Night Mares in the Hamptons (40 page)

Ty and Connor came back in fifteen minutes, changed into street clothes, which for them meant cowboy boots and jeans and denim shirts. The horses were safe in their trailer; the other acts were thanked or paid and were on their way home. Ty sent most of the stage crew away, back to Rosehill for the big celebration dinner planned there. They could come back in the morning to pack everything up.

Most of the audience had left, all of the dignitaries, and the Riveras with Mr. Scowcroft, who gave Ty a thumbs-up. Letty and Mrs. Froeler were still on the bandstand, waiting for more of the crowd to disperse. K2's father, Kelvin Senior, was going to drive across the grass from the performers' gate in his heavy SUV to pick up them and Doc and Grandma Eve. And Mayor Applebaum, who'd forgotten where he left his car.

Ty started the chant tape and turned off all but an emergency light on the bandstand. He told me to come down to the field with him.

“And the silver-tongued devil, too, I suppose,” he said, looking at Grant. “We might need him. Everyone else, stay quiet and calm. No matter what.”

Uncle Henry spoke to his men on walkie-talkies. A few of the chosen police started to filter back, along with some other locals who wanted to help, despite the dangers. Everyone who knew what havoc a few mares had caused understood that Paumanok Harbor could not survive the wrath of twenty.

Grant spoke on his cell phone to his DUE agents posted with the FBI, the DEA, and the Coast Guard, telling everyone to hold off. He understood, too, what would happen if the colt was caught in the crossfire. He was in command now, because this was his field of expertise. “The horse comes first, then the drugs and the murderer.”

At last, people were on my side.

K2's father drove up, but Ty made him turn his lights off. He stayed parked at the side of the bandstand.

I heard Doc tell everyone to hold hands, but the three of us were out on the grass by ourselves. Connor was off to the side, tapping his thigh in time with the chant.

What the hell was I doing in the middle of a field dressed for the occasion like Annie Oakley, waiting to be trampled or have my sanity sucked out of my skull by creatures that did not exist in my world? I was ready to run back to Doc's comfort or to Kelvin's truck to hide under the seats.

Then Ty took one of my hands and Grant took the other. I was not alone. I'd be okay. I took a deep breath, listened to Ty intone the words to welcome the Great Horse Spirit. Grant was speaking, too: three words in a language that was half sound and half mental sending, that I could never comprehend.

“Brothers,” he translated the word he'd learned from my troll and his half brother, Nicky. “Friends. Peace.”

So I did my bit. I let go of their hands and held up my pendant with its ancient runes. I thought an image of the colt as prince of his people. “I and thou, H'tah. You and me.”

And they came. All at once, all in that straight line facing us like the Rockettes. They bowed the way Paloma Blanca had, in precision. We bowed to them. Then one stepped forward. I knew she was H'tah's mother. Don't ask me how I knew, but I did.

She came within three car lengths of us. Up close, I could see she was shorter than Ty's horse, a bit stockier. But her coat was truly luminescent, her mane and tail long and silky. Her eyes were blue. Not albino pink, but pale blue, like a winter sky. And sad.

Ty's lips were moving, but I did not hear the words. The mares did not so much as twitch an ear, but they stayed placid, without projecting fear or fury. Grant was the most expert extra-linguist, son of the former best in our world. The Verbalizer could not seem to utter enough words to communicate. I was the Visualizer, so I pulled a sketch from my pocket, H'tah wrapped in the willow tree.

I got a picture back in my head, the willow tree by itself, losing leaves. I had only words in English and pictures in my head. “Yes, he was calling me. I think I know where he is, but I cannot get him out by myself. I guess you could not either. We are going tomorrow, at low tide.” I tried to flash images of the cove, the bunker, the water, the precipice of Bayview above. Then I waved my hand at Ty and Grant and the people on and near the bandstand. “Friends, who want to help.”

She shook her head no. I had a vision of the willow again, with no leaves at all. A tear fell from her eye.

“No! He is not dead!”

She quivered, then shook her head again. One leaf returned to the tree in my mind.

“We cannot wait!” I yelled to the others. “We have to go get him now!”

“But the tide's wrong,” someone called back, Rick from the boatyard, I thought.

“And the G-men are on the cove like barnacles,” Uncle Henry muttered.

The mares grew restless. Bad feelings started to seep into my soul, and everyone else's, I supposed. Distress, disappointment, depression, growing dislike. Uh-oh.

I turned to the others. “Do you want to let him die? Do you want his family to grieve and blame us?”

“Hell, no,” came back from the raised stage.

“Then we go tonight. Now.” I faced H'tah's dam. “We will help free your son.” I flashed the picture of the regal young horse.

They flashed out of sight.

Grant was on the phone. “Froeler's boat is headed toward the cove,” he yelled. “We've got to get there before he moves the drugs and the colt.”

I heard Mrs. Froeler cry out, then sink to the bandstand floor. While Doc tended to her mother, Letty demanded to know what her stepfather had to do with the missing colt, so K2 told her. His father bopped him over the head for being so blunt.

“What did you want me to do, lie to her? I don't have any tissues.”

Letty refused to get into Kelvin's truck unless it was taking her to Froeler, to convince him to let the baby horse go.

“He said he was finding a way so I could walk. He said it was a surprise, a magical surprise, like in my story. He took the missing foal, for me?” She was sobbing. “And now the baby is going to die? Lewis must have done it. He'd do anything.”

The two Kelvins led mother and daughter away.

Uncle Henry had some of the townspeople pull out their cell phones to call every para-weatherman they knew.

“Tell them to get together and lasso the onshore sea breeze. We need it to blow backward, holding off the tide.”

The chief next ordered every SUV squad car and the fire rescue vehicle and the beach patrol three-wheeler to meet him at the public launching ramp a mile down the beach from Bunker Cove. He told the dispatcher the men and women might have to trek in, if the four-wheel drive trucks couldn't navigate over the rocks. He directed another crew to head across the ranch for the hill overlooking the cove, to secure the area and the airshaft. “Stand as lookouts, but don't send the damned cliff down on top of us. And everybody waits for my signal before moving on the beach.”

Ty wasn't waiting for anyone. He and Connor were racing back to the horse van, with me and Grant running behind them.

“That huge thing will never ride across the sand,” Grant called out to Ty.

“No, but the horses will.”

We raced to the launching ramp. Someone spoke into Grant's earphone that Froeler had anchored, then launched a life raft. Two men were in it. The FBI also reported that Lewis was Viktor Luwiscki, who had a long arrest record for everything from assault to possession to attempted murder for hire. He'd never been convicted, though.

Ty drove as fast as he dared, with the horses in the back squealing in fright. He tried chanting to them, but they were still frantic. Me, too.

Then we were at the launching dock, just a concrete slab between boulders where weekend boaters could back their trailers down to the water. Elgin, the harbormaster, was there, loading cops and locals into life vests, then onto kayaks and dinghies and inflatable rafts. The moon was bright enough to tell that the tide was fairly low, and that the rocks along the shore were indeed prohibitive. Some of the chief's forces took off on foot.

Froeler's boat had no lights on, but the moonlight bounced off all the chrome. I couldn't see the raft or the Coast Guard boat that was prepared to blow the yacht out of the water. Everyone was staying back, as ordered, until we were positioned and knew what was going on.

Ty and Connor had the horse gate down, the horses out. The pair was not happy. They'd performed; they wanted their comfortable stalls, their treats, their rest.

“Soon, my girls, soon,” Ty crooned to them, steadying the mares. Connor leaped up on Lady Sparrow's bare back. Ty found a rock to stand on for a leg up to Paloma Blanca's taller back, with no saddle either. Then he held a hand down to me.

“Me?” On the back of an immense horse, with nothing to hold onto? “I'll run down the beach.” Of course I was already out of breath and out of courage.

Grant didn't give me a chance to finish. “I forgot what a coward you are. I guess I'm better off without you.” He hoisted me up and over, into Ty's lap. Ty wrapped one arm around me, and his other in Paloma Blanca's mane. “Go, girl. Go like the wind.”

I tried not to scream. I really did, especially when the huge horse raced past the running policemen with their guns drawn, dodged boulders, and sometimes splashed through the water to avoid rocks that could trip her or break her leg, sending us to smash on the rocks. Then I couldn't scream because I had a mouthful of sand and salt water.

“Damn, riding to the rescue on a white horse. Who'd believe it?” Ty laughed, leaning lower. “We're almost there, darlin'.”

I didn't know if he meant me or the horse.

We heard the argument before we turned into Bunker Cove. Ty pulled up. Connor wheeled Lady Sparrow to a halt behind us. The police were climbing boulders, the locals trying to run through the water. The light craft were coming around the bend, too. Grant, the best in shape, was right next to us, whispering on his cell to coordinate the men headed for the cliff summit. Ty held his hand up for silence, and we all ducked behind the large rocks that kept Bunker Hill enclosed. Ty held his palm over Paloma Blanca's nose so she wouldn't make a sound. Connor did the same with Lady Sparrow.

“I told you I want the horse alive.” That was Froeler's voice, between gasps for air as they landed their raft.

“And I told you we couldn't move the merchandise unless they were at that stupid rodeo.” Lewis, of course, wasn't winded at all after paddling in to shore and dragging the raft onto the sand. “They're suspicious enough already. And that horse is what set the whole thing off. We could have had a pretty little business going forever. But you had to get clever and offer Snake money.”

“It wasn't my fault the bastard got greedy. And crazier. He thought about selling the beast to the oddball blonde and her head-case friends. No one double-crosses me.”

“So you had me off him. You owe me big time now, old man.”

“So go on. Open the bunker. Get me the horse, then we'll talk money. It's worth a fortune, way more than the drugs.”

“Only if you can keep it alive and do your experiments.”

“I told you, I had to wait until it was too weak to drive me as crazy as Snake with its sendings.”

“I don't want to hear about your bullshit sendings. I'm getting the merchandise first, Froeler. Then I won't have to take orders from you ever again. You and that stick you married or the brat.”

“I said get the horse.”

“Go to hell.”

We heard a gun cock.

“Kill me and who's going to carry the pony to the raft, huh? Who's going to lift it onto the boat? You?” Lewis laughed, a sick, harsh sound.

Then we heard keys and chains and a metal door creaking open. We crept closer, leaving the horses tied to rocks. The police were behind us now, and however many of the espers who managed to get there, including Susan and Rick from the marina and Bill from the hardware store and Bud from the gas station. Some of the boats were landing, too, including one with Doc and Grandma Eve. They came ashore behind us, away from Froeler's sight as he waited on the damp sand and seaweed exposed by the rare low tide.

Then the bunker door slammed shut. Froeler started shouting, “Get me the horse, damn you!”

“Get it yourself, you bastard. I'm getting out of here,” echoed back.

Ty held his hand up again, to wait.

The police chief listened on his earpiece and whispered, “A truck's coming toward the edge. It's Kelvin's, but the kid is driving it.”

“K2 would do anything for Letty. I bet he's bringing her to her stepfather, to save H'tah.”

Three men whispered the F-word, one with a British accent. “Can't your men stop them?”

“Not without alerting Froeler and Lewis, whatever his name is. From down here they'll just think it's someone leaving the parking area after the show. Wait! Oh shit.”

“What is it?” we all demanded.

Now Grant was listening to his cell phone, to whoever he had stationed at the top of the cliff. “A pile of rocks is moving. There must have been another hatch to the bunker, inside the cliff. It's about twenty yards east of us.”

We couldn't see the top of the sheer wall from down here. Everyone cursed, but Grant gave orders and Uncle Henry repeated them to his men.

“Wait for Lewis to get out, away from the hatch. Then move in, unless he is bringing the horse up with him. Shoot if you have to, but not the horse. Repeat, not the horse. We have enough evidence to get him for the murder, so it's a justifiable shoot. And get those kids out of there.”

We waited—me in agony—while Froeler cursed and tried to climb the boulders up to the bunker entrance. “Lewis, open the frigging door.”