by Marja McGraw
I could see he was studying my appearance, too, looking me up and down. I couldn’t help wondering what was going through his mind.
I swallowed hard, before I spoke. “Are you a ghost? Are you my imagination? No, you can’t be. And a ghost horse wouldn’t leave hoof prints. My imagination couldn’t disable our Jeep either.”
“No, it couldn’t.” I’d always figured that if Bubba could talk, his voice would be a deep baritone like this guy’s. His long bushy mustache quivered at the corner of his mouth.
Before anything else could happen, the cowboy pulled on the left rein on the horse and turned around to leave.
“Wait,” I called.
He didn’t acknowledge me, and the horse and rider walked away. He slapped the horse’s rear end and picked up speed. I could hear him laughing as he rode away. I was pretty sure he was probably laughing at my stupidity for asking if he was a ghost, and yet the laughter didn’t sound quite real. Or could the quality of the sound be my overactive imagination?
Where were Pete and Bubba? Shouldn’t they have tried to rescue me from the figure that was now disappearing in the distance? I watched until he was out of sight before turning back to the store. I didn’t want him to stop and turn to shoot me in the back, if that was his intent.
“Pete? Where are you?” He and Bubba had both disappeared, and they hadn’t left the store.
“We’re stuck in here.”
His muffled voice came from the rear of the store.
“Pete?”
“I need you to push from that side of the door while I pull. The door is stuck. Your dumb mutt slammed it shut when he tried to beat me out of this room.”
I started to laugh. No wonder my heroes hadn’t come to help me. Of course, the cowboy hadn’t done anything. I guess I hadn’t really needed saving.
I pushed on the door with all my might. It wouldn’t budge. “Are you pulling?” I asked.
“Of course, I was.”
“Was?”
“The handle fell off on this side, so now I’m not sure what to do.”
“Are there any windows in there?”
“Oh. Yeah. I’ll meet you behind the building.”
I could hear him pounding on the boards that covered the window as I walked out the front door. By the time I reached the back of the building, he was saying words I hadn’t heard lately and climbing out of the opening. He was doing a lot of mumbling, too.
“How are we going to get Bubba out?” I asked. The window was too high for him to jump through.
“Don’t worry about that mutt. I piled some things in front of the window. He can climb out if he wants to.” He walked back around to the front of the store, not worrying in the least about my big canine cutie.
Pete and Bubba are somewhat territorial about me. It’s been like that since Bubba first showed up on my back porch one night. For the most part they get along, but every once in a while they make me feel like I’m supposed to choose between them. That’s not going to happen. They’ll just have to keep doing their best to get along.
I followed Pete around to the front of the store when Bubba failed to climb out the window.
“You’re going to have to kick that door in.” I gave him my best no-nonsense look, which he knew meant I wasn’t budging on this one.
Giving first me, and then the door, a disgusted look, he tried to kick it in. The wood splintered and his leg went right through the door. Carefully pulling his leg out, he seemed to be aiming when he kicked the door right next to the latch, and it flew open.
Bubba was nowhere to be seen.
“Where could he be?”
Woof.
I turned to find the dog standing behind us, wagging his tail. Embarrassed that I hadn’t trusted Pete’s judgment about Bubba finding his way out of the room, I turned to apologize. He’d already returned to the storeroom.
“Come in here, Sandi. This is kind of interesting.”
Walking in, I could see that at one time there had been food in the storeroom. Most of that was gone, of course, but there were still some household goods. There were old-fashioned kitchen utensils along with some pots and pans. A wood-burning stove sat in the corner, with a tea kettle still sitting on top. I picked up a wooden tray that held some vintage sewing needles and pins. They were rusted and would probably fall apart if I picked them up, but I could certainly see what they were.
An old-fashioned rotary washing machine sat in the other corner. Pieces of a wooden crate had fallen on the floor around it. Apparently someone in town had ordered it, but the general store had never delivered it. There were wooden crates and kegs scattered around the room, and I wondered if they contained nails or something like that. Pete picked up a rusted saw.
“This town is beginning to creep me out. Why did these people leave so suddenly? I wonder if we’ve wandered into a place where a disease like smallpox sent people running. I hope we’re not being exposed to something.”
“If anything was making the rounds here, it’s long gone. You don’t need to worry.”
“If you say so.” I sincerely hoped he was right. It was simply too weird that these people just up and walked away from town. It looked like everyone had left their things behind. It was kind of walking into an episode of the Twilight Zone.
That thought took me back to my recent visitor. I fished a chocolate candy bar out of my pocket and carefully peeled off the wrapper. I needed something to bolster me before telling Pete what happened. “Uh, I should tell you that I had an encounter with our friendly neighborhood ghost while you were stuck in here.” I quickly took a big bite and started letting the candy melt in my mouth.
His head whipped around so fast I was afraid he’d hurt himself. “What do you mean?”
“Just what I said. I walked out to look at the next building, and the cowboy and his horse were standing outside, watching us. Or waiting for us – I don’t know what he was doing. He was actually kind of spooky, but he didn’t do or say anything threatening.” I crammed more of the sweet brown candy into my mouth.
“You seem to be taking this awfully casually, at least for you. Tell me exactly what happened.” He turned back to the kitchen items that he’d been examining. He was acting way too calm.
“Nothing actually happened, except I said he couldn’t be a ghost because a ghost couldn’t have disabled the Jeep, and he agreed with me.”
“He spoke to you?”
“All he did was agree with me. That was it. Then he turned the horse around and left.”
I could see his back stiffen. “I should have been with you. Maybe we could have gotten some answers if I’d been there.”
“Maybe. Or maybe he would have ridden off into the sunset at a faster pace.” I snagged two bites of chocolate at once.
“Sunset?” He glanced at his watch. “It’s only nine o’clock in the morning.”
“Well, I meant that figuratively,” I said, swallowing.
He grunted like an old man as he stood up and brushed his hands off on his jeans. “Let’s try the next building.”
“What about the second floor?” I asked.
“Later. We don’t know how sturdy these buildings are yet. Let’s stick to ground floors.”
I followed him out of the store to the adjoining building. Once again, he had to use force to open the door.
“This had to be the barbershop.” Pete picked up a rusted old straight razor and examined it closely. A chair sat in the middle of the room, but it wasn’t a barber’s chair. It was just a plain old chair. There was some sort of cabinet with a shelf placed above it, and there were a couple of bottles sitting on a shelf. I had a feeling he was right. Sitting in between the bottles was another mustache cup, similar to the one I’d found at the sheriff’s house.
Without a word, he set the straight razor down and left the building.
There were two more buildings across the street. We headed for those, while Bubba sniffed everything in sight.
“This had to
be a blacksmith’s shop,” Pete said. There weren’t any doors on the building, but we could see a couple of stalls inside. Bubba scurried past us and began sniffing inside the shop. He was so intent that I didn’t think he even noticed when we moved on to the next building.
Once again forcing the door open, he stepped inside. I followed him. We’d found the doctor’s office. There was a desk sitting against a wall and Pete helped me open its drawers. Inside rested a medical book – just one. Going through another door, we found a table suitable for examining a patient. There were empty vials sitting on a shelf, with some very old looking bottles once filled with who knew what. It appeared the doctor had left all or most of his medical equipment behind when he deserted the town.
Without speaking, we left and continued on our journey. There were two detached buildings sitting past the four businesses.
Glancing up I saw the clouds were moving in faster now. A wind had begun to blow, and I heard a bell ring. It startled me and I stopped dead in my tracks, trying to find the source. Pete took hold of my hand and pulled me forward.
“I think we’ve found the schoolhouse,” he said, pointing at a bell hanging near the door. The wind was causing the bell to swing. “I’ve never seen a one-room schoolhouse.”
Opening the door, we found that there were tables and chairs in the room.
“I wonder if any schoolbooks survived,” I said.
“I doubt if they even used schoolbooks,” he replied. “The teacher might have been the only one to own books.”
I looked around the room. There was a wood-burning stove in the front of the classroom. Not knowing why, I walked to it and opened the door. It was empty. No ashes. Nothing.
“I’m only guessing. Maybe they had books. I don’t really know.”
“I think when we go home I’m going to research some of this on the Internet,” I said.
Continuing on, we took a look at the last building. I was guessing, but based on the layout of the chairs, it had to have been some kind of meeting place, and my guess was a church. I saw something on the floor under one of the chairs. I picked it up.
“Okay, here’s our miracle for the day. This is a Bible, and it survived all of the wear and tear this town has seen.”
Pete took it out of my hands and opened it. “Interesting. This looks like someone’s family Bible. It lists a family’s birth and deaths.”
“Let’s take it with us to look at it when we go back to the house.”
He handed me the book, and we left the building.
Surveying our surroundings, we could see other houses spread out over the terrain. We decided to leave those for another day. Although Bubba was still sniffing everything in sight, he was sticking close to us. I was surprised, because he normally enjoyed wandering.
“Looks like a storm is moving in.” Pete was gazing up at the sky. “I think we’d better head back to the house and see if we can figure out a way to cover some of those windows. I’ll try to clean the chimneys, too, so maybe we can get some heat.” He put his arm around my shoulder. “You look cold.”
I hadn’t realized it, but it was cooling off quickly. I was cold, even with my sweatshirt on. I nodded and we turned and headed back toward the house.
The wind blew harder and the sky was turning darker. It looked like it was going to be a big storm. By the time we reached the house, the wind was howling through the trees.
“Before I clean the chimney, I’m going back to the car,” Pete said. “I keep a small toolbox in the back, and I think we’re going to need it.”
I made bologna sandwiches before he left. Opening a bag of potato chips, I figured we were set. We’d spent more time looking at the town than I realized, and I was hungry. I knew if I was hungry, he would be, too.
“What are we going to put over the windows?” I asked, taking a bite out of my sandwich.
“I’ll think about that while I’m gone.”
He reached for the chips and took a handful, placing them on his paper plate. “We’ve got to look into eating something other than sandwiches. I need a real meal.”
“Me, too. Maybe we can barbeque steaks tonight. I know there are two in the cooler, and we’ve got to eat up everything before it goes bad. We’ve got some canned stuff we can fall back on after the cold food is gone. Thankfully we brought just about enough with us to last a week. Surely we can find a way out of here before we run out of food.”
Pete left after returning his gun to his waistband, and Bubba stayed with me without being told. I sat on the floor and the big lug settled in next to me. I put my arms around him, finding his warmth comforting.
“This is the first vacation we’ve ever taken together, and it just might be the last.”
Bubba’s tail thumped on the floor.
“That guy sure knows how to show a girl a good time, doesn’t he?”
The dog turned and tipped his head at me as though trying to figure out what secret I might be telling him.
Standing, I walked to the window and watched in the direction Pete had gone. Before long I saw him crest the incline and head for the house, toolbox in hand, along with our backup sleeping bag. I wondered what he wanted that for. Maybe to keep us warmer?
And then I saw a big black horse crest the rise. He stood nervously, pawing the ground. The storm appeared to be making him nervous. The rider flicked the reins and the horse headed toward Pete.
“Behind you!” I yelled out the window. Bubba raced past me and out the door.
He heard me and dropped the things he was carrying. I saw him draw his gun out of his waistband and turn to face the demon rider, gun held at the ready.
Chapter Seven
I thought I heard the horse whinny when the cowboy pulled back on the reins. He hadn’t expected Pete to be armed. I couldn’t tell for sure because of the distance, but it looked like he reached for his pistol, had second thoughts and slowly moved his hand away from his gun belt.
Bubba stood between Pete and the cowboy and barked. I guessed his hackles were up, judging by his stance. He quit barking and moved back to stand in front of Pete. I figured he must have called to him.
The rider held his ground, even though Pete aimed his gun at him. It looked like a Mexican Standoff to me, but I wasn’t close enough to really know what was going on. Pete lowered his arm. The rider slowly turned his horse and the horse sauntered back over the rise.
Pete didn’t move until the cowboy was out of sight. He bent over and picked up the toolbox and sleeping bag, and headed back to the house with Bubba right behind him. He walked with his head held high and a look of victory on his face.
“What happened out there?” He’d barely walked through the door when I began asking questions. “I thought you were a goner. What made him leave? Oh, Pete, I was so scared. How did you keep Bubba from chasing them? What’s going on?”
He laughed. “Hang on a minute, honey. Let me set everything down and I’ll tell you what happened.” He was feeling triumphant. I could hear it in his voice. Setting the toolbox on the table, he opened it and began sorting through whatever it contained.
“What happened?” It took every bit of my willpower not to smack him on the back of the head to make him start talking. He was making me wait on purpose, trying to drag out the drama. Or maybe he was just pulling his thoughts together. After all, he’d just had a confrontation with Ghost Cowboy.
Sitting at the table, he motioned for me to sit across from him. I looked into his sparkling brown eyes. He was excited. He probably hadn’t seen this much action since he was a cop. He’d been with L.A.P.D. until an eye injury had forced him to leave. That’s when we met and I hired him to work with me.
“I couldn’t hear what you were yelling about, but your tone of voice sounded frightened. I heard something behind me, so I figured there had to be some kind of danger nearby. That’s when I drew my gun. Instinct. It never leaves a cop – ever.
“I saw the cowboy reaching for his gun and I raised mine toward his
head. That slowed him down, and he moved his hand away from his gunbelt. Bubba was in the way, so I called him back. I didn’t want him distracting me.”
“I could kind of see what was going on,” I said, “but I was too far away to make everything out.”
“Well, all I had to do was say one word and the cowboy took off.”
“What was that?” I asked.
“Vamoose.”
“Vamoose? That’s all you said?”
“Yep. Vamoose. That’s cowboy talk for get the hell outta here.”
“Did the cowboy say anything?”
“Not a word,” he said, reaching his hand out to Bubba. “I hate to admit it, although I know you’ll be glad to hear this, but the mutt gave me more confidence. I think he would have taken out after that guy if I’d let him. But the whole thing wasn’t really a big deal.” I noticed his hand was shaking, although it was barely perceptible.
It suddenly dawned on me that he was drawing the story out in order to give himself time to calm down. Pulling a gun on someone would certainly make for an adrenalin rush. Although he was sounding very masterful, he had to have had at least a moment of doubt during the confrontation. Could he take the guy? Was he doing the right thing? Should he fire? Could he protect me? Oh, yeah, he’d just been through a big deal, even if he wouldn’t admit it.
“Well, you’re my hero, and don’t you forget it.” I reached across the table and placed my hand on top of his. The shaking had stopped. “Want some chocolate?” It always calmed me down.
He shook his head. He thought my addiction to chocolate was all in my head. Maybe it was, but who cared? It worked for me. “I’ve got to figure out how to get the car part back. I’m not going to let some yahoo cowboy keep me stuck in this old town.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“Okay, let’s get to work. While I clean the chimney, I want you to cut the sleeping bag into pieces big enough to cover the windows. It won’t keep us warm, but it sure will help if we can cover them.”
