Rockinghorse

by William W. Johnstone

“No one around this part of the country will talk about it. Well, that’s not true. There are those who say it was God or Satan who killed the ghost hunters.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah.” But it was not said with the same tone of doubt that Lucas’s voice held.

  “You want to explain that?”

  The trooper sighed. “Well, those holy rollers in town, in Palma, say God killed them for meddling in His business. Some of them say that. The others say Satan killed them because they were getting too close to . . . to uncovering a coven in this area.”

  “Like in a devil’s coven?”

  “Yeah,” Kyle said very flatly. “You see, Lucas, there is supposed to be a very old . . . coven, if you will, located around here. Supposedly, it dates back several hundred years. I don’t know about that. But it seems odd to me that just about the time the fire occurred, the folks in Palma really shifted directions in their way of worshipping.”

  “Yes. I remember Jim telling me about that change. But what does that have to do with what happened here last night?”

  “Maybe nothing.” Kyle sighed heavily, as though he had a great deal on his mind but was unable to unburden himself.

  “I’ve heard those types of sighs before, Kyle. Want to tell me about it?”

  “It appears to me, Lucas, you’ve got troubles of your own—plenty of them. Why would you want me to unload mine on you?”

  “Well, for one thing, I’m a good listener. Believe me, I’ve had to be in my business. And you’ve been a good friend to me and to my family.” He poured them fresh coffee and said, “Go ahead, Kyle—unload.”

  “Don’t laugh, now.”

  “After last night, friend, I find very little amusing about anything concerning this part of the country.”

  “My wife is a psychic, Lucas.”

  The trooper sat braced, his shoulders in a hunched position, as if for a blow of verbal ridicule—as if he’d heard it too many times in the past. When Lucas did not change expression, Kyle looked surprised. “Well, I’ll just be damned. I thought you’d find that very amusing.”

  “Not at all, Kyle. The mind is something we—you and I—and everybody else for that matter, know very little about. There are all sorts of people who possess psychic abilities, some more than others. I’ve personally seen demonstrations many times. It’s only the very narrow-minded, ignorant types who laugh. Go on.”

  Kyle nodded his agreement. “I pegged you right, Lucas. OK. Here goes. Louisa, that’s my wife, has helped police and parents find missing kids, assisted in locating bodies, you name it. She stopped it several years ago. She tries, for my sake—I took a lot of flak about it—to play her . . . powers down. But,” again he sighed, “it doesn’t always work out that way. And God knows it isn’t her fault. Anyway, I told her about your . . . experiences in the woods behind here, the tattoo, all of it, and she wanted to come over immediately. Thinks she can help. I said no. Lucas,” again that deep sigh, “she thinks this house is . . . well, evil. She’s been saying that for as long as I’ve known her. She’s one of those the ghost-hunters interviewed. And they spoke with her several times. She’s told me that. She was very young then—in her mid-teens. She knows this area; God, does she know the legends about it. All about the Woods’ Children that supposedly live in your timber, and a lot about the Rejects.”

  “The what?”

  “I’ll let her tell you about it, Lucas. Anyway, when we were dating, she used to ask me to drive her by this mansion every time we got together. Hell, I got jealous of this house. Stupid, I know.”

  Lucas sat for a moment, not really or fully understanding all that the trooper had said. He said, “Your wife from this area, then?”

  “ ’Bout twenty miles from here. Not a town but a small community. Gas station and a church. Her folks really suppressed her powers when she was a kid. I guess it frightened them. She was . . . well, putting it kindly, a wild kid. Never got into any law trouble; just was not happy at home. Ran away a lot. Her parents finally kicked her out. They wrote her out of the family Bible, the will, everything. Just disowned her. They refuse to speak to her to this day. Real religious nuts, I call them.”

  Lucas had an idea. “You work this weekend, Kyle?”

  He shook his head. “No. I took off a few days. Until next Tuesday. Why?”

  “Why don’t you and Lousa come to dinner Friday night. Hell, spend the weekend if you’d like. Tracy would be delighted to have someone to talk with, and we’ll see what your wife can make of this . . . thing that’s happened.”

  Kyle’s serious expression vanished. “Hey, I’d like that. And I feel sure Louisa will, too. Fine. We’ll make it a weekend, then.”

  “Good. All right, about last night. Do I report it?”

  Kyle smiled knowingly. “I somehow get the impression you don’t want to do that—right?”

  “That is correct, and Tracy agrees. We have nothing that would stand up in court. All the men wore leather gloves and hoods or facemasks of some type. We were terrorized, yes, but not physically injured; except for what I did to myself doing to them. Give me some input.”

  “Lucas, I think you’re making a mistake. But it’s up to you and Tracy. Personally, I’d report it. Two attacks in one month is no coincidence. And now they’ve broken into your home, smashed things up, assaulted you and your family. I’d say it’s getting serious.”

  “Yes, I agree with you. But, as a cop, what would you say the chances are of catching those who did it and putting them in prison?”

  Kyle’s smile was grim. “Slim to none, probably. But there’s always a chance of catching them.”

  “Kyle, there were at least fifteen people. They could have very easily beaten me to death. They could have easily raped Tracy and Jackie. They could have harmed Johnny. They could have killed us all. But they didn’t. Why? I think somebody wants to frighten me off.”

  “I’ll play your game—why? The house?”.

  “I don’t know, Kyle.” Lucas leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table. “No one stands to gain if I die, or leave. No one. If I were to die, the house and grounds would go to the next of kin—Tracy. If anything happens to her, it would go to the kids. If anything happened to them, there are distant cousins scattered around the nation. But the house and grounds must remain intact—that’s firm. But it . . . all that happened, has to be connected in some way with the house. Kyle, Lige said a very strange thing the day we got here from the city.”

  “Lige is strange any way you look at it,” the trooper said with a grunt.

  “Yeah, well, he said—”

  The sounds of a horse whinneying reached the men seated around the kitchen table.

  Lucas looked at Kyle. “Any horses stabled close by?”

  “None that I know of.”

  “Only one that I know of,” Lucas said.

  “Oh?”

  “That old rocking horse up there on the landing above us.”

  The trooper looked pained for a second. “Now, come on, buddy. I know it’s been a rough night, but just take it easy with that kind of stuff. You can spook yourself into a nuthouse talking like that.”

  Lucas then leveled with the trooper about his older brother. He left nothing out. He told him about his grandfather’s words concerning life not being a rocking horse; about the old man’s warnings. Then he leaned back and looked at the trooper.

  Kyle lit a cigarette and shook his head. “Whoo, boy, this is getting weird.”

  “Yes. Anyway, to use Lige’s exact words, he said, ‘The house don’t want to be sold.’ He spoke of it as if the house is a . . . a living thing.”

  Kyle could not suppress a shudder. “I tell you what, Lucas. This is going to be an interesting weekend.”

  BOOK TWO

  In the desert, I saw a creature,

  Naked, bestial, Who, squatting upon the ground,

  Held his heart in his hands,

  And ate of it.

  Crane

  11

/>   After Kyle left, the trooper shaken more than he wanted Lucas to see, Lucas prowled the house once more, then slept for a few hours. He felt much better than he thought he would upon awakening; but it came as no surprise to find, when he stripped for a shower, that his body was dotted with bruises. After his bath, he felt even better, just a little stiff and sore in various spots—like his entire body.

  He looked in on Tracy and the kids. They were all sleeping soundly. He went looking around the grounds, feeling just a little bit foolish walking around in the open daylight with a .45 belted to his waist. But, he reminded himself, it was something Kyle had suggested he do. And Lucas had been relieved when the cop had suggested it.

  Kyle had said, “There’s an old saying among cops, Lucas. It reads: ‘I’d rather be judged by twelve than carried by six.’ You keep that in mind, and me and the wife’ll see y’all come this Friday afternoon.”

  Lucas stopped in his tracks when he spotted Lige coming toward him. The man wore a bandage on his head and was walking with a very pronounced limp. He saw Lucas and tried to head for his cottage. Lucas’s voice pulled him up short.

  “You want me, sir?”

  “Obviously. You have an accident, Lige?”

  “Yessir. Fell off a ladder yesterday. Banged myself up some for shore.”

  “Oh? Well, that’s too bad. But you must have gotten better in a hurry.”

  “Huh? What you mean, Mr. Bowers?”

  “We needed you last night, Lige. A gang of thugs broke into the house and attacked my family. Smashed up the inside of the house. I rang for you, but couldn’t find you.”

  “Oh? Attacked? Jesus, Mr. Bowers. Is ever’body all OK?”

  “Yes. As far as I can tell. Physically, that is. But the question is, Lige: Why couldn’t I find you?”

  “Oh—me? Why . . . I taken the truck and went down to the ’mergency room in Rome. Had the docs check me out all over after my fall. Say, I’m shore sorry ’bout what happened. What did happen?”

  Lucas told him.

  “You don’t say? Damn me, but they’s some real wicked folk in this old world. Now who’d wanna do something like that? My, my. I be here tonight though, count on that sir. Yessir. You just holler if you need ol’ Lige, and I’ll shore come a-hotfootin’ it.”

  “I’ll sure do that, Lige. You better take it easy the rest of the day. Take the rest of the day off. Get some rest. I insist on it. I might need you tonight if those. . . people return.”

  “Aw . . . they prob’ly won’t. My guess is they was just a bunch of kids out doin’ some mischief, you know?”

  “Yeah. Sure.” Lucas watched as a flush spread over Lige’s face. The man is deliberately lying to me, openly and arrogantly, he thought. Why? Was he one of those who attacked us last night? Lucas decided the man might very well have been part of it, in one way or the other.

  “You go rest, Lige. I mean it. I don’t want to see you working the rest of this day.”

  “Yessir.” Lige turned to go.

  “And . . . ” Lucas’s voice stopped and slowly turned the man around. “Stay close to the grounds, Lige, all right?”

  “Yessir, Mr. Bowers.”

  Lucas watched the man until he had entered his cottage. He didn’t trust him. Not at all. Lucas walked slowly around the house, each time enlarging his circle. He didn’t know what, exactly, he was looking for . . . clues, he supposed, clues to the identities of those who attacked his family. He was looking for anything out of the ordinary.

  He continued his walking and searching, his eyes sweeping the ground. A flash of gold caught his eyes and he stopped. Had he not turned his head at just the last possible second, he would have missed the tiny object.

  It was a tiny gold rocking horse, about a half-inch long, maybe a quarter-inch wide, with a pin clasp on the back. It was beautifully done; Lucas could not recall ever seeing one just like it. He squatted down, his back to a tree, and carefully inspected the pin.

  He turned it over and over in his fingers. No manufacturer’s mark of any kind. Nothing denoting it being gold; but Lucas knew by the feel it was very nearly pure. The pin, the brooch, medallion—whatever one wished to call it—was marvelous in detail, right down to the tail of the rocking horse. The tiny hooves were perfect; the muscles in the legs outstanding in design. But it was the face of the pin that caught and held and fascinated Lucas. The face was. . . was . . . he struggled for the word. When it came, it chilled him. The face was evil, the adjective jumped into the man’s brain. Evil. The face seemed to mock Lucas, as if the pin were alive in his fingers. The very tiny but detailed eyes glared and glowed with maleficence.

  Was one of the attackers wearing this pin last evening? Lucas asked the silent question. Did all of them wear one like it? If so—why? What did the pin represent?

  He could not answer any of his questions and did not know where to go to find any answers.

  He rose from his squat, suppressing a groan as his battered and bruised body protested the sudden movement. He reminded himself, for the umpteenth time that morning, that he was not as young as he used to be—and certainly not accustomed to violent physical efforts.

  He continued his restless pacing and searching. But, he had to admit, with more than a small amount of pride, he had done pretty well last night. He had never thought he had it in him. Pretty damned good for a man his age.

  In the house, Tracy was stepping out of her bath, looking at herself in the floor to ceiling mirror of the bathroom.

  Not bad, she thought, for someone who would never see thirty-five again. Her thirty-fifth birthday had been celebrated a few months back. She inspected herself in the mirror.

  “Pretty good for an old broad,” she muttered.

  As she heard her own statement Tracy laughed aloud. The laughter felt good. The events of the past night were only a memory now, and as horrible events were wont to do, they were rapidly fading in detail. Never too clear at the outset, they now were pushed, by the human mind, into the murky shadows of the brain’s back room.

  She dressed and stepped out to assess the damage caused by last night’s . . . last night’s what? What had prompted the attack? Now, looking back, she realized through the fog of events past, the men could have raped her quite easily. And, after talking with Jackie, she knew her daughter had been manhandled, and nothing more. Terrifying, certainly. But if the true aim of the men had been to rape, they could have easily done it. But they had not. Why? Was Lucas correct in his thinking that getting them out, frightening them off, was the objective? There, again—why?

  And she knew, too, that Lucas was not going to budge. She’d seen that look on his face and in his eyes before. He could be as stubborn as that well-known mule when he wanted to be.

  But she wasn’t that sure of her own feelings concerning the house. The mansion wasn’t worth going through another night like last night.

  As she walked through the house, she got the uncomfortable feeling of being watched. She stopped in the stairhall and looked up.

  The head of the rocking horse was sticking out between the bannisters. And its painted-on eyes seemed to be . . . looking . . . at . . . her.

  “Impossible,” Tracy said with a laugh.

  But how, she thought, did the horse get where it is? Kids must have been playing with it. She climbed the curving stairs to the landing and pulled the horse away from the railing. As she touched the smooth, painted wood of the hobbyhorse, a peculiar sensation filled her. She seemed to be frozen in place, rooted in one spot, unable to move. The horse seemed to come alive under her touch—or so it seemed to the woman. Time seemed to spin backward for Tracy, as she lost track of where she was, what she was doing, her adulthood, her being, and her identity.

  She was spun back more than twenty years, back to that apartment in the city, back to that afternoon when she had gone to visit a friend . . .

  . . . and her friend had not been there when she called . . .

  . . . but her friend’s father had been at h
ome . . .

  . . . and Tracy had thought it so very adult when the man had offered her a drink. Very chic for a girl just turned fourteen to be drinking with a nice-looking man.

  . . . and the events she had undergone months of therapy to cope with and had finally come to grips with flooded her once more as she stood on the landing, with the smiling rocking horse looking at her.

  The memories all came back in a painful flood. Too much to drink . . . her head was spinning . . . her skirt was lifted . . . hands on her . . .

  “No!” she screamed, jerking her hands away from the horse’s smooth body.

  She backed away from the horse, backed up until she could go no further, her back pressed against the wall. She fought to clear her head, stem the flow of salty tears that threatened to explode from her eyes as the memories cut through the years with the ease of a scalpel in the hands of a skilled surgeon.

  But as she looked at the rocking horse, the wooden eyes, painted in bright colors, seemed to stare back at her. She recalled vividly and in much detail as the man undressed her . . . touched her . . .

  Tracy screamed and ran from the landing, rushing down the curving stairway. She was blinded by a fog of memories. It had been years since the memories had been that strong. Now it seemed the events were only yesterday. She screamed again and lost her footing . . . falling, falling. She could swear she heard the sounds of laughter, the sounds of a horse whinnying, the whinnying seeming to contain a note of glee, a nickering of victory. But that wasn’t possible. That . . .

  She was alone in an abandoned building . . . but she was not alone. She could feel eyes on her as she walked slowly through a thick fog that covered her feet and ankles. It was all coming back to her. She had never told anybody about it. She had been too ashamed. Never told her parents. Never told Lucas. Never told her psychiatrist. Indeed, she had managed to suppress the events for years. Until now. Until now.

  But this was not how it had happened. There had been no fog swirling around her. And it had not been so quiet. She clearly remembered the sounds of the New York City traffic outside. This was not . . .