Master of the Moors Read Free Page B

befallen Laws. He had to
struggle not to remember how the innkeeper had looked, had to
wrestle with images of Sylvia lying out here in the cold and
fog.
    Generally, people who lost
their way on the moors were never seen again, and while
superstitious villagers were always quick to blame ghosts and devil
hounds, Mansfield knew the mires were filled with the preserved
remains of fools who had wandered too far. But Sylvia Callow was no
fool and he desperately wanted to believe she hadn't set foot on
the moors at all.
    They halted at Callow's
order, the horses circling until the verve left them.
    Fowler looked around,
uneasy. "Why are we stopping?"
    "I saw something," Callow
mumbled. "Over there."
    Mansfield followed his
gaze but saw nothing but fog. "What do you think it
was?"
    A crow cawed somewhere overhead. The
horses snuffled.
    Callow frowned. "Fowler,
be a good man and take a look will you?"
    "Why me?"
    "Because if it's not
anything we wish to know about then you're well-equipped to handle
it."
    Fowler looked down at his
holster and sighed resignedly. "Yes. I suppose so. Where did you
say you saw something?"
    Callow pointed off to
their right. "There. A shadow of some sort. Like someone hiding
from us."
    Fowler looked positively
terrified, which in turn affected Mansfield's already tenuous
nerve. The dread seemed woven into the fog itself.
    "Fowler," Mansfield said.
"If it's Sylvia, try not to shoot her."
    "Perhaps you should come
with me, just to be sure I don't."
    "Perhaps I should." He
started to dismount, but Callow put a hand on his
forearm.
    "No. Let him go. I'd like
to speak with you for a moment."
    Visibly disappointed,
Fowler trudged through the sodden grass. A moment later the fog
erased him from sight.
    Mansfield sighed. "We'll
find her. You have to believe we will."
    "Oh I'm fairly certain we
will."
    "You are?"
    "Of course. In fact I
imagine in the next few moments you'll hear Fowler's announcement
to that effect."
    "How do you
know?"
    The huntmaster smiled.
"Because this is where I left her."
     
     
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    "We should stop fer a few
minutes, Mr. Royle, see if this fog lifts."
    Royle said nothing.
Instead he watched his feet squelching in the sodden grass and
occasionally grimaced, as if in pain.
    "D'you hear me?" Grady
persisted, anxious to stop before the ground gave way completely,
or they walked right into an icy river and froze to death. He hoped
the saddle blanket they'd used to shroud Laws would help contain
the scent of blood long enough for them to get home. If the horses
caught wind of it, they'd go berserk. For now at least, they
plodded dutifully along, no hint in their demeanor of the tragedy
Lightning had caused. In that, Grady envied them, for he was
finding it increasingly difficult to erase the ingrained image of
Laws flying backward through the air, the blood soaring upward from
his face like an elongated tongue.
    "We should have stayed
with them," Royle said, rubbing his brow with the back of one pudgy
hand. "We'll get lost out here. End up like Laws. Jesus..." His
face creased into a grin; a laugh bubbled out of him. "Wait until
my bitch of a mother-in-law hears about this!"
    Grady stopped, halted his
horse, and looked squarely at Royle. "Listen to me," he said, "what
happened was an accident. Laws has been around horses long enough
to know that the red ribbon on Lightnin's tail wasn't there fer
decoration. He was distracted, that's all. A case of bein' in the
wrong place at the wrong time."
    "But his head...did you
see what Lightning did to his head?"
    "I did."
    "What will I tell her?
What will I tell his wife?"
    "The truth," Grady told
him. "That he wasn't payin' attention and the horse kicked
him."
    "Nothing else?"
    "What else is
there?"
    "Plenty."
    "Try to keep yer mind off
it," Grady advised.
    "Do you think the others
will be all right?"
    "Yes. I wouldn't have left
'em if I didn't."
    Stones crunched beneath
their feet, which to Grady signified that they'd reached the Hay
Tor,