Hollow Blood

by Austin Dragon

  A pumpkin smashed to the ground in the center of the three men. The men jumped, and one of the horses rose up on two legs and almost threw Ace off.

  Julian galloped to the men.

  Ace yelled, "That was a damn thing to do, mister. Why did you do that?"

  Julian reached them, but stopped a few paces back. "I don't like to be followed by horse thieves."

  "We're no horse thieves, mister," Ayden said.

  "Who are you then?"

  "Never you mind who we are, mister. We live in this town and you don't," Ace snapped.

  "What's the penalty for horse thieves in these parts?" Julian now revealed a rifle trained on them, resting just above his thigh.

  "Mister, we are no horse thieves. There's no need for any violence here. This is all a misunderstanding."

  "Get down from your horses."

  The men dismounted one by one. Ace said, "Mister, just remain calm. We're doing as you say."

  "Hand me the reins," Julian commanded.

  Ace started to move.

  "No! You do it." Julian pointed at Ayden with his rifle.

  Ayden handed him the reins of all three horses. Julian dismounted from his horse, but kept his rifle trained on them. He wrapped the reins to the back of the saddle of his horse.

  "What are you plannin' on doin,' mister?" Alfie, the third man, asked.

  Julian got back on his horse. "I am leaving you here to walk awhile and consider your actions to this point in your life, and for you to decide how you want to proceed in your life after I ride away."

  Julian suddenly jumped down and walked to them.

  "Mister, no violence!" Ace held up his hands as Julian pointed his rifle. "We did what you said."

  "Did you fight in the War?"

  Ace hesitated. "What kind of question is that? Every able-bodied man in these parts did. There are no yellow-bellies here in the Hollow."

  "Which side?"

  Ace laughed. "The side of America. No Tories any place here or beyond the Hollow you could get to by foot or by horse."

  Julian nodded. "My story, too." He lowered his rifle. "I'll let you keep your firearms then. No ex-soldier with the honor and courage of fighting for these United States of America is capable of a cowardly act, let alone anything as low as shooting a fellow ex-soldier in the back as he rides away."

  Julian mounted his horse again and galloped away with the three men's horses in tow.

  Ace pulled his gun from his back waist. The other two men looked at him as he aimed to shoot. They all glanced at each other, and Ace stopped himself. "Damn!"

  "What do we do now?" Ayden asked with a hint of panic in his voice. "I think it would have been better if he did shoot us."

  Abraham Van Brunt was still known by all, save strangers, as Brom Bones. But call him anything but "Mr. Van Brunt" at your peril. He was a burly, broad-shouldered, handsome man with short, curly black hair and a full beard and mustache. He was often impatiently barking orders at his men for one thing or another. It was not the days of his youth when there was always an air of fun about him just under the surface. With his high status now, he expected near-perfection in his business and on his land. Maybe he was an arrogant taskmaster nowadays, but the word he preferred was confident. He knew what he wanted, and he wanted nothing less than that.

  Before he became the master of this estate, he was already a hero of the Hollow, known for his exploits of strength and daring—and mischief. He left that all behind and was now the wealthiest man in the region with all the power and prestige that came with such status.

  He stood in his field clothes—still fancy dress to any outsider who might see him—on the porch of his "castle"—the largest residence in all of Sleepy Hollow, Tarry Town and all neighboring townships.

  The Van Brunt place was almost as large as a township itself. The outermost marker of his property was a giant elm tree. All of his land was impressive. The wild parts were filled with all manner of birds—martins, swallows, and others—nesting in the lush trees, and the snow geese spent their time in the great pond nearby. The tended parts, behind the wooden fences, had pigs, goats, guinea fowl, turkey, and chickens roaming, and all minded by a few dogs. The large fields were rich with corn, wheat, rye, tobacco, and indigo.

  In the center of the land was a formidable two-story, white Dutch colonial mansion, made up of only the best in materials—no matter the distance nor the expense to buy—from its gambrel roof down to the fine glass windows under the lower-level overhangs. It was not only the home of his family, but also the servants, the cats, and on a daily basis Banshee, the rooster, attempted to get in. This was the Van Brunt domain that had entertained Sleepy Hollow guests for decades. Brom had only modernized it and made it outwardly more ostentatious.

  Old Man Van Tassel had reigned over this land for some three decades, but the torch was passed to Brom on the day of his wedding to the old man's most treasured prize—his daughter. Over the last decade, Brom made every effort to make his own mark on the land. The Old Man still lived at the residence, and that was fine by Brom, because all the Old Man did was hobble around and smoke his favorite pipe—at that particular moment—in the nearest empty chair his bottom could find, inside or outside.

  A horse-drawn wagon came through the gates. One of the townspeople was at the reins, but that was not what held Brom's attention. It was the men in the back of the wagon. They were doing their best to pretend that they had not seen him, as their sorry forms tried to slither down into the wagon out-of-sight.

  The men were his. They all grew up together as children and were thick as thieves in their youth, accompanying him to anywhere there was a fight or trouble to be had. Brom and his Sleepy Hollow Boys. But they were grown men now, and he was their employer.

  "What happened?" Brom's face was angry, and his hands grasped his waist.

  "Well, Brom—"

  "Mr. Van Brunt!" Brom corrected.

  "Well, Mr. Van Brunt...he got the drop on us and..." Ace clutched his hat in his hand. "He got our horses."

  "He took your horses from you? All three of you?" Brom shook his head. "If we didn't have history as friends, I'd run off all of you. But no one else would hire you good-for-nothings. Where is he?"

  "We don't know, Mr. Van Brunt."

  "Mr. Van Brunt, we can round up some of the men and go after him," Ayden suggested.

  "So he can get those horses, too?" Brom waved them away. "Get to the field work."

  "Yes, Mr. Van Brunt!" The men ran off to the barn.

  The rider of the wagon was a local townsman who nervously smiled as he waited.

  "This is some kind of business with this stranger in town," he said.

  "Why are you still here?" Brom asked the man. "Are you waiting for something?"

  "Mr. Van Brunt, I was thinking that since I had to go out of my way to return your men...that I'd get some kind of compensation for my trouble."

  Brom's face went red. "The curse of the wealthy. Everyone is always anglin' to get into my pocket." He reached into his breast pocket and then threw a coin at the man. "Get out of here!"

  The man let the coin fall into his lap and snapped the reins of the horses. The wagon did a complete circle to race back out the way it came.

  Brom fumed as he walked back to the house as a cowboy in a fancy coat and large hat ambled toward him with a toothy smile.

  "Yes, Mr. Van Brunt? No, Mr. Van Brunt. I can do that, Mr. Van Brunt," Dutch joked.

  Brom was still angry. "The fools got their horses stolen from them by one man and were left on the side of the road. I don't like to me made a fool of. When my men are made to look foolish, I look foolish."

  "What do you want done?"

  "Find this man asking these questions."

  "Who do you think he is?"

  "That's what you'll find out, but I can tell you this much. This so-called inheritance man's story is a lie. No estate would wait ten years to conclude their business. He's here for some other no-good reason." />
  "No one can say what his name is."

  "My point exactly. He's here for no-good. Five different people have already been here this morning to tell me about this compensation he's supposedly offering. Why would a stranger come here to the Hollow and stir up all these old feelings and memories? Scare the people? Give children nightmares? We've finally shaken free of the Legend, but this stranger will have people gossiping that the Horseman is back or is coming back. We're bringing in new people and with it new business, making the entire Tappan Zee area prosperous. Find him, find out what he's about, the true story, and move him along. Anywhere, but here."

  "The horses?"

  "Forget the horses. They want them back then let them go themselves to get them back. Let them walk until the soles of their shoes wear out, and they have to walk barefoot after that. That will teach them. All I'm interested in is finding this man."

  "And when I do? What if he doesn't want to be moved along?"

  Brom looked at him. "I've never had to spell it out before. What's different now?"

  "This is no good, Brom. This stranger coming around asking questions after all this time."

  "You don't think I know that? I want him gone. Out of the Hollow, out of Tarry Town, out of the entire region before Mrs. Van Brunt hears the first gossip about him. Gone. And I don't care how it's done. I never want to hear about him a fifth or sixth time, and I don't want to see him a first time. And I don't want to see you or your men until it's done. Understood?"

  "We're riding out now."

  Vengeance

  "It is my extreme pleasure to meet you, Mr. Brom Bones. My name is Vengeance."

  Katrina Van Brunt appeared at the top of the stairs in a fine blue dress, her golden blonde hair side-braided and resting on her shoulders. All the dresses she wore were only the best and most modern fashions, which took their cues from French and English trends. With her hand on the railing, she started down to see her attentive head maidservant waiting for her.

  The mansion was quite large and flowed with the busy energy of the work activities of the servants, both male and female, indoors and outside, from sun-up to sundown.

  "Mrs. De Paul, where is Mr. Van Brunt?" Katrina asked.

  "Mr. Van Brunt is outside, ma'am. Should I send one of the houseboys to fetch him?"

  "That won't be necessary. I see him at the gate."

  Katrina gazed past her maidservant out the large front windows of the residence. She exited the mansion and stood on the porch watching her husband conduct his business with Dutch. She had become astute at divining whether the business was "legitimate" or "other."

  She was the matriarch of the Van Brunt mansion, and the only child of Old Baltus Van Tassel, and many commented that she seemed to grow more radiant with time. She was only eighteen when she married Brom a decade ago. Folks told Brom that he was the fortunate one, but she always felt that it was an equal arrangement. She made him a better man, but every so often, he was tempted to revert back to his misbehaving ways he was infamous for in his youth. He noticed her watching, said a final word, and now made his way to the porch. Dutch headed to the main barn.

  "Abraham, what is Dutch off to? I was going to have him hitch up the carriage to take me into town." She was the only person who called Brom by his true first name. The only person he allowed to.

  "Why do you have to go into town again?"

  "I need a few more things for the party."

  Brom shook his head and sighed. "Ayden!" His call brought the man running. "Get the carriage and take Mrs. Van Brunt into town."

  "Yes, Mr. Van Brunt."

  Brom looked at her. "Please remember to leave something behind in the stores for the rest of the woman population."

  She smiled as she walked over to him and planted a kiss on his cheek. "You do know that you're a grown man now with a position and reputation to maintain?"

  He looked at her, not knowing what she meant.

  She continued. "I married a man, not a boy. Men do adult things and attend to adult work. Sleepy Hollow Boys act about like children with mischief and trickery."

  He knew what she meant now. "Dutch will be doing simple business in town for me."

  She gave him a questioning look as Ayden came around front of the mansion driving the two-horse carriage. Brom walked to the carriage and opened the door for her. She allowed her husband to hold her steady with his hand as she climbed in, and then he closed the carriage door.

  "Always remember, Abraham, I shall find out in the end," she said.

  "Just remember what I said. Don't buy everything in the shops. We do live in this town with other people who like to buy things too."

  Brom stepped back and nodded to Ayden. The carriage rode off to the main road to Tarry Town. He watched it silently until it was a ways away, over the hills, and gone.

  Out of the barn came Dutch on his silver gray horse with seven other riders.

  "Are you sure you don't want us to bring their horses back?"

  "No. Let them do it. Teach 'em to not let a single man do that to them again."

  Dutch nodded and motioned to his men to head out.

  "Dutch!"

  The men stopped.

  "Mrs. Van Brunt is on her way into town too. See that she doesn't see you."

  He smirked. "Understood, Mr. Van Brunt."

  Brom's top man led the riders out, riding hard down the same main dirt road to Tarry Town.

  The two-mile ride from Sleepy Hollow to Tarry Town was a quick ride for Dutch and his men. Every year seemed to bring more people looking for a decent place to settle and more visitors passing through. The Legend and every other haunted story were actually good for business in these parts, and there was no reason that the Hollow should get all the bounty.

  "You've seen him then?"

  Dutch asked one of the local townsmen outside the tavern. His four men stood around him, one smoking a cigar. He had sent the other three men to keep an eye on Mrs. Van Brunt's location so as to let him know if she came their way.

  "The town has seen him, and everybody is talking about him. He's offering good money to find out the whereabouts of the last fool that the Horseman took," the man answered.

  "That would be Hell, so he's wasting his time and everybody else's."

  "He don't know that. He thinks that Ichabod the schoolteacher is still alive. You can tell. And he doesn't believe in the Legend." The man smiled wide. "Some of us are figuring we can trick him into giving us some of his reward money. One of us can pretend to be the unfortunate Ichabod and see if—"

  "That's the most foolish thing I've heard," Dutch responded. "How do you figure that will work?"

  "How would he know? He's never seen Ichabod before."

  "Have you?"

  "No, but we've heard him described enough times before. Skinny as a skeleton and funny big ears. What else is there to know?"

  "You're a fool. But do whatever you like because we don't believe his real intention is to find Ichabod."

  "Then why is he here?"

  "That's why we're here!" Dutch was so frustrated with the man. He would have walked away but Jakes was one Tarry Town's chief busybodies who knew things before most and in these parts news traveled fast.

  "Where did you see him last?" Dutch asked.

  "I've seen him everywhere inquiring about Ichabod." The man's eyes looked up, thinking. "I think he was last at the church talking to the pastor."

  "When was that?"

  "Maybe an hour ago. He probably is still there. No, wait."

  "What?"

  "I don't see his horse. Everyone knows that horse of his now."

  Dutch and his men turned to see where the man was looking.

  "You didn't see him ride out?"

  "No, I didn't. Me and the others have been keeping eyes on him. He must have double-backed somewhere."

  Dutch looked around and said to a couple of his men, "You two go looking around for him."

  As the two men quickly walked away, Dut
ch looked around at all the windows of the nearby shops and glanced down to the main inn.

  "Maybe he's watching us right now," Dutch said softly. "I hear he's good at that."

  The man looked around nervously.

  "What is that you think this man is, if not what he claims to be?"

  "I think he's not what he claims to be. That's all I know, and I'd like to know a lot more before I leave town."

  "Is there any money in it if I help you?"

  "No, there isn't," Dutch said flatly. "But Mr. Van Brunt would be grateful for any help you could provide."

  "Is he having a party tonight?"

  Dutch looked at the man, already knowing what he was going to say.

  "Can I come?"

  Dutch sighed. "Yes, but—"

  The man smiled again. "Let's go find him."

  "Wait!" Dutch motioned to the man and his two remaining men. "Get out of sight."

  The man didn't know why he was running, but he followed Dutch and his men into one of the shops. Once inside, they moved to the windows to watch the streets. The horse-drawn carriage of Mrs. Van Brunt galloped by.

  "Why are you running away from your boss's wife?" the man asked, confused.

  "Don't you worry about that," Dutch answered.

  They all walked back outside.

  Julian watched them quietly from across the street two shops down. He was already well hidden by the shade, but kept most of his body out of sight as he peered around the corner of the alleyway.

  Katrina Van Brunt returned hours before, had a bath, and changed into her dress for the evening. The servants were busy at work in every corner of the mansion. The walls were adorned with lustrous items of silver, ears of Indian corn, ornate strings of red and green peppers, and dried fruits such as peaches and apples. The ceiling had strings of colored bird eggs suspended from it, and the mantelpiece was decorated with large conch shells and other smaller seashells. Expensive china adorned nearly every table or desktop, awaiting the servants to set dishes of food, drink and sweets.

  Mr. Van Brunt had the field staff preparing for the arrival of the party guests. He strolled down the stairs in his finest evening clothes, purple to match his wife's dress, tugging on each sleeve.