of my life. Still . . .

  “That’s not it. I worried that he was set up by the Royce matchmakers. He was really into their philosophy. You’re not, are you?”

  “What, let some Brit researcher pick me a wife?” He laughed. “No chance.”

  “Good. Me, neither. Besides, I worried that I couldn’t write my books if I was too busy living the life Grant led. I wouldn’t be the same person. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes, like I feel adrift if I’m not with my horses. Your cousin showed me your books. She keeps a special shelf of them in her apartment, said you put love and laughter into every one.”

  “She’s my mother’s cousin. She has to like my books.”

  “Nah. I saw some reviews, lists of awards. You’re good.”

  So he’d checked me out online, too. I was okay with that, I guess. I wish I’d gone ego surfing to see if anyone wrote anything bad he might find. God, what if someone put an old college dorm party picture up somewhere?

  “She said I could borrow one any time.”

  “I’ll give you copies if you really want them. Your nieces and nephews might enjoy them, but you don’t have to read them yourself.”

  “I want to. The excerpts I saw looked good.” He tapped the poster on his chair’s armrest. “And I know you’re a fine artist. To do both, you must be some kind of creative genius.”

  I was embarrassed by the praise. And thrilled. “They’re just graphic novels, not great literature.”

  “They get people’s attention, get kids reading. I’d say that’s worth a lot of dead Russians. In fact, maybe I can get you to help me write up a personal ad.”

  My mouth must have fallen open because a gnat flew in. When I stopped coughing, I asked, “Match.com? For you?”

  Even in the dark I could see his grin. “Darlin’, do you really think I need to advertise for a date?”