The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western Read Online Free PDF

Hills which disappeared behind them instantly to reappear again in front of them and everything was the same and everything was very still.
    At one time Greer thought he saw something different but he was mistaken. What he saw was exactly the same as what he had been seeing. He thought that it was smaller but then he realized that it was exactly the same size as everything else.
    He slowly shook his head.
    “Where does Pills get these horses?” Cameron said to Magic Child.
    “That’s what everybody wants to know,” Magic Child said.
    After while Cameron felt like counting again but because everything was the same it was difficult to find anything to count, so Cameron counted the footsteps of his horse, carrying him deeper and deeper into the Dead Hills and Miss Hawkline standing on the front porch of a gigantic yellow house, shielding her eyes against the sun with her hand and staring out into the Dead Hills. She was wearing a heavy winter coat.

• The Doctor •
    Magic Child was very glad to be home and she considered these hills to be home. You couldn’t tell, though, that she was happy because she wore a constant expression on her face that had nothing to do with happiness. It was an anxious, slightly abstract look. It had been on her face since they had awakened in the barn.
    Greer and Cameron had wanted another go at her but she hadn’t been interested. She had told them that it was very important they get out to Miss Hawkline’s place.
    “911,” Cameron said.
    “What are you counting now?” Magic Child said, in a voice that sounded very intelligent. She was smart, too. She had graduated at the head of her class at Radcliffe and had attended the Sorbonne. Then she had studied to be a doctor at Johns Hopkins.
    She was a member of a prominent New England family that dated back to the Mayflower . Her family had been one of the contributing lights that led to the flowering of New England society and culture.
    Surgery was her specialty.
    “Hoofsteps,” Cameron said.

• The Bridge •
    Suddenly a rattlesnake appeared, crawling rapidly across the road. The horses reacted to the snake: by whinnying and jumping about. Then the snake was gone. It took a few moments to calm the horses down.
    After the horses had been returned to “normal” Greer said, “That was a big God-damn rattler. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen one that big before. You ever see a rattler that big before, Cameron?”
    “Not any bigger,” Cameron said.
    “That’s what I thought,” Greer said.
    Magic Child was directing her attention to something else.
    “What is it, Magic Child?” Greer said.
    “We’re almost home,” she said, now breaking out into a big smile.

• Hawkline Manor •
    The road turned slightly, then went up over the horizon of a dead hill and from the top of the hill you could see a huge three-story yellow house about a quarter of a mile away in the center of a small meadow that was the same color as the house except for close to the house where it was white like snow.
    There were no fences or outbuildings or anything human or trees near the house. It just stood there alone in the center of the meadow with white stuff piled close in around it and more white stuff on the ground around it.
    There wasn’t even a barn. Two horses grazed a hundred yards or so from the house and there was a huge flock of red chickens the same distance away on the road that ended at the front porch of the house.
    The road stopped like a dying man’s signature on a last-minute will.
    There was a gigantic mound of coal beside the house which was a classic Victorian with great gables and stained glass across the tops of the windows and turrets and balconies and red brick fireplaces and a huge porch all around the house. There were twenty-one rooms in the house, including ten bedrooms and five parlors.
    Just a quick glance at the house and you knew that it did not belong out there in the Dead Hills surrounded by nothing. The house