Hunting Down the Horseman

She’d barely gotten out of her pickup when Jud Corbett walked up.

“Feel like saddling up and going for a ride?” he asked.

“Sure.” She hadn’t been on her horse all day, and the offer definitely had its appeal. Even more so because it would be with Jud, although she wasn’t about to admit that, even to herself.

They saddled their horses and rode along the edge of the ravine overlooking the movie camp. She and Jud compared childhoods, both finding that they’d grown up on ranches some distance from town, both loved horses and both had begun riding at an early age.

“I can’t believe how much we have in common,” Jud said, his gaze warming her more than the afternoon summer sun. “Do you believe in fate?”

She chuckled. “Let me guess. It’s fate that you and I met?”

“Don’t you think so?” he asked. He was grinning, but she saw that he was also serious.

“I suppose I do.” If he hadn’t taken the back road to his family ranch that evening, and if Laney and Laci hadn’t gone into labor when they had so Faith could go riding, then what was the chance that she and Jud would be here right now?

“Fate, whatever, I’m just glad you and I crossed paths,” he said, then drew up his horse, as below them the ghost town came into view.

Jud leaned on his saddle horn to stare down at it. “Spooky looking, even from here.”

She felt a chill as she followed his gaze. A tumbleweed cartwheeled slowly down the main street of the ghost town to come to rest with a pile of others against the side of one of the buildings. Remarkable there were any buildings still standing.

“So are the stories true?” Jud asked.

“At least some of them,” she said. “The descendants of the Brannigan family still live on down the river.” She saw his surprise. “Some of the descendants of Kid Curry and his brothers also still live around here.”

He shook his head. “But what about the town and this thing with the rag dolls?”

She looked down at what was left of Lost Creek. “I’m sure you’ve heard the story, since apparently it’s what the script of this film is based on.”

“Some outlaws rode into town and killed a woman and her little girl while the townspeople stood by and did nothing. The husband and eldest son returned, saw his dead wife and child in the middle of the street and picking up the little girl’s rag doll from the street, swore vengeance on everyone who’d stood back and let it happen. Does that about size it up?”

She smiled. “Just about.”

“Then the townspeople started finding rag dolls on their doorstep and terrible things began to happen to them until one night everyone in town disappeared.”

“That’s the way the story goes,” Faith admitted.

“Don’t you think its more than likely the townspeople left knowing that the outlaws would be back and more of them would die?” Jud asked.

She said nothing.

“What happened to the father?”

“Orville Brannigan and the rest of his children moved downriver to live like hermits. Their descendants still do. The little girl’s gravestone is about all that’s left up at the cemetery on the hill. Emily Brannigan. The historical society comes out a couple of times a year and puts flowers on her grave.”

“The poor family,” Jud said.

“It always amazes me how many families struggled to tame this land and still do.”

“Like your family.”

She nodded, remembering the school field trip she’d taken to the Lost Creek ghost town and the frightening sensation that had come over as she’d stood among the old buildings on the dirt street where Emily Brannigan and her mother had lost their lives.

That sensation had been the presence of evil. Evil fueled by vengeance. She’d known then that the settlers had never left town. Some years back, a local named Bud Lynch had sworn he found a pile of human bones in a cave west of the ghost town.

The bones, as well as any evidence of the more than hundred-year-old crime, had mysteriously disappeared before his story could be confirmed by the sheriff.

The Brannigans and their relatives called Bud Lynch a liar, but Faith had seen the man’s face when he told of what had to have been the skeletons of dozens of men, women and children, piled like kindling in the bottom of the cave.

There was no doubt that Bud Lynch had seen evil.

DIRECTOR ERIK ZANDER WOKE on the couch, confused for a moment where he was and how he’d gotten there. On the floor next to him lay an overturned empty Scotch bottle. He groaned when he saw it.

He had to quit drinking like this. He sat up, his head aching, the room spinning for a moment. The trailer rocked to the howl of the wind outside, the motion making him ill.

He glanced at his watch. Past two in the morning. With an early call, he really needed to get some sleep. Hasting would be arriving today, and who knew what the hell he really wanted.

Pushing himself to his feet, Zander stumbled toward the bedroom, slowing as he passed the kitchen and the fresh bottle of Scotch he knew was in the cabinet within reach.

“Don’t even think about it,” he mumbled to himself. He was already so drunk he had trouble navigating the narrow hallway, bumping from wall to wall like a pinball. Something about that made him laugh.

He was still chuckling when he reached the small bedroom. The trailer room was just large enough for a bed and a built-in dresser.

As he aimed himself for the bed, he spotted the doll propped against the pillow and lurched back, stumbling into the wall and sitting down hard. Now eye to eye with the damned doll, he saw that it had to be the ugliest thing he’d ever seen.

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