With heads bowed low, trying to fend off the pelting rain and wind in their faces, Cy, Rap, and Chief headed for the they large barn like structure at the far end of the street, which they hoped to be a livery or barn, where they could house their horses and protect them from the storm. As they neared it, they could see that the building had in fact been a livery at one time.
The building seemed to be in somewhat of a sturdy structure. Although the creak of loose boards could be hardly be heard of the roar of the storm. The wind whistled through cracks and loose boards, like a howling banshee. Loose shingles of what was left of the roof, flapped against the rotting roof timbers and drummed dully in the wind. Occasionally a shingle would rip free and fly away. One came dangerously close to Rap and he ducked just in time for it to fly past him, but Chief Henry with his poor eyesight caught the brunt of it, as it slammed against his chest. He was caught off guard and lost some of his balance, momentarily, but he was quick to recover and managed to stay solidly in his saddle as they all rode on.
The riders drew rein in front of the double doors that had been latched closed by a wooden cross beam that had been nestled into place in the wooden receptacles on each door
They dismounted and without letting loose of the trailing reins that held the horses in place, Rap and Cyclone each lifted the wooden bar one handed. They tossed it aside and pulled the big doors open. The horses stamped and milled about feeling a lessening of restraint on them, and back stepped a mite, leaving room for the big doors to swing open.
Inside the livery was a gaping maw of total blackness and foreboding.
With the animals fighting against them and trying to back away from the ominous blackness of the building interior, and with the wind pushing against them, the three Wildcats pulled hard against the reins, pulling the resisting horses inside behind them.
As they stepped inside the livery, the sudden shelter from the howling wind and rain seemed to bring them relative silence, although the wind swirling through loose boards and the pounding of rain against the roof, still assaulted their ears. Rain still poured through gaping holes in the roof, but the relative shelter was gratefully accepted by one and all.
Rap was in the lead as they pulled the horses inside. They had just gotten the horses in far enough that they were now completely out of the weather, when Rap froze stone still in his tracks. Those chills that had been dogging him ever since they set foot into this ghost town had turned to ice and it wasn’t because of the storm. His eyes widened, although he could see nothing in front of him.
Turning to look behind him, he could barely make out the dark outlines of the shapes of his companions and other horses, against the backdrop of grayness outside the big double doors.
“Cy?......... Cy?” Rap stammered, his voice rasping from a fear that was choking him. His Adam’s apple seemed to have bobbed and frozen in place. “Are……..are you in front of me?”
“No, of course not,” Cyclone answered with annoyance. “Just keep moving, until we get the horses and us all the way in.”
“Chief back there with you?”
“Yeah. Yeah. Will you just move it?”
“Uh……, uhh…, Cy…….I can’t. There’s...there’s ghosts in here.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Cyclone groaned. “There’s no such things, as ghosts.”
“Then,.... what this thing in front of me? I can feel it and it’s… it’s alive. And… and it moves. It’s pushin’ against me.”
“Oh, for cryin’ out loud,” Cyclone complained. “This is all your fault, Henry,” Cyclone said to his companion who he knew was beside him, even though he couldn’t see him. “See what you done with your stories about ghosts and all. You’ve got him so scared, he ain’t no use to us, nohow. You knowed he was scared of the dark.”
“I ain’t a scairt of the dark,” Rap protested as Cy reached under his slicker and produced a tin containing matches. He flicked the head of the match with his thumbnail, and it burst into flame.
Cy held the match high so the light would spread out around them. In the glow he saw Rap before him; his body pressed up against the hind quarters of a brown horse.
Rap’s eyes bugged with disbelief. “That ain’t no ghost,” he gasped.
“Of course it ain’t,” Cyclone said just as the flame burned down to his fingers. There was a momentary sting of heat as he shook the flame out. The smell of smoke wafted in the air for a moment before Cy lit another match. “We gotta find somethin’ for a torch,” he said. “I can’t keep lightin’ matches.”
That match burned out quickly, but lasted long enough for them to find some splinters of wood. With the third match Cyclone had managed to get a torch going. The splinters would burn fast, but at least they would be able to see long enough to look around and settle their horses.
“I knowed there weren’t no ghosts, all the time,” Rap said once they had some light. “I was just funnin’ you guys. I ain’t really afraid of no ghosts.”
“You plenty brave, paleface,” Chief mocked.
Cyclone ignored everything and inspected the livery. There were no stalls and what Rap had thought was a ghost, was a horse. In fact there were two horses. They were both saddled and looked gaunt from neglect. Their reins trailed to the floor and they were loose to mill around inside the livery.
“Ghosts or no ghosts,” Cyclone said. “It looks like we’re not alone here.”
“Let’s hope there’s rooms on this first floor,” Kitty said. Paul had just pushed the door shut and secured it from blowing open, but left it just enough ajar that their companions could get in after taking care of the horses. He lit a match and gazed quickly about the abandoned lobby. In that brief moment he spotted three candles in an old holder hanging against the wall behind what used to be a clerk’s desk. The match burned down. He struck another one and made his way across the room before that match burned down. He struck another one and managed to light one of the candles. He lifted it from its holder and used it to light the other two candles. Then he held it high in front of him, turning left and right, gazing about the empty lobby. Except for the clerk’s desk, the room was bare.
“I don’t think it would be good to try to take him upstairs,” Kitty said, eyeing the stairwell to the upper floor.
“You stay here with Jeremy,” Paul said, helping the boy sit down on the first step of the stairwell.
Kitty sat down next to her brother on the step and grasped his shoulders to keep him erect.
“I’ll look around down here. Hopefully we can find a suitable place to work,” Paul said. He turned and disappeared into the darkness.
“Please hurry,” Kitty shouted after him. She shuddered at the sight of hanging cobwebs about her. “This place gives me the willies.”
Suddenly the door burst open. Cold wind and rain rushed in and the candles blew out leaving Kitty and Jeremy in total blackness.
The trek on foot back to the hotel had seemed like an endless journey for Cy and his companions. At least the wind was now at their backs and helped to push them along.
Having experienced total darkness in the livery behind them, Cyclone had prepared himself for later on. He had found a sturdy piece of wood about two and a half feet long. From his saddle bags he had ripped up part of an old shirt and wrapped the rags around the end of the stick to form a torch that would burn much longer and brighter than the splinters he had used in the barn. He kept it under his slicker to keep it dry during their journey down the street.
“Damned door blew open again,” Cy muttered to himself, as they approached the hotel. He had remembered that it had been shut when they had left to take care of the horses.
He quickly stepped inside and moved out of the way so Chief and Rap could come in behind him. They were just shadows now, but as Cy pulled the door shut the whine of the howling wind outside subsided, and they were, once again, in total darkness.
As the blackness enveloped around them, Rap panicked again as he bumped into Chief Henry. His lanky arms
snaked out and wrapped tightly around Chief. “Henry, is that you?” He shouted.
“Of course, Rap,” Henry answered; this time not resorting to his fake Indian banter. He knew his friend was genuinely terrified. He entwined Rap’s arms and was trying to push him away when Cyclone thumbed a match to life.
In the brief glow of the flame, Rap pulled back from Henry and gazed up at him almost as if in surprise. “You ain’t no ghost. You ain’t even a horse.”
“Me always knowem paleface smart enough to know difference.” Chief slipped back into his usual mocking self.
“You never told me you thought I was smart,” Rap said soulfully. “Gee.”
The match burned out and once again they were in darkness.
“Kitty, Jeremy, Reverend,” Cyclone shouted out into the gloom as he thumbed another match. When no answer came, he called again: this time shouting as loud as he could.
Again, no answer. Cyclone had felt uneasy from the start but now his worry rose to a new level.
“Rap,” he said as he initiated a new flame. “Give me your flask.”
“You sick, Cy?” Rap asked. “I never knowed you to drink afore.”
“Just give me the damn flask!”
“You mad at me, Cy?” Rap said meekly, like a hurt little boy, and pulling his flask out from under his slicker.
“Pour some of it on these rags,” Cyclone ordered. Now was not the time to deal with Rap’s hurt feelings.
“Wh...what for?”
“Just do it!” There was panic in Cy’s voice. The match was quickly burning down.
Rap did as he was told. “Damn waste of good whiskey,” he grumbled. Cyclone twisted the stick around in his big hands so the liquid could soak in the rags all the way around.
“That’s enough,” Cyclone said, just as the match died. He quickly produced another flame and touched it off on the rags. The torch burst into flame and the darkness disappeared.
Cyclone stepped away from the others, brandishing the torch to and fro, getting a good look at their surroundings. Once again, he called for their missing companions. Once again, there was no answer. Something was terribly wrong, Cyclone thought to himself. He didn’t like this one bit.
As he brandished the torch about, the light fell on the lower step of the stairwell. A large blot of blood was still fresh on it.
Cyclone lowered the torch and examined the stain more closely. He pulled the torch away and traced a trail of blood, leading away from the stairs and leading toward the back of the hotel lobby. He cursed under his breath, turned and started to follow the trail. Chief and Rap followed close behind.
“What is it?” Henry asked, as they moved off.
“They went this way,” Cyclone answered, over his shoulder. There’s a trail of Jeremy’s blood leading this way.”
Henry reached out and grasped the back of Rap’s shirt collar. Rap jumped and let out gasp. “Ghosts!,” he blurted out.
“Relax paleface,” Chief Henry said. “It’s just me. I can’t see, so I need to hang on to you, while I follow.”
“Shucks,” Rap said, relief showing in his voice. “I knowed it was you all the time. I ain’t afraid of no ghosts.”
“Of course, you’re not.” Chief chided.
The trail led into a larger room. This had probably been a lounge and or dining room, in the heyday of the old hotel.
It led them across the room toward the back of the building. Another doorway led into another room behind it. This had probably been a kitchen. There was no back door visible or any other way out of the room.
There was still no sign of Kitty, Jeremy, and the preacher. But, the trail of blood spots led to the center of the room and stopped at the edge of a rectangular shaped trap door. Cyclone lowered the torch and examined it. Dust had been disturbed around it.
“Look what we have here,” Cyclone muttered almost to himself, but loud enough for his companions to hear.
Rap and Chief gathered close, one on each side of Cyclone. “What is it, Cy?” Henry said. With his bad eyesight he couldn’t see the outline of the trap door in the dark. His night vision was totally gone in the bright flame of Cyclone’s torch.
“Trap door,” Cy answered. Looks like somebody’s been usin’ it and the trail of Jeremy’s blood stops here.”
“Here Rap, hold this.” Cyclone said handing the torch to him.
He bent over and ran his fingers along the edges of the trap door until he found a handhold. The door lifted up easily and noiselessly. Obviously it had seen a lot of use and recently.
With the trap door fully opened, Cyclone retrieved the torch from Arapahoe and lowered it into the darkness below. There was a ladder that led down into a tunnel with hard rock on both sides. Drops of blood dotted the top rung of the ladder. “Looks like they went down there,” Cy said.
“Why would they go down there?” Henry asked.
“They probably didn’t have any choice. You ain’t forgettin’ those horses we found, have you? I said it afore and I’m tellin’ you again, we ain’t alone here.”
“Ghosts?” Rap asked, the fear still in his voice.
“You ever seen a ghost ride horses?”
“Well, I don’t know if I ever seen a ghost, but I’ve heard about ghost riders. Maybe that’s what they is.”
“No. These are the two legged kind.”
“You mean ghosts have more than two legs?” Rap shook his head. “Good thing I’m not afraid of no ghost.”
****
Chapter Twenty One