Sleepy Hollow: Bridge of Bones Page 12

  Kate neared the salt block again. But she needed both hands. She wrapped the strap of the feedbag around the pommel and held on. She slipped her entire body through the girth strap and hung from Gunsmoke’s underside, almost belly to belly, bobbing painfully. She let go, dropped backwards, and seized the salt block with both hands. She dangled there, limp as a rag doll, until Jason felt sure that she would slip and fall under the hooves. But she snagged the feedbag strap again. She hauled herself up, her foot found the stirrup and she gained the saddle. Jason felt a stab of pride and then an explosion of pure hatred that he couldn’t explain—until he realized it was coming from the Horseman, who had mounted his steed again.

  Gunsmoke leapt the paddock fence once more they made a beeline for Jason, the Horseman in pursuit. She stuffed the salt block into the feedbag and threw it. It struck the door over Jason’s head and tumbled into the stable. Kate wrenched the reins and Jason lost sight of her around the side of the barn. The salt lick rolled out of the bag and into the dirt. Jason fell on it and pounded the block against the concrete slab, trying to break it.

  Quickly. Quickly.

  But the salmon-white lump was hard as pure quartz. He stood and stomped on it. Pain shot through his knee and the block flipped away, unharmed. How the hell would he break the thing? He remembered the sledge. He threw the block into the feedbag and ran for the anvil. He brought the sledge down on the block, over and over. He barely dented it. Hell, the thing didn’t even know he was in the room. He spat curses.

  “Jason?!” Kate called, her voice circling the stable.

  “Not yet!”

  “Hurry!”

  The sound of Gunsmoke’s hooves dwindled as Kate drew the Horseman away. Jason brought a shovel down on the block. Nothing. He wondered wildly if he could find a tractor and roll over the thing. Or maybe an ice pick? He kept returning to the anvil. He tried every hammer in the collection. He sweated. His eyes watered. The hammer missed its mark and ripped the skin off his knuckles. He dropped it and shouted with pain and anger. The salt block hit the concrete a few feet away. Jason kicked the stump in his rage. The stump wobbled, tipped—

  And the anvil fell directly onto the salt block, smashing it into a dozen pieces.

  Jason fell to his knees and pounded the chunks into a coarse powder. He scooped the salt into both hands and ran for the first double door.

  As he made his line of salt, he recited an incantation after all—the magic words that accompany every desperate improvisation:

  Thishadbetterwork. Thishadbetterwork. Thishadbetterwork…

  He staggered down the length of the stable. He knelt before the other set of doors. He heard the hooves growing nearer.

  Thishadbetterwork. Thishadbetterwork. Thishadbetterwork…

  He had barely salted the second threshold when thunder hit the stable. He looked back over his shoulder. Kate and Gunsmoke vaulted through the upper half of the far door. A wind followed after, blasting the lower doors wide. Gunsmoke skittered short. Kate fell off and into the hay bales. Jason ran to her side. She rolled to a stop, gasped and pointed. The Horseman galloped straight for them, straight for the open doors and the thin white line of salt.

  Thishadbetterwork. Thishadbetterwork. Thishadbetterwork…

  The Horseman hit the threshold and broke as against a sheet of glass. The doorway became jet black for a moment, filled with him. The cloud dissipated. The Horseman re-formed down the hill. He dismounted and stepped over the fallen body of Carlos. His ashen hand reached out, curiously testing the magic. The fingertips crumbled and vanished as they passed over the salt line. He thrust the hand forward and it evaporated up to the elbow, the ash losing cohesion and falling away. He withdrew the stump and held it to the light.

  His remaining fist clenched.

  The Horseman’s anger terrified the horses. Gunsmoke turned circles in the aisle. Jason winced. The Horseman sank his hatchet into Carlos’ body, viciously. His army of ghosts swarmed into the stable. Jason fell across Kate, shielding her. His skin prickled with a thousand burning touches. Kate squeezed his hand. But the ghosts grew weaker, dissipated. After a few minutes, the assault stopped and Jason looked up again.

  The Horseman stood in a foggy halo over the body of Carlos. He held out a hand. The overseer’s severed head flew upwards and he seized it by the hair, holding it high, as a trophy. His other hand had re-formed. The hatchet jumped into it. Jason heard a voice in his mind hissing, “Sie sterben an der Brücke…”

  “Go to hell,” Jason whispered.

  The Horseman turned, casually, and strode into the fog. The horses quieted. Kate’s grip relaxed. She and Jason held one another.

  “Are you hurt?” Jason asked.

  She shook her head.

  He kissed her, gently. She let him.

  She took his hand and they stood. “That was a close—”

  The near set of doors flew open. The Horseman raised a pitchfork and threw it at Jason’s chest. Kate grabbed Jason’s shoulders and fell with him to the ground.

  The stable doors flew shut again. Dust fell from the beams above.

  The Horseman was gone.

  Kate screamed. Had she been struck by the pitchfork? No. She hadn’t.

  “Gunsmoke!” she cried, climbing over Jason.

  The horse crumpled to its knees. The pitchfork had passed between two ribs and had lodged itself deeply. Gunsmoke thrashed. The pitchfork fell away. Four spots of blood blossomed, met, and became a river down his grey side.

  “What can we do?” said Kate.

  Jason circled the horse, avoiding the convulsing hooves. He found the buckles of the saddle. He loosened them and heaved the saddle aside. “We’ve got to stop the blood,” he said. He went down on his knees, stripped off his gloves and pressed his hands to the horse’s wounds. The horse cried out and went limp. One leg shot up and kicked the air, as if batting something away.

  “I’ll go for help,” said Kate.

  “You can’t. He’s still out there.”

  “I don’t care! I won’t let him die.”

  “There’s nothing we can do. Shh. I’m sorry. There’s nothing we can do. Stay with him. Really. You should be here… when he goes.”

  Kate pressed her hand to her mouth, nodded. She sank to the ground.

  Jason pressed the wound. He looked away, concentrating on the pressure, giving Kate as much privacy as he could.

  She sat for a long while, whispering to Gunsmoke. Words of love. Words of pleading. She looked up at Jason. “He’s the same age I am, you know. The same age we are. He’s seventeen.” Her voice was low and desolate. “He was seven when we got him. My m—” Her voice broke.

  “Don’t talk,” Jason whispered. He wanted to comfort her. But he had to keep his hands in the puddle of blood, on the wound.

  Kate shook her head and tears fell. “My mom brought him home. The year before she died. She’d seen the future. She told me I—I would need a friend.”

  “I’m—” Jason began, but “sorry” wasn’t enough.

  Kate rose. She fetched a blanket from one of the stalls. “He has been. He’s been my—my best buddy. Haven’t you, Gunsmoke?” Gunsmoke had grown still. Jason could feel the hot fount of blood slowing under his hands. He pressed down harder. Kate folded the blanket. She slipped it under the horse’s head. She scratched Gunsmoke’s ears. “My best buddy. And I will miss you, baby. So much.”

  He watched Kate and the horse say their goodbyes. He felt like an intruder. They seemed to be speaking telepathically, the girl and her best buddy—her swift steed of a hundred summer meadows, of a thousand jumps and sugar cubes.

  Over in stall “A”, the stallion called Daredevil had quieted. He hung his head as if he understood. In stall “C”, the pony brayed and kicked—as if he didn’t. Kate moved to Jason’s side. She leaned against his shoulder and wept. Jason’s own tears came. Tears of frustration. He couldn’t stop this. The fog of Gunsmoke’s breath grew thin, thinner. It stopped. Gunsmoke’s ears flicked forwa
rd, then back. He went still. The horse was gone.

  “Your hands,” Kate whispered. “Your hands are glowing.”

  It was true. A dim golden glow had enveloped them. They felt hot but not from blood. They were on fire, fusing to the white flesh, branding it. He couldn’t pull them away. They glowed white, silhouetted. He blinked against the light. It twinkled and popped and went dark again. He fell backwards and his hands left the wound. The air smelt of cinnamon and ozone.

  He raised his hands to the moonlight. The blood had been burned away from his palms. Only the backs of his hands remained black and wet.

  Gunsmoke stirred.

  The horse kicked a few times, rolled, and scuffled to his feet.

  “Baby?” Kate breathed.

  Gunsmoke grunted as if testing his lungs to see if they worked.

  Kate led the horse to the wash stall and found a bucket and sponge. The water puddled the concrete. She wiped the blood from Gunsmoke’s side. Jason knew that the wounds would be gone. He saw confirmation on her face. Confirmation and wariness.

  “You’re a healer, too?” Kate said.

  “I guess.”

  “You didn’t know?”

  Jason shook his head. He stared at his hands. Had he healed the horse the same way he’d healed the cookie jar? What was going on with his Gift? “I guess I don’t know anything.”

  She nodded. She turned the water off and led Gunsmoke to stall “B.” Her voice was small. “I don’t suppose you can heal Carlos?” She was looking at the door, where the pooling water had met the pool of blood.

  “I don’t see how. The Horseman took his head.” Jason took a step forward. “I’ll bring him in.”

  Kate caught his sleeve. “No.” She pointed to the white line of salt. Carlos lay on the opposite side. “We’ll have to wait until morning.”

  They made instant coffee and laid blankets over a pile of hay. He helped Kate pull off her boots. She volunteered for first watch, but Jason couldn’t sleep. His mind raced with the night’s events. What had Brom called such things? Swevens and nightmares…

  “Talk to me?” he whispered.

  Kate sipped her coffee. She sat silhouetted against the soft navy sky. A field of stars hung above her. The constellations peered in through the windows and slats.

  “How about a story?” she said.

  “Sure.”

  “My mom used to tell this one. It’s the Legend of the Star-Maidens…”

  She hesitated, as if to gather the memory like a blanket. He couldn’t see her face. He watched her words as she spoke, her story illustrated by puffs of vapor that mixed with the steam of her coffee.

  “Long ago, a Mohican brave became lost in this valley. He’d followed a red deer deep into the woods but the deer had vanished and, as twilight fell, he lost his way. He searched the heavens. He saw a bright star and followed it. It shone upon a clearing in the woods. Spook Rock lay at the center, emanating magic. And, in the starlight, he discovered the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She had long black hair, braided down her back. He’d discovered a Star-Maiden. She was dancing with her sisters and all seven were naked.”

  “Oh, really?” Jason whispered. “Seven naked Star-Maidens?”

  “Shhh.”

  “Why do these things never happen to me?”

  “Do you want me to go on?”

  “Yes. Please.”

  “The brave decided he must take the Star-Maiden for his wife. So he seized her and threw her over his shoulder. And she loved him for his courage. They married and had a son.”

  Jason stretched, lazily. “Then what?”

  “Then it gets sad.”

  For a long moment she said nothing and Jason thought the story may have ended. Two eyes stared down from the breezeway. The pony had come to listen.

  Kate raised a hand and blocked the stars from the window.

  “The Star Maiden missed her home. She gazed at the sky every night. She loved her husband and her baby. Very much. But she missed her sisters—and she especially missed the dancing. So she snuck away one night and returned to the sacred rock. And she begged her sisters ‘Please appear! Please appear to me! For one last dance!’ They came to her and took her into the sky…”

  Kate’s silhouette swayed.

  “She had missed it so much. The dancing. She had longed for it—one last dance. It was wonderful. And when the dance was finished they sent her back to Earth. She thought that she’d been away for only a little while. But that one dance had taken many, many years. She ran back to her husband, back to her baby—but they were gone. Her home was empty. The hunter had stopped waiting for her. He’d given up hope that she would return. He’d taken their child and had left with his tribe. One last dance had cost her everything. And she had no home at all.”

  Jason could sense something roiling inside Kate, some brew of feelings that the story had stirred. He wanted to leap up, to grab her and carry her off—his Star Maiden—and wife? But he’d been brave enough for one day. He was content to have her near.

  “She climbed up to Spook Rock. She heard no music, only wind. She died there of her grief. She dwindled and lost her star-form. She became a will-o’-the-wisp, fluttering between the trees. And see that constellation? The Pleiades. Those are her seven sisters. Watching down from heaven.”

  Kate stopped. She sipped her coffee.

  “And, to this day, if a girl has lost her true love, she can go to Spook Rock and dance, and the Star-Maidens will bless her. They’ll grant her one wish. Any wish at all, except one. They can’t make her true love return.”

  Jason lay looking at her outline. He couldn’t speak. He thought of his future vision. Of Kate in her wedding dress, walking up the aisle of the Old Dutch Church. He knew that the day would happen, somehow. Impossible wishes do happen.

  “And that’s the Legend of the Star Maidens,” Kate said.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Wake me in a bit?”

  “Sure.”

  The pony withdrew its head into the darkness of the stall. Jason stretched his legs and sighed.

  After about a half hour, Kate turned and whispered, “You’re a nice boy, Jason Crane.”

  But he didn’t hear her.

  He had fallen asleep.

  That night, in the stables, the Nightmare returned.

  And this time it was different.

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “The Crane Files”

  Jason sleeps in the stable and dreams of horses.

  He rides through the night on a sturdy animal, his body wrapped in a black cloak. Others ride alongside. Kate rides to his left. Joey to his right. Both are wrapped in cloaks of their own. Joey wears a black fur hat. In the dim moonlight it makes him look as if the top of his head has been sawed away. Kate wears her hair in a long braid down the back, tied off with a ribbon. Jason’s hand finds a similar braid at the back of his own head.

  They ride in silence down the throat of the forest and are swallowed by darkness. Their horses find a rocky brook and they follow it. Jason smells the scent of an herb garden, a sudden bite of pleasant odors. Spearmint and geranium and rose-leaf. They ride past a hut, a crude hovel with a roof of thatch.

  A window flies open and an old woman appears. She fires a rifle. Men throw aside the thatching and fire muskets from the roof. Jason and his friends have been ambushed. The figure of a man rides out of the gloom, raising a hatchet. The Monster has come.

  Kate dies in the next volley of musket fire. She falls into the brook, her life bleeding away. The Monster’s blade finds Joey’s neck. Joey falls from his horse. His face strikes the stones of the gulley. Joey dies in the water, bleeds in the water, his blood mixing with Kate’s. Jason leaps from his horse, firing his pistol, stabbing, swinging his sword. Ranks and ranks of the enemy fall. Bleeding and bleeding and bleeding. At last only two combatants remain. Jason and the Monster glare at each other across the gory brook…
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br />   Jason cried out and sat up, raising a hand against the sudden blaze of morning light. The mist had burned off and the world beyond the double doors of the barn looked vast and vibrant. His skin felt cold, though. He’d slept beneath a blanket of dew. He pulled straw from his hair, stood, and crossed the salt line warily. He went looking for Kate and found her in the office across the yard. She’d just hung up the phone.

  “My dad’s security men are on their way. You shouldn’t be here.”

  “What about the police?”

  Kate frowned. “I’ll let Red decide on that. He’s our top guy.”

  “But Carlos is dead. We have to…”

  She rose, looking out the window. “He was beheaded. How do you explain that in Sleepy Hollow?”

  Jason shuddered, reliving the experience. The reality of it struck him. He’d seen a man beheaded. In his relief to be alive and his emptiness after the adrenaline had burned off, he’d forgotten what he’d witnessed. He’d filed it in the mental morgue with all the movie images there. He’d seen lots of beheadings in movies. But, last night, he’d seen a man breathing and talking and, only moments later…

  “You’ve got blood on you,” said Kate.

  The skin of his arms was covered with black flecks. He winced.

  “Bathroom’s over there,” she said, pointing.

  Jason nodded, went to the bathroom, and looked at himself in the mirror. With a cry, he grabbed paper towels and went to work, rubbing away his terrible new freckles. His clothes were stained with Carlos’ blood. So were his sneakers.

  He dried his face and returned to her. “So what do we do?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Let’s… go out and cover him.”

  He took her hand. An image from the new Nightmare came to him as she led him outside. She had no braid down the back of her neck. As they circled the barn, Jason felt wretchedly uneasy. He had seen his friends die in the dream. And now he would be seeing the dead body of Carlos in the bright light of morning.