The Mystery of the Galloping Ghost (5 page)

As
the three young people came cantering into the ranch yard, they saw Regan and
Bill Murrow working with the young filly, while Gus watched. Pat dismounted and
handed the reins of his horse to the old man. “Would you show the girls where
the tack goes?” he asked as he went to join the two trainers.

Gus
nodded and grinned at Pat, then turned to grin at the girls. “Was your ride
nice?” he asked.

“Very
nice,” Honey replied. “You have beautiful country around here.”

Gus
nodded happily. “You
betcha
,” he said.

“Come
on, then.” He turned and led Pat’s horse into the stable, and the girls
followed. Once inside, he took care of Al-
Adeen
and
gave Trixie and Honey the grooming tools they needed from a cabinet in the tack
room.

“Have
you always worked with horses?” Honey asked politely.

“Oh,
ja
,” Gus said. “My pa, he
farmed with horses.
Never owned a tractor, though.
I
would have been a farmer, too, but the Depression came and we lost the farm.
Then young Bill’s pa, he gave me work. I’ve been here ever since.”

“I
think I saw you riding your horse the night we arrived,” Trixie said.

“Could
be, could be,” Gus acknowledged. “I like a ride after supper. It settles my
stomach.”

“It
gave me quite a turn,” Trixie said. “Back home, we don’t see many people riding
around on horses at nightfall.”

“You
were scared, eh?” Gus asked. He laughed noiselessly, his shoulders moving up
and down. “I bet you thought I was the Galloping Ghost!”

Trixie
stopped brushing her horse in
midstroke
. “Do you know
about the Galloping Ghost?” she asked.

“Oh,
sure,” Gus said. “Everybody around here does.” He shook his head.
“ ‘The
Galloping Ghost’ is sure some fancy name for old
Gunnar
Bjorkland
!”

Trixie
gave Honey a wide-eyed look. They were on the verge of getting the whole story.
Nobody could do a better job of drawing it out than Honey could.

“Gunnar
Be-
york
-land,” Honey repeated haltingly. “Was that
the Galloping Ghost’s real name?”

“
Bjorkland
,
ja
,” Gus said. “In
Norwegian, we say the
j
like
y.
Over here, some
people change their names to make them easier. Take my name—Gustav.” The old
man pronounced it “Goo-
stahf
.”

“But
that’s hard for folks, so I just go by ‘Gus.’ Gunnar
Bjorkland
never changed his name, though. Too lazy even for that, I guess.” Gus laughed
his silent laugh.

“Gunnar
was lazy, was he?” Honey said, directing the old man away from the subject of
Norwegian names.

“Oh,
ja
,” Gus said. “He was no
good for nothing. That’s what my pa said. I never knew Gunnar myself. By the
time I was born, they’d already hanged him.”

Trixie and Honey
both stared at
Gus in amazement.

“H-hanged him?”
Trixie squeaked.

“Just for being lazy?”
Honey asked, horrified.

“Oh, no.
I mean,
ja
,
they hanged him, but it wasn’t his laziness that finally got him strung up.”
Gus paused and rubbed his palm across his
stubbled
jaw. “Well yes, you could say it was, because it’s just plain lazy to steal
another man’s prize cow instead of raising your own.”

“You
mean all he did was
steal
a cow? That’s what they
hanged him for?” Trixie asked.

Gus
shrugged. “Well, now, things were different then. A man’s
cows
was
all he had. If someone stole one, he couldn’t just go out and buy a
new one. Oh, no. He went without meat and milk, and his family went without,
too. That was serious—almost like a murder, you might say.”

“But to hang him!”
Honey exclaimed. “Now, I’m not
saying they should have done that. My pa thought they shouldn’t have and he was
there. He even tried to talk the guys out of it.”

“You
mean he testified for Gunnar in front of a jury?” Trixie asked.

“There
wasn’t a jury, or any testifying, either.
Just a bunch of
angry farmers and a long rope.
And a tree, of course,” Gus added, almost
as an afterthought. “It was that old oak out back, in fact.”

“It
was a lynching!” Trixie said, feeling a surge of outrage at the thought. “No
wonder Gunnar came back as a ghost!”

“
Ja
, well, people
thought
they saw a ghost. My pa always said that it was just guilty consciences made
the ghost appear. He said that’s why the ghost looked different to different
people. Some saw it galloping across the open country, like the mob was still
chasing it. Others saw it riding slow and mournful, with its head lolling, like
the life was already out of it.”

“That’s
the one I saw—the lifeless one,” Trixie said.
“Unless it was
you.
I mean—” She paused, flustered.

Gus
grinned at her. “There’s still some life in me yet. But I do ride along pretty
slow some evenings.”

“Does
that mean you think it was you, and not the ghost, that Trixie saw?” Honey
asked.

Gus
scratched his head thoughtfully. “I never saw the ghost myself. There’s folks
that have, though—or thought so. I really couldn’t say.”

Trixie
shivered. “It’s spooky, isn’t it, to think of something like that happening
right here? I mean, ghost or no, there
was
a lynching. That’s pretty scary all by itself. I’m
surprised that everyone involved didn’t pack up and move away, to escape the
memory of it.”

“Some
of ’em did,” Gus told her. “That’s why Bill’s dad was able to buy this place so
cheap. Nobody ever lasted very long on the next ranch over, either. That young
Burke fellow bought it real cheap, I hear. Where old Gunnar lived is state
forest land now, so that’s nobody’s concern. It was a bad thing, though. No
doubt about that.”

“That
must be why Mrs. Murrow doesn’t like Bill to talk about it,” Honey observed.

“Oh, my!
You didn’t mention the ghost in front of Mrs. Murrow,
did you?” Gus asked. “I bet she about hit the ceiling, eh?”

“Almost,”
Trixie agreed.

“That
ghost story bothers her. She worries what people will think. Rich people, you
know, who can buy expensive horses. What if they knew their horses came from a
haunted ranch? Now, Bill, he doesn’t care. He’ll say about anything to about
anybody, and just let the horses speak for themselves. Not Mrs. Murrow, though.
No, sir.
You don’t want to talk about the ghost around
her.”

“That’s
what we found out,” Honey said ruefully.

“We
didn’t know why then, but we do now. Thanks.” Trixie put the comb and brush
back in the tack room and left the stable, with Honey right behind her.

“Isn’t
that a fascinating story?” Honey asked.

Trixie
nodded emphatically. “I can hardly wait to tell Wilhelmina James,” she said.

“You’ll
have
to wait. She won’t
take up her post for several hours yet.”

“You’re
right. And then we’ll have to think up a good excuse for going off on our own,
so we don’t give away her hideout. Put on your thinking cap!”

It
was Honey who thought of the excuse, and she stated it at dinner that night.
“Trixie and I still haven’t seen the river at the back edge of the property. We
thought we’d stroll down there after we help with the dishes.”

Her
tone was just right, Trixie thought— casual, but not
too
casual. Unfortunately, she’d forgotten about Mrs. Murrow’s
mothering instincts.

“That
river is treacherous,” the woman said. “The way it winds, you can suddenly go
right over the edge. And there are strong undertows, and of course since the
river’s
spring-fed it never gets very warm, and this time of
year it would just take your breath away to fall in.”

After
the long speech had taken Charlene’s breath away, Bill asked, “You girls have
any rivers out your way?”

Honey
nodded, and Trixie said, “The Hudson River flows right through our hometown.
That’s why it’s called Sleepyside-on-the-Hudson.”

“Do
your parents go through this whole song and dance every time you want to go to
the
Hudson River
?” Bill asked.

The
girls exchanged a look, struggling to suppress their smiles.

“There
you go, Charlene,” Bill said. “They’re too smart to answer that question. That
means they’re plenty smart enough to take a stroll along the river without
falling in and drowning.”

“Go
right away, then,” Charlene said. “And be back before dark.”

“Yes,
ma’am,” Trixie said. “Thank you.” As she said the words, she sneaked a look at
Bill, who sneaked a wink back at her.

As
they had the night before, the girls cut across the open land well downriver
from Wilhelmina’s hideout. Since it was still light out, they couldn’t just
follow the tree line. Instead, they had to make their way through the fringe of
trees and underbrush to the riverbank, and follow it upstream to the hideout.

The
river was high and fast, still swollen from spring’s rains and melted snows.
Trixie fixed her attention on a single leftover autumn leaf, and watched as it
quickly floated past her and disappeared. The girls discovered that there were
patches of slippery mud along the bank. “Watch your step!” Trixie said. “It
would be hard to explain to Mrs. Murrow if we came home with ankle-deep mud
from our ‘stroll’ along the river.”

“It
would be even harder to explain if we came home drowned,” Honey said wryly. She
grabbed a tree branch for support and stepped gingerly across a spot where the
bank had eroded away completely.

Trixie
was glad they’d gotten an early start. Now she could keep her promise to be
home before dark. “Gee, I hope Wilhelmina is already there,” she said.

The
strange woman was, indeed, in her little camp when the girls found her. Today,
with the benefit of more light, Trixie could see that Wilhelmina had provided
herself with a few comforts. There was a waterproofed tarp on the ground, with
a red plaid blanket spread on top of it. There were a Thermos and cup, a brown
bag that probably contained a snack, and a small portable radio. Nearby lay an
orange
totebag
that still had some
interesting-looking bulges in it.

The
lingering daylight also let Trixie and Honey get a better look at Wilhelmina
herself. Trixie hadn’t known, for example, that there were small rhinestones in
the frames of the huge glasses the woman wore. Nor had she seen the permanent
wrinkles down the sides of the woman’s nose, created by the constant effort to
keep the glasses in place.

Wilhelmina
wore her usual baggy-style pants. Tonight, however, the pattern was a wide
vertical stripe of orange and brown, which clashed with her blue-and-green
plaid blouse.
When she sits on that
red plaid blanket, she must look like an explosion at a paint factory,
Trixie thought.

She
started to giggle at the thought, then bit her lip, realizing that she was
being unkind.
Wilhelmina is just too
interested in apparitions to worry about appearances,
she thought.
Her pun made her start to giggle again. To stop herself, she said aloud, “We
have some exciting news!”

She
and Honey took turns telling the story of Gunnar
Bjorkland
,
as Gus had told it to them.

Wilhelmina
had pulled a notepad and a pencil out of her pocket, and was taking page after
page of notes as the girls talked. Sometimes she would interrupt with a
question, to clarify something in the story. Trixie was embarrassed at how
often she couldn’t supply the answer.

One
time she’d asked, “Was Gunnar definitely guilty of stealing the cow? Was he
caught with it? Was his guilt ever proved?”

“I-I
don’t know,” Trixie said. “Is it important?”

“It
would be to Gunnar,” Wilhelmina said with a rare flash of
humor
.
“In addition, if Gunnar had been innocent, the guilty-con-science explanation
would carry more weight.”

Honey
crossed her arms and hugged herself protectively. “It never even occurred to me
that old Gunnar might have been innocent. The story was horrible enough when I
was sure he was guilty.”

“Unfortunately,
jumping to conclusions has always been the human being’s favorite form of
exercise,” Wilhelmina said. “It’s rare that any good ever comes of the
practice. That’s why we at the institute work so hard to avoid it.” She closed
her notepad with an emphatic slap. Then her firm look softened. “You girls have
done extremely well in one day’s investigation. You don’t think you aroused any
suspicion by asking questions, do you?”

Trixie
shook her head. “Gus was the only one we asked, and he seemed to enjoy telling
the story,” she said.

“Good.
Anything else you can find out would be appreciated.” Wilhelmina put away her
notepad and wrapped her hands around the binoculars, which were hanging safely
from her neck. It seemed to be a signal for the girls to leave so that she
could take up the watch once more.

“We
have to be going,” Honey said obligingly. “We promised to be home before dark,
and if we break that promise, we’ll never get out of the house alone again.
Good-bye. We’ll keep you posted.”

Wilhelmina
nodded and waved absently, her mind already a million miles away.

The
shadows were lengthening eerily as the girls made their way along the riverbank
to a safe point at which to cross the open land behind the
Murrows
’
stable. Trixie was feeling suddenly insecure. In a world where a man could be
lynched on suspicion of stealing a cow, anything could happen. From the way
Honey followed close behind her, Trixie imagined that her friend was thinking
similar thoughts.

“Of
course, there’s no reason to assume Gunnar was innocent,” Trixie said.

“That’s
true. I mean, Wilhelmina is such a stickler for accuracy that I’ll bet she asks
lots of obvious questions, just for the record.” Honey sounded as though she
were trying to convince herself.

There
wasn’t much more conversation between the girls. They were too eager to get
away from the riverbank to slow themselves down with talk. As they crossed the
open land near the house, they avoided the topic in the same way that they
avoided looking at the jagged, looming oak tree.

As
they approached the stable, they began overhearing a conversation. Two angry
male voices were coming from inside.

“Just
toss in a match and burn the whole place down, if you’re so determined to
destroy it,” one voice said.

“I
wouldn’t do that and you know it,” the other voice said.

Trixie
looked questioningly at Honey, who only shook her head. She wasn’t sure whom
the voices belonged to, either.
There
aren’t too many choices,
Trixie realized. Regan was unlikely to get
into an argument with any of his hosts. Gus’s accent would surely be
recognizable.
It must be Pat and
Bill,
she concluded.

“Moving
Fairhaven Ranch would destroy it,” the first voice said.

“Why?
It’s just a bunch of buildings standing on a plot of land. Wood and dirt,
that’s all. We can find
those
somewhere else,” the
second voice retorted.

“It
wouldn’t be the same.”

“Maybe
it would be better. You’re still young and romantic. You think nothing bad has
ever happened here, and nothing bad ever will. But that isn’t so. There’ll
always be problems here, just like anyplace.”