Gib and the Gray Ghost (5 page)

Gib had almost forgotten about Livy until he heard someone say, “She looks excited, doesn’t she?” and sure enough, there she was. Livy was looking pretty excited herself. Prancing along in her shiny boots, tossing her curly head and rolling her big eyes so that the whites showed.

“Yep.” Gib grinned. “ ’Pears to be quite a lot of excitement around here. So now we’ll see who’s going to be too excited to listen to reason.”

Outside the barn in the cold, crisp sunshine Silky skittered a bit when Gib swung himself up into the saddle, but once he was on board and the reins were talking, she settled down some. And when he put her to walking around and around the snow-swept barnyard, she didn’t even dance. But Gib could feel how her slow, tiptoeing walk had dancing right there under the surface. And running was there too. The hot-blooded burning urge to run full out and free, across the open prairie.

So he kept her walking until her hoofprints had turned the pure white snow of the barnyard into a horseshoe-patterned carpet. And then went on walking some more, even though Livy, watching from just outside the barn door, was obviously getting impatient. Clapping her hands and stomping her feet against the cold, she called out advice now and then. “Why don’t you let her out just a little?” she yelled once, and a little later, “This is getting boring. Let her stretch her legs a little.”

But Gib only grinned and nodded, and it wasn’t until they’d been around the barnyard maybe fifteen or twenty times that he loosened the reins. Immediately Silky came up against the bit with an excited snort, but when he let her know that a trot was all he was asking for, she reluctantly quieted down with only an occasional head-tossing, tail-swishing, sidestepping flourish to let him know how she was feeling.

They’d moved on to a slow, controlled lope before Gib realized that his audience had grown some. A stranger, a large man wearing a big Stetson and fancy fringed and silver-mounted chaps, was right there at the edge of the barnyard, sitting on a rangy, Roman-nosed buckskin. Just sitting there quietly as if he’d been there for quite a spell.

Gib recognized the horse right off. Way back last winter someone had ridden that same buckskin to one of the Thorntons’ dinner parties. Gib remembered taking the winded, lathered-up gelding to the barn and cooling him off a little before putting him in an empty stall. He’d had to go back out then to take care of some other guests’ riding and buggy horses, but when everyone had arrived he went back to the barn and rubbed the buckskin down and gave him a few swallows of water and a small flake of hay. Gib grinned, remembering how the Roman-nosed rascal had thanked him for his trouble by trying to nip him.

Gib remembered the horse for certain. He wasn’t all that sure about the man, but that wasn’t too surprising. That big old Stetson was sitting so low there wasn’t much face showing under it And truth to tell, Gib had always been better at remembering horses than people.

Trying to tip his hat before he remembered that Miss Hooper had strapped the earflaps down under his chin, Gib settled for a wave. “Howdy, mister,” he called. “Did you want to see Mrs. Thornton?”

The man touched his spurs to the buckskin’s flanks and came on into the barnyard. Close up his bony, thin-lipped face did look a mite familiar. “You looking to see Mrs. Thornton?” Gib repeated. But instead of answering Gib’s question the stranger only went on staring at Silky.

“So that’s the Thornton Thoroughbred, is it?” he asked. “The one who caused Mrs. Thornton’s injury?”

Surprised, Gib gulped a little before he said, “Yes, sir. Yes, she did, but it wasn’t her—”

“Who’s been handling her?” the man interrupted.

“Handling her?” Gib asked.

“Yes. Who’s been settling her down?” The man sounded impatient. “I’ve heard she used to be a real fireball. Who’s been taking the mischief out of her?”

Before Gib could decide how to answer, another voice said, “Gib’s been training her.” And there Livy was again, standing just a few feet away.

The stranger turned and tipped his Stetson. “Well, hello there, little neighbor lady,” he said. “Perhaps you don’t remember me, but I remember you. Met you more than once a few years back when ...

“I know you, Mr. Morrison,” Livy said politely. Too politely, Gib thought anxiously. “I remember you quite well.”

Gib glanced quickly from Livy to the stranger and back again. He had a feeling that something was going on that wasn’t being put into words, but he had an even stronger feeling that it might be said real soon. And, judging by the look on Livy’s face, he couldn’t help wondering how neighborly those words were going to be.

He was still wondering when the man swung down off the buckskin. “Well, I’m glad to hear that you remember me, Miss Thornton,” he said. And then, to Gib, “I’ll leave the buckskin at the rack for the moment, but I’d like you to put him in the barn as soon as you finish with the mare. I won’t be long, so you needn’t unsaddle him. Just put him in out of the wind.”

As the man called Morrison headed for the hitching rack, both Gib and Livy watched him go in silence. It was a tense, edgy silence that lasted for a minute or so before Gib asked, “Morrison?” He knew he’d heard the name before. “You say his name is Morrison? Isn’t he the one who ... ?”

Livy’s face looked dangerous. Not sugarcoated, sneaky dangerous this time. More like out-and-out ready to bite and kick. “Yes,” she said between her teeth. “The Mr. Morrison who stole my mother’s ranch.”

M
ORRISON. GIB REMEMBERED NOW.
It had been Hy who’d told him that when Mr. Thornton sold off most of the Rocking M’s land the buyer had been a man named Clark Morrison. A man who, according to Hy, had more money than sense. But Hy hadn’t said anything about stealing, at least not as far as Gib could recollect.

Jumping down off Silky, Gib asked Livy what she meant about stealing. But there was no answer. After a moment he asked again. And then, “Livy? Livy?” Still no answer. Instead she just went on staring toward the house through narrowed eyes. It wasn’t until he whispered, “Did you say he stole your mother’s ranch?” that she finally answered.

“Yes, stole. Come on. Let’s go see what he wants now.” But when Gib pointed out that, first off, he had to take care of Silky, and then the buckskin as well, she sighed impatiently. “Well, go ahead then. But I’m going in now. I’ve got to find out why he’s here.”

Even though Gib was hurrying all he could, it was nearly half an hour before the two horses were taken care of and he was free to head for the house. Leaving his coat and boots in the storm porch, he went down the hall in his stocking feet. The house seemed quiet and deserted. He was tiptoeing, halfway to the staircase, when something hit him. A hard and sharp whack, it was, right on his shinbone. Came near to scaring the wits out of him.

He’d jumped sideways like a spooked horse, thinking rattlesnake, or maybe a bear trap, before he saw that what had hit him was nothing but a bootjack. A bootjack with Livy Thornton on the other end of it.

Crouched down under the coatrack, halfway invisible among all the long winter overcoats, Livy was still holding the weapon she’d used to get Gib’s attention. But now she put it down and, with her finger to her lips, she grabbed Gib’s sleeve with her other hand and tugged him down the hall toward the parlor.

“In there,” she mouthed as they passed the library. “Morrison and Hoop and my mother. I’ve been listening to them.”

“Listening?” Gib asked, once they were safely inside the parlor.

Livy nodded. “Yes, listening. The door wasn’t quite shut and I could hear almost everything they said.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.” Livy sounded pleased with herself. “Especially everything
he
said. He was the loudest.”

“So, what did he say?”

She shrugged. “Oh, well, what he actually talked about was the weather, and if there was anything he could do to help, and things like that. But that wasn’t really what he was thinking about. I could tell. I mean—” Livy grabbed the front of Gib’s shirt and shook it. “I mean I could tell what he was really thinking about was how he could get the rest of our land. And the house too. I think he really wants our house.”

Gib was still wondering how Livy could tell what a person was thinking when he was talking about something else, when she suddenly pushed him back behind the door. “Shhh,” she said. “Here he comes. Stay there.”

She disappeared then, leaving Gib behind the open door feeling like a sneak thief, or at least like somebody who was about to be in a whole lot of trouble.

Someone was coming, all right. The library door creaked and voices and footsteps came down the hall. A man’s voice and then Miss Hooper’s. When the voices and footsteps passed without stopping, Gib relaxed enough to see the funny side of the fix he was in. He smiled ruefully. He’d sure enough let Livy set him up again. This time she’d stuck him behind the door in his stocking feet, listening in on things he probably had no business hearing, while she herself disappeared to God knew where.

He could hear Miss Hooper’s voice clearly now. “Thanks again for stopping by, and for your kind offer,” she was saying. “But as you see, we’re doing quite well, at least for the present. On days like this Hy can get into town with the team, and we do have the telephone, at least when it chooses to work.”

“Yes indeed,” the man’s voice answered. “But if there’s anything I can do, just let me know. Still no telephone line out our way, of course, but you could send the boy over and I’d be glad to—”

“The boy? Oh, you’re referring to Gibson?”

Gib felt himself quiver like a stretched rope. “Gibson, is it?” Morrison said. “Ah, yes. The Whittaker orphan.” A pause. “Was it Gibson who was exercising the black mare this morning?”

“Yes. Yes, it was,” Miss Hooper said, and then, “He’s probably still out in the barn. Shall I ask him to bring your horse around?”

For a frozen second Gib wondered what he’d do if Miss Hooper went looking for him, leaving Mr. Morrison right there outside the parlor door. But then, to his great relief, he heard the man say, “Never mind calling the boy. I’ll go out to the barn myself. Give me another chance to admire that good-looking Kentucky-bred of Mrs. Thornton’s.” They were almost out of earshot by then but when the front door opened and the cold air rushed in it carried Morrison’s voice as he was saying how beautiful something was. “Beautiful, absolutely beautiful,” his exact words were, and then something more. Something that made Gib catch his breath in dismay. A question about a
sale.
About whether Mrs. Thornton would “consider a sale?”

Even though Gib stretched his ears till they nearly fell off he couldn’t make out how Miss Hooper answered. He was still behind the parlor door with his ear pressed to the crack when the front door shut with a bang and Miss Hooper’s footsteps came back down the hall and turned into the library. Gib was pressed back against the wall, trying to remember exactly what he’d heard, when Livy suddenly reappeared.

“You can come out now,” she said, peering around the door. “They’ve gone.”

Gib sighed. He looked around the room. “Hey,” he asked, “where were you? Where were you hiding?”

“Oh, I wasn’t hiding,” Livy said. “At least not exactly. I was lying there on the sofa pretending to be asleep.” She giggled. “If they’d looked in they would have just said, ‘Oh, look at that. She’s taking a nap. Isn’t that sweet.’ ”

Gib couldn’t help smiling, but then his grin faded. “Did you hear them? Did you hear what that man was asking Miss Hooper just as he went out the door?” he asked.

Livy nodded grimly. “Yes, I did. What did I tell you? He wants to get the rest of our land.”

“Land?” Gib was puzzled. He’d been sure Morrison had been talking about Black Silk. There was no time to argue the point, and for that matter, no reason to. As he knew from experience, arguing with Livy never got you anywhere. Insisting they’d been talking about Silky when Livy was sure it was the ranch would be just like insisting on Patrick Henry instead of Paul Revere. And this time he wouldn’t dare ask Miss Hooper to settle the argument. As they entered the kitchen Livy ran to the window that faced the driveway.

“He’s coming,” she whispered. “I hear him. See, there he goes.”

Gib stayed where he was until the pounding of hoofbeats and the jingling of tack faded away. When she turned from the window Livy was frowning fiercely. “About Morrison stealing your mother’s ranch—?” Gib started to say, when she ran right past him and out of the room.

Gib sighed and shrugged. He really needed to talk to somebody. Hy might have been able to help but he was in Longford. Miss Hooper and Mrs. Thornton were still in the library and Mrs. Perry seemed to have disappeared. He waited around in the kitchen for several minutes before he gave up and headed back out to the barn, where there were better things to do than worry about questions that never got answered.

It was a good time to get some shoveling done. That way Comet and Caesar could come home to spanking-clean stalls. And probably Silky could use a good grooming too. Actually, the way it turned out, it was Silky herself who got most of the attention.

She needed it, Gib decided. Earlier there hadn’t been time to give her much more than a lick and a promise what with trying to hurry and having Morrison’s buckskin to deal with. But as Gib curried and brushed, his mind kept going back to Morrison and what he’d said about whether Mrs. Thornton would consider a sale.

She wouldn’t, he was sure. Well, almost sure. After all, if she’d refused to sell Silky when her husband wanted her to after the accident, surely she wouldn’t do it now when she was the only one who had any say-so.

“No, she never would,” Gib told Silky as he brushed her forelock. “Like Hy says, Mrs. Thornton’s a real prairie-bred Merrill, and no Merrill would give up owning the most beautiful horse in the whole world. Now, would they?” Silky nodded her head and then shook it violently. The shaking surely did mess up her forelock, but Gib only chuckled. “You tell ’em, Silky,” he said. “Course she wouldn’t. Never in a million years.”

A
COUPLE OF DAYS
later the same old unanswered questions were still hanging around. Hy wasn’t any help whatsoever. The damp, chilly weather had set his broken bones to aching, which always made him silent and extra ornery. So when Gib started in, once or twice, by asking if Hy thought Mrs. Thornton would ever sell Silky, all he got was a snort and a growling “Not likely, but you never know.”