SleepyHollow2BookBundle (19 page)

“But you don’t believe that, Master Crane, and neither do I.” Joshua let go of the cord, and the crucifix dropped into John’s palm, a tiny weight in the hollow of his cupped hand. “Mr. Van Brunt is very strong and brave, but you’ve read more books than he has. You’re more learned about these things.” Joshua waved one hand toward the window, and John couldn’t help but let his gaze stray toward it for a moment.
 

No sign of Brom on the faintly moonlit road, yet. A shiver raced down John’s spine, and he labored to keep his shoulders square and still as he closed his hand around the miniature wooden cross. “Thank you, Joshua.” He slipped the cord over his neck, and despite his private amusement over Joshua’s efforts, felt a sense of comfort drape over him like a blanket. Yes, he’d wear the crucifix – the boy had made it with his own hands and risked a switched backside to deliver it to him, after all.

Joshua nodded in approval and took a couple of steps backward, slipping into the shadowed hallway. “Good luck,” he said. “And be careful when you go to saddle Gunpowder. I took those hairs from his tail, and he wasn’t pleased.”

As Joshua stepped out of sight, John ran a thumb over the center of the crucifix, rubbing the coarse hair that bound it. He frowned at the thought of the boy hovering around Gunpowder’s hindquarters, surely dodging kicks as he plucked them. If he’d survived that, maybe the cross really would protect its wearer from evil.

When Brom finally appeared on the road, mounted on Torben, John jumped and nearly turned over his chair. He’d sat so long at the table, thinking of ghastly things, that Brom had nearly looked like a ghost himself when he’d appeared in the hazy moonlight, mounted on his dark steed. Pressing a hand to his heart and biting back a curse, John pushed the chair back under the table and made quickly for the door, pausing only to seize a lantern.
 

“What kept you?” John asked when Brom reined Torben in, stopping in front of him.

“Rode slowly on the way here,” Brom said, seeming supremely unaware of how he’d worried John. “Doubled back a couple times, looking for anything amiss.”

John frowned up at Brom, who sat tall in the saddle. “You were supposed to fetch me before you began investigating.”

“It would have been a waste not to have taken a brief look around – our culprit might have preferred an early start tonight.”

They would have gotten an early start too if Brom had shown up on time, but John chose not to point that out. “Well, was anything amiss?”

“No.”

John thumbed the crucifix hanging over his breast again – might it provide virtues such as patience, in addition to protection? Between Brom and Gunpowder, it would be just as welcome. “I’ll fetch my horse then.”

Brom rode the short distance to the Jansens’ stable and dismounted. “Would you like help with the wicked beast?”

“Perhaps that would be best, for time’s sake. I’ve received a tip that he’ll be in one of his fouler tempers.”

Brom replied with a grunt that John took to mean that Brom didn’t distinguish between Gunpowder’s various black moods, and they approached the creature’s stall together.

The cantankerous old gelding was standing in one corner, his bony hindquarters angled toward the door. As John and Brom approached, Gunpowder bent his neck to peer at them balefully, his eyes gleaming with reproach. John laid a hand on the stall latch and the horse shifted his weight onto one leg, cocking the opposite hoof in preparation to kick.

“Our task is too important to risk breaking any bones before we set out,” Brom said, laying a hand over John’s and stilling it on the bolt. “Here.” Brom strode down the aisle and ducked into the feed room, emerging with a bucket. He shook it, causing a sparse handful of oats to rattle inside.

Even Gunpowder wasn’t immune to the allure of oats. He swung about rapidly, nostrils flaring as he scented the air, his ears pinned back against his skull. While Gunpowder shoved his nose into the bucket, John seized a rope and looped it securely around the horse’s neck. Gunpowder seemed oblivious, until he finished the oats. When they were gone, he tugged against the rope and gave John a look of sheer hatred.

“Easy now, you old bastard,” John said, finally unlatching the stall and stepping inside, holding firmly onto the rope. He managed to bridle Gunpowder without losing any of his fingers, and then saddled him without having his toes crushed. “Overall, a roaring success,” he said, emerging from the stall, leading his reluctant mount by the reins. By some lucky intuition, he was able to dodge a bite that Gunpowder aimed at his backside. As he leapt forward, the beast’s lips grazed the seat of his breeches and a hot blast of breath warmed the fabric. John shifted his grip on the reins, holding them directly beneath Gunpowder’s whiskery chin, immobilizing his head.

The lantern was put out and left behind as John, Brom and Gunpowder exited the stable. Outside, both men mounted their horses. Torben pawed the ground, obviously eager to be off. Energized by the oats, Gunpowder gave a few wild bucks that belied his age. Brom waited until John was able to get Gunpowder under some semblance of control before heeling his own mount into a brisk trot. With a few solid kicks, John was able to coax Gunpowder into a similar gait. All went well, until they reached the bridge that spanned the stream that ran at the edge of the wood.

“Whoa!” John barked, trying to rein Gunpowder in and heel him toward the bridge at the same time. Gunpowder resisted, trying his damndest to bolt in the opposite direction.

“Would you like to switch horses?” Brom asked, watching the proceedings with a frown. “I’ll straighten that nag out for you.”

“That’s quite all right,” John breathed, wrestling with the reins. “I’m used to his antics.” It was a sad fact that Brom thought John a poor rider, due to the fact that he’d scarcely ever seen him mounted on a sane animal. While John was no master horseman like Brom, he could at least handle a horse without being thrown, and eventually reach his destination. Usually, anyway. Tonight, Gunpowder was certainly giving his all to his efforts to unseat John and return to the privacy of his stall.

“Nonsense,” Brom said firmly, and swung his leg over Torben’s back, gripping the pommel of his saddle.

Just when Brom was halfway dismounted, one foot in the air and the other still in the stirrup, Torben reared violently, shrieking as he lashed out with steel-shod hooves. As Brom’s foot slipped and he became airborne, Gunpowder seized the bit between his teeth and jerked his head.

“Brom!” John’s heart leapt into his throat as Brom hit the ground, landing on his backside and bouncing before sprawling in the dirt and dead leaves.

“Damn!” Brom was on his feet within a moment, cursing, but it was too late – Torben had escaped. He thundered across the field, running toward the Jansens’ farm.

Gunpowder shrieked and made a desperate bid for freedom, leaping forward and then throwing his back legs up in an almighty buck.

“Don’t let him!” Brom shouted, lunging for Gunpowder’s head. “Don’t let him follow!”

Gunpowder snorted in defiance when Brom seized his bridle, but was unable to overpower the man’s grip. Before John could so much as blink, Brom had seized Gunpowder’s mane and pulled himself onto the animal’s back. John was bumped unceremoniously out of the saddle, left to sit behind it, straddling Gunpowder’s bare, bony back. “What in God’s name are you doing?” he demanded.

Brom replied by wordlessly snatching the reins from John’s hands and digging his heels into Gunpowder’s sides, sending him flying after Torben. Despite the burden of two men, Gunpowder moved with a speed he probably hadn’t used for a good five years. John cried out indignantly as the creature’s vertebrae dug into his balls, and was forced to wrap his arms around Brom’s waist in order to keep from falling off the back end of the speeding horse.
 

Several breathless moments passed, during which he managed to elevate his tender nether-region a little by fiercely gripping Gunpowder’s sides between his thighs and tightening his hold around Brom’s waist. “We must look like complete idiots,” he said between clenched teeth. It was all too easy to imagine how he and Brom must look, two grown men hunched together on the back of a bony old nag, racing wildly toward the stable. John could only hope, quite desperately, that no one would see them.

Apparently worried enough over Torben to risk being seen looking like a fool, Brom rode on, urging Gunpowder toward the Jansens’ stable, which Torben had dashed into. When they finally came to a sliding halt in the stableyard, John couldn’t dismount fast enough. He hopped off before Brom, wincing as his thighs twinged and an ache flared in his abused balls. “How I hate you, you senseless, spine-backed creature,” he said, panting as he looked Gunpowder in the eye.

Gunpowder merely stamped a foot and turned his head toward the dark interior of the stable, plainly pleased to be back home and riderless once again.

Brom thrust the reins into John’s hands and hurried into the stable, murmuring reassurances to Torben. While he was gone, John took the opportunity to catch his breath.

Torben’s nostrils were flaring pink when he was led out of the stable by Brom.

“It’s not like him to spook,” John remarked as moonlight gleamed on the surfaces of the horse’s wide, dark eyes.

Brom shook his head, like a father who’d just been disappointed by a trusted son. “The nag,” he said simply, casting a dark look in Gunpowder’s direction.

John wasn’t about to stand up for the temperamental gelding, but as terrible as Gunpowder’s behavior so often was, he’d never managed to upset Torben so badly before. It was almost as if something else entirely had spooked the horses. It wasn’t impossible – after all, they’d set out to hunt down a headless horseman, and while Brom may have convinced himself of the reputed phantom’s humanity, that was hardly a possibility if the Smits’ story was true. “Perhaps both the horses were scared by something on the other side of the bridge.”

Brom gave John a long, hard look as he smoothed a hand over Torben’s sweat-streaked neck. “Torben isn’t the sort to take flight over a fox or a possum, or any other creature that might be scurrying about in the night.”

Yes, but what of a headless phantom riding a steed from Hell?
John stared back. “Perhaps it wasn’t an animal.”

“Don’t start with your spirit-world nonsense – I won’t have it. We’re out to find a man, and possibly even a dangerous one. Keep your wits about you, and your head out of the clouds.”

There were in fact no clouds overhead, only the waning sickle of the moon, which shed enough light to illuminate Brom’s self-righteous expression. That was just as well, for it meant that Brom could see John’s fierce frown. “We’ll see.” Without further ado, John swung into the saddle, barely suppressing the urge to groan when his balls met the leather, insufficiently cushioned by the thin cloth of his breeches. “We’ve wasted enough time.”

Finally, something they could both agree on. Brom nodded and mounted Torben, who snorted, but was otherwise calm. The mad race across the field had exhausted Gunpowder, and he complied amiably enough when John turned him back in the direction of the road. Together, and both surely bruised, John and Brom rode toward the scene of their recent disaster, ready to track down whoever or whatever was haunting the passage through the woods.

The horses both shied at the bridge, but were tired enough that they could be forced across with some urging from their riders.
 

The wood on the other side of the bridge was eerily silent and steeped in shadow. The moonlight that had illuminated Brom’s face clearly in the field was diminished by the patchy canopy of branches that had begun to lose their leaves, and John blinked, allowing his eyes a moment to adjust. “A man dressed in black, riding a black horse through a black wood, without even a face to catch the light. Perhaps we acted too hastily – how are we going to see him, should he appear?”

Brom grunted, frowning. “Give it a few minutes. Your eyes will adjust.” He heeled Torben forward, leaving John little choice but to follow. “Meanwhile, be quiet and listen.”

John did just that, ears strained for any sound. By the time they’d ridden for a few silent minutes, he could indeed see more clearly. “Someone has come through here in a hurry recently.” The dirt path was marred with deep hoofprints leading in the direction opposite the bridge. Brom had said that he’d turned around at times, searching for anything amiss, but he’d also claimed that he’d ridden slowly.

Brom bent in the saddle, glaring down at the prints. “Those aren’t Torben’s.”

A possible clue. John felt a faint sense of pride and excitement, even as his stomach flip-flopped with a sudden wave of nervousness. Could spirits leave tracks? He’d never read of any cases where they had, but who was to say that they couldn’t? He kept a careful eye on the hoofprints as they proceeded, and was consequently dumfounded when they suddenly disappeared. He reined Gunpowder to a hasty halt, staring down at the place in the road where the deep tracks stopped inexplicably. Beside him, Brom did the same. “Perhaps we’ve got a Pegasus on our hands,” John said. It was a lame joke and did little to ease the tension that had descended as abruptly as the hoof marks had stopped.

Still eyeing the tracks critically, Brom urged his mount ahead, plainly searching for more. John aided him, straining to make out even the faintest impression of a horseshoe in the moonlit dirt. The chilling truth of the matter was that the ground was still soft from the afternoon’s rain, and it would have been impossible for a dog to walk the path without leaving prints, let alone a horse. In what seemed no time at all, they’d reached the edge of the wood without finding so much as a hint of more evidence that anyone else had traveled the road recently. John stopped Gunpowder as they emerged into open space again, and turned to face Brom.