"What about the abandoned coal mine?"
"If you can find it, and I suspect you can't, all you really have to do is post it and your farm's perimeter. I think the sheriff is messing with you. He likes you, by the way."
"Called me a shit magnet."
She laughed. "That's a new one, but undeserved. Let's meet for breakfast." She named a place in town, and I agreed to meet her at eight.
I hung up the phone and went for some Scotch. When I came back into the main room, both shepherds were at the side window and Frick was growling.
I put down my drink and flipped off the lights, having had enough of being shot at through the windows. I went over to the side window and looked out over the millpond. The night was hazy, but there was a moon. Budding willows framed the silvery water like a Japanese print. On my side of the dam there was a solitary figure on horseback, standing motionless in the moonlight. I felt a shiver go down my back, even as I realized this must be the major. He and the horse were silhouetted by the moon and totally motionless, as if cast in silver and black granite. The visual effect was unsettling.
I went outside, leaving the shepherds by the door. They were not happy with that arrangement. I walked across the lawn toward the dam and stopped about ten feet away.
"Major," I said.
"Overseer," he replied, tipping his head slightly. The horse moved around a bit, but he did something with one knee and the beast stopped moving.
"Out late tonight?" I asked.
He looked over my head in the direction of Glory's End. "Those people," he said in a tired voice. "Those people are approaching from the east and south in their thousands. Sherman and his animal hordes. There's no word from General Lee. I think the end is near."
"Well," I said. "Perhaps it's time."
"Nevuh, suh!" he exclaimed. I held my peace, wondering if I should even continue with this charade. Yet, surreal as it was, the setting rather supported it. Up to our left was the gray shape of the big house, looming among its protective oaks, its ground-floor windows glimmering with candlelight. There was no traffic out on the two-lane to spoil the illusion. For just a moment, with the moon casting a broad ribbon of light across the millpond, it wasn't that hard to slip into the time warp.
His face was in total shadow, so I could not read his expression, but the horse moved nervously again, as if sensing that something bad was coming. He clucked to the animal and then adjusted himself in the saddle. His long cavalry sword clinked against some part of his tack.
"Keep watch," he said. "If they come this way, they will hang people like you, suh, and the slaves will help them do it. Are you armed, overseer?"
"Well, yes," I said, even as I realized that I'd left my trusty SIG in the house. Had to stop doing that.
"Very good," he said. "Remain vigilant, then. Trust no one and report all strangers. These are parlous times indeed. I must return to camp."
I did not know what to say to that, but he had already nudged the big horse into a slow trot up the drive toward the big house, the horse's shoes snapping the occasional spark off the gravel. Once he'd gone I wondered if I hadn't imagined the whole thing.
An owl called from the other side of the millpond, its throaty hooting amplified by the still water. Perfect, I thought and went back inside. The shepherds kept watch by the door for a while, but there were no more night visitors, at least that I knew about. I kept the. 45 on the bedside table, just in case, and Kitty slept in her now customary position, in my bedroom doorway.
Carol and I met at the local breakfast joint on the main street of town. It was a full house, and we ended up sitting at the counter, surrounded by a high volume of conversation laced with a surprising amount of cigarette smoke. This was tobacco-growing country, and the locals were apparently remaining loyal to that side. I told her about my encounter with the mad major, and she just shook her head.
"It sounds as if he's frozen in that one period of time," I said. "He keeps replaying it in his mind."
"Spooky," she said.
"I'll tell you what," I said. "It was spooky out there. It was like talking to a ghost, except he was real, and so was the horse."
She stirred her coffee for a moment. "You do know," she said, "that you're the only person I know who's actually seen the major?"
"Oh, c'mon," I said. "The sheriff told me about him. Cubby takes care of his horse daily. He told me he locks up the tack room at night to keep him from going out on the road at night."
"That may be what Cubby says, but I've never met anyone outside of the Laurel Grove estate who's actually seen the major. And what was he doing out there at night if Cubby locks things up?"
"Hell, I don't know. You think I'm seeing things?'
"No-o," she said, "but I'd be careful, if I were you, about telling people these stories about encountering the major. Most folks here in town think a lot of that is a tall tale, you know, the lunatic relative chained up in the attic at Laurel Grove, where, oh, by the way, they dress up in early Victorian clothes, ride in a horse and buggy, don't use electricity, and read by candlelight."
I sat back in the booth and looked at her. "Tell you what," I said. "Come out to Glory's End today and I'll show you where I first encountered the mysterious major. It's a campfire site, and it's obviously been in use for a long time. I can also show you the fresh pile of horse apples on the dam, from last night."
"Don't get upset, Cam," she said. "I believe you."
"Okay, then, come on out. Just let me show you. I haven't been on scene long enough to fake this, nor do I have any motive to make this stuff up. Like I said last night, I'm beginning to have second thoughts about the whole project."
She sighed audibly and looked around the crowded cafe. "I know this is difficult for you, coming up from the city," she said. "People here are mostly longtime residents. Their families have been here for generations. They think they know everything about everybody. Now there's a drug dealer pulled out of what has long been a county swimming hole, and you're having conversations with the legendary major of Laurel Grove. I'm just saying-"
"That since I've arrived in the county and acquired one of the historical properties, bad shit's been happening."
She looked uncomfortable, but then she grinned. "Yes and no," she said. "Some of us are, what's the word, rather fascinated? You're like a cue ball, cracking into the triangle on a pool table, and everything that's been just-so for years is crashing around."
"Is that a good thing?"
"It might be," she said. "This county's motto is 'Preserving the past, embracing the future.' Lots of people here are all about the past, but not that many really embrace the future. I guess what I'm saying is, please don't bail out just yet."
"Then come with me to Glory's End. Seeing is believing."
"Will you stop talking about ghosts bearing dead babies in the grocery store?"
"If they stay away, I will."
She smiled and said okay.
We finished breakfast, and then she followed me back to the plantation. An hour later and after an arduous climb through the old croplands and up the ridge, we arrived at the circle of rocks. The blackened stones were still there, and even Carol could see that they had been used for a long time. I was able to find hoofprints in the dirt behind the boulders, and there were blackened coffee grounds in the surrounding grass. Frick tried to eat some and then made a bad face.
"I make my coffee in the cottage, and I don't boil the grounds," I said. I told her about seeing the flash of reflected light up on this ridge, encountering the major, and my indiscretion about claiming to own the place. "Now he thinks I'm the overseer; that's what he called me last night, too. Overseer."