Quincannon had been there before, once on an outing with a young woman of his acquaintance, once on the trail of a thief who had used the ragtag community as a temporary hideout before taking it on the lammas to San Jose. It had grown since his last visit over a year ago. Most of the structures were strung closely together along the highway, a few others spaced widely apart among the seaward dunes. Most were more or less permanent homes-single-or double-stacked cars, some drawn together in horseshoe shapes for protection against the wind, and embellished by lean-tos and fenced porches. A few were part-time dwellings-clubhouses, weekend retreats or, by reputation, rendezvous for lovers. The whole had a colorless, wind-blown, sanded appearance that blue sky and sunlight did little to brighten; on days like this one, it was downright dismal.
The coffee saloon, a single car with a slant-roofed portico, bore a painted sign: THE ANNEX. Smoke dribbled out of its chimney, to be snatched away immediately by the wind. Quincannon pulled the buggy off the road in front, affixed the weighted hitch strap to the horse’s bit, and went inside.
It was a rudimentary place, with a narrow foot-railed counter running most of its width. There were no seats or decorations of any kind. The smells of strong-brewed coffee and pitch pine burning in a potbellied stove were welcome after the long, cold ride from downtown.
The counterman was a stooped oldster with white whiskers and tufts of hair that grew patchily from his scalp like saw grass atop the beach dunes. Quincannon sensed immediately that he was the garrulous type hungry for company and this proved to be the case.
“One coffee coming up,” the oldster said, and, as he served it in a steaming mug: “Colder than a witch’s hind end out there. My name’s Potter, but call me Caleb, ever’body does. Passing by or visiting, are ye?”
“John Quincannon. Visiting.”
“Ye don’t mind me asking who?”
“The Barnaby Meekers.”
“Nice folks, Mister and Missus Meeker. The boy’s a mite rascally, but then so was I at his age. You a friend of theirs?”
“A business acquaintance of Mister Meeker.” Quincannon sugared his coffee, found it too strong, and added another spoonful. “Strange goings-on out here of late, I understand,” he said conversationally.
“How’s that? Strange goings-on?”
“Ghost lights in cars and vanishing spooks in the dunes.”
“Oh, that,” Caleb said. “Mister Meeker told you, I expect.”
“He did.”
“Well, I ain’t one to dispute a man like Barnaby Meeker, nor any other man with two good eyes, but it’s a tempest in a teapot, ye ask me.”
“You haven’t seen these apparitions yourself, then?”
“No, and nobody else has, neither, except the Meekers and a fella name of Crabb. Neighbor of theirs out there in the dunes.” Caleb leaned forward and said confidentially, even though there was no one else in the car: “Just between you and me, I wouldn’t put too much stock in what Mister Crabb says on the subject.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, he’s kind of a queer bird. Wouldn’t think it to look at him, as strapping as he be, but he’s scared to death of the supernatural. Come in here the morning after he first seen the will-o’-the-wisp or whatever it was and he was white as a ghost himself. Asked me all sorts of questions about spooks and such, whether we’d had ’em out here before. I told him no and ’twas likely somebody out with a lantern, or his eyes playing tricks, but he was convinced he seen the ghost two nights in a row.” Caleb chuckled, revealing loose-fitting store-bought teeth. “Some folks is sure gullible.”
“He lives alone, does he?” Quincannon asked.
“Yep. Keeps to himself, don’t have much truck with any of the rest of us. Only been living in Carville a couple of weeks or so. Squatter, unless I miss my guess. I can spot ’em, the ones just move in all of a sudden and take over a car without paying for the privilege.”
“What does he do for a living?”
“He never said. Mister Meeker’s boy Jared says he’s a construction worker, but seems to me he don’t go nowhere much during the day.”
“Jared Meeker knows him, then.”
“To pass the time of day with. Seen ’em doing that once.”
Quincannon finished his coffee, declined a refill, and went out to the rented buggy. The branch lane that led to the Meekers’ home was 200 rods farther south. The buggy alternately bounced and slogged along the sandy surface; once, a hidden rut lifted Quincannon off the seat and made him pull back hard enough on the reins nearly to jerk the horse’s head through the martingale loops. Neither this nor the cold wind or the bleakness dampened his spirits. A few minor discomforts were a small price to pay for a $1,500 fee.
The lane led in among the dunes, dipped down into a hollow where it split into two forks. A driftwood sign mounted on a pole there bore the name Meeker and an arrow pointing along the right fork. In that direction Quincannon could see a group of four traction cars, two set end to end, the others at a right and a left angle at the far ends, like an arrangement of dominoes; mist-diffused lamplight showed faintly behind curtained windows in one of the two middle cars. A way down the left fork stood a single car canted slightly against the dune behind it; some distance beyond, eight or nine abandoned cars were jumbled together among the sandhills as if tossed there by a giant’s hand. Thick tendrils of fog gave them an insubstantial, almost ethereal aspect, one that would be enhanced by darkness and imagination. A ghost’s lair, indeed.
Quincannon left the buggy at the intersection of the two lanes, ground-hitched the horse, and trudged through drifted sand along the left-hand fork. No lights or chimney smoke showed in the single canted car; he bypassed it and continued on to the jumble.
From the outside there was nothing about any of the abandoned cars to catch the eye. They were or had been painted in various colors, according to which transit company owned them; half had been there long enough for the colors to have faded entirely and the metal and glass surfaces to become sand-pitted. Three had belonged to the Market Street Railway, four to the Ferries and Cliff House Railway, the remaining two to the California Street Cable Railroad.
Quincannon wound his way among them. No one had prowled here recently; the sand was wind-scoured to a smoothness that bore no footprints or anything other than tufts of saw grass. He trudged back to the nearest one, stepped up and inside. All the seats had been removed; he had a brief and unpleasant feeling of standing inside a giant steel coffin. There was nothing in it other than a dusting of sand that had blown in through the open doorway. And no signs that anyone had been inside since it was discarded.
He investigated a second car, then a third. These, too, had had their seats removed. Only the second contained anything to take his attention-faint scuff marks in the drifted sand, the fresh clawlike scratches on walls and floor that Barnaby Meeker had alluded to. The source and meaning of the scratches defied accurate guessing. He stepped outside, with the intention of entering the next nearest car-and a man appeared suddenly from around the end of the car, stood glowering with his hands fisted on his hips and his legs spread, and demanded: “Who are you? What’re you doing here?”
Without replying, Quincannon took his measure. He was some shy of forty, heavily black-whiskered but bald on top, with thick arms and hips broader than his shoulders. The staring eyes were the size and color of blackberries. The man seemed edgy as well as suspicious. None of this was as arresting as the fact that he wore a holstered revolver, the tail of his coat swept back, and his hand on the weapon’s gnarled butt-a large-bore Bisley Colt, judging from its size.