By Joanna
Prologue
A Legend
As long as man has walked this earth, he has been aware of a realm that is not entirely physical or logical, but that exists none the less. Ghosts, spirits, angels, and demons have lived within the myths and tales of every civilization in some form, from primitive cave dwellers to the most technically advanced societies. Perhaps it is the need for man to create a history and a folklore that brings about evidence of the supernatural, the need for him to believe in something beyond himself. Maybe it is designed to widen children's eyes or give someone something to think about on a lonely road at night. Perhaps it is all just legend.
Perhaps it is not.
*~*~*~*~*
Nebraska Territory, 1850
The firelight cast unnatural shadows on the face of the old man sitting cross legged by the fire. His eyes seemed to disappear altogether in black sockets. His deeply wrinkled face resembled leather from the years spent in the sun, carving a notch in the wilderness that always posed on the edge of civilization, ready to take it back the moment a man turned his back on it.
The dangers were great, and the weariness of the few that had survived those first harsh years was evident now, years later within the lines of their faces.
The children leaned closer with both fear and delight, their eyes fixed upon the man as if he prepared to tell them the secrets of the world in his next breath. The adults stood further back, but their eyes were no less eager than their children's. The harvest festival only rolled around once a year, a day to forget the monotonous and back breaking life they lived, to forget the land that had aged them far beyond their years already.
"Tell us a story!" one of the smaller, less restrained ones begged, barely old enough to know his own name, yet he too remembered this old man from last year, the man that told them stories of the plains around them that sparked their imaginations. No one knew the Nebraska plains and the Rocky mountains, or their ghosts, like Bill MacMurphy.
His eyes flashed around the circle of faces and he raised his furry eyebrows, enjoying this attention. He'd earned it, after all. He'd traveled to the plains long before the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 made it part of the United States. He'd lived with Indians as long as whites, and knew the languages of seven plain tribes.
"Did I ever tell you the story of the mustang Satan?" He asked in a low voice. Every single head shook "no". It was a lie of course, they'd heard the story every year for a decade or more, but it was tradition. Every year the stories began with Satan. Most of the adults and many of the children could have retold the story word for word, but it was sacred and saved for Bill to relay under the harvest moon in the middle of a field.
Bill drew a deep breath, and began.
"Now, I know you hear tell about the mustangs around these parts. You probably even seen a few from time to time. But I'm here to warn you about one of them wild horses. You'd know him if you ever saw him. He's a stallion that is black as the devil's night. Not even a summer under this sun can steal a ray of light onto that coat. He's big too, bigger than any horse you ever seen. Nearly eighteen hands high!"
The expected gasp of surprise went up from the farmers and their wives. The children simply leaned in closer.
"Smart horse too. Been around since I was just a boy. Say he can steal a man's mare from the saddle under him without the man knowing till he was gone. He watches the mares he wants for days too, just thinking of how he'll take him. He stalks them like a cat, then comes down at night and takes them back to his herd. Folks speculate that he's stolen well over a thousand mares in his life."
More murmurs and exclamations.
"Not too many seen more of him than his hind quarters hauling for the hills, but there's been a few over the years had the misfortune to stumble on him."
"Have you ever seen him?" A youngster asked, shyness forgotten in rapture.
Bill nodded, "I seen him close as I wanted to. Biggest thing you ever seen. When he runs, sparks of fire fly from his hooves and his nostrils are red! But the wildest thing about this horse is his eyes. Both eyes are the clearest lightest blue you ever did see. They say if you get close enough you can see all the way into the mustang's soul, but that it will paralyze you with fear."
Bill leaned closer and lowered his voice, "Of course, some people would swear to you that Satan ain't a horse, but that he's really the Devil in disguise!
You know how they say the devil rides a dark horse? Well there's some believe that the devil is a dark horse. There's tales around these parts for fifty years about old Satan walking into farmhouses or sneaking up on campsites and standing over a sleeping man or woman. Now if the unlucky person wakes up, and accidentally looks into the stallion's eyes, then his soul is stolen, and he has no choice but to climb on Satan's back and be taken back to the pits of Hell with him. That's why they say the Devil rides a black horse, but what they don't know is that it ain't the devil riding, it's some poor lost soul Satan's captured to take back home with him. Say he can walk upright, just like a man, that his forelegs can turn into hands, that his teeth are pointy, and those eyes glow red when you look into them. Yes sir, that's what they say."
The children murmured in fear, no doubt to later have nightmares of being stolen by a demon stallion that was really the devil in disguise. Several of them whimpered, leaving the circle to reach arms out to their parents for comfort. Not only the children, but the adults too looked a little pale at the thought of a ghost stallion stealing them away in the night.
All the while Bill talked, a young boy with dark brown hair and precocious brown eyes sat fearlessly at attention, eyes perfect o's of fascination, already dreaming of capturing the stallion and riding astride him all the way home to Kansas. He dreamed of how proud his father would be, of how his mother would praise him, of how his dumb sister would be too scared to box his ears when the horse was near.
However, never in his wildest dreams could young Jimmy Hickock imagine that eleven years later he and his friends would be tracking the very stallion he heard about on this night.
To be continued...Chapter 1
Copyright 1998-This work is not to be reproduced without the permission of the author
