The Mystery of the Galloping Ghost (10 page)

“That’s
when you decided to begin haunting other people, starting with the surveyor,”
Honey said.

“Now,
that guy, he scared easy,” Gus said. “I just sneaked through the bushes and
popped up in front of him. My head wasn’t floating, either—it was right on my
shoulders! But he didn’t stay around for a closer look.”

“That
was the simplest prank of all, and that’s the one that worked,” Trixie said.

“Sure
did! If I’d known that fellow was going to tell everyone he’d seen a ghost, I
could have skipped all that work with the cabin,” Gus said.

“You
did set up the
retrocognition
!” Honey exclaimed,
sounding as if the weight of the world had just dropped off her shoulders.

“I
don’t know about that,” Gus said, suddenly suspicious.

“She
just means the haunting,” Trixie said quickly, not wanting Gus to get out of
his talking mood. “How did you do it?”

“Oh,
it wasn’t hard. I knew you girls would
hightail
it to
that cabin as soon as you found out about it. So I waited till you took off.
Then I took a shortcut and beat you there. I plunked down some dishes, set out
the beans, poured the coffee out of my Thermos, and hung up the hat. I wanted
to time it so the food would be warm, but I almost cut it too close. I didn’t
even have time to pick up the fork I’d dropped before I heard you girls
coming.”

Honey
groaned. “That was a mistake—and we thought it was a great big clue!”

Gus
looked slightly pleased with himself. “But how did you undo everything?” Trixie
asked. “When we went back later—”

“You
went back?” Gus interrupted. “You girls are really tough!”

“Well,
we did go back,” Trixie said hurriedly, not wanting to explain why or with
whom. “Everything looked different, as though no one had been there for years.
How did you manage that?”

Gus
sniffed. “All I did was gather up the stuff I’d brought and clear out fast,” he
said.

“But
the cobwebs, the dust on the floor, the grime on the table—” Trixie began.

“They
were probably all there the first time,” Honey said. “Only we didn’t notice
them.”

“That’s
not all we missed,” Trixie said gloomily. “If we’d noticed Gus’s footprints in
the dust, we wouldn’t have fallen for the trick at all. I could have saved you
a lot of worry if I’d been more observant.”

Honey
smiled appreciatively at her friend. “I could have saved some myself, too.”

Trixie
felt an odd combination of anger at Gus’s tricks and relief that they’d been
figured out. “Now, Gus,” she demanded, “tell us where you hid Al-
Adeen
.”

Gus’s jaw dropped
open,
then
it set in a look
of stubborn anger. “I didn’t take the horse,” he said.

“You
just admitted you were the ghost,” Trixie said.

“Sure.
I did those things to drive Burke away. And I almost singed my whiskers, too,
because my pranks made Burke want the place even more. But then young Billy
decided not to sell. That’s what I wanted. Why would I steal the horse after
all that?” Gus made a hissing sound. “You girls are tough, but maybe you ain’t
all that smart.”

“He’s
right,” Honey said, seeing Gus’s point about the horse.

“Then
who took Al-
Adeen
?” Trixie demanded.

“What
do you mean?” Gus exclaimed. “Al-
Adeen
is a
hot-blooded young stallion. He decided to go see the world. That happens
sometimes.”

“I
suppose so,” Trixie said reluctantly.

“Besides,”
Gus added, still angry enough to want to press his point, “would a human thief
have kicked in that stall door? It was torn clean off the hinges. Look at it.”
He gestured toward the empty stall.

Curious,
Trixie went over to Al-
Adeen’s
stall. The door was
leaning uselessly against the wall, testimony that it no longer had anything to
guard. The hinges dangled from the door, screws still in place, splinters of
wood still surrounding the screws.

Trixie
gave a long, low whistle, impressed by the power that could cause such damage.
She inspected the doorjamb, fingering the deep holes where the hinges had torn
free. She crossed to the other side of the stall door to inspect the damage
there. “Hey, wait a minute!” she shouted. “Look at this!”

Honey
came over and bent down to look. “Seems fine to me,” she said, then
straightened up and looked eagerly at Trixie.
“Just fine.”

“Exactly.”
Trixie turned to Gus. “Explain how a horse could kick
a door off the hinges and not do any damage to the bolt.” She took another look
at the door. “No, wait,” she said sarcastically, “there’s no need to explain.
He shot the bolt back
before
he kicked the door in, that’s how.”

Gus
silently inspected the doorjamb and the door. Then he said to Trixie, “It looks
like you’re pretty smart, after all. I’m the dumb one. I should have noticed
that the first thing.” Honey immediately softened. “You were upset. We all
were,” she told him. She turned to Trixie. “The one who wasn’t very smart was
the thief. Didn’t he know how suspicious this would look?”

“Maybe
not,” Trixie replied. “Or maybe he knew, and this was the best he could do.
Remember, Pat and Regan were right upstairs. The thief could risk a couple of
blows from a sledge, but not much more.”

“Okay,”
Honey said, “now we know it
was
a
thief.
But who?”

“Not
me,” Gus said.

“No,”
Trixie said promptly. “Not you. I was off by a mile on that one. Your interest
is in having the
Murrows
stick around, and this theft
is likely to make them sell. Then who—” Trixie broke off as the answer became
obvious. She looked at Honey and saw that her friend had figured it out, too.

It
was Gus who said the name aloud: “Burke.”

“Of course!”
Trixie said. “He takes the horse and hides him until
Bill gives up and agrees to sell. Then he either arranges for the horse to
wander home, or he sells him in some other part of the country where he can’t
be traced.”

“There’s
no such place,” Gus said. “Al-
Adeen
has his
identification tattooed on his lip. Anyone who bought him could trace him.”

Trixie
waved the objection away. “Well, then, he wouldn’t have to sell him. He could
just—” Her eyes grew wide as the sentence completed itself in her mind.

“He
could put a bullet between the horse’s eyes,” Gus said.

“We
can’t let that happen!” Honey said. “We have to do something—but what?”

“We
could confront Burke,” Trixie said. Gus shook his head. “A dead horse would be
easier to hide than a live one, if Burke knows somebody’s on his trail.”

Honey
shuddered. “Maybe we ought to tell Bill and Charlene, and see what they want to
do. They have the most at stake in this.”

“That’s
exactly why we can’t tell them yet,” Trixie said grimly. “Bill would be so
angry he’d go marching off to confront Burke—or ask the sheriff to do it.
Either way, Burke knows we’re onto him, and Al-
Adeen
is done for.”

“Then
what do we do?” Honey asked frantically.

“First,
try to find the horse,” Trixie said. “Once he’s safe, we can go after Burke.
Meantime,” she concluded, looking from Honey to Gus and back again, “we have to
keep this a secret. Agreed?”

The
other two nodded.

“So
how do we go about finding the horse?” Honey asked.

“We
start by taking that little stroll we told Mrs. Murrow about,” Trixie said.
“To Burke Landing.”

The
girls said good-bye to Gus and set off by way of the blacktop road. “We want as
much information as we can get,” Trixie told Honey.
“If Burke
isn’t around, so much the better.
There’s bound to be someone we can
talk to in the construction trailer.”

The
sounds of construction grew louder as Trixie and Honey approached the site. To
their surprise, the trailer was gone, replaced by a large sign that said,
model now open
.

The
girls made their way through deep ruts and sawed-off pieces of lumber. “Gee,”
said Trixie, “I wonder why the office was moved out of the trailer. It’s so
messy here.”

The
model unit was on the ground floor. It was open, but far from finished. Plywood
floors were down and two-by-fours showed the outline of where the rooms would
be. The only furnishings were a card table and two folding chairs, which were
set up in the living room. Behind the table, a large hole in the wall that
would someday be a picture window framed a beautiful view of the woods along
the river.

A
young woman rose from one of the chairs to greet them. “I’m Courtney Dahl,” she
said, raising her voice to be heard over the noise.

“Welcome
to Burke Landing. Would you girls be interested in buying a unit here?” She
smiled to show that she was joking.

“We
wouldn’t,” Honey said
,
smiling back to show that she’d
caught the joke. “I thought my father might, though. He’s quite an
outdoors-man. I understand this part of the country is outstanding for hunting
and fishing.”

Honey
did her best to sound sophisticated, and Ms. Dahl seemed to realize that this
was no joke, after all. She launched into a detailed sales presentation,
complete with a floor plan of the units and a model of the finished
development. She emphasized what she called the “amenities”—a swimming pool,
four tennis courts, a party room, and a picnic area near the river.

Trixie
had to admit it all looked very nice.
Just not right next door to the
Murrows
,
she thought.

“We’ll
be opening in the spring of next year,” the young woman said.

Unconsciously,
both girls found themselves looking around at the bare framework of the room
and at the rutted landscape beyond.

“Things
really move quickly from this stage on,” Ms. Dahl said. “That’s why we’re
urging people to reserve units now. If you’d just give me your father’s name
and telephone number, I could—”

Trixie
cut her off, to spare Honey the high-pressure tactics. “I’ve always heard that
the most important thing in a real estate development is who the developer
is—his experience and so forth. Could you tell us his name?”

“Mr.
Jon Burke, a wonderful person. I’ve been working for him for three months, and
I know he’s very committed to this project.”

“Has
he done other projects like it? Is there one nearby that we could see?” Honey
asked.

“Not that I know of.
I don’t think Mr. Burke is from
around here, actually. Everything I know about him is in our sales brochure.”
She gestured to a stack of brochures on the table. “I’m sure Mr. Burke would be
willing to talk to your father about his prior experience and his plans for
this project. Just write his name and address on this piece of paper.” The
woman thrust the paper forward, giving Honey no chance to refuse.

After
Honey had written down the information, she said, “I’m sure he’ll be
delighted.” Once outside, Trixie asked, “Won’t your father be a little upset
that you handed out his name like that?”

Honey
giggled. “No, he won’t be. But if there
is
a Roger Thompson living at
382 Elm Street
in
Minneapolis
,
he
might be in for a surprise!”

Trixie
laughed,
then
looked around for a secluded spot where
she and Honey could study the sales brochure. She found one under a huge old
maple that grew about halfway between the development and the entrance to the
Murrows
’ ranch.

“This
is just a recap of the sales pitch,” Trixie said, “with more stuff about
amenities. Wait a minute—here it is!
‘About the Developer.’
” Trixie and Honey leaned over the page, reading quickly through the short
paragraph. Above the words, a smiling picture of Jon Burke, complete with
cowboy hat and feathered hatband, loomed out at them.

Trixie
finished reading first. “What a bunch of hot air!” she snorted. She quoted from
memory:
“ ‘Mr
. Burke is descended from pioneer
Minnesota
stock, and is now opening
Minnesota
to those who want to pioneer in
the time-share concept.’ All the
real
pioneers must be spinning in their graves!
Pioneers with
amenities!”
The more Trixie talked, the angrier she got. “Besides, it
isn’t even true. That woman who works for him said he isn’t from around here.”

“The
brochure doesn’t say Burke was born here,” Honey pointed out. “It just says his
ancestors were.”

“They
were probably a bunch of shiftless no-goods like Gunnar
Bjorkland
,”
Trixie growled. Then she gasped. “Oh, Honey, I’ll bet they were! And he is,
too!”

Honey
was a little baffled. “What do you mean?”

“Listen,”
Trixie said. She leaned close to Honey, to focus her friend’s full attention on
herself. She spoke slowly, pronouncing each syllable: “Gun-
nar
Be-
york
-land.
Burke-land.
Burke Land-
ing
. Get it? Burke
is
a descendant of Gunnar
Bjorkland
!”

“They
do sound similar,” Honey admitted. “I’ll bet he’s always been ashamed of having
an ancestor who was hanged as a cattle thief. So he came back here and started
this big, fancy development to prove he wasn’t a shiftless failure like old
Gunnar. That’s the reason he’s so eager to get his hands on
Fairhaven
— to extend his development
practically to the doorstep of Gunnar’s cabin. I’ll bet the rustling instinct
runs in the family, too!” Trixie stopped only because she’d run out of breath.

“It
sounds awfully farfetched,” Honey said. Before Trixie could protest, Honey
added,
“I
believe you,
but who else will? Look, I think Burke has Al-
Adeen
.
But who his ancestors were doesn’t make any difference—unless you think old
Gunnar might haunt Burke into returning the horse, to keep him from meeting a
similar fate.”

Trixie
snorted. “Now,
that’s
farfetched. If anything, the ghost would help Burke out. If there was a ghost,
which there isn’t, because we know that Gus— Oh, gosh!” Trixie grabbed Honey’s
arm, her eyes as round as if she had, indeed, just seen a ghost.

“What
is it?” Honey asked in alarm.

“Wilhelmina!”
Trixie said.
“We
know old
Gus was the ghost, but she doesn’t. She’s convinced we had an honest-to-gosh
retrocognition
.”

“Oh,
the poor woman,” Honey said. “She’ll be so disappointed. Do we have to tell her
the truth?”

“Of
course, we do,” Trixie said, sounding shocked. “Otherwise, she’ll write the
whole thing up in a big technical paper. We’ll tell her tonight.”

“You’re
right, of course,” Honey admitted. “But it just seems so unfair that everyone’s
dreams have to be ruined.
First
Murrows
’
prize horse, now Wilhelmina’s ghost.
It isn’t fair!”

Back
at
Fairhaven
,
there was still no news about Al-
Adeen
. All the
neighbors
had been alerted, though, Charlene told the
girls.