The Mystery of the Galloping Ghost (3 page)

Gus
lived alone in a cabin that was within riding distance of the ranch. Each
morning he arrived for work on his old bay gelding, ate lunch with the family,
and left late in the afternoon. He’d kept up that routine since

Bill
was a boy and his father owned the ranch.

“Don’t
know why he hangs around,” Bill said gruffly. “The work is hard, the pay is
lousy, and the benefits are nonexistent.”

“
Ja
,” Gus said amiably, nodding in agreement with everything
Bill had said. Gus had a slight Norwegian accent. “But the food is just so
good.” He
shoveled
another forkful of beef pie into
his mouth as if to demonstrate his pleasure.

Charlene
gave a little smile. “Good or not, it’s the only food you get that isn’t out of
a can. And when I say ‘out of a can,’ ” she added, looking at the girls, “I
mean
directly
out of a can. He heats it, eats it, and puts what’s left
over back in the refrigerator.”

“All
that ever needs washing is my fork,” Gus said proudly.

Honey
looked slightly shocked, but Trixie said, “That sounds like a good method to
me. If I ever move away from home and my mom’s good cooking, that’s probably
how I’ll do it.” Everyone smiled but Gus, who seemed to take Trixie’s remark
seriously. “
Ja
,” he said, nodding sagely. “Just try
to find a good cook to work for, though.” Then he looked around him, confused,
as everyone started to laugh.

The
afternoon went by quickly, with more demonstration of the
Murrows
’
winning techniques with horses—and no mention of Jon Burke. The girls barely
had time for more exploring of their surroundings, but they did discover that
the trees at the back of the property ran along a river. One side of the ranch
was bordered by trees and marked with small signs that said
State
Forest
.
The other side was prairie as
far as the eye could see, except for one dead oak that stretched its broken
branches against the sky.

Dinner
that evening was a cookout, with Bill Murrow donning a bright-red barbecue
apron and tending a selection of thick, juicy steaks. After everyone had eaten,
they sat around the picnic table, enjoying the cooling breeze and the long
summer evening, in spite of the mosquitoes.

“Well,
what do you think of our little operation?” Bill Murrow asked no one in
particular.

“I
think it’s just wonderful,” Honey told him sincerely.

“If
she gets any more impressed with, uh,
things
around here, she might
never leave,” Trixie said, unable to resist the chance to tease.

Honey
shot her a good-natured look that said she could tease, too. “On the other
hand,” said Honey, “Trixie might leave
Minnesota
pretty quickly if she keeps seeing ghosts.”

“Ghosts?”
Bill echoed. “Why, Miss Belden, you don’t look as
though you’d seen a ghost.”

“I
didn’t, really,” Trixie said hastily. “It was just Gus—at least, I’m pretty
sure it was. But last night, at dusk, he looked kind of spooky, like a vision
out of the past.”

“I’m
sure it was Gus you saw,” Bill replied with exaggerated calm. “But for a minute
there, I thought maybe you’d seen the Galloping Ghost.”

“The Galloping Ghost!
What’s that?” Trixie asked.

“It’s
nothing,” Charlene Murrow said firmly.
“Nothing but a silly
old story.”
She gave Bill a sharp look.

“That’s
right,” he said sheepishly. “I was just teasing. Never
you
mind
.”

An
hour later, back in their room, Trixie asked Honey, “What do you think? Was
Bill Murrow just teasing?”

“He
is
an awful tease,” Honey replied. “Yes, but do you think he was teasing this
time?”

“No,
I don’t.”

“I
don’t, either. The Galloping Ghost isn’t something he made up on the spur of
the moment. There’s more to it than that, and I’m going to find out what.”

“Well,
I’m going to sleep,” said Honey.

But
Trixie lay awake. It was not yet fully dark outside, and she found herself
staring at the dim light that filtered through the window.

Suddenly
she saw it again—the strange flash of light she’d seen the night before. She
held her breath and waited. Yes! There it was!

Trixie
got up and went to the window. Two minutes later, the flash came again. She
tiptoed to the dresser and found the binoculars that Brian had insisted she
bring along for bird-watching. Then she went back to the window and looked
through the binoculars at the spot in the trees from which the flash of light
had come.

What
she saw was someone with binoculars looking back at her!

Trixie’s first reaction
was to drop
the binoculars, as if that could keep her from being seen. But she quickly
raised them again, afraid that the watcher might have disappeared.

It
took her a couple of seconds, but eventually she relocated the shadowy figure.
This time as Trixie watched, the figure turned, scanning with the binoculars in
a wide
halfcircle
. Trixie breathed a sigh of relief
as she realized that the watcher probably hadn’t seen her, after all.
I just happened to look over
there
just as the watcher was looking over here,
she thought.

“Honey!”
Trixie whispered loudly. Remembering her experience
from the night before, Trixie didn’t take her eyes off the figure.

“Is
it the ghost?”
Honey asked as she sat up, managing to sound
groggy and excited at the same time.

“No,
but it’s definitely something,” Trixie replied. “Come here and take a look.”

Honey
threw back the covers, scrambled to Trixie’s side, and took the binoculars.
Several seconds were lost in the fading light as Honey tried, under Trixie’s
direction, to pick out the figure amid the thick fringe of trees. “That’s it!”
she exclaimed finally. “I see it—but just barely. Did you see anything more?
How long were you watching before you woke me up?” Honey moved the binoculars a
few inches from her eyes to dart a glance at Trixie, then did a double take
when she discovered her friend was no longer there. She turned around and saw
that Trixie had already pulled on a pair of jeans over her nightgown. Now she
was sitting on the edge of the bed, putting on sneakers.

“What
are you doing?” Honey asked.

“I’m
getting ready to go over there and see what’s going on,” Trixie said.
“Hurry.
You can’t go wandering around barefoot.”

“I’m
not sure we should go wandering around at all,” Honey replied. “Shouldn’t we
try to wake somebody and tell them about this?”

“There’s
no time,” Trixie said. “The watcher could disappear any minute. Come on!”

Honey
didn’t look entirely comfortable with the idea of going out in the gathering
dark, but she also knew there was no talking Trixie out of the idea. Quickly,
she put on jeans and sneakers and followed her friend out of the bedroom.

There
were sounds of soft conversation from behind the
Murrows
’
closed bedroom door, and Trixie felt a twinge of guilt as she tiptoed past it.
Even
if I could convince them that there’s someone out there, it would take too
long. And by then it would be too dark to go look,
she rationalized.

In
the strange house, Trixie felt as though she and Honey were making enough noise
to be heard back in Sleepyside. Floorboards creaked beneath them. Trixie bumped
into a kitchen counter and grunted in surprise. Finally she made it to the back
door,
then
spent long minutes opening it, ready to
freeze at the hint of a squeak. Once the door was finally open and the girls
were outside, Honey slowly and carefully closed it again.

Out
on the back porch, both girls breathed a sigh of relief and waited for their
eyes to adjust to the dim light. It was still possible to see fairly clearly at
short distances, but faraway objects had faded into dark blurs.

“The
dark will work in our
favor
now,” Trixie whispered as
she led the way off the porch. “It will make it easier to sneak up on the
watcher. We can cross the yard over there beyond the stable, then double back
in the shadow of the trees.”

Honey
nodded and set off for the stable behind her friend.

Trixie
heard a radio playing and the rumble of deep voices in the apartment above the
stable. Regan and Pat Murrow were apparently finding things to talk about. She
put her finger to her lips,
signaling
Honey to keep
quiet.
If Regan caught us sneaking around out here, he’d probably send us
right back to Sleepyside,
she thought with another twinge of conscience.

Crossing
the open yard was the easiest part of the journey, in spite of the soft, broken
soil. As the girls followed the line of trees on the far side, branches caught
on their jeans and twigs snagged their hair.

Uncomfortable
as the walk was, the girls had to stay hidden in the shadow of the trees. They
had to see the watcher before the watcher saw them!

When
Trixie did spot the watcher, she stopped so abruptly that Honey ran into her.
Trixie quickly put her finger to her lips
again,
worried that Honey might try to apologize. Then she pointed straight ahead.

Trixie
was suddenly aware that she hadn’t really planned her next move. Feeling her
stomach tighten, she thought,
I might as well get it over with, before I
lose my nerve.

“Hello,”
she said.

The
word sounded like a shout in the stillness. The watcher let out a stifled
scream and dropped the binoculars, which fell with a thud.

It’s
a woman!
Trixie thought in amazement as the watcher turned to
face her.

She
was like no other woman Trixie had ever seen. She was small—hardly taller than
Trixie—and so round that she looked almost like a snowman. She was wearing
baggy plaid pants, and even in the gloom Trixie could see that they matched
poorly with the woman’s long-sleeved, floral print blouse. Her gray hair was
pulled back in a bun, from which numerous wisps had escaped. Her untidy
appearance was topped off by a pair of huge eyeglasses, which had slid down to
the very tip of her nose.

“Who
are you?” Trixie asked.

“Bird-watching,”
the woman replied immediately, answering a question Trixie hadn’t asked.

She
must have rehearsed that answer in case someone questioned her,
Trixie thought. “What are you doing here?” Trixie asked aloud.

The
woman seemed to realize that she’d already ruined her carefully planned
response to a confrontation. She opened her mouth to speak, closed it again,
and pushed up her glasses. The glasses slid right back to the tip of her nose.
“I’m Wilhelmina James,” she said, deciding to go ahead with her own script no
matter what.

“It’s
a little late for bird-watching, isn’t it?” Honey asked.

“I’m
watching night birds,” Wilhelmina James said defensively.

“Like
what?” Trixie asked.

Wilhelmina
made a vague, circular movement with her left hand. “Oh, like owls,” she said.
“And, uh, like that bird over there.” She pointed at a small winged creature
that was swooping around the stable.

Trixie
turned to look,
then
turned back to Wilhelmina.
“That’s a bat,” she said.

Instantly,
the woman put her hands over her head, as if the bat might swoop down on her at
any moment. “It is?” she asked in a small voice.

“You
can tell from the flight pattern,” Honey said. “It’s very distinctive. I’d
think an experienced bird-watcher would know that.”

“Especially
since you’ve been watching from this same spot night after night,” Trixie added.
It was an educated guess, based on the flash of light she’d seen the night
before. The look on Wilhelmina’s face told her she’d guessed right.

“Maybe
you just didn’t recognize the bat because you’re so used to the binoculars,”
Honey said. She bent down and picked up the woman’s binoculars.

Wilhelmina
took them with a murmured “thank you,” then spent much more time than was
necessary checking them over. Clearly, she wanted to avoid further
conversation.

Trixie
turned to Honey. “I guess even a bird-watcher is something we’d have to tell
Mr. and Mrs. Murrow about. I mean, we are their guests, and it wouldn’t be
polite not to mention a trespasser.”

Trixie
had hoped that the implied threat would convince Wilhelmina to tell the truth.
Instead, the woman drew herself up in a sudden flash of defiance. “I am not
trespassing!” she said. “I am on state property—a state forest, in fact, whose
border follows this river for another ten miles.”

Wilhelmina
had a soft, clear voice. She sounded well educated, Trixie thought.

“Maybe
we wouldn’t have to tell Mr. and Mrs. Murrow, then,” Honey said. Tactfully,
politely, she was trying to get Wilhelmina to trust her and tell the truth.

But she doesn’t believe that Wilhelmina’s a
bird-watcher any more than I do,
Trixie told herself.

Aloud,
Trixie said, “I’d rather not have to tell them. Bill would probably just tease
me about my vivid imagination, after what I saw last night.”

Now
Wilhelmina grew interested. “What did you see last night?” she asked, wrinkling
up her nose to keep her glasses from sliding.

“Oh,
a man on a horse, that’s all,” Trixie said calmly. Realizing that that was not
the sign of a “vivid imagination,” she added, “That’s all it turned out to be.
At the time it seemed kind of, well—”

“Ghostly?”
Wilhelmina prompted.

“Well—”
Trixie shrugged helplessly. Having spent the entire day convincing herself that
the horseman she’d seen was only old Gus, she found it hard to shift back to
her original theory.

Wilhelmina
abruptly turned away from Trixie and Honey. She paced a few steps forward,
then
turned again to face the girls. Her lips were pressed
resolutely together.

“My
name is Wilhelmina James,” she said. She was starting from the very beginning,
and this time it seemed she was going to tell the truth. “I am a senior associate
at the Institute for Phenomenological Research. Have you ever heard of us?”

Honey
shook her head. Trixie stumbled on the long and unfamiliar word. “
Phenom
—
phenom
—
What
?”

“Phenomenological,”
Wilhelmina repeated slowly. “Some people prefer the term ‘
para
-psychological.’
We at the institute feel that the term is a biased and inaccurate one. It
suggests a conclusion rather than maintaining open-mindedness.”

Trixie’s
jaw dropped.

“Oh,
dear—was I being too technical?” Wilhelmina asked. “It’s so difficult to be
both clear and accurate. You see, we investigate what people commonly—and
inaccurately— call ‘ghosts.’ ” She said the word as if it pained her.

“Ghosts!”
Trixie and Honey echoed. Wilhelmina looked at them
disdainfully. “There, you see? People get so excited over the term, and really,
what does it mean?
Hauntings
, apparitions,
poltergeists, even simple telepathic incidents—all are lumped into one foolish
little word.” Seeing that she was again sounding too technical, she paused briefly.
Then she said,
“ ‘Ghost’
is a word like ‘vegetable.’ ”
She pronounced all four syllables of the word. “It has so many possible
meanings that it is meaningless. I say ‘vegetable’ meaning carrot, and you
think of a potato. We’ve just had a misunderstanding. As a result, it’s best to
avoid the general word when the specific one is needed. Do you understand?”

“You
mean there’s more than one kind of ghost?” Trixie ventured.

Wilhelmina
sighed. “Close enough,” she said. “At least you aren’t laughing at me, as a lot
of people do.”

“Are
you here watching for a ghost, uh, phenomenon?” Honey asked.

“I
am indeed,” Wilhelmina said firmly. “I may as well take you into my confidence,
since my fate is now in your hands. Well, not
my
fate exactly, but the fate of my summer research project. I
would prefer not to endanger it.”

“What
is your project?” Trixie asked, impatient with Wilhelmina’s constant quest for
precision.

“I
am investigating a local and long-reported phenomenon called the Galloping
Ghost,” Wilhelmina said.

“Then
it
is
for real,” Trixie
breathed.

“Oh,
it’s far too early to judge the reality of the phenomenon,” Wilhelmina began.
Then she halted and peered at Trixie. “Are you implying that you’ve heard of
this phenomenon?” she asked.

Trixie
nodded.
“Just a couple of hours ago.”
Briefly, she
told Wilhelmina about the mysterious horseman, old Gus, and Bill’s reference to
the Galloping Ghost.

“Interesting,”
Wilhelmina said. “It’s good to know that the legend is still alive. The
published reports are all fifty to one hundred years old.”

“Published
reports?” Trixie prompted.

“Oh,
just some brief references in the local newspaper,” Wilhelmina said. “That was
where I first heard of the phenomenon. I was cataloguing the papers of one of
the institute’s founders. He had several clippings on the Galloping Ghost,
although I don’t believe he’d ever discussed it with anyone.”

“I
couldn’t have seen the Galloping Ghost,” Trixie said. “The horseman I saw
wasn’t galloping.”

“A
logical but erroneous conclusion,” Wilhelmina said approvingly. “That’s one of
the facets of the phenomenon that I find most interesting. Approximately half
of the references refer to the ghost as galloping full-speed. The other half
refer to the slow pace you’ve described. The name Galloping Ghost is used for
both, perhaps because it’s more fun to say than ‘slow-moving ghost.’ However, I
wonder if the two phenomena are related, and if so, how?”