The Haunting of Autumn Lake (4 page)

Vaden smiled, reached up, and buried her fingers in her husband’s soft, graying hair. “Oh, promises, promises, Ransom Lake,” she teased.

She giggled when he arched one eyebrow. “Is that so?” he asked.

Vaden clamped her hand over her mouth to suppress a delighted laughter as Ransom swooped her up into his arms then. “Grab that there old quilt off the back of the big chair, woman…’cause I’m about to have my way with you in the apple orchard, darlin’.”

Vaden giggled as she reached down and took hold of the quilt as Ransom carried her toward the front door of the house. Oh, how she loved him! How endlessly, boundlessly, and everlastingly she loved her husband and the father of her beloved children. How she loved her lover, Handsome Ransom Lake.

Chapter Three

“Well, Tawny Johnson swears she seen the Specter out in Nate Wimber’s cornfield three nights ago,” Dan Valmont said. “Of course, ain’t nobody puts a whole lot of stock in anything that Tawny Johnson says.”

“That’s for certain,” Myra Valmont agreed.

Myra looked to Autumn then, smiled, and reached out to caress the back of Autumn’s cheek with her hand. “You just keep gettin’ prettier every day, sweet pea,” she said.

Autumn smiled and threw her arms around her great-aunt’s neck. “You’re too good to me, Auntie Myra,” she giggled.

“Hey now,” Uncle Dan bellowed. “What about me? Ain’t I good to you too, honey?”

Autumn giggled and hugged her Uncle Dan next. He smelled of cedar and peppermint, and she savored the feel of his protective, loving arms around her.

Dan and Myra Valmont were Autumn’s mother’s uncle and aunt. They owned the general store in town but were aging and wearing out more quickly when it came to work. Therefore, Vaden and Autumn Lake took turns helping in the store whenever they could. Today Autumn and her mother had ridden into town with her father and had planned on helping in the store.

“Oh, sugar,” Dan whispered into Autumn’s ear, “we love ya so much. You’re such a joy, sweet pea.”

“I love you too,” Autumn whispered in return. Her uncle released her, and she noted the excess moisture in his eyes. Oh, how she loved his silvery-white hair, the laugh wrinkles at the corners of his mouth and eyes. Dan and Myra Valmont were more like grandparents to Autumn and her brothers than aunt and uncle. Autumn vividly remembered the way her Uncle Dan had bounced her on his knee when she was little. She could still taste the gingersnaps her Aunt Myra used to give her every time she had scraped her knee or bruised an elbow. Autumn loved them both, and sometimes a strange anxiety would overtake her in realizing they might not always be waiting to greet her with hugs, kisses, and reassurances of their love. They were growing older, and Autumn was fearful of the fact.

“I wouldn’t put it past Nate Wimber to cook up his own mischief out there in his cornfield,” Ransom mumbled.

Autumn glanced to her father, smiled, and shook her head at the familiar frown furrowing his handsome brow. “Oh, surely not, Daddy,” she said.

“Surely yes, baby girl,” Ransom said. “You don’t know Nate Wimber the way I do. He’d do anything for a dollar or glance.”

“Well, I think Tawny’s imagination is just running wild again,” Vaden said as she smoothed a nearby bolt of fabric. “That girl tells more tales…and I think that half the time she really believes them herself!”

“Maybe she’s takin’ to seein’ things like ol’ Jerome Clayton did,” Uncle Dan muttered.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Dan!” Myra scolded. “Tawny Johnson’s just wantin’ attention. Jerome Clayton was plum insane! There’s a world of difference between the two.”

“Well, maybe me and you oughta just mosey on down to the old graveyard outside of town, Dan,” Ransom suggested with a grin and a twinkle in his eyes. He placed one elbow on the store’s counter and leaned toward Dan, adding, “Why don’t we just ride on out there and find out if that ol’ cowboy’s grave looks suspicious in any way? Maybe the Specter
is
roamin’ around again. I do believe it has been two years since he was last seen wanderin’.”

“Maybe we oughta do just that, Ransom,” Dan agreed. “After all, if that ol’ cowboy’s grave is open…then we’ll know for sure that the Specter is loose again.”

Autumn felt her eyes widen with delighted terror. “Really?” she asked, looking from her father to her Uncle Dan and back. “The old cowboy’s grave is open whenever the Specter is roaming?”

“Mm hmmm,” Ransom mumbled with a nod. “That’s what they say. And it does seem to me that last time he was out and about, there was somethin’ goin’ on out there at the graveyard. Isn’t that right, Dan?”

“Why, yes indeedy!” Dan exclaimed as if he’d just remembered something. “Ol’ Mrs. Potter had up and died a couple of nights ’fore Halloween. It was all very mysterious, as I remember. Someone was diggin’ her a grave out there, weren’t they? Weren’t they diggin’ out there on Halloween night? And all at once, there he was—the Specter himself!”

“Flames were shootin’ out from his eyes, I think,” Ransom whispered.

“And he had big ol’ long fangs where his teeth shoulda been,” Uncle Dan added.

Autumn wised up then. They were teasing her—as usual. Her daddy and Uncle Dan were teasing her the way they always seemed to do when they were together. Ransom Lake and Dan Valmont played off one another just like a mouth harp and a banjo!

Glaring at them, Autumn shook her head and turned on her heels, determined to help her mother straighten the bolts of fabric. “I am not listenin’ to you men any longer,” she said. “You’re teasin’ me, and I won’t succumb to your nonsense.”

Ransom and Dan chuckled, obviously amused at having gotten the best of Autumn’s imagination—again. Autumn glanced to her mother and returned the delighted wink her mother gave her. She knew her mother loved her father and uncle’s stuff and nonsense as much as she did. But it was more fun not to let them know it.

“You boys quit teasin’ my Autumn, now,” Myra scolded. “You’ll give her nightmares agoin’ on about that old Specter and such things. Why, half the children in this town can’t get to sleep at night this time of year because of that old story.” Aunt Myra put an arm around Autumn’s shoulders and hugged her. “And that’s all it is, darlin’. It’s just an old story somebody made up to frighten folks.”

Autumn smiled and placed an affectionate kiss on her aunt’s wrinkled cheek. “Oh, I know it, Auntie Myra. But somehow…I’d rather believe it was true. It makes life much more mysterious and interestin’.”

“It certainly does,” Vaden agreed.

“Now hold on there a minute, woman,” Ransom said, striding to where his wife stood folding a length of orange fabric. “I thought I made life mysterious and interestin’ enough already.”

“Oh, you do, my handsome man,” Vaden said, turning to tiptoe and planting a kiss on her husband’s cheek. “But everybody loves a good, spine-tingling ghost story all the same.”

Autumn smiled as her father winked at her mother, kissed her quickly on the lips, and turned to leave the store. “All righty then. I guess I best be gettin’ back to—”

Everyone jumped then—startled by a loud, clamoring ruckus that began just outside.

“What in the world?” Dan asked as he made his bowlegged way toward the front door. “It sounds like the sky is fallin’ out there!”

Autumn well recognized the sound of cattle—the lowing, mooing, and pounding of hooves as a large herd approached. But it was the other noise she didn’t recognize at once—shouting and hollering—the sound of chaos.

“Drive ’em back behind the town, boys!” a man shouted as he reined in right in front of the general store. Three other men were reined in alongside him, and Autumn gasped, clamping a hand over her mouth as she saw the injured and disheveled appearance of the cowboys.

“What’s goin’ on here, boys?” Dan asked the man who’d been shouting orders.

The man dismounted his horse, stepped up onto the general store’s porch, and offered a gloved and very dusty hand to Dan.

“William Jones,” the man said as Dan shook his hand. “I’m drivin’ a herd up from Texas to Denver. We was hit by rustlers about ten miles back, and they shot up a couple a my boys purty bad. You all got a doctor here ’bout?”

“Sure! Sure thing,” Dan said. “Old Doc Sullivan is right on down a ways.”

“I’ll get him,” Vaden said, turning and rushing away.

Autumn watched as her daddy approached the three cowboys still sitting their horses. All three wore bandanas over their noses and mouths. It was typical of cowboys on a drive to wear them. They kept the dirt and dust from the cowboys’ mouths and noses.

“You all right, boy?” Ransom asked one young cowboy.

The young man nodded and removed his bandana. “Yes, sir,” the young man answered. “I just got me a bullet in the arm here. Ain’t nothing somebody can’t dig out and patch up for me.”

Ransom nodded and moved to the next cowboy. “How ’bout you?” he asked.

This cowboy also pulled the bandana down from his face and nodded. “I could use some patchin’-up work. But it was Gentry here that took the brunt of it,” he said, motioning over one shoulder with his thumb.

Quickly Autumn hurried to stand beside her father, smiling up at the second cowboy when he nodded, touched the brim of his hat, and said, “Ma’am.”

She nodded in return and then looked to the third wounded cowboy when she heard her father exclaim, “Sakes alive, son! You’re bleedin’ all over everything!”

And it was true! Autumn gasped as she looked up to see the third cowboy, slumping in his saddle. Blood was streaming from a wound in his left leg and had begun to dry on his chaps. His shirt was soaked with blood at the left shoulder, and more dried blood was matting the hair on his forehead, eyebrows, and cheek.

“My apologies, mister,” the cowboy mumbled.

Instantly Autumn’s hand went to the back of her neck to soothe the hair that had stood on end from the root all the way out at the sound of the cowboy’s voice. Then she quickly chafed her arms in an attempt to dispel the goose bumps that had erupted over them when he’d spoken.

“Nothin’ to apologize for, son,” Ransom said. “But you better get on down here so Doc Sullivan can look you over.”

“Yes, sir,” the cowboy said.

Then, as he attempted to dismount, the full depth of his weakness from injury and no doubt blood loss was evident as he fell to the ground and groaned.

Autumn, owning a character twin to her mother, was not only prone to mischief and clumsiness but also thoroughly steeped with sympathetic compassion and empathy. Thus, instantly and without thinking, she dropped to her knees and moved the poor cowboy’s head to rest in her lap.

“He needs to breathe, for one thing,” she mumbled as her father hunkered down beside her.

Tenderly she tugged at the brown bandana covering the man’s nose and mouth, gasping when he opened his eyes and looked at her.

Autumn Lake’s heart skipped a beat—it skipped several beats—as she gazed into the deep blue of the man’s eyes for a moment. His eyes were mesmerizing, like liquid cobalt, only warm instead of cool. His hat had tumbled from his head during his fall, and Autumn noted his hair was brown yet streaked with gold from hours spent in the sun. His chin was strong, and the line of his roughly shaven jaw was as square as her father’s. His nose was a perfect line, but not thin and prudish, nor broad and overly pronounced. And his lips—his lips captured her attention nearly as quickly as his eyes had—for his lips were agreeably shaped, full, and somehow alluring.

All this Autumn noticed in the flash of a moment, in the first seconds of looking at the cowboy whose head lay in her lap. And then it happened—her pure undoing!

As the cowboy gazed at Autumn a moment more, he smiled and said, “Heaven’s got better-lookin’ angels than I expected.” But it wasn’t his fevered mind’s words that astonished her. It wasn’t even the fact that the man obviously thought he was at death’s door, or beyond it. It was the sight of his smile—his broad smile, his unusually white teeth—and more than anything, it was the clefts he bore on each cheek—the bewilderingly attractive dimples the man owned—that left Autumn breathless and staring at him. This wounded cowboy was flabbergastingly handsome! He was violently attractive, and Autumn had to inwardly whisper to herself to draw a breath.

“You ain’t dead and flittin’ with the angels, boy,” Ransom said as he and Dan helped the young man to his feet. “Not yet, anyway. Let’s get you over to Doc Sullivan before you turn me into a liar though.” Glancing back to Autumn, Ransom said, “See to this boy’s horse, will you, honey? We don’t want him worryin’ about it.”

“Yes, Daddy,” Autumn breathed. Somehow she managed to get to her feet, even for the weak condition of her knees. Taking the reins of the cowboy’s horse, she clicked her tongue, said, “Come on, boy,” and began leading the horse toward the livery.

Her Aunt Myra was at her heels and whispered, “Why, if that wasn’t the handsomest man I’ve seen in these parts since Ransom Lake himself moved down from the mountain all those years ago, then I don’t know who is!”

Autumn smiled, knowing there was no hope of deterring her Aunt Myra. “Yes, ma’am. He’s about the prettiest thing I’ve seen since…since…well
ever
, I guess.”

Aunt Myra laughed. “I thought I’d never see the day when Autumn Lake would admit a man was handsome…any man other than her daddy, that is.”

Autumn shrugged. “Well, Daddy is a hard man to follow…in any regard.”

“That he is, sweet pea. That he is.”

“You suppose that cowboy needs anything out of his saddlebags, Aunt Myra?” Autumn asked. The truth was she was so wound up with curiosity she could hardly endure it!

“I suppose he’ll be askin’ for it if he does,” Aunt Myra answered. She grinned then, with naughtiness twinkling in her eyes. “Still, we don’t want to leave this poor boy all saddled up now, do we? I mean, after all, he’s been riding long and hard. Got shot at by rustlers too.”

Autumn smiled. “That’s right! And Daddy did tell me to see to the horse. What kind of seein’ would it be if I didn’t unload him and brush him down? Right?”

“Right,” Aunt Myra agreed.

“And if I just happen to catch a glimpse or two inside his saddlebags…” Autumn shrugged with an air of feigned innocence. “I mean, I’m just tryin’ to help a soul in need, right?”