The Long Black Veil

'Two putts for a tie, one to win and beat this old wind bag,' Rawlings thought. . He made a practice swing and then made his shot. The ball rolled directly toward the hole, but about a foot away, it made a hard turn to the left. It didn't veer or trickle off line; it made a 90 degree turn and rolled about three feet away.

Rawlings couldn't believe it. He knew he had made a good shot, and he'd never seen a golf ball make a turn like that. He stared at the ball for several seconds.

"Hell of a lot of English on that putt, Randolph," Reacher said as he tried to keep from laughing. "Don't know as I would have played it that way."

Lining up the comeback putt, Rawlings mumbled several obscenities. 'Well I can still tie,' he thought. 'Won't win the money but won't have to pay it out, either.' He made the short three foot putt and once again, when the ball got to within a foot of the hole, it made a sharp turn, but this time to the right. It rolled about seven feet and stopped. It sort of vibrated for a few seconds and then the ball was still.

The yelling and obscenities from Rawlings could be heard all the way into the clubhouse, which was a hundred feet away. Several people stepped out of the bar to see what was causing so much noise. Reacher tried to not laugh out loud, but this time he couldn't hold it in. Truth be told, he didn't like Rawlings much. He thought Rawlings was unprincipled, unethical, and was more concerned with how his office could make him rich and powerful instead of serving the law and the citizens of his county.

"Strange putting stroke, Rawlings." Reacher had a wide grin on his face. "That's a thousand dollars and lunch you owe me, Randolph."

Rawlings almost screamed and his face was a deep unhealthy shade of red. He swung his putter at the ball, digging a groove in the green but knocking the ball into the green side lake. Then he threw his putter after it. Rawlings glared at Wiley as he stomped across the green to his golf cart. Reaching into his golf bag, he pulled out his wallet. He counted out ten one-hundred-dollar bills.

He came back and handed Reacher the thousand dollars and then added a fifty. Rawlings said in a voice filled with anger, "Buy your own God Damned lunch." Rawlings climbed into the golf cart and stomped on the gas pedal. It didn't give him much satisfaction as it was an electric cart and was very quiet. When he got to the parking lot, he threw his bag and clubs into the trunk of his car and drove off at a high rate of speed.

"Guess he didn't like losing," Wiley said, and chuckled. He walked the hundred feet to the bar/restaurant and went inside for lunch.

At 11PM, Judge Randolph Rawlings was feeling no pain. He wasn't really drunk, but was close to it thanks to the three large glasses of whiskey. He stood to go to bed and knocked over his empty glass on the end-table next to his sofa. As he bent over to pick it up, he felt like someone put their foot on his butt and pushed; hard. Rawlings traveled about three feet before hitting the floor and slid for another two or three feet.

The judge picked himself up looked around. He didn't see the faint blue light in the corner. "Guess I'm drunker than I thought," he said. "Better get myself to bed. Got to be up for court tomorrow." He climbed the stairs to his bedroom and took a quick shower. Dressing in his monogrammed pajamas, he climbed into bed and laid back. 'Hope the damn room doesn't start spinning.'

'Got to get the air-conditioning looked at,' he thought as his bedroom had a definite chill. He pulled the quilt up over him. About an hour later, Rawlings awoke in a sweat; it was not very warm in the room. Whispering voices in his bedroom could be faintly heard. 'I can't be hearing voices,' he thought. 'No, not voices, a voice. What the hell is that?'

He heard another noise and sat up. Across the room, his golf bag was standing close to the wall quivering. As he watched, his clubs, one at a time, levitated out of the bag. Seemingly of their own accord, they flew at a high rate of speed and embedded themselves in the wall behind the bed. They missed Rawlings by no more than two feet.

A shimmering blue light at the foot of the bed grew brighter and solidified into the figure of Travis Benson. Rawlings screamed like a little girl and opened the drawer in the night stand. He grabbed his gun, a 9mm Glock 17, and shot until the slide locked open on the empty magazine. The bullets traveled through the figure and hit the wall behind it.

"You can't be here," Rawlings yelled and started to cry. "I hung you, I saw you die."

"Yes you did, now it's your turn, Rawlings," Travis said. The wraith took a step closer to the bed and reached out with his hands toward Rawlings' chest. The hands passed through the old man into his chest and the specter made a squeezing motion. The judge screamed, clutched his chest and fell backwards onto the bed. The wraith that was Travis Benson smiled and pulled its hands back. The figure slowly faded until just the blue light remained, then it disappeared.

Boyd stopped by Judge Rawlings house mid-morning the next day. The Judge had a court session scheduled for 9AM that morning, and hadn't shown up or called to reschedule. Several phone calls to his residence and his cell phone had gone unanswered. Boyd knocked and then using a key given to him by the judge, opened the front door. The house was quiet and there was no answer when Boyd called for his cousin.

Heading up the stairs, Boyd shivered. "Damn the old man must have the a/c set really low," Boyd said. He knocked on the closed door of the main bedroom. Not hearing an answer, he opened the door and entered the room. Then he stopped dead.

The Judge was on his back in the middle of his bed. 'Damn rigor mortis has set in; he's as stiff as a board,' Boyd thought as he touched the body and felt how cold it was. One of the dead man's arms was extended into the air and out from its body; the other clutched his chest over his heart. 'Looks like he was trying to hold something away from him. Guess I better call Doc Little.'

Doctor Jeremiah Little was one of three doctors in Carter County, and since Van Buren was the county seat, he was also the medical examiner for the entire county. He'd been the one to examine Dawson when he was killed. Doc Little examined Judge Rawlings in his bedroom. He made a preliminary Cause of Death as heart failure. Little based his findings on the clutching of the chest and the slight blue tone of the victim's lips and around its eyes. It was a surprise to Doctor Little.

"I'll know more after the autopsy," Little told Boyd. "What I don't understand is the golf clubs stuck in the wall or the bullet holes in the wall. Oh well, let you know what I find. And listen, I'm sorry for your loss."

The next day, Doc Little called Boyd. "Well it was a heart attack all right. Don't understand it; I gave Randolph an extensive physical two weeks ago. All tests and indications showed that he had the physic of a man twenty years younger. No signs of possible heart problems."

"Just goes to show you even healthy guys get heart problems," Boyd offered.

"The strange thing is that there was actual bruising on his heart," Little continued." Looked like someone squeezed the heart very hard. Course that's impossible. And that doesn't explain the blue coloring around his eyes and his lips. Done my job and that's the best I can give you, Boyd. Have the county send my fee."

Boyd sat at his desk for several minutes, thinking about the Doc's report, the golf clubs in the wall and the bullet holes. "Wish I knew what happened,' he said. Then he sat up straight. "By God, I can. The old man put a security system with cameras in the house. Thought someone was stealing his booze." He stood and started toward his patrol car. "Reckon I better get those recordings."

The security system was better than older systems, but not as good as the new ones that uploaded data to the cloud. It didn't use tape, it recorded everything it saw and heard on DVDs. The info was kept a predetermined amount of time, and then if the disc wasn't replaced it would erase it and use it for the next period. Boyd inserted the DVD on the judge's computer, sat down and pulled up the security feed for the night the judge died.

What Boyd saw was the judge sitting up and looking across the room. The image of the golf clubs flying across the room and embedding themselves in the wall made Boyd stop. He replayed that part again. "What the hell," Boyd said. He saw the judge staring at the end of his bed heard the judge's comments of "You can't be here. I hung you; I saw you die."

Then the feed showed Judge Rawlings reach out with one hand as if protecting himself, while the other clutched his chest. He fell back on the bed and was still.

Boyd shook his head and sat back in the chair. 'Who was he talking to?' Boyd thought. 'And what is with those golf clubs? Who was he trying to push away? Doesn't make any sense.'

Thinking another look would help, Boyd replayed the footage but nothing was different... except, as the video came to the end, three words appeared. In large, blood red letters the words YOU'RE NEXT... TRAVIS, pulsed from eerily bright to dim, and back to bright, then they slowly faded.

Boyd pushed back in the office chair and it rolled several feet from the computer desk. He sat there, not believing what he'd seen. As he watched, the three words appeared again for almost a minute, and then faded away again. The room had become colder and Boyd shivered. He stood up, grabbed the DVD, and left the house: almost running to get away.

The patrol car's starter ground, but refused to start. The siren came on and ran up and down the scale. The red and blue lights flashed on and off in a random sequence, and the radio put out very loud static. Boyd turned everything off, but they all came back on. Then the riot shotgun started to rattle back and forth in its holder. Boyd jumped out of the car and started walking at a furious pace.

He walked toward the courthouse square. After about a hundred yards, he used his lapel mike to call the Sheriff's office. When a deputy answered, Boyd said, "Jasper, my cruiser broke down in front of the judge's house. Get a tow truck and bring it back to the maintenance department." After a few seconds he answered, "No I don't want to wait for the tow, I'm walkin back God damn it."

Boyd and his patrol car arrived back at his office at about the same time. Jasper had driven it back and got out as his boss walked up.

"Nothin wrong with your car, Sheriff, as far as I can tell. Started right up and drove fine." Jasper handed Boyd the keys to the patrol car.

For the next hour or so, Boyd sat at his desk and thought about the happenings of that morning. He gave Jasper the security DVD. "Take a look at this and let me know what you think," he ordered.

Jasper took the disc to his computer station and inserted it. He sat down and waited for the DVD to play. After a few minutes he took it out, reinserted it and waited. Nothing happened. Jasper pulled the disc and offered it back to Boyd. "Hey Sheriff, this disc is a blank."

"What about the golf clubs?" Boyd asked. "What about what the judge said? What about the words at the end?"

"Didn't see any of that. You sure you gave me the right DVD?"

Boyd grabbed disc and went back to his desk. He put the DVD in the player on his computer. In less than three seconds the scene in the judge's bedroom appeared. Boyd watched the images again. At the end the same blood colored words appeared; YOU'RE NEXT... TRAVIS. He screamed in anger, ejected the disc and broke it into several pieces.

"I'm goin home," he told his deputy. "You got the duty."

"But, Sheriff, it's my night off," Jasper complained, but he was talking to Boyd's back.

Sheriff Rawlings didn't drink very much, but he made an exception when he got home. After two very large glasses of whiskey, his mind stopped spinning. He'd been in an uproar since he'd seen the security footage. He took his .44 revolver and put in on his night stand. Then he dropped his belt and holster on the floor. Boyd propped himself up against the headboard with a couple of pillows behind him.

Emmy was visiting her parents; she'd been there since Travis' execution. She was sure that Body and the judge had framed Travis and she wanted to leave; not just her marriage but the town, as well, but Emmy didn't have the courage to leave or file for a divorce. She wasn't sure how Boyd would treat her parents if she tried to get a divorce or left town so she would stay...for now.

"Damn woman's at her parents," Boyd muttered. "I'll put a stop to that. She belongs home with me." Boyd didn't really care that much about his wife but he wanted her close where he could control her. "Gonna make her life hell for cheatin on me with that damn Benson."

He took another long drink of whiskey and just as he started to drop off to sleep, he got cold. Boyd reached for the quilt on the bed but it wouldn't move. He sat up to pull and free the cover but was distracted by a blue shimmering light at the foot of the bed.

A figure began to materialize out of the light. Boyd watched as the light solidified into Travis Benson. It seemed to be holding onto the quilt. "You're dead," Boyd screamed.

The wraith of Travis grinned at his victim. "I told you I'd see you again, Boyd."

The Sheriff pawed at his pistol and finally picked it up. He fired at the figure until his weapon clicked on an empty chamber. The bullets had no effect; Boyd saw his bullets pass through Travis and hit the wall behind him, blowing large holes in the sheet rock.

Travis laughed and stepped to the side of the bed. "You can't hurt me, I'm already dead. Remember? Now you're gonna pay for killing me. Now you're gonna pay for hurting Emmy. Now you're gonna pay." He leaned over, took a pillow from behind Boyd and pushed him down flat on his back.

Boyd tried to push the figure away, but his arms went through it just as his bullets had. Travis put the pillow, over his victim's face and pushed down... hard. Boyd struggled and pushed at the pillow. After three or so minutes, Boyd stopped moving.

"I hope you come to this afterlife, this ... whatever it is," Travis' wraith said to Boyd's body. "You got off too easy. I wanna torture you some more." The apparition slowly faded away.

Late that same night, Emmy was in a state between wakefulness and sleep. Travis' ghost visited her again. "You can stop being scared, Emmy. Boyd can't hurt you or your parents anymore."

"What do you mean?" She asked.

"I made sure he won't bother you again. Go on and enjoy your life. If you would, think of me now and then. Remember, I'll always be here to protect you." The ghost disappeared as Emmy came full awake.

Boyd's body was discovered the next afternoon by his deputy. Jasper had come to check in with the Sheriff when there was no answer to phone calls or radio calls. The deputy quickly called Doctor Little, the medical examiner.

Little's investigation didn't reveal much more than the one for the judge. "Looks like Boyd had his oxygen cut off by a pillow; looks like he was smothered," Little said aloud in his morgue. He had developed a habit of talking to himself while doing autopsies.

"Can't be. How do you smother yourself? All signs show someone doing this to the sheriff, but there wasn't any evidence of a break in. Anyway, Boyd's pistol was beside the bed and empty and there were all those holes in the wall. He was a good shot and would have hit an intruder. And Boyd had the same blue tone around his eyes and lips as Judge Rawlings."

A copy of Doctor Little's report went to the State, and another copy was filed at the county courthouse, along with a death certificate. The report stated a heart attack as the cause of death.

The manifestation of Travis Benson sort of sat on the hillside overlooking his grave. The cold wind that was blowing made the trees dance and sway. Emmy, wearing a long black veil of mourning, was visiting Travis' grave site. She came every two or three weeks to talk to Travis. Mostly she stood by the grave, but sometimes she put her hand on the headstone and told him about her life.

The wraith would listen to her and feel a little peace. "She walks the hills and nobody knows, nobody sees; nobody knows but me," it said.

The End