Old Sins Cast Long Shadows - Mystery Of The Horseman Solved -- Or Is It?

09 October 2021

Story #1034

R. Linda:

It be said that many a ghost will walk the earth on All Hallows Eve. Maybe that's why they call it 'mischief night'. A few years ago, I discovered that less-trodden path at the back of me property, and unnerving as that walk was, that experience kept me from going there (See The Road To Nowhere, 16 Oct. 2020). I've noticed our two outdoor cats either jump or quick-step across that bit of sandy dirt, and that alone keeps me from travelling it. Me curiosity be such that I have been tempted on sunny summer days to travel down and see if anything has changed, but prior attempts always ended in scaring the bejesus out of me, so I stay put.

I bring this up because not long ago, I went to the general store, and the usual locals were sitting around a potbellied stove having a gabfest. I nodded hello, ordered a sannie and drink, and then perused the penny candy. I could overhear the old men around the stove talking, and I tried not to listen, but well, I couldn't help but hear them.

"Eyah, I remembah Mick Maloney. I wuz a small boy, an' Mick wuz my fatha's workah when my granddad owned the storah heah. Bad end he had, eyah."

As I listened, the hairs on the back of me neck stood up. To add to this, the day had turned dark with a rumble of thunder. I looked up, and when I did, I caught the attention of the three men seated around the stove.

"Gabriel, ain't it?" One white-bearded old gent asked me. I remembered later his name was Jake.

"Gabe, yes," said I, "I don't mean to eavesdrop." I gestured helplessly.

"Come 'ere and have a seat while you wait," one of the others said, slapping his ancient hand on the only empty chair. Wouldn't you know it, a crash of thunder filled the air as his hand slammed the seat. 

I went over, feeling the heat in me face from being caught listening, and sat it down. I tried to apologise, but they wouldn't hear of it. 

"You come in, an' no one can help but hear the talk, ya know, " said the white-bearded man, and they all grunted and nodded like it was no big deal. 

I smiled sheepishly but could think of nothing to say.

"So this Mick," the speaker leaned toward me and whispered, "No offence; that waas his name, ya see."

"None taken," I smiled tentatively, "please go on."

"So Mick hadda terrible habit of the drink, ya see, and he was a bit of a selfish man. He bragged aboat how he had com inta some money left him by a relative, an' how he had wads a cash stashed on his person. Mind ye, not around his house, ON 'EM. Well, as ya might think, this caught the attention of the two local baddies and once they had the wind in their nostrils, the wuz no stoppin' 'em from thinkin' how all that money might benefit them.

"Now, Mick musta had some cash because he bought himself a white mare to ride aboat town on, an' so it was thought at the time. Ya know, probably couldn't afford no automobile, so a horse waas the next best thing, an' a flashy white one, ya couldn't miss it. Anyway, for aboat a week he rode that horse from one end of the village to the tother. Never waas there a more prideful man than Mick. He lorded it oveh those in the village who didn't have transportation, only their feet. This behaviour also got the two baddies' attention, an' they resented it! Yes, they did deep in theah black hearts, they weah now more than evah out to do injury to Mr. Mick Maloney.

"Well, in the last week of Octobah of that yar, Mick come upon the two men quite by accident, it waas said, but I don't think anythin' waas by accident, knowing aboat those two lawbreakahs. They told Mick they had the best bootleg lickor money could buy an' if he waas interested, he should meet 'em in an outta the way place and they'd give him a bottle or two fur a price. Now Mick liked his lickor, he did, an' his eyes sparkled, an' he sat up straighter on his pale horse an' made the deal right then an' theah.

"On the night afore Halloween (I remembers it well), it waas said Mick rode his horse to the old revolutionary burial ground where the old soldiers are buried. The signal for the two to meet him theah waas a lit jack o'lantern set on the old dilapidated bridge of the crik and one on General Fisk's grave, the tallest stone in the graveyard."

Wow, that perked me up big time (See Dragon gifts me Mam, who horrified, gifts me! 04 Feb 2018). I knew exactly where this was, and I leaned forward to listen better, but the name Fisk came home resoundingly. That was the grave marker Dragon bought me Mam that me Mam, who, in turn, handed it off to me!

"So all this Mick had done, he got off his horse and sat with his back to the General's gravestone, waiting while the only sound waas his horse chomping grass. What happened next is sketchy at best, an' no one is really certain how events took place, BUT the two did show up, it is said, drunk as skunks. Theah waas some altercation from an already lickored-up Mick aboat the booze being not what he waas promised. In turn, the two fleeced him ovah for the wad of cash he bragged aboat keeping on his person. No wad of cash did they find an' so they threatened his life if he didn't tell them wheah he had stashed it. He told them he lied, waas no wad of cash, and they asked him aboat the horse, how did he pay fur that?! He didn't, he told 'em the horse waas on loan for two weeks an' he waas promised extra to take care of it while the owner waas out of town. It waas all a sham!

"Not believing 'em, they threatened to chop off his head, an' he, not believing THEM, laughed in theah faces. Well, if they meant it or not afore, they meant it then! One of the baddies reached for the old rusted sword that stood in memorial to General Fisk, an' in the heat of anger an' betrayal, he slashed Mick's throat an' hacked until he had the head! Awful, awful, I know, but that's what he did, being out of his mind with drink and anger. They gathered Mick up, tied 'em to the horse with his boot laces, slapped its rump, and sent it flyin' down the old road to the village. The head no one evah found . . . nor the sword."

And he stopped, silence prevailed, all of us still hearing his last words banging around our heads. The rumble of thunder was gentle now in the background, as if in respect for the dead.

"How terrible," I muttered. "This really happened?"

"Eyah, it did. People saw that horse with its headless horseman, an' that's how the legend waas born heah, right heah."

"Seems convenient the sword was handy," I commented, being the newsman I be.

"That sword waas nevah found along with the head, but I do remembah as a young boy seein' it at the old burial ground. It was the General's favourite sword an' he wanted it placed next to his tombstone, so it waas in a special granite sheath."

"Who was this General Fisk?" Again, the news reporter's hat was on.

"Don't quite know his storah. No one does anymah."

"They catch the two bad guys?" 

"Oh, they did indeed. Hung 'em somewhere round heah. It is said theah ghosts walk the old road looking fur Mick, who rides his horse every Octobah 30 lookin' fur his head."

Hmm, I thought this was crazy. They had to be in on all that headless horseman and pumpkin throwing at me at that bridge last year. I had gone to the town hall and asked about everything, and I had never heard a story like this! I was sceptical, and why wouldn't I be after that tale?

The burial ground

Feeling angry that I was duped, I told the three in so many words me story of the mile hike up that road with me eldest. They listened intently and convincingly like they were hearing it for the first time. I was confused. I had it in me head that there were three of them, just like three in the Mick Maloney story. But they were ancient, and I could not see them riding a horse or lobbing pumpkins for the life of me.

One of the men caught hold of the fabric on me sleeve and tugged for me attention. He leaned toward me and asked me in a quiet voice if I'd seen a face in the jack o'lantern on the old bridge.

I was taken aback. WHAT? I smiled, thinking he was pulling me leg, but he was serious and didn't move, waiting for me to answer.

"Well, no, but I didn't look," I said, filled with dread and confusion.

He signalled all of us to lean together and quietly said, "I have."

He looked at each of us intently, his old bloodshot eyes serious. We nodded all around, believing him.

"And you have too, I reckon." The quiet man said to me as the other eyes watched me. But I didn't see a face, I never looked, but I could see they didn't believe me.

"Whose face did you see?" I asked the quiet man in a whisper.

"Mick's." He whispered back, almost choking on the name.

I know what you're thinking—they had me, but good. But I am not so sure. They all got up, saying nothing to each other, and walked away. One went to the back of the store to look at the magazines for sale, the other went out the door and walked home, and the quiet man stood looking at the stove, biting his lip as if he were afraid. 

And the thunder rumbled in the almost black sky. The rain came in buckets, and I paid for my sannie and drink. I stood by the open door, feeling the chill from the rain, and I wondered.

Gabe

Copyright © 2021 All rights reserved

The Road To Nowhere

16 October 2020

Story #1003

R. Linda:

“Stones have ears. Trees have eyes. Leaves have voices. Beasts tell lies. Beware the rain. Beware the snow. Beware the road you think you know."

About three years ago, quite by accident, I discovered a road behind me new home. The setter had got away from me, and I followed her into the woods at the end of the back field behind the house. I could see flashes of her red and white self as she hunted, nose to the ground picking up a scent. I called but when she was in hunting mode (after all she was a bird dog), there was no stopping her. She'd follow the scent until she found and flushed out the bird or it simply disappeared. 

That morning she led me to a road I'd never seen or knew existed beyond the woods bordering my property. It was small, fit for three people to walk abreast, sandy grey with no weeds and pristine. Deep woods abutted it on both sides, and looking ahead I could see the flash of my dog's tail as she followed the scent. I ran after her still calling and as I went quite a ways, I lost sight of her and saw a small and rickety covered bridge before me. Well, this was something. I went up to it and it was still sturdy but full of holes where the years of weather had damaged it. I went through it, minding any holes in the flooring to the other side. I looked back at it, wondering about it, and the road that came out of nowhere and seemed to go nowhere.

I turned in time to see the flash of white ahead and took off after the still-hunting setter. I came upon an ancient cemetery. I stopped thinking it odd that a cemetery this remote was even there, but this be New Hampshire, there are lots of these forgotten cemeteries. The pointy wrought iron gate was loose on its hinges but still latched. I opened the creaky thing and stepped inside. The markers were old and faded from the late 1700s. I could read names like Ezra, Josiah, Eli, and Ebenezer, but I could not read the rest. All the stones had sunk at angles into the ground over the years. All were overgrown with long brown grasses. Standing there in the quiet was unnerving, only the wind whispering through the fading leaves making odd sounds. 

As I turned to leave, me dog came bounding up and I caught hold of her. I closed the old gate behind me as I went and looked down the road but it ended just beyond the graves. When I returned to the starting point, I followed the road, but it didn't go but 20 feet more. Hum, a road that went nowhere and somehow was either maintained by someone or nature tended it on her own. 

I looked at the plot plan and maps of the town, and I couldn't find anything. Therefore, for all intents and purposes, a road should not exist. The graveyard I saw and the family had all died out, so it was never tended to. The bridge was not on the map at all. I mentioned this, but no one, even native Ben, knew anything about the road. Last year when me middle kiddo had a school assignment to hike a mile I thought of the road. The road was about a mile long or so. I suggested we take the walk there and my boy was all about it, but he decided to hike on the old railroad bed with his friends instead. Now before this, that winter I had taken the other hound for a walk and knowing there was a strip of road in the woods, I took him there. It had snowed and we walked the road following the white path. I noticed the silence that surrounded me. It was eerie, R. Linda, it made me nervous, it felt like we were being watched but in the whiteness, I could see no one. 

Occasionally, a gust of cold wind would blow up, and snowflakes would scurry in our path. It felt bone-chilling, and to be honest, I turned around sooner than I was going to and headed home. The silence was all-encompassing—no birds, no sounds, just that overwhelming silence.

The next time I attempted it was early spring when the green shoots were ready to burst forth on the trees. The sound of tree frogs got louder the closer I got to the old covered bridge. The cacophony was overpowering, and I felt like the frogs would jump out of the trees. Well, you get the creepy idea. A cold rain beat down on me, soaking me to the skin by the time I got home. The smooth surface of some of the large rocks tumbled before me as if they heard me coming as I skirted them home. Those rocks were weird, all smooth like river stone, but they were not that. They were slippery, and I almost tripped a few times. Again, I felt like the stones could feel me coming and were out to get me. Stupid thought I know, but I can't explain any other feeling but that one.

The last time I was on the road, was in the summer (meself and the hound again, I didn't trust the setter to run off on me), and this time at sunset. The crickets chirped at first, but the sound was deafening as soon as I got to that bridge. We turned around, even the dog didn't want to go any further. On the walk back, the atmosphere was spooky, and the light was waning. The trees seemed to be watching, or at least it felt like that, measuring each step I took back with some chant from the leaves I could not catch. The hooting of an owl caused me to almost jump out of me skin. I hustled back home as quick as I could. There was something about that road.

O'Hare, on hearing about this, was all about us hiking the road together. We decided to hike at night. The day had been caught up in Halloween (a big occasion at my house. I know any excuse for a celebration), so it was late and I was going to call the hike off, but O'Hare was wired on candy and ready to go. 

He knew of the road but had never seen it, because I did tell him of its existence, but never my experiences on it.

"Where did this come from?" He looked around himself in amazement. "It is all forest and here is this strip of path?"

Yes, I agreed. We set off torches (flashlights to Americans) in hand. The night had a chill to it, perfect for Hallowmas, we walked at a good pace, O'Hare chatting about trick or treating and then suddenly he went quiet.

"Da, do you see a light up ahead?" 

Yes, I did. It had an orange glow, we squinted our eyes, trying to determine if someone was ahead of us. As we approached the bridge, we could see a Jack-o-Lantern wedged in one of the bridge posts. 

"No one here," O'Hare said, then shouted, "Hello?"

There was no answer. We listened, O'Hare's shout vibrating in the still air. The air was chilled around our heads, and the silence was deafening. I urged him to start ahead and leave the lit pumpkin alone. As we rounded the curve in the road, we both saw lights up ahead. 

"More pumpkins, I think," I said.

I was correct. When we got to the cemetery, each slanted headstone had a Jack-o-lantern resting on it.

"Wow! What is this?" O'Hare said looking spooked. "A cemetery? Is it real?" He asked me.

"Yes, and I don't know who would do this," I said.

"Did you?" He looked at me slyly.

"No, I swear," I said raising me right hand.

"Then?"

"I don't know," I said. 

"Can we go home? I don't like this, I don't like it here."

"Yes, let's go," I said, and we turned back and looked at the fading lights over our shoulders. We were mostly silent; the wind had picked up along with our pace, and the darkness seemed darker if possible. The forest on both sides of the road was black. Occasionally we'd hear a sound in the woods, but what it was, we did not know nor did we mince steps. It took a long time to come to the covered bridge. As we approached, I could see the candle flame reflected in the brackish water. The Jack o'lantern was still alight, the flame flickering wildly in the wind.

"Headless horseman," O'Hare said, making me stop in my tracks. I looked at him in wonder. Had he heard something? He saw me look and pointed into the woods. There, not more than thirty feet, in the dark, was something aglow, it was big and I could hear the hooves crunching the pinecone needles on the forest floor. A horse, a white horse, I could just make it out. There was no moonlight, so it was hard to see at first, but once me eyes adjusted to the darkness inside the forest, I could just make it out.

"I think we should run!" O'Hare said, taking off, but I caught his arm and held him back. "Are you crazy? We must get out of here ASAP, but we must not call attention to ourselves!" he said, pulling himself out of my grasp.

"No, wait, watch I saw a light," I said, eyes focused on the moving animal. I had seen a light and then as I turned O'Hare towards the horse, another pumpkin lit up high like someone holding it aloft. "OK, now we run," I said and we took off to the sound of hooves reaching the road. We both looked back, but the horseman didn't come any further than the apron of the bridge. We heard a deep-throated laugh and then it was gone, but the pumpkin had been hurtled our way. It missed us of course as we had distanced ourselves fitfully. It smashed, the light went out and that was it. Quiet reigned.

We had stopped running and were panting for breath. 

"What was that?" O'Hare managed to ask.

"If it's the headless horseman, he's way far away from Tarrytown."

In our nervousness, we made jokes about that until it all settled in our brains what had occurred. We walked in silence, and when in a state of fear and relief, all at once, one's senses take note of one's surroundings. It was dark, very dark, a coyote howled. Chills ran up our spines at the sound and our pace quickened more. 

By the time we reached the path in the woods leading to our house, the trees seemed to watch us, and the leaves whispered in the chill breeze. Both of us shivered to shake off the feeling, but it stayed with us until we got inside. 

No one was awake to hear about our adventure, and by morning's light, it seemed silly to tell the tale, but we did and became excited and enthused. 

"I wanna to see this, " Guido said, so we decided to take anyone interested in hiking to the cemetery to see the pumpkins and the smashed pumpkin by the bridge. 

We all chattered like magpies up the road, which stunned the ladies of the house—it existed so close to the house, and no one knew of it. As we walked, the leaves danced in the wind, the trees swayed at their tops, and the sun made the fallen leaves a palette of colour at our feet. It was a beautiful November 1! O'Hare and I could see the pumpkin as we neared the bridge, but the smashed pumpkin was gone. 

"Oh, you Halloween dreamers," Tonya said smiling at us.

"No, wait Mom. Come see the cemetery." O'Hare said jogging down the road.

We got there to find him standing in the middle, looking confused. Not one Jack o'lantern to be seen. What had happened? We felt like fools we did. We scoured the cemetery, and Tonya even remarked that there was no disturbance of the long grass, which indicated that a person had walked through there. She was right, so how?

A few days later, I took the setter for a short walk on THE road. As I got to the bridge, I kicked some of the stones around, and after about fifteen minutes, I was rewarded with two pumpkin seeds! Aha! So it wasn't our "vivid imaginations." 

I put the seeds in me pocket and took them back to the abode as proof, but no one (not even O'Hare) believed I had found them by the bridge. 

"I bet if the ground hadn't been so hard we'd have found horse tracks," I said confidently.

That was me last effort. They all shook their heads and left me with seeds in hand. Well, I planted those seeds I'll have you know, and five pumpkins are growing from the two stems. So there! 

I have not been back to the road since. Though I am tempted this Halloween to take THE WALK. I have no clue who played a jape on us or what did, do you?

                                                                     TRICK OR TREAT!

Gabe

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