Rockinghorse

by William W. Johnstone

  “Probably from Grandmother Bowers,” Lucas replied. “I’m told she was quite a writer in her day.”

  “Really? I never heard that before.”

  “I understand most of her work was considered much too controversial. I never read any of it.”

  “I wish I had met her.”

  “Honey, I just vaguely remember her. I can recall visiting at the mansion twice. I guess I was . . . oh, maybe six the first time. The next and last time, maybe eight or nine. She had a very commanding presence. A tall lady, with dark, almost fierce-looking eyes. I remember those eyes. They scared me.” He was silent for a moment and she could feel negative vibes coming from him.

  “What’s wrong, Lucas?”

  “I was just remembering something. Trying to bring back something she told me about the house. I haven’t thought of it in years. I remember now. At the time, it scared the living hell out of me.”

  “Must have really impressed you,” she said with a smile. “What in the world was it?”

  He looked into her beautiful violet eyes. “Grandmother Bowers told me to never, never, go into that attic.”

  “At the mansion?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you ever?”

  “Ever what? Go into the attic? Hell, no! I imagined all sorts of creepy, crawly monsters and things up there. Rattling skeletons and ghosts and all sorts of things. You know how fertile the mind of a child is.”

  “Anything else you recall?”

  “Yes,” he said with a sigh. “I remember she told me that someday I would understand . . . something about the mind and the journey it can take one on, if one has the proper mount to ride.”

  “What an odd thing to say. What did she mean?”

  “I don’t know. That’s all she ever said about it. I know that she never left the house—never. She would make Howard Hughes look like a gadfly.”

  “Where is she buried?”

  “I don’t know. She insisted upon being buried at night. Precisely at midnight. And her body was not to be embalmed. And that’s all I know about my strange Grandmother Bowers.”

  “Well,” Tracy said. “We have another adventure awaiting us.”

  “Oh?”

  “Going up into the attic.”

  2

  “Crossing into Virginia,” Lucas announced. “God, I’m glad to get out of that traffic.”

  Tracy eased closer to Lucas. “Virginia is for lovers,” she said.

  “Mother!” Jackie spoke from the back. “Please remember there are children present, and don’t get icky.”

  Lucas met his daughter’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Children? Oh?”

  “Yes,” the girl said, pointing to her brother. “Him.”

  “Blow it out your ear,” Johnny told her.

  “That’s enough of that, mister,” Lucas warned. “Where in the world did you hear that expression, Johnny?”

  “From Joe Gould,” the boy replied honestly.

  “Good ol’ Joe,” Lucas muttered, while Tracy smothered a giggle. Joe Gould, the first name of the firm of Gould, Sexton, Harris, McConnell, Seidman, Barris and Bowers.

  The family had gotten a late start, got snarled up in traffic, and were now just outside of Washington, D.C. They were in Tracy’s station wagon, and pulling a rented trailer. Carefully packed in the trailer, unknown to Tracy or the kids, was a Remington model 1100 shotgun and several boxes of #4 buckshot.

  While Lucas was not exactly an expert with firearms, he still had vivid memories of the bird hunts his Grandfather Taylor used to take him on up in Vermont, where Lucas had been raised until his parents’ deaths. Lucas had not fired a gun in years—he had missed the draft simply because his number was never called—but when he was a kid his grandfather had told him he showed a natural ability for handling firearms. And then the old man had proceeded to teach Lucas rifle, pistol, and shotgun.

  And something had been nagging at the back of his mind about the old Bowers plantation home. He could not bring it into clear focus, but it was . . . well, evil, he felt.

  God, how stupid! he mentally chastised himself. Evil. Jesus Christ, Lucas, you’re a grown man, not some silly kid who believes in hobgoblins.

  Impatiently, irritated at himself for thinking such stupid thoughts, he shoved them out of his mind and concentrated on finding a motel. Everybody was getting a little cranky.

  Then the shotgun slipped back into his thoughts. Why did I buy the damned thing? What am I so afraid of? Jesus! I sneak around like a punk thief and buy a gun without telling Tracy. And not just one box of shells, but four boxes. Why would I do?—

  “You’re certainly deep in thought,” Tracy said. “You just missed a very nice motel.”

  “Shit!” he muttered under his breath.

  Jackie giggled in the back seat.

  “Wash your mouth out with soap,” Johnny said.

  Then Lucas told them all about the shotgun.

  They all sat quite still and very silently for a few miles. Jackie was recalling what her brother had said about having to get a gun to protect them from wild animals. Johnny was thinking maybe going to Georgia wasn’t such a great idea after all.

  “A gun,” Tracy finally spoke. She said the words as if she were giving the command to nuke Disney World.

  She kept her eyes on the road, not trusting her voice to speak on the subject of guns. Tracy belonged to several organizations, nearly all of them involved in civic and/or charitable work. However, she did belong to the Committee for Recall of All Private Handguns.

  “A gun,” Tracy repeated. Careful, she cautioned herself silently. Don’t start a quarrel in front of the kids. But she had to say, “Even knowing how strongly I feel about guns, you bought one and brought it with us on this trip?”

  “I grew up with guns, Tracy. I learned as a very young boy how to handle and respect them for what they are. I’m not going to quarrel with you, Trace; but you know I have never shared your opinion concerning firearms. I bought the shotgun, I intend to keep the shotgun, and that closes the matter.” He was much more brusque with her than he had intended, but his wife’s attitude toward firearms had always irritated Lucas. All her opinions were based solely upon information gleaned from the national and Eastern-based news media; and if there ever was a more closed-minded and liberal gathering of people, damned if he knew where it was.

  Lucas was Republican, Tracy a Democrat.

  Jackie and Johnny had wisely remained silent during the exchange between father and mother.

  The family rode for several miles. Lucas finally said, “Is Virginia still for lovers?”

  Slowly, very slowly, a smile worked at the corners of Tracy’s mouth. “Oh, yes,” she said. “Even though my husband thinks he’s the reincarnation of Wyatt Earp.”

  * * *

  They could have made it to the mansion on the second day, but that would have been pushing it close—and they wanted to get to the Bowers home with plenty of daylight left them. Before leaving the city, Lucas had contacted an attorney in Rome, Georgia, explained the situation to him, and the lawyer had agreed to see that the lights were on, the pump checked (no city water out that far), and that the Edmund County Sheriff’s Office knew the Bowers home would be occupied for the summer—so they wouldn’t worry about folks seen around there.

  The family rolled into the tiny town of Palma, Georgia, at ten o’clock in the morning. The first view was anything but awe-inspiring to the family, all of whom were used to the greatest city in the world.

  One small block of stores. A drug store, a supermarket (sort of), a hardware/furniture/feed & seed/ outdoorsy clothes store. Two gas stations.

  And a sheriff’s department substation manned by one deputy. There was a town constable who was even less inspiring than the initial viewing of the town.

  Jackie and Johnny looked at one another and passed a silent message.

  Yekk!

  Lucas and Tracy looked at one another and vocalized their first impression, softenin
g it somewhat for the sake of the kids.

  Tracy said, “It’s . . . interesting.”

  Lucas said, “You took the words right out of my mouth.” Lucas pulled into a service station to fill up the wagon and ask directions. A sign on the station read: WE BUY SELL & TRADE GUNS. “Not exactly Manhattan,” Lucas finalized it.

  “The man is clearly and succinctly the world’s master of understatement,” Tracy said with a smile. “We’d better get several bags of ice and some soft drinks. And get me some cigarettes, will you, Lucas?”

  “Howdy,” the greeting came from among the gas pumps.

  All heads turned to look at the source of the greeting.

  The man was tall and slender, with gray-blond hair. A beard covered his face. His eyes were dark and filled with good humor.

  “Y’all must be the Bowers family, right?”

  Lucas got out of the wagon to stretch. “That’s right.”

  The man extended his hand. “Jim Dooley. I own this fine-lookin’ establishment here.”

  The men howdied and shook and grinned.

  Jim said, “Some different from New York City, ain’t it?”

  “Ah . . . yes,” Lucas replied.

  Jim laughed.

  “Lucas,” Tracy spoke. “It’s been a few miles since breakfast.”

  Jim picked up the hidden message. Smiling, he said, “Restrooms is thataway,” he jerked a thumb. “They’re unlocked and clean.”

  Tracy, Jackie, and Johnny headed for the relief stations.

  The gas tank filled, Lucas followed Jim into the station building. The first thing that caught his eyes was the open display of unsecured firearms under the glass of a counter. Rifles and shotguns in racks lined the walls. Lucas could see no lock on the sliding back glass of the counter. He looked again. There was no back glass.

  “Aren’t you afraid someone will steal one of these guns, Jim?”

  “One ol’ boy tried that ’bout three-four years ago. See that hole in the wall right over there?” he pointed. Lucas saw it. “After I shot him ’tween the eyes, the slug blowed out the back of his head and knocked a hole in the wall. Messy. Used a .44 mag on him. This ain’t New York City, Lucas. Like most rural areas, justice comes down hard and quick. Sometimes right fatal, too.”

  “So I gather,” Lucas said. He looked at the rows of pistols. “Are these for sale?”

  “Shore.” He took Lucas’s twenty, gave him change, and stood smiling at the man.

  “To anybody?”

  Jim Dooley laughed, full of good-natured humor at the city man’s naivete. It is a severe culture shock for a city person to move south—in more ways than one. “Well, Jim, if someone walked in here draggin’ a ball and chain and dressed in prison stripes, I’d have to say no. I’d say no to a total stranger, too. But ever’body ’round here knows you and your family come down here to summer. We know you’re a big city lawyer. Obviously, you ain’t no wanted criminal. You want to buy a pistol, we can do ’er two ways. We can do ’er legal-like and have you fill out a card with your driver’s license number, occupation, home address, and all that mess. Or you can pick out the pistol you want, give me the money, and stick the gun in your pocket and head on out. Don’t nobody else have to know nothin’ about it. ’Cause the way I look at it, it just ain’t nobody else’s business. You know anything about guns?”

  Lucas shook his head. “Not a whole lot,” he admitted. “I was raised in Vermont and used to hunt with my grandfather. He taught me what I know about guns.”

  “An honest man,” Dooley said. “Most people would have looked me slap in the eye and said they were experts.”

  “And you would have? . . .”

  “Chances are, ’less I knowed ’em right well, I wouldn’t sell them a gun.”

  And Lucas realized the rural people of the land—most of them—practiced their own form of gun control.

  Lucas smiled. “An expert with guns, I ain’t.”

  Jim Dooley returned the grin. “See anything in the case that strikes your fancy?”

  Lucas pointed. “That automatic there.”

  Jim grunted. “You know enough to tell the difference between a revolver and an automatic. That’s a hell of a lot more than a lot of city folks can tell. What you pointed out was a Colt Combat Commander. Forty-five caliber. It’s used, but it’s a fine pistol. Retails new for over four hundred bucks. I’ll throw in the leather and a web belt, a spare clip, three boxes of ammo. Sell it all to you for two and a half.”

  “That sounds like a bargain.”

  “It is, Lucas.”

  “Why?”

  “New York City suspicious, ain’t you? Well, do you own a pistol?”

  “Not since I was a boy.”

  “Rattlesnakes, cottonmouths, copperheads—that’s three reasons right there. And, well, let’s just say ever’body needs to own a good pistol. And that,” he pointed, “is a good pistol.”

  Lucas cut his eyes toward the restroom side of the station. When he looked back, Dooley was smiling at him.

  “Wife don’t like guns, huh?”

  “That’s putting it mildly.” Lucas heard Johnny walk from the restroom back to the car. In only seconds, Tracy and Jackie followed him. “Will you put that pistol back for me? I’ll pick it up first time I’m in alone.”

  “Shore.”

  “Want a deposit on it?”

  “Nope.”

  Lucas smiled. “This isn’t New York City, right?”

  “Right on the money, Lucas.”

  Lucas held out his hand and the man shook it. The beginning of a friendship was formed.

  A very large shadow filled the doorway. Jim looked up. He lost his smile. “Burt,” he said. “This here is Mr. Lucas Bowers. They goin’ to summer out to the plantation house.”

  The deputy was young, no more than twenty-five. He was also very large. Perhaps six feet, six inches—two hundred sixty pounds, minimum. Lucas took one look at him and pegged him as very close to being a psycho. Lucas had worked in the public defender’s office for four years before specializing in corporate law and joining the law firm where he was now a partner. Like most good attorneys, he had quickly learned a great deal of layman’s psychiatry. He had learned to spot the classic signs of mental disorders, and knew that the term insanity was no more than a catchall phrase. But he sensed this big deputy was standing on the poorly defined borders of severe mental illness.

  The deputy nodded his head, grunted like an ape, and walked out of the station.

  “Polite fellow, isn’t he?” Lucas said.

  “Burt Simmons is a son of a bitch!” Dooley replied, loud enough for Simmons to hear.

  Lucas winced, wondering if the deputy would walk back in and belt the much smaller man.

  “No,” Dooley said, as if reading Lucas’s thoughts. “He learned the hard way about me. He come at me in a bar over to Rome two years ago. Just after he put on that deputy’s suit. I bounced a monkey wrench off his head and put him in the hospital for two-three days. He’s just a big stupid bastard that ain’t got the sense to come in out of the rain.”

  Lucas watched as the deputy ogled his wife—arrogantly, openly. He turned around and grinned at Lucas, making certain the man saw him eyeballing his wife. He scratched his crotch. Lucas did a slow burn as the deputy looked at Jackie, in her tight shorts and bare midriff blouse.

  Jesus! Lucas thought. My little girl is blossoming into a woman. But it’s not time for that. It’s too soon. Christ, I was holding her in my lap and reading stories to her only a few years ago. Where has the time gone? She’s just a little girl. She’s . . . he sighed. She’s just around the corner from being a very grownup and desirable woman. I’ve got to tell Tracy about those shorts. God, you can see the outline of her—

  “Don’t do anything stupid, Lucas,” Jim Dooley warned. “That’s what Simmons wants.”

  Lucas recalled something his grandfather once told him. “Mister Colt made everybody equal, Jim.”

  Jim chuckled. “You�
�ll do, Lucas. Yep. You’re all right.”

  “Why is that man wearing a badge and carrying a gun if he’s that dumb?” Lucas asked, adding silently and dangerous?

  “Well, believe it or not, Jim, the man serves a purpose in the county. This is a big county, and we got some rough ol’ boys live around here. Oh, they know their place. You ain’t gonna see ’em in any decent cafe or minglin’ with proper folks. They got their own honky tonks and places to hang out in. But ever’ now and then Big Burt’s gotta go knock some heads. And he’s right good at that.

  “He was a big football star in high school. Too goddamn stupid to last in college. Played one year at the university, then went to the pros. Didn’t last but two seasons there. They kicked him out after his . . . troubles.”

  “Troubles?”

  “Let’s put it this way, Lucas: Burt Simmons likes little girls.”

  Lucas felt his temples pound and his face flush as he looked at the deputy, who was still looking at Jackie. Staring at a certain part of her anatomy. Lucas turned to Jim.

  “Put that Colt in the bottom of a big bag, Jim. With the clips and ammo and leather. Fill up the bag with candy bars and two loose cartons of Virginia Slims and Parliaments. You know what I mean?” He reached for his wallet.

  Jim Dooley looked at Burt, who was staring with open lust in his eyes at Jackie. The girl was conscious of the man’s stare and would not meet his eyes. She was leaning against the station wagon, drinking a Coke from the soft drink machine. “I sure do, Lucas. I’ll dump in an extra box of ammo—on the house. You might ought to practice some.”

  “I wonder who painted the house?” Tracy asked, as they turned off the rutted, bumpy gravel and dirt road into the curved drive leading to the beautiful home. Lucas braked and stopped.

  The huge mansion sparkled in the Georgia sunlight. The white paint was almost too white, producing a glare that made them all glad they were wearing sunglasses.

  “I don’t know. I don’t recall seeing the expenditure on the annual maintenance bill.”

  “It’s so lovely,” Tracy said.

  “It’s beautiful,” Jackie spoke from the back seat.

  “Frankly, my dear,” Johnny said, disgust in his boy’s voice. “I just don’t give a damn.”