Beneath a Beating Heart

by Lauri Robinson

  “I’m sorry.” Hating these types of uncomfortable moments, she looked around again, wishing something would draw her attention.

  “Thank you,” Buzz said sincerely. “It was some time ago, but one never gets over the pain.”

  Liz glanced around again, still unable to come up with something to say. She had nothing to compare to his loss. No compassion to draw upon. Yes, both of her foster parents had died, and she’d been sad, but death was a part of life. She figured her somewhat callous feelings, or lack of feeling anything, was because of losing her parents so young. Who would want to remember something so painful? No one in their right mind. She was thankful she’d realized that long ago. “Vivi Anne said there’s a story behind this house I’m here to look at, what is it?” She flinched slightly, hoping the change of subject didn’t sound as abrupt as it felt.

  “The Rocking L is kind of a local legend. You know, where the story has been added to over the years until it’s a bit unbelievable.”

  Sensing a hint of reluctance, she asked, “But there is truth behind it?”

  Buzz lifted a hairy brow. “You don’t give up, do you?”

  She shrugged.

  “Yeah, there’s truth behind it.” He waved to another chair.

  A hint of excitement flared as she sat.

  “Years and years ago, around the turn of the century, the twentieth century, a man named Rance Livingston raised and trained horses for Buffalo Bill. Story goes, Rance and his new wife built the house, and shortly thereafter his wife died in an accident.” He sighed while resting both hands atop his cane. “Seems old Rance turned into a hermit after that. He continued to raise horses but never remarried. When he died back in the nineteen sixties, he willed everything to his friend’s grandson.”

  She wondered if that was the Lou he’d mentioned, but didn’t ask, sensing he’d continue.

  He grinned. “That was Riley. Riley Dixon. His granddad, Cliff, had been the sheriff around here and Rance’s best friend. Riley was a good man. I knew him fairly well. He and his wife had two sons, but they both died in the army. Sad. Anyhow, Riley’s only family left were Nate and Lou, and when Riley died last year, the two cousins inherited everything. Riley’s place and the Livingston place. They sold Riley’s place quick enough, but…” Shaking his head, he shrugged. “Some claim the Rocking L is haunted, and that’s why it hasn’t sold. It’s rumored Rance still roams through the house, waiting for his wife to come home.”

  Never affected by stories, not sad ones, sappy ones, or scary ones, Liz wondered why her skin tingled and her stomach fluttered. Excitement? Fear? The initials on the hand-tooled leather tack Vivi Anne had already purchased from Buzz were R. L. That had to be Rance Livingston. Needing more information, Liz asked, “Why would he be waiting for his wife to come home? Didn’t you say she died in an accident?”

  “I did. Story has it she died in a train accident up by Billings, but they never found her body, therefore, Rance never believed she’d died.” He laid his cane across his lap. “Very few people have seen the inside of the house, but from what I’ve heard, it looks just like it did in nineteen-o-one when Beth died. Riley was rather closed-lipped about it all, but I know for certain he inherited money to keep the house in good standing, even had a new roof put on it a few years ago.”

  Beth Livingston. B.L. were the initials on the half-finished saddle in Vivi Anne’s storage room. Excitement bubbled. “Really?” Ghosts, like psychics, intrigued her.

  His eyes sparkled as he grinned. “That’s why I called Vivi Anne. I knew she wouldn’t be afraid of ghost tales, and I hoped she’d get here quick. Nate’s asked the fire department to perform a scheduled burn out there this coming weekend.”

  “Nate? I thought you said you called Lou.”

  “I did. Lou and Nate are cousins.”

  “That’s right, sorry.” She should have listened better to the family history lesson he’d given rather than focusing on the initials. Vivi Anne had mentioned the scheduled burn. “What about Lou? Does he want the place burned down too?”

  “He wanted it left standing, just like Rance’s will requested, up until lately.”

  There wasn’t necessarily hesitation in his voice, but she caught something. “And that surprised you?”

  Buzz shrugged. “Yes, it did. But it ain’t up to me, and that’s a lot of property to just let sit there. I’m just glad Lou agreed to let the antiques be appraised.”

  The jangle of a phone interrupted any response she may have had, and hearing his response to the caller had a thrill zipping beneath the surface of Liz’s skin.

  Hanging up the landline phone that could almost be considered an antique, Buzz climbed to his feet using the aid of his cane. “Lou will meet you at the gate.” He waggled one finger. “Gotta warn you, Rance didn’t like folks snooping around.” With a somewhat serious gaze, he added, “Even when he was alive.”

  If the old man was trying to scare her, it didn’t work. The excitement humming through her was electrifying. “When will Lou meet me?”

  “Twenty minutes.” Buzz tore a slip of paper from a tablet and drew a sketchy map. As he handed her the paper, he said, “You be careful.”

  She gave him a nod and a smile. “Don’t worry. I’m always careful.”

  Little more than fifteen minutes later, she clicked on the blinker and turned onto a gravel road. Oddly she hadn’t needed the map full of the little landmarks Buzz had indicated. She parked next to a locked gate made of pipes, complete with an old cattle guard beneath it and a red and black no trespassing sign wired to a post.

  Beyond the gate, a long dirt road snaked up a hill and disappeared. A sense of déjà vu had the hair on her arms standing up. She rolled down both the driver and passenger side windows before turning the car off. The breeze that blew through was reminiscent of something, too, but she couldn’t say what.

  The lonely, yet, steady ping-pang of the wind fluttering one corner of the sign against the steel caused a wave of sadness to strike. Maybe it wasn’t déjà vu. The land didn’t look a whole lot different from what she’d seen on her trip down from Billings. Maybe she just felt sorry for Rance Livingston, having wasted so many years waiting for his wife to come back.

  Chapter Three

  1901, Cody, Wyoming

  It had been two months since his life had changed in less time than the length of a heartbeat. Rance wasn’t in much better shape internally than that day, but he had managed to train and deliver the order of horses to Buffalo Bill Cody for his shows. Bill had been out to the ranch a few weeks ago, saying he’d understand if the order couldn’t be completed, all things considered. Rance had said he’d deliver them. Training horses, working until he was too tired to think, was all he had to keep him going.

  Having lost his own loved ones, Bill said he understood that, and as soon as the horses had been delivered to his ranch several miles south of Cody, he’d ordered more, lots more, claiming he was going to take his Wild West Show to Europe again next year.

  Rance agreed to provide all the horses Bill would need. Training horses had been his life for over ten years. Herds populated his acreage, some were wild and others were breeds he was raising. Every spring he rounded up the two-year-olds and brought them closer in to start training and would continue to—for now. He hadn’t lost his mind, just his heart, which meant he was merely going through the motions like a locomotive on a rail line. Following the tracks until they ended and then turning around to head back the other direction.

  Unless, of course, a bridge collapsed.

  With Beth at his side, he’d imagined a successful life. Big barns full of horses, kids, several of them, helping with the animals as they grew older, taking over the Rocking L when he and Beth eventually grew too old to do much more than sit on the front porch.

  All that had changed. He no longer dreamed of children, no longer imagined a big barn full of horses. No longer imagined growing old. That he felt. He might as well have been eighty with one foot in th
e grave for all the lack of drive inside him. He’d keep trudging forward though and never give up hope. Until he had something to prove Beth had perished in that train wreck, an article of clothing, her trunk, her, he’d keep on imagining she was still visiting her family in Billings.

  Call him crazy. Call him stupid. Call him whatever the hell anyone wanted to, he wasn’t giving up. Not on Beth.

  As thoughts of her overtook his mind, he glanced over his shoulder, beyond the corral, past the front yard, to the house. Quicker than a rattler strikes, a shiver gripped his spine.

  He squinted, trying to pin-point exactly what was out of place. When he found it, he leaped off the horse. He hadn’t left a window open, yet one was open. A curtain fluttered outside of the frame, catching the breeze in an upstairs bedroom.

  His bedroom.

  Beth’s bedroom.

  The one he hadn’t slept in since the day of her accident.

  Stomping through the corral, he searched the yard for a horse or rider. Surely someone hadn’t walked all the way from town. The onslaught of visitors leaving kettles and baskets full of food on his porch had slowed lately, but he hadn’t been upstairs for days. Someone else had opened that window.

  He scanned the yard and roadway as he made his way to the house. Whoever it was would get a piece of his mind. He was tired of intrusions. Of people thinking they knew what he needed. Saying what Beth would have wanted.

  He knew what she would have wanted—to live with him until they were both a ripe old age.

  The instant he threw the front door open, a vast and powerful awakening said someone was in the house.

  And he knew who it was.

  Running, and breathless due to the racing of his heart, he bounded up the stairs three and four at a time, shouting, “Beth! Beth!”

  Their bedroom door was open, but as he rounded the doorway, the woman sitting on the edge of the bed had his heart skidding to a stop at the same time his feet did. He caught himself by the door frame and held on to keep from toppling over.

  She was staring at him with a blank frown.

  He stared back.

  It was Beth. But it wasn’t. Or was it? Once long and a gleaming chestnut, her hair was chopped short, just below her ears, and full of blonde stripes, and she was wearing britches. Blue ones and a shirt with no sleeves that was so tight his eyeballs stung because he was unable to blink.

  “Beth?” His whisper was so raspy it burned his throat.

  Her frown increased, and she tilted her head. Her blank stare seemed to go right through him instead of at him.

  “Buzz?” she asked inquisitively.

  “No, it’s me, Rance,” he answered, questioning himself for the briefest of moments. This was Beth, his insides said so. His Beth. Then why was he hesitating? Why wasn’t he running across the room? Why wasn’t she running into his arms? Why was she looking through him, not at him? Why were her eyes so different? They were blue, but there was no shine in them.

  He waved a hand, but her gaze never wandered.

  “Beth?”

  She shook her head, as if checking her hearing, and then stood. Setting the magazine in her hand on the bed, she started walking toward him, her gaze still fixed on his chest, or through his chest, like she couldn’t see him.

  “Mr. Dixon?”

  Dixon? Why the hell would she call for Cliff? Or was she calling him Cliff? Rance opened his mouth to respond, but the breath shot out of his mouth with a swoosh. He grabbed one side of the doorway with both hands, fully shocked by what had just happened.

  She’d walked through him.

  Right through him.

  Not past him.

  Not around him.

  Through him.

  He pushed off the wall, stumbling slightly. “What the hell is going on?”

  She spun around from where she stood in the hallway. Staring at him again, well, through him again, she tilted her head as if listening. When she took a step toward the room, he jumped out of the way, not wanting to experience that weirdness again.

  He grabbed his opposite forearm and squeezed, just to make sure he was awake, and then ran his hands over his chest and stomach, checking the firmness of his own flesh.

  Too bad he wasn’t a drinking man. He could use a shot of whiskey right about now. He was definitely awake, and as solid as ever. How had she done that?

  She’d walked back into the room and was rubbing her arms as if chilled.

  “Beth,” he said, trying once more. “It’s me, Rance. Your husband.” Or was he? Was this a lost stranger and he was so lonely for Beth he was imagining this woman looked like her?

  She walked to the window and pulled the curtain inside before she stuck her head out. “Buzz? Mr. Dixon?”

  A stranger wouldn’t know Cliff. “Why the hell are you hollering for Cliff, and who’s Buzz?” Rance yanked the hat off his head and scratched at his tingling scalp. Had he lost his mind? Was he seeing things? Hearing things? He rubbed his eyes and blinked several times.

  He wasn’t imagining things. He knew that rump. The one inside those blue britches that had stretched tight while she bent out the window.

  “Beth!”

  She pulled her head in and glanced around the room.

  Why the hell wasn’t she answering him?

  Her frown had grown, and there was an eerie wariness in her eyes. When she bit down on her bottom lip, a thickening happened in his throat. Beth always did that, but as his gaze wandered back to her eyes, the back of his neck tingled. Those were Beth’s eyes, but they weren’t. Something was missing, and not just their sparkle. How the hell could that be?

  He glanced around, and that’s when he noticed the crate on the floor. The one he’d put beside the new stove and had filled with wood. Now it held— “What the hell?” Everything off Beth’s dresser was in the crate. Her comb, her brush, her mirror, and hair-pins. The picture of the two of them on their wedding day.

  Cursing, he stomped forward.

  Still rubbing the chill that had consumed her body and searching for the source of the strange hum she’d heard several times, Liz froze as her heart clawed its way into her throat. The brush and comb in the crate near the bed rose into the air and then floated across the room, landing back on the dresser where she’d found them earlier. The hand mirror and glass bowl full of old hair pins followed moments later, and finally the ornate silver picture frame. The items shifted slightly until they were in the exact positions as when she’d entered the room.

  “Holy shit,” she whispered. Glancing toward the age-old magazine, she waited, expecting it to move back to the table beside the bed.

  When it didn’t, she scanned the room again, the hair on the back of her neck and arms standing stiff. This place is haunted. She’d thought the rumors Buzz had mentioned where just that. Rumors.

  Slowly looking back at the dresser, she swallowed around the lump in her throat. Where was Vivi Anne when she needed her?

  That wouldn’t help. Vivi Anne was a psychic not a ghost hunter. No, that wasn’t true either. Vivi Anne claimed she merely used her insights to assist long lost loves become reunited. That certainly wouldn’t help when it came to ghosts.

  Liz took a deep breath and juggled her choices. Running seemed like a good idea, but the house was full of antiques. Pristine and gorgeous antiques. More importantly, she wasn’t afraid.

  Freaked out, yes.

  Afraid, no.

  Hadn’t she always wanted to meet a ghost? Hadn’t she secretly hoped it would happen since walking through the door?

  Sort of, but now that it was happening she was doing some serious reconsidering.

  Like there was time for that.

  She drew in a deep breath. “M-Mr. Livingston?” Shivering at how squeaky she sounded, she tried once more. “Rance?”

  The faint, almost notes-on-a-breeze echo she’d heard earlier, sounded again.

  “Is that you?” She rolled her eyes at her own ignorance. “That was a stupid question, of cour
se it’s you. Who else would it be?”

  How did one communicate with a ghost?

  Introductions?

  Couldn’t hurt.

  “My name is Liz Baxter. Elizabeth Baxter actually, but I go by Liz.”

  A hum filled the air, as if he, the ghost, was answering. A long answer. She waited for the hum to stop, all the while processing what she should say next, and wondering if he could hear her, or if her voice was a hum as well. Either way, raising her voice just in case, she said loud and clear, “I’m not here to hurt you.” She moved to the dresser. “I’m here to preserve some of your things.” Picking up the mirror, she added, “Your wife’s things, before Mr. Dixon demolishes the house.”

  The humming noise came again, louder than before, and the mirror in her hand jiggled, as if someone tried to pull it from her grasp. She tightened her hold, but as she glanced down, she screamed. Scared out of her skin, she let go of the mirror.

  Her entire being shook, and she stared at the mirror floating face up and flat in the air before her. The reflection showed the ceiling, but a moment before she’d seen a man in the glass. A young man with an angry scowl.

  A hint of common sense told her that hadn’t been possible. Testing that theory, she cautiously reached out and touched the handle again, only to pull her hand back when the image of the man appeared again.

  “That’s crazy,” she whispered while pressing the hand that felt as if electricity had shot through it against the erratic beat of her heart. Its racing beat thudded against her chest, and a zing-zang tingling shot all the way to her toes.

  Unable not to, Liz reached out and touched the mirror again with just the tip of one finger. And again. Watching the flashing image appear and disappear.

  It wasn’t until the fourth or fifth time that she realized the humming stopped when she touched the mirror and she heard a voice. Testing her ears, or perhaps her sanity, she tapped the mirror handle with her finger tip several times.

  Yep, she heard a voice. Like a scratched CD skipping in and out. The image kept flashing in the mirror, too.

  “Holy Hannah.” Her entire being trembled, but with as much excitement as trepidation. Drawing a deep breath to fortify her nerves, she grasped the mirror handle fully, half expecting it to electrocute her, or something along those lines.