The Ghost of Schafer Meadows Read online

  Somewhere far off came the frightened neighing of horses and then pounding hooves as the horses galloped on the trail behind the cookhouse. I knew they weren’t ours—they’d be on the airstrip—so someone from the horse camp a mile away from Schafer would probably be out chasing their animals the next morning, hoping they didn’t run very far in the night and wishing they’d secured them better before the storm.

  I felt sorry for all the animals out in the storm. I lay in bed, holding tightly to Oriole. Many dogs have a terrible fear of loud noises, cowering and shivering or frantically searching for a safe place to hide. Some even run away and get lost. Oriole didn’t seem the least bit concerned about the terrible weather, even snoring through some of it. I hoped she would never gain that fear.

  I got up from my bed and went to the stairs to look out the window that faced the cookhouse. A flash of lightning showed someone walking from the cookhouse toward the bunkhouse. It was a terrible time to be outside. The rain came in torrents. Maybe Pete was going off to bed, but I doubted it. It didn’t look like anyone from the ranger station.

  As the hard rain continued to fall, another flash of lightning showed the phantom form of a large man walking away. That strangling fear took hold of me again. My stomach rolled thinking of the ghost on the prowl. Was it looking for something? Snooping around to scare me? Or was it really only one of the pilots who just happened to get caught in the rain?

  The lightning flashed again, and it was gone. Had I seen the ghost? I crept back to bed and held even tighter to Oriole, falling asleep at last, feeling snug and safe with her.

  F I F T E E N

  A Ghostly Intruder

  Morning dawned as if the storm had never happened. I awoke to a bright sunny day with big puffy clouds. The air was a lot cooler than the day before. It would be a good day for the work weekend.

  “Don’t you love the wet earthy smell after a good storm, Oriole?”

  She cocked her head to show her black ear and eye and wagged her tail.

  Glancing at the airstrip on our way to the cookhouse for breakfast, I saw that all the planes remained securely tied to the ground. The pilots had protected their planes from the winds of the storm. None showed any sign of damage.

  I looked for footprints outside the cookhouse. Most of the walkway had gravel, so there weren’t any tracks. Where the ground was dirt the rain had soaked through, leaving lots of footprints. It looked like a herd of elephants had stomped through there. I couldn’t tell one print from another. There’d be no way to know which ones belonged to the ghost—if a ghost left tracks, that is.

  I ate breakfast with Mom, Charlie, and Jed. Everyone else was already out working. Someone knocked on the door.

  “Happy 4th of July!” Charlie said, opening the door. “Come on in.”

  Two men stood just inside the door, glancing about. I recognized them as the men who sat all day under the tarp in the campground.

  Charlie stuck out his hand in welcome. “I’m Charlie, and this is Kate, Jed, and Jessie.”

  The man with a pot belly, big jowls, and an old torn flannel shirt took Charlie’s hand.

  “Les Quincy.”

  The other man with thin hair and pants that hung below his waist reached for Charlie’s hand next.

  “Doug Frampton. Say, nice cook stove. I ain’t seen one o’ them in a long time. Mind if I take a look? I used to work at a place that sold antiques.”

  He walked to the stove and ran his hand over the metal doors. Then he opened the oven and peered inside, looking down, then toward the back, and then tilting his head to see the top. He ran his hand inside the stove as if inspecting it. “Nice. Really nice. You sure keep this in good order.” He closed the door and went to stand by Les.

  “Have a cup of coffee,” Mom said, bringing over a fresh pot from the stove. “Cups are on the table.”

  “Thanks but no thanks, ma’am,” Doug said. “We lost our stock in the storm last night when our tent blowed over. They freaked out and run off. We was hopin’ you mighta seen ’em come this way.”

  The door opened and Pete stuck his head in. “Are you two looking for some horses and mules?”

  Les nodded. “We are.”

  “Thought you might. Found them down by the river about fifteen minutes ago, hanging out under a cottonwood tree.”

  “Thanks,” Les said. He turned back toward Mom. “Well, better be going.”

  “Don’t feel like you have to run off,” Mom said. “We’ll have a cup of coffee ready when you come back through with your animals.”

  “Nope. Don’t mean to be rude but we better get the stock back to camp. And we gotta put our tent back up in case it rains again.”

  The two men walked out the door and left.

  “Most people who come in here want to stay and visit,” Charlie said. “Don’t know why they were in such a hurry. They could have brought their animals back here once they got them, and it’s not like the rain’s going to fall from the sky anytime soon.” Charlie washed another dish and put it in the rack to dry. “Aw, who knows? Maybe they’re okay. It’s hard to second-guess people.”

  ******

  Oriole and I worked our way to the campground. Not long afterwards, Les and Doug came through with their horses and mules. They led their animals past the campground toward the horse camp.

  Later in the day I took Oriole along the Big River Trail to the horse camp, thinking I’d do some birding and snooping at the same time with my high-powered birding binoculars. Les and Doug were pounding in their tent stakes.

  “Hey, there,” I said. “You guys must’ve had a rough night after your tent blew over.”

  Both men jumped. They had been talking in low tones and didn’t hear us come up. Neither man looked happy. “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “What’re you doing here?” Les asked.

  “Oh, Oriole and I have never been here before.” I held up my binoculars. “Someone said this is a good place to see osprey.”

  I had no idea if there were osprey there, but they didn’t need to know that.

  “Don’t know nothin’ about no osprey,” Doug said. “You might wander down by them other camps to see if anyone there knows about them birds.”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that.”

  Oriole and I walked away. Those guys sure didn’t want to talk.

  We went to the other camps and visited with the people there, just to make conversation. All the while I kept my eye on Les and Doug. They finished staking their tent and took their gear inside. When they looked like they might leave, we hurried back to the campground ahead of them.

  ******

  Nothing unusual happened the rest of the day. Les and Doug returned to their perch under the tarp in the campground. Dad walked around giving work orders. Mom helped cook in the campground. Don worked hard with the pilots on their projects, Casey played with Oriole and me, and Jed and the trail crew spent their time helping wherever the pilots needed muscle.

  As I ate lunch in the cookhouse, Charlie stood hunched over the kitchen table, his arms buried up to his elbows in bread dough. The strong warm smell of baking bread filled the room from another couple loaves already in the oven.

  Charlie had also fixed up a huge batch of potato salad. While I ate, he finished his wooden mule and put it in the windowsill with his other creations. The small mule and its manty packs looked real.

  Jim had brought another surprise when he flew in, and he helped Mom and me hang red, white, and blue flags and streamers all over the inside of the cookhouse and our house. We wound streamers around the posts on our porch and the bunkhouse and took some to the campground. We strung streamers on the tarps over the picnic tables and put small American flags in bottles on the tables.

  Jim stood back admiring our handiwork. “Schafer sure looks festive, doesn’t it? A big city could hardly beat that.”

  ******

  Around 3 p.m. it rained again. This time it was more like a soft summer shower,
and it lasted just long enough to keep the heat down. The pilots called a halt to their work. They wandered back to the campground to change clothes and relax.

  At last we had dinner. We all stood in line for a huge picnic feed, with hamburgers and hot dogs cooked on a grill, salads, and lots of desserts. Mom made her famous red, white, and blue pie, a sheet pie with cherry on one side, peach in the middle (she could have made cheesecake for the white color but we like peach better), and blueberry on the other side. Doug and Les went through the line, too. The pilots must have invited them.

  When we emptied our plates, we went back for watermelon. I didn’t think I could ever eat again.

  During the meal, Oriole and Casey wandered between tables, doing their part to keep bears away by chowing down whatever tidbits fell to the ground.

  Mandy laughed as she watched them. “Look at those two. They’re playing the crowd like experts.”

  The two dogs sat patiently by anyone they hoped would drop food, staring them in the eye like they were starved, even smacking their lips and drooling on occasion.

  Mandy snickered. “That’s pathetic.”

  Both dogs got their fair share of meat that people couldn’t finish, although I tried to keep Oriole close to me to monitor what she ate. Besides, I didn’t want her turning into a beggar.

  After dinner we sat around and talked. A few people played cards, and someone brought out a harmonica and played sad-sounding tunes. Celie built a campfire and I pulled my chair over to it. Darkness set in.

  “Thanks for the fire, Celie,” Jim said. “Sure feels good, and the wood smoke smells great.”

  Charlie returned to the station, and Les and Doug left their tarp and walked off slowly to the horse camp. They didn’t bother to thank the pilots for dinner.

  I enjoyed sitting around the campfire, watching the yellow-orange firelight flicker on the campers’ faces. Oriole and Casey chased each other through the campground until they had their fill of play, and when Oriole came to lie down next to me, Casey went to find Don.

  Mom came and sat down next to me. “Did you have a fun 4th of July, Jessie?”

  “I did, Mom, but watching the logs spit sparks made me wonder if the Two J’s are at the fireworks in Silver City right now. I miss them.”

  “I know you do, and I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I’m getting used to them not being here and me not being there. I guess making some good friends has made me feel better.”

  The cool rain and the hot sun of the day had created just the right mixture for fog. As the night wore on, a fogbank crept across the airstrip until it engulfed us by the campfire. It created a halo around us as we sat there talking into the night. My face felt cool and damp from misty droplets the fog made. A cup of hot cocoa kept me warm but later when it started getting chilly, I got sleepy and wanted to go back to the house to bed. Mom said she didn’t want me going back alone. I told her that Oriole wouldn’t let anything happen to me. Mom reluctantly agreed to let me go. She said she and Dad would be along shortly.

  My flashlight stayed in my pocket as we walked back. I knew the way by heart, and Oriole could lead us if I got off the trail. The dense fog made walking back slow. I nearly jumped out of my skin when we reached the bunkhouse. It appeared suddenly. It made me think about the night Oriole and I stood by the bunkhouse watching the light move around in our house, and I paused to look. The fog hid the house, but I could see the vague outline of the porch light over the cookhouse door. Our house was dark.

  I didn’t light the gas lights in the house. Oriole and I went straight upstairs. My flashlight helped me find my pajamas. I went into the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and got into bed. Oriole jumped up next to me. My eyes got heavy and I fell asleep.

  Sometime later, I slowly became aware that the screen door had squeaked open and then closed quietly. How long had I been asleep? Hours? Minutes? Oriole let out a muffled “woof.” I shushed her and listened. It sounded like Jed’s cowboy boots quietly moving about downstairs. Jed must have come back and was trying not to wake me. I heard the woodstove door open in the living room, then a rustling noise, and then the door closed. Had it gotten cold enough to build a fire?

  Then I heard Jed’s footsteps move softly into the kitchen. Why would he do that?

  All at once my heart stopped. I realized it wasn’t Jed downstairs. Someone else was in our house. I listened, afraid to breathe.

  “Don’t make any noise, Oriole,” I whispered. I wanted to be able to hear every movement.

  It was probably a man because the footsteps sounded heavy. He stayed for a while in the kitchen, standing in one place. I hoped he hadn’t heard us. The scrape of metal against metal meant he must have pulled back one of the heavy iron lids on the cook stove. After a few seconds he slowly scraped the cover back on again. Then the footsteps left the kitchen.

  I waited for the intruder to start up the stairs, ready to scream my lungs out and send Oriole after whoever was there. Instead, the footsteps walked to the front door, and the screen door squeaked open and then closed once more. As the footsteps quietly walked across the porch I slipped out of bed.

  “Keep quiet, Oriole. Good dog.”

  We hurried down the stairs as fast as we could go without making noise. A screen from one window in the living room sat on the window ledge. Dad had repaired a tear in the screen and hadn’t installed it yet. I moved it aside. The window was wide open. I grabbed a throw blanket off the couch, dropped it outside the window, and stepped through the window onto the porch, motioning for Oriole to follow. The blanket softened the sound of Oriole’s toenails as she jumped down to the wooden porch.

  We tiptoed cautiously onto the grass and looked toward the cookhouse. The fog had not let up. It was thick and hard to see through.

  “Stay, Oriole.”

  We watched an image move slowly toward the cookhouse. The form of a man walked away from us, disappearing into the fog, the same form I watched walking at night during the thunderstorm. Now there was no doubt. It was the ghost!

  Terror gripped me. I couldn’t move or speak. In my dreams, the ghost was friendly, but it didn’t seem that way now. Oriole wanted to go after it, but I clung tightly to her collar.

  “No, girl. Keep quiet. We don’t want it to know we’re here. What if it turns on us and gets mad? Nobody’s around.”

  We stayed that way for about five minutes, long after the ghost left. My legs felt weak. I was too afraid to return to the house alone but also too afraid to go back to the campground.

  Finally voices came from the direction of the campground. Oriole’s tail wagged and she whined for me to let her go. Mom, Dad, and Jed gradually appeared out of the fog. I let Oriole run to greet them.

  I didn’t want to tell them I’d seen the ghost because they always dismissed it as something else. It would be too hard on me if they didn’t believe me again. But I also didn’t want to hide anything from them that might be important. Thinking the ghost wouldn’t come again that night, I made a quick decision to sleep on it and figure out what to tell them in the morning. A few hours weren’t going to make any difference. Besides, with the darkness and the fog they couldn’t do anything until later anyway.

  Before they got to the house Oriole returned. I snatched the blanket off the porch, took it back into the house, put it on the couch, and then moved the screen back to its original spot on the window ledge.

  Still pretty jumpy by the time Mom, Dad, and Jed got to the house, but not wanting them to see me so nervous, I took Oriole upstairs and got back into bed, pulling the covers up to my nose.

  Mom and Dad came upstairs and stuck their heads in my door.

  “Still awake?” Dad said. “Thought you’d be sound asleep by now.”

  “I couldn’t sleep, so I took Oriole outside for a minute.”

  It wasn’t exactly the truth, but it wasn’t a lie, either.

  “Well, try to sleep. We’ve got another big day tomorrow.”

  They both kissed me
on my forehead and went to their room. Oriole tucked herself securely into my side, making me feel safe. It took a long time before sleep came again. For the rest of the night I kept waking up, sure I could hear the ghost.

  S I X T E E N

  Oriole’s Note

  When I awoke the next morning the house was quiet. I lay in bed for a while, thinking about the ghost. Oriole woke up, stretched, and yawned.

  “You know, Oriole,” I said quietly in case someone was still in the house. “I’m not afraid anymore. I’m mad. It’s time to confront this ghost and tell it to leave us alone.”

  I needed to figure out what to do.

  First, I had to tell my parents and Don about my experience last night. It was wrong not to tell them right away.

  Feeling better after making that decision, I threw on a clean T-shirt and shorts and went to the cookhouse for breakfast. The sun shone brightly through the trees. The cookhouse was empty. The clock said 9:30. I had slept late.

  I fed Oriole, got cereal from the cupboard, and went to the refrigerator for milk. Two boxes of big red strawberries sat on the top shelf. I inhaled their scent, grabbed a handful, and set my breakfast on the table as Charlie came in the door.

  “Hey, Charlie—how’s it going?” I said.

  “Hey yourself. It’s about time you got up.”

  “Yeah, I know. Had to get my beauty rest. Who brought the strawberries?”

  “Take a guess.”

  “Jim.”

  “Right. He brought them over last night. He brought some for the pilots, but he wanted to make sure we got these for ourselves.”