Master of the Moors (3 page)

Generally, people who lost
their way on the moors were never seen again, and while
superstitious villagers were always quick to blame ghosts and devil
hounds, Mansfield knew the mires were filled with the preserved
remains of fools who had wandered too far. But Sylvia Callow was no
fool and he desperately wanted to believe she hadn't set foot on
the moors at all.

They halted at Callow's
order, the horses circling until the verve left them.

Fowler looked around,
uneasy. "Why are we stopping?"

"I saw something," Callow
mumbled. "Over there."

Mansfield followed his
gaze but saw nothing but fog. "What do you think it
was?"

A crow cawed somewhere overhead. The
horses snuffled.

Callow frowned. "Fowler,
be a good man and take a look will you?"

"Why me?"

"Because if it's not
anything we wish to know about then you're well-equipped to handle
it."

Fowler looked down at his
holster and sighed resignedly. "Yes. I suppose so. Where did you
say you saw something?"

Callow pointed off to
their right. "There. A shadow of some sort. Like someone hiding
from us."

Fowler looked positively
terrified, which in turn affected Mansfield's already tenuous
nerve. The dread seemed woven into the fog itself.

"Fowler," Mansfield said.
"If it's Sylvia, try not to shoot her."

"Perhaps you should come
with me, just to be sure I don't."

"Perhaps I should." He
started to dismount, but Callow put a hand on his
forearm.

"No. Let him go. I'd like
to speak with you for a moment."

Visibly disappointed,
Fowler trudged through the sodden grass. A moment later the fog
erased him from sight.

Mansfield sighed. "We'll
find her. You have to believe we will."

"Oh I'm fairly certain we
will."

"You are?"

"Of course. In fact I
imagine in the next few moments you'll hear Fowler's announcement
to that effect."

"How do you
know?"

The huntmaster smiled.
"Because this is where I left her."

2

"We should stop fer a few
minutes, Mr. Royle, see if this fog lifts."

Royle said nothing.
Instead he watched his feet squelching in the sodden grass and
occasionally grimaced, as if in pain.

"D'you hear me?" Grady
persisted, anxious to stop before the ground gave way completely,
or they walked right into an icy river and froze to death. He hoped
the saddle blanket they'd used to shroud Laws would help contain
the scent of blood long enough for them to get home. If the horses
caught wind of it, they'd go berserk. For now at least, they
plodded dutifully along, no hint in their demeanor of the tragedy
Lightning had caused. In that, Grady envied them, for he was
finding it increasingly difficult to erase the ingrained image of
Laws flying backward through the air, the blood soaring upward from
his face like an elongated tongue.

"We should have stayed
with them," Royle said, rubbing his brow with the back of one pudgy
hand. "We'll get lost out here. End up like Laws. Jesus..." His
face creased into a grin; a laugh bubbled out of him. "Wait until
my bitch of a mother-in-law hears about this!"

Grady stopped, halted his
horse, and looked squarely at Royle. "Listen to me," he said, "what
happened was an accident. Laws has been around horses long enough
to know that the red ribbon on Lightnin's tail wasn't there fer
decoration. He was distracted, that's all. A case of bein' in the
wrong place at the wrong time."

"But his head...did you
see what Lightning did to his head?"

"I did."

"What will I tell her?
What will I tell his wife?"

"The truth," Grady told
him. "That he wasn't payin' attention and the horse kicked
him."

"Nothing else?"

"What else is
there?"

"Plenty."

"Try to keep yer mind off
it," Grady advised.

"Do you think the others
will be all right?"

"Yes. I wouldn't have left
'em if I didn't."

Stones crunched beneath
their feet, which to Grady signified that they'd reached the Hay
Tor, although there would be no hope of seeing the gravel marker in
the fog. Still, it would be a good place to rest and it told him
they were headed in the right direction. Of course, there was also
a chance that they'd been going around in circles and had come back
to the same tor they'd passed with the hunt, but he doubted his
tracking skills had atrophied that badly since he'd last been
called upon to use them.

"We'll stop fer breath
here," he said, looping the mare's tether around a small boulder,
which he also used as a seat.

Royle, fist white around
Lightning's reins, sat down opposite him on a rotted stump Grady
feared wouldn't hold his weight.

The fog passed between
them like a parade of ghosts. Once or twice, the rotund man's gaze
shifted to the shrouded body dangling over the side of Grady's
horse, but never lingered for too long.

"The shadow of death,"
Grady said, once he'd settled himself.

"What?"

"Laws said he saw
somethin' in the fog. A couple of seconds later he was dead. Few of
death's recruits get to share what they see before he takes 'em. I
think, given another minute, our friend would've been able to
describe him fer us. In that regard, we're better off I
think."

Royle scoffed, but there
was uncertainty in his eyes. "You really believe in that
nonsense?"

Grady shrugged, but said
nothing.

"Then I suppose you're
also convinced there really is a spectral fiend haunting this very
moor?"

"Not at all. The Beast of
Brent Prior is a myth."

"How can you be
sure?"

Grady shook his head. "A
large dog ravagin' a farmer's livestock, half-glimpsed in the dark,
heard howlin' in the dead of night, eyes blazin' when lit by
lantern-light, and seldom glimpsed in the day---isn't that mysterious
enough to warrant speculation, and turn rational man's thoughts to
the supernatural? The superstition has always been there, Mr.
Royle, fueled by old wives tales and exaggerated historical fact.
Give our hardy farmers a shadowy figure and a brace of mutilated
sheep and they'll quickly lean toward legend before
logic."

"And what of those who've
claimed to have seen more than just fleeting glimpses of the
thing?" Royle asked. "Jim Potter saw it loping toward the village
one night as he was closing his living room curtains. Passed
straight through the light from his window. 'A long dark shape,
almost like a lizard,' he said. And other people have seen it too.
You remember old Dan McGowan? He claimed the abominable thing was
circling his house, like a vulture, until the night he took his
Winchester to it and blew a few sizable holes in its
rump."

"Stories," Grady said,
glancing over at his horse and the crooked shape atop its rear.
"Nothin' but fanciful tales told to make heroes outta cowards. All
it takes is fer the story to be told once and you can be sure
everyone who heard it will have some kind of a terrifying encounter
of their own soon after." He produced his briar pipe and a small
pouch and began to fill the bowl. Then he touched a match to it,
drew deeply and exhaled blue smoke into the fog. "Let me ask you
this, Mr. Royle. Have
you
ever seen the Beast of Brent Prior?"

Royle stared, but in his
eyes Grady could see a man weighing the benefit of tainting a
cordial exchange with an untruth. Eventually he slumped and shook
his head, as if ashamed of being unable to endorse his beliefs with
a testimony of his own, or of having to concede a debate to a mere
groundskeeper. Grady had no illusions that this brief spell of
amiability would ever extend beyond the ragged circle of the tor's
pedestal. For Royle, it wouldn't be proper.

"Well," Grady said,
upturning his pipe and emptying the bowl onto the hard ground,
"let's just say this: I hope I'm right, but if I'm not, then let us
both pray we never discover the truth of it."

Royle nodded. "Fair
enough."

"Good." Grady rose on
painful legs, his knees like rusted hinges. "Then we'll head off
before the dark decides to creep up and let us know her secrets,
shall we?"

"Can we not wait another
while? I haven't yet caught my breath."

Grady smirked. "Hard to do
that when you're talkin'. Anyway, we best head off now. The fog's
not showin' any signs of dispersin'."

Both men stood and it seemed the air
was colder than before.

"It's awfully dense, isn't
it?" Royle said, alarmed. "Will we be able to find the
way?"

"Have faith, Mr. Royle,"
Grady told him, though in truth his own had faded a little. He
resisted the instinctive urge to bat at the fog as if it were
nothing more than smoke that could be cleared with the swipe of a
hand.

"Callow is out of his
mind," Royle muttered, and tugged on Lightning's reins. "Even our
imaginary Beast would have better sense than to come out in weather
like this." When he turned, he saw that Grady was still standing
next to the boulder he'd been sitting on. He wasn't moving. "What's
wrong?"

For a moment the
groundskeeper said nothing, then he spoke in a quiet voice, as if
afraid of being overheard. "She's gone."

Royle frowned, confused.
"Who?"

"Alice. Me mare. She's
gone. I have her tether but there's nothin' on the other end of
it."

"She got
loose?"

"Must've." Grady gave a
short sharp whistle but the fog seemed to swallow it, as if he'd
whistled into a wall. They waited for a sound: a snuffle, jingle,
trot or neigh, anything to signify the mare's presence amid the
rolling clouds.

Nothing. The time stretched out until
it seemed as if hours had passed before Grady turned to look at
Royle.

"She's out there all
right," he said, clearly unimpressed by the horse's mutiny.
"Somewhere. But I haven't a hope of findin' her in this. Maybe the
other lads'll come across her on their way back. If not, then she
can spend the night on the moors."

"Couldn't you follow the
tracks?"

"In this? Even if I could,
God knows where they'd lead me."

"So you're just going to
leave her?"

"Christ almighty!" Grady
said, clapping both hands to his mouth, startling Royle in the
process.

"What? What is
it?"

The color had drained from
the groundskeeper's face. "The
body
. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the
bloody mare has gone off with the body!"

He turned as if to storm
off into the fog, but Royle grabbed his arm. "Wait! Where are you
going? You just said you'd never find her out there."

"Yes, but now I have
to."

"But you'll get
lost!"

The groundskeeper paused,
head cocked, listening.

Royle froze. "What is
it?"

"Listen."

Moments passed without a
sound. Then, just as Royle was about to ask again what it was they
were supposed to be hearing, there came the unmistakable clop of a
hoof striking stone.

Grady, with a relieved
smile said, "There she is. That's her."

"Thank God."

Grady walked slowly in the
direction of the sound. "C'mon Alice," he called. "C'mon
girl."

A rattle. Then:
clop-clop-clop
. She
sounded close. Grady cursed the thick shifting clouds and took
another few steps, pausing to check that he hadn't lost sight of
Royle. The fat man stood by his horse, looking worried.

"Alice, come on love." The
groundskeeper moved forward, hand outstretched. The mare whinnied,
danced on the spot, nervous.

He could see her now.
"Come on..." She was less than five feet away.

The horse screamed. It was
a horrifying, unnatural sound, like rusted steel being grated
together, or mangled. Grady, startled, staggered back and collided
with Royle. Lightning reared up, eyes whiter than the fog, head
thrashing. Royle turned to placate her. Grady was already moving
back toward the dreadful sound of his horse in agony.

A loud hissing sound stopped
him.

"What on earth is
that?
" Royle said, fear
rattling his voice. "Easy, Lightning." But the horse was not to be
calmed, no more than Grady's horse was to be saved from whatever
was tormenting it. The groundskeeper dared another few steps. There
was a sudden tearing sound and Grady was struck full in the face by
a warm wet spray. He gasped in horror and looked down at himself,
at the dark red liquid that had saturated him.

Blood.

Royle cried out.

The fog parted and a
lumbering shape staggered forth. For one soul-freezing moment,
Grady thought he was just about to have his first dreadful glimpse
of the fabled Beast of Brent Prior, but as he backed away, he
realized it was nothing so complicated as that, though the mythical
creature might well have been the instigator of this horror before
him. He leapt aside, just in time to avoid the collapsing ruin of
meat that had once been his horse. Lightning shrieked and struggled
to be free of Royle's restraint, the blood inciting the mare's
instinct to flee.