Night Mares in the Hamptons (41 page)

Lewis didn't. We knew he was freeing the upper escape hatch door. We also knew Froeler wasn't going anywhere, not with the Coast Guard already on board his yacht, according to Elgin's information.

Uncle Henry reported from his walkie-talkie: “He's thrown a suitcase out. Now he's out, with another satchel. No horse.”

Grant and the chief and Elgin were all yelling into their phones. “Move! Move! Go now!”

We climbed the last rocks before the cove and poured onto the shoe-sucking wet sand and slippery seaweed and mud on the shore under the cliff. Froeler was standing on a rock beneath the bunker doors, staring up. A coil of rope and some blankets were at his feet.

Vincent the barber shouted from behind us: “He's got an aura. Be careful.”

I'd already concluded Froeler had some talent, but no one had any idea what it was.

The chief wasn't waiting to find out: “Halt and put your hands up, Froeler. You are under arrest for attempted murder, accomplice to murder, drug running, obstruction of justice, and enough other crimes that'll see you in Sing Sing for the rest of your misbegotten life.”

Letty's father turned, saw us coming toward him, some with guns drawn. Then he looked out to sea, ready to make a run for his raft. But coming ashore, dancing on the water in one of Paloma Blanca's skipping steps as if they were the corps de ballet, were twenty white mares, side by side by side, blocking his path.

Then someone shouted from above: “He's got the girl! The snow man's got the girl!”

“Hold your fire!”

“Froeler, drop the gun.”

He was trembling. “I need the horse!”

We heard a bullhorn from above. “Lewis, let the girl go. You cannot escape.”

Lewis must have dragged Letty to the edge of the cliff. We could see him, and the gun to her head.

“Get me a way out, or I throw the girl over.”

I shouted “No!”

Froeler was shouting that the whole thing was Lewis' idea, that the snow man shot Snake. He organized the drug drop offshore. He sold it throughout the East End. “I have proof. I can tell you his supplier!”

“I'll kill your daughter,” Lewis screamed again.

“What do I care about that cripple? She's not even my daughter. The rich widow needed a father for her kid, is all. I got money for my lab. But not enough. It's the horse I need now. With the creature's mental power harnessed, I can create the mind drugs of the century. I can have everything I ever wanted. I can rule the world.”

“Father, no! Let the colt go!”

“Shut up, you little twit. You're my ticket out of here,” Lewis shouted, shaking Letty.

We heard gunfire. The walkie-talkies all blared. “He's shooting at us, so we can't get a bead on him without hitting the girl. He's headed toward Kelvin's truck.”

Froeler fired upward, at where Lewis had been. “You bastard, leaving me here after all I've done for you. You were nothing but a two-bit felon.”

The mares stamped.

“Wait, Kelvin's kid is moving the truck.”

“He's eleven. Can he drive?”

More shots. I guessed so.

“Get down, K2.”

Then Lewis screamed. Letty screamed. The cops and the agents screamed. “Snakes!”

I screamed, even if I was nowhere near.

Lewis came back to the edge. He had no way out, and he knew it. He shot down, at Froeler. The German fell off his rock and landed flat on his back, not moving.

The mares were on solid ground now. They pawed at the loose stones, sending vibrations I could feel through the soles of my shoes. I tried to tell them no, but it was too late.

The cliff started to cave in, beginning with the overhang. We all ran back, away. Lewis came hurtling over with the chunk of ground he'd been standing on, to land on the rocks below. He didn't move. More of the high dune started to crumble.

Letty!

I saw her at the top, trying to drag herself back from the new edge with her arms, but the earth beneath her was slippery from all the rain, and giving way. I heard shouts from the men above: “Stay back, it's going.”

K2 was howling. Someone must have grabbed him, most likely his father from the cursing, because his cry suddenly turned into a sob.

And Letty started to fall, shrieking.

Ty pulled my head to his shoulder, so I couldn't see.

Then his arms fell to his side and I looked up. A horse, a bigger, stronger, brighter white horse had appeared in the air, in the capriole that was airs above the ground. Only this one, who could only be the stallion, the ruler of the herd, truly was airs above the ground, yards above our heads and right beneath Letty. She landed across his back.

He winked out of existence, then reappeared on the beach near us, as sand and mud and rocks pummeled down onto the shore of Bunker Cove, burying Froeler and Lewis.

Connor rushed to take Letty from him, and hand the unconscious girl to Doc and Susan and Grandma Eve. “She'll be fine. No broken bones or internal injuries.” Then Connor raced back to where Ty was already digging at the landslide that covered the bunker entrance.

H'tah!

I
JOINED THEM, PAWING AT THE HEAP until my nails were all broken and my fingers were bloody. Someone pushed me aside so stronger hands could do the work. Bill the telekinetic could move the smaller stuff out of their way, and Bud and Elgin worked to keep the breeze blowing the waves back so that the others could work on dry land.

Grant was on the walkie-talkie, trying to get his men down the hatch where Froeler had appeared.

“Shoot the fooking snakes! Get the horse.”

My job? Picturing the rocks flying away, so the mares didn't trample the diggers. The stallion stood at the head of their line, watching. I kept my mind going like a camera on automatic, shot after shot of progress, rock by rock, inch by inch. “We're trying. We're going as fast as we can without causing another cave-in. H'tah, if you can hear me, if you can sense me, your mother is here. Your father, too, I think. We're coming. Hang on.”

The prettiest picture I ever saw was right there in my mind, my tree, with leaves. “Yes!”

The mares must have seen the same picture, or one of their own. They pranced. The stallion snorted and pawed the ground. Ty started chanting to keep them from starting another landslide. He sang in time to the rocks he heaved. Now the men worked faster, in time to his beat, in concert.

As last I could see the rusted metal doors of the bunker, bent out of shape and not touching in the middle, so Ty and Connor had to put their backs to them to push.

“Wait!” Big Eddie yelled. “I smell explosives. Lewis must have booby-trapped the entrance to blow.”

Oh, God.

Ty and the rest stepped back. “Do we have a bomb squad?”

What did Paumanok Harbor need with a bomb squad? And the Feds were all up at the top of the hill. Grant quickly called his agents back from the hatch.

I couldn't explain bomb to the night mares and their mate. I pictured fire, more things flying, with sound effects. I guess they didn't have WMDs where they lived.

The stallion didn't care. He charged ahead, bashing the doors with his front hooves.

Ty and Connor hit the ground.

Now the mares understood: fire, noise, metal and concrete and rocks flying. They shrilled their distress. Everyone on shore clapped their hands over their ears, but the sound of terror tore through us, through our minds.

Ty and Connor seemed oblivious to the mental pain. They rushed past the stallion, through the fire, into the bunker.

My heart in my throat, I pushed the other diggers aside, took a deep breath and followed them. “H'tah?”

I heard the two cowboys fumbling around in the smoke and the dark. The space was bigger than I would have expected, going deep into the hill. I bumped into a ladder that Lewis must have used, and some duffel bags and cartons that were smoldering from the explosion at the entrance. Then I heard him.

“Willow.”

“This way! He's here. He's alive!”

The two men lifted the poor baby, all limp, ragged, and dirty. He struggled, but I put my hand on him. “Not monsters. Friends.”

Then we were outside, in the fresh salty air, gulping.

Someone ran forward with a blanket. They laid the colt down. Connor ran his hands over H'tah and shook his head. Too weak.

The mares keened in distress, pushing forward to circle us, but then the stallion stood over his son. He lowered his great head to H'tah's and he breathed into his face.

H'tah lay still.

I started crying. I could hear weeping behind me, and sorrowful whinnies. Someone patted my sleeve, and someone else put wet blankets over Ty and Connor, to smother the smoldering embers of their clothing.

The stallion kept blowing air onto his son, their foreheads touching. Ty nodded as if he heard and understood words no one else could hear. He sang part of the ancient song that welcomed the Great Horse Spirit, and proclaimed him brother.

And H'tah raised his head. The mares raised their heads and bugled their joy. H'tah stood, shook himself, and took a tottering step. Then another, firmer this time. His broken rear leg was suddenly straight and unmarred; his blue eyes were clear. He butted heads once more with his sire, then pranced proudly toward me, a bedraggled prince, but a prince for all that.

I held my arms out, and he came to me. I lowered my head until we were forehead to forehead, like he'd been with the stallion.

“I and thou, Willow. I and thou.”

I only sensed his words, but I spoke back out loud. “You and me, kid, you and me.” I kissed his satiny nose before he bounded off to greet his mother and his aunts. They disappeared into the night sky.

When I turned around, the stallion was forehead to forehead with Ty, then Connor. I hadn't noticed how bloody they were, gashed from the explosion or burned by the fire, but the cuts and raw skin disappeared and their rasping breaths eased. They bowed to the stallion. He bowed back.

He spoke, in our words, but in our heads. “Your kind has done great harm. And great good. My family should never have wandered where they were forbidden. Now they are returned to me. I pay my debts.”

Ty held up his hands, unscarred, unburned. “You have, sire.”

“That was nothing.” He turned to look at the others, gathered a little distance away. He singled out Letty. We all heard his voice, in our minds. “You tried to stop this madness. I saved your life. I would make you walk, but I cannot. You are not of our common ancestry.”

“The ride was enough.”

“You will ride my kin here in your world. That I can see to. They will hold you safe and cherished above all others.”

Then he fixed his blue eyes on Connor. “You are brave and true, son of my ancient friends, but troubled. You see illness and cannot cure it, which tears at the tender heart you try to hide. I cannot help you fix your people. But I can give you the power to cure mine. You will be the best healer ever known among my kin.”

Connor slid to his knees, there in the muck, and bowed his head. To hide his tears, I thought.

The stallion—the king of his kind, I knew, even if Ty had not called him sire—searched for Grant. “This is not your home range.” He shifted his gaze to me.

Grant shook his head. “I know.”

“Yet you are brave and true also, dedicated to keeping peace between our worlds. I give you the words. Words so you may speak when the need arises. Words so we may speak.”

I heard the sounds and saw the images that made up the language of the night mares' world. I heard the translations, and I saw Grant repeat them back to the stallion, in reverence and in perfect memory.

“I thank you, great H'ro.”

H'ro—if that was the stallion's name and not a word for king or gift-giver or sire-of-many—took a step toward me. My knees turned to linguine.

He towered over me, but bowed until his head touched mine. “Bravest of females, you gave me back my son, the future of my people.”

“No, I am not brave,” I told him, my voice quavering with nerves. “Ask anyone. I just tried to help a lost baby.”

Do horses smile? This one did, or maybe I felt the warm feeling in my soul. Ty and Grant both grinned.

“I cannot give you your heart's desire, because I do not know what that is. You do not know what that is. But I can give you my promise that your children will never be sick. Your sons will never be broken or lost. Your daughters will know no despair of losing a child.”

He might be a king, but I kissed his nose, the way I did Little Red. “Thank you. You have given me a future to build my dreams on.”