Ghost Story

'Oh,' Ricky leaned back against the rickety chair.

'You remember a few years back I went to a national police convention in Kansas City. Flew out, stayed there a week. Real good trip.' Ricky could remember this, because after Hardesty's return the sheriff had spoken to the Lion's Club, the Kiwanis, the Rotary, the Jaycees and the Elks, the National Rifle Association, the Masons and the John Birch Society, the VFW and the Companions of the Forest of America-the organizations which had paid for his trip, and to a third of which Ricky by obligation belonged. His topic was the need for 'a modern and fully equipped force for law and order in the small American community.'

'Well,' Hardesty said, gripping the beer bottle in one hand like a hot dog, 'one night back at the motel, I got talking to a bunch of local sheriffs. These guys were from Kansas and Missouri and Minnesota. You know. They were talking about just this kind of setup -funny kinds of unsolved crimes. Now my point is this. At least two or three of these guys ran into exactly the same thing we saw today. Bunch of animals lying dead in a field-wham, bam, dead overnight. No cause until you look at 'em and find-you know. Real neat wounds, like a surgeon would do. And no blood. Exsanguinated, they call that. One of these guys said there was a whole wave of this in the Ohio River valley in the late sixties. Horses, dogs, cows-we probably got the first sheep. But, Mr. Hawthorne, you brought it all back to me when you said that about the no blood. That's right, that reminded me. You'd figure those sheep would bleed like crazy. And in Kansas City, the same thing happened just a year back before the conference, around Christmas.'

'Nonsense,' said Sears. 'I'm not going to listen to any more of this rubbish.'

'Excuse me, Mr. James. It's not nonsense. It all happened. You could look it up in the Kansas City Times. December 1973. Buncha dead cattle, no footprints, no blood-and that was on fresh snow too, just like today.' He looked across at Ricky, winked, drained his beer.

'Nobody was ever arrested?' Ricky asked.

'Never. In all of those places, they never found anybody. Just like somethin' bad came to town, put on its show and took off again. My idea is that things like this are somethin's idea of a joke.'

'What?' Sears said explosively. 'Vampires? Demons? Crazy.'

'No, I'm not sayin' that. Hell, I know there's no vampires, just like I know that damned monster in that lake in Scotland isn't there.' Hardesty tipped back in his chair and locked his hands behind his head. 'But nobody ever found anything, and we ain't gonna either. There isn't even any sense in looking. I figure just to keep Elmer happy by telling him how I'm workin' on it.'

'Is that really all you intend to do?' asked incredulous Ricky Hawthorne.

'Oh, I might have a man walk around some of the local farms, ask if they saw anything funny last night, but that's about all.'

'And you actually brought us here to tell us that?' Sears asked.

'I actually did.'

'Let's go, Ricky.' Sears pushed his chair back and reached for his hat.

'And actually I thought the two most distinguished lawyers in town might be able to tell me something.'

'I could, but I doubt that you'd listen.'

'A little less high and mighty, Mr. James. We're both on the same side, aren't we?'

Ricky said, over the inevitable phht of expelled air from Sears, 'What did you think we could tell you?'

'Why you think you know something about what Elmer saw last night.' He fingered a groove in his forehead, smiling. 'You two old boys went into deep freeze when Elmer was talking about that. So you know something or heard something or saw something you didn't want to tell Elmer Scales. Well, suppose you support your local sheriff and speak up.'

Sears pushed himself up from the chair. 'I saw four dead sheep. I know nothing. And that, Walter, is that.' He snatched his hat from the table. 'Ricky, let's go do something useful.'

'He's right, isn't he?' They were turning the corner at Wheat Row. The vast gray body of St. Michael's Cathedral hung in the air to their right; the grotesque and saintly figures above the door and beside the windows wore caps and shirts of fresh snow, as if they had been frozen in place.

'About?' Sears waved toward their office building.

'Miracle of miracles. A parking space right in front of the door.'

'About what Elmer saw.'

'If it is obvious to Walt Hardesty, then it is obvious indeed. Yes.'

'Did you actually see anything?'

'I saw something not there. I hallucinated. I can only assume that I was overtired and somehow emotionally affected by the story I told.'

Ricky carefully backed the car into the space before the tall wooden facade of the office building.

Sears coughed, placed his hand on the door latch, did not move; to Ricky, he looked as though he already regretted what he was going to say. 'I take it you saw more or less the same thing that Our Vergil did.'

'Yes, I did.' He paused. 'No. I felt it, but I knew what it was.'

'Well.' He coughed again, and Ricky grew tense with waiting. 'What I saw was Fenny Bate.'

'The boy in your story?' Ricky was astonished.

'The boy I tried to teach. The boy I suppose I killed -helped to kill.'

Sears took his hand from the door and let his weight fall back on the car seat. Now, at last, he wanted to talk.

Ricky tried to take it in. 'I wasn't sure that-' He stopped in midsentence, aware that he was breaking one of the Chowder Society's rules.

'That it was a true story? Oh, it was true enough, Ricky. True enough. There was a real Fenny Bate, and he died.'

Ricky remembered the sight of Sears's lighted window. 'Were you looking out of the library windows when you saw him?'

Sears shook his head. 'I was going upstairs. It was very late, probably about two o'clock. I had fallen asleep in a chair after doing the dishes. I didn't feel very good, I'm afraid-I would have felt worse if I'd known that Elmer Scales was going to wake me up at seven o'clock this morning. Well, I turned off the lights in the library, closed the door, and began to go up the stairs. And then I saw him sitting there, sitting on the stairs. He appeared to be asleep. He was dressed in the rags I remembered him wearing, and his feet were bare.'

'What did you do?'

'I was too frightened to do anything at all. I'm no longer a strong young man of twenty. Ricky, I just stood there for-I don't know how long. I thought I might collapse. I steadied myself by putting my hand on the banister, and then he woke up.' Sears was clasping his hands together before him, and Ricky could tell that he was gripping hard. 'He didn't have eyes. He just had holes. The rest of his face was smiling.' Sears's hands went to his face and folded in beneath the wide hat-brim. 'Christ, Ricky. He wanted to play.'

'He wanted to play?'

'That's what went through my mind. I was in such shock I couldn't think straight. When the-hallucination- stood up, I ran back down the stairs and locked myself in the library. I went to bed on the couch. I had the feeling that it was gone, but I couldn't make myself go back out on the staircase. Eventually I fell asleep and had the dream we were discussing. In the morning of course I recognized what had happened. I was 'seeing things,' in the vulgar parlance. And I did not think, nor do I think now, that such things are exactly in the province of Walt Hardesty. Or Our Vergil, for that matter.'

'My God, Sears,' Ricky said.

'Forget about it, Ricky. Just forget I ever told you. At least until this young Wanderley arrives.'

Jesus she moved she can't she's dead spoke in his mind again, and he turned his eyes from the dashboard where they had been resting while Sears told him to do the impossible, and looked straight into the pale face of his law partner.

'No more,' Sears said. 'Whatever it is, no more. I've had enough.'

… no put her feet in first.

'Sears.'

'I can't, Ricky,' Sears said, and levered himself out of the car.