Ghosts of Rathburn Park (2 page)

“All right. Sounds okay,” Justin said. Remembering what a fit he’d just had about having to show up, Matt couldn’t help grinning, but he stopped when Justin looked at him and frowned. “Well, okay foodwise, anyway,” Justin said.

Justin and the spiky-haired guy went on talking for quite a while, mostly about cars. Matt didn’t have much to add to the discussion, but at least nobody told him to get lost. The other guy, whose name turned out to be Lance Layton, had just gotten his driver’s license a few days before, and he already had a car.

“Well, wheels, anyway,” he said. “This antique is mine. Not exactly a Rolls-Royce but it moves. I haven’t gotten around to the paint job yet, but under here”—he patted the hood again—“it’s really souped.”

Matt could tell that Justin was impressed. Justin, who had just turned sixteen, couldn’t wait to start driving, and the thought of owning his own car, even an ancient purple pickup, was probably making him turn green with envy. It wasn’t until they’d said just about everything there was to say about every kind of car in the parking lot that Justin changed the subject.

“So what’s with this park? My dad was carrying on like it was something kinda weird, but as far as I can see…” He looked around and then shrugged. “You know, looks kind of C average, parkwise.”

“Except for the size of the trees,” Matt piped up. “Those trees are really—”

Justin put his hand over Matt’s face. “Cool it, Hamster,” he said. (It had been Justin who’d given Matt the Hamster nickname.) “Cool it, Hamster. Why don’t you go play in the traffic or something?”

The kid named Lance looked at Matt as if he’d just noticed him. “Nah, let him stay,” he said, grinning. “I got things to tell him about this place.”

Matt, who’d had a lot of experience with teenagers, had an idea what was coming next. But being teased didn’t usually bother him as much as being ignored, so as soon as he could pull his brother’s hand off his face, he asked, “About this park?”

“Yeah, that’s it,” Lance said. “Rathburn Park. The truth is, it’s a pretty dangerous place.”

“Dangerous?” Matt echoed cooperatively.

“Yeah, dangerous. As in, you better watch yourself, kid, or you may not get home tonight.”

Matt wasn’t really worried. He’d been around Justin and his friends long enough to know when his leg was being pulled. And at least this guy was talking to him. “So tell me,” he said.

“Well, for one thing”—Lance was pointing at the baseball diamond—“there’s a swamp full of quicksand, right over there.”

“In the ball field?” Matt asked.

“Yeah, sure.” Lance did sarcasm almost as well as Justin. “Right behind second base.” He laughed and went on in the tone of voice you’d use talking to some kind of rugrat, “No, not on the ball field, Dumbo, but not far from it. Right out there past center field there’s a place that floods every winter, and the rest of the year it’s just lots of marshy stuff—and quicksand. Lots of quicksand.”

“Okay,” Matt said, “so I’ll watch out for the quicksand. That sounds easy. Anything else?”

“Well, what do you know,” Lance said to Justin, “the little dweeb’s a wise guy.” He grabbed Matt by the front of his shirt, pulled him closer, and whispered, “And then there’s the graveyard.”

“There’s a graveyard here in the park?” Matt asked.

“Yeah,” Lance said. “Well, right beside it anyway. You know, tombstones and monuments and like that. And next to the graveyard there’s what’s left of the old church. See, that’s it, over there.”

Following the direction Lance was pointing in, Matt saw, sticking up among the trees, what looked like the jagged remains of a burned and broken steeple.

“And on back that same way,” Lance continued, “there’s what’s left of a whole town, and all of it, the church and the graveyard and the town, is”—he leaned closer—“haunted. The whole place is lousy with ghosts.”

Matt’s interested act became easier to maintain. “Wow!” he said. “Real ghosts?”

“Sure,” Lance said. “Lots of people have seen them. And there’s this path that starts at the other side of the parking area. It goes up the side of the hill, and there’s one place on the trail where you can look right down on a palace.”

“There’s a real palace?” Matt asked obligingly, even though he’d already heard about the big old Rathburn mansion, which people in Timber City called the Palace. You couldn’t live in Timber City very long without hearing all sorts of stuff about the Rathburns. Lots of places in Timber City, like streets and buildings and businesses—the Rathburn Lumber Mill, for instance—were still named Rathburn, after the family that had once owned practically everything in the area. And Matt had heard something about an incredibly huge house way out in the country, but he’d not been certain where it was. Not until this guy Lance had told him.

Matt was definitely interested. He’d always liked looking at pictures of historic buildings, and he’d even seen a few in person, like the Alamo in San Antonio and four or five Spanish missions in Southern California. “Is it very far?” he asked.

“Not far at all. Maybe about a mile or so.” Lance pointed across the parking area. “See those two biggest trees? The path starts right there. Why don’t you go check it out?”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea, Hamster,” Justin said. “Why don’t you go do that?”

Matt knew when he was being got rid of, so he strolled off in the direction Lance had pointed. But after he’d found the beginning of the trail, he circled back to get in line for the food, which turned out to be pretty great. It wasn’t until the eating was nearly over that he decided to take Lance’s advice and eased off toward the path that was supposed to lead to the Palace.

W
HEN MATT STARTED OUT
to look for the Palace, he’d had to circle around to avoid the ball field, where a bunch of the picnickers were choosing up sides for a game. The baseball game was another good reason to take a quick hike. There’d be plenty of time for the people who’d hired Dad to find out that while the big good-looking Hamilton kid was practically a world-class athlete, the other one, the skinny one named Matthew, was the type that always got chosen last when sides were being picked for any physical activity.

At the far edge of the parking area Matt found a well-defined trail between two big trees and started up it at a run. He’d been planning to go far enough to see the old house and then come right back. But it was then that the Robin Hood thing had happened, and he’d pretty much forgotten all about looking for the so-called Palace.

It was just like him, letting his crazy imagination get him into embarrassing situations. Like the time when he had been doing David’s fight with Goliath and wound up slingshotting a rock through the neighbor’s picture window. When that happened, Justin had come up with a lot of new comments about bonehead tricks, and Matt could just imagine what he’d have to say about this one.

“Just like the Hamster, getting himself lost on an important day like this.” Matthew pictured Justin’s face as he said it. And he could see other family faces too, his dad’s and mom’s and Courtney’s. Unhappy, embarrassed faces that showed how they agreed with Justin, even though they wouldn’t exactly say so. At least not in front of a bunch of strangers. Matt groaned just thinking about it.

So here he was deep in the forest, leaning on his walking stick and cringing as he thought about what might happen next. Shaking his head, he lurched into a run and went on running until, wobbly-legged and breathless, he staggered to a stop. What was the point of running when he might very well be going in the wrong direction? Which would mean that the farther he went, the harder it would be for them to find him.

He started imagining another scene then. The search party. Dozens of frantic-looking Timber City citizens trudging through the forest, searching for the bonehead son of their new city manager.

In a way it was a slightly comforting thought, because with all those searchers in the woods, someone, perhaps someone with a bloodhound, would be sure to find him. For a moment he imagined an interesting bloodhound scene. An apparently lifeless Matt was lying on the ground while an enormous slobbery bloodhound sniffed at his poor unconscious face. It was better than dying of thirst and starvation, but only a little bit better actually, when you considered how embarrassing it was going to be.

What it would mean was that everyone in town would know, right off the bat, what a loser Matt Hamilton was—and probably always would be. Clenching his jaw determinedly, he started to run again, slowed to a hesitant, uncertain walk, and collapsed in a heap with his face buried in his hands.

It felt very late now, maybe three or even four o’clock. It had been right after lunch when he’d started out, drifting away from the picnic table where his dad was still talking to a bunch of people. He hadn’t exactly snuck away but, on the other hand, he couldn’t remember telling anyone he was going. And now that he thought about it, he realized that nobody had seemed to notice.

So what should he do? Go on running, probably in the wrong direction? Or stay right where he was and wait to be rescued—and scolded or laughed at? Probably a lot of both.

Afterward Matt couldn’t remember deciding whether to go on or to stay put. At least not for long enough to do anything about it. Sitting there on the prickly needles, he made up his mind at least a dozen times to get up and start walking. But then, before he could act on his decision, he changed his mind and did nothing at all. Nothing except for some crying and a little praying, but not much of either one. Not much crying, because he really had outgrown that sort of thing. And not much praying, because the whole mess was so much like all his other stupid mistakes that he was kind of embarrassed to call it to God’s attention.

Time passed and the rays of sunshine sifting down through the gigantic trees became dimmer and more slanted. Obviously the sun was moving toward the west, and if Matthew Hamilton had been anything like his brother or, for that matter, like anyone else in his family, he would undoubtedly have known whether walking west would take him back to the picnic grounds. But that wasn’t the kind of thing he’d ever studied up on. He squirmed, imagining a voice, a sarcastic voice, saying, Oh no. Not Hamster Hamilton. Sure, he can tell you what happened at Waterloo, and how old Alexander the Great was when he died. That is, if anyone ever wanted to know. But don’t bother asking him anything useful, like how to get in out of the rain. Or, in this case, out of the forest.

With his face still buried in his hands, Matt suddenly stopped squirming. He was imagining again. But this time it wasn’t about evil kings or wolf packs, but something almost as crazy. Crazier, really. What he was imagining now was that something was coming toward him. Moving very near and getting nearer. No, not imagining. Really hearing. Something was rustling the undergrowth right behind him. And then, even before he could turn to look, he felt the air stir as it went past. Panicking, thinking wolf, or even grizzly bear, Matt jerked his hands away from his face just in time to see something—a small animal—trotting down the trail. To see a small, hairy creature move past him and…

“Hey,” he gasped. “Hey, dog.” He wasn’t sure, but he hoped that was what it was. “Come back here, dog.”

It stopped a few feet away, and Matthew could see it pretty clearly. It really was, it had to be, a dog. Not a wolf—too little. And not the right size or color to be a coyote. What it seemed to be was a small, dirty-white mutt, with shaggy hair and pointed ears. When Matthew called, it stopped and turned to look at him. It was panting, a red tongue lolling out of its mouth, its tail wagging gently. It seemed friendly enough, but when Matt staggered to his feet it moved away, on down the trail, and without knowing why, Matt followed it.

It wasn’t until later that he asked himself why he’d chosen to follow the dog. There was no reason to think it would lead him back toward the park. Maybe it was true that he knew how to speak Dog, as his old friend, Mrs. McDougall, always said, and the little dog had in some mysterious way invited him to follow. Not that he’d noticed anything particularly inviting about its behavior. But for whatever reason, he hurried after the dog as it trotted away, and even though it wouldn’t let him catch up, it stopped when he tripped and fell and waited for him.

They went on and on, zigging and zagging down the narrow trail. It seemed a long way, and yet somehow, an amazingly short time before the trees began to thin, the light increased, and there in the distance he saw the broken steeple of the burned-out church.

Matt stopped, staring in joyful surprise, and then started to run. It wasn’t until he burst out into the meadow where the baseball game was still going on that he remembered the dog. Remembered, stopped to look, and found that it was gone. The dog had disappeared.

T
HE DOG HAD BEEN
there, only a few yards away, and then it had been gone. Matt was surprised at the suddenness of its disappearance, but he was almost more amazed when he walked out to the edge of the baseball diamond and nothing happened. Nobody seemed surprised to see him, and there was no special attention paid, not even by Justin, who was pitching, as usual.

The players of all ages, three or four men and lots of boys and girls, went right on playing ball. Walking past first base, Matt got a few waves and “Hi”s but that was all. Nobody said anything like “Thank God! He wasn’t lost after all.” Or even “Look! He’s back.”

In the picnic area some of the people, women mostly, were cleaning up while some others, mostly men, were playing horseshoes. A few others were still sitting around the tables, talking and drinking coffee.

Matt made his way through the crowd feeling—he hardly knew what. Relieved at first, and then confused, and finally a little bit angry. Apparently nobody had even noticed that he was missing.

“Oh, there you are,” his mother said as he made his way past the barbecue pit, where the women were packing away the remaining food. “Is the game over?”

Matt said, “I guess not,” and went on past. His father was still sitting at the head table, surrounded by some of the other important citizens. He was talking, and his thinnish, bearded face was wearing the solemn expression that Justin called Dad’s Public Countenance—solemn, but not worried or angry. When he finally did notice his younger son, all he did was motion for him to come over, and go on talking.